#own up to his actions. his wife and kids had to be bludgeoned to death for his sins

[lobotomizedlady]

well. I just stumbled across an account of a young woman who talks about how her demon of a father killed her mother, burnt their house down, killed himself, and left her a letter "congratulating" her, saying it was all her fault, that she had destroyed their family by exhibiting very normal teenage moodiness and daring to call him by his first name rather than dad (she was 17 years old at the time).

and as always men in the comments were defending him and saying the mother and daughter "obviously" pushed him too far. these comments appear in droves under every news story I see on youtube where a wife tries to leave an abusive spouse and he kills her. I specifically remember a case where the mother was tortured, raped, and killed by the ex husband, and many men in the commrnts were saying "it's amazing this doesn't happen more often with what women put us through and the corrupt divorce courts, he was clearly a good man pushed to the brink and his bitch wife tried to take the kids so she brought it on herself" like that's the level of psychopathic misogyny we are dealing with here from not only extremist incels but your basic redpill mgtow bro. and there are SO FUCKING MANY OF THEM. never forget that these men want you tortured, they want you raped, they want you dead for not accepting abuse and bowing to a mans every whims, even if that man is someone they've never met before. they will always empathize with the male, always assume he's morally correct even when his acts are so unbelievably monstrous. no misandrist in the world is as full of hate as the average man in one of these communities. they're demons.

related rant-I know it's not unheard of for mothers to kill their families too, but in my research into the topic I've found that a significant amount of the time it's due to post partum psychosis (and they still get thrown in jail for it usually, Andrea Yates is a great example and that was entirely her fucking husbands fault for forcing her into pregnancy after pregnancy despite them exacerbating her mental health issues, and then leaving her alone with the kids when she beged him not to) or because they snapped due to the pressure of caring for a usually very difficult child all alone after the father abandoned them (not an excusable solution, but explainable due to the immense stress). I mention this bc men always point out that mothers have a slightly higher chance of killing their kids than fathers, of course without mentioning that this is without adjusting for the fact that fathers can and do often just fuck off from their responsibilities and disappear, don't have to deal with PPP, and if you adjust the data based on who's more likely to kill their kids when they are present in the home it becomes skewed towards fathers. and there's the fact that a whopping 92% of children killed by someone other than a parent are killed by men (and usually raped beforehand).

anyways, all of this to say that as opposed to female family annihilators who are usually undergoing a psychotic break, male family annihilators seem to be very calm and calculated and want to inflict the most unimaginable cruelty upon their own kin as a way of "getting back" at someone-usually the mother for leaving them, as they often leave her alive after killing all the kids just so she can suffer-but in the case I began this post by talking about it was the daughter he left alive and sent that disgusting letter. she says in her videos that she essentially hasn't felt emotions in 3 years because her grief and guilt was so strong that her brain just shut it all down as a protective measure. so joy is nonexistent for her now.

onto the person element of all this...im just thinking of those kids again. most of you guys probably are aware that I was very well aquatinted with a family that was annihilated by the father (it happened in Iowa city in 2008 which is enough info for you to know what case it is if you want to look into it. I've never revealed this before but people always ask me whenever I mention it and I don't think my identity can be traced this way so I guess it's fine). it happened when I was 13 and the thought that my own very unstable, volatile, and abusive father could do the same to us never left me. it wasn't the first time I'd considered the possibility (I was 8 or 9 when I had to imagine it happening due to an incident we had) but after that it was a constant worry, especially when the divorce was happening.

idk why I'm ranting about this it's all just really getting to me tonight. I wonder how much of this could be prevented if cops stopped ignoring women's cries for help until we're fucking dead

#the family i knew who were annihilated were killed bc the father was gonna go to prison for embezzlement. fucking coward couldnt just #own up to his actions. his wife and kids had to be bludgeoned to death for his sins #i still cant believe it. those kids must have been terrified

[tlbodine]

What Zombie Movies Teach Us About COVID-19

As I write this, it is April 20, 2020, and  42,514 Americans have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by a deadly novel coronavirus first discovered in late 2019. South Korea has just  237 deaths from the disease. 

The two countries learned about the virus at roughly the same time, and had the same amount of time to respond to the disease. But the responses took wildly different paths, with vastly different outcomes -- as you can see. 

But I’m not here to talk about that, not exactly. I’m here to talk about zombies. 

Train to Busan (2016), directed by Yeon Sang-ho, tells the story of a zombie outbreak in Korea, with the action focused predominantly on the passengers of a train. It’s one of my favorite zombie movies, in large part because the flavor of its zombie narrative is so different from the types of zombie stories we see in America. It’s a fresh spin, driven by cultural influences and the director’s vision, and it’s a movie that’s been at the forefront of my mind since watching the vastly different responses of South Korea and the USA to the current pandemic. 

Train to Busan is a film concerned with the morality of classism, a theme repeated in many South Korean exports (see 2019′s Parasite for another example). Innate in that premise is a moral statement about collectivism, cooperation and kindness that runs contrary to everything American zombie fiction holds dear. 

Train to Busan’s main character, Seok Woo, is a fund manager, a white-collar businessman who operates in the financial sector. In his introduction, we see him reviewing reports of the biological leak that we the viewer already know is responsible for zombies; he advises a concerned investor not to sell his shares, as the reports could be false or the worry is premature -- and then, a moment later, hangs up the phone and sells his own shares. It's implied later that his role in financing the company may give him some moral responsibility in the disaster -- ie, he invested in a company, knew that it was harmful, and reacted not by blowing the whistle on that harm but instead by selling his ownership and thus profiting.

The film treats this as morally reprehensible. Indeed, Seok Woo's storyline is a tragedy: We will see him brought low by his flaws, struggle to overcome them, but ultimately fall short.

This is quite different from American zombie narratives, which more often than not place the hero as a working-class underdog who finds himself suddenly uniquely equipped to deal with the threat at hand. Consider police officer Rick Grimes (and, for that matter, hillbilly archer Daryl) in The Walking Dead, or retired U.N. investigator Gerry Lane in World War Z. Perhaps the best example of the type is Zombieland's Tallahassee, a quintessential "Florida Man" -- rough around the edges, crude, eccentric, socially inept but good with a gun and  a willingness to adopt the role of patriarch in the post-apocalyptic found family narrative. 

Implicit in American zombie fiction is a promise of role reversal, of a social upheaval in which established ruling classes will no longer matter and in which new lines of power can be drawn -- and that power rests squarely on a foundation of guns, violence, and a small but tightly knit family structure united against external threats both human and supernatural. 

Of course, guns can’t serve as a currency of power or survival in Train to Busan because there are no guns. South Korea has some of the world’s strictest gun laws, and nobody riding on a passenger train would have a firearm at the ready. This makes for a much more thrilling narrative thanks to the balance of power shifting heavily in the zombie horde’s favor; it also forces characters to work together for survival, relying more on wits than strength.

Like many zombie film protagaonists before him, Seok Woo is a father -- a disengaged, overworked father, but one who’s trying his best. But unlike some horror movie kids, his daughter Su-An is more than a victim-in-waiting; she’s the moral centerpiece of the story, an external conscience who serves to gently remind her father of his misplaced priorities and call him on his bullshit.

Fleshing out the rest of the cast are more unlikely heroes: a high school baseball team, a homeless man, a pair of old ladies, and a middle-aged man, Sang-hwa, traveling with his pregnant wife. Sang-hwa is an especially important character, holding up a mirror in some ways to our protagonist: he has a successful, loving marriage where the hero's has failed; he is a doting, patient father where Seok-woo is out of touch.

It is hardly coincidental that this core group of characters is comprised almost exclusively of vulnerable people. And once the zombie disaster strikes, it becomes clear that the job of the less-vulnerable is to step up and protect the most vulnerable, even within a group where no one is especially skilled, heroic, or well-trained to deal with this.

Self-sacrifice is the recurring theme of Train to Busan, delivered with a bludgeoning regularity -- but each death is valorized, the narrative making it clear through its storytelling techniques that these sacrifices are meaningful and heroic.

It’s worth noting, too, that the self-sacrifice that drives the narrative is made necessary by the selfishness of others. Sang-hwa is bitten and stays behind to hold back hordes of zombies only because another group of survivors locked them out of their car.

Those exclusionary survivors -- a group spearheaded by a rich businessman who declares himself early on to be too important to risk his life -- receive their comeuppance soon enough. Here's the clip in all its satisfying glory: 

All of which is not to say that self-sacrifice is not a trope that shows up in other zombie media as well. But I have never seen it the focus of a film with such brazen commitment before. 

In Hollywood storytelling, self-sacrifice all too often comes in two flavors. The first: The only righteous path a fatally flawed anti-hero can take. The second: A heroic cop-out, where the character sacrifices him/herself but fails to actually die thanks to unexpected circumstances -- suggesting, thematically, that willingness toward self-sacrifice is all that is required, and that good things come to those who deserve them. 

In a lot of zombie media -- and post-apocalyptic media in general -- storylines often flirt with the morality of sacrificing other people for the greater good. Heroes will grapple with the decision, and the one who pulls the trigger may ultimately succumb to guilt or plot karma (Shane and Otis in The Walking Dead, for example), but the discussion is given serious weight and consideration. 

Train to Busan makes it clear that such cold calculations aren’t just villainous, they’re cowardly and pathetic. 

Other popular zombie tropes that fail to make an appearance in the film include: 

A self-appointed leader calling the shots and telling others to get in line 

The asshole pragmatist arguing with the self-appointed leader

The untrustworthy outsider and/or villainous mole 

The weak or cowardly idiot who gets people killed by virtue of being useless and/or careless 

Utterly useless or corrupt government/military/authority 

In many zombie stories, man is the real monster, and this holds true in many ways for Train to Busan. But the focus is different. Rather than the monster being the outsider who comes for your supplies, or the stranger who you trust only to be stabbed in the back, the worst humans in Train to Busan are those who act with distrust and selfishness. 

Declaring yourself the leader, securing a perimeter, and making a difficult choice to turn away strangers at the gate in order to protect your own group is the action of heroes in a show like The Walking Dead. In Train to Busan, those same actions are villainous and ultimately lead to ruin. 

On the flipside, soft-heartedness in American zombie films is often both foolish and disastrous. Consider, for example, Hershel’s barn in Season 2 of The Walking Dead, where walkers are corralled in dangerously high numbers out of an optimistic belief that they can be cured. Just as heroic self-sacrifice becomes a recurring theme in Train to Busan, an endless cycle of trust and betrayal is the signature of The Walking Dead, and the show routinely rewards its moral centerpieces -- like Dale and Hershel -- with deaths that are treated not as valiant but as senselessly tragic. 

But let’s get back to my central thesis. What does any of this have to do with COVID-19? 

When South Korea first became aware of the threat of the novel coronavirus, its government immediately launched a response called TRUST:  “Transparency, Robust screening and quarantine, Unique but universally applicable testing, Strict control, and Treatment.” 

The heart of the program was testing, not just of obviously sick people but of those without symptoms or known exposure -- and then carefully tracing the contacts of those found to have a positive result and isolating anyone who was infected. But the price of this widespread testing goes beyond the monetary needs of dveloping and administering tests; it comes too at the cost of certain freedoms. The South Korean government is able to track down and contain its citizens through credit card records, cellphone data, security cameras and other Orwellian security devices that would make most Americans' skin crawl. Add that to a cultural norm of wearing medical masks in public and obeying social distancing as a matter of course (less casual touch and physical contact, greater personal space) and South Korea’s spread of disease has been quite slow. 

Meanwhile, in the USA, people across the country are breaking social distancing rules in order to gather in public and protest the quarantine measures that have left many without jobs and which, some say, infringe upon civil liberties. Mixed messaging about the efficacy of masks, and a long history of masks being associated with crime, have also made it hard to win Americans over to mask-wearing in public -- even though if we could get 100% of people wearing masks, the spread of disease would drop dramatically (and the economy could open sooner). 

Countless political, historical, and socioeconomcic factors are at work differentiating these two nations, and the situation is infinitely more complex than any movie. But I do think viewing the coronavirus through the zombie apocalypse lens helps to make sense of these wildly different responses to the disease. 

Time and again, America’s zombie media has hammered home certain essential lessons: 

When times get hard, you will be called on to step up and take decisive action 

Difficult decisions will need to be made, and the people who are too soft-hearted or cowardly to make those decisions will put others at risk 

The safety of your own family (or found family) is paramount, and any threat to the family must be immediately destroyed 

Survival will be a matter of strength, guns and resources 

Institutions like the military, government and police are useless at best and often corrupt or downright murderous; you can trust only in yourself

Viewed in that context, it’s hardly surprising that the United States response to the pandemic has involved hoarding supplies, buying guns, distrusting scientific authorities, and even staging protests. 

By comparison, the take-home lessons from Train to Busan are quite different: 

No one person is above or more important than anyone else 

If you have power, it is your duty to protect those who are more vulnerable

Selfishness invites trouble 

Self-sacrifice is heroic and sometimes necessary for the greater good 

All of which is not to say that there is no value in the American lessons. There are times when the values of individualism, decisive action, self-sufficiency and suspicion may well be exactly what is needed for survival. 

But during a pandemic of a disease that overwhelmingly affects the already-vulnerable -- the elderly, those with disabilities, those living in poverty -- it seems self-evident that values tied to protecting the weak and working together to protect public safety are the values that will prove most successful. 

At the end of Train to Busan, the survivors of the ordeal is not the strongest, best-prepared, or cleverest of the people on the train. They are young Su-An and  Seong-Kyeong, the film’s most vulnerable characters -- and also its kindest. In an ending reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead, they emerges the sole survivors to face the path of armed military men who at first mistake her for a zombie. But Train to Busan is, for all of its tragedy, a film devoid of cynicism. The soldiers stop just short of shooting when they hear Su-On singing and realize that she’s alive. 

In the end, it is quite literally her humanity that saves her. 

Living in a time of coronavirus means making self-sacrifices, including personal liberty and livelihood. And while none of our sacrifices are likely to be as dramatic as those made by characters in Train to Busan, they are no less heroic or necessary. 

And that is, to me, a lesson worth remembering.  

#long post #horror movies #train to busan #the walking dead #zombies #covid 19 #horror analysis #film analysis

[aion-rsa]

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 6 Marvel, Captain America, MCU Easter Eggs

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This article contains The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 6 spoilers and potential spoilers for the wider MCU.

Well, it’s finally here. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier episode 6 was an action-packed, but rather messy season finale for the show. Hopefully it isn’t a series finale, and we’ll see it continue in season 2 as Captain America and the Winter Soldier, but that’s an argument for another time.

For now, we’re here (as usual) to dig in to all the Marvel Comics and MCU references the show gave us this episode. We’ll be honest, it was relatively light on those, but there’s still plenty to speculate about. And if you spot anything we missed, be sure to let us know in the comments!

The New Captain America

Sam’s incredibly sharp-looking Captain America costume is a perfect live action translation of the version he wore in the comics. That costume was designed by Carlos Pacheco, and first hit the pages of Marvel Comics in October of 2014, in All-New Captain America #1. Even then, it felt like a perfectly movie-ready design, but to see it translated to beautifully to live action is a real treat, and this is an immediate contender for “best superhero movie or TV suit” right now. The additional stars and stripes motif added to the underside of the wings here seems to be an MCU flourish, but that’s just one little way they managed to improve on perfection.

It’s safe to assume that Sam’s new wings are vibranium, or at least vibranium laced, just like his shield, considering that it was made for him by the tech geniuses in Black Panther‘s Wakanda. There’s something to be said here about how America is stronger when it works with and accepts help from its allies, as opposed to going it alone. Just witness how much better Sam’s wings hold up under pressure than Walker’s homemade shield.

Similarly, Sam primarily uses the shield and the wings for defense. Compare that to how Walker wields his shield, as a slashing/bludgeoning weapon for offense. It’s a nice illustration of two different interpretations about how best to utilize America’s power.

Bucky

Bucky’s leap from a barrier-crashing motorcycle in episode 6 is a nice callback to Steve’s very similar move in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. As a voice barked “stand down” from a SHIELD quinjet, Steve hit a barrier on his bike and was thrown forward into the action. 

We also see Bucky straining to open the back of the van with his vibranium arm, but he doesn’t flex as hard as Steve did when he stopped Bucky taking off in a helicopter in that same movie. Both Sam and Bucky reflect elements of what made Steve an exceptional Captain America in the finale, and prove to be a terrific team.

Bucky gives Steve’s notebook to his therapist as a thank you gift. Honestly, she deserves less. It belongs in a museum.

U.S. Agent

John Walker manages to control the effects that the super soldier serum is having on his psyche when he gets a second chance to prove himself, dropping his damaged makeshift shield and realizing he needs to prioritize human lives over vengeance. 

Val says that people will need a “US Agent” soon, and not a Captain America, as things are about to get “weird”. US Agent, of course, was the codename Walker took on after he stopped being Captain America in the comics. Speaking of which, Walker’s new costume is basically identical to his Marvel Comics US Agent costume and it looks really great here.  We wrote more about the Marvel Comics history of U.S. Agent here.

Why are Val, Walker and his wife back in the courthouse where Walker got court martialed to try on his new US Agent costume? Feels like pandemic-related restrictions forced the show to film all those scenes at the same time, doesn’t it?

Isaiah Bradley

Sam returning to properly make sure Isaiah Bradley gets his due once again mirrors the excellent Truth: Red, White, and Black story by Robert Morales and Kyle Baker. There it was Steve who made sure that Isaiah’s deeds were finally known to the world.

Hopefully this isn’t the last we see of Isaiah, but you can bet we’re going to get more of Elijah down the road. Between introducing two members of the Young Avengers in WandaVision with Billy and Tommy, and the impending arrival of Kate Bishop on Hawkeye later this year, young Elijah is due to get himself some red, white, and blue duds of his own.

Sharon Carter is the Power Broker?

Yes, Sharon Carter is the Power Broker. No, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. She took Sam, Bucky, and Zemo to see super soldier serum scientist Dr. Nagel in his lab. He was working for her! She let that dangerous shit play out, which was very much against her interests! What! No. What! The man must have been confused as hell in his final moments.

Sharon uses the same tech that Natasha Romanoff used to disguise her face during the climax of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. 

We find out that Sharon was indeed behind Karli’s initial rise to Flag-Smasher power, after taking her in and giving her a chance in Madripoor. Sharon is willing to forgive the betrayal if Karli and her friends come back to the fold, but Karli’s too far gone for that.

Sharon gets a pardon from the US government. I guess it wasn’t that hard after all. Maybe you could click this link while you’re here.

Is this the first time Sharon has been called Agent Carter in the MCU? And is there some way to bring Peggy back to kick her narrow Power Brokering ass? How dare you besmirch the Carter name, girl.

Sharon’s “mercury vapor” bomb that takes out that poor dude kind of feels like the dust that the Red Skull used to use during the Mark Gruenwald era of the comics to kill people…which left them looking like red skulls. Uh-oh…this brings us to the next question…

Who was Sharon calling at the end? Val? Nick Fury? Her Skrull bosses? Alexander Lukin? Something is definitely wrong here. It’s possible that she’s working with Val to put together a team of Dark Avengers/Thunderbolts, but nothing makes a lot of sense with Sharon’s arc in the MCU in general, let alone this show.

Zemo

That is indeed Zemo’s butler Oeznik (played by Nicholas Pryor) who kills the fuck out of the Flag-Smashers in the police van with a remote controlled incendiary device. What an Evil Jarvis. In any case, Zemo got at least some of his wish, as now there are a few fewer super soldiers running around the MCU.

Among the books that Zemo is reading in his cell is Alexander von Humboldt’s Views of Nature – the German polymath, geographer, naturalist and explorer was the first person to truly make note of human-induced climate change. But we can only assume that the book Zemo is holding close to his heart as he hears the fate of the Flag-Smashers is the Machiavelli tome that Bucky rudely interrupted earlier in the series.

Despite the news saying that there are no suspects in the Flag-Smasher bombing, Val knows straight away that it was Zemo who had “the last laugh”. Huh. “Couldn’t have worked better if I planned it myself,” she jokes. “Oh, well, maybe I did. No, I’m kidding, I didn’t. Or did I?” Who the hell knows, Val.

Batroc

Is Batroc dead? Batroc had better not be dead! We demand more Georges St-Pierre in the MCU! Ze Leaper has managed to escape certain death multiple times in the MCU so far, and we’d like that trend to continue. He’s such a great all-purpose, kinda hapless baddie, that we’d love to just see him show up for the occasional slugfest. Or hell, maybe a Batroc fight can be a kind of “right of passage” for anyone else who has to wear the Captain America costume down the road!

And hey, he even did some leaping in this episode!

The Flag-Smashers

Sam’s face-off with Karli Morgenthau is a lot like Steve’s final face-off with Bucky in Captain America: The Winter Soldier when he tries to talk her down instead of fighting back.

The Raft

The Raft was first introduced to the MCU in Captain America: Civil War, but the fact that they’re going out of their way to mention it multiple times in this show, and the fact that the Flag-Smashers were destined for there (after all, they’re super soldiers) should be an indication of just how important that place is going to be to the MCU going forward. I think we can safely expect both Val and Sharon to be doing some recruiting out of there.

The New Falcon?

We only get a brief moment with Danny Ramirez’s Joaquin Torres, as he gazes adoringly at the TV broadcast with Sam as Captain America, but hopefully we get more of him in the future. After all, Joaquin became the new Falcon when Sam wore the red, white, and blue in the comics, and he DOES have Sam’s old wings.

Where is Steve Rogers?

You know, if they keep making that joke about Steve being “on the moon” maybe there’s gonna turn out to be some truth to it. Is this how the MCU will introduce the “man on the wall” concept from the Original Sin story in Marvel Comics? OK, fine, probably not.

The Bridge

Sam having his first big public moment on a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, where New Yorkers see him, cheer him, and implicitly accept him as a hero feels like moments in Sam Raimi’s first two Spider-Man movies, particularly the Brooklyn Bridge scene in the first one, and the subway car scene in Spider-Man 2. This is decidedly less heavy-handed, though.

Ayla

GRC representative Ayla is not from Marvel Comics. We don’t get her last name, and she shares a first name with extremely obscure Nightstalkers villain Rotwrap. Look, there’s not  a lot going on in this episode, we’re trying.

Speaking of things we don’t have a lot on…

“Government Official”

Can you believe that despite appearing in nearly every episode of this show, Alphie Hyorth’s bearded senator is still only named as “government official” in the credits? What are you hiding Marvel?!? Maybe he’s actually Mephisto! (sorry, a little WandaVision humor there) 

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But for real, why would you have a recurring character who ends up central to so many elements of this story and NOT name him? Is he a Skrull? Is he Senator Robert Kelly? (look, we miss all the mutant speculation from the WandaVision days)

Spot anything we missed? Let us know in the comments!

The post The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Episode 6 Marvel, Captain America, MCU Easter Eggs appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[movieswithkevin27]

Lady Macbeth

William Oldroyd’s Lady Macbeth is a film that lends itself to a variety of readings, too many of which are quite troubling to actually be able to fully endorse the film. It is these readings that make Lady Macbeth seem to not really gel with itself after starting off so promising, before devolving into a possible damnation of female sexuality. In watching Lady Macbeth, I get the sense that this is not what Oldroyd and the source material were intending to communicate - that a woman being in control of her sexuality leads to her becoming increasingly selfish and desperate to hang onto it, even if it means killing a kid - but it is the reading that most prominently sticks out in the film. Even an alternate reading - that the men’s repression of Katherine (Florence Pugh) has created a woman who merely reciprocates their viciousness because it is all she knows, given her treatment as a mere sexual object and property - does not really leave the audience with much of a warm feeling. This film would be far better off heading down a path where Katherine fights back against the patriarchy, instead of becoming somehow even more malicious once she is “liberated”. It is this troubling thematic content that proves to be the achilles heel of Lady Macbeth, in spite of the great cinematography, costume design, and acting.

With regards to the positives, Florence Pugh is a powerhouse in this role. Restrained and delivering a great emotional physical performance, Lady Macbeth’s final establishing shot of post-murder Katherine staring into the camera in a black dress is one of the more chilling moments in recent cinema, in large part due to Pugh’s chilly and dead stare into the camera. It is a spine tingling moment and one that benefits from the great visuals of the film and the great score of the moment, but that is sold through Pugh. For the entirety of the film, Pugh towers over the film, seemingly biding her time to take control over the men in her life before finally finding a chance through lover Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis). Turning in a strong and thoroughly empowered performance, Pugh earns an early calling card in her career as an actress, one which is likely to only get better as the years go on and her star status increases.

Lady Macbeth is further successful with its visuals. Putting a premium on symmetry, costume design, and production design, Lady Macbeth is visually lush. Often capturing Katherine in the center of the frame or just keeping the camera stationary as Pugh moves about the frame, Lady Macbeth is a film that is hard to not find appealing visually. Even the more adventurous shots - such as a long-take of Katherine rushing through the surrounding territory after using a handheld camera as she ran out of the home - land quite nicely and capture the pristine setting beautifully, while being nicely framed and captured shots in their own right. The film’s costume and production design is a further success, both capturing 1860s England perfectly with great details - such as what a woman wore under her clothing - and dress designs that are both period accurate and as elegant as needed.

Where Lady Macbeth struggles is in its themes. The first half of this film seems to be going in a different direction than the second half, leading to a confusingly communicated message, which only lends itself to negative interpretations. The opening of this film is flawless. Introducing us to Katherine on her wedding day and night, the film shows the expectations put upon her shoulders by husband Alexander (Paul Hilton) and father-in-law Boris (Christopher Fairbank). Dressed by servant Anna (Naomi Ackie) and prepped to lose her virginity to her groom, Katherine is asked to strip by Alexander, which she complies with. Once her nightgown is off, Alexander goes into bed and falls asleep. A similar occurrence happens a few days later as Alexander asks her to strip and face the wall, before pleasuring himself as he stares at her. Not only does this prove to be quite degrading for Katherine, stripping her of her sexual agency and desire in favor of him fulfilling his own pleasures separately, but Alexander spreads word that Katherine is not satisfactory as a wife. Boris and other men openly discuss Alexander and Katherine’s sex life, Boris demands that Katherine stay awake in anticipation of his son’s arrival in the bedroom to be available for him that night, Boris lets Katherine know that Alexander has informed him she is not fulfilling her wifely duties, and Alexander - after a time spent away - returns to just call Katherine fatter than he remembered. It is a tragic portrayal of the strains of being a woman in this era, as not only is she forced to have her hair painfully combed and wear a suffocating girdle, but she must prepare herself for her husband on a daily basis while coping with the community knowing of their sex life. It is a humiliating way of life, and one she is damned to as Boris bought her for Alexander. These expectations are not just sexual, as we later see a Priest chastise Katherine for not being in Church recently, while her own issues with men are ones that are universal as Anna is tied up while nude and put in a sack by the me who work on Katherine’s land. It is a distressing and tragic portrayal of the cruelty of men in this era, the expectations put upon women, and the degrading way in which women were treated.

By the time Katherine fights back and kills both Boris and Alexander in favor of keeping her lover Sebastian around, the audience is with her. Boris and Alexander are disgusting, while Sebastian represents her sexual liberty and her own control of her sexuality, neither of which were possibilities with Boris and Alexander around. However, it is in these moments that Lady Macbeth begins to hint at her sociopathic tendencies. Poisoning Boris and forcing Anna to listen along with her as he dies, Katherine scars Anna so much that she becomes a mute. Later, as she bludgeons Alexander to death in the bedroom with Sebastian watching - after Katherine tried to have sex with him right in front of Alexander - the audience begins to see the hideous beast within. By the time she suffocates a small boy who was getting in the way of her sleeping with Sebastian, Katherine finally shows her true colors and Lady Macbeth becomes all the more troubling. Committing three sadistic murders - including one absolute tragedy - in the name of lust, sexual freedom, and to keep control of her own individuality, Lady Macbeth seems to equate women wanting control of their own sexuality with women being murderous savages. The more liberated she becomes, the more animalistic and depraved she becomes, turning the film into an apparent message that women she not be liberated but rather kept locked away for the use of men. While the men in the film are shown to be just as horrible, Lady Macbeth happily damns them for their sins, demonstrating no forgiveness for their horrible actions and this is fair. However, as the film turns on a dime from “Katherine fighting the patriarchy” to “Katherine murdering an innocent child”, Lady Macbeth loses the thread, turning the audience into accessories to the murderous rampage of this newly freed woman. In watching Lady Macbeth, it is not hard to imagine that director Oldroyd likely wanted to solely communicate the horrible conditions for women in the time and the lengths they had to go to in order to find themselves, but by having such horrible murders and savagery, the film winds up going the other way and demonstrates a fear of what a liberated woman could do to the men around her. Not only has she killed three men, but lover Sebastian - who was part of the group torturing Anna - is given redemption as the one with guilt and remorse over his actions, confessing to the police and trying to implicate Katherine only for Anna to be dragged down with Sebastian as the suspected killers.

It is this troubling thematic development that turns Lady Macbeth into a confused and muddled film that seems to lose sight of what it wanted to accomplish, in favor of shock value. This tale of a woman rebelling against the patriarchy that had, for so long, kept her locked away for their sexual pleasure, turns into a cautionary tale of letting women have more power. Visually terrific with a commanding lead performance by Florence Pugh, Lady Macbeth is a perfectly paced and quiet work that should be excellent, but due to confused direction, it winds up being a rather average work in the end.

#2017 movies #2010s movies #film reviews #film analysis #movie reviews #william oldroyd #florence pugh #lady macbeth #cosmo jarvis #naomi ackie #christopher fairbank #paul hilton

[ask-80s-rinandlen]

Drabble

"I'm not doing it."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not doing it." Len repeats, slow and deliberate, as if his wife hadn't heard him the first three times they'd gone over it in the last-- he shifts in his position to crane his head towards the clock-- hour. "I'm not going back out there."

"We have to see if he's dead."

"Oh, I promise you he's dead."

Which had been the truth, because Len had seen the blood streaked across the floor of the gas station they were stuck in now, and if he'd been just a touch wiser, he would've left after that. But no, he'd felt somewhat detective like creeping around the counter to the store bathroom, peeking in while Rin danced around the shop picking her snacks for the road, and that's when he'd found the body. Which was, admittedly, as dead as Len could describe somebody as, which was motionless and pale. And absolutely out of blood if the puddle that had surrounded him had meant anything, because it'd been thick and deep like spilled paint. More than a person should ever have or need.

"You don't know that. Who made you an expert?" Rin argues, although there's not much fight left in her tone, just bordering on fear. She shivers in the cool air, crouched low behind a few unopened boxes, keeping her eyes on the door of the walk-in. They'd heard a scratching noise by their car outside when they'd tried to flee back to safety and call the cops. Len had barely missed being backhanded by someone (the memory was blurred by the adrenaline and quickness of the whole situation), forcing them back inside the convenience store with the body of What's-His-Name.

The whole situation was almost funny, because despite the name of the store, the whole situation was not very convenient.

At all.

But Len digressed.

"I'm not an expert, but he was stabbed. Like a hundred times. I'm pretty sure he's dead."

Rin frowns, "Uh-huh."

"Well fine, don't believe me."

They settle into a momentary, anxious silence. Len strains to hear anything that might indicate somebody was outside the door, but it was quiet besides the buzz of the overhead light and the rattling of the cooling system.

"We could make a run for it…?" He suggested, which wasn't the best idea considering he didn't know who was out there lurking, or where the killer was exactly. But there wasn't much they could do hiding in the walk-in cooler like sitting ducks, and it was a matter of time before the guy found them anyway.

"And if he's out there waiting?" Rin shoots back, already pulling her blonde hair up in her bright baby blue scarf, tying it around her hair like a model right out of those cheesy magazines she liked so much. "Or he's still out by the car?"

Len thinks it over quickly, reasoning with that. It was true, that was a big possibility. As much as he hoped that the guy had decided to leave, there wasn't much hope for that. The guy was a killer, apparently, and he'd seen them. God, it was almost like a play-by-play of every single bad horror movie that he'd ever watched behind Rin's back.

(Not that it ever really was behind her back. While she preferred not to watch them, it wasn't hard to tell when he had. Len grew jumpy, every muscle going jittery and wild with unnecessary adrenaline, and thankfully they already slept in the same bed so he didn't have to go through the embarrasment of having to ask to sleep with her when he managed to freak himself out in the dark of the night.)

It was like they were mid-way through a scary movie. They were trapped, alone, in the middle of some backwards, Children-of-the-Corn-like, country-bumpkin nowhere in Georgia, after having gotten off at the wrong exit going towards Atlanta. It was past midnight, they had been alone on the backroads for as long as Len could remember, as it had been only their headlights shining in the pitch black of the road for a few hours with maybe one or two other cars. Even this gas station had been out of the way, tucked up in between a long stretch of fenced in fields and a thick black forestry on the other side, so there was little doubt that nobody would be coming by anytime soon.

It was just them. Alone.

"We have to run. As fast as we can. And if he's out there, I'll fight him off."

Rin gives him an incredulous look, her entire face pinching up in disbelief. "Are you kidding?" She asks, almost like she's trying to kid herself into believing he didn't say what he just said. "Even, I have more muscle than you, babe. What exactly are you going to do in a fight?"

Len flushed.

"I can fight."

She raised a single eyebrow, arms crossing against her chest. Leans back onto her heels, and rests her weight onto the wall behind her, shifting.

"Okay," He amends. "I can body-block and tackle him, just to give you enough time to escape. Go get help, or call the cops, or...or run him over with the car or something."

With emphasis on something, of course, because he was out of ideas, which wasn't the first time he'd lost his ability to function when he was on the spot. Len's face drops into his hands, trying to stifle the groan that almost escapes him, shaking his head.

"This is worse than the time we lost Family Feud."

Rin snorts, "We lost?" She wiggles her fingers in the air for exaggeration. "No, you lost. 'Tell me something many people do just once a week, Len.' Tell me." As if to add insult to injury, she deepens her voice and does a mockery of the Ray Combs' own questioning.

Len can't even meet her eyes. "How was I supposed to know the answer was church?"

"Sunday, Len." Rin says, so gently that the mocking was soothed into the underlying implications, but the shame lingered all the same. "What do people do on Sundays?"

"We don't go to church, how was I supposed to know?"

"It was an easy question. You made us lose Family Feud for nothing!"

Len rolls his eyes, "If you want to talk about blame, how about the fact that we would probably be in Atlanta by now if you hadn't thrown our map out of the window?" He shot back at her, although to be fair, neither of them were that great at reading maps, so it probably wouldn't have helped much.

"I don't need some stupid piece of paper telling me where to go."

"Well that stupid piece of paper would have saved us from getting cut up and eaten by some backwoods murderer."

Rin shrugs her shoulders, opening her mouth to add some sort of witty retort or maybe to just insult him again, but a noise outside the freezer makes them both freeze. Len's muscles tense, his entire body going rigid as the sound of footsteps seem to drift inside like a final warning. Somebody was definately out there.

The footsteps shuffle closer and closer, getting louder and louder. Then they suddenly stop, hovering right outside the door. Rin's eyes widen, and her hand clamps down across her face to hold back whatever it is that she's dying to get out. But Len slowly and quietly jumps into action, his heart pounding in his chest like a hammer against wood. Boom. Boom. He wiggles out of his windbreaker, letting it across the floor and stretching out his limbs.

He hasn't ever been much of a fighter, if he's being completely honest, in fact the biggest fight in his entire life was against a mob of middle-aged, Aquanet-smelling, bedazzled-sweater women all wrestling for a Cabbage Patch. And if he could get through the Riot of '83 without dying a miserable, heel-bludgeoned death and still get a doll, he could probably hold off or even beat a killer if he tried. And if not, well then,Len is confident in his ability to be a human blockade, and he's completely prepared to give Rin enough time to escape if that's the situation. If he can just give his wife a chance, then it would be worth it even if it cost him his life.

Unfortunately, Rin doesn't seem to have the same instincts for self-preservation. She slaps something heavy onto his chest, jolting him back to himself, and it takes him a minute to realize her shoes are in his arms now.

"Rin…?"

She rolls her shoulders, pulling a bedazzled pocket knife out of her white leather jacket, flicking it open with a single motion. "I'm not letting this punk murder either of us." Rin tells him firmly, standing up and pointing the blade at the tip of Len's nose. "Till Death Do Us Part and all that, but absolutely not today. We have that photoshoot in Atlanta in two days, I'm not missing that. To Hell with this guy, I'm not afraid of him. If we got through Miku's mullet phase and Aspen sodas, we can survive this."

She strolls forward, shoulders back and chest puffed out. Her grip on her knife is practised and taut, and Len blinks dumbly as she silently goes towards the door, barefoot and padding slowly.

"Rin!" He whisper-yells, jumping to his feet, clutching at the white go-go boots in his arms. "Rin, put your shoes back on. What're you doing?"

Rin whirls around, lips pursed and eyes hardened in quiet annoyance and a spiteful determination. "Those are vintage. You can't find that lined white leather just anywhere, and those are the exact kind that Nancy Sinatra wore on the cover of her album. Guard those with your life. Don't let any blood or dirt get on them."

"Rin, they're just shoes. Now, you can't do this. Get away from the door!"

Rin scoffs, "I'm handling it. Guard the boots."

"Rin. Stop, you can't do this."

"You're right." Rin agrees, finally showing some sort of sense, nodding along. She stops dead in her tracks, and he breathes a quiet sigh of relief at her reaction, like a weight has been lifted off of his chest. Except then Rin's hands reach up and tug restlessly at her earrings.

She tosses them into his fumbling hands, "Here, this is better. Hold my hoops, too. I'd hate for something to happen to them."

"Rin!"

And then she swings the cooler door open, diving forward with her pocket knife and a wink.

#thank you so much for writing this #sorry i didn't post this sooner #so uhh do they get away? #damn you for leaving it on a cliffhanger #maybe if enough people like it maybe theyll write an ending hopefully #submission

[aion-rsa]

Evil: Did Kristen Kill Orson?

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains spoilers for Evil season 1.

Kristen Bouchard, played by Katja Herbers, was as surprised by the Evil season 1 finale as any viewer. Something drew the normally cynical psychiatric trial expert to test her fate. The moment before she sees the acrid burn of sin on her flesh, she is relieved. Everything is normal for too short a moment. Evil season 2 will open on another side of a rabbit hole. The supernatural suspense drama already cast an all-seeing eye into demonic connections in international conspiracy. Their new unsolved mystery is an inner crime. A lone act. Did Kristen kill Orson LeRoux (Darren Pettie)? All the clues are there. Some may have been repressed, like a tell-tale blood stain no one wants to see, but malicious intent tends to rise to the surface. What could have possessed Kristen to do such a thing? Perhaps only the show’s resident therapist, the goat-headed demon who primarily tends to Leland Townsend (Michael Emerson), knows for sure, and he’s known as the father of lies.

As the designated Doubting Thomas in a group of Catholic Church-affiliated paranormal investigators, Kristen has made it her mission to get to the bottom of elusive truths. As a citizen she lends her expert testimony to keep the most dangerous criminals from re-entering society. She fought very hard to keep Orson in prison. But when the convicted serial killer’s sentence was overturned, Kristen’s first concern was as a mother. Not only did she fail to keep a multiple murderer off the street, she fails to keep him from showing up on her own block. Orson does this just as Kristen is escorting her daughters aboard the school bus. She dials 911, but Orson is the one to file a police complaint. Their neighborly squabble is settled with a conciliatory fruit basket.

Orson LeRoux is a gift that keeps giving. He was on the ninth rung of a 12-step program to hell, and looking for something short of redemption. The newly freed serial killer was just getting on our good sides when we overheard the call from Detective Mira Byrd (Kristen Connolly) saying he wouldn’t be making it to season 2. “He was bludgeoned,” Byrd says. “We are thinking it was by his wife. Your troubles are over.” But “Book 27,” the title of the final episode, doesn’t shut the file on the problematic psychopath. It throws a whole library at undue process.

The night Kristen came home to find her daughter Lexis asleep on the floor near an open front door and Orson’s gift basket, she put the kid to bed and went out in a hurry. Before she left, she grabbed a climbing axe. Kristen and her husband are both avid and expert mountaineers, and the instrument is pristine. It looks brand new and still has its shine. The axe looks like the walking stick Claude Rains used to kill Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolfman. His son had a terrible secret. When the moon was full, he became a murderous beast. Like Orson, the werewolf is very vocal in expressing regret for his violence but shows no outward signs of his affliction when he’s not possessed by his lunacy. 

Evil has its own character with a unique gait. The Demon Therapist is made to look like an all-male version of the Goat of Mendes, also known as Baphomet. There is some evidence he may be setting Kristen up for a fall. Not only as a suspect in the murder of the legally exonerated ex-con, but from grace itself. And then, after Kristen gives the appearance of murderous intent before the crime, she also blatantly covers up evidence right in front of one of her most trusted colleagues.

The sequence where Ben Shakir (Aasif Mandvi) notices the blood on Kristen’s leg reminds me of the scene where Lou Costello walks right into Boris Karloff’s character in the 1949 suspense comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer. In that film, Karloff’s killer hypnotically suggests to the surprised witness “You didn’t see me. I wasn’t here,” and pulls a mental disappearing act. When Ben asks Kristen why she has blood on her leg, she cleans it right in front of him and simply says “I don’t have blood on my leg.” She makes it clear that her leg is currently blood-free, providing a loop-hole for a legal disappearing act. Jedi mind tricks are not admissible in court, though, so it appears she is skirting more than ethics.

Kristen is also ducking a culling scythe. David Acosta (Mike Colter), the ex-journalist, pre-ordained priest who assesses supernatural events for the Catholic Church, also indulges in mind tricks. He routinely mixes brews of hallucinogens to open himself up to mystical visions. At one point towards the end, we see him fingering a baggie of magic mushrooms which fades to a hallucination. He envisions himself in the middle of a field of wheat, which the Demon Therapist is separating from chaff. Kristen walks right past David straight to the agricultural reaper. She has a smile of beneficence on her face and is unconcerned. That’s more than you can say for David, who is so worried he drops the untouched bag of psychedelic experience to the floor. He didn’t need chemicals to see the signs. But what do they mean?

David could have seen an allusion to Kristen’s mortal sin, which would lead her to a path of perdition. He may also be seeing a warning, in which case, she has not yet fully given in to the temptation of the most dramatic of maternal instincts. Who is to say Detective Byrd isn’t involved in the murder?  Kristen Connolly has been playing much of the role ambiguously. Maybe the detective figures it will help the book sales she had to admit to under oath. Orson’s death could be one of collusion. It is most probably a mere step on the downward spiral Kristen’s arc is taking.  

David is very good at reading signs. He recognized the symbol to the RMS fertility clinic which is churning out demon babies by the test-tube-full from one he’d seen in his vision of an ancient occult text. But the hottest clue to the mystery which surrounds him doesn’t come from a burning bush. It comes from a scorched palm. The very last scene of the Evil finale changes the paradigm of the show. In what looks like a whim of scientific curiosity, Kristen holds a crucifix in the palm of her hand. She’s been to enough exorcisms, and even saw the effects reading “The Lord’s Prayer” had on the possibly-possessed Orson. Kristen is performing an ad hoc experiment. And she is positively relieved at the initial results.

Kristen’s relief lasts less than a second. The experiment is apparently a success, but it’s not a happy conclusion. The skin which touched the crucifix is branded with the mark of the cross. By the logic of Hollywood since the beginning of celluloid, this would indicate Kristen Bouchard is at least possessed, if not already some kind of demon. That fertility clinic David connected the dots to was the same one she’d gone to after she’d suffered a miscarriage. Her daughter, the psychically gifted Lexis Bouchard (Maddy Crocco), was born after in vitro fertilization procedures done at their facilities. Besides the Boys from Brazil conspiracy Ben revealed at the connection, this also brings in another aspect of Kristen’s maternal instinct. Would she kill to protect her demon spawn?

We know Kristen is fiercely protective of her children. We’ve also seen evidence she can be fairly quick to violence. She had no qualms about carving her initials into the neck of Leland Townsend, the defense expert who has become her most annoying nemesis. She also seemed to savor twisting a blade into the demon George. A prosecuting attorney might bring these incidents up to tarnish her character in a trial for killing Orson. But they also open an easy gateway to Kristen’s inner darkness. David’s head priest says a person has to invite a demon before they can be possessed. Lexis not only invited the Demon Therapist into her hallway, she jumped at the chance to go the “next level,” and punched in the security code for him. Kristen accepted the demon when she followed through on the path laid out for her.

While it remains unclear whether Kristen is possessed or in an early stage of possession, her openness to demonic forces may have been foreshadowed in episode 1. It happens after one of her earliest night-terror incidents with the demon George, when Kristen is lying in bed with her daughters. She breaks the fourth wall with a knowing grin to the camera. While some of her actions might indicate a weakening of moral standards, leading to her being open to committing a mortal sin, there are no overt signs of encroaching demonic infestation. But the road to hell is an insidious one, paved with the very best of intentions.

Those who are condemned to hell don’t display their designations with signs like the burn marks left by crucifixes and other holy residue. If Kristen had become possessed, she would have shown signs during some of the exorcism rites she’d witnessed during the season. But Orson’s murder may have been a climax to a seduction which began when she was first introduced to the holy work. She has increasingly become more secretive to the people around her, both professionally and personally. She doesn’t give out easy explanations, and keeps too many details too close to her vest. Kristen often looks like she’s hiding something even in the least necessary moment. She even does it against her own self-interest.

Because Evil is an intentionally and happily effective confounding series, the mystery of Orson’s death will probably not be what is most readily apparent. It is hidden in the occult clues we might have overlooked, just like a gas leak may be hidden by some plaster in the room of a seemingly satanic crime scene. Kristen is indeed primed to be suspect, but Detective Byrd has motive and opportunity. It would almost be a shame if Orson’s wife got to him first.

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Evil is available for streaming on Netflix.

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