#i was going for like an old martial arts film feel... i think i hit it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 3 months

Text

tuesday again 2/6/2024

some weeks it's really hard to come up with a snappy little bon mot to put here

listening

Barbarella, by a fuck of a lot of people. yes i DID watch this movie this week! this is the single catchiest theme song i have ever heard. i cannot link the actual opening credits scene bc tumblr will censor that shit SO fast. spotify

youtube

reading

Rebecca Roanhorse's Tread of Angels novella. this is an urban magic old west religious fantasy novella. VERY sangfielle friendsatthetable vibes, there's an old west mining town centered around the body of the demon Abbadon, which is being mined for its powerful properties. demons and angels have sort of interbred throughout the human population. there is some deeply nerdy catholic bullshit and i say that as someone who was in catholic school for fifteen years. actually let's just take Roanhorse's explanation

the setting and premise are not where the novella bites off way more than it can chew. the main character, a cardsharp, has a chanteuse sister being held accused of a murder and she's got 48hrs to prove her innocence. the time limit and general structure is good, and it uses its side characters wisely, there's just a fuck of a lot of them.

in general, this novella does not have the emotional room to make its emotional beats really count. for example, there was a second breakup with an ex after a night of passion that mostly just left me confused. more broadly, the main character has an oldest sister's selfsacrificing nature that has twisted into utter ruthlessness with regards to her sister, and i'm both impressed Roanhorse managed to convey that in so few pages and annoyed bc i really wanted to see more of that in way more detail. due to the nature of it being a novella, the series of escalating decisions she takes feel very jagged in their escalation. i hope that makes sense.

it's got really interesting ideas! i want to know more about the ideas! i wish this was a full book instead of a novella, so the ending hits a little better instead of a Well That Just Happened way. from this interview it seems Roanhorse also wanted it to be a full book, but it was sort of a "i need something short and sweet so i don't go insane while adapting my other book for TV" (which is very exciting!!!)

watching

really a bizarre set of films. extremely unemployed energy in this watchlist this week. largely composed of "what's on my letterboxed watchlist and also available for free on tubi, with brief forays into hulu"

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013, dir. Chow). loved the overall visual design of the antagonists and the monsters, did not overall love this movie. it is a solid martial arts showcase and the first twenty minutes with freshwater JAWS are the most tightly plotted. it kind of flounders (lol) after that. can't find a gif i like.

INU-OH (2021, dir. Yuasa) genuinely healed my heart a little i think. queer (complimentary, not queer in the western massachusetts housing coop way) feudal anime glam rock opera. i am sooooooo picky about bad dads in movies as a driving force but this really soothed my daddy issues. stuck the landing on both storytelling and visuals.

Barbarella (1968, dir. Vadim) WOW Jane Fonda was hot. this was both sillier and less porny than i was led to believe (if we ignore the softcore porn opening credits). however horny this movie was it was not brave enough to have some girl-on-girl action with barbarella and the evil empress, even though the evil empress never seems to actually learn her name and just calls her “pretty” or “pretty-pretty”. shoutout to the one fic on ao3 that rectifies this situation. certainly a piece of scifi history, i wish modern scifi was as brave with its theatrical set dressing, i think one viewing is good enough for me bc i cannot stop thinking about how all the women on set might have been treated.

john philip law popped up and i said out loud to my cat “hey i know him from cowboys”

Flower Drum Song (1961, dir. Koster) got conned into watching this by the hotvintagemen poll bc i wanted to see what james shigeta’s deal was, and if he did have a sort of ratpack sensibility as the propaganda described. he does! however this movie is unrelentingly awful. it is so so so slow. all of its comedy is racism-based. it feels like a three and a half hour two-VHS set instead of two hours. i like to think i have a stronger stomach for older media and am able to consider things as products of their times but this is my upper limit i think. one brief fleeting moment of cool production with this triple mirror effect

Dirty Dancing (1987, dir. Ardolino). we were trying to find something to watch on either peacock or hbo max, and when i said "oh i've never seen that" out loud my my best friend said "that's insane we're watching it". i did not hate this movie, but i feel like i missed some critical window of development in which i would have had to see this movie to really love it. i had sort of an abnormal high school experience and i am a smidge too old to relate to bildungsroman any more. but it was cute! it was fine! i think patrick swayze’s jawline could cut glass. this film was made after Roe v Wade (1973) and i feel like the backstreet abortion b-plot has done this interesting 180 from sort of a historical novelty to a real threat and terror again. fun!

that’s it for the watching section i promise

playing

im doing the thing where i play a game for ten minutes, put it down, and then pick it back up again, which is probably not terrific for the health of my elderly switch. but whatever. what have i been up to in breath of the wild?

not a ton of progress map-wise, but did make it up to zora’s domain.

i was planning on the camel being the first divine beast, to get that over with bc i had such a devil of a time in my last playthrough, but the thing about the desert is it’s really far away.

dicked around the dueling peaks stables for a while without managing to defeat that guardian and unlock that shrine. so it goes. i think i really need an actual guardian shield from one of the minor tests of strength shrines instead of a normie shield. this line and sidequest made me laugh— it wasn’t terribly hard to find this little cache but it was a tricky bit of gliding.

didn’t realize the horses don’t have that much vertical threat perception, just like real horses. this little band walked right under me and i failed to glide down and land perfectly on someone’s back, which did freak them all out.

i think my new favorite place in a game is this little grove clinging to the side of the dueling peaks. it felt very peaceful and cozy. nothing can get me up there and there’s more than enough room to make a little campfire and cook dinner and not roll off the mountain in a sleeping bag the middle of the night.

also fully kitted out my house bc i had a very successful mining expedition along dueling peaks. EXTREMELY forgiving and generous secondary opening area imo, thanks game

making

i started this glitch sampler pattern by tumblr's own mathysphere (not @'d bc this is a fuck of a long post) at the beginning of the pandemic, june 2020, while thinking "eh let's give this friends at the table counterweight thing a shot" got most of the way through both counterweight and this piece, put it down bc i was so annoyed with all the confetti stitches (random one-off stitches of colors that aren't anywhere near other stitches of the same color. i think i resorted to fraychek at several points in the rover square) and then put it down so long i had to throw it out during the great moth debacle, bc it was partly eaten.

here's what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i think this time around i am a much better technical stitcher (the first crack at this i didn't know the loop method of starting, or pin stitches, or really any alternate endings except running the tail under the last few stitches). i usually stitch with three strands bc i like the look, but i think the loop method with three strands is overly fiddly. i have not picked up cross stitch since mmmm 2021, but any mistakes or unevenness in this will simply contribute to the glitch effect. i'm going to go back and backstitch the four "frames" and key portions of the sampler to highlight portions of the glitches (eg the yellow and blue centers of the spiral galaxy, the interior of the eclipse, perhaps add an antenna to the rover).

still not my tidiest back, but hey. it's going to sit in a frame and not have any sort of friction or extra force applied to it ever

i am really looking forward to framing this in a deep shadowbox, i have an idea about how to mat it with little melty cutouts for the drips at the bottom.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

24 notes · View notes

the-shared-brain-in-retrograde · 2 years

Text

Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings

A joint review

Neither of us had watched this film since seeing it at the pictures, where we fucking loved it, so what a treat this is to watch and enjoy again! Cass likes the opening on account of there’s a bit of mythology and sort of dance-fight sequence with a sexy villain, and Becks got to feel cultured because of the subtitles and that. We should mention that neither of us are really au-fait with martial arts films (other than one involving Chuck Norris and a lot of cats in The Colosseum), so we don’t know how the fight scenes stack up on balance, but we enjoyed it.

We also think that Shaun’s mum’s lovely dragon mask would have been very useful in the past two years.

This film feels like quite a paint by numbers Marvel film in many respects, in that nothing particularly unexpected happens and it follows the formula of a reluctant hero rising after some questionable parenting. However, it’s a really good one. It serves as a great introduction to characters that you want to see more of, the rings themselves are a pretty cool weapon, and it’s much more fun and light hearted than some of the other movies we’ve had recently (all that trauma!) so it was a welcome breather. Also, there’s a big dragon. And Morris! A blatant to Disney to sell more merch, and one that I’m sure we’ll all fall for.

Let’s start with the hero of this fine piece of cinema. Trevor Slattery! hahaha no we joke, that was just a little joke. We will get to Trevor in our own good time. No, of course we mean to start with Shang-Chi himself aka Shaun. Which, Katy raises a good question, if you could pick any name to go into hiding with, would you prefer one similar to your name or totally different?

Becks: A man called me Becky the other day and I hated it. So I think I would prefer something totally different rather than a wrong version of my own name.

Cass: I just worry I wouldn’t answer quick enough to a completely different name and give the game away. My on the run self will probably have to be call Cathy. My normal self is called that a lot anyway, usually in Starbucks.

Becks, raging: This happens often when I try to call you hands-free in the car and I’m always like, ‘I didn’t say it with a lisp you DICKHEAD!’

Cass, whispers to camera: Road rage.

Nevertheless, we like Shaun whatever his name. Obviously he’s a trained killer, but quite a chill one, he seems fun to hang out with, handsome, and also caring. We love his relationship with Katy. When that man hit her and he went full blown street fighter, Cass’ notes went quite fluttery and read ‘Oh, he defended her honour!’ Becks agrees, however would like it to be noted that whilst we wouldn’t change him, she doesn’t really think Simu should be playing a 25 year old as he’s actually slightly older than us and she doesn’t think we could pass for it. The aging process is a source of great concern to her, and she keeps a tally of how many times she gets asked for her ID in the supermarket in the hopes that this might serve as some sort of witchcraft and stave it off.

We think Shaun is a welcome part of the MCU. He balances Doctor Strange’s air of twatishness, which is probably why Wong is so keen to have him.

Becks, muttering: I hate Doctor Strange. And that’s why I slept through his stupid movie!

But anyway, we think we’re going to be in for a good time with him in future movies. It’s nice to have a kind, competent character involved in things. Cass is looking forward to seeing him interact with Scott. Maybe in the next Antman film it will happen? We really enjoy the fight scene on the bus. Again it was really good fun. It was exciting, it was violent, and Becks got to lust over that man with the razor arm. She does this throughout her notes on the movie, so at least one of us was happy when he kept turning up and bothering folk.

Another person we like is Katy. Becks particularly likes that she doesn’t really have any clear goals, because she finds that relatable. Her actual words were ‘she has a relatable incompetence,’ but we won’t let that stand because Katy isn’t actually incompetent, she’s very good at what she does. She saves all of those lives on the bus with her excellent driving, she is very brave at a number of points and stands up for her friend even when she is extremely far out of her depth, and she is really good at archery. Hopefully she can get some training in with Clint, I reckon she’ll love them trick arrows. We think maybe what is relatable is just that she has no bigger end goal in mind, and maybe lacks a little self belief in being able to deliver one. And that’s fine, because as she proves it all comes good!

We really enjoy seeing Katy and Shaun’s friendship. They have great fun together, and that’s nice to see. We also enjoy how she utterly refuses to let him deal with all the crazy people trying to kill him alone, and insists on going with him. Nice to have your best friend with you when you go on a family reunion to meet you dad after he has sent people to kill you. We just like her a lot in general, she’s funny, snarky, and has a fun sense of style. Basically, we don’t have a bad word to say.

This family reunion means that we also get to meet Shaun’s sister, Xialing. Now there’s a capable woman! Not only is she a brilliant self-taught fighter, but she has built a successful underground fight club from scratch. It’s sad of course, because her father was far more absent with her than he was with Shang-Chi, who then of course ran away and left her, so she must have had a very lonely life. But even despite all of this, being let down and having to rely on herself, Xialing comes good, helping Shaun and Katy with barely a second thought and finding some of the family she deserves in Ta Lo. It’s nice to see that despite the traumatic upbringing, she still manages to be a good person. With hella style, because she made that compound super cool at the end. Frankly, she’s the only girl boss we care to discuss at this time.

Just as an aside, we would never like to fight on scaffolding. We don’t think it’s safe, especially not that high up. We are making a pact to avoid going on it at all, and especially not to fight on it. We will fight on the ground, as God intended. In the dirt. With the worms.

We are now reintroduced to Shaun’s father, whose name we cannot recall, possibly because goes by many names. One of which Cass thought he said was Mastercard, which seemed like a bit of blatant product placement even for these movies, but turned out not to be the case so that’s okay. Anyway, we’ve looked it up now and apparently it’s Wenwu, so there. We have a bit of a difference of opinion here. Becks thinks he’s a right dickhead. She is impressed by the horse riding with no hands skills (although seemed notably less impressed when she asked if Cass had ever done that and found out that she had), and obviously all for a bit of violence, but still doesn’t really take to him because he really was such a terribly shit dad. And he was, Cass agrees. But where Cass falls down in this is, he’s also terribly, terribly hot. I mean, he’s a lunatic. But in a way that makes it hotter. So it’s difficult to remain impartial about his bad fathering, and she thanks you all for your understanding at this difficult time.

What Wenwu does do however, is proves the need for a safe-word after death. We can’t tell you ours for obvious reasons, but we’ve now agreed it. So if we do hear any whisperings from beyond the grave that don’t include it, we will know it’s not actually one of us but a demonic entity intent on wrecking destruction on the planet, and will simply ignore it and go about our business. You would all do well to gather your loved ones and do the same. Do it now in fact, before you read on.

Have you got the beyond the veil safe-word? Okay good. We may continue.

Their mother seemed like a nice lady, taken too young. And that’s unfortunately all we have to say on the subject. His aunt also seems like a badass, however she also unfortunately goes by the name of Auntie Nan, which is coincidentally what Becks’ used to call a family friend from her childhood who ran a walking group called the Bog Hoppers. This send Cass so hysterical that we find it hard to discuss Auntie Nan much further.

Becks: Another thing about her, she had a Stannah Stairlift. And I used to sneak up to her room on it and rifle through her things.

Cass: (wheezes) That’s the most you thing to do, but also as if you were sneaking anywhere on a stairlift. You probably made a right bloody racket!

Becks: She also made Dead Fly Pie. And I loved her.

Right. Trevor Slattery. Another person that makes Cass feel mildly hysterical. It’s nice to get a little closure on the Ten Rings as mentioned in Iron Man, and of course it’s a treat to see Trevor again. What a tit. A very silly man really, but if there’s no room for Ben Kingsley to do a little thespian silliness in a Marvel film then what hope do we have left? We also like him playing dead at the end, it’s the only outcome we truly accept of that man being involved in a fight, and we enjoyed it immensely.

‘Stay in the pocket!’

We would like now to mention Ta Lo, because it’s just totally beautiful and it is very hard to see why you would ever leave. Not least because it’s so bloody difficult to get back again. Entering Ta Lo is like someone turning the high def on the film. Also, we get to meet the Great Protector, who turns out to be a lovely big dragon, and we love him. If you don’t love a dragon turning up in a movie, then get out of town frankly. We didn’t much like the soul sucking fella that came out of the gate (a dickhead released by another dickhead, is Becks’ commentary), but since he got defeated we thankfully don’t need to dwell on his darkness any longer.

All too soon we are turfed out of this beautiful place and Shaun and Katy are sent back to tell tall tales of their adventures to their friends in the pub, who of course don’t believe them. Doubting Thomas’! But then Wong turns up. Dear Wong, the only character in the MCU who has really got his priorities sorted in terms of the work-life balance. It’s all fight clubs and karaoke with him, and frankly after dealing with Doctor Strange he deserves it. We’re also grateful to see Bruce as Bruce. We hate Professor Hulk, it’s just all wrong, and so that little hologram gives us a hope that we won’t be stuck with him forever.

We just love this film as a whole. We like the friendships, the characters are interesting, the fight scenes are cracking, and we end the whole thing with a smile rather than in tears so that’s always a bonus. The end of the film promises that Shang-Chi will return, and we’re both looking forward to it.

But enough of these new people! Next time will see us revisiting some old friends, when we review The Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Is it the greatest TV show ever made? Well, maybe not. But has it unfortunately unleashed something in one of us? Maybe so! Brace yourselves, friends, for the full gamut of emotions that will come from The Shared Brain. Brace brace brace.

love Becks and Cass

10 notes · View notes

scoupsy-remade · 4 years

Photo

Happy birthday to Seventeen's Tiger

#Hoshi #kwon soonyoung #svtcreations #drm.pst #drm.gfx #hosh #i was going for like an old martial arts film feel... i think i hit it?#anyway this is me forwardin the Hoshi tiger agenda and not even feeling bad about it lmao

555 notes · View notes

aromantic-enjolras · 2 years

Text

Les Amis and Historical European Martial Arts

After @pumpkinspice-prouvaire‘s post asking about our weird hobbies that we project on the Amis, I’ve been thinking a lot about Bahorel and HEMA.

So, before I start, I feel like I probably need to explain a bit about what HEMA is. It stands for Historical European Martial Arts, and it includes pretty much every single fighting style used in Europe (I’ve seen everything, from Viking shield tactics to bayonet-uses from WWI). It appeared from historians trying to understand how people fought in the old times by trying the movements from the treaties themselves. There is a competitive sport made of it, but a lot of it is still linked to studying old texts (and also to roleplaying, because of course; nerds are everywhere).

Bahorel discovers HEMA once going to find Jehan at the Literature department, because they stumble on a bunch of people in padding swinging swords at each other, and they just have to ask what the hell is going on. When they discover there is an actual university club about dressing up as knights and clubbing each other in the head, they are thrilled.

They drag Jehan, Feuilly and Grantaire with them. Jehan is a decent enough fighter, but he’s mostly interested in the historical part of it. He ends up being in the group that reads the treatises and tries to interpret them. Grantaire is half and half: he likes historical research, but sometimes he just wants to put on some padding and hit stuff. Feuilly and Bahorel are clearly on the sport side of HEMA. They go to tournaments and they do duels and that kind of thing. Éponine tries it for a bit, but she gets really frustrated that improvised street-fight style is not acceptable. She has reflexes, why can’t she use them??

They are all relatively profficient with a wide array of weapons, because the club they’re at works like that, but they have their preferred style. Jehan likes short and mobile weaponery, mostly short swords or daggers, and if you’re fighting them your main problem is going to be catching him (he’s damn slippery!!). Bahorel favours the longsword because it’s just awesome. Feuilly usually goes for long and blunt objets (spears, staffs, pikes) because he likes both the length of it and the fact that he can apply the techniques to everyday objects. Grantaire just swings between styles and weapons without ever settling on anything.

After a while, Bahorel becomes one of the de-facto instructors of the club. They spend so long in uni, and they have so much spare time, that they end up being really good at it...

Bahorel gets their own longsword, and them and Jehan decide to put it up on the wall of their living room. So now there is a 135cm slab of metal perched on the wall of the living room. If they ever get burglars, they’re going to be up for a surprise...

From time to time, the four of them get together for a film night. They put on Hollywood movies and scream “fake!!” and “stupid!!” whenever someone fights in a way that isn’t historically accurate. They used it as a drinking game before Grantaire got sober, but now they just do it for fun.

They all had to get a bladed weapons permit so that they could walk around with the club’s equipment, except for Feuilly, who would get in trouble with the law if he even tried, considering his immigrant status. So they just carry his weapons for him so that he has plausible deniability. They joke that they’re his squire.

Bahorel has incorporated some of the moves they’ve learned in hand-to-hand combat in historical texts in their self-defense workshops. If anything, telling people “this was used by knights” makes people more excited about it.

They sometimes do HEMA workshops or exhibitions for fundraisers. It works quite well, people react quite positively to it!

And now, because I spent way too long watching videos on the subject, here are some videos on the subject that I found cool for novices:

A choreographed longsword fight that is both very, very cool and historically accurate. If two middle-aged men on Youtube can make historical swordfight look this awesome, Hollywood has no excuse!!

A video exposing different sword techniques from an Italian treatise from the XVth century. I’m honestly in love with how many of them include “grab your opponent’s sword and rip it off their hands”, and there is one which includes basically “drop your sword and punch them in the face” and it cracks me up.

And a video of a historian critizising Hollywood battle scenes. He’s ruthless, and it’s absolutely hilarious. "People... they try not to die"; "If you could get this close to cavalry, why not just stab 'em?"; “Rocks cost nothing, take no preparation. You just throw them and people get hurt! It’s great!

Hope you enjoyed this! :)

@peoplearescary, @partloma you sounded interested...?

#Les Misérables #text posts #my posts #headcanons #my headcanons #gifs #long posts #Bahorel #Jehan Prouvaire #Feuilly #Grantaire #Éponine

38 notes · View notes

mymanreedus · 2 years

Text

Bored by modelling she pivoted to film and in her twenties married the French actor Guillaume Canet before Hollywood came calling. After they divorced in 2006 she swore off walking down the aisle again but, last summer, she got engaged to Reedus, 53, who is best known for the zombie TV show The Walking Dead. The couple first met in 2015, on the film set of Sky, a gritty romance. “I was kind of in awe when I met him,” she says. “He just projects masculinity in a very, to me, intimidating way. I wasn’t used to that.”

They fell in love travelling around the US on Reedus’s motorbike: “He is really the worst driver in a car, but on a motorcycle he’s super-Zen and it’s really fun.” On the home front she seems blissfully happy; what’s the secret to their relationship? “I don’t know, we’ll see what happens. You know, it’s just like, it’s fun,” Kruger says stiltedly. “I take one day at a time. If I’ve learnt anything from my past relationships, it’s nothing is ever a given.” (She has always kept shtoom on the reasons for her break-up with Jackson, who now shares a daughter with his actress wife, Jodie Turner-Smith.) She appears in no rush to actually get married: “We’ve not even started thinking about that. I mean if I’m going to do it, I guess I’m going to do it.”

Her demeanour lightens instantly when talking about her daughter. “Oh my gosh, she’s so sweet. I got really lucky. She’s obsessed with [the Disney film] Mulan. She’s taking martial arts to be like Mulan. All she wants to do is go to China,” she says, laughing. Reedus, who has a 22-year-old son, Mingus, with the supermodel Helena Christensen, is “obsessed” with their daughter, she says. She grins describing their daddy-daughter date to a local nail salon: “They got mani-pedis together. She was in heaven, he was in heaven. It was so cute.”

The couple are fiercely protective of their daughter’s privacy and refuse to publicise her name; what does she think of New York’s paparazzi? “I f***ing hate it and it’s driving me nuts. When I’m with my kid and they take pictures of her I’ve almost hit a few of them,” she says. “If I see them and they’re brave enough to not walk away, 100 per cent I’m that crazy lady who yells across the street.”

More happily, having a child has shifted Kruger’s relationship with her mother: “I can see how she tried and did her best, you know. All the things that you reproach your parents for when you grow up, they fall away because you understand finally what it takes.” Maria-Theresa is a hands-on granny who accompanies them to film sets around the world, something the actress acknowledges as “the number one factor for me to feel like I can do this [job]”. As a working mother the star typically takes off a few months between jobs and is pickier about projects. “If someone doesn’t want to pay a certain amount, or it feels like they’re being disrespectful about that, I just won’t do it,” says Kruger, who has repeatedly criticised Hollywood’s gender pay gap. “I don’t have the will to fight about those things.”

The Sunday Times

3 notes · View notes

chrisjake-cp · 3 years

Text

History 3 Trapped Filming Diary (full English translation) - Days 61-66 (final part)

Masterpost here.

I don’t own the book so I can’t post my scans of the pictures that came with it. So I posted some other pictures of the scenes that were being filmed. These pics belong to LINE TV or Choco Media, or I’ve taken screenshots.

Read days 61-66 (final day) under the cut.

Day 61

In the final days before the end of shooting, we were finally scheduled to film in Zhaozi’s house.

Zhaozi’s house basically only exists to let him and Jack be able to court each other. Every scene is just sweet and unbearably cute. In the drama, Zhaozi’s house is one that his late grandmother had left him. Mounted on the wall was a small framed picture of an older lady, and the protagonist of this picture was really Tingxuan’s [Kenny’s] living (maternal) grandma. His grandmother is already over 90 years old but she keeps in very strong health and can walk around in the park without having to use crutches. Kenny has a good relationship with his grandmother. When he took this photo out and introduced her to us, his eyes were full of happiness that we didn’t see at other times.⁕

An apron-wearing Jack is like the embodiment of a handsome chef coming to your house. Even if what he prepares are only super simple instant noodles, he could flirt with Zhaozi (and the hearts of many girls).

I don’t know if Zhaozi’s grandma, looking on from the picture frame, would be satisfied with this young idol wearing her apron though.

⁕ Kenny, why so cute? 😭

Day 62

That’s right. Today was also a whole day of kissing, hugging and rolling on the bed (I’m flustered) in Zhaozi’s house. The Sanzhi Little White House B&B has featured as the location for many famous commercials and idol dramas. The inside of the house feels warm and sweet, which is why it was selected as this drama’s setting for Zhaozi’s house.

Zhaozi’s room is located on the second floor. Young people have good physical strength, because they had to kiss from the first floor all the way up to the second floor (if I’m not careful almost all of today’s pictures will be kissing pictures, hahahahaha), then in the room on the second floor they were rolling around in the bed and then back to the first floor to roll on the table.

When you look at the pictures of the table scene, maybe it was cut to a short moment in the show, but the positions and the movements for this scene were rather complicated. The two needed to first practice the chemistry between their positions and the camera, and many different camera angles as well as bloopers happened during filming. The two of them lingered at the table half the night, their rolling around started from dinner and went on until they had a midnight snack. We really can’t but admire the two’s good core strength.

Day 63

Actually, the fighting scenes in the car and after they get out of the car after Tang Yi and Shaofei are being seized were filmed on different days. Therefore, what was filmed today was after Shaofei pulled the handbrake (right, I use this as the dividing point [between the scenes]) and the two of them rushed up the mountain. The weather that day was really cold, so it was also a test for the crew to go shooting in the mountains.

That same day we also shot the plotline of how Shaofei fantasizes about how to get off the mountain. The crew used branches to make a scarecrow for Tang Yi and Shaofei to hang their clothes on. But during the filming process the art team made a total of three scarecrows. When asked about it, it was not because they wanted to have a back-up prop, but because one of them was snatched away by a dog from the mountains to use as a toy.

The art crew went: “Doggie, you bastard, come back here” (in Shaofei’s elevator voice)⁕

⁕ When Shaofei was cuffed to the handrail and Tang Yi stepped out of the elevator, Shaofei said almost the same thing to Tang Yi. (”Tang Yi, you bastard, get back here.”)

Day 64

It’s two days before the end of shooting, and I already can’t think anymore about how many times these two have kissed. And today was another whole day of kissing. I’m not exaggerating. Early in the morning we filmed that Shaofei grabbed Tang Yi’s hands when they got to the courthouse. When Director Qingrong arranged the scene, she figured that the plot allowed for them to kiss again, so a kissing scene was added on the spot.

In the afternoon we switched sets and went to the balcony at the hospital. On the balcony Shaofei confessed his feelings and also stealthily kissed [Tang Yi]. How could someone confess like that and kiss straight after? Our boss Tang hadn’t even responded [to the confession] yet! Counting on my fingers, one camera angle takes 8 takes on average, and for one scene we would approximately change angles four or five times. So for all the scenes from morning until in the afternoon, they at least kissed 70 times, and that’s only today. ⁕

⁕ Listen, I need to see aaaaaaaallllll the taaaaaaaaakes.

Day 65

Tang Yi and Shaofei have finished filming!

They spent 68 days of wind, sun and rain together, they went through being chased by men in black and hit by bullets, together they spent [a night] in an abandoned cabin on fire, the two went from being strangers at the acting and martial arts classes to gradually developing a deep connection with each other and hand in hand, they overcame all kinds of difficulties.

Different from the other “HIStory” series we have made before, <Trapped> was the first story to break free of having a school campus as its setting. The plot was much more complicated and the actors were faced with more and bigger challenges. Regardless of whether it were psychological challenges concerning their acting, or psychical challenges of being involved in numerous fights and constantly sustaining injuries, it was all very tough on them. The last day of filming, with good weather, was also spent in a fight. They fought 8 hours straight, from 9am in the morning until the sun set in the mountains, which was a major test of physical strength. The sun shone brightly, there were high temperatures and the rays of the sun dazzled the eyes. Tang Yi fought bravely in a suit and leather shoes, and Shaofei’s left eye was hit during the fighting process. He immediately returned to a state of readiness for war after a quick break to apply some ice to it. Thank you, all actors, for your dedication and the beauty of each frame that you presented, and thank you to the crew members behind the scenes for their hard work. You can leave the rest up to us now.

Boss Tang was finished with shooting a little earlier than Shaofei, because in the evening, Unit 3 continued their scenes in the restaurant. Unexpectedly a group of people arrived earlier at the restaurant and waited for our arrival. It turned out to be our senior colleagues from <Crossing The Line>, Yanze (Zach Lu) and Menglin (Nick Yang) who were visiting the set. When they saw their younger ‘brothers’ working hard to film this show, and them being riddled with scars from filming, the original mood of being there to supervise softened. Senior Zach patted junior Jake on the shoulder, saying, “Seeing you taking this so seriously, I can pass the baton to you guys with an assured mind.”

Day 66

On the last day of shooting, the crew was divided into two groups to carry out the work. One group was responsible for returning to the international conference office and for going up the mountains to shoot some more final material to fill up some gaps; the other group in turn stayed behind at Zhaozi’s house to shoot scenes for the final episode, namely the fight and bed scenes after Jack took Zhaozi home on his motorbike (or should I say ‘transported’ home?). The evening’s bed scene called for Jack to do a lot of push-ups. Each time after “Action” was yelled, Jack huffed out sounds like “Ah” and “Huh” while doing his push-ups, which rendered the crew at the scene unable to stop laughing. After shooting the ‘official’ scenes, to increase the sound effects from under the covers, the two actors were asked specifically to use the blanket to create some more needed sounds for the show. After confirming that the sounds were okay, Director Qingrong yelled “We can pack up! <Trapped> has finally finished shooting.” Because there were other houses in the neighbourhood of Jack’s house and it was night time, everyone cheered a little bit but immediately said “shhhhhh”, reminding each other to be quiet.

To be frank, practicing how to say goodbye is definitely not a simple thing. When you continue doing the same thing for 21 days, it would slowly become a habit. But with <Trapped>, from when shooting started until we finished filming, we went through 66 work days together. We were used to getting along with everyone, we were used to getting up early and eating breakfast together, or eating a snack in the middle of the night. Meeting with this whole team every day had become a kind of habit. In these 66 days, we experienced Yilan in 10 degrees and 30 degrees, we climbed mountains together and jumped into swimming pools together, we may have accidentally slipped on the mountain and gotten injured, we were shot at by airsoft guns (BB guns), and the thick smoke in the abandoned cabin made our nostrils turn black. All of that will become memories now. Finishing shooting [a show] is like the feeling of attending a graduation ceremony when you are a kid: you look forward to it, but the closer to the day it gets, the more you feel like you don’t want it to end. We hope that everyone who reads this diary will feel the warmth brough by the crew of <Trapped> and we also hope that these memories that left a deep impression, will forever remain in everyone’s hearts.

7 notes · View notes

introvertguide · 3 years

Text

15 Badass Movies for a Fun Time at Home or with Friends

There is a buzz in the air as COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out and the hope of having a movie night with friends is again becoming a reality. Watching alone isn’t as fun because I want to talk to somebody about what I have just seen. A full theater does not agree with my introvert nature because somebody screaming or laughing or talking on their phone will ruin it for me. Watching with a fellow cinephile or two is perfect. But what to watch first? People have been stuck inside, so fantasy and alternative worlds have been overly popular. All I do is talk over zoom for a living. I think what I need most right now is a movie about realistic people with realistic skills that go into a situation and just wreck house. I need a badass movie. What is this “badass” movie you might say? Well, here are some basic criteria: 1) There must be a tough lead character who kicks butt while spouting one liners and doesn’t need superhuman powers (high levels of peak skill with speed, aim, or strength is OK if they are plausible in the real world), 2) most of the characters (good and bad) must be likable, admirable or at least memorable, 3) the lead must face and defeat overwhelming odds against them, and 4) extra points for memorable one liners. Also, I am only dealing with human protagonists (sorry Terminator), but slightly superhuman opposition is acceptable. This list is by no means exhaustive, it is just an example of some badass movies. So in no particular order:

1) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

To start off the list, I want to mention the most well known American badass. Indiana Jones is a smart guy with a gun and a whip. He is rugged and punches guys in the face. He has weaknesses but works through them to get the job done. Harrison Ford was in his early 40s for this role and had this tough-as-nails and seen the world kind of feel while still being young enough to fight hand to hand. Any of the first three films featuring Indiana Jones would work here, but this is the original and it started the fun. Easy to watch. Easy to cheer for. Great movie. You can’t really go wrong with any age or group with this one.

2) 13 Assassins (2010)

This movie is extremely badass but not for everyone. This is one of the goriest films I have ever seen as 13 warriors kill off a couple of hundred soldiers and the evil leader that they guard. The movie was directed by Japanese extreme horror icon Takashi Miike if that means anything to you (hey made Audition and Ichi the Killer). The movie has gallons of blood, but also an amazing story of redemption and honor. There are tons of scenes of a single warrior taking on dozens of soldiers and managing to overcome. Not for everyone, but still very much a badass movie.

3) The Raid (2011)

This is an Indonesian action thriller with the word action in bold. The film is directed by Gareth Evans and stars Iko Uwais as part of a small police force that tries to take down an old building that houses a drug lord and his violent gang. It has a lot of what I like in badass movies: one-on-one fights between the lead and almost superhuman villains, long well-choreographed scenes, a banging soundtrack, ridiculous weapons, and ridiculous gore. The fight scenes in tight places and the use of the environment for weaponry is amazing and the sound design makes sure you can feel every punch. The lead character should have no chance, but he makes up for it with skill and being a pure badass. This movie is one of the few that I would describe as having non-stop action.

4) Jon Wick (2014)

When did Keanu Reeves become so cool? I grew up with him being part of the Bill and Ted duo. He decides to learn martial arts and play a god-like being in the Matrix movies and then becomes a one man wrecking crew? I guess he is a badass because he does it so well. Keanu plays a retired hitman who is wronged and decides to go back to work for vengeance. He just won’t stop coming and seems to constantly survive out of pure hatred alone. There are 3 films in the series and any one of them will impress. Pure fun too watch.

5) Casino Royale (2006)

When I was asking around, there were many people who thought that James Bond was the ultimate badass. I disagree in that many of the older films show Bond as overconfident with the assistance of many people. In fact, Q is more of a badass in many ways than James Bond. However, when the series was taken back to its roots with the last book that had not been made into a serious film and made darker, it reached badass levels. From the parkour chase to a poisoning to an extreme torture scene, this was not like any James Bond movie before it. Roger Craig plays a much colder lead who gives no quarter, much more like what the greatest secret agent would have to be. Heavy on violence but light on gore, this film is more for all audiences than other films on this list.

6) Desperado (1995)

What makes this movie is not all about Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek. It is that every other character is memorable and badass as well. The street standoff with Bucho’s men versus El Mariachi, Quino, and Campo is iconic. El Mariachi murders everyone in a bar with precise skill. The rogue assassin Navajas with all the knives played by Danny Trejo. Nothing but extreme shoot outs and fight scenes with a ridiculous variety of guns and explosives. I think what makes this movie so amazing is that all these amazing assassins are incognito and, when they suddenly produce an arsenal out of nowhere, it is always a pleasant surprise. Quino and Campo are amazing when they bring their guitars.

7) Pulp Fiction (1994)

Truly the role that made Samuel L. Jackson into the ultimate badass. He and his partner Vincent are hitman that keep running into the worst situations. The thing about the film is that everybody is so cool. The characters are cool, the music is cool, the dialogue is cool, hell even the diner featured in the movie is cool. The movie only spans a couple of days (in completely separate segments shown out of order) but packs in 7 distinct situations that are all berserk. From the mind of Quentin Tarantino, this movie is dripping with the best characters traveling through the best story. Highly recommend.

8) Leon: The Professional (1994)

Also known simply as The Professional in the U.S., this film features the debut of Natalie Portman. It is directed by Luc Besson at his best period, right between La Femme Nakita and The Fifth Element. The lead is actually a quiet hitman who reluctantly takes a little 12-year-old girl on as an apprentice to become a paid assassin. Her parents were killed by a corrupt cop and she wants Leon to help her exact revenge. He is an absolute badass and somewhat of a caring surrogate father to the girl. Unlike a lot of the films on this list, the premise is not simply kicking butt in a bad situation. There is serious character growth. Apparently you can be a caring parent and a cold-blooded murderer...and that is badass.

9) Kill Bill (2003)

Being a badass is not exclusive to men and The Bride is a prime example of this. She survives a shot to the head, kills deadly assassins, slaughters a gang, and takes on a crazy school girl bodyguard. She is tougher then any lead I can think of and she has the bad attitude and sense of vengeance that makes for a badass. Combine this with the soundtrack and beautiful cinematography associated with director Quentin Tarantino and you have a beautifully violent movie in which the hits keep coming. Even on this list, the fight scene between the bride and Gogo Yubari is insane. Also note the nod to Bruce Lee with the bright yellow motorcycle suit. Beautifully badass film.

10) Aliens (1986)

In nature, there are few things more dangerous than a mother protecting their young. A mother will fight you to the death and make sure that, at the very least, you won’t be able to go after her kids. Now imagine an alien planet covered with hostile beings created in the mind of James Cameron and Stan Winston and you have a setting made to create a real badass. In the beginning, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is just desperate to survive and barely knows how to use a weapon. She meets a little survivor named Newt and then has a real reason to become aggressive. She and a group of marines fight through a station filled with super destructive xenomorph aliens made straight from nightmares to save this kid. The transformation is truly amazing and culminates in a mech suit versus a giant queen alien and it is extremely badass.

11) Army of Darkness (1992)

Far and away the funniest movie on this list, this is the third film stemming from Evil Dead and again stars Bruce Campbell taking on the deadites that were raised by reading from the Necronomicon. The opposition is the undead evil that faces the world which makes the violence very unrealistic. This was early work from Sam Raimi and features a variety of different shots done to the extreme. What really makes this film stand out is how Bruce Campbell is amazing at delivering a one liner. His classic quips have been used as fun Easter eggs in video games like Duke Nukem and World of Warcraft for decades. The quintessential horror comedy and a perfect example of a badass.

12) Die Hard (1988)

Apparently, I am a big fan of single characters that need to work their way through a building of villains using mostly intelligence and the element of surprise. Throw in some one liners and I am all for it. That is exactly what this is with Bruce Willis crawling barefoot around a 40 story building and fighting off a gang of villains. The movie also has Alan Rickman as the main bad guy and he is chewing the scenery. This is a great example of being a badass, but it is too bad that the follow up sequels were so poor. Definitely stick to the original and let the rest pass by.

13) The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966)

An OG of the badass movie genre, this is some of the best of Sergio Leone and the spaghetti western. Instead of one badass, this movie has three different leads that are all amazing. You have the good, Clint Eastwood, who is an amazing shot and a heart of gold under a rough exterior. You have the bad, Lee Van Cleef, playing an conniving assassin that will kill anyone that he doesn’t have a use for. Finally, you have the ugly, Eli Wallach, as a desert rat that will do anything to survive. They all gain information about a gold stash and need to work together to get it, but this creates a vortex of cheating, undercutting, and straight up murder. Clint Eastwood is more of the classic badass with his cigar, hat, and poncho, It is an iconic look on an iconic character in an iconic movie. That is what I call badass.

14) Ong-Bak (2003)

This less of a badass movie and more houses some of the most amazingly badass fight scenes that can only be described as badass. This movie introduced the great Tony Jaa to the western world and showed the high flying nature of Thai boxing and Muay Thai in general. The main character is entered into a street fighting tournament and the moves include a flying double knee drop and a full splits kick. If the whole movie was the tournament, it would be the best movie that ever existed. The variety of opponents makes the fighting even better and the cinematography is top notch. Tony Jaa is truly badass in this film.

15) Dredd (2012)

Not the crappy version with Stallone, this movie is seriously badass. It features Karl Urban who is helmeted for the entire film (as Dredd would be) taking on a 200 story mega slum filled with residents that want to shoot him dead. There is a drug dealer high up in the building and she locks down the entire compound with instructions to kill Dredd, who only has his rookie partner to help. He takes on random resident mobs, groups of gang members, and even a trio of mini guns that have bullets that can rip through walls. He has a smart gun with a bunch of ammo that he uses judiciously to kill everybody. This movie was seriously underrated since it had not been that long since the garbage Judge Dredd came out in 1995. The 2012 is a far superior movie, being much more violent and dark instead of having Rob Schneider as the comedy relief (not badass).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know there will be a lot of opinions about what makes a badass film and what movies i didn’t add. Feel free to add your own movies or critique my choices. I will stand by my choices, however, and recommend any of these films for a night of cheers and badass action.

31 notes · View notes

shypotato-translations · 3 years

Text

QTVW Chapter 23

Showbiz* Sexy Queen (X)

----

In the end, it was Ling Tianye who came to the rescue and opened a celebrity cocktail party on the top floor of the hotel, so the director happily took the crew to the cocktail party for a meal.

The crowd: "......" really shouldn't have any hope for the world's most stingy director.

The crowd moved on to the location and once they had taken the lift to the top floor, they were greeted with a wide selection of fine food on one side;

On the other side, an elegant international art orchestra plays music that is bright and pleasing to the ears.

The guests at the reception, who were all dressed in evening gowns, were a little uncomfortable with the casual clothes they were wearing, but when they looked at the calmness of the director's face, they immediately discarded the image and went on to do other things.

Mei Mu Lan walked to the food area, picked up a plate, forked a piece of cake and ate it slowly. She was acting like she was taking advantage of the situation, but she just wanted to be angry with the director. After she crossed over to this world, she ate almost every meal with good taste and high prices.

She was wearing a close-fitting knee-length dress at the moment, her face unpowdered, eating cake slowly and gracefully, only so lightly, but attracting the attention of many, many people at the reception.

Unconcerned by the looks of these people, she turned to lean against the wall and watched Bai Jieying, led by Ling Tianye, meet many flamboyant people, who she had been paying divided attention to for the past six months, finding a few usable points of information between the signs and traces.

For one thing, this traveler is such a superb actress that it is obvious that she is either an actress or in a special profession;

Secondly, the traveler has a strong taste for the world and is able to play with all kinds of men; her background should not be pure;

Thirdly, the traveler has refined tastes and can be seen to have been educated in relevant areas;

Fourthly, the traveler is well-handled and is able to do it all on her own when she is in the cast and acting in martial arts scenes.

In summary, Mei Mu Lan has a few guesses as to the identity of this traveler, but as to her exact identity, she will have to wait to continue to observe for some time before she can come to a conclusion.

As for the "hidden task - solving the travelers" in the system, Mei Mu Lan thought of murdering her.

But if it were really that simple, the Virtual Time Master System would not need, at all, to set up administrators like her to enter the virtual world and perform tasks.

The hidden mission, solving the travelers, should have a deeper meaning. She just didn't understand it yet, so she couldn't do anything rash at the moment, she had to wait until she, herself, understood the true meaning of the mission before she could do anything to solve it.

As Mei Mu Lan thought of this, her thoughts once again came to a standstill and she shook her head off, her gaze falling on Ling Yi Yao.

The film 《The Burial Man》was finished, and according to her plan, it was time to move next, Mei Mu Lan thought to herself: The first thing I need to do is pack my bags tonight and move there early tomorrow morning. According to the plot, Ling Yi Yao has already moved into this villa, so she must make some big noise to get Ling Yi Yao's attention for this move.

So thinking, she suddenly remembered Father Mei. That said, during the time she stayed at home, the original owner's father had been away.

The butler once overheard that Father Mei was going to participate in a large auction in Europe for six months, so she guess he would be going home in the next two days.

In fact, Mei Mu Lan does not hate this man, Father Mei is still a wise and fair man in many ways, except that he insisted on marrying this childhood friend.

But he was a shrewd man with a sharp mind, and as mentioned in the novel, after the original owner's death, Father Mei aged by more than ten years in an instant, and he really had feelings for the original owner. And immediately after the original owner's funeral, he handed over all the big and small affairs of the Mei family to the Mei butler to handle, and on the same day, he announced the news that the Mei butler had become the new patriarch of the Mei family.

Even when her stepmother pleads, he does not change his mind, showing that he does not let his feelings sway his mind.

In that case, Father Mei was still worth getting close to, Mei Mulan thought, and perhaps she could talk to him when he returned.

The accidental death of the original owner's mother, the death of the original owner in an 'accidental' car accident, and the fact that Mei Mu Lan does not mention it does not mean that she has forgotten about it.

After observing her stepmother, she came to the conclusion that the original owner's mother's death, the original owner's death by poisoning, and her stepmother, should have nothing to do with each other. Because the stepmother was a rather idiotic person, with little intelligence or fighting ability, and only had a mouth that didn't allow people to get away with it, such a person was the easiest to deal with. Of course, we can't rule out that it was the stepmother who acted too well and fooled her.

So, assuming it wasn't the stepmother, why was the original owner poisoned at the college graduation party? And why was the car destroyed?

This poisoner must have known the original owner's temperament well enough to know that the original owner would drive onto the highway and look for Ling Yi Yao after she had lost her mind in a drunken stupor.

Mei Mu Lan searched around among the people the original owner knew, but in the end, she still couldn't get a clue.

Everything is hidden in the darkness, dimly lit.

Mei Mu Lan could only sip her wine helplessly and focus her attention on the reception.

Her eyes casually scanning the entire venue, then she felt a blazing sight and she frowned as she looked over to see a woman with semi-long hair and an elegant tight black dress, picking up a glass of wine and walking over.

This woman, with her pale skin against the black dress, is as fair as can be.

The eyes are dark, extremely dark, and give an eerie sense of dread when looking at people.

She looks like she is in her forties, but her wrinkle-free face makes her look as if she is in her twenties again.

A peculiar woman, Mei Mu Lan defined.

This woman walked over, strong emotions welling up in her deep dark eyes. She approached slowly, her posture elegant, and she spoke, her voice husky like a man's, as she said,

"Mu Lan, hello."

Mei Mu Lan showed a puzzled expression and asked,

"Who are you ......? I haven't seen you before."

The woman smiled lightly, a deep dimple at the corner of her mouth, looking playful and cute, making it even more impossible for Mei Mu Lan to tell the person's age.

She continued hoarsely,

"I'm a friend of your mother's, I've lived in America before and only returned a few days ago, you look a lot like your mother, is she okay now?"

It turned out to be a friend of the original owner's mother, and it dawned on her,

"Hello auntie, my mother, she, passed away four years ago."

The woman's face was stunned for a moment, then the smile on her face deepened as she let out a feigned sigh and suddenly asked an unrelated question as she said,

"Is Wen Xueluo okay now?"

Wen Xueluo is Aunt Wen, it seems they all know each other, Mei Mu Lan doesn't like this woman much, so she drops her eyebrows and says in a nonchalant tone,

"Aunt Wen is very nice and looks ...... very young."

The woman froze again, then she smiled even more and said,

"You're funny, you're much better than your mother, first time we've met, introductions, I'm Seven, you can call me Miss S."

This time it was Mei Mu Lan's turn to freeze, Miss S?!

Of course Mei Mu Lan knows Miss S. This lady, the writer and screenwriter of 《Love in a Fallen City》, a long-time overseas patriot, a well-known writer specializing in fringe literature, domestic and international, the most awarded female author of literary awards.

She smiled deeply and said,

"I have long admired Miss S' name, but I didn't expect you to be my mother's friend.”

Miss S hooked her lips into a smile, her originally ordinary and common appearance actually had a seductive charm after she smiled lightly and deeply like this.

She moved closer, leaning close to Mei Mu Lan, she exhaled softly, her nostrils blazing, hitting Mei Mu Lan's neck as she said,

"We will meet again, and when we do, I look forward to it, you will lie in my *** and be naked with me."

Mei Mu Lan had black lines, but on this occasion she couldn't push her away, she could only take a step back herself and lean against the wall, she teased,

"Auntie, being so old, this kind of thing is not for you anymore, be careful of twisting your old back."

Miss S laughed merrily, then took a step back and turned to walk away, and by the time she had taken five steps away, she turned back and said,

"Tsk, Mu Lan, take a word of advice from your aunt and watch out for Wen Xueluo! Haha, I''ll see you in a month."

Mei Mu Lan was stunned and turned to think: this mission world is really a universal yuri, did she have an accepting face? How come everyone likes to be imposing and talk in her ear.

By the way, why didn't Ling Yi Yao do that, she was looking forward to it, ah. She resentfully searched for Ling Yi Yao's back, but after searching for a long time, she couldn't find her, and she wondered, when did this woman leave? Strange.

Early the next morning, Mei Mu Lan left the Mei family's home with her luggage, rounded off with the keys to her new villa, and drove to the Jiangnan Town area.

She was halfway down the road when she started honking her car horn in defiance of her image, and it's a good thing the villas in the area hadn't been sold yet, or someone would have sued her for disturbing the public.

Two minutes after she pressed the button, a security guard appeared in front of her car as if he had fallen from the sky and raised his hand to stop her,

"Please keep quiet. Civilisation depends on you, on me, on everyone."

Mei Mu Lan: "......" This odd security guard, where did you find him.

Mei Mu Lan swept her eyes around and found that the villa just two metres behind her was Ling Yi Yao's residence, and two metres in front of her, was her residence.

So she blinked and discharged,

"Uncle Security, I can't find my villa, can you take me there?"

The guard grimaced and replied,

"I'm sorry, I'm only 19 years old and I can't be your uncle. Also, I'm only responsible for the safety of the residents, not the part of giving directions."

Mei Mu Lan: "......"

Mei Mu Lan blinked, took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, opened the car door, stepped out of the car and said,

“I know, I was blinded just now, so this house is my villa, well, I found it, now you are not needed here."

The security guard, with a paralyzed face, said,

"Excuse me, please park your car in a fixed position and do not obstruct the passage of others, thank you for your cooperation."

Mei Mu Lan: "......"

Ling Yi Yao, who was leaning against the window watching: "......" suddenly felt like the sun was shining and the birds were singing, and the mood was so relaxing.

As she faced Mei Mu Lan speechless and a thousand times over, the scene dropped off and actually looked so amusing. Maybe she could call the head of Jiangnan Town today and ask him to arrange for this little security guard to be promoted.

Mei Mu Lan drove into the garage with a wooden face, and it was only when she stepped out of the garage and into the courtyard of the villa that the security guard left at ease.

Mei Mu Lan: "......" What is this indescribable feeling of fuckery? Can I call and complain to the person in charge of Jiangnan Town about the replacement?

Anyway, now that she is living next door to Ling Yi Yao, she will wait until the evening to take the neighbourhood love dessert and go over and fake-slut (really seduce), her future neighbour for good.

With this in mind, Mei Mu Lan revived from the spot and opened the door with the key in high spirits.

Ling Yi Yao, "Suddenly I feel so cold, the weather has cooled down? It's just March now, strange."

As night fell, Mei Mu Lan put on a light trench coat, carrying a plate of cupcakes, and walked to the door of Ling Yi Yao's villa. After she straightened her face to ensure that her facial muscles could perfectly portray her mood, she knocked regularly on the door**, and then the door opened, and Ling Yi Yao, wearing a short shirt and grey jeans, opened the door, with an expression on her face that said: You've finally come.

There are a few meaningful moments of looking beyond the horizon.

Mei Mu Lan immediately showed herself stunned, shocked, jolted, and then haughty with a smile as she said, "...... Hey, don't go." You haven't seen my expression, it's a waste of acting.

The moment Ling Yi Yao opened the door, she turned and walked away, leaving a forlorn Mei Mu Lan shivering at the door.

Ling Yi Yao walked over to the sofa and sat down, pointed to the sofa opposite and said,

"Close the door and come and sit down."

Mei Mu Lan immediately doggedly closed the door and pounced ...... on her.

Ling Yi Yao looked at her, narrowing her eyes with such a hint of danger as she asked in a slow and profound tone,

"Why are you, sitting, on, my lap."

That's right, what was happening was that Mei Mu Lan, without any delay, pounced on Ling Yi Yao's body, her thighs pressed against her thighs, their chests against their chests, their noses against their noses.

Mei Mu Lan covered her face with a shy face and said,

"Oh, nasty, it was you who said you wanted me to sit over here, so I sat over here."

Ling Yi Yao: "......"

Ling Yi Yao picked up Mei Mu Lan with one hand, opened the door of the room while the other party was still imagining various plays, and threw her out with one hand.

Mei Mu Lan: "......" This is too fierce, isn't it?

It was Mei Mu Lan who wrote on Weibo that night: My goddess is a little arrogant and a little violent, tossing people around and sweating profusely, and they are now aching all over.

She is looking forward to the expression on Ling Yi Yao's face when she sees this tweet one day in the future, it must be very emotional.

For the rest of the day, it was a daily routine of Mei Mu Lan to go to Ling Yi Yao's house, then within five minutes, she was thrown out again by Ling Yi Yao with one hand, then she went to Ling Yi Yao's house again, then was thrown out again.

The days were very sweet and kudos must be given.

Then one afternoon, Mei Mu Lan, who was planning to clean herself up and have her mind in various plays, received a call from Miss S.

#yuri #transmigration #world hopping #shypotato #QTVW23

11 notes · View notes

alcalavicci · 3 years

Text

So there’s a really interesting interview with Deborah Pratt here. If you don’t want to pay for it, I’ll paste what I can below, but a few points first.

Deborah says she doesn’t know where Dean is, and says she misses him. I guess she hasn’t had contact with him since he left for NZ? And with Russ Tamblyn saying Dean’s hanging in there in answer to a recent Twitter question, that brings up more questions about his condition.

Deborah claims she came up with the idea of Quantum Leap, which I’ve never seen come up before. Also Don wanted to send Sam home?? I feel like she’s misremembering a lot of details/making herself seem better than she is.

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time tht his next leap will be the leap home…”

The premise of Quantum Leap succinctly and empathetically explained by a voice that spoke to viewers week to week, setting the scene at the opening of the episode. It is a voice that left an indelible print on the show, from its inception to its finale. This is the voice of its Head Writer. No, not Donald P. Bellisario, but a woman of color who was leaps ahead of her time – co-executive producer and uncredited co-creator, Deborah M. Pratt.

Deborah wrote or co-wrote 40 episodes of this sci-fi gem and her authorship of the show runs deep through its five seasons. Aside from the opening narration, Deborah is audible as the voice of Admiral Al Calavicci’s pocket computer, Ziggy. She also guest stars in the episode ‘A Portrait for Troian’ (S2, Ep11) as a grieving widow who hears the voice of her husband calling her.

Deeper still, Quantum Leap was a family affair. It was co-created with her husband at the time, Bellisario, and their daughter, also named Troian, appears as a little girl in ‘Another Mother’ (S2, Ep13, who can not only see Al, but also sees Sam as he really is, rather than as her recently divorced mom.

Prior to helming Quantum Leap, Deborah rose through the ranks as an actress, racing the screen in Happy Days, CHiPS, The Dean Martin Show and many more, and was also a writer on shows such as Airwolf and Magnum P.I. She is a five-time Emmy nominee, Golden Globe nominee and winner of countless other awards. She went on to produce CBS comedy cop show, Tequila and Bonetti, and then to co-create and produce the TV series adaptation of Sandra Bullock tech thriller, The Net. But Quantum Leap was Deborah’s brainchild – one which is emblazoned on the hearts of its faithful fans.

Deborah has since moved into directing, including on hit show Grey’s Anatomy (2020), but was generous with her time when spoke in late 2020 to leap back into the past.

It does seem that you were really ahead of your time as a female head writer and a showrunner in the ’90s, especially in science fiction TV. Was it hard for you to progress and to get Quantum Leap made?

“Usually women were relegated to comedy, very rarely was it drama or heavy drama. It’s changed, finally, with people like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal). But yes, I was a true pioneer, even though I don’t have a ‘created by’ credit, it was a ‘co-created by’ show – with Don. I brought him the original concept, and we were married, and he said ‘Let me just run with this. I can get it made.’ And to his credit, he understands how to tell a story to the audience. He simplified it in a way that you could welcome Quantum Leap into the world. But it was still a tough show to sell.

“I think we went back three times to pitch it to the network. It was complicated to explain. Brandon Tartikoff [the executive] said ‘It’s a great idea – It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on TV. Let me think about it.’ Then he asked us to come back, ‘I want you to pitch it to me like I’m six years old, then pitch it to me like I’m 80 years old’ and finally he took it. Then even after the show first aired, they decided to introduce that opening where I tell the story. That was created to explain every week to a new viewer what was going on and it worked really well.”

On rewatch now, the best part of three decades later, the show feels groundbreaking in terms of the subjects you cover. Did you feel like you were pushing the envelope?

“I feel we got to do so much on that show. I remember when I did ‘Black on White on Fire’ [S3, Ep7], the networks in the South in the United States wouldn’t air it because it was a black/white relationship. Even though there is no scene where you see a black person and a white person being intimate.

You saw Sam, who was white, and the girl who was white, but because he was playing someone who was black, it was an issue. They wouldn’t air the show in the South. This was around 1992.

“It was challenging for sure. I think we pushed the limits.

“The beauty of the show too, was that it was about hope, which I see so little of on television today. Everything’s so dark, so mean, so vicious, bloody – how many people can you kill? How mean can you make your lead characters and antiheroes. I think it’s why I didn’t work as much afterwards. A) I was a woman, and B) a black woman. There weren’t any black female executive producers that I knew of in drama. I got to do The Net because it had a female lead, but that was almost ten years after Quantum Leap was created. Any show I brought in that had a black lead was never bought, or a female lead, was never bought.

“I remember I wrote a big action piece – like an Indiana Jones, but female-driven, feature film – and pitched it and the studio executive said, ‘Yeah, yeah, but when did the guy come and rescue her?’ And I said, ‘She doesn’t – she rescues him.’ The look on his face. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

The show darted around TV schedules, but the fans remained with it, and still to this day hold it dear to their hearts. Was that palpable at the time, or has that grown since?

“I think near the end of the first season, Harriet Margulies [Production Assistant on the show] found a chat room after an episode where people from across the country talked about it and it became the ‘watercooler.’ We were the first television show that had a chat room as a watercooler. Before that, it was literally you going into your office and standing around the watercooler and talking about movies or TV shows you were watching. Suddenly, it was online. So we started to go into the chat room and talk to people about what they liked and what they didn’t. Not necessarily telling them who we were, but that fan base is what kept us on the air because the network didn’t know what to do with us. There was no show like it, so they couldn’t like pair us with anybody.

“In the five years we were on, I think they moved the show six times and the fans still found it, they followed it, they watched it. That’s how we knew we had something unique and special. To this day, I’ll go into a meeting with a young executive who’ll go, ‘I have to tell you, I loved Quantum Leap. I used to watch it with my mom and dad’.”

Scott Bakula was such a great hero and heartthrob as Dr. Sam. What was he like to work with?

“He was so approachable, you know, in the sense that he had this great, easy acting style. He took chances and he was likeable – in a way that he could be a man’s man and a woman’s man at the same time. He’s really a brilliant actor. I am saddened by the fact that he has not had the opportunity to do movies in the way that could really have lifted his career. He’s had an incredibly successful television career. He’s a good actor. He’s a kind man. I’ve always admired him and felt like when we were working together, I had a friend that I loved to write for because he was always so giving and willing and wanting to take chances as an actor. So it was fun to go down to the trailer and say, ‘Guess what? You’re going to be pregnant this week’.

He does everything in the show from sing and dance to baseball, football, hopping over car bonnets to fights and martial arts. Did you know he had such a wide skill set from the outset, or did you write the challenges for him to rise to?

“I think we had conversations with him about that. I also knew that he had been on Broadway doing musicals. I knew he could sing and dance. When I wrote ‘Sea Bride’ [S2, Ep20], I wrote a tango number – that was unique for him. When Don knew that he could play the guitar… We asked Scott, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he said he wanted to do a musical and I think that’s how the ‘Catch a Falling Star’ episode [S2, Ep10] came about, which involves a performance of ‘Man of LaMancha’.”

Admiral Al Calavicci – he’s so much more than wisecracking and surface jokes or flirtation. There’s so much depth to his character. Was that fleshed out early on with an end to end journey for him in mind, or did his character evolve through the seasons?

“It was a little bit of both. Dean Stockwell had been on Broadway at five-years-old and had been a major child movie star. I remember when we wrote the show where Sam had the chance to save Al – ‘The Leap B4, Ep1] – he was so good in that. I’ll never forget how beautiful that was. And then in the very, very end, I love the fact that Sam did change history and Al ended up wih his beautiful wife with five kids.

“I remember once asking Dean, ‘Do you want us to write more drama for you? Big dramatic moments?’ And he said, ‘I want you to look at me right now. I want you to tell me what you see.’ And I said, ‘Well, your performance, the pain, fear and loss and all that, because you’re such an incredible actor.’ And he said ‘For me to perform that, I have to be it and live it. So don’t do too many.’

“He had that depth of acting talent. He is so good – Dean, wherever you are, I love you. I miss you.”

The episodes that follow later in the seasons involving celebrities – Sam as Elvis, Dr. Ruth, or Lee Harvey Oswald, was that kind of a direction that you always foresaw? It feels like a sea change as the show progressed.

“The stories were designed, for the most part, to be so, so simple in that they were everyday stories. They weren’t change-the-world stories. I think the biggest one was Lee Harvey Oswald, and maybe the one involving Marilyn Monroe – those were with people that could have had a ripple effect.

“But there were other little kisses with history in the show, but they were very hard to do. They ran into a child version of Donald Trump in a taxi cab, [‘It’s A Wonderful Leap’ – S4, Ep18], then they ran into a little boy who is supposed to be Michael Jackson – Sam teaches him to moonwalk [‘Camikazi Kid’ – S1, Ep8]. The first time I did a kiss with history was ‘Star-Crossed’ [S1, Ep3] – Sam meets up with the woman that left him at the altar and they’re at the Watergate Hotel. That was fun stuff.”

Sam managed to awkwardly kiss lots of ladies in that sense of ‘Oh God, they’re going to kiss me and I’ve got to be this person, what am I supposed to do.’

“We never, ever really discussed what happened to Sam. We didn’t want him to be encumbered by a relationship. But I didn’t get to kiss him. My husband wouldn’t leave the set on the episode I was in!”

Your move into directing – from your TV drama Cora Unashamed back in 2000, to Grey’s Anatomy just last year. Is that something you wanted to do sooner? Were there barriers prohibiting you?

“I was supposed to direct on Quantum Leap four times. Every time it was coming up, something would happen. The only women who directed on the show were two black women – Debi Allen [Fame, Everybody Hate Chris, Jane the Virgin] and the other was a woman named Anita Addison. They each did two shows.

I said, ‘If I’m not doing this, I want black women.’ There were no other black women. And it was a fight. I tried to get black women directors on the show, but I could never get them past.

Then when I went to do The Net, the studio blocked it. I give huge amounts of credit for executive producing to Shonda Rhimes and what she has been able to do. She did what I thought I was going to be able to do. She’s so talented and I’m such a fan of her and her shows. I’m looking forward to what she’s going to do on Netflix. And it was an honour to do Grey’s Anatomy because I’m a fan of the show and I’m really grateful to have that opportunity.”

Has there been progress in terms of female directors and filmmakers being given opportunities?

“It’s very hard for women because there aren’t a lot of women executives at the studios. There are more now. And so there is an evolution that’s happening, but it still feels slow. There were shows run by people I gave opportunities to back in the day, but when I said, “hey, I want to direct on your show,” the response was, “oh, there’s too much machismo. There’s too many male hormones around here. They’ll eat you alive.” And I went, “no, they won’t, you’ll protect me. How about if I do my job?” And that was only last year. But there are more opportunities. There are more women making decisions, but we have to do more because women’s stories and women’s voices are more than half the population – we need to hear those stories. The historic ones as well as the contemporary ones.”

Is there a leap that was your favourite overall? That you feel made you made your mark with?

“’The Color of Truth’ [S1, Ep7] touched so many people and it opened a dialogue. I remember we got a letter from a teacher who said she brought the VHS in and she played it to her class, up until Jesse [Sam as an ageing black chauffeur in ’50s Deep South] goes and sits down at the counter in the restaurant. Then she stopped it and asked the students what they thought happened next. They thought that he just ordered lunch. And then she played the rest and that hostility and the animosity he endures and the fact that he had to get up and leave really incensed these children. They had never heard of or experienced racism. They didn’t want to believe that it really happened. This is how history gets buried and why television is so powerful and important. It opened a conversation that she could not have necessarily had in her classroom, according to her, had she not brought that show in to share with her students.

“We had another letter that was very moving, and I want to say it might’ve been ‘The Leap Home’ [S2, Ep1-2]. There was a couple who wrote and said they had a child that was on a cancer ward and every Thursday the whole ward would watch Quantum Leap. Their child was dying and they had kind of given up and it was just time to help that child transition out of this world. They watched the show and she said, ‘We realized we gave up hope. When we watched the show, we realized we didn’t have to give up hope and we wanted to write to you. It’s now six months later and the crisis has passed. The cancer is in remission. Our child is up and going back to school. And we just want to thank you for reminding us that hope has its own power’.”

Its power and poignancy has never diminished. Though the final episode, ‘Mirror Image’ (S5, Ep22), with the caption saying Sam doesn’t get to go home, does leave a sucker punch.

“That was our last fight. Don was going to send him home. And I said, ‘You can’t, you can’t send him home. If you ever, ever, which we’ve not ever been able to get Universal to let us do it, want to do a movie… If you want to keep the story going, you have to leave Sam out there in the hearts of people, leaving people thinking he could leap into their lives’. And at first Don said, ‘No, no, we need to bring him home’. And I said, ‘Do not bring him home. Or you will end the show. If you leave the hope out there, that Sam is out there and he could leap into your life and make a difference’. You keep the show alive in the hearts and the minds of the fans. And I think I was right.”

The ending was poetic for me as a viewer, but your point about Sam still being out there – Is there a leap back to the future for Quantum Leap?

“I started writing a project called Time Child about Sammy Jo Fuller. I actually wrote a trilogy in Season 5 where Sam leapt back three times into the same family and the second time he leapt he ended up in bed with this character and conceived a child. Then the third time he leapt in, he met her at 10 years old – a girl named Sammy Jo Fuller. So in my vision, Sammy Jo Fuller grows up. I actually have Al say, ‘Sammy is in the future with me. We’re trying to bring you home.’ That was my set-up way back in 1993, in Season 5, to say someday, Sammy Jo being his daughter might take over….

“This was the ’90s. Women heroes didn’t exist really – other than comic books – Wonder Woman was there, Super Girl was there. But I set it up in the show that Sammy Jo was going to bring him home. Sadly, I have not been able to get Don and the studio to give me the green light for Time Child. It might happen someday.”

Right now, it feels like we need more shows that offer hope. Is there a place for a reboot on streaming platforms?

“Universal keep saying they want to bring it back. They’re not going to give it up to Netflix because they have [US streaming service] Peacock now and still have NBC. I personally think it should be on a full blown network. The hard part would be that it would have to be recast if there was a female version using my character Sammy Jo Fuller. Or if they just redid the show, it would be interesting in the sense that there was such an innocence about the show. I still believe that there is an audience out there that wants it, that longs for looking at the past through the eyes of somebody in the present. But who would that person be if you did the show now, what are those eyes like?

“We’re living in the time of COVID and suddenly you go back in time. How do you warn people that this is going to happen? How do you warn people about 9/11? How do you warn people about things in the future?

“I mean, one of the beauties of that innocence too, and I thought that was a great gift from Don to the concept, was that Sam’s memory as Swiss cheese – he didn’t remember things and that made it a lot easier, and Al was not allowed to tell him what was happening in the present. There’s a lot of detail woven into the mythology that allowed it to be innocent and in the moment of time travel. You didn’t have to drag the future back with you.”

Do you have an actress in mind to play Sammy Jo in a reboot?

“Oh my gosh, Jennifer Garner. I always felt she would be a great female Sam. She’s an ‘every woman.’ She’s funny. She does great drama. When I think of a female Sam or even Sammy Jo, I think Jennifer – in a heartbeat. She’s so great in Alias. That show just never stopped. You couldn’t take a breath. If I had to go younger, somebody that would have that kind of believable humour that you think could actually rescue you – maybe Jennifer Lawrence. She’s pretty formidable in that sense.”

“To bring Quantum Leap back. If they’re thinking about it, now’s the time to happen. Tell people to write to Universal! Write for the attention of Pearlena Igbokwe – if anyone can bring it back, she can do it. Write! Write to Pearlena – she’s the one that’ll make it happen. That’s how we stayed on the air for five and a half years. Fans unite and write!”

#quantum leap #article

11 notes · View notes

thexfridax · 4 years

Link

Translated interview

No, I’m not made of sugar: Shooting star Adèle Haenel

Nathan Niedermeier, unicum.de, 11th of January 2017

// Additions or clarifications for translating purposes are denoted as [T: …]. //

Adèle Haenel (28 [T: ?!]) is highly regarded in the film business in France. The Parisian already received two ‘Césars’. Her new film ‘The Bloom of Yesterday’ will be shown across Germany from the 12th of January. UNICUM spoke with the actress about her career and what appeals to her in this job.

Interviewer: You started acting when you were quite young - where did your enthusiasm come from?

Adèle Haenel: I’ve started acting in theatre when I was 5 years old, that was my first real passion in life, so to speak. My parents sent me to a theatre course, because I was quite a restless child.

I: What happened then?

AH: Between the age of five and 12 I did this theatre course in Montreuil-sous-Bois, and did my first film 'The Devils’ in 2002, when I was 12. That was a profound experience. It was difficult for me to continue with acting afterwards. That’s why I stopped in Montreuil. I went back to acting when I was 17 - for the film ‘Water Lilies’.

I: And what happened in between?

AH: I went to school and graduated. Then I did castings again, thanks to Christel Baras. She is a Casting director and found me again at a rally.

I: What kind of rally was that?

AH: I went to many rallies, that’s why I don’t quite remember which one it was. I think, it was a rally against developments in the French school system. Resistance is important, also for health reasons. No? If we don’t protest, then it is like being asleep.

[T: Omitted recap of ‘The Bloom of Yesterday’]

I: You were part of international films including German productions. How come that you learned German?

AH: My father is from Austria, that is why I heard a lot of German in my childhood - but didn’t really speak it. Then I went to school and forgot everything, because language teaching was really bad. So, I could neither speak German nor English as a teenager. But - voilà! - then I learned German again, because I finally had a goal. I therefore have an emotional connection to the German language.

I: This means: [T: Speaking languages] is important to succeed as an actress?

AH: It depends in which country you live: If I come from a country without a film industry, then I have to learn another language. For me the point is to be independent. And I think it is more important for an actor/actress to get to know your body, for example through dancing. In the end, it depends what kind of life you want.

I: Do you have a favourite character that you have played before?

AH: It is usually more about the film than the character. I prefer to act in films that I’m interested in as a whole than in those that only offer an interesting part. Most important is the point of view that the director has on society. I really enjoy physically demanding roles: Running, shouting [T: 1, 2], jumping [T: 😁]!

I: What makes a film great in your opinion?

AH: That’s quite hard to describe, it is more about a feeling. There are signs that we could follow and that tell us: ‘This film is amazing!’ I want to feel that the director is searching for something and doesn’t just follow the well-trodden path.

I: What do you like the most about the job of an actress?

AH: To act with a partner in harmony. It is really fun when you both develop the feeling that you can imagine everything.

I: In the film ‘The Bloom of Yesterday’ you can act out your physical side [T: see here and here]: Do you actually do martial arts?

AH: I’ve done judo as a child, I am sort of famous for that in the acting industry. I don’t fight in real life or hit random people, but I can be confrontational (laughs). The other actors in this production were holding back, because they thought they would hurt me. So I always had to tell them: ‘No, I’m not made of sugar!‘

I: Shooting a film like this is probably unsettling. How do you manage to keep your distance?

AH: When we shoot a film, it haunts me sometimes. There is a special atmosphere during filming. We play a fictional character of course, but for me the boundaries of reality are not well defined. You need time to go back to the here and now.

#Adèle Haenel #unicum.de #German interview #January 2017 #The Bloom of Yesterday #Die Blumen von gestern #Chris Kraus #Pick your fighter #Can kick your ass at any time #👊🏾#Her talking about LD 😠😟#My translation

30 notes · View notes

metalandmagi · 4 years

Text

Summer 2020 Anime Worth Watching!

Apparently it’s time for the summer anime season, even though it feels like time is meaningless at this point. But somehow, there are still new shows coming out, so if you’re looking for something to watch when you’re stuck at home, here’s a list of the first impressions I got from this season. I don’t really know if it’s going to be worth it, considering how the spring season delayed so much, but here we are.

As always, not all of these are available on Crunchyroll, but I’ll put a * next to the ones that are.

And if you’re looking for a bit more variety, I have lists for 2019 and the rest of this year’s seasons too...because remember when there was good anime being released instead of just everything being an ecchi or a second season?

2019 master list

My master list for every season of 2020 anime

New Shows!

*The God of High School: An over the top action anime consisting of one big tournament arc! It follows a group of teenagers competing in the epic “god of high school” martial arts tournament to determine the best fighter in the country. Following in the footsteps of Tower of God, this is the newest “crunchyroll original” that is being adapted from a South Korean webcomic. You can tell from the first episode that this will be a spectacle with crazy characters and lots of wild action and humor!

Great Pretender: When a Japanese con man pickpockets the wrong person, he ends up hopping on a plane to Los Angeles and getting wrapped up in a scheme with a sassy Frenchman named Laurent...who basically runs the mafia. There’s humor, there’s plot, there’s great characters, and it’s kinda gay. It’s an exciting original anime from studio Wit, so the animation is bursting with character, and both the music and the general vibe remind me a lot of Baccano or even Lupin III. And since it takes place in America with several foreign characters, there's hilarious English and accent shenanigans abound! The bad news is it’s still in Netflix jail, so if you want to watch it legally you’re kinda stuck for now.

Japan Sinks 2020: A giant earthquake hits Japan, and a family must cope with the mayhem together. Because what the hell else could possibly go wrong this year? This is a new series (based on a novel) made by Masaaki Yuasa, the guy behind Ride Your Wave and Walk On Girl, if that tells you anything about the style of this anime. I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far, but I heard it goes from being a gripping realistic disaster series to a balls to the wall adventure. To be honest, disaster shows/movies freak me out, and this one is pretty devastating so far, which is a testament to how well it's made. But I appreciate that they include glimmers of hope when they’re needed. The best moments are the quiet ones that focus on the actual people and the narration that juxtaposes the time periods. There’s so much atmosphere, and the music really enhances the experience. And it’s all out on Netflix now, with a dub and a sub!

Deca-Dence: When humanity has been pushed to the edge of extinction by monsters called the Gadoll, the rest of civilization is forced to live in enormous mobile fortresses and send groups out to battle the unknown monsters. So basically like Mortal Engines but the fortresses can turn themselves into giant fists and punch the monsters. We follow a girl named Natsume who wants to be one of the soldiers who fight the Gadoll, but she is constantly rejected because of her prosthetic arm. So she ends up with five years of cleaning duty supervised by a stern but mysterious badass named Kaburagi. I honestly don’t care at all about the plot of the anime, because for me the characters are what drives everything, and these character dynamics are great. I’m not going to say it’s the most original story, but I think it’s fun so far.

*Rent-a-Girlfriend: A typical harem/romance anime that follows the world’s most annoying protagonist named Kazuya. After Kazuya is dumped by his first girlfriend, he seeks out a rental girlfriend out of self pity….BECAUSE APPARENTLY THAT’S A REAL SERVICE THAT EXISTS IN JAPAN?! Like you can actually rent moms/dads/girlfriends/boyfriends and so on. Anyway, his fake girlfriend is the picture of anime waifu perfection...until Kazuya starts being his typical asshole self and she reveals her true nature of being an absolute sass master who don’t take no shit from no boring ass main character. Shenanigans happen and the two of them end up having to pretend they are in a real relationship. And I’m just calling it now...Kazuya’s grandma is the real best girl of the series. If you want a harem that’s actually funny and doesn’t mind roasting the protagonist, give this one a shot. Although I wish this were just a straight up romance instead of a harem because there is no way in hell that any girl, let alone more than one would want actually to date this guy.

Next Seasons and Continuations!

*Fruits Basket 2019 (Season 2): Thank goodness Fruits Basket wasn’t delayed or cancelled last season because sometimes I feel like it was the only thing getting me through the spring. I’ve ranted about how good it is enough by now. If it can’t brighten your year, then nothing will. Just watch it if you haven’t already.

*Re:ZERO-Starting Life in Another World (Season 2): Subaru is still trapped in another world, and he’s still as angsty as ever, but that’s not going to stop him from constantly putting himself through hell when he keeps dying horribly every time he needs to reset the timeline! There are mysterious new villains, nobody knows who Rem is (again) and I think there’s a plot somewhere under all the suffer porn. Seriously though, this show is pretty cool (even if I was two years late to the party). It’s one of the most interesting isekai anime I’ve ever seen, and it feels like it’s acting as a deconstruction of the genre, kinda like how Madoka Magica is for magical girl anime...both shows certainly have enough crying. The story is weird but interesting, the world building is cool, the villains (and sometimes the heroes) are batshit crazy to watch, and I like its moments of humor.

No Guns Life (season 2): The story of Juzo, the hard boiled detective who plays by his own rules continues in the second season of No Guns Life. In case you missed the first season, this is a mystery/action anime that feels like an old noir film had a cyberpunk baby. There’s underground conspiracies, there’s interesting side characters, and...oh yeah the main character has a gun for a head. That’s right. we came to see a bara detective with a literal gun for a face, but we stayed for the world building and mysterious plots!

*Fire Force (Season 2): I’m going to be honest here, I really didn’t know if I should include this one or not. I have a major love hate relationship with Fire Force, but I figured there may be other people out there who would like it more than I do. So in case you missed the first season, this show follows a group of firefighters who puts out fires caused by spontaneous combustion using a mixture of guns and super powers. It was created by Atsushi Ōkubo, aka the guy who made Soul Eater. So it’s bound to be amazing right?

Not necessarily. Strap in for this one lads.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with this show overall. Its main characters just aren’t that interesting most of the time, it can’t decide on what kind of show it wants to be, and so much of it just dragged for a good part of the series. I don’t know if it was a problem of pacing or if the plot was just that uninteresting for a while. The first couple episodes set up a very unique plot, filled with intriguing moral dilemmas. And then it proceeded to abandon everything interesting in favor of badly timed fan-service. It just couldn’t strike the balance that Soul Eater had between its humor and its sincerity. If they wanted to make an ecchi show, they should have just made one instead of inserting the same overplayed scenarios into every episode. I don’t care if a show has fan-service as long as it fits the tone, or if it only has certain episodes dedicated to playing up the humor. But Fire Force has a habit of just inserting it wherever it wants regardless of what’s actually happening in the episode. Also, some of the humor revolves around one of the main female characters who has a really messed up self image because she’s slightly more muscular, and not a tiny delicate flower like some of the other girls. Not going to pretend that doesn’t bug me.

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing good about it! If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t have finished the first season, and I wouldn’t be including this one. So far, the second season has actually been funny because it made the first episode more like filler, instead of cramming in too much plot all at once. And to the surprise of no one, the animation is absolutely god tier. I wish it was being used for something other than clumsy fan-service, but it’s still really something to see. The world building is super creative and 100% my aesthetic, and there were a couple side characters I really loved later in the series (Benimaru). And I did like the twists and turns the series took later in the season when it actually focused on the conspiracy behind the fire force and the cult. When it follows the mysteries it sets up, it’s more fun to watch. Who would have thought?

TLDR: There’s good stuff and there’s bad stuff. This show is really something you have to watch for yourself to decide if it’s going to be worth it. I’m going to at least try the second season, because I want to see where this goes, but it’s on thin ice.

Honorable Mentions

Isekai edition! Both of these came out last season, but I hadn’t mentioned them when I made my spring list. But they’re both getting dubs now so I’m still counting them.

*My Next Life as a Villainess- All Routes Lead to Doom!: A twist on the isekai genre where our main protagonist wakes up as a character in her favorite otome game...only to find that she’s actually the bitchy rival side character who ends up either dead or exiled in every route of the game. So naturally she does everything she can to prevent this by becoming a sweet and caring supporting character...who inadvertently makes every single other character in the game fall in love with her. I ignored this show for the first few episodes because I need another isekai in the world like I need a hole in the head, but after hearing everyone rave about it, I caught up with it in no time. It’s a fun take on the otome game tropes, and it manages to be funny and sweet while not committing to any particular pairing.

*Ascendance of a Bookworm (Season 2): That’s right, it’s another isekai where an adult is reincarnated into the body of a child in a fantasy world. But this time, it’s a nerdy girl whose entire purpose in life revolves around reading books (can relate). However, when our main character Mine is thrust into this fantasy world, she quickly realizes that this particular fantasy setting is a little too...medieval for her tastes...meaning a family of commoners like hers would have no clue how to read and books are only meant for rich people or the church. So of course Mine has to figure out how to either get her hands on some books or make them herself. This is a super cute show that I waited a long time to finally watch, and since the second season is finally being dubbed I wanted to shout it out. It’s just a wholesome isekai version of Dr. Stone. There’s no real action, but it’s a relaxing watch if nothing else.

Well, there you have it. Hopefully nothing else gets delayed or cancelled because it’s pretty slim pickings as it is. And before anyone asks, I didn’t include GIBIATE because I thought it was a massive disappointment that somehow made a time travel horror anime plot boring. There’s also My Teen Romantic Comedy Snafu, but it’s been 5 years since I watched the other seasons and don’t remember anything about it. But there’s that too in case anyone is a fan of the series and didn’t know it got another season.

See you next season…if the world is still here by then?

#anime recommendations #2020 anime worth watching #ascendence of a bookworm #my next life as a villaines #fire force #no guns life #re:zero #fruits basket 2019 #fruits basket #rent-a-girlfriend #deca-dence #japan sinks 2020 #great pretender #the god of high school

29 notes · View notes

knifeonmars · 3 years

Text

Capsule Reviews, February 2021

Here's some things I've been reading.

The Curse of Brimstone

DC's New Age of Heroes books, emerging from the beginning of Scott Snyder's creative-flameout-as-crossover-event Metal, mostly constituted riffs on Marvel heroes like the Fantastic Four (in The Terrifics) or the Hulk (in Damage). The Curse of Brimstone is a riff on Ghost Rider. It's... uneven. The first volume is generally pretty good, and when Phillip Tan is drawing it, as he does the first three and a half issues, it's gorgeous and unique, when he departs though, the quality takes a nose dive. None of the replacement artists, including the great Denis Cowan, can quite fill his shoes, and the story gets old fast. Guy makes a deal with the devil (or rather, a devil-like inhabitant of the "Dark Multiverse" as a not horribly handled tie-in to the conceits of Metal), realizes it's a raw deal, and rebels. The characters are flat, lots of time is spent with the main character's sister haranguing him to not use his powers (it is, in my humble opinion, something of a cardinal sin to have a character whose primary role is telling other characters to stop doing interesting things), too many potboiler "I know you're still in there!/I can feel this power consuming me!" exchanges, a couple of underwhelming guest spots (including a genuinely pointless appearance by the old, white, boring Doctor Fate) too many flashbacks, and not enough of the action. There's potential in the classic demonic hero rebelling plotline and its link to the liminal spaces of the DC universe, forgotten towns and economic depression, but the wheels come off this series pretty much as soon as Tan leaves. The really disappointing this is that the series is clearly built as an artistic showcase, so after Tan's shockingly early departure, the main appeal of the series is gone and there's nothing left but the playing out of an obviously threadbare story.

Star Wars - Boba Fett: Death, Lies, and Treachery

I don't care much about Star Wars these days, and I think that most of the old Expanded Universe was, as evidenced by Crimson Empire, pretty bad. Death, Lies, and Treachery, is that rare Star Wars EU comic which is actually good. John Wagner writes and he's in full-on 2000 AD mode, writing Boba Fett as a slightly more unpleasant Johnny Alpha (who is like a mercenary Judge Dredd, for those unfamiliar) right on down to the appearance of a funny alien sidekick for one of the characters. The main attraction is Cam Kennedy's art though, along with his inimitable colors: this might be the best looking Star Wars comic ever. The designs are all weird and chunky, with an almost kitbashed feeling that captures the lived in aesthetic of classic Star Wars, and the colors are one of a kind. Natural, neutral white light does not exist in this comic, everything is always bathed at all times in lurid greens or yellows, occasionally reds, and it looks incredible. In terms of "Expanded Universe" material for Star Wars, this hits the sweet spot of looking and feeling of a piece, but exploring the edges of the concept with a unique voice. It's great. I read this digitally, but I'd consider it a must-buy in print if I ever get the chance at a deal.

Zaroff

Zaroff is a French comic (novel? novella?). It's like 90 pages and it delivers exactly on its premise of "Die Hard starring the bad guy from The Most Dangerous Game." It's pretty good. Count Zaroff, he of the habitual hunting of humans, turns out to have killed a mafia don at some point, and after miraculously escaping his own seeming death at the end of the original story, finds himself hunted by the irate associates of this gangster, who have brought along Zaroff's sister and her kids to spice things up. Zaroff not only finds himself the hunt, but he also has to protect his estranged family as they struggle to survive. Nothing about this book or its twists and turns is likely to surprise you, but I don't think being surprised is always necessary for quality. Zaroff delivers on pulpy, early-20th century jungle action, is gorgeously rendered, and the fact that Zaroff himself is an unrepentant villain adds just enough of an unexpected element to the proceedings and character dynamics that it doesn't feel rote. There's a couple of points, ones typical of Eurocomics, which spark a slight sour note, such as some "period appropriate" racism and flashes of the male gaze, but for the most part these are relatively contained. It's good.

Batman: Gothic

Long before Grant Morrison did their Bat-epic, they wrote Batman: Gothic, an entirely different, but then again maybe not so different, kind of thing. It starts off with what must be called a riff on Fritz Lang's film, M, only where that story ends with a crew of gangsters deciding they cannot pass moral judgment on a deranged child-murderer, in Morrison's story they go ahead and kill him, only for the killer to return years later to rather horribly murder all of them as a warmup for a grandiose scheme involving unleashing a weaponized form of the bubonic plague on Gotham City as an offering to Satan. Along the way it turns out that said villain, one Mr. Whisper, is a former schoolmaster of Bruce Wayne's, who terrified the young Batman in the days before his parent's deaths. It's an earlier Morrison story and it shows. Certain elements presage their later Batman work; Mr. Whisper as a satanic enemy recalls the later Doctor Hurt, and the cathedral Mr. Whisper built to harvest souls recalls what writers like Morrison, Milligan, and Snyder would do concerning Gotham as a whole years later.The art, by Klaus Janson, is spectacular. If you're familiar at all with his work collaborating with Frank Miller you'll see him continuing in a similar vein and it's all quite good, even when he stretches beyond the street milieu which most readers might know him from. There's one particular sequence where Janson renders a needlessly complicated Rube Goldberg machine in motion that manages to work despite being static images. The writing by Morrison though, is not their finest. The M riff doesn't last as long as it could, and Mr. Whisper's turn in the latter half of the story from delicious creepy wraith to a cackling mass murderer who puts Batman in an easily escaped death trap feels like something of a letdown from the promise of the first half of the book. Gothic is good, but not, in my opinion, great. It's certainly worth checking out for Morrison fans however, and I imagine that someone well-versed in his latter Batman stuff might be able to find some real resonance between the two.

Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters

For a long, long time, Longbow Hunters was THE Green Arrow story. It is to Green Arrow as TDKR is to Batman, deliberately so. Mike Grell wrote and drew the reinvention of the character from his role as the Justice League's resident limousine liberal to a gritty urban vigilante operating in Seattle over the course of these three issues, which he'd follow up with a subsequent ongoing. Going back to it, it certainly merits its reputation, but its far from timeless. Grell's art is unimpeachable absolutely incredible, with great splashes and spreads, subtle colors, and really great figure work. The narrative is almost so 80's it hurts though, revolving around West Coast serial killers, cocaine, the CIA and the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Yakuza, and it's hard to look back at some of this stuff without smirking. The story begins with a teenager strung out on tainted coke sprinting through a window in a scene that's right out of Reefer Madness. In the cold light of a day 30+ years later, parts of it look more than a little silly. The 80's-ness of it all doesn't stop with that stuff though, even the superhero elements smack of it. Green Arrow realizes that he's lost a step and has be to be shown a way forward by an Asian woman skilled in the martial arts (recalling Vic Sage's reinvention in the pages of The Question), and Black Canary gets captured and torture off-panel for the sake of showing that this is real crime now, not the superhero silliness they've dealt with before. The treatment of Black Canary here is pretty markedly heinous, it's a classic fridging and Grell's claims that he didn't intentionally imply sexual assault in his depiction of her torture is probably true, but still feels more than a little weak considering how he chose to render it.The final analysis is that this book is good, but it exists strictly in the frame of the 1980's. If you're a fan of Green Arrow, there are worse books to pick up, or if you're interested in that era of DC Comics it's more than worth it, but as a matter of general interest I wouldn't recommend it very highly.

SHIELD by Steranko

Jim Steranko is sort of the prodigy of the early Marvel years, a young guy who came up through the system, blossomed into an incredible talent, and then left the company, and by and large the industry, behind. He would go on to dabble in publishing, work in other mediums, and generally kick around as the prodigal son of Marvel Comics. This collection, of both his Nick Fury shorts in the pages of Strange Tales and the four issues he drew of the original Nick Fury solo series, charts Steranko's growth as an artist. The book starts off with Steranko working from Jack Kirby's layouts with Stan Lee's dialogue and writing, and Steranko might be the one guy in history for whom working off of Kirby's blueprints is clearly holding him back. The first third or so of this collection really isn't much to write home about, as Steranko is obviously constrained by someone else's style, and at the end of the day those early stories still read as somewhat uninspired pulp compared to the highlights of early Marvel. There are flashes though, of techniques and ideas, which foreshadow what Steranko is capable of, and when he finally takes over as solo writer/artist it's like he's been unleashed. He immediately has Nick Fury tear off his shirt and start throwing guys around over psychedelic effects. He writes out most of Kirby and Lee's frankly uninspired boys' club supporting cast, he makes Fury visibly older, wearier, but also so much cooler. It's the birth of Nick Fury as a distinctly comic book super spy.By the time he finishes wrapping up the previous writers' plotline with Hydra and Baron von Strucker, Steranko is firing on all cylinders. By the time it gets to Steranko's Fury solo series, he's somehow surpassed himself, turning in effects, panel structures, and weird stories which make the earlier installment about a suit-wearing Man from UNCLE knockoff and its strict six-panel layouts look absolutely fossilized.I can't recommend this collection highly enough for any fan of the artform, even if the stories themselves might not be everyone's cup of tear. It's truly incredible to watch Steranko emerge as an artist over the course of this single collection. The book itself has a few problems, it's not the most elegantly designed in its supporting materials and index, but the content of it more than outweighs that. It's great stuff.

#capsule reviews #comics

3 notes · View notes

365days365movies · 3 years

Text

February 10, 2021: In The Mood For Love (2000) (Part 1)

Hey, Hong Kong!

How’ve you been? I mean, not recently, because the answer to that is...NOT GREAT, it’s not great, I know, you guys still need some support, geez. No, I meant since Action January on this blog! The good ol’ wuxia days! Remember Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? You guys were involved in that! You do anything else fun that year?

Let’s see, you built a tunnel, your economy was amongst the best in Asia, became a bit more democratic...OH! This too!

This movie was a SMASH hit in Hong Kong and China, and is often considered as, and here we go...one of the GREATEST FILMS of all time! Worldwide! Hell of a bar to live up to! Will this be the romance movie that finally makes me cry this month, because I AIN’T SHED TEARS YET BABY. Let’s find out, shall we! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

It is a restless moment in Hong Kong, 1962. Chan Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) move into an apartment building in Hong Kong with their significant others. Their apartments are next door, and they move in on the same day. By the way, I’m gonna be referring to them as Mrs. Chan and Chow throughout the Recap and Review.

Also, I’ll probably bring this up later, but HOLY SHIT Mrs. Chan’s wardrobe and entire appearance is...FUCK, wow. it’s amazing. Her unique qipaos, alongside the straight-up attractiveness of Maggie Cheung, gives this film a memorable aesthetic BY ITSELF.

Anyway, she works as a secretary for a local company, while Chow works as a journalist. Some of his coworkers regularly speaks about being a ladies’ man, and makes various allusions to cheating. And, I can only assume now that our pair here will fall in love, despite their spouses. Good old fashioned romantic film infidelity, probably.

Speaking of the spouses, we haven’t actually seen either Mr. Chan or Mrs. Chow. Heard their faces, sure, but not seen them physically. In fact, in the case of Mrs. Chow, their appearances in front of their spouses are getting ever sparser. All the while, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan tend to pass by each other, in hallways, or near alleyways around them.

Time passes, almost effortlessly. Chow’s workmate, Ah Ping (Siu Ping Lam), freshly out of the hospital after some gambling and womanizing shenanigans, tells Chow that he saw his wife walking on the street, with a man. Meanwhile, they both work regular overtime shifts which leaves their spouses alone regularly. And it’s soon revealed that Mrs. Chow and Mr. Chan are in fact sleeping together, and each of them find out separately.

Which means that somebody cheated on Maggie Cheung in this movie. And all I have to say is...REALLY? YOU FUCKIN’ SERIOUS, MR. CHAN? Goddamn, that woman, pardon my parlance, is SMOKING HOT in this movie. And also, real talk, she seems legitimately nice.

And Tony Leung’s also a nice catch! What the hell, you guys? So, anyway, they...

Wait. Infidelity...is the actual point of this movie? Like, not just a thing that gets shoves to the side of the romantic coupling, but the potential REASON for the romantic coupling. Oh. OH. I AM IN, PEOPLE.

Eventually, enough time passes with them passing each other, and they give into their loneliness...a little bit. Over the pretense of being friends, Chow asks her to go out to lunch nearby. And over the course of the lunch, it’s revealed that Chow is wearing Mr. Chan’s tie, given to him from his wife. And by the same token, she is carrying his wife’s bag. And now...they know.

Time passes yet again, and the two begin to get even closer. And this may be the first time that them potentially cheating on their partners doesn’t bother me as much in these films. In fact, the two are also reluctant to do so, and as they grow closer, the begin to grow less reluctant.

Good time for me to mention that the editing here is...FASCINATING. The way that this film is set up is essentially as an extra-strength montage. And this film has, no joke, changed the way I think about film as a whole. Really. Let me explain.

You may have noticed that amongst all of these GIFS, there’s only been one repeated outfit on Mrs. Chan. The establishment of her wardrobe diversity happens at the very beginning of the film. We rarely see where wear the same outfit in a row. Until a scene in which they’re walking home together.

First, they walk up to the apartment together, and she’s wearing that outfit. Chow hits on her a bit, and she pulls away. And then, IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS, we cut to a scene that starts in the exact same way, with the same dress. But this time, she smiles. It’s a diffeernt reaction. And because we know how many outfits Mrs. Chan has, we know that this must be on a different day entirely.

Which is when I realized something: these outfits aren’t meant to show her fashion sense, they’re literally meant to show the passage of time. That way, the movie is constructed in a fashion that allowed us to see the build-up of their relationship fairly rapidly, while still allowing them to speak to each other. It’s literally montage on steroids. Holy shit.

FILM ANALYSIS BOIIIIIIIIIII!

As time continues to pass, and outfits continue to change, it all feels like a single conversation with great consequence, but one that you know has taken place over an undefined amount of time. This isn’t a whirlwind romance, but it FEELS like it is based on how the directing and editing are done.

GODDAMN HONG KONG AND CHINA HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME AGAIN

The unhappiness that the each feel in their marriage begins to seep through to the surface, as their spouses have absconded to Japan, still somehow thinking that they’re getting away with it. They are not. This shit would be obvious to anybody.

Chow is interested in writing a martial arts serialized story for the newspaper, and invites Mrs. Chan to help. This is likely just with the intent to get closer to her. And, indeed, they become much closer, including in their own apartment building. That seems to backfire when they’re stuck in the same room together as their landlady and neighbors play a rousing game of Mahjong.

That game takes place over an entire night, extending all the into the next night. Goddamn, that must’ve been a crazy-ass game of Mahjong. All the while, the two are cautious, as not to rouse their neighbors’ suspicions. However, as she leaves her shoes in his room, it may already be too late for that.

OK, good time for a break, since this is about midway through the film! See you in Part 2!

#in the mood for love #flowery years #wong kar-wai #tony leung #maggie cheung #hong kong cinema #romance february #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #useranais #userksant #fyeahmovies #blairwitchz

3 notes · View notes

annoying-lucy · 4 years

Text

Evan Evagora did an AMA involving the Star Trek Shitposting Facebook Group - the questions and answers below were copy/pasted direct from the collated master post. Evan is a member of the group, who participates under an unknown pseudonym.

———————————————

AMA Master Post!

Thanks so much to Evan Evagora for taking time out of his day for our AMA earlier. To make the questions and answers easier for ya'll to find, here they all are together below.

Q: How does my love of cats compare to Elnor?

A: Im actually more of a dog person, there was a scene that had Elnor and spot 2 unite briefly but unfortunately it didn’t leave the editing room

Q: How familiar was I with Star Trek before and did I have to do research?

A: I grew up with TNG, I’d have to say either worf, Guinan or Q are my favourite characters. And I was given episodes to watch that were to help with information before filming Picard

Q: How was I prepped to deal with the crazy fans?

A: I got told to join Star Trek shitposting 😉. Not but in all seriousness, it was Jonathan Frakes who gave me advice on entering the world of fandom from the other side and he said it’s been nothing short of a pleasure

Q: So if Hugh had survived would they have made out?

A: what happens on the cube stays on the cube

Q: My favourite moment of s1

A: getting to slice that romulans head off

Q: How did I hear about Star Trek shitposting?

A: most of the crew is either a part of the group or knows about, one of the amazing hair and make up ladies got me into I think my first or second day

Q: If I had to be Tuvixed with someone excluding elnor?

A: mirror verse Elnor, nah worf to be honest

Q: What is something I’d like to do in season 2

A: Id like to see Elnor and spot 2 together

Q: How am I passing my time woth quarantine?

A: ama for the gronp! Nah I’ve just been reading, writing and also the contact I’m having with the fans too has really helped a lot

Q: If I had to quarantine with any of my costars who would it be and why

A: I’d go with hardy treadaway he’s got the nicest place

Q: What am I hoping to see in Elnor’s future

A: Inner peace, contentment and possibly shorter hair?

Q: Am I intimidated by working on a show with such a big fan base?

A: no I grew up with Star Trek, you’re really in a bubble of filming when you’re making the show, it all didn’t really hit home until the first trailer at San Diego

Q: Would I consider playing Elnor as non binary

A: I’ve seen a lot of debate and discussion about not only my character but others in the series, if there is something that connects you with a character on this show and it resonates with you, even if it’s shown, not shown or hinted at I’m all for it. I am not for the constant belittlement, bullying and criticism of not only the characters on the show but also other fans. It really does break my heart reading comments where people aren’t welcoming of one another, because that is the whole reason why Trek has bought so many together and by spewing these disgusting cruel words out your not only showing the world you don’t understand the meaning behind the show, you also are destroying the thing that makes us all love it

Q: Is there Australia on romulas

A: yeah they have a down under I’m sure of it. No the accent can easily be explained with, Elnor left romulas at a young age, moved to a planet with different species and languages spoken so that influenced his accent

Q: Have I seen Elnor fan fiction and art?

A: yeah some of it has been really amazing! And some others have been...creative

Q: How excited am I to make home movies with my action figures?

A: my plan is to buy everyone’s, make them record audio and then film shit using the dolls and their voices

Q: Are you playing animal crossing?

A: I’ve preordered it because they’ve sold out here in aus, but in playing civ 6 to pass time and Mario party

Q: Did I get to try Romulan ale?

A: no I wish, I’m kind of hoping for a scene next year where Elnor gets drunk for the first time

Q: What character did I wish would appear in our show?

A: one word, one letter Q

Q: What’s my background have I been acting long?

A: Picard was my third acting gig, and the first project to release, so I have got some experience acting and I have previous work but it has either just aired or is going to next year

Q: Please my friend choose a charity you would like us to donate to

A: food bank

Q: Favourite ninja turtle

A: it’s always been Raph and always will be

Q: Do I know much about Elnors background

A: I know things that haven’t been mentioned yet, but also given his character is new and season 1 just finished, hopefully some of those things are explored

Q: How would o feel about the fan theory that Spock is my father

A: I mean, I’m not really sure, I can always shoot Ethan a message and ask him what he thinks too

Q: Which classic episode trope would I like to see?

A: mirror universe

Q: Can we look forward to more ninja representation?

A: is Elnor not enough? ☹️

Q: Were there any particular characters I drew inspiration from, any elves?

A: there’s a particular group of people I think Elnor might have been inspired from. Can I just say how cool it would be if Elnor is just cosplaying as an elf because Picard left him a copy of Lotr when he was young

Q: Would I be open to exploring Elnors sexuality in s2 and what would it be?

A: I am totally open for that, and as for Elnors sexuality, I’m not sure he’s only 17 he’s just left his planet and gone off on an adventure where he openly knew the success may lead in his death or others he hasn’t had time to figure himself out so seeing his sexuality explored would be amazing

Q: What stories did you hear about working on precious trek series from the OG actors?

A; So we found out Michael Dorn used to muddle his lines up because he was normally the last close up of the day. They used to put bets on to see how many takes he’d have to do. All I must add in very fun spirits nothing ever malicious or mean

Q: My long term career goals

A: id like to keep pursuing more roles I’m acting, I’m a big writer and have some projects I’m looking at getting created but right now I’d say I’m just here to learn and grow

Q: What do I write?

A: right now I’m working on three screenplays and two pilots most of the stuff I’ve written is just sitting on my hard drive just waiting to be used

Q: Ever fried an egg, buttered and vegemite'd some toast and eaten it like a sandwich?

A: what I just read, scared the crap out of me, I love vegemite but the most I’ll do is add cheese to it

Q: What is one of my favourite stories about s1

A: Jeri Ryan and I had a scene together in the borg cube (what a queen she made!) it was shooting at night and I think it was the final shot of the day, we couldn’t keep a straight face and just laughed through about fifteen takes

Q: Are you a big fan of fandom besides Trek?

A: Star Wars, lotr, the magician series Raymond e feist, a song of fire and ice series, avatar last air bender and legend of Korra (would love to play zuko) and of course Batman (fav Jason Todd as the hood)

Q: Could I see myself playing Elnor for six or seven years?

A: as long as there’s a good story that myself and fans will enjoy, but if it didn’t meet my expectations no. And also hopefully the writers and creators would want to

Q: My top TNG eps are in no particular order

I borg, all good things, tapestry, the measure of a man and all good things

I’ll also add I borg especially because it’s just cool seeing where Hugh began and how he ended up

Q: How did I land the role of Elnor?

A: I was on a break from filming Fantasy Island (a movie based off the old tv show) and I was home for pilot season which is when they cast for shows, I had two weeks of daily auditions before I was due to fly back and start filming again, two days before I was meant to leave I got an audition for Picard, the script had a code name and Elnors name was Kbar on it, but I was told it was Star Trek. I went into the room and thought I didn’t do a very good job, then I flew to film and two days later I was told I’ve made a list of people being considered, after a few more auditions and a couple of phone calls from producers and everything I found myself on a plane to LA five weeks later

Q: Have I made friends among the cast?

A: no, we tried really hard to become friends, but unfortunately we ended up becoming a family instead. Everything we say in interviews about us getting along is all true and not fake. I’m the newest to acting out of everyone so I was kind of of shocked to find out that how close we all are isn’t necessarily how it will be when I shoot other projects, so I think we just got lucky or they casted really well

Q: Have the Picard people seen your memes?

A: yes I’ve shown them the memes from the page, I’ve shown everyone including Patrick we find most of them funny (some shocking)

Not shocking in a bad way

Unexpected I should say

Q: How do I feel about the ears?

A: I wore them so much they came up in my dreams, but they were the easiest thing to apply onto me

Q: Which non tng character would I like to see return?

A: I wouldn’t mind seeing the doctor

Q: The most relatable Star Trek character?

A: Look for me growing up it was Wesley, i just picked anyone who was the young one. And I grew up with my sisters and was always being told I’m either wrong, an idiot or just to shut up

Q: Did I have previous martial arts experience before the show?

A: I have a background in boxing which helps when it comes to movement, reflexes and just all around fitness for stunts. I didn’t have any sword fighting experience before we began training for the show however

Q: How do you think being raised by an order of women affected Elnor?

A: I think it gave him a healthy understanding of not only the strength and resilience of women but I think he understands not only gender equality but just equality in general and I think that’s directly to do with growing up in a sect of all female warrior nuns

Q: What is a type of meme you would like to see more of in the group?

A: I love all the memes in the group, I hardly like any of them now incase someone figures out who I am though ahahah

Q: Favorite recent memes?

A: See my comment below

#evan evagora #star trek #star trek: picard #picard #elnor #ama #stsp

28 notes · View notes

bmoviedragonsreloaded · 4 years

Text

Review: American Samurai (1992)

“Why couldn’t we just have been brothers?”

SOURCE

This review is based on the Region 1 DVD release of the film.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The Cannon Group was on its last legs in the early 90s and American Samurai was one of the last movies distributed during its lifetime. The first of several collaborations between director Sam Firstenberg and star David Bradley, this is a picture with a lot going for it that still manages to confound me. When I first saw it, I was shocked by many of the creative and technical decisions, but having recently seen it again, I think I can hang a lot of them on the old sin of studio overreach. Still, it shines in some important and gratifying ways and is worth a watch if this is your kind of thing.

The plot: An American reporter trained in the ways of the samurai (Bradley) and his photographer (Valarie Trapp) investigate a murder in Turkey, where he uncovers a deadly tournament championed by his vicious half-brother (Mark Dacascos).

Writer John Corcoran (RIP) was a well-known figure in the world of martial arts publication, but his sole movie script is basically Bloodsport with weapons. It starts off incredibly pulpy with the baby protagonist surviving a plane crash and being raised by a modern samurai (John Fujioka), but it almost immediately begins hitting recognizable beats of the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle, down to a blatant Donald Gibb knockoff character (Rex Ryon). Nevertheless, I think the film originally intended to distinguish itself by being a more dramatic and heartfelt story, with the crux being the conflict between the brothers. We get hints of an emotional undercurrent, with Bradley’s character conflicted about fighting the sibling who feels jealous of his parental favor. However, in the end, we only get a superficial and choppy representation of their feud, including a rushed prologue and a head-spinning psychedelic scene where the lead confronts his brother’s demonic form in a dream. (Shades of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story?)

That’s a recurring trend: parts of the story and action giving the impression of having once been very different. It’s most apparent in two instances: (1) the breakneck romance between David Bradley and Valarie Trapp, with an abrupt sex scene entirely performed by body doubles, and (2) the final duel between the brothers, which I’m certain was initially a short and minimalistic fight before being expanded with footage obviously transplanted from previous scenes. I get the impression that the script was heavily edited to focus on exploitation, and then the movie saw substantial content changes during post-production. It complicates what probably a pretty simple film, to the point that I don’t feel like I can accurately critique the screenplay and the acting. I don’t assume it was ever a dramatic masterpiece, but I wonder whether even Mark Dacascos’ hamfisted acting didn’t seem more appropriate before his character’s motivations were screwed with after the fact.

Speaking of Dacascos, he’s retrospectively one of the main drawing points of the movie. This was his first substantial film role and he’s still in proto form. His presence and intensity are already apparent, his acting would improve, but the filmmakers don’t quite know how to get the most out of his fight scenes. Dacascos looks great with a katana, but if you’re hoping to find the equivalent of his fight scenes from Drive or even the following year’s Only the Strong, you’ll be disappointed at his comparatively restrained adrenaline pieces.

That said, the action is pretty good. I definitely appreciate it more than I did during my first viewing. Weapons are the name of the game, putting the film in the same subcategory as Ring of Steel and the Swordsman series. There’s some purely hand-to-hand stuff in the first half, with David Bradley demonstrating some cool throws, but for the most part, the action’s a variety of colorful opponents fighting each other with a plethora of bladed weapons. The quality of the fights isn’t static, with more than one marred by an overabundance of cutaway shots, but a lot of thought has been put into the choreography. The flashiest match is a rare onscreen appearance of Hong Kong choreographers Dion Lam and Anthony Szeto, but my personal favorite is a sword-versus-ax encounter between David Bradley and a viking-themed opponent (Mark Warren). I like how Bradley first uses only the hilt of his katana to fight, then only the dull side of the blade before he actually starts slicing. It’s not spectacular stuff, but definitely enjoyable.

“Definitely enjoyable” is a good summation of the movie, but only if you’re already into this genre, are a fan of some of the performers, and/or are prepared to find pleasure in the little details. I like Sam Firstenberg’s signature gore (even though the content is clumsily censored in the DVD release) – not just because of how it helps spice up the duels, but because I appreciate how he was one of the few karate filmmakers who utilized special effects in his action scenes. I get a kick out of Valarie Trapp, who’s nothing special as an actor but whose real-life story of being a struggling writer taking small movie roles to get by is genuinely inspiring. And, of course, I love the fact that two action heroes in different stages of their careers were able to do a film together, because even if this isn’t the best, it’s not so for lack of effort. If this sounds like your kind of picture, it’s worth spending a bit of money on…though you might be better off getting the VHS version in this case, which I don’t recall being quite as heavily censored.

SOURCE

American Samurai (1992) Directed by Sam Firstenberg (Revenge of the Ninja) Written by John Corcoran (editor of Inside Kung Fu magazine) Starring David Bradley (American Ninja 3 & 4), Valarie Trapp (Mr. Stitch), Mark Dacascos, Rex Ryan (The Man in the Iron Mask) Cool costars: The late, great John Fujioka plays another benevolent martial arts master, much like his role in American Ninja. The list of tournament fighters and other onscreen combatants include Hong Kong action masters Dion Lam (Black Mask) and Anthony Szeto (Wushu), karate staple Ron Vreeken (Under the Gun), and award-winning stunt pros Koby Azarly (Sector 4: Extraction) and Rocky McDonald (Mission Impossible II). Second unit director and action coordinator Guy Norris has since moved up the studio ladder, nowadays coordinating for major motion pictures like Mad Max: Fury Road and Suicide Squad. Video game fans may recognize composer Craig Stuart Garfinkle from his later work on the World of Warcraft and Fallout series. Content warning: Extreme violence, violence against women, kidnapping, police intimidation Title refers to David Bradley’s lead character, who plays an American trained in the art of the samurai. In a roundabout way, it could also refer to Mark Dacascos and John Fujioka, who are real-life Americans playing characters with samurai training. (If you want to be a pedantic nitpicker, the title’s a total misnomer since no character’s an actual member of the old Japanese military caste.) Cover accuracy: David Bradley and Mark Dacascos posing with swords, the latter seemingly wearing his outfit from the tournament, are certainly very true to the movie. That said, the Japanese syllabery and paper walls in the background don’t convey that hardly any of the story takes place in Japan. Number of full-length fight scenes: 10 Copyright Cannon Pictures / Global Pictures

#film review #film criticism #film critique #action #martial arts #karate #samurai #kendo #kenjutsu #american samurai #david bradley #mark dacascos #valarie trap #rex ryan #sam firstenberg

14 notes · View notes