#top 10 worst hits of 2019 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

insanityclause · 6 months

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Zoe Saldana stars in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"SOURCE: MARVEL

That’s not to say Marvel — along with all studios and streamers — doesn’t face some hurdles going forward. But the nature of those obstacles for Marvel are frankly pretty obvious; it’s mostly things Marvel has overcome before; and regardless of those issues and the need to address them, Marvel is still actually doing pretty good right now even amid the problems they’ve had.

So let’s just unpack what’s really going wrong, and what it means for Marvel Studios.

The situation with actor Jonathan Majors — the star of several Marvel films and streaming shows, as the MCU’s time-traveling villain Kang the Conqueror — is that he faces multiple accusations of abuse, and is scheduled to stand trial for one recent case. After that case was initially reported, other accusations surfaced, as did previous public statements from years ago by performers who asserted accusations of abuse were already circulating about Majors.

So yes, Marvel will almost certainly recast Kang. Lucky for Marvel, the character literally exists across a near-infinite number of alternate realities where he takes different forms and changes appearance. Likewise, Marvel has had to recast characters in the past, just like lots of other franchise or TV/streaming series. This isn’t brain surgery, and the framing of this issue as something that could sink Marvel’s whole future plans is frankly nonsense.

Just one great example, Marvel could offer the role to John Boyega (who I’d argue should’ve been the top candidate for the role in the first place). Or maybe Denzel Washington as an iteration of Kang who sat out the in-fighting and collective efforts of the rest of the Kangs and grew older and wiser as he made his plans to take over. Or maybe Ray Fisher could be offered the role, if Marvel wants to poke DC and WBD while scoring a great casting option.

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Or perhaps Marvel could offer the role to Leslie Odom Jr., Lakeith Stanfield, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Daveed Diggs, Stephan James, or any number of other fantastic casting choices to take over the role of Kang in the MCU.

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The point is, the worst part of the situation with John Majors is if the allegations are true and women suffered this abuse while Hollywood ignored it. The casting “problem” is small potatoes by comparison, and is easy to solve.

So let’s look at the financials now, since a central claim to the “Marvel is in trouble” narrative is that the studio is struggling at the box office while streaming is an unpopular mess.

At the box office, it’s true Marvel hit a high point with their back to back releases of the two-part Avengers conclusion to the Infinity Saga. The $2.79 billion from Endgame and $2 billion from Infinity War elevated the final global gross for all 22 films in that saga to more than $20 billion, for a per-film average of around $935 million.

In 2018 and 2019, the MCU put up the following numbers: Black Panther hit $1.34 billion, then Infinity War topped $2 billion, then Captain Marvel scored $1.1 billion, and then Endgame took $2.79 billion. Ant-Man and the Wasp at $622 is the only MCU film in those 24 months that failed to top $1 billion.

Since the Infinity Saga ended, Marvel’s releases have taken north of $8.1 billion across 10 movies so far, with a Multiverse Saga per film average of about $815 million. The difference between $815 million and $935 million is not insignificant, but nor is it disastrous, and it’s certainly not hard to understand why it’s happening.

The 2018 and 2019 slates for the Infinity Saga benefited from a decade of build-up, and it was those last four (out of five total) blockbusters topping $1-2 billion each that provided the final heft and resulted in an even higher per film average. We are only in the first half of the Multiverse Saga to date, and so far we haven’t had a single Avengers movie in this new saga, while as noted the Infinity Saga ended with a one-two Avengers punch good for more than $2 million per film.

And then the fact of the Covid pandemic alone accounts for most of the rest of the downturn in Marvel Studios’ average box office performance. Even during the Covid pandemic, when films were flopping or going straight to streaming/PVOD, Marvel’s three releases that performed “badly” due to the global health crisis still managed to finish between $379.7 million on the lowest end and $432 million. That’s better than the DCEU can perform even after theaters reopened and box office started its climb back toward something resembling “normal” — at least for the right films, since 2023 has been a roller coaster ride for theatrical.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania underperformed earlier this year and wound up the weakest performer of that franchise at $476 million, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 scored blockbuster results with $845.5 million.

Indeed, Vol. 3 is currently the fourth-highest grossing movie of 2023, both domestically and worldwide. And for the record, as disappointing as its box office was, 2023 has been so cruel to theatrical releases that Quantumania is still a top-10 box office performer.

We’ve seen one would-be blockbuster tentpole after another face-plant or otherwise disappoint, and often when a tentpole has managed a healthy box office performance it’s at a more moderate level than expected or typically enjoyed by the given franchise and/or its prior financial trajectory.

Other than Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Oppenheimer, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, nothing else truly put up top-tier results this year. Fast X topped $700 million, but is fourth film in a row from the series to suffer a decline from its predecessor’s box office gross, and the lowest box office for the franchise since 2011’s Fast Five, so it’s a mixed bag there.

Besides that, 2023 saw three films in the $500-600 millions range, four in $400 millions territory, and a couple of $300 millions.

The makeup of the top 10 this year looks like this: Barbie, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Oppenheimer, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Fast X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Little Mermaid, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Elemental, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Notice, there are three Marvel superhero movies in the top 10. Yes, one of them underperformed, but the point is that it seems silly to talk as if audience are in any widespread or large scale way turning away from superhero cinema, or that Marvel is somehow reeling from a downfall and have lost control.

The Marvels is currently tracking toward a shockingly low debut this weekend, with most projections pointing to a $130-$150 million global opening. Without at least average holds, the film could struggle to get past $300-400 million. On the other hand, I think tracking has proven pretty unreliable these days, and I believe a significant part of these disappointing numbers is the fact a lot of people are confusing this film with being another new Disney+ Marvel show, or think it is coming to Disney+ as a film soon. There’s also the general 2023 ongoing curse to consider.

But regardless, The Marvels should’ve been a home run sequel. While we can point to the unethical shenanigans and toxic behavior of fans and of certain organized hateful online voices obsessed with attacking women-driven movies or shows, if this film flops or underperforms rather than merely suffering a downward adjustment consistent with the genre overall (which would mean a box office for The Marvels in the $700 million range, I’d say), then it’s entirely fair to call it a big stumble for the studio.

The large-scale tainting of superhero cinema by the DCEU’s overarching failure the past several years (eight films in a row across five years, all failing to reach $400 million and averaging in the roughly $250 million range) coinciding with the Covid pandemic and theatrical downturn, coupled with a leveling off — not uncontrolled free-fall or any other hyperbolic situation — of Marvel’s must-see “event” status in the aftermath of their 11-year Infinity Saga’s conclusion (and lack of any Avengers team-ups for four years and counting) has no doubt reduced the dominance of the superhero genre and audience’s previous high-level anticipation.

But that sort of heightened “event” status is impossible for any franchise or genre to maintain, and no serious person expected the genre or any one studio’s piece of it to be some perpetual ever-increasing profit machine

Neither Marvel nor the genre in general need to treat the usual ebb and flow of primacy in entertainment as if it’s some major crisis threatening the existence and profitability of the studio or genre. That’s just the natural clickbait mentality driving entertainment journalism. We should be able to report on and assess such situations without resort to exaggerated portrayals for melodramatic purposes, nor parrot claims from those with obvious incentives and ulterior motives behind any of that sort of hyperbolic claims. We know better, but that doesn’t mean the profession behaves better, and so we get clickbait and studio drama delivered up like silly reality TV, and everyone pretends not to recognize it as the nonsense it usually is.

Marvel has to recast a major lead actor, something we’ve seen plenty of times by studios and projects, including literally by Marvel themselves on more than one occasion. Marvel’s first two films of 2023 grossed a combined $1.3 billion in box office. Even if The Marvels only does about half the box office of Captain Marvel — a vastly bigger drop than the Ant-Man franchise experienced, but let’s just use a 50% dramatic decrease to make the larger point — the MCU will have grossed a total of about $2.45 billion for 2023, an average of $815 million per film.

If that figure sounds familiar, it’s because I mentioned it earlier since it’s the per-film average for the MCU ever since the end of the Infinity Saga. Marvel settled back a bit from the high per-film average of $935 million, and for four years we’ve consistently seen this same new average level of performance for their films. Again, not insignificant as a drop, but in context it’s easier to understand and recognize as not a sudden emergency situation, and I suspect most studios would be happy if they could average north of $800 million per film on average every year.

And let’s face it, once the latest Avengers movies hit the radar, we’ll see the average per film gross go up during those years, just like always, and in the long run if the two scheduled Avengers movies play at the $2 billion level, that will actually result in an increase in the final average per-film gross for the Multiverse Saga, just as those huge Avengers box office grosses at the end of Infinity Saga seriously raised the saga’s per-film average.

This is all fairly predictable, within an obvious margin of error but not frankly too far of deviation. Which doesn’t negate the fact of the downturn in average performances, but rather puts it into less histrionic perspective as solvable problems for a still overwhelmingly successful studio that’s seeing per film averages still far superior to what any other studio can claim.

On streaming, where audience trends and preferences have likewise evolved during the Covid era, Marvel

First we got the ABC broadcast series: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Agent Carter, and Inhumans. Want to take a moment to recall how did those all fair with audiences and critics?

Then came Netflix's slate, with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher — half of those got mostly good or great reviews, a couple got mixed to negative reviews, and along the way different seasons of a given show had their ups and downs. Many fans and reviewers bemoaned the general lack of tie-in to the cinematic releases, a point that's amusing in light of how the same reviewers and fans completely reversed course a few years later to bemoan the fact the newer MCU shows often try to tie in to the MCU.

So next up are The Runaways and Cloak and Dagger, shows with younger casts and less direct connection to the rest of the MCU, but both were short lived and appeared on two different streaming services.

Which brings us to the MCU shows on Disney+, overseen by Marvel Studios itself and consisting of WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, What If...?, Hawkeye, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Secret Invasion.

While The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and What If...? received mixed reactions, WandaVision and Loki got generally good to great reviews, as did Hawkeye and Moon Knight.

Ms. Marvel likewise received strong positive reviews, aside from resentful fans mostly motivated by racism or sexism who bashed the show (the same way angry bigoted fans harassed Brie Larson and tried to manipulate online reviews for Captain Marvel, and to this day engage in bizarre conspiracy theories pretending movies with women leads are secretly propped up by studios buying up tickets), and the same mob of boys and men perpetually upset that everything isn’t just a mirror reflecting themselves were incensed that She-Hulk dared make fun of them for being immature, bigoted, and all-around goofy.

Granted, She-Hulk did often have what looked like rushed and unfinished CGI, but it was also still miles ahead of most TV CGI and it didn’t detract from the entertainment value of the show and was generally fine. (Yes, plenty of folks just didn’t enjoy these shows, and I’m sure it’s entirely a coincidence that for many of them it always happens to be women-led shows that bother them or are declared “meh”).

Secret Wars is the most recent new MCU show (besides a new season of Loki), and it got mixed reviews that lean mostly positive but still point to trouble in the decision-making to develop the series, questions about

The point of all of this is, Marvel’s had a lot of superhero shows for a long time during the reign of the MCU, and the shows have tended to mostly get good or great reviews, while often suffering complaints of inconsistency in tie-ins vs stand-alone abilities, or iffy VFX, or questions about who is in charge and why certain decisions were made. Sound familiar? It should, because it’s a broken record of reality at this point, the sort that gets mentioned as if it’s a new development any time someone is pushing the latest version of the “sky is falling” narrative.

Not that there aren’t issues needing solutions. The budgets are too high, and Marvel — like many streamers — is discovering it’s simply not sustainable to spend $20 million or more per episode with rushed production schedules and increasingly unreasonable demands on VFX workers.

But the shows themselves are so far working and working pretty well, if you aren’t focused entirely on social media debates and media exaggerations. Most every MCU show on Disney+ has enjoyed positive reception from critics and viewers, enjoying good (and sometimes record-setting) viewership. Fixing the problems for the Marvel streaming plans is not really any more difficult than fixing the theatrical issues, because it’s easy to identify the problems, easy to see where the problems arose, and easy to see what is necessary to end those problems.

Nobody foresaw the Covid pandemic (or at least the extent of it) or the utterly shameful, failed public health response it elicited from governments and organizations that are paid and entrusted to prevent or deal with such crises. Marvel was caught off guard like every studio, Marvel suffered the same box office downturn as every studio, Marvel leaned into streaming like every studio, and Marvel is now having to make adjustments to adapt to the still-evolving environment theatrically and in streaming.

So media and fans and others in Hollywood pretending this is some shocking, Marvel-specific situation are making disingenuous claims, and they should know better. Most probably do, but the truth is more boring than doomsaying — and with everything else in the world falling apart, clickbait and hyperbole are the best way to get attention for entertainment news during a drought (caused by few new films/shows releasing, and the likelihood of strikes dragging into next year because studios put money toward bonuses, yachts, and private jets rather than pay artists, writers, and performers living wages from a fair share of the revenue they generate).

Marvel will recast Kang, they’ll reduce the number of shows and films in production at a given time, they’ll get budgets under control and allow more time for VFX work, and they’ll refocus on the approaches and measures that worked so well in the past to determine which projects to greenlight and how to return to the sense of a big shared world the Avengers have to team up to save.

Luckily, with the X-Men and Fantastic Four reboots around the corner, Marvel has a couple of big teams with lots of potential for precisely the sort of storytelling Marvel does best at the blockbuster level. They could even simply move toward a post-Secret Wars setup that lets Fantastic Four, X-Men, and a handful of other existing popular franchises carry the Marvel brand forward for a while.

We will also probably see the temporary return of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and Scarlett Johansson reprise their popular MCU roles for Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and/or Avengers: Secret Wars.

And looking at the upcoming slate, it’s not hard to see there’s plenty of reason to feel confident Marvel will continue to enjoy success, even if it’s at a slightly moderated level due to the myriad factors we’ve discussed, including the idea that superhero genre films are settling into a more consistent long-term level of popularity and performance from now on.

The next four years brings Deadpool 3, Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts, Blade, Fantastic Four, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and Avengers: Secret Wars, and at some point thereafter Armor Wars and the X-Men. Of these films, the two Avengers movies are likely to be blockbuster hits, as is Deadpool 3. Captain America: Brave New World is an established franchise, lacking the original series lead but with a continuing cast and brand that I think are enough to avoid any significant downturn in box office, even if we see some drop from the peak levels of the Infinity Saga.

Blade and Thunderbolts are the riskier properties here, but the former is a previously successful cinematic brand and the latter is a team-up movie including some recognizable characters and stars. Still, this is where we might see more underperformances. Fantastic Four could likewise either perform at a blockbuster levels, or might wind up in the $700 million range, but as a key property getting lots of attention and must-work oversight, I think it’ll avoid being a problem.

Armor Wars as an extension of the Iron Man movies — and possibly/probably coming after we see Robert Downey Jr. again in some Avengers action — should perform well, and X-Men is a known successful brand getting an MCU reboot and polish as a big team franchise including younger cast members, so I think it’ll at least be capable of playing at the Guardians of the Galaxy level, if done right.

This isn’t a debacle, it’s not doomsday, and Marvel isn’t in disarray. The internal difficulties they’ve faced are frankly typical and easy to identify and solve, as much as everything else we’ve discussed here. The bottom line is this: we’ve seen Marvel Studios kick off with a big hit in Iron Man and an outright flop with The Incredible Hulk, after which Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor performed at okay levels but didn’t set the box office on fire by any stretch.

We got the original Avengers movie off the strength of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and to really help put this into perspective I’ll point out the average per film box office of Phase One was $634 million. Phase Two’s per film average was $876 million.

Marvel worked hard to build what they created, and it’s a tremendous historic success full of ups and downs that so far have ultimately maintained an impressive level of successful across a large slate of films and series. To look at this history, this math, and think Marvel Studios is in deep trouble, struggling, or never really was very good to begin with, is unreasonable and contrary to the data and any serious considerations.

#exactly the kind of data we need to remember #Thor TFA and TDW weren't huge hits

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golbrocklovely · 3 months

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I hope I'm not the only one and I hope I don't sound too mean but I don't think I've watched that many Sam and Colby videos since like earlier last year. Also srry if this gets long 💞

I mean, I have been dealing with personal stuff so I genuinely haven't really been able to watch them at all over the last year. But at the same time, I just feel kind of exhausted with their content, especially the amount of collaborations too. Sometimes the humour in a lot of videos is just too much like I can handle a touch of it but not to an excessive and unecessary amount.

The last video I watched of theirs was the one with Daz Black because I like his content and it was more chilled out to me, like the humour wasn't over the top and it felt like a 2021 video all over again (kinda) which 2021 was my favourite era for them even if I didn't really like some of their guests at the time.

I also really liked when they did that video and investigation when it was just the two of them like late 2022 and I hope they do more videos like that at some point because I miss them.

And with all due respect I kind of just miss when they weren't as popular tbh, like I'm so happy that I found them in 2019 because it was such a laid back time for me and their content was so enjoyable in my opinion. Of course I'm happy that they're gaining more subscribers and all that but I feel like their fandom is just so insensitive now and I force myself to watch their content just to support them silently.. 😒

hey i get it. i’ve gone thru ebbs and flows with snc’s content over the years.

i think some of their videos can be hits or misses bc of who they collab with, and other times their vids surprise me bc of the collabs being so good. it’s a toss up, so skipping out on some isn’t a bad thing. it’s not like they’re a tv show and missing an episode is gonna make the show now make sense lol

general curiosity usually keeps me coming back. and also bc even the worst snc video is still pretty good to me so… it is what it is.

i’m happy i found them when i did as well, me in 2018. it was fun to be a fan back then. but to watch their trajectory has been amazing and they genuinely deserve their fame and success. as for the fandom…. taking a step back and just enjoying snc for their content and nothing else ain’t a back thing. if the fandom is stressing you out that much, best thing you can do is find a group of ppl you like or tolerate the most. that’s what i’ve been able to do on here. pretty much every other platform pisses me off lol

i will say, one good thing to keep in mind is that the majority of the fandom is good, it’s just the annoying ones that are the loudest. like if you really think about it, how many ppl can you point to in the fandom that really, genuinely upset you/have bad takes? maybe 10? 20 max? that’s not even a .01% of the fandom et large. so just try to remember it’s really only a few that suck, so don’t let them get under your skin too much.

#ask #personal #sam and colby

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johannesviii · 1 year

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Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2022

Another pretty decent year for pop music ; a very slow one, with a lot of trash, but the good stuff was so good making a top 10 took me ages, unlike 2021 where it was way easier. Outside of the top 100, some incredible stuff dropped this year too, so yeah - even if the charts don't always reflect it, music as a whole is currently very interesting to follow.

Disclaimers / Rules:

I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these lists. There’s songs that charted in my country way higher than they did in the US, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

No song that I already put on a previous list is elligible.

No old hit song that is re-charting due to a holiday or a trend is elligible either.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible.

I have sound-to-color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. Again, again. How was your 2022??

Still didn't catch covid but I did catch a very nasty cold a month ago. Still drawing and writing a lot, and also spending more and more time customising my clothes with dumb patches and embroidered messages and stuff.

I went to a LOT of concerts this year, and they were all fantastic for completely different reasons! I'm so glad I finally have the budget to do this without feeling guilty or cutting down some more vital stuff. So yeah. I went to see My Chemical Romance, The Soft Moon, Sigur Ros, Placebo and Enter Shikari. Before that the last concert I had attended was VNV Nation all the way back in 2019!

Speaking of which, let’s start with the good or interesting albums that came out in 2022 or in late 2021, and this is going to be pretty long.

Albums

I have to mention that I tried to get into Ghost this year. It's definitely not for me apart from a couple of songs, but also, Impera was pretty bad. Probably wasn't a good idea to start listening to these guys in their current era.

I also have to mention that I've been thoroughly disappointed by Mainstream Sellout, because I'm one of those weirdos who actually liked Tickets to my Downfall by Machine Gun Kelly. But yeah, the guy became self-aware, and that's the worst thing that could possibly happen. Awful. Emo Girl is unintentionally funny, though.

Not sure this counts as an "album" since it's an EP, and a five minutes-long one at that, but Snake Eyes by 100 Gecs made me even more excited for their new album in 2023.

Electric Callboy's Tekkno is dumb and funny in all the right ways and I'm glad they got so much positive attention out of it. That's trolling with actual effort and passion put into it and it's kind of a lost art form at this point. The music videos are amazing too.

Rakshak by Bloodywood is exactly the kind of thing Nu Metal needed to move forward and I love the fact that energy came from India, of all places. A lot of fresh ideas, generally interesting topics and politics ; I'm sold. This is great. More, please.

Muna by uh Muna didn't leave much of an impression on me at first but I kept thinking about it and I eventually came back to it to relisten to it several times later in the year. I'm not sure what it means. Probably something good, though. Maybe it will be one of my faves of the year in retrospect..? Also it's very gay, which never hurts.

I'm somewhat conflicted about Being Funny in a Foreign Language by The 1975. Objectively, it's probably their best album ; it's straightforward, it's very well produced, it has a couple of bangers. Subjectively, I'm not even sure I'd place it above Notes on a Conditional Form, which if you recall was a GIGANTIC MESS, just because the highs of this mess were stratospheric compared to the ones the new album has. Still really good, but I miss the chaos.

Death's Dynamic Shroud's Dark Life has SO MANY different ideas going in so many different directions it's kind of a miracle that the album stays so coherent. The colors and the textures are sometimes so complex and layered that just listening to them to try to pick them apart becomes a stim to me. Beautiful.

I only found this album last month but Dimensional Bleed by Holy Fawn is one of the best post rock things I've ever heard since Sigur Ros stopped releasing new music

Exister by The Soft Moon comes so close to being my album of the year. SO close. Among all the musicians trying to become the new Trent Reznor, this guy's the only credible candidate for me, just because he's not afraid to try really weird shit. When I saw him live in October, the last thing he played had a castanets solo over huge electronic beats. And it went hard as hell! I sincerely hope his future stuff will be even better. I'm sold.

But uh. Guys. I'm sorry.

I'm so predictable. Never Let Me Go, Placebo's comeback album, is my favorite album of the year. Of course, when one of my favorite bands ever decided to release new music after nearly ten years of nothing, I was thrilled, but also worried it would disappoint me. The first singles were amazing, but what if? What if the rest of the album wasn't as good? And yet, by the time it was over, I was trying to determine if it was my third or fourth fave album in their discography. Even now, I'd only put Meds and Sleeping With Ghosts above this one. It's distinctly them, but full of new and interesting ideas. I'm beyond happy things turned out so well.

Unelligible Songs

There's a TON of them! Because that year was very good! This is kind of a non-hits rec list of sorts, but you know the drill.

Should I start with some Gecs? I feel like I should start with some Gecs. So here's Doritos and Fritos, Hey Big Man and Torture Me. You're welcome.

While we're at it, if you've never watched any of the recent Electric Callboy music videos, your day is about to get slightly better. I suggest Pump It and Spaceman. Also both are actually good songs on top of being funny.

I might have trashtalked Ghost's new album earlier but Spillways is like Poison 2.0. That's a compliment by the way

I've not always enjoyed what these guys made post-Hot Fuss, but Boy by the Killers should definitely have been a hit.

What I Want by Muna also has this "should have been a huge hit" aura. I'm feeling every line of this chorus in my bones. Best song about delayed adolescence for queer people

Are we making a list of songs that should have been hits? Let me add Metric with What feels like eternity, then

However, American Teenager by Ethel Cain might still have a slight chance of becoming a hit song in the future. I want to believe

Hey do you want some cringe. Cause here's Slaughterhouse by Motionless In White oops

JEZEBEEEEEEEEEEL IF YOU'RE THE HUNTER THEN I'M THE PREYYYYYY

At this point I'm pretty sure I've listened to Precious Hearts by The Birthday Massacre for about six hours over the course of 2022 but since I'm an old idiot who only listens to music through .mp3 files and doesn't use spotify I have no way to check

My very first contact with Bloodywood was Dana Dan, and what a first impression that was. Turn the subtitles on, by the way.

Go_A dropped an absolute banger called Kalyna at the very start of the Ukraine war and it might just be their best track so far.

I am legally obligated to mention The Foundations of Decay by My Chemical Romance. Is it their best song? Hell no. Is it mixed like shit? Yes. Is it way to long? Absolutely. Do I enjoy it? Immensely. Also it had no music video and no promotion. What a power move

Nurture by Porter Robinson, which I mentioned last year as one of my favorite albums in a year full of incredible ones, was still one of my most listened-to albums of 2022, so it feels right to mention a song he released outside of any album this year (Everything Goes On).

Avantasia is back, with a..... an album I didn't like very much, oops, but damn, The Moonflower Society is one of their best songs ever. Long live ridiculous over-the-top power metal with super-serious poetry as lyrics.

Born Yesterday by Quadeca sounds like Sigur Ros trying to make a radio-friendly song, and it sounds absolutely immaculate. Also it's about someone who killed himself just before his birthday and his ghosts deeply regrets that decision

This is not the end by Gareth Emery might be standard EDM, but it's also genuinely comforting to hear these lyrics

I need to put a break here otherwise Tumblr won't let me post this thing. Are you still there? Ok good.

El Alma Que Te Trajo (Safety Trance ft. Arca). Send tweet

It's kind of funny that emo came back a couple of years ago through 8-o-8's and sad rappers with face tattoos. It's even funnier that I genuinely enjoyed some of their stuff. It's even-even funnier that some of them are straight-up doing pop punk stuff now. All of this to say that I love Girl Next Door by Lil Lotus

If you've followed anything in the metal scene this year you already know that Lorna Shore absolutely killed it in 2022. Hell yeah let's put some melodies in deathcore, I'm all for it. Anyway Sun//Eater is great

I should probably recommend some cool music that cool people like before I humiliate myself further by recommending more edgy shit, so this is the perfect time to say that Judgment Bolt, Neon Memories and Messe de E-102 are now permanently etched somewhere in my brain. Seriously please listen to Darklife by Death's Dynamic Shroud if you have the slightest, smallest interest in electronic music I beg you

Ok back to the cringe. Speaking of neons, here's Neon Grave by Dayseeker. I've never liked a song by these guys before so this was a bit of a surprise for me

Also I've listened to it again and again but I still want to cry every time I hear This is what you wanted by Placebo. Not sure why it's my absolute favorite track on an album full of fantastic tracks. Not sure what it says about me. Not sure I want to know

I think I mentioned an Enter Shikari concert. Not sure I can call myself a fan yet, but I spent an ungodly amount of hours listening to their old and new stuff in 2022. Turns out one of my favorite songs they ever made is one of the newest ones, The Void Stares Back. This is exactly the kind of surreal and borderline apocalyptic lyrics I need in my life. I even bought a t-shirt saying "I'm the child with the telescope eyes" at that concert oops

Oh Caroline is one of the best songs The 1975 ever made and, like all my fave songs from that band, it's deeply awkward and embarrassing. It's a guy begging his ex to come back and it gets humiliating. Perfection. Thank you

Just when you thought this list couldn't get worse I'm about to confess I love The Boy in the Black Dress by Yungblud. Can't get the image of a teenager trying to remove his nail polish with his teeth after a teacher told him he looked girly out of my head now. God I love narrative songs so much

We've reached the terminal velocity of musical cringe so here's sTraNgeRs by Bring Me The Horizon because OF FUCKING COURSE I love sTraNgeRs by Bring Me The Horizon. You must be new here. WE'RE DYING TO LIVE AND WE'RE LIVING TO DIIIIIIIIIIE

Also I'm not going to recommend too many the Soft Moon songs but Become the Lies is now a classic for me only six months after it came out, and I've been obsessed with Him (ft Fish Narc, who kills it as the evil twin of the narrator) to the point of making fanart of the mental amv I have for it. Might even upload it after finishing this post, I'm not sure.

Honorable Mentions

Tití me preguntó (Bad Bunny) - I swear I had this song playing in my brain for days and I'm not even sure I like it.

Jour meilleur (Orelsan) - I'm usually not the biggest fan of the guy, but this one is really nice.

As it was (Harry Styles) - Perfectly serviceable little pop tune.

Where are you now (Lost Frequencies) - A great earworm.

Enemy (Imagine Dragons) - Listen. It's bad. But I can't get over the fact that an overly-hated band made a song where the chorus literally screams "EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY ENEMYYYY", it's so much fun to sing along with it

Shivers (Ed Sheeran) - Do I really like Ed Sheeran now. Is this my life. Is this what growing old feels like

Belly Dancer (Imanbek & BYOR) - I'm going to the gym now and this is on their playlist. It's completely brainless but it had a serious chance to end on my actual top ten at some point. I physically can't listen to it without at the very least tapping my foot on the floor.

One Right Now (Post Malone & The Weeknd) - This WAS on my list at some point but I ended up cutting it. Nobody seems to like this song, and I love it for all the wrong reasons. Namely, the fact that a duet between two male singers talking about someone cheating on them sounds like they cheated on each other. And I think that's unintentional comedy gold.

Bad habit (Steve Lacy) - The very last cut I had to make. It's a wonderful song, and I simply adore its vibe, but I tend to lose some interest after 2:20 for some reason. No idea why.

Pretty sure there's nobody still reading this post. Which might be good because there's one deeply humiliating pick on this top ten. Let's do this

THE ACTUAL TOP TEN LIST

10 - Santé (Stromae)

US: Not on the list / FR: #90

I still can't believe this idiot climbed his way out of depression and burnout just to tell every emergency worker to join a union. What a king. Legends only

Also I seriously considered putting it at the top of this list in very early 2022 if the year turned out to be mediocre. I never expected it to be placed so low in the end. That's a good thing, by the way

9 - Break my soul (Beyoncé)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

So uh. As far as I know there's still no music video for this one, which is kind of a power move in this day and age, not gonna lie. But yeah. You know me. Can't resist a eurodance diva. And Beyoncé as a eurodance diva is all I ever wanted and more. What the hell happened this year, music-wise, seriously

8 - J'la connais, pt. 1 (Emkal)

US: Not on the list / FR: #89

Okay, the autotune is a bit grating. Doesn't matter.

Look, I usually dislike this kind of songs and singers always talking about girls cheating on them and stuff. But no, this dude right there is singing about people telling him his girlfriend is going to cheat on him, and he basically tells them he trusts her more than them ("Cette fille, j'la connais, eh, mais toi, tu es qui ? On se connaît ?" ("I know that girl, eh - but you? who are you again?"). Very refreshing. Well played, sir.

7 - Thunder (Gabry Ponte)

US: Not on the list / FR: #59

BEHOLD. THERE IS NOW A GOOD SONG CALLED "THUNDER" ON THE CHARTS. AND IT'S COMPLETELY BRAINLESS.

So uh, this one also plays at the gym. It's just some very basic and very commercial EDM. For some reason, it kinda sounds like a pirate song to me, the kind of thing you'd drink to on an adventure or something like that. There's not a lot that can be said about it. The colors are especially trippy, though.

Does it look like I'm stalling for time? Uh, maybe I am.

Oh god, here comes the really embarrassing part.

6 - Bad habits (Ed Sheeran ft Bring Me The Horizon)

US: #13 / FR: #53

So uh. This was in my honorable mentions last year:

And it was slowly exiting the charts when this new version dropped all of a sudden in mid-February, with way more guitars and bombast, and of course Oli Sykes screaming his head out at the end. And it climbed up the charts all over again.

And since I'm a major sucker with no taste, of course I loved it.

Doesn't make up for the fact the lyrics are still very vague and Ed Sheeran is still Ed Sheeran, but clearly that wasn't enough to keep this version of the song off my list. It's enough to make me question my choices, though. Steve Lacy should probably be there instead.

Eh. Too late now.

5 - Numb Little Bug (Em Behold)

US: #32 / FR: Not on the list

I initially put this one higher ; I'm not tired of it or anything, it's just that I don't listen to it as often as some things above it. And it got popular through TikTok, too - I'd ask if the kids are okay, but we all know the answer to that question, I think. I can't get over how brutal these lyrics are for what's essentially a cute pop song. And yeah, that's a huge mood. Do you ever get a little bit tired of life? Yes! Quite often actually! Glad we're all on the same page, at least. It's somewhat comforting.

Imagine how bleak and scary that song would be if it was more serious and less upbeat, though.

Oh. Oh shit.

4 - L'Enfer (Stromae)

US: Not on the list / FR: #46

Guess we don't have to imagine. Guess it already exists. Guess it's on the French year-end chart. And it's absolutely terrifying.

Look, I'm glad Stromae is back. I'm glad he feels better. But uh- yeah. This track is genuinely hard to listen to. I'm pretty sure it's objectively better than the three songs I placed above it, but yeah.

J'ai parfois eu des pensées suicidaires, et j'en suis peu fier (I've had suicidal thoughts at times and I'm not proud of it) On croit parfois que c'est la seule manière de les faire taire (Sometimes you think that's the only way to shut them up) Ces pensées qui me font vivre un enfer (These thoughts that make my life hell)

Yeah.

3 - About Damn Time (Lizzo)

US: #12 / FR: Not on the list

I had a hard time deciding where to rank this song between #3 and #2. Maybe I should say it's a tie. It changes day to day with my mood, really.

But yeah, thank you Lizzo for being a combo breaker in this short series of songs about addiction and depression and death! This one is impossible to resist. You hear it and you just have to move or tap your feet and smile. And-

I'm way too fine to be this stressed, yeah Oh, I'm not the girl I was or used to be, uh Bitch, I might be better

Favorite lyrics of the year? I don't know. Maybe. Amazing, in any case. Thank you for this gift, madam.

2 - That's What I Want (Lil Nas X)

US: #14 / FR: Not on the list

Aaaaaaaaand back to the sadness. Well, not really. The song itself is pretty upbeat. In any case, you've probably seen that one coming from a mile away because of my 2021 Unelligible Songs list:

And yeah! It's elligible at last! I'm so, so happy. And I want Lil Nas X to find love and be happy too. Montero was gay as hell, Industry Baby was a victory lap, but this one? This one is the guy bearing his soul and you can feel it even through the impeccable production and pop sensibilities. Cry your heart out to this upbeat tune, my friend, it's gonna be okay. And we love you.

1 - Meet Me At Our Spot (The Anxiety)

US: #74 / FR: Not on the list

I think I've listened to this one more than any other song this year and yet I'm still not entirely sure why I love it so much, especially considering it took literal months to grow on me. I can't even describe its vibe. Is it melancholy? No, it's too happy. Is it happy then? No, it's too tired. But it has energy, too. Is it romantic? Not really. What is it?

One thing's for sure, whichever vibe it is, I got lost in it for hours, to the point of creating entire scenes set to it in my mind. Which led to drawings. Which led to me inventing characters completely disconnected from the song and writing a story where the initial scene I visualised is only a small one in the grand scheme of things.

There's magic in this song's vibe, and I've been on a quest to transcribe it, and I will probably fail. In the meantime, thank you for meeting me at this spot. It's been a wild ride. See you next year!

#Johannes’ bad not good pretty terrible music lists #music #eye contact tw #suicidal ideation tw #that's for some of the songs not for me thankfully #this post is a bit late I'm sorry #I had to make most of the gifs myself this time

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xplrvibes · 6 months

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What is your favourite content that SnC have ever produced like do you like the challenges most or the travelling most? Or is the spooky shit the best stuff? Or the XPLR stuff? Basically we've known they've changed up their content alot over the years, but which content have you enjoyed the most? Not one specific video, but like the whole genre, lol. Sorry I suck at wording the thoughts in my brain sometimes.

I totally got what you were asking, anon, no worries!

To me, they had a few very specific style changes, or eras, over the years: the early days stuff with the challenges and sit downs, the xplr days, haunted 1.0 (2019 into the pandemic), the "we don't know what the fuck to do with ourselves cause covid" era, 25x25, and haunted 2.0.

Mixed in with all that have been a few sub-eras that mostly played out on their personal channels, like: the prankz!!!, the 3am challenges, traphouse vlogs, sit down vids, react vids, etc., but I'm mostly just looking at their main channel so I won't include any of that kind of stuff.

For nostalgic purposes, I have to give it to the xplr days. That was when I started watching them and honestly, that stuff was just so simple and pure and not over the top...it was just two idiots breaking into abandoned buildings for 10 minutes a week.

Does that mean I want to see them go back to that? Hell no, lol. I do not want to see two almost 30 year olds with two mansions, a whole ass production team, and a POLICE RECORD trying to recreate their lost youth by breaking into shit. Remakes and reboots never work. Leave xplr in the past so we can all look back on it fondly.

But yea, for nostalgia purposes, that would be my favorite.

As far as production quality, editing, filming and storytelling, I think they hit their stride with the haunted 2.0 content, and truly are putting out the most professional and high quality content they ever have right now. Of their two haunted eras, this era is my favorite for that reason alone, and would definitely be my second favorite era overall.

Coming in third place would be 25x25. I loved the concept of 25x25, and the first couple episodes before they completely lost the plot on it were also great from a production and storytelling standpoint...I just think they tried to do that at the worst possible time and then gave up on it way too easily. Maybe they can try again for 30 (now that they made peace with Elton, I'm sure he'll keep his goddamn ass mouth shut about it if they do, so at least there's that).

The treasure hunting (aka "we don't know what to do with ourselves cause covid") era was...fine, I guess. I liked the videos but I also know they were just scrambling to find some way to keep their channel afloat in the midst of the pandemic, and I also remember all the drama that waa going on around them during those days so I really don't look back on that era too fondly at all, lol.

Haunted 1.0 in 2019...bleh. I enjoyed some of it at the time, but got sick of the antics and theatrics really quick and in my opinion, most of those videos hold up about as well as moldy cheese left in the sun, so...pass, lol.

The pre xplr days stuff is just embarrassing to me, like I get secondhand embarrassment watching a lot of that stuff lol. Hard, hard pass.

#asks #sam and colby #snc video review

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baileye · 1 year

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The researchers Charlotte Brand, Alberto Acerbi and Alex Mesoudi analyzed more than 150,000 pop songs released between 1965 and 2015. Over that time, the appearance of the word “love” in top-100 hits roughly halved. Meanwhile, the number of times such songs contained negative emotion words, like “hate” rose sharply.

Pop music isn’t the only thing that has gotten a lot harsher. David Rozado, Ruth Hughes and Jamin Halberstadt analyzed 23 million headlines published between 2000 and 2019 by 47 news outlets popular in the United States. The headlines, too, grew significantly more negative, with a greater proportion of headlines denoting anger, fear, disgust and sadness. Headlines in left-leaning media got a lot more negative, and headlines in right-leaning publications got even more negative than that.

The negativity in the culture reflects the negativity in real life. The General Social Survey asks people to rate their happiness levels. Between 1990 and 2018 the share of Americans who put themselves in the lowest happiness category increased by more than 50 percent. And that was before the pandemic.

The really bad news is abroad. Each year Gallup surveys roughly 150,000 people in over 140 countries about their emotional lives. Experiences of negative emotions — related to stress, sadness, anger, worry and physical pain — hit a record high last year.

Gallup asks people in this survey to rate their lives on a scale from zero to 10, with zero meaning you’re living your worst possible life and 10 meaning you’re living your best. Sixteen years ago, only 1.6 percent of people worldwide rated their life as a zero. As of last year, the share of people reporting the worst possible lives has more than quadrupled. The unhappiest people are even unhappier. In 2006, the bottom fifth of the population gave themselves an average score of 2.5. Fifteen years later, that average score in the bottom quintile had dropped to 1.2.

In an interview, Jon Clifton, the C.E.O. of Gallup, told me that in 2021, 21 percent of the people in India gave themselves a zero rating. He said negative emotions are rising in India and China, Brazil and Mexico and many other nations. A lot of people are pretty miserable at work. In the most recent survey Gallup found that 20 percent of all people are thriving at work, 62 percent are indifferent on the job and 18 percent are miserable.

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whorrorgrl · 1 year

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What I Watched In May

I have been gone for a long, long long, time. It's mostly because of my job, but also because of my lack of motivation in writing. I have a lot of ideas, but not really much time to write them. I

I watched a lot of things since February, things that I want to have their own individual posts, and others I forgot. Most of them are rewatches. I got HBO and was just playing Friends as white noise maybe 5-6 times (all. ten. damn seasons.). I'm not going to beat myself much about it or it'll feel like a chore, so I'm going slow. I want to upload my ideas soon though.

Anyway, here's what I watched for the month of May.

Lovecraft Country (2020)

After the disappearance of his father, Atticus "Tic" Freeman, his paternal uncle George, and childhood friend Letita "Leti" Lewis travel across segregated United States in the 1950's in search for answers. This trip kickstarts Tic into a world seemingly unreal as they fight against supernatural forces of evil and ones at their very door.

After the recent allegations against Jonathan Mayers, I was hesitant to watch this show. I knew him from that Antman movie, nothing much else. I thought he was a promising actor; decent. It’s disappointing he turned out to be an alleged awful human being. After watching Lovecraft Country, it’s an even bigger tragedy. This show is a whirlwind. Spoilers ahead.

I adore horror in show formatting. I believe it allows a plot to be properly fleshed out. But! That also means more of a dedication. That has to be the only excuse I have for not getting around to this masterpiece sooner. At only ten (10) episodes, Lovecraft Country is worth the binge.

I can easily watch certain movies and shows that others would find too hard to handle. One part I struggle with is suspense. I swear I feel it in the air and my lungs pump thick with it. But I get through it in one piece. Depending on how hard it hit me, I might not rewatch it again. After finishing LC, I think the ease at which I can watch certain movies/shows is accredited to it feeling outside of the realm of my own reality, or at least shit I wouldn't be caught dead doing.

I found it very uncomfortable to watch.

I almost didn't want to finish it.

On top of dealing with sharp teeth blob creatures, our characters have to take on the worst horror of all: racism in the 50's. Evil, pink skinned, sweaty and entitled white people make it their mission to harass and brutalize black bodies for simply existing. Worse, some wielded powers.

Horror movies are notoriously white. Even some of my favorites are all white casts with maybe an Asian or black character that gets killed off. They're usually slashers, demonic possessions, or ghosts walking in and out of frames. I'm used to that. Any underlying issues the characters battle are usually standard. In Evil Dead (2013), the main character dealt with addiction and those around her struggled keeping her focused this go-around at sobriety. In The Witch, Thomason had to assimilate to new life after being casted out by her previous community. In I See You (2019), the couple treads the aftermath of an affair - so on and so forth. The A plot is usually horrifying (messing with a spell that releases a demon, witches bordering on the edge of the forrest, or a bunch of new kids disappearing years after a case is seemingly closed) while the B plot is more grounded. I get that. But when I tell you, monsters and prophecies about magic is the least of Leti (Jurnee Smollet) and Atticus's (Jonathan Mayers) worries, I mean it. I'd prefer it. The worst scene was the very first episode where they're stuck in a sundown town with seven minutes til and have to drive 25 miles the speed limit with only seconds to spare or a shitty cop would murder them. I paused that scene countless times. The riots were another. The diner scene got me good.

Racism is just ugly. As more and more documentation reaches the mass through social media, what really happened during slavery and Jim Crow is more horrifying than the popular teachings of history in schools or dramatization in Hollywood tells. I despise this type of plot and try to avoid it. I don’t watch slave movies. The ones that I have were torture. I liked Django, but mainly because it barely had Jamie Fox suffering and actually showed him being a bad ass. I found out they wanted to do a movie on Emmett Till after the success of Central Park Five’s retelling, which was so alarming. It’s now money driven, these stories. It seems that's the only black stories Hollywood thinks is profitable. Them TV series (2021), Karen (2021), etc, are recent movies that popped up after the success of Jordan Peele debut movie. Get Out (2017) did it well. Its sons? Not so much.

That’s why I liked Little Monsters (2018), Us (2019), or my childhood favorite Haunted Mansion (2001), because they are horror movies with black lead that isn't full on KKK torture porn. Once Jordan Peele did his thing with Get Out, these studios are slowly falling into a box. Even Peele's future works like Nope and Us were speculated on being political pieces. It's only when they were first release did people realize he can create black horror without the traumas of racism. Even in the new Little Mermaid movie with Halle Bailey, there's a discourse about Ariel needing to be a slave to be historically accurate. A mermaid that got her legs from the witchcraft of a squid needs to be historically accurate. Her dad's cape is made of fish! I don't think anything is accurate in any dimension.

(Huffs) Anyway, Lovecraft.

I'd still recommend in a heart beat. So amazing. I cannot give it enough praise. The music choice was a little random and ill-fitting, some of the spoken words were excessive and didn't hit with the scenes they overlaid, and (love Jurnee but) Leti, another of many light skin love interest, was an annoying casting. Ji-Ah's storyline ending was okayish - I expected a little more since it was one of the best plots of the many packed into this show. But other than that, A in my books. I'll have to rewatch it again with my boyfriend, so I hope those painful scenes go down better the second time around. That scene with the two girls following Diana around was horrifuckingfying. It reminded me of Peele's 2022 Nope with the kids in the barnyard. Their eyes, especially in the alley when Dee waited to follow the cops, was chef's kiss. One thing I will also add is Montrose's sexuality not going down the path I thought it would. We're so used to some public, traumatizing rejection of a closeted man's sexuality to his partner and we didn't get that. It didn't end satisfactory for me since we don't know what's next for him and his partner, so it felt a little throw-away. I truly find it ironic that our characters faced racism, hated being treated as below human, yet discriminated against those within the black community that were gay, etc. It wasn't talked about much between "Tic" and Montrose enough for me and kind of seemed glossed over in order to incorporate other storylines.That's a thing with ten episode shows as opposed to 24, but not a big deal.

9/10.

2. I See You (2019)

After the abduction of a 10 year old boy, a detective and his family experience strange occurrences in their home that may or may not be related.

Weird things begin to happen in the family's home that is later explained. I kind of assumed who the abductor/killer was simply based on the small amount of characters we're introduced to, so process of elimination was short. There are three big plot twists in this movie: who the boy-abductor is of course, who killed a certain mister, and why mysterious things seem to happen under Detective Greg's Harper's roof. All were equally as shocking as the last. Some things were weird, like the green pocket knives and why those specifically. Also, why the killer would just...have a bag of them in his car where those closest to him had access to? I liked the way all the stories came together and how they perfectly made sense and answered certain behaviors characters had. For example, Alec's obsession with taunting the family and going against the rules of "phrogging." I thought he was just a jealous, sadistic street rat that hated the life the Harper's son had since the boy seemed to be the main focus. When it all came together, by then it made sense what he was doing, but still an amazing shock. Random but the story telling reminds me of A Place Beyond The Pines (2012). The interludes (that seem unrelated) between stories is a storytelling I'm now realizing I really love.

9/10.

3. The Night House (2023)

The Night House is everything Smile (2023) thought it was. If you've read my previous review on Smile, you know I do not like that movie. If it had been released in the early 00's, I would've felt a little differently, but considering it's an overplayed formula that I already loved, grew accustomed to, and now only nostalgia could draw me to it, Smile just wasn't it for me. The Night House, however, is!

Beth (played by Rebecca Hall) is dealing with the death of her late-husband who recently committed suicide, leaving her alone in her lakeside home. We witness as she reels from the tragedy in ways that leave her friends uncomfortable, concerned, and out of their element on how to console. Certain things begin to happen around the home that makes her believe there is more to her husband's death. She feels there is a presence that could be her husband haunting her and her dreams seem to blur the lines between reality and something dark that parallels. As she does more research, we’re lead to believe that her husband might’ve cheated on her when she finds multiple pictures in his electronics of women who look weirdly similar to her. When I watched the trailer, I assumed there was this mirrored house across the lake in another dimension. A second her, a second husband. Maybe hers really died but that mirrored husband lives on. In the same house. With a double her. It’s what hooked me to it.

She just has such good people around her. Claire (played by Sarah Goldberg), her neighbor Mel, and even her husband all have this woman's best interest in mind and it's really refreshing to see that those around her did what they could to help her. And you might say, her cheating husband had good intensions? Listen, listen!

You see, years ago, Beth had died for four minutes in a car accident. While others claim to see many things, Beth saw nothing. However this nothing is an entire intelligence that wants her back.

Nothing isn't over the four-minute stand he had with Beth, haunting her husband, Owen, into killing her to get her back to Nothing. Owen instead creates a reverse home by the lake, luring Beth look-alikes back to the home to trick Nothing into thinking Beth died.

This confused me a little, because I'm assuming Nothing is a lot smarter than assuming a look-alike is the Beth. Doesn't it have blood sample? A better, soul-based verification? Clearly not. It realized Owen's tricks and that lead to his "suicide." In the end, Beth is almost convinced to take her life until Claire and Mel save her in time. I believe Nothing is a metaphor of “stopping the pain.” It’s the promise of an end to the torment, the depression, the dull and excruciating task of living in misery. I just really loved it and am glad I got recommended it by TikTok.

8/10

4. Scream 6

Y'all, I don't think I can stop loving this franchise.

In an effort to not be seen as a hypocrite since, if I remember correctly, I was pretty tepid with my review on Scream V, BUT! But! This one has rejuvinated the small, itty-bitty hope I had in this franchise. 'Cause that's what she is; my baby's a franchise.

I don't know why I don't like Sydney Prescott. It's not that I hate her, but you gotta admit she's overstayed her welcome. This is why I was happy Ms Never Wanna Die was not in Scream 6. It makes so much sense, this show. It's a repeat, one I hope they don't continue, but Scream 5 is technically just "Scream," just like the first movie from 1996. The boyfriend was the killer in the original, so it's cool that the boyfriend's the killer in Scream (2022). In Scream 2 (1997), the killer's family comes back to blame Sydney Prescott for their piss-poor parenting. So In Scream 6 (2023), it's now a realized pattern that they're intentional by making the killers Richie's dad and siblings - one serial killer is bad enough, but the entire family is fucked. Hopefully in Scream 7, this isn't the same because that'd only mean the off screen Carpenter mother had some random love child with Adolf Hitler and that kid felt left out of the already dysfunctional family of the sisters.

Or it's Tara. But that's wishful thinking.

I loved loved loved loved LOVED it. The opening scene of the Jaime King kin member Samara Weaving dying was fantastic. We get to see a Ghostface reveal in the first few minutes, which is a first of the movies and so refreshing. It made me excited when I assumed we'd know one of the identities and how they'd incorporate that into the story. However, when said Ghostface heads home just to be killed by another, it blew my mind. "Who gives a fuck about the movies?!" Plus that angle? Y'all I was in heaven! I truly do not think I will EVER get tired of these movies and it's really sad. This is my Fast and Furious. This is my James Bond, my Star Wars franchise, my Days of Our Lives, My Greys Anatomy...I hope it never ends and if it does, what would life be? Bleak, I think.

I have to admit there are a few logistical issues. Like, why Kirby didn't do extensive research into Wayne Bailey the second she hopped onto the case for a "helping hand." Matter of fact, how was he even transferred to NY without a background search and the discovery of a link between Richie? Given Kirby's past and how no one in these situations can be trusted, why hadn't she done this? How had Bailey been able to bribe that many criminal evidence from the one police station without anyone finding out? Are there no inventories? Not many big cases seem to happen in that town, so I feel like the top four big cases of Ghostface would've been noticed gone. How did her therapist not know who she was since she's practically infamous, and what was his purpose in the story? I know it's to build up the many cases of defamation against Sammy but it was pretty weak. To be quite honest, a final girl like Kirby should've been handled with better care. I kind of felt like she was there for a legacy token coin and a misdirection that I'll admit got me. Other than that, pretty good.

I think these movies will be better than most being sputtered out today because of the pressure these writers have not to fuck up Wes Craven's work. A good idea would've been all the costumes on Halloween night paying tribute to Craven's many movies, but they are dated so I understand. Would've been cool though.

10/10 shit

5. The Lighthouse

I don't want to be that girl. I already stated how I am when it comes to slow burns, but I tolerate elevated horror. Tara Carpenter is rolling her eyes, but she has a stab wound to heal from so priorities. I clicked on this one and just watched it quickly before I talked myself out of it.

I like it.

I think.

Seeing Willem Dafoe being walked like a dog was an interesting scene.

Seeing a mermaid pussy was also one for the books.

The Lighthouse was directed by Robert Eggers, who we all know from The Witch. He's an amazing director and clearly has a niche for period pieces. I don't know how to properly review this since I still do not know what the fuck I watched - Watch Mojo couldn't even help me. It's based on a Greek mythology and is about wanting something you cannot have. One of the references was Icarus, who died after flying too closely to the sun despite his father's warning. Proteus, a sea god that controlled the changes of oceanic bodies of water was also mentioned. Thomas Wake (played by Willem Dafoe) warned "Ephraim Winslow" of not killing seagulls to avoid bad luck, who were believed to be reincarnated sailers. However, out of frustration of one getting in the cistern, he kills a seagull, and all goes downhill from there. Since the beginning, the demands of being a lighthouse keeper proved to be demanding for Winslow:doing menial, disgusting, or laborious jobs around the rock the lighthouse resided on. What follows is Winslow's slow turn into madness, hysteria, and greed.

The part on sailers being reincarnated into seagulls was so interesting. The one-eyed seagull attacking him multiple times correlates to the previous "wickie" under Wake who had only one eye, the other seemingly singed in. Time going by differently for Winslow when he missed the lighthouse tender because of the storm. In the end, when Wake is murdered by Winslow and Winslow finally gets to ascend to the lighthouse, a growing curiosity of his since Wake never allowed him up there but himself, it reminded me of Icarus. Getting too close to the sun. He is then seen, one eyed, laying on the rocks as seagulls pick at his intestines.

I can dissect some parts of this movie, but that's it. It was an interesting watch. If I rewatch it again, I hope to discover things I missed. Hopefully next time I'll have subtitles.

6. Bodies, Bodies, Bodies! (2023)

Directed by Halina Reijn, this movies follows a group of young adults who get stuck in a remote mansion during a hurricane. When one stumbles up dead, this kick-starts a night of horrors as the group is picked off one by one by a mysterious killer.

This movie is so funny. I knew it would be fun to watch since majority of the scenes were Tiktok sounds, my favorite being the upper middle class one. There's nothing really revolutionary to talk about during the entire movie. Majority of the drama are things that happened off screen since the movie starts when Sophie shows up on the last day of an already existing hangout. It was still good, just a little annoying when they spoke on drama between a random guy name Max and Emma. Everything else was fine and easy to follow along with. This is the friend group where everyone hates each other and probably just tolerates each other just because they grew up together. It's also a really fun and tasteful jab at our generation's internet culture and the obsessive need to find victimhood. I mention victimhood because the ending is so ridiculous and unavoidable that it's crazy. David (played by Pete Davidson) is threatened by the geriatric Greg (played by Lee Pace), a “vet" that is hanging out with a bunch of 20-somethings at his gargantuan age. Greg used a machete to cut open a bottle of champagne, which all the girls fawn over. This annoys David, who is threatened by a new man in the group and it shows. After leaving a game of heated Bodies, Bodies, Bodies between David and Greg, David goes on Tiktok to try and replicate the champagne trick, slicing his neck open in the process. He stumbles up to the house with an open neck, freaking out the girls, and making Greg suspect number one. After the most nauseating misunderstandings happen between Greg and the girls, he is killed by Bee, Sophie's new two-finger warmer, with a kettlebell. These girls went through a night of hell, accidentally killing each other off or turning against one another as preexisting tensions comes to light.

There is no killer.

I was watching this trying to do my process of elimination and coming up empty. I thought, if it's this fucking off-scene dude, Max, I will throw a fit. This cannot be Pretty Little Liar's season finale where they introduce the culprit as someone we never saw. Max was at least mentioned but still.

It was just so ridiculous in a good way. Sophie annoyed me. She didn't stand up to them kicking Bee out or the fight with Bee and Jordan. Plus, she was cheating on sweet Bee. What country is that girl from? Who knows. Aside from being a foreign girl from an unnamed country, she is the outside of the group or long term friends so they quickly turn against each other. Plus Sophie was a romantic two-timer, which raised even more tension for third party Jordan. This movie was so ridiculous that I loved it. I just keep repeating, “He’s a Libra Moon! He wouldn’t do this!��

What I really want to know is what was on that phone of Sophie's?

8/10

7. His House (2020)

Wunmi Mosaku twice in one month? I'm not complaining.

Rial and Bol are refugees who make a harrowing escape from war-torn South Sudan. However, they get more than they bargained for with their new home.

His House is…. a trip. Directed by Remi Reeks, it stars Mosaku and Sope Dirisu who move into a home after seeking asylum in England. They’re on a trial base stay where they’re placed under strict restrictions they have to abide by or else face deportation. Bol is excited to start his new life in England and assimilates quickly to their customs. He opts to eat on a table as opposed to the floor, uses utensils instead of his hands, and buys western clothing. In a later scene, he even tries to stop Rial from speaking dinka, their mother language. He attempts to be friendly with the neighbors, especially this one white woman above him, but is met with hostility. Rial, however, is less willing to assimilate to British culture and keeps her Sudanese customs, much to Bol’s dislike. I first assumed it was because everything seemed trivial after all the couple endured. On their way to England on a small fisher boat, majority of the people they were with died, including their daughter, Nyagak. But on Rial’s first trip to the doctors, she tells a physician that growing up in Sudan, two warring gang would mark themselves distinctively to whichever group they belonged to. Rial marked herself with both, signifying that she belonged nowhere. She’s used to being an outsider, so trying to fit into a country that expects her to be happy with “unseasoned scraps” is not a priority for her. Being “one of the good ones.”

The depiction of racism in this movie is so similar to how I hear it’s handled in England: it night as well not exist.

You know what they mean when they say certain things, do certain things, and treat you a certain way. Unlike the United States, racism in England is so covert that they themselves will deny ever having this problem. It’s kind of like that parent (England) traumatizing their child (United States) and then are shocked when the child goes on to live a more volatile life. Where is the origin of this madness? How did it get this bad? Not a clue.

I read Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book on Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race. The very first paragraph spoke on British’s hidden racist history. They learned about American history with racism, yet not their own, so people will swear up and down it’s not a thing.

But the racial undertones are just that in this movie, undertones. It isn’t on equal grounds as Lovecraft Country when it comes to the most impeding issue Bol and Rial will have to face. An apeth, a night witch, haunts the home, tormenting the couple so that a “debt” is paid.

The horror elements were amazing. I love this new turn in supernatural movies, especially when it comes to hauntings. Lingering shots, horrifying visuals that are so vivid, and those ghosts that sneak up on you out of frame. Is this an elevated horror? If so, it’s what The Babadook was for others but for me. I really don’t like the Babadook, but that was years ago. If I have time to waste, I’ll rewatch it and see how I like it.

Now to the spoilers. The twist was a twist for sure. On my second rewatching, it was a completely different experience because it’s so obvious yet so not what was really happening. This apeth that keeps haunting them calls Bol a thief and he seems to be the primary focus of the entity. Rial tells a story of a man that was poor and wanted a home, just like Bol, who stole from another man that he didn’t know was a night witch. He got his home and the apeth moved in with him, haunting and tormenting the man. I sat to wonder, what did Bol steal? Why isn’t this life his to have? I assumed he was a member of one of the gang that must’ve changed his mind on murdering and wanted to seek refuge. Did he kill someone to get the opportunity?

Girl no.

He stole Nyagak, his “daughter.” After Rial survives a massacre of her friends and Bol goes to find her, they escape with other people seeking refuge. They happen upon a bus that’s only loading people with children. As people fight to be let on, the bus lead refuses single people. As the gang shoots in a distance, Bol sees a child separated from her parent and grabs her, lying to the bus head and giving Rial and Bol a seat to freedom. Nyagak ends up dying on the boat, which starts the chain of a apeth following then to whichever home they get.

It’s funny when they get to the house and Mark greets them. The house is bigger than those afforded to refugees. Rial asks why they got such a big house and Mark states, “Must’ve won the jackpot.”

I really liked this movie and, unlike most elevated horrors, it has a good rewatch quality to it. I’d highly recommend it.

One random realization is that Brits are amazing actors. I realize this when I watched Fish Tank (2009). It’s just so realistic and so natural. One scene where Rial sees three black boys playing. She gets a sense of relief seeing them and goes to ask them for directions. They’re assholes and even tell her to go back to Africa, mocking her mother language and pronunciation. They were just so realistic and so natural. Even the most random actors with small roles are so good, I don’t know. Those acting coaches there are something else.

Lastly, Netflix, I need everything translated. I don’t care how insignificant it is, translate that shit! [Speaking in Dinka] motherfuckers. Tsk!

10/10

8. Swarm (2023)

An obsessed, Houston-base fan goes to increasingly violent lengths for her favorite R&B singer amid a death.

This one is hilarious. Why? Because I am a Beyonce fan. I even have her tatted on me, no joke. With that said, I know the Hive can be an interesting fandom. Does it rival Nicki Minaj's? Closely. Does it Chris Brown's? Crack always prevails, so no.

I do not like Donald Glover, nor his portrayal of black women. When it comes to Dre, a mentally ill black woman, he describes her as he would a rabid dog and directed Dominique Fishback as such. Instead of allowing Swarm to be a depiction - of sorts - of mental illness of a black woman taking form in murderous ways funneled through a shared interest between her and her late sister Marissa, we get this. The links between Beyonce I think was a good touch because it's funny and kinda true. The soul of the movie and its intentions I'll save for another day.

Fishback is amazing and my first time with her. Billie Eilish as Eva was jaw dropping. But best of all, Rickey Thompson as Kenny just trying to do his job was hilarious. I wanted to watch him over and over again and I hope it's a start to an amazing acting career.

The question I have with this show is, did Dre kill Marissa? I believe so. At first, I didn't. Marissa had a history of depression and seemed co-dependent so I'd assumed she killed herself from the breakup. But as I watched more reviewers who pointed out things I hadn't noticed, it seems more plausible.

I don't think Dre's murderous rampage is just because she loves Ni'Jah. The R&B singer was something Dre and Marissa shared together. She was this successful woman that inspired the girls, especially Marissa who wanted to be a popular makeup artist. She had Youtube videos of makeup tutorials and dreamed of being big. When she died, Dre (who might've been the one to take that life) saw Ni'Jah as the potential, the stardom, the fame that Marissa could've had. She essentially saw this woman as a way to still have some remnant of her late sister. Anyone who did not like Ni'Jah Dre viewed as insulting her best friend. They might as well have spat on Marissa’s dead body. The obsession with driving across states to see Ni'Jah, wanting to get close to her and be at that concert no matter what obstacle came in her way showed that. We don’t see this much length be measured when Marissa was alive.

Marissa and the R&B singer were one in the same. This proves true when Dre steals her way on stage with Ni'Jah. Instead of being tackled off, the dancers and Ni'Jah helps her up. Instead of the R&B singer's face, we see Marissa, who embraces her.

The show kept me on my toes every episode. The many casts were also interesting. My favorite death would be Paris Jackson's. I love the tongue-in-cheek jokes that mirror scandals and rumors of the actors, including Beyonce. That fact that Dre is the one to bite Bey was on the nose. The mini documentary that shows that what we're viewing is a dramatization of actors and seeing pictures of the "real" Dre was a nice twist too.

Let's talk about Ms Eilish! Those big, Piscean eyes. This woman is stunning. For her first acting debut, she was a plot twist of the many that were in this show. She came off creepy yet comforting at the same time, the perfect depiction of a cult leader. Truthfully, if that's a cult, I'd join. That's how I know I'd be perfect for these cult recruiters because to this day I don't see the red flags of those white bitches. Of course, they leverage your deepest secrets above your head to keep you in but honestly it's all namaste and ashwagandha mellows from there. Hiking, sisterhood, meditations? I hope I don't sound stupid...

Apparently there'll be a season two. I'm not the best in figuring out if a show needs one, but I don't think this one does. There are a lot of unanswered questions but I think for an ending like the one we were given....dead it. It's an open-ended answer and the speculation of what is real and what isn't is fun and elevates it. If it comes out I'll still watch it, but I hope that's it.

10/10

9. Level 16 (2018)

Girls in a prison-like boarding school embark on a desperate search to uncover the awful truth behind their captivity.

This is literally The Promised Neverland. It really isn't far off from what I hear is being done for people to retain youth. Especially for those who can afford it. If anyone knows that one Ellen interview with Sandra Bullock, I don't even think that's the tip of the iceberg.

This one was all over my Tiktok feed, plus Stephanie Soo made a video on it so I knew what it was about and knew the big reveal. I still liked the movie, so I don't think it ruined it for me. But I do know my experience would've been a lot different hadn't I known. It's so hard avoiding spoilers. Even harder when you don't realize it's a spoiler you'll want to avoid in the future.

I know Katie Douglas from Ginny and Georgia and a few clips of The Girl Who Escaped (2021). Sara Canning is Jenna from The Vampire Diaries, so it was nice seeing that she's still employed. Love her.

Like The Promised Neverland, the children of this "boarding school" endure sixteen years of indoctrination in an attempt to be the perfect child in hopes of being adopted. They have never been outside and have only been within the walls of the school. The girls don't know certain things like "movies," calling them "moving pictures." They're unaware of how to read and I assume write. Every day is a schedule that doesn't falter. If there are any interruptions, the fear of being sent to the basement for punishment and being seen as "unclean" keeps them in line. There are also guards. Unclean girls are ostracized and treated as infections that might spread to the others. Vivian hides that secret of being "unclean" years ago after an incident on level 10, but it isn't a pressing issue in the story.

This is a good plot. It was weirdly paced, but still good. Maybe it has to do with me knowing the stakes, but I felt like it wasn't better shown? I just couldn't take this joke of a school seriously. It seemed like they only had two guards and the rooms were poorly ran. If the girls knew any better they'd easily overpower them or just break through the thin, rotting walls.

Certain things didn't make sense. Vivian was punished on level 10 trying to help Sophia. Years pass when the girls meet each other on level 16 once again, their final year. Vivian is now a obedient girl that treads the line and avoid getting involved with anything that would jeopardize adoption. With that said, why would she not take the medication when Sophia told her? Sophia gave no explanation. From the point of view of Vivian, Sophia is the reason why she went through something so traumatic in the basement that still haunts her six years later. So why just automatically believe her with no reason to and the potential of defying these "caretakers" that once punished her for something similar?

I'm nitpicking.

I just like this specific plot and had my jaws to the floor when The Promised Neverland first released it. Who would've thought an orphanage would turn out to be a farm for harvesting children...Definitely doesn't happen in the real world that's for sure! (sarcasm)

An amazing plot. It had one horrific scene which is horror enough for me, so I added it to this month's reviews.

7/10

10. The Babysitter: Killer Queen

Two years after defeating a satanic cult lead by his babysitter, Cole once again has to outsmart the forces if evil when old enemies unexpectedly return.

Starring Judah Lewis once again as Cole, he is now a junior in high school still being bullied. The fact that all the events of the first 2017 movie was cleaned up results in no one believing Cole who is mocked for being “crazy.” His parents think he’s nuts, even his best friend Melanie (reprised by Emily Alyn Lind) who’d helped him that night of outrunning his satanic babysitter, didn’t really see much to help his case. Even her new boneheaded boyfriend picks on Cole.

This one was also on my lift for a long time. I really liked the first movie, but had forgotten it, so I rewatched it before watching this new sequel (new to me anyway), so I guess you can add that to the list of what I watched this May. Killer Queen is so fun. I watched it two more times after because it’s a light movie, which is surprising given the premise. Black comedy horror are usually good and this is no exception. I might make a list honoring them. The comedic timing, the visual effects, the casting, and, the best of all, Jenna mother fucking Ortega.

I didn’t really like this role much for her for some reason. The character is great and all, but something was just off. Not sure. It doesn’t ruin my rating of this movie but I just wanted to put that out there.

Now to the spoilers. Melanie is the new blond goddess with her name in the devil’s book. I did not see that shit coming. They corner Cole on a boat after taking him on a trip to “relax” after he finds out his parents are fed up with their crazy son and are planning to ship him off to a psychiatric hospital. The new group of teens are Melanie, her boyfriend, Jimmy, Diego, and Boom-Boom are all playing a game when Diego tastelessly ask Cole about his killer babysitter. Melanie instigates, but Diego presses. Melanie slips up a detail of the night that Cole never mentioned to her and she is figured out when Cole doesn’t budge on never having had mentioned that information. Melanie slits Boom-Boom’s throat. The sacrificed. Cole is once again face to face with the same cult that wanted to use his blood for power, fame, and glory. Funnily enough tonight is the night the old friend group of his dead babysitter, Bee, comes back. They are still on the pursuit to use Cole’s blood to get their wildest dreams. Phoebe, Jenna Ortega’s character that’s on her own side quest that independently seems to be related to Cole’s, opens the door to the scene. Her jet ski ran out of gas and she’d stopped on the anchored boat for help but quickly leaves once it’s obvious this is no ordinary party.

I don’t mean to victim blame here, but all of this could’ve been avoided if Cole just got drugged. Actually, I do mean to victim blame. It would be less traumatizing, wouldn’t it?

In the first movie, Bee laced a shot glass of alcohol she was going to give to young Cole but he was afraid of the taste and downed it in the plant when Bee wasn’t looking. From what I got, they were going to leave the boy alive. In Killer Queen, that seemed to be the same case. But that didn’t happen, so Melanie had to quickly improvise. Her deal with the devil was more important than her friendship with Cole, who she teases his feelings for her on many occasions.

I’m not saying just let them use you for a satanic ritual, but if you end up alive… I don’t know. Seems better than running around trying to outrun two groups of killers out for blood.

This movie is just hilarious. My three favorite characters are Robbie Amell, jock head of Bee’s friend group, and Ken Marino, who plays Cole’s father. Marino I know from iZombie and he is hilarious on that too. Everything Amell says is just so perfectly timed and he’s not so bad to look at. I liked him in Duff and that one Scooby live action in 2009. He’s also in a show called Upload I’m excited to start - the clips looked amazing on Tiktok. Samara Weaving is an iconic given, and I’m happy that she and Ortega have worked together in Scream 6.

I recommend both movies strongly. The plot is so good and the actors are perfectly casted. The ending is nice too. I’m just really glad his parents will finally realize he’s telling the truth. Misunderstandings and gaslighting a protagonist is the worst. If they make a third movie, I wouldn’t mind at all. I hope Netflix does since they love to run things into the mud, but we’ll see.

10/10.

Next month I plan on watching the new Evil Dead Rise. I'm just waiting on my boyfriend, so it'll take a while. He also hasn't watched any Jordan Peele movies, which is crazy but perfect for me because I get to rewatch them all over again. I'm mostly excited for Get Out. Thank you for those who read my reviews. I hope I inspired a movie night or two, a binge watch or five.

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stvlti · 2 years

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21 & 25

Sorry for the wait!! I dismissed the notification for my inbox and forgot 🤡

21. name the top five WORST horror films that you've sat through

Ok, fair warning, I don't think I've sat through even 5 "bad" horror movies, so I'll just list the ones I didn't like, personally:

Door Lock (2018)

Pet Sematary, 2019 remake

It: Chapter Two

Crimson Peak

These are the ones I actually remember enough to tell you about the unpleasant viewing experiences I had.

First up: Door Lock, a Korean crime thriller that one could argue isn't technically horror but my god, it hits every single one of the hallmarks of dumb slasher movie character syndrome. Like by the third act me and my cousins were gobsmacked by the decisions the protag made and honestly she would've deserved to be a murder victim. She's just- argh, it's like if you grabbed the character who splits off from the gang and dies first in a horror movie and gave her plot armour just so she could outlast the serial killer and claim the final girl title, you know what I mean? It's a bad movie and it's not even fun to watch. Make sure you skip this one.

Pet Sematary - I actually watched this one in theatres and it's not that bad, but the ending absolutely ruined it for me. You get the sense that they just didn't know when to end it and the last act dragged on for way too long. It's very bloated with multiple plot twist / fake-out endings at the end. If they left the last 10-15 mins on the cutting room floor I think it would be a decent movie. The acting was good (especially the actor who played the dad - forgot his name - whose grief felt so tangible), so it just needs another round of editing.

It: Chapter Two is a mess of a film, tonally and structurally. The pacing was so Baaaaad. I'm sure it's not the worst horror movie to have come out that year but I'm including it simply because the first movie was almost flawless, and the sequel was decidedly not.

Crimson Peak - watched it with my flatmates at the time and we all left the theatre like "what the fuck...?" It probably suffered from its marketing, cause we went in expecting a regular haunted house horror film and ended up with incest on our hands. The sex scene between Loki and Alice-in-Wonderland also felt very awkward and overly long, and neither me nor my flatmates appreciated it (probably because it was filmed for the straight female gaze and none of us fit the bill). And sure, those - the lust and the sins - are all narrative elements characteristic of the literary definition of the gothic genre, but me and the lads certainly did not expect it, and probably wouldn't have gone to see it if we had known that that was what the film was about. This was just my personal experience though, and doesn't diminish the artistic merits of the film. (For example, it's beautifully shot, and it's objectively a well-paced film). I think if I was given a better synopsis, and hadn't seen it in theatres with my guy friends, it might be a completely different viewing experience.

(There's lots more mediocre or shitty horror / thriller movies out there, but I haven't paid money to see those in theatres and usually just changed the channel if I get bored/annoyed halfway through the second act, so those don't count.)

25. do you think gore lessens the quality of a horror film?

Already answered here.

Thanks for sending these in!

Horror movie asks

#transdankovsky #i remember your 'controversial opinion' about gore lol ; mine sort of complements your take #answered #ask meme

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fairfield-research · 6 hours

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Oncology Drugs Market Growth, Trends, Size, Share, Demand And Top Growing Companies 2031

In a landscape where the battle against cancer rages on, advancements in healthcare systems, public health measures, and novel pharmaceutical therapies have ushered in a new era of hope. According to the National Cancer Institute, the United States saw an estimated 1,806,590 new cancer cases and approximately 606,520 deaths due to the disease in 2020. However, over the past five decades, cancer survival rates have soared from 50% in 1970 to an impressive 70%, thanks to a trifecta of progress.

For more information: https://www.fairfieldmarketresearch.com/report/oncology-drugs-market

Unprecedented Growth Trajectory: The global oncology therapy sales are forecasted to surpass US$ 300 billion by 2026, with oncology contributing 21.7% to total pharmaceutical sales. Fueling this growth are the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, which have declared oncology as their key focus area, driving multibillion-dollar M&A deals and strategic collaborations. Pfizer's acquisition of Array BioPharma for US$11 billion in 2019 and AbbVie's strategic partnership with Genmab for a bispecific antibody development deal worth US$3 billion are testament to this focus.

Diverse Indications Drive Demand: While oncology represents over 20 different indications, a significant portion of revenue stems from just five of them: breast cancer, multiple myeloma, non-small-cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), prostate cancer, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), which collectively accounted for approximately 65% of the market in 2020. Moreover, with breast, lung, and colorectal cancers expected to collectively account for ~50% of all new cancer diagnoses by 2026, the demand for innovative therapies continues to surge.

Disruptive Trends Reshape Landscape: Innovation in oncology is accelerating, with disruptive technologies such as cell therapy, RNA therapy, viral vectors, and stem cell therapy gaining traction. Recent approvals of CAR-T cell therapies like Kymriah and Yescarta for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) respectively signal a new frontier in cancer treatment. Precision medicine is also driving progress, with over 160 oncology biomarkers approved by 2019, paving the way for more targeted and effective therapies.

Impact of COVID-19: Despite remarkable progress, oncology has been among the worst-hit therapeutic areas amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Decreased demand for physician-administered products, disruptions in cancer screenings, and a decline in new clinical trials have posed significant challenges. However, the industry remains resilient, adapting to the evolving landscape and ensuring continued innovation.

Immuno-Oncology Leads the Way: Immuno-oncology sales are expected to soar to ~US$ 95 billion by 2026, with agents and protein kinase inhibitors comprising ~65% of sales. With over 550 active cell- and gene-therapy agents under clinical development, the future of cancer treatment looks promising. Investments in combination studies and the exploration of new mechanisms underscore the industry's commitment to advancing immuno-oncology therapies.Roche and Keytruda: Leading the Charge: In a highly concentrated market where the top 10 companies capture over 75% of the market value, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Roche) and Merck & Co. stand out as leaders. While Roche maintains its global leadership position, Merck's Keytruda is poised to become the world's top-selling oncology

#oncology drugs market #medicine

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calacuspr · 3 months

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Calacus Monthly Hit & Miss – Sebastien Haller & Enhanced games february 2024

Every month we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the last few weeks.

HIT - SEBASTIEN HALLER

The late, great Daily Mail sport columnist Ian Wooldridge once wrote: “There are days when sport reaches the sublime heights of unscripted theatre and draws from men and women performers resources of nerve and skill beyond human comprehension.”

The magic of sporting contest is that it can be so unpredictable that it is often said that no one would believe it if you made a movie about what you’ve just witnessed.

This month’s African Cup of Nations (AFCON) certainly fits that description, with striker Sebastien Haller front and centre in the drama.

Ivory Coast, the hosts, looked set to exit the competition after a disastrous group stage, when they lost twice, including a heaviest ever home – and Nations Cup finals – defeat when losing 4-0 to Equatorial Guinea.

Manager Jean-Louis Gasset was promptly sacked, but the team got a reprieve when Zambia failed to get the result they needed to finish above the hosts as a best third-placed side.

Haller had not featured in those first few matches due to an ankle injury, but his comeback is far more dramatic than a typical footballer’s injury.

A former France youth international, Haller made his name at Eintracht Frankfurt before joining Premier League side West Ham for a then club-record fee of £45million in July 2019.

He failed to replicate his Bundesliga form, scoring only 10 goals in a year and a half before moving to Ajax.

Haller twice helped the Dutch giants win the Eredivisie and became only the second player, after one Cristiano Ronaldo, to score in all six of his club’s group-stage Champions League games, and the fourth, with Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Robert Lewandowski, to reach double figures in the competition’s group phase.

This prompted Borussia Dortmund to sign him to replace Erling Haaland, where his impressive form was stopped in its track by a tragic turn of events.

In July 2022, just two weeks after signing, the forward complained of abdominal discomfort and during a consultation with a urologist, a testicular tumour was discovered.

Haller promptly underwent surgery to remove it and within the week, he had started receiving chemotherapy.

In a Canal+ documentary called ‘Fight’, Haller’s wife Priscilla described the news Haller had a tumour as a “nightmare.”

“When (he) told me on the phone, I didn’t believe it — it’s a joke,” she said. “Until he got upset because he takes the blow and on top of that has to convince me. I understood what it was to be really afraid. I was scared and had the fear of my life.”

Haller was determined to play football again as quickly as possible and had a personal trainer devising tailored exercise programmes for him in hospital.

When Haller attended the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris with Priscilla, the extent of his illness was clear for all to see, his hair loss as a result of chemotherapy a stark reminder of how gravely unwellhe had been.

Haller was voted the 13th best player in the world for his achievements with Ajax, and also went up on stage to present an award.

He was encouraged by his idol, former Ivory Coast captain and fellow striker Didier Drogba, to provide an update on his condition and said: “Everything is fine. I’m here because everything is going as well as it can. It’s important to be involved at such events to show that you’re strong.”

That turned out not to be the case.

A month after the Paris ceremony, he needed a second, more dangerous procedure, to remove the residual findings from the tumour, which took over four hours.

When Haller was eventually given the all-clear, he flew with his team-mates to Dortmund’s winter training camp in Marbella, telling reporters that “(retiring) was never on my mind.”

On January 10 2023 Haller was greeted with applause from his team-mates, club staff, opposition players and supporters as he finally stepped onto the pitch for the first time in a Dortmund shirt for a friendly against Fortuna Dusseldorf.

“It’s been a dream to play with my team-mates, certainly more fun than doing runs through forests,” he said afterwards.

Two weeks later, he made his official debut for Dortmund, and first competitive appearance since recovering from cancer, coming off the bench in a 4-3 victory over Augsburg.

The words “F*CK CANCER” were inscribed on his boots.

It was fitting that on World Cancer Day, in early February 2023, Haller scored his first goal for Borussia Dortmund, heading into the net against Freiburg in front of 80,000 supporters at Signal Iduna Park and subsequently swamped by a horde of yellow-clad team-mates.

He pointed to that message on his boots as part of his celebration and he said afterwards: “To score today was a great message to everyone who is fighting today or will fight later.

“It gives some hope, some courage. The days after will always be better. You only want to score another goal, to have that feeling again. It’s the best feeling.

“You’re flying. You’re on a cloud. The whole stadium is on fire. Your team-mates, the staff, everyone is as one. It’s a big boost. There’s still a long way to go, but we will walk down that path.

"Of course, you realise it is something really serious that is happening, that a lot of things can change. It's important to tell it straight about cancer.

“But the urologist helped me not to be scared. He said I could heal well. I took all his words for granted.”

With Ivory Coast struggling and scoring just twice in the AFCON group stages, Haller’s recovery from his ankle injury took on added significance.

"After the big defeat against Equatorial Guinea, we had no choice," Haller said.

"We've come back from a long way. There were words, moments, which were not easy for the players, staff and everybody [but] which were necessary."

Haller’s teammate Seko Fofana said that Haller's struggles with health and fitness inspired squad unity, especially after their coach was sacked in the group stage.

"He was a benefit to others in the team, always giving something else to this group," Fofana mused. “[Consequently] we're now a unit, a collective, and we can be very happy about it.”

Losing against defending champions Senegal, Haller was thrown on late in normal time to help save the game, and his perfect through ball to Nicolas Pepe saw the former Arsenal winger fouled in the penalty area.

Franck Kessie equalised from the spot to take the game into extra time with Haller scoring in the penalty shootout, with the Ivorians knocking out the holders 5-4.

Still not fit enough to start games, Haller was brought on against Mali in the quarter-final with the team down to 10 men, hitting the bar before Oumar Diakite scored in the 122nd minute to see the hosts through 2-1.

In the semi-final against DR Congo, Haller scored the only goal with a volley into the ground, which bounced over goalkeeper Lionel Mpasi and into the net.

That gave Haller the chance to put his health problems behind him, and looking forward to the final, he said: “The last 18 months have been quite challenging for myself and the family. I just take everything step by step and I just try to enjoy the moment. I don't want to have any regrets.

“It’s a great moment to be here in front of you, talking about the final of AFCON in my own country. It will take a few months, or a few years, to really realise what happened (to me).”

Hollywood scriptwriters would have ensured Haller scored the winning goal in front of his home fans, a scenario which looked unlikely when William Troost-Ekong had put Nigeria ahead seven minutes before half-time.

Kessie equalised with just over an hour gone before Haller seized his moment, flicking the ball into the net from Simon Adingra's cross in front of 60,000 fans at Abidjan's Alassane Ouattara Stadium.

An emotional Haller broke down in tears after the final whistle, the reality of his achievement hitting home.

"We dreamed of this moment so many times," Haller said. "We hoped to get to this point and once again the match wasn't an easy one. The joyous scenes we see now, what's happening in the country, they deserve it too. I really hope it does a lot of people good."

Haller was congratulated by Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara after picking up his winners' medal, perhaps in recognition of the impact his return had on Ivory Coast's Éléphants.

Understandably, Haller was front and centre of the team's trophy parade through the centre of Abidjan the following day, the victory a show of unity coming only 13 years since the end of Ivory Coast’s second civil war.

But victory was about more than just lifting the AFCON trophy for the first time since 2015.

Thousands of Ivory Coast fans came to celebrate on the streets of Abidjan, adorning the team’s orange and white colours, a national holiday called to celebrate the championship success.

Haller’s dignified and determined fight against cancer, his impact on the team and the entire nation underlined how sporting prowess can have a positive impact on society.

It’s a reminder not only of the importance of sport, but how its impact transcends the field, bringing joy, hope and inspiration to millions.

MISS – ENHANCED GAMES

With the recent backing of PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel and other tech businessmen, it looks like the controversial Enhanced Games has the financial backing to take place in 2024.

The Enhanced Games is a proposed international athletic competition, not unlike the Olympic Games, but with one major difference: they explicitly do not test for Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs). This is not to say that athletes are forced to dope, but rather than doping is perfectly permissible in the eyes of the organisers.

Their stated goal is to see how far humans can go, using a combination of chemical and technological doping; the former including anabolic steroids and hormone therapy, the latter technology like ’super trainers’ and swimsuits based on sharkskin.

The main philosophy of the Enhanced Games is that PED use should be seen as a ‘demonstration of science’ rather than as cheating.

Is this philosophy legitimate? It is true that no athlete succeeds on their own, and that every Olympic champion has a team of nutritionists, coaches and trainers, equipment designers, physiotherapists, friends, and family behind them. Why not add a pharmacist to the list?

The point could be made that high-altitude training could count as an unfair advantage, given that it is only available to athletes from countries that can either afford to fly them there, or who happen by chance to host training facilities in the mountains. It certainly gives athletes a clear and measurable edge over those that don’t have the option.

From a different perspective, a world-class swimmer like Michael Phelps has longer-than-average arms and a torso that is proportionally longer compared to his legs, as well as size 14 feet and a body that produces half the lactic acid of an average swimmer, but he is celebrated as a natural superhuman.

Meanwhile, women such as champion runner Caster Semenya, whose bodies produce higher than average testosterone levels, are punished and forced to take supplements to bring their hormone levels back down to average.

Clearly, there are grey areas when it comes to genetic and competitive advantages, so it could be argued that any and all enhancements should be allowed. That way, an athlete’s performance on the international stage would represent the combined scientific and sporting abilities of their nation to achieve victory as well as any genetic gifts they have.

Given the allegations of the Russian state-sponsored doping program that saw the state formally expelled from the Olympic Movement, forcing the nation’s athletes to compete as independents, this could be more endemic than we currently think.

The Enhanced Games also claim to have a vastly improved pay structure compared to the Olympic Games, including a stipend for all athletes that compete, as well as substantial prizes for the most successful – including up to and above $1m for gold medallists.

Olympic Games silver medallist James Magnussen has indicated he’d be more than happy to come out of retirement and take steroids if it meant a large payday.

He said: “They [Enhanced Games] have said they have a billion-dollar person backing them.

“If they put up a million dollars for the freestyle world record, I’ll come on board as the first athlete. I’ll juice to the gills and break it in six months.”

Three-time swimming gold medal winner Leisel Jones has argued that the Enhanced Games might actually benefit the Olympic Games.

“It might actually keep the clean sport, clean,” she said. “If this clears out people who genuinely want to [take PEDs] and are doing illegal things in sport, if that clears them out of clean sport, that would be wonderful.”

However, she has said that while she might be interested in commentating, she wouldn’t be interested in coming out of retirement to take part herself.

“I don’t want to participate in it myself, I’m not in a position to do that. The risks are too big for me I think for the side effects and whatnot.

“But I am happy to see other people do this. I would watch it for sure. I just want to know how fast they can go.”

There is some truth in the argument that traditional athletics has been afflicted by illicit drug use. Beyond Russia, a 2017 study carried out by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) suggested that as many of half of tested athletes had used PEDs in the last year.

Two parallel Games, one ‘natural’ and one ‘Enhanced’ could, properly enacted, result in fairer competition for all.

However, the Enhanced Games has understandably been strongly criticised by anti-doping agencies all over the world.

Travis Tygart, CEO of the US Anti-Doping Agency, described the Enhanced Games as ”farcical… likely illegal in many states” and “a dangerous clown show, not real sport”

In a release, WADA further condemned the new Games, calling it “a dangerous and irresponsible concept.”

“WADA warns athletes and support personnel, who wish to participate in clean sport, that if they were to take part in the 'Enhanced Games', they would risk committing anti-doping rule violations under the World Anti-Doping Code,

"Athletes serve as role models and we believe this proposed event would send the wrong signal to young people around the world.”

Australian Olympic Committee chief Matt Carroll added that: “The Australian Olympic Committee believes the concept of a drug-enhanced games is dangerous.

“We know next to nothing about this organisation but sport needs to be clean and it needs to be safe for all athletes,

“The Olympic Movement is devoted to clean sport and athletic excellence, celebrating the best in humanity, excellence, friendship and respect.”

A spokesperson from UK Anti-Doping has described the Games as ”‘unsafe, dangerous to athletes’ health and wellbeing [and flying] in the face of fair play.

"We believe competing is about respect, hard work and determination, not a dangerous game of endorsing drug use to enhance performance. We are committed to working with athletes to champion their rights, their health and their wellbeing.”

Even cyclist Joseph Papp, who was suspended in 2006 for PED use, has come out against the Enhanced Games.

“A doping free-for-all just invites the most ambitious person to be the most reckless person, and to take the most drugs possible without literally killing themselves.”

Athlete safety should be paramount in any sporting competition, and it is unclear how PEDs that are illegal in many countries would be regulated to ensure fair access for all competitors.

The condemnation that the Enhanced Games has received is also not limited to the world of sports: their messaging appears to be mimicking that of other, serious, political movements.

One of the Enhanced Games website slogans is: ‘My body, my choice,’ clearly attempting to echo the pro-choice slogans of pro-abortion activists.

Aron D’Souza, President of the Enhanced Games, said: “Fifty years ago, being a gay man was like being enhanced today. It’s stigmatised, it’s illegal in some sense and it’s done in a dark alley.”

In referencing a picture on the Enhanced Games website of an athlete holding up a flag bearing the event’s stylised “E+” logo, he added: “What changed for the LGBT community was pride — there was a flag to rally around and if you look at our website, it is intentional. What’s our first picture? A flag. Maybe this was our Stonewall moment.”

That is a bold claim even for a gay man like D’Souza to make, given the long and deeply oppressive experiences that LGBT+ communities have undergone throughout history.

There’s clearly a shock value aspect to the Enhanced Games’s communications strategy.

A further slogan of the Enhanced Games is ‘Science is real,’ echoing pro-vaccination arguments during the Covid Pandemic. These attempts to co-opt major worldwide political issues for the gain of the Enhanced Games organisers and investors is unlikely to improve the organisation’s credibility.

Whether or not they can attract sufficient athletes remains to be seen. At the time of writing, very few have publicly supported the new competition.

D’Souza claimed that 500 ‘sleeper’ athletes had privately agreed to take part, but so far none have spoken publicly, raising doubts about whether the Enhanced Games can go ahead.

With the very real safety concerns, the question remains: who will actually benefit from the Enhanced Games? It may certainly garner some initial attention, but what sponsors would want to be associated with such a controversial competition which would potentially undermine their own ethics and ethos?

D'Souza claims that he has no need for further investment, and that this is simply a project to see what humanity is capable of. But the financial incentives offered to attract athletes will need funding if the Enhanced Games are to ensure.

There is so much that the Enhanced Games have got wrong from a communications perspective.

Instead of demonstrating an understanding of the concerns and addressing them in a sensitive way, the approach has been one of aggressive belligerence.

Whether more athletes will sign up for the Enhanced Games in the fullness of time remains to be seen.

The risks to athlete safety alone will ensure continued widespread condemnation from the sports world and beyond.

#AFCON #Ivory Coast #West Ham #Ajax #Borussia Dortmund #Sebastien Haller #Franck Kessie #African Cup of Nations #Didier Drogba #cancer #Eintracht Frankfurt

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newstfionline · 9 months

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Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Travel Will Soon Be a $15 Trillion Economy (Bloomberg) The crowds of travelers filling airports in many parts of the world this summer are a telltale sign of what’s ahead for tourism. By 2033, travel is set to become a $15.5 trillion industry—accounting for more than 11.6% of the global economy. This represents a 50% increase over its $10 trillion value in 2019, when travel represented 10.4% of the world’s gross domestic product.

Gun deaths among U.S. children hit a new record high (Axios) Firearm deaths among children in the U.S. hit a new record high in 2021, according to a study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. There were 4,752 pediatric firearm deaths in 2021, or a rate of 5.8 per 100,000 people—an 8.8% increase from the year before, the study found. The study, based on government data, points to the worsening of an already distressing trend, after guns became the leading cause of death for children for the first time in 2020. “Spikes in firearm purchasing during the pandemic were substantial, resulting in roughly 30 million children living in households with firearms, a known risk factor for pediatric firearm injury,” the researchers wrote.

US car prices (AP) The Mitsubishi Mirage is the last model of automobile in the United States that is still selling on average for less than $20,000, with last month the vehicle averaging $19,205 at sale. Other vehicles are priced at under $20,000, but exceed it on average after factoring in options and shipping. The average vehicle in the U.S. costs around $48,000, particularly as the big three automakers ditch compact and subcompact cars in favor of massive trucks and SUVs, which are considerably more profitable. As it stands, 32 models sell for above $100,000 on average, up from 12 models in 2018.

Two dead, thousands homeless in Chile after heavy rains (Reuters) Two people are dead from flooding in the central-southern region of Chile on Monday, while thousands of others have been evacuated or left homeless from dangerous rains pounding isolated communities. President Gabriel Boric declared a state of catastrophe on Monday while visiting one of the worst affected areas, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital Santiago. In late June surrounding areas had experienced some of the heaviest rainfall in three decades, exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern that has led to rainier winters and springs in the central-southern part of Chile, as well as warmer temperatures. More than 26,000 people remain cut off from basic services and almost 34,000 have been evacuated, according to the Chilean disaster agency Senapred. Some 38,000 are without electricity in the affected area that is home to rural farming communities.

Monster hunting at Loch Ness (NPR) Loch Ness is the largest lake in Great Britain by volume at 22 square miles and up to 788 feet deep, and the long-running claim that there is some sort of cryptid in the lake—the Loch Ness Monster—has gotten a lot of mileage out of that size. Now, the Loch Ness Centre is going to embark on the biggest search of the lake ever, claiming they will be using equipment and technology that had not yet been used on the lake before and recruiting the largest mass of volunteers in decades. While there had been claims of something in the lake going back to the times when people wrote “here there be dragons” on maps, the claims took off in 1933 when a couple claimed they saw a dragon. Since then, there have been 1,140 claimed and reported sightings.

Germany’s far-right party is more popular than ever (Washington Post) Maximilian Krah, the newly elected top candidate of the far-right Alternative for Germany for the European elections, has described Pride Month as “disgusting,” is a proponent of deporting immigrants and peppers his speech with allusions to white-supremacist conspiracy theories. Far-right experts say his recent election as lead candidate to represent the party in the 2024 European Parliament elections was just another sign of the AfD’s increasing radicalization. But the party is attracting a record number of German voters. In recent months, the AfD has surged to become the second strongest political force in the country after the opposition Christian Democrats, polling at around 21 percent, ahead of all members of the country’s liberal governing coalition. The AfD’s record-high position in the polls comes amid brimming dissatisfaction with Germany’s ruling three-party coalition, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats. It also comes on the back of multiple crises, including the pandemic and war in Ukraine that have boosted populists Europe wide. Krah puts the party’s success down to the population’s distain for liberal policies on climate, gender and LGBT issues, immigration and the war in Ukraine, saying established political parties have no answer to real issues German face.

Windows are shattered in a Moscow suburb as Russia says it thwarts latest Ukraine drone attack (AP) Russian air defense systems thwarted four nighttime Ukrainian drone attacks, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday, with the falling wreckage of one drone shattering an apartment building’s windows and damaging vehicles in Moscow’s western suburbs. There were no reports of injuries in the latest drone attacks that Russia blamed on Kyiv, as the war approaches its 18-month milestone. Though the drone attacks on Russian soil have occurred almost daily in recent weeks, they have caused little damage. Even so, they have unnerved some Russians and are in line with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pledge to take the war into the heart of Russia.

Americans told to leave Belarus (Washington Post) The U.S. Embassy in Belarus urged Americans to leave the country “immediately.” It said Americans should avoid traveling to Belarus because of a buildup of Russian military forces, the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws,” and the risk of detention and civil unrest. Lithuania, Poland and Latvia were considering closing more border crossings, the embassy warned.

Running It Cold: Why Xi Jinping Is Letting China’s Economy Flail (Bloomberg) Xi Jinping’s quest to rewrite the playbook that drove China’s economic miracle for a generation is facing its sternest test yet. The $18 trillion economy is decelerating, consumers are downbeat, exports are struggling, prices are falling and more than one in five young people are out of work. Country Garden Holdings Co., with 3,000 pending property projects up and down the country, is on the cusp of default and protestors have gathered at Zhongzhi Enterprise Group Co., one of the biggest shadow banks, demanding their money as payments are halted. Foreign investors are pulling money out, with the central bank boosting efforts to stanch the yuan’s tumble toward the weakest level since 2007. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen this month termed China a “risk factor” for the US while her boss President Joe Biden called China’s economy a “ticking time bomb” at a recent campaign event. But where Biden has opted to run his economy hot, spending trillions of dollars on household stimulus and infrastructure to goose the economy, Xi is running his cold in a bid to finally break China’s addiction to fueling growth with speculative apartment construction and low-return projects funded by opaque local borrowing. If China is a “ticking time bomb,” Xi’s aim is to defuse it. It remains to be seen whether it will work.

Japan to release water from Fukushima nuclear plant starting Aug. 24 (Washington Post) Japan will start discharging treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean as soon as Thursday, despite fierce opposition from neighboring countries and Japan’s fishing industry. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Tuesday that the release of more than 1 million metric tons of wastewater—equivalent to more than 500 Olympic-size swimming pools—will take place in a safe manner. Following a two-year review, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded last month that Japan’s plan meets international safety standards and would have “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment. The water, filtered to remove radioactive elements and highly diluted to lower the concentration of tritium, will be released into the Pacific Ocean in a process expected to take more than 30 years. The concentration of tritium, a radioactive material that is extremely difficult to separate from water, will drop to background ocean levels after the dilution, Japanese authorities say. For years, the contaminated water has been stored in large metal tanks near the plant, the site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. But Japan is running out of space to build more tanks to accommodate the contaminated groundwater and rainwater that are still exiting the site.

Protests rock government-held areas in southern Syria as economy crumbles (AP) Protests spread Monday in two government-held provinces in southern Syria amid widespread anger over the crash of the Syrian pound and the dwindling purchasing power of many people in the war-torn country, opposition activists said. The rare protests are still limited to southern Syria and are far from government strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, the capital Damascus and the largest cities, including Aleppo and Homs. The U.S. dollar has gone from 7,000 Syrian pounds at the beginning of 2023 to 15,000 now. At the onset of Syria’s uprising turned-civil war in 2011, the dollar was trading at 47 pounds. The United Nations estimates that 90% of Syrians in government-held areas live in poverty and that over half of the country’s population of 12 million struggles to put food on the table.

Emmerson Mnangagwa—Zimbabwe’s ‘crocodile’ who wants another bite (BBC) When Robert Mugabe was ousted as Zimbabwe’s president in 2017, his replacement, Emmerson Mnangagwa promised a new start for his country’s people. But as President Mnangagwa seeks re-election at the polls later this month, Zimbabweans are grappling with the same problems—high inflation, poverty and a climate of fear. Known as “the crocodile” because of his political cunning, he came to power after a military takeover and mass demonstrations forced Mr Mugabe, long-time leader and Mr Mnangagwa’s former mentor, to resign. Mr Mnangagwa may have unseated Zimbabwe’s only ruler, but he is also associated with some of the worst atrocities committed under the ruling party since independence in 1980. Some of his former comrades in the liberation struggle used to describe him as a “very cruel man”. But his children see him as a principled, if unemotional, man. His daughter, Farai Mlotshwa—a property developer and the eldest of his nine children by two wives—once described him as a “softie”.

Adopting 8 therapeutic habits can add decades to your life, study says (Washington Post) In a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, researchers found that men who had adopted eight healthy lifestyle habits by middle age lived 24 years longer than men whose lifestyle included few or none of the habits. Women’s life expectancy increased by 23 years for those who had adopted the eight habits compared with women who had not. Described by the researchers as “therapeutic lifestyle factors,” the eight key habits were: Not smoking, being physically active, managing stress, eating a healthy diet, having good sleep hygiene, avoiding binge drinking, not being addicted to opioids, and having positive social relationships. Overall, people who adopted all eight were 13 percent less likely to die for any reason during the study period of about eight years, researchers said, and the mortality rate for participants declined as the number of healthy habits they followed increased. The greatest mortality risk was linked to smoking, low physical activity, and opioid use.

#headlines #news

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nbmsports · 10 months

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Domingo Germán of Yankees Proves Perfection Can Come at Any Time

In his first start of the 1956 World Series, Don Larsen could not complete two innings. He faced only 10 batters, and six reached base. By the time the game was over, the Brooklyn Dodgers had pelted the Yankees for 13 runs.In his next start, of course, Larsen authored a perfect game. Joe Trimble of The Daily News started his article on the performance this way: “The imperfect man pitched a perfect game.”Domingo Germán, the right-hander who joined Larsen, David Wells and David Cone on Wednesday by throwing the fourth perfect game in Yankees history, is imperfect, too. The setting for his gem — the crumbling Oakland Coliseum, home to the moribund Athletics — was hardly baseball paradise. The 11-0 victory ended after midnight in New York.But that’s the magic of the perfect game: It can happen to any pitcher at any time. Wells and Cone had 20-win seasons and made multiple All-Star teams; not so for Larsen or Germán. Two A’s have been perfect: One is a Hall of Famer, Catfish Hunter, and the other is a current Oakland broadcaster, Dallas Braden, who had a losing record for his career.The threadbare A’s are baseball’s worst team, already 40 games under .500, consumed by their vision of a new home in Las Vegas. Yet they have endured many dreadful seasons, and this was the first perfect game against the franchise since 1904, when Boston’s Cy Young did it to the Philadelphia Athletics. Their manager, Connie Mack — then only 42 years old — had more than half a lifetime left in the dugout, and he never saw another.When Larsen did it, the feat had not been accomplished since 1922, by a nondescript Chicago White Sox rookie named Charlie Robertson. The drought before Germán’s was not nearly as long, but it was significant: No pitcher had been perfect since Seattle’s Félix Hernández in August 2012.The 10 regular seasons in between (2013 through 2022) featured 22,765 imperfect games. Yu Darvish, Yusmeiro Petit and Max Scherzer each lost a bid when the 27th batter reached base. The Yankees’ Carlos Rodón — as a member of the White Sox in 2021 — lost his attempt when a slider nicked the top of a batter’s shoe in the ninth inning.“It really has to be your day,” Rodón said, reflecting on that game last summer. “You have to be on, they have to catch every ball, and you can’t hit anybody. There’s a luck element. It’s kind of like a lottery thing.”Like Larsen, Germán gave no warning he was about to hit the jackpot. He was booed off the mound in the Bronx last Thursday, pounded for 10 runs in three and a third innings against Seattle. The start before that, in Boston, Germán allowed seven runs in two innings.He spent part of May serving a suspension after umpires in Toronto found a sticky substance on his pitching hand. He served a much more serious suspension, for domestic violence, from mid-September 2019 through the shortened 2020 season that followed.Since then, the Yankees have never known quite what to do with Germán. He hinted at retirement in a cryptic social media post in 2020. Shoulder trouble cost him parts of the last two seasons. He was a depth piece before spring training, the sixth man in a five-man rotation, and chose a new uniform number: 0.Then injuries struck, and the Yankees had no choice but to sign up for Germán’s inconsistency every fifth game. One start he was giving up six runs to Minnesota, the next he was shutting out Cleveland into the ninth inning.He took the mound in Oakland on Wednesday with a 5.10 earned run average. He left it in triumph with the 24th perfect game in the history of Major League Baseball.Germán, 30, had never pitched a shutout in his 13 professional seasons. He had only one complete game, in the minors in 2017. But there he was, before a pro-Yankees crowd of 12,479 fans, flipping curve after curve — 51 times out of 99 pitches — for eight groundouts, nine strikeouts and 10 outs through the air.As usual for a perfect game, there was a defensive highlight. In the fifth inning, first baseman Anthony Rizzo dived for a backhanded grab of a smash down the line by Seth Brown, then flipped from his knees to Germán covering the bag. Nothing else would come close to a hit for the A’s.The biggest threat was a three-ball, one-strike count to Jonah Bride with two outs in the eighth. But Germán dropped in his curveball for a called strike, then another for a foul and another for an inning-ending groundout. That’s how it finished, too, when Esteury Ruiz tapped a curve to third baseman Josh Donaldson, who fired to Rizzo to certify the masterpiece.The Yankees’ four perfect games are the most by any franchise, breaking their tie with the White Sox. Seven teams have never been involved in one, including two — the Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals — with histories that stretch to the 1800s. The Toronto Blue Jays have none, but their longtime ace, Roy Halladay, got one in his second month with a new team, the Philadelphia Phillies, in 2010.Germán is the first native of the Dominican Republic to throw a perfect game, a feat that painfully eluded Pedro Martinez in 1995. Martinez twirled nine perfect innings for Montreal in San Diego, but gave up a leadoff hit in the 10th inning. The Pirates’ Harvey Haddix, in Milwaukee in 1959, stayed perfect through 12 innings, only to lose his effort (and the game) in the 13th.And let’s not dwell on poor Armando Galarraga, who lost his perfect game in 2010 — ancient times, before replay — when the umpire Jim Joyce missed a call at first base on what should have been the final out.A night like Germán’s is an outlier to cherish forever, a reminder that perfection might actually be out there, waiting to surprise us — whoever we are.“We are all imperfect and flawed in one way or another,” Halladay’s widow, Brandy, said in her speech at his Hall of Fame ceremony in 2019. “We all struggle. But with hard work, humility and dedication, imperfect people can still have perfect moments.” Source link Read the full article

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deadcactuswalking · 11 months

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 24/06/2023 (Leigh-Anne, Peggy Gou, Doja Cat... Gunna)

Content warning: Swearing, parasocial relationships, Gunna

For a third week, Dave and Central Cee hang onto the #1 spot with “Sprinter” on the UK Singles Chart. Welcome back, once again, to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

As always, we start with the notable dropouts, which are songs exiting the UK Top 75 - what I cover on this show - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 75. Given it’s a middling week in terms of activity, we don’t have an insane amount of dropouts here, but we do say farewell to five songs that all have something in common: they’re pretty old at this point, all leaving the chart years after their release, and in most cases, years after they initially charted, those being “The Best” by the late Tina Turner, “Dog Days are Over” by Florence + the Machine, “Die for You” by The Weeknd - assisted by a remix with Ariana Grande that OCC does not credit - “See You Again” by Tyler, the Creator featuring Kali Uchis and finally, “Afraid to Feel” by LF SYSTEM.

As for what’s filling in the gaps... I mean, there’s not much of a gap to fill but two songs that are having viral moments right now return to the chart - “UNAVAILABLE” by Davido featuring Musa Keys at #75, which peaked at #60 earlier this year, and “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift all the way up to #28. It originally peaked at #27 close to release of the Lover album in 2019 and actually didn’t last a second week, but it’s been practically crowned an honorary single by the fans and has just now got that official push, so it’s off ACR and back to the top 40, right near where it debuted and peaked nearly four years ago. Oh, and for the record, I really don’t care for this song, I’m not bothered about it coming back or wherever it peaks from here on.

As for our notable gains, we do see boosts for “So Much in Love” by D.O.D at #55, “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift at #45, “Relax My Eyes” by ANOTR and Abel Balder at #43, “Area Codes” by Kali at #38, “How Does it Feel” by Tom Grennan surging off of the album release (which did go #1 on the albums chart) to #31, “UNHEALTHY” by Anne-Marie featuring Shania Twain at #24, “Late Night Talking” by Harry Styles at #22, “Little Things” by Jorja Smith at #15 and finally, Hannah Laing and RoRo both get their first top 10 with “Good Love” at #9. Yeah, I’m not really complaining about any of that - you have a few bonafide great songs and the worst here is… “Late Night Talking”, I guess, and even that I just find kind of irrationally annoying rather than actually all that bad, so maybe this summer on the hit parade has some promise.

This week’s top five on the UK Singles Chart consists of pretty much what you’d expect - “As it Was” by Harry Styles at #5, “Giving Me” by Jazzy at #4, “Miracle” by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding at #3, “Who Told You” by J Hus featuring Drake steady at #2, and of course, “Sprinter” at #1. Now I said that the summer’s hits started to show promise, but our batch of new arrivals has two Gunna songs. So for everything I say, take it with a grain of salt. Let’s get to the new entries.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 - “back to the moon” - Gunna

Produced by Kenny Stuntin and Ayo Slim

Well, I haven’t listened to this Gunna album, a Gift & a Curse, which hit #9 on this week’s album chart, because… why would I? Young Thug just dropped an album, and really, especially since the producers have become considerably more unimpressive and the features are non-existent, I am just listening to a low-rate Young Thug. This song may be the best way to effectively sell that idea too, since the production is alright, if a bit unfocused with its lone melodies led by slick acoustics, soaring guitars, choirs and cute pianos functioning as a “loop” somehow when there’s just no real melodic composition to this. It does work, however, at least it could with this monotonous trap beat if anyone else was on it that had any genuine personality. He’s not saying of interest and even if the flow is fast and the delivery is relatively compelled for Mr. Kitchens… just imagine Young Thug on it instead and suddenly it’s a great song. Gunna has this meek-sounding voice that never fully sounds like it gives any substantial weight to what he’s saying, so whilst this works on smoother beats like “bread & butter”, on hard-hitting ones he finds himself lacking and desperately catching up to the beat, which is a shame because there is potential here. Speaking of sloppy flows on trap beats, let us welcome back an old favourite…

#53 - “Side Effects” - D-Block Europe

Produced by ProdByNInez

I wish the producer’s name was just Ninez so I didn’t technically repeat myself with that producer credit. Regardless, I guess we need a second song called “Side Effects” on the chart, and since it’s from DBE, it at least ends up being a bit more interesting, but mostly just like the Gunna songs… just British. This is a rare DBE song led by Dirtbike LB, who I generally prefer but not because of how he leads songs, moreso because he can deliver a weirdly depressing verse in the middle of a song with pretty good flows, so he feels almost out of his element acting as the lead with the first verse and chorus on this screeching loop that’s slapped over a drill-adjacent trap beat. His charmingly sloppy delivery is still here, combined with a pretty terrible vocal mix that sounds worse than in the hook than in the verses - priorities - as he flexes whilst praying the album doesn’t leak. Young Adz picks up a woman in his verse that kind of just proves that despite Adz having more of a presence generally, these guys are interchangeable since Adz ends up serving the purpose of desperate, longing second verse with cool, unstable flows drenched in Auto-Tune, except Adz has that fun “Ski” ad-lib, I suppose. Can we start a movement to make DBE comically bad again? This is just dull.

#47 - “fukumean” - Gunna

Produced by Dunk Rock and Florian “Flo” Ongonga

Come on, Sergio, this is a family show. This sure is a Gunna song, mostly ruined by Gunna but not entirely. I like the flute and its cheap-sounding piano counter-melody, with the stock refrain from P Litty, both in the fun gang vocals and the incessant “ee-yup”, giving something vaguely unique but also incredibly annoying, which is especially effective at turning me off the song when the only real dynamic within the song is the percussion, and even that just feels rote. Gunna sticks to one flow, calls himself a “perv” and all of you “little turds”, and then just ends up sounding like Travis Scott if he were even more bored. At least it transitions well into the next track on the album, which is both better than this thanks to cloudier production and actually compelling content in the second verse as well as something I accidentally listened to when meaning to just listen and review to this song. Great.

#37 - “Attention” - Doja Cat

Produced by Rogét Chahayed and Y2K

Doja Cat is a good rapper, and I definitely prefer her rapping to her singing, so when I heard she was going to release an album consisting mostly of more rap-focused songs, I had some hopes, and I still do even after this single didn’t wow me. The problem here is that this is not a particularly interesting instrumental - it’s far from bad, with its guitar frolick, but it’s not a guitar that sounds great with all its flourishes that if anything are kind of distracting. The boom-bap drums are a welcome breath of fresh air but the rhythm section ends up being kind of clouded in the muddled falsetto chorus and layers of vocal harmony, and when it isn’t, you can’t appreciate the musicality as much since it’s only Doja rapping and a few inflections added from Y2K that don’t add to the song all that much. That hook as well is not great, though it definitely adds to the eerie control Doja seems to want over the song, commenting on parasocial relationships through the infantilisation and dehumanisation of those who are very invested in their relationship with artists, as well as allowing for parallel between how she treats those fans - or haters - and how they view her as craving attention. The verses act as almost a defence of Doja’s actions in terms of her cosmetic surgeries, hair and social media antics, and whilst she definitely has a confident delivery and some pretty great lines - especially that now that she’s seeing a therapist, she can see the haters are depressed - I just don’t care. It’s a shallow reason, I know, but I can’t find myself invested in celebrity gossip that deflects from the celebrity itself. I prefer to hear more introspection when fame is a topic, though she actually gets to something really interesting in the second verse: she’s observant of the press and its toxicity that affects the way we respond to pop culture, whilst also making sure she stays away from going too far as to not look too invested in all the BS. The references in the inflections and rhyme schemes to Nicki Minaj when she’s brought up as a comparison is a pretty genius touch, honestly, and I love hearing when that direct influence feeds into an artist’s work without fully sounding like emulation, and for the last couple measures, we get to hear the instrumental breathe fully and it sounds great! Those moments are few and far between though, which is disappointing because I really, really want to like this song, yet that chorus gets on my nerves and a lot of the first verse I just don’t care for regarding all the clap-backs, it’s just not all that interesting to me, which will hurt the song years after some of this dies down, as well as hurt the song because it’s so lyrically focused. Hopefully the album lyrically touches on a variety of topics because this content could get old quick, and potentially spoil some more great production.

#14 - “(It Goes Like) Nanana” - Peggy Gou

Produced by Peggy Gou

Peggy Gou is a South Korean house DJ who has been active since at least 2016, and whilst her more recent EPs have made waves in the underground, I don’t think many people expected this new single from hers to blow up out of seemingly nowhere on Spotify, and end up debuting in the top 20, seemingly to stay for a good while and I am far from complaining because this is fantastic. If you know me at all, you’ll know I like my dance music more atmospheric, and this sounds straight out of a chill-out CD with his hypnotising 90s rave rhythm, consisting of a bass synth that is perfectly mixed alongside spiralling keys and a classic piano house pattern, as well as an unexpected guitar flick that reminds me of ATB. I’m pretty sure it’s Peggy Gou on vocals too, and she delivers an insanely infectious hook with a beautiful nonsense chorus perfect for this kind of atmosphere, which syncs up with a watery backing synth, it’s just a wonderful chorus. Gou’s vocals slide between a nasal extent and a more upbeat percussive cadence effortlessly within, and the vintage filter applied to all of the song definitely contributes to my pretty nostalgic enjoyment of this. Sure, it’s basically a non-stop chorus machine of a song, but when the hook is this good, it doesn’t matter, and really, any of the chilled deep house you hear from the 90s or 2000s is usually just as ridiculously repetitive with little splatters of synths or percussive changes that make it feel more interesting, so the fact that Gou decided to go for a breath-taking build-up in the final chorus here, that adds a little subtle vocaloid drop-sounding loop below the mix, as well as filtering out some of the drums so they make a less-than-full impact, both leads the song right back to its nostalgic roots whilst also playing a lot with the foundation. This is how you do a dance throwback - I’m very glad this charted, and I hope it sticks around, maybe even hits the top 10, because it would be a perfect summer soundtrack.

#11 - “Don’t Say Love” - Leigh-Anne

Produced by Jon Bellion, Pete Nappi and Jimmie Gutch

Damn, just as I started to forget each of their names, Little Mix are in full solo career mode, with Leigh-Anne being the second to release a charting single, but it’s best we forget about “Boyz” entirely so she’s actually leading the pack for our last new entry this week. With Jon Bellion on production and co-writing duties, it really can’t be bad, but is it any good? Yes, yes, to no surprise to anyone, once they went solo, the girls actually have room for being themselves, as she sounds more at home on this UK garage instrumental than she ever did on those group records. Leigh-Anne’s particularly silky over the syncopated 2-step beat and flashes of melody, and it’s an inescapable chorus definitely, especially over that vintage-sounding string section, and ESPECIALLY with that adorable interruption at the end of the chorus with all the percussive stabs. With that said, that’s kind of it - it has its tricks, it does them well, but doesn’t do much else, which is sadly also a problem with a lot of Bellion’s stuff, but at least we get a substantial bridge with a great belt as well as a new vocal melody that honestly sounds better than those in the chorus, and a spacey interlude that really fleshes out the song’s palette. It’s a good pop song, definitely one that feels like 2023, which should not as much of a breath of fresh air as it is, though I don’t know if it’ll last. I sure hope so, but our only frame of reference for a Little Mix solo career is… yeah, you know what I’m getting at.

Conclusion

This wasn’t a particularly great week, but there’s nothing terrible here, so I’ll give Gunna the Worst of the Week as expected for “fukumean”, with D-Block Europe grabbing the Dishonourable Mention as usual with “Side Effects”. Best of the Week is astoundingly easy as “(It Goes Like) Nanana” by Peggy Gou takes that, and whilst I really do want to give the Honourable Mention to Doja, I think there’s more potential than actual quality there so it’s going to “Don’t Say Love” by Leigh-Anne. I’m sure we can expect Young Thug on the horizon, as well as a new Nicki Minaj-Ice Spice collaboration, Hell, maybe something from Bakar, Hozier or God help us, Kim Petras and Coi Leray. For now, though, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week!

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sportsbuzz11n · 1 year

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Team India Register Their Third Lowest ODI Total Against Australia

Mitchell Starc ran through the India batting lineup in Visakhapatnam with a five-for as India were reduced to one of their lowest ODI totals at home.

India were skittled out for a mere 117 in the second ODI of the series, recording their second-lowest team score while batting first at home.

India registered their lowest total against Australia in 1981 when Men in Blue were bundled out for 63 runs in Sydney. Men in Blue registered their second-lowest total again in Sydney with 100 against Australia in 2000.

Also read : Mitchell Marsh, Travis Head's Carnage Guide Australia To 10-Wicket Win Over India In 2nd ODI

India managed to slightly better their lowest first-innings total at home by five runs, surpassing 112 against Sri Lanka in Dharamsala in 2017. This was also their fourth-lowest total at home in ODIs and their third-lowest against Australia.

Starc's form carried over from the west coast of Mumbai to the east coast of Visakhapatnam, beginning with the wicket of Shubman Gill in the first over after India were given the opportunity to bat first.

He was on a hat-trick for the second game in a row after scalping skipper Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav off consecutive balls three overs later. Yadav's poor ODI form continued as he recorded his second golden duck in a row.

KL Rahul, India's saviour with the bat in the previous game, couldn't repeat his heroics this time, as the left-arm pacer trapped him in front of the stumps. Steve Smith bowled a spectacular one-handed stunner at slips to dismiss Hardik Pandya as India lost half their side before scoring 50 runs.

Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja looked assured at the crease but couldn't contribute much to India's total as Nathan Ellis took both of their wickets. Sean Abbott had a hat-trick of his own after taking the wickets of Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammad Shami off consecutive balls, but it was Starc who would get his five-wicket haul, rattling Mohammed Siraj's stumps to finish with figures of 5/53.

The five wicket-haul was Starc's ninth in ODI cricket, taking him level with Brett Lee for most five-fors for Australia and into the top five for most five-fors in ODI history.

Also read : Rain Likely To Play Spoilsport During Second ODI Between India And Australia

In response, Australia needed only 11 overs to chase down the total, tearing India apart with some brutal hitting. Mitchell Marsh smashed 36 balls for 66*, including sixes, fours, and sixes. Travis Head was not to be outdone, remaining unbeaten on 51 off 30 balls.

The margin of loss was the biggest inflicted on India in ODI history, with Australia chasing down the total with 234 balls to spare. The loss against New Zealand in Hamilton in 2019 was the previous worst, where the Black Caps chased down a target of 93 with 212 balls to spare. (ANI)

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Source URL - https://www.sportsbuzz.com/t20/cricket-news/articles/team-india-register-their-third-lowest-odi-total-against-aus

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atlanticcanada · 1 year

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Health care, housing and leadership top issues as P.E.I. heads toward April 3 vote

Prince Edward Island Premier Dennis King called a provincial election for April 3 on Monday night, and political experts say the top issues on the campaign trail are expected to be health care, housing and leadership.

King's majority Progressive Conservative government is seeking a second term in office following four years marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, two major post-tropical storms and an ongoing struggle to repair a deteriorating health-care system.

At dissolution, the Conservatives held 15 of the legislature's 27 seats. The Green Party, led by Peter Bevan-Baker, had eight seats, and the Liberals under Sharon Cameron held four.

The vote in 2019 saw P.E.I. become the first province in Canada in which the Green Party formed the official Opposition.

Political observers say the electorate does not seem to be in the mood to change the government, but the campaign could prove pivotal because there are plenty of hot-button issues.

HEALTH CARE

Like other provinces in Canada, P.E.I. is facing its own health-care crisis. A growing number of Islanders are complaining about a lack of family doctors and long wait times for treatment.

During the 2019 election campaign, which brought the Progressive Conservatives to power, the incumbent Wade MacLaughlan faced withering criticism about the Liberal party's failure to deal with the doctor shortage.

Since then, the number of residents looking for a family doctor has continued to climb, leaving the ruling party vulnerable to opposition criticism.

But King's government is sure to draw voters' attention to the federal government's recent decision to give the province $966 million over the next 10 years for health-care funding, including more than $288 million in new money.

HOUSING SHORTAGES

The Island's rapidly growing population has led to a shortage of housing, but the problem is not new. P.E.I.'s vacancy rate hit a record low in 2018, and the problem has persisted; it was 0.8 per cent last year.

King has responded by offering developers low-interest loans to increase the housing supply, but the latest data suggests development is actually slowing down.

The Green Party has focused on this issue, pointing out in January that as the government was tearing down a tent encampment in Charlottetown, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation was reporting that P.E.I. had one of the worst rental markets in the country.

"It doesn't matter if it's housing, health care or any other issue that matters to Islanders," Bevan-Baker said in January. "The bottom line is this. The King Conservatives are failing to meet the challenges of the day and the expectations of the public. And the quality of life on P.E.I. is declining because of it."

LEADERSHIP

King's government has come under scrutiny for how it has handled a number of major challenges, including post-tropical storms in 2019 and 2022 that caused widespread damage.

At one point, Bevan-Baker called for a public inquiry to investigate the government's response to post-tropical storm Fiona in September 2022, but King's government rejected the request.

Questions have also been raised about the government's handling of the potato industry's struggle with the potato wart fungus, which resulted in trade bans that cost the province about $50 million in lost revenue.

And much of the government's first term in office was defined by its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared after King had served as premier for just under a year.

"I don't know of any government in recent history that has had to deal with so many crises in their first term," says Don Desserud, political science professor at the University of Prince Edward Island.

Meanwhile, King's straight-talking, folksy style seems to have connected with the electorate. But Bevan-Baker has also proven to be an effective communicator.

As for the Liberals, leader Sharon Cameron is virtually unknown, having led the party for less than four months.

MOOD OF THE ELECTORATE

Peter McKenna, a professor in the political science department at the University of Prince Edward Island, says Islanders don't appear to be in the mood for a change in government.

He says there is no sense of fatigue or disillusionment with the party in power, despite the state of health care and the rising cost of living.

As well, he says the opposition Greens and Liberals don't seem to have any momentum as the campaign gets started.

The Greens appear to be "in a holding pattern," McKenna said. As for the Liberals, the professor says the party is practically a non-entity.

"The Liberal party has sort of faded from the political scene here," he said in a recent interview. "It's no longer a major political force on Prince Edward Island."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2023.

By Hina Alam in Fredericton and Michael MacDonald in Halifax

from CTV News - Atlantic https://ift.tt/XQ0UkCx

#new brunswick #prince edward island #nova scotia #news #politics #canada #CTVAtlantic

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coll2mitts · 1 year

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