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midnightswithdearkatytspb · 3 years

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VelvetCardiganBucky’s Recomendations 2021: Week 3 | January 10-16

Welcome to week 3 of my recommendation, if you would like to be featured on a future list, I follow the hashtag #ktkvcbreadinglist, message me, tag me in your future works, or reblog this post and link to your story, one-shot, Masterlist, writing challenge, etc.

Be aware some if not most stories and writers on this list are meant to be consumed by an audience of those 18+. My blog is also an 18+ blog.

«Last Week

Week 4»

My Masterlist

Andy Barber

One-Shot’s

Imagine by @worksby-d • Andy Barber x Reader – Reader takes their chances teasing and tempting Andy, but he can only take so much. | Really good smut.

Good little girl by @donutloverxo • Mob!Andy Barber x Reader — Married life isn’t always easy. Will you be able to solve your problems? (Part 1) | Let me just say the first part sort of darkish but not really? Also I can’t help but read Mob!Andy anything.

Ransom Drysdale

One-Shots

Introducing Chaos by @the-iceni-bitch • Ransom Drysdale x fem!Reader — Ransom brings you to your first Thrombey family dinner, and you make a splash | I laughed so much while reading this and the smut was so good. It’s a really good read.

Drabbles

Playing Games by @just-one-ordinary-fangirl • Ransom Drysdale x Reader — Ransom, the man you loved, did the unforgivable. You confront him about it. | This left me wanting more so badly.

Chris Evans

One-Shot’s

Tonight’s Show by @theblvckvenus • Chris Evans x Fem!Reader — You come home to surprise Chris and his interviewer. But the excitement gets him the better of him and as soon as its over you’re in big trouble. | Came for the show definitely stayed for the smut ;)

Drabbles

Stranger on the Train by @carpediemm-18 • Chris Evans x Female!Reader — Chris comes to the aide of the reader on a late night subway ride. | Sweet and Short

Steve Rogers

Amorosa by @honeysucklesteve • Sugar Daddy!Steve x SugarBaby!Reader — you were drowning, barely surviving in new york city working at an upscale restaurant; the only thing keeping you barely afloat. when steve rogers, vp of stark industries, overhears your troubles, he proposes an agreement that’ll benefit the both of you. should you take it and suffer the consequences is up to you. | I have a huge weakness for Sugar Daddy fics, don’t ask me why but I do. This does not disappoint and it’s got some really good smut in it. Thank you Eleanor!

Bucky Barnes

The Winter Ghost by @msmarvelwrites • Bucky Barnes x Reader — A Devastating car crash causes you to lose your memory and start over. The only thing left in the wreckage was the horrific nightmares which plagued your mind. If you knew what today would entail you would have just stayed in bed. But you didn’t and because of that, everything you knew was about to change. | Get yourself some tissues because you will cry. Brontë wrote the smut moments perfectly that it flowed with the the rest of the chapters so perfectly. Nothing felt rushed, the story was just so perfect.

Picking Up the Pieces [1/3] by @gogolucky13 • Bucky Barnes x Reader — Bucky chooses to stay in his tumultuous relationship knowing you’ll be there to pick up the pieces, until finally you’re not. [Modern AU] | For anyone who has ever felt like they were the second best, this is for you. I teared up while reading. Looking forward to see where this goes.

A Favor [1/?] by @buckysbabygorl • Bucky Barnes x Reader — After breaking up with her boyfriend; Y/N drunkenly admits to the team that she’s never had sex. Not only is she single, but she’s looking. | If you are looking for a laugh, this is the place to go, I’m excited to see where this goes.

One-Shot’s

Teacher’s Pet by @nastybuckybarnes [Dark Fic] • AlphaProfessor!Bucky x Omega!Reader x AlphaProfessor!Steve — The perfect omega doesn’t exist, right? Well, Steve and Bucky think they might’ve just found her in the form of one of their students. And they’re not gonna stop until they have her begging beneath them. | Okay this is such a good A/B/O one-shot. Like it’s got the little bit stuff you need instead of just jumping straight into the good stuff. Which isn’t bad, but sometimes a little bit of a burn, is so good. I highly recommend.

The Thought That Counts by @imerdwarf • Bucky Barnes x Reader — Reader offers to brush Bucky’s hair | All the fluffy fluffy-ness you could want or need.

On His Shoulder by @whateveriwant • Bucky Barnes x Reader — Five separate occasions in which Bucky tells you to put something on his shoulder. | A one-shot that made me wish I was somebodies Jack to somebodies ass. In all honesty Sam does a magnificent job giving reader a nickname and making this one-shot so unbelievably good. You got some laughs, some fluffs, and some smut.

Till The End Of The Line by @chanelsebbie • Bucky Barnes x Reader — You and Bucky go on a mission together to hopefully put a dent in H.Y.D.R.A., but things don’t go as planned. | Shaye how dare you, I cried, this is just so beautifully written and I just want more. Like I was waiting to see more and have him come back. I couldn’t make a link for this one-shot don’t know why, so here you all go.

Drabbles

Boob Move by @nano--raptor • Bucky Barnes x Reader — Y/N falls asleep with her boob hanging out on Bucky’s couch | I’ve never read something so funny yet hot all at once.

Drops of Jupiter by @imerdwarf • Bucky Barnes x Reader – Bucky has a nightmare and you find him on the rooftop looking up at the stars. | All The Fluff!

Lee Bodecker

One Shots

505 by @captain-barnes-writes • Dark!Lee Bodecker x Reader — On her summer break from college, Y/N embarks on an affair with Lee Bodecker. But she realizes that not all that drips from his lips is honey. | If you are looking for some dark Lee Bodecker, but I mean it’s Lee.. with some of angst thrown in and some smut, this one-shot is for you!

Misc.

Drabbles

I See You by @sevans-is-my-weakness • Colin Shea x TJ Hammond x F!Reader — TJ Hammond is your roommate and Colin Shea is your guys neighbor. | Short read that I enjoyed but I suggest also reading through this masterlist, there’s so much I want to share!

Writers

@bbonkyy - is one of my all time favorite writers but I could be bias as we are friends. I know they haven’t published in a really long time but they still deserve some recognition. They do take request, trust me they write some amazing smut! *chefs kiss*

@nsfwsebbie - Please please please do yourself a favor and check out Sabrina’s concepts masterlist, dark fics, and masterlist, I’m slowly making my way through them. Sabrina has got some writing talent in them and I love reading what they put out!

@mypoisonedvine - Looking for an eclectic collection of characters and different choices to choose from? j.d. has you covered with their stories. I love their writing, the dark, the fluffy and smut.

Writing Challenges:

Mostly a Milestone Writing Challenge hosted by @mostly-marvel-musings | What you need to know: You can write for celebrities but they have to be from the MCU or you can write for MCU characters. You do not have to reserve a spot in this challenge. OFC’s, any pairing, AU is welcome. The due date as of right now is the end of 2021 and the theme is... Romance Movies

Shout Out To My...

@redhead-wine-and-literature-club — Mods Scarlett and Ruby say they read and write fanfiction usually with a glass a wine to go with it. They are pairing characters (Steve and Bucky) Sebastian and Chris have played with wines. In February they’ll have daily prompt challenges. You can check out the club's welcome post here!

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survivor-ingary · 3 years

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Episode 2 - "I DON'T WANT THE MYSTERY MOUSE-CA-TOOL BESTIE" - Ellie

At the tribal, Ping was voted out of the Pendragon Tribe nearly unamimously. Tribal immunity for this round is Pictionary.

I bet all these bitches know i voted for Keith and now they are going to come kill me in my sleep if i die i blame dylan

yass round 2 i either think im in the best position on this tribe or theyre all secretly coming for me thats all

Tribal went as well as I expected it to go. No major drama. It seems like Keith is in real trouble if we do go to tribal again though which would put me in a very tricky spot. For now, though, I will be trying my best in the upcoming challenge. The problem is, however, timezones and schedules. Jon is going to be our drawer, but he can only do it tonight or in the early afternoon tomorrow which I will not be there for. Additionally, Keith is asleep so we have no idea what his schedule is going to be so we basically had to schedule the challenge without him. And Nya could only do right before the deadline tomorrow which Jon cannot do. I hate this for us, truly. I just hope that Moth and I can rub our brain cells together for this one so that we can pull out a win. OR somehow the other tribes fail horribly. On the bright side, I am finally starting to catch up on Duolingo exercises. They're a lot easier than I thought, but it is still going to be tedious af to save up enough coins for some of the higher end products at the shop. As a final note, I am going to work with Nya in the long term as we promised each other to. Hopefully that actually works out. Time to actually be loyal and be a hero this time around. Need to try something different.

If we lose this challenge, I will be very upset. We went so hard on this challenge!!! I believe that we can at least get second place, but I don't know how crazy the other tribes are. So, let's see what goes on

Ayyyyy soooooooo looks like the four, Colin, me, Ava, and Brayden are officially in an alliance!? I’m really hyped to be working with everybody and already have sights on who should go if we have to go to tribal 👀 but like I’m gonna feel so bad if we go to tribal and I orchestrate a whole plan to take someone out I gotta do it when I’m not in my feels and the planets aren’t fucking with my emotions too heavy. But go alliance ! This means I’ll be able to stay safe until hopefully a merge and hopefully we can avoid a tribe swap till then which I get those vibe from it !! But I’ll be here to survive two more tribals just in case which is pretty rad. Other then that hopefully me offering to draw doesn’t end us up in the bottom and we can keep killing ! But anyways that is it as off know hopefully I have a lot more coins tomorrow morning and I get hit the hat shop bright and motherfucking early.

Just got asked to be apart of an alliance <33333 the besties in the group trust me which maybe ain't the right move but for now we gotta love the bonding. exciting!!!

YAY FOR ROUND 2! Okay, so I meet once again with the Hat Shop and... third times the charm! Except,,, the charm is getting nothing AGAIN lmao I'm not complaining though, still got that extra vote :P I stayed up at 1 AM for this challenge, and I honestly think our team popped off. Anastasia was guessing a ton, and Riley was amazing at drawing real quick! I have a relatively good feeling about our performance, so I hope I wake up to the news of our tribe being immune :D

so yesterday I set myself on a mission to get an alliance. I wanted Ava + Brayden + Toph + me as a majority alliance. it was our day off from tribal so I thought it was the perfect day to do it!! I talked to Brayden about it first because he's the person I feel the most comfortable with, and then after a lot of coordination and careful communication I was able to pull it together!! I think the most important thing when making alliances is making everyone feel like they're a big part in it. So I was careful to ask each person how they feel about the others, about the game, and made a point to say that I wanted to work with them specifically. Some may call that a little manipulative, but I wanna make sure that I'm an essential part of the alliance!! i need everyone to feel like they need/want me there.

all of this happening so soon into the game is a testament to how aggressive I'm playing this time around. I usually like to lay low and just rely solely on my social game in the start, but I'm trying this out to establish myself early on! I wanted to play the tribe leader and I think I'm doing that in a smart and subtle way!!

so yes now we have a 4 person majority alliance named "duolingo owl hate club" because fuck that guy. I think we're the 4 most active and present people on the tribe so it's only natural for us to work together, but I think it's definitely worth noting that I was the one that was pulling the strings here.

We just did the pictionary challenge, I have a good feeling about it!! Toph was an amazing artist, and if we win, all credit rightfully goes to him!! I think the guessers also did great of course, but like come on, the artist has to be the mvp. I'm really hoping we pull through!! I don't mind going to tribal, but I genuinely don't wanna vote anyone out yet. I'm fine just playing the game in a precautionary way. I know I'm in a great position if we do go to tribal, but it's always preferred that we don't go.

Everyone else on my tribe: doing the challenge and kicking ass

Me: I’m sleep

Riley (Tumblr has once again chosen violence so only the first 10 get banners 🥲)

I think our challenge went pretty well! My team were good guessers. Feeling like I've established some Integrity now. Hope it keeps me safe later!

Toph Soooooo we finished the challenge with 32 points and like wig !! I was a quick as drawer for 32pts expect when my internet lagged, but still ! I think we whooped some ass and if we do go to tribal I know it won’t be me going, thanks to Duolingo owl hate club but I’m also worried same could have and advantage because they seem pretty kean on learning a lot in like 3 hours and then tried to cover that statement to not seem so threatening but like babs s a huge threat too apparently they love Duolingo and know 5 laugnes ? This is from brayden but If so go babs ! That’s absolutely iconic for real Life but fucking scary in this game ! I gotta be buddy buddy with them so hopefully if they do have something it won’t be them going home first and it will be Ava. But I’m thinking we might get second place again unless someone is a fucking wizard at this.

Dennis hmm i think we did well enough in the challenge to not see tribal tomorrow but who knows i guess we shall find out tn

the way ellie was so on top of stuff yesterday only to oversleep the challenge makes me giggle maybe shes freaking out about it which makes me also giggle but i dont think its really a big deal

anastasia asked me to call yesterday and i was like sure lets talk but it is damn near impossible to hold a conversation with her idk i tried BUT she did tell me “yeah i just got off a call with ellie” im like i see. she says shes down to work with ellie but that quickly switched from ellie being ~experienced~ but good to know ellie is also playing hard. anastasia also mentioned that she talks to riley a fair amount who i still have yet to connect to well. but dat makes me think ellie is def talking to riley too miss debate team is definitely a talker. but good on her for the social game i guess

kenneth keeps being like haha we’re the same person and im like yeah👁 i bet we are👁

i just wanna win and not think about tribal just keep it slow and chill for now keep learnin my welsh i guess

Ava Second challenge was Pictionary and I had a ton of fun playing. The tea is: toph did a great job. He was pretty vocal about not being a great artist but really I think he did great. However, Babs was super inactive yesterday and ~too late~ said they were a great artist and should've been picked to draw. It was kind of like.... k babs thanks for the belated "help". They did do great guessing which scored a point in my book. Brayden was supposed to play but last minute logged off without saying anything so we did the challenge without him :/ sorta a bummer. Anyway the lack of participation from Sam is kind of popping off so we'll see where that leads them... Overall a fun game and fingers crossed we did well!

Moth I think we did okay at the challenge. Today I am dying from the heatwave so I’m not thinking too straight! Stay cool everyone

Ellie So yesterday Anastasia and I called for about an hour!!! I’d say we’re definitely way closer, she’s someone I really wanna work with although the idea of her and Brayden eventually being on the same tribe is kinda scary cause I know how close they are. Still she’s so fun to talk to and I just love her energy so much!

Pictionary challenge results: Jenkins Tribe wins with Penadragon second, Hatter Tribe has to go to tribal council on the following day.

Ava Well well well seems our bob ross, toph, didn't pull through (y'all think babs would've pulled it out for us or slept through our challenge like they said they almost did?) I can't wait for tribal. I'm in it for the drama. I'm hashtag voting Sam off - didn't even bother to be apart of our challenge and not too sure they've even been online for a full 24 hours. Weed out the weak.....

Anastasia

youtube

Brayden https://imgur.com/n60Lz0c

guys i dont know what to do someone help me out

Dennis i hope damn brayden gets the boot

Raffy Woo! We don't have to go to tribal again! We stan!

Ellie So I figured I’d go idol hunting today cause the shop was about to close and I just wanted to see what had been bought and what possible hats there were, I see that there’s a hat I have enough for that hasn’t been bought and I decide fuck it let’s get it

APPARENTLY ITS SOMETHING THAT IM NOT ALLOWED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS OR HOW TO USE IT YET???? THEY SAID ILL FIND OUT ABOUT IT LATER

I DONT WANT THE MYSTERY MOUSE-CA-TOOL BESTIE

Sam Well you see. I like all my tribe people. And I think we did real good on that music video! So, I think rather than voting anyone else off, I think I should just vote myself off if that is possible! Ahhh

Babs So sad to see Sam not only go but go through what they're going through :( same w Toph :( they all seem so lovely

Keith Not sure if i submitted a confession after the last tribal. But if I didnt here it is.

Happy I made it out of that tribal. I had raffy backing me with whom I played. Last time we played. We were at odds. We didnt work together but whats worse that we were against each other. It was either him or me goin out. Hopefully thats the past n we can work together. I jus need to keep things calm n show that Im not here itching to make big moves. So they dont feel threatened by me. N its easy cause right now. I havnt made that kind og bond with anyone on my tribe. To even think of such moves. Lets see what round two holds for me.

Colin so uh

we lost! :(

I was really bummed tbh. Like I thought we did well but circumstances with the challenge were just really unfortunate, from conflict about who wanted to be the artist to people disappearing the moment the challenge started, I think we did well despite all of that. Except we did kinda get stomped anyway. Oh well!! The game moves on. Tribal has to happen.

Initially I was gonna push for Babs, just because I feel like I don't wanna attach myself to them too early on. I've seen how much of a bitter player they can be, and lets just say I'm not the most loyal ally to have. however! 9 minutes after we lost, Ava announces to our alliance that she's voting Sam. I wasn't surprised, Sam has been the one not really pulling their weight. But I had some good connections with her!! we both did colorguard and shes so sweet and easy to talk to. I was really conflicted for a little bit, debating on whether or not to actually push for Babs. I think brayden sensed my hesitance but we both knew there was nothing really I could do to stop Sam from being the vote. At first tribal, the initial name always spreads like wildfire.

However, my mess was stopped abruptly by Sam asking to be voted out. welp!! okay then!! babs stays i guess!! i'm not too bothered. I'll never turn down an easy vote hehe.

Pretty sure there's a swap tonight. I'm kinda scared of that

uwu

Brayden

youtube

i almost forgot to upload this but dont worry i just remembered

Colin screams

Toph So we’re going to tribal in 20 and all I have to say right now is if there is a tribe swap after I’m gonna so scared but I ducking called I had a vibe and it was right that’s what is gonna win me this game trusting my intuition. I’m holding on now and gonna be the biggest comp beast next challenge in case I get fucked on this swap !!!! Or at least if it is a swap 🤔

Riley I don't know what this announcement's gonna be I'm worriedddd... Ginny said it probably means we're swapping teams but I don't wannaaaa I like our team.

Toph Sam self sacrificing made this the easiest vote ever and me being safe is a plus I guess 😎

#episodes

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years

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The Weekend Warrior Home Edition June 12, 2020 – THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND, DA 5 BLOODS, ARTEMIS FOWL, YOU DON’T NOMI and more!

Sorry about the delay in this week’s column. Some stuff came up that was out of my control… like the actual summer.

If this were a normal weekend, I’d be writing about the box office prospects about a few movies, including Judd Apatow’s new comedy THE KING OF STATEN ISLAND (Universal), which teams him with “Saturday Night Live’s” enfant terrible, Pete Davidson. Instead, I’m once again writing about movies mostly not playing in theaters except for a few sporadic drive-ins across the country.

I already reviewed The King of Staten Island earlier this week – you can read that here – and though I know it will be playing in some regional drive-ins, I have no idea how many nor do I think Universal will report any box office if it does make decent bank. I think there will be general interest among younger people who like Pete Davidson on SNL but I’m not sure anyone over a certain age, say 30 or 40, will have much interest in what Davidson and Apatow can do together. The general gist of the movie is that Davidson plays Scott, a Staten Island slacker whose widowed mother (Marisa Tomei) starts dating a fireman, much to the chagrin of Scott, who lost his fireman father at an early age. You can read my review to see what I think, but it’s relatively tame for Apatow compared to his earlier films. I’m not sure that makes it necessarily better but people seem to be digging it.

One of my favorite movies from last year’s Tribeca and what is essentially this week’s “Featured Film” is Jeffrey McHale’s YOU DON’T NOMI (RLJE Films), which takes an in-depth look at Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 movie Showgirls, thought to be one of the worst movies and biggest bombs in its day but also a movie that has grown a built-in cult audience that adores it. It’s a pretty straight-ahead doc that relies on a number of experts to discuss the problems and virtues of Verhoeven’s film, including David Schmader, who did the DVD commentary for Showgirls, and author Adam Nayman, who is responsible for the book, “It Doesn’t Suck: Showgirls.” While I never fell into either the love it or hate it camp for Showgirls, I love how McHale’s doc acts as a thesis piece to explain exactly why so many critics took issue with Verhoeven’s much-maligned follow-up to hits Basic Instinct and Total Recall.

I won’t spoil the movie’s climax showing Showgirls finally achieving redemption, but it’s a pretty amazing event from 2015 that shows that maybe Showgirls has gotten past the hatred and ridicule that followed it around for decades. If nothing else, You Don’t Nomi will make you want to rent and watch (or rewatch) Showgirls almost immediately after seeing it. You might even agree with this film that it’s a misunderstood masterpiece on second viewing.

I’ve also decided to scrap the sections in this column, since two of the other big movie releases this week are going straight to streaming services, although both would probably have gotten some sort of theatrical release if not for COVID.

One of the other major releases of the weekend is Netflix’s streaming of Spike Lee’s DA FIVE BLOODS, his look at the Vietnam War through the eyes of four black Army vets who return to the country to retrieve the body of their fallen comrade… as well as a cache of gold bullion they found and hid during their previous tour.

I’ll be the first to admit that the quality of Spike Lee’s filmmaking over the past couple of decades has been somewhat spotty at best, although BlacckKKlansman was probably one of his better films over the past couple decades. Da Five Bloods reunites Lee with his BlackkKlansman co-writer, Kevin Willmot, and though it’s a fictitious tale, there are a few themes and elements in common.

Delroy Lindo and Lee regular Isiah Whitlock Jr. star as two of the Bloods, Paul and Melvin (along with Clarke Peters’ Otis and Norm Lewis’ Eddie). We meet them as they’re reunited in Vietnam, soon joined by Paul’s son David (Jonathan Majors) along to keep an eye on his father’s health. Chadwick Boseman plays the group’s leader, “Stormin’ Norman,” in the flashback sequence to the war era showing what happened to the Bloods on the fateful day their chopper went down behind enemy lines. There are a few satellite characters, played by Mélanie Thierry and Paul Walter Hauser (making a return from BlackKklansman), as well as Jean Reno, Jasper Pääkkönen and Johnny Trí Nguyễn, who all become involved in the Bloods’ search for gold

When you think of Vietnam War movies, it’s impossible not to think of Apocalypse Now, and Lee throws in a few obvious nods, whether it’s using “Flight of the Valkyrie” or the Chamber Brothers’ “Time Has Come to Day” but in general, the musical choices are solid. I wouldn’t say that the screenplay is particularly enlightening, the story being far more simple than

Just when you have settled into what you think is a fairly laid-back pace, Lee throws a “Holy shit!” moment at you that completely changes the complexion of what you’ve been watching, and that’s when the movie starts breaking into a few more action setpieces, some better than others.

Honestly, it’s a little strange seeing all these old black guys running around and shooting guns without Samuel Jackson being among them. Make no mistake that this is first and foremost Delroy Lindo’s film, as he gives a strong if not somewhat erratic performance, and he’s the crux of the story, but Whitlock and the other actors have some nice moments, as well. The bonding between the four guys is pervasive, to the point where it almost feels like the other characters are interfering, maybe because they are.

It’s a great time to release Da 5 Bloods, due to what is going on in this country, and like with BlackKklansman, Lee throws in a few shots at Trump, the guys referring to him as “President Fake Bone Spurs.” At least in this case, it’s incorporated into the story, but I hope Lee realizes that these Trump references will ensure these movies will feel dated if watched ten or twelve years from now.

That all said, Da 5 Bloods is a decent Spike Lee Joint, maybe not quite on par with BlackkKlansman but better than his last attempt at a war movie, 2008’s Miracle at St. Anna.

Rating: 7/10

As expected by quite a few people earlier during this pandemic, Walt Disney Pictures decided to send the Kenneth Branagh-directed ARTEMIS FOWL movie directly to their Disney+ streaming service, despite the movie having been in various stages of development for a decade or more. Unlike Da 5 Bloods and The King of New York, this movie based on Eoin Colfer’s book series, is far more streamlined with a kid-friendly running time of 95 minutes. Phew!

It centers around 12-year-old super-genius Artemis Fowl (Ferdia Shaw) whose father (also named Artemis Fowl and played by Colin Farrell) goes missing, forcing the young “Artie” to look for a powerful mystical device called the Aculos. Joining him on this quest are his non-butler Domovoi (Nonzo Anonsie), Dom’s daughter Juliet (Tamara Smart), an elven police officer named Holly Short (Lara McDonnell) and an oversized dwarf played by a bearded Josh Gad. Oh, yeah, and in this world, fairies, trolls and dwarves are real, but most humans don’t know about their existence due to their secrecy as well as having a way to erase humans’ memories ala Men in Black.

I’m quite sure the latter will be a qualifying benchmark for those who review the movie without having read any of Colfer’s fantasy series – like myself -- but it takes similar ideas as David Ayer’s Bright and the Amazon series Carnival Row and transforms them into something that attempts to be in the vein of Harry Potter or Fantastic Beasts but maybe comes across more like Percy Jackson. The irony is that Chris Columbus directed the initial chapters of both Potter and Jackson, but Artemis Fowl benefits from having Branagh at the helm.

I will freely admit that I’m very much a bonafide Branagh stan, and much of that is due to the way he’s handled bringing fantasy worlds to life in movies like Thor and Cinderella. Artemis Fowl is right up his alley, and he does an exemplary job even if most of his cast other than Gad… oh, yeah, and Dame Judi Dench, who plays the head of the “fairy police” – are fairly inexperienced. You can kind of tell that’s the case with first-timer Shaw, and his inexperience might be one of the tougher things for which older viewers might have to contend. Younger viewers won’t take issue with any of the problems that might throw off those expecting more from Artemis Fowl, because the storytelling is kept at a fairly brisk pace with a few decent action setpieces.

Artemis Fowl could have been released theatrically and been one of the summer’s sadly forgotten films. It finds a fun way of setting up the characters and ideas – presumably most of them taken directly from Colfer’s book – plus it sets up the possibility for even more fun family-friendly fantasy storytelling.

Rating: 7.5/10

There are a few other movies below I was hoping to get to, but see my note at the top of this column about why it was delayed by a day. If I get to any of the ones below, I’ll update and mention on social media.

One of the movies delayed from March but now getting a digital release is Carl Hunter’s drama SOMETIMES ALWAYS NEVER (Blue Fox Entertainment) -- not to be confused with Never Rarely Sometimes Always with the two movies at one point in danger of coming out on the same weekend! It stars Bill Nighy as tailor Alan, who has been searching for years for his missing son Michael, who stormed out after a Scrabble Game. When a body turns up, Alan must try to work things out with his younger son Peter, played by Sam Riley, and an online player they think could be Michael.

Jonas Alexander Arnby’s Danish film EXIT PLAN (Screen Media) stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from Game of Thrones playing insurance claims investigator Max, who follows the clues of a death to the remote Hotel Aurora, a facility that specializes in assisted suicide, uncovering some disturbing revelations in the bargain.

Joshua Caldwell’s INFAMOUS (Vertical Entertainment), which will be available via VOD and in select Virtual Cinemas, stars Bella Thorne as Arielle, a down-on-her-luck dreamer seeking popularity who runs into Jake Manley’s Dean, an ex-con working for his abusive father who dies in an accident sending the two of them on the run.

The dance drama, Aviva (Outsider Pictures/Strand Releasing), directed by Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans, Max), was supposed to premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in March, but it will instead get its premiere through Virtual Cinema this Friday. It’s a love story that explores gender dynamics with dance sequences choreographed by Bobbi Jene Smith of the Batsheva Dance Company. Aviva is a young Parisian who gets into an online romance with a New Yorker named Eden, eventually meeting and getting married with the story told by four different dancers/actors simultaneously.

I haven’t had a chance to watch Flavio Alves’ The Garden Left Behind, starring Michael Madsen and Ed Asner, but it was a winner of the Audience Award at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival, so I’m definitely interested in learning more about its story of a young trans woman from Mexico who lives with her grandmother as undocumented immigrants in New York City.

Released in a union between Shudder and RLJE Films, The Dead Lands (Shudder/RLJE Films) hit Digital HD yesterday. The supernatural fantasy set in New Zealand is co-directed by Peter Meteherangi Tikao Burger and Michael Hurst, and it stars Te Kohe Tuhaka as Waka, a murdered Maori warrior who has returned from the Afterlife who goes on a quest with with a young woman named Mehe (Darneen Christian) to discover who broke the world. Not quite sure why didn’t get to this one, as I’m usually interested in New Zealand-based films as well as supernatural fantasy.

Daniel (For the Bible Tells Me So) Karslake’s new doc For They Know Not What They Do (First Run Features), which will hit virtual cinemas this Friday, which looks at the intersection between religion, sexual orientation and gender identity in America through a number of families of faith learning to accept their LGBTQ children. It has pretty much run the festival circuit through most of last year, winning a number of audience awards.

Coming to the Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema this Friday is Bill Duke’s 1985 directorial debut The Killing Floor and Alastair Sim’s 1954 schoolgirl romp, The Belles of St. Trinian’s. Uptown at Film at Lincoln Center, besides the Human Rights Watch Film Festival (see below), they’ll be debuting Hong Sangsoo’s 2014 film Hill of Freedom (Grasshopper Films) in their already quite robust Virtual Cinema.

A few other films I wasn’t able to get to this week, include Return to Hardwick (Gravitas Ventures) and The Departure (October Coast), so I guess I did better than last week?

A few film festivals taking place mostly virtually this week include the annual New York edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, running from June 11 through 20, and the Fine Arts Film Festival in Venice, California (June 8 to 14). The latter is offering 92 films from 27 countries with different packages including the entire festival for $20 or individual series for $10. Also, the Oxford Film Festival continues its virtual festival with two music docs, Dillon Hayes’ short All I Have to Offer You is Me about country-Western singer Larry Callies, as he tries to get his voice back after a degenerative disorder, and Dennis Cahlo’s feature In Flowers Through Space, in which the filmmaker tries to use the Fibonacci Sequence to try to create a unique music album. You can also check out Ben & Bo Powell’s Mississippi doc Nothin’ No Better about Rosedale, Mississippi, and more short blocks, all available on Oxford’s Virtual Site.

Also, the June episode of Hulu’s horror series “Into the Dark” is Good Boy, a movie directed by Tyler MacIntyre, starring Judy Greer, Steve Guttenberg and Ellen Wong (from Scott Pilgrim!) that has Greer adopting an emotional support dog that kills anyone who causes her anxiety. Just in time for Pet Appreciation Week! Yeah, I’m gonna have to see this one.

Next week, more movies (mostly) not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honestly, I do!

#TheWeekendWarrior #ArtemisFowl #DaFiveBloods #SpikeLee #Movies #Reviews #YouDontNomi #Streaming #thekingofstatenisland

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kcaruth · 4 years

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Movie Mania: Top 10 of 2019

Another year of movies, another year a Star Wars film sadly did not make the cut for my list. With 2019′s The Rise of Skywalker, it is absolutely clear that the folks at Disney/Lucasfilm had no roadmap for this sequel trilogy whatsoever, which is an utter shame given their abundance of resources and proven ability to produce quality content as seen with the success of The Mandalorian.

In a rare occurrence, I saw most of the films nominated in the major categories for the Academy Awards. In fact, the Academy nominated seven out of my top 10 films for at least one award. I would say that 2019 was a markedly stronger year for film than 2018, so I have allowed myself a couple of extra honorable mention slots. One quick housekeeping note before I unveil my 2019 list: I’m retroactively moving Game Night and A Quiet Place ahead of Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book on my 2018 list. Now it is time to jump into my favorite films of 2019. (No spoilers!)

Honorable Mention: Joker

Nominated for a whopping 11 Oscars (equaling The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [which swept all 11], The Godfather [Parts 1 and 2], West Side Story, and Saving Private Ryan, among others), Joker should get an award for most divisive film of the year. Directed by Todd Phillips (yes, the same guy who directed The Hangover), Joker is a psychological thriller staring Joaquin Phoenix that provides a possible origin story for Batman’s arch-nemesis. Before becoming the Joker, Phoenix’s character, Arthur Fleck, dreams of becoming a famous stand-up comedian. His gradual descent into insanity, nihilism, and violence mirrors the chaotic anarchy slowly consuming the decaying Gotham City as its citizens revolt against the wealthy and better-off.

Despite the concerns surrounding Joker that it would inspire real-world violence, the film has grossed over one billion dollars, making it the first R-rated film to do so. Phoenix disappears into his role, and Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s haunting score brilliantly conveys the inner pain and turmoil in Arthur’s mind as well as the dying light of Gotham. (Guðnadóttir made history as the first solo woman to win a Golden Globe for best original film score.) In an interview with Forbes, Guðnadóttir explained the concept of her turbulent score. “In the beginning, it’s almost just like a solo cello, but in reality, there’s a whole symphony orchestra behind the cello. It’s almost like this hidden force that he doesn’t know about and as he starts to kind of discover what he’s gone through and what’s actually happened to him, the forces become louder and more aggressive. The orchestra takes over and almost eats the cello alive.”

Although Joker is a powerful film and and makes strong statements about mental illness and poverty, its gruesome, unhinged violence can be hard to handle. Everything is shown in graphic, bloody detail, making the thought of a repeat viewing undesirable. I also could have done without a couple of choices that were made involving the Waynes, especially one scene that we have seen over and over again.

Honorable Mention: Ford v Ferrari

As someone who really does not care all that much about cars and their inner workings, this film did the one thing it needed to do for me: It made me come out exclaiming, “Yeah, cars!”

In all seriousness, James Mangold’s sharp direction smartly focuses not on the sport of racing but rather on its big personalities. Those personalities gripped me so much that I immediately started researching their lives after the film ended. The plot follows Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles as they are dispatched by Henry Ford II to dethrone the dominant Ferrari racing team with an American-made car. Along the way, they have to deal with mechanical setbacks and corporate interference to achieve their goal.

This film’s cast is outstanding. Matt Damon and Christian Bale’s deep but sometimes heated friendship as Shelby and Miles is the heart of the film. Tracy Letts as Ford II and Josh Lucas as Leo Beebe, senior executive vice president of Ford, give off the perfect amount of corporate stench to make them unlikable but not unbelievable. 14-year-old Noah Jupe comes off his great performance in 2018′s A Quiet Place to deliver another stellar outing here as Miles’ young son. However, Jon Bernthal felt a bit underused as Lee Iacocca, vice president of Ford, and Cautriona Balfe’s role as Mollie Miles, Ken’s wife, though well-acted, felt like it could have been removed entirely without much consequence to the film overall.

With a moving score and great cinematography, Ford v Ferrari unexpectedly tugged at my heartstrings, and the infectious passion Shelby, Miles, and these other characters have for cars managed to rub off on me, which might be the ultimate testimonial for this film.

Honorable Mention: 1917

1917 has been hyped as “that World War I movie with one continuous take,” but it is so much more than that. World War I was a stark clash between 20th-century technology and 19th-centry tactics. With soldiers largely trapped in trench warfare, conflicts commonly turned into battles of attrition. That does not exactly translate into exciting cinema, which explains why there are so many more films about World War II. Karl Vick acknowledges this in Time magazine, writing, “motion pictures do require a certain amount of motion, and the major accomplishment of 1917...may be that its makers figured out what the generals could not: a way to advance” (Karl Vick. Time. "Escaping the Trench". January 20, 2020. Page 38-41.)

What more can one say about Roger Deakins at this point? What he and director Sam Mendes created with the cinematography of this film is nothing short of fantastic. With its cinematic achievement of what is made to look like one continuous shot, 1917 presents most of its actors with only a small amount of screen time to make an impact, and they are more than up to the challenge. Mark Strong, Andrew Scott, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Richard Madden, and others all leave a lasting impression with their extremely short encounters with the film’s main characters, Lance Corporal Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman [Tommen!]) and Lance Corporal Schofield (George MacKay). Mendes places the bulk of the weight of the film on Chapman and MacKay’s shoulders, and they luckily carry it with natural ease. Working together with the one continuous take style, Thomas Newman’s riveting score keeps viewers on the edge of their seat and makes them feel like they are part of this life-or-death mission with the lance corporals.

If I had to list a couple of flaws with the film, I would say that one of the characters feels like he has untouchable plot armor. It almost seems like Mendes and company hope that the awe-inspiring cinematography will make viewers forgiving or even ignorant of the amount of times this character should be fatally shot or even injured, but I understand that some artistic license is necessary to convey the story they want to tell. The nature of the cinematography employed here also makes it difficult to get a grasp on distances and positioning because the shot is never really allowed to zoom out or give an aerial view since it is fixed on the lance corporals.

Unfortunately, I experienced this breathtaking film with one of my worst theater audiences of 2019. Much of the film was drowned out by the ladies sitting next to me who felt the need to constantly narrate everything that was happening on screen. “He’s going down into the trenches.” “Look! He’s jumping into the water.” Etc., etc. This is not your living room, people! If people want to talk over a film like this and provide running commentary and narration, they should wait for its home release. Your fellow audience members are not blind, and we would greatly appreciate it if you remained quiet.

#10: Spider-Man: Far From Home

After Avengers: Endgame released earlier in the year, the spotlight promptly shifted to Jon Watts’ Spider-Man: Far From Home, and he did a tremendous job with this film. Serving as both the epilogue to Endgame and the sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming, Far From Home effectively closes out phase three and sets the stage for the next era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Far From Home is the first Spider-Man film to pass the billion-dollar mark, and it is not hard to see how it managed to pull that off. The returning cast led by Tom Holland as Peter Parker/ Spider-Man retains its great chemistry, and Jake Gyllenhaal is the perfect choice to play Quentin Beck/ Mysterio, complete with a great theme from returning composer Michael Giacchino. Fans of Spider-Man have been waiting forever to see this character on the big screen, and I am happy to report the film does him justice. Watts especially knocks his character out of the park with a certain sequence about halfway through the film that I was beyond thrilled to see.

The film is set immediately after the events of Endgame and finds Peter and his high school class taking an international field trip to Europe. The writers do an amazing job explaining the ramifications of Endgame, and the way they weave plot details and character motivations together all the way back from phase one of the MCU is mind-blowing. Watts realizes that there needs to be some levity after Endgame, so this film is full of laugh-out-loud humor and charmingly awkward teen road-trip set-pieces. Oh, and did I mention it has one of the best mid-credits scenes in the entire MCU that dramatically alters the characters’ futures going forward?

#9: Toy Story 4

I have a deep personal connection to the Toy Story franchise. I grew up watching Toy Story and Toy Story 2 on repeat, and Toy Story 3 came out during my senior year of high school. Those who have seen that film know why it especially resonated with me at that age. In my opinion, Toy Story 3 ended the trilogy perfectly; there was no way another film could top its emotional ending. When I heard that Pixar was coming out with Toy Story 4, I was not going to pass up another opportunity to hang out with Woody, Buzz, and the gang, of course, (neither was anyone else, seeing as this is the highest grossing film of the franchise) but I set my expectations to a low, manageable level.

Although I was disappointed that Buzz and the rest of Andy’s old toys were not as heavily involved in the plot and did not have all that much time to interact with Woody, I was impressed overall with the new characters and was happy to see Bo Peep return. In this film, Bo breaks through her porcelain design and exhibits a character with total agency over her choices. Everything about her redesign and the way she carries herself is awesome. Keanu Reeves’ Canadian daredevil Duke Caboom steals every scene he is in, and Christina Hendricks’ Gabby Gabby gave me terrifying flashbacks to Talky Tina from the “Living Doll” episode of The Twilight Zone.

As audiences have come to expect from Pixar, the film delivers stunning animation and a signature big emotional gut punch, which it earns it by building up genuinely heartwarming moments throughout its run time that address themes such as the difficulty of change, the beauty of imperfection, the mystery of creation and the meaning of life, and the importance of serving others. As Matt Zoller Seitz writes for RogerEbert.com, “This franchise has demonstrated an impressive ability to beat the odds and reinvent itself, over a span of time long enough for two generations to grow up in. It's a toy store of ideas, with new wonders in every aisle.”

#8: Doctor Sleep

Writer-director Mike Flanagan took on the unenviable task of pleasing two different parties when Warner Bros. hired him in January 2018: fans of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining from 1980 and Stephen King and fans of his books The Shining and Doctor Sleep. Somehow, he managed to pull it off.

After visiting the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, the location used in Kubrick’s film for the exterior of the Overlook Hotel, this past summer, I decided it was finally time to watch The Shining. I can attest it is just as much a masterpiece as many people say it is. My favorite part: it is a horror movie that does not rely on jump scares. When I heard the Flanagan wanted to chop away at the horror genre’s reliance on jump scares, I was even more excited to see Doctor Sleep. Flanagan said, “When we were developing the project and when we were talking about the metered expectations audiences have about, in particular, jump scares and startles and the pacing of those, which we’re utterly uninterested in this film, I would say, ‘What’s your favorite jump scare in The Shining?’ There isn’t one. The same is true here. We used a lot of the lessons that Kubrick taught us about how to do a psychological thriller, a supernatural thriller, in a way that is more about suffocating atmosphere and tension than it ever is about the kind of traditional scares as we understand them today.”

It is well known that King really disliked Kubrick’s adaptation of his book. He disliked it so much, in fact, that he wrote and executive-produced a new version with the 1997 television miniseries. In his approach to Doctor Sleep, Flanagan first read King’s book, which was published in 2013, and then consulted closely with the author to reconcile the differences between the book and film version of The Shining. After reading Flanagan’s script, King felt like his least favorite parts of Kubrik’s film had been “redeemed.”

Set several decades after The Shining, Doctor Sleep reunites audiences with Danny Torrance, played by everyone’s favorite Jedi, Ewan McGregor. Danny continues to struggle with the childhood trauma he endured at the Overlook Hotel during the events of The Shining, turning to alcohol to numb the pain and his psychic abilities. Meanwhile, the True Knot, a cult of psychic vampires led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), is on the hunt for children with psychic abilities like Danny’s, and they are hot on the trail of young Abra Stone, played by Kyliegh Curran in her feature film debut.

With the benefit of having just seen The Shining a couple of months before this film, I was able to appreciate Flanagan’s careful attention to detail. He is clearly a fan of both King and Kubrick, but he does not let his admiration for them impede his own creative vision. He expertly balances original content with just the right amount of fan service and callbacks to The Shining. Even without jump scares, the film has plenty of horrifying moments, especially one involving young actor Jacob Tremblay that echoed in my mind long after the film had ended. Ewan McGregor is fabulous, as always, convincingly portraying Dan’s fight with his inner demons, and Rebecca Ferguson looks like she is having a devilishly good time as Rose the Hat. Above all, I was surprised to learn that this was Kyliegh Curran’s film debut. She is so comfortable on camera and has painted a bright future for herself out of the darkness of this film.

Doctor Sleep gave me all sorts of chills down my spine, induced by the eerie atmosphere of certain scenes as well as extremely well-timed tie-ins to its predecessor, that left me hungry for even more Stephen King stories.

#7: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Set in 1969 Los Angeles, Quentin Tarantino’s ninth film stays true to its name and delivers an alternate version of events that unfolded in Hollywood that year. In addition to Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski, and the Manson Family, the film tells the story of fictional characters Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. Dalton is a veteran Hollywood actor most famous for starring in a Western television series called Bounty Law who believes he is approaching the end of his career. Booth, a war veteran with a shady past, is Dalton’s best friend and longtime stunt double. Together, they attempt to navigate the final stretch of Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt work incredibly well together as Dalton and Booth, respectively, with neither star trying to outshine the other. Margot Robbie, on the other hand, does not get a lot of material to work with as Tate. (Do not tell Tarantino that.) Conversely, Julia Butters blew me away as Trudi Fraser, Dalton’s eight-year-old co-star in the pilot of a new American Western series. She more than holds her own acting side by side with DiCaprio.

Although the film moves at a slow pace, leaving me to wonder at times where this story was even going or if I was just watching a day in the life, Tarantino’s usual engaging, snappy dialogue entertains even when there is no real action happening on screen. With this being Tarantino, audiences have to accept his signature peculiarities, like close-up shots of feet, to be treated to another perfectly crafted soundtrack, complete with classic rock and roll, old-time DJ chatter, and period-accurate radio commercials. In the end, the slow pacing of Tarantino’s script actually helps enhance the heart-stopping standoff at the halfway point and the absurd payoff at the end. Clearly, this film is Tarantino’s passion project. In fact, he said it is “probably my most personal. I think of it like my memory piece... This is me. This is the year that formed me. I was six years old then. This is my world. And this is my love letter to L.A.” No wonder he publicly referred to it as Magnum Opus while he was writing it.

#6: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Written and directed by the creator himself, Vince Gilligan, El Camino serves as the epilogue to Breaking Bad, giving fans closure on certain questions and characters. Many favorites from the series return in some form or fashion (shout-out to Jesse Plemons for absolutely crushing his role here), but the focus always remains on Jesse Pinkman. Whereas Breaking Bad was Walter White’s story, El Camino puts Jesse center stage, and Aaron Paul gives one of the best performances of his career, fully tapping into his character’s desperate, damaged psyche.

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are two of my favorite television shows, and I think Gilligan is one of the best show runners in the business. He manages to incorporate the tone and atmosphere from the world of those two shows into this film seamlessly, and he rewards longtime fans with a nice amount of Easter eggs. Cinematographer Marshall Adams deserves so much praise for the jaw-dropping shots that grace the screen, especially the ones that show off the New Mexico landscape. He has an astonishing ability to make every frame look like a detailed painting. Editor Skip Macdonald should also be recognized for his work, particularly for the way his editing of Jesse searching for something in an apartment reinforces Gilligan’s non-linear revelatory style of storytelling.

El Camino does not waste any time with exposition, so someone who has not seen Breaking Bad cannot jump right into this film and understand what is going on. Then again, what rock have you been hiding under if you have not seen Breaking Bad at this point? What are you waiting for? Let this be your motivation to finally watch it, and then once you have made it through the series and El Camino, keep the good times rolling and watch Better Call Saul, which is just as good, if not maybe even a little better than, Breaking Bad.

#5: Jojo Rabbit

Only the whimsical genius of Taika Waititi could have concocted this irreverent, dark satire set against the backdrop of World War II Nazi Germany. Based on Christine Leunens’ book Caging Skies, Jojo Rabbit stars Roman Griffin Davis as the titular Johannes “Jojo” Betzler, a jingoistic 10-year-old German boy enrolled in the Hitler Youth. Jojo lives with his mother, Rosie, played by Scarlett Johansson. As far as Jojo knows, his father is fighting on the Italian Front, so he often turns to his imaginary friend, a wacky version of Adolf Hitler (Waititi), for advice and support as Germany becomes more desperate as the war starts to reach its conclusion.

Jojo Rabbit’s black comedy places viewers in plenty of predicaments in which they want to laugh, are not sure its entirely appropriate, but still end up doing so anyway. The film balances this out by keeping a good amount of heartrendingly emotional and genuinely sweet moments tucked up its sleeve. Waititi and Romanian cinematographer Mihai Mălaimare, Jr.’s visual storytelling is on a whole different level, carefully using ordinary imagery as subconscious foreshadowing, leading to one of the biggest breath-stealing shocks of the entire year that stopped my heart and rocked me to my core. Michael Giacchino seems to have been criminally overlooked by the Academy for his simultaneously jaunty and intimate score that adds yet another impressive layer to the film’s wide range of emotional beats. Living in a world fueled by hate, Davis, Johansson, and Thomasin McKenzie’s characters show how compassion and the willingness to try to come to a common understanding can change, and in some cases save, lives.

#4: Marriage Story

Writer-director Noah Baumbach paints what may be the most brutally honest picture of divorce I have ever seen on screen in Marriage Story. Before Marriage Story, I had never seen one of Baumbach’s films, but I get the sense from this film that he takes a very grounded approach to storytelling.

Marriage Story stars Adam Driver and Scarlet Johansson as Charlie and Nicole Barber. Charlie is an acclaimed theater director, and Nicole is his muse. Despite her acting skills, Charlie always receives all the praise, leaving Nicole to congratulate him from the back seat and contemplate what kind of professional movie and television acting career she possibly gave up to be with him. She also misses living in Los Angeles and being close to her family. At the center of this tenuous relationship is the couple’s young son, Henry. As things go from bad to worse in their relationship, Charlie and Nicole start down the path to divorce, initially wanting to approach everything amicably without involving lawyers, but quickly walking back on that as they begin to doubt each other’s motives and end goals, especially in regards to Henry.

Driver and Johansson both put on a masterclass of acting here, but I would have to give Driver my nod in choosing the stronger performance of the two. He is a tour de force in this film, unyielding to the unflinching camera. Alan Alda and Laura Dern keep pace with Driver and Johannson beat for beat as Bert Spitz and Nora Fanshaw, Charlie and Nicole’s lawyers. Baumbach smartly chooses not to wallow in the melodrama of the messy divorce, showing that small, flickering sparks of love still exist between Charlie and Nicole, maybe not enough to reignite the flame that brought them together in the first place, but enough to convince you that they still have a hope for some kind of happiness.

#3: Knives Out

After the Internet firestorm that was Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson did the best thing he could have possibly done—he went far, far away from any established franchises, rounded up an all-star ensemble cast, and wrote and directed his own original murder mystery film. Through some ingenious plotting, Johnson revitalizes the entire genre and turns the classic whodunit on its head, all the while delivering some timely social commentary. Complete with Daniel Craig delivering a monologue about donut holes in a southern gentleman accent, Knives Out is an absolute delight.

The events of the film center around the Thrombey family, with the main mystery beginning after patriarch and rich crime writer Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead in an apparent suicide the morning after his big 85th birthday party with his family at his mansion. An anonymous source informs private detective Benoit Blanc (Craig) of Harlan’s death and hires him to investigate.

A huge fan of classical mystery thrillers and comedies, Johnson’s love of the genre is tangible, but he never allows the narrative to become overly meta, referential, or even reverential, for that matter. I have already mentioned Craig and how much fun he looks like he is having in his role as Blanc, but Ana de Armas breaks out as Marta Cabrera, Harlan’s caretaker, and is the heart of the film. The rest of this high caliber ensemble cast has its moments, and I only felt like a couple of the characters were completely disposable, such as Jaeden Martell’s Jacob Thrombey, for example.

Johnson keeps his audience on its toes for the entire film. Just when the solution seems obvious, he throws another twist at them to throw them off the scent. It is a true shame that Knives Out received only one nomination from the Academy, but Johnson more than deserves that nomination for best original screenplay.

#2: Avengers: Endgame

It has all led up to this, the culmination of phases one through three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Admittedly, I was not the biggest fan of Avengers: Infinity War; I did not care for its overall slow pacing. Avengers: Endgame, however, is everything I wanted in this grand finale of the Infinity Saga. Whereas Infinity War felt overcrowded, Endgame brings it all back home to the original Avengers team for the majority of its surprisingly swift 182-minute run time, allowing them to essentially take a victory lap before the next phase of this cinematic universe begins. In the interest of not giving anything away, I will keep this brief, and trust me when I say that I could go on and on talking about how much I enjoyed this film. I will just end by saying that directors Anthony and Joe Russo and producer Kevin Feige certainly reward the dedication of fans who have watched all 21 films leading up to Endgame, and Robert Downey, Jr. submits one of his best performances as Tony Stark/Iron Man. #ILoveYou3000

#1: Parasite

Far and away my favorite film of 2019 was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, a South Korean dark comedy home-invasion thriller about a poor family plotting to improve their circumstances by tricking an extremely wealthy family into hiring them by posing as unrelated, highly skilled individuals.

I came into this film ignorant of its premise, and I was completely floored. This is Bong Joon-ho in total control of his craft. Parasite has a mesmeric rhythm to it that is aesthetically energized, allowing the film’s strikingly bold tonal shifts to work so well. Every act increases the ever-present nail-biting suspense, supplemented by cinematic moments of pure genius like the nearly five-minute long montage towards the end of the first hour. Every single member of the cast knocks it out of the park, and there is enough social commentary to fuel college essays for years. The twists zig when you think they are going to zag; it is a truly wild ride. To put it quite simply, Parasite is a masterpiece.

The following are a list of films I saw from 2019, in no particular order:

· Glass

· How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

· Captain Marvel

· Shazam!

· Avengers: Endgame

· Aladdin

· Booksmart

· Rocketman

· X-Men: Dark Phoenix

· Men in Black: International

· Toy Story 4

· Spider-Man: Far From Home

· Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

· Joker

· Parasite

· Jojo Rabbit

· The Lighthouse

· Doctor Sleep

· Ford v Ferrari

· Frozen II

· Knives Out

· Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

· 1917

· The Two Popes

· The Irishman

· Marriage Story

· El Camino

· Uncut Gems

· One Piece: Stampede

I somehow completely forgot I saw The Peanut Butter Falcon and absolutely adored it; I definitely recommend checking out this feel-good film.

My 2018 film list: https://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/182182411291/movie-mania-top-10-of-2018

My 2017 film list: https://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/171040800751/movie-mania-top-15-of-2017

My 2016 film list: https://kcaruth.tumblr.com/post/156340406236/movie-mania-top-15-of-2016

#movies #film #oscars #academy awards

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typingtess · 7 years

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KWIKN: NCIS: LOS ANGELES - "Old Tricks"

KWIKN: Knowing What I Know Now.

Watching the opening credits, I'd like to remind the show that (a) keeping the "San Voir" explosion should be a signature look year in and year out and (b) if there is a scene where Miguel Ferrer is easily identifiable and not just one of the team working around the table (like at the current credit’s end), please include that in the opening credits going forward. Everything you read about the actor when he passed away was how much he loved working on the show. Honor that.

The tone change in this scene from Kensi's last chat with Nate was a tip off that despite the unhappy start to the episode for poor Lt. Miller and his grandfather, this was going to be a light-hearted effort and a good palate cleanser from all the heavy storylines in the three-part "mole" wrap-up.

On a hugely vapid note, Kensi's top is great. This version of Nate as bumbling fool, however, is not.

I know from friends living in LA that they had a very wet few months but it is still odd to see water beading on a vehicle in Los Angeles after some rain and puddles on the ground.

Kensi's desk seems to have gotten, er, "busier" than before she was hurt.

"I don't want to talk about that bitch," – Linda Hunt is a treasure.

Captain Westbrook is legendary stuntman/stunt director/stunt coordinator Terry Leonard. He was the stunt performer dragged behind the truck in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and the man driving it in the scene where he was fighting with Harrison Ford. He likely did his own stunts in that wheelchair scene. If we’re digging up former characters - he’d be a keeper.

So Callen's dad kidnapped the guy killed in the "Angel of Death" season four finale of NCIS and the late Colin Hart of Everwood. Things never turned out well for his characters and it really doesn’t look good here. In the "I'm so old" feeling for tonight’s episode – "Angel of Death" aired in May of 2007. That's more than ten years ago. I remember watching it live.

Agent Thompson got some regular work this season. Maybe he and Nassir could get some regular work in season nine too. Recurring characters are good.

Do we think Agent Dechamps knows what ever happened to Agent Giordano?

Look at Deeks charming Kitty Forman.

The program did such an amazing job during Kensi's recovery of making Eric her great champion and then ruins it all by turning him into a fool whenever she was mentioned once she was back. His babbling here had a purpose but they are wildy uneven with Eric.

The part is not a fun one and not even an alive one but Martin Mull could easily play ECO's dad in something else.

"You can't chose who you love" is the feeling both women were having while Eddie dueled Deeks.

By the way - nicely done by the show. Martin Mull is 73, Debra Jo Rupp is 66. The ages are appropriate for the characters they’re playing. They’re not selling them as too young for their con or have the big age difference between the male and female characters.

So does LAPD know that bad luck Pacey spent several hours, maybe a day, in Frank Furrilo's trunk?

60 Minutes gets a mention – nice corporate synergy. I could watch Kensi and Deeks talk to Ginger and Eddie for an entire episode.

Gee, it is a shame Callen doesn't know anyone with the LAPD who could help in this personal matter.

When you scream "Federal Agent", people start shooting at you. When will Sam and the crew realize this?

The hospital set got a lot of use this year – Kensi, the Mossad agent and his daughter, Granger, Lt. Miller.

Did like the ending to Agent Dechamps's story. There is something to be said about a million dollar coin being buried with Master Sgt. Miller's son - uniting the two most valuable things in the senior Miller’s life forever.

This Nell-Eric scene was great. Fabulous callback to deploying the drone to kill the men after Callen, Sam, Deeks and a badly wounded Kensi. And Nell admitting she's not good – all very well done.

If I'm Alexandra, I may be a little creeped out with the new fam (even if she doesn’t know they’re family) just showing up. Especially if my ex is a drug dealer. That said, Callen's reaction to "do you want to stay" is heartbreaking. A family member really wanted him around and he had a flash of joy. Nice work by CO’D.

Maybe the character they're bringing back that we haven't had heard about/seen in years is really Amy Callen. I'm just going to throw out names until we find out who it is.

I like the open ended final scene with Granger. From "Henrietta" to Linda Hunt's voice over, it was perfectly in-character for both Granger and Hetty. Hearing Miguel Ferrer sing makes me sad.

They're rerunning "Black Market", which was rerun already, next Sunday. I think CBS has a big golf tournament (they do, the PGA Championship – thanks interwebs!) so there could be a delay. Good practice for the football delays coming in about six weeks.

#KWIKN #NCIS: Los Angeles #NCIS: LA #NCIS Los Angeles #ncis la

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the--blackdahlia · 7 years

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The Perfect Storm Chapter 5 (Jensen x Reader)

Title: The Perfect Storm

Summary: Jensen Ackles just wanted his ex wife to sign the divorce papers before he married Danneel. He didn't want roped back into the storm chaser life. But once a storm chaser, always a storm chaser. Based off the movie Twister (RIP Bill Paxton)

AN: The lyrics for this chapter are “Back to December” by Taylor Swift.

So this is me swallowing my pride Standing in front of you saying I'm sorry for that night And I go back to December all the time

Jensen snapped the radio off with a sigh. Danneel set in the backseat, snapping at her gum. (Y/n) set shotgun, her bag resting by her feet. Jensen drove the truck, leading the convoy of chasers. He had been in lots of awkward situations in his lifetime; locked out of his dorm by an ex with no clothes on, getting drunk with Jared at that bar and riding the mechanical bull like he was born to do it, being caught in the backseat of his car with (Y/n) by her dad. But this, this had to top it on the scale of most awkward situations that he had ever been in.

“Hey boss, come in?” Jared’s voice came across the CB. Jensen and (y/n) both reached for the mic at the same time.

“Oh, go ahead.” Jensen said. (Y/n) shrugged.

“It’s your truck though.” She told back. He shook his head.

“No, you’re their leader.” He said. She smirked and picked up the mic, talking to Jared and Felicia about where they were heading. Danneel listened in.

“Wait a minute,” Danneel said, listening to (y/n). “Battle zone? Jen, sweetheart, what are we doing?”

“We’re going again.” Jensen explained. Danneel’s eyes widened.

“Again?!” She called out. “But you almost got yourself killed the last time!” Jensen had to chuckle a little bit.

“Sweetie, I’ve been through a whole hell of a lot worse than that back there.” He said. “It’ll be okay. Close calls are in the job description.”

“But this isn’t your job anymore.” Danneel said softly to Jensen. (Y/n) glanced over at them while continuing the game plan conversation with the others in the team. She leaned over and looked at Jensen’s speedometer, signing when she saw how fast they were going.

“What?” Jensen asked. (Y/n) shrugged.

“Nothing.” She said. Jensen gritted his teeth and pressed down on the accelerator. (Y/n) smiled some, until she looked out Jensen’s window. Her smile fell. “Don’t look now, but your BFF is here.” She said. Jensen gripped the steering wheel tighter. Jensen looked out his window for a second, seeing Stephen looking back over at him. Jensen smirks and waves before holding up his middle finger. Then, he slammed on his breaks.

“What are you doing?” (Y/n) asked. Jensen looked up at the sky.

“Look at it. It’s going to shift.” Jensen explained. (Y/n) scanned the sky too.

“Are you sure?” She asked, but she knew very well that Jensen was very rarely wrong about things like this.

“Yes I’m sure. It’s a sidewinder.” Jensen explained. Danneel looked at both of them.

“Isn’t that a bad thing?” Danneel asked. (Y/n) was about to explain it to her, but Jensen decided to interrupt her before she could be rude to Danneel.

“Wasn’t there a road back there?” Jensen asked. (Y/n) nodded, a smiling pulling back on her face.

“Go!” She said. Jensen gunned it, doing a U-turn, and heading back to the other road. The rest of the crew followed them while Stephen’s set out on the same path. That’s when Danneel’s phone rang.

“Hey Sam, now’s not a good time.” She said. (Y/n) heard a man talking on the other end for a bit. “They’re not judging you on the size of your penis…well maybe for that specific scene they are but…” (Y/n) looked over at Jensen.

“Don’t ask.” HE sighed. “I don’t even know.” (Y/n) nodded and focused on the job at hand while Danneel talked to her client in the background.

****

“About four miles down, take a right.” Stephen told Tom as he sped along. “We can deploy D.O.T and be home for dinner.” He laughed. Tom nodded, but saw as the tornado took a hard turn left. Just like Jensen had said it would.

“Uh, Doctor Amell…” Tom said. Stephen looked up, his eyes widening.

“It’s shifting?! What the fuck?!” Stephen yelled out. “Grant! I thought you told me this was staying on the same course!” He shouted into his mic at one of the other guys in one of the SUV’s behind him.

“Looks like they’re going to intercept.” Tom pointed out. Stephen looked over to see Jensen and (y/n) heading straight for it.

“Damn it! Ackles!” He called out.

****

“Jim, what are we getting into?” (Y/n) asked into the mic. Jim was towards the back of the convoy. He was watching the satellites, keeping track of everything.

“Looks like a F2, possible F3 heading south by southeast. It’s on the ground, we need to act now.” Jim explained. (Y/n) nodded. Danneel managed to get her client off the phone so she could pay more attention to what was going on.

“(Y/n), it’s a barn burner!” Jared called into the CB. Danneel raised an eyebrow. “It’s not going to hang out long!”

“We see it! We’ve got this.” (Y/n) said. Jensen took the mic then.

“We’re getting hit hard. You guys stay back until it’s over.” Jensen said. (Y/n) nodded in agreement. She saw a camera sitting on the console in the middle of the truck. She grabbed it and looked at it.

“Is this good to go?” She asked. Jensen glanced over at it.

“Sure. Knock yourself out.” HE said. (Y/n) nodded and went to take a picture of the tornado.

“Jen,” She said softly. “Rain bands.” He looked out his window to see the rain was horizontal from the wind and power of the tornado. Jensen drove them onto a bridge, the wind hitting them from all sides. “We’re in the core…” She whispered. Danneel looked over at Jensen, but she knew better than to say anything right then. She didn’t want to distract them.

“Look!” Jensen said, pointing out over the water where the tornado was splitting into two. “Sisters!”

“Shit.” (Y/n) mumbled. She lifted the camera and started taking pictures as Danneel’s phone rang again.

“Dean, I can’t talk to you right now.” Danneel said, eyes glued to the twin tornadoes in front of her. He was rambling on about something. “I know you’re upset but you need to breathe.” She told him, but mainly so she could see herself doing it. That’s when something flew by them, making them all stay silent, eyes opened wide, mouths hanging open.

“Cow.” (Y/n) said, not sure if she had actually seen it right.

“Uh, I gotta go Dean. We’ve got cows.” Danneel said, hanging up on the confused actor. The cow flew by again, this time accompanied by other pieces of debris.

“Another cow.” (Y/n) said. Jensen watched the cow with amazement.

“I think that’s the same cow sweetie.” He said, nobody really catching what he called (y/n). He looked at the road out ahead of them. “We have no path. We’re sitting ducks.” He told (y/n).

“We have to get out of here Jen.” (Y/n) said.

“I’m trying!” Jensen said as the rain hit them harder.

“Floor it!” (Y/n) called out.

“Hold on to something!” Jensen said as he hit the gas hard. When the truck started to spin, Jensen hit the brakes, causing it to fishtail. Danneel screamed and held onto the seats in front of her. Jensen held the steering wheel, (y/n) held the dash. Danneel squeezed her eyes closed, thinking it was the end for them. And then it stopped. (Y/n) and Jensen looked at each other when the tornadoes disappeared back into the sky.

“Oh my god!” (Y/n) said excitedly. Jensen smiled and pulled her into a bone crushing hug, a big smile on his face.

“That was incredible!” HE said, pulling back and looking into (y/n)’s eyes with a big smile on his face. Jensen then turned to look in the backseat where Danneel was climbing out. He jumped out of the truck and pulled her to him. “Oh honey, are you okay?” He asked. (Y/n) climbed out of the truck, watching the sky. She heard Jared’s music playing then as the team pulled up behind them. (Y/n) turned around and smiled at everyone.

“Did you see that?!” She yelled out. Jared ran over and hugged her.

“That was wicked!” He called out. “My god!”

“I was in the middle of it!” She said excited. Danneel was clinging to Jensen, but watched as the crew rallied around (y/n), giving her hugs and high fives. Danneel looked up at Jensen.

“It’s okay sweetie. It’s all okay.” HE said, rubbing her back. She nodded slowly.

“So, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to get out of here.” Colin said. “There’s a whole hell of a lot of tornadoes that are going to hit today…”

“We can’t just leave!” (Y/n) said. “We just saw the beginning of it.”

“And the rest of us couldn’t help but notice how close we are to Wakita.” Felicia added.

“No!” (Y/n) called out, making Jensen and Danneel looking over.

“I don’t think Aunt Meg would mind if we stopped by and said hi. Maybe sampled some of the newest things her butcher has made up for her.” Jake said. (Y/n) shook her head.

“No!”

“But…food.” Jared said. (Y/n) shook her head.

“Food!” The crew called out. “Food!”

“We are not invading my aunt! She can’t afford to feed Jay, let alone all of us!”

“Food! Food!” The chant kept going.

“No! Absolutely not!” (Y/n) said, turning to look at Jensen. Jensen just gave her the same smile she gave him before she took over his truck. “No!”

Tag List: @amazingmontse @petrovadixon @soobi89 @smoothdogsgirl @policeofficerdean @castielspahdehrah

#Jensen #Jensen Ackles #jensen ackles x reader #jensen x reader #jensen x danneel #reader #reader insert #fanfiction #supernatural #the perfect storm

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jurassicparkpodcast · 5 years

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EXCLUSIVE: A Look Behind The Scenes At Masrani Global, The Dinosaur Protection Group and Much, Much More…

We’re all Jurassic Park fans – that much is undoubted. But, whether you loved or hated the newer entries in the Jurassic World series, it is undeniable that the immersive viral marketing for the films has been incredible. I know as a young and impressionable college student during the Jurassic World release campaign, I was inspired by the marketing – envisioning dreams of a grandiose marketing campaigns which pushed the boundaries and walked the line between marketing and real life.

With this personal love for immersive marketing, it is my absolute pleasure to share with you today a behind the scenes look at Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’s marketing.

Jack Ewins and Timothy Glover are responsible for the formation Chaos Theorem – a marketing agency which has handled Universal’s immersive Jurassic projects.

So – Jack, Tim, before we start why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got into Jurassic Park, and what it means to you both?

Timothy Glover: I was actually living in Rhode Island, USA as an eight year old at the time Jurassic Park came out in 1993. I had grown up reading illustrated books and playing with those late 1980’s dinosaur toys, which always looked like they were inspired by the 1933 King Kong film. When I saw the preview for this new Spielberg movie that made dinosaurs look so incredibly real I was hypnotised. The entire concept of a Jurassic Park felt very believable as a kid. As a film, Jurassic Park made you want to be a storyteller, director, musician, actor, animator, you name it - it’s the pinnacle of film-making.

Jack Ewins: I’ve been heavily drawn to Jurassic Park after seeing the first film at the cinema when I was 4 years old. At the time, I was enthralled by the adventure of the story, and the menacing presence of the dinosaurs, which still rings true today, but now I’m 30 I’m engaged by the deeper meaning that Jurassic brings to my life. To boil down to the spine of Jurassic’s story, the franchise surrounds a moral, and ethical debate about playing God, and this is something I think captures the minds of children, and adults, which sticks with them because it resonates with real debates that exist in our world. So, whilst Jurassic means a lot to me because it’s fun, and adventurous, it also means a lot to me because of its philosophical nature.

As we’ll touch on in a little bit, you guys have been on an incredible journey with the franchise. How did this all start for you both?

JE: I’ve been thinking about this ever since we got the initial email from Universal asking if we’d like to join the team. For myself it went something like this:

In 2011, my mother presented me with this box which contained all my old Jurassic items, or close to all of it, and I was surprised just how much I had accumulated over my childhood years. So, I went online to see whether anyone else had made videos showcasing their collections, and I found this plethora of fans who were proud of their stuff. So, I made my collection video detailing all the nostalgic memories I had for the items, why my Robert Muldoon was nicknamed “El Floppo”, why my Coelophysis had a missing foot, or how my Juvenile T-rex figure was missing its dino-damage. This gained millions of hits on YouTube, and caught the attention of Sam Phillips who hosted a Jurassic Park podcast called Jurassic Cast. He reached out to get me on the show to discuss my collection, and I agreed wholeheartedly, because I was a fan of Sam’s podcast, listening to it in my spare time. However, before going on the podcast, and after finishing work one night, I felt this urge to send a tweet out to the newly announced director of Jurassic Park 4, Colin Trevorrow, inviting him onto the podcast with us to discuss his attachment to the franchise. I had no idea that he would agree to this but he DID! And it was going to be his first official interview about Jurassic since he was announced as Director. Going not to some major magazine or news outlet but directly to the fans. So, after a week or so we recorded and released our interview, gaining a lot of media buzz. And this is where Tim came into the picture, by hearing about our podcast, and researching who we were he reached out to myself for help on his (yet to be completed novel). Tim?

TG: In early 2014, I befriended Jack on Twitter. I was writing a creative story about a space exploration mission and I needed an artist to push some of my ideas forward. At the same time, all this Jurassic Park 4 news was coming through full of rumours and speculation. I think in February there was a JoBlo article that hinted at the possibility of an open park run by an Indian billionaire with the surname Patel. I asked Jack if he’d be interested in making a fan-based viral website for this company showing they’d recently acquired InGen. He was totally in, which was great as I don’t think I would have had the motivation to do it alone. Everything happened quickly after that - the Patel site went up and Twitter went nuts. Colin and Universal both saw the site and how it generated so much reaction. Luckily for us they reached out! The rest is history.

Most people will be familiar with your viral work on Masrani Global – the website which was featured heavily in Jurassic World’s marketing. How did you go about constructing the website?

TG: We had a few months in 2014 to work on our ideas, content and so forth before we were flown out to LA to meet with Colin, Frank and the team at Universal to present our ideas. That trip was when we had a first look at some of the materials from the film as they’d just wrapped shooting. I think straight away I said to Jack, “Wow - this film is going to be amazing. We really need to make something that blows everyone away”. Fortunately for us Universal were fantastic and sent us an assortment of assets that we could use. From there Jack and I worked on making a website that was rich in content and fun to explore. We had to make sure someone could dive into 20 years’ worth of lost information but not do it all in 5 minutes. This included us brainstorming and writing original ideas about events that (in all likelihood) would have occurred over the twenty years since 1993’s Jurassic Park. Colin’s help and feedback was instrumental to our success. A day before we went live he told us the website was “understated, thoughtful and rich”, which was a great compliment for us.

On the website, we see a lot of World Building – grounding Masrani Global as not only a conglomerate who built Jurassic World, but a conglomerate who have ties to the security, power and fuel industries. What kind of real-world inspiration did you use to ground this fictional company?

TG: I think I recall there being a little bit of Wayne Enterprises in the mix, but we were honestly making a lot of this conglomerate up during our Skype brainstorming sessions. We were told by Colin in LA that Simon was a billionaire with interests in Oil and Telecom, so we knew first up we had to create two companies and give them some backstory. Then we looked at various other specialties a billionaire might be interested in such as engineering, aviation, healthcare and data consulting. We had a bit of fun with some of their names along the way too. Axis Boulder is an anagram for Diabolus Rex, the original name for the Indominus. Timack Construction was a play on our own names and for constructing the world of Masrani Global. Masrani Oil became Masrani Energy, which was a fun environmentally friendly rebranding campaign we launched. In hindsight, perhaps there was a little bit of Elon Musk in there too!

A fan favourite feature of the Masrani Global website is the Backdoor – providing insight into the Jurassic world beyond what we see on screen. How did you decide what to include here?

TG: The Backdoor was a really important addition we wanted to include in the viral campaign because Masrani Global as a company would only be interested in positive PR on their main website. The Backdoor was where you could look for archives and Easter Eggs that had direct connections to some of the previous films. We felt this was a platform where we could really go into some details about Henry Wu’s character in particular, so a lot of focus went on his archived logs and you can see his thought processes evolving as he picks up new discoveries since the early 1990s. We’d also come up with the acronym of I.B.R.I.S. when Colin mentioned to us that Owen’s program didn’t have a name in the film. So, we were like - “Let’s name it!”

JE: This was an idea that we jumped on because we felt that one of the major parts of the original Jurassic movie was this notion of hacking into parks systems. We hoped early on to bring that aspect to the site so fans could play the part of hackers. The site wouldn’t launch until the day of the home media release, so it was a case of better late than never. One of the must haves for this section of the site was the timeline of events. For years, we had been seeing wishes for Universal to officially release a timeline of events that would help explain things more coherently than before. So, we sat down and researched what dates would be best to highlight and what to keep hidden. We agreed to keep the events of the movies under “Restricted Access” because the fans, and audience would already know what happened and the company would want the information contained within to be harder to reach. This would also allow us the opportunity to bring stuff to the surface later down the pipeline if need be, and with the release of the reports of the DPG website we made that happen.

We also see areas which retroactively add to the story-line – such as some of the information about the Spinosaurus. What kind of approach did you take when adding to the history of the franchise?

TG: Where there were opportunities to promote Colin and Derek’s story-line we did that first and foremost. I consider the viral websites as prequels or bridges with opportunities to connect the films together in a linear method (i.e. timeline) and so that responsibility came second. The third level of writing was left to our own creativity. We had to be very careful here as we didn’t want to upset any fans by including contradictory or irrelevant information, and we also didn’t want to tread on Colin and Derek’s territory. We noticed that Jurassic Park 3 in particular had some opportunities for expanded ideas, and there were some positive elements to Jurassic Park: The Game that we could “borrow” and bring into the film canon’s world - such as Mt. Sibo and the Bribri tribe. Overall my favourite additions were creating the I.B.R.I.S. acronym and writing a prequel for Vic Hoskins’ character in connecting him to the Jurassic Park 3 Pteranodon “cleanup”. Both these pieces seemed to be well liked by the fans and have made it to official games and booklets.

JE: We took a careful approach. We never wanted to spoon feed the fans information, and that meant not revealing everything at once. We carefully decided what to dive into, and used the position of the company Masrani Global, or the organization of the DPG as vessels for information within that universe, meaning the reader would only know what they would know, or were willing to publish to help their cause. So, for example, on Masrani Global it mentions Simon personally hiring Hoskins after his working during the “cleanup” of some flying reptiles over Canada in 2001, but if you watch Jurassic World, when those characters meet, it’s their first actual encounter with one another. So, the website was painting a nicer picture to what was really happening, a corporate mask as it were. Whereas the DPG are fighting for a specific cause, and will only release what they felt would help gain traction behind their vision for saving the dinosaurs of Isla Nublar. The dialogue I have seen fans undergo, trying to dissect or understand what is happening is reflective (I think) of what people within the Jurassic universe would be talking about. So, the fans and the fictional people who have witnessed the events go down in the world of Jurassic are closer than ever.

So – Masrani Global has been one aspect of your work with the franchise, but for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom you doubled down with both the Dinosaur Protection Group and the Extinction Now! Group. What inspired these ideas?

JE: The DPG was already in motion when we were brought back for round 2. It plays a pivotal role in getting our protagonists to the island within the plot of the movie, so the ideas for that site were given a jump start here. When we visited the DPG set we got a real sense for how the site should look and feel, and how juxtaposing it was going to be when compared to Masrani Global. However, Extinction Now! came about in an entirely different way.

TG: That’s right, the DPG was already central to the plot of the film. Whilst pitching our ideas for the DPG to the team at Universal, we came up with the idea of an antithesis group, which we simply referred to as the “Anti-Dinosaur Group”. It didn’t get the green light until much later in early 2018 when Colin reached out to us wanting to promote the same kind of idea. Believing the DPG were only representing half the ethical debate, Jack and I worked with Colin to build a campaign based on some fun back and forth social media banter, and really get the debate going. Thus, Extinction Now! was born as a collective effort between us and Colin. Can’t forget mentioning Manuel’s incredible San Diego video too which really kicked things off!

So, we saw you really double down with this project – with a heavier influence on Social Media. What was it like getting to work on trends such as the Dinosaur Adoption campaign?

TG: I came up with the idea for “Adopt a Dino” very early after hearing about the DPG project, even before we were booked to visit the set of the filming. Universal loved the concept so much they ran with it separately and created a whole campaign - including badges and t-shirts. We knew it was going to be a big hit with the wider audience because we did something similar on the Masrani Global website that let people interact and “apply” for a job, which turned out to be more successful than we’d anticipated. Watching Adopt a Dino all unfold in the way it did on National Dinosaur Day was very rewarding.

For the DPG, we also see content from the set of the DPG office, with stars like Bryce Dallas Howard contributing. What was it like working alongside these people to build the fictional world of the DPG?

JE: We didn’t exactly work alongside those actors, but we did write a list of phrases for them to record for videos, or sound bites for them to say which made it into the videos. We wrote those on the DPG set, and handed them to Bryce Dallas Howard’s assistant so once the main filming on that set had been wrapped, they would use the cameras to shoot the viral videos using what we wrote. However Universal worked on the content for the videos, and sent them our way once completed so we could integrate them on the site.

Is there anything else you’d like to add about working on these epic-scale Jurassic Projects? I think to the average fan it is hard to comprehend just how much work goes into these projects!

JE: There’s months of preparation that goes on behind the scenes, including ideas, and pages of documentation that doesn’t get used. One example from the last campaign was this idea to have a simple video game appear within the Kids Section of the DPG. We worked with Manuel to design how this game would look and what it would be. Our idea was to have the player be a triceratops escaping the volcanic eruption on Nublar, trying to get to the East dock to be airlifted to safety by the DPG. However other more crucial things came up, and we decided to abandon the game. In hindsight, I think it would have been OTT, that site was already packed with plenty of goodies. On top of that there’s the aspect of where our team members operate from on Earth. Chaos Theorem works globally, so keeping up with time-zones whilst we work, other external work we might have, family life, social life, and R&R, there is never a dull day.

However – these big projects are not all the pair of you are working on! Can you tell us a little about Chaos Theorem?

TG: Chaos Theorem I think is something that’s going to be evolving over time. Right now, I like to think of it as a digital storytelling entity that is lucky to possess some talented individuals who aspire to work on BIG ideas.

What is the dream with Chaos Theorem – where would you like it to be in five years’ time?

JE: My hope is for Chaos Theorem to be working on its own productions. Bringing our own method and flavour to the world of storytelling. But with anything large scale like this it’s one step at a time. So, we’ll just have to see how it all plays out.

TG: Like Jack says - producing our own creative content. Lucasfilm and Amblin are very big inspirations for me. I’m not just talking about the obvious stories like Indiana Jones or E.T., but early short films like THX 1138 4EB and Amblin’ really set the tone for what Lucas and Spielberg were going to do for the rest of their lives.

Where can people go to learn more about Chaos Theorem, and how can they support your continued work as the company grows?

TG: We’re working behind the scenes on building a website at www.chaostheorem.com and we’ve just kicked off our Facebook page https://fb.me/chaostheoremdigital/ recently where we’re posting videos and a bit of content related to the Masrani and DPG campaigns. We’d love for the community to keep in touch and follow us.

Lastly – what would your one piece of advice be for anyone looking to get into film marketing?

TG: If we’re talking digital marketing then I’d say two things -

Grow your imagination. People will be attracted to something they haven’t seen before. If it’s already been done then try to make it better. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas because just discussing them can lead to even greater ones.

Learn the internet. Web development is important if you want to be creating a website. Not Wordpress and WIX type stuff because creators will want you to be dynamic. HTML5, CSS and JavaScript is a good way to go. Social media management is a must, and the more Adobe you learn the better. Get out there and create!

JE: Thanks guys!!!

No Jack and Tim – thank you for taking the time out your busy schedules to have a chat with me about all things marketing for the Jurassic franchise! I really appreciate it.

Make sure you check out Chaos Theorem, and stay tuned for additional interviews, features and much, much more here on The Jurassic Park Podcast.

Written by: Tom Fishenden

#article #tom fishenden #dpg #masrani terminal #masrani global #choas theorem #jack ewins #timothy glover #dinosaur protection group #backdoor terminal jurassic #jurassic world viral marketing #viral marketing

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thrashermaxey · 5 years

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20 Fantasy Hockey Thoughts

Every Sunday, we'll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week's "Daily Ramblings".

Writers: Michael Clifford, Ian Gooding, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

1. Jeff Skinner is the second player to hit the 20-goal mark this season – Patrik Laine, now with 21, being the first. The former Hurricane is loving life next to Jack Eichel, and we can only assume Eichel is having a good time as well. The two have formed a deadly top line option.

It will be very interesting to see the type of contract Skinner garners if he can keep this up. Here's hoping he doesn't price himself out of Buffalo. Eichel has been waiting for a serious mate and he's got him now. (dec1)

2. Bold statement time!

In the last 25 years, we’ve seen five players score 60 or more goals in a season.

Mario Lemieux: 69 Alex Ovechkin: 65 Jaromir Jagr: 62 Steven Stamkos: 60 Pavel Bure: 60

Patrik Laine will join that group in 2018-19. (dec1)

3. Valentin Zykov was an early second round pick of the Kings back in 2013 and has three assists in 13 NHL games this season. His goal-scoring was non-existent, despite that being his ‘specialty’. While with the Checkers last season, he led the American League with 33 goals in 63 games. He did so on a highly-unsustainable 30 percent conversion rate. But nonetheless, he had promise.

Zykov was a sexy pick for a sleeper/breakout candidate last summer. The expectation and early indications had the Russian playing on the top line with Sebastian Aho. That didn’t happen. He found himself playing under 10 minutes per night before being a healthy scratch the last three weeks.

In Edmonton, he gets a quick chance to rejuvenate his career. There’s a revolving door beside Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the top line that he’ll surely get a sniff at. It’ll be a situation to watch. If Zykov finds lighting in a bottle, he has nice upside. If not, he could quickly find himself back on the wire. (dec1)

4. I’m getting a few questions about Nikolay Goldobin and whether I think you should add him to your fantasy team. He’s owned in just seven percent of Yahoo leagues. Although the returns of Brock Boeser and Sam Gagner will decrease Goldobin’s power-play minutes, he appears to be a fixture on the top line. He and Elias Pettersson have developed a great connection both on and off the ice, so he could be worth taking a flier on depending on who else is available. He’s currently on pace for 45-50 points, although I see 40 as a safe target at this point. (nov28)

5. In case you were worried about Jonathan Huberdeau’s value because he was bumped down to the second-unit power play earlier this season, don’t be. With a goal and an assist on Saturday, Huby now has five consecutive multipoint games with 11 points (2g-9a) over that span. That puts him at over a point per game (28 points in 25 games) this season. And with Vincent Trocheck out for a while with a fractured ankle, Huberdeau is back on the Cats’ first-unit power play. (dec2)

6. Now that William Nylander is signed long term, it will be interesting to see how Leafs’ general manager Kyle Dubas manages superstar RFAs Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, not to mention whether Nylander is eventually traded.

In our 18-19 Fantasy Guide, Nylander was projected to score 60 points in 75 games. Assuming he returns right away, Nylander has only 55 games to play, which over that span would put him at 44 points. He will likely need a few games to get back up to NHL speed, so don’t expect immediate returns if you’ve been hanging onto him all this time.

Nylander’s imminent arrival, which could occur as early as Tuesday against Buffalo, could mean that Kasperi Kapanen is bumped off the Matthews line. At least we now know that Kapanen is NHL-ready (10 goals and 18 points in 27 games), but his fantasy value could take a hit with the Nylander return. (dec2)

7. Jesper Bratt, seeing some time on the Devils’ top line, has seven points in his last eight. He’s still not getting top unit power play deployment which will mute his ceiling, but he’s one to watch right now. (dec1)

8. Mikko Rantanen is on another planet right now. The 22-year-old had posted multi-point efforts in his last six games and eight of the previous nine. Gross stuff. He now leads the league with 43 points in 26 outings. I've run out of superlatives. This guy is not a product of Nate MacKinnon (although it sure doesn't hurt that they have amazing chemistry). Of course, Rantanen should be considered a locked-in top-10 keeper asset. (dec1)

9. Canes’ Curtis McElhinney's has five consecutive starts with a 0.930-plus save percentage, with victories in four of them. The 35-year-old journeyman looks like the starter in Carolina for the time being. That holds significant fantasy value.

Petr Mrazek is younger and I'm sure the team is hoping he can regain the form that earned him the label of goaltender of the future in Detroit, but until he figures out how to play even remotely close to league-average, McElhinney is the man. (dec1)

10. With Dustin Byfuglien sidelined with a concussion, Jets’ Josh Morrissey in particular has benefitted from Big Buff’s absence with ice times of 28:59 and 29:02 over his last two games and a goal on Saturday, his first in over a month. Byfuglien could return next week but for now Morrissey is a great short-term pickup. (dec2)

11. Devan Dubnyk has for the most part been a fantasy goalie that you could rely on since he was claimed by the Wild off waivers during the 2015-16 season. Goalies can be prone to struggles, though, and Dubnyk is no different. He has allowed four goals in each of his last four games. Since November 13, he has struggled mightily with a 3.56 GAA and .856 SV%. (dec2)

12. Kevan Miller took a puck to the throat last Monday night. Official word came down Wednesday morning that he had suffered torn cartilage in his larynx and will be out more than a month. He had just returned from injury, too. It’s been a tough year for Miller and the Boston defense as a whole.

13. Mikko Koskinen appears to have the faith of the very defensive-minded Ken Hitchcock. So, Cam Talbot owners are facing a dilemma of whether to drop him. Talbot hasn’t done himself any favors, allowing at least three goals in each of his last six games, which isn’t going to cut it with coach Hitch. It probably depends on your team’s circumstances, since goalie management is becoming harder and harder, but at the very least Talbot should be on your bench. (nov28)

14. If you’ve been staying up late to watch the Kings play, you’ve seen (or based on icetime, haven’t seen) the fall of Ilya Kovalchuk. If you own Kovy, unfortunately I don’t have good news to report. He was held without a point for an eleventh consecutive game last Thursday (and is now listed day-to-day with an ankle injury).

Kovalchuk is clearly not a favorite of new coach Willie Desjardins, but I’ve also heard speculation that his benching (low TOI when he was playing of late) has the blessing of Kings’ management. Otherwise, this would be by far the most ballsy move that Willie D has made as an NHL coach.

I don’t want to say “I told you so” with Kovalchuk, but I’ll reiterate something that I mentioned during the summer. Kovalchuk entered the NHL in the early ’00s as a top prospect along with the likes of Dany Heatley and Rick Nash. Heatley is no longer in the league, while Nash was just a shell of his former self last season. So, you were basically getting a 35-year-old who had aged five years since he last played in the NHL and whose peers were no longer NHL stars. I knew about the strong KHL numbers, so I wasn’t willing to write him off completely, but I was more willing to let someone else take a chance on him and didn’t draft him in any of my leagues.

15. I’m sure by now the Kings would like to trade him to a contender with considerable cap space. Good luck with that, because he’s got two more years on his contract after this one at $6.25 million per season. Yikes! But before I speculate any further on what happens to him, I will simply tell you to go ahead and shop him around, in case someone out there is willing to pay for the brand name. Someone in my last Ramblings asked if Kovalchuk could be traded away for Alex Tuch. Yes, I would make that trade in a heartbeat if you haven’t already. In fact, if there’s an option on the waiver wire that you’ve got your eye on, you could probably part ways with Kovalchuk.

16. Like his older brother Matthew, Brady Tkachuk is proving to be a quick study to the NHL game. Much has been made about Elias Pettersson’s impressive rookie season, but Tkachuk is also putting together a solid rookie campaign. Tkachuk already has nine goals in 14 games and is also scoring at over a point-per-game pace (16 points). He’s also recorded six points (3g-3a) over his last three games. He’ll most likely hit the rookie wall at some point (20 percent accuracy), but he’s got a long NHL career ahead. (nov28)

17. Lines have been in flux for the Senators all year. There have been injuries, call ups, and general under-performance defensively being the reason. The line of Tkachuk, Colin White, and Mark Stone haven’t played a lot together, but when those three have been healthy since Tkachuk’s return, they’ve been skating together and have been good.

the Sens are a favourite team to pick on. Playing DFS? Stack against Ottawa. Playing season-long? Stream players playing against Ottawa. They’re porous defensively at even strength and on the PK. That line, however, is not. So just freely picking on Ottawa isn’t really viable anymore. We need to be aware of who will be matched against that line, because they are good. (nov26)

18. With two in his last three games, goals have just started trickling in for Kevin Fiala, but if he keeps shooting like he is right now and continues to regularly earn back his ice time, they’ll come in bunches. Those in 12-team leagues or deeper should stash him on the bench if there is room and no need of the spot immediately. (nov26)

19. Cap leagues have always been about one thing: having highly-successful talent on cheap contracts. Being able to get those 60-point rookies or sophomores on entry-level contracts is nearly a necessity to win such leagues. Not only that, though, but the RFA contracts these talented players would get would usually be much lower than their open market value. It would keep a cheap player on a cap league roster for a decade.

The times, they are a-changin’. Teams are more reluctant to give out those monster deals to guys hitting free agency in their late 20s. We saw this in the MLB last offseason and it’s starting to seep into the NHL. Sure, the Caps signed John Carlson and TJ Oshie to monster contracts over the last year or so, but since the unmitigated disaster that was the 2016 free agency period (think Milan Lucic, Loui Eriksson, David Backes, and Troy Brouwer), and the troubles the Hawks and Kings are running into with their legacy contracts, teams are very weary about handing out monster deals to 28-year olds. There are still big legacy contracts handed out (the Washington guys named above and Marc-Edouard Vlasic comes to mind) but players changing teams and getting huge deals are fewer and further between.

20. The 2017 offseason saw Kevin Shattenkirk, a defenseman with five consecutive 40-point seasons in 82-game campaigns, get just a four-year deal while Alex Radulov got five years and less than $6.5-million per year. And other than the guys staying put, that was basically it.

In 2018, aside from John Tavares (a potential Hall of Famer), no one got more than five years to change teams. James van Riemsdyk got 5x$7M, David Perron got 4x$4M, James Neal (who has scored 20 goals every season since the beginning of time), got five years at less than $6M per. Four years ago, someone like van Riemsdyk would have probably gotten 7x$7M, or something close to the Oshie deal anyway.

If players aren’t going to get paid as they expect at the age of 28, they deserve to get paid more at the age of 22. Players are going to start wringing every dollar they can as soon as they can, as they should. Their time to earn for the rest of their lives is limited and they’re all one injury away from never playing again. But this is going to impact cap leagues significantly in the short-term. With a lockout looming, this will be a big sticking point for both the NHL and NHLPA, for different reasons. (nov27)

Have a good week, folks!!

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts/20-fantasy-hockey-thoughts-52/

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republicstandard · 6 years

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Racial Profiles: Alt Skull Interview

In this edition of the Racial Profiles interview series, we had a chance to catch up with the infinitely re-spawning bane of the Twitter censors’ existence, Alt-Skull. You can follow him @whitepupper.

In ten words or less, describe your political persuasion.

I’m a White Nationalist.

How did you become “red-pilled”?

I have always held overtly right-wing beliefs, but there were many gaps in my knowledge which prevented me from recognizing some vital truths that I only discovered later in my political evolution. The first vote I ever cast was for Ross Perot. I was basically the only right winger at the liberal arts college I attended, but this was back in a time when Liberals and Conservatives could still be friends with one another. I was just viewed as having weird beliefs. I don’t imagine this sort of relationship is possible any longer in the current political climate. I’d always been racially aware, and understood there were real differences in our various peoples, but it was actually Gavin McInnes whom I have to thank for finally unlocking the secrets that the Jewish media machine is so successful in hiding from view. Though now I view him as a traitorous enemy to our people, there was a time when he was actually one of us.

My brother started sending me clips of Gavin talking openly about race in the most outrageous manner. Calling blacks nig-nogs and gays faggots, basically talking the way white men talk amongst one another privately and think inwardly, but we have been too cowed by the machine to suppress our natural instincts to call things what they really are. Around this time, Gavin started his show, The Gavin McInnes Show, on Anthony Cumia’s network. It was from this show that I was introduced to Alt-Right gateway figures such as Jared Taylor, John Derbyshire, Colin Flaherty, and also Sam Hyde and Richard Spencer. It was through the interviews on Gavin’s show that I was introduced to the concept of Race Realism and its fundamental premise of racial differences in IQ, time preference, and inclination toward criminality and violence. There was a moment I can distinctly remember, in an interview with Jared Taylor, that everything just clicked, and I realized the monumental amount of lies I’d been taught my entire life about “equality” and “fairness.”

Later, after the creation of the Proud Boys and the establishment of its main Facebook page, erstwhile Alt Right figurehead and friend, Eli Mosley, answered my questions regarding the JQ. Up to that point, I’d always bought into all of the tropes we’re lied to about regarding our “greatest ally, the only democracy in the Middle East.” Led by the lies of Neo-Conservative Jews at the National Review among other such publications, I’d enthusiastically supported all of the disastrous wars in that region and thought Jews genuinely had our best interests in mind (little did I know how very much I had to learn). I enthusiastically accepted all of the other premises of the Alt-Right. I just couldn’t understand why all of these guys on the Alt-Right (who were all Proud Boys, keep this in mind) seemed to hate Jews so very much. I asked the question publicly, genuinely curious, and Eli took a lot of time out to kindly and patiently explain the JQ to me. In addition, he pointed me to Dr. Kevin MacDonald’s Culture of Critique. I was told just to read the introduction to start. Well, by the time I got through the story of Charles Lindbergh and how these Jews utterly destroyed his life for daring to oppose our entry into WWII, the final piece of the puzzle snapped into place. I was officially Alt-Right. Everything I’ve learned since then, and it has been a LOT, has only further affirmed and strengthened my belief that the Alt-Right is the ONLY political movement based upon the truth. And the good news is, we’re not going away. Indeed, we grow stronger every single day.

What figure has been the greatest influence on the development of your political beliefs?

It’s not a popular opinion in “polite society,” but I must say I’ve been most influenced by Adolf Hitler. If you’re not yet a member of the Alt-Right, you’ll probably be shocked and perhaps even horrified by that revelation, but you must understand that our educational system, our media apparatus, most major global corporations and the vast majority of our government has been overtaken by hyper-rich Jewish people with an unfathomable grudge against Hitler and his National Socialists; and they possess money and means to fabricate an alternate reality. The truth is that Hitler literally saved Western Europe from immediately falling to Soviet enslavement by Stalin’s army, which was the strongest in the entire world at that time and was amassed in offensive preparation along the European border. Stalin’s plan was to launch a massive offensive into Europe and Hitler’s preemptive attack was the only thing that could have stopped it. He forced Stalin to change his entire military and production infrastructure from offensive to defensive, giving Europe a chance to remain free. Unfortunately, instead of siding with him as they should have, most of Western Europe chose to side with true evil. Hitler’s love for his people, his pro-German volk policies, and his radical economic ideas changed Germany from one of the most destitute countries in the entire world to a world superpower in just ten years. Really think about how amazing that is. He used to tour the country unprotected in an open-topped Mercedes Benz and was loved by quite literally every German. Once you begin to learn the truth that has been hidden from you, you understand that everything you were ever taught about the history of your people was a bald-faced lie. It can make a man pretty angry to find this out. If anyone is interested in learning more about what truly happened in WWII I would highly recommend the book Germany’s War, by John Wear (Twitter acct @WearsWar) along with the works of David Irving.

Who or what are some others influences on you personally and/or politically?

I’m a Catholic who is very disappointed at the direction the Church has taken since Vatican II, and particularly since this installation of the current usurper Pope. I’m a HUGE fan of Eric Striker, Mike Enoch, Jazzhands McFeels, Marcus Halberstram, Sven, Alex and Jayoh, Ethnarch, and my buddies Spectre and Lauritz von Guildhausen. The entire lineup at therightstuff.biz is filled from top to bottom with tremendous people. And a message to any of you who listen to the podcasts but still don’t paycuck: You are missing premium content and I feel sorry for you.

Although I’ve always been political, I never really wanted to spend all my time doing this. I’m a fiction writer and to be honest I’ll be happy when we win this thing so I can spend more of my time on that. My literary heroes are Shakespeare, Melville, Faulkner, and McCarthy.

You are one of the original members of the Proud Boys. What premises were the Proud Boys originally founded on?

Although the Proud Boys did not call themselves specifically Alt Right, all of the original tenets of the group’s political identity were Alt Right, except perhaps regarding the JQ. When the group started, Race Realism was openly discussed and accepted. All of the original members were acutely aware of the problem of multiculturalism. To this clean living, a rejection of degeneracy, a rule forbidding masturbation and pornography, the veneration of the housewife and the elevation of the traditional family as an ideal. All of these were foundational principles and you can see how they overlap with those of the Alt-Right.

The Facebook page, over which Gavin had final say, was created as an explicitly free speech environment. Literally anything was allowed. The original group was teaming with guys who were either overtly Alt Right or guys like me, at the time, who’d just discovered the Alt-Right and felt like they’d found the father they’d been searching for their entire lives. The problem is that, because Gavin was a C-list celebrity, his creation of the group also attracted a lot of guys who were more interested in being a part of the cult of personality than they were interested in adhering to the actual moral tenets that originally defined the group. So when Gavin finally changed the direction of the group, there was a huge faction of these NPC types that just blindly agreed with anything he said, no matter how stupid or destructive.

How has that organization changed since its inception?

Well at some point, what happened was Gavin decided to vie for a cushy, high status, high pay job working at Fox News. He knew that in order to secure this position, he would have to clean up his image. That meant getting rid of all of the “racists” and “Nazis” in the group. There were a number of incidents in which his pronouncements and purges resulted in fairly extreme pushback from our guys. As you can imagine, Alt Right guys are NOT beholden to any leader who fails to adhere to our ideological standards. Gavin is a narcissist, so I think he just figured he could tell all of us what to do and we’d roll over and show our bellies. This is definitely not what happened, and it caused him much grief and irritation that he was unable to just decree what the Proud Boys would be about from one day to the next. One of his decrees, always couched in the weasel words of having been decided upon by “The Elders,” (there were no Elders, only his ego and ambition) is that there would no longer be any talk of Race Realism in any form whatsoever. After that he came after any criticism of Jewish power; unsurprising, being that he was working for Rebel Media at that time and his boss was the scheming Jew Ezra Levant. Each of these pronouncements was met with schismatic pushback from our side. I was kicked from the group twice by Gavin personally for voicing my vocal opposition at his taking what he’d promised us was a pro-White, pro-free speech, pro-truth group in the direction of GloboHomo “Conservatism,” in which homosexuals, transsexuals and based black guys in MAGA hats were elevated as the most important members of the Proud Boys and White men were no longer allowed to advocate for their own people.

There are still a ton of great guys in the Proud Boys. I’m still friends with many, many guys and I hold absolutely nothing against them. Indeed, many of them believe the same things we do and know all about everything the Alt-Right stands for, but because of the current political climate, are afraid to come out as explicitly in White solidarity as the Alt-Right does. That’s fine. I understand that. These are tough times and these guys are on our side and I will never abandon them. That said, not all of them are this based. Gavin invited a massive influx of NPC GloboHomo automatons in with his selfish actions, and these are the cringe fringe elements of the Proud Boys with which you may be familiar. The ones more concerned about fighting imaginary “Nazis” while us Nazis are the only ones standing between them and total Third World invasion of brown hordes who will gleefully set them and their families on fire after raping their wives and children. The Proud Boys could have been a real force to stand in solidarity with the Alt-Right and fight evil together effectively. The funniest thing about it is that it did not matter in the end. All of their cucking and signaling against so-called racism and Nazism only bought them about a year. Now they are in the exact same boat as us. With the recent arrest of these Proud Boys for defending themselves against some rich Antifa trust fund kids, expect RICO charges to come down on the group, possibly Gavin himself (there is an enormous amount of footage of him calling for actual gang violence) and expect Gavin to cave and either disavow or disband the group that paid him so much of their loyalty and, if nothing else, was willing to go out into the streets and fight for us.

How has Gavin changed, or do you believe he was always hiding this aspect of himself?

This is the thing that frustrates me the most about him. He had so much potential. HE KNOWS all of the things we know. He was our guy. He was not only woke to Race Realism and the Jewish Question, but he also had the rare ability to speak off the cuff about it in a hugely entertaining matter. He is the very reason I ended up where I did. He could have done so much more. And do you want to know what the funniest thing about all of this is? That cushy Fox News spot he wanted? They gave it to some 56% mongrel Affirmative Action hire former professional wrestler. Oh, the irony.

For those living under a rock, a “migrant caravan” of thousands of mestizos is headed toward the US border from Honduras through Guatemala and Mexico. These caravans don’t just magically appear—who is behind them?

Jewish NGOs most likely working with Mexican and Central American drug cartels. There is nothing organic about these caravans nor could there possibly be. It’s not possible for thousands of people to move across a 2000 mile stretch of land without significant supply trains providing food, water, medical services, and, in this case, transportation. They’re not walking or they would not arrive for many months. Those pictures you see are staged. These people are being transported here in trucks provided by these NGOs and cartels and they’re going to arrive, how conveniently, just in time for the mid-terms. My guess is that the ultimate goal is to force President Trump’s hand to the point that he must actually militarize the border and then, when he does, push things to further necessitate the use of deadly force to stop these “poor, defenseless people” and when that happens, use it to incite domestic and international outrage as if WE are the evil ones and not this invading army. We’ll see.

Can you explain to our readers who might not be familiar with or accepting of it what exactly the “Jewish Question” is and why they must understand it?

In short: Jews never feel comfortable in cohesive, racially homogeneous nations and are genetically compelled to constantly undermine, subvert and degenerate those societies. It's an ugly cycle because the more they do it, the more they are noticed doing so, and the higher the risk becomes of the very thing they so neurotically fear actually coming to pass. Eventually, it always does. This is the reason the worst thing you can call a Jew is Jew. This is why they've been expelled from over 1000 locations through history. Once you start looking into it, it really is hard to believe. The genetic aspect is a chicken and egg question. Do they exhibit extreme in-group preference and extreme negative out-group bias because they’ve been expelled from so many locations, or have they been expelled so many times because of their genetic inclination to parasitically prey upon their host nation? My guess is it’s the latter, but the reader will have to decide for himself. Again, I highly recommend Dr. Kevin MacDonald’s excellent book Culture of Critique for those interested in the historical and genetic proclivities of the Jews.

Are you saying being expelled from over one thousand locations throughout history makes you a poor houseguest?

Well, let me just say this: If someone had been kicked out of the last 1030 apartments he’d rented, would you rent him a room?

Explain why -to your mind- the Alt-Right is the only logical home for any self-respecting white person.

The truth is, people cleave along racial lines. You may know a really nice, smart black person, but the majority of American blacks, particularly males, possess an IQ of around 85 and demonstrate an extremely elevated tendency toward violent criminal behavior. Study after study has demonstrated that multiculturalism brings with it the erosion of social trust and happiness, an increase in crime, and decreased social cohesion. Whites simply are not welcome in non-White communities, and we are constantly attempting to flee to areas that are more White, only to have governments (often at the behest of Jewish interest groups) force more non-Whites into areas deemed “too White,” via programs like bussing, Section 8 housing, Affirmative Action, the list goes on and on. The truth is, it’s only a matter of time before we will have no place left to flee to. When Whites become a hated minority in the countries their ancestors founded, countries which rightfully belong to us, they will suffer the same fate as the unfortunate White South Africans. Theft of their land, violence, genocide, and finally extinction. The Alt Right is the ONLY political group that exists explicitly to fight for the rights of Whites to retain their birthright and end forced forfeiture of our property, land, sons, and daughters to endless waves of non-Whites who demand infinite access to our wealth. It’s no accident that ONLY White nations are told they MUST open their doors to an unending stream of these needy people who contribute nothing to our nations, drain our welfare coffers, commit crime at an astronomically higher rate than do the native citizens, and finally just have no business being here for any other reason than that Jews decided this because it serves their interests.

How do you see this ending? Are we doomed or do we eventually win? If so, what does winning look like?

So much has changed in the last decade. If ten years ago I was told that transsexuals in demon costumes would be celebrated for reading homosexual propaganda to preschoolers in government-funded institutions, I honestly would have dismissed it as insane. I never would have believed there would be a “debate” over if a grown man who calls himself a woman could use the same public bathroom as an adolescent girl. Or that there would be streams of non-Whites the size of Roman legions flowing unopposed into our formerly sovereign nations. Or that the streets of Paris would begin to resemble those of Bangladesh. That the statues of the great White men who created the greatest civilization that has ever existed in the history of mankind would be torn down under the sigil of social justice for the made-up crime of “racism.” I never expected to begin to feel like an alien outsider surrounded by hostiles in the neighborhood I grew up safe and secure in.

The good news is, I’m not the only one feeling these emotions or thinking these thoughts. The White man is waking up, and the Alt-Right is here to offer him an alternative to the degenerate path to our own extinction that was the only road we were given for so many decades. Time is speeding up. We’ve witnessed massive changes in the past few years that none of us ever believed were possible. But all of those changes, all of this accelerationism virtually assures that enough White people are going to realize with alarm exactly what is happening to us, and why. And when they do, and I don’t think it will be long, you are going to witness a revolution on a scale heretofore unimaginable, that is going to drive all of the subversive, corrosive, evil elements from our nations in a more spectacular fashion than has ever been witnessed on the stage of written history. It will be a truly righteous correction. And from it will be born the revitalization of a healthy, creative, productive, thriving, happy White society. The White society that we always deserved. And the Alt-Right is going to lead that revolution.

Hail victory!

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine https://ift.tt/2z7qhE3 via IFTTT

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4seasonscountryclub · 6 years

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Never Say Die – The Jason Day Story

30 years old, Jason Day has an impressive list of accomplishments: In his 11-plus years on the PGA Tour, he has a dozen wins, including a major, has reached No. 1 in the world and has played on four Presidents Cup teams. Yet at this point of his career, the Aussie says he has underachieved. We caught up with Day at his home course in Ohio, the Double Eagle Club, a private but unpretentious retreat in a quiet, leafy 'burb outside Columbus, where he talked about missed opportunities, LeBron James' golf swing, becoming friends with boyhood idol (and fellow golf nerd) Tiger Woods, dealing with a zombie-like sleep routine, and why he bought his son, Dash, a punching bag.

● ● ●

HOW MANY PLAYERS TODAY ARE PLAYING FOR HISTORY? ARE YOU ONE OF THEM? I'm definitely one of those guys. There are probably five to 10 right now. You can look at the top of the world ranking and pretty much figure out most of them. The rest? They're trying to make a good living, enjoy life and go on about their way. I don't want to put a number on majors or victories or goals, because sometimes you get to a point where you're just struggling to get to that number. But let's say you have 20 to 30 wins and multiple major championships. Not a lot of guys have done that. I'd also like to win the [modern] career Grand Slam. Only five guys have [Sarazen, Hogan, Player, Nicklaus and Woods]. That, plus being No. 1 in the world and 20 to 30 wins, yeah, that's a pretty phenomenal career. ● ● ●

HAVING SAID THAT, DO YOU CARE HOW YOUR CAREER WILL BE EVALUATED 25 OR 100 YEARS FROM NOW? No one's gonna remember. They remember Jack, Tiger, Arnie, Gary, but that's the 1 percent of the 1 percent. The one-name club. I know how hard I work, and I'm trying to win as many tournaments and majors as I can for me and my team, but I know one day I'm gonna be gone and forgotten. I was just talking to someone the other day who played in the Greg Norman Junior Masters. I know Greg Norman and what he's done, but kids back home go, "Who's Greg Norman?" Everyone gets to a point where you're forgotten, unless you're in that one-name club. ● ● ●

SPEAKING OF THE ONE-NAME CLUB, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION TO LEBRON LEAVING CLEVELAND AGAIN? It's not as bad as the first time he left. The way they did it in 2010 with "The Decision," the whole production and "I'm going to take my talents to South Beach," it cut a lot of people deep, especially diehard Cavs fans. People were burning jerseys. It was nuts. But he won them a title when he came back, so I think that lessened it. I'm a Cavs fan, but I'm an adopted Cavs fan. I live here and have a buddy who has seats on the floor. So at the end of the day, as long as LeBron's happy and his family is happy, that's all that matters. ● ● ●

HAVE YOU TRIED TO GET LEBRON INTO GOLF? No. I've seen him swing, and it looks terrible. Just awful. To be honest, I don't really know him that well. When it comes to celebrities, I try to stay away... ● ● ●

... UNLESS THEY CRASH INTO YOUR WIFE. [ELLIE DAY SUFFERED A CONCUSSION IN DECEMBER 2015 WHEN JAMES COLLIDED WITH HER WHILE ATTEMPTING TO REACH A BALL AT COURTSIDE.] Exactly! If they reach out to me, I'm happy to respond and maybe spend time with them or get to know them, but when it's someone as big as LeBron, he's always got people clawing at him. I remember what it was like for me when I got to No. 1, so I can't imagine what his life is like. Lebron’s golf game? ‘I’ve seen him swing, and it looks terrible. just awful.’

HOW SCARY WAS THAT IN THE MOMENT WITH ELLIE, AND WHAT KIND OF INTERACTIONS HAVE YOU HAD WITH LEBRON SINCE THEN? I was in shock. If you watch a replay of it, there was a moment when I was sort of smiling and laughing, which is weird, but when something bad happens, that's usually my reaction, for some reason. When I saw her on the ground, it was obviously really scary. But when I could see that she could move her arms and legs, I knew it would be OK. J.R. Smith and LeBron came over to check on her. Later on, LeBron texted Ellie. I don't even know how he got her number. He didn't need to reach out, though. He was just doing his job. But just recently, before he became a free agent and left, he sent a signed jersey with a note saying, "Please come back to a game," because she hadn't been back to one since it happened. ● ● ●

WHAT WAS THE REACTION AFTER ELLIE MADE HER MISCARRIAGE PUBLIC LATE IN 2017? Oh, man. The support we got was amazing. But it's still tough to talk about. ● ● ●

YOU AND DASH DID A GOLF DIGEST FATHER-SON COVER STORY A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. IS HE PLAYING ANY GOLF THESE DAYS? He does, but he's really into boxing. My uncle was a Golden Gloves boxer, and my dad taught us how to box. When we got bullied at school, he got us a boxing bag and told us, "Go punch that every day." He taught us—and this is so bad, but it's that old-school mentality—that when you get bullied, the first thing you do is knock that person out. That was his mentality. I was more scared of my dad than whoever was bullying me. I remember telling my sister, too, the first thing you do is walk right up to that girl and punch her in the face. Jason Day and Family Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesDay and his wife, Ellie, pose with their children, Lucy and Dash, on the 18th green after winning the 2018 Wells Fargo Championship. For Dash's birthday, he got a little speed bag. Mama doesn't want him to box, but I want him to—it creates good hand-eye coordination, and if you can do it properly, you can work on power and take that back into golf. In golf, you use the ground to create the forces to hit it far, and it's the same thing in boxing with throwing a punch. You have to start with your feet. I'm trying to work on a few technical things with him, like how to get back off the ropes when you're covering up. He loves it.

Jason Day: How To Get Your Little One Started In Golf

YOUR CHILDHOOD HAS BEEN WELL-DOCUMENTED. YOUR DAD WAS AN ALCOHOLIC, AND IT WAS ROUGH. YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THAT TIME? I can't remember my life when I was a kid—maybe intentionally. I talked to a psychologist about it the other day. I blocked it because of certain memories, but I think that's very natural. If I stayed where I was, no doubt I would've been an idiot. It was a learning experience, and unfortunately it was a blessing when he passed away. If he was with me now, I'm not sure anybody would stick around me. He would have been hard to deal with. ● ● ●

WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS INJURY-PRONE OR ACCIDENT-PRONE? YOU SEEM TO SUFFER INJURIES OR ILLNESSES MORE THAN MOST PEOPLE. Really? No, I don't think so. But I don't sleep well. I average about five hours a night. Two days ago, I slept for 2½ hours. I'm always up. I can't sleep. When you don't sleep, you don't recover, and if you don't recover, your immune system is down, and if your immune system is down, more things can happen. ● ● ●

DO GUYS ON TOUR GIVE YOU GRIEF ABOUT IT? Not really. Maybe. Not to my face. I don't pay attention to it if they do, anyway. Tiger can't give me crap, because I know how injured he's been. But my back has been phenomenal ever since the start of this year—I don't have any issues whatsoever right now. I wake up with little aches and pains, but it's not like it used to be when I had back problems or my shoulder was bothering me. I'm glad I'm past all of that. ● ● ●

HAS THE VERTIGO SUBSIDED? [DAY COLLAPSED DURING THE SECOND ROUND OF THE 2015 U.S. OPEN AT CHAMBERS BAY.] I was on antivirals for about a year and a half just to suppress the virus from growing in my ear. I wasn't supposed to be on them that long, though, so I just cut it off, cold turkey. Every now and then I'll get a bout of it, and it's the worst thing ever. It's actually happened this year maybe two or three times, but it was only for nine holes. I didn't say a word to anyone about it other than my caddie or my wife. ● ● ●

WHAT'S YOUR RESPONSE TO CRITICS WHO SAY YOUR HIGH-SPEED SWING MIGHT MAKE YOU PRONE TO INJURY AND AFFECT THE LENGTH OF YOUR CAREER? I can understand people having concern, or someone giving analysis. But let me put it this way: If you had a cough, and I said it means you've got the flu, well, how do you know? It's the same way with the swing. How do you know what someone's body is doing—if they have enough rotation or limiting rotation? You don't know what their body chemistry is. Someone might have bad hips, so they have to swing a certain way. It works the same the other way. So when it comes to people commenting on a golf swing, I understand it, but I don't agree with it. I just laugh because they're blowing smoke. ‘I can’t remember my life when I was a kid—maybe intentionally... if I stayed where I was, no doubt I would’ve been an idiot.’

AT THIS POINT IN YOUR CAREER, HAVE YOU OVERACHIEVED OR UNDERACHIEVED? Underachieved. I feel like my game is set up to win more majors than I have and more tournaments than I have. The only thing holding me back is myself. Sometimes it's a desire thing. Look at Tiger—what made him so dominant for 13 years? It was the same thing for Michael Phelps, who didn't miss a day of training for five straight years. What makes that person do that? Deep down, there's a level of motivation that makes this person work harder than anyone else. And to do it for that long and that many years is incomprehensible. ● ● ●

YOU'VE BECOME PRETTY GOOD FRIENDS WITH TIGER. HOW'D THAT COME ABOUT? His caddie, Joe LaCava, said to my caddie at the time, Colin Swatton—this is back in 2013—"Why don't you have Jason text Tiger?" We'd met before, but I didn't have Tiger's number, so Joey gave it to me, and I think I was the one who texted first. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something with some swear words in it, because that's how we talk to each other. I'd known him well enough I guess at that point that we could give it to each other. We still text and talk all the time, and I've been to his house a few times, but he's still very private and introverted. We talk about personal stuff, but it never gets too personal. It's mostly just how's the family, that kind of thing. We talk more golf, because he's a golf nerd, and I'm a bit of a golf nerd, too. ● ● ●

HOW OFTEN WOULD YOU SAY YOU'RE TRULY IN "THE ZONE"? BEST EXAMPLES FROM YOUR CAREER? I've already been in it twice this year with my wins at Torrey Pines and Quail Hollow. You usually get in it when you're around the lead. When you're nervous, it's easier to get into the zone, too. It can come right before you tee off, even on the range. Once you get in that rhythm, that's when it comes. But it comes and goes. It generally doesn't stick around for the whole day or even very long, though sometimes it might. Being in the zone, for me, is not caring about the outcome. Even though I was hitting it terrible the last day at Quail Hollow this year, I was still in the zone because my short game was so good. I knew it didn't matter where I hit it, because I knew I'd get up and down. I never really panicked because of that. You just know when things go bad, you always have an answer for it. You don't worry about the outcome. There's just a level of calmness that takes place, and I wish I could get into it a lot more. ● ● ●

ON THE FLIP SIDE, WHEN WAS YOUR CAREER AT ITS LOWEST? Oh, man, 2012 was pretty bad. Dash was born, and I really struggled being a dad for the first time. [The Days' daughter, Lucy, was born in 2015.] I mean, I was really bad at it. You have to understand, golf is a selfish game, especially when you're trying to achieve what I'm trying to achieve at the highest level of the sport. Being selfish and having responsibility and not putting yourself first, that's very difficult. I struggled with how to do that for about a year. At the end of that year, we had a team meeting, with my coach and caddie, my wife and my agent. We have one at the end of every year. It got tense. I didn't like what I was hearing, even though I needed to hear it. I didn't wanna be on the golf course. And then when I went home, I didn't wanna be at home. And I didn't wanna practice. I didn't know where I wanted to be. It was like I wanted to run away. It was easier to do that than face the challenges of being a dad and playing professional golf at the highest level.

Last year was pretty bad, too. My mom had cancer, and that was difficult and always on my mind. I was burnt out from being No. 1 in the world as well, and all the time and energy that went into not just getting there but what goes into it once you're there. It's a lot harder to stay there than get there, which is what makes what Tiger did for so long so incredible. ● ● ●

YOU BEAT YOURSELF UP PRETTY GOOD OVER LEAVING THE PUTT SHORT ON THE 72ND GREEN OF THE 2015 OPEN AT THE OLD COURSE. DOES THAT STILL POP INTO YOUR HEAD? No, it's the opposite. I beat myself up in the moment because I didn't give myself the opportunity to win by not getting the ball to the hole. It can't go in if it doesn't get there. I'd rather ram it five feet by than leave it a couple inches short. But it was pretty much gone the next day. I remember talking to my agent on the plane ride back and telling him I was going to win that next week, and I did. I shot 68 the last day at Glen Abbey in Canada, Bubba Watson shot 69, and I won by a stroke. I have a pretty good short-term memory when it comes to losing. You have to have that when it comes to golf.

RELATED: 19 Things You Should Know About Jason Day ● ● ●

IF THE RULING BODIES OR AUGUSTA NATIONAL WERE TO INSTITUTE A LIMITED-FLIGHT GOLF BALL FOR PROFESSIONAL EVENTS, WOULD THAT BE GOOD OR BAD FOR THE GAME? First off, people would still play the Masters. But if they did that, then they better shorten the tees again. If we have limited-flight balls, we're going to have 4-irons into No. 7 and things like that. But do I want the ball to go shorter? No. Why? Isn't it fun watching Dustin Johnson crush a drive over a lake 300 yards away? No one wants to see someone plod it down the right and not take it on. That's boring. If you push trying to rein it in too far, then people will stop watching golf. People want to see risk.

The problem is the architects—some of them, anyway—decided that because the ball is going forever, they need to make courses longer to make them harder. No, you don't. Just be a better architect.

‘Being in the zone, for me, is not caring about the outcome.’

YOU WON THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP THREE YEARS AGO AT WHISTLING STRAITS. SHOULD THE CHAMPIONSHIP TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD? I don't mind it either way. I really don't. I'm still going to play it, of course. We're moving toward a world tour, anyway, so it wouldn't surprise me if they did do that at some point. If they did, the key is, it has to be in a location, a country that can and will support it from the standpoint of logistics to fans coming out and getting tourists there. But the PGA is also based in America, so it's fitting for the tournament to be in America. Jason Day Jamie SquireDay earned the biggest prize of his career in 2015 at the PGA Championship. ● ● ●

DO YOU SEE HOPE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENTS CUP TEAM? [THE U.S. TEAM HAS WON 10 OF 12 COMPETITIONS, WITH ONE TIE.] WHAT WILL BE THE SOLUTION TO MAKE IT COMPETITIVE? I don't know. The U.S. team is so heavily stacked. It's really difficult for us. I'd love to see some changes and think there could be some down the road. It would also be cool to play more singles matches—we usually do all right in those. I never got why the number of matches and format aren't the same as the Ryder Cup, though. The PGA Tour wants to have its own identity with it, yet the International team had to fight over points. We're getting our butts whooped. That's all well and good—if we're not good enough, we're not good enough. But if it's so lopsided, who's going to watch? That's not good for anyone.

Jason Day IS THERE EMBARRASSMENT IN THOSE DEFEATS? It's beyond that—it's become normal. You get whooped so many times, it just becomes the norm. But I think there's a question of whether the guys even care at this point. Some do, some don't. You get whooped every time, and you start to ask, "Why are we even turning up for this?" ● ● ●

DID THE LATE PETER THOMSON, AN ICON IN AUSTRALIA AND WORLDWIDE, EVER SHARE SOMETHING PARTICULARLY INTERESTING WITH YOU? I didn't realize the accomplishments the guy had. The five British Opens, everyone remembers, of course. Then he decided he wanted to play the senior tour in the States and won a record nine times in 1985. He was also the president of the Australian PGA for 32 years. I didn't meet him until late in life, at the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in 2011, and then again at the World Cup there two years later, but he was very cut and dry. Unfortunately we only met in passing. He congratulated me on a nice career—it was like the stuff your grandparents would tell you, telling you the nice stuff. But he'd tell you what he was thinking. He had this great, dry wit about him. RELATED: Swing Sequence: Jason Day ● ● ●

WHO'S THE FUNNIEST PLAYER ON TOUR TODAY? Matt Kuchar. He's so dry and sarcastic, and he's quick. Like the story of how Phil ran into him on the range with these alligator-green shoes and belt and said to Kuchar, "You have to win three Masters to wear these," and Kuchar shot right back that he hopes he wins only two. Tiger can be funny, too. We give each other crap all the time. One time at Bay Hill he hit one so far right on 16, and he's just cussing at me, and I'm giving it right back to him. What he said isn't fit for print, and I can't say what I said back to him.

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lowvillegolfclub · 6 years

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Never Say Die – The Jason Day Story

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WHAT WAS THE REACTION AFTER ELLIE MADE HER MISCARRIAGE PUBLIC LATE IN 2017? Oh, man. The support we got was amazing. But it's still tough to talk about. ● ● ●

Jason Day: How To Get Your Little One Started In Golf

RELATED: 19 Things You Should Know About Jason Day ● ● ●

The problem is the architects—some of them, anyway—decided that because the ball is going forever, they need to make courses longer to make them harder. No, you don't. Just be a better architect.

‘Being in the zone, for me, is not caring about the outcome.’

0 notes

hamiltongolfcourses · 6 years

Text

Never Say Die – The Jason Day Story

● ● ●

WHAT WAS THE REACTION AFTER ELLIE MADE HER MISCARRIAGE PUBLIC LATE IN 2017? Oh, man. The support we got was amazing. But it's still tough to talk about. ● ● ●

Jason Day: How To Get Your Little One Started In Golf

RELATED: 19 Things You Should Know About Jason Day ● ● ●

The problem is the architects—some of them, anyway—decided that because the ball is going forever, they need to make courses longer to make them harder. No, you don't. Just be a better architect.

‘Being in the zone, for me, is not caring about the outcome.’

0 notes

medproish · 6 years

Link

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

Five quarterbacks were taken in the first round of the 2018 NFL draft—the first time that has happened since 1999. The last pick of those five may be the most interesting and, over time, could provide the greatest return.

The Baltimore Ravens had already traded their original first pick (No. 16 overall), dealing with the Bills to get the 22nd pick, and then they traded again with the Tennessee Titans to move down again to the 25th pick. There, they selected South Carolina tight end Hayden Hurst, filling an obvious need for an offense that underperformed in 2017.

Then, in a surprising move, Baltimore traded up from its 52nd pick in the second round to the 32nd pick owned by the Philadelphia Eagles. And with that pick, general manager Ozzie Newsome—in his final year with the team—selected Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Jackson’s slide down the first round was a bit of a surprise, and you could see Jackson’s distress about it in his face.

“I’m a Raven—it’s on,” a determined-looking Jackson told Deion Sanders of the NFL Network. “All year, every year. I’m happy to be a Raven. It don’t matter. They’re gonna get a Super Bowl out of me—believe that.”

While there’s work to be done with Jackson’s consistency as a passer, the collegiate results were pretty impressive—and anyone shocked that four quarterbacks were picked before Jackson has good reason to be.

Through three seasons as Louisville’s starter, the 2016 Heisman Trophy winner completed 619 passes in 1,086 attempts for a 57.0 completion rate, 9,043 yards, 69 touchdowns and 27 interceptions. As a runner, he was incredibly dynamic, gaining 4,132 yards and scoring 50 touchdowns on 655 carries. The completion percentage was one of the dings on Jackson’s NFL potential, but when you compare that to Josh Allen’s 56.2 completion rate in his two seasons as the starter at Wyoming and consider that Allen went seventh overall to the Bills…well, Jackson’s slide to the final pick of the first round seems odd.

During the NFL Network’s coverage, Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman had this to say about Jackson’s drop just before Baltimore moved up and made their pick:

“When I was studying him, I thought he was a Day 2 guy. I’m not surprised that he hasn’t been taken off the board just yet. A couple of things hurt him—he didn’t time in the 40 at the combine, and he didn’t time in the 40 at his pro day. I felt that, going into your pro day, you play to your strengths. And his strength is, he can run. He runs real fast.

“The other thing is, he was going to be a guy who was going to sit back and learn, and because of his athletic ability, would he have been able to help the team…with the ball in his hands, he’s a home run threat every time. Maybe teams didn’t think he’d be able to do that—maybe that’s what made him slide as well.”

After the Ravens pick, Aikman framed his comments differently.

“He’s obviously a terrific talent. He’s got a lot of ability, and his passing game did improve as he moved through the last few seasons, and his passing ability did improve fairly well. If you look at him, he’s been well-coached, coming from the Louisville offense and Bobby Petrino. He probably ran more pro concepts than Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma, in a more complicated offense than Sam Darnold ran at USC. So, the fact that he’s able to sit back and watch and learn and become a little bit more accurate as a passer is going to serve him well.”

So, it’s clear that there are a lot of evaluators who don’t know what to make of Lamar Jackson. And if NFL teams were put off by Jackson’s refusal to run a 40-yard dash supposedly because he wanted to be thought of as a quarterback as opposed to a pure runner when there’s play after play on tape that shows an athleticism reminiscent of Michael Vick in his prime, that may be more about teams being put off by a player who seemed determined to sculpt his own future.

Hall of Fame general manager Bill Polian has led the charge of misunderstanding Jackson’s potential, suggesting that Jackson would be better off switching to receiver in the pros.

It’s not uncommon for prospects to be misdiagnosed by top evaluators, and Jackson’s game resembles few quarterbacks throughout NFL history. There are elements of everyone from Randall Cunningham to Michael Vick to Robert Griffin III to Colin Kaepernick.

From a coaching and schematic perspective, Jackson has two new advocates who have done well with mobile quarterbacks.

Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg served that same role with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2010, when Vick made his remarkable comeback after spending 21 months in federal prison for his role in a dogfighting operation. Mornhinweg was the man who tailored Philly’s West Coast offense concepts to Vick’s mobility, and Vick responded with the best passing season of his career. Assistant head coach Greg Roman was San Francisco’s offensive coordinator from 2011 through 2014, when Colin Kaepernick brought his Pistol offense from Nevada and merged it with Roman’s power-blocking concepts to set every defense the 49ers faced on edge.

Now, it will be up to Jackson to take the things he does well to the NFL and improve on the things that need work.

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On the good side, Aikman’s point about the complexity of Petrino’s offense is correct. Under Petrino, Jackson ran a version of the Erhardt-Perkins offense that the New England Patriots have had a great deal of success with through the Bill Belichick-Tom Brady era. The Erhardt-Perkins offense is filled with quick plays with little in the way of traditional verbiage, the ability to move receivers around the formation without changing the base call at the line of scrimmage and a ton of crossing and option routes. It’s a fully fledged system that has worked at the highest level of football for years, and to assume that Jackson is just a runaround guy drawing plays in the dirt is to completely underestimate what he’s capable of as a quarterback.

As a passer, perhaps Jackson’s most interesting ability—this he also has in common with Vick in his prime—is the ability to flick the ball with great velocity. At times, with just a little wrist movement, you’ll see him zoom the ball 40 yards or more on a line.

And though he’s obviously amazing as a runner, Jackson is disciplined enough to stay in the pocket even when he’s getting pressured. He is capable of moving to different areas of the pocket to evade the rush, resetting his body, re-reading the defense and making the throw under additional pressure.

According to Pro Football Focus’ charting, Jackson gained 73.2 percent of his career rushing yards on designed runs as opposed to improvisational scrambles. PFF also had him with a high percentage of throws in which he was going to his second and third reads, which matches up with the tape.

Stephen B. Morton/Associated Press

On the downside, the common complaint about Jackson is that he throws from a narrow base, which is to say that he keeps his feet close together. Because of this, he doesn’t generate velocity and accuracy from his lower body up. He struggles with short and intermediate accuracy at times because of this, and his NFL coaches will have to teach him to align his lower and upper body for optimal results.

In this way, Jackson’s ability to make any throw with only his upper body is a bit of a disadvantage in that he hasn’t had to make the technical adjustments less talented quarterbacks have to over time. That Jackson can often overcome his technical liabilities with pure athleticism is something a player can get away with at the college level, but against more advanced and talented NFL defenses—and throwing into much tighter windows—he’ll have to refine his palette.

What makes Jackson such an exciting NFL prospect is the development on the types of throws every quarterback has to make in the NFL. He can make deep throws over cornerbacks into the arms of receivers on the run. He’s improved his touch, timing and arc on posts and fades, and he’s learning to throw with anticipation.

Imagining Jackson’s fit in Baltimore’s offense isn’t simple because his style is so different than Joe Flacco’s. Flacco is a stationary quarterback who throws from boot action rarely (and not very well). But with Mornhinweg and Roman on staff, the Ravens have coaches who understand how to move a mobile quarterback into the passing game.

The Ravens acquired possession receivers Michael Crabtree and Willie Snead and speedster John Brown in free agency, and Hurst has the speed to get upfield and threaten linebackers and slot defenders on seam and post routes. Flacco’s game has declined over the last few seasons, and with the addition of Griffin as a backup, it’s clear that the team wants effective mobility at the position—and Jackson already has more on the ball as a passer than Griffin did at his peak.

Lamar Jackson may not be a first-year starter in the NFL, and that’s OK. What the Ravens did with this pick was take their mindset regarding the quarterback position and throw it on its head. Taking Jackson with the last pick in the first round indicates that they believe he can be a credible starter and potentially an incredible talent, no matter the level of competition.

If that happens, Newsome and the Ravens got the steal of the 2018 draft.

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