#my beloved rotten rabbit

[cupophrogs]

i want to grab ur ocs under their arms and make them dance like cat owners do with their cats

Ah! Thank you so much! Speaking of arms-

Poppet has none! They don't have any lips either...

You know how a tiger will gnaw off it's own leg to escape a trap? Well, the Minis certainly got a feast out of it! After taking a small vat of acid to the face and resisting the Prototype, Poppet was strung up with the rest of the Smiling Critters and left to the mercy of the Minis. So, despite the agony and the blood loss, Poppet chewed through sleeves and sinew until they were free. They've mostly been hiding in their box ever since.

Close ups!

Fun Fact: Poppet's box is hooked up to the Gas Production Zone, so it functions like a stasis chamber. Whenever Poppet is inside, the lid locks, and Poppet basically goes into hibernation. It's the only reason they haven't starved, and why the box must be wound to open! Turning the crank shuts off the gas so it doesn't leak when the box is opened. There is an internal mechanism so Poppet can get out without help, but it takes a break in the gas for them to be awake enough to pull it.

#Poppet got messed up man #my beloved rotten rabbit #and yes they absolutely left the rest of the Critters to die #not deliberately! don't get me wrong! #but they were afraid and already bleeding like hell #and how does one undo belts without arms? #All they could think about was getting away #Poppet was pretty friendly with everyone (except Catnap) #Poppet basically saw Catnap as “the problem child” lmao #They were besties with Hoppy though (Fellow bunnies y'know?) #Poppet did help a few of the critters later on! Hoppy survived the longest. #Catnap tore her apart personally #i adore them sm #poppet spring #rotten poppet #poppy playtime oc #poppy playtime #jester oc #oml y'all have NO IDEA how long the back image took #holy shit/pos #phrart #art #character design #the three d’s #armless #tw gore #cw gore #cw body horror #cw injury

[calowlmitygoddess]

I was gonna do this with my favourite from my fandoms but Akila from MY Mind consumes my soul and i will inflict her on all of you

#my ocs #Akila #my beloved my scrunkly my poor meow meow #my silly rabbit my rotten soldier #i hate that me and my friend are the only ones who know about her #i need to start working on my BIg Main Story

[broadwaydivastournament]

Broadway Divas Tournament: Round 1C

Kerry O'Malley (1969) starred as The Baker's Wife in the 2002 revival of Into the Woods, which, y'know, tough act to follow. One of our few LA-based actresses, she's starred in just about every early-2000s touring production of White Christmas you can think of. Other credits include Annie Get Your Gun, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (2011), and Showstoppers in Vegas where I first saw and fell in love with her. Her big thing is dying on stage and screen because I think I must've watched this woman kick the bucket at least eight times. She does it really well.

THE Baker's Wife, Joanna Gleason (1950) is a Tony-winning legend who set a standard that has yet to even be approached. Her Baker's Wife in the original Into the Woods beat out Patti's Reno Sweeney, and Patti is still a little pissed off about it. She was also in infamous flop Nick & Nora (1991), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), and I Love My WIfe (1977). Nowadays, she devotes her focus to directing and screenwriting and her film The Grotto won Best Narrative Premiere at the Heartland Film Festival.

PROPAGANDA AND MEDIA UNDER CUT: ALL POLLS HERE

"Okay, so the only reason Kerry's on this tournament is because I saw her in a Vegas show when I was a teenager and fell in love from the first note she sang. I am fully expecting her to get brutally murdered by Joanna Gleason, but she's finally getting her dues in film these days. Her ten minutes in The Killer were the only ten minutes worth watching. I was riveted. I also got to see her perform "Moments in the Woods" live at 54 Below a few years ago and she's just as pretty and sweet as I remembered. Her friend was sitting at my table, so I was able to introduce myself. I, uh, did not mention how I'd been distantly in love with her for the last decade or so..."

"Joanna Gleason, my beloved. Look, I've loved her for a while, but a few years ago I went down a deep rabbit hole watching her play Password Plus with Betty White, and I have not been the same since. I am deeply affected by smart, sardonic, eloquent women, and Joanna is on another level of brilliant. She broke a record on that show. You need to watch and marvel. Furthermore, full offense to everyone else, but Joanna is the only one who doesn't opt up at the end of "Moments in the Woods," and that is the correct way to sing it. I hate the opt up. Fuck your opt up. Joanna plays the Baker's Wife with a razor-sharp wit none of the others can match. Their Baker's Wife's are smart, and determined, but they don't have her droll swagger. Her line readings? Unmatched."

#broadwaydivastournament #broadway divas #broadway #musical theatre #tournament poll #kerry o'malley #joanna gleason #into the woods #round 1c

[wednesdaysgun]

you’re awful, I love you. tyler x wednesday

a tyler POV drabble about how he sees our beloved wednesday. includes religious imagery, sub tyler til i die. also tyler references she/her (wednesday) with capitals. like god is referenced as Him. 

I’ve never felt anything like this before. Everything stops: the thoughts, the fear, the constant noise in my brain. Her quietness brings company, Her control brings sanity. Wednesday looks at me, and my mind runs in circles. It’s a vicious circle I can never return from, nor would I want to. Her presence, just sitting in the corner of my eye for hours, is forever soothing the thing that lurks inside me. My lungs kinda feel restricted, every time I walk. Every time I just sit there and think. Every time She invites me to the dorm. Every time She’s even in my brain, which is basically constant, I can imagine Her wrapping my ribs with packing tape then using it as a leash on me. Or Her first connecting with my face in such a way I spill Her favourite colour. But I love it, you already know that. How could I not. She loves me. I never thought I’d get that, the feeling of someone on my side. Commanding and protecting my heart and blood-tinged hands. I never thought anybody would love me the way She does- when She watches me in the forest with such intent that it distracts me from the still-dying rabbit that hangs in the Hyde’s jaw. Wednesday scares me- but not the way everyone else is scared of Her.

And I’m being honest, I love Her too. God, it drives me crazy. I sit there in my bed alone, replaying every interaction. Every look and shared frenzied thought. Her unpredictability makes me feel like I’m in fucking heat or something- Constantly waiting for the match to be lit on the gasoline She douses me in.

Wednesday scares me because She speaks my thoughts, when She speaks that is. It scares me, I guess, because I’m now commanded to be myself- no restriction. Well, except hunting outcasts and anything above three-years of age. Such kindness from a Master was more than welcome. I’m just happy I have something to believe in again. This life has been miserable, showed me that even when you’re built with these abilities that people will still try to corrupt you. Reduce you down. And it worked, I felt myself die a little bit every day until one day there was nothing left. Now I’m a Frankenstein-like being, a mix of a literal fucking monster and a sociopath with daddy issues. But She allowed me to be reborn, under new light and new power. She glorifies me, allows me to bathe in the ecstasy the kill brings. 

Now, between you and I, I’ve never been a religious nut. Jericho is just as religious as it seems with witches running around just up the hill. Prejudice and the Institution built this town in the form of Crackstone, bad foundations will never allow any form of harvest. Jericho will never be anything but a rotten, open grave in my book. The deaths of so many innocents with nothing to show for. It just proved to me that God didn’t exist, everyone just wanted a saviour. I never wanted to be saved, until I needed it. And She came.

Wednesday is my God. I believe it, hand on wicked heart. Her calculated madness and overwhelming power, just watching her is enough to prove it to me. Wednesday doesn’t lose, doesn’t back down. She doesn’t play by the rules of this life like everybody else. She laughed at first, when I told her, but she enjoys it. She encourages it, with light suggestion of course. I’m Her avid follower, Her devotee. I will love Her until She kills me dead, and I will continue to follow Her after I’m long gone.

#wednesday x tyler #wednesday 2022 #tyler galpin #wednesday has a god complex #tyler supports this theory #wednesday addams

[hella1975]

∞

boomstie beloved bestie best friend baby my rotten soldier my little rabbit my favourite meow meow <333 hello my love <33

'i paint you a picture but it never looks right, cause i fill in the shadows and block out the light' - pulaski at night by andrew bird

#this is from ur playlist bestie i adore this song #like yeah what if i DID send you a postcard that said pulaski at night. what then #'greetings from chicago' <- is in the west midlands. has never been to chicago #ask #ask game

[teddiesbestestpal]

“ Bun-Bun!” Teddie yells excitedly as he sees the chocolate brown furred rabbit with dark orange eyes dark chocolate brown ears permanent eyebags stitches/ patchwork on his ears wearing a thin mascot suit with black lines a chartreuse green color palette with chartreuse green buttons on the top and a ruffled light orange colored court jester collar turn around to face him.

“ What is it this time Teddie?” Bunni replies sighing as their bubbly bear boyfriend eyes gleams with good cheer.

“ I found a new shadow dungeon door! and it’s tropical themed as well!” Teddie jumps up and down.

“ Ted my beloved we should wait and evaluate the door and-“ Bunni announces as Teddie has already left and went into the dungeon door closing it as he left.

“ Why should I even be surprised I should go get him…” Bunni thought to themself as their rabbit tail turnt into a Mochi mallet smashing the door open as it transforms back to normal.

When Bunni arrives into the area he sees it’s a tropical beach as he sees Teddie summoning Kintoki-douji his missiles destroying all of the shadows as Bufudyne is casted.

“ Well allow me to join you then! CHAN’GE!” Bunni says summoning his Persona as he crushed his moon arcana card. the persona is ghostly with a ghost tail with a chartreuse green crack pattern on it in place of actual legs a robotic steel neck as well as robotic fingers with nuclear element lighters at the end, the head is round and still with bright chartreuse green crescent moon shaped glasses in the center and hair and rabbit shaped hair buns made out of nuclear element energy and a incense candle hair stick leaking out nuclear energy rests in the center as well as a godly silk scarf made out of nuclear energy as well rests on his back, he wears a black and chartreuse green highlights Yukata and a frilly large jester-like ruffle bright orange cone on his neck.

Chang’e casted Freidyne on the shadows as they moved their fist as a nuclear explosion occurred wiping out all shadows in the area.

Bunni turnt around to look at Teddie as Teddie beamed excitedly at them.

“ Bunni! that was so cool! you were always amazing after all so I shouldn’t be surprised!” Teddie says gushing over his cute rabbit boyfriend as Bunni lightly blushes.

“ T-Thanks Teddie it’s… no problem… now without shadows in the way what should we do now..?” Bunni asks their eyes looking at Teddie as Teddie grins.

“ Relax!” Teddie responds taking off his suit revealing his chubby blueberry furred body and bright red speedo on as he posed.

“ This is a weird spot to relax in.. but now that you mentioned it.. I’ll totally chill here with you!” Bunni exclaimed taking off their suit and ruffle jester collar revealing a chocolate brown colored body with pretty defined abs stitches and patchwork near theie abs though it’s a little stitch and on his back is heavy stitches and patchwork, and slightly detailed biceps on the rabbit’s arms with primarily black with orange highlights trunks.

“ Last one in is a rotten egg!” Teddie cheerfully exclaims teasingly pinching Bunni on their butt.

“ Ow! you could of at least been more settled Ted…” Bunni sighed to themself as they ran into the water with Teddie.

“ Ah! Bun! that water stings!” Teddie says sweating as Bunni giggles.

“ You made the first move! Now get wrecked man” Bunni retorted giving that toothy buck-toothed grin of theirs as they splashed Teddie with the ocean water.

afterwards the tropical beach dungeon’s sky turns dark to mimic the night sky as Teddie lays snoring on Bunni’s lap.

“ Ted.. I swear to always protect you.. no matter what… your very dear to me so o will do what I have to.. goodnight my love…” Bunni said as they fell asleep near Teddie in the tropical beach dungeon like lovers.

#p4 #persona 4 #oc: Bunni #p4 Bunni #persona Bunni #persona 4 Bunni #p4 teddie #persona Teddie #persona 4 Teddie #Bunni x Teddie #Tedni #oc x canon #yumejoshi #p4 fanfic #persona 4 fanfiction

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week # 142 (Year 3/Week 38):

“Wasson?…”

Mark Kermore just resigned from his post as The Observor's film critic after 10 years, and in his last article he listed his top films from 2013 until now. His most favourite? Bait, which he called “the defining British film of the decade”, by new Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin. It is indeed a visually-different, experimental-like masterpiece, shot in splotchy black & white, like a grainy, monochrome Tarkovsky. 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. 8/10. I'll watch his recent film 'Enys Men' next (even though I don't usually care for 'British Folk Horror').

🍿

2 about the monstrous Margaret Thatcher:

🍿 Meantime, my 9th beloved film by British mensch Mike Leigh, another story about the plight of a lower working class family, living in a dystopian Clockwork Orange tenement. Uncomfortable viewing about dreary, miserable lives, mired in poverty and hopelessness during the 1979 "Revolution". With teenager Tim Roth, young Alfred Molina, and psychotic skinhead Gary Oldman. Tragic And heartbreaking. 7/10.

🍿 El Conde, my second by Chilean Pablo Larrain (after 'Spencer'). A black comedy horror metaphor that tried to humanize Augusto Pinochet, by making him a blood-sucking vampire. Like 'Jojo Rabbit', it caused me nothing but distress, especially now on the 50th anniversary of Pinochet cruel coup. It opened with the most unpleasant voiceover, which turned out to be Margaret Thatcher, the other despicable puppet master from that time, here playing the fascist's mother. He went for Magical Realism, but he was no Gabriel García Márquez. 4/10.

🍿

The quiet girl, my 3rd or 4th re-watch of this tender, magnificent gem, one of my most cherished films from 2022. An illustration of Care vs. Neglect. My mom told me about this beautiful story she was reading, and which was the basis for this film, and I was delighted to introduce her to this sublime masterpiece, which we watched together. 10/10.

🍿

First watch! Charlie Chaplin's 1915 silent movie The tramp, the first time he introduced his signature character proper. Filmed in Niles, California, which is today Fremont, and then was a budding film town.

🍿

Objector, a very Israeli 2019 documentary about a young woman who refuses to serve in the army, becomes a conscientious objector, and even serves 110 days in a military prison. As an ex-Israeli and as a guy unwilling to join the army in 1970, this affair was specifically very relevant to me. My hatred for the Israeli occupation is immense, and the story told here was desperately tragic and heartbreaking. Unfortunately, as a movie, it wasn’t very good, probably because the director was inexperienced. That most of the characters spoke English among themselves was another big drawback.

🍿

I never heard about comic genius ventriloquist Nina Conti (Tom Conti's daughter) until finding her on r/nextfuckinglevel. Watching a bunch of her YouTube clips, this pretty, sexy, hilarious comic is superbly creative. In 2012, she wrote and directed a personal documentary, Her master’s Voice. In it she travels to an odd international ventriloquist convention in Kentucky (Photo Above). But it's mostly a tribute to a man, Ken Campbell, who just died. He's the one who had introduced her to the puppets years ago but he also was her lover, when she was in her twenties, and he was in his sixties. Brilliant. 9/10.

🍿

Another re-watch of occasional random 'Mad Men' episode, Signal 30 from S5 E5. That's the one with the dripping faucet in Pete's kitchen, and the visit to the whorehouse, which ends in a fiasco. Co-written by Frank Pierce (who also directed 'Conspiracy'). Another example of the superb ensemble drama, featuring dozens of complex characters. "A thing like that"... 9/10.

🍿

Jeff who lives at home, my second film directed by the Duplass Brothers, the "other" writer-director brother-duo. And this too is an "indie" comedy-drama about two brothers at odds with each other. What a different and how much better film it would have been, if indeed The Coens were the ones doing it. 3/10.

🍿

2012, a Roland Emmerich's big budget disaster extravaganza from 2009, about the end of the world. CGI science fiction popcorn is usually not my gig, but I stuck out and watched all 158 minutes of it. Who pays to see these kind of mindless garbage movies? 1/10.

🍿

Throw-back to the "Art project”:  

Ahed Tamimi Adora.

Ventriloquist Adora.

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

[gothamsworst]

Okay this is inspired by my girlfriend who caught me doing this

The dork squad has a pet (you can decide) and the S/O is very well beloved by the pet

The dork squad comes home and finds the s/o singing lullabies to the animal swaddled like a baby, Disney protagonist style

How do they proceed

Jonathan Crane:

Jon is kind of stupefied for a moment, watching you bounce the swaddled crow around in your arms while you sing, "Hush Little Baby." Apparently crows like to be coddled. He's not sure whether to interrupt you or not, because you both look like you're enjoying yourselves. It'd be a shame to spoil the moment.

Edward Nygma:

Eddie already spoils his cat rotten, and you are not making matters any better by twirling the purring feline around in your embrace. He knows it's silly to be jealous of a cat, but the look on your face as you croon "You Are My Sunshine," is just...so damn cute. Why don't you ever look at him like that???

Jervis Tetch:

There is nothing cuter than a rabbit wrapped up like a little bun-ritto. Other than you rocking said bun-ritto in your arms, humming "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." He has to take a second, because he's pretty sure his heart just stopped. He wants to ingrain this memory into his brain for the rest of eternity.

#ask #dc #batman #gotham rogues #dork squad #jonathan crane #scarecrow #edward nygma #riddler #jervis tetch #mad hatter #scenario #sfw #cute #fluff #anonymous

[fleshdyke]

in all the months i’ve had him.. why have i never drawn jpeg

n e wayz here’s a veery quick design of my beloved boy, my everything, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my silly rabbit. jpeg

also pspspspsps i have the worst art block so like… if anyone wants a drawing of their fish… hmu 👀

#i’m obsessed with the ring of red scales behind his gills there actually #i made his fin a little small by accident but like. shut up #my art #art #digital art #jpeg the betta #betta #bettablr #betta fish #koi betta #fish #fishblr #aquablr #aquarium #also i never get to say ‘my rotten soldier my sweet cheese’… leave me alone

[juxtaposedxocultofjdsad08]

Expectation breeds disease(dis-ease)

Desire eviscerates the televisions past contents

Marked with scratched taped decimals

Of the scrapped change we could never bare to ask for sake of pity

And yet think nothing to flip in chance

How have we come here

Amending an imaginary fence

The shriek of the midget violin

or half of the imaginary pence

That one has never really rubbed out

Unless the lies still go on

And we just never wonder who let them out

the parking lots fodder

A display of abhorrent lowballs to mock the lower rite

Circumspection’s cruel assumption

To future aesthetics forethought’s

Foreshadowing the next walkout of guilted useless and forgone speech

Of whimsical, abysmal attempts

To satisfy an excuse to peacefully meet

And pretend we all can handle ourselves

While bending over barrels of eggs pickled purple by red sugar beets

Everything must go candy striped pitched tents

Moving and running after your manic lovers trepidatious tacit conquest to obtain and display

bargain superfluous point of being cheap

Silent sobs above an ajar lock box

Memories of sweaters and scarves

And your grandmothers musk

As the cars line up at the traffic lights

The hiss of the distant rattle snakes

Catching the last 4:30 bus

You wonder why you’re here,

And it’s because someone once came

To show you and morph you

That it’s all a dance around a flame

Can’t find the spark

No use to flee and cry

For you see, all died long ago and has been hung out to dry

Cured in batches

Pressed releases definite infinite damned dirty truncates congruent to the 3 lateral positions

Of 6x6x6 6 for the burial

6 for resurrected height

6 for the dangle of the noose

Without rhyme or reason

Who will break the headline

Written on the headboard of a sobbing and searching mother goose.

Calling a name she swore appeared

In her dreams every night

That abandoned her with nothing but

The chilling absence of purpose

Of which the utilities margin pinched

meaning leveled even, measured

Evaluated and inspected then condemned

To verify the validity she yearned true through fear and selfless hate

Balanced and anorexically worthless

Crawling up the flights of stairs to scale

All her notes of eight.

Wondering when will they come and bury

What the dog said she would create.

And so I’m afraid to say, that no matter what you say.

Definition is the result of another answer to the questions that came too late

And regret is the remorse of a shameful fate

Will it be more?

Will it be worse?

Is it better to fuel the fire for the warmth of the children,

Or lay ridden in the back of a mini van hearse

Doe the rabbits freeze and breathe deeply

Fearing the worse?

The well begotten by the damned

The damned be forgotten

So never more shall you tread

On your beloved pilots old world dog tailed slumber

And the room temperature butter

Rancid and rotten

Shall never more upset the loving sapphire eyes

Ginger tipped beard

Signals the tainted, turbulent borderline

Of care and sabotage

Inevitably rolling down the grassy nolls

For the last grand display

Of Dallas’s homecoming baptism

Adultery falling in the culprits lap.

Love thy mother

Honor thy father

And always ask yourself

When it’s in the crowd or all alone

Do you trust your own steps?

For they can never really claim you as their dependents,

Independence democratized the minors assured emancipation.

That left you out on the waves

In riptides of frustration.

They say sink or swim but only from ashore

And for nature’s rest assurance,

We’ve insured her to be a spiteful whore.

Searching father times hand

To calm the seas like before.

Love is anticipation of fear

Death is the climatic epitome of your vain-precipice

Plateaued and tiptoed

The widowed peak of confluence

Slid down the convoluted spiral stairs

greased handrails for your feet to upend the air.

Down and down and down

The dry dock seeps

Moist splines

Geared bruxism in the night

Of thrashing rage of my last kind.

I don’t know the beginning, the light is fading quick.

But heed my call for this one time.

Wipe the seat of your piss,

Leave it down to console your tired mothers.

And don’t eat where you shit.

And respect your fathers peaceful slumber.

[alexandermanes]

halloween week, day 3 - something out of a nightmare

warning: graphic descriptions of violence, graphic descriptions of torture, graphic descriptions of gore, whump, angst, pain so much pain, blood, body horror. This is absolutely NOT for the faint of heart, I made myself cry and sick while writing this. This is so violent; this is devil-work worthy kind of thing. Please do not read it if you’re sensitive to things described above. If you’re a horror enthusiast, have fun with my wicked work

ao3

As he opened his eyes, Michael noticed the harsh white light overhead, and as he looked around he noticed he was in a room, nothing besides himself and four eerily white walls and equally white tiles on the floor. Nothing but hazy white filled his senses, the room smelled of nothing, and he saw nothing but white. He strained his hearing trying to pick out any sounds: nothing. He tried to move but soon notice he was strapped down to a grey metallic table, around his wrists and ankles there were restraints bounding them to the table he laid. His screams were muffled by a metallic y-shaped gag, with a straight metal line covering his mouth.

“They can’t hear you”, Jesse fucking Manes said, as he stood beside the torture table, “It’s a pity, though. I’m about to give them a spectacle”

Michael’s eyes were impossibly wide as he took the man before him in his Air Force uniform, a scalpel in hand, behind him there was a small table with a tray filled with medical instruments. Then he noticed there was a huge glass observation window glued to one of the walls, the one opposite to Jesse, inside he noticed man wearing white lab coats, notepads in hand as they observed him googly-eyed, furiously scribbling down notes.  

“Couldn’t have kept your hands to yourself, could you?”, said his own live boogieman

Michael tries to answer, tries to beg, to plead, to say anything really but his voice is muffled and whatever he is saying is unintelligible, not that Jesse Manes would’ve cared. The airman takes a step further, like a lion stalking his prey, then another, then another until his hip is pressed to the table Michael is laid down, he grabs Michael’s throat and pushes him down hard enough to cause thump sound. His grip is tight and Michael struggles to breathe. Before he lets go he squeezed him even tighter and Michael is sure he’ll pass out, then he relents. He bends his body slightly to the right, lifts his right knee up and fetches a lighter from the pocket in his uniform pants.

“Y’know”, he says as he passes the scalpel’s blade through the small flame, “I thought about this moment for a long time”, his gray blues showing no emotion whatsoever stare at his amber eyes, “You entered my house, corrupted my son- You come to this planet” he looms over Michael’s body, “you come to America to cause our destruction. It’s what you do, you destroy things. But I’m not going to let you, I’m here to stop you. And make no mistake, I will thoroughly enjoy this”, he smiles but there’s nothing there, no emotion, just a blank expression.

He aims the blade lower and lower until it reaches Michael’s chest until it pierces right over his heart, a good couple of inches deep, and he drags the scalpel down, a vertical line, cutting until it reached his stomach. His skin burns like nothing he ever felt, he feels nauseous and the smell of burnt meat fills his nostrils. The blood oozes steadily form the cut and besides the burn sensation there is a sharp pain, like acid corroding his chest. He cries out and writhes in pain, struggling with the shackles around his wrists, he tries to escape but it’s fruitless. He wants to beg, God does he want to, to scream for him to stop but he can’t and his gag suffocates him. After the vertical cut, his torturer takes the scalpel and draws a semicircle around where he first initiated the wound and pulls the flaps of skin apart. He tries to tear the skin apart. Michael can’t do anything but sob violently, his tears stream and burn his eyes, mucus all over his face. Then, as he feels like he will certainly pass out, his blinking slow and sparse between, he closes his eyes and he see nothing but gloom and darkness, he identifies the sound of rustling. He opens his eyes abruptly and around him there’s rubble, humongous pieces of concrete cut in odd shapes, bars of steel settled haphazardly, shards of broken glass around him. And then he sees him, Alex, strapped to a table much like himself, only missing the metal gag, as he spots his beloved, the thump of boots resounds in the room and he sees Jesse walking, strolling towards his youngest son.

“You’ve disappointed me so much”, he tells Alex as he towers over him

“Dad, let him go”, he tells the Masters-Sargent making eye contact with Michael, his brow furrowed in concern though he doesn’t look as terrified as he, himself feels

“Oh, son, I’m done with him for now”, he spares a smug look to his other victim, “It’s you I’m concerned with now”

And with those final words Michael feels a cold, prickly sensation travel down his spine and he shivers, cold sweat breaks across his forehead and he feels nauseous for a whole different reason than the pungent smell of copper and rotten meat, or the feel of his blood pooling over his chest and dripping onto the ground. No, he feels nauseous because he knows deep in his bones that this is it, this is the last he’ll see of Alex’s flawless and warm skin, the last he’ll see of Alex’s light and alive brown eyes. He knows with unwavering certainty that Jesse Manes will murder his own son in front of him. He feels his intestines on fire. Holy fuck.

“Please”, he says, voice muffled, “please don’t do this”, voice aquiver, “please, please. Kill me”, he sobs, ugly and snotty, “Kill me!”, he repeats with a scream but Jesse doesn’t listen, he’s not sure he can hear him. He feels desperate and so, so frightened.

Suddenly he sees rapid movement, a swing and then a holler like nothing else he’s ever heard, ear-splitting, horrified, his vision is foggy he sees shapes and colors; two colors: white and red. Quickly his vision adjusts itself in time to see Jesse dragging the scalpel which doubled in size, across the extension of Alex’s entire chest, starting at his throat all the way to his groin. The blade is so deep inside Alex’s body he only sees a tiny bit sticking out, and the blood gushes out and it paints Jesse’s face and uniform and Michael’s entire body. His blood and Alex’s are a vicious, ungodly mix on his body and all around him.

He trashes on the table, restraints digging into his wrists and ankles enough to draw blood from them too. And he cries, the sounds that come out of his mouth are equally jarring to the sound of half of Alex’s body splitting in two. And God it’s an awful sickening sound. He bawls his eyes out and writhes, calling Alex, Alex, Alex please. Oh my God. Please, oh God, please. Please. Alex.

His vision blurs out once more, the unforgiving light form the torture room blinding him again. Alex name falls out his mouth like a mantra, a woeful, heart-wrenching prayer for him to somehow to be alive. He isn’t. Lifeless wide eyes, mouth agape, body simmering in blood: Alex is dead.  

Clean pristine white walls shift to grey-schemed rubble in the blink of an eye, then back. And Jesse Manes smiles, his grin is devilish, something out of a nightmare. The scenario shifts like a disorienting glitch. Back and forth, back and forth. In the distance he hears his name, the calling competes with the sound of his racing heart, beating jack-rabbit fast. But then as he felt like falling down an endless dark pit the voice grew louder.

He jolts awake and beside him in the dimly lit room he sees a form he’d always recognize, in his dreams or nightmares.

“Alex”, he croaks with a quivering breath

“Michael, are you okay?”, he shifts closer, “I’ve been calling your name for a solid 5 minutes. You were crying and whimpering, then you started whispering my name and I knew it was a nightmare”

He feels it, the dampness in his skin, a mix of tears and sweat. He is still shaking, the images flash by his eyes, a mix of gore and sadness he won’t ever want to experience again.

“I-“, he can’t even begin to explain what happened and nor does he want to. He’d rather bury his nightmare deep within his brain, seven feet under or deeper. Tears fill his eyes, the sheer terror of seeing Alex dead is still raw.

“Shhh…”, Alex silences him probably sensing his distress, “We don’t have to talk about it. Is it ok if I hold you?”, he asks like doesn’t already know the answer

Michael nods jerkily, needing to feel that comfort, needing to feel his boyfriend’s warmth because he remembers vividly how he stared into his lifeless eyes, and he just, he can’t, he can’t lose him, not like that, especially like that, which is good because Jesse Manes is dead. He is fucking dead and unless he hasn’t risen from his grave like an actual fucking horror flick than he is fucking deceased. Dead. Muerto. Period.

A tender hand in his hair brings his racing thoughts to a halt. Alex cradles his face softly and nudges him to snuggle closer until they’re pressed flushed against each other, Michael’s head over his heart, listening the thumps of his beating, lively heart. He is alive, he is safe, we are safe, he reminds himself. Alex’s fingers card through his hair and he hums, gently holding him over his body. The dichotomy between his nightmare and reality is jarring at best, but still ghost of despair and pain creeps from a dark corner in his mind, so focusing on Alex’s heart, skin, voice, touch is the best he can do.

He won’t fall asleep but he knows deep within his bones that his place is here, next to Alex.  

#tw horror #roswell new mexico #halloween #rnm fan fiction #rnm #michael guerin #alex manes

[wunderlass]

Heart-Shaped Box

For RIPRoswell Day Three: grief, joy, remembrance, acceptance. 

We don’t see Halloween celebrated in season one, but the timing of the finale suggests we’ve passed it by somewhere along the way, probably in the six weeks that passes between episodes eight and nine. It’s implied that Liz and Max haven’t seen each other much, if it at all, during those six weeks. For the purposes of this story, I’m going to act like they did cross paths a handful of times while Liz worked on a cure for Isobel.

Thanks, as always, to @maxortecho for her beta skills. All Spanish errors are mine. Anything Max gets wrong about the traditions are a clueless white girl taking advantage of having a clueless white boy to write about.

For A. 13 years. You picked an apt day to die. No altar, no roadside memorial, but a candle for you tonight.

A cluster of aliens swarms down the street, heading for the patrol car and quickly surrounding it. There’s no escaping them now.

Max slumps back against the headrest and heaves out a weary sigh. Cam is still inside Beam Me Up and they aren’t going anywhere until the kids have finished trick or treating down this road. 

Aliens. All of them: ET, Yoda, Buzz Lightyear, a bizarrely adorable xenomorph, and an entire galaxy’s worth of Star Trek characters. It’s a beloved Roswell tradition at Halloween, and one he’s always hated.

One of the kids, a preteen in a generic little green man mask, is jiggling the handle of the car. Max grabs the bucket of candy and rolls down the window to distribute it out to the delighted mass.

They’ve moved on by the time Cam saunters out of the coffee shop, and he doesn’t think it’s a coincidence. She hands him his tea and stares after the motley crew. 

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. There’s nobody in sheets pretending to be ghosts. No little witches on broomsticks. Every last one an alien.”

“There are always some rebels,” Max replies.

“Oh yeah?”

“Isobel always had to be a princess. The closest compromise she could reach with my parents was Princess Leia.”

“Is she even an alien?”

“As far as Iz was concerned, she was from a galaxy far, far away, so she couldn’t be human.” It was hard logic for their mother to argue with, especially not when Isobel argued it so decisively. Almost as if his sister was identifying with the idea.

“And you?”

“Me? I wanted to be Harry Potter.” He ducks his head, grinning to himself as he remembers his yearning for a pair of spectacles. He’d practiced drawing a lightning scar on his forehead with his mother’s eyeliner.

Cam laughs. “Figures.”

“Yeah. But my mom insisted I had to keep up the tradition, so she put me in an old bathrobe and sent me as a Jedi instead. I didn’t have the right hair to be Luke Skywalker though.”

That hadn’t been so bad, out of the options. He’d never had to go as a murderous alien, or the little green man, a reminder of his origins and the loss of his people in the crash. His costume had sent Max down a rabbit hole, watching the movies and then discovering all the tie-in novels, marveling at the powers the Jedi had and wondering if they came from the same galaxy. Max didn’t have powers, not yet, just his bond with Isobel, but Jedi powers seemed like a cool trade-off to being an alien. Maybe even better than being a wizard.

Until he got his powers and then it wasn’t cool at all.

“That sounds on your level of nerdery,” Cam says. “And your mom was right, Jedi is cooler than Harry Potter.”

“Hard disagree. If I wasn’t in uniform, I’d be in my wizard robes right now.”

It’s not true. He hasn’t put on a costume since childhood, and this night of all nights isn’t one he observes with any merriment anymore. Instead, it’s a countdown until midnight. That’s the only holiday—holy day in the traditional sense—that he honors these days.

That’s private though. For after their shift is over, under the cover of darkness. When he can head to the cemetery gates.

~

The cemetery is quiet and still, its gates locked early to keep out any teenagers who might decide it’d be a special kind of thrill to run riot through it tonight. Max has nudged the patrol in this direction several times in their circuits of the city, and Cam was far from suspicious: given Sheriff Valenti’s stern warnings to keep their eyes on it, it made good business sense.

Max left Cam at her door half an hour ago and made his way here instead of heading to his own home. This is the tenth year of his tradition, but the first time he’s visited Rosa’s grave since Liz returned to town. Not since that night he caught Liz herself here after midnight. He doesn’t want to intrude on her, not when he’s promised her space, not when she has every right to her grief and he has no right to her time.

It must have been harder for her to clear the gates—for him, it’s an easy spring and drop onto the path on the other side, flashlight clutched between his teeth. The gates really don’t serve much of a deterrent to anyone, teenagers or drifters alike, but the place is silent around him. Silent as the grave.

He knows he can come up with a better metaphor than that.

Doesn’t matter. He’s not here to write. Tonight he is here to remember, to honor Rosa in ways her family no longer risk publicly. Using the beam from the flashlight, he picks his way through the rows of graves until he finds her. Shoved in a back corner, the grass a little long around here, like even the caretakers don’t want to do right by her. The gravestone is thankfully free of graffiti—he brought stuff to clean it off if he needed to. Instead, from his rucksack he gets out what he’s here to bring.

He’s sure he does this all wrong. It’s not his tradition, and he doesn’t know anyone he can ask for more information, except for Liz. Then she’d know, she’d have to know, and he’s not sure if she’d understand. He isn’t doing this for atonement. He’s simply doing it to keep the memory of a girl who died far too young alive, in his own fumbled way. 

Besides, he’s been doing it so long he’s kind of made his own traditions, and it would feel weird to change them now. Even if it was to correct himself.

The first thing out of the rucksack is the bouquet of marigolds. They’re a little crushed and wilted after a day in his locker at the station, but they’re vibrant against the night. He lays them in front of the stone, and though the grass almost swallows them, their orange glow refuses to be diminished.

Next comes the pan de muerto he picked up earlier in the day. They’re only wrapped in a little paper bag, so he’s sure the only thing consuming them year after year are rats, but it was in the list when he Googled all those years ago. He doesn’t even know if Rosa liked them. He’s not even sure if he likes them: after all this time, he’s never been able to bring himself to try one. They’re too associated with the girl he’s offering them to, and the thought of swallowing them chokes him, guilt rising like bile.

Third, he pulls out the cardboard cup to put next to the bread. He had to quit leaving thermoses out here, knowing they were only getting broken or stolen. This is the cheaper, more environmentally friendly option. Others might have brought a bottle of tequila, but he cannot in good conscience leave that for Rosa. Instead he brings her tea: good tea, his favorite, now cold but still aromatic.

And lastly, his calavera literaria.

It’s not in Spanish. It has no humor to it, because that’s never been his strong suit, and to joke with her or about her is too intimate for a girl he barely knew. But the little poem he writes for her every year is the best he can do, a small exchange of his soul for hers. This, he tucks down into the grass, hoping it will be rotten long before the grass is cut or anyone comes to the grave.

He doesn’t say a word. He can never find the words when he’s here, not like he can when he has a pen in his hand and the entire year to think of what to say to her next. The hundred ways he can apologize and it never be enough, never fix what happened. Rosa would probably laugh if she got a chance to read these poems, like she did when she read his letter to Liz. Laugh, shove him away, remind him he’s a stupid boy. And he wouldn’t stop her.

His ritual complete, Max wends his way back to the gates. The wind rustles through the grass, and he almost wishes he could hear it whispering to him, the sound taking on a voice. What words would it say to him? Forgiveness? Not likely. 

But the wind is just the wind. This is just a field on the edge of the desert, where the people of this town plant their bones and pretend their loved ones are here when they visit. The dead are just the dead, and there’s no changing that.

~

The cruel irony of this night is that to get home from the cemetery, he must drive along the road where he staged the crash with his siblings. He has learned to avert his eyes when he passes by—if he does, instead of taking the long way around, but that’s not feasible at this time of night. He’s in that state of exhaustion where he’s becoming wired up again, and that makes him a dangerous driver. It’s not much of an issue on roads as quiet as these, but he needs to get home and find ways of subduing himself.

Instead he grips the wheel and tries to keep his gaze off to one side, away from the three memorial crosses wedged into the roadside dirt. All he needs to be aware of are headlights, ahead or behind, otherwise he can drive half in a trance and he’s only a danger to himself.

Just this once, there are headlights. And they aren’t on the road. They’re stationary, at the side of the road.

He’s alert enough not to slam the brakes, instead allowing his Jeep to roll to a stop near the lights. His eyes adjust to make out the scene through his window, and he swallows.

A car is parked beside the memorial, engine off but lights on. A car he recognizes.

He should keep driving, but it looks weird now he’s slowed down. In fact, she’s turned to look at him, her brow wrinkled in question, her stance alert, tense. She’s expecting trouble.

He rolls down the window to show who he is, to prove she’s in no danger.

“Liz,” he says over the rumble of his engine. He’s not seen her in a few weeks, not since Isobel went into the pod. She’s a sight for sore eyes, but one he tries not to look at too intensely, averting his eyes into the shadows around her. It’s like trying not to look at the sun during an eclipse. It’s like trying not to look at god. It will be painful afterwards, but it might just be worth the pain.

She smiles, but it’s tense. Things are still weird between them. Things will likely always be weird between them, and he knows better than to hope for different. She deserves her anger.

He knows better than to ask her what she’s doing here, especially given that she’s clutching her own garland of marigolds. Rosa’s makeshift cross is upright, a sorry rarity.

Max wonders if Liz has ever built an ofrenda for her sister. It seems unlikely, given what he knows of her scattered adulthood and the emotional ties she’d cut with Rosa.

There’s nothing to say. So he says the first stupid thing that comes into his head. “You’re not in costume.”

Her breath hitches and her fingers tighten around the flower stems.

“Sorry. That’s--”

“I don’t really celebrate Halloween,” she says. “Not since Rosa…it doesn’t feel right.”

He thinks that’s the end of it. The awkwardness lies heavily between them, a veil he cannot breach. But where he shrinks into silence, Liz seeks to escape it.

“She always did the most elaborate costumes,” she says. “She only learned to sew so she could make her own costumes, and she’d paint my face for Día de los Muertos. I loved them so much, I always insisted she painted my face for Halloween too, even though she told me it was silly, that everyone in town dresses as aliens so we had to as well.” It’s the word aliens that brings her back to the awkwardness, her voice trailing off as she finishes the sentence.

“I remember,” Max says fondly. “Rosa with her face painted silver, but you with floral patterns all over your skin.”

“Papi always goes overboard at Halloween, and we hated it. We thought it was so cheesy. It was one of Rosa’s earliest acts of rebellion—she wanted to be a bruja. Or Selena.”

Liz is smiling, though sadness tugs at the corners of her mouth. She shakes her head, looking away from him, her gaze tracing the road he has just driven down.

“Where are you coming from at this time of night?” she asks, and the question is so unexpected that he stills, glad her stare hasn’t returned to him. She always can see him. Through him.

“Me?” 

“Yeah, you,” she says, and it’s almost teasing. “There’s nothing much that way. Nothing except…” She pauses and looks back at the roadside cross “...Rosa.”

“I laid flowers on her grave.” The words are out before he can stem their flow.

Once again, she takes him by surprise. “That’s you?”

“I didn’t know anybody ever noticed,” he replies.

She nods. “My father goes on Día de los Muertos. It’s safer that day than any other day—the other girls weren’t Mexican, their families don’t visit that day. Only the other Mexican families do, and they look after papi.”

Max resists the urge to cringe until he folds into himself. To think that Arturo might have read his poems…

“He said somebody was visiting her grave,” she continues. “But he thought it was maybe a boyfriend of hers. Certainly no gringo.” She smiles again, and this time it’s teasing, light. “Though this does explain why you’ve been wasting the pan de muerto. You’re supposed to eat it, not give a whole bag to the local rodent population.”

He takes a deep breath. “I know…I know this doesn’t—”

But she silences him with a shake of her head. “Not tonight.”

She turns her back to him, crouching to place the marigolds underneath the wooden cross. For a moment he thinks this is a dismissal, but when her hands are free she turns back to him.

“Come on, pull over. I’ll show you what you’re missing.”

It takes a few moments for him to get context. She crosses to her car, reaches into the passenger seat, and brings out a little white cake box. He knows what’s in it. Shame and bile rise in unison.

The only thing he can do is follow her instructions, pulling to the side of the road and turning his engine off to give himself a moment to collect himself.

Then she’s at his window with the lid open on the box, the sugar crystals on the pan de muerto sparkling in the stark brightness of the twin headlamps. He doesn’t smile, but takes the offering reverently.

It’s soft in his hand, softer still between his teeth. Sweet, delicate, a hint of anise. This isn’t what his guilt tastes like.

Liz closes the lid, watching him as he chews. She doesn’t say anything, and for the first time he notices the lack of anger in her expression. He never thought she’d look at him without a hint of fury, but either she’s cloaking it well or she’s forgotten it in this moment. He grasps the moment, commits it to his memory for when her anger returns.

He doesn’t choke on the first bite, or the next, or the next. Maybe he won’t choke on it after all.

#roswell new mexico #riproswell #fic #rnm echo #liz ortecho #max evans

[yourfanvivitran]

It should come as no surprise that John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon were students in the same film class, that they created Dark Star together, and that they both had a great affinity for 1951’s The Thing From Another World. If you put Ridley Scott’s Alien, which O’Bannon wrote, next to Carpenter’s The Thing, the parallels cannot be contended. A group of people, bound together almost exclusively by their careers, are isolated and trapped in their own environment with a murderous monster. One by one, they are picked off by this alien beast and are forced to pull out all the stops just to survive. The tension in both movies is suffocating. The suspense stays well after the credits roll.

So, why did Alien excel and why did The Thing fail?

Alien was heralded as a science fiction-horror masterpiece, raking in over $200 million at the box office. The Thing, although now recognized as one of Carpenter’s best films to rival even the likes of Halloween, barely exceeded its $15 million budget by $4 million. What’s more is that critics panned The Thing almost unanimously after its 1982 release. And to what point?

When you compare the 2 movies, it objectively doesn’t make much sense. When you sit down and watch The Thing, without even thinking of its much more popular predecessor, it still doesn’t quite add up. There is not much I can say about The Thing that hasn’t already been said before. It’s well-known, now - the writing, the acting, the practical effects, the cinematography? Masterfully done. No arguments. So what went wrong?

The most popularly accepted explanation was that it just wasn’t the right year for it. In 1982, The Thing had to contend with the Summer of Spielberg, being critiqued alongside horror giant Poltergeist and science fiction treasure E.T. How could a stark and grim story of distrust and gore stand alongside such beloved classics?

But in tandem with these films and also calling back to the success of Alien, Carpenter cites reception from various focus groups: they hated the ending.

It should be assumed at this point that if you have not yet seen The Thing, you are sorely missing out. All the same, however, be wary of spoilers.

The end of The Thing is bitter, to put it lightly. Childs (Keith David) trudges through Antarctic snow, lit by the burning wreckage of Outpost 31, towards R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russel) who sits alone, already half buried. They observe their inevitable deaths, and drink to the supposed demise of their shapeshifting predator.

A lot is left out to die in the snow.

According to Carpenter, this ending was seen by test audiences as too dismal. And rightfully so, when you take into consideration the other popular releases of 1982. Carol Anne is ultimately saved, along with the rest of her family, at the end of Poltergeist. Elliot embraces E.T. before he finally returns home. And going further back, even Ripley is able to escape the xenomorph by the skin of her teeth and secure herself the title as one of the greatest “Final Girls” ever put to the silver screen.

And what of MacReady and Childs?

Well, that’s up to your imagination, Carpenter told a test audience member who asked who the final host was at the end of the movie.

“Oh, god. I hate that,” they responded.

As a writer, this loose ends style of concluding a story is almost expected from a lot of modern works. It’s written this way in order to haunt the reader, to linger and adhere itself to the real world in the most sardonic of ways. Think Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” or Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” This almost anticlimactic close of the curtain arrived in the literary world long before it found its place in film, but it’s a big point of contention in mainstream criticism.

Dark or incomplete conclusions have been met with the most scathing of responses. Beware the black cutaway of Sopranos fame. Or the near-universal outcry against the third Mass Effect game that grew so much, the developers created a morsel of DLC content that maybe kind of confirmed a more optimistic fate for our dear Shepard.

But even for the horror genre, The Thing seemed unprecedented. The only fate darker to fall upon a mainstream protagonist was Ben’s untimely death in Night of the Living Dead. The tragedy of both movies is palpable - all this trouble to survive against inhuman killers, all this trouble to outlive something gruesome and maybe even make the world a better place, and what was left to show for it?

In short, Carpenter’s science fiction terror was too much of a bummer.

I personally did not take much of a liking to horror until much later in life. My parents didn’t filter the media I consumed as much as they probably should have, and I was scarred early on by movies as cheesy and entertaining as The Lost Boys and Blade. It wasn’t until late adolescence and into college that I set out to catch up.

My roommate at the time of this resolution had been a fan of horror her whole life, her favorites being Halloween, Candyman, and The Thing. Having already known a good deal about the former two, I decided to strap in for The Thing for the first time ever.

These days, I always have several soap boxes on retainer, just waiting for the next unwitting recipient of my usually-beer-induced rants. Brian Jones was killed, Jaws single handedly endangered sharks, banning books is a stupid practice, representation in media is important, etc. Predictably, one of these soap boxes is the general lack of appreciation of The Thing, both at the time of its release and today (it does not even make the top 100 on Rotten Tomatoes’s highest rated horror movies).

And yet, at the same time, if The Thing had achieved the credit it deserved upon release, I may not like it as much as I do today.

I make a point to not read too much about movies I am feverishly anticipating, and revel in the feeling of going into a well-known movie knowing as little as possible. Most of the time, it makes for the best viewing experience, but I’m sure I don’t even have to point this out.

This was my experience seeing The Thing for the first time. I was on winter break, staying at my parents’ house for the holidays. Everyone else had gone to bed, and I stayed up late in the living room, curled up under layers of blankets, content in perfect darkness save for the television.

I had no idea what to expect, as I had not been spoiled by any TV show making any blatant references and had not done any prior reading into the film itself. And I was absolutely delighted from beginning to end.

What stays with me the most is the special effects. It’s true what they say - that practical effects hold up better than CGI alone. And the production team didn’t cut any corners in this department. Stan Winston and his team, who were later responsible for the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, helped construct one of the best animatronics in the movie. Rob Bottin, who brought this constantly-morphing creature to life from conception to every last slimy detail, went on to be hailed as a genius in his special effects career. And there is definitely something to be said for the work of cinematographer Dean Cundey whose masterful control of lighting and framing is best seen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The extent of my knowledge of the titular creature was that it was an alien. That it was an alien who could consume multiple life forms and take on their shapes was both exciting and terrifying. There’s creative genius in this premise that thrills the science fiction lover in me, and also fascinates the bookworm in me. I had been a fan of Agatha Christie novels as a teenager, and to see a new and outrageous take on the And Then There Were None structure was incredibly novel to me.

The appeal wasn’t just that there was something out there, lying in wait to torturously pick off it’s victims one-by-one. It was that it could have been anyone.

At its core, horror as we know it has deep roots in whodunnit style murder mystery. With the rise of the giallo and the sensation of the slasher, horror movies of this nature are far from uncommon and can be seen as late as 1996 with the Scream franchise. Carpenter himself spurned a new kind of fear with his breakout success with Halloween by refusing to give a bodily face to its main antagonist. Here, with The Thing, he takes the eponymous killer character to the next level by giving it the genetically inherent function of deceiving its prey. Not knowing the true face of your murderer has proven to be inherently bone-chilling.

Even now, hundreds of horror movies under my belt later and still constantly learning, I keep coming back to The Thing. I really cannot think of another movie in my wide array of favorites that I love more than The Thing, and I truly believe it has everything to do with me not knowing anything about it upon my first viewing. Every other movie I can name on my (similar to the subject) constantly changing top 10 list of most beloved horror flicks was, at some point, spoiled for me in some capacity.

Think of how often the twins in The Shining are referenced in cartoons, of all the head spinning jokes made in reference to The Exorcist. Anthony Hopkins’s portrayal of Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs has become so infamous, that I knew his dialogue (and Buffalo Bill’s) long before I ever saw the movie in full.

I don’t blame these references for ruining these movies. As a super fan, I understand that compulsion to pay tribute. It’s no one’s fault and to their credit that these films take lives of their own. But the repercussions don’t age well in terms of initial viewing experiences.

All that being said, I truly cherish how much I was not exposed to this movie. The unpredictability of the creature and the quiet, looming despair that comes with it create a horror unlike any other.

Although it was a box office flop, The Thing is now a welcome and praised name in both science fiction and horror. Even Quentin Tarantino made it known that The Hateful Eight was primarily inspired on several fronts by Carpenter’s underrated work. However, it has not pervaded pop culture like so many other horror classics have left their indelible mark on film vernacular. And to that end, I hope it remains in that slight shadow of anonymity for all future enthusiasts.

#john carpenter #the thing #alien #horror #horror movie #horror film #horror genre

[crazyclarabr]

So, the ideia kind of got bigger. Check it out:

(also, sorry for my English, it’s not my first language)

In this AU, the Todoroki’s are a family and company in the sustainable energy business and Enji (supposedly) is a beloved philanthropist who buys land to preserve the local flora and fauna. Behind the scenes, he is tha a****** that we know and Touya is the we-do-not-talk-about son. He runs away from home after a big fight with Enji that ended with Touya being thrown out the window, gaining a lot of cuts.

Over the years he meets Stain, a very extreme activist who commits crimes to reveal the rottenness of big business.

Stain takes care of him, Touya does not reveal himself as the son of Enji, spends some time being called just “the brat” and ends up adhering to some of Stain’s philosophies. He has an unstable psychological derivative of traumas and later drug use. Stain dies when he tries to unmask the Todoroki company in a fire of one of the branches. Touya leaves with little burnt from there, but alive.

Then he joins Shigaraki, another extreme that is less justice and more “fuck the world, resets this whole thing” and adopts the name ‘Dabi’ (’cremation’). During one of the group’s breackthroughs, they need to stay somewhere to get organized for another attack and Dabi knows of one Enji’s reserves that they will not be disturbed because the Todoroki family only visit in the summer. Large house, larg grounds, peace, everything beautiful and wonderful nature. Everybody go there to recharge the villainous batteries.

While the group was making noise, Dabi get out because he is not obliged to endure. He walks far more than he had ever walked around when he was younger until he sees a very peculiar bird fallen with the wing broken by smashing against a tree. He hates when the strongest uses the power to abuse the weak, because it resembles him Enji, so he goes there at least see if the bird has any salvation. The bird spouts him, scratches him, Dabi practically do not bother with the pain, but then he hears “What are you doing with my friend?”. When he look up, he see a birdman on a tree. And Dabi is like “Bitch, wtf?” thinking he is too high that are even imagining things. He says he just wanted to know if he could help, he hands the bird over to the birdman and returns to the house because he feels that he is too high to walk around alone.

In the middle of the night he wakes up thinking he’s being watched and sees the same birdman looking at him from the window with an “what the hell are you” face.

They talk keeping distance from the group and Dabi learns that Hawks had been living there forever and that Enji bought the land for the “preservation” of Hawks and other peculiar beings, such as the wounded bird, a rabbit woman, a crow boy, etc. Story comes, story goes, and they learn it’s not quite that. Enji had another plans. But I left this for imagination. Cause I don’t have time to write. Damn it.

But I’m donating the plot, here, take it. Tag me. I want to read.

#bnha #my hero academia #hot wings #hotwings #hawks #dabi #todoroki touya #fanart

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior July 16, 2021 - SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY, ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS, PIG, ROADRUNNER, GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE, and More!

We’re starting to get into the thick of summer where we’re likely to get two or maybe even three wide releases a week, and that’s definitely the case this weekend, even if it’s likely that Marvel’s Black Widow will continue to run rampant and should stay at #1 for a second weekend in a row. I also was busier than usual due to the Emmy nominations yesterday, but I now hopefully have a few easier months until the actual Emmys. (Famous last words.)

We actually have two sequels this week, one a sequel to a movie from a few years back and the other a sequel (of sorts) to a movie from 1996, so yeah, released a few months away from the 25th Anniversary of its predecessor. That always goes well.

We’ll start with SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (Warner Bros.), the long-awaited sequel/reboot of the 1996 movie that captured Michael Jordan at the height of his popularity and paired him with the Looney Tunes i.e. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, etc. For years, Warner Bros. and various parties have been trying to make a sequel, but it took basketball superstar, Lebron James and no less than Ryan (Black Panther) Coogler, to finally get the sequel made.

Directed by Malcolm D. Lee (Girls Trip, Barbershop: The Next Cut), the sequel involves James and his son Dom (newcomer Cedric Joe) having issues that are taken advantage by an A.I. named Al G. Rhythm (played by Don Cheadle) who brings James and Dom to the Warner Bros. “Server-verse” for a basketball game that teams James with the Looney Tunes against his son and a group of super-powered NBA and WNBA stars i.e. The Goon Squad.

Yeah, it’s a similar concept as what led to the 1996 movie that capitalized on Jordan’s popularity and threw in other NBA greats like Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewing, plus a little Bill Murray, and then lots of Warner Bros’ popular toon characters. That original movie opened with $27.5 million in 2,650 theaters in mid-November 1996 against the second weekend of Mel Gibson’s Ransom, but it went on to gross $90.4 million domestically with the bump from the holidays (which A New Legacy doesn’t have). In some ways, the movie was a response to the success of the 1988 hybrid Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which included many of the Looney Tunes, despite it being a Disney movie.

Looney Tunes movies (and even movies based on WB properties like the Cartoon Network) haven’t done particularly well since the first movie with Looney Tunes: Back in Action opening in November 2003 with just $9.3 million and grossing just $20.5 million domestically, which isn’t good. Space Jam: A New Legacy is Warner Bros’ first attempt to bring its toons back to theaters, and the company will be watching it closely since it has already started production on Coyote vs. Acme, a CG animated film featuring the age-old nemeses.

As far as basketball movies, the comedy Uncle Drew, which also starred Lil Rel Howery oddly, that opened with a decent $15.4 million in the summer of 2018 and grossed $42.6 million domestically, but that’s without the name brand of “Space Jam” or the beloved toons that will be a bigger selling point to kids than the basketball.

Working in Space Jam’s favor is that it’s a movie both for adults who were kids when the first movie came out, as well as modern-day kids who love sports or the toons, and that should help drive business over the weekend. What is likely to hurt is that the reviews, so far, have been absolutely TERRIBLE - 35% on Rotten Tomatoes, and while that might not put off the kids, it certainly will put off their parents.

The movie is also debuting simultaneously on HBO Max, just like other Warner Bros. movies this year, although as we’ve seen with Godzilla vs. Kong and Mortal Kombat, that doesn’t necessarily hamper how a movie might do in theaters. One thing that’s changed is that Disney announced its PVOD numbers from Black Widow’s Disney+ debut over the weekend, which might change people’s tunes about feeling the need to go to theaters to see a movie like this, and that certainly might affect Space Jam’s opening weekend, but I think it will mean an opening in the mid-to-high $20 millions vs. something in the mid-$30 millions. It also doesn’t have too much family competition until Disney’s Jungle Cruise in two weeks, so it should be able to make $70 million in domestic theaters even with it being readily available on HBO Max.

Mini-Review: I’ll freely admit that I don’t have the long-term nostalgia for the original Space Jam of so many others. In fact, I only saw it for the first time a few days ago on my TV set, which may be the way many will see Space Jam: A New Legacy due to the fact that it’s on HBO Max. It’s just another casualty of my ‘90s when I wasn’t seeing many movies and also wasn’t going to see “kids’ movies.” But I do have a soft spot in my heart for the Looney Tunes, and HBO Max even did a pretty good job with its revival last year with some new shorts.

Unfortunately, this is more of a Lebron James/Warner Bros jam, to the point where you might wonder whether Lebron dictated how he wanted to be depicted to the gaggle of writers, and then Warner Bros came in and said, “Make sure to mention how great all our other properties are as well!”

The general plot involves Don Cheadle’s dumbly pun-named Al G. Rhythm -- I promise you’ll cringe everytime you hear that name -- trying to get attention by creating a showstopping basketball game between James and his son in a video game designed by the latter, and for whatever reason, it’s James who turns to Bugs Bunny to put together a team. It’s nearly 30 minutes before we finally see the Looney Tunes together, and that’s probably the best part of the movie, as Bugs goes to visit different worlds in the Warners “server-verse” to find his compatriots. I won’t spoil some of the movie worlds it visits, but these are some of the movie’s funniest scenes, although the laughs are fleeting since they’re relatively short gags. They're ruined by the movie going overboard in an attempt to throw James into some of these worlds, particularly the DC Comics superhero-verse, which seems like it might be influenced by the cartoons but never quite achieves that style of animation.

An hour into the movie, the Tune Squad is turned into 3-dimensional CG, as they face the Goon Squad team of NBA and WNBA all-stars transformed into creatures with superpowers. It's just unable to recover as the movie’s last hour focuses on that game, which is fine other than the fact that it's an awkward combination of the CG players with the audience being all sorts of background cosplayers acting as if they were found on Hollywood Boulevard or Times Square. This is the first time in a long time where I felt that the background actors ruined every scene... and then, of course, James and Cheadle are in there in a guise that seems to be a mix of human and CG.

I’ve been a fan of director Malcolm Lee for quite a long time, but Space Jam: A New Legacy is just an absolute disaster of a mess. Not that any of that matters much, because James is clearly a better ball player than he is an actor, and that fact keeps any of the movie from really gelling or offering much in terms of fun or excitement. I wanted to like the movie or find out what so many kids seemed to enjoy about the original movie 25 years ago, but sadly, that just never happened.

Rating: 5/10

The movie I’m looking forward to the most this week and will probably have seen by the time I write this is the high-concept horror sequel, ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (Sony), which follows up a little over two years since the original Escape Room. This one is also directed by Adam Robitel and starring Taylor Russell and Ben Logan as survivors of an escape room created by an evil corporation doing experiments to see how people will act. The movie benefitted from putting terror into a very familiar and popular world of escape rooms, which obviously have not been quite as prominent since COVID racked the land.

The original Escape Room opened the very first weekend of January 2019, which has seen a lot of horror hits over the years, and it proved to be a wise move by Sony since it opened with $18.2 million despite the lack of any big stars. It also had better legs than most horror movies, grossing $57 million domestically and $98 million overseas. It also did quite well in DVD and Blu-ray sales, which meant that the sequel was greenlit fairly quickly.

Unlike Space Jam: A New Legacy, the Escape Room sequel is coming out a little over two years since the first movie, which is good since more young people will remember it. Another advantage it has is that it’s ONLY playing in theaters, plus it’s also getting a full 9-hour advantage by opening on Thursday afternoon, so it could make quite a bit of money before Space Jam shows up and takes over the second spot behind Marvel’s Black Widow. It’s also PG-13 so teenagers who might not have much interest in other movies out there (or they’ve already seen them) will be able to see the movie as a group without adults.

That said, I’m not quite sure the Escape Room sequel can open anywhere near the first movie only because it’s getting a summer release where it might not be getting quite the attention of other high-profile movies out there. I’d like to think it can pull in somewhere around $15 million and maybe moviegoers will surprise me since that first movie was generally popular and its sequel can’t be viewed on some streamer day and date. We’ll see if it can then translate that into a $35 to 40 million domestic total, since I’m not sure it can match the take of the original at least domestically.

My review for Escape Room: Tournament of Champions is over at Below the Line, and you'll see that I liked it quite a bit.

This Week’s Top 10 Predictions:

Since I don’t think that Space Jam: A New Legacy will make $40 million this weekend, that keeps Black Widow at the top for a second weekend in a row.

1. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $35 million -57%

2. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $27.8 million N/A

3. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (Sony) - $15 million N/A

4. F9 (Universal) - $6 million -48%

5. The Boss Baby: Family Business (Universal/DreamWorks Animation) - $4.8 million -46%

6. The Forever Purge (Universal) - $3.8 million -47%

7. A Quiet Place Part II (Paramount) - $2.4million -28%

8. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (Focus) - $2.1 million N/A

9. Cruella (Disney) - $1.9 million -20%

10. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard (Lionsgate) - .9 million -47%

This week’s “Chosen One” is Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz’s documentary, CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (Kino Lorber), which is a surprisingly good documentary that combines a classic work of contemporary dance with how it originated from out of the AIDS pandemic of the ‘80s. Bill T. Jones was running the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company with his love and partner Arnie Zane, when the latter died from AIDS, and the deaths that followed led Jones to create “D-Man in the Waters.” Decades later, LeBlanc is performing “D-Man” with her college dance class, and she, along with Cinematographer Tom Hurwitz, ASC, capture that experience and embellish it with interviews with Jones and the original company performers.

Honestly, I’ve always been a bit reticent about dance and movies about dance, even though I’m almost always find that I enjoy them, like, for example, Wim Wenders’ Pina and the Cunningham doc from a few years back. The same thing happened with Can You Bring It, where I went in expecting to hate it or not find it interesting, and nothing could be further from the truth. FIrst of all, the original dance performance is something to behold, because there’s just an amazing physicality involved, which is why it’s amazing to watch LeBlanc (and the Jones himself) discussing the conditions in which the piece was written, but also getting some historical context about New York City at the time and how it was left ravaged by AIDS.

Hurwitz has tons of experience with documentary but LeBlanc is a relative newbie, but the two of them working together create a fantastic portrait of Jones, his amazing choreography work, and how the world of dance has been improved by the existence of his work and younger dancers trying to recapture the spirit of the original work. As I said, this movie was a pleasant surprise by how much I enjoyed it, since it woudln’t normally be my thing, but if you have even a remote interest in NYC’s iconic contribution to dance and how it was torn apart by the ‘80s AIDS crisis, you should give this a look.

Can You Bring It opens at the Film Forum this Friday, plus it will also be available via Virtual Cinema nationwide. Also starting at the Film Forum on Friday is its first series since the pandemic, a comprehensive Humphrey Bogart hardboiled retrospective with 19 films in 35mm and DCP.

You can also read my interview with Director/DoP Tom Hurwitz over at Below the Line later today.

A movie I’ve really been looking forward to seeing is Morgan Neville’s ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN (Focus Features), which does for the famed celebrity author and chef what Neville’s previous movie, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, did for Mister Rogers, really going in-depth into the life and career of the celebrated and opinionated foodie. Bourdain committed suicide in June 2018, leaving a lot of his friends and fans wondering why he would take his own life when he was at the height of his career. Neville’s film looks at that, but it takes some time before it gets there.

Oddly, even though I was a huge Bourdain fan and even moreso after reading his book, “Kitchen Confidential,” this isn’t my favorite movie Neville has made, and I’m still trying to figure out why. Sure, there’s tons of extra never-before-seen footage from the taping of his various world-travelling television shows. They do show us another side of Bourdain that maybe we didn’t get to see from what was eventually aired.

I guess I was disappointed that Neville didn’t try to talk to Asia Argento, or maybe he did, and she declined? (I was hoping to talk to Morgan Neville for Below the Line about this movie, but it wasn’t meant to be.) Bourdain’s friends and co-workers on the show talk about how Argento’s inclusion into Bourdain’s life disrupted the creation of his television show, particularly the Hong Kong episode Argento directed, which apparently wasn’t without its problems, even before it was yanked from CNN after Bourdain’s death. No one blames Argento for Bourdain's choice to kill himself, but it would have been nice to get her take on the man for a more complete profile.

Even so, one of my biggest issues with the movie -- and this is where I prove unequivocally that absolutely NO ONE reads this column -- has nothing to do with Neville’s filmmaking prowess or storytelling ability, but more to do with the complete inability by many that talk about his death to understand why there have been so many prominent suicides by hanging: Bourdain, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Chris Connelly of Soundgarden, and quite a few more. When you make the decision to end your life by hanging, there’s only two ways it can go: you fail miserably i.e. the rope snaps, the knots aren’t tied properly... or you die. Even if you have second thoughts while you’re standing on the chair, once you drop, you’re dead even if you merely slipped. This is why hanging has been such a popular form of execution for hundreds and hundreds of years. It’s hard to screw it up. Unfortunately, when you’ve decided you no longer want to live, and you decide to hang yourself, it’s much easier to succeed in doing so… and for better or worse, I’m not sure that Neville or any of Bourdain’s friends interviewed have ever been to that point where they tried to hang themselves to really understand that. It’s minor and probably will be a non-issue to most seeing this movie, but having been at that point of hopelessness myself (probably for far different reasons than Bourdain), that bothered me a little. That sort of context would have helped people who watch the movie understand Bourdain's last moments.

Despite those issues, Roadrunner brilliantly captures the spirit and tone of Bourdain’s character as depicted on his various television series. That's why Roadrunner is a movie that mostly worked for me as a fan of Bourdain’s amazing writing and television work.

Focus continues to give its movies semi-wide releases, and this one is going pretty wide into 800 theaters, so it might be able to peek into the top 10, maybe?

Another movie coming to theaters is Michael Sarnoski’s PIG (NEON), starring Nicholas Cage as Robin Feld, a reclusive hermit of a man who once was a legendary Portland chef. He’s now living on his own in the middle of nowhere with his truffle-foraging pig, but one night, some people break in and steal the pig, thinking that it’s their path to fortunes. Robin isn’t having any of it, and he follows his pig’s trail to a fight club and then to the father of one of his main buyers (Alex Wolff).

Even though I’ve known about this movie for some time, I didn’t really know that much about it. Like man, I expected it to be a straight-up revenge action flick a bit like John Wick, but the only thing this has in common with that is that this as terrific a showcase for Cage as an actor as that was for Keanu Reeves. Spending much of the movie completely bedraggled and beaten-up, this is still a far more subdued performance for Cage than some might be expecting, and a slower and more subdued film with only a few moments achieving anything that could be considered “action.”

Even so, this is such a great vehicle for Cage, and Alex Wolff is also quite good, plus there’s a foodie aspect to the movie that should make it a great double feature with Roadrunner. It should be expected with so much of it involving truffles, which not many people outside of chefs and gourmands know much about

Some people might go into Pig with the wrong expectations of this being some sort of genre revenge flick, but it’s in fact a pretty solid character drama, truly showing off Cage’s terrific ability at creating character, so hopefully, it will find its audience even it might not be the one some might expect.

Rating: 7.5/10

Pig will actually open in a few hundred theaters nationwide so plenty of opportunities to see it that way.

Netflix has a duo of high-profile films this week, including the action-thriller GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE (Netflix), starring Karen Gillan and directed by Israreli filmmaker Navot Papushado (Big Bad Wolves). Gillan plays Sam, an assassin for a group called The Firm, a second generation assassin no less since her mother Scarlet (Lena Headey) was also an assassin. One day, she finds herself on the bad side of a crime lord whose son she killed (on a mission) and finds herself having to fight off dozens of killers as she tries to protect that man’s 9-year-old daughter Emily (Chloe Coleman).

I can’t believe how much I absolutely hated a good part of this movie, because I generally like Gillan and some of the others in this movie, but I don’t any of them are doing particularly good work. For instance, Paul Giamatti is in full-on scenery-chewing mode as head of the Firm, but there’s also a great trio of women known as the Librarians, played by Michelle Yeoh, Carla Gugino and Angela Bassett, who I wish were in the film more than they actually are, because they literally are the best part of the film. (I also was pretty disappointed by Coleman’s bland performance lacking any of the personality she showed in My Spy, in which she was very funny.)

Basically, it feels like this is another filmmaker who has seen Tarantino’s Kill BIll a few dozen times and thought they could do something just as cool. The fact that it’s so flagrant and obvious in its ripping that movie off, it’s almost impossible to fully enjoy it. What’s really missing is Tarantino’s knack for sharp writing, because the writing in this movie is just terrible.

I thought the score was probably the most interesting aspect of the movie, but even that was highly derivative of what Tarantino has done. Even the needle drop choices during the bigger action pieces feel too much like something Tarantino might do, but generally better.

Sure, there’s some cool action scenes, and the last act generally gets better once Headey and the Librarians rejoin the fray to fight off a cadre of henchmen, but the writing never improves, so it’s just a movie that relies on far too many “oooo… Cooooool!” moments that never really come together.

As much as Gunpowder Milkshake tries to be cool and stylish, it always feels like it’s trying too hard without understanding why movies like Tarantino’s and others work so well. Any of the bad-ass fight sequences are constantly marred as soon as there tries to be any sort of talking or story.

Rating: 5.5/10

The third part of the horror series based on R.L. Stine’s books, FEAR STREET PART 3: 1666 (Netflix), will hit the streamer on Friday, this one being a prequel to the previous two movies, taking place in 1666. I’m still behind on this series, but looking forward to a night where I can finally watch all three.

I definitely had more movies to watch than usual that I just didn’t get to include some of them like Martin WIlson’s directorial debut, the horror-thriller GREAT WHITE (RLJEfilms/Shudder), which stars Katrina Bowden and others, about a tourist trip that turns into a nightmare when five passengers on a sea plane get stranded miles from the shore and try to survive as they run out of supplies and run into, you guessed it, a shark. Sounds like my kind of movie, but I’ve just been swamped.

I was pretty tickled by the premise for Jean-Paul Salomé’s MAMA WEED (Brainstorm Media/Music Box Films), starring the wonderful Isabelle Hupert as Patience, a French-Arabic translator for the Paris anti-narcotics police unit who interprets calls between the city’s top drug dealers. She’s taking care of her aging mother and one day she hears the son of one of her mother’s nurses, so she tries to protect him but ends up with a huge cache of hash, so she becomes a drug dealer herself, becoming the persona of “Mama Weed.” Nominated for a César for its screenplay, the movie will open in select theaters this Friday and then be available On Demand on July 23.

Another doc of note is Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt’s NO ORDINARY MAN (Oscilloscope), which tells the story of American jazz musician Billy Tipton who had spent his entire career passing off as a man, unbeknownst to his wife and son that he was born female. It’s an intriguing story that unfortunately got mangled by the talk shows after Tipton’s death in 1989, but the filmmakers use an interesting way to tell the story rather than using talking heads. I haven’t actually watched it yet, but it sounds intriguing. It will open at the IFC Center in New York and the Landmark Nuart in L.A. on Friday.

Debuting on Hulu this week is the amazing six-part docuseries called MCCARTNEY 3, 2, 1 (Hulu), which as you can safely assume is about Beatles founder Paul McCartney, covering his sixty-year career as he talks with producer Rick Rubin in a studio filled with instruments and tapes of some of the great songs that Rubin mixes different elements up and down to discuss how they were done with McCartney. I generally love music docs, but this is something truly special that I expect to rewatch many times over the next few years.

Netflix also has a new docuseries called HEIST (Netflix) and is debuting a doc about tennis great, Naomi Osaka, this week. Meanwhile, the anthology prequel series, American Horror Stories, debuts on FX and FX on Hulu this week, as well, so it’s a pretty busy weekend, which was bound to happen after last week’s bye week.

Other movies out this week that I didn’t get to include:

Die in a Gunfight (Lionsgate) Out of Death (Vertical) Casanova, Last Love (Cohen Media) How to Deter a Robber

Next week, two more new movies, including the action prequel, SNAKE EYES, starring Henry Golding, and M. Night Shyamalan’s new thriller, OLD.

#The Weekend Warrior Space Jam: A New Legacy #Escape Room #Box Office #Movies #Reviews #Roadrunner #Anthony Bourdain #PIG #Nicholas Cage

[screenandcinema]

Coming Attractions - May 2019

Five years ago today, here on the S&C, we presented for the first time a list of the movies what would be hitting your local cinemas that month. That initial list included The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Chef, Godzilla, and X-Men: Days of Future Past. Every month since then over the course of five years we have done the same rundown of movies coming soon and you have been there to read them all along the way. Thank you for that. We thought this was a special day to reflect on in the history of the S&C.

With that said, here are what movies are coming out this month:

May 3rd

Long Shot - Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron star as an odd-couple in this upcoming comedy, him an unemployed journalist and her a candidate for President of the United States. Long Shot premiered to great reviews at South by Southwest in March and I for one can’t wait to see it.

UglyDolls - Quick! Is UglyDolls an original film or one based on existing IP? Do you know the answer? I don’t. (Well I do now, cause I looked it up, but I didn’t know when I asked it.)

The Intruder - Meagan Good and Michael Ealy star in this thriller as a couple who buys a house from Dennis Quaid’s character, and he refuses to let go off his long-term home. The film hails from the same screenwriter as 2009′s Obsessed and 2008′s Lakeview Terrance, so audiences should know what they are getting into with The Intruder.

Extremely Wicked, Shocking Evil and Vile - If you are keeping score at home, it is now Ted Bundy: 1, Oxford Comma: 0. Zac Efron stars as the notorious serial killer in this new film coming to Netflix this month. Reviews of the film have been fairly solid since its premiere at Sundance earlier this year. 

May 10th

Pokémon: Detective Pikachu - Though I have never been a fan of Pokémon in the least, Detective Pikachu looks to me like the film I wanted The Happytime Murders to be, a noir-ish fantasy mystery made in the same vein of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And while I have no interest in the film, I do have an 8-year nephew who does.

The Hustle - Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson take the lead in this comedy film that is a remake of 1988′s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine, which is itself a remake of 1964′s Bedtime Story starring Marlon Brando and David Niven. Still one remake shy of a full A Star is Born.

Poms - In this comedy, Diane Keaton starts a cheerleading squad at her retirement community and her friends played by Jacki Weaver, Pam Grier, and Rhea Perlman, join up!

Tolkien - Nicholas Hoult is J.R.R. Tolkien in this biography of the famous author. Like similar more recent works Finding Neverland, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Becoming Jane, and half of Saving Mr. Banks, audiences will surely seeing Tolkien’s future works come alive in his life experiences through his time as school and World War I.

May 17th

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum - John Wick is back for installment number 3. The John Wick film series has been a surprising revelation and it is always good to see Keanu Reeves back on the big screen. Prepare for war.

A Dog’s Journey - This is a sequel to 2017′s A Dog’s Purpose. Did you see that one? Oh, you didn’t. Then my job is done.

The Sun is Also A Star - It is a race against time for two young students hoping to fall in love before one of them is forced to leave with her family forever. My prediction? She is an alien.

May 24th

Aladdin - Disney’s 1992 beloved animated classic is back with a live action version directed by Guy Ritchie and starring Will Smith as the Genie. As a kid, I remember seeing Aladdin in theaters five times and it was a personal favorite. Unlike some of the recent and forthcoming Disney remakes, Aladdin doesn’t appear to be a scene-for-scene rehash of the original, which is extremely refreshing.

Brightburn - James Gunn produces this superhero horror film written by his cousins Mark and Brian Gunn. “Superhero horror” might be the best genre name imaginable. Essentially, Brightburn is a twist on the familiar Superman story - what if a child gave from space with amazing abilities and instead of trying to save us all, he tried to kill us all. Count me in!

Booksmart - Olivia Wilde makes her feature film directorial debut with the coming-of-age comedy in Booksmart. In the film, two smart good girls try to make four years worth bad dumb decisions over the course of the night before high school graduation. The film premiered at South by Southwest in March to fantastic reviews.

May 31st

Godzilla: King of the Monsters - On the surface, it is hard to tell how much of King of the Monsters is a sequel to 2014′s Godzilla and how much of it is set-up for 2020′s Godzilla vs. Kong as Legendary Entertainment continues to build their MonsterVerse. As much as I enjoyed Godzilla and 2017′s Kong: Skull Island, nothing about King of the Monsters is really exciting me at this point, which in itself is disappointing.

Rocketman - The music biopic craze continues with Rocketman starring Taron Egerton as Elton John. The film is directed by Dexter Fletcher, who you may or may not know as the guy who came in and finished directing Bohemian Rhapsody after Brian Singer was fired. Rocketman looks to be everything Bohemian Rhapsody wasn’t, including an actor who sings throughout the movie and a historically accurate portrayal of the musician's life and times. Fans of music who were disappointed by Bohemian Rhapsody should be eager to take a ride with Rocketman.

Ma - Octavia Spencer stars a lonely woman who befriends a group of mischievous teenagers only to viciously turn on them in this upcoming thriller from Blumhouse. Watch this one with the lights on.

Now for a quick look ahead to June, my top picks for next month are Dark Phoenix, Men in Black: International, and Toy Story 4.

-MB-