#hell even if it's dated because two seasons worth of cast have been released since then sfv's story was more enjoyable! imagine that

[televinita]

Library Triage

Speaking of my incompetence, I managed to accidentally check out an avalanche of super-awesome-looking/hotly anticipated books with fairly restrictive deadlines toward the beginning of a 10-day hell period at work where I had no time to start them. I am almost out of it now, but they are basically all due by or before the end of June and my brain is spinning out trying to fathom how I am going to organize my reading schedule without rushing and ruining the books for myself, SO, time for project Talk It Out Concretely!

(or. you know. even more ramblingly than usual)

Starting with an achievement: Last night I finally had time to finish Fanny Fran Davis’ Everything Must Go, an absolutely delightful romp which was on its final renewal and only a week away from being due. Prior to that I was working on it in 15-minute breaks at work and 1+ minute stoplights on the commute to work. (seriously. thumbs up to its format.)

SO, HIGH ON THAT:

1. A & L Do Summer - Jan Blazanin: This is a book that Goodreads has been recommending to me for 5 years. I always thought it looked cute, but maybe not substantial, so I kept putting it off because it required an ILL request. But next week’s Top Ten Tuesday prompt is “books to read by the beach,” and I saw this on my recs list again and went, “You know what? This is exactly that kind of book. This is exactly the right time of year to finally read it. I want juvenile cuteness that lets me vicariously be 15 (17 apparently?) again with months of freedom ahead to enjoy in a rural Midwest setting.” I’m struggling with whether to read this or the next book first, but I think this one will go quicker. Due 7/2, like the next two. 

[edit: I waited until the day before it was due, for some reason, but it was everything I wanted it to be!]

2. Like Mandarin - Kirsten Hubbard. Another book GR has been recommending to me for 5 years, another one that needed an ILL request. I figured I’d send away for them both together because of sort of similar themes in girl-bonding and rural locales, though this looks much more serious. It’s  always caught my eye; there’s just something about the "young high schooler latches onto/idolizes Cool Senior High Schooler" concept that appeals to me -- oh, and only JUST NOW did I realize it's by the same author as my beloved Wanderlove! Definitely loving it now. Definitely.

[edit: accurate]

3. Heart-Shaped Hack - Tracey Garvis-Graves: After rereading The Island for the first time in 6 years and remembering how much I loved that romance/had anticipated more work from her, I saw this and immediately went, “I could cast Waige in this.” I am coming to the conclusion that this is untrue, because Mr. Hacker is turning out to be way too cocky for any character I’ve ever liked, but if I re-calibrate my expectations for what is actually being offered, I still feel like I will love this. And if that’s the case...there is a sequel. (which unfortunately would have to come rather far down on this list)

[edit: really should have waited for the sequel in hand! I think it will be better; this was good but rather more, uh, adult-romance-y than I expected so I’d like to at least see them in a higher stakes plot]

4. Going Geek - Charlotte Huang: technically due first, on 6/23 and it’s an ILL so getting it back is tough. BUT I am less interested in it than any of the 3 above, so if I don’t through at least 2 of them first, I’ll let this one go with no remorse. I only requested it because it seemed similar to Life in Outer Space, but that one was wholly satisfying on its own. This does look like a solid YA novel, but it doesn’t have a special hook, and I am up to my ears in Hook Books.

[edit: I made time! Glad I did; it was better than I expected it to be]

5. The Broken Girls - Simone St. James: Not a specific craving right now, but I have been on a wait list since it was released and mentally waiting since November because I love a good thriller with a mystery from the past & an abandoned building -- and then I forgot to suspend my hold and it came in before I was ready. Also due 6/23, and still hotly requested. I am probably gonna lose my shot to read this on time and have to wait another 4-6 weeks, but at least it’s in my home system.

[edit: I made time! Barely took me 10 pages to get addicted; SO WORTH IT.]

6. Learning to Stay - Erin Celello: This popped when I was looking for novels with brain-damaged spouses. I was looking for Waige-related reasons, and with the veteran angle this isn’t going to work for them, but its premise is irresistible to me and I have a suspicion who it’s perfect for: Barbie/Julia (with begrudging thanks for season 3 of Under the Dome for actively showing me what it could look like). Not due until July 8 and will probably delay it until after #7, actually, because I’m having trouble focusing on other ships right now, even ones I adore.

[edit: well done, though I couldn’t keep my characters straight because there was an annoying lot to match up with my original pick, so I kept unintentionally running everything twice.]

7. Shine Shine Shine - Lydia Netzer: All right, full disclosure -- this one is my final, brightest and best attempt to find Walter/Paige (complete with a Ralph!) in a novel. I am setting myself up to fail, in part because the premise includes the idea that the central female character is kind of off in her own way. But like. How else* was I supposed to react to “genius engineer husband whose wife has 'taught him to feel -- helped him translate his intelligence for numbers into a language of emotion‘ + autistic son”???

(*alternate option for how else: I’ve got Happy in my back pocket: As children, the temperamental Sunny and the neglected savant Maxon found an unlikely friendship no one else could understand. Even the ironic name fits!)

This one just got here and I’ll pick it up in a few days. It’s a home system request, but we only have one copy and I already had to wrestle it away from someone who kept it 2 days overdue* so we might tussle again. (*you might be asking yourself why I did that, given the state of this post. I don’t know either. I was in a feverish delirium of reading desire by that point and every book I found online looked more imperative to get immediately than the last, but I was stuck waiting for all of them).

[edit: it was beautiful and I have so many favorite quotes and I cried a lot and it was worth it even if only one character lined up well; the pair won my heart on their own merit.]

8. 45 Pounds (More or Less) - K.A. Barson: a cute YA novel about an overweight girl trying (or at least being pestered by her mother) to lose weight. I’ve been saving it for motivation for when I actually attempt to exercise / not eat like crap this summer. This, like the remaining books, has essentially no due date since no one is likely to request them out from under me even once I return them.

[edit: tossed back unread for the time being. too many shiny new things appeared.]

9. Voracious: a hungry reader cooks her way through great books - Cara Nicoletti: this is either going to help the above plan or hurt it, but it’s such a great premise, especially as someone who once considered starting a side blog devoted to highlighting passages in books that describe great meals. I am not actually sure if I will finish it at all. But I’d like to try. 

[edit: see above.]

10. Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading: this book was mentioned in a review for one of the lesser-known books in it; I forget which one, but it intrigued me because there are TONS of titles in here that aren’t usually mentioned in online lists like this, and I love when people talk about books I have actually loved instead of pretending that Catcher in the Rye and The Perks of Being a Wallflower are the best examples of universal YA literature we can find.

(What’s most likely going to happen is I’m going to read 3 chapters and then wig out about how many I haven’t read and put it back until I have, so I can enjoy the comparisons in our reactions instead of being unduly influenced, but... )

11. Sixteen: short stories by outstanding writers for young adults: Absolutely lowest priority, probably will never get to it, but if I had no other reading responsibilities right now? I would be reading it now. I spotted this when I went to pick up the above, and I don’t even usually like short stories, but this is a compilation of outstanding writers for young adults IN THE 1980S.  And there is a very specific style to young adult books from the 1980s that sometimes, I just absolutely crave. Let me give you more of its description: Stories dealing with teenage concerns, written especially for this collection by well-known authors of young adult novels such as the Mazers [that would be Harry and Norma Fox], M.E. Kerr, Robert Cormier, Bette Greene, and Richard Peck. Biographical sketches for each author are included, as well as follow-up activities for the reader. Me, gesticulating wildly at basically all these names: I KNOW THEM! (as authors, I mean. Once upon a time the library’s teen section was full of their work and I devoured it as voraciously as the newer stuff)

[edit: it was short, so I read it and am glad I did.]

========

AND AS PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED: THERE ARE STILL MORE I WANT, but I can’t think about them right now.

#reading triage #library checkouts #aw crap I just realized I forgot another two I actually have checked out #but I have been checking them out since April and still haven't gotten to them so IDK if I will bother

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2020.

It is indeed time… or at least, as is tradition, it is indeed now overdue for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year. This time for 2020. That funny old year, huh? Where - if some are to be stupidly believed - “no films got released because of the pandemic”.

I thought I was done with this after 12 years and concluding with my Top 25 of the decade effort and yet here I am. Back rather egotistically because 2 people told me how much they look forward to reading this. Go figure! Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive. Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit yet believe they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. Anyway, without further ado, here’s the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

Setting my stall out straight away, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe was very much TV to me and won’t get ranked within my film listing. I loved two of the efforts a great deal (Education and Mangrove), liked two but found them lacking (Red, White & Blue and Alex Wheatle) and did not get what everyone else seems to from the other (Lover’s Rock).

In terms of documentaries this year, I thought Frank Marshall did a fabulous job with The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart; a comprehensive study of the personal complexities and professional excellence of an incredibly underappreciated band. I found On The Record to be a difficult but inspiring watch and its background ‘politics’ exposed the hypocrisy of Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey in a manner we’re not talking loud enough about. Hitsville: The Making of Motown was an extensive, lovely historical tribute to an era and a style of music, full of great tunes and equally great talking head anecdotes. And finally Belushi managed to find fresh angles and previously untold stories about one of the most mythologised comedy stars of all time, simply by pulling the man to the forefront ahead of his talents.

For dramas, I enjoyed Trial of the Chicago 7 a great deal and am an absolute sucker for the work of Aaron Sorkin but bad casting (Eddie Redmayne) and stunt casting (Sacha Baron Cohen) hurt this film. I’m a sucker for a disaster movie and Pål Øie made an incredibly entertaining one with the Norwegian high-melodrama, The Tunnel. Edward Norton’s long-gestating Motherless Brooklyn was a solid, old-fashioned PI yarn with some great casting to back it up. It’s the most alive Bruce Willis has been in years and it served to remind you that Alec Baldwin can be quite the terrific actor when he’s not being an utter joke of a human. I liked The Vast of Night a great deal when in the throes of watching it but liked it less in the aftermath. Cut Throat City was the underrated dramatic gem of the year in a lot of ways and showed that RZA has a great deal of skill as a legit filmmaker, when not being caught up in the ‘gimmicks’. O.G finally landed here via Sky Atlantic of all places, rather than any sort of VOD release, and it was an enthralling drama that served to remind us all how brilliant Jeffrey Wright can be when not overacting to the point of cringe or being stuck with really terrible writing (hello, TV’s Westworld!).

With the blockbuster season at the cinema all but dead from the outset, the joys of the action genre were to be found in the little b-movies tucked away on streaming platforms and VOD. Quick notable exceptions were The Outpost which was a reminder that Rod Lurie can deliver a hell of an action sequence, blighted by truly awful film-damaging casting and Extraction which was a well-directed derivative piece of hokum. Donnie Yen delivered an earnest, entertaining end to one of the surprise action franchises of the last decade with IP Man 4 that not even Scott Adkins could fuck up. Hack director Deon Taylor accidentally delivered Black and Blue; a pretty good ode to the ‘man on the run’ non-stop action thrillers of the 80s and 90s – with Naomi Harris killing it in the lead role. Netflix tucked away two of the greatest b-movie actioners of 2020 with The Decline (a ‘Doomsday Preppers’ training camp goes horribly wrong) and Earth & Blood (a sawmill owner uses his place of work as a battleground to take on the cartel). And, finally, the Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee) Taken rip-off Unstoppable arrived to streaming and turned out to be vastly superior to all of the films it was a knock-off of.

It was a great year for horror, especially if you were open to the sort of scares you were after. Sea Fever didn’t stick the landing but delivered an ace sense of foreboding and tension building for the most part. Harpoon was a sneakily nasty, surprisingly engrossing, violent little film. VFW was a lot of fun but nowhere near as good as its concept and cast suggested it was going to be. It’s also been subsequently marred by the stories coming out of its production and the revelations about Fred Williamson. I thought Come To Daddy was an absolute gift of a horror comedy that kept swerving whenever you thought you had a handle on where it was going. And Elijah Wood continues to show himself to be an American national treasure. After Midnight was an intriguing relationship drama with a horror bent and You Should Have Left, the Stir of Echoes reunion we’ve all long sought, would work as an off-kilter double-bill with it. Kevin Bacon is brilliant in it. Vampires Vs The Bronx is a totally disposable but immensely fun ode to The Lost Boys and The Monster Squad that’ll serve you well on a lazy Saturday night. Black Water: Abyss was a really good little creature feature with a ridiculous ending that infuriates. And Train To Busan: Pennisular was a pretty shit Train to Busan sequel but an immensely entertaining post-apocalyptic zombie action movie.

Onwards is worth mentioning for the fun and moving animated ride it initially presents as but, like too much Pixar nowadays, it does not hold up to repeat viewing.

Comedy-wise, I thoroughly enjoyed Bill & Ted Face The Music but thought its gag-rate was far too hit and miss for it to take a place on the top spot. Buffaloed was a kind of “M’eh” blue-collar Wolf of Wall Street with yet another fantastic ‘How the fuck isn’t she a huge star already’ turn from Zoey Deutch. Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made was a quirky out-of-leftfield oddity that me and my eldest son enjoyed a great deal. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was not the travesty you would’ve thought it’d be, mainly because of Rachel McAdams, but if Will Ferrell had just leaned a little harder towards his more absurdist style of humour (the killer fairy shit for example?) this could have been so much more. Finally, the second Borat film had some utterly majestic moments of cringe-comedy that make it worthy of a mention but the mechanics of joke-execution and faked set-pieces were far more on show this time around.

And now, if you’re still hanging in there that is, here is my actual Top 25 films of 2020…

25. Skyfire

I don't know whether it's because I’ve been starved of my usual 'Summer Silly Season' this year but I absolutely fucking LOVED this. It's the stupidest, most ridiculous, relentlessly bonkers "Jurassic Park - but with volcanos" fare you could ask for. I have no idea what the fuck Jason Isaac is doing in this but I’m so glad he is because it just adds to the glorious WTF-ery of it all. It's 30 minutes of mechanical lay-up followed by 60 minutes of non-stop, audacious carnage. It's been a long time since me and my wife have had this much fun watching something.

24. Bad Education

Dropped exclusively to Sky Cinema here, this is a great little film that has a shocking true story at its centre. Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney are absolutely terrific. Both of them are the sort of talents who've been in bad movies but never ever given a bad performance regardless.

Here both Jackman and Janney are having a ball with the material and they elevate a very good film into something that demands to be seen.

23. Blood Quantum

This was definitely one of the first-class b-movie horrors of the year for me. It does wonders on screen with very little AND it gives a shot in the arm to the zombie subgenre. It leads you into thinking you're getting yet another zombie-breakout film before expertly wrongfooting you into growing into something else. It's a Native American NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets MAD MAX!

22. Bad Boys For Life

This was a first-rate blast, it really was. From the inexplicable reusing of the 'Simpson/Bruckheimer' production card to the reworking of Mark Mancina's original theme, it draws you straight back to that 1990s blockbuster vibe. It's not just very funny and stacked with some pretty decent action sequences but, rather bizarrely, it actually has something interesting to say about ageing and masculinity... because nowadays Joe Carnahan is killing it when it comes to introspective recalibrations on what it means to be a man. If you were to spoil this movie for someone and reveal what the "twist" is it would sound like the stupidest, hokiest shit ever. And yet inexplicably they make it work. And furthermore, Martin Lawrence goes from the tag-along in this franchise to the platinum level MVP here. The entire final third is held up higher by his insanely good line delivery ("Would you fuck a witch without a condom?") and it's most likely how he plays shit as to why that stupid, hokey plot twist works as well as it does.

Over the course of three separate decades each BAD BOYS entry has, in itself, served to be a somewhat accidentally perfect reflection of the very cinematic decade it landed in: The first is possibly one of the last to truly and wholeheartedly successfully land that perfect marriage between the 'MTV era' and the blockbusters; bringing about the boom of the "music video director as filmmaker" that the 1990s became well known for. The second was a pitch perfect reflection of the gratuitous, often empty-headed, completely excessive pop culture period we were birthing in the 2000s. And the third lands now, right in the very time period where masculinity is being put under a spotlight and men are being asked to be more self-reflective about themselves and their conduct.

With that said, the fourth will obviously therefore land sometime in 2029 and deal with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence wandering a pandemic-ravaged Miami wasteland.

21. Wolfwalkers

This is one of the most lovely, visually wondrous, sumptuous animated films you'll experience this year. Or in quite some time, actually. It’s not just a great adventure film but it’s also a really effective ‘message’ movie that manages to teach about tolerance and friendship along with the perils of fear-mongering, without ever being overly preachy.

20. An American Pickle

This was one of the surprises of the year for me; I THOUGHT I was getting a quirky Seth Rogen fish-out-of-water comedy and instead I got that... with a massive dollop of heart, humour and interesting things to say about legacy and 'cancel culture'. I liked it a lot. It's also further evidence of how intriguing a talent Seth Rogen is becoming; jumping between broad commercial fare and original off-kilter stuff like this, producing and developing fascinating projects for film and TV and working to pass the ladder back down to others too.

19. Get Duked

I say this with only a modicum of bias as I know someone who worked a little bit on this film but this was genuinely brilliant - the absolute laugh-out-loud delight we all need right now. At the time I watched this I don’t think I’d smiled in nearly a fortnight but this broke through with me. Its wrap-up is a little too silly for its own good but that aside, this thing is absolutely stuffed with some TRULY great gags! This is one of the best comedies of the year for me.

18. Host

I had been giving this the big ol' swerve because it sounded like unoriginal, overhyped pish frankly and... fuck it, if that hype isn't absolutely deserved: It's a lean, effective, scary incredibly enjoyable ride. Made all the more fascinating by the fact it was made remotely on a shoestring with the director apparently never being in the same room as his cast at any one time due to Covid restrictions.

NB: I could not find a GIF to represent Rob Savage’s Host sufficiently so here’s Jack Black doing a backyard pandemic dance instead... 

17. Sweetheart

What a crackin, lean, little horror thriller it is. It gets straight underway from its fade-up and never overcooks itself or leans hard on lazy exposition, silly character actions or bad deus ex machinas. Remember when Jonathan Mostow made BREAKDOWN and it felt like such a shot in the arm for the man-against-the-odds/standard thriller? This is like that - but for survival dramas and creature features! It commits fully to its high concept, helped along by a truly excellent performance by Kiersey Clemons and some really well-delivered set-pieces (that first flare scene is very well done!). If you watched Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY and thought to yourself "This film is great but what it really needs is a monster!" then this is definitely the film for you. And if you believe the rumours, it’s allegedly a sneaky Creature From The Black Lagoon redo for Blumhouse’s expanding ‘Monster Universe’ too.

16. Soul

I really connected with this. I like Inside Out a great deal but I’ve never understood why it's spoken of as a flawless masterpiece when it's overlong, tonally all over the place and has clunky as fuck casting. In the same breath, I don't understand why the reviews for this are so disparate. I thought it was a wonderful way to spend 100+ minutes. It was visually inventive, funny and inspiring. It doesn't quite seed its VERY deep otherworld-building foundations and Graham Norton doesn't really work in his role but overall I thought it was a delight. And, unlike Onwards, it really does lend itself to repeat visits.

15. Tenet

I had real trepidation about seeing this what with the reviews being all over the place but... well... Is it complete, barely comprehensible bunkum of the highest order? Yes. Could the film have benefited from Nolan letting his brother Jonathan have a pass at the script? Hell yes! Is it most definitely not the majestic masterpiece of masterpieces it thinks it is? Yup. Yet in spite of ALL that I had an absolute blast with it, I really did. If you give it a seconds thought it crumbles completely as the utter egotistical piffle it really is. But where it excels is in looking so gorgeous, being so kinetic and massive with its action and casting with actors who sell the shit out of a hokey script that you're so consumed with the spectacle you don't smell the bullshit until its over. Washington Jr has come out of nowhere these last few years to make me a big fan of his work - and Robert Pattinson has went from being an actor I couldn't fucking abide to being someone I now really rate and who I came away from watching this thinking "Yeah, that's your goddamn perfect James Bond right there!"

14. Da 5 Bloods

It works infinitely better as a 'men on a mission' action adventure shot through the off-kilter lens of a Spike Lee "joint" then it does as a searing commentary about race, war, etc. And that's probably why Spike's choice to include real war atrocity photos and documentary footage alongside the narrative doesn't land as successfully as he probably intended it to. But as an overall film, it's a genuinely great watch. Delroy Lindo has always been one of the greatest working actor. Here he perhaps delivers his ultimate masterclass. Regardless of whether awards season moves online or not, you cannot have any SERIOUS dialogue during it that doesn't have his performance heading the conversation. Ignore the dickheads online putting this in the same bubble as TROPIC THUNDER or DIE HARD (??). This is a wink and a nod to TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and APOCALYPSE NOW, through and through. It's big, bombastic, broad and unafraid to swing out in every direction. It's not flawless but that doesn't mean it's not fuckin ~great~!

13. His House

This very much stands as both one of the most impressive debuts and modern horror movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It's an effective, lean, interesting film that buries under your skin and takes up residency there. Go into it knowing as little as you possibly can and then let it scare the shit out of you and, in its reveals, kick the shit back into you.

12. Tread

I really, REALLY liked this. It's my favourite documentary film of this year - made by that fella who did the bonkers-bad killer dog in the warehouse movie with Adrian Brody, no less! It's an absolutely fascinating true story I knew nothing about, brilliantly intermingling talking heads, archival news footage, dramatic reconstruction and audio recordings. It'll really drop your jaw - it's most definitely one of those 'needs to be seen to be believed' type deals because if you described this to someone as having happened they'd never believe you!

11. Bacarau

No plot description really does this film justice and the less you know going in the better an experience you’ll have. It’s an odd, deeply violent, unsettling, darkly funny, bizarro confection of The Most Dangerous Game meets Assault on Precinct 13 and… well… even that doesn’t really do the film any justice whatsoever. It’s a critique of dire political circumstance mixed with political satire mixed with the tropes of the Western, the siege movie and both horror and comedy. It’s very much its own thing. And that’s what makes it so wonderous.

... and it’s sort of both wondrous AND weird that when searching for Bacarau related GIFs, this was the Brazilian offering I was given! I apologise.

10. Alone

I found this came out of nowhere to be one of my favourite films of the year; a crazily efficient, brutal B-movie without an inch of fat on it that works its propulsive and well-structured screenplay hard to make you feel like you're seeing a new variant on the "stalked woman in peril" film. John Hyams - son of Peter and the man who reconfigured the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER franchise to superb effect - has made one hell of an effective movie that beautifully captures the vastness of the Pacific Northwest: this is one part DUEL, one part FIRST BLOOD, all parts odes to everything from THE GREY, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and the last third of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. It's very easy to make films like this. But it's clearly hard to make them as great as Hyams has done here, otherwise everyone would be doing it. Maybe coz what those films don't have is lead performances as strong and brilliant as Jules Willcox and Marc Menchaca give here.

9. American Murder: The Family Next Door

This is an incredibly powerful true crime documentary on a horrific tragedy, in which Jenny Popplewell tightly and clinically weaves through police interviews, news coverage and Shanann Watts' phone, laptop and social media to weave a moving and ultimately devastating portrait of her and her children's death at the hands of one of the worst forms of evil I’ve ever been exposed to. This still haunts me to this day.

8. Greyhound

I was really impressed with this. A crisp, lean, tension-drenched watch with yet another rock solid Tom Hanks performance centring it. It strips back all the tropes of these war pictures - the character backstories about post-war hopes and dreams, the cutaways to the families back home, the subplots involving the villains - and keeps a propulsive commitment to just this situation, this boat and the people on it; who only talk to one another about the job they're doing. As a result, it's completely involving and committed with action set-pieces that are clean, tense and entertaining as hell. Genuinely had a great time watching this and highly recommend it.

7. #Alive

Whilst the TRAIN TO BUSAN sequel earned rightfully shakey reviews, think of this as an unofficial prequel / 'side-sequel'. It is a tight, disciplined thrill-ride that throws up some interesting spins on old zombie set-pieces (climbing zombie vs. toy drone, for example). It may well deflate as it heads to its denouement but all before it was strong and entertaining enough for it to stand as one of his favourite horrors from this year.

6. The Invisible Man

This started good... then got very good... then got quite frankly flat-out tremendous and then entered a final third flipping anyone the 'bird' who thought that the trailers gave too much away. There is some truly tremendous, inventive and not at all 'cheap' jump scares. In fact, the whole second act is nothing else BUT terrifically effective scare after scare. All bolstered by a REALLY committed lead performance by Elizabeth Moss. Between this and UPGRADE, Leigh Whannell has not only become seriously one to watch but he's possibly just outed himself as John Carpenter's one-true heir.

5. Lynn + Lucy

I was left completely broken by this - what a truly fantastic piece of British cinema; a dark, uncompromising morality play for the modern age with a truly jaw-dropping performance by Nicola Burley. And, Jesus Christ, what an unbelievable find Roxanne Scrimshaw is?? THIS is her acting debut? Holy SHITBALLS! It's harrowing stuff that'll really make you think.

4. Parasite

This really is absolutely ~everything~ people are claiming it to be and more too! It's an exquisite piece of work, in love with the art of spinning out a story, narrative layers, sociological parables and effortlessly terrific direction. It builds and builds in an utterly enthralling manner and then... the pressure valve pops, taking you down a whole other audacious avenue that'll have you giggling at the insanity but still completely hooked.

3. Uncut Gems

It’s alright been memed and GIF’d to death but that doesn’t change the fact that it really is an astounding film - it's completely exhausting and quite honestly one of the most anxiety-inducing films I’ve seen in a long, long time. Even on multiple go-arounds, I found myself screaming at the screen, begging Adam Sandler's character to just fucking STOP for five seconds and... and... it's inescapable as to the direction down in which it heads but it goes there at such a propulsive rate, it is actually scary. An absolutely astounding film - it's like a John Cassavetes film shot with the adrenaline drawn from a Michael Bay action movie... and believe every bit of the buzz: Adam Sandler is jaw-droppingly fucking excellent in this!

2. Wolf of Snow Hollow

I thought this was a complete delight. Once again Jim Cummings has taken a film 'type' you THINK you know and infused it with his own very specific sense of humour to give us something that's very much delightfully off-kilter. What's more, as a sophomore directing effort, Cummings deserves all the plaudits for the massive advancement: There's action scenes and scary set-pieces that are really first rate and are way more accomplished than what you'd expect from someone only on their second movie and have never worked in the horror genre before. Cummings is REALLY funny in the lead role too but it's Robert Forster's final performance that'll break your heart. He was a hard miss anyway but this very much drives home what a great guy we've lost.

1.     The Way Back

Gavin O'Connor has hit the trifecta with this, Miracle and Warrior on making a masterful sports drama and using it as a platform to 'say something' and draw a career best from a talented but under-appreciated actor (first Kurt Russell, then Nick Nolte and now Ben Affleck).

Affleck is astounding here. Fallible, real and pained. He's truly brilliant. There’s a realism to every movement he makes and every breath he exhales that only someone who has struggled with addiction will recognise. And around him is a deconstruction of the sporting underdog movie as we know it - it's only by the end that we truly realise that this has always been about the connections made through the game rather than the game itself.

Like with Warrior, you can go back and watch this umpteen times and find different strokes in the human and unspoken moments. If ever there was a secretly feel-good film for 2020 it is this – the movie that tells us that it doesn’t matter how hard or how far we fall, we are defined only by the moments in which we rise again.

And that’s that. See you all next year. Maybe ;) 

[itsclydebitches]

Buffy’s “Empty Places”: Deconstructing Merit, Luck, and Betterment

Anyone who’s spent five minutes with me knows that I love ranty metas, and Buffy’s “Empty Places” is something I’ve wanted to tackle since I finished it. However, rather than try to unravel the entirety of that shit-show conversation I want to focus in on what Anya says near the end.

You really do think you're better than we are. But we don't know. We don't know if you're actually better. I mean, you came into the world with certain advantages, sure. I mean, that's the legacy. But you didn't earn it. You didn't work for it. You've never had anybody come up to you and say you deserve these things more than anyone else. They were just handed to you. So that doesn't make you better than us. It makes you luckier than us.

Here Anya lays out three important questions that I think are crucial to interpreting the Buffyverse.

Did Buffy “earn” her power? 

Is she “luckier” than her friends? 

Is Buffy “better” than her friends? And what exactly does “better” mean in this context?

Honestly, I still stand amazed that Anya can even voice the first two questions among Buffy’s friends and not get immediate, wicked backlash. Admittedly her use of “luckier” could be interpreted to mean “randomly,” but her word choice is still significant. Buffy is by no stretch of the imagination lucky. Does her calling give her purpose? Yes. Does it give her cool superpowers? Absolutely. But none of these benefits are free gifts—they’re balanced, even outweighed, by her responsibilities. This calling means that Buffy has no other options in her life, no career or family as a ‘normal’ person would experience it. Her powers are to keep herself and others safe, not to have fun with. Buffy didn’t win the freaking lottery here, this life was forced on her.

Throughout the entirety of the series we see the others’ (realistic) jealousy of Buffy: Cordelia views her as a threat to her popularity, Willow as the ‘cool’ girl she always wished she could be, Xander resents that Buffy always has the power to help, and Faith has a whole damn plot-line devoted to her jealousy, yet at no point does anyone acknowledge that Buffy is only the “lucky” one when things are going their way. They want to help, but they know she’s the only one who can finish things. Buffy announces that she’s the only one who can finish things… and everyone’s hackles go up. They don’t want her responsibility; they also don’t want to acknowledge that her responsibility makes her different from them. You can’t have it both ways. To say nothing of the fact that the rest of the Scoobies can leave any time they want. They can walk away from this life. Buffy can’t. She’s not the lucky one, she’s the one who’s trapped.

Now, did Buffy earn her power? Oh boy. Again, I don’t know how Anya can even ask that. Did she earn the power prior to receiving it? Perhaps not, but Buffy has absolutely earned her right to it since. She gave up the social life she desperately craved, a college education, she killed her boyfriend for the greater good, was ready to kill another friend (Anya) if the need arose, Buffy died, twice, and stuck around after she was wrenched out of Heaven to keep fighting the good fight. I honestly wanted to ask in that moment: what more do you expect of this girl?

Furthermore, there’s evidence that Buffy did ‘earn’ the Slayer power right from the start. She was chosen. Why? We don’t know exactly, but out of ALL the other Potential girls in the world Buffy was the one the legacy activated and I personally think she was chosen for a reason. It’s also telling that Season 7 throws Buffy into a houseful of other would-be Slayers and essentially let’s us compare them. One girl runs away. Another commits suicide. The others force out their leader and walk into a trap. Did Buffy make a lot of the same mistakes at their age? Yes, but it’s also worth considering that these girls aren’t ready in the same way she was at fifteen, that some might not possess the fortitude to be the Slayer, that seven years ago the magic chose Buffy for a reason. She was the one most suited for the position.

So is she “better” than her friends?

After Anya gave her little speech I had one, significant sentence running through my head:

Buffy is the only one who hasn’t been corrupted.

To lay out just a few examples:

Giles rebelled as a teenager by summoning a horrifying demon that eventually killed his friends. Buffy rebelled as a teenager by demanding that she get to go to the prom or out on dates with Angel.

Willow takes away the consent of her girlfriend, her friends, nearly kills Dawn, and when she suffers the loss of a loved one immediately seeks revenge, going so far as to try and destroy the entire world (something I think the show let’s her get away with far too easily). Buffy loses her mom and though there’s no person to seek revenge on, she also doesn’t release her anger on other innocents.

Years ago Anya happily chose to be a vengeance demon. She spent a thousand years torturing and slaughtering who knows how many. After being left at the alter she immediately turns back to those ways and attempted to seek revenge on Xander (and please picture for a moment how she might be received if that episode hadn’t been played for humor. If the whole ‘you can’t seek your own vengeance’ rule wasn’t in place and Anya had succeeded in killing Xander). She proceeds to murder a group of college boys before turning back to the good side.

Faith’s entire storyline revolves around her going dark. We can come up with endless justifications for her—from a terrible childhood to not fitting in with the Scoobies—but the fact remains that she is a clear foil to Buffy: the ‘bad’ Slayer to Buffy’s ‘good’ one. Ultimately, no one forced her to adopt that role.

Andrew very happily goes along with all the tormenting Buffy/killing women/taking over the world stuff, showing not an ounce of true remorse. Despite all his claims of ‘coming over to the light side,’ the only reason we’re given for him joining the gang was because he killed his only friend, was kidnapped by them, and literally had nowhere else to go. He’s not necessarily a ‘good’ guy now, he’s a lonely guy sticking with the only people capable of protecting him.

Xander and Cordelia are outliers in that neither ever achieves any real, formidable power (at least not on Buffy), but what power they do accumulate they don’t use well. Xander casts love spells, the magic equivalent of roofying a girl, deliberately falls asleep while he has the responsibility of watching Oz, or lies to Buffy to help get Angel killed. Cordelia uses her social power to harm everyone around her, as often as possible. 

What I’m getting at is that most of Buffy’s friends go through the same sequence of events: free will + power = a decision that harms others to an extreme degree. The free choice aspect is important because I think there are only three core group members that don’t fit this pattern: Oz—who resists being a wild werewolf who would kill others if not locked up—Tara—who carefully controls the type and extent of her magic—and Spike—who never does anything of his own free will, if we buy into the Angel/Angelus dichotomy that the show initially set up (and then admittedly muddled with Spike). But if we go by that lore, everything he did post-vampirism was the demon. The women he killed with his soul was the First’s doing.

Notably, none of these people are in the room with Buffy to back her up.

Instead she’s surrounded by others who at one point or another are corrupted by the power they’ve attained. Buffy is living with a group of people who have willfully committed heinous deeds - deeds she’s forgiven them for - while they’re more than happy to toss her out the second she makes a mistake with actual consequences. Importantly though, Buffy never goes down the road they did. To my recollection the closest she gets is with Faith—“We are better than them”—but even then all Buffy does is loot a deserted store, playing at the ‘bad girl’ role without ever actually becoming her. Does she make mistakes over the years? HELL YES, but unlike the others they’re always made with good intentions. Buffy releases Spike because he’s needed and she honestly believes he’s not a threat anymore. She gets some of the Potentials killed because she’s trying to save the world. She pushes everyone away and acts ‘cruel’ because she’s told time and time again that that’s what they need—an unfeeling “general.” At every turn Buffy puts the greater good above her own needs and desires, from the small (dropping out of college) to the unfathomably large (killing Angel, dying twice). Is this ‘realistic’ characterization? Perhaps not, but it’s what makes Buffy the hero of the tale. No matter what she’ll always put others before herself and do whatever is required of her to keep them safe. 

Honestly, her friends can’t claim the same. 

So yeah, in this respect I’d say Buffy is “better.”

(Anyway, this all makes it sound like I hate these characters when in fact I love them all lol. Forgive the new Buffy fan still working through drama 20 years late. @thepinkrvnger​ I’m tagging you again not with the expectation that you’re gonna read any of this shit, but to let you know your previous Buffy response got me laughing. Kudos 👍) 

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #Buffy #BTVS #Empty Places #mymetas #I needed to write this #I feel marginally better now lol

[rumpikerzzzworld]

April, You Will Be Remembered

It’s the 1st of May!! I want to post about some unforgettable April 2019 moments because I want to keep the memories that someday I want to remember again. So many things happened in the month. There were some heart-breaking incidents and of course there were some enjoyable moments as well. I’m just gonna highlight the things I want to remember the most. Here they are!!

BLACK HOLE

It is announced that on 10th April 2019 a group of scientist from the international Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) releasing the image of a black hole to public. This project was began in 2006. It took supercomputers, eight telescopes stationed on five continents, hundreds of researchers, and vast amounts of data to accomplish (source: the verge).  

(cr: Event Horizon Telescope)

I was not someone who understands much about space life, even though I studied the basic knowledge when I was in secondary and high school. However, I appreciated a lot this not easy job. I used to have a dream to be an astronomer when I was a kid, but i have to come to realization that I’m not smart enough to pursue the dream, lol. I’m currently into astronauts’ life though. I watch documentaries, read articles and other sources about astronaut’s and space’s life. So that, it made me happy to read this news. Moreover, one of the computer scientists in the team who led the development program to get the first-image of black hole is a woman named Katie Bouman. She is just 29-year-old when she did that. She is amazing!! I always wonder what kind of method those people use when they are studying. I mean, how could they be so smart? I feel like I’m such a useless and stupid human being. I’m nothing huhu. Anyway, I’m happy to witness the history of the first image of black hole.

GAME OF THRONES

FINALLY, WINTER IS COMING. I might not be the fan of the show since day 1. I just started watching game of thrones in 2017. Ever since I watched the first season, I started becoming a fan and addicted to the show then finished all of the 7 seasons in a few weeks. The show is that addictive, it made me threw any dramas/movies for about 6 months because I felt that the show was too well executed and any other movies/dramas in that time period I was watching the show felt bland. I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to belittle other shows. It’s just the thing I felt that moment. I was so mesmerized by the storyline which literally beyond my expectation. It was so good. I know there are a lot of people who don’t like the show, and it’s okay as everyone has their own preference. But to me, this show is so far my very favourite one.

It took me 2 years to wait for the last season which is season 8 to be aired. I cant contain my feelings as I was so excited about this. AAAANNDDDDD IT’S FINALLY HERE. GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 IS HAPPENING. 14th April 2019 should be put as a history date as the show was aired on that day. Actually, I’m pretty sad that there will be just 6 episodes. I wish they make it to 10, but who am I to complain?

Okay, back to the show. The most talked episode is episode 3, the Battle of Winterfell, which was shown in that very episode. The episode lasts for about 80 minutes long. The thing that has been waited since season 1 was the war between the alive and the dead. There are so much reactions and opinions regarding the episode, fans are splitted into two groups, the one who enjoyed the episode and the one who disliked the episode as it didn’t reach their expectation. I’m the one who included to the first one, I pretty enjoyed the show although I think it wasn’t the greatest battle in Game of Thrones. My favourite battle was Battle of Bastards as it was really tensed. But, I still like the Battle of Winterfell though. As of now, I want to put aside the negativity and just enjoy the rest of episodes. I’m planning on reading the books after the show is over.

One thing that I really like about episode 3 is the hyped from the people who watched together in cafes, restaurants, and other place. Their reactions were priceless. See these videos that went viral on twitter!!

1    2

ELECTION

One of the most tiring to bear ever since social media era existed is election. The countries that pursue democracy usually conduct election to choose their own leader, including my country. In the past, there weren’t much sources to search about election information other than from tv and newspaper, so that the backlash could be reduced. But it’s different now. In this digital age, people can share everything including the positive and negative contents. Social media as one of the tools for people to do campaign and spread either good thing or black-campaign for the election candidates. ISTG, this is so tiring to witness people bashing each other and most of them have crossed the line. I’m so done!

In Indonesia, for 2019’s election, there were some changes compare to the previous election. They were included the period of time of campaign which was so long (about 7 months) and also adding the other 3 elections of legislative to be held in the same very day. It used to be held in different months, but due to the lack of participation in legislative election so that they were all conducted together.

Indonesian Presidential Election Candidates (Left: Jokowi-Amin, Right: Prabowo-Sandi) 

(cr: Media Indonesia)

I was eager for this to end soon. It finally happened on 17th April 2019. But, something bad happened again. The incident which happened in 2014 was re-enacted as both candidates claimed they win. Even though the quick count results from about 12 institutions showed that Jokowi-Amin led the vote by gaining about 54% votes while Prabowo-Sandi gained around 44% votes. I’m so done with this. I will just wait for the official results to be announced and I wish on that day there will be no chaos happen.

Aside of that, something that breaks my heart is there were a lot of election officers died and fell sick due to exhaustion from working way too hard as most of them working until very late night and some even worked until the next morning because there were so many jobs to do, including counting the vote for legislative elections (DPR, DPRD, DPD). Although there were no major incident happened during the election process itself, but still this thing supposed to not happen. There is definitely something wrong with the system and it should be fixed so that there will be no victims anymore.

MOURNING IN SRI LANKA

21st April 2019 is Easter Day. Things supposed to be calm and sacred on that day. But disgusting act ruined it all. Multiple bombing attacks happened in several places in Sri Lanka, including at churches and hotels. Hundred of people died and many people got injured. Some extremists claimed they are responsible for the attacks, SMH. I wish the ones who dead are resting in peace, while the ones who got injured will get well soon and receive some strength to continue life. and for the terrorists, I wish you die in suffer and go to hell!!

I don’t get why in 2019, hatred ideology is still growing fast in this world. Sadly, in some developed-countries which the citizen are more educated, this ideology also exist. People should learn that the differences that make this world beautiful. Why some people feel like they want to hurt each other just because they have differences in term of race, skin colour, religion, countries, ideology, etc. We need to respect each other differences as long as it doesn’t violate the rule of law.

I think there should be a formal lesson in school to teach students to respect the differences. Parents should teach their children right too. Sadly, I found a lot of parents who taught their children to hate people who are different from them. This needs to be stopped. Everyone deserves to get equal treatment. We all want a better future. We cant reach this as long as we still fight each other because of the differences. Just put aside it and look the bigger picture, the same goal we want to pursue. As of now, i’m kinda sceptical if we can reach peace in the near future. However, someday in the future, I wish the world will be a better place to live in. Amen

(cr: wisdom quotes)

AVENGERS ENDGAME

Marvel fans have anticipated the final movie from Avengers United. They are excited as well as sad as the avengers series come to end. Avengers Endgame was screened since 26th April 2019 in my country. There were so much fans who purchased pre-order ticket in a few days prior to the movie screening. It’s kinda cray because the cinemas are full packed with the audiences. Most cinemas even dedicated all of their studios for this movie as the demands are very high then putting aside the other movies. I feel bad for the other movies as they didn’t get time slot for their movies in cinema because of Avengers movie. I wish this wont last long as other movies deserve to get screened as well.

Okay, back to Avengers Endgame movie. Just in March 2019, I watched Captain Marvel movie and in April, I got to watch the last movie of Avengers. I’m actually not a big fan of Superheroes movies, I’m just a casual viewer who enjoyed the movies and i enjoyed watching this one as well. Avengers Endgame runs for 181 minutes, it’s pretty long. I came to bathroom in the middle of movie though, lol.

Overall, I like this movie as I think everything was executed very well. The cinematography, the sound, the edit, the effect are totally top-class work as well as the casts and their act. It really gives everyone goosebumps during the war between Avengers United and Thanos and his soldiers. I couldn’t blink my eye any second because I didn’t want to miss anything. Even though, I felt like I wanted to go to number 1 again in the middle of war scene, but I held it until the movie was over, lol. The movie is worth the hyped though. It’s indeed a masterpiece. I think I’m gonna rewatch it later. But, first I need to watch several marvel movies that I haven’t watched yet so everything will connect and make sense as I still didn’t understand some part. Anyway, thanks marvel for presenting a very well done job!! Goodbye or See you (?) Avengers!!

(cr: marvel)

Bye April 2019. Welcome my month, May!!

xoxo

mels

#black hole #katie bouman #game of thrones #election #sri lanka #avengers #avengers endgame

[recommendedlisten]

Unlike the rest of the crowd, Recommended Listen doesn’t show its hand at the year’s midway mark as to what it thinks the best albums so far have been, but as has become tradition, it does take this time to revisit 10 albums which left a positive impression in these parts since 2017 began that didn’t get a proper album review. Remember, this site is a one-human operation after all, so giving every single release due recognition can be a tough task to pull off, especially in a year like this one where it’s felt like praise-worthy content hasn’t let up since it started. For that reason, this year’s edition of Recommended Summer Listening might be its strongest collection of sounds to soundtrack your way through the warm weather season, regardless of whether your travels take you far or near. Plan your getaway below...

Beach Fossils - Somersault [Bayonet Records]

Four years of silence have passed since Beach Fossils made a peep, but on Somersault, they assure themselves that 2017 is going to be a better one. The jangled hiss that came to define them as one the preeminent bands leading the lo-fi surf waves coming out of Brooklyn’s Captured Tracks scene has dissipated, revealing in its place simply one of the more debonair indie pop bands on our horizon. A little more creative independence and having taken the time to mull over who they want to become has Dustin Payseur and company walking a fine line between max and min by adorning the porcelain raft with strings, harpsichords and brass, flirting with trip-hop, and getting acquainted with dreamy guest appearances from Rachel Goswell of Slowdive, the rapture of Cities Aviv, and a co-pen by Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek. There’s still plenty of Beach Fossils’ sun-soaked melancholia pouring into the soundboard to transport you from the concrete jungle to the hot sands. It’s so rich now, you certainly won’t have to squint as much to see it.

Big Thief - Capacity [Saddle Creek]

If you want to sit down with a few good stories mired in truth, tragedy, and fiction, then Adrienne Lenker is your best summer read. Last year, the Brooklyn-based songwriter turned the music world’s ear her way when she and her band Big Thief released their promising debut Masterpiece astutely in the right avenue of ramshackle indie rock on Saddle Creek, and its sophomore follow-up Capacity builds on the upward interest by penning several new chapters of prose haunted by the past and subtly beautified by the ornate features of folk rock. It’s by no means in comparison to the rest of summer’s sounds a booming listen, but is its own force of nature that forces you to hang onto Lenker’s every word with full attention to reap its riches. City slickers often make great escapes to seek out this kind of peace and quiet in lakeside retreats, but Big Thief’s solitude finds its way to you without ever leaving home.

Julie Byrne - Not Even Happiness [Ba Da Bing Records]

Not Even Happiness, the sophomore effort from singer-songwriter Julie Byrne, is a master craft exercise in personal meditations on the pursuit of peace amidst a shifting chaos. Between a life lived on the road touring and resettling on all ends of America, the nomadic folk artist’s stories tell that of soul who has journeyed off the beaten path enough to accrue a definite sense of self in this great big world. It wasn’t until Byrne holed up in the solitude of her childhood home, however, where the worth of this tranquility began to assemble itself, through fragmented connections and hyper-specific memories scattered on a fleeting timeline. It’s a gentle flicker of memories, and one for the season’s adventurers who take to the road without a map.

King Woman - Created In the Image of Suffering [Relapse Records]

Bay Area artist Kristin Esfandiari has been refining her brand of doom and gloom for years between her metal band King Woman and her shoegazing solo outfit Miserable, and each of those facets play an integral part in turning a confident new corner for the former on their immaculately grim debut full-length Created In the Image of Suffering. In our current political climate, it’s a resistance necessity, as Esfandiari heaves a wrecking ball into patriarchal tropes and theological repression by damning humankind’s origin folklore into a sludgy, gauzy hell, and reconceiving it through the womb of terrifying transcendence. This listen scrapes into bone and marrow under sunburned skies as much as it does ominous thunderclouds, and ushers in King Woman as the new savior of a world whose limits stretch well beyond metal boxes.

HUNDREDTH - RARE [Hopeless Records]

Every summer, the traveling punk rock parody known as the Warped Tour rolls through town, but this year, something odd happened: They actually booked a good handful of the kind of skate punk bands that the festival used to be primarily made up of. It’s almost an irony, considering all of the mall screamo and metalcore that has given it a black eye over the years, but the biggest surprise this year won’t be found on any of the stages where these punk O.G.s are playing, but rather whichever one the band HUNDREDTH are put on. They’ve been Warped Tour staples for years now, but with their new album RARE, they’re cutting ties with that past as cash-grab hardcore makers by reinventing themselves as hard-edged shoegazIng punks indebted to the likes of Swervedriver and Catherine Wheel, and joining its modern cast of Title Fight and Nothing. The end results blurs two malleable soundscapes together, and introduces HUNDREDTH to a whole new world.

Pet Symmetry - Vision [Polyvinyl Records]

Put three veteran emo rockers who’ve been around long enough to see the scene through a few waves together in the same room, and you’re going to be hard-pressed to get anything less than the best, even if the reasons behind writing together is to merely blow off some pent-up dad joke energy on the side. What initially began as the meta humor creative vehicle of Into It. Over It.’s Evan Weiss and Erik Czaja and Marcus Nuccio of Dowsing and What Gives gets serious on Pet Symmetry’s sophomore effort and Polyvinyl debut Vision, however. It’s not to say that the trio have lost their uncanny wit (see: practically every song title), but if you ever needed a clinic on pop-punk perfectionism with the occasional flair up of explosive post-hardcore sprinkled with Weiss’ inverted storytelling, this is a full-proof listen that puts the three artist’s collective creative bodies in clear view.

Spencer Radcliffe & Everyone Else - Enjoy the Great Outdoors [Run for Cover Records]

In short, Spencer Radcliffe is an anomaly. The multi-instrumental songwriter has quietly become some of your favorite artists’ favorite artist for years now thanks to his treasure trove of self-released efforts and experimental oddities strewn across BandCamp, but ever since he signed with Run for Cover Records to release 2015′s proper debut full-length Looking After, that sense of stability has wrangled in the eccentricities going on his head without trampling them. On Enjoy the Great Outdoors, Radcliffe’s friends help bring his sound outside of the metaphorical bedroom, and the result is a long, winding day trip journeyed on ragged guitars, grumbling percussion, and high as a kite existentialism appropriate for coastlines drives, camping retreats, sand-sprawled beach days, or maybe just a lazed nap in the backyard hammock. Because vacation is a mindset, not a destination.

Thundercat - Drunk [Brainfeeder]

Most of the music world got to know what Steven Bruener, b.n.a, Thundercat, was capable of by way of Kendrick Lamer’s To Pimp a Butterfly, but the Los Angeles-based new age jazz funk virtuoso has been doing his thing for years now, be it part of his bro’s skate trash crew Suicidal Tendencies, collaborating with Flying Lotus, or slowly getting warmed up in the front of the stage on his own. When you that put that résumé together, you get Drunk, his most coherent work yet, in its own right. The LP thumps Thundercat’s signature bass lines into songs that offer as much stoned out comical respites on dating communication as they do psychedelically peer into life’s voids in earnest. No plans for the summer? No problem, as dude’s got you got covered for all those nights you’d rather sit in and play video games than chase down a text message ghost, or merely stare at the ceiling.

Tigers Jaw - spin [Black Cement]

Tigers Jaw’s 2014 listmaker Charmer was already a transitional album for the Scranton indie-punks because it was the last album that was recorded by the band before three of its members left. That transition completes itself with spin, though, in ways much greater than the duo of Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins probably could have imagined they’d be in two years ago when they were frankensteining their live show together with their friends’ bands, as here they stand on their own more visibly than ever with the first album released on producer Will Yip’s major label imprint Black Cement. The weight of the work load on Collins and Walsh’s shoulders alone rediscovers the duo, with an assist from Yip’s Studio 4 magic, polishing away most of the rougher post-hardcore textures from Tigers Jaws’ early years, and finding a finer focus in the emotive pop-punk that Charmer began to veer into. Whatever baggage they were carrying before spin has been shed for the better.

Tricot - 3 [Topshelf Records]

There is eternal hope for the fate of guitar music when you listen to Tricot's third full-length and first for their American indie home at Topshelf Records with 3. The Kyoto buzzsaws are meticulous craftswomen of the electric band kind by transforming math-rock into musical origami in the way that theirs is composed of sharp, crisp angles, and made using bright colored paper that reflect the pop bursts heard throughout the album. After having your senses spun by their guitar gymnastics, throw on the band’s tutorial videos outlining how you can play the guitar, drum, and bass parts for some of the tracks off 3, and you’ll have yourself enrolled in one of this season’s coolest sessions of summer school.

#beach fossils #big thief #julie byrne #king woman #hundredth #pet symmetry #spencer radcliffe & everyone else #thundercat #tigers jaw #tricot #lists #features

[talietikasero]

I went in aware of the (possible) retcons and shit but I watched the whole thing anyway. It’s some ungodly hour way past when I should’ve slept and here’s what I thought. I’m trying to be fair here when I give GG Strive’s story a 6.8/10

Visuals: This game is beautiful. 12/10

Voice cast: I enjoyed the dub. Not as much of a corny anime dub like Sign was, but the returning cast improved from that game -- or at least I thought so. 8.75/10

Soundtrack: One word: Incredible. The duo of Naoki and Aisha on vocals for all character themes -- ok they're only a duet on Ramlethal's [Necessary Discrepancy] but you know what I meant -- was a perfect choice. My favorite themes from when I played the second open beta back in mid-May were Giovanna's [Trigger] and Potemkin's [Armor-Clad Faith], but Leo's [Hellfire] really grew on me the most. 15/10

Game itself: Arcade mode was a fun challenge because I’m an idiot who did all 15 but I got really tired of fighting Nago over and over again. I’m not that great so I’m not worrying about getting the “Messiah Will Not Come” trophy where you fight him but he’s got an infinite blood gauge. Survival gives a good chunk of the lifebar back without making it too easy -- and the “mysterious challenger” at stage 10 being a shadowy Sol with neon red was an okay way to signal a checkpoint. 9/10 I’m not doing online any time soon because I don’t have a wired connection but I hear it’s ass and the tower placement is a complete lie.

Anywho, now on to the real post:

For a finale, the story was... slightly below average. But I’ll be honest here, I kinda had high expectations because of the hype from the past two (?) years, five if you count the total time between Rev2 and Strive's release dates.

The last time I was this critical of a sequel’s story was the gap between Borderlands 2 and 3, which was seven years. I'm going off on a tangent here but I'll sum it up so if you're not familiar with Borderlands you'll have an idea of what I'm taking about. In Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel, the Watcher (Eridian? that saved Athena from execution after telling Lilith and company of her adventures on Elpis with Nisha, Wilhelm, Timothy, Aurelia, and Claptrap) warned "Now's not the time for bickering, Vault Hunters. War is coming, and you will need all the Vault Hunters you can get". BL3 rolls around and there was no big war. Instead, we got a poorly delivered dumpster fire of a main campaign that spanned five planets and the main villains were some bratty livestreamer Sirens that run a planet wide cult. Seriously? The cast was poorly handled there too but I'll stop here.

In the case of comparison to another fighting game’s story, the game that comes to mind is Tekken 7 because if they aren’t a Mishima or Kazama or someone else in that fucked up family that’s plot relevant, they were given a shitty one-fight episode. Sure Nina and Claudio were in the main story mode but that's the thing: they were just there. The returning (dlc) series veterans, such as Anna, Lei, Marduk, and all the way to Zafina plus the newcomers Leroy, Lidia, Fahkumram, and Kunimitsu II weren't given much aside from a brief story snippet. Dare I say it but SFV did their new seasons newcomers and returning fighters justice as they all got episodes of their own. You read that right. Street Fighter V was better to its cast than Tekken 7 and Guilty Gear -Strive-.

Unlike the Xrd games, watching the story does not get you any money. The only difference I saw right after was that the Strive correlation chart updated. For what it’s worth, they could’ve done something like DBFZ’s story clearance unlocking a new character, or do an alternate costume where the outfit Frederick wears in the ending (and upon further inspection is the very same one he wore in the flashback) is useable in fights (it’d be hilarious but a good detail added in if you were to select that option but the name plate doesn’t display “Sol” lmao). If Ky has a palette that puts him in an open button white shirt, jeans, and what look like work boots, then let me play in the ending's lab coat, tanktop, and jeans dammit.

I kept track of how many of the playable cast showed up and played some part. Everyone except Ramlethal, May, and Faust appeared in the story -- these three were reduced to credit image cameos >:( Ram’s seen with Elphelt and Sin, while Ky and Dizzy are in the background. May’s with her crew, and Faust is in the desert somewhere or some shit with Chronus.

But even if they did show up, nobody else except like five people did jack shit. Giovanna, bless her heart, was absent for a long period then showed up to fight Nagoriyuki (who eventually sided with the good guys) but got her ass beat after he faked surrender. Potemkin helped but spent most of his time cruising at high speed trying to get to the White House. Ky and Jack-O didn’t arrive until the end either. Axl -- or should I say Will -- finally got to see Megumi again at the cost of I-No’s defeat. The dude got his girlfriend back at the loss of someone he considered a friend but the delivery felt forced as it was confirmed as she was dying -- wasn't part of her character that she has no recollection of a past? Her suddenly remembering a past boyfriend and being able to describe his appearance didn't really make much sense.

Chipp and Anji were in that comical highway chase scene, but then Anji's just wherever while Chipp's in the Pentagon control room. I get that someone had to stay behind and watch from the other side -- this role landing with Leo as he, Millia, and Zato were overseeing commentating on events from the castle’s war room like Brock and Misty during Ash's battles in the OG season of the Pokemon anime, while Daryl was at the G4 conference and Ky was on his way to the fight -- but the pacing and usage of the cast in this story was a mess. Yeah sure it has most of the GG cast in this installment's playable roster present but it didn't feel like a GG story -- really it felt like the live action Resident Evil movies where the source material's characters are sprinkled in, acting more as a "here ya go they're here don't expect much!" type thing.

Honestly, a step down from Rev because at least everyone in that arc were somewhat present with maybe one or two exceptions? Hell, even though they were added as dlc or in Rev2, Dizzy, Haehyun, Baiken, and Answer were in the main story. Being hopeful here when I say that I hope we see more of Goldlewis or get to play as him because his design is badass and so is his coffin flail weapon. On the side of fairness though, I have a feeling this isn’t exactly what Ishiwatari intended (this is unlikely but it's probably Katano's directing? Whatever in any case)? The general reaction I saw from others who’ve watched the story was that the subplots were half baked and the plot as a whole was pretty rushed. Happy Chaos / the Original as the main villain was Calypso Twins from Borderlands 3 level cringe and every time HC appeared on screen I wanted to mute it. There is the bonus story coming later this year, along with the dlc slots, so ehh? The interactions between Colin and Frederick were one of my personal favorite points even if this did turn into “Neon Genesis White House Down”.

“Brown bears don’t give birth to pandas.“

I’m sure like the others who actually paid attention to the story from the end of Xrd to Strive, my main question was this:

After the Justice / Jack-O fusion -- recall the “newly revived” Aria had purely red hair and Jack-O’s halo disappeared. During the mid-credits of Revelator, former friends turned sworn enemies turned frenemies Asuka and Frederick pretty much have one last declaration of war against each other, with Sin, I-No, and Raven as their witnesses -- Asuka even said “take good care of Aria”. Naturally from all of that, she’s not Jack-O anymore, right? Wrong. According to the game, what's inside of Jack-O is only a fragment / shard of Aria mixed in with Jack-O's projected personality (I think). How did they go from "let's do the fusion and guaranteed she'll return" to "yeah nah she ain't comin' back bro"

Xrd Revelator: "Pull this off successfully and Aria will fully revive as a human."

Strive: "Nah bruh. We lied. It just turned Jack-O human and what's inside her is only an unstable shard of Aria -- not the whole thing."

Back to the “final battle”, they don’t fight, rather Asuka removed the Flame of Corruption from Frederick's body (and somehow he got a haircut too). So really what was the fight in Rev2′s [After Story - A] for? Did he get nearly the life beaten out of him from Ky fighting dirty and left that crater in the park for nothing? Seems that way. Asuka lives on the moon and he's got a radio show now because (*bong rip*) that makes sense.

I’ll admit it’s a little cute that the feelings are mutual between Jack-O and Frederick -- he sees her as herself and not just a genetic copy but they expect us to think in the three weeks they've known each other that "oh shit I'm in love with this person" is believable -- and they live in the woods near a presumably 200+ year old space shuttle complete with the launchpad but come on now. That's some Russo Brothers level writing right there -- y'all remember Avengers: Endgame and how when he went across space and time to return the Infinity Stones, Steve Rogers threw everything away just so he could go back to his original era? The now depowered-so-he's-human-again Frederick Bulsara (the ex-gear and world's savior x times over formerly known as Sol Badguy) living in isolation away from his newfound family and friends gives off the same vibe. Especially after that one and only flashback where it's Aria's birthday and he was going to propose but the ring wasn't ready in time so he had that "error" to show instead.

#guilty gear strive #gg strive #don't mind me i'm just being really nitpicky #this isn't the first time i've been down about a sequel's story #and it won't be the last #hell even if it's dated because two seasons worth of cast have been released since then sfv's story was more enjoyable! imagine that #i was writing a fic that i set before strive but now i'm gonna go back and add in some stuff #mostly that flashback because it was cute yet sad

[vortexofemotions]

Mandalorian questions game

Here’s my answers for the Mandalorian questions game made by @ spoiler4you on Twitter! I’m doing them over here on Tumblr so I don’t have to worry about the character count. If you’d like to play along here is the original Twitter thread and go make sure to give Ly a follow: https://twitter.com/spoiler4you/status/1401578764660707330

1: How and when did you become a fan of the show? I’ve been a fan of Star Wars since 2015, but despite this I was really sceptical on whether or not I’d actually like the Mandalorian when the first trailer dropped since I wasn’t really liking the direction the sequel trilogy was taking. But then Chapter 1 released and the entire internet exploded overnight over that Baby Yoda reveal. That’s when I knew that I had to check this show out for myself. I didn’t actually get to see season 1 until it was only a month away from season 2′s release date but it was well worth the wait. And now here I am with the show living rent free in my mind constantly.

2:  Who’s your favourite character? Is it a cop out if I say Grogu? But I also love Din, the Armorer and the return of Bo-Katan, Ahsoka and Boba Fett. (I actually didn’t get the appeal of Boba until his reintroduction in season 2 and now I can see why everybody likes him so much)

3: What’s your favourite season (so far)? Season 2! I know some people didn’t like how fan servicey it was, but I’m weak for that kind of shit. Season 1 is still just as good though.

4: What’s your favourite scene from each season? Season 1: I’d have to say the scene where Din earns his Mudhorn signet in chapter 8. Couldn’t tell you why, I just think it was a really neat moment. Season 2: The goodbye scene in chapter 16. Need I say more? (For real though, season 2 had so many great moments that it’ll be difficult for me to choose)

5: What’s your favourite episode (so far)? Chapter 15 The Believer! I was on the edge of my seat (well, my bed lol) the entire time that I’m honestly surprised I didn’t come crashing down onto the floor. I could honestly talk all day about the scene where Din has to remove his helmet in order for the machine to scan his face and just how well Pedro managed to portray the anxiety and sheer discomfort Din must have been feeling in that scene. Also, the little details of Din having to move his entire head to survey his surroundings or to glance at other people? Chiefs kiss 👌 Uggh this episode is so good!

6: FAVOURITE DIN AND GROGU MOMENT: Why must you make me choose? Apart from the obvious goodbye scene in chapter 16, I’m going to say the scene in chapter 12 The Siege where Grogu is trying to swap the two coloured wires and his tiny baby brain can’t comprehend what the hell he’s supposed to do, but Din is so patient with him? Makes me ugly laugh every single time.

7: FAVOURITE DIN MOMENT: I’m just going to say the entirety of chapter 15 The Believer and call it a day lol

8: FAVOURITE GROGU MOMENT: The blue cookie scene in chapter 12. Him begging the kid for the cookies and then taking it anyway, to him waving his hands in the air and throwing them back up. It doesn’t matter. Just Grogu with his blue cookies. A truly iconic moment.

9: The scene that made you cry the most: I think I speak for all of us when I say the goodbye scene. It’s the only time Star Wars has ever made me cry and I’ll never forgive Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni for that.

10: The scene that made you the most hyped: When Din tries to give Bo-Katan the Darksaber back and Moff Gideon’s just sat there with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face, taunting her. I was honestly waiting for her to slap the shit out of him right then and there.

11: Moment you’d like to see most in upcoming seasons: 👏 VILLIAN 👏 BO-KATAN  👏 That bitch is mad she hasn’t got her Darksaber back and the rights to the throne. I’d also like to see King Din of course. BUT, I’d like to see him struggle to fit into the role, none of this ‘he’s so good at his job and he’s only been King for half a day bullshit’ let’s see him not have a clue what he’s doing and watch him grow into a better king, just like with his father role to Grogu. This could also lead into the villain Bo-Katan subplot as this makes her even angrier that she isn’t Queen, and are now stuck with this pathetic King. And then a reunion scene with Din and Grogu, but only at the end of the season. Make it a cliff-hanger to lead into season 4 or something, let’s have their separation be meaningful to the audience as well.

12: Favourite camo role in season 2: Bo-Katan. Now that I’ve watched the Clone Wars and making my way through Rebels, her first appearance to live action has a much bigger impact on me now. Ahsoka’s too.

13: Star Wars movie character you’d like to see in season 3: Honestly? I guess Chewie, only for the fact that the Jawa’s said that Din’s Jawaese sounded like a Wookie and now I want to see Din talk Shyriiwook.

14: Animated character you’d like to see in live action for season 3: Any of the main cast of Rebels characters. I say any as I’ve only seen the first two seasons so far and I don’t know if any of them d-word’s at the end of the series. I know Ezra’s already been rumoured for supposedly the Ahsoka series so I think Sabine would be a nice fit here since I know she also once wielded the Darksaber.

15: What do you think is the most underrated episode? 👀 I’d say Sanctuary as I’ve heard lots of people calling it the weakest episode of the series. I personally really enjoyed it.

16: What do you think is the most overrated episode? 👀 Don’t crucify me for saying this but I’d say The Gunslinger. I often forget about it’s existence, I’m so sorry 😂 And it’s not even my least favourite episode!

17: Given the chance, what would you change from the previous seasons? I honestly have no idea lmao. I guess have some more random scenes of showing Din and Grogu bonding? Let’s have some cute father and son moments please.

18: Favourite Mandalorian/Grogu merch that you own? My Grogu plushie

Or my Din Funko Pop

Yes I keep my Funkos out of their box, I literally do not have the storage space to keep them in their boxes, sue me.

19: Favourite behind the scenes fact: It honestly boggles my mind that most of the scenery and environments are behind a green screen and needs to be drawn/animated in? Like, they all look gorgeous.

20: Favourite actor/actress from the cast: Pedro Pascal as Din Djarin and Katee Sackhoff as Bo-Katan Kryze.

21: Favourite fandom moment: Not sure what this means but I guess all of us losing our absolute shit because we were afraid something awful happened to Grogu in chapter 15 since we didn’t get to see him, not even as a prisoner. That was a terrifying week lol. (Despite us getting a banger of an episode)

22: SEASON 3 PREDICTIONS (I’m excited to know what y’all think!!) I think I’ve basically already answered this in question 11, but to save you guys the trouble of scrolling all the way back up here’s a very basic rundown of what I think will happen in season 3: Villain Bo-Katan A struggling King Djarin Din and Grogu reuniting at the end of the season as a cliff-hanger for the opening in season 4.

23: ((Take this time to appreciate and tag some of your fav Mando moots)) Not gonna tag anyone as I don’t know anyone over here lol, but I’d love to see some of your guys answers! A massive shout-out to all the fanfic writers, fan artists and video makers out there who create for this fandom. All of ya’ll are making the wait for season 3 a lot more bearable by giving us more content with our favourite clueless space dad and his adoptive son travelling around the galaxy.

This was a lot of fun to do, here’s a special thank you to Spoiler4you for creating this game for all of us to play. In case you missed it, the link to the original Twitter thread is at the top of this post.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to write some more Din and Grogu fanfiction. Good night ya’ll!

#the mandalorian #star wars #star wars the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu #baby yoda #star wars the child #clan mudhorn #clan djarin #star wars din

[mind-of-luxe]

Luxe’s Thoughts: FAVORITE CRIME TV SHOWS!

Welcome to a non-bookish post! This post is the product of my never-ending book slump and my overall laziness to get up from my bed and do something useful. In here, I share with you the different crime TV shows that I am currently obsessed with. So, here they are, in no particular order because ranking them would be unbelievably hard for me. Hopefully you'll get some good recommendations for what to watch next.

This show, oh my goodness, where to begin? This is simply amazing. Although I have started reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle long ago, I haven't really got much into it before I had to stop (unsurprisingly because of school) so I don't have much knowledge about Sherlock Holmes. I've always had a great liking for the mystery genre though, specifically in crime. What can I say, murders and heists hold a special place in my heart. Well, this TV program blew me away. This is based on the aforementioned book, but with a contemporary twist. Sherlock follows Sherlock Holmes, an incredibly  detective, and John Watson, an ex-military doctor, helping the police solve different crimes in modern-day London.

I absolutely love the banter between Sherlock and Watson! Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman have great chemistry being Holmes and Watson. Anyway, I basically went through an emotional rollercoaster on this one. I laughed, I cried, got frustrated, and got scared. And let me tell you, this will keep you on the edge of your seat, I swear on my life. Well, maybe not, I'm not ready to die just yet. But you get my point. The crimes for each episode will really get you thinking and the plot twists are jaw-dropping. Also, this is only four seasons long, with three episodes (around one hour each) per season, and a special episode set in the Victorian era. Very easy to accidentally binge-watch and leave your mouth hanging open at the end of Season 4 Episode 3, wondering where the hell the next one is. *sobs in detective*

P.S. I personally think that Benedict Cumberbatch is the perfect actor for Sherlock, although I've only seen like two other actors portraying the character. Oh well.

"Anderson, don't talk out loud. You lower the IQ of the whole street." - Sherlock Holmes (played by Benedict Cumberbatch)

After I've finished Sherlock, I obviously couldn't get enough so I looked for similar TV programs and this one came up. I'm glad it did because it's basically just the same, except that this one isn't as closely based to the book from what I can gather and this one isn't set in London. Here, Sherlock Holmes is a recovering drug addict. His father hires Joan Watson as Sherlock's sober companion and together, they assist the New York City Police Department in solving numerous crimes. I really like the concept of how Holmes and Watson became acquainted. Also, Watson is a woman. I'm really excited about that!

This is still an ongoing series, and currently on Season 6 (with 24 episodes each season). I'm not yet up to date with this one though, still on Season 2, but I'm already loving this. I'm taking my sweet time on this precious one, and watching other shows alongside of it as well.

"For future reference: When I say I agree with you, it means I'm not listening." - Sherlock Holmes (played by Jonny Lee Miller)

Ah Scorpion, another amazing one. I feel like I've been using the word "amazing" quite a lot now, have I not? Anyway. This is my current obsession! Scorpion is about an intellectually well-equipped team dealing with a variety of "complex, high tech threats around the globe." To let you have a better view on the capabilities of the members of Team Scorpion, here is the intro for the episodes:

My name is Walter O'Brien. I have the fourth-highest IQ ever recorded: 197. Einstein's was 160. When I was 11, the FBI arrested for me for hacking NASA to get their blueprints for my bedroom wall. Now I run a team of geniuses, tackling worldwide threats only we can solve. Toby's our behaviorist. Sylvester's a human calculator. Happy, a mechanical prodigy. Agent Cabe Gallo is our government handler. And Paige? Well, Paige isn't like us; she's normal. She translates the world for us, while we help her understand her genius son. Together, we are Scorpion.

I was intrigued by the premise at first so I decided to give it a go. To say I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement. I'm always really awestruck at each episode. Each case Team Scorpion take on, even if it sounds simple at first, gets very interesting as the episode progresses. There was never a dull moment in this TV series! I also love how the characters are all unique, with different abilities and characteristics, so they depend on one another. They have such great teamwork and friendship! Not only that, I also got to know the members of the team bit by bit; their fear, likes, dislikes, their past. Each of them has their own complexities. Plus, I learned a lot through this, believe it or not. Like a lot of chemistry stuff I forgot by now, and to always go for the nose when in combat, and that a group of jellyfish is called a smack. Well, obviously there's a lot other facts but those were just at the top of my head.

I hope you feel my enthusiasm for this show. I just freaking love Scorpion so you can't imagine my total horror disappointment that it got cancelled. It only has 4 seasons with around 22-25 episodes each. That's not enough for me! I miss them already. :(

"Rappers may have ninety-nine or so problems, but misplacing paychecks is not one of them." - Toby Curtis (played by Eddie Kaye Thomas)

I'm kind of torn on this one. I absolutely loved the first season but I wasn't so keen on the second one. That being said, I am still anticipating the release of the third season on October. Riverdale's characters are based on the legendary Archie Comics. That being said, the plot has no connection to the comics because this CW show (and Netflix original, I'm confused) has a really dark story line. In a nutshell, Riverdale revolves around a group of teenagers discovering that the town they once thought was peaceful, apparently has a web of sinister secrets.

I am a huge fan of the Archie Comics. It was my childhood! I remember literally not eating at school just to save up my allowance to buy those. I wonder where my humongous collection went. Maybe they're scattered all over the place because we've moved several times already since I've last saw them. That sucks. But I'm thinking of restarting my collection once again.

Anyway, when I first heard of Riverdale, I was so excited for it. The ominous, dark vibe they were aiming for was depicted well but it also has light scenes as well to balance. The mystery aspect of this was so thrilling and waiting for the next episodes were very painful. It was also so weird to see such contrasting moods from the same characters from the TV show and the comics. Oh, and also, let me mention how I've really taken a liking to the cast of this show. I mean, seriously, they are such a close-knitted group despite not knowing most of each other when they first started and how they have two different age groups. This just adds to their on-screen chemistry.

I know that a lot of people have such a great dislike for this TV series but I genuinely think it's worth watching. There are currently two seasons out on Netflix, the first one has 13 episodes and the second has 22, with each episode around 40 minutes.

"Fear. It's the most basic, the most human emotion. As kids, we're afraid of everything. The dark. The boogeyman under the bed. And we pray for morning. For the monsters to go away. Though they never do. Not really." - Jughead Jones (played by Cole Sprouse)

That's about it for the crime TV shows that I currently enjoyed. I have more on my list though, and I can't wait to get started! What are your favorite crime TV shows? If you don't like the crime genre, what are your all-time favorite TV shows are instead?

#crime tv #crime tv series #crime tv shows #elementary #elementary tv show #Luxe's Thouhts #mystery tv series #mystery tv shows #netflix #riverdale #riverdale tv show #scorpion #scorpion tv show #team scorpion #sherlock #sherlock holmes #tv series #tv shows

[mrmichaelchadler]

Second Season of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” Off to Brilliant Start

When the first season of “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiered exactly one year ago today on Hulu, President Donald Trump had already begun inadvertently making America great again. The misogyny he spewed and empowered in his supporters spurred those who would normally remain on the sidelines to take to the streets. The Women’s March that occurred worldwide the day after the president’s inauguration served as a prelude to the #MeToo movement, which went viral last October, as charges of sexual harassment took down the careers of men who had previously appeared invincible. In between all of this, HBO’s “Big Little Lies,” Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” and Frances McDormand’s portrayal of Mildred Hayes in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” embodied the defiant spirit of female-led activism culminating in the founding of the #TimesUp movement on New Year’s Day of 2018.

There’s no question that creator Bruce Miller’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel couldn’t have been released at a more appropriate time. Its portrayal of a totalitarian society created by theonomist Christians to overthrow American democracy will be seen as one of the definitive works of the Trump era. The ten episodes of its first season took a simultaneously harrowing and invigorating look at how to fight against the normalization of oppression while maintaining one’s sanity in the process. 

As June Osborne, a woman whose fertility has caused her to be enslaved as a Handmaid (a.k.a. reproductive surrogate) in the Republic of Gilead, Elisabeth Moss further cements her status as one of the great actors of our time. Few performers are as adept at revealing the depths of their character’s inner life in a single glance, and Moss is especially gifted at illuminating the glint of rebellion tucked beneath the placid surface of her expression. She has made a career out of playing women who refuse to be broken by men, whether they be the sexist ad executives in “Mad Men” or the insufferable boyfriend in “Listen Up Philip.” There is a scene in that film, directed by Moss’ frequent collaborator Alex Ross Perry, that encapsulates her genius. After she finally breaks up with her boyfriend and he storms out of her apartment, Perry holds the camera on Moss as a multitude of conflicting feelings—relief, sorrow, satisfaction, remorse—ripple across her face. This skill is crucial for a character like June, who must spend much of the time repressing her true feelings when in the persona of “Offred,” her designated name as a Handmaid. 

Like “Big Little Lies,” a miniseries that has now grown into a multi-season show, “The Handmaid’s Tale” ended its first season at the same place that its source material did, with Offred boarding a vehicle without knowing where it would be taking her, though any mode of escape from her Commander, Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes), and his vindictive wife, Serena (Yvonne Strahovski), is most welcome. The note that Miller chose to end on was one of uncertainty, a fitting reflection of our current sociopolitical landscape in which nothing is guaranteed. Whether the subsequent episodes will follow in step with Atwood’s epilogue remains to be seen, though on the basis of the six episodes from season two made available to critics, Miller’s show is expanding its narrative while remaining as provocative and riveting as ever.

The frightening opening sequence calls to mind the Kafkaesque nightmare of Orson Welles’ “The Trial,” as handmaids are ordered to walk through a tunnel, their path illuminated only by light streaming through slats of wood. When they emerge on the other end, they find themselves in Fenway Park, which has been reconfigured into an arena for executions. Relics of the free press and free speech can be observed in the abandoned Boston Globe building (now used as a slaughterhouse) and a dusty DVD of “Friends” (made during the days when erogenous zones were acceptable fodder for jokes). We also hear footage of the Red Sox winning the World Series over the end credits of episode two. The early sections of this season promise the structure of an odyssey, as June enlists the assistance of various samaritans—including her beau, Nick (Max Minghella)—to escape her incarceration. Cinematographer Zoë White, who previously lensed Stephen Cone’s wonderful “Princess Cyd,” brings an epic scope to various shots in episode three, such as the bird’s eye view of June racing through a cornfield. 

Viewers hoping that this season takes off in an entirely different direction will likely be disappointed, since it’s not long before June is resuming her duties as Offred at the Waterford residence. Yet even in these familiar locations, the writers create intriguing new dynamics between the characters. Moss still manages to get in a few hilariously withering lines fueled by June’s inability to mask her contempt for her self-righteous rapists (her delivery of “Uh huh” is one for the books). She also gets to turn Mrs. Waterford’s words back on her, affirming that as long as her own child is safe (referring to Hannah, whom she mothered with her husband, Luke) so is the one she is currently carrying for the infertile couple. As the child grows in June’s stomach, Strahovski alternates between maternal warmth and venomous envy, bringing us to the brink of empathizing with her, only to repel us with her selfishness. Once again, the color red materializes in striking places—we see it in the curtains of the van transporting June back to the Waterfords as well as the blood pooling beneath her crimson uniform.

One strong addition to the cast is 20-year-old Sydney Sweeney, who recently won over viewers on Netflix’s “Everything Sucks!”, where she shared many of the show’s best scenes with Peyton Kennedy, the other half of their teen couple who gained a devoted fan base despite the program’s cancellation. The extroverted character she played on that show couldn’t be further removed from her role on “The Handmaid’s Tale” as Eden, the 15-year-old bride assigned to Nick. Despite her wide-eyed innocence, Eden is hardened in her conviction to obey Gilead’s laws, and since Sweeney looks much younger here than she did in “Everything Sucks!”, it makes her deflowering all the more disturbing. Thankfully, the scene contains no nudity, focusing instead on her hand gripping the arm of Nick, whose visible discomfort overrides any potential eroticism. 

The finest episode of season two, thus far, is the fourth one, entitled, “Other Women.” It’s the show’s best depiction to date of how unearned guilt holds a vice on one’s identity, fragmenting it into abstract concepts of good and evil that leave no space for the true essence of humanity. What makes Aunt Lydia, the Handmaids’ overseer, so fearsome is the fact that she is entirely convinced that her misguided efforts to save civilization—by administering godly virtues via cattle prod—are in line with holy scripture. She truly believes that she is protecting the souls of these women by repeatedly abusing their bodies, while placing the blame of their suffering onto themselves. As played by Ann Dowd, Aunt Lydia makes Nurse Ratched and the Trunchbull look like Larry and Curly, lending a Shakespearean weight to her character’s tragic dimensions. The character is not unlike any pro-life candidate focused solely on bringing life into a world unequipped to nurture it. By unearthing buried guilt from June’s past, Aunt Lydia insidiously elicits a tearful confession from her, promising that she’ll find salvation “as Offred,” thus leaving the damnation of her past life behind. 

One of the most cathartic elements of the series is June’s narration, where she gets to provide expletive-laden commentary on the surrounding horrors while clinging to her individuality. Now that Aunt Lydia has infiltrated her mind, June’s witty voice-over is suddenly silenced, replaced by the robotic repetition of formalities. I was reminded of Moss’ haunting monologue from one of her early films, Deborah Kampmeier’s “Virgin,” where she recounts how a dog receiving electroshocks refuses to leave its cage once it has been opened. This episode, more than any other, illustrates how a cycle of abuse can hold people captive by snuffing out their sense of worth. This is how the unspeakable becomes normalized. 

Among the show’s many triumphant achievements is its ability to throw viewers headfirst into the narrative, juxtaposing flashbacks and parallel subplots in a way that brings us closer to June’s disorientation without devolving into incoherence. Though Alexis Bledel was credited as a “guest star” during the first season, she emerges here as a full-on supporting player, with many scenes devoted to her character, Emily, a handmaid sentenced to a life of hard labor, in part because of her “gender treachery” (a.k.a. lesbianism). The scene from season one where she’s forced to watch the execution of her wife is as shattering as anything I’ve seen on television. In the second episode of season two, we get many wrenching scenes from Emily’s past, including an airport interrogation that calls to mind the hatefulness of Trump’s transgender military ban. 

Various actual guest stars accompany Bledel in this episode, and though their presence is somewhat of a distraction, they are all well-cast, notably John Carroll Lynch as the concerned colleague who tries coaxing his friend back into he closet. Emily’s scenes mirror those of June in how both women are faced with the question of whether to reject life altogether in the midst of a seemingly eternal hell. Cherry Jones turns up in endearing flashbacks as June’s liberated mother, while Moira (Samira Wiley), June’s friend who escaped to Toronto’s “Little America” community and reunited with Luke (O-T Fagbenle), has a scene where she refers to herself as “Ruby,” demonstrating that she still hasn’t shaken her past persona as a Gilead prostitute. Perhaps the biggest laugh I had during all six episodes took place in Serena’s flashback to her fiery confrontation with students. When her voice is silenced by their outrage, Fred cries in protest, “This is America!”, embodying the ironic victim complex of various Pure Flix movies railing against the suppression of their freedom to suppress the freedom of others. 

I’ll admit that I always look forward to the songs selected for the end credits of each episode. Their lyrics may occasionally be a bit on-the-nose, but they are also reassuring, reminding us of the time that came before Gilead and is destined to return. The songs are, in many ways, the battle cry simmering within the handmaids, and as June’s despondency grows during this season, the music fades along with her voice-over. In one indelible shot lensed by DP Colin Watkinson, we see June propped in her bathtub, resolved simply to keeping her head above water, nothing more. What ultimately breaks her out of her sunken place is the resilient spirit of her unborn baby, whom she converses with after days of silence, telling the child that the Waterfords “do not own you.” Her words, of course, echo the lyrics of the song that concluded the very first episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Lesley Gore’s classic 1963 tune, “You Don’t Own Me,” which serves as the unofficial anthem of the entire series. 

Even religion cannot be owned by violent ideologies since personal faith cannot be policed. It’s refreshing to see June build her own candlelit vigil while praying to what she believes is a loving God. The motif of flames characterizing the first six of thirteen scheduled episodes for this season suggest that the handmaids may be planning to fight fire with fire, quite literally. Will the match that June lights to burn her uniform be the spark that lights the fire that will burn Gilead down? I can’t wait to find out.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2HrKuM4

[ralphmorgan-blog1]

Does This Black Mirror Fan Theory Mean We’re Finally Ready For the Singularity?

When Black Mirror first hit the air in 2011, it drew invariable comparisons to The Twilight Zone. Understandably so: Both shows dealt with elements of science fiction and psychological horror, and both functioned as anthology shows, with episodes so distinct from one another that an uninitiated viewer could plunge in at random and be as familiar with a given episode’s premise as a seasoned fan. It was a selling point; it made the show easy to recommend to people who might be wary of committing to a complex, serialized narrative.

But since its purchase by Netflix in 2015, Black Mirror has begun to chip away at its episodic edges. Technologies introduced in one installation reappear in another; news tickers on characters’ TV screens chronicle events from previous episodes; musical cues repeat again and again. Call them Easter eggs, or call them clues to piecing together a shared universe—one that creator Charlie Brooker, after years of denying, has finally admitted does, indeed, exist.

The new episodes, released last Friday, are more thematically cohesive than any batch that’s preceded them. They grapple obsessively with the notion of the human mind: uploading it; infiltrating it; probing its memories; preserving it after death. Though the show has flirted with digital consciousness in the past, most notably with its mind-bending “White Christmas” special and the series three darling, “San Junipero,” the new season takes up the thought experiment with zeal. Black Mirror’s episodes still stand well enough on their own, but after this latest installation, it’s possible to zoom out and see a cohesive rumination on the implications of digital immortality.

(Spoiler alert: spoilers for multiple Black Mirror episodes follow.)

Viewers were first introduced to the “cookie,” Black Mirror’s term for a carbon-copied consciousness, in 2014’s “White Christmas,” which followed Jon Hamm as he coerced digital souls into acting as hyper-personalized home assistants and confessing to crimes. But there were hints of this manifestation of the singularity even back in the show’s first few episodes. Take, for example, “Be Right Back,” in which a woman named Martha, mourning her dead boyfriend, signs up for a service that promises to harvest the traces of his online presence to recreate him as a chatbot—and, later, place that AI in a synthetic body.

The uncanny process is flawed, naturally: The android “Ash” can only mimic what he’s been taught, and his lack of human traits (like the need for sleep) is off-putting. But Martha’s desire to resurrect her dead loved one stands as a precursor to the digital rebirth we see later in the series. Her experience is remarkably similar to that of Jack, who we meet in “Black Museum,” the final episode of Black Mirror’s latest season. When his wife Carrie falls into an irreversible coma, he’s offered the chance to implant her consciousness in his own mind, using the technology that we learn was initially developed to help diagnose disease—and, much like in “Be Right Back,” that decision goes terribly wrong.

That casts a new light on the 2013 episode. What if we see it not only as a warning against meddling with death, but also as an early attempt by technologists in the Black Mirror-verse to digitize consciousness? Android Ash lacks a true sense of self; he doesn’t have memories from his previous life in the same way that Carrie does. But, at least for a little while, he passes his girlfriend’s Turing test. It’s a failed experiment, for sure—but maybe a necessary, realistic stumble on the path to true digital reincarnation.

From that first seed of cloud-based immortality planted in “Be Right Back,” we jump to “White Christmas,” where the technology, too, has leapt ahead—and has even more sinister implications. Sure, your cloned assistant might streamline life for the true “you,” but what about the “you” that’s then forced to live out eternity trapped in a Google Home-esque device? And Hamm’s ability to torture cookies by speeding up their timelines, subjecting them to months or years of insanity-inducing boredom, certainly hints at the “human rights for cookies” that “Black Museum” tells us were later enacted. In both “White Christmas” and this season’s “USS Callister,” digital cloning appears largely unregulated: Tech companies like the one that employs Hamm’s character are able to turn cookies into slaves for their “real” selves, while bad actors like Callister’s Robert Daly are able to get their hands on the technology to enact sadistic punishment on those who have “wronged” them—and no one steps in to stop them.

It's clear that at this moment in the technology’s lifetime, the ACLU hasn’t yet seized upon cookies’ cause, and the mass protests mentioned in “Black Museum” have yet to have any effect. And by the end of “Black Museum,” it’s still not apparent whether those human rights for cookies are actually enforced: The museum’s proprietor is still torturing Clayton Leigh’s cookie, seemingly unhampered by pesky regulations, though his own karmic blowback returns that favor in kind. It also seems at this point that no one has given any real thought to the ethical and psychological implications of what they’ve created: How do you ensure that your cookie doesn’t spend eternity being driven mad by boredom—hell dressed up as limbo?

That brings us to “San Junipero.” No more creepily submissive androids, stimulation-starved home assistants, or uploaded minds trapped in other people’s skulls or teddy bears: Now, upon death, residents of the universe can choose to live forever in a simulated utopia, seemingly without any real drawbacks. It’s the best possible outcome of mind-uploading technology: that we use it not to service our real-world selves or punish criminals, but rather to guarantee life—a good life—after death. There are nods to a similarly happy outcome in “Hang the DJ,” this season’s heart-wrenching, dating app-inspired episode in which hundreds of thousands of cookies form a data set for real-world singles (and though that app makes a sneaky cameo on a phone in “USS Callister,” it’s arguably an earlier, less cookie-dependent iteration, given that cookie technology doesn’t appear known to most of that episode’s characters).

You can take the shared-cookie-timeline theory even further, if you don’t mind some attenuation. Perhaps the memory-capturing technology to which we’re first introduced in season 1’s “Entire History of You”—and which resurfaces in this season’s “Arkangel” and “Crocodile”—helped facilitate mind uploading, creating an easily downloadable reel of a life’s worth of data. Maybe the hyperrealistic augmented reality flaunted in “Playtest” was ultimately adapted to create the virtual paradise of “San Junipero.”

Some fans have seen even more hints of the cookie-verse in “Playtest”: As Redditors SplurgyA and sailormooncake speculate, the character of Sonja in Playtest might well be the real-world version of Selma, played by the same actress in season 1’s “Fifteen Million Merits.” Look closely in “Playtest,” and you’ll notice that her apartment sports a book on the singularity—and because she’s so enamored with game development, Redditors hypothesize, she might well have been one of the first to cookie-ify herself. Which, in turn, might mean that the world of “Fifteen Million Merits” is a reality show or form of punishment for cookies. And speaking of punishment, still others have suggested, the protagonist of series two’s “White Bear” might well be a cookie herself, sentenced to eternal, repetitive punishment. The speculative possibilities are endless.

The idea of digitally replicating a human mind is a much-loved trope of sci-fi novels that’s been seeing renewed enthusiasm recently. Altered Carbon, a novel in which characters are able to upload and download their personalities into new bodies, will be reborn as a Netflix series next month. The Canadian TV show Travelers, which premiered in 2016, imagines a world in which humans send their consciousnesses back in time to prevent an apocalypse. And in Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway, published last spring, self-appointed outcasts discover how to evade death by “backing themselves up” to the the cloud. The trend is perhaps reflective of Silicon Valley’s own obsession with digitizing the human mind. From technologies like brain-machine interfaces to the pipe dreams of futurists like Ray Kurzweil, many see this as the holy grail of AI—and one that some project might be attainable by 2045. So as we interpret Black Mirror as a cautionary tale about online dating and robot guard dogs and myriad technologies, let’s not lose sight of its larger message: A reminder to center our humanity as we speed toward a world in which that becomes harder and harder to define.

Related Video

Culture

Ray Kurzweil & Steve Aoki Talk Technology, the Future & Humanity

Steve Aoki talks with famed futurist Ray Kurzweil about how technology will shape our future, in terms of creativity, consciousness, and the coming singularity.

More From this publisher : HERE ; This post was curated using : TrendingTraffic

=> *********************************************** Read More Here: Does This Black Mirror Fan Theory Mean We’re Finally Ready For the Singularity? ************************************ =>

Does This Black Mirror Fan Theory Mean We’re Finally Ready For the Singularity? was originally posted by A 18 MOA Top News from around

#A 18 MOA Top News from around

[nidan57056617-blog]

You Might Want To Sit For This.

Although Virtual Reality will get even more cost effective, with the help of Microsoft's partnership along with Acer in creating a $399 (regarding ₤ 310, AU$ 540) combined reality package, it is actually still a far cry from the mainstream standing this thus precisely deserves. So if you've ever would like to possess your personal wolf pack, soar like an eagle, ride a bear or even merely possess the whole bunny populace bow their blurry ears to you, this is actually the video game. Our experts've been actually awaiting down our top 25 activities from the year over recent full week, and today our team ultimately reach the top 5. I have to discuss Johnson for a second because although this was actually certainly not HIS story, he participated in such an excellent part in this publication. They possess 2 youngsters now as well as have actually done article on both nurseries/bedrooms ... they might have the capacity to give some beneficial DIY concepts. Exists a possibility that the business will certainly stop Since ps4 is today carried out that to psp after ps profile happened out, creating ps3 games just. This cloud-based streaming company permits you to play PS3 games on your PS4 by streaming all of them over the internet, along with payment taken on a rental or even monthly subscription basis. Off Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix az straight through to Deathly Hallows Part 2. Gamers get to take on 24 specific Tale Activities, cast all-new Spells, make use of brand-new Dueling Skills, get brand new Attractions as well as connect along with brand new characters. Parlor game incorporate an unlimited assortment of subject matters and motifs, thus permit a trainee determine this, at that point have that authorized due to the teacher. The improve quickly tacks on a whole brand new game's really worth of material to the smash hit base structure game. All three members from the group may be observed conducting the tune at Joffrey and Margaery's wedding in time four. Pond Myvatn, near the city from Akureyri, is where Mance Rayder's wildling military makes camping ground in season three, while the nearby cave from Grjotagja is actually where Jon Snowfall as well as Ygritte sleep together. That's a hard publication to sum up, but generally 2 old magicians set their two ideal pupils against each other in a wonderful contest. The most significant of which is that Chrome doesn't support Unity, a 3D video game motor that works along with Firefox, Opera as well as Safari. If you have any type of concerns concerning where and exactly how to make use of Click On this site, you could contact us at the page. The effects of caring, looking after dads on their daughters' lifestyles can be measured in ladies of all ages. The original Myst's 'slide show' type from activity has been improved in to a free-roaming adventure, updating a video game that is actually still a traditional, with sensibly strong touchscreen navigating. While our team have actually described the forthcoming activity as Reddish Dead Atonement 2, the title is actually presently not known - so start your guesses. And also appearance, releasing re-mastered games on a brand new unit works on Sony and Microsoft's equipments because of the sheer number of headlines launched on either console. A mathematics parlor game delivers a great technique to include math, board design as well as activity rules. There is actually no doubt that JA Huss could inform the hell from a tale and I've been actually a long-time follower, yet this manual fell a little quick for me compared with her other publications. Which would certainly be actually an appreciated add-on to the Season 2 ending, considering that we just find out about the gate-keeper Edith residing there certainly, and also much from Period 3 is counted on to happen in Wellington. Organisation decisions have their place, however Games are a fine art type, as well as they must be nourished and also recognized therefore through crews that would like to make games. You could narrow your eyes at supposed 'realistic look' in mobile sporting activities titles, given that this normally suggests 'a video game that appears a little bit like when you watch telly'. About Blog post - A blog site concerning bedspreads and quilting, with an occasional feline photo thrown in forever procedure. The subs checklists are useful sources for teams that should hire extra gamers throughout the period. The Hot Discharge is the fourth standalone in the Game On set informed in varying POVs. I question I'll be actually the only one stating they were actually surprised that the Killzone designer has actually been able to provide an activity with such breadth, intensity as well as regularly satisfying gameplay. The creature hasn't been actually viewed due to the fact that season 1, as well as will be a lot older if it performs return this season. But once I had to do with eleven/twelve years old, I review a manual phoned The Forbidden Video game by same writer who composed Creature ofthe night Diaries, regarding a female who obtains taken in to a video game and must find her friends prior to the moment is up. There is actually also an unexplainable, spectacular fella called Julian taking the strands (divine spunk, I was in love with him at that time) as well as this book is actually thus comparable. Unlike the iPhone, the volume from dedicated video gaming controllers for Android phones is a bit extra unexciting, as there may not be as numerous for particular phone designs ... and also the activities that support all of them could be varied as well. USA release of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, boosted models of the authentic Gold and Silver video games. Neither carries out the idea hold effectively anymore that those who participate in video games or even sporting activities would stink at researches, and that every year their vacancy from the class or even shortage from speaks would certainly be actually excused due to the fact that they may either take care of their researches or perform the arena for some activity or the various other. At that point simply do not do that and also concentrate on an activity produced for PS4 as well as nothing at all else, if you do not desire to or even can't place in the extra attempt. I only got your manual for my birthday this week and I cannot wait to formulate some meals coming from it. This is one main reason why in tennis I experience I keep enhancing my video game as; I only can certainly not condemn any individual for my loss in an activity. In a dramatic (and also entirely fracical) Facebook Live uncover, Video game from Thrones showmakers promoted visitors to comment 'FIRE', which would induce a weapon to gradually melt away the ice shielding the release date.