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amoveablejake · 3 years

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You Never Know...Right?

Why do we do this to ourselves

At the beginning of the 2020/21 Premier League season I wrote a prediction piece for the year ahead. How that went, whose to say but rest assured I will be held accountable for my horrendous predictions in a piece soon. But today, is not that day. No, because today, less than a week until the 2020 European Championship begins (yes, 2020) I am going to throw down the gauntlet and make some more outlandish predictions that will come back to haunt me. Well, sort of predictions. Last time around I went through every team but I’m not doing that this outing quite simply because I don’t know each team well enough (sorry North Macedonia) so instead I will be going through them group by group and then immediately regretting what I’ve cursed my favored teams with particularly those with the three lions on their chest. *Sigh* Lets get going with the heartbreak shall we.

Group A: Italy, Switzerland, Wales and Turkey

I am always nervous about the Italian team. That’s not because of the historical strength of the Italian side and the masters of the game they have produced over the years, its not because of the wonderful kits they have this time around, its not because of the strength of the Serie A, no, its because they won the 2006 World Cup. And sure, since then they haven’t ever hit that height again, even missing out on the previous tournament but as that was the first true World Cup I can remember I live in fear of them. The team this time around is good, I would say even better than that one in 2006 in some key areas but its missing that spark. That Pirlo magic, that knowledge that Buffon is in goal ready to protect you. Ofcourse, I’m sure that Chiesa is going to make this his tournament and run rings around his opponents as he has been doing all season for Juventus. As for the others in this group, Switzerland and Turkey are those sorts of teams that always have an upset in their back pocket and are capable of rallying against the odds to progress further than they may have been tipped for. As for Wales, they are probably the other favourites to progress alongside Italy but I think it will be a much tougher road for them to get out the group stage and if I had to pick my top two its going to be Italy and Switzerland. Lets watch that age badly shall we.

Group B: Belgium, Finland, Denmark and Russia

Despite not winning the 2018 World Cup Belgium still managed to exit the tournament with a great sense of accomplishment and have enjoyed sitting at the top of the Fifa world rankings in the last couple of years. A position they do deserve, the Belgium squad is filled with wonderful players, De Bruyne, Mertens, Lukaku, Courthois and two Hazards. The thing is, Lukaku is coming off the back of an intense title winning season in Serie A, De Bryune is suffering an injury and Eden Hazard, well, its not clicked at Real shall we say. Belgium are truly a world class team but I don’t think this will be their tournament, they should however, make it through this group with relative ease. ‘Should’ being the operative word there. As for the others, I would love it if Denmark could make it through to the knockout stage and they do have a good, capable team but I think it will be Russia who make it out. As for Finland, I don’t know too much about the team but I’m always excited to see if an underdog can perform and capture my heart so maybe that will be them. They do have one of the finest kits of the tournament afterall.

Group C: Austria, North Macedonia, Netherlands and Ukraine

Like the Belgium group this is another one where you look at it on paper and see the Netherlands storming into the knockout rounds. And yes, they absolutely should. They have a wonderful team that qualified with ease. The orange clad men always seem to enjoy a good run out at international tournaments whilst always falling short of the finish line. I do enjoy watching them play and progress and thats no different here as I’ll be hoping that they do get through. They should, again ‘should’, be joined by Austria but I would love it, absolutely adore it, if North Macedonia went through. What a lovely time that would be. I’ve just realised I haven’t mentioned Ukraine which probably means they will win the entire tournament.

Group D: Croatia, Czech Republic, Scotland and England

Here we go. World in motion. Heartbreak city. The England squad is potentially one of the strongest its ever been, sure there are some omissions and the starting xi may not be what I have in mind but boy oh boy do I believe. I believe. And I will believe for about two minutes into the Croatia game. This is a group that has heartbreak written all over it and as a true England fan that is what I’ve come to expect. Pain. Pain that will ultimately come from a brief fleeting moments of the best football you have ever seen and daring to beleive it may infact come home only for that to be ripped away. Its how this works. I’m not even going to talk about the other teams beause I don’t want to tempt fate. Fine. I like Croatia even after all the suffering they have brought us over the years, Czech Republic are always strong and its nice that Scotland have at last come to the party. I just wish it wasn’t in this group.

Group E: Poland, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden

For me, this group is all about Lewandowski. After this truly historic season with Bayern I hope that run of form continues into the Euros. Lewandowski is one of those players I’ll be boring the children about and speaking of how incredible his forty one goal season is. It would be great to see him perform with Poland and to take them into the knockout stages and who knows, as Zlatan isn’t with the Sweden team that may happen. As for Spain, like with Italy their triumphant run of trophies from 2008 to 2012 (two Euros and one World Cup) has made me increasingly aware of them and I used to adore watching that team of Torres, Villa, Casillas, Xavi and Iniesta play. But that was then and this is now and the Spain team of 2021 isn’t quite the same of the masters of old but still, they should be progressing here.

Group F: France, Portugal, Germany and Hungary.

If Hungary make it through this group. Man alive, we should give them the trophy there and then. This is the party group, the group of death. Three incredible teams going up against each other including the Euros holder Portugal and the World Cup winners France. There are a lot of great narratives running through this group, Portugal are once again being led by Cristiano Ronaldo who is ofcourse desperate to win another trophy and cement his already concrete legacy. Germany are once again looking strong and this is Low’s last outing with the team before passing the reigns over to Hansi Flick. Not to mention Hummels and Muller have been recalled to the squad. And then, there is France. I adore this team, sorry, j’adore this France squad. It is filled with wonderful players (okay you’ve twisted my arm I’ll name them, Pogba, Kante, Lloris, Varane, Griezmann, Giroud, Benzema and Mbappe). They’re such a strong side and play with truly wonderful elegance. They won the World Cup in 2018 for a reason and have only grown stronger. Benzema has been recalled after carrying Real Madrid and Mbappe, well, he’s alright I guess.

Writing the above yet again highlighted the fact that this is an incredibly hard tournament to win. There is truyl world class talent on display and no team will walk to the final. But, you have to beleive right. And sure, tears will be flowing, I have no illusions about that, but for now its nice to beleive that maybe just maybe France won’t obliterate us too much.

-Jake, a man who is getting ready to apply for a French passport, 06/06/2021

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grigori77 · 5 years

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Movies of 2019 - My Pre-Summer Favourites (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10. GLASS – back in 2000, I went from liking the work of The Sixth Sense’s writer-director M. Night Shyamalan to becoming a genuine FAN thanks to his sneakily revisionist deconstruction of superhero tropes, Unbreakable. It’s STILL my favourite film of his to date, and one of my Top Ten superhero movies EVER, not just a fascinating examination of the mechanics of the genre but also a very satisfying screen origin story – needless to say I’m one of MANY fans who’ve spent nearly two decades holding out hope for a sequel. Flash forward to 2016 and Shyamalan’s long-overdue return-to-form sleeper hit, Split, which not only finally put his career back on course but also dropped a particularly killer end twist by actually being that very sequel. Needless to say 2019 was the year we FINALLY got our PROPER reward for all our patience – Glass is the TRUE continuation of the Unbreakable universe and the closer of a long-intended trilogy. Turns out, though, that it’s also his most CONTROVERSIAL film for YEARS, dividing audiences and critics alike with its unapologetically polarizing plot and execution – I guess that, after a decade of MCU and a powerhouse trilogy of Batman movies from Chris Nolan, we were expecting an epic, explosive action-fest to close things out, but that means we forgot exactly what it is about Shyamalan we got to love so much, namely his unerring ability to subvert and deconstruct whatever genre he’s playing around in. And he really doesn’t DO spectacle, does he? That said, this film is still a surprisingly BIG, sprawling piece of work, even if it the action is, for the most part, MUCH more internalised than most superhero movies. Not wanting to drop any major spoilers on the few who still haven’t seen it, I won’t give away any major plot points, suffice to say that ALL the major players from both Unbreakable and Split have returned – former security guard David Dunn (Bruce Willis) has spent the past nineteen years exploring his super-strength and near-invulnerability while keeping Philadelphia marginally safer as hooded vigilante the Overseer, and the latest target of his crime-fighting crusade is Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy), the vessel of 24 split personalities collectively known as the Horde, who’s continuing his cannibalistic serial-murder spree through the streets. Both are being hunted by the police, as well as Dr. Ellie Staple (series newcomer Sarah Paulson), a clinical psychiatrist specialising in treating individuals who suffer the delusional belief that they’re superheroes, her project also encompassing David’s former mentor-turned-nemesis Elijah Price, the eponymous Mr. Glass, whose life-long suffering from a crippling bone disease that makes his body dangerously fragile has done nothing to blunt the genius-level intellect that’s made him a ruthlessly accomplished criminal mastermind. How these remarkable individuals are brought together makes for fascinating viewing, and while it may be a good deal slower and talkier than some might have preferred, this is still VERY MUCH the Shyamalan we first came to admire – fiendishly inventive, slow-burn suspenseful and absolutely DRIPPING with cool, earworm dialogue, his characteristically mischievous sense of humour still present and correct, and he’s still retained that unswerving ability to wrong-foot us at every turn, right up to one of his most surprising twist endings to date. The cast are, as ever, on fire, the returning hands all superb while those new to the universe easily measure up to the quality of talent on display – Willis and Jackson are, as you’d expect, PERFECT throughout, brilliantly building on the incredibly solid groundwork laid in Unbreakable, while it’s a huge pleasure to see Anya Taylor-Joy, Spencer Treat Clark (a fine actor we don’t see NEARLY enough of, in my opinion) and Charlayne Woodard get MUCH bigger, more prominent roles this time out, while Paulson delivers an understated but frequently mesmerising turn as the ultimate unshakable sceptic. As with Split, however, the film is once again comprehensively stolen by McAvoy, whose truly chameleonic performance actually manages to eclipse its predecessor in its levels of sheer genius. Altogether this is another sure-footed step in the right direction for a director who’s finally regained his singular auteur prowess – say what you will about that ending, but it certainly is a game-changer, as boldly revisionist as anything that’s preceded it and therefore, in my opinion, exactly how it SHOULD have gone. If nothing else, this is a film that should be applauded for its BALLS …

9. PET SEMATARY – first off, let me say that I never saw the 1989 feature adaptation of Stephen King’s story, so I have no comparative frame of reference there – I WILL say, however, that the original novel is, in my opinion, easily one of the strongest offerings from America’s undisputed master of literary horror, so any attempt made to bring it to the big screen had better be a good one. Thankfully, this version more than delivers in that capacity, proving to be one of the more impressive of his cinematic outings in recent years (not quite up to the standard of The Mist, perhaps, but about on a par with It: Chapter One or the criminally overlooked 1408), as well as one of this year’s best horror offerings by far (at least for now). This may be the feature debut of directing double-act Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, but they both display a wealth of natural talent here, wrangling bone-chilling scares and a pervading atmosphere of oppressive dread to deliver a top-notch screen fright-fest that works its way under your skin and stays put for days after. Jason Clarke is a classic King everyman hero as Boston doctor Louis Creed, displaced to the small Maine town of Ludlow as he trades the ER for a quiet clinic practice so he can spent more time with his family – Amy Seimetz (Upstream Color, Stranger Things), excellent throughout as his haunted, emotionally fragile wife Rachel, toddler son Gage (twins Hugo and Lucas Lavole), and daughter Ellie (newcomer Jeté Laurence, BY FAR the film’s biggest revelation, delivering to the highest degree even when her role becomes particularly intense). Their new home seems idyllic, the only blots being the main road at the end of their drive which experiences heavy traffic from speeding trucks, and the children’s pet cemetery in the woods at the back of their garden, which has become something of a local landmark. But there’s something far darker in the deeper places beyond, an ancient place of terrible power Louis is introduced to by their well-meaning but ultimately fallible elderly neighbour Jud (one of the best performances I’ve ever seen from screen legend John Lithgow) when his daughter’s beloved cat Church is run over. The cat genuinely comes back, but he’s irrevocably changed, the once sweet and lovable furball now transformed into a menacingly mangy little four-legged psychopath, and his resurrection sets off a chain of horrific events destined to devour the entire family … this is supernatural horror at its most inherently unnerving, mercilessly twisting the screws throughout its slow-burn build to the inevitable third act bloodbath and reaching a bleak, soul-crushing climax that comes close to rivalling the still unparalleled sucker-punch of The Mist – the adaptation skews significantly from King’s original at the mid-point, but even purists will be hard-pressed to deny that this is still VERY MUCH in keeping with the spirit of the book right up to its harrowing closing shot. The King of Horror has been well served once again – it’s may well be ousted when It: Chapter 2 arrives in September, but fans can rest assured that his dark imagination continues to inspire some truly great cinematic scares …

8. PROSPECT – I love a good cinematic underdog, there’s always some dynamite indies and sleepers that just about slip through the cracks that I end up championing every year, and 2019’s current favourite was a minor sensation at 2018’s South By Southwest film festival, a singularly original ultra-low-budget sci-fi adventure that made a genuine virtue of its miniscule budget. Riffing on classic eco-minded space flicks like Silent Running, it introduces a father-and-daughter prospecting team who land a potentially DEEPLY lucrative contract mining for an incredibly rare element on a toxic jungle moon – widower Damon (Transparent’s Jay Duplass), who’s downtrodden and world-weary but still a dreamer, and teenager Cee (relative newcomer Sophie Thatcher), an introverted bookworm with hidden reserves of ingenuity and fortitude. The job starts well, Damon setting his sights on a rumoured “queen’s layer” that could make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, but when they meet smooth-talking scavenger Ezra (Narcos’ Pedro Pascal), things take a turn for the worse – Damon is killed and Cee is forced to team up with Ezra to have any hope of survival on this hostile, unforgiving moon. Thatcher is an understated joy throughout, her seemingly detached manner belying hidden depths of intense feeling, while Pascal, far from playing a straight villain, turns Ezra into something of a tragic, charismatic antihero we eventually start to sympathise with, and the complex relationship that develops between them is a powerful, mercurial thing, the constantly shifting dynamic providing a powerful driving force for the film. Debuting writer-directors Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell have crafted a wonderfully introspective, multi-layered tone poem of aching beauty, using subtle visual effects and a steamy, glow-heavy colour palette to make the lush forest environs into something nonetheless eerie and inhospitable, while the various weird and colourful denizens of this deadly little world prove that Ezra may be the LEAST of the dangers Cee faces in her hunt for escape. Inventive, intriguing and a veritable feast for the eyes and intellect, this is top-notch indie sci-fi and a sign of great things to come from its creators, thoroughly deserving of some major cult recognition in the future.

7. DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE – S. Craig Zahler is a writer-director who’s become a major fixture on my ones-to-watch list in recent years, instantly winning me over with his dynamite debut feature Bone Tomahawk before cementing that status with awesome follow-up Brawl On Cell Block 99. His latest is another undeniable hit that starts deceptively simply before snowballing into a sprawling urban crime epic as it follows its main protagonists – disgraced Bulwark City cops Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Tony Lurasetti (Cell Block 99’s Vince Vaughn), on unpaid suspension after their latest bust leads to a PR nightmare – on a descent into a hellish criminal underworld as they set out to “seek compensation” for their situation by ripping off the score from a bank robbery spearheaded by ruthlessly efficient professional thief Lorentz Vogelmann (Thomas Kretschmann). In lesser hands, this two-hour-forty-minute feature might have felt like a painfully padded effort that would have passed far better chopped down to a breezy 90-minutes, but Zahler is such a compellingly rich and resourceful writer that every scene is essential viewing, overflowing with exquisitely drawn characters spouting endlessly quotable, gold-plated dialogue, and the constantly shifting narrative focus brings such consistent freshness that the increasingly complex plot remains rewarding right to the end. The two leads are both typically excellent – Vaughn gets to let loose with a far more showy, garrulous turn here than his more reserved character in his first collaboration with Zahler, while this is EASILY the best performance I’ve seen Gibson deliver in YEARS, the grizzled veteran clearly having a fine old time getting his teeth into a particularly meaty role that very much plays to his strengths – and they’re brilliantly bolstered by an excellent supporting cast – Get Rich Or Die Tryin’s Tory Kittles easily matches them in his equally weighty scenes as Henry Johns, a newly-released ex-con also out to improve his family’s situation with a major score, while Kretschmann is at his most chilling as the brutal killer who executes his plans with cold-blooded precision, and there are wonderful scene-stealing offerings from Jennifer Carpenter, Udo Kier, Don Johnson (three more Zahler regulars, each having worked with Vaughn on Cell Block 99), Michael Jai White, Laurie Holden and newcomer Miles Truitt. This is a really meaty film, dark, intense, gritty and unflinching in its portrayal of honest, unglamorous violence and its messy aftermath, but fans of grown-up filmmaking will find PLENTY to enjoy here, Zahler crafting a crime epic comparable to the heady best of Scorsese and Tarantino. Another sure-fire winner from one of the best new filmmakers around.

6. SHAZAM! – there are actually THREE movies featuring Captain Marvel out this year, but this offering from the hit-and-miss DCEU cinematic franchise is a very different beast from his MCU-based namesake, and besides, THIS Cap long ago ditched said monicker for the far more catchy (albeit rather more oddball) title that graces Warner Bros’ latest step back on the right track for their superhero Universe following December’s equally enjoyable Aquaman and franchise high-point Wonder Woman. Although he’s never actually referred to in the film by this name, Shazam (Chuck’s Zachary Levy) is the magically-powered alternate persona bestowed upon wayward fifteen year-old foster kid Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) by an ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou) seeking one pure soul to battle Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong), a morally corrupt physicist who turns into a monstrous supervillain after becoming the vessel for the spiritual essences of the Seven Deadly Sins (yup, that thoroughly batshit setup is just the tip of the iceberg of bonkersness on offer in this movie). Yes, this IS set in the DC Extended Universe, Shazam sharing his world with Superman, Batman, the Flash et al, and there are numerous references (both overt and sly) to this fact throughout (especially in the cheeky animated closing title sequence), but it’s never laboured, and the film largely exists in its own comfortably enclosed narrative bubble, allowing us to focus on Billy, his alter ego and in particular his clunky (but oh so much fun) bonding experiences with his new foster family, headed by former foster kid couple Victor and Rosa Vazquez (The Walking Dead’s Cooper Andrews and Marta Milans) – the most enjoyably portions of the film, however, are when Billy explores the mechanics and limits of his newfound superpowers with his new foster brother Freddy Freeman (It: Chapter One’s Jack Dylan Glazer), a consistently hilarious riot of bad behaviour, wanton (often accidental) destruction and perfectly-observed character development, the blissful culmination of a gleefully anarchic sense of humour that, until recently, has been rather lacking in the DCEU but which is writ large in bright, wacky primary colours right through this film. Sure, there are darker moments, particularly when Sivana sets loose his fantastic icky brood of semi-incorporeal monsters, and these scenes are handled with seasoned skill by director David F. Sandberg, who cut his teeth on ingenious little horror gem Lights Out (following up with Annabelle: Creation, but we don’t have to dwell on that), but for the most part the film is played for laughs, thrills and pure, unadulterated FUN, almost never taking itself too seriously, essentially intended to do for the DCEU what Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man did for the MCU, and a huge part of its resounding success must of course be attributed to the universally willing cast. Levy’s so ridiculously pumped-up he almost looks like a special effect all on his own, but he’s lost none of his razor-sharp comic ability, perfectly encapsulating a teenage boy in a grown man’s body, while his chemistry with genuine little comedic dynamo Glazer is simply exquisite, a flawless balance shared with Angel, who similarly excels at the humour but also delivers quality goods in some far more serious moments too, while the rest of Billy’s newfound family are all brilliant, particularly ridiculously adorable newcomer Faithe Herman as precocious little motor-mouth Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, adds significant class and gravitas to what could have been a cartoonish Gandalf spoof, and Mark Strong, as usual, gives great bad guy as Sivana, providing just the right amount of malevolent swagger and self-important smirk to proceedings without ever losing sight of the deeper darkness within. All round, this is EXACTLY the kind of expertly crafted superhero package we’ve come to appreciate in the genre, another definite shot in the arm for the DCEU that holds great hope for the future of the franchise, and some of the biggest fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year. Granted, it’s still not a patch on the MCU, but the quality gap does finally look to be closing …

5. ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL – y’know, there was a time when James Cameron was quite a prolific director, who could be counted upon to provide THE big event pic of the blockbuster season. These days, we’re lucky to hear from him once a decade, and now we don’t even seem to be getting that – the dream project Cameron’s been trying to make since the end of the 90s, a big live action adaptation of one of my favourite mangas of all time, Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita to use its more well-known sobriquet) by Yukito Kishiro, has FINALLY arrived, but it isn’t the big man behind the camera here since he’s still messing around with his intended FIVE MOVIE Avatar arc. That said, he made a damn good choice of proxy to bring his vision to fruition – Robert Rodriguez is, of course a fellow master of action cinema, albeit one with a much more quirky style, and this adap is child’s play to him, the creator of the El Mariachi trilogy and co-director of Frank Miller’s Sin City effortlessly capturing the dark, edgy life-and-death danger and brutal wonder of Kishiro’s world in moving pictures. 300 years after the Earth was decimated in a massive war with URM (the United Republics of Mars) known as “the Fall”, only one bastion of civilization remains – Iron City, a sprawling, makeshift community of scavengers that lies in the shadow of the floating city of Zalem, home of Earth’s remaining aristocracy. Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) runs a clinic in Iron City customising and repairing the bodies of its cyborg citizens, from the mercenary “hunter killers” to the fast-living players of Motorball (a kind of supercharged mixture of Rollerball and Death Race), one day discovering the wrecked remains of a female ‘borg in the junkyard of scrap accumulated beneath Zalem. Finding her human brain is still alive, he gives her a new chassis and christens her Alita, raising her as best he can as she attempts to piece together her mysterious, missing past, only for them both to discover that the truth of her origins has the potential to tear their fragile little world apart forever. The Maze Runner trilogy’s Rosa Salazar is the heart and soul of the film as Alita (originally Gally in the comics), perfectly bringing her (literal) wide-eyed innocence and irrepressible spirit to life, as well as proving every inch the diminutive badass fans have been expecting – while her overly anime-styled look might have seemed a potentially jarring distraction in the trailers, Salazar’s mocap performance is SO strong you’ve forgotten all about it within the first five minutes, convinced she’s a real, flesh-and-metal character – and she’s well supported by an exceptional ensemble cast both new and well-established. Waltz is the most kind and sympathetic he’s been since Django Unchained, instilling Ido with a worldly warmth and gentility that makes him a perfect mentor/father-figure, while Spooksville star Keean Johnson makes a VERY impressive big screen breakthrough as Hugo, the streetwise young dreamer with a dark secret that Alita falls for in a big way, Jennifer Connelly is icily classy as Ido’s ex-wife Chiren, Mahershala Ali is enjoyably suave and mysterious as the film’s nominal villain, Vector, an influential but seriously shady local entrepreneur with a major hidden agenda, and a selection of actors shine through the CGI in various strong mocap performances, such as Deadpool’s Ed Skrein, Derek Mears, From Dusk Til Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez and a thoroughly unrecognisable but typically awesome Jackie Earle Haley. As you’d expect from Rodriguez, the film delivers BIG TIME on the action front, unleashing a series of spectacular set-pieces that peak with Alita’s pulse-pounding Motorball debut, but there’s a pleasingly robust story under all the thrills and wow-factor, riffing on BIG THEMES and providing plenty of emotional power, especially in the heartbreaking character-driven climax – Cameron, meanwhile, has clearly maintained strict control over the project throughout, his eye and voice writ large across every scene as we’re thrust headfirst into a fully-immersive post-apocalyptic, rusty cyberpunk world as thoroughly fleshed-out as Avatar’s Pandora, but most importantly he’s still done exactly what he set out to do, paying the utmost respect to a cracking character as he brings her to vital, vivid life on the big screen. Don’t believe the detractors – this is a MAGNIFICENT piece of work that deserves all the recognition it can muster, perfectly set up for a sequel that I fear we may never get to see. Oh well, at least it’s renewed my flagging hopes for a return to Pandora …

4. HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD – while I love Disney and Pixar as much as the next movie nut, since the Millennium my loyalty has been slowly but effectively usurped by the consistently impressive (but sometimes frustratingly underappreciated) output of Dreamworks Animation Studios, and in recent years in particular they really have come to rival the House of Mouse in both the astounding quality of their work and their increasing box office reliability. But none of their own franchises (not even Shrek or Kung Fu Panda) have come CLOSE to equalling the sheer, unbridled AWESOMENESS of How to Train Your Dragon, which started off as a fairly loose adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s popular series of children’s stories but quickly developed a very sharp mind of its own – the first two films were undisputable MASTERPIECES, and this third and definitively FINAL chapter in the trilogy matches them to perfection, as well as capping the story off with all the style, flair and raw emotional power we’ve come to expect. The time has come to say goodbye to diminutive Viking Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, as effortlessly endearing as ever) and his adorable Night Fury mount/best friend Toothless, fiancée Astrid (America Ferrera, still tough, sassy and WAY too good for him), mother Valka (Cate Blanchett, classy, wise and still sporting a pretty flawless Scottish accent) and all the other Dragon Riders of the tiny, inhospitable island kingdom of Berk – their home has become overpopulated with scaly, fire-breathing denizens, while a trapper fleet led by the fiendish Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham delivering a wonderfully soft-spoken, subtly chilling master villain) is beginning to draw close, prompting Hiccup to take up his late father Stoick (Gerard Butler returning with a gentle turn that EASILY prompts tears and throat-lumps) the Vast’s dream of finding the fabled “Hidden World”, a mysterious safe haven for dragon-kind where they can be safe from those who seek to do them harm. But there’s a wrinkle – Grimmel has a new piece of bait, a female Night Fury (or rather, a “Light Fury”), a major distraction that gets Toothless all hot and bothered … returning witer-director Dean DeBlois has rounded things off beautifully with this closer, giving loyal fans everything they could ever want while also introducing fresh elements such as intriguing new environments, characters and species of dragons to further enrich what is already a powerful, intoxicating world for viewers young and old (I particularly love Craig Ferguson’s ever-reliable comic relief veteran Viking Gobber’s brilliant overreactions to a certain adorably grotesque little new arrival), and like its predecessors this film is just as full of wry, broad and sometimes slightly (or not so slightly) absurd humour and deep down gut-twisting FEELS as it is of stirring, pulse-quickening action sequences and sheer, jaw-dropping WONDER, so it’s as nourishing to our soul as it is to our senses. From the perfectly-pitched, cheekily irreverent opening to the truly devastating, heartbreaking close, this is EXACTLY the final chapter we’ve always dreamed of, even if it does hurt to see this most beloved of screen franchises go. It’s been a wild ride, and one that I think really does CEMENT Dreamworks’ status as one of the true giants of the genre …

3. US – back in 2017, Jordan Peele made the transition from racially-charged TV and stand-up comedy to astounding cinemagoers with stunning ease through his writer-director feature debut Get Out, a sharply observed jet black comedy horror with SERIOUS themes that was INSANELY well-received by audiences and horror fans alike. Peele instantly became ONE TO WATCH in the genre, so his follow-up feature had A LOT riding on it, but this equally biting, deeply satirical existential mind-bender is EASILY the equal of its predecessor, possibly even its better … giving away too much plot detail would do great disservice to the many intriguing, shocking twists on offer as middle class parents Adelaide and Gabe Wilson (Black Panther alumni Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke) take their children, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex), to Santa Cruz on vacation, only to step into a nightmare as a night-time visitation by a family of murderous doppelgangers signals the start of a terrifying supernatural revolution with potential nationwide consequences. The idea at the heart of this film is ASTOUNDINGLY original, quite an achievement in a genre where just about everything has been tried at least once, but it’s also DEEPLY subversive, as challenging and thought-provoking as the themes visited in Get Out, but also potentially even more wide-reaching. It’s also THOROUGHLY fascinating and absolutely TERRIFYING, a peerless exercise in slow-burn tension and acid-drip discomfort, liberally soaked in an oppressive atmosphere so thick you could choke on it if you’re not careful, such a perfect horror master-class it’s amazing that this is only Peele’s second FEATURE, never mind his sophomore offering IN THE GENRE. The incredibly game cast really help, too – the four leads are all EXCEPTIONAL, each delivering fascinatingly nuanced performances in startlingly oppositional dual roles as both the besieged family AND their monstrous doubles, a feat brilliantly mimicked by Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker and teen twins Cali and Noelle Sheldon as the Wilsons’ friends, the Tylers, and their similarly psychotic mimics. The film is DOMINATED, however, by Oscar-troubler Nyong’o, effortlessly holding our attention throughout the film with yet another raw, intense, masterful turn that keeps up glued to the screen from start to finish, even as the twists get weirder and more full-on brain-mashy. Of course, while this really is scary as hell, it’s also often HILARIOUSLY funny, Peele again poking HUGE fun at both his target audience AND his allegorical targets, proving that scares often work best when twinned with humour. BY FAR the best thing in horror so far this year, Us shows just what a master of the genre Jordan Peele is – let’s hope he’s here to stay …

2. CAPTAIN MARVEL – before the first real main event of not only the year’s blockbusters but also, more importantly, 2019’s big screen MCU roster, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and co dropped a powerful opening salvo with what, it turns out, was the TRUE inception point of the Avengers Initiative and all its accompanying baggage (not Captain America: the First Avenger, as we were originally led to believe). For me, this is simply the MCU movie I have MOST been looking forward to essentially since the beginning – the onscreen introduction of my favourite Avenger, former US Air Force Captain Carol Danvers, the TRUE Captain Marvel (no matter what the DC purists might say), who was hinted at in the post credits sting of Avengers: Endgame but never actually seen. Not only is she the most powerful Avenger (sorry Thor, but it’s true), but for me she’s also the most badass – she’s an unstoppable force of (cosmically enhanced) nature, with near GODLIKE powers (she can even fly through space without needing a suit!), but the thing that REALLY makes her so full-on EPIC is her sheer, unbreakable WILL, the fact that no matter what’s thrown at her, no matter how often or how hard she gets knocked down, she KEEPS GETTING BACK UP. She is, without a doubt, the MOST AWESOME woman in the entire Marvel Universe, both on the comic page AND up on the big screen. Needless to say, such a special character needs an equally special actor to portray her, and we’re thoroughly blessed in the inspired casting choice of Brie Larson (Room, Kong: Skull Island), who might as well have been purpose-engineered exclusively for this very role – she’s Carol Danvers stepped right out of the primary-coloured panels, as steely cool, unswervingly determined and strikingly statuesque as she’s always been drawn and scripted, with just the right amount of twinkle-eyed, knowing smirk and sassy humour to complete the package. Needless to say she’s the heart and soul of the film, a pure joy to watch throughout, but there’s so much more to enjoy here that this is VERY NEARLY the most enjoyable cinematic experience I’ve had so far this year … writer-director double-act Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck may only be known for smart, humble indies like Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind, but they’ve taken to the big budget, all-action blockbuster game like ducks to water, co-scripting with Geneva Robertson-Dworet (writer of the Tomb Raider reboot movie and the incoming third Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movie) to craft yet another pitch-perfect MCU origin story, playing a sneakily multilayered, misleading game of perception-versus-truth as we’re told how Carol got her powers and became the unstoppable badass supposedly destined to turn the tide in a certain Endgame … slyly rolling the clock back to the mid-90s, we’re presented with a skilfully realised “period” culture clash adventure as Carol, an super-powered warrior fighting for the Kree Empire against the encroaching threat of the shape-shifting Skrulls, crash-lands in California and winds up uncovering the hidden truth behind her origins, with the help of a particular SHIELD agent, before he wound up with an eye-patch and a more cynical point-of-view – yup, it’s a younger, fresher Nick Fury (the incomparable Samuel L. Jackson, digitally de-aged with such skill it’s really just a pure, flesh-and-blood performance). There’s action, thrills, spectacle and (as always with the MCU) pure, skilfully observed, wry humour by the bucket-load, but one of the biggest strengths of the film is the perfectly natural chemistry between the two leads, Larson and Jackson playing off each other BEAUTIFULLY, no hint of romantic tension, just a playfully prickly, banter-rich odd couple vibe that belies a deep, honest respect building between both the characters and, clearly, the actors themselves. There’s also sterling support from Jude Law as Kree warrior Yon-Rogg, Carol’s commander and mentor, Ben Mendelsohn, slick, sly and surprisingly seductive (despite a whole lot of make-up) as Skrull leader Talos, returning MCU-faces Clark Gregg and Lee Pace as rookie SHIELD agent Phil Coulson (another wildly successful de-aging job) and Kree Accuser Ronan, Annette Bening as a mysterious face from Carol’s past and, in particular, Lashana Lynch (Still Star-Crossed, soon to be seen in the next Bond) as Carol’s one-time best friend and fellow Air Force pilot Maria Rambeau, along with the impossible adorable Akira Akbar as her precocious daughter Monica … that said, the film is frequently stolen by a quartet of ginger tabbies who perfectly capture fan-favourite Goose the “cat” (better known to comics fans as Chewie). This is about as great as the MCU standalone films get – for me it’s up there with the Russo’s Captain America films and Black Panther, perfectly pitched and SO MUCH FUN, but with a multilayered, monofilament-sharp intelligence that makes it a more cerebrally satisfying ride than most blockbusters, throwing us a slew of skilfully choreographed twists and narrative curveballs we almost never see coming, and finishing it off with a bucket-load of swaggering style and pure, raw emotional power (the film kicks right off with an incredibly touching, heartfelt tear-jerking tribute to Marvel master Stan Lee). Forget Steve Rogers – THIS is the Captain us MCU fans need AND deserve, and I am SO CHUFFED they got my favourite Avenger so totally, perfectly RIGHT. I can die happy now, I guess …

1. AVENGERS: ENDGAME – the stars have aligned and everything is right with the world – the second half of the ridiculously vast, epic, nerve-shredding and gut-punching MCU saga that began with last year’s Avengers: Infinity War has FINALLY arrived and it’s JUST AS GOOD as its predecessor … maybe even a little bit better, simply by virtue of the fact that (just about) all the soul-crushing loss and upheaval of the first film is resolved here. Opening shortly after the universally cataclysmic repercussions of “the Snap”, the world at large and the surviving Avengers in particular are VERY MUCH on the back foot as they desperately search for a means to reverse the damage wrought by brutally single-minded cosmic megalomaniac Thanos and his Infinity Stone-powered gauntlet – revealing much more dumps so many spoilers it’s criminal to continue, so I’ll simply say that their immediate plan really DOESN’T work out, leaving them worse off than ever. Fast-forward five years and the universe is a very different place, mourning what it’s lost and torn apart by grief-fuelled outbursts, while our heroes in particular are in various, sometimes better, but often much worse places – Bruce Banner/the Hulk (Mark Ruffallo) has found a kind of peace that’s always eluded him before, but Thor (Chris Hemsworth) really is a MESS, while Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has gone to a VERY dark place indeed. Then Ant-Man Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) finds a way back from his forced sojourn in the Quantum Realm, and brings with him a potential solution of a very temporal nature … star directors the Russo Brothers, along with returning screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, have once again crafted a stunning cinematic masterpiece, taking what could have been a bloated, overloaded and simply RIDICULOUS narrative mess and weaving it into a compelling, rich and thoroughly rewarding ride that, despite its THREE HOURS PLUS RUNNING TIME, stays fresh and interesting from start to finish, building on the solid foundations of Infinity War while also forging new ground (narratively speaking, at least) incorporating a wonderfully fresh take on time-travel that pokes gleeful fun at the decidedly clichéd tropes inherent in this particular little sub-genre. In fact this is frequently a simply HILARIOUS film in its own right, largely pulling away from the darker tone of its predecessor by injecting a very strong vein of chaotic humour into proceedings, perfectly tempering the more dramatic turns and epic feels that inevitably crop up, particularly as the stakes continue to rise. Needless to say the entire cast get to shine throughout, particularly those veterans whose own tours of duty in the franchise are coming to a close, and as with Infinity War even the minor characters get at least a few choice moments in the spotlight, especially in the vast, operatic climax where pretty much the ENTIRE MCU cast return for the inevitable final showdown. It’s a masterful affair, handled with skill and deep, earnest respect but also enough irreverence to keep it fun, although in the end it really comes down to those big, fat, heart-crushing emotional FEELS, as we say goodbye to some favourites and see others reach crossroads in their own arcs that send them off in new, interesting directions. Seriously guys, take a lot of tissues, you really will need them. If this were the very last MCU film ever, I’d say it’s a PERFECT piece to go out on – thankfully it’s not, and while it is the end of an era the franchise looks set to go on as strong as ever, safe in the knowledge that there’s plenty more cracking movies on the way so long as Kevin Feige and co continue to employ top-notch talent like this to make their films. Ten years and twenty-two films down, then – here’s to ten and twenty-two more, I say …

#movies 2019 #glass #glass movie #pet sematary #prospect #prospect movie #dragged across concrete #shazam!#alita battle angel #how to train your dragon the hidden world #us #us movie #Captain Marvel #avengers endgame #awesome sauce

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eleycharem · 2 years

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A decade of ‘Young Blood’ goes digital

By: Nikka G. Valenzuela

In 2013, physician Korina Ada Tanyu’s harrowing tale of a sickly boy from a low-‍income family appeared on the Young Blood column of the Inquirer. “Filipino Horror Story” was terrifying and gut-wrenching, not just because of how the story goes, but because of how real and recurrent it was.

“I was on pediatric ICU (intensive care unit) duty at [the Philippine General Hospital] when I wrote that piece. I was very tired and overwhelmed. That time, we had to shell out our money for patients’ medicines and laboratories. Sometimes, we even had to shell out money for their diapers. Then I realized that a lot of Filipinos are not aware of what goes on inside public hospitals,” she told Super in an email interview.

So she decided to write the story, submit it to the Inquirer’s youth column, along with her wish that other families be spared from what happened to the boy and his parents. “When I wrote the essay, that story was pretty common. Money was (and still is) a factor in why a lot of patients refused to have their checkup. It also doesn’t help that there are very few well-equipped public hospitals in the country,” Tanyu added. It has been more than eight years since Tanyu’s essay was published, and significant strides have now been made in the health-care system, according to the doctor. Hospital facilities have been upgraded and doctors no longer have to pay out of their own pockets to cover the lab tests of their patients, though there’s still a long way to go.

But even after nearly a decade, Tanyu’s essay continues to strike a chord, much like the confessions, thoughts, hopes and dreams printed on the Inquirer’s Young Blood column. These thought-provoking, inspiring and intriguing pieces are available in “Young Blood Omnibus Volume Two,” a digital compilation of “Young Blood” books 4, 5 and 6. The e-book, which will be released a little over a year after the first volume, will be available starting Nov. 10 on Lazada, shop.inquirer.com.ph, Amazon, Google Play Books and Apple for P795 or $15.99.

“So much has changed, and certainly even more has changed in the ten years covered by the three books in this collection. This is a great collection of authors: award-winning writers, directors, politicians, activists, lawyers, doctors and so much more. Now, one can find these three books in one place at a good price, in digital form, so you could read it anytime, anywhere on any device,” said Ruel S. De Vera, Inquirer Books editor.

The three anthologies are the most popular “Young Blood” books to date, De Vera added. The fourth collection is on its second printing, while the fifth one has sold out. Stocks of the sixth book is running low. “The e-book seemed like the best, most accessible way of keeping books available somehow,” he said. The digital book will be launched live on Wednesday, on Inquirer.net’s Facebook page. Former Opinion editor and Young Blood gatekeeper Rosario “Chato” Garcellano will be a speaker at the event while former Young Blood books editor JV Rufino will talk about the 27-year history of the hit column.

De Vera, who is also Young Blood Brand editor, and Super editor Pam Pastor will host the event. Contributors whose names have appeared in the three Young Blood books will also read their essays. Jessica Marie “Aika” Robredo will read her piece about her late father, Ramon Magsaysay awardee Jesse Robredo, which she wrote at age 15. Mikee Baylosis, meanwhile, will read “The Underdog Club,” a piece that is sure to resonate with fresh (and not-so-fresh) graduates looking to make their mark on the world. The 29-year-old professor started in Young Blood before writing for the IamGenM column of the Inquirer. Lady Hanifah Mindalano-Alonto will also be reading her essay, “What does my hijab means,” wherein she describes a world of difference by whether or not she chooses to put on a head covering in public. Her essay is included in “Young Blood 6.”

Aika Robredo

Mike Baylosis

Lady Mindalano-Alonto

The three essays just prove that “Young Blood” has a wealth of stories from the under 30 writers. All told, the e-book collects stories from 2005 to 2015, a full decade. “There are situations galore, sufficient reminders to the Reader that the young writers are no strangers to the peaks and valleys of human condition,” wrote Garcellano in the introduction of “Young Blood 4.” Familiar names also crop up in the e-book, like sought-after director Antoinette Jadaone, former Kabataan partylist Rep. Mong Palatino and award-winning journalists and writers.

There are love letters, like Hyacinth Tagupa’s very relatable “Taga-Public,” written as a tribute to her classmates and the many graduates of public schools. Tagupa went on to become a columnist under IamGenM, but according to her, “Young Blood is a touchstone for budding essayists in the Philippines.” The youth column, which appears every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, receives as many as 300 contributions per week. Only a few make it to the left side of the Opinion page, and only a couple dozens on the anthologies. For some writers, it has become a sort of rite of passage to have their essays appear on Young Blood. But for other writers and readers like Fae Cheska Marie Esperas, Young Blood was a “platform” that she “trusted (with her) personal insights.” In 2015, she wrote “Begin Again,” about restarting life after the devastation of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan). “It was only at that time when the genuine feeling of ‘hope’ kicked in, that we Warays can start getting back on our own feet, sustainability wise. True, the year prior to writing the essay, we received help from all over the world, but what would happen next after they leave? It was only at that time I wrote the essay when Tacloban and Leyte were beginning to return to normal. The wounds were still there, aching, but we were on our way to recovery,” Esperas told Super. She had wanted to share her story, to send a message of hope for those need it.

“I guess I want the readers realize that despair is not eternal. There’s always hope lurking in the darkest corners of the room, just waiting for the right time to come out. Hope alone may not solve things, but it’s more than enough to jumpstart your journey to recovery. So yeah, keep the hope alive,” she said. •With the repackaged version of “Young Blood” that would bring with it more readers, Tanyu hopes that first-time readers will pick up a few important things from her essay: from addressing preventable and curable diseases through early intervention, to the state of health care in the country. •“I also want them to see that as long as poverty exists, people will not prioritize health. I want them to realize that both patients and the government contribute to health care–for patients to take responsibility for their health and for the government to actually use the budget for health care,” Tanyu said. Tagupa, meanwhile, hopes that her contributions to Young Blood “become relics as the years pass.” “I wrote about public schooling and then about women’s struggles, and I would really like for future readers’ context to be different from mine when I was writing those. Maybe they’ve gotten a much better public school experience than I had. Maybe women have gotten more safety and security. When that future arrives (and maybe it already has, partly), my essays would feel outdated and readers might say, ‘We no longer experience these hardships.’ But that’s the goal!” Tagupa added.

Join the launch of the “Young Blood Omnibus Volume Two” live on the Inquirer.net Facebook page on Nov. 10 at 5 p.m.

https://inquirersuper.com.ph/books/a-decade-of-young-blood-goes-digital/

#fb.com/inqyoungblood InqYoungBlood ebookcollection YoungBloodColumn InquirerBooks

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Three Electric S.U.V.s With Tesla in Their Sights An electric trickle is turning into a flood: As many as 100 new E.V. models are coming to showrooms by 2025. Heavyweights including Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford are floating promises of all-electric lineups within a decade. The end times of gasoline can almost seem a fait accompli, except for one pesky issue: Even given Tesla’s strides, we’re still waiting for the first genuine E.V. sales hit, let alone a mass exodus from unleaded. In 2014, Nissan sold a mere 30,200 Leafs, and that’s still the American record for any non-Tesla model. Ford routinely sells more than 800,000 F-Series pickups. A single gasoline sport utility vehicle, the Toyota RAV4, finds well over 400,000 annual buyers, compared with roughly 250,000 sales last year for all E.V.s combined — 200,000 of which were Teslas. Automakers insist we’re “this close” to a tipping point. E.V. market share is expected to grow to as much as 50 percent by 2032, from just 1.7 percent last year, said Scott Keogh, president and chief executive of Volkswagen of America. While Tesla captured 80 percent of the U.S. market for electric vehicles in 2020, VW and other global giants — with war chests built on internal-combustion engines and unmatched scale and manufacturing know-how — are well positioned to take a piece of Tesla’s pie. “There’s never been a competitive consumer product that sits at 80 percent market share” for long, Mr. Keogh said. Globally, Volkswagen is poised to pass Tesla as the world’s biggest electric vehicle seller as early as next year, according to Deutsche Bank, with Europe and China its key markets. In America, where the brand remains an underdog, VW and other legacy automakers are concentrating fire on the sales fortress of compact S.U.V.s: Models like the RAV4, which deliver roughly four million annual segment sales. The idea, as ever, is to drive down prices and charging times of E.V.s, while bolstering driving range, until consumers see no reason to stick with polluting gasoline models whose energy-and-operating costs exceed the plug-in alternatives. Like the Rolling Stones pushing the Beatles, Mr. Keogh said, healthy competition will ultimately benefit all E.V. fans and creators. And when consumers sees E.V.s proliferate in their neighbors’ driveways, and take their first test drive, there will be no going back. “When you drive one, you’re driving the future, and that’s what people are going to want, no debate,” Mr. Keogh said. The latest electric-S.U.V. hopefuls to reach showrooms are the VW ID.4, Ford Mustang Mach-E and Volvo XC40 Recharge. The Nissan Ariya, BMW iX and Cadillac Lyriq are set to arrive between late 2021 and next March. I drove the VW, Ford and Volvo to see which might knock Tesla’s Model Y S.U.V. down a peg — or at least outsell the 2014 Leaf. Ford Mustang Mach-E Ford has branded its fabled Mustang name on an electric S.U.V., inflaming some boomers in the process. But the Mach-E seems the most straight-up rival yet to Tesla’s Model Y, in not only price and performance but also the Ford’s maximum 300-mile driving range. Consumers have noticed: Ford sold 3,729 Mach-Es in February, the first full month of sales, almost single-handedly chopping Tesla’s dominant E.V. share to 69 percent, from 80 percent. If Ford could maintain that pace for a full year, the Mach-E would easily set a sales record for an E.V. not built by Tesla. Tesla’s 326-mile Model Y Long Range still squeezes a few more miles from each onboard kilowatt-hour, owing to the carmaker’s expertise in aerodynamics, motor and battery efficiency, and to “simple” stuff that’s anything but: Its 4,416-pound curb weight undercuts the Ford by about 400 pounds. And Tesla rules the public charging space, with its Supercharger network that has rivals — now with a potential infrastructure lift from the Biden administration — racing to catch up. The Ford fires back with a sculpted exterior versus the dad-bod Model Y, a tech-savvy interior with superior materials and craftsmanship, and winning performance of its own. With 346 horsepower from dual motors, the Mach-E Premium A.W.D. that I drove shot to 60 miles an hour in 4.8 seconds. Even the new Shelby GT500 — history’s mightiest Mustang, with 760 horsepower — won’t equal the 3.5-second 0-to-60 m.p.h. blast of this summer’s Mach-E GT Performance version. The Shelby would shame the Mach-E or Tesla on any winding road, of course. Yet the Mach-E is reasonably fun through the curvy stuff, and glides with addictive thrust and confidence. A cinema-scale, 15.5-inch touch screen sneaks past the Tesla’s 15-inch unit. Like other E.V.s, the Ford broadcasts its presence below 20 m.p.h., a throat-clearing hum to alert pedestrians. Inside, in its driver-selectable “Whisper” mode, the Ford would please the most persnickety librarian. Dial up “Unbridled” mode and the Mach-E trades glorious silence for an overwrought, faux-engine sound: Think a V-8, remixed by Kraftwerk. The soundtrack is apparently for people who need to be weaned off gasoline’s combustive beat, but it can be shut off with a screen switch. E.V. shoppers can whistle over the Ford’s price, as little as $36,495, or $48,300 for the extended-range A.W.D. model. Those prices include a $7,500 federal tax credit that’s denied to buyers of Tesla (or General Motors) E.V.s, because those automakers have sold too many to qualify. So despite Tesla’s major, defensive price cuts for 2021, the most-affordable, 230-mile-range Mach-E undercuts Tesla’s 244-mile Standard Range by $6,700. A Mach-E Premium A.W.D. saves $2,900 versus a Model Y Long Range. In a surprisingly taut, compelling matchup with the Tesla, credit the government for what may be the Ford’s most alluring advantage: a $7,500 discount. Volkswagen ID.4 No, Volkswagen is not changing its name to Voltswagen, as the company briefly convinced some media and car fans in a marketing stunt gone bad. Regarding historic names, VW calls the ID.4 its most significant model since the original Beetle. But where the Beetle was a revolutionary leader, the ID.4 feels like a follower. Based on my drive, the VW can easily top its 250-mile range rating, with 275 miles within reach. A rear-drive, 201-horsepower model rolls to 60 m.p.h. in 7.6 seconds. That’s on a par with gasoline sport utilities like the Honda CR-V, but pokey by E.V. standards. Dual-motor, all-wheel-drive models arrive later this year, promising 60 m.p.h. in under six seconds. From a company famed for fun-to-drive German cars, the ID.4’s generic performance and styling are letdowns. Its infotainment system is even more disappointing: The clunky, vexing touch screen can’t touch the onscreen wizardry of the Ford, Volvo or Tesla. The VW’s snappiest performance came during a fast-charging session at a Target in New Jersey, replenishing its 77 kilowatt-hour battery from 20 to 80 percent in an impressive 31 minutes. That growing network of Electrify America chargers is funded by VW’s $2 billion, court-ordered penance for its diesel emissions scandal. And VW is offering indulgences to ID.4 buyers, with three years of free public charging. Thrifty virtues include a $41,190 base price, or $33,690 after the $7,500 federal tax break. That’s $2,800 less than the most-affordable Mach-E. It’s also less money, after credits, than a smaller Chevrolet Bolt. The more powerful ID.4 with all-wheel drive will start at $37,370, postcredit. Still, as Tesla’s triumph and Chevy’s lukewarm Bolt have proved, there’s more to electric success than an attractive price. VW is aggressively investing $80 billion to develop E.V.s, but the ID.4 feels less like a market splash and more like a toe in the water. We’ll see if VW erred by not kicking off with a recognizable design that truly connects its nostalgic, weed-hazed past to today’s green virtues: the electric ID.Buzz Microbus, due in 2023. Volvo XC40 Recharge Volvo seems such a natural fit for E.V.s. And the progressive-minded brand brings us the XC40 Recharge, an electrified take on its gasoline XC40. The Recharge is like that perfect dining table in a shelter magazine: You’re not sure why it costs so much, but you want it anyway. The Recharge’s wedgy Scandinavian styling tops every S.U.V. in this group, as does its lovely interior. That includes soft Nappa leather, versus the ascetic “vegan” materials of many E.V.s. The drive is similarly breezy, with 402 horses and a quicksilver, 4.7-second flight to 60 m.p.h. The biggest tech talking point may be Android Automotive OS: The Recharge (and Volvo’s electric Polestar 2) introduces a cloud-based Google operating system that works like a dream, with Google Maps, search, an ultra-capable voice assistant and more. (Don’t confuse this with the ubiquitous Android Auto, which simply mirrors phone apps on a car’s screen.) Several major automakers, including G.M. and Ford, plan to make Android Automotive the nerve centers of coming cars. If only the Volvo itself were as efficient. The Recharge is an electron guzzler, with a 208-mile range that seems optimistic in real-world use. I drove the Recharge in frigid New York weather, which explained some but not all of its hunger for power: No matter how I babied the throttle, the Volvo stayed on a pace for 190 miles, at best, covering about 2.4 miles for each kilowatt-hour in the batteries. I can achieve 3.6 miles per kilowatt-hour with little effort in the Tesla Model Y and above 3.2 in the Ford. Environmental Protection Agency numbers bear that out: Despite having virtually the same-size battery, the Tesla brings 326 miles of maximum range, 118 more than the Volvo. The Recharge is also expensive for its intimate size: $54,985 to start, and nearly $60,000 for the model I drove. That $7,500 federal tax break softens the blow. Yet if the Volvo indulges bourgeois buyers, they’ll also need to indulge its profligate ways. Source link Orbem News #Electric #Sights #SUVs #Tesla

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markjsousa · 6 years

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How To Bring The Mission Statement To Life

Whereas it’s helpful for a company to have a mission statement, employees must also accept and embody it to make it meaningful. Unfortunately, some internal branding experts suggest that over 50 percent of employees don’t believe in their company’s mission statement, or don’t think they have the knowledge, skills, and training to deliver on it. Thus, beyond stating a mission statement, internal branding needs to focus on making that mission come to life for employees. The first step in building admiration from the inside is to ensure that employees trust, love, and respect the brand mission itself. To do so, employees should find their company’s mission statement or its embodiment enabling, enticing, and enriching.

Several important enabling features foster employees’ trust of the mission.

1. Involvement In The Mission’s Development Employees are more likely to support and trust a mission that they have had a voice in developing. A mission statement that’s been thrust upon them is not likely to create the same degree of brand admiration. Involving employees in the mission statement’s development provides a strong sense of ownership. To whatever extent possible, brand holders should proactively invite employees to be part of the mission’s formulation process. In this way, brands actively manage the mission-statement experience. By involving employees in developing and communicating the company’s mission, employees are better enabled to craft it, endorse it, act on it, and share it wholeheartedly with (other internal and) external customers.

2. Stating The Mission In A Memorable Way The mission statement is particularly memorable, and it resonates well with employees when it can be restated in a simple way. For example, the Ritz-Carlton’s credo about being the gold standard of service is communicated in its “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen” statement. Another example is Goldman Sachs, whose list of business principles starts with “Our clients’ interests always come first.” Or consider McKinsey’s to-the-point statement: “ We believe we will be successful if our clients are successful.” A shortened version of the mission keeps it clear and top of mind.

3. Making the Mission Concrete Employees are enabled to act on the mission when they are given specific guideposts that make it concrete. This is particularly important for new hires, for whom the mission statement might be somewhat abstract and unfamiliar. To illustrate, consider that the Ritz-Carlton’s tenet (“We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen”) translates into three concrete behaviors that employees can enact in a mission-consistent way: (1) provide a warm and sincere greeting that uses the guest’s name, (2) anticipate and fulfill the guest’s needs, and (3) wish the guest a warm goodbye, again using the guest’s name. These concrete “ steps of service” clarify mission-consistent actions, and they empower employees to create their own unique, memorable guest experiences.

4. Providing Consistency Enabling employees to understand and live the mission is not a one-time deal. Employees should see the mission as part of their onboarding process, and the mission should be continually referenced and reinforced throughout employees’ tenure. Unfortunately, employees aren’t always made aware of the mission and why it’s important to their jobs. Sometimes the company’s actions are inconsistent, making employees question the company’s commitment to its mission. Lack of consistency and frequent changes in policies and procedures used to implement it, create confusion and make employees feel less secure in enacting the mission. Even worse, lack of consistency reduces employees’ commitment to the brand and ultimately negatively affects financial performance. When missions do change, employees should be closely involved in the change process. Through employee involvement, problems with the current mission and how the organization embodies it can be identified, new ideas can be generated, and ownership in the new message can be established.

Enticing Features That Foster Love Most people genuinely want to love their work and the brand they work for. Hence, it’s important that companies make the brand mission enticing in their internal marketing efforts. Both sense-pleasing and/or heartwarming actions can enhance employees’ love for the brand’s mission.

Enticing through Sensory Appeals The visual, auditory, and/or tactile appeal associated with a brand’s mission statement matters in influencing how quickly and readily employees understand and accept the mission, and how interesting it appears to them. Consider Porsche Consulting’s operational excellence mission: “For something to run smoothly, obstacles must be ironed out. We make you become the Porsche of your industry.”

Porsche Consulting visually and tangibly expresses its mission to employees by having Porsche consultants wear technician’s clothes. This is highly unusual for consultants, who typically wear expensive, polished designer suits. But the technician’s clothes remind Porsche employees that consultants are humble master crafts persons who must roll up their sleeves in the service of the brand. They must get on with a job in a factory or wherever need be. The mission thus is communicated in ways beyond a mere statement; it literally is worn on employees’ bodies. As such, the mission is tangible. Employees not only see the mission, they feel it too.

Enticing through Heartwarming Appeals A mission statement may also become enticing to employees through ‘ heartwarming appeals that make the mission come to life. Notre Dame’s football team has placed a sign that reads “Play Like a Champion Today” in a stairwell between the team locker room and the tunnel to Notre Dame Stadium. This inspiring message (which is enriching to players) is made concrete through an emotional ritual where the players and staff touch the sign before running onto the field, in the hopes that they can “play like a champion today.” The ritual is emotionally evocative. By physically touching the sign players make this sign’s meaning personal and intimate.

One way to make the mission interesting and heartwarming to employees is through storytelling. Storytelling inspires brand beliefs and connections with the mission. Employees can tell their own mission-congruent stories and personal experiences. Beyond storytelling, company missions can be communicated through personal contact (as opposed to via memos, e-mails, or documents) and communicated in a nonwork-related setting or at company retreats (e.g., a fireside chat in a forest or by the ocean on a Hawaiian beach).

Brand biographies, which are stories of how the brand went from its humble origins to its current state of success, are extremely appealing to employees and customers alike. This is particularly true when the brand biography depicts that brand as an underdog who has overcome serious obstacles in its efforts to succeed.

The following three points are worth mentioning about sharing a brand’s mission through storytelling. First, storytelling provides emotional touchstones for employees. Storytelling can motivate employees to feel psychologically closer to the brand and its mission. Sharing mission-consistent stories immerses employees in the mission. They also have a greater sense of ownership over the brand story because they themselves are spreading the word and acting as brand missionaries. Second, stories can make the brand’s beliefs and principles more visible and tangible. When shared, stories emotionally engage employees in ways that go beyond mere knowledge of and memory for the mission statement. Third, storytelling cuts across cultures. It’s part of our DNA as humans. We bond with others through the stories we tell. When employees share brand stories they feel more emotionally connected to the brand and to each other.

Enriching Features That Foster Respect A mission statement that’s enabling and enticing to employees is a good start. But these features won’t guarantee that employees feel inspired by it. A mission statement that is merely familiar may not come to mind automatically or create a sense of emotional resonance. Indeed, as the saying goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.” To enhance employees’ respect for the mission, it must inspire them and reflect their core beliefs and principles. A company can make the mission statement inspiring by proving a strong connection between a brand’s mission and beliefs and the principles of employees.

Note Starbucks mission and the four beliefs/principles that it subsumes. A glance at their mission shows how beliefs endorsed by and subsumed within the mission can inspire employees.

Starbucks mission is “To inspire and nurture (the what) the human spirit (the for whom)— one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time (the how). The four beliefs subsumed in its mission are (1) “Delivering our very best in all we do; holding ourselves accountable for results,” (2) “Creating a playful organizational culture; being present; connecting with transparency, dignity, and respect. (3) “Creating a culture of warmth and belonging,” and (4) “Acting with courage, challenging the status quo, and finding new ways to grow our company and each other.”

These are inspiring beliefs/principles. Employees can see their own personal beliefs in the brand ethos. These statements eloquently capture how employees should conduct themselves in the organization, what the organization and employees themselves want to be, and what type of a work environment they want to create together, as an organization. Combined, these statements enrich and inspire employees, drawing them closer to the brand and to each other. Indeed, a recent study shows that businesses that have inspiring beliefs that are centered on improving people’s lives grew three times faster than their competitors did.

A mission statement should be developed and embodied through enabling, enticing, and enriching features and must be tightly aligned with a company’s own conduct. Practices that are inconsistent with the mission statement undermine employees’ trust for, love of, and respect for the company and the mission that guides it.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: C. Whan Park, Deborah MacInnis and Andreas Eisingerich, excerpted from their book, Brand Admiration with permission from Wiley Publishing.

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us for more about our Purpose, Mission, Vision and Values Workshops.

Build A Human Centric Brand At Marketing’s Most Powerful Event: The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World, May 14-16, 2018 in San Diego, California. A fun, competitive-learning experience reserved for 50 marketing oriented leaders and professionals.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

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joejstrickl · 6 years

Text

How To Bring The Mission Statement To Life

Several important enabling features foster employees’ trust of the mission.

Note Starbucks mission and the four beliefs/principles that it subsumes. A glance at their mission shows how beliefs endorsed by and subsumed within the mission can inspire employees.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: C. Whan Park, Deborah MacInnis and Andreas Eisingerich, excerpted from their book, Brand Admiration with permission from Wiley Publishing.

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us for more about our Purpose, Mission, Vision and Values Workshops.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

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glenmenlow · 6 years

Text

How To Bring The Mission Statement To Life

Several important enabling features foster employees’ trust of the mission.

Note Starbucks mission and the four beliefs/principles that it subsumes. A glance at their mission shows how beliefs endorsed by and subsumed within the mission can inspire employees.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: C. Whan Park, Deborah MacInnis and Andreas Eisingerich, excerpted from their book, Brand Admiration with permission from Wiley Publishing.

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us for more about our Purpose, Mission, Vision and Values Workshops.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

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