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Transcript of our Wolfman 2010 Podcast

Unknown Speaker 0:12 Welcome to Tentpole Trauma, the podcast where we look at movies that came with hype and high hopes, but left with crushing disappoint either critically at the box office are both. Free from the weight of expectations, we seek to examine these underperformers under a new light parsing through the good, the bad and everything in between the hopes of gaining a better understanding as to why they failed to find their audience.

Unknown Speaker 0:43 Warning, there will be spoilers. So if you haven't seen the movie that we're discussing today, I suggest you stop the podcast and go watch it. Then when you come back and listen, you'll get more out of the discussion. This episode we examine the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man.

Unknown Speaker 1:23 I've been a universal horror fan for as long as I can remember. So I was pretty excited back in 2010 when the Wolf Man remake got rooms I've been following the production I knew Benicio del Toro was playing the Wolf Man, which I thought was great. I knew the original director left and was replaced with Joe Johnston, who I liked but didn't think was that inspired of a choice. But still, I was really excited to see it even after numerous delays. The first signs of real trouble were the extremely tepid reviews and tepid is a kind descriptor, but I maintained my enthusiasm and on opening weekend dragged my pointedly disinterested girlfriend to see it. The movie started promisingly enough with a pretty cool werewolf attack. But as the stilted drama set in, I could feel the audience snickering and turning against the movie. And more importantly, I could feel my girlfriend turning against me for dragging her to see this thing. We didn't last much longer. Still, over the years, I've maintained a certain affection for the film, even buying it on blu ray to have it as a, as I call put on in the background kind of movie, something that's visually pleasing that you can just look at not really pay attention to it. Over the years, I've even tried to get friends and family to watch it with me and perhaps reevaluate the film. But usually I'm just met with a healthy serving of side eye and skepticism. So am I insane for liking this maligned movie? I guess that's a question we'll have to address today as we deep dive into the 2010 remake of the wolf, man.

Unknown Speaker 3:19 All right, this is Sebastian, and I'm here today with Jennifer Hello, and Chris.

Unknown Speaker 3:25 Hey, how's it going?

Unknown Speaker 3:26 And we're gonna be talking about the Wolf Man remake from 2010. Directed by Joe Johnston, who did Captain America The Winter Soldier, and he did the Rocketeer and Jurassic Park three, and written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who wrote seven and some other stuff. So you know, there's kind of a pedigree there. I already in my intro talked about my experience with this film. Jennifer, do you have any previous experience with this film?

Unknown Speaker 3:57 Yes, I do. My first exposure to this film was through you insisting that I watched this film, I think it was probably around 2012 or 2013. Does that sound right?

Unknown Speaker 4:10 It sounds right.

Unknown Speaker 4:10 Yeah. And I remember just not really, not really getting that into it. I was just kind of I wasn't, I didn't hate it by any means. But I just was kind of like, okay, that's, it's that was fine. But then watching it for the podcast. I had a different experience this time, which we'll go into also watching, both theatrical and the unrated version made a big difference. So But yeah, I did not see it in the theater. I it's not really I'm a horror person but, and I like universal monsters. The creatures more my guy, but I'm not you know, not super

Unknown Speaker 4:58 Wolfie Okay, Chris.

Unknown Speaker 5:01 Um, yeah, so my experience with Wolf Man was, I saw Dracula in high school loved it thought it was great. I thought it was like a great goth movie that everybody seemed to be into. And goth was a big thing. And then Frankenstein came out, which was, I guess, and unofficial sequel to that it still had the same vibe had a good director and a bunch of golf production design. And that was not

Unknown Speaker 5:32 just to be clear, we're talking about the Coppola Dracula and the Kenneth brown a Frankenstein.

Unknown Speaker 5:37 Exactly. And so I was kind of following that thread. Because I love Dracula, even though I it's flawed. And then Frankenstein came out, which I didn't love as much, but it was still a good time. And then Wolf Man came out. And I believe it was touted as like the third of a trilogy of, you know, the same type of pedigree we're gonna make, we're gonna give this treatment to these three monsters. And I believe, I don't know why I didn't see it at the time that it came out. Maybe because the reviews were bad or I was busy or something like that. But it took until now that Sebastian was doing this podcast that I was like, Oh, I guess it's time to watch it. And, and I've seen it for the first time.

Unknown Speaker 6:22 All right. Well, before we get into your feelings on the movie, let's just kind of dig in. This movie had a troubled production. It was originally going to be directed by Mark Romanek, who's a pretty cool director. Yeah, one one hour photo. Mm hmm. And

Unknown Speaker 6:38 lots of great music videos, too.

Unknown Speaker 6:41 That's right. And I was working at cinephile at the time and Benny not to name drop but Benicio del Toro would come in. And he was a huge Wolf Man fan. And he was really excited that he was going to get to play the Wolf Man. And I'm a huge Wolf Man fan. I love the 1940s original, so I was excited for him to play it. But it took a long time for the movie to come out. Because there were just you know, Mark Romanek, ended up leaving at the last minute, and there were like delays, Joe Johnson took over and had to just work with whatever they had. And you know, then it ended up with the release ended up being delayed, for whatever reason, so it ended up like taking two years for you to come out. But that's a little background on the movie. So let's just get into it. It starts with the universal logo. So this is definitely they're setting it up that this is a universal monster movie. In the the theatrical version. Yeah, it's cool. And the theatrical version. It's pretty easy. It's just black and white, but in the unrated version, you get a sort of more old school like 1940s universal logo.

Unknown Speaker 7:51 Yeah, I love that. It's really up. It's updated, but feels old school and it's like, it's really the right way to go iPod.

Unknown Speaker 7:58 Yeah, it sets the tone. I don't know if they intended this to be the first of the quote unquote, dark universe that they were trying to do. A few years back, they would keep saying, you know, they, they I think they set it with this movie. Then they set it with Dracula Untold. Then they set it with the Tom Cruise mummy. They were really hoping to do a marvel universe of universal monsters, which I would have been game for. But they

Unknown Speaker 8:23 shouldn't that should have been the tagline.

Unknown Speaker 8:27 But they couldn't seem to get that going. Anyway. So this isn't really the beginning of the dark universe because there is no dark universe. It starts off with some Danny Elfman music, which reminded me a lot of the 1979 Dracula that came out in the disco era with Franklin gela Mm hmm. It really borrows some themes. for that.

Unknown Speaker 8:48 To me the score just sound doesn't sound like Danny Elfman at all it very it to me, it just sounds like they're ripping off the score of the Coppola Dracula, you know, with that sort of luxurious string arrangements. And it's a strange like, I remember thinking like didn't then I think he is he a Czech composer for the Coppola Dracula, and he had died. So I was like, who composes because it sounds exactly like him. So and I was shocked to see that it was Danny Elfman because it doesn't sound like his trademark, you know, score at all.

Unknown Speaker 9:22 It doesn't sound like a kooky circus.

Unknown Speaker 9:26 Not at all.

Unknown Speaker 9:27 No, I think he was intentionally trying to evoke that apparently, he was originally hired to do the score. And then they tried to go with another score, I think and then they went back to his score. Anyway, it just sort of typical of the sort of troubled production of this, this movie. And anyway, moving on, it opens with the quote from the original the, you know, man becomes a wolf when the wolf Bane bloons that's straight from the original and it's pretty stylish in a sort of computer generated way. Yeah which is a which is a thing I think this movie it can either be a plus or a minus to you like it's very you know they're going for that really God thing but it's pretty computer CG golf.

Unknown Speaker 10:14 Yeah, agreed 100% I think

Unknown Speaker 10:17 that's the problem. That's what that's something that makes the Bram Stoker Dracula standout is that they went with a lot of old school visual effects and just you know, the feel of the whole thing was purposely sort of antique whereas this the production design works but the filmmaking techniques are very modern and in their hidden Miss You know, sometimes they work and then sometimes you see Oh, that's just a Morph cut that just, they just put in there because they could.

Unknown Speaker 10:46 Okay, so we get the opening attack, which is, you know, we later find out is Larry Talbots. I'm gonna call him Larry just because I think that's funny. Larry Talbots brother getting attacked on the Moore's there's sort of a voiceover from Emily Blunt, which didn't feel added anything to it really. And you know, we get this whole attack, which is pretty cool, but I feel like it It feels very rushed.

Unknown Speaker 11:13 The whole beginning feels rushed. Like, well, the voiceover from Emily Blunt in the theatrical version is she's writing a letter to Larry. Right. Yeah. So she's and you know, we're getting this this backstory. And that was, like the beginning. I just felt like, Is it me? I don't know what, what just happened? What is going on here? Like is it just it felt it feels like we just, it zooms by and not in a good way. Just wait way too much too fast. And it just feels like it's just kind of thrown together. And that Yeah, I was completely just baffled at that some of the things that were going on,

Unknown Speaker 11:56 well, in the unrated cut, you get a little more of the attack, and we get this whole scene of Larry acting. He's supposedly on stage in London, he's performing Hamlet or something. And Gwen does not write a letter to him in this version, she actually comes to the theater and he's backstage and he sort of got a cool bathrobe on he sort of rock starring out and she floors him to come check because I think his brother is missing at that point. But he sort of puts her off but she kind of gives him a guilt trip. I felt like compared to the theatrical version, where all you get is this voiceover from Emily Blunt. And you're suddenly right at the right at Blackmore Manor, I felt like the unrated version was an improvement.

Unknown Speaker 12:49 Yeah, I see, having watched both of them, I definitely can see how the pendulum swung hard both ways. You know, like, the Extended Cut is way too long. There's way too much intro, you know, it'll take like half an hour before like that Gypsy attack happens. So I understand why they cut a lot of that stuff, because it's just needless exposition. But now hearing Jen's reaction to it, I think, you know, they obviously cut maybe too much, because they're, they're really just, you know, trying to keep it tight and compress everything so that it gets going. But I will say having watched the Extended Cut that man, it's kind of a slog and a drag to, to get to where the movies going,

Unknown Speaker 13:30 you're sort of coming at it from the opposite end of Gen where you felt like the extended was taking too long.

Unknown Speaker 13:35 Definitely. And in you saying that it's a troubled production and that the you know, the director got swapped out at the last minute totally makes sense, because this feels very, you know, made by committee where nobody had a strong vision. And they were like, Okay, well, it's too long. Well, now let's make it too short or whatever. And, you know, no one actually said I understand the story. We're gonna make this happen. This is you know exactly what it's gonna be like, it definitely feels that way where there's not a strong vision hand at the helm.

Unknown Speaker 14:06 I wouldn't want more. This was like, in this case, it just for me, I was like, I felt so much more like, Oh, this is what they're doing. Because I remember even being like, is Larry an actor? like is that what he was doing? Because it's like literally like just like a quick flash of him on the stage or something. And I'm like, wait, and setting up also with Emily Blunt. Like, because throughout the film, I was like, Okay, I know she's supposed to be you know, it's complicated, but she's, you know, supposed to be kind of a love interest. And I just wasn't really feeling it. But then with this at the beginning with her coming there, there was this more to their relationship, and I actually was more invested, so to speak, but yeah, so anyway, the the unrated worked worked for me, especially in the beginning.

Unknown Speaker 14:51 I wouldn't say that in any version, their relationship is is a strong point of the movie, but in the theatrical cut, you get nothing zero, you're like, I don't care at all, at least in the unrated cut you you have some reason to care. They've had some scenes that are meaningful. Yeah, in the in the theatrical, there's nothing.

Unknown Speaker 15:15 Um, well, this is just kind of a general note on just about the action and how the wolf, you know, plays out in his attacks. Like, it's something, there's movies like Jurassic Park, or, you know, other werewolf movies, which gives you that sense of, you know, a wild animal attack. And, you know, if you've ever been around, like, you know, an angry dog or anything like that, you get that sense, where it's like, oh, my God, like anything can happen. But when he attacks it, it feels more like a bus hit. And then an animal attack, you know, because he just comes in out of nowhere and just slams. It's like, half jumpscare, half bus hit. And it just, I don't know, I just feel like it doesn't, it doesn't work. It's not a unique way of, you know, having him attack and it just doesn't feel scary to me.

Unknown Speaker 16:02 It feels more like a superhero thing. Yeah. And I feel and I think that a lot of this movie has that kind of feel where it's almost more of a superhero movie, even though the superheroes, you know, killing people. It just has a more modern superhero vibe to it in a weird way. If that makes any sense.

Unknown Speaker 16:21 Absolutely. This is relates to a point that I have with just the story in general that I feel like they set up a lot of things that never pay off. Like, why haven't be an actor, why, you know, have the meet backstage at the beginning. It's just, there's, there's so many weird threads in this story that just don't seem to pay off. And, and I feel like I feel the story being stretched. And like we were saying, the right amount of information is somewhere in the middle between the theatrical and Extended Cut. But there's just so many ideas in this story that never pay off that they were trying to, like, give love to some and then not enough for the others. It's just kind of a mess. I think

Unknown Speaker 17:07 with the him being an actor, I totally know. There's definitely things I agree with you Chris that never come to fruition, but I feel like part of the him being an actor is like they're trying to paint this picture also, which I think again, is more represented in the unrated version, is that he is such an outsider to the town, as at this point, like he's totally like a fish out of water. Like, you know, and I think like even at one point Anthony Hopkins is this you know, kind of says something along the lines of like, oh, coming back to the you know, small town or something along the lines of that, you know, so I think they're trying to make him like just as uncomfortable they're like not wanted there you know, even without even before all the other stuff happens that that's I mean, but yes, there's so many things that are set up the door really pay off but that's that's all I could gather from from going into his acting career.

Unknown Speaker 18:02 Maybe it's also to say that his Mid Atlantic accent is because he's an actor and has been away for so long. That's right. Oh, he's in New York. That's where he picked up this weird accent. Like, I also

Unknown Speaker 18:12 think that's what it how it was in the original, which didn't really play into anything in the original film either. But I think they just that's why because that's the character gotcha as as known from the 1940s film, you know, in the unrated cut, we get a scene on a train with the great Max von seido like why do you cut Max von side obviously, Larry is looking at a picture of his mom and then Max von seido sitting across from him and Max von seido. Has this silver wolf cane, which to your point Chris doesn't end up paying out in any real way in the movie. And it's only in there and I think this might be the the overall answers your question as to why things don't pay out and why they're in there is because in the 1940s movie, he's the Wolf Man is killed by his father with a wolf head cane just like that. Okay, so it's

Unknown Speaker 19:13 a setup without payoff as like a twist to the old be the people who knew Okay,

Unknown Speaker 19:20 yeah, the cane is not the strongest point of this movie. Okay, so we get to Blackmore Manor, which is the Talbot estate, we find out at that point that his brother's dead. You know, I think the production value whatever you feel about this movie, I think the production value is pretty great. All the locations are really cool. I love the look of the manor. It looks like a you know, kind of like a rundown Downton Abbey. Yes. With lots of leaves in the interior and my squeaking, lots of squeaking. We get Anthony Hopkins and he's you know he's doing you're pretty much like standard late period Anthony Hopkins performance. But it's one of those cases where he's Anthony Hopkins and he, he's totally watchable. It's you know, it's he's not doing anything. He seems kind of half asleep in a way. And he's not doing anything spectacular, but he's just great because he's Anthony Hopkins.

Unknown Speaker 20:16 totally true. Totally agree. Yes. I just Yeah, he's just kind of being creepy and just yeah, doing doing his thing. And it's a great I think opening scene to having him come in there looked up. Definitely rundown Downton Abbey. Lots of spider webs just kind of in disarray. But yeah, it's that I was happy, happy just to spend some time with with Anthony.

Unknown Speaker 20:42 You know, Anthony Hopkins at 50% is still better than most people's on 100% Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 20:48 Yes. Yeah, the productions that design is definitely stellar. I mean, it's got that golf feel and it's definitely the I think the best thing about it, you know, I mean, the cinematography as well with the high contrast lighting and the smoke everywhere, everything looks right. You know, they they definitely spent the right amount of money and, and have the right fuel going. It's the other stuff. It's the story and the acting that to me don't work. And Anthony Hopkins can do no wrong. Of course, he's definitely phoning it in and like you said it, his phoning it in is already better than most people's full throttle. But can we talk about Benicio for a second? Like I feel like he is not giving me much of anything. And I'm also trying to think of what other lead roles he's had where he's knocked it out of the park. Like he's always great as the crazy sidekick. And I think maybe he's not capable of pulling off the lead in a movie like this where there's not a lot to Larry. I mean, he's just this mopey guy. He's supposed to be an actor, but like, I feel like I get nothing from his character.

Unknown Speaker 21:53 He's definitely trying to, I believe, especially with his haircut and everything, which is not terribly flattering on him. He's got a sort of like almost bowl cut,

Unknown Speaker 22:04 like a Caesar cut. Yeah, that was was that the style at the time? Was that cool?

Unknown Speaker 22:08 Or it was? I don't think so. He looks a little puffy. And he's kind of looks a little overweight. So I think he was trying to actually invoke Alon Chani Jr, who played the Wolf Man in the original. I mean, he was a huge, huge fan of that movie. But I also think he might be a little checked out because I think he was very supportive of Mark Romanek. And when I think he was a little upset that, you know, they switched out directors, and, you know, he may have been sort of checked out. We need

Unknown Speaker 22:45 to have a term for that, like, you know, like Marlon Brando with Island of Dr. Moreau when an actor gets ditched by the director, and then just phones in the movie, like, Can we call that something? Well, but I don't know.

Unknown Speaker 22:56 I don't I wouldn't compare those two because Brando and Island of Dr. Moreau is crazy. Right? Right. Like, does whatever

Unknown Speaker 23:04 you want. Well, he Benicio should have done that, you know, that would have been more interesting.

Unknown Speaker 23:08 Yeah. I think he's got his moments. I think we know when he's getting ready to change and stuff. I think he does good. But I agree, when we're doing the sort of straightforward stuff and he's just trying to be sort of, you know, mysterious romantic lead. It doesn't really work. And I don't think that that's his, his wheelhouse. No,

Unknown Speaker 23:28 I was fine with it. I just I think but also, I'm just like, such a fan of his I really like him a lot. So I'm, I'm just giving him a pass. Like, I don't know, I was fine with it. I wasn't looking at him and his performance that critically, especially once I got to see the unrated version and got to spend some more time with Larry lots and lots of more time with Larry so I knew what was uh, what was really going on with Larry. But yeah, I thought I thought his performance was was fine for for what it is.

Unknown Speaker 24:01 Okay, so moving on, he goes to the village to see his brother's body which is being kept in a slaughterhouse. I don't know if that was common for the time or if they just thought it would be a kind of a cool touch. But we get sort of a you know, quick shot of the body and I feel like the gore effects are good. Overall, in this movie, they make a real attempt to lean into the our rating, which I appreciate a lot of the times it's sort of CGI gore and violence, but you know, they don't hold back which I like about the movie.

Unknown Speaker 24:36 I thought that scene was gross like I in my notes I wrote yuck because it was just that's how I felt because I mean, it's our I yeah, I had the same question. I was like as this is how it was done. I was like are they just really hate Ben and they hate the tall but family and they just throw them in here and that the slaughterhouse because this is this is gross. I mean, and they're like you really feel it because it's like, Benicio is like just covering His face and I'm like buying it I'm like, this place stinks. This is this is nasty. And I thought also when they pull it back it was it was good good like it may be the first time it made me kind of jumps is like oh, like it wasn't ready for for that like, though there was some serious wolf chowing down on Ben.

Unknown Speaker 25:19 Well, and I think you might have a point about the town's folk, because in the next scene, we go to the pub, and the town's folk are sort of talking about the brother's death. And you know, Larry's there at the, in the corner at a table and he's, you know, hearing them talk. He looks a medallion that he found on his brother, which isn't very well explained. The townspeople are blaming the Gypsy, and we you know, we get a werewolf story. You know, a lot of this reminded me of the pub scene and American Werewolf in London. Absolutely. Now in the unrated version, one of the guy starts talking smack about the family, you know, talk smack about his mom going crazy. And Larry, the scene ends with Larry throwing a drink on the guy, which, again, I felt this made the scene better in the theatrical cut. It's just the scene. He doesn't interact with him at all. He's just sort of sitting there. So I felt like the unrated cut at least shows you Oh, he doesn't get it. He doesn't like the villagers. They don't like his family. This is probably why he left and puts a nice button on that point.

Unknown Speaker 26:26 Yes, I agree. Because Yeah, and the theatrical he's just sitting over there kind of just sulking and listening. And the townspeople are also alluding to the fact that it might you know, it might not have been a beast it could it like they're kind of talking about seems like they were I think they're talking kind of about like jack the Ripper or something like that. I do remember they're kind of talking about that there's there's a mentally unstable, you know, man that could have done this or something.

Unknown Speaker 26:52 Right. And wasn't a Hugo Weaving, like was his last case was the Ripper. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 26:57 yeah, he was. Yeah, he was on the Ripper case, which Yeah, Larry kind of needles him with because obviously, they never caught jack the Ripper. So

Unknown Speaker 27:06 and I think like they were also kind of alluding to Larry's mental state, which we learn more about later.

Unknown Speaker 27:13 So this this whole pub talk, and you reminding us that you know, this happened in American Werewolf in London. And how it's, it's pretty much the same scene, same beats, you know, beware don't go out and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, trying to be spooky warning. But I feel like it there's no twist on it. You know, in Frankenstein, and in Dracula, the mo was, let's go back to the book. Let's go back to the source. Let's let's do it really was in the book that in because it's never been done. beholden to the book, The way we're gonna do it. And that was what they were thinking. Whereas with Wolf, man, what was the mo here, you know, to be beholden to the old movie, because they're just retreading all these cliches without adding anything new to them. I feel like they're, they're just, you know, are here's the tip here, we're gonna do the Wolf Man story, the way it would be as if it were a cliche. And you're like, well, so why All right, I guess we get some better special effects. Get some good actors get some good lighting and production design, but there's no imagination, there's no umph to it to me.

Unknown Speaker 28:21 Well, they're I think they're just trying to update the whole thing for a modern audience who don't want to go back to the 1941 and watch it. But to your point, they're kind of taking from just werewolf movie history and kind of throwing it all throwing it all in there because they don't have a book source. They do. You know, there is no novel of the Wolf Man. The 1940s movie was the original version of it. So you know, I kind of see what they're doing. I feel like they're just trying to sort of update Yeah, Gothic werewolf movie as an abstract, not as a specific thing. Got it. Now in the unrated cut, we get a dinner scene with dad, Gwen, Larry and the Kim fail sheet See, doesn't get introduced at all, or he gets really barely introduced at all in the theatrical version. He's just sort of standing in the background. And they dine on baked eel, which is just about the grossest thing I can imagine. I can't think of anything that I'd like to eat less baked eel. And they talk about the superstitious villagers. And we get a real sense that there's tension between dad and Larry here, which I like and it gets really uncomfortable for Gwen and she leaves. I appreciated the scene because it set up more of the dynamics dramatically.

Unknown Speaker 29:46 Yes, I appreciated this as well. Also with his, I believe he called him his manservant, the Kim Valle. Seek. I that was another thing we're like in the future. conversion. I was like, when did we meet this guy like it happened so fast with him and that the electrical version I was like, Wait, what? What's going on here? And you

Unknown Speaker 30:09 want to know who he is yours that guy?

Unknown Speaker 30:11 Yeah, no, you definitely want to know who he is. So yeah, I appreciated more of him. The seek is another thread that just never pays off.

Unknown Speaker 30:20 Did you see in the unrated cut when he picks up the guitar and starts ripping on some Soundgarden,

Unknown Speaker 30:26 I would have loved to have seen that.

Unknown Speaker 30:28 Now, in the theatrical version, they cut right to the manor. And, you know, there's this sort of awkward scene where Larry goes to Gwen's door and he's like, Hey, I'm here. And I know, when you've seen the unrated, you can see that this is a scene they threw together to sort of set it up that they've met. Yeah, at this point, because, you know, she's in the theatrical she's only written him a letter. But there is this weird thing where the letter she wrote, keeps coming up, again, in the unrated version, which didn't happen in the unrated version. So when a mess, yeah, like as an editor, I think it's interesting to have you on this conversation specifically, Chris, because you are an editor. And you've probably been involved in some projects where they've had to sort of cobble things together from different versions definitely

Unknown Speaker 31:21 obviously just left in and they're like Foghat who cares. And you know, I'm sure it made sense in like, probably like, the first, you know, maybe two and a half hour cut of it, and then they just kept chopping away. And then who knows who they brought in to do a hack job, but I'm sure a lot of those threads were left in and they just, instead of, you know, in that in specifically in that scene, if you look where he meets, I think it's the theatrical cut where he meets her for the first time in the hallway. A lot of his dialogue is on her. So it's just ADR him saying, like, I got your letter, very nice to meet you. And you can totally tell that they just ADR, those lines into shoo in that he is meeting here for the first time there. So yeah, this, it's definitely a mess. And there's a lot of those things that I think people just wouldn't notice on our first viewing. But now we're analyzing it. Yeah, you're like, Oh,

Unknown Speaker 32:16 no, I wouldn't if I only watched the unrated cut, I probably wouldn't have noticed it. It's just because I'm familiar with both versions. What what I find kind of weird about it is that you would assume the unrated cut was closer to say the assembly directors of the assembly cut and then they whittled it down. But she talks about the letter in the later scenes in the unrated cut so it's almost as if they made the decision to cut it down while they were still filming

Unknown Speaker 32:47 it. Maybe it was like a bigger even bigger thing where she wrote him a letter then went to visit him then you know, like so it's probably a thing on the thing on the thing. And then they were just like, let's all just cut it out. And

Unknown Speaker 32:58 I think that would have made sense since actually Chris because it would have like that she could have written him first and then he didn't respond and then she went in person, because you know, he wasn't responding. The other thing that I wanted to point out about when she does when he goes to her door, is that her maid or lady and waiting or whatever you want to call her is Yara Greyjoy Did you notice that? No way from Game of Thrones? Yeah, I was like, Oh my God, that's the Greyjoy sister tiara,

Unknown Speaker 33:28 which was like can you miss her? She disappears I think

Unknown Speaker 33:31 you might get her on one more scene like but very very brief.

Unknown Speaker 33:34 That's like the only reason for me to go back and watch

Unknown Speaker 33:38 Yeah, we're giving away your hand Chris

Unknown Speaker 33:42 and just to touch upon Emily Blunt now you know i think you know she's well cast in this movie. I guess she does a really good job considering what she's been given which I think is a pretty thankless role. There's not a lot to it but I mean, she gets some moments to cry and stuff and I you know, I think she delivers I think a case could be made for the her being the best for sure in the movie. I agreed.

Unknown Speaker 34:08 Let me bring up one more point about just the brothers story in general like why I don't maybe this is originally in you know, in the original Wolf Man, but it just makes no sense to have this brother standing in the way of a the love story, all of it just like why doesn't Why don't they just give the story to Benicio and have him be in love with her. And it's like this trifecta between him and Anthony Hopkins. It just seems to be a step too far.

Unknown Speaker 34:34 The brother is just a plot device to get him

Unknown Speaker 34:37 but he's so important because it's like oh, that's Emily Blunt's you know, fiance and all this stuff where it just seems like they could have figured out a different way of doing it. You know, it seems like

Unknown Speaker 34:47 a gothic romance kind of thing. You told Oh, the dead brother, you know, okay. It adds a layer of you know, sadness to it.

Unknown Speaker 34:58 They just need to do it. It was I agree they just needed to get him as far as like the why why that's important is just like because it comes to you know, to light later about you know how much she hates his father and how much he hates this town and like wouldn't come back so it's like and and again if we you know if we do believe that there was a letter and then there was her going there and you know, I mean there could have always been some sort of kind of thing between them because yeah, it's the whole Gothic like, you know, longing and all that stuff. Yeah, but yeah, it's just I think it's totally just to get him back home and to just make it the most dysfunctional family ever. We pretty much and worst dad award of all time. Yeah, we'll come to find out later.

Unknown Speaker 35:47 And I will say this. I don't think that Benicio del Toro and Emily blonde have sizzling on screen chemistry. On speaking of worst dad award, we get another scene with Talbot and his dad and Anthony Hopkins looking out the telescope to the moon. Again, the telescope is a reference to the original film. His dad in the original film, who was played by Claude Rains is fascinated with his telescope, but the telescope never comes into play later. So it's yet another sort of reference that doesn't have a real point in the story.

Unknown Speaker 36:25 That scene I do love that Anthony Hopkins takes the time to blow out almost every single candle that he has in the room which I'm like you know what fucking a that's realistic you know like with the production design like this year like how many freakin candles does this guy have and they show him like you know what, it's time to go to bed this was a ritual we used to have I would you'd have to sit here open up this thing blow inside put it out and it's actually a fun callback when you see him in his sorry spoiler when if we just jump ahead to his little man cave or wolf cave thing? There's like 8 million candles there and I just kept thinking like how long is it gonna take him to blow these in his gave man it will take a long time.

Unknown Speaker 37:06 It was the family crypt I believe

Unknown Speaker 37:08 Okay, I'm surprised he didn't make his poor Kim fail manservant Yeah, blow out all these candles. But I thought also Chris I noticed the candles as well. And I was also really impressed with like, some of the cool like lantern type devices they have like candles as well like kind of these like kind of mini torch type things. I don't know what you would call it but I was like I thought that was really again with the production design. The attention to detail was was really cool.

Unknown Speaker 37:37 You know that blowing out all the candles thing was was all Hopkins I was like, I need to blow out all these.

Unknown Speaker 37:45 Okay, Anthony, go ahead.

Unknown Speaker 37:48 All right now in the unrated cut, we get Larry going to Gwen's room. But it's a different scene than in the theatrical and he apologizes for making her uncomfortable into over dinner and gives her items of her brothers. It's you know, it's not like a great scene or anything, but it definitely helps sort of, you know, you feel that her character is more endeared to him by it, as opposed to in the theatrical where you don't really understand why she would be endeared to him at all, because they don't even really have any real scene. So again, I feel like it's a better scene. Then we get to one of few sequences in the film where Larry is having a flashback. It plays like a dream sequence but he's not sleeping he's awake. And he's just sort of having these traumatic flashes of

Unknown Speaker 38:42 maybe he took the spice

Unknown Speaker 38:46 and he's playing with his brother and the mother's watching you know they wake up at night and something sinister is going on in the house like in the hallway This is

Unknown Speaker 38:54 where we see the blood come out of the sidewalk I remember that being a very cool image

Unknown Speaker 38:58 Yes, yes, I believe that's where we see that it's all done in this very stylish Gothic kind of look, but it feels a little like they're trying hard to be trippy and spooky and I don't know if it's they kind of go like a little too far I think with some of the techniques, but he goes out into the garden we get a cool topiary had some cool topiary hedges a gorilla which I appreciated the topiary a gorilla, for sure you know in the movie looks expensive. They didn't spare any expense, which is why it's appropriate to do for Tentpole Trauma because they spent a lot of money on this movie and it bombed so I feel that it's appropriate for this podcast no

Unknown Speaker 39:42 doubt and I will say that the night scenes all look like they're shot at night, you know, and the lighting is great. And you know, there's no Day for Night here at all. And kudos to those cinematography for making it look appropriately scary.

Unknown Speaker 39:56 Yeah, I mean, I think the cinematography is is impeccable. I forget who the cinematographer was. I feel that it fits in with the Coppola Dracula and the Kenneth brana. Frankenstein, at least in that regard where you know, you know, it's high high production value update.

Unknown Speaker 40:15 Interesting. The cinematographer is Shelley Johnson. And he was also the cinematographer for Captain America The First Avenger. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 40:25 yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Because that same director, right

Unknown Speaker 40:28 buddies with Joe, but also what to Chris's point about, you know, bringing up a new agreed with that as well bringing up the superhero feel to some of the film anyway.

Unknown Speaker 40:38 Yeah. And Joe Johnson also did the rocket tear, which was also sort of a throwback, superhero 1940s type of things. So it's kind of his wheelhouse. I can see why he was hired for this when Mark Romanek left the production.

Unknown Speaker 40:51 He was also a special effects guy, right? Did he work on Star Wars? Yeah, stuff. So

Unknown Speaker 40:57 yeah, he was like a Spielberg protege, a guy who came up through Spielberg. Yeah, we get to see a quick shot of a D aged Hopkins with a goatee and the dead mother and it's sort of framed to look like a suicide. She's got a straight razor in her hand, you know, but I think at this point, nobody's really thinking that that is a suicide. The mother having, you know, spoiler the fact that the mother was killed by Hopkins, is really not a surprise at all. You know, even on first viewing, you're like, she didn't kill herself. It's kind of one of those performances by Hopkins where, you know, immediately he's a bad guy, you know, sort of like the sort of like the jack nicholson shining, where you're like, yeah, of course, he's gonna go crazy. He's clearly crazy.

Unknown Speaker 41:49 Yeah, even if you don't know exactly what his deal is, you know, he killed her, like you don't even if you don't know how it went down, you know what I mean? Like, there's more more to be revealed, but you immediately know that he's, he's the villain.

Unknown Speaker 42:03 And in that scene, Benicio, I feel like gives nothing right after you see his mother dead. Like, that was one of my notes. When you see that happen? You think, you know, I'm, I'm reliving this childhood trauma, and it cuts to him. And he's just like, Oh, yeah, I remember that. And I'm like, Whoa, what's going on here? Why didn't anybody direct this guide? Or? I don't know. That's an example of my of a moment where he he failed to deliver for me,

Unknown Speaker 42:29 I feel like it's a little unfair to judge his performance. Totally. Because the the editing is so suspected it but I feel like a lot of the especially the scenes where he's having these flashbacks, they could have been, like, put together from something else. Like I would have to have read the script to know if this was all intended to be in there. From the beginning.

Unknown Speaker 42:50 Maybe I'm reading too much into Larry. And maybe I'm just too much of a Binney SEO defender. But I also think that, you know, as we find out more, you know, sorry, spoiler alert, that Larry spent some time in asylum. Yeah. And they did a lot of bad things to Larry, I don't know if he is even able to have the proper emotional responses at this point. Because I mean, you see what goes on in the asylum. It's bad news. So maybe Larry's just tapped out like this is, you know, like, this is all the reaction that he can muster. Or maybe he just saves it all for the stage.

Unknown Speaker 43:31 Alright, so then moving on, we go to the brother's funeral. There's, you know, more Gothic imagery, then Larry and Gwen haven't have a moment by the waterfall. He talks about his father's cruelty. And then that's, as you were mentioning, Jen, where we get our first mention that he was put in an asylum, and then after that sent to America, this sort of waterfall setting will also come back into play at the very end.

Unknown Speaker 43:58 Yeah, that's where he says, Gwen says, Ben said that you guys played here as children. And Larry says it was our refuge. So we

Unknown Speaker 44:05 find out that Glen is leaving. You know, whatever. This is all happening super fast. It just feels like the scenes are really cut to the quick here. Then we get Lawrence goes off to find the gypsies because he's learned that his brother was involved with them or something like that. And you know, I like the Gypsy camp. It's pretty cool. It's you know, it's about what you would expect from a big budget movie Gypsy camp. Geraldine Chaplin, the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, is the gypsy woman

Unknown Speaker 44:36 I know she's also I know her from Do you guys know the movie with Holly Hunter home for the holidays? Do you remember that at all with like, Claire, I've heard of her name. Well, I highly recommend it. It's really good Robert Downey Jr. and Holly Hunter. And anyway, it's a fun holiday film, but that's where that's where I reckon

Unknown Speaker 44:52 Downey Jr. was in Chaplin.

Unknown Speaker 44:55 Oh, interesting. Yeah, good connection.

Unknown Speaker 44:57 Also on this scene, we get a quick Rick Baker cameo Rick Baker's the famous makeup artist who did design the way he designed American Werewolf in London and lots of Famous Monsters he designed just did he work on this? He did. He designed the werewolf. We get a quick cameo of him here. He's the guy that's just kind of on lookout and he's watching and then he gets slammed by the werewolf really quickly.

Unknown Speaker 45:24 I also wanted to bring up that before we get Larry going to the Gypsy camp, which by the way, we all know is not a good word, but that's just how they use it. And the film. Yes, just disclaimer. I was it's a little puzzling that Larry's Dad, I made a note of this because he's like telling him me like, you know, yeah, you should stay inside because it's going to be a full moon. I don't want to lose you too. And then he says all of that and then it's like cut too. We see Larry riding off to the Gypsy camp like you know, whatever, dad, because he of course he's not going to listen to him. So I guess as I'm talking it through now I'm thinking like, maybe it was some sort of reverse psychology to like to get

Unknown Speaker 46:04 him to go out. It is weird though. The way it cuts right from him saying Don't go Don't go out and I don't

Unknown Speaker 46:11 want to lose you too. And then yeah, he's there he is galloping away another great cut.

Unknown Speaker 46:17 We get the prerequisite in a universal monster movie. We get villagers with torches they show up for the bear because they're they blame the gypsies bear for the attack on Larry's brother. The bear is very clearly not a real bear. It's a CG bear. But you know, we don't want them torturing. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 46:36 well, did you hear what he said? He says to somebody says like he doesn't all he does is dance. And I was like, Oh, that's sad to like dancing berry circuses.

Unknown Speaker 46:48 Yeah, but that's like

Unknown Speaker 46:49 somebody said that he's supposed to be an old like bear that's like about to be put out to pasture. Right? Like, I think the pub people are like, there's no way that bear could have done this. He's so old. And yeah, you feel a lot of sympathy for that bear even though he's CG.

Unknown Speaker 47:02 At least they don't have the bear fight the werewolf and get torn apart. Well, that would be more so I

Unknown Speaker 47:07 will say the claws through the policeman's mouth is pretty cool. That was one of the cool dads. I love that shot

Unknown Speaker 47:13 high. high praise for that, Chris. Yes, that that. I love that. I love that kill.

Unknown Speaker 47:19 Yeah, that's, you know, that's what happens the way the werewolf attacks that camp. And you know, we get that shot and a bunch of other pretty fun gore moments. This is when the movie really comes alive. For me these scenes. There's a lot of fair criticism to be had of the film when it's trying to be dramatic, but I feel like when we get to werewolf faction, it's pretty good werewolves. Action. I mean, yes, yes. Guilty of maybe being a little too CG at times. But you know, I don't know. I'm just happy to see a wolf man werewolf running around killing people. You know, I like the way the werewolves run on all fours. At some points. It's a little goofy, but I just like it.

Unknown Speaker 48:02 That's great. It's almost like, you know, in Transformers when they transform to the different mode to go faster. You know, it's like, yes, it's almost like a cheer moment. Like, you know, if the movie were better, you would definitely be cheering at that part. Because you're like, I need to go fast. I don't do this boop, boop. And then it's just great.

Unknown Speaker 48:19 I love it too. It's It's It's total chaos when when wolf wolf thing happens, but it's like chaos in the best way. It's like it's exactly it's like for all the the slow burning that's going along. It's like you really get a payoff. And I love this scene in particular, because you have people screaming, it's the devil. Yeah, the devil. And then yeah, it's just total chaos. And then like he, there's like the little boy or the little girl that like loses or mom or dad or the mom's looking for them and like the kid wanders off or there's just like, it's Yeah, just so much so much happening. And like it's really intense. And like, you're Yeah, you're just kind of on the edge of your seat, literally. Sure.

Unknown Speaker 48:57 But in the in the Extended Cut, it takes like, what 4050 minutes to get to this point. Is it Yes, definite reason why they cut it.

Unknown Speaker 49:06 At this point. You know, we get to sort of see that Larry has a hero in him. He grabs a gun and sort of goes to help people being attacked. There's this one kid who runs off he goes to help him the kid runs off into this like Stonehenge. Yes. Like I don't think it's literally supposed to be Stonehenge in

Unknown Speaker 49:27 England or there's just mini stone hedges like all around the corner in the countryside. I have the same

Unknown Speaker 49:32 exact same thought I was I just was like, is there just one that we know of here in the states are there there are many, many of these.

Unknown Speaker 49:40 Makes me want to live in England even more. I'm a druid No, you can just have a mini Stonehenge in your neighborhood. How cool would that be?

Unknown Speaker 49:49 You know the neighborhood stonehedge you know,

Unknown Speaker 49:51 and it's super foggy and gothy which I love. I'm a sucker for that kind of imagery. I don't care if a computer is doing it. I love it. That's the point where we get that Lawrence's attacked by the werewolf and bitten really savagely on the neck. So we know he's now bearing the mark of the wolf. And the villagers show up and drive the wolf away with their guns. And they bring Larry to the gypsy woman. And you know, everybody's basically telling her to kill him, but she won't do it. She tells them, he can only be released by someone who loves him. And we're all wondering who's

Unknown Speaker 50:33 this his dad doesn't love him let

Unknown Speaker 50:36 him fail. But stitching up of the wound was pretty gross in a good way. That was great. Like what she's stitching it up that was

Unknown Speaker 50:42 with one of those long curved needles.

Unknown Speaker 50:45 fishing hook. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 50:46 that was that was cringy. And a good way

Unknown Speaker 50:49 not to bring it back to Bram Stoker's Dracula again, but there's I feel like with Dracula, you almost get more bang for your buck. Because Dracula can be Dracula. He can be a bat and he also becomes a wolf. And the wolf in that is almost more interesting, because he can do way more things. Even as sex. Yeah. Which is more than you can say for this, you know, but I mean, I guess this is again, doing the classic wolf thing, but I would have liked a little bit even more craziness with with the wolf here, where, what else could he do? You know, but I know they're trying to keep it classic.

Unknown Speaker 51:24 Yeah, but then you'd be dealing with angry werewolf, right? Tell you what you can and can't do with a werewolf. And if you don't think that they'll do that, think again. Because horror fans can be really pedantic about what their movie monsters are allowed to do. If you ever want to find out go wander into a zombie conversation because there's a lot of strong feeling and a question

Unknown Speaker 51:47 Where did the term like isn't lichen, right, that lycanthrope? Like and throw? When did that become coming to use? Because I know what it was that underworld? Is that? Is that where they use it the most? But, you know, was it always around? Well, they call them lichens. Okay. Right.

Unknown Speaker 52:04 I think it's been around since the 1800s. I didn't research it. I don't know. But it's it's a term that's been around a while it's been around before,

Unknown Speaker 52:12 because it's in one of the books where she's researching. And I was like, oh, there's that word again. But like, when did pop culture? When did the movie start using it? Because I don't remember it from the 80s. It definitely

Unknown Speaker 52:22 no, it was definitely being used in the 80s. It was, it

Unknown Speaker 52:26 was it seems like instead, like you know how they go the Batman instead of Batman. They're like, let's say let's call them this. And so we don't have to call them werewolves now. And it just seems like like let's latch on to a new term.

Unknown Speaker 52:38 Yeah, it's a kind of it sounds sort of scientific. So it Yeah, sound smart. Right. When you say it?

Unknown Speaker 52:44 Well, it was first, the first mention of the word according to Wikipedia, was in 60. Ad.

Unknown Speaker 52:51 Whoa, wow.

Unknown Speaker 52:52 Yeah. Okay. So it's a it's a it's a Greek word, apparently. And it's translation. It's leukosis, which is Wolf and anthropos, which is man says Luke can throw pa or throw PA. That's where it comes from. The definition of it is that it's a form of madness involving the delusion of being an animal usually a wolf with corresponding altered behavior. But yeah, so it's been around for a long time. I don't know when it was, like, like subset I don't know when it was first mentioned in films, but it's it's a term that's been around a long, long time. It's used in movies and stuff earlier than you think. I wouldn't be surprised if it's used in the original Wolf Man or werewolf of London, which was the first official will universal were watching not American. Were right London, werewolf and of London. But um, yeah, good research. Interesting fact. So Lauren, Larry is brought back to the manor. When comes back, and like Glenn keeps coming and going. In the movie. It's like, just stay put, when

Unknown Speaker 54:02 the funeral is over. What is she doing? Like leaves?

Unknown Speaker 54:05 And then she comes, you know, it's just like, Why are Why are they moving her around so much in the story, just have her stay there. Who cares? It's a weird, baffling you know, sort of plot thing that keeps happening. You know, Larry's his head is swimming from I don't know, you know, being infected with lycanthropy. And we're getting these sort of dreamy, you know, heroine visions. You know, we get the sort of Gollum looking wolf boy,

Unknown Speaker 54:35 so Gollum. Yes. I wrote down the same thing.

Unknown Speaker 54:39 It looks like they just took the like, they took the Gollum model. Just through some, just, He really looks like Gollum. And you know, we'll later learn what that will boy is and it all it's, it's all fine, but it just seems kind of, you know, thrown together to add some scares or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 55:00 And then this is an again this is this is when Kim sale seek showed up and in the theatrical version, I was like wait, who is this guy again? It was just so like in the unrated. We get so much more of him. Anyway, so he shows up he comes in with a tray. And then you know Larry's like oh take when I thought you were leaving and Gwen's like this place is it's possible to escape. And this is, you know, this is Besides, this is the least I can do. Yeah. And then we see Larry, starting to heal.

Unknown Speaker 55:30 Then we pass over the spot where Anthony Hopkins and Emily blonde pass each other on the stairs. And he just I was just about to bring that up. I love I mean, talk about classic, awesome Anthony Hopkins where he's just eating the apple and just gives her the creepiest stare in the world. I love it.

Unknown Speaker 55:47 Well, that's only in the unrated cut. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 55:50 How could they cut that? But I mean, come on, like,

Unknown Speaker 55:53 yeah, I mean, in in the unrated cut. This whole section is much better because it's really montage in the theatrical and the unrated. They kind of let it breathe a little like, you know, we get that scene, like you said, where they pass each other on the stairs. And you can tell while he's eating the apple that he really doesn't want her there.

Unknown Speaker 56:11 Now, does that make sense with I'm sorry to skip to the end again. But he said, is he supposed to be in love with Emily Blunt? Okay, because there's a certain point where he's like, your brother was gonna take her away from me and blah, blah, blah, and I can't deal with her being away. I was like, wait a minute, what was was he into her the whole time? And I was totally confused.

Unknown Speaker 56:30 No, Chris, I felt the same way. But I think and maybe I'm wrong, but I think it was just because she kind of reminds him of Gen Y.

Unknown Speaker 56:40 Right? Because then the statue of his dead wife looks exactly like Emily Blunt too. Right. So yeah, okay. All right. I guess that makes but

Unknown Speaker 56:48 I had the I had the I had the same thing though, too. But then again, I was like, Okay, this is Gothic, like anything go right. Like the dad could be in love with her too as Emily Blunt. You know, it was like, damaged, you know, like that movie damaged.

Unknown Speaker 57:00 Yeah, you know, now that you're bringing it up, I think maybe you might have a point. And I've seen this movie more times than you guys. And I never that never really sunk in to me because it's so sort of thrown in there. But yeah, I think you know, he does have sort of some weird thing for her because she reminds him of his his dead wife.

Unknown Speaker 57:20 Maybe Anthony Hopkins was like remember legends of the fall? That's the only type of movie I'm going to do where everyone falls in love with the girl all three brothers.

Unknown Speaker 57:27 Well, yeah, it's a real crime against cinema that that Apple moment was cut out of the theatrical a great people needed to see that on the big screen. So Lawrence is better sort of miniseries just kind of seems like he's been on a like five day bender.

Unknown Speaker 57:45 Got a stiff neck right, that scene?

Unknown Speaker 57:47 Yeah, the doctor comes and checks him out. And you know he's healing miraculously which the doctor is clearly unnerved by Hopkins. Dad is kind of being nice to Gwen but it feels sort of threatening now that I'm thinking about it. Maybe he's attracted to her as you pointed out, just a basic like Okay, it looks like he's on the mend kind of part of the story. But we know better. He you know, he's looking at his wounds and he's seeing how how much healing he's gone through. And then Kim fail when they get the real scene with Kim fail seek. And Larry where he's the Sikh is in the dining room or something and he's like loading up

Unknown Speaker 58:33 cleaning the he's cleaning the gun or

Unknown Speaker 58:36 elephant gun or whatever it is.

Unknown Speaker 58:38 Yeah, he was cleaning guns

Unknown Speaker 58:40 and you'll we learn that he's been there. The Sikh has been there since Larry was a kid. His name is Singh. Yes. You know, he shows. Larry is the silver bullet that he's made. Well, he

Unknown Speaker 58:53 says, and then Larry says to sing now that you thank you for remembering his name. He says, Are you preparing for a war? And then sing says Do you believe in curses? Mm hmm.

Unknown Speaker 59:05 Yes. And that's it. This is when we really it's really driven home that sing is the man servant. And everybody needs a man servant. I think

Unknown Speaker 59:14 I need man's servant.

Unknown Speaker 59:16 Now incomes one of my favorite character actors, especially when he's playing a villain Hugo Weaving. He shows up as the inspector not really a villain in this case, but he is an antagonist. Weaving is just basically doing Agent Smith from the matrix here but he's doing like Agent Smith of Scotland Yard basically, it's pretty much the same performance. He goes to the manor to question Lawrence about the going the wolfy goings on. You know, Hopkins is sort of like gatekeeping but Larry's like no, go ahead, let them in. I'll talk to them. So they have the sort of scene in a in the park. Where we even starts off by saying, you know, I've been following your acting career, Mr. Anderson, and you know, starts off sort of ingratiating himself, and then the questioning becomes more pointed. You know, he's bringing up Larry's time in the asylum, and then he brings up how, oh, he's an actor, so maybe he's playing another role, you know, or, you know, this implication that, uh, you know, an actor would be more, you know, likely to be a murderer. And, you know, I think that's when Larry sort of needles him about not catching jack the Ripper.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:38 Yeah, but he's no, he's no Van Helsing from when actually when Anthony Hopkins played Van Helsing, he did bring a little bit more craziness to the role where it's like, everyone's kind of stuffy in this movie, and I feel like this would have been the opportunity for him to bump it up a notch and be like, a little bit different than this like stuffy straightlaced Scotland Yard guy, you know, in Anthony Hopkins, Van Helsing literally humps, Billy Campbell in Dracula, you know, and it's like, Yeah, he plays him totally crazy. And I feel like this movie could have used a little bit more like passionate melodrama over the top, you know, acting just to just to make it more a little bit entertaining. Yeah. Jen, like you're saying like, Alright, so if Benicio is, is a mopey guy who's like, all inward and whatever, you need something to balance that out. Like there needs to be a little bit of Yeah, agree. You know that other flavor?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:29 Yeah. And there's definitely no performance in this that goes, it's sort of in the crazy direction of, of Anthony Hopkins, and Dracula, or of Gary Oldman, and Dracula. Yeah, nobody's nobody's boring it on to that level. The movie could have benefited from a little more. Hey, agreed. Then now then there's some more hallucinations outside. There's another scene with Glenn, where he teaches her how to skip stones. Were you guys swept into the romance of this?

Unknown Speaker 1:01:59 Honestly, that's the one moment that they actually have that I feel like feels human. And I was like, I guess that's it. They're in love. That's it. That's all we get.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:07 That's all it takes Chris. That's all it takes.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:11 Stones a love that will stand the test of time, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:02:15 Oh, I think I might be skipping ahead. But there's that other moment where he she says something to him and then there's a big close up of her lips and he's just like losing control because she's so sexy and alluring and yeah, I feel like that's the one deep moment of sexuality in the movie that I feel like could have been threaded throughout the entire thing. Everybody is just driven crazy because of because they're Woolfson you know, tie it to sexuality and then this whole thing that peeked out for a moment there maybe that was from Roman x you know idea but like they didn't really go go there with it. It's just like this odd one moment where it's like oh, I got to get away from you Emily because you know you're driving me crazy.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:56 He sends her away again Yeah, right that point

Unknown Speaker 1:03:00 go skip some rocks.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:03 But no, he has like yeah, I think that is in the moment, Chris because it's like we're getting his Wolfie hearing and then I think he's like Wolfie horniness

Unknown Speaker 1:03:12 with it's, it's it's very, it's just a few See, it's like a another scene. Okay, it's right. It's right around that area. It's a different scene, but

Unknown Speaker 1:03:20 it's close by where he's like, yes, zooming in on her like her pouty lips and like, kind of, I think maybe even like her chest area or something like her neck

Unknown Speaker 1:03:28 or something. He's like, like the nape of her neck. And he's like, looking at her pulse.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:32 Yes. That's the point of the movie, as Anthony Hopkins will later say is like, it's so good to be the wolf. Let the wolf free. Like, you know, that should have been been nice to struggle the entire time has been like, well, like, it feels good to be the wolf. But no, I can't I know, I can't but where's that touched on in a second? But, you know, I feel like if that's your thesis of the movie, that's the reason why the main bad guy loves being the wolf. And I feel like that's an interesting concept, you know, and they touched on that in what Emily's Hulk. He knows like, the craziest things I like when I Hulk out and yeah, so I feel like that could have been explored and brought to, you know, a satisfying the Matic point.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:13 I think he's got a complicated relationship with his wolf Enos because he's like, I think, you know, he would maybe if he didn't have such the past that he did and the family issues that he did, he might be able to lean into it more, but I think it's because of all this family stuff that's happened and like all this, like, you know, all the stuff that happened to him or whatever, he doesn't really get to enjoy being a wolf. Like we just get, because usually I feel like with the wolf, man, there's usually some enjoyment and then there's remorse. Afterwards, you know, like when they come back down or whatever, it's like going on a bedroom, you know? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:50 But it's definitely while it's on and it's always been a sort of metaphor used in at least in movies. It's often been a metaphor for alcoholism. Yeah. You know drug addiction beat yeah yeah right and I think to Chris's point like a probably would have been strengthened better if we got some sense of being you know for for beneath CEOs care we get it from Hopkins but oh yeah like from beneath to his character that this is can be fun and exciting and exhilarating and you know you get a rush out of becoming this monster and killing

Unknown Speaker 1:05:26 I don't think he allows himself to have that

Unknown Speaker 1:05:29 so you know the villagers are sort of you know gathering up in there you know they've they they think they know what's going on here and they want to take Larry in they have this really creepy priest with them. They show up at the the manor we see them sort of in montage making silver bullets and stuff. We see that the full moon is coming so we know that you know, Larry is gonna wolf out soon. We get a quick sort of scene with Hugo Weaving at the time. Totally not buying into this werewolf shit. He keeps asking for a pint of bitter please.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:03 Right? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:05 And the lady in the pub is not having it because her husband was killed by the wolf. So she's like, you should be out there looking for this killer. And he says all he wants is his beer. Yeah. And yeah. And she's, she's like, so bent out of shape. He was like I you know, there, there are rules. I can't just hang around here, you know, rules that will keep us from a doggy dog world. And then he's just like, you know, where's my pint of better? I skipped today, the scene where the they show up at the manor with a priest. And Hopkins comes and fires at them with his his gun. And he's like, oh, sorry, I meant to hit you.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:41 He apologizes for missing. Right. It's pretty great. And it's sort of you know, you're it's a weird kind of moment, because he you know, you haven't really seen him sort of stick up for Larry. Yeah, but now he's like, he's sticking up for him. And you know, he's like, my men servant is hiding in the on the roof. And he's a crack shot. Yes. But he's not really there. Seek is not on the roof. It's a bluff. Right.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:03 And that's when he says to Larry, he's like, that's what he says. He goes, you're not the only actor in the family.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:09 Yeah. So it does pay off. It does pay off. So

Unknown Speaker 1:07:13 yeah, basically, we're all just heading towards Larry turning into the Wolf Man, which is what we sort of been waiting for. Basically, dad knows it's coming and he lures Larry out to the family mausoleum. He's got it all set up with candles and everything. And you know, the mom's sarcophagus is there, which is a pretty sweet sarcophagus. Later in a hallucination, we see it sort of, you know, it's this carved marble thing and we see it move and say something to me. It's

Unknown Speaker 1:07:42 technically a wife Kane, isn't it? Kind of Yeah, keep

Unknown Speaker 1:07:46 that's where he keeps his wife. Every good wife deserves a mausoleum. That's right. Anyway, so you know, they go down into the crypt, and we find out that and this is a little confusing, because he like closes a cage door. And you think that he's the dad is going to lock him in? Mm hmm. But I think it's just to separate them like he doesn't we don't see Larry breaking out of anything, so he's not locked in there.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:14 Oh, it's because he's gonna turn into a werewolf too. Yeah, right. That's where that's where he goes all the time to keep everyone safe, right?

Unknown Speaker 1:08:22 Yes, right. Yes. But usually thing has to come in a lot. I think he gets he has to lock it from the outside.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:28 Yes. That's you know, that's what he says is saying locks me he says that later. He says Singh locks me in every time I change. But you know, I don't want to be locked in anymore. The wolf must must outright and so it's just a little the way it's sort of blocked is a kind of confused, confusing to me, because we see him close a cage kind of door between them. But neither of them is actually trapped in there. Because then Larry starts to change. We get the first real werewolf transformation that we see. It's good. It's see again, it's very CG. You know, and I know I from what I know about the movie about the production. Originally they wanted to do practical transformations and Rick Baker was really excited to do that. But because Roman EC left under such short notice, Joe Johnston didn't feel he had the time and you know, I remember people who were fans of Wolf Man having a lot of problem with that at the time. Let's do CG needs to be needs to be practical and I mean, I agree it would have been better if it had been practical but

Unknown Speaker 1:09:43 absolutely i mean that's that's your money shot right there. That's why people come to see the movie is to see you know, the transformation and if then to that if you're going to make the Wolf Man update you got to do I'm not saying it shouldn't have been maybe it should have been a mix of CG and yeah and practical, but they should have, you know, it's like, oh, I don't have time to do that. Well then don't do the movie. Yeah. Like, I feel like that's, that's an important section of the movies is the transformation. Right? And if you can't be, you know, American Werewolf in London, right, then why bother

Unknown Speaker 1:10:14 here? Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get why it happened. It is a disappointment. And if they had pulled off something really spectacular, it would have been a selling point for the move. Yeah, yes. But, you know, and, and this is, you know, key. This is pertinent to the point of this podcast, I think, you know, the transformation was shown a lot in the trailers. And I think, you know, it was very clear from the trailers that it was CG, and I think that that turned a lot of people off. Yeah, they saw that and they were like, yeah, just looks like a CG mess.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:47 I'll give you the moaning sounds so painful, like waves like,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:52 just like, God Damn, that sounds painful, man. Like,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:56 he's bringing it there, Chris. He's bringing it. He's coming alive.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:01 And I and I like the things that they focus on in the transformation. I like they show his hand getting all gnarly. Yeah, they show his like, leg getting bent back like a wolf. scenary. Yeah. So it's like, I feel like they knew what to focus on.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:18 They just write the concepts there. Yeah, the

Unknown Speaker 1:11:20 concept was there. They just you didn't have the time to execute it in the way that would have been the most effective.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:27 And along with what Chris said, with the moaning I think the sound was really good for the transformation, too. There's a lot of the like the crack, you know, here the bone. Yeah, it's gross. And then yeah, like, I always love like, when the feet come out, like the shoes and stuff to like, just everything just busting out and just like, yeah, does gnarled and knuckled and, yeah, it's just a it would have been It's a shame. I agree with what you're both saying, if it could have been a mix of CG and practical, I think that would have really been been something that could have been a standout for the film, but, but I think also, yes, that's something that our fans want. But our fans also have, you know, set the bar high with like you're saying with like, American Werewolf in London, or the howling? Like you have, like, you know, these transformations. Can we talk about the way he looks though? Because, yeah, I think I think he looks great. And I know you love him to Sebastian because he looks like

Unknown Speaker 1:12:23 Hold on, though. When we first were watching it together. You said you didn't think that the the wolf man looked very good.

Unknown Speaker 1:12:31 I came around to it though. I came around to it. Well, because of

Unknown Speaker 1:12:35 why did you

Unknown Speaker 1:12:35 because because I think as we talked earlier about the effects, like there's certain times where it looks better than others. Like there's certain lighting, there's certain things like it just there's times where he looks better. there's times where he truly looks like our action figure, which is what I want him to look like, we have a wolf man action figure. And he looks I mean, I think he's identical to that. But then there was like, the first maybe it was the first shot of him. When we watched the theatrical version. I was just kind of like, I don't know. And it could also be just because like it was more of the the maybe the movement of him as well like being more like, like we said, like more superhero esque or something. I don't know, but later, I don't know. I grew to be like, Alright, no, I'm into this. Like, I like the way he looks now. But yes, you're right. In the beginning, I was like,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:26 Well, I mean, I brought it up. The reason why I brought it up and wanted you to restate your feelings on that is because you're not alone. There's a lot of people who don't like the look of it. I have friends in the horror community who weren't into the design, and I like the design the reason why I like the design is because it evokes the original Wolf Man. It's an update of the original Wolf Man. And it's also a sort of take on the Oliver read werewolf from

Unknown Speaker 1:13:57 Curse of the werewolf,

Unknown Speaker 1:13:58 right Curse of the werewolf the hammer werewolf movie it's sort of a combination of those two more the Oliver read werewolf and in his clothing,

Unknown Speaker 1:14:07 I love the clothing and for me that that kind of makes it I mean, I don't I'm not aware of you know, the various looks as you guys are but to me it feels like the correct way to update the classic werewolf you know, and when he's got bad vest and shirt on and just the the shape of his head and the way everything looks. Yes, it's, you're like, that's, that's perfect. You know that that? That's him?

Unknown Speaker 1:14:31 Yeah, I love that too. And it's that that sort of vest look is sort of similar to what Oliver Reed is wearing in the curse of the werewolf. Yeah, I love the costuming of it. I really like the look of it. I understand like at first glance it seems maybe a little awkward. But it works for me his he doesn't really have an extended snout like a lot of modern werewolves do it's sort of you know, more compact like the original Wolf Man.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:00 I think it's what I like about it.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:01 I like that too.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:02 Well, to me, there's a difference between just a werewolf and the wolf. Ah,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:06 wow. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:08 the Wolf Man looks more like a man. Yeah, he's a specific type of werewolf. He's

Unknown Speaker 1:15:14 right, man. You know, recently recently, I discovered I think I watched like on YouTube or something about special makeup effects for thriller, and they were mentioning how that is actually aware cat, right? Oh, because he's, you know, they got the long whiskers and it's a flat face as well. And I'm like, Oh, that's why that that stands out to me as well. Is that that? That look is very cool, too. And yeah, and I think I'm on your wavelength Sebastian, where I think it's cool. The design is always cooler when it's more man than wolf.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:46 Yeah. This is when we get the first Howl, which I think sounds pretty great. You know, who was involved in making the howl?

Unknown Speaker 1:15:54 I do. But I'll let you deliver x interior. No.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:58 You did the stuff for Dracula?

Unknown Speaker 1:16:00 No, it was David Lee Roth and Gene Simmons. The clap

Unknown Speaker 1:16:04 the two classiest people in the world. Yeah. I

Unknown Speaker 1:16:07 don't know. And you know, it's fitting that we're discussing this now because Eddie Van Halen just passed away the day before yesterday and was sad, really sad. super sad piece Eddie. So yeah, I mean, I don't know how much of David Lee Roth and Gene Simmons there is actually in the howl but they were apparently brought in to record some howling for the howl. So the villagers try to trap the Wolf Man with this like deer and that sort of dugout trap. But you know, it doesn't go well for them. One of the guys gets pulled into the trap and the Wolf Man messes him up pretty bad. There's some good slashing and gore

Unknown Speaker 1:16:49 we haven't talked about because I think this might notice is I don't know if this is the first one this might be the second one because there's there's definitely a couple throughout the film, the wonderful decapitations this film deliver? Yeah. And yeah, it definitely happens. I think it might happen also at the first Gypsy wolf out but it definitely happens during this time with the little pit or whatever. You totally the decapitation.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:13 No, it happens. One of the guys who is one of the river Yeah, no, he goes into like quicksand or something. Yes. Um, he's one of the guys. He's the guy in the Extended Cut that he throws the drink at

Unknown Speaker 1:17:25 that he has probably his beef with. Yes, yes. Yes. That's why I was talking about was so satisfactory because of now knowing what goes down in the pub. I'm like, Oh, that. That's why Paul had some meaning behind it.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:37 Yeah, that that guy runs into what looks like quicksand. And he gets stuck there and the Wolf Man, Wade's out to where he is and swipes off his head with a claw and it goes flying. And it's extremely satisfying. Yes, I really like this whole sequence. It's action packed and gory and fun. And this is basically why you come to a wolf man movie, in my opinion.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:02 Yeah. I mean, I always could use even more blood. Like when, you know, granted, there's a lot of killing and maiming. But like there's not a lot of splashing of blood like that's to nitpick. You know, I just would like a little bit more splashes

Unknown Speaker 1:18:17 more blood.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:18 Okay, so then we get the scene, but that's in every werewolf movie where the werewolf wakes up and the next day and he's all covered in blood and rags. He's a human again. I've all been there. Yeah, we've all been there. You know, he's sort of near the manor. I don't know. He's like out in the backyard. I don't know where he is. But he's

Unknown Speaker 1:18:36 inside a tree tree. He's He's in a tree like the trees like hollowed out and he's like, curled up in there.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:42 Yeah. And dad is there basically like laughing at him like, Oh, you did some terrible things.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:50 Yeah. reminded me of your two terrible Mariel

Unknown Speaker 1:18:57 these clearly delighting in the fact that like he's been on that Lawrence has been on a murder rampage.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:03 This movie had been more successful that you've done terrible things could have been like a classic line. Yeah, you know, if everybody knew this movie, people would be quoting that left and right, you know, after that, nyan that bachelor party you've done.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:17 But yeah, he basically dad basically gives him up to the villagers who knocks him out, then, you know, they they haul him to London to back to the old asylum. And you know, they've got the total cliche German doctor, clearly based on Freud. They put him in this chair, which is pretty amazing. I have no idea if this is based on anything real but they dunk him in a big pool of ice. And like what looks like an electric chair, but it's just an ice dunking chairs a

Unknown Speaker 1:19:47 great image though. Yeah, and like whoever Who cares if it works, it looks like straight up torture, but it looks so cool. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:19:54 we go back into sort of montage mode here which I'm not crazy about. It's you know, he's He's getting tortured. Like at one point he's got like a bit nice teeth and he's like, jabbering, like, I also think that we're supposed to pick up on the fact that time is passing here. Yeah. Which, Jen, I know you had a problem with it because you're like, there's this place is just got nothing but full moons.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:20 I said the same thing like they never show a not full moon. Like, here

Unknown Speaker 1:20:25 it is. I think the montage is are supposed to serve as a feeling of passing of time without like, you know, doing the cliche thing of showing like a calendar whipping by really sad. You know, I mean, it's

Unknown Speaker 1:20:38 a month goes by because he's got a turn at some point. And I believe that they're trying to set up the fact that they all do think that he's really legit crazy. Yes, because he's acting crazy. And so that you know, the payoff later will be everyone thinks he's crazy. And then he's not aware. Well, yes,

Unknown Speaker 1:20:53 Hopkins shows up to hang around his cell as Lawrence is sort of straitjacketed. And then we get the story of, you know, how dad became a werewolf, which was he was, you know, out in the Himalayas or something. And he went to a cave, and the Gollum werewolf boy was in the cave. And that werewolf boy bit him and that's, you know, how he became a werewolf. If you're wondering why that's the story. It is similar to the setup of the story in werewolf of London. The original werewolf movie from that was actually before the Wolf Man

Unknown Speaker 1:21:35 sounds vaguely racist.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:36 Yeah, probably.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:38 There's some feral Asian kid man. Goddamnit.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:42 Yeah, it was racist. We'll just assume it's racist if it's old. And this is when we get confirmation in a flashback that dad killed mom as a werewolf. which is surprising to no one. And, you know, we get to look at the Anthony Hopkins werewolf and the Anthony Hopkins Wolf, man, it's it's pretty good. It looks more like it's CG than makeup to me. I you know, it's just for a flash. So who knows? My guess is probably Anthony Hopkins was not keen to put on tons of makeup. So he's probably you know, they probably had to do it like that, because he wouldn't go for it.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:24 Well, it's also where we learn that this is when Larry says to dad, like you should just kill yourself. And he's like, I consider that but life is too good.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:34 Yeah. I like I like Wilson is awesome. Yeah, yeah. But he but he gives Larry a straight razor and it's like, yeah, kill yourself. And then, you know, so yeah, he gives Larry the razor and then he we see Hopkins leaving this the Siloam. And he's he's jamming down on the harmonica as he walks out.

Unknown Speaker 1:22:56 Yeah, I said to even said to you, I was like, Who is playing the harmonica in this asylum? And you're like, that's Hopkins like he's just like do to do on the little mouth harp going down the

Unknown Speaker 1:23:08 hallway. A little john popper?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:13 Yeah, the character is musical. He's always playing the piano. And I know that Anthony Hopkins always plays the piano and like, anytime he can put it in it, put it into a movie, you know, he even writes the the pieces and then so he'll play some noodle on the piano and there'll be like, leave it in. What is that? He's like, I wrote that. And then so though, he does that a lot, because he's pretty accomplished pianist. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 1:23:37 cool. So that's totally cool. Okay, yeah. Nice. All right, cool. Well, that's good to know. Then we go on to what may be the best scene in the movie, which is the very ill advised nighttime asylum lecture. I mean, at first I'm like, why are they doing it this this at night, but then the doctor says like, I'm doing this to show you He won't turn into a werewolf. Yeah. Oh, good. But yeah, so they're in like a you know, theater, operating theater or whatever. And they will and Bernice CEO, and he's in you know, like, it's strapped down chair. It definitely at this point, we're veering into sort of dark comedy, because the the doctor is, you know, lecturing with his back turn to Benicio about how he's not going to turn into a werewolf and how he's just crazy. And Benicio is like, you need to go get out of here. I'll kill all of you. And and nobody's listening. And then so the doctor is lecturing, and he starts to change behind him. And the guys in the theater are like pointing like like, Look, look behind you. And he just keeps talking. Oh, good. It's pretty funny.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:51 Best don't The only thing that bothers me is that he doesn't kill everyone. I want everybody in that room that it should have been a pile of bodies, man, like That was the only minor quibble with that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All those fuck all those guys.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:06 Yeah, I mean yeah, they did promise everyone would die and not everyone died

Unknown Speaker 1:25:10 and the transformation they do like show his like jaw like snapping and like eath rolling into weird place. Yeah, that was cool it like oh we'll save some weird transformation stuff for this time so that you know you see different anatomy changing

Unknown Speaker 1:25:26 yeah and the first transformation is done in that crypt and it's sort of dark and there's candlelight so you know yeah this is like bright You know, this is a brightly lit Yeah, nothing operating theater and he's, you know, they're really showing you the change.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:40 I think that change looks really good here. Actually, I was I was really like, I was super super into this and just really ready for Larry to fuck everybody up. And it just it looked so much the change. I just I liked it so much better in this in this scene. And I don't know if it was pot, you know, partially because it was leading up to something it was going to be very satisfying. You knew it was going to be

Unknown Speaker 1:26:02 just the sweetest plum. It's all about the scene and wanting to see him go apeshit on all these doctors it's it's a lot of fun. There's a funny moment where one of the one of the doctors is trying to get out and the guy's at the door and another guy's in the door and not letting him out. And meanwhile, Larry's carving through people left and right.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:25 The guy at the door is like like mopping the floors. Yes. Like I think it's locked. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:33 The most it's not my job.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:35 There's some like slightly poor wirework here where you can tell like when he actually throws the the main doctor out the window. Yeah. And it's just like there's no way to him at all. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:47 the gravity

Unknown Speaker 1:26:48 so it's out the window instead of actually being thrown. But you know, it's nitpicky, you know,

Unknown Speaker 1:26:54 it's this. It's the satisfying though. It's still all satisfying.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:57 Yes. Yeah. Oh, and I just love that one part where he I think he's got a big chunk of a guy in his mouth. Yeah. And he just he looks at it. That's when he spots the actual doctor. And then the piece of meat just drops and he's like raw.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:11 It looks like a liver.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:12 Yeah. Is that is a great shot, like that is so good.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:16 And they throws the doctor out the window and he lands on the Oh, yeah, that spiked fence, you know, which is always good.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:23 skewered.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:24 Yeah, somebody skewered on a spiked iron rod fence is always a winning proposition. So Larry escapes from the asylum, he basically goes on sort of a rooftop chase scene. They have the seat, they have, you know, the sort of prerequisite scene where he like, gets on a gargoyle and howls at the moon. You know, it's an easy lay moment. But I'm an easy lay for gargoyle perches, pretty much like that. whenever it's in a movie, we get Hugo Weaving has clued in to this and he's sort of chasing him on ground while the Wolf Man is running across the rooftop, we get a really, you know, this sequence really sort of highlights this running thing where he's running, you know, along the roofs, and then he drops into the onto all fours and starts around all fours. Again, this moment feels to me kind of like a superhero movie moment, you know, because he's going from rooftop to rooftop, you know, and I can see why maybe some people you know, who are expecting a more sort of straightforward, grounded horror movie might not like this stuff, but I like big budget spectacle. And this is where the movie is sort of delivering on that

Unknown Speaker 1:28:45 for sure. Why Why would you have an issue with this just because it's too CG and too fantastical. It's just

Unknown Speaker 1:28:50 not a horror movie thing. It's you know, it's it's like a like I said, it's like a big budget, it's more of a sci fi or superhero thing

Unknown Speaker 1:28:59 because to him like jumping off of rooftops, or just to be like a big sort of animal loose because me isn't that what American Werewolf in London ends like that. So,

Unknown Speaker 1:29:09 right, but not done with $100 million in computer. Right, right. Right facts. Okay, I didn't

Unknown Speaker 1:29:15 have a problem with it. I was enjoying it. And I just was like,

Unknown Speaker 1:29:19 you're kind of you know, you're more of a horror fan than a sci fi or superhero movie fan. So like, I

Unknown Speaker 1:29:25 was okay with that. Okay, no, didn't bother me at all. No, I was just like, like, it's been like, it's, it builds up so much to this moment, where I kind of feel like, you know, I know we talked about earlier that, you know, Larry doesn't get to fully enjoy his wolfing. But I feel like for a minute here when he's like going all around London and do I mean, I think he might might be enjoying this rooftops for a minute, you know, like being able to, like okay, maybe this isn't all bad. You know, like there's, you know, the superhuman strength that he has. But yeah, I just, I mean, it's such a such a climax that it comes to With everything that happens at the asylum, and then he's just like, you know, he's just he's just going balls out. So I think they deliver. They

Unknown Speaker 1:30:09 there's a fun sort of little bookend to the scene where he sort of jumps down and he's in, you know, I don't know, Piccadilly Circus or something like that. A train, there's a train car that gets derailed, and it like runs over a dude while it's getting derailed. And you see the guy like, pretty great and falls over on its side, and it's full of people. And the Wolf Man like jumps on top of it. And he looks in through one side window, and there's a really cool shot of him, like looking in through the glass, and then breaks through the glass and like falls into the train car and then start slashing away at people really messing them up. I think the action is pretty well done. Could it be a little better, maybe. But I think for the most part, and this might actually be one area where Joe Johnston was a pretty good choice to come in. Because I don't imagine Mark Romanek would have really cared very much about these action sequences, Drew and Johnston does. I mean, he's not like known for being a great action director, but he's solid, you know, he did Jurassic Park three, which has some fun sequences. So you know, he comes from the Spielberg camp, so he knows what he's doing with action.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:19 And the action is not the sticking point here for sure.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:23 Lawrence goes on his werewolf bender. And he ends up under a bridge as we all have been after a bender by London Bridge, in fact, and he drinks some wakes up in the morning and he's back in his tattered bloody clothes. And he like drinks some really gross water from a puddle. And then we learned that Gwen apparently owns an antique shop or something in London, which is not set up at all. No, but she's she's going to her open up her store for the day. And Larry has I guess, figured out I mean, it says her name on the if you look at the signage on her store,

Unknown Speaker 1:32:06 wait, wait, is this where we learned that? That Mary Poppins and Wolf men are in the same universe?

Unknown Speaker 1:32:10 God? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:13 Yeah, so she goes into her antique store that hasn't been set up. And he's like sleeping under something in their table or some table. And then, you know, they have a scene, he tells her that he knows his father was the original werewolf and she wants to help him. We get more sort of romance moments here, which don't necessarily

Unknown Speaker 1:32:36 that's in quotes, romance, right? No, but

Unknown Speaker 1:32:39 we get it, we get a kiss here.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:41 All right. It was so hot, I forgot.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:45 Anyway, Hugo Weaving shows up and, you know, he shows her the newspaper drawings of the wolf carnage. And, you know, he basically detains her, you know, they figure out that Larry's been in there and they they think he's hiding behind a mirror. And he like shoots the mirror and, but behind the mirrors like this pan's statue, like a statue of the god Pan. I'm a pan fan. Not a Peter Pan fan

Unknown Speaker 1:33:13 and pan Greek god Pan, one half goat the other half man.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:19 Yeah, so yeah, the mirror gag is cool. In the and now in the unrated cut. That's where we get the scene of Larry walking around London. And there's a paper boy selling papers like Wolf Man kills everyone. And Larry buys all the papers from him sort of weird comedic moment that doesn't really fit but you know, and we get this montage as both of them make their way back to the Blackmore mansion, cheese on a train and a horse and stuff. But poor Larry's, he's just hoofing it the whole way. That's right. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:55 I'm in through the Moore's looking very for Lorne.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:58 Yeah. And there's, there's like a solid five to 10 shots of him, depending on which version you watch it like just walking. If they didn't do that, everybody like would it just work? could look. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:34:12 yeah. You can't when Gwen is trying to find Geraldine Chaplin's gypsy woman. So she does eventually meet her in a barn. And you know, there's this whole sort of scene where she's talking about how much you know, she wants to save him. And it's kind of like uncomfortably anti feminist sort of moment. You know, where it's like I can change him that kind of thing. Like I can change the abusive boyfriend, right oh man, which was a little uncomfortable there.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:46 Also at this time, though, there's there's a total souped up scene going on with Hugo Weaving. Yes, it right in the carriage and loading up a silver bullets. Yeah, he's a believer now.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:57 Yes, he's turned turned a corner on This Wolf Man, this werewolf business and he's ready to like lay down some silver bullets.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:04 Wouldn't all of London have turned believers after a giant Wolf Man just came marauding like in Piccadilly square. I mean come on what's going on fake

Unknown Speaker 1:35:14 fake news Chris fake news.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:18 There were crazy urban myths going around London in that period there is a famous sort of monster called Spring Heeled jack that would like supposedly come jumping down from roofs and like attack people and then jump away into another roof doing impossible things so that kind of stuff actually happened in London and there was never any explanation for it. I'm sure I'm in all parts of the world but they're famous stories from London of crazy crazy stuff like that so so Larry makes it back to the manor just in time for the full moon but poor Kim fail seek manservant is dead. He's a corpse sort of hanging on the wall. So I guess we're to assume that a pop killed him didn't have any more use for me. Yeah, that was

Unknown Speaker 1:36:08 why I wanted to see what happened to him I mean what

Unknown Speaker 1:36:11 well they sort of set him up as a badass so

Unknown Speaker 1:36:14 yeah, he's a great shot and then like way he's just dead

Unknown Speaker 1:36:18 it is off screen and we don't get I mean we can only assume that it you know it was dad we'll find out when he did it you know Yeah, but it's Yeah, he deserved he deserved it on string screen kill if he was going to

Unknown Speaker 1:36:32 die He Larry gets the key off of the dead seek that unlocks his case full of his trunk full of silver bullets. The dog who we haven't mentioned I forget his name but he gets a nice sort of a big dog he gets a nice jumpscare here and one thing I appreciated there's a shit is about to go down in the manner but Larry lets the dog out Yeah, he lets him go

Unknown Speaker 1:36:57 this the wolf and also let the deer go at 1.2 and chase a man instead of a deer yeah

Unknown Speaker 1:37:02 the deer with when they first try to trap him with the deer he doesn't kill the dog

Unknown Speaker 1:37:06 is Samson By the way, Sam Samson Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:09 Nice. Larry. Here's dad in the parlor playing the piano laying it with bloody fingers. Yes. Little shot. Very Yes. It's the Sikhs blood on his fingers. I don't know. Somebody's blood.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:20 Well, there's a there's a dead guy on like the chair.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:23 All right. It's the it's like the inspectors pal.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:26 You go weavings right hand guy. Yeah, man. We get sort of Hopkins doing the supervillain speech. It's pretty great Hopkins ham. So yeah, they they kind of have their big confrontation moment. Hopkin hits him with the cane that point it's a little bit repetitive just because I feel like we already kind of got the supervillain speech from dad at the asylum and we're just kind of getting more of that Hopkins starts throwing shit around and this is I love

Unknown Speaker 1:37:54 when he throws that chair it's so badass

Unknown Speaker 1:37:57 but but it's totally what you were saying where the wire work is kind of like suspect like it just kind of flying off

Unknown Speaker 1:38:04 but Hopkins man just like the look on his face and the way he's so nonchalantly does it it's ridiculous but awesome at the same time

Unknown Speaker 1:38:11 I didn't I didn't have an issue with any like I just like buy in that these like wolf dudes have all the strings in the world so like anything is gonna be like just like nothing you know? It's like no, I like it in concept it's

Unknown Speaker 1:38:23 just like technically if you're if you're really paying attention to it yes, it looks a little like somebody yanking a wire and pulling a yeah pulling a piece of furniture off exactly right. So they both wolf out and they do the thing where they like charge at each other and like smash chests to definitely a host matrix C type of werewolf wire fight for for a minute, and it ends with Larry. decapitating dad just great good decapitation, it's you know kind of CG looking but it's it's a pretty good death. And doesn't he doesn't his head like fly into the fireplace?

Unknown Speaker 1:39:05 I know he kicks

Unknown Speaker 1:39:06 him into the fireplace okay yeah, he

Unknown Speaker 1:39:08 kicks him to the fireplace right but

Unknown Speaker 1:39:10 the head actually we see the head kind of de wolf Yeah, it starts like going back to dad but another thing about dad wolfing out and then having the big fight which I appreciated because I was able to differentiate as to who was who was the dad shirtless?

Unknown Speaker 1:39:26 Thankfully only as a werewolf Yeah, that's shirtless. So gwenan Hugo show up and yeah, the Wolf Man bites Hugo which is a setup for a sequel that'll never happen. I think they're you know, the sequel was gonna maybe be Hugo Weaving as inspector werewolf or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:46 I would have watched that.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:47 Yeah, me too. I totally would have watched that. We do get Hugo Weaving in Joe Johnston's next movie, Captain America because he plays the Red Skull. So I guess maybe they liked working together. Who knows. And you know, the manner burns down because that's what manners always have to do in our movies. The Wolf Man chases going out into the woods with the torch wielding villagers following after them because you got to have that universal monster movie. You know, the woods look cool. She's sort of hiding behind some trees and there's lots of fog. And he sort of, you know, chasing, chasing, you see him in the background. He chases or to the waterfall where they had that moment, but not the place where they skipped stones, the waterfall,

Unknown Speaker 1:40:31 where the where the brothers had there was a refuge

Unknown Speaker 1:40:33 refuge.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:35 Yes. He's sort of like, tackles or pushes her down to the ground. But she's like, No, me, you know, me good acting here from I mean, she's good. The whole movie. Oh, yeah. She's great, really good moment here, where she's sort of trying to convince him to kind of recognize who she is, even though he's in wearable form.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:55 I liked that. You could see her in his pupils, by the way that I thought it was. I mean, I know it's kind of hokey or whatever. But I appreciated that.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:02 Yeah, I mean, the whole thing is kind of hokey. But yeah, it's the scene you need to have, yes, the werewolf movie. villagers are coming, basically, you know, he's gonna kill her. But then he, she gets through to him, and then he, you know, he stops, then they hear the villagers coming. And then she shoots him because she's got a gun with her with silver bullets, presumably in it a little. I mean, I would have preferred the cane. But, I mean, why didn't she have the cane? And then, you know, pulled out the knife and stabbed him in the heart or something. And then he, you know, transforms back into Larry and dies in their arms. And they have this sort of, you know, sad, doomed love moment, which, you know, honestly, no one cares about.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:49 I cared. You care? Yeah, I did. Actually, I did. I did actually. Well, that that moment was like, I mean, it was because he, he like kind of he starts to after she shoots him, and then he kind of like turns over to a side. And then he kind of I think he grabs her arm, like a little, a little bit of a jumpscare. But then you can see he's coming back to being Larry. And then he says, that's when he was like, thank you. And he was like, it had to be this way. You know, it's like he was this, you know, now he's tortured guy and I don't know, I I actually didn't care.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:22 I cared. He dies, and Hugo shows up and we see that he's got the cane and you know, again, they're sort of I think it's sort of, you're supposed to sort of think, Oh, this this is he's going to be in the sequel. And then you know, they show the moon and there's more of Emily's voiceover and then we're out. And you know, we've got sort of horror movie style Wolf Man and credits, which are pretty cool. They're, you know, they're stylish and cool.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:50 I can't help but think of, you know, Dracula, where Amina chops Dracula's head off. And, you know, they're this sort of lovers souls that are always meant to be so that makes sense to me that, you know, she should be the one to kill them. But I just feel like they're trying to shoehorn that same story into this by by the Gypsy saying, it has to be someone who loved him. I'm like, Well, does she even say like, oh, for his soul to be fine, or I mean, like, what's the point of that? Like, would he have lived if anybody else shot him with silver bullets? Like, why does it have to be someone who loves him? It just it seems like they're just really forcing a story at this point.

Unknown Speaker 1:43:26 I think. I think they are sort of going to that. Well, they're, you know, I think there's figuring Hey, it worked for Dracula, you know, right. It'll work for the wolf. Man. I definitely think this movie is is trying to capture the magic of in some ways of that Coppola Dracula, that's definitely what it's aiming for. Right. I mean, some people hate the Cobo Dracula, so right. No, it's not like that movies universally loved either. Sure, sure. It's more people like it now than they used to. But I remember back in the day, nobody was hankering for more of that. Well, there's a lot of problems. You know, everybody was just like, Look, you know, sucked, you know, and like, actually, it's, it's not like it was that beloved at the time.

Unknown Speaker 1:44:08 It made money though. That's why they made so

Unknown Speaker 1:44:11 and this movie didn't. So on that note, you know, my sort of feelings about why this movie tanked. Like I said, I think that trailers unfortunately, by showing the CG transformation, I think turn some people off. I think that Benicio del Toro is not the kind of actor or leading man that brings in money, you know, like he's just not. If this had been Brad Pitt or somebody I think it would have probably stood a better chance even though like Benicio, and I know he was really passionate about doing this. I think that probably didn't help. And I think that, you know, when it came out, the reviews were pretty abysmal. And I think that is largely due to the sort of editing, I think that the editing is bad. And I think that sort of hurt the movie critically, I don't know if if they had released, the longer version in the theaters, if that would have been received any better probably wouldn't have been. Because I think like Chris fairly pointed out that I think a lot of the problems are in the script, unfortunately. Yeah. So you know, I don't think it was going to do that well with critics, either way, but if it had been more embraced by fans, then maybe there would have been some word of mouth and it wouldn't have tanked nearly as badly, but even a bigger sort of issue. And I think that we're seeing this with all of these universal these attempts at these universal monsters is that, I don't know if people care about them. You know, like, they've tried now with Wolf Man, they've tried with, you know, a new Dracula. They've tried with the mummy with Tom Cruise. And it's like, there, none of them are hitting it. It's too bad. Because obviously, I'm a fan. I love the universal monsters, but I just don't think that they're big money movies. Now, you know, the recent Invisible Man that just came out, did it smart, because it's a low budget movie. It's contemporary. It's not hinting on your love of the Invisible Man. To sell it. It's, it's just giving you a movie with an invisible man and calling it the Invisible Man. And it's like a, you know, whatever, a $5 million movie as opposed to 100 million dollar movie. So it's, you know, 150,

Unknown Speaker 1:46:32 right?

Unknown Speaker 1:46:34 Yeah, or whatever, if you bring the budgets of these things way down and do these sort of scaled back attempts at rebooting these series and do them, you know, in a modern setting, which isn't to my preference, because I like the cool Gothic setting, but you know, you could probably do Gothic for cheaper than 100 and 50 million How

Unknown Speaker 1:46:56 do you know how much it costs to make shape of water? Because that's, I mean, that's clearly got some creature going on.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:02 Yeah, I mean, but it was probably, you know, 50 million or something, but the shape of water wallet had a lot of design and really rich design and everything. It didn't have a lot of action. The action is what costs a lot of money. Yeah, for a lot of these things, you can have something look great and have it be period and stuff but as long as you're not throwing in like massive action sequences, you know, you're not going to reach that hundred million dollar mark or whatever.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:31 But also how much did Anthony Hopkins get walk away with here? I feel like he you know, he was commanding some money

Unknown Speaker 1:47:39 the costs were high you know, and I think something like shape of water, though it's not like cheap it's not you know, Michael Shannon isn't gonna demand $50 billion

Unknown Speaker 1:47:51 right felt like they weren't holding back on the budget on anything here. I feel like they were just like open the floodgates and just make the best movie we can and

Unknown Speaker 1:48:02 there's a lot of good things here though. I like it you know there was the It looks good like I mean it's just it's it's kind of it's it's a bummer and I you know I would love to see the the universal monsters live on I haven't seen an attempted a creature film and that's why I was thinking of shaper water but now I don't know it's it's it's it's weird because like I said, in the beginning my first watch I was kind of ambivalent about the whole thing and then watching closely, the theatrical and the unrated version. I just came to like to film a lot more

Unknown Speaker 1:48:39 Yeah, I think if you were to see this bar if you were to see this movie, you know at a bar with the sound off you'd probably be like this movie looks incredible. Oh my god the Wolf Man Anthony Hopkins is in this Emily Blunt you think this is the greatest movie and then you'd go home rented watch it with the sound and go wait this movie sucks like what what happened? You know because the production design the cinematography all there so so many of the elements are right but then the crucial elements like the story the editing and the direction fail and that's it's kind of like right down the middle where you got half good half bad and then it just doesn't come together and knowing that you know every everybody it went forward with last minute director change will pull the rug out from any production I think so. Just look at solo or and you know, like I mean, like they brought it into port it's not a terrible movie. I you know, it was watchable.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:39 You mean the Wolf Man or

Unknown Speaker 1:49:40 the wolf? No, the wolf sorry the Wolf Man was watchable and is a fine enough movie but especially with the watching the Extended Cut was a bit of a drag.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:50 So you prefer the you prefer I prefer

Unknown Speaker 1:49:52 the theatrical cut because it just gets to the point, you know, gets to the gore and gets to the but I understand why you would watch the Extended Cut, if you were just you want to luxuriate in the feel of the movie because the feel of the movie is, is good, you know, they got the gothic horror thing, you know, we've gone over it and yeah, I just I think that it's just too boring. And they needed to add some more interesting twists and add a little bit more, you know, modern lies juice to it, yeah, in order to in order to make it stand out.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:23 And then also, to piggyback on that Chris was, you know, I feel like, because, and you brought this up to Sebastian, it's like, Who is it really for? Because, like you said, it's not, like, there's elements of it that aren't something that a horror fan is going to really be into, you know, because of more of the action type. Like, the sequences and it's just, I don't know, I didn't I don't know if it was really defined for a person, so or it could have become like, I had a cult following. He other than, you know, having like, the basis of being the Wolf Man, but the actual film didn't have like that thing that it's like, oh, you know, this is what horror fans like, loves. I mean, you kind of have that because you love the way he looks. But like, if if, you know, if, like we said earlier, if like the transformation could have been kick ass, then like, that would have been something that people were talking about, you know, if it would have been at the transformation, or, like, if there would have been some real hamming it up, like, we would have got like full Hopkins, like, you know, being really Machiavellian, like over the top or something like that. there needed to be something that had people talking.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:40 Well, I think your point of, you know, who is this for? It's not quite, you know, hitting the target for horror fans. It's not quite hitting the target, because there's too much sort of slow drama scenes. Exactly. Or for fans of big spectacle action movies, or sci fi or whatever stuff with big money and big production designs not really hitting that target. And it's not really hitting, it's definitely not hitting the target for people who are into period dramas. If that's what you're going for, so ivory,

Unknown Speaker 1:52:17 it is not

Unknown Speaker 1:52:18 I think, you know, it's, you know, yes. They didn't know who they were making this for, which I think is going to be a theme that we find a lot in this podcast.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:29 They made their made it for podcasters in 2020

Unknown Speaker 1:52:33 to dissect

Unknown Speaker 1:52:35 this will be great for them.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:37 That's who this is made for. All right, well, um, that wraps up our discussion of the 2010. Wolf Man, thank you for joining me. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:52:47 yeah, thank you.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:01 That about does it today for Tentpole Trauma. If you like what you heard, check out our social media presence on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Just look for Tentpole Trauma. That was easy, wasn't it? If you like us, hit subscribe, and leave us a sterling review on iTunes. If you dare. If you really like us, head over to patreon.com and get involved in one of our fabulous tiers. You'll be glad you did. Want to communicate with Tentpole Trauma, send an email to Tentpole [email protected] we'd love to hear from you. And who knows, one day you may even get your email read on one of our shows. Well, thanks for listening, and we'll see you real soon.

#movie #unrated version #anthony hopkins #theatrical version #wolf #dracula #wolfman #emily blunt #benecio del toro #frankenstein #universal monsters

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forasecondtherewedwon · 5 years

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Alright on Paper Pairing: Peter Parker x Michelle Jones (Spideychelle) Rating: T (for now) Word count: 1699 Chapter: 1/?

Spideychelle Week Day 4: Fake Dating

Summary: Reading the newspaper has taught MJ a lot about the Avengers' relationships. Doesn't mean she wants to be in one.

Or, MJ fake-dates Spider-Man, but won't commit because she has a crush on Peter Parker.

MJ reads the paper.

Oh, what, she’s supposed to be above reading the paper because print is dead and the internet offers both more news (stories and outlets) and faster access to it? Tough. She still reads it because her dad still gets it. He’s had a subscription since he graduated college and thought reading the Times―tucking it under his arm and flipping through the pages while he rode the subway―was a more accurate measure of adulthood than owning a car. (They still don’t have a car, by the way. MJ is never going to learn to drive. Ugh.)

The appeal that drew her to it, at the age of four, was the occasional editorial cartoon, utterly beyond her comprehension. These days, she’s a little more interested in the articles on domestic politics, but hey, people are allowed to evolve.

So if you’re her, you’re MJ, you’re living in New York and you’re paying attention, you’re going to notice the Avengers. Notice shit like violent attacks and streets covered in rubble―although, that’s basically the city at rush hour during construction season. She’s noticing other things though, Avengers voicing opinions, reviving a feeling of civic interest, pride, and responsibility. She’s noticing the tide turning; citizens less interested in blaming superheroes for unscheduled demolition in Manhattan and more interested in who does Hawkeye’s tattooing or which karaoke bar Thor can most likely be found at on a Friday night.

And the Avengers’ relationships. New Yorkers are feeding on (super-)human interest stories with their faces so close to the pages they just about rub all the ink off with their noses.

It’s a terrible thing to know this, to be as observant as MJ is, tracking these changing attitudes and becoming an accidental expert on the path to good PR for the biologically, magically, genetically, or otherwise enhanced. Reading the paper is what gets her in trouble―sooner, rather than later―when Spider-Man starts hanging around.

Technically, he’s always hanging (that web shit is strong stuff, by the looks of it), and he’s always around. MJ figured out ages ago that Queens is his home base. Still, their borough’s just big enough and just crowded enough that she’d never encountered him in person until a few months ago. Now she sees him all. The. Time. He says coincidence, she says to-mah-to, and it really is him saying that because they’re officially on speaking terms. It’s an improvement to their interactions, mutually decided upon after Spider-Man scared the bejesus out of her when she was standing on her apartment’s balcony one day, glanced over the edge, and saw him crawling up the wall.

The deal became that if he was going to drop by, he better be obvious about it. This led to a routine MJ is loath to describe with the word ‘charming,’ but which may or may not involve her going out to the balcony or chilling by the open window of her bedroom on Saturday mornings, after her parents have left to run errands, and offering Spider-Man a glass of orange juice while they chat and she shares her paper with him. He likes the arts section. She likes watching him read it, sticking to the wall outside her window, the posters for whatever’s in theatres appearing upside down.

He joked one time about them catching a Saturday matinee together. She’s pretty sure he was joking.

The deal evolves as the weeks go by. MJ’s apartment is less of a rest stop between crime-fighting gigs and more of a superhero counselling centre with only one client. Not that Spider-Man is looking to her, a high school student, to mend whatever trauma led to him donning a formfitting red costume and babysitting an entire city, but she’s sure giving him a lot of advice lately.

It’s just… life stuff, really, and MJ doesn’t know where he sees authority when he looks at her, yawning in her jammies as she passes his juice through the open window, but he seems to listen. Maybe her dad was right about the paper; it’s possible that reading it makes her appear wise.

But it makes her act like a damn idiot in a crisis.

She’s heading to a guidance appointment one Wednesday (it’s junior year and MJ is getting some assistance with scouting out colleges) and the halls are empty; she was given permission to leave class five minutes early. When she turns the corner towards the guidance room, there’s Spider-Man. Just standing there. Middle of the hallway. MJ drops a textbook and it strikes the ground with a deafening slap.

This is her comfortable weekend companion, the hero of Queens. She adjusted to understanding that Spider-Man can be both, but there doesn’t seem to be any room in her mind for him to also exist midmorning at Midtown Tech.

He’s staring back at her (she can tell―the aperture of the white eyes on his mask has expanded in shock), arms held away from his body sort of comically, and MJ’s trying to recall if she’s ever seen him upright before when the jarring old-school bell rings and students flood from the door of every classroom.

Spider-Man bounds towards her, grabs her book from the floor, pushes it to her chest until she grips it, and says, “I know what to do.”

Everyone’s starting to make sounds of surprise, recognizing the Avenger in their midst, but even though MJ knows Spider-Man is kind of a hero of the people, he’s not acknowledging them at all. In fact, he’s wrapping his arms around her, and her eyes―boy oh boy―are wide. There’s just one thing on her mind besides what his suit feels like against the backs of her hands…

She’s praying that Peter isn’t seeing this.

“I’ll swing by your apartment later,” Spider-Man promises, speaking quietly near her ear.

He puts another little squeeze into the hug before stepping back. Reeling, MJ watches him give their audience a polite wave as he walks backwards in the direction of the nearest exit.

“Sorry, guys,” he tells the gathered crowd. “Uh, duty calls. I just wanted to stop by and see my girlfriend.”

Heads are swivelling to stare at MJ even before she drops the book for the second time.

\\\

“How?” she demands of him that evening, pacing tightly on the balcony while her parents laugh along to a sitcom in the living room. “How could that be you ‘knowing what to do’?!”

“I was doing what you said,” Spider-Man says defensively. He’s pacing too, along the balcony’s two-inch-wide railing. (She’s too mad to be worried.)

“Excuse me? We’re putting this on me? When was I an active part of that plan, while I was holding that stupid textbook or while my arms were pinned because you were hugging me? I’d really like to know.”

“W-well, it’s what you said about public perception of the Avengers.”

“Specifics!”

“Like Iron Man,” he argues, lowering his voice after how she snapped. “People like hearing about him and Pepper Potts.”

“And have you always modeled yourself after Tony Stark, or is this sudden, public relationship announcement your first foray?”

They stare at each other for a minute, Spider-Man balancing and MJ looking up at him―which is kind of weird after they hugged today and she realized he’s shorter than she is. She sighs, regretting her harsh words.

“I’m sorry,” she offers. “I know what you did was thoughtless―”

“Well―”

“―ill-advised―”

“Literally your advice.”

“―and, frankly, moronic―”

“Hey.”

“―but I get it, you panicked―”

“I had it under control.”

“―so I forgive you.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“Now, come down here so I don’t have to keep resisting the urge to shove you off that railing.”

Once Spider-Man flips down (she’s already forgiven him―what, does he think he’s getting bonus points for landing the dismount?), MJ crosses her arms and gives that red mask of his a stern look.

“Still not thrilled, huh?”

“Good guess,” she says dryly.

“I might be missing something here, but… why? I mean, I didn’t think I did anything to embarrass you. Did I hurt you somehow?”

MJ shrugs and stares at her slippers.

“People saw.”

There’s a pause.

“…We already knew that.” His tone is almost clueless enough to make her apprehensive that this is the guy she and the rest of Queens have protecting them.

“I don’t know if… if a certain person saw.”

She’s blushing hard to admit even this much of a crush and she’d be mortified if she wasn’t making her confession to this socially illiterate superhero.

“Boyfriend?” Spider-Man asks. MJ glances up to see him leaning extremely un-casually against the wall, arms folded a little less tensely than hers.

“You sound skeptical,” she accuses.

“You’ve never mentioned him.”

MJ glares for a few seconds before backing down.

“No, he’s not my boyfriend. And you didn’t know that either because we only ever talk about you.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Spider-Man immediately offers, like he’s trying to even things up.

Groaning, she lets her shoulders slump.

“You do now.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty unlikely that nobody took a picture.”

“Safe to assume the students of a school called Midtown Tech are tech-savvy enough to work a cellphone camera. By the way,” MJ adds, narrowing her eyes at him, “why were you there?”

“Oh, um, gas leak in one of the Chemistry labs. They dispatch the fire department for that kind of thing and I hate for emergency services to get tied up if I can fix it myself.”

“Huh. I had no idea gas leaks were in your repertoire. Thought muggers and bicycle thieves were more your beat.”

She’s teasing him pretty lightly considering he definitely just lied to her. It’s fine, she’ll wait to crack him until he’s forgotten all about visiting her school.

Spider-Man swings his arms nervously.

“If it’s a community problem, I’m on it. I’m just a friendly―”

“―neighbourhood Spider-Man,” MJ finishes. “Yeah, I’ve heard the tagline. And you’re also my fake boyfriend until we figure out a way for you to tactfully dump me.”

He takes an excited step towards her.

“I know wha―”

She cuts him off with a swiftly raised hand.

“Don’t even say it.”

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douxreviews · 5 years

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True Detective - ‘The Hour and the Day’ Review

“I wanna know the whole story.”

The fourth True Detective episode usually features a big action scene that solidifies the halfway point in the story. The harrowing one-shot sequence in season one. The relentless shooting spree in season two. This is more of a prelude to this season's intense powder-keg separating the first half of the story from the second. It's another way that this new story toys with paying lip service to what came before while contenting itself with being its own thing.

What this does instead is take its sweet time in fleshing out what exactly is going on in each of the three timelines and the states of the characters as they exist within each of those eras. It sets the stage for what comes next in the season, while also being character and dialogue heavy. It also takes more time to explore the themes of the season, which I especially enjoyed.

Racial Divide

The issue of race is finally examined, which I feel the show has been dancing around until now.

I felt it was always in the background, noticeable in the lingering, guarded or just suspicious looks that are directed at Wayne Hays, the black detective in rural Arkansas. I've noticed it from the very first episode. Some people don't realize that prejudice is not always overt. In fact, I'd say a majority of it goes understated or unspoken, in that Travis Bickle sort of way.

The thing is most of the people who regard Hays in this way probably aren't even malicious about it, or would even consider themselves racist; I know people like this. You've got ones like state prosecutor turned Attorney General Daryl Kent who clearly looks down on Hays with this smug, dismissive superiority. Then you've got people like Mrs. Faber who will maintain politeness but always see him as an other, holding that look of thinly veiled fear and suspicion. Then there's guys like Tom Purcell, who'll drop racial slurs in moments of anger or frustration and then quickly feel ashamed; that reaction exists somewhere in their upbringing, but they know it's wrong.

No matter the shade in which it presents itself, there's no doubt it sticks in the craw of men as dignified as Hays.

Or men who aren't, as displayed when Hays and West pay a visit to Sam Whitehead, a possible lead on the one-eyed black man who bought the ominous dolls. Was his immediate rabble-rousing and accusations of racial profiling and witch-hunts just a natural reaction from an old black man who has experienced decades of injustice from white cops, or was it an easy way of avoiding direct answers to the questions he was asked? It's not entirely clear.

The hectic encounter with Whitehead and the other residents of that local ghetto did highlight the nuanced dynamic between Hays and West, which I've enjoyed throughout this season. While clearly a bit of a good ole' boy, West does not seem prejudiced. He even seems rather progressive for a man of his era, region and occupation, given his deep respect for his partner and stony admonition of Tom for his aforementioned drunken insult toward Hays. And Hays, while constantly on his toes about the racial divide between them, seems to recognize West's empathic quality, even enjoys it when West jokingly needles him about this sensitivity. It's another reason I dig this partnership, that understanding between two no-nonsense individuals.

Another character who appears not to be clouded by the resident race elephant is the priest at the Catholic church attended by the Purcells. Although West distrusts him on account of being a priest -- which would make even more sense today than in 1980 -- the man is very helpful in organizing his congregation to aid the detectives. He seems sincere in his assessment of Will and Julie and he hopes Hays, a former altar boy, would be open to confession. Nice guy, but there were certain things about his scenes that made me wonder if he might be involved in what happened to the kids.

Couples Counseling

More personal than societal, but equally important are the various relationships we are faced with in this story. It's heavily suggested that they have quite a bit of bearing on what's going on.

The big one is Wayne and Amelia's relationship. The contrast between their blossoming romance in 1980 and their rocky marriage in 1990 is very striking. We first see that the later stage is marred by feelings of resentment from Wayne and accusations of inadequacy from Amelia, despite the love they still share. After ten years, they've become worn down by the flaws and neurotic tendencies they seemed so excited about discovering at the start of their romance.

The first dinner date between Hays and Amelia was certainly the best scene in the episode. It was very cute, even sexy in a surprisingly subtle way. And their dialogue back and forth was just wonderful. Despite being so different in terms of background, occupation, politics and temperament, there was an instant chemistry that both recognized. Almost like these two people who each claim to have never wanted marriage or kids saw in each other the possibility of a future together in this first foray into intimacy.

Initially, though, there's Tom and Lucy Purcell. A couple whose furiously tumultuous marriage bred an unhappy family life, which may have played a factor in their children's secretive meetings with mysterious strangers and their eventual abduction.

Amelia gains an insight into this as she tries to comfort the distraught Lucy, and ends up getting the feeling that Lucy might be hiding something and ends up getting cursed out by the latter thanks addressing it. Not a very good first attempt at junior detective work, but she may have just unearthed a clue without realizing it. Lucy claimed that "Children should laugh", the same phrase included in the cryptic letter sent by Julie's abductor. Either Lucy was just wistfully acknowledging the logic of that message or it could be that she had something to do with what befell her children. It's still ambiguous.

As for Tom, we get to see the beginning of his and West's odd friendship as West gives the heartbroken Tom a place to stay away from his sad home. It's another indication that West is a naturally empathetic person, despite occasionally coming off as a hardass. Though it might be that his empathy has dampened somewhat in the years since.

It's a shame that the 1980 dynamic between Hays and West doesn't return when Hays is brought on board the task force of the second Purcell case ten years later. A shame, but realistic. No way the dynamic is the same after Hays got the shaft and West became the successful, award-winning career lawman who shook hands with young, pre-controversy Bill Clinton. And the fact that Hays, lead detective on the original case, is now expected to follow West's lead doesn't help. No-nonsense or not, old friends or not, pride asserts itself. To put it bluntly, dicks will inevitably be measured and pissing contested.

Haunted Houses

Now let's get more cerebral. The first season's tagline was "Touch darkness, and darkness touches you back", vey Nietzsche-like. That seems to be a constant theme throughout this series. The ways in which human horror and trauma can have dramatic effects on a person's sense of self and their reality. How they might serve as some explanation of what we see as the spiritual, supernatural and even paranormal.

It's introduced well-enough. Tom and Lucy Purcell feel trapped in their house, the place where the kids, the only thing that united them, were raised. Tom can't stay there, broken by their absence. And Lucy seems to stay in it as self-imposed prison for her failings as a mother. A disturbing situation where the place that is meant to be home feels more like hell.

The Hays household experiences a similar phenomena later, which Old Hays admits. He came to believe his unending obsession with the case infected Amelia and their children, sullying their chances at a stable, happy family. That he ended up cursing them with his own restless demons.

This takes on what could be a more literal meaning as Old Hays finds himself reminiscing on the past at the same time he struggles to beat back the ghosts in his mind. It's an incredibly haunting scene, watching him struggle to grasp the memories of his life as men he killed in Vietnam (and one caucasian man in a suit) close in and hover over him like phantoms, whispering, accusing. And the show has played so fast and loose with the line between psychologically unhinged experiences and what might be darker forces that exist on the fringes of existence. Rustin Cohle had his drug-induced visions which at times appeared to grant him insights into hidden otherworldly realms. Ray Velcoro's near death experience offered a bizarre yet prophetic glimpse into a possible afterlife. Now Wayne Hays' years of multi-faceted PTSD compounded by dementia conjure menacing ghosts from the past.

"Purple" Hays, indeed.

Escalating Confusion

But themes aside, the more concrete plot points are there as well.

In 2015, a dogged Old Hays enlists his son -- revealed to be an Arkansas State Police detective like his father once was -- in finding West to help him remember the details of the two Purcell cases. To my surprise, he tells Elisa Montgomery in their private meeting that the 1990 case haunts him most of all. Elisa informs him that she and her team of investigators discovered that the skeletal remains of Dan O'Brian, Lucy Purcell's cousin and suspect in both cases, were recently found in a drained quarry after he went missing around the time of the second case.

Which is interesting, because Dan O'Brian was already missing prior to 1990.

But Hays makes a possibly huge development in the second case when he spots a mysterious young woman who could very well be a grown up Julie Purcell on the security footage of the store where her prints were found.

Meanwhile, in 1980, Hays and West end up traumatizing Freddy Burns when his prints are discovered on Will's abandoned bike; I'd totally forgotten him drunkenly riding it at Devil's Den in the first episode.

The detectives and feds are drawn away from this obvious red herring when they catch wind of the redneck lynch mob advancing on Brett Woodard's home, who has prepared for this event with a military arsenal that's sure to deliver on the action spectacle we've all been waiting for.

Bits and Pieces:

* “The Hour and the Day” was co-written by David Milch, creator of Deadwood. This explains why the characters, dialogue and themes felt even richer than usual in this episode. Milch is almost as acerbic and literary as Nic Pizzolato, if not more.

* There's a framed picture of a brunette woman on West's desk in 1990. I'm betting that's Lori, the girl he was putting the moves on at the church.

* Hays sarcastically raising his hand during a briefing was another fun little callback to the first season.

* Not sure if it was explicitly stated before, but Kent, the state prosecutor in 1980, appears to have blatantly used the Purcell case to snag himself the Attorney General office. What a guy.

* Black Sabbath has been around since the late ‘60s. Seems kind of strange that a bunch of men in their 30s act as if it’s some strange new thing in the early '80s. Perhaps its mainstream recognition in my generation is simply coloring my perspective.

* During his ghostly encounter, Old Hays makes note of a dark sedan that is staking out his house.

Quotes:

Amelia (1990): Let go of me, Wayne. Hays (1990): Stop talking shit about me! Amelia (1990): Or what? Hays (1990): … Or I’m gonna start crying. Wasn’t expecting that.

Sam Whitehead: And you. How’re you gonna wear that badge? Hays: It’s got a little clip on it. Ha!

Hays: Can we say this was anonymous vandals? West: We’re not going with irate negroes?

Hays (1990): We ain’t doing any of that shit they just said, right? West (1990): Wasn’t planning on it.

Priest: Would you like to confess now? Hays: I reckon I’ll let it pile up a little more.

Hays: Thing of it is, Father, we’re about ninety percent sure that whoever took Julie or Will are one of yours. Priest: I find it difficult to believe that anyone here could something like that. Hays: They don’t exactly wear a signboard says “psycho killer.”

Four out of five Claymore mines.

Logan Cox

#True Detective #Wayne Hays #Mahershala Ali #Roland West #Stephen Dorff #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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Crunchyroll Features' Favorite Anime of Fall 2018!

The Fall season, and 2018 anime with it, are finished. We’re looking at a lot of big anime titles wrapping around into 2019, so now is the perfect time for our editors to honor our favorites from this season before the Winter premieres begin. This was a huge season with a ton of big returning titles, so it was particularly hard selecting our Top 3 from the season. You can check out our top anime from summer season, see how our picks compare to our most anticipated titles, or scroll down and check out our favorites!

Peter Fobian

Fall 2018 was absolutely ridiculous. The season looked huge going into it with the shonen fighter RADIANT, returning giants JoJo AND SAO, and 2 mega hyped isekai in Goblin Slayer and Slime. Oh yeah, also a new TRIGGER anime. Then it got EVEN BIGGER with some unknown quantities turning into awesome favorites. We’re still riding the crest of this wave into Winter as so many of the top series are continuing, but the ones that are coming to an end this year really left an impression on me.

ZOMBIE LAND SAGA

This might be the single biggest anime dark horse that has emerged since I started following seasonal anime and that was kind of part of its design. Everything from the show to the promotion was masterfully orchestrated, with the studio giving away little more than the title and Mamoru Miyano’s gorgeous face leading into the season. The way this anime took both tourism and idol anime to the extreme with one of the best concepts and pretty meta. The writing was on point, the comedic timing was perfect, and it even had great emotional beats. I’m really hoping a few of those loose plot threads mean a season 2 because this anime could easily deliver more.

SSSS.GRIDMAN

I watched the first episode of this series back at Anime Expo 2018 and was extremely surprised at how serious it felt. Although it loosened up during the fight scenes, Gridman has to be TRIGGER’s most reserved project to date with some really great storyboards, character drama, and a slowburn mystery that are typically absent from their high-octane visual circuses. It even stuck the landing. This series wasn’t just good in its own right, but really proved TRIGGER is about to deliver in multiple styles of storytelling.

Golden Kamuy

There's never enough space to talk about all the good things in Golden Kamuy. The story is an amazing treasure hunt/survival game in a wonderfully articulated historical set piece of Hokkaido, Japan following the Russo-Japanese War. The characters are as adorable as they are psychotic. The mysteries just keep building up. The violence is magnificent. The food looks delicious. This manga has a the best bit of everything and continually shows new faces as the story develops. Hopefully the wait for more of the manga wont be too long.

Ricky Soberano

Woo! This fall season has been a chock full of great anime that varied from each other in many aspects so I ended up staying consistently caught up with almost everything that came out this season and shows that haven’t stopped going. Trying to pick three took many rounds of questioning from myself to the people that I care about and the conclusion was ‘Ricky loved everything.’ However I came up with my top three by only choosing the ones that made me 110% happy every single time I clicked to watch the latest episode.

Fairy Tail Final Season

I’ve been a diehard Fairy Tail fan since the beginning (tattoo on my hip for proof) and frankly I’ve cried during every episode this season simply knowing that there will be no more of this amazing shonen that has saved my life more than once after this is done. This season exceeds expectations by not only doing a victory lap and bringing on almost every character that has ever shown up in the show but also by tying up every loose end, answering every burning question, and naturally showing every individual guild member’s badass power has gotten to a level so high up that one could barely fathom. Each episode has me screaming at the screen from the new insane revelation that they just revealed.

As Miss Beelzebub Likes It.

I don’t usually watch cute anime. However watching Beelzebub be super encapsulated by the presence of fluffy things, show her an affinity for tasty snaccs, and captivation for adorable animals pulled me into a hug as warm as an alpaca sweater and I never want it to stop. The color palette of pastel glory has kept me in a happy mood all season and the stories told are ridiculous but make for a never ending sweet dream.

Run with the Wind

This was a wild card for me since I may’ve ran track on high competitive levels but I don’t have a preference to sports anime. However the cast of 10’s journeys not only as runners but also as individuals take place with such high stakes on the line made it hard to not want to continue watching especially since the show did well to realistically show competitive running and the realistic sacrifices and training that goes behind it. With such high tension and drama circulating, I was truly on the edge of my seat the entirety of every single episode.

Nate Ming

Y'know, I thought I was gonna watch more JoJo… but I got my mom into JoJo over Christmas break, so that's gotta count for something. From retail hell to the frozen wilderness of Hokkaido to the sacred ring, my Fall 2018 season was full of emotional ups and downs… and I'm still screaming about that season finale for Golden Kamuy.

Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san

All the built-up trauma from working retail and customer service for almost half my life came back in one huge wave with Skull-faced Bookseller Honda-san. No anime this season has made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle (I'm not joking), and no anime this season has made me curl up in the fetal position remembering the insanity of working a Harry Potter book launch at Borders. But aside from all that, Honda-san himself is refreshingly positive and upbeat--work is work, it's tiring and frustrating, but if you love what you do and like sending customers home happy, it's all worth it in the end.

Golden Kamuy

The treacherous journey to find the stolen Ainu gold continued with a second season, bringing back our favorite characters while introducing plenty of new faces. Unexpected team-ups, shuffling of group rosters, and then pitting everybody against each other kept me watching every week, needing to know what was coming next--and that infuriating season finale means I'm absolutely tuning in for whenever season 3 starts airing.

Hinomaru Sumo

I keep joking that "no cowards allowed" is the tagline for this intense adaptation of the Weekly Jump manga, and it's a pretty fair assessment: characters may feel doubt and fear, they may question the decisions that led them to get into the ring, but there's nowhere to run in sumo, so finish the fight and worry about the details later. This show has so much heart, and I'm here to continue cheering for Hinomaru and team into 2019 as we head into its second cour.

Nicole Mejias

I gotta say, this fall season was STACKED with a whole bunch of great shows from start to finish! It was a season where my queue was at its fullest and trying to find time every week was actually a bit challenging to make sure I watched everything. There were so many shows that I ended up liking way more than I thought I would, so it was difficult to pick a top 3, and in some cases I feel my top 3 are mostly continuing from things I really enjoyed before, or last season; but that said, this was a tough season, and if I had more than 3 slots, I’d be in even more trouble picking!

Golden Kamuy

Golden Kamuy is a must-have on my list, and frankly should be on almost everyone's! I really had no idea what to expect from the series when I first heard about it, but whatever I thought it was, Golden Kamuy surprised me with it's amazing characters, fast and severe action, and its balance of comedy and suspense. As the second season draws to a close and some of the serious questions are about to be answered, I'll be waiting to see what's next for Sugimoto and Asirpa in the future. I probably would never get tired of this series, so I'm hoping we hear about a new season soon. Golden Kamuy is a series of feel almost anyone can enjoy, and I hope more people get sucked into it like I did!

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

JoJo's is one of my favorite series of all, and when Golden Wind got announced I was extremely excited to see what was in store for me, since it was the JoJo part I knew the least about. Part 5 really does have a unique feel to it, from the mafia trappings to the unique and interesting Stand abilities, and now that things are really getting underway, I'm excited to see what's next! Giorno and the rest of the gang are quickly becoming one of my favorite collections of JoJo heroes, with their mix of fun chemistry and personalities, and I can just see Part 5 being in my favorite anime lists throughout 2019 too!

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime

I'll be honest: I'm not a big isekai fan. I've never really found the power fantasy aspect of them interesting, and so I've usually found myself giving them a few episodes before getting bored or finding myself watching something else. Slime really grabbed me, though, because from the first parts of episode 1, I thought I was in for a similar experience, but it soon turned things on their heads! While Rimuru is super powerful, the world built in Slime is fascinating, and all of the interactions between characters is great. Also, seeing Rimuru put the smack down on baddies is incredibly satisfying! I'm excited to see where this series goes and how Rimuru's little collection of followers and hangers on grow!

And that's our editor's favorites for the Fall 2018 season! I'm surprised no anime got repeated twice except for Golden Kamuy with 3 votes, which is a fitting send off to an awesome series that reached its conclusion this year after an insane climax. But there's more to come. Prepare yourself for tomorrow when we'll be putting up our most anticipated titles for Winter 2019!

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Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, writer for Anime Academy, and contributor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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pride-vns-blog · 6 years

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LGBTQ VN Week: Day Three! (6/20)

Welcome back for my third day of LGBTQ visual novel recommendations! Remember to check out my first post’s “One note before we get started” section to get a handle on what this recommendation list is, what it’s not, and why I made it, if you haven’t already!

The four visual novels I’ve got lined up to talk about today move beyond endlessly bleak apocalypses to focus instead on persistence and hopes for a brighter future — Spincut’s Who We Are Now, Sofdelux Studio’s Disaster Log C, and Worst Girls Games’ We Know The Devil, followed by a conversation with Jaime Scribbles Games about her upcoming As We Know It.

(Disclaimers: I’m somehow still into unique-looking apocalypse stories in the year 2018, so I backed both Who We Are Now and As We Know It on Kickstarter, and I also know the creators of Disaster Log C personally.)

Head on in for comic book supervillain jokes, super important teddy bears, one hell of a summer camp, and juggling your full-time job with the end of the world!

WHO WE ARE NOW (SPINCUT)

Itch.io Tagline: "A queer, post-apocalyptic visual novel about love at the end of the world.” Genre(s): Romance; slice of life; science fiction. Release Date: December 12th, 2017 (Xander’s Story); June 18th, 2018 (Jesse’s Story); TBA (Ray’s Story & Nathan’s Story). Content Warnings: Multiple explicit sex scenes; discussion of traumatic violence.

Who We Are Now, a visual novel following protagonist Wes as he offers comfort to the isolated fellow residents of a post-apocalyptic town named Home under the advice of town leader Mohra. The backdrop for Who We Are Now is distinctly science fiction, but the worldbuilding elements are interestingly vague enough that the characters only refer to the apocalypse more in terms of how it impacted their lives, rather than concrete details about exactly which places were destroyed on what dates and how. That’s personally something I prefer for character-focused pieces like this, and an interesting contrast to the hyper-detailed way AAA studios approach the apocalypse — it works in Who We Are Now, especially in the instances where the characters react differently to the circumstances of their situation or share different information, because it’s what they’ve retained.

Although Who We Are Now is short and largely still in “preorder”, according to its Itch.io page, both of the two relatively complete Stories — starring romanceable characters Xander and Jesse, respectively — offer distinct enough stories with memorable characters that I feel comfortable saying their two companion pending routes (Ray and Nathan) will all be well worth the price and the wait. Spincut’s script treats the two love interests’ struggles with society and their respective traumas carefully, never really offering an answer or a single moment that stood out to me as being a demand for them to just “get over it”. Both Jesse and Xander bristle, especially in the later half, and neither Xander’s struggle to control his mysterious electric powers nor Jesse’s slow progress fitting in as part of the society in Home go seamlessly. Even Wes’s personality feels realistically flawed; as a character who’s lived for years on his own, there’s moments in the script where his self-reliance and avoidance gets in the way of honest and open communication.

As a relationship-focused story with a heavy emphasis on character development, Who We Are Now’s writing delivers some solid growth and reasonable conflicts in a minimal amount of time, especially in Xander’s Story! Without going into too many spoilers, his convictions about the “bad guys” outside of the community of Home and his struggles with self-worth throughout the story build up to a believable, sympathetic end — his Story raises some interesting questions about violence in a post-apocalyptic world that, combined with how different it felt from Jesse’s perspective, made me all the more excited to see Ray and Nathan’s viewpoints on the apocalypse.

(Also, the sex scenes are 👌.)

The Xander’s Story and Jesse’s Story chapters of Who We Are Now are available now for a total price $15, a price that includes the eventual release of Ray’s Story and Nathan’s Story, both of which currently TBA. For more updates, you can follow developer Spincut on Itch.io or Twitter.

DISASTER LOG C (SOFDELUX STUDIO)

Itch.io Tagline: "It has been raining ceaselessly for 7 days...” Genre(s): Comedy; mild horror. Release Date: October 23rd, 2017. Content Warnings: See Itch.io page.

(This section contains mild, vague spoilers for Disaster Log C’s ending. It’s short and free, you might want to give it a try first!)

When it comes to the four apocalypse stories on this list, they’ve all got (thankfully) relatively different approaches to handling the end of the world, but Disaster Log C’s approach is one of the few visual novels that actually surprised me with its later swerve into a revelation I hadn’t totally expected. (I’m trying to be vague enough as possible, but I seriously didn’t see that plot point coming and can appreciate the worldbuilding that made it easy to accept as a “how did I miss that?” kind of fact once it’s revealed!) Protagonist Mell’s no-nonsense approach perfectly serves the story’s steady pace, punctuated by Mell’s own “Disaster Logs” of the ocean rising up to swallow the island she’s lived on her whole life, and that pace is fed into perfectly with the frantic nature of knife-wielding Issa’s demands about where to go, what to do, and how much alcohol she wants to drink.

There’s a goofiness to Disaster Log C that never undercuts the story’s more serious moments — Mell’s struggle with the end of the world she’s always known and Issa’s own relative detachment from that world as it exists are both given more than enough space in the text, and the story never holds their growth back for the sake of slapstick. But there’s plenty of slapstick and a lot of absolutely hilarious moments, served equally well by both script and story, that are well-placed enough that it becomes clearer and clearer in hindsight exactly when Mell and Issa became as close as they can be by the story’s end. Their dynamic is a delight and well worth reading for, whether it’s in the most serious of heart-to-hearts or a scene where they’re arguing with one another about how much food to eat.

But above all else, the thing that really sells me on Disaster Log C — and Sofdelux Studio’s previous dating sim, Mermaid Splash Passion Festival — is how sincere it is. It’s easy for apocalyptic fiction to be smug, or grim, or just plain dark, but Disaster Log C manages to capture the real grief inherent in its premise without ever plunging into hopelessness. The world Issa and Mell inhabit is a beautifully illustrated one filled with plenty of jokes and triumphant fishing CGs, but it’s also a cruel world, and it’s still very much the story of how everything Mell has ever known disappeared in the blink of an eye. That’s a delicate balance to walk, for sure, but it’s a balance Disaster Log C walks seamlessly enough that its wonderfully optimistic True Ending had me in tears.

Disaster Log C is available now for free, in both English and Korean. Both halves of Sofdelux Studio also have individual Itch.io pages (DCS’s here and Nami’s here), or you can follow their shared Itch.io for more Sofdelux Studio projects!

WE KNOW THE DEVIL (PILLOWFIGHT, WORST GIRLS GAMES)

Steam Tagline: "Follow meangirl Neptune, tomboy Jupiter, and shy shy Venus as they get to know each other--but one always gets left out.” Genre(s): Group relationship horror. Release Date: February 15th, 2016. Content Warnings: Religious abuse; blood; character death; implications of sexual harrassment/abuse.

(This section contains spoilers for the plot and endings of We Know The Devil. Sorry! Please play it!)

It would be difficult — if not totally impossible — for me to talk about why I liked We Know The Devil or what it's doing in this group of visual novels without spoiling the ending in one way or another. (I don't think I could even refer to Venus, my hands-down favorite character, in a way that felt natural without dodging around her pronouns like a middle schooler playing volleyball.) For a while, I considered putting this in the creative design category and trying to avoid spoilers anyway! There’s been of fascinating pieces that I’ve loved reading about how We Know The Devil’s unique choice system operates; its “choose two characters out of three” model is smart, well-executed, and offers a lot of character development in both the duo you observe and the one you don’t in every playthrough.

But the piece of this story that I’ve always loved the most has been its ending and the way I feel that it functions as a work of apocalyptic fiction. While the other three entries on this list are all set either at the dawn of the apocalypse or well after the apocalypse has literally “dawned”, We Know The Devil’s apocalypse is more quasi-metaphorical and much more closely linked to its ending. If you read it 100% literally, the “three worst girls since Eve” ascend in all the ways they were never supposed to be and end the world; if you read it strictly metaphorically, they still become more removed from the all-encroaching, endlessly painful social standards that have been forced upon them. And in that case, it’s even more the “end of the world” for their family or the religious authority figures around them to see that self-satisfaction and acceptance instead of the quiet repression and shame, isn’t it?

I can’t deny that a lot of my fondness for this kind of reading is a deeply personal one, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. (If anything, I think how many personal reactions there have been to We Know The Devil is a testament — ha! — to the nuanced writing and worldbuilding.) The legacy of religious abuse in the name of Christianity, specifically Irish Catholicism, is something that’s haunted my own family for generations. It’s dictated who got married and who couldn’t get divorced, it’s been the reason some of my friends were born and the reason some others died, and its impact is so irreversable that the guilt even gets passed down into generations that have barely attended a service. So for We Know The Devil’s true ending to take a lot of those religious hallmarks, that guilt from failing to live up to expectations, and then build up to a true ending where the rest of the world is damned for the way it treated Jupiter, Neptune, and Venus — without the true ending’s text ever condemning any of them for being teenagers who are willing to scorch the Earth, metaphorically or literally, and refuse to accept the pain they shouldn’t have to suffer? As a story about the end of three characters’ slice of the world, We Know The Devil one hell of an answer to the Christian idea of a Rapture, and one I prefer a thousand times over.

We Know The Devil is available now on sale for $1.99 (75% off), while you can try We Know The Demo for free on Itch.io; Worst Girls Games can be found on Twitter and Tumblr with more information about their upcoming project, Heaven Will Be Mine!

AS WE KNOW IT (JAIME SCRIBBLES GAMES)

Kickstarter Tagline: "A heavily branching visual novel, featuring love, friendship and life-sim elements in a future destroyed by the sun.” Genre(s): Romance; drama. Release Date: April 25th, 2018 (demo); TBA (final version). Content Warnings: Alcohol and drug use; violence; mature content.

As someone who really enjoyed Pinewood Island, Jaime Scribbles Games’ debut horror visual novel about college students trapped on an island with a murderer, I’ve been looking forward to As We Know It since I first saw initial character designs. The first demo definitely was what I’d been hoping it would be — although visually unfinished in places, given that the Kickstarter was largely to help fund purchase of its art assets like finished backgrounds and side character sprites — and the story about a post-apocalypse society that largely functioned but still ran into unexpected troubles instantly hooked me.

Interested in hearing a little more about protagonist Ashlynn’s dual focus on romance and maintaining a job, I reached out to Jaime with a couple questions to hear what she had to say about her upcoming visual nove.

First, congratulations on your Kickstarter reaching full funding and a bonus goal! I'm sure you've done a lot of this already during the funding period, but how would you pitch As We Know It to someone who'd never heard of it before?

A heavily branching visual novel with romance in a post-apocalyptic setting. Something along those lines.

Yeah, that sounds accurate to me! What's the experience in having run a successfully-funded Kickstarter for a visual novel been like? Are there any weird little details or things that you weren't expecting to have to deal with that have become surprisingly important?

Hm, I didn’t really know what to expect. I can’t say anything too unusual occurred.

Hey, no news is better than bad news, for sure!

Both As We Know It and Pinewood Island have had different mechanics alongside the romance -- in Pinewood Island's case, unpuzzling a brutal series of deaths, and in As We Know It's case, pursuing a career path in a crisis-stricken community -- that seem to be just as central to the storytelling, rather than a backdrop for romance. Can you talk a little bit about striking that balance?

It’s not easy! I have to make sure it makes sense for these characters to want to pursue romance despite whatever else is going on. That usually means making sure things don’t get too intense until more of a relationship is formed. Since romance is such a heavy aspect I hope people don’t question it too much lol

When you're designing characters' personalities or approving their visual depictions, what do you keep in mind? What do you think is the most important thing when it comes to building a lineup of characters to make them all feel distinct from one another?

I think of different personalities, different types of people I want to write, and then I try to make sure their looks are diverse and varied. As I write them their characteristics become more solid.

Were someone else to make a "dream visual novel" for you as a player, what do you think that visual novel would be like? In terms of genre, romance routes, etc?

Oh I’m not sure 🤔 probably a really good mash up of horror and romance with psychological elements and a mature story (no teenager plz) lol

😆 I'd definitely play that, too!

For my last question, what LGBTQ visual novels from other developers or creators are your personal recommendations?

Let’s see, Hustle Cat, Let's Meat Adam are my faves, but there are tons more out there!

Definitely! Thank you for the conversation, Jaime, I'm looking forward to seeing As We Know It's progress over the next couple months!

You can find more information about As We Know It on Kickstarter, try out the free demo on Itch.io and Steam, or keep up with progress on the game’s development blog!

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verdigrisprowl · 6 years

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June 18 Dancitron Movie Night - Alien Resurrection

Both Tarantulas and Soundwave were there, so Prowl spent the whole movie night nervous that one of them was going to Say Something and startling every time he was touched. But he still managed to have an interesting discussion about what efforts ought to be taken to save endangered persons with a low probability of survival. (Prowl’s answer: barring extenuating circumstances, all efforts. Soundwave’s answer: maybe a lot of effort, but like, not if they’ve got a really low chance of survival, and/or their death would be particularly unpleasant.)

Thus far, even though they’ve now both got permission to talk about their relationships with Prowl, it seems like both Tarantulas and Soundwave are content to continue keeping it secret. That suits Prowl just fine.

Today Swoop ((I wasn't gonna come but then I saw what was up tonight and yes, we're gonna 90s this shit up)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((yooooooo!)) Swoop ((how you been?)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((pretty good! unpacking, drawing, settling in, etc)) Swoop ((that middle one sounds nice!)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((i'll show you some later!)) Swoop ((please do!)) VProwl *appears* ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave settles in for the night, more than ready to see this supposed fourth film.* Swoop *full on goofy ptero-scampers in* Prowl *arrives just after Swoop* Swoop Bird? :V VProwl *the room's filling up earlier than usual. disappointing.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Having spotted Prowl - and listened to his great big philosophical set of reasons for morals and saving people - Soundwave is just about ready to get up and scoop Prowl into one hell of an embrace. Maybe with some nibbles.*

*...Unfortunately, just as he stands up, two more mechs appear, which means it looks like he rose to greet them all. Soundwave just sort of awkwardly nods at everyone before sitting down on the couch, mildly revved up and with no outlet. And it'll probably get worse. Interesting night.* Swoop *scampers around, jumping on the occasional table in his pursuit of Bird* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Bird is - er. Laserbeak is... sulking. She's had some displeasing news.]] Prowl *it's ok, Soundwave, Prowl didn't see him move* ItsyBitsySpyers ((LMAO)) Swoop :V ??? VProwl *sits in his usual spot. with a little more space than usual.* Swoop What news??? *literally could not care less about the news* *just wants to BIrd* Tarantulas (( we forgive you for not themeing the music, cro (( WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS Smokescreen /Smokescreen's coming in to eggs. Yep! This is the right place!/ ItsyBitsySpyers ((alien movie! eggs)) Smokescreen Hey Eggwave! ItsyBitsySpyers *Immeeeeediately notices.*

@P: [[...Has he done something wrong?]]

[[Ah. Nothing you need concern yourself with at the moment.]] Smokescreen Soundegg! ItsyBitsySpyers @SP: [[Tonight will be Alien: Resurrection.]] Swoop Me Swoop want to Bird : < Us not hang out in foreeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Prowl @SW: Thank you. Smokescreen /Wait, wait, Swoop's here? He's waving at Swoop, before sitting down in his usual spot near Round Prowl!/ ItsyBitsySpyers [[He is certain she will want to be here next week. There will be an Earth rodent with an appreciation of food only she can parallel.]] Prowl *will check to see if there's any audio description available while everyone else gets settled in* ItsyBitsySpyers ((FIFTEEN MINUTES grab your drinks and food and all that)) Smokescreen Wait, are we watching Ratatoing next week? Prowl You're showing a movie about Earth food next week? ItsyBitsySpyers [[What? No. No. It is a movie about a spider. And a pig. But the movie is not named for the pig.]] Swoop *flops with EVERY BIT OF DRAMA he has in his thin body, splaying his wings and legs out like the distraught rug that he is* Smokescreen OHHH oohh I know that one! Based on a book, right? Swoop *look how upset he is* Smokescreen ... Hey Swoop, want a cake? Swoop *everyone needs to appreciate how much he wants to see Bird RIGHT NOW* Prowl Ah. Swoop ... Her Bird like cake Smokescreen ... Maybe if I give you cake, bird will come? /He's offering a cake to Swoop!/ Smokescreen /Fresh from his subspace./ ItsyBitsySpyers [[Oh, no. He can guarantee you that she will not come down tonight. But she will eat the cake when everyone is gone.]] Swoop *transforms so he can hold the cake* *takes it and just holds it* Smokescreen ... It's okay for you to eat that cake if you want! Tarantulas *will tarantulas arriving help with swoop's mood a little too? let's see. in comes the spidermech, it's been a while* VProwl *he was so tense he missed the question* @S «What? No. Why?» *oh, and now Tarantulas is here, and Prowl's even more tense.* Swoop *digs his claws in a little bit and grins* Cake pretty weak thing. Look. *he holds it up and scratches the side* It in ..... tiers! Kehehhehehehh Smokescreen /Is about to wave excitedly at Messy, but stops himself- maybe Messy wants to stick with Prowl tonight?/ ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave taps the space between himself and Prowl and glances over at him. That's wh-- oh. Okay, he'll just make room for Tarantulas. Maybe that's why there's space.* *Soundwave huffs at the tiers joke.* [[Not bad, Swoop.]] VProwl ((cro why are you torturing us)) Tarantulas (( srsly ItsyBitsySpyers ((to prepare you for the real horror ahead)) Smokescreen //this is like dinner and 2 shows Swoop *perks up and then preens at the compliment* *still has cake hands* Smokescreen ... /He's going to offer Swoop another cake, this time a different flavor. Maybe he's picky!/ Swoop *takes whatever is offered to him but doesn't do anything with it* Smokescreen ... Are you feeling okay, Swoop? If you like a different flavor, just let me know! Tarantulas *yup, smokey's right, tara's a little focused on vprowl, gonna settle right in with him as soon as possible. how much semi-subtle touching can he get away with, hm?* Swoop Me Swoop am FEELING *squishes some cake between his fingers* good! *absolute shiteating grin* Tarantulas *...narrowed visor at soundwave. why this* Why hello to you too, Soundwave. Smokescreen ... I'm glad! You should eat cake with your mouth, though. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Greetings. It has been a while.]]

*Places a smiley on his screen. Just saying hello, dear spide.*

[[Please. Do not squash cake everywhere. We have enough to clean after weekends.]] Prowl ...is this meant to be a lesson in futility? Swoop *looks back and forth between Smokescreen and Soundwave* Smokescreen I think it's like, a reference to this ancient greek myth humans have about this guy who has to roll this ball up a hill every day, and start over again! Probably! ItsyBitsySpyers [[That depends. Have you lost all hope?]] Swoop *isn't totally clear on what the consensus is here* *just wants to give cake to Bird* ........ *wipes his hand off on his chest, problem solved* Prowl What purpose did rolling the ball up the hill serve? ItsyBitsySpyers [[Put the cake on the bar and go clean your hands in the si--...... Fine.]] Smokescreen I'm not really sure! Maybe doing it, like, kept the Earth moving or something? That's what a lot of those early myths are like. Like, I think this one guy got like, executed for giving everyone fire and opening this box of misfortune. Prowl ((OMG CRO ((BANNED ItsyBitsySpyers ((I AIN'T SORRY BOUT NOTHIN)) Tarantulas (( o m f g Swoop ((jesus christ XDD)) Prowl ((YOU SHOULD BE SORRY Smokescreen ((cro is a treasure Swoop *has no idea what's going on, focused instead on putting the two pieces of cake from Smokescreen on top of each other for maximum cake* ItsyBitsySpyers ((all right that's enough of that)) Prowl Hm. ItsyBitsySpyers ((we're just waiting for one person to get back and then we'll start)) Swoop Soundwave! *holds up the double cake* Where can cake for Her BIRD? ItsyBitsySpyers [[On the bar, where he told you. She will not come down today, which he also told you.]] Swoop :< Smokescreen /He's going to quietly ping Messy before he goes over to the bar to try to help himself./ ItsyBitsySpyers ((WARNINGS: OKAY. This is basically the completely incorrectly done Alien movie that should've had the tagline A Squick For Every Moviegoer. It has all the pointless edge that late 90s/early 00s movies loved. If you already can't stand a regular Alien movie, you'll probably want to sit this one out. More specific warnings more or less in order with some throughout: Weird organic tissue intro, visible surgery with internal contents, flashing lights (really bad after the flamethrower incident and in the water and one other time I forget), frankly unnecessary blood and gore/violence/death, incidents of ableism and/or dehumanizing talk, sexist or misogynist talk, incidents of mostly-nudity, foul language, body horror, hypodermic-like imagery, weird alien pregnancy, grotesque final alien scene, super shaky camera.)) Swoop *goes and puts the cake on the bar, wiping his hands off on himself one last time for good measure* VProwl *tarantulas can get away with semi-subtle touching only up to the point where it's firm enough that Prowl can feel it. at which point he startles almost out of his seat.* ItsyBitsySpyers [[The SINK, Swoop.]] Swoop Sink? *cocks his head, why would you put cake in the sink....?* OH! For -- *he holds up his hands* Smokescreen ... /Trying to sneak a bite of the bar cake now while he's here!/ ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[...Before we begin. He promised that he would be careful not to show anything with... that, for two weeks. He does not know if you remember that the xenomorph organics tend to puncture skulls with their inner jaws as a fatal blow. Will this trouble you, or should he proceed as planned?]] VProwl @S «Oh—that's fine. Head trauma is fine.» *were they reading the brains they ate? no. ... probably. ... no. they definitely weren't.* ItsyBitsySpyers ((rabbit can you PLEASE not have five thousand pop-ups)) Swoop *actually uses the sink like a person who has been indoors before, everyone thank Ratchet for making this great day possible* ItsyBitsySpyers *Nods and commands the projector to start playing. Leaves the smiley on his visor.* Swoop *scampers over to the seats before immediately stopping, unsure of what to do with himself* Tarantulas *nope, touching is definitely heavy enough to be felt. when prowl startles, tarantulas startles right back* Prowl? ItsyBitsySpyers [[...This is the most disgusting introduction.]] VProwl *pings alternate, video feed* What? What. Nothing. Smokescreen ... Is it really that bad? It just looked slimy. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Same thing, most times.]] Swoop *stands still - legs shoulder width apart, knees slightly bent - and looks at the space in front of him, waiting for something to prompt him* Smokescreen You're not a fan of Slime, Slimewave? ItsyBitsySpyers [[Swoop. Take a seat.]] Swoop *plops down exactly where he was standing* Tarantulas May I...? *clearly ready to cuddle prowl again* *also pings smokey back* Swoop *scoots on his butt closer to everyone else* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Precious.]] Smokescreen /This time sends two pings back!/ Smokescreen Is that how humans- you know- Swoop *scoot scoot* Tarantulas *three pings to smokey then* Smokescreen /this time, he does 5! 3 + 2!/ Smokescreen ((DANGIT i had a drink for this and this fly just comes swooping in to get in my drink 😧 )) ItsyBitsySpyers ((BAD FLY)) VProwl *tries to look at Tarantulas without looking away from the screen, so his alternate can keep watching.* ... What? Smokescreen ((drunk fly now)) ItsyBitsySpyers *Nudges Tarantulas.* [[Number eight.]] Swoop *finally is close enough to someone or something to rest his helm on it and watch the screen* ZAP Tarantulas Eight? Swoop Why Them zap face? ItsyBitsySpyers [[To make her let the doctor go.]] Swoop WHy Smokescreen That human sounded kinda like Ratchet vaguely for a klik! ItsyBitsySpyers [[So he would not die.]] Swoop Why ItsyBitsySpyers [[He does not know.]] *Perks. Majesty?* Tarantulas *ahh, eight, he sees* Blaster -what did he walk in on?- Swoop It wet Blaster Oh....wow ItsyBitsySpyers *Tiny vent. What fabulous design.* Tarantulas *to prowl* May I touch? ItsyBitsySpyers *He wonders how much battering damage the crest can take in battle.* Swoop *slooowly slides down to lay on the floor on his belly* *wings ouuuuuuutttt* *watch your feet* VProwl ... Sure. Yes. ItsyBitsySpyers ((fun fact: in a deleted scene they say walmart bought weyland yutani out)) Smokescreen ... How much do you bet they're all gonna go offline again? VProwl ((omg)) Smokescreen ((canon Swoop ((oh man I forgot about that, too good)) Blaster -well, he's in the room now, and kinda curious about this- ItsyBitsySpyers [[...."Urban pacification".]] [[So they mean to loose the organics on citizens who do not--]] *HUFF* [[Tame them. How amusing.]] [[On citizens who do not comply, likely for good reason.]] Blaster ....this isn't going to end well, is it? Prowl Ugh. Smokescreen Man- I kinda hope they all get their just desserts with those kinda ideas Swoop *IMMEDIATELY FLAILS WITH EXCITEMENT and spins around to sit on his heels with a gigantic grin* THAT! THAT! Tarantulas *promptly slips his hand in prowl's and wraps half of his arms around him, settling in* Swoop YOU SEE, you see FALLEN KINGDOM trailer???? : > VProwl *TENSENESS INTENSIFIES* Swoop *bounces* You Soundwave see? It THAT! *points* What You said! ItsyBitsySpyers [[What?]] Swoop NEW Jurassic World movie!!!!!! Me Swoop want to see! Us DINOBOTS want to SEE! Blaster -he's gonna sit somewhere out of the way of the flailing- ItsyBitsySpyers [[Another one? If the twins have their way, you will. Eventually.]] [[Greetings, Blaster.]] Swoop *hops and chirps* Blaster Ah. Hello, Soundwave. Tarantulas *omg prowl relax, this isn't much more touching than usual is it* Swoop Jurassic World! Jurassic World! Jurassic World! VProwl *it's different now* Tarantulas *...fair* Swoop *keeps bouncing around and chirping about Jurassic World, it's going to take a lot to stop him* ItsyBitsySpyers *What about a feeler wrapped around his mouth.* Swoop *immediately starts to CHOMP but has enough of his birdy brain about him not to go through with it (completely)* Smokescreen /Smokescreen's wincing at the feeler coming out. Ew ew ew./ Blaster -WELL then, that's one way to silence a Dinobot- Wait.... ItsyBitsySpyers *C a r e f u l l y extricates his feeler from Swoop's mouth. Ugh.* Blaster Are those other humans? ItsyBitsySpyers [[They are.]] [[Welcome to government military projects.]] Blaster Wait Tarantulas *snorts at the "project"* Blaster No Swoop *bleehh* *one slobbery feeler for soundwave* Smokescreen I wanna play that game! Blaster They purposefully... ItsyBitsySpyers *Huffing at her mocking him. She continues to be a favorite human, even as a partially inhuman clone.* Swoop KAH! Her hit! ItsyBitsySpyers [[And yes, they did.]] [[The creatures require external hosts for part of the process.]] Blaster ....yikes Smokescreen I wanna DO that kinda move! Swoop *hasn't been paying much attention but he perks up when he hears that whistle, he knows that "get over here" whistle* Prowl It's not that difficult. ItsyBitsySpyers ((fun fact 2: sigourney actually performed that shot herself)) Tarantulas Corrosive...? Hm. Smokescreen I guess! But it looks cool! ... what's with the feet thing don't like that Blaster Was her blood eating through the metal? ItsyBitsySpyers [[It was.]] VProwl ((how many tries did it take her)) Swoop *pays the tiniest bit more attention since he knows that condescending noise* Smokescreen ((can you imagine the bloopers Swoop *probably everyone with a beastmode does tbh* Blaster Either that's really weak metal, or her blood isn't human ItsyBitsySpyers ((i believe they gave her six total to try it in herself and she hit it on the last one)) ((the crew burst into immediate applause, which is why there was a cut right there)) Swoop ((Yeah I want to say I remember them saying they were going to fake it but she went for it one last time and BOOM)) *pats at the nearest person to him* What happen? In movie. ItsyBitsySpyers *Look at them. Look at them sleeping curled up.* Tarantulas (( wHAT ItsyBitsySpyers [[Hah.]] Swoop *pat pat pat* Prowl *congrats, it's Prowl, who pulls out of Swoop's reach quickly* They cloned the Ripley human from the other documentaries in order to extract the alien from her. She appears to be more than human. ItsyBitsySpyers *Has an idea or two why.* Prowl And the military started a breeding program. Foolishly. Swoop *has no idea what any of that means but scoots closer to Prowl, still sitting on the floor* Why them in room? With button. Prowl To torture the alien into listening to them. They think it can be trained. Smokescreen I think the lesson is that all militaries are fragged. Swoop Why listen? :s Tarantulas *internal screm at "baby"* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Trained to hate them, perhaps. As it should. Keeping perfection locked away - hmph.]] Swoop *leans on Prowl's leg* Blaster .............. Prowl *pulls leg away* Don't do that. Swoop Do what Prowl Don't touch me. You can sit where you are. Swoop Why ItsyBitsySpyers [[Ah... so that transferred, too.]] Prowl Because I asked you not to. Swoop Why Blaster -what's wrong with lab-grown- Prowl *sighs* Because. That is the only answer I need to give you. Swoop ............. *reaches out and touches the very tip of Prowl's ped with the very very tip of his claw* Smokescreen Swoop, bad. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Swoop, do not touch the other guests if they have told you not to touch them.]] Prowl *pulls away* Stop. Smokescreen If you keep touching, Bird won't come out for sure. ItsyBitsySpyers *Pings Prowl. Did you see that shot.* Swoop Him Soundwave say no Bird AT ALL tonight VProwl *STARTS* @S «What?» Smokescreen But Bird especially won't show up if you keep touching Prowl. Swoop Why Smokescreen because ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[The human performed an excellent ricochet shot to shoot the one behind him.]] Swoop Keheh! Because WHY Blaster .............. VProwl @S «Oh. Yes. I saw.» ItsyBitsySpyers [[A noble sacrifice.]] Blaster -slowly hides face- Smokescreen Because because! Keep your servos off of Prowl or else- uhh- you'll get grounded. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Because you have been ordered not to touch them, and if you disobey, he will bridge you home. Again.]] [[And you will not see any of the fighting.]] Swoop *fluffs up his armor and flairs his wings at Smokescreen's very poorly worded threat* Smokescreen Yeah, that too. You'll miss all the good bits! Prowl *scoffs* ItsyBitsySpyers [[So clever.]] Swoop You Smokescreen not STRONG enough to GROUND Me Swoop! Blaster Yikes Smokescreen I mean- Sounds is the one that'll ground you. I'm just saying that it'll happen! Just don't touch Prowl and there won't be any problems! I'll even give you a snack. Swoop NO ONE ground Me Swoop! *flaps his wings once at Smokescreen for emphasis* ItsyBitsySpyers [[He will.]] Smokescreen ... Not that kinda ground. Ground like- no fun stuff ever. Swoop *vents RATHER warm air* ItsyBitsySpyers *Trying to hide that he's shaking. Clever AND opportunistic.* *If unfortunate.* ((this is so goddamn unnecessary)) Swoop *leans in towards Smokescreen, wings still flared* Try! Prowl *Prowl's going to move to another seat away from Swoop before she considers putting Swoop in stasis cuffs* Blaster -STILL covering face- -he doesn't like this movie- Swoop ((While there is a lot to criticize in this movie, I gotta say that I love the set design. There is something about this ship that is charming to me. Just matches the douchey atmosphere lol)) *would absolutely flip shit if someone put cuffs on him* Smokescreen /Smokescreen's pushing Swoop's face away/ Come on, Swoop! You made Prowl move. Be good. Prowl ((it's a good design, creepy and efficient Swoop *locks his joints and digs his toes into the flooring so that Smokescreen's attempts are completely ineffective at moving him an inch* Me Swoop NOT good. Me DINOBOT. Smokescreen ... /In that case, he's pulling his servo away, and then turning on the phase shifter, reaching to just put a servo in Swoop's arm, if possible./ Be a Dinobot that acts good, then! Blaster -uncovers face- ....what just...actually no, I don't wanna know ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave leans forward to look around Tarantulas and bobs his helm at Prowl.*

[[Surely with all the organics that Cybertronians of your world encountered, you've run into situations similar to these? Or run calculations on potential scenarios.]] Swoop *goes from looming to owlishly blinking in cartoon curiosity in an instant* What THAT? 😮 VProwl Define "similar to these." Smokescreen What? This? /He's pulling his servo away again/ This is my arm! Swoop ((this movie is so gay)) You a ghost! 😮 ItsyBitsySpyers [[Beings capable of at least picking off Cybertronians, if not outright slaughtering them, breaking into or infesting a base.]] Smokescreen I am! You got me! Tarantulas *curious about sw's question* Swoop Cool! *plops back with his legs kicked out in front of him, full toddler style* VProwl Yes. We commonly called them "soldiers." ... Because they were soldiers. Smokescreen Isn't it? Watch this! /He's adjusting the phase shifter just a bit more, to start to go through the couch./ ItsyBitsySpyers [[Not Decepticons. Aliens of some type.]] VProwl I'm talking about aliens. Swoop Whoooooaaa! ItsyBitsySpyers [[Oh?]] Swoop *claps* VProwl If I was talking about Decepticons, I'd have said "Decepticons." Smokescreen /Grinning like a dork, slowly sliding down. His legs are probably wiggling about if there's a floor below them!/ Swoop *reaches out and tries to poke Smokescreen with his toe* VProwl We didn't cross paths with aliens that via their natural endowments were easily capable of infiltrating and annihilating Cybertronians, because when we saw ones with that potential, we did what these humans did not: left their planets alone. Smokescreen /Swoop's just going to go through Smokescreen! But Smokescreen does laugh at the feeling./ Swoop *squawks* Awesome! You Smokescreen do ghost stuff for fight?? ItsyBitsySpyers [[...Given the estimate you once told him, there must not have been many of those.]] *Briefly forgets his question, staring at the tubes* Blaster Yikes.... Smokescreen I do! I once escaped the Decepticons with my ghost powers! And ended up getting them to take each other out! Swoop You can rip out GUTS with ghost stuff? 😮 VProwl We went to the planets the Decepticons went to. And the Decepticons went to the planets with the organics that scared them: highly intelligent, highly civilized, highly organized, highly technologically advanced. Tarantulas Are they preserved or alive...? ItsyBitsySpyers [[THAT one is alive.]] Tarantulas Well, clearly. Blaster I don't....holy.... Smokescreen I've never tried that! But I caaaaan do this! /He's pulling himself up again, and is starting to pull a small cube of energon out of his chest!/ Swoop *hears a familiar noise and looks at the screen with excitement* ItsyBitsySpyers *Shakes his helm. At least the clone gave her predecessor that much.* Swoop *is distracted from Smokescreen by the fact fire exists* *sorry, buddy, fire wins* VProwl *squints at the fire* Blaster -face covered again- Smokescreen /That's fair! He's putting the cube back in for later/ Swoop Her BURN tank :V Tarantulas *snrk* I suppose if they were alive, the matter is moot now. Swoop Her burn HIM kehehhehh Blaster -too much fire- Swoop Aww.... *disappointed* Kehehe Smokescreen This movie's getting pretty hot! VProwl ((cmon. you managed to write a funny line and then you immediately fucked it up.)) Swoop Her have fire in a gun Dinobots have fire in FACE kehehh ItsyBitsySpyers ((a round of applause for early whedon everyone)) ((i say sarcastically)) Swoop (🚢) ItsyBitsySpyers [[What was he...]]

[[Ah. What he was going to ask: How would you handle all of this? Do you believe the chances of survival-- Primus, this is brighter than Ravage said.]] Smokescreen Hey, Swoop, wanna see a neat trick? Swoop Yes! Smokescreen /He's settled on the couch again, and this time is ready to just pull a cube of energon out of his own chest!/ ItsyBitsySpyers [[Why didn't they turn the light on to start with.]] *Irritable buzz.* [[Do you believe the chances of survival are high enough to warrant trying anything at all, or would it be better to spare everyone their more gruesome deaths and terminate them?]] Smokescreen ... Is that what everyone does? Just sniff each other? Swoop Kahahah! That good trick! Next time, you pull SWORD! Smokescreen Is that what you're supposed to do with a nose? Haha- I need a sword first! Whiiiich- Omicron ((*omie peers in*)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((yo)) Smokescreen Swoop look there's fire on the screen! VProwl I don't know the layout of this facility, but I'd say their odds of survival are somewhere under twenty percent. If they kill themselves, their odds of survival are zero percent. Omicron ((Icy may not show up, but I'm derping around) Swoop Me can fire on SWOOP ekhehehh ItsyBitsySpyers *Is abruptly reminded of the metrotitan limerick. Flashes bright, hunches over to hide it, and trembles.* Smokescreen Just- look over there, Swoop! Swoop *looks* Smokescreen /He's quickly taking a practice sword out of his subspace and is sticking it in his chest, wincing- this is not pleasant for his spark at all!/ Swoop *looks back* *ERUPTS in laughter* ItsyBitsySpyers [[SMOKESCREEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING]] Smokescreen ... Nothing? Swoop You Smokescreen look DEAD Smokescreen /He's shifting and pretending he didn't just do that./ ItsyBitsySpyers *Getting to his feet* [[PUT THAT SWORD AWAY AT ONCE]] Smokescreen It is away! It's inside me- Swoop *CACKLES* Omicron ((you will make make icy show up in her feral state doing that smokey, nuu .0.)) Smokescreen ... Wait, yeah, frag, I forgot. Sorry, Sounds. Tarantulas They swim so well! ItsyBitsySpyers *Is distracted by them swimming. They swim? Of course they swim. There's nothing they can't do but fly, is there? And maybe even that, if they get the right host.* [[They do everything well.]] Smokescreen /He's pulling the sword out of him and is putting it back in his subspace. That is waaaay less painful, thank Primus./ Swoop *literally ROLLS on the floor laughing at Smokescreen's trick* ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave turns back to watch Smokescreen for a second to make sure that sword isn't coming back out, then sits down.* Smokescreen /He's smiling now- hey, he got Swoop laughing!/ Tarantulas But I do wonder how exactly they adapted for swimming? Ah.... *snrks* Smokescreen /He is never doing that trick again./ ItsyBitsySpyers [[Superior lung capacity, no doubt.]] Tarantulas No, I mean - how they managed to evolve the capacity. VProwl They're modified based on their hosts' bodies, aren't they? Humans can swim. Tarantulas Not that well, honestly. Swoop *eventually rolls to a stop and watches the screen just in time* ItsyBitsySpyers [[So many interruptions. Twenty percent, twenty percent. Would you continue to assist them down to the one percent? What if you knew the percentage had dropped to zero at last? How would you handle matters then?]] Swoop KAH! EXPLODE! VProwl It hasn't dropped to zero percent until they're dead. Blaster -so much no- Smokescreen /He's finally turning off the phase shifter, lying down on the couch. He's really exhausted from all that!/ VProwl There's no advantage to giving up on survival before you're dead. Unless you've got something more important to do than try to survive. These people don't. Swoop *pushes himself up into a sitting position using his wings* Swoop Keheh Him bad at aim OH Explode :V Tarantulas *SNORTS* Swoop *thrashes with laughter and looks at Tarantulas* Him shoot LITTLE spider ItsyBitsySpyers [[...You are much more - hmm. Optimistic? Determined?]] *Taps a finger, thinking.* [[...Selfless. Than him, he thinks.]] [[He has much to learn.]] Tarantulas He was awfully mean about it. That spider did nothing to him, other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. VProwl Am I? I just see no rational reason to give up on them. Swoop *grins* Maybe it RIDE bullet PCHOOOO! Smokescreen There needs to be more spider-loving movies Tarantulas There do. There certainly do. Swoop Spiderman movie like spiders Smokescreen ooh- Spidey's fun! I love Spidey VProwl *oh, a robot. finally, a character worth investing in.* Smokescreen Why is this Ripley so... not ripley ItsyBitsySpyers @P: [[...Do cables into arm ports count?]] Smokescreen like I know she's a clone but VProwl @S «... She's in control.» *yes. it counts.* Swoop *doesn't have any reaction at all to Call being able to plug stuff into her arm, may be a little young to fully digest biological differences between species* ItsyBitsySpyers ((i was considering it like basic plug n play but it occurs to me that it looks like a needle)) ((god damn it)) VProwl ((the robot was in control, crisis very narrowly averted.)) Blaster -is it safe now?- ItsyBitsySpyers ((IF THERE IS A *SINGLE.* *NEEDLE.* IN CHARLOTTE'S WEB I AM THROWING HOLLYWOOD INTO A BIN)) Swoop *rolls back onto his belly* VProwl *... but it's enough to make the back of his neck very slightly prickle.* Tarantulas ...If she clears a path to the Betty, won't that mean the remaining aliens are more than capable of following the path as well? Swoop *kicks his feet slowly* Them in space Them just *throws his arms open and makes a whooshing noise* NO more people in ship Dead *rests his cheek on the floor* That boring. Them caaaaaaaan *grins* Mortal Kombat VProwl *ugh. a robot that thinks being a robot is disgusting and wants to be organic. never mind.* Smokescreen Hey! What's so great about being human anyway? Swoop Her Carly is human 😆 Tarantulas They're incredibly egotistical and apparently anything created by them shares that characteristic. Smokescreen Humans are good, but there's nothing worse about not being one Blaster -peers between digits- VProwl They programmed them that way. Swoop ego-tis-tickle tissssssssssssstickle kehehh Smokescreen ... why are humans so awful to mecha anyway Swoop eggo tis tickle ItsyBitsySpyers [[He was never one to assist most mechs to the very end. Deployers, perhaps. Those to whom he's sworn his loyalty or his spark. The rest... rarely below ten percent. Almost never under five.]]

[[Your earlier answer to that greyface makes him wonder what percent he is obligated to assist at now.]] Tarantulas *pings sw, the queen, eh?* Blaster -hides face again- ItsyBitsySpyers *And now he's leaning way off the couch to see.* *Pings Tarantulas back with an affirmative.* Swoop *holds his own feet* Soundwave When fighting movie? VProwl Well, I've got a /recommended/ number. But my answer isn't yours. I don't know what your philosophical outlook is. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Unclear, these days.]] *Pause.* [[He'd take notes and think on them if you had more lectures.]] Swoop :V VProwl Hm. I said more in that reply then I generally like to say in a week. Swoop *laughs his ass off at this guy getting his faces smashed* *laughs so hard he ends up squeaking* ItsyBitsySpyers *Points.* [[That was a valiant death.]] VProwl It was. Tarantulas *oh dear. oh. dear* ItsyBitsySpyers *....Slow head tilt.* Blaster -keeping face covered- ItsyBitsySpyers [[And that's. New.]] Swoop *is not even remotely getting what is happening here, just playing with his toes between fight scenes* Omicron ((aaaand this is why aliens of all kinds are scared of how humans give birth)) Smokescreen w what is this ItsyBitsySpyers [[........What is THAT?]] Prowl *this movie is going to make Prowl think human reproduction is even worse than it actually is* ItsyBitsySpyers *Fascinated. Not quite as much as he is by the xenomorphs. But it's an interesting... mutation? Is that what it is?* Tarantulas *sad noises* ItsyBitsySpyers *Manages not to say anything aloud. If Tarantulas is touching him, though, he'll get a wave of shock and sadness.* Swoop *has not even remotely been payign enough attention for this but he chirps back when the baby does* It bite! ItsyBitsySpyers *And then concern.*

@T: [[Tell him you are not at risk for any of - of that.]] VProwl ((well his son DID almost kill him)) Tarantulas *startles, then almost laughs aloud* @SW: ::Primus - Primus no.:: VProwl *startles when Tarantulas startles.* Tarantulas *soothes prowl with pets* Blaster -peers at screen again- VProwl *startles again* Swoop *starts slowly rolling around the floor again, he's a baby bird on a mission, not clear what the mission is but BY GOD is he going to roll for it* Smokescreen ... /Looking over and pinging Tarantulas again when he hears sad spider sounds./ Tarantulas *more pets, that totally works right* VProwl *now that he knows to expect them he just holds very still.* Blaster -COVERS face again- ItsyBitsySpyers *Well, at least he knows how to terrify this Blaster if it ever comes to that.* @T: [[Are you *certain?*]] Blaster -that's mean Soundwave- Swoop *bumps into a chair* Tarantulas *pings smokey reassurance, then back to sw* @SW: ::I'm quite certain, yes.:: ItsyBitsySpyers [[It really must be more careful with its toys.]] Blaster -isn't going to check this time- ItsyBitsySpyers [[Though he must say he does not care for the changes the excess human genetic material brings. It's less... clean looking. Even the hive material changed. Like flesh instead of shell.]] Smokescreen Man- that xenomorph looks WAY creepier VProwl "Clean looking"? Swoop *laughs cause he can guess what is coming* Tarantulas *oh poor thing, tarantulas feels awful for the look it gave her* VProwl The typical ones are made of drool. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Perhaps. But it is drool on a smooth and segmented surface.]] Swoop Ewwww!! *is DELIGHTED* ItsyBitsySpyers [[....How terrible.]] Swoop KAHAHA CHUNKS! Smokescreen ... Man, they really draw out the really upset noises Tarantulas At least it didn't last too terribly long. Swoop Dead! VProwl ((WOW that was a lot worse than i was expecting it to be)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((are you ok???)) VProwl ((yeah im ok)) Swoop ((that is one of the gnarliest on screen deaths ever imo)) Prowl *Prowl opted to not ask for visuals tonight and feels like she made the right choice* Blaster -peers at screen again- Swoop *is absolutely all grins and sunshine after that level of gore* VProwl ((oh, prowl offered her a feed at the start of the movie)) ItsyBitsySpyers [[....Poor creature.]] Omicron ((it was bad x.x)) VProwl ((i guess we'll say it wasn't accepted??)) Smokescreen Why do humans make this kinda thing so much? Swoop What thing? Prowl ((go for it, i must have missed it since I have 8 million tabs open atm ItsyBitsySpyers [[Even if it was a strange alternative to its predecessors.]] Smokescreen All this gory slag. Swoop Gore is AWESOME It BEST thing :V Smokescreen I mean, I'd be pretty good if I didn't have to see if for another million years! Tarantulas Yes, it didn't quite deserve that sort of death. And to be betrayed by one it thought its mother... Blaster ...not like I needed to recharge tonight.... ItsyBitsySpyers [[You'll get more work done, Blaster. Cheer up.]] [[...Well, it shouldn't have terminated the one who WAS its mother.]] Smokescreen Sounds- I'm still pretty exhausted, can I recharge on your couch? Blaster -huffs- Prowl There was a great deal of unnecessary termination in this film. ItsyBitsySpyers [[No recharging on his couch. If you require a space to rest, there are inns in New Praxus.]] Swoop *pulls out a datapad from subspace and pokes here, there, and everywhere until he finds some pictures of what happens when you don't respect the coffin corner and get your goddamn wings ripped off* *holds up the datapad in front of Smokescreen's face* Smokescreen . . . I don't think I can get up, Soounds, that's the problem. Prowl Are you all right? ItsyBitsySpyers [[...........Did you phase yourself into his couch.]]

((mark time: 10: 15)) Smokescreen I'm fine! I'm fine! Just kinda drained. ... Only a little. I can phase myself out after I rest for a bit. Swoop *hears screaming on screen just in time to catch the chicken going at the guy and LOSES IT* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Just. Just take the couch with you.]] Prowl I can cut him out of it. Smokescreen sounds I don't even I can get up with the couch prowl nooooo Swoop *gasps* Me Swoop can help! *flexes claws* Blaster .... Smokescreen /Smokescreen's turning the phase shifter on, and is starting to sink into the couch./ Smokescreen /Draining his energon a bit more, but he told Swoop he's a ghost, and he's sticking to it./ VProwl *mumbles* Don't give away your furniture. Swoop ((this baby is literally swoop)) ((people screaming no, him rockking back and forth to do the thing)) Tarantulas (( at least he KINDA did listen ItsyBitsySpyers *Looks at Prowl and just makes a frustrated hand motion at Smokescreen.* [[What is he supposed to do, let the mech stay here overnight?]] Swoop Me Swoop can get. Me Swoop can DROP outside! SMASH. Then Smokescreen fall out : > Smokescreen No, no no no, Swoop. It'll be fine. Look! VProwl He said he'd pull himself out. Omicron ((send him to dreaded wings and give smokey a shock?)) Smokescreen /With the phase shifter on, he's rolling himself out, just kinda lying on the floor. He's not stuck, though!/ Prowl Hm. Swoop *snickers and scampers around Smokescreen on all fours* Smokescreen swooooop please Swoop Hi : > Smokescreen Hiiii Swoop- you want candy again? ItsyBitsySpyers *Looks from Prowl to Smokescreen and back.*

[[How did any of the Autobots deal with yours. Please. Any hints at all.]] Swoop Her Bird like candy! Blaster ....was that a chicken? ItsyBitsySpyers [[No, that's a sheep.]] VProwl Ours isn't anything like that. Smokescreen ... pfpff Blaster ow ItsyBitsySpyers [[In that case, is there a way to officially take your Soundwave's place.]] VProwl Last I heard he was on Earth trying to lead the Decepticons with Galvatron. I wouldn't recommend it. Swoop *places both of his palms squarely on the floor and rolls himself up into a handstand* *straightens up and grins* *ta da* Swoop ((look its' swoop)) Blaster ...I'm....going to go now Smokescreen /He's honestly starting to fall into recharge on the floor. Using the phase shifter does drain him after a while!/ ItsyBitsySpyers [[We can send that one away. He'll change his paint job and tell everyone the med bay ran out of replacement armor after a battle.]] *Polite applause for Swoop.* VProwl *huff* Have fun working with humans. Swoop *curls up enough to spring up and flip onto his feet* *DRAMATIC bow* ItsyBitsySpyers *Shudders.* [[He'll take Smokescreen.]] Prowl ((i assume she won Swoop *is less than impressed by the audience he has here* ...... *griiiiiiiiiiiins* Blaster G'night -up and leaving- Swoop *DASHES over to smack Tara's shoulder but doesn't stick around, SPRINTING for the door instead* Blaster ((thanks for the stream and nightmares ItsyBitsySpyers ((you're welcome. try to sleep well, for real)) *Manages to catch Swoop with a bridge anyway. How d'you like them apples.* Tarantulas *looks infinitely offended by this assault, almost enough to get up and run after swoop, but thinks better of it and just curses for a moment* Smokescreen /Smokescreen would clap, but he really did doze off. It might work to just throw Smokescreen into a bridge./ Swoop *A VALIANT EFFORT WAS MADE and he shrieks with laughter all the way out* Prowl I think I'll be leaving now. Good night... everyone. ItsyBitsySpyers *He's in a mood because of the queen's fate, so Smokescreen gets a bridge. And so does his own Prowl, because why not.* Prowl *...well, that saved her a drive* VProwl Good n— *... and then she's gone.* Smokescreen /He'll have to thank Soundwave for the bridge later!/ Prowl *her mood's been down since the Swoop incident earlier, so getting back to Praxus quicker is probably for the best* VProwl ... What did she do to deserve that? ItsyBitsySpyers [[Nothing. He thought she might not want to run into Swoop if he came back.]] *Tap tap.* [[That, and he prefers to keep her on her toes.]] Omicron ((*waves* I'm gonna duck out, the end of the movie was fun 😊 have to try and work on icy's first plot thing on the blog)) VProwl ((*waves* good luck with plot)) Tarantulas Rude, but helpful. Omicron ((thank you! anyone is welcome to pop over for it)) ItsyBitsySpyers ((thank you for being here! good luck!!)) Prowl ((good luck! Smokescreen ((hope plot goes well : o! Tarantulas *is clinging to prowl a little more now that there aren't so many people there, if it's permitted* VProwl *it's permitted.* *... relaxes marginally.* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Congratulations on officially dating, by the way.]] VProwl *stiffly* Thanks. Tarantulas *huffs, strangely awkward* I - thank you, I suppose? It seems like an odd thing to give congratulations for. ItsyBitsySpyers *...Wow. Prowl really IS nervous about having to be the one to tell others, isn't he.*

[[He doesn't see why.]] VProwl It's not something you talk about in polite company. ... Wasn't, anyway. I suppose that's more... lax, now. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He hasn't been polite company for roughly twelve and a half million years.]] *Soft huffing.* ItsyBitsySpyers [[In any case, we all know of our mutual interests, and have acted on them in the past. He isn't going to be scandalized by it. Or tell others, if that is what either of you think. That is your business. And you two already know about yourselves.]] VProwl I know, I know. It just... sounds like a threat. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He assures you it isn't.]] [[We as a species have come close to death. It is a wonder there are enough of us to find anyone we consider compatible, and pleasing that the both of you have.]] VProwl I know it's not. But it sounds like one. Tarantulas *did u hear that. sw thinks they're compatible, tarantulas is so pleased* VProwl *soundwave thinks they think they're compatible.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Actually, he said 'consider compatible', which is another ball game. He's worried that they're going to burn each other up. But that's what waiting and watching and being ready to either accept or murder is for.* Tarantulas *please don't murder the spide* ItsyBitsySpyers [[How would you have preferred he say it? And do not say that you prefer he didn't. He has, and he would again, if only to the both of you.]] *Head tilt. Genuinely curious.* VProwl ... You can't ask a question and then rule out the answer. Tarantulas *soft snort* ItsyBitsySpyers [[He can if he is interested in a wording change and not one of intent.]] VProwl *annoyed huff.* I'm not answering on the grounds that it would come across as a recommendation rather than an admission that one particular bit of wording is a lesser evil. I don't want a smaller negative willfully misconstrued as a positive. Tarantulas *considering prowl, then sw* It's... also difficult to reword something that by its very nature is perceived as a threat to mention, one should think. ItsyBitsySpyers [[As you wish, then.]]

*Looks to Tarantulas.* [[He does not think so. Plenty of mechs think hearing that he will be waiting for them later that night is a threat. He's reworded it successfully several times in his personal life.]] *A poor attempt to lighten the mood some, but an attempt nonetheless.* VProwl *huff* Tarantulas *snrk* It does depend on the context. ItsyBitsySpyers *Well. At least he got a small laugh out of them.* Tarantulas *tarantulas doesn't mind the congrats, but if it discomfits prowl, he's not going to go against prowl's arguments, naturally* *...nuzzles at prowl* VProwl *permits it, but doesn't relax into it.* Tarantulas *slightly sad visor* VProwl *now he feels uncomfortable AND guilty* Tarantulas *nooooo* ...Is there something on your mind, Prowl? *just in case it's not the dating thing* VProwl Other than this? No. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Would it help if he turned his attention elsewhere for a short while?]] VProwl ... No? Tarantulas Nono, do stay here. *lightly grabs onto whatever he's nearest* VProwl *why would that help* ItsyBitsySpyers *Head to the other side. Doesn't quite understand. If being seen by someone else brings tension, and his words have brought more, then wouldn't a temporary shift of focus free them from the public eye, so to speak?* VProwl *no, the public eye is everywhere all around them, and soundwave looking away for a moment isn't going to change the fact that prowl's now naked and he's just waiting for all of cybertron to notice* ItsyBitsySpyers *Lets Tarantulas grab his arm. Mostly because he didn't even feel it. Arms need more pressure than that to register on more than one or two sensors.* [[Then perhaps a subject change?]] VProwl Very well. Why did you think I have a percentage for where I'd stop trying to save a life? *that's been bugging him* Tarantulas *hm, is curious about this too* ItsyBitsySpyers *He's /almost/ sorry they said not to move. This music is infectious and his every wire sings with wanting to move. But he's sat still through worse.*

[[In the scenario proposed? The result waiting at the end of that particular potential failure. A simple problem of a ship about to crash is one thing. Being burst apart from inside the... what do humans call their...]]

*Draws stripes over his chest with his fingers for a second, thinking.*

[[Rib kennel. It seems more merciful.]] [[Below a certain percentage, at least.]] VProwl Hm. VProwl If THEY asked for a quicker, more painless death—below a certain percentage, I would consider helping them arrange that. If they were still fighting—if they still WANTED to fight—I would have no right to take that from them. Tarantulas *snicker* Chest. Generally referred to as chest. VProwl Unless it was to kill one infected to save the others. But that's not the scenario you presented. ItsyBitsySpyers *Glance at Tarantulas.* [[The internal supports, not the meat.]] Tarantulas Ribcage, then. VProwl *tarantulas is so smart. just listen to him.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Takes a moment to think about that. Then shakes his head.* [[No, no. Cages are where you keep dangerous things that must not get loose. Kennels are where important things that must be protected are kept.]] VProwl I'd trust the expertise of the mech who reformatted his alt-mode into an earthling. Tarantulas Don't argue with me how it ought to be named - I wasn't the one who decided their terminology, hyeh. ItsyBitsySpyers [[His chosen earthling has no bones.]] Tarantulas I'm glad you do know THAT, though. Some humans don't even know that much. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He isn't surprised.]] ItsyBitsySpyers [[Where were we. Percentages, rights...]] *Rewind memory.* [[Killing the infected. Then you would have terminated the one with the spawn in him?]] Tarantulas They DID think of a plan to preserve his life without ending theirs, though. VProwl Not immediately. I would have gotten an estimate from the expert on how long it would take to emerge, and kill him either if we got too close to that deadline or found that there was a vanishingly low probability that we'd be able to get him to somebody who would actually extract the alien and keep him alive. Not as a mercy killing, but to protect everyone else—Earth included. ItsyBitsySpyers *Privately, Soundwave does not believe he'd take that risk. Not for anyone but eight of the mechs in the building.*

*...After Tarantulas' point and Prowl's decision, he's not sure he should mention that.* Tarantulas *tarantulas wouldn't mind tbh* VProwl ... He'd probably have to die, though. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He did do that.]] [[And far more bravely than any of those without.]] VProwl No, I meant—I'd probably have calculated that, yes, he should be terminated before the alien finished developing. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Ah.]]

*...You know what, he's going to say it. Prowl knows who he is. If after all this time he expects Soundwave to think exactly like him, he has another think coming. Tarantulas, he's still not sure what to believe. Probably that Tarantulas would keep the human alive just to get the xenomorph out and start the breeding experiments over again.*

[[...Were there an equivalent creature for our kind, he would have had that Cybertronian terminated on the spot.]] Tarantulas *mutters something about not having to have killed him if he were around because he could have operated on him there on the spot* VProwl Mm. Less optimistic, but... given these things' record, not imprudent.

*nudges tara. ur right, but that's not part of the game.* Tarantulas *nudges him back, shh* ItsyBitsySpyers [[They were already outnumbered. And frightened beings make poor decisions. They get separated. The instant that host disappears from sight, for however long, they are effectively another enemy waiting to be discovered. Slaughtering them would preserve the chances we already had and be sure to reduce the maximum number of opponents.]] [[But... he admits that his thoughts are colored by lessons he was forced to learn against his will.]] *Namely, the arena.* VProwl Hmm. As I said: not imprudent. Tarantulas Not unwise, yes. With so many unknown variables, I do think the choice is a debatable one, instead of a fixed yes or no. Awfully subjective. ItsyBitsySpyers *Nods. He wanted to be sure Prowl knew WHY, and not just... internally react to that concept like your average Autobot.* VProwl *oh, he knew why: the same reason he'd consider the same option.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Just because you understand something doesn't mean you don't revile it, after all. Right, Prowl?* VProwl *detests calling it "subjective," but it's not worth arguing semantics.* Tarantulas *fair fair* ItsyBitsySpyers *Settles back into the couch and folds his hands on his lap. Stares at the wall.*

[[...The Queen did not have to perish, though. That was nothing but ingratitude and fantasy. As if such a being would consider a human a superior organic.]] VProwl Sure she had to perish. She was as much a threat to the humans as any of the other aliens. More of a threat, even, because she has the means to produce more. Tarantulas It was a first test-run - of course it was faulty and unpredictable. Unfortunate that it did kill the queen, but... VProwl ... Oh. We've stopped talking about saving the humans. Got it. ItsyBitsySpyers [[The ship was going to crash regardless, and her spawn had no reason to slaughter her. They might have lived in the nest until such time as the ship hit the planet. Instead, it followed the humans, killed more of them, and suffered.]] ItsyBitsySpyers *Thinks that IS talking about saving the humans.* VProwl *it's drifted out of the realm of controllable actions the humans and/or allies could have affected* ItsyBitsySpyers *Okay, yes, it's done that. But what do you want from him. He admires what he admires.* [[...He wonders if the mechs who reproduce via gestation chamber instead of other methods suffer from the same problems.]] Tarantulas Which same problems? VProwl I haven't /heard/ of any of them being nearly killed by their offspring. And I'd think they'd be less pleased to reproduce if that were a known risk. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Well, you wouldn't, would you? They'd be too dead to tell you.]] VProwl I said "nearly." As in the ones that survived to tell the tale. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Oh. Oh, yes.]] *Looks at Tarantulas and nods his head at Prowl. Those problems.* [[Plenty of Earth animals perish after reproducing. Octopuses, for example. No reason other fleshlings or some mechs wouldn't.]] [[Though he thinks it's a waste of good octopuses. A design flaw of some sort. One of their only ones.]] Tarantulas Hm. I've heard of mecha being offlined by complications while carrying, but not by being intentionally murdered by their sparkling. And the complications certainly aren't common. VProwl What sort of complications? ItsyBitsySpyers *Listening attentively to the answer to that question* Tarantulas Undue strain on the carrier's spark, sometimes because they're carrying more than one sparkling, or other times when they've not consumed enough to support both their life and the sparkling's, or... well. Those sorts of things. OH. Oh. You said - gestation tanks. What am I thinking. Well, it's similar, anyhow. ItsyBitsySpyers *Alarm* [[What do you mean, consumed enough to support both?]] [[How much does it require?]] Tarantulas More than the usual amount of matter, certainly. It depends on the health of the carrier and the sparktypes of both carrier and offspring. Tarantulas ...Among other things, of course. ItsyBitsySpyers *Great. Now he's gotta intensify his concerns about energon shortages on planets where that's the main or only way left to revive Cybertron. Because that problem wasn't difficult enough.* Tarantulas Ah! *sad noises* I - I ought to go. As much as I'd adore continuing this conversation, I do have business to attend to, sooner rather than later, preferably. *snuggles prowl close* ItsyBitsySpyers [[Yes. Yes, of course. He did not intend to keep you from it.]] VProwl *... attempts very poorly to reciprocate the snuggle. does a bad job of it.* *awkward waist pat.* Tarantulas *at least he tried* *he gets a smooch before tarantulas gets up tho* I'll see the two of you soon, I'm sure. ItsyBitsySpyers [[He looks forward to it.]] VProwl *that sounds like a threat.* Tarantulas *everything tara & sw say could probably be perceived as a threat if you look at it the right way, tbh* VProwl *more of a threat than usual* Tarantulas *it's not, tara promises* VProwl *he'll take it on faith* Tarantulas *good, thanks prowl. but now tara's off - gnight!* VProwl *watches him go.* *... doesn't scoot closer to soundwave once he's gone.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Looks in the space between them, then up. The mental voice is on the gentler, quieter side. More of a murmur in the back of the mind than a voice chattering in the front of it.*

[[...If you do not want to touch him, you need not do so. But he will always do his best to ensure no mech harms you as long as he is with you, and he...]]

[[What he told Tarantulas two years ago is true.]] [[If you would prefer to be in your own home, he understands and does not mind. If you prefer to be here, but separated, he will enjoy simply sharing a space. If you wish to be here and touching somehow, he will enjoy that as well.]] VProwl *... puzzled look.* You told Tarantulas that two years ago? *Soundwave and Tarantulas weren't friendly two years ago.*

Tarantulas *will tarantulas arriving help with swoop's mood a little too? let's see. in comes the spidermech, it's been a while* VProwl *he was so tense he missed the question* @S «What? No. Why?» *oh, and now Tarantulas is here, and Prowl's even more tense.* Swoop *digs his claws in a little bit and grins* Cake pretty weak thing. Look. *he holds it up and scratches the side* It in ..... tiers! Kehehhehehehh Smokescreen /Is about to wave excitedly at Messy, but stops himself- maybe Messy wants to stick with Prowl tonight?/ ItsyBitsySpyers *Soundwave taps the space between himself and Prowl and glances over at him. That's wh-- oh. Okay, he'll just make room for Tarantulas. Maybe that's why there's space.* *Soundwave huffs at the tiers joke.* [[Not bad, Swoop.]] VProwl ((cro why are you torturing us)) Tarantulas (( srsly ItsyBitsySpyers ((to prepare you for the real horror ahead)) Smokescreen //this is like dinner and 2 shows Swoop *perks up and then preens at the compliment* *still has cake hands* Smokescreen ... /He's going to offer Swoop another cake, this time a different flavor. Maybe he's picky!/ Swoop *takes whatever is offered to him but doesn't do anything with it* Smokescreen ... Are you feeling okay, Swoop? If you like a different flavor, just let me know! Tarantulas *yup, smokey's right, tara's a little focused on vprowl, gonna settle right in with him as soon as possible. how much semi-subtle touching can he get away with, hm?* Swoop Me Swoop am FEELING *squishes some cake between his fingers* good! *absolute shiteating grin* Tarantulas *...narrowed visor at soundwave. why this* Why hello to you too, Soundwave. Smokescreen ... I'm glad! You should eat cake with your mouth, though. ItsyBitsySpyers [[Greetings. It has been a while.]]

*Places a smiley on his screen. Just saying hello, dear spide.*

*Draws stripes over his chest with his fingers for a second, thinking.*

[[...If you do not want to touch him, you need not do so. But he will always do his best to ensure no mech harms you as long as he is with you, and he...]]

*Puzzled look. He didn't define anything.* VProwl The whole be-in-your-own-home thing. Yesterday ItsyBitsySpyers *Stares even more blankly than is normal for him and his featureless mask, then leans back against the couch arm and bobs like a cork on a fishing line.*

[[No, no.]]

*Soundwave searches his files for the exact text. Where is...* ItsyBitsySpyers *Up pop a bunch of glyphs in what he considers a soothing blue.*

(txt): Soundwave trusts Prowl saves Soundwave’s life, if Soundwave’s life not least valuable option. ItsyBitsySpyers [[And he doubts this will come up anywhere that he wouldn't also agree that he was the least valuable option.]] VProwl *HUFF. that's an interesting "if."* ItsyBitsySpyers *It's an honest one. Prowl's going to do what's for the greatest good. If that means someone or something else gets to live, fine. And that will suit Soundwave's goal, too. If not, he doesn't believe Prowl will leave him hanging.* VProwl *... scoots a little closer. not touching-closer, but closer. still no relaxing.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Affection ping. Settles down into his seat and lets his frame hum with contentment. He's fine to stay that way if Prowl wants.* ItsyBitsySpyers *Though it means he has free mental space to devote to scheming.... but never mind that right now.*

#chat

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theunderdogwrites · 3 years

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Ghislaine Maxwell: Co-Conspirator or Victim?

There are a few things in this world that gross me out to my very core:

- Children eating ice cream. Just no. More gets on their face than in their mouths and it activates my gag reflex and I must look away in horror. And someone get the hose because I am not touching any of it come clean up time.

- Feet. There are no words

- Bestial older men who terrorize young women and under-age girls with sex and those who help them engage in lascivious behavior. Should this not be something that disgusts everyone?

My zodiac sign pegs me as more of a leader than a follower. I find this laughable, but some around me might argue that I am capable of taking the reigns, but not always the best at adhering to authority exerted by others. If I am challenging you for your position, it’s because you’re either a bully or a fucking senseless shitbag and I don’t want those around you subjected to your vast lack of insight. Because in reality, I am super happy to follow intelligent, respectful human beings and even behave myself. It means I can just smile and nod and day dream – my favorite pastime.

If you are not familiar with the name Ghislaine Maxwell, I still hope you cringe at the name Jeffery Epstein. Convicted sex offender and all-around sack of malevolent slime. Also, a coward. Also, unfortunately dead (either by his own hand *I don’t believe it* or snuffed out by some frightened people of great power *I believe this*) before he was able to be made someone’s bitch in prison. Such a tragedy when sex offenders / sex traffickers don’t live long enough in prison to be passed around and used like a cum dumpster. Sometimes the punishment SHOULD fit the crime.

There is plenty of information out there about Ghislaine Maxwell. Here are a few key points on her:

- Her father was Robert Maxwell. He was a British media proprietor, a former member of Parliament (MP), a suspected spy, and a fraudster (having misappropriated the pension funds of his employees). Just to give you a good idea of who Robert Maxwell was: he was the inspiration for the villainous media baron Elliot Carver in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. I. Am. Jealous!

- Her father died in November 1991. He had boarded his 190-foot yacht, aptly name, Lady Ghislaine and found the next morning naked, spread-eagled and afloat in the Atlantic. Two autopsies could not conclusively prove a cause of death, but most say suicide because he was set to answer questions surrounding his corporation’s billion-pound debt load that was distributed among at least nine different international banks and investment firms, and the massive hole in its pension reserves. In simpler terms – he was fucked

- Robert Maxwell left his family in ruins. Ghislaine, his favorite child whom he groomed in his image from a young age, was understandably crushed

- Ghislaine is best known for being a socialite with immense connections among the international elite. It’s been stated that she was quite personable, a little bit quirky and therefore often a standout at parties; with many people being drawn to her. (Side note: I recently watched the HBO documentary on her titled, ‘Epstein’s Shadow’ and the tagline under ALL of the people they interviewed who knew her on a social level read, “former friend of Ghislaine Maxwell”. This just made me laugh. I’ve tried to envision the conversation where these people demanded that FORMER be included. Yes, quickly distance yourself from the stink less they think you too might smell bad)

- Depending on who you listen to, Ghislaine met Epstein in either the late 1980’s when her father introduced them (how apropos) or in the late 1990’s at a party in New York following a difficult breakup with a Count. I wonder what breaking up with a Count looks like, feels like. A Count is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, generally of average rank in the hierarchy of nobility. So basically, he’s not THAT special. But probably feels he is because, well, he has a title. Just imagine the insult you could hurl at him during the break-up: “Count von Count has a bigger penis than you!” *If you do not know who that is – just leave now because you’re shameful*.

- Epstein and Maxwell started out as a couple, but that morphed into more of a companionship / friendship / let’s rape young girls together type situation. You know, how most connections organically evolve.

- Ghislaine Maxwell has been accused of befriending minors and attempting to build a relationship with them, then later delivering them to Jeffrey Epstein to abuse. Maxwell would allegedly lure the young girls to Epstein’s residence under the guise of paid massage work. She’d target disadvantaged minors who she thought wouldn’t be able to refuse the money. Maxwell & Epstein allegedly lured slightly older women into their gross lives with the promise to assist in their careers.

- Additionally, Maxwell and Epstein have been accused of trafficking some of these girls out to their friends and associates among their extremely elite circle. Most notably, is Prince Andrew. Investigators have identified as many as 36 girls that were victims of Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking ring. Some of them - as young as 14. It’s believed there are many more victims yet to be identified.

- Following Epstein’s arrest in July 2019, the FBI started looking for Ghislaine. She went into hiding. Eleven months after Epstein’s “suicide” in prison on August 10, 2019, Maxwell was located. She was arrested in New Hampshire, where she was living a life of seclusion on a sprawling ranch.

- Ghislaine Maxwell faces federal charges including transporting a minor for the purposes of criminal sexual activity, and conspiring to entice minors to travel and engage in illegal sex acts. She is awaiting trial in a Manhattan jail. A trial that was to begin July 12, 2021 but has been delayed till the fall at the request of Maxwell.

You now know all you need to know about Ghislaine Maxwell for the purposes of finishing this piece.

The HBO documentary poised a question and instead of answering it, they’ve pretty much left this viewer with repetitive thoughts and disrupted sleep while trying to answer that very question… ‘Ghislaine Maxwell, Co-Conspirator or Victim?’.

Victim: a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency / a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency

My first thought when this question came up: “Wow HBO, if I was a victim of Epstein’s depravity, I’d be so pissed at you right now. Daring to group in the woman accused (several times over) of basically being a fancy pimp and securing playthings for her rich, giant-faced brute and his pals, with the young women whose lives and brain chemistry (yes, I said that: see TRAUMA) have been forever altered by Epstein’s fuckery… BOLD”.

But that thought took me to this thought: “Ghislaine was a Daddy’s girl. And as we know, her dad was a fiend. It is repeated many times in print, that Robert Maxwell conditioned his daughter and corrupted her character. In some twisted way, there might be a case in which she is in fact, a victim. A victim of a severe patriarchal environment that started at a young age and was instrumental in forming her concepts of success, decency and love (given and received)”.

My mind then went straight to this:

She was raised by a plump, rotten human being and most likely, wanted to please her dad… as most daughters often do, and perhaps never thought to question anything. How many of us are guilty of that?

Robert Maxwell passes (Ghislaine has maintained that he was murdered, but with no evidence to support her claims) and the now lost, without a compass Ghislaine, finds her way to Jeffery Epstein.

I think there is something to be said for what and who we attract into our lives. And for what and who we allow to stay in our lives. I’m just going to assume that the majority of people in this world do not willingly desire to attract destructive, soul sucking wankers into their lives, but have had to expunge a number of them from their existence. Full vision doesn’t always mean you are not blind. Love can be murky and really fuck up those rose-coloured glasses.

Co-Conspirator: A co-conspirator is a fellow conspirator - someone engaged in a secret plan by multiple people to do something evil or illegal

By this definition, Ghislaine Maxwell should be spending a great deal of the rest of her life in prison.

She saw bad stuff. She blinded herself to bad stuff. She facilitated bad stuff. She became the bad stuff.

If I was the prosecuting attorney, I might end with those four sentences. But make it all dramatic… throw in a brief pause after each one… maybe do the Bill Clinton “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” thumb gesture:

On second thought, considering how intertwined he could be in all of this… I’d most likely just use the classier karate chop into the open palm to bring my points home:

(Side Note: if you really hate your life, try a deep dive on active hand gestures and how they often provide social leverage)

So, to finally answer HBO’s question: ‘Ghislaine Maxwell, Co-Conspirator or Victim?’…

As I was told numerous times in counselling… “You are not at fault for the things that happened to you when you were young and had no control. But as an adult, you can’t let those past experiences define you and your actions. If you do, then you are responsible for the things you do now”.

Fault is past tense. Responsibility is present tense.

Ghislaine is not at fault for how she was raised or groomed, but if she lured just ONE girl/woman into Epstein’s clutches to be raped and trafficked, then she is absolutely responsible and should be held fully accountable.

She was a victim who turned into not just a co-conspirator but also a lying coward.

I believe ALL the women.

#ghislaine maxwell #jeffery epstein #bill clinton #hbo #epstein's shadow

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ghostmartyr · 7 years

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SnK 99 Thoughts

This post brought to you by liberal stealing from The Mincing Mockingbird: Guide to Troubled Birds. Because why not.

If you don’t think the ending tagline couldn’t be greatly improved by the addition of Gurren Lagann’s narrator, you are wrong.

So if this month was meant to make me think that everyone in that audience doesn’t have a gigantic destruction flag planted squarely in their midst, well, I’m clearly getting all the wrong signals.

We’ve got significant people from a bunch of major governments come to call. The higher up Marley soldiers that the people who actually run Marley don’t like are chilling. The Warrior kidlets have great seats. The parents of former Warrior kidlets have great seats. There are reporters. There’s a grand reclassification of a lie to an audience ever ready to redirect their Eldian fears and hatred. The current Warriors have been awayed from the premises. People from the East Sea Clan exit before the production even gets started. Willy is manning the stage.

All I’m saying is that if something were to go horribly wrong and a collection of mangled bodies appeared in the place of the crowd, it could be done without causing severe problems for either side of the conflict that we’ve come to know. The most significant losses would be the successor kidlets, and when it comes to the timeframe likely to be covered by the immediate plot, that’s close to irrelevant.

Except as meaningful emotional trauma for the current Warriors (plus Falco), who have ever so conveniently been removed from the audience.

The tension in this chapter points to something exploding, and I... really don’t feel comfortable pointing to any one side as the cause.

In one corner, you have Willy going to pieces over exposing a truth that his family has kept secret for a hundred years. Arguably, that’s a great reason to feel nervous. In the presence of Suspicious Happenings, it becomes one more tally.

In the adjacent corner, you’ve got a prominent member of the East Sea Clan coming to say hello to Willy before his performance. Despite the nation having the most noted interest in not being friends with Marley in the past, Miss Kiyomi is a quality of guest who is free to enter the green room at will, and implies knowing exactly what Willy is up to, and considers some combination of his behavior brave.

Then immediately leaves before his show starts.

In yet another corner, which is actually the nosebleed section of the show, Magath is expecting reports on anything unusual, and absolutely no one is calling the sudden departure of every single present Warrior unusual. Or one of the East Sea Clan peeps leaving early. Or Reiner straight-up vanishing with a Warrior candidate.

In a corner that is actually another basement, Eren is destroying what’s left of Reiner’s stability. By far the easiest corner to make sense of, but sense making is not for the early portions of this post.

Meanwhile you’ve got one faction definitely up to some immediate shady business, because you can’t really say dropping people down a hole is the act of a friend. Unless you subscribe to the Itachi Uchiha school of friendship, in which case, A+.

All that combined leaves us with a terrified circus master, and every prominent piece of plot significance being rushed away from the stage. With three of the available four Marleyan Warriors being collected in holes. The only one not in a hole is closest to Magath, as well as the brother of public enemy number one.

If something were to go wrong, the only Titans not in holes and known to be in Marley are the War Hammer and the Beast.

What gets interesting is that Eren is undeniably the party responsible for Reiner being in a hole, yet the obvious Marley counters to Eren and everything he stands for do absolutely nothing about preventing more Titans from finding themselves in holes. The page where Magath asks for reports on anything unusual, even the smallest detail, is accompanied by Willy stress drinking, and followed directly by the isolation of their Warriors.

Not a single person from Marley finds the departure of their Titans from the production worth commenting on. Pieck and Zeke both have marks of hesitance at complying with their instructions, but absolutely no one on the side they’re supposed to be signed to expresses any concern.

Even though they’re expressly looking out for anything unusual.

I like the idea of Paradis folks continuing their love affair with basements, and I think it would be neat if they’re responsible for Galliard and Pieck’s situation just because we’d get to see Our Heroes in action for the first time in ages, but... no one in the Marley chain of command finds this weird?

Their most powerful weapons get carted off on the night of a declaration of war, and it’s not worth a comment?

Blaming Marley for everything is really easy most of the time, because they’re generally up to no good. In this case, the only thing that’s stopping me is Eren’s involvement. Yeah, no one raises any alarms when Pieck, Galliard, and Zeke make their exit, but there’s also been no one casting suspicious looks at Reiner’s absent seat.

It seems like a really easy thing to claim that whatever happens next, Marley wants their A-listers carefully out of the way, but that would include Reiner. If they are involved, not knowing where Reiner is would be a major concern; you don’t drop people down holes unless the next move is going to be dramatic, and as wonderful as improv is, a lot of great drama works best if you know where your cast is.

Which introduces another fun question: Do the powers that be know where Reiner is?

The baseball mitt from last chapter at least planted the seeds of possibility for communication between Eren and Zeke. If (and the strength of that if is still in question) they have been in contact, and Zeke knows what Eren’s plans are for Reiner, in theory, Marley knows where all the major players are.

Zeke is Magath’s golden boy. He’s also Eren’s brother. He’s in the unique position of having ties that could make him privy to both sides’ tactics here.

He is also, as previously mentioned, the only one not in a hole.

I have no idea whose plan is winning out here, but the sense I get is that there is some kind of “I know you know I know you know” hustling going on, and someone is planning to take advantage of the openings that the other side’s plan leaves.

Basically, the one thing that can be said for certain is that someone is plotting a thing. Too many pieces have been moved too deliberately.

You’d think pinning the blame for a war that hasn’t started yet on a person you’ve never met would be enough for one night, but where’s the fun in that.

...I guess I’m already close enough to that to dive right in, so yeah, in the non-conspiracy theory section, Marley still continues to be horrible!

Like. Let me see if I have this right.

Diet Reiss’ production is all about revealing the true story of the island’s origins. It did not come about purely through the strengths of the Tybur family and Helos, but by the grand design of Karl Fritz.

Karl moves a whole bunch of Eldians off to Paradis and quarantines them, leaving behind a threat that is a total lie, because he’s actually sworn to peace.

He’s the true hero of Marley’s liberation, and so deeply ashamed of what his people have done that he offers up complete surrender to any of Marley’s decisions involving his people. Because his people have no inherent right to life, and he has the right to offer their lives up as part of his personal atonement--though in the meantime, if Marley could hold off a bit on killing them until he’s dead, that would be super rad.

Essentially, continuing the theme of bad parenting, we enter the names of the fathers of modern society, because wow were you all about grand gestures that don’t mean a damn thing and screwing over lots of people because it was easier than fixing the base problems.

Following that, though Willy leaves that part of the story out, Marley proceeds to tarnish the good name of the one Eldian King who helped them for the next century. While reminding all the good little Eldian children that the island is pure evil, and they should do their very best to not be like that.

Yeah, the shocked looks on the kidlets’ faces are depressing.

And of course, the reason Willy is explaining that they’ve spent a hundred years lying about the island is because, hey, the island may have started out a totally chill utopia, but in recent years, the ~*evil*~ Eren Yeager has stolen the power keeping it that way, and now the island’s back to being a real threat that we’ve absolutely gotta do something about!

So enters the latest chapter in Marley being terrible.

This makes my head hurt.

“Surprise, King Fritz was the good guy all along, and we were lying about how dangerous the island was!

Except now we’re not lying and it’s back to being dangerous.

Burn the witch.”

It’s like the boy who cried wolf, only the boy is also a wolf, so are the poor sheep, and really, however it plays out, any peasants unfortunate enough to listen to the boy wolf’s warning are going to get eaten alive. As are the wolves standing on the wrong side of the property line.

The point is, I hope this story ends with Willy being disemboweled.

In other news, Annie’s dad qualifies as one of the better parents we’ve seen solely because he actually cares about his daughter being alive.

Seriously, Reiner’s mother is terrible. She’s so pleased for Bertolt’s father, dying with all of the comforts Marley has to offer because his son dies a noble death as a teenager, and tries to extend that compliment to Annie.

Lady, as far as you know, you’re talking about dead children that your own selfishness condemned. Your son is a basket case thanks to trying to make your life better while you were too much of a coward to do something about it yourself.

(It is more complicated than that. I am not in the mood to care.)

Just... what the heck. A parent caring about their child living should not be noteworthy. The fact that Mr. Leonhart’s honorary status means less to him than his child should be a normal thing, and it isn’t.

If it wouldn’t permanently break Reiner (save that for the things that actually are his fault), I’d be in favor of Karina being disemboweled as well. She’s the only one who’s gained anything out of Reiner’s mission, and she’s happy to take advantage of the spoils even though it’s ruined her kid.

Though to be fair, it’s entirely possible that she hasn’t paid Reiner enough attention to notice that.

Speaking of Reiner!

I do like the opening flashback, bringing the old man up again.

Annie and Bertolt can’t help but dwell on some of the unpleasantness they’ve seen and caused, but Reiner avoids thinking too deeply about it until it slams into him like the Armored Titan slams into walls.

Today, playing the role of the Armored Titan, we have Eren!

Playing the role of walls, the much acclaimed, ever loved, sanity of Reiner!

Yeah, that’ll go well.

Eren’s done his homework. He’s already injured, so restraints won’t stop him from transforming if he needs to, and the massive destruction that a transformation from either one will cause means that he can get his point across without violence getting in the way. If they fight properly, people will die, so play nice.

(For the record, unless he’s fallen off the deep end worse than anticipated, I don’t think he ever intends to harm the people he’s effectively taken hostage. Eren’s always cared about life. Removing that during a timeskip is cheating of the highest magnitude. More to the point, though, Eren’s chosen a threat that requires absolutely no follow through to be effective. Reiner cares about life, too. It’s pure psychological torment, but the only one hurt by it did sort of kill his mother and thousands of other people.)

Reiner’s expressions this chapter are a gift. He’s terrified out of his wits, confronted by a ghost whose memory put a gun in his mouth, and no part of that strain gets kid gloves.

My favorite part, though--well, if I’m honest, there are several favorite parts to this show.

The first one is Reiner’s response when Eren tells him that he’s here to do the same thing that Reiner did.

There’s a lot to be said about how Reiner deals with being a fundamentally moral person who has done a long string of terrible things.

The summary is, “Not well,” but this whole sequence is such a dang microcosm of why Reiner’s head ends up snapping.

He serves Marley. He does his best for them. He protects his home, his family, his comrades. It’s his duty, and everything outside of that isn’t something he needs to think about. He puts it best when he transforms on top of the wall. He doesn’t know what’s wrong or right, but he’s going to see his mission through to the end.

Except Reiner likes to hide his own moral complexities from himself.

He’ll go along with whatever Marley’s plan is. With distinction, even.

But the second Eren says that he’s going to do what Reiner did, there’s only one response. He’s shaky, scared, and horrified. Because what he did to Eren’s people is an abomination. Reiner can’t even grasp why someone would want to do something like what he did.

Eren understands Reiner’s choices better than he does.

He is not gentle about it, and he’s not kind, but Eren gets what Reiner’s lost in the storm of his own conscience.

“You guys were trying to save the world.”

I think somewhere in the last four years, Reiner forgot that he meant that justification. The things he’s done have practically destroyed him. There isn’t any apology or action that can make up for it. He’ll stick to his mission, because he’s a Warrior, but outside of that frame of reference, there is no escaping the horrors or guilt.

(So work really hard at sticking to that mindset.)

But when he first joins the military on Paradis, he states his intentions clearly.

He’s here to save humanity.

Whatever he’s done, and whatever will come after, he means that.

It just so happens that what comes after is so horrible that I don’t think he can bear to connect what he’s done with anything like good intentions.

Eren still can.

He spends the whole chapter sending Reiner to a place that he would very much kill himself to get out of, and he’s still the one who looks at Reiner, and the awful, horrible things Reiner has done to his life, and say that it was born of good intentions.

Reiner hasn’t had the luxury of that kind of understanding. Ever. He can’t get it from himself, because his heart or mind would break at even having the conversation. He’s not going to get it from his friends, because one’s dead and the other mostly hated him before he left her behind. All that he has is memories he can’t share, and guilt that no one around him could even begin to understand.

And Eren might not be okay with any of it, but he sees the one kernel of good that is torturing Reiner, and he acknowledges it. They’re both between a rock and a hard place, and they’re trying to save the world.

It’s a more generous description of what Reiner’s done than he would ever be able to offer himself, even believing it, and for a second, I think the fact that Eren sees that gives him a sliver of hope.

He can’t keep it, because Reiner is damaged beyond belief, but for those few moments, he has someone who understands the best of him.

Best ship or best ship?

Naturally, they’re both still on opposing sides, Eren has just been announced as the world’s Worst, and Falco is watching this all quietly screaming, but hey, something went sort of okay and people aren’t yet dead.

Tune in next month to see that changing.

Oh, wait, I don’t think I did proper justice to Falco’s experience.

There we go.

#Shingeki no Kyojin #SnK 99 #shingeki no spoilers #SnK spoilers #spoilers #tl;dr #chapter post #it's November #that's my excuse

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cinemavariety · 6 years

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Cinema Variety’s Favorite Horror Films of 2017

2017 marks the fifth consecutive year of me compiling year-end lists of the best horror films. It also marks the most difficult year in my rankings. In fact, I almost didn’t even make a list this year considering how lacking the horror genre was for me. There were some decent efforts, but I do believe that the horror genre is impressing me less and less as the years go by. That being said, most of the best quality horror films were ones produced and distributed by independent production companies. It comes as no surprise that Hollywood has really been missing the mark when it comes to creating a truly effective scare experience.

Alas, we have reached the end of another year. Another year of absolute madness when it comes to the real world. These next seven films proved to me that horror films, even the most unconventional of ones, still can have a big impact in the film industry. Check out my lists from previous years by clicking on the links Below. Favorite Horror Films of 2016 Favorite Horror Films of 2015 Favorite Horror Films of 2014 Favorite Horror Films of 2013

#7 - Life Directed by Daniel Espinosa

I believe the tagline of the original Alien film was: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” This exact tagline would be incredibly fitting for 2017’s best space-suspense film. Other than the impressive cast, I have to say that I was not looking forward to this film based on the trailers alone. To me, it looked exhaustingly formulaic and over-done. But after reading some really positive reviews for the film, I decided to give Life the benefit of a doubt. What ensued was a real exercise in panic and anxiety. As beautiful and mind-blowingly enormous as space is, I cannot help but imagine how terrifying it would be to be stuck up there in a claustrophobic ship. As the crew members in the film discover a lifeform of unknown origin, all hell eventually breaks loose as the organism grows and becomes more dangerous. This soon becomes a cat-and-mouse hunt for survival which kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the duration of the film. I was also pleasantly surprised by the deliciously bleak ending.

#6 - The Void Directed by Jeremy Gillespie & Steven Kostanki

I have nothing but the utmost of respect for films that utilize practical effects in this day and age of horror films which usually rely on CGI-gore and predictable jump scares. The Void takes full advantage of its low budget and creates a genuine nightmare world with some truly impressive sets and practical creature effects. The Void is a throwback to the era of 70s and 80s horror flicks. For all its absurdity and nonsensical plot, what The Void lacks in a strong narrative is made up for with nauseating details of a hell brought onto the physical plane of Earth. Parts reminded me of The Thing, while other parts reminded me of Hellraiser – all the while staying original and having its own voice. We need more creative outings in the horror genre such as this one.

#5 - IT Directed by Andrés Muschietti

To say that my expectations for IT were high would be an understatement. It was most definitely my most eagerly anticipated horror film of 2017. In fact, the trailers are some of the best ones I can remember for a modern horror film. I was letdown when I found out a couple years back that one of my favorite directors, Cary Fukunaga, dropped out of the project. Nonetheless, I stayed positive and hoped that whoever took the helms would still create a genuinely terrifying horror film. Well, as usual, my expectations got the best of me with this one. It didn’t have me shaking in my boots like the previews had promised. But it did provide an entertaining experience, especially with the chemistry of all the actors and their interactions with Pennywise. The production value was amazing. I gushed over all of the dutch camera angles that were executed with strong precision. Bill Skarsgard did a fine job of encapsulating the evil that is Pennywise and tormenting all the children with their worst fears. My main qualms with the film was that it was more fun than scary, and that jump scares were a little too overdone. I was hoping for a much darker tone, and I hope that is what is achieved with part two.

#4 - It Comes at Night Directed by Trey Edward Shults

Trey Edward Shults emerged onto the indie film scene with his harrowing family drama Krisha (a film which has held up even better upon a couple rewatches). So it comes as no surprise that I was excited when I discovered that his next project would venture into horror territory. It ended up being a psychological paranoia thriller with elements of horror sprinkled throughout. However there is no denying that the events that transpire in this film are about as horrific as they can get. Many of my favorite films are polarizing ones. In these cases, usually critics rave about it while the average movie-goer dismisses it as a waste of time. This was the response for It Comes at Night, and I take the side of the film critics with this one. The biggest complaint I read online was “nothing even comes at night”. I cannot help but think that people really cannot read between the lines with films, even when it comes to something as simple as the title. I can tell you what comes at night in this film: fear of the unknown, dread, disease, and mistrust of others. Shults plays with the audiences heads in this film as to what is real and what is not real. His use of lighting and camera movement immerse the audience into a story that is minimalist in nature, but also has so many subtle details throughout. The finale of the film left a pit of dread in my stomach which didn’t quickly go away.

#3 - The Untamed Directed by Amat Escalante

Leave it to a foreign director to concoct one of the most impressive films of the year. Mexican cinema is amazing – the country is no stranger to releasing scary movies that hit deep (i.e.: Cronos, Pans Labrynth, Here Comes the Devil, Santa Sangre). The way the story is told in The Untamed is genius. We are presented with mysterious situations and multiple characters at once which we as an audience must piece together and see how everyone and everything connects. The center of the story revolves around a tentacled creature which, in my eyes, is symbolic of pure lust. Each person who visits this creature, which resides in a secluded cabin, becomes addicted to the way it makes them feel. Characters who were once lost and unsatisfied feel like they have clarity of mind and a new purpose in their life based solely on their interactions with the creature. These newfound feelings quickly turn into something dangerous as the movie veers into unexpected territories. The Untamed did a great job at having me writhe in discomfort, all the while never becoming too graphic or exploitative. It doesn’t show too much to ruin the aura of mystery. Yet it also shows just enough to have me never looking at a tentacled-animal the same way ever again.

#2 - Gerald’s Game Directed by Mike Flanagan

Once again, a Mike Flanagan picture makes one of my year-end horror lists. The man is endlessly consistent on his filmmaking abilities. I wouldn’t say any of his works are horror masterpieces, but each one that I have seen has left an impact on me. Even his more mediocre work is better than the array of Hollywood-produced horror films. Gerald’s Game marks the second horror film on this list based off a Stephen King story. Many of the same themes that Flanagan has developed upon over the course of his career shine through in Gerald’s Game. Including but not limited to: unchecked childhood trauma, abusive parents, loss of innocence, inner demons, real demons, etc. etc. Once deemed un-filmable, Gerald’s Game is an extraordinarily creative film. All set in one room, the movie never becomes trite. It utilizes its stagnant location and turns into something that I could even see as a stage play. A wife’s worst nightmares come alive in Gerald’s Game after the main character’s husband dies after handcuffing her to a bed. To make matters worse, there is a bloodthirsty feral dog who eats her husband and a deformed man who visits her in the night. This results in one of the most hair-raising movie moments that I have ever witnessed. In one scene, the outline of this boogeyman is just barely visible in the corner of the room. Even I had to do a double-take to make sure what I was seeing was actually there. Was he real? Or was he just another figment of the main character’s unraveling mind? Flanagan lets this scene play out in complete silence. There is no jarring music or sound effects to be heard. This makes the scene all the more harrowing because Flanagan lets the fear build up naturally. He is not telling you when and how to be afraid. Oh and can we talk about that hand scene? That is not something I will forget.

#1 - Kuso Directed by Flying Lotus

I find it difficult to put my feelings into words when it comes to Kuso. I am surprised that this film even exists, but boy do I feel lucky that it does. Kuso is not a film that can be lumped into just one genre. But if I were going to categorize it into one, I think it is safe to say that it is a body-horror film to the highest degree. I respect the film so much just for the fact that this is art that not many people have ever, or will ever, see on a screen ever again. This work to me is daring, feverishly artistic, and completely out-of-this-world insane. In fact, I couldn’t believe my eyes at what I was seeing in certain scenes. It crosses the line countless times and revels in all its griminess. Make sure to watch the film on an empty stomach – you will thank me for this later. My friend and I agreed that the best way to describe this film to someone is as follows: “vignettes of absolute awfulness.” I say this with the utmost fondness. Kuso is the midnight movie I’ve been waiting for all of my life. To me, Flying Lotus is like Jodorowsky for the 21st century - polarizing, revolting, and exhaustingly stylized in the best of ways.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Best Horror Movies Streaming on HBO Max

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Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the new horror movies on HBO Max.

Updated for October 2020

What ever would we do without horror?

So much of our daily life is built around logic and known, verifiable facts, and for some, the rest of the time must be supplemented with comforting reassurances that everything is going to be alright. Well if the last year has taught us anything… that’s not the case. Perhaps this is why horror hounds know the best way to face abstract fears is to confront them head on… and preferably with a screen in the way.

So, with Halloween around the corner, we figured it’s time to get in touch with our illogical, terrified animal brain. That’s where horror and horror movies in particular come in. Gathered here are the best horror movies on HBO Max for your scaring needs.

Alien

“In space, no one can hear you scream,” the tagline for Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi/horror epic promised. Well maybe they should have screened this thing in space because I’m sure all that audiences in theaters did was scream.

Alien has since evolved into a heady, science fiction franchise that has stretched out for decades. The original film, however, is a small-scale, terrifyingly claustrophobic thriller.

Altered States

What if you could tap into the vast swaths of the brain you never use? What if you did and didn’t like what we found? And what if it was an absolute psychedelic rush of a cinematic experience?

All three questions are answered in their own way during Ken Russell’s Altered States, a wild sci-fi thriller. In the film, William Hurt stars as a psychologist who begins experimenting with taking hallucinatory drugs while in a sensory depravation tank.

Yes, he manages to expand his consciousness; he also begins to expand his physical body as it transforms beneath his skin. Or does it? Well that’s yet another good question…

An American Werewolf in London

Arguably the definitive werewolf movie, John Landis’ 1981 horror masterpiece has the single greatest on-screen lycanthropic transformation in movie history… and that’s only one of its appeals.

Peppered with loving references to the werewolf movies that came before it and a few legitimate laughs to go along with the scares, An American Werewolf in London is remarkably knowing and self-aware, without ever flirting with parody.

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Not enough can be said about Rick Baker’s practical effects, which extend beyond the aforementioned on-screen transformation and into one of the most gruesome depictions of a werewolf attack aftermath you’re ever likely to see. A classic of the era, it still can get under the skin whenever Griffin Dunne’s mutilated corpse rises from the grave to warn his friend to “beware the moon.”

The Brood

I bet you never thought placenta could look so tasty, but when Samantha Eggar’s Nola Carveth licks her newborn clean you’ll be craving seconds within the hour. She brings feline intuition to female troubles. We get it. Having a new baby can be scary. Having a brood is terrifying. Feminine power is the most horrifying of all for male directors used to being in control.

David Cronenberg takes couples therapy one step too far in his 1979 psychological body-horror film, The Brood. When it came out critics called it reprehensible trash, but it is the writer-director’s most traditional horror story. Oliver Reed plays with mental illness like Bill Sikes played with the kids as Hal Raglan, the psychotherapist treating the ex-wife of Frank Carveth (Art Hindle). The film starts slow, unfolding its drama through cuts and bruises.

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Cronenberg unintentionally modifies the body of the Kramer vs. Kramer story in The Brood, but the murderous munchkins at the external womb of the film want a little more than undercooked French toast.

Carnival of Souls

Carnival of Souls may be the most unlikely of chillers to appear in the Criterion Collection. Hailing from the great state of Kansas and helmed by commercial director Herk Harvey, who was looking for his big break in features, there is something hand-crafted about the whole affair. There’s also something unmistakably eerie.

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The story is fairly basic campfire boilerplate, following a woman (Candace Hilligoss) who survives a car crash but is then haunted by the sound of music and visions of the ghoulish dead–beckoning her toward a decrepit carnival abandoned some years earlier–and the acting can leave something to be desired. But the dreadful dreamlike atmosphere is irresistible.

With a strong sense of fatalism and inescapable doom, the film takes an almost melodic and disinterested gait as it stalks its heroine to her inevitable end, presenting images of the walking dead that linger in the mind long after the credits roll.

The Curse of Frankenstein

Hammer is probably best remembered now for its series of Christopher Lee-starring Dracula movies. Yet its oddball Frankenstein franchise deserves recognition too. While Hammer’s efforts certainly pale in comparison to the Frankenstein movies produced by Universal Pictures in the 1930s and ’40s, the Hammer ones remain distinctly unique. Whereas the Creature was the star of the earlier films, so much so the studio kept changing the actor beneath the Jack Pierce makeup after Boris Karloff got fed up three movies in, the not-so-good doctor leads the Hammer alternatives.

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By Daniel Kurland

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By Kayti Burt

Indeed, between bouts of playing the almost sickeningly pious Abraham Van Helsing, Peter Cushing portrayed a perverse and dastardly Victor Frankenstein at Hammer, and it all begins with The Curse of Frankenstein. It isn’t necessarily the best movie in the series, but it introduces us to Cushing’s cruel scientist, played here as less mad than malevolent.

It also features Christopher Lee in wonderfully grotesque monster makeup. This is the film where Hammer began forming an identity that would become infamous in the realm of horror.

The Conjuring 2

Making an effective, truly spooky mainstream horror film is hard enough. But The Conjuring franchise really nailed things out of the gate with a sequel that is every bit as fun and terrifying as the original.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring 2. This time the Warrens head to Great Britain to attend to the Hodgson family, dealing with some poltergeist problems in their Enfield home. The source of the Enfield haunting’s activity contains some of the most disturbing and terrifying visuals in the entire Conjuring franchise and helped to set up a (sadly pretty bad) spinoff sequel in The Nun.

Doctor Sleep

Let’s be up front about this: Doctor Sleep is not The Shining. For some that fact will make this sequel’s existence unforgivable. Yet there is a stoic beauty and creepy despair just waiting to be experienced by those willing to accept Doctor Sleep on its own terms.

Directed by one of the genre’s modern masters, Mike Flanagan, the movie had the unenviable task of combining one of King’s most disappointing texts with the opposing sensibilities of Stanley Kubrick’s singular The Shining adaptation.

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Doctor Sleep Director Mike Flanagan on the Possibility of The Shining 3

By John Saavedra

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Doctor Sleep: Rebecca Ferguson on Becoming the New Shining Villain

By John Saavedra

And yet, the result is an effective thriller about lifelong regrets and trauma personified by the ghostly specters of the Overlook Hotel. But they’re far from the only horrors here. Rebecca Ferguson is absolutely chilling as the smiling villain Rose the Hat, and the scene where she and other literal energy vampires descend upon young Jacob Tremblay is the stuff of nightmares. Genuinely, it’s a scene you won’t forget, for better or worse….

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave

Hammer Films’ fourth Dracula movie, and third to star the ever reluctant Christopher Lee, is by some fans’ account the most entertaining one. While it lacks the polish and ultimate respectability of Lee’s first outing as the vampire, Horror of Dracula (which you can read more about below), just as it is missing the invaluable Peter Cushing, Dracula Has Risen from the Grave arrived in 1968 at the crossroads of Hammer’s pulpy aesthetic. Their films had not yet devolved into exploitative shlock as they would a few years later, but the censors seemingly were throwing up their hands and allowing for the studio’s vampires to be meaner, bloodier, and sexier.

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Taste the Blood of Dracula: A Hidden Hammer Films Gem

By Don Kaye

In this particular romp, Dracula has indeed risen from the grave (yes, again!) because of the good intentions of one German monsignor (Rupert Davies). The religious leader is in central Europe to save souls, but the local denizens of a village won’t go to a church caught in the shadow of Castle Dracula. So the priest exorcises the structure, oblivious that his sidekick is also accidentally dripping blood into the mouth of Dracula’s corpse down the river. Boom he’s back!

And yet, our fair Count can’t enter his home anymore. So for revenge, Dracula follows the monsignor to his house and lays eyes on the patriarch’s comely young niece (Veronica Carlson). You can probably figure out the rest.

Eraserhead

“In Heaven, everything is fine,” sings the Lady in the Radiator in Eraserhead. “You’ve got your good things, and I’ve got mine.”

You may get something short of paradise, but the insular world David Lynch created for his 1977 experimental existential horror film is a land of mundane wonders, commonplace mysteries, and extremely awkward dinner conversations. Lynch’s first feature film is surrealistic, expressionistic, and musically comic. The minor key score and jarring black and white images bring half-lives to the industrial backdrop and exquisite squalor. At its heart though, Eraserhead is poignant, sad, and ultimately relatable on a universal level.

Buffy: The Animated Series – The Buffy the Vampire Slayer Spin-Off That Never Was

By Caroline Preece

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How Scorn Turned the Art of H.R. Giger into a Nightmarish Horror Game World

By John Saavedra

Jack Nance’s Henry Spencer is the spiky-haired everyman. He works hard at his job, cares deeply for his deformed, mutant child, and is desperate to please his extended family. Lynch lays a comedy of manners in a rude, crude city. The film is an assault on the senses, and it might take a little while for the viewer’s brains to adjust to the images on the screen; it is a different reality, and not an entirely inviting one, but stick with it. Once you’re in with the in-laws, you’re home free. When you make it to the end, you can tell your friends you watched all of Eraserhead. When they ask you what it’s about, you can tell them you saw it.

Eyes Without a Face

“I’ve done so much wrong to perform this miracle,” Doctor Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) confesses in the 1960 horror film Eyes Without a Face. But he says it in French, making it all so much more poignant, allowing it to underscore everything director and co-writer Georges Franju did right. We feel for the respectable plastic surgeon forced to do monstrous things. But the monster behind the title character is his young daughter Christiane (Édith Scob). She spends the majority of the film behind a mask, even more featureless than the unpainted plastic Captain Kirk kid’s costume Michael Myers wore in Halloween. The first time we see her face though, the shock wears off quickly and we are more moved than terrified.

Like Val Lewton films, the horror comes from the desolate black-and-white atmosphere, shrouding the claustrophobic suspense in German Expressionism. Maurice Jarre’s score evokes a Gothic carnival as much as a mad scientist’s laboratory. After his daughter’s face is hideously disfigured in an accident, Dr. Génessier becomes obsessed with trying to restore it. We aren’t shown much, until we’re shown too much. We see his heterograft surgical procedure in real time. A woman’s face is slowly flayed from the muscle. The graphic scenes pack more of a visceral shock after all the encroaching dread.

Godzilla

As the original and by far still the best Godzilla movie ever produced, this 1954 classic (originally titled Gojira), is one of the many great Showa Era classics that the Criterion Collection and HBO Max are making readily available to American audiences. And if you want to watch one that is actually scary, look no further.

In this original uncut Japanese form, the movie’s genuine dread of nuclear devastation, as well as nightly air raids, less than 10 years since World War II ended in several mushroom clouds, is overwhelming. Tapping into the real cultural anxiety of a nation left marred by the memory of its dead, as well as the recent incident of a fishing crew being contaminated by unannounced hydrogen bomb testing at Bikini Atoll, Godzilla encapsulates terror for the atomic age in a giant lizard.

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And unlike the sequels there is nothing cuddly or amusing about this original Kaiju with its scarred body and legion of tumors. This is the one Godzilla movie to play it straight, and it still plays today.

Horror of Dracula

Replacing Bela Lugosi as Dracula was not easily done in 1958. It’s still not easily done now. Which makes the fact that Christopher Lee turned Bram Stoker’s vampire into his own screen legend in Horror of Dracula all the more remarkable. Filmed in vivid color by director Terence Fisher, Horror of Dracula brought gushing bright red to the movie vampire, which up until then had been mostly relegated to black and white shadows.

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By David Crow

BBC/Netflix Dracula’s Behind-the-Scenes Set Secrets

By Louisa Mellor

With its penchant for gore and heaving bosoms, Horror of Dracula set the template for what became Hammer Film Productions’ singular brand of horror iconography, but it’s also done rather tastefully the first time out here, not least of all because of Lee bring this aggressively cold-blooded version of Stoker’s monster to life. It’s all business with this guy.

Conversely, Abraham Van Helsing was never more dashing than when played by Peter Cushing in this movie. The film turned both into genre stars, and paved the way for a career of doing this dance time and again.

The Invisible Man

After years of false starts and failed attempts at resurrecting the classic Universal Monsters, Universal Pictures finally figured out how to make it work: They called Blumhouse Productions.

Yep, Jason Blum’s home for micro-budgeted modern horror worked wonders alongside writer-director Leigh Whannell in updating the classic 1933 James Whale movie, and the H.G. Wells novel on which it is based, for the 21st century.

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How The Invisible Man Channels the Original Tale

By Don Kaye

Turning the story of a man who masters invisibility into a horrific experience told from the vantage of the woman trying to escape his toxic violence, The Invisible Man becomes a disquieting allegory for the #MeToo era. It also is a devastating showcase for Elisabeth Moss who is compelling as Cecilia, the abused and gaslighted woman that barely found the will to escape, yet will now have to discover more strength since everyone around her shrugs off the idea of her dead ex coming back as an invisible man…

Lifeforce

Most assuredly a horror movie for a very acquired taste, there are few who would call Tobe Hooper’s career-destroying Lifeforce a good movie. There probably aren’t even many who would call it a fun movie. But for those with a singular taste for batshit pulp run amok, Lifeforce needs to be seen to be believed: Naked French vampire girls from outer space! Hordes of extras as zombies marauding through downtown London! Lush Henry Mancini music over special effects way outside of Cannon Films’ budget!!! Patrick Stewart as an authority figure possessed by said naked French space vampire, trying to seduce an astronaut via makeout sessions?!

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… What is this movie? Why does it exist? We don’t know, but we’re probably more glad it does than the people who made it.

Magic

As much a psychological case study as as a traditional horror movie, for those who like their terror rooted in humanity, Magic may be the creepiest iteration of the “killer doll” subgenre since this is about the man who thinks his dummy is alive. Starring Anthony Hopkins before he was Hannibal, or had a “Sir” in front of his name, Magic is the brain child of William Goldman, who adapted his own novel into this movie before he’d go on to do the same for The Princess Bride (as well as adapt Stephen King’s Misery), but after he’d already written Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Marathon Man.

In the film, Hopkins stars as Corky, a down on his luck ventriloquist who tries to get his life together by tracking down his high school sweetheart (Ann-Margret). She’ll soon probably wish he didn’t bother once she realizes Corky believes his ventriloquist dummy Fats really is magic… and is determined to get him to act on the most heinous of impulses.

The Most Dangerous Game

Before King Kong, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack released The Most Dangerous Game, one of the all-time great pulp movies, based on a short story by Richard Connell. This classic has influenced everything from Predator to The Running Man, The Hunger Games to Ready or Not.

It’s the story of a big game hunter who shipwrecks on a remote island with an eccentric Russian Count who escaped the Bolshevik Revolution (Leslie Banks). The wayward noble now drinks, studies, and charms his apparently frequent array of unannounced guests, including two other survivors from a previous (suspicious) wreck. The film quickly boils down to a mad rich man determined to hunt his guests as prey across the island for the ultimate thrill.

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Culture

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Man hunting man, man lusting after woman in a queasy pre-Code fashion, this is a primal throwback to adventure yarns of the 19th century, which were still relatively recent in 1932. Shot simultaneously with King Kong, this is 63 brisk minutes of excitement, dread, and delicious overacting. Let the games begin.

Night of the Living Dead

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”

The zombie movie that more or less invented our modern understanding of what a zombie movie is, there is little new that can be said about George A. Romero’s original guts and brains classic, Night of the Living Dead. Shot in black and white and on almost no budget, the film reimagined zombies as a horde of ravenous flesh-eaters, as opposed to a lowly servant of the damned and enchanted.

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Still visually striking in black and white, perhaps the key reason to go back to the zombie movie that started it all is due to how tragically potent its central conflict from 1968 remains: When strangers are forced to join forces and barricade in a farmhouse to survive a zombie invasion, the wealthy white businessman is constantly at odds with the young Black man in the group, to the point of drawing weapons…

Ready or Not

The surprise horror joy of 2019, Ready or Not was a wicked breath of fresh air from the creative team Radio Silence. With a star-making lead turn by Samara Weaving, the movie is essentially a reworking of The Most Dangerous Game where a bride is being hunted by her groom’s entire wedding party on the night of their nuptials.

It’s a nutty premise that has a delicious (and broad) satirical subtext about the indulgences and eccentricities of the rich, as the would-be extended family of Grace (Weaving) is only pursuing her because they’re convinced a grandfather made a deal with the Devil for their wealth–and to keep it they must step on those beneath them every generation. Well step, shoot, stab, and ritualistically sacrifice in this cruelest game of hide and seek ever. Come for the gonzo high-concept and stay for the supremely satisfying ending.

Sisters

One of the scariest things about the 1972 psychological thriller Sisters is the subliminal sounds of bones creaking and muscles readjusting during the slasher scenes. Margot Kidder plays both title characters: conjoined twins, French Canadian model Danielle Breton and asylum-committed Dominique Blanchion, who had been surgically separated. Director Brian De Palma puts the movie together like a feature-long presentation of the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. The camera lingers over bodies, bloodied or pristine, mobile or prone, with fetishistic glee before instilling the crime scenes in the mind’s eye. He allows longtime Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann to assault the ear.

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De Palma was inspired by a photograph of Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, Russian conjoined twins with seemingly polarized temperaments. There may be no deeper bond than blood, which the film has plenty of, but the real alter ego comes from splitscreen compositions and an outside intruder. The voyeuristic delight culminates in a surgical dream sequence with freaks, geeks, a giant, and dwarves. Nothing is as it seems and an out-of-order telephone is a triggering reminder.

Jordan Peele’s debut feature Get Out was a near instant horror classic so anticipation was high for his follow-up. Thanks to an excellent script, Peele’s deep appreciation of pop culture, and some stellar performances, Us mostly lived up to the hype.

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The film tells the story of the Wilson family from Santa Cruz. After a seemingly normal trip to a summer home and the beach, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), Gabe (Winston Duke) and their two kids are confronted by their own doppelgangers, are weird, barely verbal, and wearing red. But then Adelaide is not terribly surprised given her own personal childhood traumas. And that’s only the beginning of the horror at play. Fittingly, Us feels like a feature length Twilight Zone concept done right.

Vampyr

A nigh silent picture, Vampyr came at a point of transition for its director Carl Th. Dreyer. The Danish filmmaker, who often worked in Germany and France at this time, was making only his second “talkie” when he mounted this vampire opus. That might be why the movie is largely absent of dialogue. The plot, which focuses on a young man journeying to a village that is under the thrall of a vampire, owes much to Bram Stoker’s Dracula as well as F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu from some years earlier.

Yet there horror fans should seek Vampyr out, if for no other reason than the stunning visuals and cinematography. Alternating between German Expressionist influences in its use to shadows to unsettling images crafted in naturalistic light, such as a boatman carrying an ominous scythe, this a a classic of mood and atmosphere. Better still is when they combine, such as when the scythe comes back to bedevil a woman sleeping, trapping us all in her nightmare. Even if its narrative has been told better, before and after, there’s a reason this movie’s iconography lingers nearly a century later.

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micaramel · 5 years

Link

Artist: Monica Majoli

Venue: Galerie Buchholz, New York

Exhibition Title: blueboys

Date: November 8 – December 21, 2019

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release, and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York

Press Release:

People still die of AIDS—or of AIDS-related complications or illness, as the dispiriting boilerplate has it. Hooray for those who can afford the drugs that make the syndrome manageable, hooray for those who can afford to party without a care in the world, since there should be no worry when one is horny or “in love” or dancing, lustfully unthinking, but close to a million people died of AIDS, just last year.

In an exchange between Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian that would have been called Eyewitness, had Kevin’s death from cancer not interrupted it, at one point Dodie writes: “I’m thinking of how Dennis Cooper said AIDS ruined death.” Not immediately (they reconnoiter the fact of Kevin’s diagnosis), but soon enough, Kevin, after taking a few beats, glosses Dennis’ epigrammatic observation. “Dennis’ point is that once we were in love with death in the Punk Era. It seemed like the real thing, the point of living. Then came AIDS,” Kylie Minogue’s most dedicated fan explained, “and death was reduced to nothing. Just the end. It was stripped of meaning.”

Once we were in love with death… Do you hear Keats’ nightingale in Kevin’s explanation? “I have been half in love with easeful death, call’d him soft names…” Who hasn’t called certain darkling attractions by soft names? Sometimes you live to regret it, sometimes you don’t.

Monica Majoli took inspiration for her newest body of work from the sexy post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS hiatus still known as the ’70s, particularly centerfolds from Blueboy, which billed itself as “the national magazine about men.” In 1980, when I was 15—hold on. I find myself striking out for memory lane again, and I have to say that for the most part I just couldn’t care less about memory lane. (I guess people now call it autofiction.) Instead I’ll relay this little fact: In an interview for High Times, published in the early summer of 1977, Andy Warhol was asked what his favorite magazines were. He replied: “Blueboy, Pussy, Penthouse. Whatever I’m in.”

Or, whatever I’m into. Andy, like others, would have been into the range of Blueboy’s editorial content: interviews with author James Purdy or Perry King, the hunky lead of Andy Warhol’s Bad, co-written by Pat Hackett and directed by Andy’s longest live-in partner, Jed Johnson; into the first English translation of Verlaine’s erotic poetry; into “what really happened to” Montgomery Clift, a profile of Casablanca records, the “photoerotica” of Baron von Gloeden; into commentary on the political debacle initiated by Anita Bryant, via “Save Our Children,” to pass an ordinance to legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation or on the assassination of Harvey Milk; into keeping up with culture almost as much as they were keeping up with cock.

Blueboy’s founding publisher, Donald N. Embinder, a former ad exec at Benton & Bowles as well as an ad rep for After Dark, told the New York Times, in 1976, that “Playgirl and Viva made male nudity on newsstands viable”; it was the same year he took out a full-page ad in the trade magazine Advertising Age, headlined: “Now you can reach America’s most affluent minority…The Male Homosexual.” TMH was seen to be single and to have money to spare. The ads in Blueboy targeted an audience interested in self-care, bodily upkeep, and places in which clothes could be easily shed. The tagline for a K’WEST skin products ad made it clear: “Fashion Pointers for the Well Undressed Male—Clothes may make the man but only K’WEST makes the man touchable.” Contourex offered “a new exercise system designed to give you tighter, shaplier [sic] buns.” Cabana wear by International Male. Caftans by Ah Men.

Blueboy had a small part in the push to transvalue issues of class specificity into issues of taste—what’s classy, what’s not—rather than only into realpolitik. Some of the magazine’s models were trade, which was the vernacular before gay-for-pay, and before the entire mainstreaming of sexual preference—with its radical potential for undoing rote and rigid forms of relationality—became gay-for-pay or pay-for-gay—PayPal (read GayPal) in a sense, before the fact. In the quest to sell its dream, America has always privileged affluence, a dream of financial security, even clout, wooing a striving majority, whether they were part of a minority population or not, to vote with their wallets.

The fight to end the AIDS pandemic would rally grassroots coalitions and would stymie that push, if only for a moment; putting the action between the sheets into the streets. Fran Lebowitz has provided some of the most searching thinking on how we still live in the wake of that moment, the consequence of kinds of audience, many of whom would have read Blueboy alongside Interview:

When I was young, you know, later ’70s early ’80s, my first real audience was from Interview magazine, and at that time that audience was 99.9% homosexual, male homosexual. And that audience was very important to me. This is part of what formed my voice.

Everyone talks about the effect that AIDS had on the culture—I mean, people don’t talk about it anymore, but when people did talk about it—they talked about what artists were lost, but they never talked about this audience that was lost. When people talk about, like, Why was the New York City Ballet so great? Well, it was because of Balanchine and Jerry Robbins and people like that, but also that audience…was so… I can’t even think of the word. I mean, if Suzanne Farrell went like this [tiny gesture of fingers] instead of this [the reverse of that tiny gesture] that was it: she might as well just kill herself. There would be like a billion people who knew exactly every single thing. There was such a high level of connoisseurship…of everything that people like this were interested in. Of everything. That made the culture better. A very discerning audience, an audience with a high level of connoisseurship, is as important to the culture as artists. It is exactly as important. Now, we don’t have any kind of connoisseur audience. When that audience died, and that audience died in five minutes. Literally, people didn’t die faster in a war. And it allowed, of course, the second, third, fourth tier to rise to the front. Because, of course, the first people who died of AIDS were the people, oh, I don’t know how to put this, got laid a lot. Okay, now imagine who didn’t get AIDS? Okay? That’s who was then lauded as the great artists, okay? If the other people who hadn’t died, if they were alive, if they all came back to life, and I would say to them, Guess who’s a big star? Guess! Guess who has a show on Broadway? Guess who’s like a famous photographer? They would fall on the floor. Are you kidding me? Because everyone else died. Last man standing. […] Things in the culture that had nothing to do with the New York City Ballet, it just got dumbed down, dumbed down, dumbed down—all the way down. What we have had, in, like, the last 30 years, is too much democracy in the culture, not enough democracy in the society.

Inspired by mokuhanga, Japanese woodblock printing, Majoli’s large-scale Whiteline woodcut watercolor paintings are based on images from Blueboy, circa 1976-79, a period she considers “the halcyon years of gay liberation, when homosexuality was understood to be politically charged and under threat, presaging the trauma of the AIDS epidemic.” Halcyon provides a way to understand the aesthetic of the soft-core centerfolds of the magazine: the lighting is sun-kissed, the palette warm with rose-golds’ ember glow, the bodies toned and unmanscaped. Mother Nature smiles on these men making themselves available to other men, a possibility she always intended. (Long before homosexuality was legal, porn would show men in showers or out in nature, among flora and fauna, and it would be theoretically stingy not to see such scenarios as emphasizing the cleanliness and naturalness of such pleasures, when they were still seen to be “dirty” and “unnatural.”) The models were known by their first names (“Joe”, “Roger”); some appeared a single time, while others became featured players; they all had histories, lives, and they’re seen in repose that is also work. Their cocks, balls, and buns remain, as they were, magnificent and inviting. The hard-edged, roided body of the 1980s—a “built” body weaponized, Ramboized (apotropaically and/or phantasmatically) against viral invasion and wasting—is nowhere to be seen.

While considering all that is lost when the map of masculinity permits few ways to trace the radical potential of male vulnerability, tenderness, as a source of strength and communing, don’t fail to reckon with what Monica achieves with the gentle but grand shift in scale from the magazine centerfold: these works are history paintings. They chronicle not only soft power rather than toxic masculinity, but also sexual fantasy, intimacy in which the nameable earns no more importance than the nameless or unnameable. The pigments with which the paintings are made, water-soluble, suggest tears and/or sweat (synecdoches for other bodily fluids), no longer mistaken as dangerous, contaminant, but, whether joyfully or sadly, communicating without need of language. These radiant, touching pictures embody a vision of how once we were in love with life.

Bruce Hainley

Link: Monica Majoli at Galerie Buchholz

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thecloudlight-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Cloudlight

New Post has been published on https://cloudlight.biz/blogger-opens-up-about-wearing-a-string-bikini/

Blogger opens up about wearing a string bikini

However this week, she did it. She put on a bikini, went to the seashore, and posed for a photoshoot with a chum. ‘I’ve Always cherished myself,’ wrote Sarah. ‘However, how I’ve described that love has modified dramatically of new. I’ve Continually passionately believed in the right we all should feel smooth in our pores and skin. At any size, at any weight, at any stage of existence. ‘However feeling “attractiveness” in our skin isn’t the equal thing as feeling free in our body. And, as I realize now, it isn’t the same as feeling bold. Empowered. Equipped. Excited. Energized. Lively.’

The past 12 months, Sarah has learned how to be ‘unapologeti

For her body and how she feels about it. And that’s set her loose. Now, she desires to inspire different humans to prevent traumatic about what humans think and start doing what makes them experience precisely. She wrote: ‘Need to understand something? Sit down for this, due to the fact this obese, 38-yr old female is about to drop a truth bomb on you.

Blogging Tools: The Importance of Webinars for Bloggers

The tool this is getting popular in recent times is the webinar. For bloggers, webinars method that they could train additional information, in depth of information to a completely unique group of folks that are deeply devoted to you. Who provide their call and electronic mail cope with moreover for your publication subscription, to extra coaching possibilities with you. You could surely get very intimate with them in the course of that 1/2 an hour or hour with them through offering so much wonderful content, splendid facts and assist.

So that a few humans will select at the stop of the webinar, they may pick definitely to work with you in other approaches, paid approaches, so to mention. Webinars usually are free however later in the direction of the end of the webinar, You could introduce your products or services which are related to your coaching vicinity of the present day topic of the webinar.

This manner, truly, You may even promote your products and services.

So as to have the possibility to add a webinar, you have to have some kind of video convention name or teleconference name opportunities and to have a group teleconference call, so to say, In order that 10, 20, 50 or a hundred or extra humans would acquire online the same time. You will provide this brilliant content material, either in audio or in a video, or in the combination of each and they might sincerely be pleased about you. In your time and know-how and your assist.

You may certainly additionally record your training in advanced and use, so to say, an automated webinar offerings, So that humans should get your teachings even whilst you sleep, even while you are on an excursion. It truly is a very powerful device.

Basketball Arm Sleeves: Why You Should Be Wearing Them

Basketball arm sleeves have ended up a famous accessory with players ranging from NBA stars to young youngsters in neighborhood children leagues. Rather new to the basketball international, those arm sleeves got here onto the scene in 2001, first worn by way of Allen Iverson. There are many motives to wear basketball arm sleeves along with boosting overall performance and reducing damage. Irrespective of what basketball capabilities you’ve got, shooting sleeves are well worth incorporating into your athletic wardrobe.

Temperature law

While playing a pickup the sport or a complete-fledged group affair, basketball arm sleeves will help your hands stay warm and in flip will increase your flexibility. That is most essential in the course of heat up, as That is the time when your muscle tissue are prone to damage if they’re overextended. Not most effective do shooting sleeves help in the course of warm up, due to the fact they may be made from performance fabrics that wick moisture away from the pores and skin, they adjust the temperature of your arm, keeping it at a greater regular temperature all through the route of your sport. This prevents the muscle mass to your arm from cooling down too rapid, risking possible harm.

Covers tattoos

Many basketball players have tattoos, some of which aren’t desirable for an own family friendly surroundings. In these instances, a taking pictures sleeve is an amazing way to cool them up. The fabric and fit of basketball sleeves are designed for flexibility and motion so they will Not reduce performance and actually can gain the participant. That is a simple answer that maintains basketball G-rated.

Boosts Self-belief

That feeling you’ve got once you have a haircut or donning a new pair of shoes always offers me a touch raise of Confidence. The identical is actual of wearing basketball arm sleeves. Wearing a brand new sleeve to your favorite shade, or one that has more than one colors or a splendid design may be all that is had to give you the greater Self-assurance to sink that jumper you have been working on.

Improves shape

Basketball arm sleeves help the elbow live straight during the taking pictures movement. This development in shape may be an outstanding assist to anybody that doesn’t have the best shot. The of enhancing your form will be observed whilst you see your capturing percent go up. sporting basketball arm sleeves which have compression will offer more aid and shape correction than shooting sleeves that don’t have compression.

Prevents and protects cuts

Basketball arm sleeves can help prevent trauma to the arm or shield any superficial wounds. these sleeves upload a layer of overall performance material with the intention to No longer prevent your overall performance. In doing so, shooting sleeves come up with a layer of safety from cuts or scrapes which you wouldn’t otherwise have At the same time as playing basketball. In case you are within the technique of recovery a cut or scrape to your arm then a shooting sleeve can assist guard the damage and also will assist to hold any bandages in place.

Padding

Some shooter sleeves have bendy padding included into the elbow. This padding allows reducing the ability for injury if a fall is taken or any physical touch takes place as is commonplace in basketball. No person wants to be nursing an elbow injury once they can be obtainable at the court.

Compression

Utilizing compression basketball sleeves can advantage your fitness No longer simplest at some point of play however additionally after practice to speed recuperation. Compression arm sleeves paintings by using putting the direct strain to the arm. This squeezes the capillaries and larger blood vessels inside the arm, which will increase circulate within the limb. Stepped forward blood glide way that greater of the lactic acid generated at some stage in exercising is carried far away from your muscle tissues, as a result lowering soreness and dashing recovery. Compression shooting sleeves when used for recuperation additionally reduce the quantity of irritation associated muscle swelling with the aid of reducing the ability for fluid to acquire in the tissues of the arm.

The Enduring Appeal of the Bikini

In terms of selecting the proper swimming wear, it’s all approximately the iconic attraction. And not anything appeals greater than the bikini!

Apparently, the ‘bikini’ celebrated 70 years this 12 months from its modest starting in 1946. There is an thrilling history in the back of the clothing and it name. All of it started as a race to be modern via rival Parisian apparel designers. The ‘Atome’ become unveiled in 1946 by Jaques Heim as the sector’s smallest suit. On show become a teeny bra, ruffly knickers and a whole expanse of stomach in between. It got the style international in a twirl. However slightly a month later, Heim’s rival Louis Reard showcased an even smaller go well with, calling it the ‘Bikini’ after the Pacific Ocean island of Bikini Atoll which was the test website for the primary atom bomb! What stuck everybody’s interest was the tagline that a ‘actual bikini must be small enough to skip thru a marriage ring’!

The Hollywood beauties of those days from Brigitte Bardot to Jane Mansfield to Esther Williams and Marilyn Monroe, formidable and brazen bikinis have been splashed at the covers of every magazine worldwide. Although the clothing incarnation greatly surprised many, it nonetheless quick improved the appeal of womanhood and a girl’s sexuality. It soon became a mark of body self belief as increasingly more ladies fast usual the bikini no matter the scandalous and outrageous evaluations and comments it turned into receiving. Over the years, the bikini has gone through sea transformation and has adapted to suit the needs of girls with numerous frame kinds However has stayed rooted in archived designs In terms of fashion.

Petite body

Women with petite frames need to designs with putting patterns like bold stripes or polka dots to intensify the bust. A excessive-waisted bottom makes the legs attraction longer and slimmer.

Big chested

Mix-and-fit separates or elaborations which are located strategically regularly take the focus faraway from a Huge bustline. Minimizer fits are highly preferred and gathers on the waistline assist to create a flattering department between the pinnacle and bottom.

Plus sized

Attractive However realistic is the way to move. Here a suit with adequate again coverage and an awesome strong bra in solid colours is the pleasant guess. A casual sarong helps to conceal heavy thighs even as complementing body curves.

Pear fashioned

A cutaway fashion hides heavy hips which numerous girls are very conscious about. Highlighting the small bustline and waist through a combination of demure and Attractive enables women who don’t wish to compromise on an unflattering top or backside.

Athletic figure

For women with tall limbs However small bust and hips, a swimming gear layout that provides femininity is the first-rate desire. pinnacle and backside of various solid colors breaks the lengthy torso But seems properly on a lean and toned determine.

Originally posted 2016-08-28 02:19:45.

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Best Horror Movies Streaming on HBO Max

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Editor’s Note: This post is updated monthly. Bookmark this page and come back every month to see the new horror movies on HBO Max.

What ever would we do without horror?

So much of our day to day life is built around logic and known, verifiable facts, and for some, the rest of the time must be supplemented with comforting reassurances that everything is going to be alright. Well if the last year has taught us anything… that’s not the case. Perhaps this is why horror hounds know the best way to face abstract fears is to confront them head on… and preferably with a screen in the way.

Alien

Alien has since evolved into a heady, science fiction franchise that has stretched out for decades. The original film, however, is a small-scale, terrifyingly claustrophobic thriller.

Altered States

What if you could tap into the vast swaths of the brain you never use? What if you did and didn’t like what we found? And what if it was an absolute psychedelic rush of a cinematic experience?

Yes, he manages to expand his consciousness; he also begins to expand his physical body as it transforms beneath his skin. Or does it? Well that’s yet another good question…

An American Werewolf in London

Arguably the definitive werewolf movie, John Landis’ 1981 horror masterpiece has the single greatest on-screen lycanthropic transformation in movie history… and that’s only one of its appeals.

New Line Cinema

Blade II

Perhaps Guillermo del Toro‘s schlockiest movie, there’s still great fun to be had by all in Blade II. As a sequel to the 1998 vampire actioner that starred Wesley Snipes as the titular “daywalker,” Blade II builds on the lore of the first film and its secret underground society of bloodsuckers who Blade must do battle with.

However, del Toro heightens both the Gothic lunacy of it all, as well as the horror quotient. Truly there are few sights as gross in vampire lore as Luke Goss’ Nomak, a new type of monster whose face opens like a flower, revealing a gaping hole of fangs and tongue…

The Brood

I bet you never thought placenta could look so tasty, but when Samantha Eggar’s Nola Carveth licks her newborn clean you’ll be craving sloppy seconds within the hour. She brings feline intuition to female troubles. We get it. Having a new baby can be scary. Having a brood is terrifying. Feminine power is the most horrifying of all for male directors used to being in control.

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Best Horror Movies on Netflix: Scariest Films to Stream

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Carnival of Souls

The Conjuring 2

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By Daniel Kurland

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By David Crow

Doctor Sleep

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By John Saavedra

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Doctor Sleep: Rebecca Ferguson on Becoming the New Shining Villain

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Eraserhead

“In Heaven, everything is fine,” sings the Lady in the Radiator in Eraserhead. “You’ve got your good things, and I’ve got mine.”

Eyes Without a Face

From Dusk Till Dawn

Some movies have such a gonzo left turn between acts that audiences will either go with it or throw their popcorn at the screen in disgust. For most viewers, including us, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s From Dusk Till Dawn is happily the former. An absolutely wild mash-up of the gangster genre that both filmmakers were redefining in the 1990s and the type of schlocky grindhouse thrills they worshipped at 1970s drive-ins, From Dusk Till Dawn is one of the strangest and most satisfying vampire movies ever made.

Culture

The Bleeding Heart of Dracula

By David Crow

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By David Crow

With a story that improbably pairs Tarantino and George Clooney as on screen brothers, the flick recounts how the duo’s notorious Gecko Brothers kidnap a nice Christian family ruled by a doubting pastor (Harvey Keitel) in order to sneak across the Mexican border. But once there, the strip club they choose to spend the night in has the unfortunate gimmick of being run by ancient vampires, including Salma Hayek as the Queen of the Undead. It’s batshit good fun, and a far better tribute to grindhouse cinema than the Grindhouse double-feature the same filmmakers would partner on a decade later.

Godzilla

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The Invisible Man

After years of false starts and failed attempts at resurrecting the classic Universal Monsters, Universal Pictures finally figured out how to make it work: They called Blumhouse Productions.

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By Rosie Fletcher

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Lifeforce

But for those with a singular taste for batshit pulp run amok, Lifeforce needs to be seen to be believed: Naked French vampire girls from outer space! Hordes of extras as zombies marauding through downtown London! Lush Henry Mancini music over special effects way outside of Cannon Films’ budget!!! Patrick Stewart as an authority figure possessed by said naked French space vampire, trying to seduce an astronaut via makeout sessions?!

Movies

Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce: Space Vampires, Comets, and Nudity

By Ryan Lambie

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By Ryan Lambie

… What is this movie? Why does it exist? We don’t know, but we’re probably more glad it does than the people who made it.

Magic

The Most Dangerous Game

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By David Crow

Culture

Why King Kong Can Never Escape His Past

By David Crow

Night of the Living Dead

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”

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By Alex Carter

Games

The George Romero Resident Evil Movie You Never Saw

By David Crow

The Others

Alejandro Amenabar (Open Your Eyes) wrote and directed this elegant ghost story. Nicole Kidman is superb as Grace, who relocates herself and her two small children to a remote country estate in the aftermath of World War II. Their highly structured life — the children are sensitive to sunlight and must stay in darkened rooms — is shattered by mysterious presences in the house.

Amenabar relies on mood, atmosphere and a few well-placed scares to make this an excellent modern-day companion to classics like The Haunting and The Innocents.

Ready or Not

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Sisters

Vampyr

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

Some do not count Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, the seventh film in the Nightmare on Elm Street saga, as actually part of the series. As a gleefully meta exercise in self-awareness and self-critique, the film shirks off continuing the narrative from the last batch of Freddy Krueger movies, the last of which had the title Freddy’s Dead. Rather writer-director Wes Craven, returning to the series for the first time as director since the original, attempts to wrestle the horror icon back from pop culture. When Craven and actor Robert Englund created Freddy in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, the fiend was a menacing, demonic child murderer. By 1994, he’d turn into a kid-friendly pop culture personality and huckster.

Movies

Best Modern Horror Movies

By Don Kaye

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Nightmare on Elm Street: Is Dream Warriors the Best Freddy Krueger Movie?

By David Crow

With Englund on board, as well as the original film’s star in Heather Langenkamp, New Nightmare has the knotty concept of being about Langenkamp playing a version of herself: an actress who did a slasher movie 10 years ago and is still in some ways haunted by it. In real life she faced a stalker calling her at all hours of the night; in the movie, it’s Freddy. Or a Demon who’s taken the shape of Freddy… it’s complicated. The movie’s reach may exceed its grasp in terms of artistry, but at the very least Freddy was scary again for one last time. And the film’s ambition in crafting a waking nightmare of movies bleeding into our reality is still impressive.

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