#sabina @ alex when he first told her
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DO NOT REBLOG.
alex’s important cast of npcs.
alan blunt. the previous head of mi6. he was the one who blackmailed alex into becoming a spy in the first place. he had hoped alex would have died during his first mission to give him an excuse to shut down the organisation he asked alex to spy on, but then alex exceeded expectations and actually stopped the organisation, mostly on his own. as such, he decided to use alex more and more. he is now forcibly retired after alex’s last mission with mi6 due to purposefully shooting into alex’s classroom to get him to do a mission.
tulip jones. the current head of mi6. she was alongside blunt when he blackmailed alex into becoming a spy for them. she had her objections for using alex as a spy, and she did raise them here and there, but she still stood aside and did nothing to stop blunt from using alex. she is currently looking for alex, in part to take him back to the pleasures, in part because she does have a favour to ask of him in order to find her children that were kidnapped three years ago.
derek smithers. he was the resident gadget maker in mi6 and one of the two people that alex trusts the most in mi6. he was the one who made alex’s phone and has made it untraceable (for any human technology – alien technology more than likely could get around it), as well as made it into a gadget. he’s incredibly fond of alex and now that he’s on the run, he will do everything in his power to keep alex out of mi6’s hands. (which, to be honest, isn’t much, but at least he’d give alex tools to survive.)
ian rider. alex’s paternal uncle, was murdered by yassen gregorovich when alex was fourteen and a month old. he raised alex since he was one after alex’s parents’ deaths, and he raised him with all of the tools and ideas necessary to be a spy. alex isn’t quite sure of ian’s motivation for doing that – whether or not ian wanted to groom him to be a spy or not, and he’s honestly quite afraid of the answer.
jack starbright. alex’s guardian who was murdered on a live feed with alex watching in order to torture him. she was a live-in housekeeper and nanny that lived with the rider family since alex was seven, and he was very close to her. she was like an older sister to him, and in a lot of ways, her death truly broke alex. alex will almost never mention jack to anyone because, even a year later, her death still hurts.
yassen gregorvich. the man who murdered alex’s uncle and also trained under alex’s father when alex’s father was undercover with scorpia. he was a scorpia assassin who was killed after refusing to kill alex. he owed alex’s father a debt, and he never wanted to kill alex (that being said, he did put alex in a pin with a bull, so be that as it may…). he was the one who suggest alex go to scorpia and told him about how his father had been an assassin for hire by scorpia. (not exactly correct.)
tom harris. alex’s best friend and was shot by the sniper that alan blunt had hired to shoot into alex’s classroom. unlike almost everyone else in alex’s personal relationships, he is still alive. he currently lives in italy with his older brother due to his complicated relationship with his family, and he and alex haven’t talked since alex left to go live in america with the pleasures. alex misses tom a lot, but he thinks tom would be better off without him in his life. (tom would love to get a moment and see alex again and smack the shit out of him for thinking that way). tom knows alex was a spy.
the pleasures. edward, liz, and sabina pleasure make up the pleasure family. alex and sabina had worked at wimbledon together as ball guys/girls, and she invited him to come on holiday with her family. edward was nearly a victim of assassination by yassen’s hand, and alex told sabina the truth about him being a spy. sabina didn’t believe him, but she definitely believed him when she was kidnapped by yassen. they had dated for a bit, but broke up after a while and was good friends. when jack died, edward and liz took over guardianship for alex. sabina is pretty pissed that alex ran.
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Elevator Music Part One.
Summary- Tom gets stuck in an elevator with our favorite assassin.
"I can not believe this." Alex muttered for what seemed like the millionth time.
"What do you think they want? They actually assured that this wasn't for a mission?" Tom asked.
They very quickly made their way to the bank in the slow drizzle of rain. MI6 had called right as school let out. They assured Alex that it had nothing to do with a mission but both the teens had their doubts. Alex turned to Tom as they approached the entrance.
"Alright, wait here. I'll be out as soon as I can."
"Wait? In this cold rain? What am I? The stray dog following you home? No way. I'm coming too." Tom replied as he bounded up the stairs and into the bank.
"Tom! They're not going to like it if I bring a friend along. They probably won't even let you passed the waiting area." Alex said uncertainly. He had got enough people caught up in this he didn't want Tom in it anymore than he already was.
"Ah, come on, mate. Live a little. What's the worse that could happen?"
"They could decide you know too much and ship you off to some remote location to live out the rest of your life as a farmer. Or they could just kill you."
"Wow, I'm sorry I asked." Tom replied as he made no move to retrace his steps out of the bank. He was already in. No going back now. Instead, he bounded right up to the receptionist and put on a cheerful smile.
"Hiya! The name's Harris. Tom Harris. I'm here for the Avenger's Iniative."
"Wrong agency, Tommy." Alex said as he shouldered his friend out of the way to peer dully at the woman.
"I'm Alex Rider. I'm here to see Blunt or Jones."
"Ah, yes. Mr. Rider, Mrs. Jones has already alerted me that you were on your way. If you'll remain in the waiting area someone will be right down to retrieve you. Although, she didn't mention you, Mr. Harris. You may be required to wait here." The lady replied as she stood and turned her back to them before Tom could even reply.
"Told you." Alex said as he walked to a nearby window and peered out. Looking from this window he could see the exact spot where he had been shot. He could even see a dark stain from where he assumed his blood had pooled. Tom could see his friend's face and knew he needed to pull him out of his thoughts.
"So, do you think they're calling you in for all the back pay for all these misions they've sent you on? Bet that would be quite a bit of money. You could buy your best friend a car. What even is the salary of a spy?"
"We pay the qualified MI6 agent very generously, Mr. Harris. Alex, I thought we discussed how we feel about you bringing your friends in with you when you brought Sabina here the last time." Came Mrs. Jones tone from behind them as she approached. That, of course, caused Tom to gasp dramatically.
“You brought Sabina in here before me?"
Alex shrugged.
"To be fair, she knew about this before you did." He answered.
"Still haven't forgiven you for that little fact." Tom muttered.
Mrs. Jones cleared her throat to bring the bickering boys back to the situation at hand. Alex sighed.
"Look, I told him not to come in. He didn't listen. But I'm gonna be honest with you. If you leave him here he's liable to cause more trouble alone than he would just tagging along." Alex informed. Which was true. Tom could be just as destructive as Alex when he was when bored. Jones seemed to consider this for a moment. Then she peered firmly at the brunette.
"I suppose we do need to get you to come and sign the Official Secrets Act. Come along you two." She said decisively and motioned for them to lead the way to the elevator.
Tom gave Alex an over enthusiastic thumbs up before they both made their way to the lift.
The two teens waited awkwardly behind the woman as they waited for the elevator to take them to their desired floor. The look on Alex's face was one of misery and Tom couldn't help but feel a wave of anger at the lady in front of him.
He waited until the elevator doors opened and they began walking down a hallway.
"So, how shitty are your employees that you have to blackmail a teenager just to get something done?" Tom asked casually.
Jones cut her eyes to the boy and Alex groaned loudly behind them.
"Tom, shut up. Now."
"Mr. Harris, you're lucky you've made it as far into this building as you have. I suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself for the remainder of your time here."
"They're that bad, huh?" Tom replied with a sarcastic wince. Alex then took his cue to sufficiently shut him up by elbowing the boy in the ribs as they approached Alan Blunt's office. Jones opened the door and motioned for the two of them to walk into the room.
Tom entered first and noticed an older man sitting at the desk with a younger man sitting across from him. It didn't seem too out of sorts until he heard Alex take a sharp intake of breath behind him as he entered behind him.
"What the hell is this?" Alex demanded in such a tone that had Tom jumping in surprise.
"Now, Alex. Calm down. We need to talk."
"No, ‘we’ don't. ‘We’ need to show me and my friend back out. I want no part of this."
"What's going on, Alex?" Tom knew his friend was already agitated about being here in the first place but he could tell Alex wasn't fond of the man sitting across from the older man who Tom assumed was Alan Blunt by the way he was glaring a hole through the guy.
"Nothing, Tom. Be quiet." Alex ordered, causing his friend to bristle at the tone.
"Hey, don't take your anger for Mr. Broody over there out on me."
The man's eyebrows quirked up in near amusement at the mention of himself.
"My name is Yassen." The man put in helpfully to the boy.
"Stop talking to him." Alex snapped while Tom gasped dramatically beside him.
"Yassen Gregorovich? Mate, you're an assassin." Harris stated dumbly.
Yassen nodded indulgingly and smirked faintly at how the brown haired boy took a subtle step behind Alex for protection.
#shameless reblog of a oneshot i post years ago#anyone wanna read part two?#Tom meets yassen#alex rider#tom and yassen stuck in an elevator together#yassen gregorovich#plot holes galore
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b: alex rider.
Basics.
Name: Alex Rider
Age: 14-19. ( verse dependant. )
Gender: Male
Hometown: London, England
Hair and Eye Colour: Fair and Brown, respectively.
Sexuality: Heterosexual.
Height and Weight: 5'7" - 5'11" and 140 - 150lbs
Other Physical Attributes: Objectively considered rather attractive, despite the slight coldness of his eyes and his expression. He has a birthmark on his left shoulder and has scars due to the work he has completed with MI6, the CIA, and ASIS. The most remarkable one being the bullet wound scar two inches above his heart.
Mind.
Alex is a firm believer of the statement: “Curiosity killed the cat, but Satisfaction brought him back.” He tends to find himself in various dangerous situations due to his curiosity but is equally able to get himself out of such dangerous situations due to his quick wit and superior physical abilities. He tends to be rather reckless with himself – pulling stunts that those with a strong self-preservation instinct would never do – but he doesn’t have a death wish necessarily.
Due to his young age, his crystallised intelligence is lower than an average spy – although, his crystallised intelligence is certainly higher than other people his age in certain aspects – the levels of his fluid intelligence is off the charts; while he does plan his actions rather methodically, the combination of his instincts and his quick wit allow him to improvise on the spot in ways that are almost peerless, even within the intelligence community.
Due to his upbringing and his various missions, he is very jaded and paranoid for his age, and his maturity shines through in any situation he may find himself in. Still, he is a teenager and is thus witty and sarcastic, relying on dry, British sense of humour in order to taunt his enemies. Despite his age, he has taken the weight of the world on his shoulders again and again and as such gotten colder and sharper after everything he had seen.
With the death of his guardian and the murder of his clone, he lost any spark of life he had left and tends to fall into long periods of silence, his facial expression almost always perfectly neutral and his eyes dead.
History.
When he was one year old, his parents ( John and Helen Rider ) died in a plane crash while he stayed behind due to an ear infection. Ian Rider, his uncle, took him in. As he was a worker for the Royal and General Bank, he often left on travels and sometimes brought Alex along with him, teaching him language games and how to read people’s emotions until he was seven, where Ian hired a female housekeeper named Jack Starbright, who took care of Alex in Ian’s stead.
However, Ian died when Alex was fourteen, and his death was blamed on a car accident where Ian died because he hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt. Not believing this for a second due to the natural suspicion Ian trained him to have, Alex did his own investigating and was collected by MI6, where he was told by the Head and Deputy Head of Special Operations, Alan Blunt and Tulip Jones respectively, that his uncle and his father were spies. Blunt then blackmailed Alex into working for MI6 is a “one time deal” only; Alex finished Ian’s mission, and Jack was allowed to stay in Great Britain despite her expired visa.
This began his career as a spy for MI6. Before he began the mission, however, he did a brief stint of training with the SAS, placed onto K-UNIT, which comprised of Wolf, Snake, Eagle, and Fox ( and Alex was code-named ‘Cub’ ). After completing his training, he finished the mission his uncle had died on, meeting his uncle’s killer named Yassen Gregorovich. Alex swore to kill Yassen after Yassen got away after saving Alex’s life.
His career with MI6 continued, even as he was occasionally loaned out to various intelligence agencies – the CIA and the ASIS – and briefly deflected to join a terrorist organisation called SCORPIA when a dying Yassen told Alex that to find SCORPIA was to find his destiny. He deflected back to MI6 when he found out that SCORPIA had killed his parents, but hadn’t known who had killed them until he met his godfather called Ash, who was his parents’ murderer.
All throughout his career as an agent, he had seen multiple scarring events: he had seen multiple people killed, had killed multiple people, had seen someone commit suicide in front of him, had been tortured ( both physically and emotionally ), had been sniped, had suffered multiple beatings, had been cloned, had been sent into outer space, had been waterboarded by the CIA, had been captured, and even more. However, the two events that killed any sort of life in him was seeing Jack killed and killing his clone in cold blood.
After his career in MI6, which was from when he was fourteen to when he was fifteen years old, he moved to America with the Pleasures, their daughter being his ex-girlfriend Sabina Pleasure.
Skills.
He has a First Dan in Karate and has trained with the SAS ( British Air Service ) for two weeks, receiving combat, survival, and interrogation-resistance training. He had also been trained by SCORPIA ( a terrorist organisation ) for a fortnight, which gave him improbable perfect aiming skills with weapons of every kind. Still, he is never given a gun on his missions and tends to improvise with whatever gadgets he has or with whatever is in his surroundings. He has a clear, analytical mind that allows him to deduce connections and has helped him survive throughout his career as a spy. He can also speak three languages fluently without an English accent: Spanish, French, and German, and he can also speak conversational Japanese and Italian. With his superior physical abilities, he’s been shown to pick up physical sports with barely any trouble, and has shown aptitude in scuba diving, abseiling, mountain climbing, surfing, swimming, cycling, rifle shooting, kayaking, climbing, snowboarding, pickpocketing, lock-picking, and jumping out of a plane with a parachute.
Areas of Canon Divergence.
All of the books including and following Never Say Never has been read, but they are not canon to my main verse!Alex. i do have a verse for Alex where he still works with MI6, and those books will be incorporated into that verse.
I also don’t follow with that “Wolf is Ben” retcon that Horowitz only used because he fucked up knowing the codenames he gave to his characters.
Other Muse Information.
previous urls: adrenalinexseekxr / reluctantspy.
anniversary: april 2015
ship exclusivity*: n/a.
*i will not ship with duplicates of these muses
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do not reblog.
alex’s important cast of npcs.
alan blunt. the previous head of mi6. he was the one who blackmailed alex into becoming a spy in the first place. he had hoped alex would have died during his first mission to give him an excuse to shut down the organisation he asked alex to spy on, but then alex exceeded expectations and actually stopped the organisation, mostly on his own. as such, he decided to use alex more and more. he is now forcibly retired after alex's last mission with mi6 due to purposefully shooting into alex's classroom to get him to do a mission.
tulip jones. the current head of mi6. she was alongside blunt when he blackmailed alex into becoming a spy for them. she had her objections for using alex as a spy, and she did raise them here and there, but she still stood aside and did nothing to stop blunt from using alex. she is currently looking for alex, in part to take him back to the pleasures, in part because she does have a favour to ask of him in order to find her children that were kidnapped three years ago.
derek smithers. he was the resident gadget maker in mi6 and one of the two people that alex trusts the most in mi6. he was the one who made alex's phone and has made it untraceable (for any human technology -- alien technology more than likely could get around it), as well as made it into a gadget. he's incredibly fond of alex and now that he's on the run, he will do everything in his power to keep alex out of mi6's hands. (which, to be honest, isn't much, but at least he'd give alex tools to survive.)
ian rider. alex's paternal uncle, was murdered by yassen gregorovich when alex was fourteen and a month old. he raised alex since he was one after alex's parents' deaths, and he raised him with all of the tools and ideas necessary to be a spy. alex isn't quite sure of ian's motivation for doing that -- whether or not ian wanted to groom him to be a spy or not, and he's honestly quite afraid of the answer.
jack starbright. alex's guardian who was murdered on a live feed with alex watching in order to torture him. she was a live-in housekeeper and nanny that lived with the rider family since alex was seven, and he was very close to her. she was like an older sister to him, and in a lot of ways, her death truly broke alex. alex will almost never mention jack to anyone because, even a year later, her death still hurts.
yassen gregorvich. the man who murdered alex's uncle and also trained under alex's father when alex's father was undercover with scorpia. he was a scorpia assassin who was killed after refusing to kill alex. he owed alex's father a debt, and he never wanted to kill alex (that being said, he did put alex in a pin with a bull, so be that as it may...). he was the one who suggest alex go to scorpia and told him about how his father had been an assassin for hire by scorpia. (not exactly correct.)
tom harris. alex's best friend and was shot by the sniper that alan blunt had hired to shoot into alex's classroom. unlike almost everyone else in alex's personal relationships, he is still alive. he currently lives in italy with his older brother due to his complicated relationship with his family, and he and alex haven't talked since alex left to go live in america with the pleasures. alex misses tom a lot, but he thinks tom would be better off without him in his life. (tom would love to get a moment and see alex again and smack the shit out of him for thinking that way). tom knows alex was a spy.
the pleasures. edward, liz, and sabina pleasure make up the pleasure family. alex and sabina had worked at wimbledon together as ball guys/girls, and she invited him to come on holiday with her family. edward was nearly a victim of assassination by yassen's hand, and alex told sabina the truth about him being a spy. sabina didn't believe him, but she definitely believed him when she was kidnapped by yassen. they had dated for a bit, but broke up after a while and was good friends. when jack died, edward and liz took over guardianship for alex. sabina is pretty pissed that alex ran.
#⤷ alex r.【 ❝ something inside of him had broken and would never be repaired. ❞ 】metas.#⤷ alex r.【 ❝ i don’t want to be a spy. if i had a choice / i’d walk away. ❞ 】headcanons.
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Tyler Rich and Sabina Gadecki are married.
The “Leave Her Wild” singer and L.A.’s Finest actress tied the knot in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on Friday in front of 275 guests at Saddle Woods Farm — and PEOPLE has all the exclusive details.
Ahead of their big day, the couple told PEOPLE that they chose their venue — which they called a “big, beautiful property with a gorgeous barn” — in part because of the “kind” owners, Jayne and Gary LeGate.
“They invited us in for dinner with their family during the holidays when we visited the venue,” they said. “We were sold right then and there.”
Throughout the space, the couple decorated with pampas grass, macrame, neon lights, bulb string lights, vintage rugs, teepees and couches to bring their music festival-theme to life.
“We met at a music festival and spend so much of our time together on the road at shows festivals,” Rich, 33, and Gadecki, 36, said. “So we wanted to throw a festival-themed wedding so our guests could take a step into our lives for a night.”
Rich and Gadecki — who hired Sara Fried, owner of Fête Nashville Luxury Weddings, to plan their wedding — put neon signs inside and outside the barn and also had an escort wall for guests to “find their festival friends” with each table being named after a music festival (where they were given custom luggage tags from Sketch & Etch). The couple first met at the Stagecoach country music festival in Indio, California on May 1, 2016 and have been together for almost three-and-a-half years now.
“I was watching the show from the side of the main stage and saw Sabina with her friends down in the pit,” Rich recalled. “So I snuck down and perfectly placed myself right in front of her group with my friend Alex, and we made sure we had such a great time in front of them that she and her friends would wish they were part of our group. Well, it barely worked — we quickly said hello and she left. I had to do the rest of my courting via an Instagram direct message.”
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Neon Carnival
#stagecoach
A post shared by Tyler Rich (@tylerrich) on May 4, 2019 at 2:56pm PDT
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Standing beside the couple on their big day was a bridal party made up of 13 groomsmen and 12 bridesmaids, including three best men and three maids of honor. Ayesha Curry, who attended with her husband Stephen Curry, brother-in-law Seth Curry and his wife, Callie Rivers-Curry, was in Gadecki’s bridal party.
One of the couple’s closest friends, Ambrosio “Boskie” Lopez, married them. “Nobody knows us better as individuals and as a couple at the same time,” they said.
The couple wrote their own vows, and Rich anticipated there was a “100 percent” chance he’d cry during the special moment.
RELATED: From Red Robin to Hitting No. 1: What to Know About ‘The Difference’ Singer Tyler Rich
Gadecki wore two different gowns by Israeli designer Galia Lahav for the ceremony and reception, and she described them as the “perfect combination of both sexy and playful.”
“You can see and feel from the details that the dresses were made with a lot of love,” said Gadecki, who calls herself the “most indecisive person known to man” and tried on a lot of dresses before making her decision.
Gadecki also stuck with tradition and incorporated “something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue” in her ensemble.
“I never had the chance to meet my babcia , my mom’s mom,” she said. “Both of my grandparents on my mom’s side died before I was born, but I’ve always felt a strong connection to them. My grandmother was wearing a blue brooch in the hospital before she passed away, and I had the brooch sewn into my dress. My ‘something old’ is my mother’s veil. I took the beautiful lace and tulle and had it turned into our ring bearer’s pillow, a small purse for my day, as well as my garter. And my ‘something borrowed’ is my jewelry.”
Rich wore a charcoal suit by Italian designer Boglioli, and he completed his look with a Rolex Yacht-Master from Crown & Caliber. Justin Alexander styled all of Rich’s groomsmen, who accessorized with matching black leather matches from MVMT, while Gadecki’s bridesmaids all wore blush bohemian dresses from Jenny Yoo.
Throughout the day, the couple made sure that the music was “perfect for us,” meaning that it was “not your traditional wedding music, but the music you hear when you go see your favorite bands at a festival.”
“We also wanted a raw and true to Nashville element, so we had the amazing Ashley Campbell bring her banjo picking to our cocktail hour,” they said.
RELATED: Actress Sabina Gadecki’s Friends ‘Thanked’ Her Fiancé Tyler Rich For Not Changing Her
At the reception, Rich and Gadecki picked “Yellow” by Coldplay for their first dance as a married couple.
“We first said ‘I love you’ when listening to ‘Yellow,’ and it’s been our song ever since,” they said. “That first dance to ‘Yellow’ in front of everyone we love so much will live forever with us.”
As for the food, the couple went with “food truck-style eating” in an indoor setting. They had a pierogi bar, slider station and “meat and two” station along with a donut wall and cake for dessert. Additionally, they had a cigar bar and flower crown cart to keep with their music festival-theme.
Rich also wanted the alcohol at the wedding to represent them as a couple. Since he was raised in Northern California, Rich had Lagunitas IPA beer and four types of wine from Brasswood Cellars in Napa Valley served at the wedding. Since Gadecki’s entire family is from Poland, they knew the right vodka was a “very important element” and chose to serve Big Machine Vodka. The wedding was many of their guests’ first trip to Nashville, so they also had a true Tennessee whiskey, Clayton James, on deck.
Rich and Gadecki used the site Minted to design all of their menus, table numbers, save the dates, invites, day-of-pieces and thank you cards in one place.
RELATED VIDEO: Tyler Rich on Writing ‘Leave Her Wild’ & Acting with Sabina Gadecki in ‘The Difference’ Music Video
When it came time for speeches, Rich and Gadecki’s best men and maids of honor all walked up and took turns passing around the microphone. Ahead of the reception, Rich anticipated that it would be “the dance party of all parties.”
“Our friends and family couldn’t stay still if they wanted to,” he said. “Sabina’s family is all from Poland and rowdy as they come. You mix that with our crazy friends, and it’s going down.”
Along with the Curry family, famous faces at the wedding included Jon Pardi, Gadecki’s fellow Entourage actor Jerry Ferrara and his wife, Breanne Racano Ferrera, UFC fighter Anthony Pettis, NBA players Dorell Wright and Biedriņš, actor Dylan Playfair, Sirius XM’s “The Highway” host Mary Carlisle Young, professional fisher Aaron Britt (who was also one of Rich’s groomsmen) and model Ubah Hassan.
Though Rich and Gadecki have been engaged for over two years, they felt like now was finally the perfect time to have their wedding.
“We have both had the craziest couple years, with little time,” Rich — whose song “The Difference” hit No. 21 on the country charts last year — said. “We could never afford it until the past year or so, really. Once both our careers picked up last year, it changed everything and gave us the opportunity to finally plan the wedding we’d always wanted. There are just so many important people in our lives, that we knew it couldn’t be small. So we were waiting until we could have the wedding of our dreams.”
Since their relationship has been long-distance between Los Angeles and Nashville since they met, the couple said they depend on trust to keep them strong.
“We have always trusted each other, and never let any insecurities or fear of anything get in between us,” they said. “We fully support each other’s dreams and 100 percent the person each of us are inside. We embrace that fully.”
As to what he’s most looking forward to about marriage itself, Rich said it’s getting to introduce Gadecki as his “wife.”
“I’m so excited to build a life together from scratch,” he said. “To know that decades from now when there is an entire new generation beneath us, that it all started back in September 2019 when we kissed and said, ‘I do.’ It’s a really beautiful thing.”
Before forever, though, comes the honeymoon, which the couple had to put on hold for a bit now that Gadecki will be busy shooting for the upcoming film False Positive.
“Originally we had plans to go to the Cayman Islands on Monday following the wedding,” Rich said. “The Caribbean is so relaxing, recharging and the break we sure could use right now. But Sabina just booked a new film that starts shooting right away, and we are so excited about it! So, we will try to have a honeymoon in January when our schedules usually slow down. Either to Grand Cayman still, or potentially southeast Asia, it will be January weather-dependent.”
Rich — who previously toured with Dustin Lynch, Sam Hunt, Brett Eldredge, Justin Moore, Cole Swindell, Dan + Shay and Brett Young — has headlining dates across the United States through the end of the year and is opening on select dates with Pardi and Brantley Gilbert.
from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/2IgLgtr
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Fassathon: A Summary (Part II)
or, to misquote John Mulaney: “you have more than ten movies left and it gets worse”:
Eden Lake (Also Steve)
Rating: 7/10
Quick Summary: Jenny and Steve take a weekend trip to a place called Eden Lake which used to be a nice camping spot but is soon going to be torn down to make room for a housing development. They have some difficulty reaching the place as it is technically a construction zone, but eventually make their way deep into the woods and find a place on the shore to set up camp. Soon they’re joined by a large group of obnoxious and antagonistic teenagers who heckle the couple, refuse to turn down their music, and seem unlikely to leave anytime soon. Any attempts to reason with them are ignored and the couple eventually gives up and tries to enjoy their day anyway. They continue to encounter the group of kids and tension grows between them with the teenagers growing violent and threatening. Steve decides to confront them despite Jenny’s protests and it doesn’t go well. All this results in the two running for their lives, trying to escape the group at any cost.
Some Thoughts: This is the better horror movie on here. It’s well-done for the most part. Fassbender’s character is kind of a dumbass and there are some cliché moments in there, but it’s fairly original and doesn’t rely on jumpscares hardly at all. It’s really more of a thriller than a true horror movie, a survival film I guess, since you know who the enemy is and well….it’s just a group of delinquent children so there’s no real inherent fear there. I definitely got caught up in it and had a few good jumps and moments of shock. I wasn’t really impressed with the ending, but since I don’t have the most experience with horror I can’t say whether it was to be expected with this kind of film or not. It’s definitely frustrating at times and the characters make a lot of idiotic choices, but it’s a suspenseful ride. It’s an interesting commentary on mob mentality as well, since the group of kids starts to fracture early on. The theme ties into the ending as well which I won’t spoil. It’s definitely an “oh no we’re trapped in the woods and someone is chasing us” movie but the performances are good and it didn’t become too predictable, at least for me. A solid film all around in my opinion.
Warnings: This is a pretty bloody movie. It’s not as bad as the other horror movie on here, but there is blood and mild torture and immolation. Also animal death because these movies can’t cut them a break. It was accidental in this case, but it’s there. Also just disturbing imagery in general. It’s a horror movie. You probably know if you can handle that or not.
Recommend?: Sure, if you like horror films I think this one is a less well-known one that’d be worth giving a chance. Also it’s pretty short so there’s that.
12 Years a Slave (Epps)
Rating: 9/10
Quick Summary: Solomon Northup is a free man and an excellent musician living in New York with his family when one day he’s propositioned by two men who own a circus in Washington to come and play his violin for their show. He agrees and all seems to be going well when suddenly he finds himself kidnapped along with a good number of others and sold into slavery in spite of his protests that he is free and has proof of it. He ends up enslaved on a plantation owned by a man named Ford who favors him to some degree, desperate to escape. He ends up in a confrontation with one of the overseers on the plantation and Ford, supposedly for the sake of his life, hands Solomon over to Edwin Epps. Epps turns out to be a despicable man and Solomon struggles to survive while under his thumb, all the while attempting to escape and return to his family.
Some Thoughts: Nothing I can say about this movie would really be worth anything, so this probably won’t be that long. This is one of those films I’ve needed to watch for a long time and I don’t mean to lessen its importance by doing it in the midst of this. I’m very glad to have finally watched it and really I’d like to rewatch it here soon to really let it sink in, since I sort of took it in short bursts the first time around. It’s an incredibly impactful film and one I think every American at least should see. McQueen is truly at his best, unflinching as ever and putting his distinctive long takes to impactful use. Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon does an incredible job of grounding and guiding the film even when he doesn’t have much dialogue a lot of the time. Lupita Nyong’o is absolutely incredible. I cannot believe this was her first appearance in a feature-length film. She is such a strong presence on screen even though her part was comparatively small. To comment briefly on Fassbender himself, this part was kind of beyond words. He really plays the worst of the worst and not to say anything good about the character himself, but he does it very well. He doesn’t come in until about halfway through the film and….thank goodness he doesn’t jfc… Anyway, it’s a very important movie and very much worth the difficult watch.
Warnings: A lot of disturbing imagery, including lynching and general humiliation of the people who are enslaved. A great deal of blood and abuse, including a drawn out scene where a character is whipped. Warning as well for r*pe/sexual assault. Lots of slurs and violent racist behavior. I’m sure most people get the picture.
Recommend?: With the warnings in mind, yes. Like I said, this is one all Americans should see once they’re old enough.
Jonah Hex (Burke)
Rating: 4.5/10
Quick Summary: Jonah Hex is a bounty hunter who had everything taken from him by a man named Turnbull. While strung up, branded, and forced to watch his family burn alive he ended up with the power to seemingly evade death, as well as talk to the dead for a brief amount of time. He goes around hunting Turnbull until one day learning of his apparent death. After this, he is directionless and mostly hunts criminals, making a name for himself. Soon enough however he finds out Turnbull is alive and attempting to steal and use the most dangerous weapon ever invented to Blow Up the World™. The government enlists Hex to help them stop him so he sets out to avenge his family and apparently also save the world.
Some Thoughts: So this is officially the worst rated movie on this list, but I really don’t think it deserves that title. It really is a stupid movie, but that doesn’t stop it from being occasionally enjoyable. I probably rated it a little too highly but I think comparatively it deserves the praise. Jonah Hex is an actual DC anti-hero from what I can tell and this is, kind of hilariously, an actual DC movie. I really know nothing about his canonical portrayal, but the x-ray thing you get when you rent/buy a movie on Amazon told me that his power to speak to dead people isn’t in the comics which….makes me wonder what he actually can do. But I digress. Hex himself is actually a pretty decent protagonist. He sort of hits a Wolverine-esque level of brusque irritability over everything that he uses to mask his usually good intentions which I kind of appreciated. That said, almost everyone is checked out in this movie. It works for Josh Brolin playing Hex but not as much for the others. John Malkovich as Turnbull isn’t over the top but it’s sort of a tired forgettable performance. Megan Fox plays Sexy Lamp with Knife which is not her fault but she’s also 1000% checked out. To her credit she does useful things, but her relationship to Hex is never explained, there’s no chemistry, and she’s used as an object more than once which is annoying. Fassbender is really the only one who seems to be having a good time which makes his character kind of enjoyable even if Burke is a Bitch. He kind of has an Alex from A Clockwork Orange vibe about him in that he so thoroughly enjoys doing what he’s doing. His Irish accent is really ridiculous, but god, at least it’s entertaining. He seems like he actually wants to be there which is more than I can say for anyone else. He’s having a good time and well…good for him. There is some genre-typical racism in the movie which is a pain in the ass and one really what-the-fuck scene that I wish hadn’t happened. The conflict kind of suffers from Suicide Squad-syndrome in that it’s too big for its britches. There was no need to have it be a destroy-the-world kind of movie. It could have been destroy a town. That would have worked. Also The Weapon™ is stupid and ridiculous and makes no sense and is basically just a bomb in the form of Dragon Balls. It’s not the worst movie on here by far, but it’s not good. It was at least mercifully short and had a few fun moments littered throughout. I wasn’t suffering while watching it by any means. It didn’t really do much for my opinion of DC movies though fjskal;j
Warnings: Some blood and violence. Also the scene where Hex gets healed has strangely disturbing imagery that kind of came out of nowhere.
Recommend?: No, but it’s not the worst thing out there.
A Dangerous Method (Carl Jung)
Rating: 8/10
Quick Summary: Carl Jung takes on a new patient named Sabina Spielrein who is seemingly hysterical, but also very intelligent, even dreaming of becoming a doctor herself one day. Together they work through her past trauma using Dr. Sigmund Freud’s revolutionary “talking therapy” and make excellent progress. Jung encourages Spielrein to pursue her dreams and the two form a strong friendship over the course of their interactions. Some years later, Jung and Freud finally meet, taking on a sort of father-son relationship as would be expected. Some of Freud’s ideas trouble Jung, especially concerning the relationship between him and Spielrein. However, Freud’s predictions come true when Jung and Spielrein start up an affair in spite of Jung’s initial resistance. The remainder of the film follows the disintegration of both these relationships, while also touching on the career paths of all three doctors.
Some Thoughts: This is a really excellent movie. I hadn’t heard really anything about it, but after watching it I’m really surprised I haven’t? It’s definitely one of my favorites on this list. It is a thought-piece and is a little bit more slowly paced, but that didn’t really bother me. It is a highly sexual film in nature, so that might be off-putting but it’s also fascinating. The interactions between the characters are interesting and it’s unclear where the story is going (in a good way…I mean that it wasn’t super predictable). I really….don’t like Freud at all and I was sort of worried that would ruin the movie for me, but it didn’t bother me much. No one escapes this movie uncriticized, which is good. I really, really like Kiera Knightley and she does an excellent job playing Spielrein. She sinks into the role well and pulls it off convincingly. I was impressed with how they handled her character actually. Fassbender did a good job as Jung as well. I almost think playing a real person helps him to get into character more completely sometimes. I liked watching the evolution of the relationship between Jung and Freud, some of their conflicting ideas, how they interact. The movie brings up a lot of interesting ideas, and sort of shows a bit how the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis developed. It might just be because I’m interested in the topic that it appealed to me so much? It’s a very solid and very nice-looking film as well so I’m a little surprised it doesn’t get that much attention. Is it because Fassy has a dumb mustache the whole time? It’s the mustache isn’t it.
Warnings: The nurses at the mental institution treat Spielrein a bit roughly sometimes when she won’t cooperate but it never escalates to full-on abuse. There is a lot of sexual content in this movie as well, so maybe take a peek at the parental advisory on IMDb before watching if that bothers you.
Recommend?: If you’re fine with the warnings, yes. I’d really say give it a chance if the subject interests you. I think it’s a movie that deserves more attention overall.
Blood Creek (Wirth)
Rating: 3/10 (that’s me being generous and taking into account the other worst movie on here)
Quick Summary: This fuckign movie I swear to god…………. It has the dumbest conceit physically possible. So Nazis want to take over the world or whatever and to insure their success they decide to go snooping around in the occult. They discover that our great Nordic ancestors have left these rune stones (more like rune walls but whatever) inexplicably around rural America and deploy some guys to go look for them and learn how to do that. They do this by paying farm families to take in the men. One family takes in Richard Wirth unknowingly and immediately regrets the decision. Flash forward to some indiscriminate time in the future, Forgettable Protagonist #1 has somehow lost his brother, Forgettable Protagonist #2, in a river or some shit and he’s very Sad over it. Then one night FP #2 returns! He drags FP #1 out with him to do some Secret Thing and FP #1 goes because of Familial Guilt. They end up at the farm where apparently people have been disappearing for years. The family’s still alive and immortal thanks to Wirth. They help him catch people to eat for their own safety. Unfortunately FPs #1 and #2 have arrived just before a lunar eclipse! This is Bad because through muttering and blood Wirth plans to open a literal third fucking eye in the middle of his fucking forehead to ~reach the beyond~ as one of the farmers explains after FP #1 demands an explanation four hundred times. But it can only be done during a lunar eclipse!!!! Which is tonight!!!!!! Anyway they have to stop him or whatever and also he can bring shit back to life with his muttering.
Some Thoughts: ….this movie is fucking stupid. Also it probably wins for hardest one for me to watch because it’s kind of a gore fest. I thought it was the worst one on here but………shockingly no. Its narrative might be really, REALLY stupid, but it at least makes sense. It has a plot. It’s a dumbass plot, but it’s a plot. The lighting is atrocious in this movie and so is the cinematography in general, but considering the director I guess that’s to be expected. It’s inexplicably in black and white for like the first ten minutes then flips to color to show time has passed. Get it. There’s a lot of shaky-cam and super dark shots which, while a sort of relief since it means you can’t see anything, it also means that you can’t fucking see anything. This movie rides the edge of almost being funny sometimes which can be kind of enjoyable, but really it’s just over the top but not in an entertaining way. There is an actual zombie horse in this movie which busts through the wall and proceeds to attack the family and it’s played deadass straight. Also the CGI is ridiculous at some points. There’s a lot of yelling for no reason and people refusing to explain anything. When people finally stop yelling and explain stuff you sort of wish they hadn’t because a) nothing they’re saying actually helps you understand what’s happening, they’re just saying words together in approximations of sentences and b) it’s so ridiculous that you might as well just not have known. I can’t say it was actually that scary, just kind of nauseating because of all the blood and gore, though that was partially just me. I’m usually okay with that stuff, but this one was too much. That’s really subjective so keep that in mind I guess. I really can’t imagine what this movie is good for except if you like really stupid horror movies and don’t care about the blood? Even then there has to be better ones you could pull for your bad movie night. I guess Fassbender as Wirth is sufficiently intimidating, though really it could be anyone in that makeup and he has about four total lines that aren’t muttering. (I guess kudos to the makeup team….they did their job fine.) This was seriously in my top spot for Actual Worst Movie on this list. The fact that it got topped sort of tells you how horrible the other one was but….we’ll get to that soon enough.
Warnings: Lots of blood and gore. Also animal death. And rebirth but mostly death. Just gross shit in general. Also CGI zombie horse.
Recommend?: Don’t do it buddy. I suffered so you could live—save yourself.
Slow West (Silas)
Rating: 5/10
Quick Summary: A boy named Jay is riding across the Old West™ in search of a girl named Rose he’s infatuated with who moved from their home of Scotland to America. Along the way he runs into a Silas, a gruff, quiet man who all but forces Jay into paying him to act as a guide and bodyguard on his travels. Jay doesn’t have much choice but to accept and the two set off. Jay is idealistic and pretentious, particularly when it comes to his ideas of love and Silas is uninterested in forming personal connections, so the two don’t get along well. Still, begrudgingly they form a bit of a father-son relationship as they go. Truthfully, Silas has his own reasons for helping Jay outside of making a quick buck: Rose and her family have a fairly large bounty on their head. Along the way, however, they run into a group of bounty hunters Silas used to “drift” with who are also hunting Rose and her father and Silas begins to have a change of heart.
Some Thoughts: I really wanted this movie to be good. In fact, I sort of thought it would be? Ultimately it was pretty disappointing. It’s a really well-shot movie, but it’s sort of a case of interesting concept, poor execution. None of the characters speak like normal people in this movie. Jay is our protagonist, but he’s often insufferable at the best of times. He’s meant to be young and stupid with stars in his eyes, but it gets irritating after a while. He’s chasing after his manic pixie dream girl who’s already moved on without him and probably didn’t like him that much in the first place, but the movie doesn’t really address his flaws or do much with him at all. Silas is kind a stereotypical tough guy who’s been forced to harden his heart to survive, but we learn almost nothing about him so it’s difficult to be very sympathetic to his cause other than he’s much less insufferable than Jay. There was so much opportunity for interactions between the two of them, but?? They really fell flat. There’s a couple short exchanges but there were entire conversations missing from this movie that could’ve helped to develop characters and relationships. More than anything it needed some good fleshing out. A lot of stuff just sort of happens in the film as well and you have to accept it. Silas showing up and extorting Jay is funny but also completely unexplained. At one point a German dude in the middle of a field steals all of Jay’s belongings after they talk a while and is never mentioned again. The group of bounty hunters Silas left seem interesting, but we don’t ever get to learn about them. More than anything, the movie is made up of long shots of people riding across landscapes and that’s about it. There’s no real heart in it and it’s really a shame because it could have been something great. It’s not the worst one on here, but it’s definitely the definition of mediocre.
Warnings: Some blood and violence, mostly due to shoot-outs. Nothing too horrible.
Recommend?: Not really. I guess if you want to see it it wouldn’t hurt since it’s short but it’s nothing special.
Song to Song (Cook)
Rating: 4/10
Quick Summary: This movie is...sort of plotless but I’ll try anyway. Basically it follows the romantic/sexual escapades of a woman named Faye, as well as those of the people she becomes involved with. Faye is a skinny, white, quirky hipster-type living in Austin, Texas for some reason doing very little other than standing around and thinking about how messed up she really is. She begins with Cook who is a Douchebag with basically no redeeming qualities and therefore, by default, a music producer who seemingly ruins everyone who comes near him. Meanwhile she starts seeing BV who at least seems like a decent person if also completely lacking in personality. The rest of the film really is just about their relationships and is mostly composed of very pretty if unrelated shots of the actors standing around posing and wanking on about love/sex and the meaning of life or whatever.
Some Thoughts: From what I can gather this is sort of film is kind of typical of this director. The movie is sort of a collage of unrelated shots, all of which are very beautiful, but that’s about as deep as it goes. There isn’t really any normal interaction between characters, just monologues where characters philosophize about pretentious topics for hours without ever really saying anything of meaning. Really there aren’t characters in this movie, just paper-thin facsimiles of characters. They run around doing quirky things like writing in lipstick on a mirror and chasing each other around the middle of the desert, but never actually interact in any normal way. The narrative is there, sort of, but it’s not interesting in the least. Really it’s a vapid bunch of nothing with a shiny topcoat sprayed on. By forty minutes in I was exhausted and this thing is two hours and ten gotdamn minutes long. I think if it was a shorter maybe it’d be a little more excusable? Probably not. It’s the sort of film you’d expect from a pretentious film student in an attempt to create True Arte and there’s definitely an audience for that sort of meaningless, shallow thing, but not much. It was just sort of exhausting to sit through in the end. It’s never explained why anyone is the way they are, particularly Cook who I guess has been Ruined by the Music Industry and poisoned by Greed or something. I guess I should point out that all this is accompanied by some decent music and is supposedly set against the background of Austin’s music scene. It has nothing original to say and goes on for way too long. Yet another in the category of “look pretty and do as little as possible.”
Warnings: Lots of sexual themes, drug usage, and warning for themes/mild depictions of self-harm. Also just warning for the pure lack of substance this “movie” has.
Recommend?: No, don’t subject yourself to this. If you want to watch an Art movie, there are better ones and shorter ones to boot.
Angel (Esmé)
Rating: 4.5/10 (the variance in my ratings leaves something to be desired I’m sure but a lot of these really are just okay)
Quick Summary: Angel is a young, self-righteous aspiring writer who succeeds in her dream of becoming a great author and gets rich doing so. Because of this she meets Nora and Esmé, brother and sister. She becomes good friends with Nora who is a great fan of hers, even taking her on as a personal assistant. In contrast, she fawns after Esmé, a typical tortured artist sort whose paintings are misunderstood by the general public and whose attitude leaves something to be desired in spite of Nora’s warnings that he’s something of a playboy. Angel flatters her way into a relationship with him, mostly by pretending to like his art and the two end up engaged and married. After the initial honeymoon stage, Esmé begins to lose interest in Angel who is as narcissistic and vapid as ever. A war begins and he goes to fight in it despite Angel’s protests, which turns out to be only the beginning of the troubles their relationship faces.
Some Thoughts: This movie is a melodrama straight up. It rides the edge of humorous sometimes, but could have done with a bit lighter of a tone in my opinion. In a lot of ways it was a breath of fresh air after the complete lack of any normal human emotion in the past two movies I’d watched (more so in Song to Song but still) so I probably was little more endeared to it than I would have been otherwise. Really I was sort of hoping for a Meg Ryan-esque movie where Fassbender was the alluring man-prize and Angel was the witty, endearing protagonist chasing after him. But……that is not what happened. Angel herself really…is not a likeable character. She’s rude and narcissistic and shallow and she’s rewarded for it. She gets everything she could ever want and never learns or changes until the very end and even then it’s arguable how much she actually learned. As a child she’s insufferable and she just never grows up. Esmé is an asshole and very much the stereotypical misunderstood artist type. His paintings are dark and therefore a reflection of his empty soul you see. Angel panders to him and at first it sort of seems like they deserve each other since they’re both awful. Ultimately Esmé wins out for biggest piece of shit however which maybe garners Angel a bit of sympathy. Nora and the editor are both decently likeable characters and the scenes with them in them aren’t the worst. I sort of liked Esmé and Nora’s relationship in that they actually acted like siblings most of the time. It’s just a sort of silly melodrama with a couple of strange dark elements thrown in without explanation. The backgrounds when they’re driving around are hilarious, I’ll give them that. But otherwise, the protagonist is annoying and learns nothing and that’s a pretty big issue. If you don’t mind melodramas/soap operas maybe you’d like it okay? Otherwise it’d probably just be irritating after a while.
Warnings: Attempted r*pe and depictions of suicide. Also ridiculously fake backgrounds
Recommend?: Not really
The Counselor (The Counselor)
Rating: -300/10 1/10
Quick Summary: I couldn’t explain this movie to you if you paid me actual money. It has no conceivable plot. It’s about drugs, supposedly, but who could say for sure? Unfortunately someone messes with the drugs which makes people not happy which means something Bad is going to happen, but off-screen somewhere, you know, where all interesting things in this movie happen. Brad Pitt is there. So is Penelope Cruz until she gets fridged. Michael Fassbender is The Counselor™ and that’s literally all I can tell you about his character or part in this movie. Even this much is probably speculation. It doesn’t matter anyway nothing fucking matters let’s just move on please god I’ve wasted too many brain cells on this already—
Some Thoughts: FUCK THIS MOVIE AND ITS NO REDEEMING QUALITIES. I thought Blood Creek was the worst…….how little I knew….. this really was the worst, and by worst I mean The Fucking Worst. This may well be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. This movie make Suicide Squad look like a masterwork in cinema. Its plot is completely incomprehensible. It seems as if they filmed everything, cut the parts they didn’t like, accidentally deleted it, then said “Fuck it” and just scooped everything up they’d cut off the editing room floor and used that instead. The cinematography was horrible. The lighting was shit. The dialogue is atrocious. It goes nowhere and is baffling constantly. The characters just stand around and ramble on like they’re all in freshman philosophy class. You don’t know anyone or why anything’s happening. I swear to god they never tell you what’s happening or why. Not once. They never explain anything beyond the fact that there are some drugs and then something goes wrong with the drugs. What? Who knows. How? Like we’d fucking deign to tell you. People come on screen who you’ve never seen before and never will again. Nothing in this movie matters. The characters are all sex-obsessed and insufferable. Everyone in the cast deserved better than this movie, even Brad Pitt who’s playing Billy Ray Cyrus as a drug lord. I have never seen Fassbender so fucking checked out of a movie. Usually even when everyone else is dragging along he’s putting in some effort, but not here and god do I not blame him. His character is just…..inexcusable. He does nothing but stand around and ask dumbass questions. Nothing ever happens to him. HE IS THE TITLE CHARACTER OF THIS MOVIE AND HE DOES NOTHING. BRAD PITT DOES MORE THAN HE DOES. He just listens to other people talk and then is sad. Boy is he sad. We don’t know what he does or how he does it or how he got into this or why the fuck we should even care. He doesn’t even have a real name. Poor fucking Penelope Cruz is in this mess as well and is nothing but an object for man-pain. I’d also like to point out how ridiculously sexist and pretty racist this movie is?? Because it is. Cameron Diaz…..I’m so sorry sweetie……. There are no words for how horrible your treatment is this movie is. You see, she’s terrible because she’s a Bad Woman and therefore Evil and Conniving. She uses her Womanly Wiles against poor innocent men who don’t know any better. No words could describe how terrible this movie is. The fact that anyone would try to defend it is beyond me. I’m cannot believe I wasted two hours of my own human life on this nonsense. This one really is the worst of the worst, the indubitable worst movie on this entire list which, considering some of its competition, is mind-boggling. Blood Creek at least has a plot, stupid as it is. It knew what it was going for. Things happened and made sense. You couldn’t pay me to sit through this again. I have no idea what Scott was going for and I don’t want to know. I fully plan to repress this movie from my mind and never think about it again. Next person to mention it to me again will be blocked so help me god I don’t want to hear another word about it ever. This topic is banned for eternity.
Warnings: There aren’t enough warnings in the world that could prepare you for this shit
Recomm—I BEG OF YOU DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SAVE YOURSELF IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY WATCH THE ROOM OR SOME SHIT IF YOU WANT THAT KIND OF LAUGH THIS IS EXCRUTIATING DO NOT PAY TO SEE THIS PLEASE I SUFFERED SO YOU COULD LIVE HEED MY WARNING, YE WHO VENTURE HERE. PRESERVE YOUR INNOCENCE AND AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS PLEAS—
The Light Between Oceans (Tom Sherbourne)
Rating: 8/10
Quick Summary: Tom Sherbourne returns home after several years fighting in the war and takes a job watching over the lighthouse on Janus, a small remote island. It’s a lonely job, but one Tom welcomes readily enough. Before he leaves he meets Isabel Graysmark and the two become interested in one another. When he returns again in order to accept an offer to keep the job for a longer period of time, they go out together and begin a romance. They send letters back and forth when Tom returns to the island and eventually get engaged and marry. Isabel moves out to Janus with Tom and the two are happy. They try to start a family with little success. After two miscarriages Isabel is discouraged and somewhat depressed as having children is very important to her. As if by fate, right after they lose the second baby a boat washes ashore on the island carrying a dead man and an infant which somehow survived. They take in the baby for the time being and Isabel is ecstatic, but Tom warns that they must report the incident and turn the child in. Isabel is desperate however and the two end up conspiring to keep it a secret and pass the child off as their own, burying the man despite Tom’s continued guilt and protests. Little do they know this will lead to greater consequences than either could have ever imagined.
Some Thoughts: In spite of the mixed reviews this movie got, I really enjoyed it? It was the first decent movie I’d watched in a while during this escapade so that might have contributed to it, but I thought it was a really enjoyable, if bittersweet story. It is a romance, but it’s also a drama and it’s not really that predictable. It’s a beautiful movie and an original story, at least to me. I agree that it’s sort of slow-paced, but I didn’t mind it. It sucked me in from the beginning and held my attention until the very end. The chemistry between Alicia Vikander and Fassbender is obvious, and the beginning of the movie is almost sweeter now that they’re married. They make a lovely couple on screen and off. I really don’t relate at all to Isabel’s desires or motivations, but she was still a sympathetic character and Vikander did a great job playing the role. I was glad to finally see a movie of hers. It was also kind of nice to see Fassbender play a genuinely good person, not that I don’t usually enjoy his armada of morally grey parts. It was just a change of pace I appreciated. I thought everyone’s motivations were clear and I was excited to see where the movie would go with itself. It definitely got some tears out of me and while it’s an emotional ride, I don’t think it was overdone necessarily. The ending was as good of one as I could have hoped for considering the plot of the thing. It was a strong film with strong performances in my opinion. I enjoyed it even though I’m usually not one to favor straight-up romances. I’d also like to add that seeing that shit mustache shaved off on screen was incredibly cathartic and this movie deserved an award for including that scene alone.
Warnings: The miscarriages might be off-putting for some people but otherwise, it’s pretty clean.
Recommend?: Yeah, if you like dramas at all, this is a good one.
Haywire (Paul)
Rating: 5.5/10
Quick Summary: Mallory Kane is a special-ops agent of some sort working for a private company. She’s known for being very good at her job, and is hired to rescue a hostage in Barcelona. The operation goes smoothly enough, and she decides to take a break, but is approached immediately afterward by her boss Kenneth. He begs her to take one more quick job in Dublin, working with an MI6 operative. She agrees begrudgingly since she has plans to quit her current job and move on, and heads out. However, once she arrives she finds herself suspicious of the operative Paul and their mission. Her suspicions are soon confirmed as she finds herself under attack without warning from all sides, forcing her to go on the run where she both struggles to survive and find out who wants her out of the way and why.
Some Thoughts: I was actually really interested in this movie, just from the premise and it turned out to be alright. I wouldn’t say it was disappointing, but it wasn’t anything special. Forgettable is probably the operative word. It sort of felt like a 90s movie for some reason, and as though it had a smaller budget than it actually had. Still, even if the execution was kind of shaky with the acting usually mediocre at best in spite of many big names taking part, the concept was one after my own heart. I really like female-led action/spy movies and I gave it props sort of because of that. This movie sort of felt like a precursor to something like Atomic Blonde which was similar in concept but better executed, having come out more recently. Gina Carano is really incredible, just in general, and she plays Mallory. I believe she did most of, if not all her own stunts and that’s always amazing to me. She is as stoic as any James Bond-type and, shockingly, is not sexualized at any point in the film. Frankly Fassy probably won that award since in the 15 minutes or so he was on screen he managed to come out wearing only a towel for no discernible reason. Fassbender has another bit part here, probably even smaller than the one in Inglourious Basterds. He’s fine and just more of a plot device than anything else, on and off screen real quick. It is true that a lot of the characters are plot devices and not that complex. The plot is all eventually explained, but it walks a binary of being too obvious and then too vague. The cinematography was sort of strange, as was the music. It was oddly silent for the most part, like they shot a scene then forgot to add the soundtrack. What music is there is sort of ambient and ill-fitting usually. It was pretty short and that helped it not be weaker than it was. Sort of another nice concept, not great execution sort of film.
Warnings: It’s rated R but it has no reason to be imo. The violence is moderate. There is fighting but not a ton of blood. I was dead-ass serious when I say the most risqué thing was Fassbender’s towel scene.
Recommend?: I guess in the same way I recommended Centurion, if you’re just looking for something to watch this one isn’t the worst. Maybe watch it to see Carano at work.
Assassin’s Creed (Cal Lynch)
Rating: 5.5/10
Quick Summary: Cal Lynch finds himself on death row having been charged and found guilty of murder. Just as he is about to be euthanized, he finds himself rescued and drug off into a strange facility. There he meets Sofia who insists he’s been saved to help them in their quest to bring an end to all violence in humanity. He resists but is forced to help them anyway. He finds himself attached to a machine called the Animus which links him to his ancestor, Aguilar and allows his memories to be viewed. Aguilar is part of a group of people who call themselves assassins. They fight against the Templars in a battle for free-will. The rest of the movie plays out as Cal struggles with his past and must choose between helping Sofia by going against everything his ancestors stood for or becoming an assassin himself.
Some Thoughts: Some background: I was probably, somehow, the perfect person to watch this movie. I assume there are others like me, but probably very few. The thing is, I have really positive memories about Assassin’s Creed. It holds nostalgia for me because I used to like watch my dad or brother play it, but never played it myself because I’m Shit at video games. Therefore, I know nothing about the plot and thus can’t contradict them for getting stuff wrong, but have a fondness for the series that would make me interested to see the movie nonetheless. I suspect that’s why I didn’t hate it as much as everyone else. It really isn’t the worst thing ever. I would say I even enjoyed the first three-fourths or so. The last fourth was a mess, but I’ll get to that. It felt like a strange case of poor concept, good execution. All the acting was really good. I can’t believe they dragged Marion Cotillard into this, but boy did they. She did a great job as usual at least. Her arc really was the more complete one in comparison to Cal’s. Fassbender does a good job as well. I actually kind of enjoyed the fight scenes, endless cutting notwithstanding, and you could tell a lot of work went into them. The atmosphere and cinematography was nice I thought, or at least reminiscent of the game. I could tell they were trying to make it look similar. The actual plot was where it fell flat. The McGuffin was stupid and made no sense whatsoever. The whole idea of violence and free-will being genetic is really dumb and sort of offensive? I don’t know if that was part of the original plot or not, but still.
Cal’s arc really made no sense. (Also jeez, what a shitty time they give him, dragging him straight off death row, into a strange place, straight into a weird gigantic machine….) The first half was fine, you get why he’d want to go back in the Animus and screw the assassins, but then he suddenly changes his mind. That flip, along with the ghost parents and all the other assassins suddenly trusting him after he fucked them over makes no sense and was not explained. The whole end scene was inexplicable. How’d they get there? Why’d they all go if Cal was only gonna kill the one guy? The fact that it was a clear bid for a sequel was….unfortunate and embarrassing. Overall, it wasn’t the worst. I do think people are being a little hard on it, but I’m probably biased since I really don’t know what they got right and what they didn’t. As a layman, it was tolerable. I was expecting it to be The Worst, and since my expectations were so low, I ended up having an okay time.
Warnings: None really. Maybe some blood, but it’s a pretty clean movie.
Recommend?: Not really
BONUS
A Bear Named Winnie (Harry Colebourn)
Rating: 8/10
Quick Summary: Harry Colebourn is part of the Canadian army being deployed to help fight in World War I when, on the way, he finds and saves a bear cub from being skinned. Unable to leave her, he brings her with him, naming her Winnie and declaring her the division’s mascot. Responses from superiors range from begrudgingly accepting to upset and demanding he get rid of her, but he keeps her around anyway. The division grows to love Winnie and Winnie becomes fully domesticated. This poses a problem when they have to head to the front and are unable to take Winnie with them. Harry and the others must find somewhere she can be safe and live a good life without them.
Some Thoughts: I thought I was done but…..this one was free on prime and it just looked too cute to pass up. Really this is a kids’ movie but it’s really adorable and pure. The bear cubs are actual bear cubs and they’re great. It’s like a horse movie, or a dog movie, but with bears, which makes everything hilariously ridiculous because they’re just going around with an actual-ass bear acting like it’s all chill and not a problem. Fassbender is so young in this it’s fun to watch after seeing all the other ones. If you’re interested in just watching him play with bear cubs for an hour and a half this is the movie for you, and really, who wouldn’t? The army subplots in the background are….kind of stupid and go nowhere but again, it’s a kids’ film so that’s sort of to be expected. It’s actually based on a true story and Winnie is the bear who Winnie the Pooh was based off of which makes it that much more adorable. Really it’s just a heart-warming, good time if you like animal movies. I cried at the end because I……am not allowed to watch animal movies I swear to god even happy ones destroy me. I clearly have nothing bad to say about it, it’s cute and good and free. This was the True Good End to the Fassathon we all deserved.
Warnings: None this is seriously the cleanest movie on this list. It’s rated PG or some shit which is unheard of….
Recommend?: Yes it’s really cute
(previously: pt. 1 / cont. in pt. 3)
#fassathon#shut up alice#you can tell when i started getting tired i feel like#it's probably because the second half had the worse ones in general#fun fact: i'm pretty sure the counselor one was a full fucking page of text in and of itself#someday i'll chill but not today#just gonna post it all at once and get it over with#like ripping off a bandaid you know#FUCKIGN TYPO ABOVE THE READMORE#not that this deserves better..........
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Most everybody knows that Medea kills her children to take revenge on their two-timing father Jason. But “Mojada,” playwright Luis Alfaro’s modern-day adaptation at the Public Theater, zeroes in on a little-noted fact about the character – that, in following Jason, she became a foreigner in a foreign land. In Euripides’ telling in his play “Medea” 2,500 years ago, Medea is a “barbarian” princess and enchantress from the faraway kingdom of Colchis in exile in the Greek city-state of Corinth. In Alfaro’s retelling in “Mojada,” Medea is a gifted dressmaker from Zamora, Mexico who has become an undocumented immigrant in Corona, Queens.
“Mojada” is sometimes clever in the ways in which it transposes the specifics of Euripides’ story and characters; sometimes the contemporary parallels feel forced. But the main strength of “Mojada” is in presenting the details of the experience of the 21stcentury Latinx exile in scrupulous and credible detail — often harrowing, sometimes amusing. By telling this story as an adaptation of an Ancient Greek tragedy, the everyday and oft-ignored traumas of the undocumented are invested with the aura of significance that they deserve.
Alfaro establishes this aura in the very first moments of the play, when Medea (Sabina Zúñiga Varel) engages in a somber Nahuatl ritual in the backyard of the old house in Corona in which she lives, grasping a large banana leaf in each hand as if they were wings, and slowly waving them up and down, as she utters an invocation in the Aztec language. This ties the Mexican Medea, like the Medea of Euripides, to ancient ritual and myth . This is also the first of the suggestions throughout the play that Medea is like a bird – specifically a guaco. Jason (Alex Hernandez) affectionately calls her my guaco, and they greet each other playfully with the sound that the gauco makes – “gwa, gwa, gwa.” Indeed, Medea explains later that this is how the two met; during a storm, Jason was drawn to the song of the bird, because he figured it was perched in a dry place, and discovered that it was not a bird at all making the sounds, but Medea imitating the bird.
What we’re not told explicitly in the play itself is what kind of bird the guaco is, and learning about it offers a glimpse into the subtle aspects of Alfaro’s artistry. Certain indigenous peoples of Mexico see the bird as a healer, and, like Medea, imitate its sound. Medea in “Mojada” is viewed as a healer.
Called a laughing falcon in English, the bird is a largely sedentary bird, preferring to perch for long periods of time than to fly. The Medea of “Mojada” is certainly sedentary; she doesn’t leave the house, not even to take her young child Acan (Benjamin Luis McCracken) to and from school. For that she relies on her servant Tita (Socorro Santiago) who has been with the family since before Medea was born, and has served as a kind of surrogate mother ever since Medea’s real mother died.
But the guaca is also a predator, pouncing on its prey, which includes poisonous snakes.
Alfaro has created a character that is as close as a human can be to a poisonous snake. Pilar (Ada Maris), a long-ago immigrant from Cuba, is a ruthless real estate developer, who owns the house where Medea and her family live. Jason also works for her in construction, and he wants to get ahead by making the boss lady happy.
It’s obvious that Alfaro’s character of Pilar corresponds to Euripides’ character Glauce, a princess that the Jason of the Greek play wants to marry because of the advantages bestowed by royalty. But, unlike Glauce, Pilar is an evil schemer, who has designs on Jason that include not just marrying him, but evicting and banishing Medea, and taking her child – using the threat of calling ICE to get her way. Alfaro has turned Pilar into such an unremitting villain that she seems less like a character from Greek tragedy than from an action movie – one so dastardly and obnoxious that we are meant to cheer their inevitable violent comeuppance by the hero. What’s potentially lost in this change is some of the built-in complication in Medea’s character – or more precisely, the complication of our reaction to that character.
If there are some stumbles that make “Mojada” a less perfect realization of “Medea” than Alfaro’s “Oedipus El Rey” was of “Oedipus Rex” two years ago, it is in its own right both enlightening and entertaining, and plugged into the world around us.
Alfaro even makes an effort, largely successful, to make the production New York centric, changing it from the original setting of Pilsen, a Latino neighborhood in Chicago, where the play premiered in 2013 at director Chay Yew’s Victory Garden Theater. Yew’s direction brings out the humor in the production, in the observations of the difference between U.S. and Latin American culture and especially from the characters Luisa and Tita. Luisa (Vanessa Aspillaga) , a Puerto Rican who owns a churro cart, and wants to be called Lulu, is warm and funny as she befriends the new immigrant family. Tita’s blunt tongue is often amusing, especially in her sparring with Jason. But even the humor has an edge, the funny characters have their own sad tales to tell: Luisa had a house in Puerto Rico that was destroyed by the hurricane.
In two long monologues, Medea matter-of-factly tells the tale of how and why they left Mexico and traveled to New York. It is a tale of particular horror, involving assault and death, the stuff of dystopian nightmares, but existing right now. In the light of recent news events, it is bracing to hear Medea told to go home. She recounts one encounter: “A man is yelling at us. He wears a flag for a shirt. I don’t understand his words, but hate is the language we hear…We have come too far. It means nothing. Nothing, none of this man’s voice enters. If only he knew what it took to get this far.”
Mojada. Left to right: Benjamin Luis McCracken, Alex Hernandez, Sabina Zúñiga Varela, and Socorro Santiago i
Benjamin Luis McCracken, Socorro Santiago, and Sabina Zúñiga Varela
Alex Hernandez, Socorro Santiago, and Sabina Zúñiga Varela
Benjamin Luis McCracken, Alex Hernandez, Sabina Zúñiga Varela, and Socorro Santiago
Sabina Zúñiga Varela and Vanessa Aspillaga
Sabina Zúñiga Varela as Medea, Ada Maris as the evil Pilar, and Alex Hernandez as Jason
Alex Hernandez and Sabina Zúñiga Varela
Socorro Santiago and Vanessa Aspillaga
Alex Hernandez and Sabina Zúñiga Varela
Mojada
at the Public Theater
Written by Luis Alfaro
Directed by Chay Yew
Scenic Design Arnulfo Maldonado
Costume Design Haydee Zelideth
Lighting Design David Weiner
Sound Design Mikhail Fiksel
Hair Style Consultant & Wig Designer Earon Chew Nealey
Projection Design Stephan Mazurek
Fight and Intimacy Director UnkleDave’s Fight-House
Cast: Vanessa Aspillaga as Luisa, Alex Hernandez as Jason, Ada Maris as Pilar, Benjamin Luis McCracken as Acan,Socorro Santiago as Tita, and Sabina Zúñiga Varel as Medea
Running time: one hour and 45 minutes with no intermission
Tickets: $60 to $150
“Mojada” is on stage through August 11, 2019
Mojada Review: The Medea Story as Tragedy of the Undocumented Immigrant Most everybody knows that Medea kills her children to take revenge on their two-timing father Jason. But “Mojada,” playwright Luis Alfaro’s modern-day adaptation at the Public Theater, zeroes in on a little-noted fact about the character – that, in following Jason, she became a foreigner in a foreign land.
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