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elionwriter · 3 years

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STAR WARS TOP TEN CHARACTERS AND RELATIONSHIPS (PART 3)

7) PADME AMIDALA

Usually when characters are "TOO GOOD" they end up being unrealistic and unlikable. NOT HER! A queen by election, an uncompromising senator, a great speaker, a true defender of democracy, a politician that fights in the front lines if necessary and definitely the one true fashionista of the Galaxy. Padme, both in stile and principals, reflects all the good and opulence of the High Republic, an age of stability, greatness and awareness in which debate was a preferable weapon to actual weapons even though she had no problems handling a blaster. Even though we are presented with many great politicians throughout the series no one is quite as resourceful or capable as her. Not even the great Bail Organa. She manages to gain and hold the respect of most senators, even her rivals, despite her young age; she brokers seemingly impossible negotiations, at one point almost bringing the Clone Wars at an end via a peace treaty with the Separatist Alliance; with a single speech she stops the production of new clone batches saving the Republic from bankruptcy. And yet, despite all this wisdom and capacity her greatest asset is her pure and kind heart. It's truly heartbreaking that she of all people found herself in such a painful and controversial relationship. Her love for Anakin is ultimately her downfall as she realizes too late how far gone he is. If anyone ever died of heartbreak is her. It seems a contradiction that someone so strong could abandon herself to sadness in such a manner and yet this single weakness makes her all the more precious, pure and beautiful. With her death all the goodness of that age is burried too leaving the Galaxy colder, dimmer and scarier.

8) HERA SYNDULLA & SABINE WREN

While the entire Specter crew is worthy of the spot, I want to celebrate its queens. I already called Ashoka Togruta pride, but for a species whose females are usually objectified and reduced to cantina dancers, Hera really elevates Twi'leks to the next level. Daughter of a famous and respected leader, Hera inherits that leadership and creates her own rag-tag team to guide the Galaxy towards insurgency against the Empire. It's always a brave decision to stand up against power and tyranny but to do so when one doesn't even know if they're alone in that effort is a titanic feat. Hera leaded the Spectres before the rebel alliance was even formed and had a pivotal role in their operations both as a strategist and an A class pilot. Acting as the mother of the crew she is one of the main reasons the other characters of her team remained alive and bloomed to their full potential. If it wasn't for her, Ezra Bridger wouldn't have joined the fray. Also, she manages to make Han Solo admit that the Ghost is better than the Falcon. Can one blame Kanan for falling head over heels in love with her? And Sabine, well...she is proof that one can be level-headed and hot-headed at the same time. A sassy, trigger-happy, genius, teen Mandalorian with a talent for street art. If you don't love her for this alone then it's definitely all her colors and wicked style that are gonna knock it out of the park. Not only does she change hair-cut and dye each season of "Star Wars: Rebels" she gives her armour a different paint-job too! While Din Djarin's armour is probably the most beautiful and impressive structure and defence wise, Sabine turned hers into a proper masterpiece. Her artistic merits are so good that even art expert Grand Admiral Thrawn wants to collect some of her works. At one point, she wields the dark sabre and manages to unite Mandalorian clans against the Empire's puppet leader. The fact that she had been accepted as a leader by her people but still decided to take a step back and pass the power to older and wiser Bo-katan Kryze is truly a point in her favour. Unforgettable is her relationship with Ezra, built on camaraderie, mutual trust and frienship. Wherever Ezra has ended up Sabine will keep searching for him until he is safely back home.

9) CAPTAIN REX AND THE 501

The prequel trilogy doesn't really tell us much about the clones and what happened during the years of their faithful service to the Republic before the tragic events of order 66 unfold. Thank goodness a lot of additional material got that covered! (Anyone watching the Bad Batch?!) All clones should be celebrated and mourned but no clone captured the heart more that Cpt./Commander Rex along with all the 501st. legion. The faithful and elite group of soldiers led by Anakin Skywalker and Ashoka has proven itself both in and out of the battlefield. Not only did this squad survive the treacherous General Krell, they managed to win the battle he was actively trying to sabotage, get a full confession out of him and imprison him. Not only this, it was one of the squad members, Fives, that almost uncovered the full plot against the Jedi order designed by Chancellor Palpatine. While all clones regarded each other as brothers there was a special bond that tied the men of this group and its leaders. Rex went to extensive lengths to retrieve his lost companion Echo, a move that Anakin supported; Fives ran to Rex and Anakin to reveal his discoveries and had they all not been interrupted, even in his frenzied state, the two seemed willing to listen to his side of the story. There was a solid complicity and trust between Anakin and his men to the point that he revealed to Rex his secret relationship with Padme (Something he didn't openly speak of even with Obi-Wan and Ashoka) and told him of her pregnancy. In exchange, Rex always trusted his general even when he got them all in the most dangerous and unorthodox situations, looking up to him and regarding him as the best of the Jedi even years after the war had ended (when complimenting Kanan's skills he purposefully underlines that he's still not as good as Skywalker). But the most heartwarming instance of all is when Rex and the 501 greet Ashoka, banished from the Jedi order and the military, with painted helmets to remind of her markings still referring to her as Commander. Rex goes always above and beyond his duty, aiding Ashoka and the rebellion years after being dismissed from service. Even as an old timer, he proves that the new Stormtroopers have nothing on him and that he is truly the ultimate soldier and friend. I only wish he could have met Luke, considering he was one of the very few who knew Anakin was expecting a child and he never realised that Anakin hadn't died at the end of the war but had become Darth Vader.

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facepalming-since-chernobyl · 4 years

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My brain is rotting

Maybe isntead

All dumb shit - (x)

“ Whether or not you believe Lena Luthor was behaving out of character on Supergirl season 5 or not, there’s no denying that Lena has a lot to make up for and make right on Supergirl season 6. “

yeah, out of character. She was never manipulated by her brother, never killed people,never threw a tantrum, never did morally wrong experiments, never was sure she is right when she wasn’t, was never blinded by her emotions, blah blah blah

It’s clear that there is a lot to be done with Lena Luthor during Supergirl season 6 after a season of her siding with her brother and the writers consistently destroying the relationship between Lena and Kara over the big Kryptonian secret.

What a lot? All they need to do is put the bitch in jail. Tell me, why Lena won’t admit on public she was hapily helping Lex with lobotomizing whole fucking humanity? That she kidnapped and enslaved people? Why? Because she KNOWS she would end in a jail. What makes her a fucking coward. What makes her redemption a SHIT.

If there’s any way to make sure this is done (and done correctly), it’s to bring Lena into the fold and give her a pivotal role in these stories. Let’s start by making her a super friend.

Pivotal. LOL. She HAD pivotal role in season 5 and that’s why this season SUCKED BALLS. And she was a superfriend. And guess what? She used Kara and manipulated them all, put them in DANGER, because she was butthurt.

Making things right needs to be Lena Luthor’s top priority on Supergirl season 6. She really screwed up. (I personally don’t agree with the narrative that the show painted of Lena’s actions, as it was very clear that her past abuse and trauma was clouding her judgment and she was actively being manipulated by one of her abusers, but nonetheless…) Her relationships are in shambles, but for the first time in her life, she has the chance to put the pieces back together.

I’m dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Her top priority should be going to police and confessing her crimes. But we all know she won’t, because she is a coward.

Sure, you don’t agree because Boo Hoo Hoo Luthor showed her true colors. Yeah, sure, she had traumatic past and Lex and Lilian abused her all the time, we just don’t know how exactly. Plus, sorry not sorry, your traumatic past don’t give you the rights to kidnap, enslave, manipulate, lie and torture people. And plan to lobotomize whole humanity because you are too poor to go to theraphy... WAIT.

STOP excusing abusers and toxic people’s behavior. It’s fucking disgusting. Especially when all what they have to do is cry (crocodile tears) and help to fix shit THEY CREATED. ONCE AGAIN.

The abuser she first SHOT IN COLD BLOOD and then happily work with, when he was magically brought to life, because oh yeah, he made Luthors look good. LOL

Her relationships are in shambles and it’s her fault. What first? She had that chances in s2.

Lena’s finally seen the light and the truth about who Lex and Lillian are, so it’s given her a new lease on life, one where she can begin to put her past behind her and move forward for the first time in her life. She can, hopefully, start to have a life that isn’t constantly dragged down by her family. And I think the best way to do this is to make her an official super friend.

I’m dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying. Lena shot Lex with cold blood because she knew who he was. And then she was still manipulated by him. For the THIRD TIME. And she had that life in STARCITY and she threw it away, because she wanted to be a LUTHOR. Once again, it’s on HER. She could walk away every fucking second. But she chose to stay. And do horrible

On this point I’m pretty sure she is a dumb bitch that can’t learn on her own experiences what makes me wonder about people calling her a genius.

Lena’s often kept out of the loop until the very end when she invents some life-saving device and stops the villain, which is tiresome and shows that the writers truly don’t understand the complexity of the character and how impactful her relationships with the other characters could be.

How many times the shit she “helped” to fix was HER fault? Because she knew better and didn’t listen to her friends? This is IN character and writers know exactly who she is. Sorry not sorry, canon.

I’m not saying that Kara and company are going to immediately trust Lena to be on their side and always do the right thing. That will be part of the tension of Lena joining the group at first, proving that she’s capable of helping them and being a positive addition to their group. With Lex on the loose (hopefully not for long), this provides the perfect opportunity to begin Supergirl season 6 with Lena in the fold, finding more reasons to keep her there along the way.

Sure, once again Superfriends need to offer their hand to their ABUSER and invate her to their circle. So she can fuck shit again. Positive addition, yeah - butthurt, complains, eternal bitching about how people call her Luthor, being always right, not listening to the others. But oh yeah, she can produce more kryptonite to torture Kara. Once again, why keep her? Put her in the jail, case close.

(...)now is the time that Supergirl seems to be relying heavily on the team element, and leaving Lena out would be disastrous. The entirety of the Lena vs. Kara story on season 5 could have been avoided if Lena was brought into the fold earlier (and seeing only a few alternate realities doesn’t convince me that there was no way Kara could have told Lena earlier… that’s a pathetically easy way out of the story and the writers surely know it).

Sure. Blame Kara once again for rightfully protecting herself. And sure, CANON can’t convince you that telling Lena earlier would have changed a shit. Some people can’t understand that Lena is the pathetic control freak and has to know everything, because if not boo hoo hoo, people call her a Luthor.

This is canon Lena Luthor. I’m sorry she doesn’t fit your headcanon.

And aside from Kara, Lena needs to work out her relationships with the others, too. She had minimal scenes with Alex — which is the second most important relationship to develop next to Kara and Lena’s on Supergirl season 6 — on season 5 and Brainy, too. But have Lena and Nia even been in a scene together? That’s a tragedy in and of itself. Plus, Kelly was the only one on good terms with Lena, and that could grow into a beautiful friendship, especially because of the relationship that Katie McGrath and Azie Tesfai share off-screen.

Her most important relationships are: her and her ego, her and her last name, her and her mommy issues, her and her brother. What she needs to develope is a fucking conscience.

And Jesus Christ, leave Nia out of her fucking clucthes, we don’t need her corrupting poor Dreamer (aside of the fact Dreamer is protective of Kara and is going to show Lena her middle finger in s6). Why we need being tortured but going through Lena making friends with everybody?

Lena’s been a series regular on the show for three seasons, yet she’s continuously the person left out. Nia’s a superhero and knew Kara’s identity before her, Kelly has close ties with Alex and Kara even if she’s not officially in on the secret yet, and Brainy instantaneously became part of the group when the Legion showed up during season 3. Because of the ridiculous good vs. evil story, Lena has not been allowed to grow and develop real relationships after three seasons. Supergirl season 6 must rectify that.

LOL, she was in the cricle. All the time. She just didn’t know Kara’s secret. But sure, it kept her form growing up *dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*. All of the characters that knew earlier were worthy Kara’s trust. Canon showed Lena was and is not. She is ruled by her BUTTHURT. That’s the problem with Princess Lena. She was blinded by her emotions by MONTHS. And for sure it will happen again, because Miss Luthorgirl is unable to understand her own fucking flaws and blames everyone but herself.

After painting Lena out to be a villain for the entirety of season 5, Supergirl season 6 absolutely cannot follow their history of major interpersonal developments occurring off-screen with Lena, especially when it comes to her relationship with Kara.

Not painiting. She was the villain. Yeah, all we need is focusing on Lena’s being sad and uspet and Kara trying to fix shit again. Because we don’t suffer from it since s2.

Maybe instead of wasting time on a white privileged white bitch, who makes the same msiakes all the time and never paid for it, who kidnapped, tortured. enslaved and lobotomize people and her friends, let’s focus on dansen, developing Kelly, focusing more on Alex and Alex and Kara, giving Nia more screen time. I wonder, why the author thinks Lena and her whiny ass should get anything more?

This goes for all relationships, honestly, not just those involving Lena. While I do think everyone should get these moments on-screen, it absolutely has to happen with Lena if we’re going to believe her journey going forward. Making all of these moments happen off-screen is quite a bad habit that has constantly dragged Supergirl down, but should we actually get to see the emotions and growth exploring during Supergirl season 6, there’s a lot of potential, particularly because of how talented this cast is.

Sure. But the others, REAL representation, are not that important as Lena and her privileged ass. Who needs her journey going forward? She had her chance. She fucked it more than once.

And now, amazing how this person totally IGNORED that Lena kidnapped, killed, lobotomized, enslaved, tortured Kara and hurt her physically and emotionally like NO ONE EVER HAD, that she supported and happily worked with a mass murderer and terrorist, that she planned to DESTROY Kara and her family. Like all she did was some bad things, but it was not her fault that much, because her family abused her and Kara lied to her, what a crime!, let’s not talk about what she really has done. The shit since s2. The list is LONG. Because, ha ha haaaaaa, Lena doing bad things, while being “blinded by her emotions” is NOT only s5.

Lena Luthor is not a poor victim of circumstances and her family. Her crying and helping people fixing HER shit is not a redemption. Her apologizing to Kara is not REDEMPTION. All of she has done is still THERE. If she wants redemption, she needs to PAY for her SHIT and earn it.

The problem is, I don’t give a flying fuck anymore. She can rot in jail. And tbh, this is what she deserves.

Kara deserves better. Superfriends deserve better.

#anti lena luthor #anti sc #my shit #gmo lena #antilena

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Top 10 Thanksgiving Episodes

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody! Time to eat a ton, pass out, and watch MST3K and all that. And since I already covered most of the general stuff about how diffrent this holiday is in my Loud House Review, and to reitarate to anyone having a big, 20 or so people crammed in a room thanksgiving this year

For the rest of us like all of the big three of Holidays, thanksgivings also the time for some classic episodes of television. Granted most shows stick to one, with some exceptions like friends, roseanne and new girl, but most make their one count. Thanksgiving may not be as big as the holidays it’s sandwitched in between, to the point christmas is slowly but surely trying to swallow it whole, but it’s still a time for family, fighting, and food that brings plenty of opprotunity for greatness and even with a smaller pool, I stiill had signifigant trouble narrowing down my list to 10. But I stand by what I got it wittled down to. This is my top 10 thanksgiving episodes! And for my regular readers, there’s a suprising lack of animation but i’m more than willing ot go outside that and now’s the right time, asi’m currently having a black friday sale with reviews marked down by two bucks to just 3 dollars for an episode of any tv show. Yes it’s a shameless plug but since when have I ever had shame? So with that in mind let’s chow down, it’s my top 10 thanksgiving episodes!

10. Pangs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Buffy is as a show I REALLY need to revisit. While lately, what with the abuse he did that we can’t get details on when making justice league or his you know cheating on his wife on and off over a decade, I’m not at all a fan of series creator Joss Whedon, Buffy itself is still a classic in my eyes.

The tale of a teenager given the role of the Slayer, a chosen female asskicker given moderate super powers and the duty to defend the world from vampires and other ghouls. The show dealt with the usual teen superhero stuff, ballancing asskicking with saving the world and arguably codified the genre, to the point I hold it at least partially responsible for the bigger wave of teen heroes in the 2000′s in animation and comics. The show had smart dialouge, metaphors, mythology and a rich, and vibrant cast. Sure some things haven’t aged well like an adult vampire dating a teenager or the really dated ways Willow’s sexuality were handled, as groundbreaking as it was, from barely letting her kiss her girlfriend or be shown being intimate iwth her, or just entirley shutting out the posiblity she’s bisexual. But a few age wrinkles aside the show is still good and I still need to rewatch it and that includes our number 10 pangs, one of hte most memorable and well done thanksgiving specials and one fo the shows more comedy moments. It’s thanksgiving, and Buffys mom’s going out of town, so she decides to hold thanksgiving at Giles place to bring her slowly drifting surrogate family together. Naturally given the way things usually go for our Slayer, she has a hard time of it as Willow chafes at celebrating colonolsim, Giles dosen’t get what the big fuss is about that or the meal being british, and Spike shows up looking for protection from season big bads the initiative, a secret military unit that’s chipped him so he can’t harm humans, so he has no way to eat and spends the mal tied to a chair. Oh and of course, a vengeful native american spriti from the chumash tribe has given Xander syphilis and killed a currator as revenge for his people’s suffering, so now Buffy has to fight a ghost bear if she want sa happy thanksgiving. Also Angel is back in town and being kind of a dick, but hey it leads to a good episode of his spinoff so whatever.

Pangs is just a fun episode, not only does it do well by not ignoring american colonalisim, but it just has a fun energy to it as Buffy desperately tries to have a good thanksgiving, Spike instnatly proves his worth as an addition to the gang both chemstiry and comedy wise, and we of course get this classic moment.

It had to fight it’s way onto the list, but pangs is a holiday dish worthy of sinking your fangs into.

9. The Dressing (Aqua Teen Hunger Force) Speaking of nutty fun thanksgiving episodes.. this one is simply that. I love Aqua Teen Hunger force.. even if like a lot of comedy shows it drooped in later seasons, it still has it’s classics earlier on and even later on has a few gems. But on the earlier on side we have their utterly bonkers and delightful thanksgiving episode “The Dressing”, a sequel to the Christmas Episode “The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from The Future”, which itself is an utter classic, but we’ll possibly get to that in december’s list.

The Aqua Teens are having Thanksgiving with Carl, whose naturally onlyt here for the free food and staying outside. it’s also days before or after, with black colored frito pie,a t urkey, and whatever else their broke selves could scrounge up. However, naturally, like Buffy a normal day for the Aqua Teens just isn’t complete without some weird shit happening, thanksgiving gets interrupted by the cybernetic ghost of Christmas past fromt he future, whose transformed himself into a turkey and wants to save their turkey so it can lead a rebellion in the bizzare hilarious distopian hellscape he comes from. This of course leads to him getting drunk, eating all their food and later showing up with a laser sock to murder carl after the episodes over. It’s just a fun time, a really funny episode and one of the teens more memorable outings. Not a lot to say here, it’s just really damn funny.

8. Arnold’s Thanksgiving (Hey Arnold!) Anoter classic I really need to revist but that more than earns his place here. Hey Arnold.. is easily one of the best animated shows ever. I say that with no hyperbole as it handled slice of life well while still getting dramatic when needed to, and is easily the gold standard for slice of life children’s cartoons to this day. And naturally it’s holiday specials were great, and I only r eally haven’t revisited them because they also hurt.. a lot. So unsuprisingly this one makes the list.

IT’s thanksgiving and given how chaotic things are for both Arnold and Helga’s families, our heroes are miserable. Arnold would understandably like just once to have thanksgiving on thanksgiving, his family instead doing fourth of july due to his grandmother being who she is. And Helga naturally is ignored and mistrteated as usual since her sisters home and her dad and alchoholic mother ignore her as usual even when she’s not around. What i’m saying is while Arnold’s issue is understandable, helga always wins a “whose got the shitter life” contest.

So the two flee to their teacher Mr Simmons, a character I genuinely loved and loved even more finding out he was gay as an adult, as he was a kind , supportive teacher who could be a bit softhearted but wasn’t afraid to step the fuck up when needed. But they find his thanksgiving isn’t much better, as his Mother and wont’ stop sniping at his boyfriend peter and clearly isn’t entirely comfortable with her son’s sexuality, his friend keeps snapping at peter and mooching off him, and his uncle.. well he’s just a loud asshole who wants turkey.. The kids naturally realize the meaning of the holiday, reconclie with their families who DID take genuine steps to make up for them being gone and missed them, all is well. It just shows nobody’s family is perfect, and is well done in that but also shows why thanksgiving has grown beyond it’s roots: It’s a day for families to get together and even if they may fight, recognize why they love one another. I also give the show balls for heavily imiplying a character is gay and not slapping a girlfriend on him or any of the usual bollocks: Simmons just very clearly is gay and it’s as transparent as the show could get at the time, with the show making it crystal clear years later with the revivial movie. Nice. We’ll have more servings of thanksgiving classics after the cut.

7. Slapsgiving (How I Met Your Mother) Oh How I Met Your Mother. You started out really good but boy did that go downhill fast and land in a nuclear inferno didn’t it? But I can bitch about the How I Met Your Mother Ending some other time, and probably will. In the show’s prime before they decided to stick with an ending no one wanted anymore, it was pretty great and while season 1′s also impressive Thanksgiving outing “Belly Full of Turkey” was considered, there was ultimately one slaptastic king when it came to Thanksgiving: Slapsgiving.

Naturally for this show Slapsgiving ties into the show’s suprisngly deep and rich lore: The season before this, Marshall and Barney made a “Slap Bet”, which is exactly what it says on the tin: A bet where the winner slaps the looser. And due to Barney prematurely slapping Marshall, Marshall got 5 penalty slaps to be dolled out whenever, one in that episode and another in a coda to another. For his next one though Marshall decided to outdo himself and set up a counter.. and it all comes down to thanskgiving. So we get a good ten minutes of Jason Siegel making meancing slap based refrences while NPH’s barney cowers in fear before Marshall’s wife lily pumps the breaks on the bet as comissoner.. only to reconsider when Barney makes the mistake of tormenting Marshall over it, resuling in the inevitible, and in THE thanksgiving song.

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Basically it’s what happen when you give three really funny people a subplot together. Magic happens. The subplot is not bad either as a pre-totallyinsufferabledouchebag Ted hooks up with Robin again over lingering feelings and thanksgiving prep and the two have to deal with that... though it’s mostly funny for Robin’s new boyfriend, who Future Ted acknowledges is barely older than them, but admits to remembering as decrept old man, which results in a 30 something’s dialouge coming out of a very old man and me laughing very hard. A simple joke but one that really works. Overall a slaptacular good time.

6. Two Turkeys (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

NINE NINE BITCHES! I’m honestly shocked I haven’t talked about Brooklyn Nine Nine on here already, but it’s easily one of the best sitcoms in recent memory, if not of all time. It has one of the best ensemble casts, great jokes and timing, yet still ballances things out with a sense of realisim beneath the madness> It’s also noticable for holding it’s officers more accountable than most real world police departments, to the point all scripts that were written up for next season were thrown out post George Floyd. It’s truly a joy to watch.

So naturally they’ve had their share of Holiday episodes, with them easily having the best crop of halloween episodes since roseanne with their annual heists, and having some pretty damn memorable christmases, opening with this:

So naturally thanksgiving is no exception, with it’s last two being the best and it being a really hard choice wether to go with season 4′s “Detective Santiago” or this one. But as good as the other ep was.. this one inched it out for good reason.

The episode’s split into two equally good, equally hilarious plot lines. In the B-Plot, the 99′s Captain Raymond Holt, one of the best characters in sitcom history and gay icon, and his husband Kevin take their annual trip to get a pie for Holt’s families thanksgiving and come back with the well crafted pie, even if both prefer their food nice and bland. But the pie go missing and Captain Holt procedes to hilariously drill into each of the other members of the 99 and uncovering holes int their previous thanksgving stories with Rosa’s being suprisingly heartwarming (She’s going to a humilating minons on ice show with her family because they reconnected in jail.. setting up the equally awesome “Game Night” episode where she comes out.) and Boyle’s being utterly pathetic as you’d expect (Cooking his son mac and cheese because he’ll eat nothing else and declaring him a “basic bitch”). The solution however ends up being heartwarming as the culprit is actually Kevin, who hated the pie.. as did Raymond who suggests just taking the drive anyway because they enjoy the silent ride there and back every year. It may be boring to us.. but it’s preicious and really sweet all the same.. as it is hilarous when Kevin treats this as a big endugence and seems turned on by that. What i’m saying is these men are couple goals and Marc Evan Jakcson was awesome long before ducktlaes. The main plot is also great, as Jake and Amy, now engaged after this year’s halloween episode which is also , coincidentally, the series best, try to unite their families. It just goes about as well as you’d expect as Amy’s are type a control freaks, jake’s mom is a retired hippie school teacher and his dad is a human disaster area who has to be told to put on pants, cheated on his mom constantly, somehow got her back, and in general is barely functional on a good day. The families do bond breifly but things ineveitbly break down, hilarity and severed limbs insue and family comes together. IT’s just a funny, well done 20 mintues that’s also really damn sweet, with this plot ending with Amy’s dad accepting the chaos as that’s’ts what you do with family. Also jake naturally finds out he has a ton of step siblings as his dad was and still is a man whore. Happy Thanksgiving!

5. Bart Vs Thanksgiving (The SImpsons)

Let’s face it: if you follow my reviews at all you knew this was coming. While not one I go back to due to being an emotional kidney punch, i’d be doing this list a diservice if this classic wasn’t on there. In a nutshell, Bart starts a petty fight with Lisa over her centerpiece that ends with it in the fireplace, Bart sent to his room till he apologizes, and Bart seething insiting he did no wrong. It takes a visit to the homeless shelter after running away, and ending up on the news, to realize what an ass he’s been and one nightmarish dream sequence later, seriously why do you think I don’t revisit this one that often? This thing has traumatized me since I was a kid and unlike the slap song I will not be showing it to you, has a heartwarming reconcliation with his sister on the roof. It’s just a nice, sweet special that gets the holiday just right and i’d expect nothing less from Golden Age Simpsons.

4. A Deep Fried Korean Thanksgiving (Gilmore Girls) Another show I need to talk about more, Gilmore Girls is fucking awesome. The story of a woman who ran away pregnant at age 16 and built her own life for her daughter in the quirky town of stars hollow who finds herself reconnecting with her parents in present day against her will.. is really good stuff. Funny, heartfelt and really damn well acted with one hell of a cast, the show is part of me and I make no bones about that, so it’s big thanksgiving outing naturally belongs on here. The premise is simple: Rory and Loreli end up having to go to four diffrent thanksgivings, which even for big eaters like them is a massive task, each unique and entertaining. The main event of course is Suki’s, where everyone’s faviorite chef agreed to let her husband cook the turkey.. of course with the plan to sneak in mid cooking and add her own touches. This gets foiled when Jackson and his family decide to deep fry the thing.. probably in part because Jackson knows his wife well and knows what she was planning. Though over the night while our heroines are at their other meals, it devolves into them deepfrying everything they can get their hand son including a shoe, and Suki getting plastered to tolerate it. While not topping it the other meals and the sheer lunacy of four thanksigvings in one day, are still memorable: There’s the natural posh one at Richards and Emilys, the dour joyless one at The Kims where Mrs Kim forces the band to play the whole time and forces our heroines to eat food as joyless as Mrs. Kim, and Lukes for a nice round of Rory grappling with having PDA with her boyfirend Jess before resolving it at the end. Also dean’s a jackass. No one is suprised. Jess isn’t one at this stage in his character which is. Also Kirk adopts a cat that slowly pushes him out of his own house which works comedically becaus Sean Gunn is a national treasure. Overall a really good episode and if you have netflix and haven’t checked the series out, this is a good one to try out.

3. The Thanksgiving Special (Regular Show) I already talked about this one in my top 11 Regular Show episodes so i’ll try to be brief. In a nutshell Mordecai and Rigby destroy thanksgiving and genuinelly feeling bad about it, scramble to win a thanksgiving bird from a Thanksgiving Song Contest, going up against an all star super group comissioned by Donald Trump. Yes really. Meanwhile Muscle Man and High Five Ghost go to get sides and the rest of the park staff’s attemtps to get a turkey are thwarted by a bunch of thanksgiving reinactors who go unexplained in any way shape or form which given how rare that is for regular show, which usually has some sort of explination for the madness, just makes it funnier. It ends with a REALLY touching song, a fight on a blimp with outgoing president trump, and a truly heartwarming thanksgiving meal. All in all a nice special that combines the shows madcap nature with the genuine warm fuzzies of thanksgiving.

2. We Gather Together (Roseanne) Another series I need to talk about more.. and another series where one of the creators has turned out to be a terrible human being. Seriously Roseanne Barr is is a terible person, she deserved to be removed from her show, and while the Conner’s isn’t GREAT it’s still FAR better without her. That being said I will still stick up for the original as she wasn’t the only one involved (indeed the aformentioned Joss Whedon worked on the show breifly and Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman Paladino not only worked there but later adapted one of Roseanne’s insane antics, making all the writers wear caps with a number instead of referring to them by name , to Gilmore Girls.). Her being a bad person even then dosen’t change the fact that the show is sitcom gold, one of my faviorite shows, and a true classic. And this episode helps showcase WHY.

What makes this episode special, even among Roseanne episodes is it’s structure: While there are things going on it’s mostly a free floating day in the Families life and thus feels like your there with them through thanksgiving. It feels genuine, like past thanksgivings i’ve remembered: Everyone has their own stuff going on, they all eat, and there’s naturally a big blowup.. and one that eveyrone else ignores to eat which I can relate to. That authenticity really elevates the episode and is why I seek it out every year.

That’s not to say nothing happens, it just flows in and out like it would in a normal thanksgiving. Roseanne deals with her parents, a pre-abuser version of her dad and her overbearing nightmare of a mother beverly, and the inevetible blow up when Bev’s needling about Jackie’s life goes too far , prompting Jackie to reveal her new job as a police officer before bursting into tears, all to Roseanne’s annoyance. Rosie also moves them to a hotel despite an attempted guilt trip from her mom.

Speaking of Mom’s we see Dan’s for the only time before the later seasons and the utterly terrible last season, a professional career woman whose moved on well from her ex and brought her new boyfriend there. Ed, despite some comptemplation over it is firmly accepting and instead starts flirting with the Conner’s friend Crystal. Dan, being overprotective because of his Daddy Issues, but ed cals him out on it “Being lonely is a hell of a lot for two people to have in common, you woudln’t knwo anything abotu that son, and I pray to god you never do” A great caper to a fantastic episode.. one I thought was going to top the list... THOUGHT is the key word here...

1. Turkey in A Can (Bob’s Burgers) This one is. Bob’s Burgers is one of the best things to come out of the 2010′s and i’ve fallen way too far behind on it, so I can’t say if any thanksgivings after thankshoarding top this one.. what I can say is this one is the gold standard for thanksgiving episodes, and is filled with great stuffing.

Thanksgiving is Bob’s holiday. Being a chef he loves the chance to go all out, and really flex his muscles for his families when it comes to cooking up a storm, and it’s endearing when bob gets just as nuts as his family. But this year someone keeps flushing his turkeys down the toilet despite his best efforts, so while Louise hilariously tries to solve things to proe it wasn’t her (though it’s entirely fair they thought it was her consdering.. everything), while LInda, Gene and LInda’s flighty sister Gale try to write THE thanksgiving song. And while it’s no you just got slapped, damn if they didn’t succeed.

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Sailors in your mouth indeed. It leads to plenty of great jokes the best being the guy at the Deli Counter thinking Bob’s into him and bob not being sure how to respond, but being mildly recpetive. But the climax is what makes the episode as when Bob falls asleep we find his medication has been making him sleepwalk.. and thus put the turkey s int he toilet, as Tina’s desire to be at the Grown Up Table, itslef a REALLY funny runner as you’d expect, has him panicking internally and thus reliving her potty training. The episode ends with Bob letting her come to the adults table, and a rather heartwarming thanksgiving feast. All in all an excellent episode. It also leads to the chaos seen above whic hif htat’s not thanksgiving, I don’t know what is.

Have a happy thanksgiving and check out my black friday sale! Until then there’s always another rainbow!

#thanksgiving #top 10 #bob's burgers #gilmore girls #buffy the vampire slayer #aqua teen hunger force #hey arnold #how I met your mother #the simpsons #roseanne #regular show #brooklyn nine nine #brooklyn 99 #99

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aftermathdb · 4 years

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DEATH BATTLE Review: Winter Soldier vs. Red Hood.

Our second Live-Action DEATH BATTLE, and we have a big one!

Winter Soldier′s Preview.

So, we open up on the usual commentary that these comic book superheroes get.

With Boomstick pointing out just how often the whole “Dead parents, strong sense of justice” trope has been used.

It’s times like these that make you appreciate All Might for just wanting to help people.

But, as the hosts go on, Bucky… Eventually perished.

Or, so we thought. See, comic books… Actually yeah. Just that.

Bucky got resurrected as the Winter Soldier.

He got equipped with all sorts of things, like all sorts of training, and the Infinity Formula, which gave him some extra boosts in most areas, and basically was a knockoff supersoldier serum.

Downside: all the brainwashing meant that he clashed with his old mentor, Captain America.

After a bit of overview on how deadly he is, we go into an animated segment that talks about his arsenal.

After emasculating Wiz on his robotic arm, they go over just how powerful the arm is.

Unlike the movie version, which is made up of Vibranium, the canonical metal arm isn’t as impressive. But it’s still a powerful weapon. As mentioned earlier, it’s equipped with all sorts of additional weaponry, and is likely made up of a similar alloy as the Iron Man armor.

As far as feats are concerned, they mostly cover who he’s fought, like Wolverine, Daredevil, Iron Man, and Captain America, of course.

But eventually, Cap used the Cosmic Cube to restore Bucky, and get him back on the side of the angels. The guy even took up the old Shield and Stripes when cap died for a time.

Even still, Bucky’s road to redemption is a tough one, and is filled with self-doubt. But despite that, his sheer resilience makes him a hero in his own right.

Red Hood′s Preview.

We open on a few notable sidekicks throughout history, such as Tails, Diddy Kong, Chewbacca, and Kazooie. After a bit of snark, we go to the classic, the original, the Boy Wonder: Robin. Dick Grayson.

But after their falling out, Batman needed a new sidekick.

Enter: Jason Todd, who was basically introduced to Bruce by trying to steal the tires off of the Batmobile.

The kid had a rough life, so Bruce thought that training him to be Robin would put him on the right path.

Unfortunately, as Boomstick put it, he was in a literal “Dick measuring contest” and didn’t live up to expectations. So, DC did something drastic. The fans had a choice:

Jason could live…

or die.

As history has taught us, Jason ultimately perished…

And then Superboy Prime came along, punched reality, and brought him back to life.

In the words of the great Boomstick “Take that, fanbase! Your contribution means nothing!”

Anyways, understandably pissed that the Joker was still alive, Jason decided to destroy Batman, in an attempt to prove that his merciful ways were more destructive than anything.

(Sidenote: Why hasn’t Gotham done anything about Joker? Like, what?- Does that old Diplomatic Immunity that he has keep him from getting the electric chair or something?)

Regardless, the hosts go over Jason’s arsenal and skills. He obviously has his cowl that’s his main thing.

On top of his usual guns, explosives, and knives, he also managed these… “All-Blades” to fight off the supernatural.

He also uses the same Venom as Bane.

After the typical joke of “Why is the Symbiote here?” and a jab at Wiz’s physique (or lack thereof) Wiz goes over the benefits, and the downsides of the steroid. Boomstick attempts to get superpowers by drinking it, but it’s something to inject, not consume. So… he barfs all over DUMMI.

Yeah, I kinda wish that it was a better segment.

Regardless, with this drug, he’s fought off powerful monsters, torn through alien tendrils, and even broke free of Supergirl’s grip.

He’s survived numerous things, dodged bullets, and lived through a ritual called “The Cleansing”

Be it because he was worthy, or because he was just plain stubborn, this proves that Jason is one tough SOB.

And they go over some impressive feats.

Still, Jason eventually managed to mellow out, and even teamed up with Bats and the rest of the Batfamily.

So, in the end, the best case scenario is that Red Hood has managed to land in that “Anti-Hero” sweetspot, and at worst, he’s a violent vigilante who takes the law into his own hands.

The Battle Itself.

Ismahawk is doing this battle live. Winter Soldier will be portrayed by Tyler Tackett and Red Hood will be portrayed by Tim Neff. Red Winter by John Scigulinsky, and audio led by Chris Kokkinos.

So, we get a really interesting story here, one that I assume would be an Ismahawk reference- I’d have to check out more of their channel to confirm, but basically Bruce calls Jason accusing him of gunning down some members of the League of Assassins, only for Jason to 1: Deny that it’s him, and 2:

Have some lunch.

Unfortunately, this is a DEATH BATTLE, and this season’s theme seems to be “This guy messed with my food, so I’m going to kill them” so Winter Soldier shows up.

After a brief firefight, Red Hood manages to retreat, and Winter Soldier is confronted with a battle.

After disarming his disarmed opponent, the two start doing some hand-to-hand, and they eventually take the fight to the kitchen.

We eventually go into a knife fight, and it is glorious. Like, really awesome choreography.

Anyways, Winter Soldier manages to get the Red Hood into a pickle, but the ex-Robin manages to push him off and disable his arm.

Minor complaint: That is clearly a wingding. They could have at least stylized it a bit better to make it look more distinct from Nightwing’s.

Anyways, with this brief advantage, Red Hood manages to get Bucky on the ground, but Bucky fights back with the ONE THING JASON SHOULD HAVE LOOKED FOR AND THROWN AWAY THE MOMENT HE SAW IT:

A Crowbar. Naturally, this causes some major strain on Jason’s psyche, and makes him lash out a lot more.

Anyways, the Winter Soldier takes a moment to recover his arm, while Jason picks himself back up and goes for his last trick: Venom… The drug, not the Symbiote.

And after roiding out, we get Winter Soldier’s only line in the actual fight:

So, Jason starts beating around Bucky for a bit, even managing to bring him down to the floor.

So, yeah.

Finishing blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

Verdict + Explanation.

Anyways, Wiz says the line of “This was an even match”

And to his credit… Yeah. It really was.

They were about even in all areas, and Jason’s only major advantage was stealth. But outside of that?- Bucky blew him out of the water.

Yeah, Jason had training from monks, assassins, and Batman, but Bucky’s trained with commandos, assassins, and Captain America. He took experience easily.

And when it came down to defense, Jason was out of luck.

A knife breaks when hitting the bionic arm, but the same attack cracks the Red Hood’s helmet.

Jason also had no real ways of stopping the arm for good. He could disable it for a time, sure, but it wasn’t going down so easily.

And as for breaking the grip from Supergirl?- Well, there’s a lot of context to that.

1: She wasn’t expecting the Venom. and

2: They weren’t fighting to begin with.

There’s no way that the Venom could actually match a Kryptonian’s raw strength.

Overall impression.

For the second Live-Action fight, I gotta say: That was awesome. I really did enjoy the lighting, and the choreography was really well-done.

I feel like there were some missed jokes here and there (For example, I would have enjoyed Boomstick making the comment of “Guess how I voted” when bringing up the vote to kill Jason), and the animated segment in Red Hood’s preview felt like it wasn’t informative enough. It was more of a joke that, in my opinion, fell flat.

As for easter eggs in the fight itself, like I said: I’d have to go back and try to find those for myself.

And the music felt a little muted. The first time I watched this, I was wondering if there was any music at all. Subsequent viewings does confirm this, but it really feels like the music was a bit muted.

And I gotta say: That Chekov’s Gun moment with Bucky’s actual gun was my favorite part.

9.3/10

Next Time…

Y’know, I’m glad we’re getting some Soul Eater and all, but…

Couldn’t they have at least made it Agent Venom instead? Switch it up a little, like c’mon…

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

A duo two-on-two.

#Death Battle #Deathbattle #review

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tvobsessed96 · 4 years

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Top 10 TV Episodes of 2019

10. Marvel’s Runaways- Season 3, Episode 10- “Cheat the Gallows”

I’ll be the first to admit that Runaways is not a perfect show. I didn’t like season 1 all that much, mostly because Pride’s motivations and ultimate goals were too poorly defined for my tastes. I’m not expecting a big expositional villain monologue, but I at least need to understand what the villains are trying to accomplish and why. Otherwise, it’s hard to get emotionally invested. Having said that, season 2 was a marked improvement, and I wound up falling in love with this scrappy bunch of kids anyway. Which makes it all the more disappointing that the season that proved Runaways could be something great if it tried ended up being its last. I enjoyed season 3 a lot. The writing was better, the performances stepped up to match, and as annoyed as I am that the evil alien family trying to kill everyone plot was dropped unceremoniously without a satisfying explanation partway through the season, the battle with Morgan le Fey was filled with enough danger and tension to make up for it. But rather than choose that climactic battle as my entry for this list, I went with the messy, emotionally fraught aftermath. “Cheat the Gallows” could have been a simple, somewhat patriarchal story about a man going back in time to rescue the woman he loves, but it ended up being about a family clawing its way back together after wrestling with a shared trauma. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much exactly how the show started! Talk about coming full circle. The episode also ended up being a bit of a meditation on time itself, as the older versions of the Runaways contemplate the fact that Gert’s death led them down the paths that made them who they are. Once that’s erased, so are they. This realization gives the Runaways, mostly Nico, a chance to think about what they would have done differently, leading to a powerful scene in which Nico talks with her past self and pleads with her not to make the same mistakes she did. I bet we’ve all wished we could do that at one point or another. I also like that the episode ends with the sense that, with Gert saved, the Runaways might just be okay. Even if the note left for Alex by his murderous older self adds an ominous note to the whole thing.

9. So You Think You Can Dance- Season 16, Epsiode 15- “Live Finale Winner Announced”

So You Think You Can Dance continues to be the best reality competition show no one’s really talking about. Cat Deely has been robbed of her Emmy for best host too many times, but I digress. This show is always the highlight of my summer, and season 16 was no exception. Another season of amazing choreography, amazing performances, and a truly deserving winner that I can’t really be mad about, even if I was rooting for other dancers just as much. It was another really fun season, and I can’t wait for season 17! There’s a reason Fox keeps renewing this show despite the ratings, is all I’m saying.

8. Emergence- Season 1, Episode 9- “Where You Belong”

It’s true that the first half of Emergence’s freshman season was a bit uneven. The writing isn’t quite as compelling as it could be, and it does rely on some sci-fi cliches. But I’m a sucker for a good found family story, so I stuck it out. And I’m certainly glad I did, because the mid-season finale was pretty great! An excellent sense of stakes, and enough tension to keep you on the edge of your seat without skimping on the sweeter moments. It culminates in one of the most brilliant twists I’ve seen on TV since The Good Place! I’m curious to see what the rest of the season will bring.

7. Veronica Mars- Season 4, Episode 3- “Keep Calm and Party On”

I’m willing to bet that this will be the most controversial pick on the list, for several reasons. No, season 4 of Veronica Mars was not as good as its first, and I have problems with the way Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell handled the fan response to the ending. And that’s before we get to the episode itself. Many long-time fans of the series took serious issue with the extended party scene in this episode, given that Veronica was drugged and raped at a party in high school. There’s also her mother’s own history of alcoholism to consider. But while I absolutely sympathize with those concerns, Veronica’s decision to let loose and party still feels understandable to me. Given everything that’s been going on with the bombing case, she's searching for some kind of release. And if there was a year where the desire to just forget about the world for a while, past traumas be damned, felt all too real, it was 2019. And that’s why “Keep Calm and Party On” makes the list.

6. Single Parents- Season 1, Episode 23- “Ketchup”

Will and Angie are clearly the Jess and Nick of Single Parents, which is fine. But part of me is sort of hoping they don’t get together, because their friendship is pretty great. In this episode, Will takes Angie to a terrible fast food restaurant to confront Graham’s dad about abandoning her while she was pregnant. Will ends up using a bunch of food metaphors to explain to Derek what an amazing mother and person Angie is, and it’s fantastic! Add that to Douglas and Poppy realizing their feelings for each other, and you’ve got an episode that’s as completely hilarious as it is completely sweet. If you haven’t watched this show, check it out! It’s pretty delightful.

5. Stumptown- Season 1, Episode 3- “Rip City Dicks”

Stumptown was the best new show this fall, hands down. The first half of its first season didn’t end quite as strongly as it started, but it gave us some fantastic episodes along the way. “Rip City Dicks” is one of them. Dex is hoping to apprentice under veteran PI Artie Banks in order to earn her license, but gets a cold, hard dose of reality when he sells out their client and her child to make a quick buck. Dex does learn a valuable lesson from it, though. Exactly what kind of private investigator she doesn’t want to be. The episode ends with an amazing, very feminist monologue from Dex promising Candace that she’ll get her kid back. It’s a fantastic performance from Cobie Smulders, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the season! If you’re not watching Stumptown, you’re missing out.

4. This Is Us- Season 4, Episode 7- “The Dinner and the Date”

America’s favorite cry-worthy family drama gave us plenty of great episodes this year, including a much-anticipated origin story for Beth Pearson. Out of all the possible options, I ended up choosing “The Dinner and the Date” as my entry for this list. On one hand, you’ve got a sweet story of young love set against the backdrop of Philadelphia. On the other hand, you’ve got a young Black kid trying to form his own identity in a way his white adoptive parents just can’t understand, no matter how hard they may try. It’s a beautiful episode, and I look forward to seeing what 2020 brings for the Pearson family.

3. Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger- Season 2, Episode 10- “Level Up”

Honestly, I could have chosen any episode form Cloak & Dagger’s stellar second season for this list. There’s the near-perfect three episode run of “B-Sides,” “Vikingtown Sound,” and “Two Player.” There’s also the dark, thought-provoking Emma Lahana showcase that is “Shadow Selves.” But I ended up choosing the finale, because it felt like such a perfect culmination of everything the show had been doing up to that point. Tandy and Ty take on every obstacle Andre throws at them with an abundance of grace and an unshakable faith in each other. The choice to have them literally fight each other’s demons was inspired! But the most powerful moment comes when Tandy gets the chance to confront her late father after everything she’s learned about him since his death. She tells him in no uncertain terms that she, and only she, gets to decide how big a part of her he is. She says that the only thing she can do in the face of adversity is level up. If there’s a lesson to take into 2020, it’s this. If you think you aren’t strong enough to face what the world sends your way, level up. Turn your dagger of light into a sword of light. Stare oppression in the face and say, with your whole being, “Not today.” Disney and Marvel made a big mistake in cancelling Cloak & Dagger. Huge.

2. Good Trouble- Season 1, Episode 8- “Byte Club”

I hope anyone who thought Good Trouble wouldn’t be as powerful as The Fosters is really embarrassed after these first 20 episodes, and I mean that in the best possible way. Good Trouble is everything a great spin-off should be. It keeps the spirit, heart, and progressive mission of the original show, while also feeling like its own distinct entity. It introduces an amazing cast of new characters to love, without forgetting to check in on the old ones every once in a while. “Byte Club” has to be the best offering the show’s given us so far. Facing rampant gender and race discrimination at work, Mariana rallies the women of Speckulate to come up with a set of tips to help them assert themselves in the workplace. The advice they come up with is solid, and actually really useful in real life. But it’s made even more powerful when Mariana points out that women in professional spaces shouldn’t have to jump through all these ridiculous hoops just to get recognized for having an idea! And that’s not the only powerful feminist moment of the episode. Callie discovers that the reason Rebecca ended up as a clerk for Judge Wilson is because her previous judge sexually harassed her, and her powerful family refused to do anything about it other than get her out of there. I’ll admit that Callie had no right to insert herself into that situation and guilt Rebecca into coming forward in the following episode, but it’s still an amazing scene featuring excellent performances from Maia Mitchell and Molly McCook. I’m so excited for more Good Trouble in the new year!

1. The Good Place- Season 3, Episode 13- “Pandemonium”

The final season of The Good Place has been fantastic so far, and several of the most recent episodes almost made this list. But at the end of the day, “Pandemonium” is the kind of episode that makes me want to make television. To make something that will touch other people the way this episode touched me. I could go on and on about the beautiful love story between Eleanor and Chidi. But instead, I want to focus on the final scene, in which a distraught Eleanor calls Janet into her office and demands the answer to, well, everything. What does it all mean? Because if there’s no greater meaning, then the universe is just made of pain, and Eleanor can’t accept that. Janet’s response is what really makes the scene sing, so I’ll quote it here. “If there were an answer I could give you to how the universe works, it wouldn’t be special. It would just be machinery fulfilling its cosmic design. It would just be a big, dumb food processor. But since nothing seems to make sense, when you find something or someone that does, it’s euphoria.” To which Eleanor replies that all she can do is “embrace the pandemonium” and “find happiness in the unique insanity of being here, now.” And then she steels herself, opens the door, and welcomes her soulmate who has no idea who she is into the afterlife. This is the same philosophical bent that made me adore Angel so much, and it works just as well here. This episode aired all the way back in January, and these sentiments got me through awful headline after awful headline in 2019. Catch up on The Good Place if you haven’t already. It will be going off the air soon, and our lives will be all the worse for it.

#marvel's runaways #runaways #so you think you can dance #emergence #veronica mars #single parents #stumptown #this is us #cloak and dagger #good trouble #the good place

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a-crimson-lion · 5 years

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Strengths... and Weaknesses

I think an appropriate phrase for this post would be:

"Lord forgive me... I'm back on my bullsh*t."

Anyone who's been viewing my tumblr recently knows of my excessive hatred for one Katsuki Bakugo. I have stated time and time again that he's a gigantic asshole who only managed to tone it down a notch or two as of late. He might be the slightest bit more tolerable then he was at the start (I'm not the type to say that Katsuki had no development; I'm the type to say his development is there, but it's slow and poorly executed), but he's still overall an asshole.

In fact, before I start this post, I want to make a few things clear on where I still currently stand with Katsuki, as a person who has only seen up to Season 3 of the anime and read up to the Shie Hassaikai Arc in the manga.

First off, let's address one of the more triggering parts of the series: Katsuki's suicide instigation. Horikoshi has apparently stated that he "went too far" with Katsuki in the first chapter of the manga, and for me and maybe a few others, that sounds like if Horikoshi was given the option, he might have written out that scene entirely. Well, okay then, I understand that much; I mean, Katsuki was never that level of harsh once the story started to really kick off. So what does that change?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

From where I stand, even if you ignore or flat out rewrite Katsuki telling Izuku to kill himself out of the story, that still doesn't change the fact that Katsuki is still a terrible person with very little development. He still bullied Izuku since they were kids. He still burned his notebook and threatened Izuku while burning his school uniform to not go to U.A. He attempted to harm Izuku on their first day at U.A., and during the Battle Trial, used a highly dangerous piece of support gear which could have very much killed Izuku (instead of, you know, using the capture tape?). He's still anti-social as all hell, which isn't a crime in and of itself until you realize that being a hero requires at least some form of cooperation. Even Eraserhead, an underground hero (which is probably as potentially anti-social as you can get) still at the very least has to work with other Pros and the authorities with some level of respectful communication. Katsuki's on his way to becoming the second Endeavor (which, depending on how the latter's redemption pans out, might be even worse than before).

That last bit is probably more the fault of my second grievence: the narrative coddles him too much. Yes, being consistently kidnapped by villains is very much not okay and is probably very traumatising, but that doesn't mean he's realizing he's becoming a better person. After the sludge incident, he didn't bother Izuku because he was too occupied with his own inferiority complex; he was angry at himself for not being "strong enough," and spent his time up to the entrance exam stewing in his insecurities. While at U.A., he gets no form of proper addressment for his actions. Eraserhead is willing to restrain Katsuki, but he won't expel him, or at the very least talk to him. Katsuki goes volatile during the Battle Trial, but no one discusses and addresses how much excessive force he uses. During the final exam, Katsuki isn't docked for his initial inability to cooperate and the fact that it took a literal punch to the face to begin doing such, and even then, Izuku caried his already beaten body past the gate, which means he technically passed. He should have been failed for his actions, maybe the villains wouldn't have been able to kidnap him during the Training Camp arc. Speaking of which, why doesn't he go back to camp and save his classmates the trouble? He just wants to fight, and this simple-minded desire ends up getting him kidnapped. And what does he learn from that kidnapping? Again, "he's weak." No introspection on his behavior except for a minor one before Deku vs Kacchan 2. No discussing his actions because he can't bring himself to be the bigger man and just talk to All Might. No, he has to bring out Izuku in the middle of the night and pummel him, and we're supposed to feel sorry for the kid because he's going through an existential crisis. Which I would feel bad, had it not been for the fact that it could have been avoided, AND his behavior aside, he's going through all the wrong coping methods. I don't care if he only knows how to express himself with violence, that fact alone warrants heaps upon heaps of propery therapy, NOT FURTHER VIOLENCE.

Before I officially take a complete dive into "anti" territory, let's look at one last thing.

Remember after Kamino Ward when Katsuki had Denki electrocute himself and he gave Eijiro some money as compensation for spending it on some fancy binoculars. Well, some of the antis I've seen have claimed the money was stolen from Denki. Personally, I don't see it. I can see Katsuki causing Denki to electrocute himself to show his begrudging care for his fellow classmates (even if it's still trying to grow). I can see Katsuki giving Eijiro money for his troubles, even if it's a blow to Katsuki's pride. I just can't see Katsuki stealing money from other people. Sure, he's an asshole, but he's not a thief. His morals are warped, not corrupted beyond the point of redemption.

Okay, so what dud I really want to talk about? Oh, right: Katsuki's obsession with strength.

We see this about three times in the manga. The first time is when Katsuki is saved by All Might at the USJ. He quickly dismisses Izuku's praise of him dodging because he didn't dodge: All Might pushed him out of danger. He won't take credit for a feat he didn't do. This segues into the second instance: his fight with Shoto. He wants Shoto to go all out in order to prove once and for all that he's the strongest in their class. Only Shoto is going through personal issues that Katsuki knows about because he eavesdropped. Even when Shoto manages to releaae his flames, he quickly snuffs them out because change is gradual; he still has to get used to the new implications of using his fire. (Sidenote: not an excuse for Katsuki's dickish behavior. Tenya and Shoto were initially percieved as assholes, and they managed to bridge that disconnect eons before Katsuki has.) Of course Katsuki's pissed at this, but I feel like he completely ignores Shoto's personal baggage and instead focuses soley on his physical strength. We'll get back to that later, but for now, let's move on to the third incident I can recall from the top of my head: Katsuki vs Setsuna. Remember that part of the Joint Training Arc where Katsuki saves Kyoka, because he FINALLY understands that saving people is important? Well, yes, but partially no. Katsuki didn't save Kyoka because of whatever goodness there was in his heart; he saved her because he thought getting a 4-0 victory was something worthy of the strongest heroes, and he even explicitly stated this. He's still focused on strength, and completely ignoring the more social aspects if heroism aside from prestige.

Remember after Deku vs Kacchan 2, where All Might says he focused too much on Katsuki's physical strength and not his emotional strength. Yeah, he's not the only one...

Katsuki himself never pays attention to the emotional side of himself. Years upon years of praise and his own decisions have led him to believe that his strong quirk and overall strengths are all he needs to become a hero. His brutal and excessive technique makes him a powerhouse to be reckoned with, but it also makes him predictably stubborn. Running away isn't an option, he has to duke it out with no remorse. The Number One Hero is about to curb stomp you? Don't run away and pass the test, try beating his ass and end up losing your lunch! Potentially dangerous villains trying to kidnap you? No worries, just keep fighting because you're a badass and no one tells you what to do- and oh, you got kidnapped. Even when confronting Izuku on his quirk, the possibility of Izuku getting his quirk for something other than physical prowess is a foreign concept for Katsuki. He ignores any and all chances of it being possibility, going so far as telling Izuku to shut up when he tries to explain himself, and even outright attacking Izuku after he tries deescalating the fight multiple times, only conceeding to Katsuki because he believes he's responsible for Katsuki to some extent (because Shonen Protagonist).

His obsession with strength is in character, but dear God it's getting old... and it's selfish.

Virtually everyone else trying to be a hero has a reason for getting stronger that isn't inherently to flaunt their superiority. Ochako? She wants to make money so her folks can rest easy. Tenya? He wants to live up to his family's legacy. Shoto? He wants to be able to protect his mom. Eijiro? He wants to be like his chivalrous idol, Crimson Riot. Izuku? He wants to get a better grasp on his quirk so he can save more people. Katsuki? He wants to prove that he's better than All Might from a physical standpoint, using the title of "Number One Hero" to elevate his status and earn the attention of everyone around him.

...see the disconnect?

I don't have a well thought out conclusion to this mess, so I'm just gonna close with this tidbit: Katsuki and Izuku sometimes do the same things for different reasons. Getting mad at Shoto? Izuku wants Shoto to go all out because everyone else is going all out, and he wants Shoto to move past his father's control; Katsuki wants Shoto to go all out because he wants to prove he's undoubtedly stronger. Idolizing All Might? Izuku admires All Might's ability to inspire and save people; Katsuki just pays attention to the physical strength and prestige, electing to ignore everything else. Saving people? Izuku saves people selflessly, with no inherent regard towards himself (he will gladly break a few bones or risk doing so just to save kids, for crying out loud); Katsuki only saves people because it strokes his own ego (the only time he ever truly went beyond was in an unnecessary fight against All Might; Two Heroes is the only exception). I'm pretty sure the list goes on.

I just hope that Katsuki learns somehow, some way, that physical strength isn't everything. Victory isn't everything. 'Cause if he doesn't, he's in for a world of hurt...

...and it's not gonna be something he can just explode and be done with.

-Crimson Lion (6 September 2019)

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #katsuki bakugo #katsuki bakugou #anti bakugo #anti bakugou #izuku midoriya #toshinori yagi #all might #meta #character analysis #analysis

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buzzdixonwriter · 5 years

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Once Upon A Time In Hollywood [SPOILERICIOUS]

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is now my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie even though I think a few of his others are better made films.[1]

But, man, does it ever capture the era and the vibe. In that sense it's like La Dolce Vita (and in another, like Singin' In The Rain).

I know this era, and I know Los Angeles of the time -- from the Summer of Love in ’67 through the year of unraveling in 1968 to the end of the era in ’69.

And while Hunter S. Thompson’s brilliant Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas marked the official death notice of the Swingin’ Sixties in 1971 (with a few die-hards like the Symbianese Liberation Army literally dying hard in 1974), the truth is 1969 was when it all came to an end.

Nixon won, thanks to his own now well documented treason behavior and to a few million white bigots voting for George Wallace instead of Hubert Humphrey, and (as Thompson himself noted two years later) “with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

Now some of you are saying, “But wait -- how can little Buzzy boy -- a mere lad of 13 summers in 1967 and not yet fully 16 when he finally actually visited Los Angeles for the first time in 1970 – how can he know what Los Angeles was like in that era?”

Ah, for that, my friends, we can thank television.

. . .

For those of you too damn impatient to get into the meat of my review of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, just skip this block and go to the next one.

I’m gonna pull a Tarantino here and seemingly meander in order to set up what comes next.

Even though I lived in the rural South (Appalachia mostly but with a few years in the Piedmont of North Carolina), we had this invention called television, and on this invention were these shows.

I’m not talking about Shindig! or Hullabaloo or even The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (though the latter interestingly paralleled in real time the rise and fall of what we now call “The Sixties”).

I’m not even talking about that perennial American Bandstand which started in 1952 and ran a staggering 37 seasons, grinding to a halt only in 1989 at the tail end of the Reagan Era, a pop culture show that lasted long enough for the grandchildren of its initial audience to be watching it when they finally pulled the plug.

No, I’m talking about cheap-ass, under-the-radar syndication efforts like Where The Action Is (itself a spinoff of American Bandstand) and The Lloyd Thaxton Show a Bandstand imitation that relied more on whacky humor, proto-music videos, and local-to-LA pop culture icons.

We’d see these shows (briefly back-to-back during Where The Action Is’ short run) not as cheap entertainment for teens and tweens but rather as a glorious portal into that land of myth and magic: Southern California.

In particular, Los Angeles.

(It’s not as if nobody ever did this before. In all its variations from the mid-1950s through Walt’s death in 1966, Walt Disney’s Wonderful World Of Color seemed to make every 4thshow either about Disney Studios or Disneyland itself, thus by extension priming the national pump for interest in Southern California.)

Where The Action Is and The Lloyd Thaxton Show needed to squeeze the most out of their bare minimum budgets, and the cheapest way to fill screen time was to convince some local SoCal / LA attraction to let you shoot footage of young kids (with disposable incomes, one might add) having a good -- no, great time at said attraction while listening / dancing to top forty tunes lip-synched by an astonishing roster of talent.

Look, this was back when TV was big but before it became H*U*G*E. Successful show biz folks made money but they didn’t make that much money, and popping down for an afternoon to lip-synch your latest release for Lloyd or Dick Clark was a sure way to guarantee a few thousand more sales across the country, a few more paid gigs in the hinterlands, so whyda hell not?

The Monkees tried covering the same territory on prime time, but as popular as that show was (and it stands up well to this day albeit more as an artifact of its time), it felt just too slick, too packaged, too ersatz compared to the scruffiness of Where The Action Is and The Lloyd Thaxton Show.[2]

Add to this almost weekly illustrated news and culture stories of SoCal / LA and the youth movement delivered to even the most remote rural homes via Life, Look, Time, Newsweek, and The Saturday Evening Post, and it was pretty much hard not to be aware of -- and influenced by -- Los Angeles culture in the 1960s.

And if like little Buzzy boy you were interested / intrigued / enthralled by that culture, there was a virtual tsunami of sights and sounds to wallow in, even if you lived 2,467 miles away.

On my first visit to Los Angeles in the summer of 1970, when I had just stepped off the airliner, when I was no further into the city than the gate of the airline terminal, I looked around, took a deep breath, and realized: I’m home.

. . .

So here’s the plot of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood:

Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), a fading TV star, frets over his career.

Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), his stunt double buddy, tries to boost his spirits.

Rick lives next door to Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), a vivacious young actress married to a world famous director.

Cliff the stunt man bumps into members of a crazy criminal cult.

Weirdness ensues, but everything ends happily (except for three of the cultists).

A conventional movie would have put points 1, 2, & 3 in Act One, made point 4 part of Act Two but then stretched that act out with a big pointless chase and a few small fights, and finished with point 5 as Act Three.

20 pages / 80 pages / 20 pages

Not our lad Quentin.

A screenwriting guru once observed It's A Wonderful Life has a traditional 3 act structure only it's constructed so act 1 occupies 80% of the picture. Likewise Casino opens with virtually a 45 minute documentary on the casino business so they won't have to stop and explain things as they go along with the main story.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is like that: Two hours to build up to a literal life-or-death moment in order to show that for all their sins and short comings, Rick and Cliff would not merely survive but be worthy of survival.

(Most "assemble the squad" movies have a similar structure only they disguise it by indulging in hijinks along the way viz The Dirty Dozen spending most of their movie just training.)

Points 1, 2, 3, and 4 above are Tarantino’s Act One, and based on the 161 minute running time, I’m guessing it occupies the first 130 pages of the script.

Point 5 is his Act Three, and I’d say 20 pages sounds about right there.

But what about Act Two?

That’s the beauty of this story.

Act Two is about ten minutes long and is told mostly with narration (provided by Kurt Russell, who may or may not be speaking in character as Randy, the stunt director).

The crisis point in Rick and Cliff’s story is not that they’ve intersected with the Manson family, it’s that Rick decides their friendship must end.

Now, ostensibly this is because Rick’s new Italian wife, Francesca (Lorenza Izzo), wants to cut expenses and move out of his home in Benedict Canyon and into a condo in the San Fernando Valley, a move that we know from Rick’s earlier statements that he would find shameful and a mark of his slide in status , but the unspoken reason may be that the volatile Francesca learned of Cliff’s own troublesome past (see below) and wants nothing to do with him.

So Act One tells us who these two guys are, explains their relationship in part, hints at an elephant neither wants to acknowledge, and carries us to a point where they can no longer continue as once they had.

Act Two consists of the final decisions the two make as part of this friendship, not really wanting to break it off, Cliff clearly hurt by Rick’s abrupt dismissal, yet trying to have one last good time together before parting, ostensibly not forever but…yeah, forever.

Their respective decisions impair their ability to respond to the dangers posed by the trio of killers in Act Three.

. . .

Let’s talk about Rick Dalton for a moment.

Leonardo DiCaprio proves himself to be one of the gutsiest actors of all time, playing a whiny, petulant, rude, brusque, self-involved, over-anxious crybaby of a man…

…and getting us to admire him because despite his myriad character flaws, the sonuvabitch has two things going for him and the first is a fierce dedication to his craft.

A conventional movie would cut the scenes of Rick practicing his Lancer dialog all by himself.

Tarantino realizes the audience needs to experience that in full, because otherwise they won’t appreciate his frustration at blowing his lines during filming the next day.

And when he blows his lines, Rick erupts in a epic full-bore meltdown rage aimed at himself and himself alone.

And this points to the second thing Rick has going for him: Rick knows when and how to accept help, and is thankful for it.

Without the lengthy scene of him practicing at home (and drinking too much in the process), audiences would dismiss Rick blowing his lines as par for the course.

We need to see Rick make a conscientious effort to prepare for his role, see him screwing up by getting hungover, see him blow his lines, then see him correctly shouldering the blame and taking positive steps to overcome his error and deliver an outstanding performance.

The help that Rick accepts in this scene comes from “Maribella Lancer” a.k.a. Trudi Fraiser (Julia Butters), a child method actress who refuses to break character between takes. (This is one of the most delightful scenes in the film and well worth the price of admission alone.)

Despite a rather awkward-bordering-irritating meeting, “Maribella” / Trudi feels empathy for Rick as he inadvertently confesses his own career anxiety by talking about a pulp Western he’s reading.

That he can accept this empathy from a child stands well in Rick’s favor. It shows he actually listens to others and accepts their feedback and input.

And it pays off for both of them when Rick not only comes back from his lunch break meltdown all fired up and determined to give an outstanding performance (which he does), but also when we learn he suggested a bit of business for “Maribella” / Trudi that delights both her and the director (Sam Wannamaker, a real life actor and TV director of the era, played in this film by Nicholas Hammond).

And when “Maribella” / Trudi tells Rick that his acting was some of the best she’s ever seen, he’s genuinely moved to tears.

We may shake our heads at some of the stuff he does, but we like this guy.

. . .

Part of the headshaking is due to his relationship with Cliff, his stunt double / majordomo / best friend.

Rick often seems like an arrogant prick with Cliff, seemingly bossing him around, acting like Cliff is at his constant beck and call.

We’re about two thirds of the way into the film when we learn that without Rick to champion him, Cliff would pretty much be persona non grata in Hollywood.

Cliff is known throughout the town (and Hollywood ain’t that big, folks) as a wife killer.

While some (such as Rick) argue he was absolved of any criminal intent, there’s no doubt he deliberately and personally caused the death of his wife, he didn’t merely have an accident that left her dead.

He’s a wife killer.

Most of the people in town assume he got away with murder.

Francesca, despite being an Italian starlet, may have heard the stories from other Americans working in Italy and that is the real reason she laid her foot down re Rick selling his house and abandoning Cliff as his friend.

Hell, even nearly blind old George Spahn (Bruce Dern) holds him in contempt.

Cliff can’t get hired in town unless Rick asks for him to be employed as his stunt double.

Even then he runs into strong pushback, viz Randy the stunt director who is reluctant simply because he doesn’t like the vibe Cliff gives off, and is especially reluctant because his wife, fellow stunt coordinator Janet (Zoë Bell), nurtures an enormous hate-on for Cliff based on the presumption he did indeed murder his wife and get away with it.

Cliff blows his chance of working his way back into Hollywood’s good graces by getting in a fight on the set of The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) that caves in the side of Janet’s car.

But what’s crucial in that scene is Lee explaining his refusal to fight: “My hands are registered as lethal weapons. We get into a fight, I accidentally kill you. I go to jail.”

“Anybody accidentally kills anybody in a fight, they go to jail,” says Cliff. “It’s called manslaughter.”

Sounds like Cliff may know what he’s talking about from personal experience.

When Lee learns Cliff is a wife killer, his reluctance to fight him disappears.

Nobody in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood disputes Cliff killed his wife, they dispute if he got away with murder or not. In view of his comment on manslaughter to Bruce Lee, the coroner’s verdict may not have been murder or accident but justifiable homicide

We don't know what happened on the boat in the flashback scene with him and his wife (Rebecca Gayheart).

If she attacked him with a weapon (the spear gun they carried onboard or a knife or a wrench or whatever) and he defended himself from her attack but unintentionally inflicted a lethal injury on her, then both a charge of manslaughter and verdicts of "not proven" or "justifiable self-defense" are possible.

We don't know, and that ambiguity is what makes Once Upon A Time In Hollywood such a morally and ethically complex film.

(When I next see the film, two things I'm keeping tabs on the contents of Rick's store room and when Cliff's various scars appear.)

. . .

And Sharon Tate, the third leg of this triad?

She is depicted in this movie by Margot Robbie as light and as airy and as harmless as dandelion pollen blown on the breeze. She is a perfect wish fulfillment character, not merely because so many men desire her, but because she appears to live a blissfully stress free, rewarding, and happy life.

This is where real life collides with “reel life” and if you haven’t guessed by now, we’re up to our necks in spoiler territory.

You have been warned.

For audiences half my age, Charles Manson (Damon Herriman) is vaguely known in a Jack the Ripper-ish sort of way (i.e., a really, really bad guy who did some really, really terrible things but just what they don't fully know) while Tate is unjustly forgotten.

The glory of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is that for however briefly, for however artificially, it lets Sharon Tate come alive again and enjoy the happy ending she deserved.

What is that happy ending?

To be honest, we don’t know.

At the end of the film she meets Rick, recognizes him from his TV shows, and the implication hangs in the air that she’ll introduce him to her husband, Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha) who in real life at this stage of his career had not yet descended to drugging and raping 13 year old girls.

I hope in “reel life” that never happens, just as I would hope that Polanski’s criminal moral failing would never have materialized in the real world had Tate and her unborn child lived.

We just don’t know.

We assume Rick will meet Polanski, and from that meeting his career would shift to A-list motion pictures, and his dreams of success and security would come true.

We just don’t know.

Would Tate herself have gone on to bigger and better roles?

The odds are not in her favor.

As the writer David Gerrold said: “Hollywood uses up young women as if they're disposable. It is one of the worst things about the industry.”

Very few female actors of that era enjoyed a sustained shot at A-films, especially if they were regarded primarily as eye candy.

By the time of her murder in real life, Tate had a good role in a minor but good movie nobody saw (Eye Of The Devil), a good role in a major bad movie everybody saw (Valley Of The Dolls), and provided eye candy in three mediocre movies (including The Wrecking Crew, part of the gawdawful Dean Martin “Matt Helm” series[3]).

Her career might well have stalled out as so many other promising young starlets’ careers stalled out.

We’ll never know.

But even a stalled career would be preferable to what really happened to her.

. . .

A lot of people get second chances at the end: The four[4] at the Tate house, for sure, but also Rick (who finally gets to move into Polanski's circle) and Cliff (who has atoned for killing his wife either by accident or a well staged murder).

But y'know who else gets a second chance?

Charles Manson.

Cliff sees Manson at the Tate house but never learns his name. When he visits Spahn Ranch, he hears constant references to "Charlie" but never meets him since Manson has taken the family's children on an outing to Santa Barbara.

He recognizes Tex (Austin Butler) and Susan Atkins (Mikey Madison) and Patricia Krenwinkel (Madisen Beaty; many people mistake her character in this scene for Squeaky Frome, played by Dakota Fanning in an earlier scene) from his visit to the Spahn Ranch, but for all he knows they've come after him for revenge after he beat up Clem (James Landry Hébert) at the ranch.

Since Cliff was out of the country for 6 months stunt doubling for Rick in Italy, the lapse in time is accounted for: They waited until he returned.

When the hit team doesn't come back and there's no news reports of a mass murder, Manson knows his plan failed and has an opportunity to flee the LA area, either by himself, with a small group of followers, or the entire Family.

If the police do trace Tex and the women back to Spahn Ranch and they do confront Manson on this, Manson can feign innocence. If they bring up Cliff's visit and fistfight, Manson can say he knew the three were angry over the incident but he never knew they plotted revenge.

With the three would-be killers dead and Linda Kasabian (Maya Hawke) presumably fleeing LA to escape the Family there's no link between Manson and the attack on Rick's house.

Manson is in the clear. The police consider the matter closed (movie star kills three drug crazed hippies; why look further?) and Manson gets a breather to ponder his next move.

Maybe he realizes how close a call it was. Maybe he realizes he's got a nice little scam going with the Family. Maybe he focuses on that and becomes a garden variety cult guru who, with viral marketing, becomes a prominent New Age personality.

Stranger things have happened...

. . .

To be honest, I approached Once Upon A Time In Hollywood with some trepidation when I heard the ending would not synch up with reality.

Tarantino most notably did this before with Inglorious Basterds, but most of his movies occur in the Red Apple universe, so named after a popular brand of tobacco that appears in those films (I can’t remember if Red Apple products appear in Jackie Brown and have not seen either Kill Bill movie).

The Red Apple universe almost-but-not-quite synchs up with ours.

The biggest and most obvious deviations from the norm is Inglorious Basterds, where Tarantino wipes out Hitler and the Nazi high command in a fiery climax later echoed in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, but Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction suggest a world far more immersed in its own pop culture than we are.

The Hateful 8 is another Red Apple universe film (again specifically referenced in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood) that strongly implies Abraham Lincoln survived the assassination attempt against him and negotiated a post-Civil War peace that saw the Confederate states reunited with the rest of the country much sooner than actually happened but in return saw them agree to full emancipation and equality under the law of all formerly enslaved people. There's still a lot of racial tension in era of The Hateful 8 but there is also an explicit acknowledgment of equality under the law.

As such, race relations in Tarantino’s films Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood do not synch up with the reality of our own era.

. . .

On the one hand, there’s not as much carnage in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood as there is in most Tarantino movies.

On the other, there’s just as much only we don’t recognize it for violence because it’s presented in the form of “play acting”.

It’s not real.

It’s all a movie (or a TV show).

Or so we think.

Even Manson’s own killers debate this point, one of them arguing that all American TV shows “except for I Love Lucy” glorify in murder and violence, so why not visit murder and violence on those promoting it?

Really, what separates the violence of bounty hunter Jake Cahill (a name that’s an amalgam of two John Wayne Westerns: Big Jake and Cahill, US Marshal) from Rick Dalton playing Jake Cahill from Leonardo DiCaprio playing Rick Dalton playing Jake Cahill from the violence of Leonardo DiCaprio playing Rick Dalton at the “reel life” climax?

And what do we make of Brad Pitt playing Cliff Booth who doubles for Rick Dalton (as played by Leonardo DiCaprio) playing Jake Cahill, especially in the end when Cliff’s under the influence of LSD and isn’t sure if what he’s experiencing is real?

You tell me.

. . .

Tarantino’s flamethrower beats Chekov’s gun

By this I mean if you need a flamethrower in act three, you set it up and pay it off in an entirely different context in act one or two, but you also establish however obliquely that it’s not impossible for it to be present though uncommented on in act three.

We see Rick Dalton use a flamethrower in a film; we see a flashback and hear him say he practiced long and hard to master the weapon.

This fits in nicely with Rick’s character, both poking fun at him for not being the tough guy he portrays onscreen yet establish his willingness to learn a dangerous skill if it enhances his performance.

After all, he could always request Cliff, his stunt double, handle the flamethrower in that scene.

Dalton is also established as a person who collects memorabilia about himself, reinforced repeatedly though not always blatantly thru the film (viz Cliff bringing in a huge framed poster of one of Rick’s Italian movies just prior to the climax).

So when Rick pops out with a fully functional flamethrower at the end, our suspension of disbelief goes, “Yeah, he’d still have that”. (When I next see the film, I’m paying close attention to the contents of the storage room prior to Cliff fixing the antenna; if we don’t see the flamethrower stored there, Tarantino missed a bet.)

Part of the genius of this film extends to the trailer.

There is a big honking clue to at least part of the climax when Rick is shown using the flamethrower and the images freeze frames while a title announcing it as Quentin Tarantino’s 9th film is superimposed. That’s brilliant marketing as it preps audiences for what would otherwise be a deus ex machina before they've even seen the movie.

. . .

re the flamethrower and Cliff’s scars: This is a film that will endure multiple repeat viewings just to catch all the details. There's a shot of Cliff driving down the 134 Freeway that if you aren't a Los Angelino you won't recognize he's driving past Forest Lawn, thus prefiguring the ominous background of the film.

When Pitt goes to see the elderly George Spahn at the infamous Spahn Ranch, he passes by two photos of Zorro and the Lone Ranger -- both with masks over their eyes -- as Squeaky tells him "He's blind."

The background is filled with posters and billboards and books and magazines and memorabilia, some real, some ersatz.

That being said, I do not think it will age well.

To the degree it skillfully recreates an era, that will be studied.

But as time puts more and more distance to the actual events, the impact of the film will lessen.

Casablanca loses some impact when we aren’t aware of how vicious the real life Nazis were, but in the context of the story they’re big enough bastards for us to understand why it’s important to stand up to them.

After The Fox is a delightful comedic romp that is hilarious even if you don’t know anything about Italian neo-realism, but if you do know anything about Italian neo-realism It. Gets. Even. FUNNIER!

But you really need to know what happened on August 9, 1969 at 10050 Cielo Drive to fully appreciate what Tarantino hath wrought.

Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, future generations of viewers will appreciate the skill and artistry employed, but they just won’t get why it makes such an impact today on many viewers.

Gordon Dickson wrote a classic sci-fi story back in 1962 called “Three Part Puzzle”. Without spoiling it, it’s safe to say a big hunk of the story’s appeal lays in the efforts of aliens to comprehend why human children are delighted by the old fairy tale of The Three Billy-Goats Gruff.

To the aliens, the story contains a simple, straight forward message: Wait until your strongest team member arrives before engaging an enemy.

What they don’t understand is the morality behind the story.

To the aliens, goats and trolls are all equal, there is no reason to take delight in the victory of one over another.

But to humans…ah, to humans there’s a far deeper, much more important message than a mere tactical stratagem.

This is the risk Once Upon A Time In Hollywood will face in the future, that audiences as yet unborn will come to see it as a big, goofy buddy action movie in which two friends (and the wife of one and the dog of another) take on a trio of killers, dispatching them in spectacular fashion.

The catharsis may be lost, and in losing that, so will be lost the heart and soul of the film.

Enjoy it now while you can.

[1] I rank Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Django Unchained, and The Hateful 8 above it in terms of cinematic quality.

[2] In real life, for reasons too involved to go into here, Charles Manson actually got a courtesy audition for The Monkees; he was never seriously considered for a role and if I remember correctly, the show had already been cast by that point but the formal announcement had not been made. Nonetheless, if the quantum physics hypothesis of alternate timelines is correct, somewhere there’s a universe where Charlie Manson is a beloved 1960s pop culture icon and people still talk about the infamous Peter Tork murder cult.

[3] Do yourselves a favor and track down the original Matt Helm novels by Donald Hamilton. They’re far superior to the crappy movies.

[4] There were actually five victims that night but Steven Parent, who had been visiting the property's caretaker William Garretson at the property's guest house, was shot in his car as he prepared to drive away. Garretson, apparently under the influence of drugs and / or alcohol, first claimed to have slept through the horrendous attack and was a prime suspect until forensics cleared him. (Years later he admitted to witnessing part of the attack and doing nothing for reasons he never made clear.) Tarantino left Parent and Garretson's presence out of the film presumably because it would have been too much of a diversion to explain them if they weren't going to be victims.

#Quentin Tarantino #Leonardo DiCaprio #Brad Pitt #Manson #Manson Family #Los Angeles #Hollywood #1960s #Sharon Tate #Roman Polanski #TV Westerns #film making #morals #ethics #history #catharsis #Once Upon A Time In Hollywood #Red Apple

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xiaolongpunch · 5 years

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Thoughts on every owl team

Alright, now that two weeks have passed (currently the match between Vancouver and San Francisco is going on) I want to give my thoughts on every team, and their current performance.

1. New-York Excelsior. (4-0)

Not much to be said about this team, they are still the best team in the overwatch league. Their team synergy is unmatched, and they are already looking to go undefeated. Nenne was a great addition to be the Zarya in this goats meta. This team is looking to win this stage 1.

2. Vancouver Titans (3-0)

Former Runaway that joined the owl this season. The team itself is good, but as the Charge showed, they have weaknesses. What I do not like about this team are their ego and cocky attitude. I never enjoyed watching any team acting like they are hot shit and that they are the best. Having confidence is one thing, treating your opponents with disrespect is heinous and unsportsmanlike. Will this team is looking good, their very attitude will be their downfall.

3. Paris Eternal (2-0)

This European team is proving that they are one of the strongest when it comes to this meta. Their teamwork well together, and we still need to see if they go head to head against the best of the best of this league.

4. Atlanta Reign (2-1)

The Reign is an interesting one for me. I previously thought that with the inclusion of Dafran, that this team would suffer from one of two things. Either Dafran becomes the XQC of season 2, or they have a similar ego problem to other teams who are currently underperforming. But, seeing a lot of their games, I’ll say this, the Reign, as good as they are, seem to be there for the ride, they are having fun and are great at what they do, So, they are definitely a team to be reckoned with.

5. Seoul Dynasty (2-1)

The Dynasty are looking much better then they did last season. The acquisition of Fissure is a game changer for them, and they might be living up to the hype they had at the start of last season. But, seeing their lost against Fuel, it still feels like this team needs to come together.

6. Toronto Defiant (2-1)

This team is living up to their branding release, everyone is treating them like a subpar team that won’t get to playoffs. While it is still early, Toronto has shown that they are more than capable of being playoff worthy, and they are looking to live up to their name.

7. Chengdu Hunters (2-1)

Just like Toronto, Hunters have been pushed down by casters and analysts for being a subpar team, but they have shown that they are willing to break the meta to rise to the top. They have a long way to go, but, no one should underestimate this team any longer.

8. San-Francisco Shock (1-2)

This team suffers the Titan’s ego. But, contrary to the Titans, the Shock play fairly, they are all about acting like they are the best and look to prove it by treating their opponents fairly. They are looking better than last season, but they are far from being the best.

9. Philadelphia Fusion (2-2)

The runner up to the championship title last year aren’t looking too good, well they never really did until it really mattered. Remember, this was the team that Shanghai brought to map 5 a few times. And just like Jayne said, their goats is bad, and so I do not predict this team to be any good this stage.

10. London Spitfire (2-2)

The championship winners, oh how far you have fallen. You looked horrible at the start of the season, and your goats is....questionable. But, the last two matches have proven they are slowly coming back, but they have a lot of work to do to get into the playoffs.

11. Hangzhou Spark (2-2)

The Spark is interesting to me, they have flair and charisma, and while it might look like the Titan’s ego, it is more confidence in their synergy. They are scrappy and bring their own unique style to overwatch. But, they have a lot of work to do to fix some of their mistake, notably ult management.

12. Dallas Fuel (2-2)

Inconsistent. Both match you lost, you got wiped, and both match you won, you went 3-1. But, they acquisition you’ve made during off season are showing to be amazing. You have the potential to be in the playoffs, and if AKM and Effect’s attitude are anything to go by, you are just looking to have fun and improve, good luck Fuel.

13. Guangzhou Charge. (1-2)

I haven’t watched much of this team, but I know they are one of the two that actually try to go out of the meta. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much success like the Hunters.

14. Boston Uprising (1-2)

This team is...bad. Trading/Transferring a bunch of your players is fine and all, but so far your decisions haven’t really brought results. Hell, your ex main tank gave shanghai it’s first, ever win against YOUR team. Congrats Boston, you will be forever known to be the ultimate fuck up.

15. LA Gladiators. (1-2)

See Boston Uprising. Trading Fissure might have been his wish, but it came to bite you in the ass so fucking badly. And so your team is back to where it was before Fissure.

16. Florida Mayhem (1-2)

Florida is looking much better this season, but they still need to work on some issues before being taken seriously.

17. Shanghai Dragons (1-2)

HOLY SHIT YOU’VE WON!!!

In all seriousness though, Gamsu was a godsend to your team, his second game and he gave your team the first ever Shanghai win. It’s a sweet, sweet victory, and Gamsu looks so much happier with you than he ever did in his time in Boston. You have a lot of work ahead of you, but you can only go up from here.

18. Washington Justice (0-2)

I don’t know how to feel about this team, their main tank looks good...I think? There must be a reason NYXL was willing to let him go. I’m going to be honest, I have no faith in this team, they...don’t look good.

19. Houston Outlaws. (1-3)

This is the third, and worst team that has the Titan’s ego. Except, they can’t prove jack shit. From Jake apparently taunting the enemy in the chat during matches, to Muma screaming he is the best main tank in the world on stream, only to get his cheeks’ clapped, Houston is fucking horrible. The reason why I’m so fucking mad at this team is that they can’t recognize how bad they are, and neither can their fans. Let Danteh play sombra and tracer, let Spree play Zarya, and for fuck’s sake fire Rawkus and his endless feeding ass already!

20. (0-3)

The once underdogs of the league are not what they were once were, they... well bad. However, their match against the Spark and Defiant show that they can be at the top, and really, their score don’t do them justice. There is...one glaring issue with this team, Fate. Fate and Space were one of the best tank duos last season, what happened? Fate looks like he’s throwing all the time, he’s always the first to die, he almost wastes his shatter every time he has it. I’m...disapointed, Valiant used to be my team last season, and it’s heartbreaking to see VALLA fall so quickly.

#overwatch league

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mdwatchestv · 6 years

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The Magicians 3x12 + 3x13: Hail to the King, Baby

Better late than never, here is the finale wrap up of season 3 of the Magicians. Maybe this is so late because I was decimated by the Magicians thoroughly recapping itself in a manner so comprehensive and aggressive that I was briefly unable to continue on. Josh's recap of the 40th timeline to Penny 23 was so snappy and entertaining, it sent me into a wild fit of existential despair - how does one recap a show that recaps itself? Josh even had sex charts, and comprehensive notes showing the kind of recap mastery you will not see on this blog. Thus is the charm and the fury of the Magicians, a show that refuses to be tamed, categorized, or even written about coherently. Long may it reign.

It was especially interesting, here at the end of season 3, to look back via Josh's recap to season 1. Q and Alice wearing the Brakebills sweater vest set was especially strange to remember, and illustrated how far this show has ventured tonally since its earlier days. While season 1 was not without its batshit crazy moments, its Taylor Swift sing-a-longs, its 39 timelines, the show still felt like it was trying to color inside the lines. This was a story about young witches and wizards on a quest to defeat a great evil after all. This good vs evil storyline crept into season 2, where we finally saw the Beast's demise, but by then he was almost an afterthought as the Magicians ached to move on to bigger, wilder subjects than just one evil wizard. So now that we are in season 3, what is the Magicians about? Sure there is a quest to restore magic, but the show has broken free of it's "defeat the bad guy, save the world" mold. Antagonism and heroism can be found within individual characters, within moral battles about who is worthy of magic, life, and freedom, and within questions about how to govern a body of people (and talking animals) selflessly.

Nowhere has this intricacy and complex development been better illustrated than in the unending power struggle in Fillory. After seizing control from the Children of Earth, Tick Pickwick wants to put a country impoverished by the lack of magic and radical mismanagement back on the economic track. A Fillory run by actual Fillorians rather than magicless Earth children who were really just puppets for the Fairy Queen (another ruler trying to do the best for her people no matter the cost). Honestly the worst that can be said for Tick is that he betrayed our two most fiercely beloved characters, which although a grave offense from an audience point of view, actually had pretty noble intent. The Fillory storyline ended in a standoff of three different rulers, all of whom were trying to do right by their citizenry. It's a complex situation with many shades of gray and no real "right answer" in the context of the Fillorian world (no matter where our audience sympathies may lie). What a brilliant and odd place for a show initially advertised merely as "Harry Potter with sex, drugs, and partying" to end up.

Coming into episode 3x12, our magic troop has recovered all seven keys but one (key #6), which we know to be held by the Fairy Queen and is currently being used to prop up the Fairy Realm. Margo and Eliot are willing to give the Fairies full Fillorian citizenship and protection in exchange for the key, but they are no longer the rulers of Fillory, and don't have the magic to reclaim the throne from Tick. No magic, no power, no key, no magic. So they do what any self-respecting ousted monarchs do: force an election they intend to win through trickery and witchcraft. What begins as a genuine play for the Fillorians love (and votes), quickly devolves into a pissing contest between Eliot and Tick. The two attempt to one-up on another, Tick with policy, Eliot with outlandish empty promises. Feels...so familiar.

This storyline hit such a nerve with me that when Margo was announced as the surprise winner and new High King of Fillory, I burst into sudden, surprised tears. These tears only intensified as Eliot put aside his flaring ego to kneel before her and pledge his allegiance. "WHY AM I CRYING," I screamed at my boyfriend and cat who only stared back at me with wide terrified eyes. Why indeed. Maybe it was because Margo's genuine interest and acceptance of her populace (she was elected as a write-in candidate by talking animals) was able to cut through a cock fight. Margo who has perhaps suffered the most for Fillory: she has been showered in the blood of her suitors, married off to Joffrey's, and even lost an eye. Margo who started this series as a hard-partying mean girl who has risen to the top without compromising her own sense of self. Margo who once called her rival a chalky twat, Margo who brought a gun to a magic fight, Margo who has a creepy fairy eye. Margo who is now King, because a King can be called whatever the fuck they want.

Margo's storyline is also but one of the storylines this season that featured powerful women rising into their power. The Fairy Queen, who began this year as a villain, had one of the most season’s powerful turns. After proving herself to be a staunch advocate for her people rather than a malicious baddie she sacrifices herself in order to guarantee eternal safety for her people. Although I couldn't help wondering why no one had brokered such a deal before, but whatever it's done now, and I now cannot wait until Jamie Ray Newman gets her ass handed to her (a sentence I never thought I’d type). Julia also spent the season reconciling the power she was given by Our Lady Underground, eventually accepting it and nurturing it until it gave her (literal) god-like strength. But my personal favorite journey this year was that of Fen - the knife makers daughter who was married off to a king. Fen has really been through it, she lost her unborn daughter, her fake daughter, and even some toes. No matter the complexities of the fairy's sitch, there is no doubt they have done our girl Fen dirty. And so seeing Fen sitting on the Fillorian throne as Acting High King, and standing by the Fairy Queen's side attempting to aide her until the bitter end, was especially meaningful.

So with High King Margo on the throne, the magicians finally have all 7 keys and the final chapter of the quest book. They need to take the keys to a magic castle where the Knight in the story went to rescue her father, and is now apparently the eternal jailer of some terrifying monster. After hunting down Calypso, the nymph who imprisoned Odysseus (obviously), she explains that the the castle Blackspire (the literal opposite of Whitespire) is the castle built by the gods in order to hide all their fuck ups and also holds the magic fountain. Calypso’s lover and popular fire-gifter Prometheus crafted both the keys and the key quest in order to identify magicians worthy enough to take on the jailer mantle. However creating the keys robbed Prometheus of his strength and he was killed by his enemies. Calypso is pissed about this, but if I know anything about Prometheus (and the show The Magicians) it's that he is kind of a hard guy to kill. A foreshadow perhaps?

Our questers head out to the prison with a variety of different motives. Quentin has agreed to take the place of the Knight as eternity prison guard in exchange for entrance to the castle. Alice, originally wanting to help the Library siphon the magic for themselves, now wants no one to have magic because to her magic leads to bad times (she's not wrong). Eliot and Margo are not about to have Q go off and be a guard forever and are going with the shoot first ask questions later approach (gotta love em). Julia is absent as she has ascended to full god status and is off drinking tea and wearing a lot of highlighter (relatable). Upon arriving at the castle they discover what the Knight has been guarding is not so much a traditional monster, but rather a strange young man who acts like a child. Unfazed, Eliot shoots him. This seems to have been effective, and no one questions the sudden mysterious disappearance of the Knight. But before our group can finally unlock the magic fountain and restore power, Alice, hopped up on fairy powder, destroys the keys! After all we have been through this season to collect these goddamn keys, this was a real dick move. While Alice is attempting to escape Margo's righteous shanking, she sees the Knight now seemingly possessed with the golden light that lived in the "monster" Eliot shot. Not good!

Back at the fountain the day is temporarily saved when God!Julia, motivated by her sidekick Quentin's courage, descends and uses her power to create seven NEW keys. If only she had done this from the beginning. But this act apparently robs her of her golden god magic, at least for the time being. The magic fountain spurts back to life, but the victory is short-lived as JAIME RAY NEWMAN and Dean Fogg appear with the Library's siphon. These characters have really been testing me. The Library seizes the means of production, I mean all the magic, thereby granting them total control of magical ability and knowledge. Presumably Dean Fogg aided in their scheme in order to guarantee a magic allowance for Brakebills, but this shows a surprising lack of faith in his own students who not only defeated The Beast, but have performed a number of miraculous feats. He of little faith.

Time cut to the future, while magic is still spotty the more shocking twist is that our gang has been stripped of their memories and sent off to live among us mere muggles in the real world. Ironically Alice, the one who planned on starting a new life, is the only one who remembers what happened in the castle and is being held captive in the Library. She understands that the monster in the castle was NOT the young man, but rather whatever was inside of him. An unending want or need that appears as pretty gold lights and is now unstoppable.

Normally twists like this where characters lose memory, or their bodies are EXTREMELY stressful for me (the Faith/Buffy swap still causes tension). The idea that things are not as they should be (Dreamland I and II also traumatizing) and the regular flow of events has been thrown out of order is distressing to my order-craving brain. However with The Magicians every weird device is usually enjoyable, and often the weirder the better. Watching a clearly possessed Eliot psychotically stalking an amnesia-stricken Quentin down the streets of Vancouver gave me a surprising sense of excited glee rather than nervous dread. Whatever happens on The Magicians, no matter how incoherent or strange, at least you know it won’t be boring. What’s more this is a show that will seemingly never settle into complacency, it is a creeping vine

LINGERING QUESTIONS:

Penny 23 seems to have fully taken over Penny 40's storyline, with even the Unity Key acknowledging the swap. Whatever is going on with Penny 40 in the Library has been kept under wraps, but surely he will have a part to play in helping to free Alice.

Kacey Rohl is also running around wild and free in this timeline with her memories in tact! Possibly a valuable ally for those hoping to save the main crew.

Speaking of returning from the dead, Harriet and Victoria supposedly died when their portal between worlds collapsed, but we didn't see any bodies so I can't help feel like this isn't exactly permanent.

Now that Margo has had her memory wiped I guess Fen is just continuing to rule Fillory. Is anyone going to tell the Fillorians what's going down? Are they going to receive magic from the Library? Likely no, but they do have a new population of fairies who have their own ungovernable magic- handy!

Also Poppy (aka Felicia Day) is wandering around in our world after skipping out on Quentin and co. Technically she is still a Brakebills student I think!

Now that we know there is a whole world of gods, will we be getting more visits from them? Did Julia totally blow her chances at divinity by making the replacement set of keys?

Thank you for reading along this season! Stay tuned to this blog for new coverage, likely of Westworld. Theories galore.

Love ya, MD

One more Margo gif for the road:

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1 Review: The Star of the Backstage

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This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1

Why don’t we do the show right here, Mickey Rooney or Judy Garland might ask in a Hollywood Golden Age movie about barnstorming local theater. Sadly, The Simpsons’ “The Star of the Backstage” can’t go Rent-free. The techies, theater-geeks, and all the animators pull out almost all the stops for the season 33 premiere, but offer a mixed bag, even when it takes a Wicked turn.

The premise is great. It begins at the funeral for Springfield High School’s theater director Franklin Chase, and Marge wants to bring the whole gang back together for one last revival of their senior year production, only to find she was never really part of the group. The show is called “Y2K: The Millennium Bug,” and the opening ode to pre-millennial paranoia teases wonderful promise with lines like “How will I survive when all of the computers think I’ve died?” This and the closing song, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0 0 0,” with those ominous extra zeroes which couldn’t be accounted for on old motherboards, are truly worthy of The Simpsons tradition of comic musical offerings par excellence.

Marge has only happy memories of being the stage manager of her high school musical, even though she never considered herself a singer. The other gimmick of the episode is also functionally fabulous: in Marge’s mind, she has the voice of a Disney princess. Kristen Bell provides the magical inner singing voice only Marge and the viewers can hear. Bell’s enthusiasm is enough to get her into The Good Place or The Bad Place within any single run. She’s spot-on in her delivery, but the songs themselves are not quite over the top enough to deliver unexpected involuntary laughs.

The stage show is set on New Year’s Eve 1999 as the world waits to see if they will still be alive, or able to prove they’re alive, as the clock ticks to midnight. We don’t get enough of the songs from the play. The exposition songs are a little cringey, except for a few lines, like one about a Broadway star being a cut above the rest, sung by the high school cast’s lead. There are highlights. The cast gleefully confesses making the sad and untimely death of one of their inner circle all about themselves, which itself made The New York Times. Barney has a sad, almost show-stopping solo admitting he “could have been a crooner, a star of stage and screen, but he’d just as sooner drink away his dreams.” Why try? Homer’s song about breaking bad news gently to a wife who doesn’t want to hear it is also a standout. “Your reaction deserves a retraction,” is one of the most heartfelt lines sung in the entire evening.

The songs only have a dull gnaw, where Simpsons musical numbers in the past have occasionally bitten off more than they could chew. The musical interludes in either “A Streetcar Named Marge” or “Stop the Planet of the Apes I want to get off” prove this is well within their reach. And don’t get me started on what they did to Steve Guttenberg, I could never look at him the same way again.

This is what happens to the former high school ingénue turned Broadway star. Sasha Reed is voiced by Sara Chase (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), who may be best known for playing all three mistresses in First Wives Club: The Musical, but who probably worked at the Herald Square Sephora like Sasha. At least she knows not to mention Glenn Close to Patti LuPone. The best visual gag of the evening comes at Moe’s bar. While Sasha is remembering her night in a hot tub with Barney, watch Moe, he is so enthralled he shatters the glass he is cleaning but keeps on wiping.

The Simpsons Acknowledges Continuity Watchdogs with an Online Easter Egg

By Tony Sokol

But Marge’s story is sad, and it makes me feel the same way Homer did after watching the way that Stanley Kowalski guy treated her in the Springfield theater production of A Streetcar Named Desire. The problem is it doesn’t ring emotionally true, in any canon. Marge is a wet blanket at slumber parties and a killjoy at the Krusty the Clown show, but her clique has always been several tiers above Homer’s. To have him and Barney in the more socially acceptable circle, albeit within the theater crowd, feels false and forced. Marge gave up her status to be with Homer, and if the two of them are losers, it shakes the dynamic.

We don’t want to see Marge left out of the best of the best of times. Although, it’s true, she’s not the type who’d go to a kegger, even at her own house, when there is a tech run-through scheduled or any night. But even Homer was at the party, even though he wasn’t in the show, and he still would not have been on that level of high school status.

There isn’t much for Bart and Lisa to do, except give the final critique at the end, which is oddly apropos. It feels lazy, they say. This isn’t exactly the case. While most of The Simpsons’ most classic musical moments are parodies of other songs, all of the songs in this episode are original songs written by Jack Dolgen and Elisabeth Kiernan. They are nothing if not ambitious, melodically and lyrically, but comically, they fall just short. They had such an opportunity and have the talent, means, and Marge as stage manager. We get drama, when Marge exposes Sasha for what she is. That hits the right tone, and is musically exciting. But it doesn’t have the subversive danger which The Simpsons excels at. It’s perfectly fine, and would be a memorable episode of any other sitcom, but it’s not “Monorail.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

All this being said, this is a great experiment which works enough to happen again. The musical numbers have been outshining much of the scripted gags in the past few seasons of The Simpsons, and this is an encouraging outgrowth of it. But, we need more than this. It feels like a retread of something they haven’t done before, when it should feel like a whole new experience. Maybe I expect too much, or am hoping that, at 33 seasons and counting, The Simpsons will recapture the magic Marge is looking for in this episode. 1999 was the last time we partied like it was 1999.

“The Star of the Backstage” has all the makings of a major leap forward but, like the Y2K Bug itself, it doesn’t capture the hype.

The post The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 1 Review: The Star of the Backstage appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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legalvinyl · 3 years

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Finally More from Isaiah Rashad: A Review of The House is Burning

Isaiah Rashad is and always has been a unique talent in the heavyweight lineup of Top Dawg Entertainment. With only 3 albums to his name after signing to the label in 2013, Rashad has proved himself as being worthy of critical appreciation, and perhaps, also of personal critique for his elusive nature and darker personal issues. In fact, the rapper who has always “got the music for the vibers” has consistently faced a battle against substance abuse and lingering mental health issues despite always managing to sound so relaxed and uhm ‘vibey’. I’ve been a fan of Rashad for years now, and I fondly remember a competition between one of my high school friends to see who could learn more of the unwavering triplet verses to his song Park back in 2016. Those were great memories and I think one of Rashad’s greatest attributes has always been an ability to take something rather basic and ordinary and create a unique interpretation out of it whether it be 3 minutes of a repeating rhyme scheme or a laid-back delivery that addresses many of the stereotypical problems that haunt modern day rap talents – too many girls and too many bad influences. His latest album certainly leans into those familiar themes at moments, but I think Rashad really shines when he breaks that mold and tries something new. Thankfully, there are plenty of fresh moments in, The House is Burning, and I think these represent Rashad at his strongest.

The opening track reveals itself in hazy self-contemplation similar to one of his recent singles, Why Worry, and I was very glad to hear that kind of sound from the get-go. As a teaser to the album’s release, Rashad released a collaboration with Duke Deuce called Lay Wit Ya (the album’s fourth track) that admittedly made me a little apprehensive about his new album. But the opening track not only sounds like a classic Rashad track but also addresses some of the concerns that have loomed since his last album, so we know he is still committed to the roots of his music even if he ventures into the more stereotypical trap songs that dominate the rap charts these days. Unfortunately, however, those trap songs appear very soon after the confirming opener with a collaboration between Lil Uzi Vert as the second track just sounding flat and unmotivated. The beat is alright, but it’s not Rashad. And the whole ethos of the song is not Rashad. Fortunately, the third track takes thing back in a positive direction with the catchy and smooth RIP Young. That staccato delivery in combination with a cloudy and unhurried backing track become a formula that Rashad utilizes for several tracks on this album to great effect. Long-time fans are reminded of Rashad’s unique ability to sound so leisurely and cool, and the Top Dawg sound is present on this track as well lending a progressive edge to the beat while staying central to rap’s roots in providing a warm, natural, and introspective backdrop for listeners to bop their heads to.

While the album demonstrates Rashad in his classic element, the new Rashad, someone possibly reading too much into the pop and trap recipe book, gently threatens to dismantle an otherwise well-coordinated effort, but I’m glad to conclude that those unfavorable moments do not in any way compromise this album. In fact, this is a decidedly great album. One not without its weak moments, but, and especially taken as a whole, something much stronger than what most prominent and settled rappers tend to release after establishing themselves in the industry. I came in with a skeptic ear but left with vibey satisfaction despite the slightly erratic few first tracks. Rashad is at his best when he keeps things simple and relaxed and allows his delivery to drive the song rather than trying to inject too much energy in from hype beats and aggressive verses. By the fifth track, a standout with Smino called Claymore, Rashad seems done with the preceding fabrication and instead makes a rap song about as reductive and moderate as possible. And that combination allows his ‘vibiness’ to flow totally unrestricted. He continues this into another great track, Headshots (4r Da Locals), and then takes things in a more experimental direction with the next two tracks All Herb, with Amindi, and Hey Mista. I think these experimental tracks don’t sound quite polished enough, but they certainly have redeeming qualities and at least reinforce the settled energy that the album needed and continues until the end of its 48-minute duration. Other standout tracks include an interesting staccato-delivery in Wat U Sed and a choice collaboration between SZA and 6LACK called Score that sounds mature and expert in nearly every way.

Overall, The House is Burning, exhibits Rashad trying out new sounds and textures, some of which I wholeheartedly feel pull him into a direction that was never and should never be him, but there are also experimental tracks here that sound tailored to his traditional character and have a seasoned and well-crafted production team behind to really deliver something satisfying and accomplished. Being a rapper that likes to stay out of the spotlight, Rashad has produced another fine album to add to a short but quality repertoire, and I’m glad that there are numerous new tracks here to scratch my itch for his unique musical personality that fans always wish there were simply more of.

#isaiah rashad #the house is burning #top dawg entertainment

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onestowatch · 6 years

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10 Ones to Catch at Made in America 2018

Mark your calendars: a Labor Day staple is right around the corner. Made in America, the Jay-Z curated two-day musical festival, returns to Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sept. 1-2 to showcase some of the best acts in the world of hip-hop and beyond. Since its inception in 2012, the festival has grown into a cultural landmark that reflects the forward-thinking ideas of the historic city itself. With artists like Kendrick Lamar, Nicki Minaj, Zedd, Post Malone, and Diplo topping the bill, Made in America is by no means short on talent this year. However, this does not mean that musical discoveries are not to be had. We combed through this year’s incredible Made in America lineup to hand-select some of our favorite acts that are not to be missed. These are our ten acts you have to catch at this year’s Made in America, and a playlist that Jay-Z himself would approve of.

Hobo Johnson & The Lovemakers

It’s no mystery that we are fans of Hobo Johnson & The Lovemakers here, as we are in the midst of prepping ourselves for his forthcoming “Bring Your Mom” tour. Still no word on whether our moms are available to make in out, but we can say for certain that a Hobo Johnson show is a show not to miss. First going viral with the release of his NPR Tiny Desk Contest video for “Peach Scone,” Hobo Johnson has continued to amaze his rapidly growing fan base with his unique blend of spoken word hip-hop and alternative.

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Lil Skies

Lil Skies is by no means your typical Soundcloud rapper. Beyond his hard, tattoo-saturated exterior, lies an impressive lyrical wit whose melodic delivery is reminiscent of artists 50 Cent and Lil Wayne. His impressive style of delivery and mesmerizing production has led him to develop a notable following in the matter of a couple short years. Releasing his debut album Life of a Dark Rose in 2017, Lil Skies cemented his claim as something more than another Soundcloud rapper. A straight-A student throughout high school and a promising rapper this early in his career, Lil Skies is undoubtedly an act to catch.

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Injury Reserve

Injury Reserve is as rare a rap act as they come. The Arizona-based trio makes music evocative of the golden days of hip-hop, bringing forth much-deserved comparisons to the likes of A Tribe Called Quest. Yet, that is only the first layer of this intriguing alternative rap trio. As much as their music is comprised of the sounds and daily struggles of everyday life experiences, it also aptly explores themes of societal and political issues. Critical of the music industry and addressing deeply-rooted issues, Injury Reserve makes music that is equal parts reflective, captivating, and rife with moments to thoroughly dissected.

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Kweku Collins

Music flows through the veins of Illinois-based rapper Kweku Collins. Playing African drums on-stage alongside his dad since the tender age of four, it almost seems destined that Kweku would pick up the proverbial torch. Transitioning into making his own music in his bedroom when he was a teenager, he spent years polishing craft before gracing the world with his debut EP, 2015’s Say It Here While It’s Safe. Since the EP’s release, Kweku has delivered two more stunning projects, 2016’s Nat Love and 2017’s Grey, that build even further on his relaxed brand of hip-hop that pulls from a myriad of inspirations.

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Sheck Wes

Considering who Sheck Wes has in his court, chances are you will be seeing a lot more of him in the years to come. The Kanye West and Travis Scott championed rapper and producer makes hard-hitting and hostile rap that is perfect for a mosh pit at any venue, or festival for that matter. The Harlem native has only four singles to date, but each one is as volatile as the last. From the breakout chant-worthy debut “Mo Bamba” to the latest release “Chippi Chippi,” Sheck Wes is not an artist who asks for your attention. He demands it. Also, did we mention that a young Sheck Wes skipped out a high school basketball playoff game to participate in the unveiling of the Yeezy Season 3 collection in Madison Square Garden?

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Jpegmafia

They say punk is not a sound; it is an ethos. Los Angeles-based by way of New York rapper and producer Jpegmafia is the crystallization of this ethos. Crafting a sound that is chaotic, dark, and rife with humor, Jpegmafia is an act you cannot pull your eyes or ears away from. The critically-acclaimed artist makes no attempt to skirt around issues that are difficult to address. Instead, he actively speaks to those issues with an intense, rapid-fire sense of urgency that only heightens the raw intensity of his sound and the matters at hand. Is it always an easy listening experience? Not always. Is it an act you need to listen to and catch live at least once in your life? Most definitely.

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SAINt JHN

The all-encompassing, shadowy world of SAINt JHN is one you will want to lose yourself in. The Brooklyn native makes cinematic music with deep, rumbling bass that falls in the perfect middle between hip-hop and R&B. Like a darker version of The Weeknd that retains all the underlying beauty, SAINt JHN makes music that is a perfect fit for the radio or a nighttime drive with the bass fully blasted. Forgoing any major label or marketing push, the Brooklyn artist released his debut album Collection One in 2018 to much acclaim. An expansive 13 tracks of moody R&B and hip-hop, SAINt JHN is proving he can do it all on his own terms.

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Saba

Saba may describe himself as an “ultra nerd,” but the Chicago-based rapper and producer's music is imbued with a vibe quite like no other. First gaining attention for lending his voice to “Angels” off Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap and performing the single live with Chance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, it was not long before fans were clamoring for a full-fledged Saba project. Saba would deliver his highly-awaited debut album Bucket List Project in 2017 much to the delight of fans and critics alike. The project would showcase the varied artistry of Saba as a rapper, which he would further expand upon in his sophomore effort, 2018’s CARE FOR ME.

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ODIE

ODIE’s debut album Analogue may have only been released just this year, but it was such a brilliant debut that we cannot help but recommend catching ODIE live. Born to Nigerian parents, the Toronto artist has spent the better part of the last four years cultivating and refining his sound. The result was a striking debut of a soulful new voice in hip-hop and R&B. Yet his sound is so much more than that. At times delving into the world of alternative rock and Afro-Gospel with a clear grasp of past musical traditions and a vision for the future, ODIE’s sound is all his own.

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Saweetie

Saweetie is having one hell of a 2018. From collaborating with Kehlani and G-Eazy to releasing a viral hit with “ICY GRL,” the California native is quickly becoming a pivotal fixture in the female rap game. With a style that pays due reverence to the hip-hop scene of the ‘90s and a charismatic flair that extends past her music, Saweetie is an artist bound to make a lasting impact. Her debut album High Maintenance served as a solid nine-track introduction to the rapper’s world that blended the best of the past with forward-thinking production. If there is one thing we can say with complete certainty about Saweetie’s upcoming set, is that it will go off.

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#ones to catch #made in america #hobo johnson #hobo johnson & the lovemakers #lil skies #injury reserve #kweku collins #sheck wes #jpegmafia #saint jhn #saba #odie #saweetie

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junker-town · 3 years

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Sam Darnold finally has a chance to prove he isn’t a bust

Carolina was desperate for a QB, and this plan might work.

Amidst their desperation to find a new quarterback, the Panthers completed a trade Monday that brings former No. 3 overall pick Sam Darnold to Carolina in exchange for a 2021 sixth round pick, a 2022 second round pick, and a 2022 fourth round pick. At first glance it’s the kind of deal worthy of ridicule. But is there something more to the trade than meets the eye?

The Panthers did a terrible job of hiding their desires to find a new quarterback. Publicly the team was touting the idea that Teddy Bridgewater was “their guy,” but with every quarterback move this offseason came news the Panthers were talking to teams as well. They were close to a deal for Matthew Stafford, until the Rams offered more. They were interested in Carson Wentz, until a deal was finalized with Indianapolis. The looming possibility of making a mammoth trade for Deshaun Watson was still being touted as recently as a month ago, but quickly silenced during wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment allegations.

This left Carolina in a weird spot. This is a team in desperate need of a quarterback to start implementing the offensive rebuild coach Matt Rhule and co. started a year ago, but it was increasingly looking like there wasn’t an option. The Panthers were faced with the reality that they might either need to reach for a second-tier quarterback in the draft, or trade the farm in hopes of moving up to get someone they liked. In the end this third choice presented itself, and it may have just protected the Panthers ... from themselves.

Up to this point every possible QB scenario for Carolina was loathsome. Had they landed Stafford it would have been the peak of desperation, and an incongruous move for a team building around youth. Any scenario in the draft centered on moving up would have mortgaged the team’s future for years to come. Resigning themselves to start Bridgewater again in 2021 without competition was the equivalent of punting on the season.

The circuitous route Carolina took to trading for Sam Darnold is the kind of move that will either be worthy of the mockery it’s currently being met with, or wind up being genius — and there’s compelling reasons for both scenarios.

Darnold has shown flashes

The idea of Darnold being a “bust” is labored at best. The fact is, there have been plenty of games and moments where there have been flashes of the player people hoped he would be coming out of USC.

Look at Week 1 of the 2019 season, for example. Despite having few weapons, and facing a brutal Bills’ defense, Darnold pushed Buffalo to the wire, losing 17-16 in a game where he completed over 68 percent of his passes and finished with a 84.9 rating.

That same year, just a few weeks later, Darnold returned from his meme-worthy absence due to mononucleosis, and threw for over 300 yards against the Cowboys. Not only was this a breakout performance, but he completed over 70 percent of his passes and finished with a 113.8 rating.

pic.twitter.com/Z1GYeszI4b

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) April 5, 2021

There was inconsistency throughout the season to be sure, but Darnold still managed to throw for over 3,000 yards in 13 games. This was with an offensive line that allowed him to be sacked 33 times on the year.

There’s familiarity in Carolina

Trading for Darnold isn’t entirely out of left field for the Panthers, and there’s a common thread here: Wide receiver Robby Anderson. Anderson worked for two years with Darnold on the Jets before leaving for Carolina, and during his time in New York he was the young QB’s favorite target. Keep in mind that one of the biggest reasons Matt Rhule signed Anderson was familiarity, coaching the receiver at Temple.

So there’s a logical through line here where Rhule would have consulted with his 1,000 yard receiver about how it was to play with Darnold, and whether there’s potential there. It’s the kind of endorsement that could have been enough to push the Panthers to make a deal.

Always bank on Adam Gase’s ineptitude

Even if you’re not sold on Darnold the player, it’s impossible to deny that he entered the league in the worst situation of any rookie quarterback — because of Adam Gase. A man who will go down in NFL infamy for his inability as a coach, there’s already a clear litmus test of Gase being complete inept when it comes to evaluating and utilizing quarterbacks.

PFF grade with Adam Gase: (‘19-'20) Sam Darnold - 58.8 (‘16-'18) Ryan Tannehill - 59.7 PFF Grade without: (‘19-‘20) Tannehill - 92.4 (4th) (‘21-) Darnold - pic.twitter.com/PeIA7nzlIL

— PFF (@PFF) April 5, 2021

Normally I’d say it’s unfair to pin all of a quarterback’s failings on a head coach, but I’ll gladly make an exception for Adam Gase. As PFF mentions above, Ryan Tannehill looked like he was destined to be a journeyman backup before being bounced out of the league until he left Miami, got away from Gase, and quickly became one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

Now, that’s a pretty unique situation, but if there’s ever a time to bet on a turnaround, this might be the one. We have a clear, analogous case of a Gase quarterback leaving for another team, and immediately becoming the player hoped they could after being regarded as a bust.

It’s not just the schemes Gase implemented that failed, but his utter inability to put talent around young quarterbacks. During his tenure in Miami the best receiver Tannehill had was Jarvis Landry, who was allowed to walk and replaced with ... a 33-year-old Danny Amendola.

Similarly, Darnold’s best receiver during his time in New York was Robby Anderson, who was also allowed to walk in free agency and replaced with ... a 33-year-old Chris Hogan.

Darnold has never had a better chance to show he belongs

The 23-year-old is getting so much more than a change of scenery. Not only is he being reunited with the best receiver he had on the Jets, but also another 1,000 yard receiver in D.J. Moore, Christian McCaffery at running back who can catch outlet passes, as well as David Moore and Dan Arnold, two big-play pass catchers signed in free agency.

Most importantly he’ll get to work with Joe Brady, the offensive coordinator who took Joe Burrow and turned him into a Heisman winner, and stellar rookie before he was lost to injury. Now, for the first time in his career, Darnold has an actual support structure around him that will allow him to show what he’s got.

Does this mean the Jets made a mistake by trading Darnold?

Hell no. Absolutely not. Buying into the idea Darnold is a legend in the making is a fun possibility, but the reality if that there’s nothing he showed in New York that justifies passing on a quarterback with the No. 2 pick. especially if there’s someone new coach Robert Saleh believes in. By all accounts that seems to be Zach Wilson, and the team is prepared to build around him.

In the end New York had to move on, whether Darnold was a victim or circumstance or not — and they managed to get some picks to boot. This will help with their rebuilding efforts moving forward.

And what about the Panthers?

The best part of this trade is that Carolina pivoted from the possibility of taking a major risk in the draft, to a minor one via trade. Even if Darnold is terrible, they didn’t give up much to take the risk. Carolina will find itself back in the top 10 again next year, this time with a better chance of landing a top quarterback.

For now though, they’re going to give Darnold a shot, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how it pans out.

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aftermathdb · 4 years

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DEATH BATTLE Review: Miles vs. Static

It feels good to be back.

So, two young Black teens from alternate dimensions that eventually came over to a major one, and were both based off of Peter Parker Spider-Man?

Starting to see why this was chosen over Miles vs. Midoriya.

Miles′ Preview.

So the hosts go over the many differences between the main universe and the universe of Earth-1610. Like brand-names, certain terms, and the price of a burger and fries. But most notably…

Peter Parker was dead.

Enter: Miles Morales. Your typical kid that had some nice, if a bit overbearing parents, and an Uncle Ben Arron, who was a super-criminal.

So on one of his heists, a spider got in his bag, so when Miles visited… Well…

So, as the newest Spider on the block, Miles can do whatever a Spider Can.

And we get into a bit more detail, with a Wiz and Boomstick segment, and a bit more on the webshooters, which Boomstick comments that it would be great for getting a beer without needing to leave the couch.

(Good God! Boomstick’s smile is horrifying!)

(God… There’s that smile again…)

(Thank God it’s over. No more creepy Boomstick smile).

Anyways, with all these powers, Miles proved that he was a worthy successor to the mantle of Spider-Man.

And we get our first notecard of the season

They also go over some feats too.

While this feat isn’t technically comics canon, it checks out when comparing it to Peter’s feats. Which is a reasonable comparison since Miles has gone toe-to-toe with the OG Webslinger.

And with all that said, Miles has proven that he is indeed a major successor, and possibly a better Spider-Man than Peter.

Oh, and for those of you wondering, Miles migrated to the main universe after his own universe blew up. It’s a long story, and I didn’t have the time to get shots of it.

Static′s Preview.

The hosts go over how much of a nerd Virgil is before going into the bigger details about his life and the circumstances about him getting his powers.

So after a firefight gone wrong, and a whole lotta death, Virgil found out that he got metahuman powers. And became Static.

With these powers, Static has all sorts of electrokinesis, mechanokinesis, and powers over the electromagnetic spectrum. And became one of, if not the most well-known heroes in the Dakotaverse…

Quick history lesson, Static started out as part of Milestone comics, which were then merged with DC.

After that, Static became a part of the DC universe, thanks to this guy

(Right here) gaining cosmic powers, and migrating Milestone’s characters over to DC’s universe before the previous universe got blown up.

And we get a Wiz and Boomstick segment that’s just kinda… More of a joke setup than anything really substantial.

I hope to God that I got those nationalities right.

Anyways, Static can use his powers to see a person’s Bioelectric aura, and do all sorts of crazy stuff with his powers.

From reattaching limbs with electricity, to matching Superboy’s telekinesis.

He’s even pulled these off in the cartoons:

And like other DC rresidents, he can dodge lightspeed attacks. Because DC just likes it when characters can do that.

Static once pulled this off in the cartoon:

While not technicallly canon, Static has, as mentioned before, matched Superboy’s telekinesis. So it’s reasonable to say that he could pull this off too.

No matter how you Watt-ch it, Static has proven himself to be a hero worthy of any universe.

The Battle Itself.

Luis and Zack are our main animators. Miles will be voiced by Kirikai and Static will be voiced by Zeno Robinson. JT Music writes “Watt’s Up Danger and Chris Kokkinos lead on audio.

So the fight starts off right in the middle of it. Apparently, Miles thought that Static was either Electro or Electro-adjacent, and attacked him. Leading to Static retaliating.

I’ve seen worse stories, but it would have been neat-ish to see the initial start.

Anyways, we get some really neat Spider-verse like effects throughout the battle.

And we even get to see the Shoulder-Touch in action.

Kinda recently noticed that Miles dabs here.

Anyways, since this works on Electro, it works on Static. Which takes him by surprise.

Static brings up his shield, and it’s here that Miles struggles to keep up with him.

But, thankfully, the Spider-Sense is still in play.

Miles dodges Static’s incoming disc and they start fighting on the side of the building. But Static disrupts Miles’ Wall-Crawling abilities and forces the fight to the top

For the record, there are a lot of Spider-Verse shout-outs and recreations here. Which, as a fan of the movie (Or the Spider-Mythos in general), is really really cool.

So Miles also uses his invisibility to break Static’s ride.

So Static makes that power moot.

And after a brief clash, Static is left short an arm

So, we all know how this works by now.

Verdict + Explanation.

So, back to the nightmare-inducing portrayals of Wiz and Boomstick, it’s noted that they were about even in speed, and that in a physical fight, Miles would take the win.

But with Static’s electric powers, he was ultimately above what Miles could pull off.

Now, Static’s abilities were pretty good counters to what Miles has. In a way, this is a lot like Sasuke vs. Hiei, in which one of them has an edge in a certain category, they’re about even in another, but the other has perfect counters to what the first one could do. Miles’ Wall-Crawling and invisibility would be countered by Static’s abilities, and his equipment could also be countered as well.

Now for the obvious: “Spider-Men fight Electro all the time! Why is Static different?”

Well, for one, Electro doesn’t come anywhere near as close to what Static could do.

And secondly… Electro’s an idiot.

Cutting back to Nightmare Boomstick and Nightmare Wiz, and Wiz’s Multiverse Manipulator, we get our final rundown of what happened.

Overall impression.

So, aside from Wiz and Boomstick’s nightmare faces, this episode was a pretty good way to start us off. Now, I’m not a fan of hip-hop, or anything of the sort (More of a jazz and rock fan, personally), but the battle goes down pretty well. The action is great, the explanations are sound, and they do a lot to make us feel nostalgic for the old Static Shock show (Which I actually re-binged recently, mostly because I wanted to learn more about him).

The music was fitting for the episode, and it felt pretty neat for this section overall. And the concept of the matchup was a lot more interesting that Miles and Midoriya‘s “We took up the torch” comparisons.

What can I say?- I’m a fan of the more obscure matchup. It’s probably why I still want Dinobot vs. Zuko.

My own preferences aside, it was great to see Static in a fight like this, mostly because it would probably be difficult to find an opponent for him that isn’t Electro.

Then again, I was hoping that Static would come after Black Lightning so that I could write a chapter where he geeks out at meeting both OG Spider-Man, and Black Lightning. I guess I can still do that even with Static coming first, but still, this kinda ruins part of the joke if he’s already met the Spider-Man… Spider-Men…

Overall, I’d say that the only thing this season needs is a less horrifying Wiz and Boomstick. Not even the Mortal Kombat fatalities make me freak out this much. This is like the Sonic Movie all over again. If this is the price of getting more episodes in a season, then I’d say no thanks. Bring back the old Wiz and Boomstick designs please. It’s probably a little late for the next few episodes, but until then… Good grief, not even Frost’s MK11 fatality freaks me out this much…

8.8/10

Next Time…

Speaking of Mortal Kombat…

Sindel Injustice 3 DLC Confiirmed?

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it!

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Scream Queens.

#Death Battle #Deathbattle #review

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