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spencers-renaissance · 3 years

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Fic Rec Bingo!!

So instead of Fic Rec Thursday, I thought I'd do something a little different this week and recommend 25 fics based on this bingo card (although it turned into 26, oops). I kept most of these as CM because that's my blog's focus, but due to the nature of the prompts, there are 5 Marvel (Irondad) ones & 1 Sherlock towards the end!

from @lightveils on twitter, but found posted on tumblr by @cywscross <3

1. A fic with a premise that shouldn't work but does

I never would've thought I'd enjoy a fic with Spencer as a little rebellious shit because it seems so ooc, but I loved this one!

las vegas kid by trashcanbarbie - 1.9k, 1ch, Gen/Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Gambling, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Young Spencer Reid, Teenage Rebellion, Protective Aaron hotchner, Pre-Canon, Father-Son Relationship, Teenage Spencer Reid

JJ raises her eyebrows, “so, you're trying to say counting cards isn't cheating?” “No,” he grins, boyish and charming, “it is.”

2. A fic you've reread several times

Discipline Changes by fullofcrazyness - 1.2k, 1ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Past Child Abuse, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Comforting Hotch

Jack stopped and looked at his dad, finally seeing that his dad wasn’t actually angry. Concerned and relieved, but not angry. He was about to say something when he saw someone in the doorway, white as a sheet. “Papa?”

3. A comfort fic

i'm always tired, but never of you by @iamrenstark - 2.2k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Hurt Spencer Reid, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad Derek, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Derek Morgan Needs a Hug, Men Crying, Gunshot Wounds, Blood and Injury

When Spencer figured it out, he was stepping out of the elevator on the bottom floor of Quantico, and he went to tell Derek he loved him like he did every day, but he froze up, because he was afraid he wouldn't hear it back. (Or, Spencer thinks his boyfriend is falling out of love with him.)

4. A cathartic fic

Every Little Transgression by @58thacademic - 1.6k, 1ch, Gen, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sad Spencer Reid, Protective David Ross, Protective Derek Morgan, Mentioned Suicide Attempt, Spencer's Backstory, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-Con, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Episode: s03e16 Elephant's Memory

Ok so. Elephants memory was really good because we got Reid backstory. But I'm still annoyed that he didn't defend himself against Hotch. So this was born.

5. A fic you'd print and put on your bookshelf

One Call Away by GhostInTheBAU - 204k, 32ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Dubious Consent, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Domestic Violence, Rape Recovery, Referenced Past Drug Use, PTSD, Hurt Spencer Reid, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Flashbacks, Healing, Nightmares, Suicidal Thoughts, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, Eventual Smut

When Reid's boyfriend attacks him, leaving him broken and bleeding, he calls the first person he thinks of for help. He calls the only person he really wants to see. He calls Hotch.

6. A fic you associate with a song

I associate this fic with The First Thing You See by Bruno Major. I think if you listen to the song, you'll easily see why <3

You Make Waking Up Worth It by @guccifloralsuits - 2.1k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Fluff, Minor Angst, Established Relationship, Morning Routines, Hurt/Comfort, Good Things Happen Bingo

“Morning sweetheart,” Derek says, pausing briefly to ruffle his hand gently through Spencer’s hair. The genius nuzzles into the touch but doesn’t reply. It’s too early for conversation, Morgan knows. Pretty boy may get up earlier than he does, but it takes the younger a lot longer to really wake up.

7. A fic that inspires you

This fic could have been in so many categories because I adore it, but I wouldn't have started writing Rain is a Chance to be Touched without this fic so it definitely belongs here.

Forgive Me For All I Could Not Become by @degrassi-fanatic - 105k, 20ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Canon Divergence, Getting Together, Angst, Case Fic, Confessions, Complicated Relationships, Near Death Experiences, Friends With Benefits, Smut, Miscommunication

In which Reid has always been good at hiding things. He hid his father's departure and his mother's illness from social services. He hid his addiction from his team. He hid his sexuality from the world. He hid his inappropriate feelings from his boss. That is until he's bleeding out in Hotch's arms, in an abandoned church, in Oklahoma. From there on out, Hotch and Reid learn to make a complete mess out of each other.

8. A fic that brought you on board a new ship

Even though it's unrequited, this was the first fic that really had me going !!! at Penemily <3

Another Wide-Eyed Girl by mallfacee - 2k, 1ch, Gen/Derek Morgan & Penelope Garcia, Penelope Garcia/Emily Prentiss (Unrequited), Coming Out, Internalised Homophobia, Derek Morgan is a Good Friend, Friendship, Gunshot Wounds, Episode: s03e08 Lucky

Derek Morgan is handsome and calls her “baby girl” and smiles at her like she’s the only girl in the room. Penelope Garcia knows she should be swooning and all she can think is that there must be something wrong with her not to react to a man like that giving her all this attention. Two years later she meets Emily Prentiss and understands.

9. A fic you wish could be a movie

Listen, I adore the soulmate trope, and an angsty moreid soulmate movie? Fucking sign me up right now

i need you now but i don't know you yet by @iamrenstark - 3.1k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Hurt Spencer Reid, Hurt Derek Morgan, Mutual Pining, Soulmates, Hurt/Comfort, Buford Mention, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Season 5

It goes like this; Spencer hasn't spoken to his soulmate since he was ten, didn't know their gender or their name or a single thing about them. Spencer's soulmate doesn't want him, and that's okay.

10. A fic that led to you making friends with the author

I'm doing two because fuck you that's why

This was one of the first fics I read of Adam's and I immediately fell in love with his writing! And I'm pretty sure that we ended up becoming friends after I rec'd it!!

Plum Sauce by @goldencatchflies - 1.5k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Canon Divergence, Fluff, Jealousy, Platonic Morcia, Episode: s07e13 Snake Eyes

Garcia tells Spencer about what she thinks happened between her and Derek. He doesn’t seem too happy about it...

I read this from Syd and absolutely loved it, and like with Adam, we became friends from there! (I mean technically husband and wife, but, y'know. Semantics.)

You Belong With Me by @spencerspecifics - 11.4k, 1ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Song Fic, Getting Together, Angst with a Happy Ending, Pining, Fluff

A fluffy Moreid fic based on You Belong With Me by: Taylor Swift

11. A fic you associate with a place

This reminds me of a chilled Sunday afternoon on my old sofa in my living room, with the fire on in the background. I read it all in one sitting and loved every word <3

Metanoia by @makaylajadewrites - 39k, 16ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Canon Typical Violence, Implied Rape/Non-Con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Established Relationship, Near Death Experiences, Frostbite, Rape Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Spencer Reid, Drug Use, Eventual Smut, Eventual Happy Ending

Oh, Derek… He couldn’t stand the thought of him bursting in with SWAT in tow, gun at the ready, only to descend those creaky stairs and find his naked, bleeding body, vacated of life, crumbled on a red-stained mattress. The realization that he was going to die at the end of this was catching up to him, but maybe it would be better that way.

In which an unfortunate resemblance to an unsub's victims puts Reid right on his radar.

12. A fic that made you gasp out loud

Gasp out loud might be a *bit* of an overreaction, but this one took me on a rollercoaster and I loved every second of it (all of bau-gremlin's fics will do that to you tbh)

The End by @bau-gremlin - 3.1k, 2ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Graphic Violence, Stabbing, Blood and Injury, Temporary Character Death, Hurt Spencer Reid, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt Aaron Hotchner, Sleepy Cuddles, Protective Spencer Reid

The famous interview with Chester Hardwick ... except Hotch and Reid get separated and Reid is left alone with Hardwick and a prison-made shiv.

13. A fic you found at the right time

You're Going to be Okay by fullofcrazyness - 2.6k, 1ch, Gen/Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Dark, Suicidal Thoughts, Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Sad Spencer Reid, Hurt Spencer Reid, Depression, Protective Aaron Hotchner, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending

Spencer was no stranger to depression. His father leaving him, his mother’s episodes, being twelve years old in a Las Vegas high school. All of those things made him very familiar with the illness. “I… I think I need some help.”

14. A fic that you would read a fic of

Chain Reaction by EloquentDossier - 42k, 16ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Alternate Universe, Texting, Dialogue-Only, Text Fic, Self-Esteem Issues, Fluff, Angst, Implied/Referenced Past Drug Use, Canon Divergence, Pining, Oblivious Aaron Hotchner, Happy Ending

A dialogue-only AU in which Hotch texts what he thinks is Rossi's new number but is actually the slightly eccentric stranger whom Hotch knows only as "Spencer." What follows is something neither man could have ever quite expected.

15. A fic that made you laugh out loud

The Bet by @degrassi-fanatic - 1.6k, 2ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Bets & Wagers, Humour, Fluff, Canon Divergence

“Fifty bucks says Hotch writes you up and sends you to sexual harassment sensitivity training.” she declares as she stares him down. Without looking away from her, Reid takes out his own wallet and flips it open to pull out a fifty dollar before placing it down right next to Prentiss’s own money. “Fifty bucks says Hotch will go out with me.”

16. A fic that gave you butterflies

The healing and dynamics in this one is just.... off the charts :')

Who Spencer Reid Loves by @blueberriesandbubbles - 36k, 11ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Rape/Non-Con Elements, Abusive Relationships, Domestic Violence, Abuse, Hurt Spencer Reid, Mutual Pining, Rape Recovery, Healing, Fluff

Derek Morgan has been in love with the resident genius as long as he's known him. When Spencer enters a relationship with a mystery man, Derek is unhappy. He is even more unhappy when he meets this man. Spencer starts acting different and Derek knows something is wrong and he has a feeling its connected to the man Reid is dating.

17. A fic that embodies something you value in life

The utter and total love and devotion in this fic just punches me right in the gut every time I reread it

A Little Fall of Rain by jack_hunter - 4.3k, 2ch, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Angst, Spencer Reid Whump, Autistic Spencer Reid, Major Character Injury, Secret Relationship, Team as Family, Dad Rossi

Morgan crept up behind the doctor and snatched the headphones off of his head, earning a yelp of a protest as he slipped them over his own ears. “Les Mis?” Morgan asked with a quizzical look, “didn’t peg you as the musical type, Pretty Boy.” Spencer snatched the headphones back. “I’ve always loved the theatre and I went to see Les Misérables with-... a friend last Friday.”

18. A favourite AU

The Curious Case of Dr. Reid by severaance - 37k, 10ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Transgender Character, Fluff, Trans Spencer Reid, Light Angst, Getting Together, Developing Relationship, Smut, Insecurity, Happy Ending (Warning for Homophobic & Transphobic Slurs)

"And your names for the order, please?" The barista asked, eyes flickering expectantly between the two before her. "Spencer," she answered, although she was not talking to the barista. "I'm Spencer." The man before her had the same idea. "Derek."

19. A fic you stayed up too late to finish reading

I stayed up one night and read pretty much all the marvel fics this author has written, but this was the last one that I simply could not resist. The next day wasn't pretty :/

The more you say, the less I know by forthenightisdarkandfullofterror - 13.9k, 3ch, Gen/Irondad, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Temporary Amnesia, Protective Pepper Potts, Not Endgame Compliant, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Blood and Violence, Hurt Peter Parker, Whump

Tony wakes up from snapping with amnesia and for the life of him can't remember the kid hanging around, claiming to be 'just an intern'. Feelings get hurt.

20. A fic that made you feel seen

heavy in my bones by hopeless_hope - 4.4k, 1ch, Gen/Irondad, Chronic Pain, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Peter Parker, Whump, Father-Son Relationship, Dad Tony, Worried Tony Stark, Angst, Chronic Illness, 5+1 Things

Five times Peter lied to someone about his chronic pain, and one time he told the truth and got the help he needed.

21. A fic you love without knowing the source material

(I mean this is literally all marvel fics but I'll rec this one because I loved it so much)

the locker room by searchingforstars - 15.5k, 3ch, Gen/Irondad, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Hurt Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Mental Health Issues, Misunderstandings, Arguing, Miscommunication, Crying, Whump, Angst with a Happy Ending, Rape Recovery

Peter's falling apart and he doesn't know how things will ever go back to normal again after Ryder.

22. A fic you've gushed about IRL

Genuinely, this fic is better than most published fiction I've read...

The Third Option by Uncertainty_Principle - 220k, 37ch, Gen/Irondad, Hurt/Comfort, Sexual Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Alternate Universe, Hurt Peter Parker, Foster Care, Identity Reveal, Slow Build, Disordered Eating, Homelessness

Ben and May divorced before Peter’s parents died, so when Ben is murdered Peter goes into foster care. It takes just a tiny taste of superpowers for Peter to decide he doesn’t want to put up with his horrible foster father anymore—the streets are infinitely more appealing. All he wants is to be Spider-Man anyway.

So he leaves. Simple.

Simple, that is, until Iron Man needs Spider-Man’s help. Peter isn’t about to turn down an opportunity to fight alongside Tony Freaking Stark, but he also isn’t going to let his hero know that his recruit is a fifteen-year-old homeless dropout. So they strike a deal. Peter will help Tony. In return, the mask stays on. And that’s when things get complicated.

23. A fic you still remember many years later

The Transport Series by ancientreader - 135k, 2 works, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Backstory, Canon Drug Use, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Physical Disability, AU, Important Character Death, First Time, Developing Relationship, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Humour, Fluff

How to become a consulting detective. // Jim's lessons are hard to unlearn.

24. A fic with a line or two that you've memorised by heart

"He has held up buildings and nuclear bombs and whole entire countries on his back. Peter’s body is the heaviest thing he’s ever held."

when my body won't hold me anymore (where will I go) by @madasthesea - 4.4k, 2ch, Gen/Irondad, Temporary Character Death, Angst, Grief/Mourning, Father-Son Relationship, Hurt Peter Parker, Crying, Forehead Kisses, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Medical Inaccuracies, Hugs, Platonic Cuddling

But he knows. He knows. He can feel it. Peter’s dead. Peter Parker watches as Tony carefully arranges his limbs on a cot. “Mr. Stark,” he tries for the dozenth time. No one hears him.

25. Free Space

And to round it off, we have to celebrate the fic that really and truly welcomed me into the CM fanfic world...

Chanel by @4x24 - 24k, 7ch, Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid, Getting Together, Spencer Wears Makeup, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Typical VIolence, Humour, Fluffy Ending, Pining, Smut Heavy

Penelope mentions offhandedly one night that she thinks Spencer might look good in makeup. Spencer takes the suggestion to heart. Derek likes the new look - and Spencer - more than he probably should. (Season 4)

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overwatch-does-stuff · 3 years

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Okay, it’s time for some deep nerdery to speculate about Overwatch 2

Overwatch 2 has 30+ characters. That’s one hell of a large ensemble. If Blizzard had any brain cells, they would probably try and take a similar approach to how Marvel handled their large cast in Avengers: Infinity War.

Remember Infinity War? It functioned as a movie by keeping its groups of characters small (at most five people per group) but also by choosing ‘main characters’ that it focused most of its emotional energy on (most notably, Ironman, Dr. Strange, Vision, Thor, Thanos, and Gamora). The main characters were the ones with emotional arcs and therefore had the most screentime. The rest of the cast was quite static. Also, characters in different groups rarely, if ever got to interact with any characters outside of their group, with the rare exception of a quip or two.

My suspicion is that Overwatch 2 is going to do a VERY similar thing. This means that the roster of Overwatch heroes are going to be divided up into groups and assigned either main character or side character status.

So who’s going to be in each group? That I can’t tell you. As Marvel has shown, characters are grouped up not based on character compatibility, or even arc potential, but instead on what would best make the plot go forward. (For example, raise your hand if you predicted that Ironman, Spiderman, and Dr. Strange would team up with Starlord, Mantis, and Drax for the climax. No one? That’s what I thought.)

What I can predict, however, is whether each Overwatch hero is going to be given main character status or not. My predictions are going to be based on lore importance and current emotional arcs that have been set up the Overwatch continuity. Unfortunately, fan favoritism or previous screen time is not a good indicator (again, as shown in Infinity War.: raise your hand if you predicted that Captain F*cking America would have less than fifteen minutes screentime?) and therefore will not be counted in my evaluation.

NOTE: It is assumed that the plot of Overwatch 2 will be the plot that was introduced in the Zero Hour short, along with the gameplay trailer.

I’ll go tank/damage/support, alphabetically through each section.

D.va- Oh, poor D.va. Unfortunately, I think she’s just going to be a side character. Being so unconnected with the rest of the cast is a death sentence for plot importance. The only way I can see her being a major player is in an indirect way- if Blizzard decides to focus on the “Omnic From the Sea” they teased at in the short Shooting Star.

Orisa- Orisa is not so cleanly cut. Given that she was created to defeat Doomfist, she has potential to be the one who takes him down. They’re narrative and thematic rivals (an analysis of which could be a whole other post) which made me finally decide that she’ll be main character status. I know that seems like a cop-out, but given how Doomfist is the main face of villainy, her connection with him makes her important.

Reinhardt- I’m going to be massacred for this, but I don’t see any universe where Reinhardt is a main character. His character is static, his connection with old Overwatch is the most flimsy out of the oldies, and most of his backstory has already been explored. He’s going to be a side character, relegated to a mentor to Brigitte.

Roadhog- Nope. Side character. He and Junkrat fall into the same boat. Not being a part of Overwatch and having no connections to any characters in Overwatch makes more than passing screentime impossible.

Sigma- OUR BOY SIGMA is going to get no screentime, calling it right now. He’s going to be firmly relegated to side character status. Why? Although he might be a serious fan favorite, his lore and the conflict it introduces (the cosmic horror of the universe) doesn’t really apply to the rest of Overwatch. We know he’s affiliated with Talon, but more like a weapon than a character. He’s got serious redemption potential, but the arc would be very. . . simple. As soon as he gets to Overwatch the arc would be over.

Winston- MAIN CHARACTER. Our mans is currently the driving force behind the majority of the plot (that isn’t whatever Talon’s doing). He’s the one who recalled Overwatch. Enough said. If he doesn’t get an arc about learning how to be a leader, I am going to be shocked.

Wrecking Ball- lol side character. Given how Blizzard hasn’t made any attempt to treat him more than a walking gimmick, he’s going to be such a side character that he might blend into the background.

Zarya- This is another character that makes me hesitate. At first glance, she’s in the same boat as D.va in that she has no personal connections with the lore or the main cast. HOWVER, she’s directly involved in the conflict of Overwatch 2 because she is currently fighting Omnics in Russia AND has been trying to track down Talon on her own for a while now. Plus, she also has a very juicy potential character arc: she’s racist towards Omnics. Her comic touched on the fact that she has the potential to outgrow her prejudice. This leads me to believe that Zarya is going to be one of the main characters, if a more minor one than the rest.

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Ashe- Side character. Her connection to McCree ensures that she’ll get some juicy interactions, but not enough to be considered a main character. More than likely she’ll be contacted to help out with the plot conflict, but she’s not going to have any sort of arc or emotional connection with other characters beyond snarky one-liners.

Bastion- . . . I hate this, but I don’t trust Blizzard to give Bastion the relevance they deserve as a character. Don’t get me wrong, I think Bastion will be important to the plot of stopping the rogue Omnics, but I think Bastion themselves will be treated as a McGuffin. They’re mute and prone to acting naively, which is not conducive to character agency. I’m going treat McGuffin as a third category to my predictions.

Doomfist- literally the Thanos of this conflict. He’s going to be a main character, but I doubt he’ll get any character development, because that’s what Reaper is for.

Echo- Main character. It’s pretty much guaranteed by the fact that McCree sought her out in his animated short and that she was once the payload of Route 66. The Overwatch narrative also treats her as the “sPeCiAl OmNiC” that’s somehow more advanced/better/more sentient than the rest of the Omnic cast. As much as I think the role that they’re going to give her would be better suited for Bastion or Zenyatta, I just know that Blizzard is going to give her the full main character treatment. She’s going to be the magical bridge between Omnics and humans. Count me mad about it.

Genji- I love our ninja boy, and he’s an honorary mascot of the game, but as far as arcs go he just finished his. He’s finally found inner peace. That’s not a good sign for main-character-ism. However, he has tons and tons of connections to the rest of the cast and the lore. . . but I don’t think it’s enough. I think he’s going to end up as the character that other characters are able to bounce off of. Everybody knows him, so they’ll be talking to him a lot, but he isn’t going to drive the plot with his own struggles. He’s a side character. His brother, however. . .

Hanzo- As one of the two people in the Overwatch roster actively undergoing a serious life crisis, I suspect that Hanzo is going to be a main character. The fact that he and his goals are not connected to Talon or Overwatch is a detractor, but his emotional turmoil as established in the short Dragons is too important too ignore. His decisions, however reckless and hot-headed they will be, will significantly impact the plot. Why? Because his potential for redemption is such juicy story bait. Also, he could bring in an entire other faction, the Shimada Clan, into the plot, and that could be a game-changer.

Junkrat- Side character. The same reasoning for Roadhog applies here. He’s not connected in any way to the cast. The only potential mystery about him is the ‘treasure’ that’s been alluded to over and over again. If he has this story bait, why am I calling him a side character? Unfortunately, it’s because his ‘treasure’, whatever it is, is going to be a McGuffin. Junkrat’s going to be lucky if he avoids the same status.

McCree- A side character, but an important one. This decision was a difficult one. He’s got the lore and the connections to the other characters but not the internal character arc. He was an active player in unleashing Echo, but it’s also hinted at that he isn’t going to join the recalled Overwatch, instead striking out to do his own thing. That’s not conducive to being a major player in the story. However, his connections and conversations with other characters might, in the same way I’ve predicted Genji’s might, motivate other characters to drive the plot forward.

Mei- Side character. Nothing much else to say. Her focus on climate science isn’t going to be super relevant to the Omnic plot. She’s got only a very loose connection with other characters in the form of her Overwatch membership.

Pharah- I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, but she’s going to be a side character, calling it right now. She’s got so much potential because of her relationship with her mom, but that’s about it. Ana is her only connection to the rest of the cast. It’s important that they reconcile, but their reconciliation has nothing to do with any other plot point. It’s isolated. That’s not a good sign for her screen time, especially considering that she’s not looking for Ana and Ana is not looking for her.

Reaper- MAIN CHARACTER. You should have seen this coming. As the primary instigator of the plot (aka the reason Winston recalled Overwatch,) it should be meta-textually obvious why he’s going to have a lot of screentime. He’s directly responsible for a significant chunk of the unresolved lore conflict within old Overwatch. In order to resolve it, we’re going to be seeing him, a lot.

Soldier 76- Main character, for exactly the reasons listed above. As Reaper’s foil and the person who’s hunting him down, Soldier is going to be pretty important in concluding that unresolved conflict. It’s destiny. Like in a murder-soulmates kinda way.

Sombra- Tricky, tricky, tricky. . . it’s difficult to say. It all depends, I think, on the amount of emphasis Blizzard places on her conspiracy. If she’s the only character who knows exactly what’s going on, that could set her up to be very plot relevant. However, her relationship with other characters and to the rest of the Overwatch lore is shaky at best. I’m going to leave this one blank. There’s just too much we don’t know.

Symmetra- Here we have the other person in the Overwatch roster that is actively undergoing a serious life crisis that I alluded to. Symmetra might at first seem unrelated to everything- the lore, the characters, etc, but Blizzard has set up a surefire redemption arc for her that needs to be resolved. She is going to realize that Vishkar and Talon are connected, and she is going to make the decision to either go full villain (unlikely) or to turn over all the information she knows to Overwatch. Either way, she’s going to get involved, and she’s going to grow as a character. Main character material.

Torbjorn- Torbjorn, oh Torbjorn. Here’s a case that makes me upset. For all intents and purposes, he should be a main character. He’s the one who helped develop the Omnics, and he’s got an active character arc where he’s trying to undo the damage Omnics have caused. This ties him pretty damn directly to what we know of the plot of Overwatch 2. However, Blizzard lately has refused to treat him with respect, reducing him to a joke character because of his height and accent. Not only that, but they diminished his importance in the lore with the invention of Mina Liao and Echo. I could write and entire post about how the Mina Liao/Echo introduction was made to replace Torbjorn and Bastion’s importance in the potential plot, but all of three people would read it.

Tracer- As the literal face of Overwatch it’s pretty damn obvious that she’s going to be a main character. If you need a reminder, look at the London Calling comics and then the cover art for your copy of Overwatch.

Widowmaker- Widowmaker has literally zero character agency and only very very very loose connections with the lore/characters. HOWEVER, she does have the potential to be redeemed by death (I could make a whole other post on this) but it’s not enough to bring her into major character territory. Side character.

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Ana- Side character. Given that she’s avoiding her potential emotional arc by avoiding Pharah and the rest of recalled Overwatch, she’s flat out of luck for main-character-ism. She’s going to be very important to Soldier 76 and Reaper but she won’t be the one instigating any plot points. Unfortunate.

Baptiste- Another tally for the side characters. The fact that it took him a year to even get voice interactions with the rest of the cast reflects this. His arc of leaving Talon is already done, the idea of Mauga being added to the game is history by now, and he has few connections with the current cast and plot. Big F, my dude.

Brigitte- With both her dad and her mentor being important former Overwatch members, it makes sense that she should be a main character, right? Right? Unfortunately, I think she falls into the same pitfalls as Reinhardt. Her backstory is already mostly explored and her dad is better at any plot-relevant mechanics that might be needed. She’ll help her dad, no doubt, but she’s a side character.

Lucio- I really want Lucio to be a main, really, I do, but he’s a side character. He suffers the same exact problem that D.va does. He has very little to involve him with the rest of the main caste. He’ll join Overwatch, sure, but I think it’ll be more of a decorative declaration than anything. His connection with Symmetra is his only saving grace, but even that just relegates him as a side character in her emotional arc.

Mercy- I think she’s going to be a side character, because all of her current content has her separated from everyone else and unsure about going back to recalled Overwatch. I don’t see the narrative following her inner emotional turmoil about this decision very much. She also doesn’t add anything to the potential plot.

Moira- Okay, Moira is tricky, so hear me out: her lore importance is off the CHARTS, and she’s a lot like Doomfist in the aspect that she is quite clearly villainous. She brainwashed Widowmaker. She turned Reaper into what he is today (physically, mind you,) and she probably has something to do with manipulating Sigma. But is being a villain enough? She’s not the one directly orchestrating Talon’s plan, like Doomfist is. And she’s not so directly connected to the fall of Overwatch like Reaper is. I hesitate to call her a main. Narratively, she’s going to get her comeuppance, but. . . (I’m going to leave this one blank.)

Zenyatta- The only true wild card on this list. Sure, I’ve left Sombra and Moira blank, but Zenny boy? He’s literally got nothing. There’s nothing to base predictions off of. No lore to speak of. We know that he mentored Genji. We know that he knew Mondatta. We know that he defends Omnics’ rights to exist. However, I doubt Blizzard has the nuance to tackle his perspective on the impending Omnic war in Overwatch 2. He could be a seriously major player if he was treated with the respect that his character deserves, though! He could potentially have an active role in trying to figure out what’s making the Omnic uprising occur and stopping it in its tracks! There is so much potential there! It’s all in Blizzard’s hands. It’s all about how Blizzard chooses to finally flesh out his character. . . IF they flesh out his character at all.

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Total tally out of 32

Main characters: 11

Side characters: 17

Undecided: 3

McGuffin: 1 (poor Bastion)

And that’s the results! It’s important to note that I am far from infallible and that these are just my opinions/speculations on the future. Please please please argue with me in the tags/reblogs. That would make my day.

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The Weekend Warrior 12/4/20 – HALF BROTHERS, THE PROM, I’M YOUR WOMAN, BLACK BEAR, LUXOR, ANOTHER ROUND, ALL MY LIFE, NOMADLAND, MANK and Much More!

I hope everyone had an absolutely wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was relatively uneventful, and I only spent most of my time watching movies. And holy shit, there are a LOT of movies out this week, but at least a few of them I’ve already seen and reviewed, and there are others that are actually pretty good, so I might as well get to it, hm?

First up is this week’s Focus Features theatrical release, HALF BROTHERS, a buddy road comedy directed by Luke Greenfield (Blue Streak, Let’s Be Cops) that’s fairly high concept but also with quite a bit more depth than the director’s previous movies. It stars Luis Gerardo Méndez as Renato Murguia, a wealthy Mexican businessman whose father left him to come to America when Renato was just a child. Just as Renato is about to get married while having issues connecting to his future stepson Emilio, he gets a call that his own father is dying, so he begrudgingly goes to see him. Once there, Renato’s dying father sends him on a scavenger hunt to find someone named “Eloise” with his annoying slacker half-brother Asher (Connor del Rio), because that will provide all the answers Renato is looking for on why his father never returned from America, remarried and had another son. What could possibly go wrong?

If you’ve seen any of the ads for Half Brothers, you may already presume that this is a fairly high-concept buddy road comedy that is constantly going for the zaniest and craziest of laughs. That probably would only be maybe 25% of the movie. Instead, this fairly mainstream comedy finds a way to take a very common comedy trope and throw in enough heartfelt moments that you can forgive the few times when it does go for low-hanging fruit. We’ve seen so many movies like this where two guys (or sometimes ladies, but not as often) are paired with one having zero patience or tolerance for the other, who is beyond aggravating to them. (Planes, Trains and Automobiles is one of the better ones.) Obviously, Renato fits snugly into the first category, and Asher could not be more annoying, very early on stealing a goat for no particular reason.

The Mexican angle and the fact that a lot of the film is in Spanish – Focus getting into Pantelion territory here? – does add to make Half Brothers feel like more of a personal story than we might normally see in this kind of movie, touching upon the immigrant experience, from the viewpoint of a low-paid worker as well as a well-to-do industrialist. It also deals with things like fatherhood and brotherhood and what it means to be one or both, so everything ultimately connects far better in the end than some might expect. I also want to give the filmmakers credit for putting together a cast of mostly unknown or little-known actors and getting such great results out of them.

On the surface, Half Brothers seems like just another buddy comedy, but underneath, it’s a heartfelt and emotional journey that touches in so many ways and ends up being quite enjoyable.

Another movie opening nationwide this Friday is ALL MY LIFE (Universal), starring Jessica (Happy Death Day) Rothe as Jennifer Carter and Harry (Crazy Rich Asians) Shum Jr. as Solomon Chau, whose wedding plans are thrown off when he is diagnosed with liver cancer. They realize they have to get married sooner since he might not live to make their planned date, so their friends launch a fundraiser so that they can get married in two weeks. The movie is directed by Marc Meyers (My Friend Dahmer), who is a more than capable filmmaker with this being his third movie in the last two years.

Now that I’ve actually seen the movie… I’ll freely admit that this is not the kind of movie I usually have very high expectations for, and maybe that’s because I’ve already been burnt twice this year with real-life romantic dramas, first with the faith-based I Still Believe in March and then more recently with Two Hearts. In both cases, I could count the issues and why they failed to tug at the heart strings as they were meant to do. Even though I’ve generally enjoyed Meyers’ past movies, I wasn’t even sure he could pull off this type of studio romance movie without having to cowtow to the corny clichés that always seem to slip in – or at least find a way to make them more palatable. (And let’s be realistic. This is the kind of movie that snobby film critics just LOVE to trash.)

First of all, Meyers already has two truly fantastic leads working in his movie’s favor. I’ve been a true Jessica Rothe stan ever since seeing her kill it in Happy Death Day and its sequel. Shum is perfectly paired with her, and the two of them are so good from the moment they first meet and we meet them. In every scene, you feel like you’re watching some of that rare on-screen romantic chemistry that’s so hard to fake. Their relationship is romantic and goofy, and you’re just rooting for them all the way through even if you do know what’s to come.

Eventually, Sol does fall ill, and it does lead to some more dramatic and tougher moments between the couple, but all of it is handled so tastefully, including their need to raise money so they can have their wedding rather than waiting. I am living proof that people really do come together to step up when they see someone in real need, so I couldn’t even tut tut at something like their fundraiser getting so many people to chip in. On top of his two leads, Meyers has assembled such a great cast around the duo, the most recognizable being Jay Pharaoh from Saturday Night Live, everyone around Jess and Sol handles the requisite emotions with nary a weak link.

There’s just so much other stuff that adds to the enjoyment of watching All My Life from the use of Oasis and Pat Benatar in the soundtrack just to the quality storytelling that makes it all feel quite believable. These sorts of movies tend to be rather corny and the diehard cynic who doesn’t have an ounce of romance or love in their body will find things to hate.

All My Life finds its way into your heart by being one of those rare studio romance movies that understands how human emotions truly work, and there’s nothing corny about that. It’s a beautiful movie that entertains but also elicits more than a few tears. Watch it with someone you love.

This week’s “Featured Flick” is Chloe Zhao’s amazing film NOMADLAND (Searchlight), which I reviewed out of its Toronto International Film Festival premiere, but it’s (sort of) being released in theaters this week. It stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a woman living in her van as she moves from place to place taking odd jobs within a community of nomads. It’s another amazing film from the filmmaker behind The Rider, who will make her foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe next year with The Eternals, which I’m just as psyched about. There’s no denying that McDormand gives a performance that’s a knock-out, even better than the one in 3 Billboards if you ask me, and there’s also a great supporting role for David Strathairn, who I’ve been hoping would have another role as good as this one. Zhao is just a fantastic filmmaker, and I’m glad to see that The Rider was no fluke.

Unfortunately, Nomadland is only getting a one-week Oscar qualifying run, and I’m not even sure where it’s getting that run since theaters in New York and L.A. aren’t even open yet. Maybe Searchlight will do some drive-in screenings like they did for the New York Film Festival and Telluride? It will get a stronger theatrical release (hopefully) on February 21, just to make doubly sure it qualifies for Oscars.

Opening in theaters this week before streaming on Netflix December 11 is Ryan Murphy’s adaptation of the Broadway musical THE PROM, the first feature film he’s directed in ten years. The multiple Tony-nominated musical is about a high school girl named Emma (newcomer Jo Ellan Pellman) who wants to take her girlfriend (Ariana DeBose) to their senior prom, but the head of the PTA (Kerry Washington) cancels the prom instead. The national outrage the situation creates gets the attention of a quintet of self-absorbed Broadway actors who decide to improve their PR by taking up Emma’s cause. Oh, yeah, and those actors are played by Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, and actual Broadway stars Andrew Rannells and Kevin Chamberlin. What could possibly go wrong?

I’ve never had any sort of positive or negative gut reaction to Murphy’s work on television over the past few years, but I’ve definitely been mixed on the three movies he’s directed to date. I wasn’t a huge fan of his Eat Pray Love, though I vaguely remember enjoying his debut, Running with Scissors. Either way, he certainly has found his niche with musicals from Glee (a show I’ve never watched) and finding a musical like The Promseems to be a perfect fit between filmmaker and material.

Having not seen The Prom on Broadway – surprise, surprise -- I was a little worried that it was going to go down the path of nudge-nudge wink-wink inside Broadway path that helped Mel Brooks’ The Producers become a Broadway hit. That I saw, and I didn’t hate the movie based on it, although I’m by no means a total movie-musical stan. There’s some obvious older ones I love, some newer ones that others love but I hated – Rob Marshall is about 50/50 for me -- and you might be surprised by which of them I liked best.

What I thoroughly enjoyed about The Prom is that Murphy manages to truly surprise everyone watching it, whether it’s in Kerry Washington’s single song – who knew she had such an amazing singing voice? – or how enjoyable Keegan-Michael Key is as the school’s Principal Hawkins, who not only loves musicals but actually admires Streep’s two-time Tony-award winning Dee Dee Allen. Considering my frequent disdain for Streep’s over-confidence, knowing full well that she’s one of the best living actors working today, she’s actually pretty amazing in the role of what many must assume Streep is like in real life, which makes her character more than a little META. In some ways, I can say the same for Corden, who is pretty fantastic as Dee Dee’s frequent stage co-star Barry Glickman, who has his own connections to Emma’s plight having been disowned by his mother (Tracey Ullman, who only shows up for one brief scene late in the movie) when he came out to her. Corden has one dramatic moment so powerful I was taken quite aback.

Even with those two actors and Kidman likely to get much of the attention, there’s no denying that the romance between Hellman and Debose, and the three or four numbers they have together, makes up the true heart and soul of The Prom. So here you have this amazing cast, and it’s a musical made-up of very fun and quite catchy songs, and that’s long before you get to Andrew Rannells as out-of-work actor Trent Oliver, who practically steals the whole movie with his showstopper of a number, “Love Thy Neighbor.” And then watching Key holding his own with Streep, both musically and dramatically, you might start wondering, “What is going on here?”

Like I said before, it’s pretty obvious that Murphy has fully poured his passion of movie-musicals into every second of The Prom, and it shows on the face of everyone joining him on this adventure. As much as the subject at the film’s core is fairly serious and a hurdle that many gay kids across the world every day, it’s also quite funny. Kudos must be given to Murphy for being able to emphasize those moments as well as the more dramatic ones. Besides that, Murphy really takes advantage of being able to go to different locations, including a sequence on Broadway that could have been done during the pandemic (it actually was built on a soundstage), another number at an actual mall and even at a monster truck rally. It also doesn’t hurt that Murphy hired Matthew Libatique, a god-like cinematographer in my book, to film the movie either.

Like most musicals, The Prom might lose a little as it goes along, since it gets to be too much that goes on for too long, but then there are more than enough great moments to pull you back. It’s by far one of the stronger movie musicals I’ve seen in a very long time, and just the right feel-good experience we all need right now.

I’ve already reviewed David Fincher’s MANK – a few times, in fact – but if you’re in one of the places where it opened theatrically in November, you can finally see it on Netflix starting this Friday. This is the general problem with the way things are these days because even though this only opened a few weeks ago, I already feel that it’s been discussed and forgotten before most people will have a chance to see it. Anyway, if for some reason, you’ve managed to avoid things about the movie, it essentially stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who ended up co-writing Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane in 1940. The film follows Mankiewicz as he mingles with the Hollywood elite in the 30s, including billionaire William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance) and his young ingenue girlfriend Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) who would be the influence for his Oscar-winning screenplay. I expect to be writing a lot about this movie as we get closer to Oscar season sometime next year.

Also on Netflix this week is Selena: The Series, starring Christian Serratos. It’s the kind of thing that I probably would never watch unless I have an excess of time, and as you’re about to learn from the rest of the column, that doesn’t happen frequently.

The third chapter of Steve McQueen’s “Small Axe Anthology,” RED WHITE AND BLUE, will debut on Prime Video this Sunday, starring John Boyega as Leroy Logan, a young black man who joins the Metropolitan Police after seeing his father assaulted by police and wanting to make a difference in the racist attitudes from within. You might remember that I reviewed this out of the New York Film Festival a couple months back, so not much more to say there.

A week from Sunday, on December 13, McQueen’s fourth film, ALEX WHEATLE, will hit Amazon, and guess what? I’ve already seen it, so I will review it now. How about that? Alex Wheatle is also a true story, this one starring Sheyi Cole as the award-winning young adult writer when he was a younger and just learning the ropes as a drugdealer/DJ in Brixton before his involvement in the 1981 Brixton riots gets him thrown in jail.

As with the other three movies in the “Small Axe Anthology” there are recurring elements and themes in Alex Wheatle, mostly about the way the immigrants to England from Jamaica and other islands are treated by “The Beast” aka what they call the Metropolitan Police. It does take a little time to get to that, as McQueen, working from a screenplay co-written by Mangrove’s Alaistar Siddons, takes a far more non-linear approach than the other three films. We first see Wheatle being taken into prison where he’s thrown into a cell with a constantly-shitting Rastafarian, but we then cut back to his schooling for a short sequence that reminded me of Alan Clarke’s Scum. Both in prison and in school, we see Alex being abused by classmates and head matron alike, and this portion of the film includes another one of arty moments of actor Cole laying on the ground eyes wide open staring for what seems to go on forever. In some ways, this sequence reminds me of McQueen’s fantastic early film Hunger, since it seems to be cut from similar cloth.

Eventually, Alex gets to Brixton and that’s where this chapter in “Small Axe” really takes off as we see how naïve and green he is while dealing with quite a tough crowd and trying to adjust to city life among the Rastafarian community.

As with the other “Small Axe” chapters, I love how McQueen and his team used reggae music to help set the tone and vibe for the episode, because like Baz Lurhman’s Netflix series The Get Down, the music is frequently a key to this biopic working so well. Of course, it’s also due to the performance by Cole and the actors around him that helps make you feel as if you’re seeing a real part of history.

As with Mangrove, this chapter culminates with an amazing recreation of the 1981 Brixton Riots, done in protest after a house party fire in New Cross that the police don’t bother investigating. The actual riots were a much bigger and scarier event going by Wikipedia which says that 279 police were injured and 56 police vehicles set fire, which makes it sound more like the ’92 L.A. Riots.

I’m not sure Alex Wheatle does as good a job explaining how the young man goes into prison as a DJ and comes out as an author, but like Red, White and Blue it’s still an important and inspirational story that adds quite a bit to the previous three “Small Axe” films.

And once again, here is my interview with McQueen from over at Below the Line.

Also, I should mention that Darius Marder’s excellent Sound of Metal movie, starring Riz Ahmed, hits Amazon Prime Video this Friday, too. Check out my review!

The magnificent Andrea Riseborough stars in Zeina Durra’s LUXOR (Samuel Goldwyn), playing British aid worker Hana who while spending time in the ancient city of Luxor, runs into her former lover Sultan (Karim Saleh), as she reflects on past decisions and her current uncertain situation.

I was quite interested in this one sight unseen, not only because it’s another great starring role for Riseborough. (Honestly, she is one of the best actors working today, and I strongly believe she is just one role away from being the next Olivia Colman, who had been amazing for years before everyone in America “discovered” her in The Favourite and then The Crown… which I still haven’t watched! ARGH!). I was a little anxious about the movie, having seen Rubba Nadda’s Cairo Time, starring Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig, which seemingly had the exact same plot.

Durra is a much more capable and confident filmmaker and there’s a lot more overall value in watching Riseborough exploring Egypt as Durra quietly allows Hana’s story to unfold through her interactions with others, as well as her time alone, often languishing in one luxurious hotel room or another. Then there are the quiet and sometime awkward scenes between her and Saleh, the two of them having been lovers when they were both much younger. We also see Hana in far more vulnerable moments, so we know that she’s by no means actor, and it takes a great actor to really pull off such a dichotomy and bring such dimension to a character with so few words.

There’s something that’s almost comforting watching her dealing with emotions like loneliness in such a tranquil way. I’d even go so far to say that Luxor works in many ways similar to Nomadland, which obviously is getting the far more high-profile release with lots of festival love long before its actual release. Like that movie, Durra’s film benefits from having masterful cinematography by Zelmira Gainza and an equally gorgeous score by Nascuy Linares, to boot.

Luxor is a quiet, beautifully-made film that really took me by surprise. It acts as much like a travelogue of the title city as it does a tourist’s map to what it must feel like being a woman very much on her own in a foreign land.

I also spoke with Luxor filmmaker Zeina Durra, an interview that will be up at Below the Line hopefully sometime later this week.

With all the talk about Aubrey Plaza in Happiest Season (now on Hulu!), this would be a great time to release another one of her indies that played at the Sundance Film Festival this year, right? What can possibly go wrong?

In Lawrence Michael Levine’s BLACK BEAR (Momentum Pictures), Plaza plays Allison, an actor/filmmaker who arrives at the remote lake house of Christopher Abbott’s Gabe and his pregnant partner Blair (Sarah Gadon), to relax and work on a screenplay, only for the night to turn into philosophical discussions that transform into angry and even violent squabbles. In the second part of the movie, Gabe is the director, and Allison his actor wife, who thinks he’s sleeping with Blair, who is also acting in Gabe’s film.

That plot might seem a little vague, and I can’t exactly tell you whether there is much connection between the two parts of the movie other than it features the same three characters. The first half turns from a drama into a thriller before ending abruptly, while the second part is equal parts comedy and drama as we see a larger part of the world around the trio. In fact, the second part of Black Bear reminded me somewhat of Olivier Assayas’Irma Vep, one of my favorite movies, and that might be one of the highest compliments I can pay a movie.

But first, you have to get through the more quizzical and dramatic first part, which easily could have been done as a three-handed stageplay as we see the changing dynamics between the three people as things get crazier and crazier with one “Holy shit!” moment after the next. (It reminded me a little of Mamet or the play “Gods of Carnage,” although I only saw that as the movie version Carnage, directed by Roman Polanski.)

The fact the connection between the two parts is never explained might confound some people who were otherwise enjoying what is a pretty decent three-hander, but the common theme involves jealousy between the two women. Plaza is a fine dramatic actor when she wants to be, and Gadon is absolutely fantastic, which makes Abbot almost literally the odd man out, but the three of them just have great scenes together.

Black Bear is certainly an enigma of a movie, as much a mystery about what must be going on inside Plaza’s head during some of her softer and crazier scenes, but if you want to talk about range, this gives her so much material for her demo reel that no one could possibly doubt her as an actor again.

Thomas Vinterberg’s new movie ANOTHER ROUND (Samuel Goldwyn) reteams him with his The Hunt star Mads Mikkelsen for a comedy…. Ish… about a group of four middle aged Danish teachers who decide to hold an experiment to prove a theory that people only reach their maximum effectiveness and creativity when they’re .05% drunk. It starts out innocently enough but soon, the men are drinking heavily at school, leading to horrible and unfortunate side effects. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Even knowing Vinterberg’s knack for strange and twisted “comedies,” Another Round is definitely on another level, opening with a scene of drunken kids playing a drinking game that gets them so out-of-control drunk and rowdy. We then meet Mikkelsen’s Martin, a history teacher, whose rowdy seniors are so bored by his classroom technique that Martin is put in front of an inquisition of parents who think he’s going to make their kids fail their final exams. Martin’s home life isn’t much better with his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) or his own teen sons. Although Martin says he won’t drink when he has to drive, his friend Nikolaj (Magnus Millang) convinces him by announcing his theory about how everyone needs to always maintain a certain percentage of alcohol in their system. Over the course of the rest of the movie, we’re shown the alcohol level of our “heroes,” although most will see their behavior as some kind of synced-up middle life crisis. For Martin, it’s a breakthrough, as he starts feeling more confident and assertive towards his students, even trying to connect with them via their drinking activities, as seen in the opening montage.

Another Round is quite a different beast from The Hunt, because there’s a more humorous tone to the point where I could totally see an American studio trying to remake this with the likes of Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler, which would probably lose a lot of the poignancy of what Vinberberg was trying to achieve here. At one point, he throws in a montage of seemingly drunk world leaders, which is kind of amusing even if it’s not quite so apparent why it’s there. There’s a lot of really bad white guy dancing, too, for anyone who is into that sort of thing.

There is definitely a good amount of grief and sadness to the way this story resolves, although Vinterberg still finds a way to leave Martin in a place of joy with a closing scene that may surprise a lot of people. Another Round is another tremendous feather in the cap of the Vinterberg/Mikkelsen collaboration, and it will be in select theaters this Friday before going to digital on December 18.

Another Round will be in select theaters this Friday and then on digital December 18.

Fast Color director Julia Hart returns with I’M YOUR WOMAN (Amazon), once again co-written with husband Jordan Horowitz. It stars Rachel Brosnahan from The Amazing Mrs. Maisel (which I haven’t seen) as Jean, a woman unable to have a baby with her small-time crook husband Eddie. One night, Eddie brings home a baby for Jean, but then he quickly vanishes and Jean finds herself on the run with a stolen baby and one of Eddie’s accomplices, Cal (Arinzé Kene), and there are bad men wanting to question Jean about her missing husband’s whereabouts.

This is another movie where I really didn’t know what to expect, and having not watched Brosnahan on her award-winning show, I was watching this movie trying to figure out what all the fuss was about. It’s evident from the start that Hart/Horowitz were trying to make a ‘70s-set movie with all the trappings of ‘70s fashion and music, but when you throw in the crime element, it comes across a little too much like last year’s The Kitchen, which wasn’t very good but also wasn’t based on very good source material.

One would presume that the genre elements and a few scattered set pieces, like a shootout at a club, would be the main draw, but it’s almost 30 minutes before we even get any sort of plot, and that’s a big problem. An even bigger problem is that I’m Your Woman just drags for so much of the movie, and it’s pretty obvious that Hart-Horowitz were trying to create a ‘70s movie like some of the films by Scorsese and the movies John Cassavetes made with wife Gena Rowlands. By comparison, I’m Your Woman is stylized almost to a pretentious degree. Brosnahan does show a few glimpses of there being a good actor in there, but the material just really isn’t quite up to snuff. It also doesn’t help the movie to have the baby crying almost non-stop throughout.

Jean eventually pairs up with Cal’s woman Teri (Martha Stephanie Blake), her son Paul and Cal’s father (played by Frankie Faison), and this is when she learns more about Eddie’s life that she doesn’t know about. Eventually, things start to pick up in the last act, but the multiple problems Hart has with maintaining a steady pace or tone only mildly is made up for by her terrific DP and whoever put together the musical score. Essentially, the last 30 minutes of I’m Your Woman does make up for the previous 85 minutes, but it’s going to be very hard for many people to even get through how dull the movie is up until that point.

This is a week with some very fine docs, the first one being Weixi Chen and Hao Wu*’s cinema verité film 76 DAYS (MTV Documentary Films), which goes behind the doors of the Wuhan ICU Red Cross hospital over the first 76 days of the COVID pandemic after it hit the rural area of China. (*One of the film’s co-directors/cinematographers shot the film anonymously.)

Here I thought that Alex Gibney’s Totally Under Control would be the best or maybe even only movie about the pandemic released this year, but here we have a fantastic documentary that captures what it was really like in one Wuhan hospital as it was nearly overrun months before COVID started to rear its ugly head in the States. The film begins in January 23, 2020 and follows a number of cases as we watch the personnel, all decked out in head-to-toe PPE, trying to save lives and keep people calm while trying to struggle with all the stresses that come their way. There’s actually a little bit of humor in a cranky elderly man (clearly with some form of dementia) who keeps wandering around the hospital, frustrating his tenders, but there’s also a very moving story of a young pregnant woman who has contracted COVID, who ends up being separated from her baby after a Cesarian section.

There are moments early in the movie where you can see panic starting to set in as we see how out of control things begin, but the anonymous health care workers soon get things underhand and manage to find a way to deal with the panic that’s setting in. There’s no question that these doctors and nurses – many whose faces we never even see -- are the definition of frontline workers, trying to deal with this unknown virus without all the answers and solutions that have been discovered over the past ten months.

76 Days will open via the Film Forum Virtual Cinema as well as other places presumably.

I’m glad I had Dana Nachman’s DEAR SANTA (IFC Films) to watch after 76 Days, because I don’t think I could have handled another dark or deep movie after that one. This doc is all about “Operation Santa,” the amazing group of volunteers and adopters who receive the letters young kids write to the North Pole and go out of their way to fulfill the kids’ wishes.

I was a big fan of Nachman’s Pick of the Litter, so I’m thrilled to say that Dear Santa is just as wonderful and joyous, starting with a bunch of kids explaining Santa Clause enthusiastically, because they really believe in Jolly Saint Nick. Over the course of the film, Nachman profiles a number of Adopter Elves, who look through the letters written to Santa by unfortunate kids and pick a few to fulfill their wishes. A lot of them are in New York and Chicago where the program has led to a number of non-profits, but Nachman also goes to Chico, California where many of the families from Paradise, the town destroyed by fires in 2018, ended up relocation. One story of an Adopter Elf named Damion is particularly wonderful, since he, like many of those who get involved in the program, are trying to give back and pay it forward.

Operation Santa is such a great program and Dear Santa is such a wonderful movie, I challenge anyone to watch it and not tear up from how big their heart will grow while watching it.

Julien Temple’s doc CROCK OF GOLD: A NIGHT WITH SHANE MACGOWAN (Magnolia Pictures) is pretty self-explanatory from its title, but as someone who was never really a Pogues fan, I was almost as entertained by Temple’s film as I was by Alex Winter’s Zappa about a musician who I actually was a fan of. Temple uses MacGowan’s own narration to tell his story from growing up in Ireland, the early days of punk that led to the Pogues and eventually, mainstream success.

My absolute adoration of well-made music docs is fairly well-known at this point, and you can’t really get much better in terms of music doc makers than Julien Temple, who had his cameras rolling in the early days of punk, captured one of David Bowie’s more interesting mainstream phases and also made a very cool movie about The Clash frontman, Joe Strummer.

Although I never really cared for The Pogues, that’s probably because I didn’t know them from their rowdier days and more from their mainstream success from “Fairytale of New York” but Temple’s movie rectifies that with some amazing footage from the band’s earlier days. Even more impressive is the footage and pictures of MacGowan during the late ‘70s dancing in the audience at Sex Pistols and other punk shows. (Temple even interviewed MacGowan during this period in the ‘70s, then put the footage in the movie.) As MacGowan tells his own story about growing up in Ireland, Temple frequently uses varied animation to recreate the stories being told, and that does a lot to embellish the cartoon nature of MacGowan’s storytelling.

I still think MacGowan is a bit of an asshole -- I’m sure he’d agree with that assessment -- but Temple has found a way into this very difficult musician, sometimes using close friends like Johnny Depp (a producer on the film) and Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream to try to get MacGowan to open up about as much as he ever might. Crock of Gold is certainly an eye-opening portrait of the Pogues frontman that surprisingly offers something to enjoy even for those who never got into his music, but it also shows another dimension to his many fans. If nothing else, it’s a fine testament to why Temple is one of the best music doc filmmakers.

Magnolia held a bunch of one-night only theatrical screenings on Tuesday and will have more on Thursday, but if you miss those, you can catch it On Demand/digital this Friday. (I also have a really enjoyable interview with Julien Temple over at Below the Line that you should check out.)

A.J. and Jenny Tesler’s doc MAGNOLIA’S HOPE follows four years in the life of their young daughter Magnolia (aka Maggie), who has Rett Syndrome. Maggie’s filmmaking parents talk about noticing her strange behavior and finding out that she had a genetic disorder that makes it harder for children to retain what they’ve learned in terms of movement but also might led to far worse disorders. It makes it almost impossible for her to communicate with her parents, which makes it heartbreaking but also quite inspirational that the parents would allow us into their very own difficult journey to try to get their daughter to use and develop all of the skills she learns by making her practice them every single day. The movie will be available to watch for the month of December on the streaming platform Show and Tell, but it’s such a personal movie and another one where I think it will be hard for many to watch without getting a little teary but more out of joy than sadness.

Also out this week is David Osit’s MAYOR (Film Movement), which follows Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah during his second term of office and determined to make his city a beautiful and dignified place to lived despite being surrounded on all sides by soldiers and Israeli settlements. It will open today at the Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema in New York after winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 2020 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival.

What there’s more? How about Braden R. Duemmler’s WHAT LIES BELOW (Vertical Entertainment), a thriller starring Ema Hovarth from Quibi’s Don’t Look Deeper as Liberty (aka Libby), a teen girl returning from camp only to learn her mother (Mena Suvari) has a hot younger boyfriend named John (Trey Tucker), who Libby soon begins to question whether he’s human. What could possibly go wrong?

I knew I was in trouble when Suvari is picking her daughter up from archeology camp (that’s a thing?) and I misheard her asking her daughter “Any nice digs?” (think about it), especially since Suvari is playing a stereotypically over-sexed cougar, something that becomes far more obvious once we meet her boyfriend that she’s been sexing up at her lake house. There’s certainly a danger of What Lies Below turning into a prequel to a Pornhub video, but thankfully, Duemmler gets away from the inappropriate sexuality inherent in John’s presence and into the weird behavior that gets Libby suspicious.

Sure, maybe calling the movie “My Stepfather is an Alien” would have been more apropos, and there’s elements of the movie that reminded me of the Tom Hanks’ movie The ‘burbs, and not in a good way. Even so, Hovarth, who really looks like Suvari’s daughter, does a fine job holding this together and keeping you invested in how things might pan out, as things get weirder and weirder and the movie eventually transforms itself into a halfway decent and creepy “body horror” flick.

Weird but well-done, What Lies Below is not even close to the worst thriller I’ve seen this year. That might seem like damning praise, but it’s the best I can do for this one.

Debuting on Shudder this Thursday is Justin G. Dyck’s ANYTHING FOR JACKSON (Shudder), a “reverse exorcism” movie in which a seemingly kindly couple, played by Sheila McCarthy and Julian Richings, kidnap a pregnant woman (Konstantina Mantelos) in hopes of getting the spirit of their grandson Jackson, who died in a car crash, and put him into her baby… with the help of demons. What could possibly go wrong? (If you hadn’t guessed, this is the theme of this week’s Weekend Warrior.)

I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the horror delivered by streamer Shudder this year, and Anything for Jackson is no exception. In fact, going over Dyck’s filmography, it’s kind of surprising how decent a horror filmmaker he is, because most of his other movies seem like Hallmark-style Christmas movies? Crazy. There are aspects of Anything for Jackson, written by Keith Cooper, who wrote some of those holiday movies for Dyck. I honestly can imagine the two of them making this movie just to be able to do something different, so they come into the horror realm with tons of fim making experience and easily transition into horror.

At the heart of this movie are McCarthy, Richings and Mantelos, who are all fine actors who do a great job selling the horrors but do just as well during the quieter dramatic moments. Not that there are that many of them, as Dyck/Cooper throw so many absolutely horrific moments at the viewer so that diehard horror fans will not be disappointed. Things shift into another gear when Josh Cruddas joins in as a Satanic cult leader they bring in to help them when they realize they’re out of their league. The results are something akin to Insidiousin terms of the types of demons and ghosts thrown at the viewer.

At times, Anything for Jackson was a little hard to follow, maybe due to its non-linear storytelling, but at least it has a substantial amount of decent replay value, since the demons and kills are so gloriously gory.

Eric Schultz’s dark and trippy sci-fi thriller MINOR PREMISE (Utopia) stars Sathya Sridharan as neuroscientist Ethan, who gets caught up in his own risky experiment involving memory loss when he becomes trapped in his home with his ex-girlfriend Allie (Paton Ashbrook), and he doesn’t remember how they both got there.

For his directorial debut, Schultz has taken the cerebral indie sci-fi film route that we’ve seen in other filmmaking debuts like Shane Carruth’s Primer, Darren Aronofsky’s Pi or Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko, and if you’re a fan of those movies, you’ll already know if this would be for you or not. This is also the kind of movie that really requires the closest attention and fullest focus, which is not something I’m great at right now. Because of that, I don’t have a ton to say about a film that does a good job pulling the viewer in with its intriguing premise.

Schultz is a pretty decent filmmaker and discovering Sridharan, who has done a lot of single-episode TV appearances but nothing major, is quite a coup since this is quite a solid showcase for the young actor. I wasn’t as crazy about Ashbrook, which makes it for a rather uneven two-hander.

Minor Premise is just fine, and I think some people will definitely like it more than I did. I definitely will have to watch it again when I’m not so distracted by ALL THOSE OTHER MOVIES ABOVE THAT I JUST FUCKING REVIEWED!

It will be in theaters, in virtual cinema, and digital/On Demand this Friday, so check it out for yourself.

And finally…

Director Dennis Dugan of Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore directs LOVE, WEDDINGS AND OTHER DISASTERS (Saban Films), a “Love American Style” rom-com anthology with a cast that includes Maggie Grace, Jeremy Irons, Diane Keaton and more. Grace plays Jessie, a fairly inexperienced wedding plan hired to orchestrate the high-profile wedding of Boston mayoral candidate (Dennis Staroselsky), and then… oh, you know what? I’ll leave the rest of the description to the review portion of our review.

We meet Grace’s character as she and her soon-to-be-ex boyfriend are skydiving, which goes horribly wrong as they end up fighting all the way down and crashing through an outdoor wedding, caught on a viral video that gets her dubbed the “Wedding Thrasher.” Imagine what a PR disaster that would be for mayoral candidate Rob Barton to have her planning his wedding, but Jessie quickly bonds with his fiancé Liz (Caroline Portu) and begins preparations. Meanwhile, Barton’s problematic brother Jimmy (Andy Goldenberg) has gone on a game show called “Crash Couples” (that’s hosted by no less than Dugan himself) and he allows himself to be chained to a Russian “lawyer” named Svetlana (Melinda Hill) who is actually a stripper. They’re willing to stick it out since the winner gets a million dollars.

Surely, that’s more than enough stories, right? Nope. Turns out that Jessie’s main competition to plan the wedding is a legendary caterer named Lawrence Phillips (Irons) who is set-up on a blind date with Diane Keaton, who is blind. Oy vey. Also, there’s Andrew Bachelor as Captain Ritchie, who gives humorous sightseeing tours of Boston via the Charles River in an odd land/water vehicle, but one day, he encounters a young woman with a glass slipper tattoo, and he becomes quite smitten. We’ll get back to him. Maybe. In fact, Duggan spends so much time setting up different stories and relationships without much connection that you wonder whether he can tie things up in the oh-so-predictable way these things normally go.

Although the movie starts out fine, and it’s actually not a bad role for Grace, as soon as Duggan introduces the game show, then we learn that Svetlana (real name Olga) is a tripper connected to the mob and they get involved, things just start going downhill very fast. Also, the idea that Keaton -- who I haven’t seen in a good movie in almost two decades -- would not think twice about playing a klutzy blind person. As soon as she shows up and immediately knocks over one of Phillips’ signature champagne glass fountains, I knew we were in for a very long haul. I didn’t even mention the other storyline involving a musician named Mack (Diego Boneta) whose band Jessie is trying to get to play the wedding – one of the multiple meet-cutes in the movie -- although Mack is squabbling with his bandmate Lenny (Jesse McCartney) who has a new Asian girlfriend who is intruding in their friendship. (I’m sure the fact her name is “Yoni” is meant as as Yoko Ono reference.)

Then on top of that, Dugan steals the gimmick from There’s Something About Mary, by constantly cutting back to Elle King and Keaton Simmons as they’re playing folksy songs in the park. Okay, the fact that Dugan wrote many of those pretty decent songs they perform is pretty impressive.

But the movie is very predictable, especially how it all comes together for the finale, which obviously has to take place at the wedding to which everything has been building up to.

Otherwise, Dugan’s film is maybe 20% an okay movie but the other 80%? Yeesh!! It’s about as romantic as a date with the Marquis de Sade, and it somehow manages to be an equal opportunity offender... in terms of offending blind people, Asians, Jews, Arabs, gay people and even strippers and Russian mafia. It took Dugan 14 years to get this passion project made, and it’s pretty obvious why.

As usual, there were a couple movies I didn’t have time to watch, but not quite as many as the ones I did make time to watch:

King of Knives (Gravitas Ventures) End of Sentence (Gravitas Venture) Billie (Greenwich) Godmothered (Disney+) Wander (Saban Films) Music Got Me Here (First Run Features) Stand! (Fathom Events, Imagination Worldwide) HAM: A Musical Memoir (Global Digital Releasing) In the Mood for Love (4k Restoration)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #Reviews #ImYourWoman #Mank #Nomadland #CrockOfGold #TheProm #BlackBear #Luxor #AnotherRound #HalfBrothers #AllMyLife

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knifeonmars · 4 years

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Capsule Reviews - May 2020 - The Cape Stuff

I read a lot of comics in May. Here’s what I thought of some of the superhero and superhero-adjacent comics I read.

Arms of the Octopus

A nostalgia pick, the collection of several annual issues containing a crossover between Superior Spider-Man, The Invincible Hulk, and the All-New X-Men. It is an artifact of a very specific and bizarre time in Marvel Comics, when Doc Ock was Spider-Man, the Hulk worked for SHIELD, and the original five teen X-Men were stranded in their own future. For a pure, relatively straightforward crossover romp, it's quite enjoyable. Spider-Man is a jerk, the Hulk fights a robot, the X-Men are befuddled by the present, all of the major beats for that particular moment in the Marvel Universe are there, and it's got some really great art. Jake Wyatt, during his regrettably short-lived stint with Marvel and the great Kris Anka unfortunately overshadow the other contributors, but it's all very good, if not the most accessible comic.

Maxwell's Demons

I came to Maxwell's Demons having heard a lot of critical buzz and with my expectations set rather high. I did not care for this book at all. Ambitious is the best word for this series, and that's not a bad thing. It's got ideas, about the craft, about the genre, about philosophy in general. It never quite manages to carry things off though; it's not as smart as it wants to be, and the high-minded ideas are never incorporated in particularly elegant ways. Three of the story's five chapters are essentially extended monologues in which the main character rambles on about some glorified shower thought for 20-plus pages. The first and second chapters are the exceptions to this pattern, and are quite solid as far as pointedly derivative superhero riffs go, even if the second chapter's riff on "What if Miracleman #17 was significantly less intelligent" is more than a little shameless in its lack of originality. The fourth chapter, by contrast, is the nadir of the series, easily the most embarrassing Manic Pixie Dream Girl tripe I've seen played straight in literal years. I'm reminded a lot of Translucid, another superhero pastiche, which essentially sought to do for Batman what Maxwell's Demons seeks to do for Lex Luthor. I warmed to Translucid significantly on my second read and I wonder if the same will end up being true for Maxwell's Demons, but I find that Translucid simply did a better job of incorporating original ideas and stating its themes in ways less stupefyingly clunky than Maxwell's Demon's ever manages. I hate to call a book pretentious, especially an ambitious one, but at present that's how I feel about this book.

Twilight

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Howard Chaykin's Watchmen-for-mid-century-space-heroes epic. It's good. Fabulous art, some really interesting ideas and a great premise. It's also more than a little Chaykin-y, with most of the male characters having fraught but amiable relationships with their much-too-good-for-them-and-they-both-know-it ex-wives. It has this particular brand of low grade misogyny that idealizes women but in doing so denies them interiority and, ultimately, humanity. Leaving that aside, though it is a major point to leave aside, it’s story of humanity rotting over eons of immortality, mad space gods, and humanity’s proclivity towards colonialism and genocide, it's great. It’s not an altogether pleasant book, it can be nasty and strange, in ways both intentional and unintentional, but it’s original and engaging and decidedly well made. Something of an overlooked classic of that era’s DC output.

Green Lantern: Earth One

Literally the only one of DC's Earth One graphic novels that's worth a damn. Where most of the other Earth One books choose to start things off in a world resembling our own, Green Lantern starts off in a scifi future resembling something along the lines of Ad Astra or The Expanse, with Earth controlled by an only alluded to totalitarian government, humanity colonizing and mining the solar system, and Hal Jordan as a spacefaring roughneck who dreads the prospect of returning to Earth. Earth One is the rare Green Lantern story that manages to make Earth as interesting as the rest of the universe. The bulk of the action leaves this behind to focus on unearth the lost legacy of the Green Lanterns and refits their mythology in a clean way which will be unsurprising for anyone with a passing familiarity with the original comics but is still satisfying ad fresh. Fabulous art, fun take on the mythology, I'm left both wanting more and being satisfied with what we got.

Spider-Man: Life Story

In a just world, Chip Zdarksy, one of Marvel’s best writers these days, would be writing both Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, instead of having been relegated to shortlived spinoffs. Because life just isn’t fair sometimes, instead he was given this admittedly ambitious project, his all-encompassing take on the Spider-Man story as played out in real time. In the end it’s bold and engaging, but more than a little clipped in execution. Each issue is a snippet of Peter Parker's life as we catch up to him in a new decade so readers only get a quick glimpse of the action and are left to fill in the substantial gaps by drawing on our knowledge of continuity. The obvious comparison is John Byrne's Superman/Batman: Generations, but where that story really only took the broad strokes of those characters' continuity into account in writing its decades spanning story, Spider-Man: Life Story is dedicated to the remixing of Spider-Man's publishing canon. So it can’t just take an archetypal view of Spider-Man and play that out to its logical conclusion, instead it’s stuck trying to incorporate version of prominent Spider-Man stories like Kraven's Last Hunt, Venom, and Civil War. The result means that there’s a ton of exposition in each issue, and frequent use of shorthand to gloss over things which have happened since the previous issue, and it never manages to explore the series’ original ideas in detail. Also, I'll die mad that Michel Fiffe, the genius behind COPRA and one of my favorite cartoonists, public pitched basically this exact story a year or so before this project was announced, and even if Marvel didn't actually steal the idea, I'll forever pine for Fiffe's take on this premise.

Star Wars: The Crimson Empire Saga

Long before the Disney's take on Star Wars, with their codified takes on the mythology and careful curation of the franchise, there was the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, where seemingly anyone could tell any story they wanted using the mythology of Star Wars. While it resulted in some good stuff, like Timothy Zahn's fondly remembered Thrawn books, the vast majority of it was workmanlike or even bad. Crimson Empire falls firmly into the category of bad, a dumber than dirt story about an extremely cool space guy and his code of honor. It's the kind of story where multiple characters say "He's just one man!" right before or right after seeing their legion of anonymous flunkies getting demolished by the hero. It's got an inexplicable and bad love story. In the three miniseries collected here it spends about two pages total dealing with the idea that maybe, just maybe, the fact that it's main character is dedicated to the lost honor of Emperor Palpatine, a space fascist, maybe his code of honor is completely fucked. Of those three miniseries, only the first story is anywhere near something that could be called good. I wouldn’t called Crimson Empire utterly abysmal, but it’s not unironically good. If the name Kyle Katarn means anything to you, you might get something out of this as a nostalgia trip, but otherwise it has no redeeming qualities.

Deathstroke: Legacy

The first of the New 52 Deathstroke stories, which was never well regarded until Christopher Priest took it over with Deathstroke: Rebirth, I was driven to read this by a conceptual fondness for this era's Deathstroke basically looking and acting like an action figure. Through that lens, it's quite enjoyable. It's not as obviously in on the joke in the way that the classic Taskmaster: Unthinkable is, but it's over the top, has fun designs and baddies, and Joe Bennett (years before his career best heights in Immortal Hulk) provides consistently good art. As a pure action comic, it's good.

Wolverine MAX: Permanent Rage

Here's the thing about Wolverine: There are very few good Wolverine solo stories. Wolverine is a genuinely good character, but most of his solo stories are dumb action affairs, and there's literally never been a Wolverine comic that's even halfway as good as the Logan movie. Permanent Rage, the first storyline from the Wolverine MAX series though, is actually pretty decent. It plays out a lot like you might imagine a Wolverine movie made around 2004, with no superheroes, a Japanese setting that allows for some distracting orientalism, unrelenting violence, and a noir-inspired storyline. The present day storyline is all well and good, not great, but solid and relatively low-key, but what makes the book is the presence of Sabretooth as the main villain. His relationship with Wolverine, fleshed out through flashbacks drawn by some really talented artists, is probably one of the best takes on that relationship that Marvel has ever put out. The casting of Wolverine and Sabretooth as two lonely immortals, bound together by hate and the knowledge that they are each other's only true companions, absolutely makes this book. Is it great? No, but it's got enough interesting things going on that fans of dark superheroes stories would probably find something to enjoy. Subsequent volumes of Wolverine MAX moved even further from the character’s superhero trappings and supporting characters, which is a pity, but this one remains readable and enjoyable on its own.

Marshal Law Omnibus

A collection all of the non-licensed and non-text-only Marshal Law stories. It's weird, it's punk, it's violent, it's sick of superheroes but self-aware about it own silliness in a way that Garth Ennis' work like The Boys has never been (Incidentally, the fifth story contained here, Super Babylon, is just every self-righteous complaint Ennis made about superheroes in The Boys but presented with a modicum of good humor). It's quite fun as a mean-spirited anti-superhero romp, but anyone who is particularly invested in the moral rectitude of, like, the Flash, might find it an unpleasant read so I would advise avoiding it if that's you. It's also not perfect, even for what it is: it's approach to sex work and kink is very dated, it relies on sexual violence a little too much, and by the time you get to the final story, Secret Tribunal, it's come to revel in its previously ironic fascist and misogynist imagery and characters just a little too much. The third installment, Kingdom of the Blind, is for my money, the strongest of the lot, featuring both the most straightforward premise and the most incisive satire the collection has to offer.

#capsule reviews #words

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chicassht · 4 years

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MY CORONA CONTRIBUTION

Last night my mister and I were FaceTiming with some friends and they asked for TV show recommendations. For those of you who know me (which let’s be honest, is all four of you), you know that there are very few things in life that make me light up more than the opportunity to talk about TV.

I jumped into action straight away.

“So what do you want to watch? You want Drama? Something light? Dark? Dark light?”

They wanted light so I started rattling off my top picks. When I listed something they had watched already, our friend said, “Oh I’ve seen that, but you’re in exactly the right territory. That’s what we want.”

I smiled smugly. “Oh. I know.”

Adam observed and finally muttered, “You should charge for this shit.”

Which got me thinking. Obvs not to charge. That wouldn’t be chic. But, maybe this can be my corona contribution. The countless number of hours I have put into Netflix, Amazon Prime, BBC… . it’s all been in preparation for this moment. To allow me to help you. If you’re stuck at home (which I know you are) and are wondering what to watch, let me be your guide. There’s SOO much good content out there, just waiting to be consumed. Amazing, quality stuff that can help get you through this new normal of nothing to do. No matter what you want to feel, TV can deliver.

And that brings me swiftly onto what I started racing through my brain next. How to categorize. There are obvious genres like Light Comedy, Dark Comedy, Dark Drama, but then what about the sub categories? Like, Things To Watch With Your Significant Other or Shows You Missed the First Time Around. But of course there could be a light comedy that you could watch with your significant other and that came out 10 years ago. Then I started to think about colour coding and excel charts and my head exploded. This was followed quickly by the realization that I am not Netflix. I don’t have algorithms or links or ways to mass personalize. So you’ll have to be happy with some good old fashioned lists. This first post is my list of light-hearted, not too dark and stressful, GET YOU THROUGH CORONA WITH A SMILE SERIES. I have eliminated the super obvious ones, but don’t think for second that I’ve somehow missed the blockbusters! Another post, for you more twisted at heart, will contain my more disturbing choices. And man are there some DOOZIES, but more on that in the coming weeks.

For now here are my top picks for light, but clever and well written shows that won’t disturb your sleep!

GLOW - Netflix

This is 30 minutes of sheer viewing pleasure. It depicts the making of a women’s wrestling show in the ‘80s, so you know the costumes, makeup, hair and music alone are enough to keep you well entertained. Then you add in the GENIUS script by Liz Flahive (think Homeland and Nurse Jackie) and the talent of Alison Brie (of Community and Mad Men fame) and an all star cast, and it’s a TOTAL KNOCK OUT!

Mozart in The Jungle - Amazon Prime

Gael Garcia Bernal. Nuff said. But also, dreamy dynamic between Gael as the Maestro of The New York Philharmonic, and his musicians, dreams and patrons. It’s an ode to music, New York City and romance. Can’t watch an episode without smiling.

I Love Dick – Amazon Prime

Unfortunately, there was only one season of this show (plus side it’s not a big commitment), but I absolutely loved it! It’s based on the critically acclaimed book of the same name and stars Kevin Bacon and Kathryn Hahn. Such a dream to see Kathryn in a lead role. Her kind of neurotic-feminist-best-friend vibe (seen in movies/TV you know like Transparent and How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days), is perfect in this role as a filmmaker New Yorker spending a year in the elitist art community of Marfa Texas. The show is funny and always entertaining, but also makes you feel like you’re getting a bit of culture and sophistication in too. #Smug.

This Way Up – On Demand Channel 4 (in American not sure, but FIND IT)

A friend recommended this show to me and I couldn’t be more grateful! Aisling Bea wrote it and stars in it (she’s my new OBESSION) as a twenty something Londoner trying to find her way back to normal life after a mental breakdown. It’s the perfect blend of laugh out loud funny with genuine heart-warming moments. A true British comedy, it also stars Sharon Horgan and falls in the same category as Catastrophe and Flea Bag. Meaning it has that distinct appeal of extreme dry wit mixed with self-deprecation and a dash of darkness that makes it gritty and real. If I was doing subcategories (which I’m not) this would definitely fall under Hidden Gems and MUST SEE.

Dead to Me - Netflix

This was a real unexpected treat! I think it popped up in a suggested watches email from Netflix. I saw Christina Applegate was in it, decided to give it a shot and I’m so glad I did! Christina stars as a recently widowed mom who finds an unlikely friend in Linda Cardellini (of Freaks and Geeks greatness) at a grief counselling group. It’s very well written with lots of funny one liners mixed with surprising, punchy plot twists and dark moments. A great exploration of friendship, obsession, desperation and the human response to those motivations. Really loved it and can’t wait for the next season!

Working Moms – Netflix

Canada! Who knew? This Canadian show about new working moms just GETS IT! It’s so well written, so funny, so cringey and relatable! It was definitely one of my fave shows to discover this year on Netflix and, jackpot, they’ve already uploaded three seasons!

Community – Amazon Prime

Somehow I completely missed this show the first time around (2009-2015.) But what a treat to now have 6 season of pure delight to make my way through! Based in a community college, we follow a motley crew of friends whose funny daily exchanges are the epitome of no stress, keeping things light, perfect COVID19 tv viewing. It’s clever, it’s funny and you really fall in love with the characters, especially the bromance between Troy and Abed. Also, Alison Brie is in it and I just love me some Alison Brie (see Glow).

Sex Education – Netflix

I pray that you guys have already discovered the two seasons of what I deem one of the best things on television at the moment! Gillian Anderson is SPECTUACULAR. Her acting obvi, but more importantly she is KILLING IT in her ‘70s vibe jumpsuits and Meryl Streep a la The Devil Wears Prada hair cut. The whole thing is beautifully shot and gives off a trendy-right-now mutli-decade vibe, sitting neatly between the 70s to 90s. The high school story lines are a treat and I especially love the girl power, feminist plotline it brought, particularly in season 2. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT! I can’t EVEN!

Love – Netflix

Judd Apatow wrote and produced this show, so that should be reason enough to give it a shot! It’s charming and funny and just a light-hearted relatable show about two twenty-somethings in LA who fall in love. It stars Gillian Jacobs (see Community), Paul Rust and Iris Apatow (Judd’s daughter), who is surprisingly great in it! A good one to watch with a significant other.

Call My Agent – Netlfix

I’m not one to usually gravitate towards subtitles, but something drew me to this French comedy and I wound up sticking around for all three seasons. It’s very French, very funny and very chic with the premise all around a Parisian based celebrity agency. I got the impression it was full of French movie star cameos too, which made it very cool and inner circle. Highly recommend.

WELP. That’s all I can muster for now. Other top (most of them obvious) choices in this genre are...

The Good Place - Netflix

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel - Amazon Prime

Atypical - Netflix

The Politician = Netflix

Kominsky Method - Netflix

The Goop Lab - Netflix

Love Is Blind - Netflix

Cheer - Netflix

Casual - Amazon Prime

Stay tuned for the darkly diturbing list up next!

#Contribution Netflix TV Series StuckatHome Light Comedy

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adamwatchesmovies · 5 years

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The Worst of 2019 (So Far)

And now we get to the opposite of yesterday’s post: the worst of what we’ve seen so far. Time to give them a proper thrashing before they (hopefully) fade into obscurity. Disappointingly, there's a general lack of films that were bad but in an interesting way. Mostly, it’s either been the same sorta dreck we usually get with a couple of unusually offensive stories and a couple of soul-crushingly bad superhero flicks. Curious? Read on.

10. Serenity

I like to save my #10 spot on the “Worst of” list for a movie that has a chance of becoming a favorite among those who love bad movies. Serenity is competently enough made that it does not belong in the same category as The Identical or Runaway. It’s another kind of bad movie, the kind that baffles anyone who sees it and who will have film historians scratching their heads in the future. It’s not quite on the same level as 2017’s “The Book of Henry” but close. Top-notch actors at the top of their career in a story so poorly conceived it would’ve been brilliant if it weren’t awful and utterly absurd.

The revelation that everything we've been seeing is actually part of a video game programmed by an angry teen who hates his abusive father, and that his actions are tied to those of Matthew McConaughey's character is the kind of nutty decision someone at some point should've questioned. My advice? Surprise some unsuspecting friends with it. Periodically pause the movie so they can write down how they think it'll all fit together and then watch their faces as they're proved wrong.

9. After

I’m not going to remember After down the line so this is my opportunity to give it another flogging. I can’t believe fan-fictions of real people is a real thing and that one of them was deemed legitimate and popular enough to be turned into a movie. It plays out like the clone of a clone of a clone of Twilight. At least that movie had danger in the form of vampires and werewolves. This has nothing to offer except embarrassing drama and a prepubescent’s idea of what romance and love look like. I saw it in the theater with a friend and thank goodness she was there; it made what would've been a chore... slightly more bearable.

8. Dumbo

I’ve already gone on about how I feel about Disney’s string of live-action remakes. For the most part, they fail to validate their own existences; they’re just copies of the original but with “real” actors dancing around animated backgrounds, objects and locations instead of everything being traditionally animated. Dumbo isn’t like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. It does try new things. It diverges from the source material significantly in the worst way. The titular character winds up playing second banana to a bunch of circus performers no one cares about and in the end didn’t contain an inkling of the emotion the 1941 version did.

7. Dark Phoenix

This one’s a triple-whammy. Not only was it a deeply disappointing way for Fox’s X-Men series to end, it retreaded old material in a way that was worse than X-Men 3: The Last Stand AND it was a box office bomb. By the time the story finally comes alive… it’s just about over. The whole thing feels like a mistake, bringing in aliens and asking us to invest in characters we just haven’t had enough time to fall in love with. Makes me wonder what the future of the characters is going to be like. Yes there are a number of heroes and heroines we haven’t yet seen, but are people going to care, even when the brand gets a new coat of paint from Marvel Studios?

6. Men in Black: International

Was anyone asking for the Men in Black series to return? Maybe if they'd had a dynamite story this could’ve overcome the public’s general disinterest, but this was an extremely generic plot you could figure out easily minutes in and lost touch with what endeared us to the first. Even with the combined forces of Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth failed, it to generate many laughs. Worse, to make sure I got any references or Easter egg it might drop, I re-watched all of the previous Men in Black movies, including the horrific Men in Black 2.

5. Replicas

This movie goes about itself in such a convoluted way. First, Keanu Reeves plays a scientist working for a company that wants to transplant the mind of dead soldiers into androids. Then, his family is killed in a car crash, prompting him to use the mind transfer tech to put their memories into new clone bodies of themselves. Problem is, he only has the means to clone three out of four family members. This means he has to erase all memories of his youngest daughter from the others’ brains. Following me so far? Good because it keeps going from there. Actually, that’s just the start of it. It’s a classic case of TMSGO - too much sh*t goin’ on. Even with all that, it STILLL managed to have gaping plot holes. No surprise it came and went as quietly as possible.

4. Hellboy

This one hurt. I wanted to see a superhero horror film badly. The early interviews I read about them wanting to adapt Mike Mignola’s books more closely than the Del Toro films got me excited. I was a little apprehensive when the trailers showed some goofy stuff but I figured these were included to draw people in. I should've listened to that sinking feeling. The actual film is awful, one giant mistake after another. Without a doubt, this featured the year’s worst special effects and even this I could've forgiven but the would-be humorous tone was badly misjudged and the story bloated with way too many elements that might've worked... if we weren't also trying to tell the character's origin at the same time. Hellboy ends with a teaser promising more and there’s no way we would’ve seen a sequel even if this had made money at the box office. Cool demons though, for what it’s worth.

3. Shaft

Looking back, I’m struggling to think of anything worth seeing in Shaft. I hated the film’s approach at comedy, particularly when it reverted Samuel L. Jackson’s John Shaft into the kind of man who proudly doesn’t understand modern sensibilities and spews out one homophobic joke after another. The plot was uninspired and uninteresting - not to mention generic - and none of it felt like it belonged on the big screen. On the upside, it prompted me to view the original trilogy with Richard Roundtree and those were enjoyable.

2. Simmba

Simmba is unlikely to be on the “Worst of 2019” list next January. It probably won’t be at the #2 spot. The film mixes two wildly different tones but not well. It begins as a romantic crime comedy, a dated one, sure. Simmba staging a phoney crime in order for the woman he’s attracted to to call him for help and then use the call as an excuse to stay with her through the night is creepy but I guess it might’ve passed like 20 years ago in North America. What makes this a bad film is the way it then introduces a character’s gang rape and murder as a way to prompt the anti-hero onto a righteous path. From there, it turns into this vigilante revenge film that has disturbing implications. You probably haven’t heard of it before now, much less seen it. I don’t recommend you check it out.

Runner Ups:

Aladdin

A controversial choice, as many casual filmgoers seem to have fallen madly in love with it (similar to the way they ate up 2017’s Beauty and the Beast) but honestly, what does this film do better than 1992’s Aladdin? Add an unmemorable song for Princess Jasmine to sing? Reduce the number of talking animals in order to give us more… nothing? Pile on the CGI to the point you wonder why it was made with live-actors in the first place? Like the innumerable direct-to-video sequels of classic films who've been all but forgotten, I tell you this Arabbian adventure won't endure.

Tolkien

So much potential squandered on a boring story. It didn’t take an astute viewer to recognize the film was crippled by the studio failing to obtain the rights to Tolkien’s actual work. I get the feeling we'll see another shot at a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien in a couple of years and this will be the Christopher Robin to the much superior Goodbye Christopher Robin.

The Hustle

It’s an unfunny comedy, what more is there to say? Rebel Wilson makes yet another bad career choice playing the same character she always plays. I only realized it was a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels while writing my review, which is unfortunate. Hopefully I can expunge this film from my memory soon enough and forget anything it might’ve spoiled about the original Bedtime Story or the 1988 remake.

1. Unplanned

The numerous instances of technical incompetence - mostly coming from the performers who are given lackluster material - would be enough to condemn Unplanned to this list. What made me hate the film is the way it blatantly lies and attempts to manipulate the audience into further entrenching themselves in a certain point of view through cheap, manipulative means. I can respect that genuine passion was poured into the project but the way it goes about it is shameful. Do not go see it, even if you're curious.

Yuck. That last one really left a bad taste in my mouth so I'm going to talk about a movie I did enjoy and am enthusiastic to direct you towards Alita: Battle Angel. Rosa Salazar as the titular Alita impressed me and I really dug the action scenes. I'll also right a wrong from last year by reminding you to find and watch Paddington and Paddington 2, both movies I should've put on my "Best of" lists the years they came out. I don't know what I was thinking but I keep coming back to these in my head. They're excellent for kids and adults.

And with that said, the list is over. Back to our regularly-scheduled film reviews until something big comes up. Thoughts or comments on the list are welcome and I hope you enjoyed reading.

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rayofspades · 5 years

Text

Everyone in the World Forgot How Remakes and Sequels Work and I Have to Talk About It Because I’m Losing My Mind

I tried very, very hard to make this a coherent and somewhat organized post, but it’s still gonna sound like the ravings of a mad woman, so...prepare yourself.

Also, this isn’t gonna be an analysis of why remakes and sequels are so popular, because it’s exactly as simple as it seems: people like things that make them feel nostalgic and creators have caught on to this and realized that by remaking a familiar property, their new product has a built in fan base.

Great.

What I want to talk about is how the concept of remakes/reboots/sequels/whatever has been kind of destroyed. Both audiences and Hollywood have created these weird perceptions that are flooding the market in a way that is exhausting to audiences and confusing to creators.

So, I’m here to discuss all the different types of remakes and why they work or don’t work and how this culture has been conditioned to support them regardless of quality.

Alright,

let’s do this.

Part 1: Cross-Media Remakes:

I find it somewhat impossible to criticize the existence to book--> movie remakes too much because they’re a vehicle for both creativity and audience expansion, even in cases where they’re motivated by money. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games made for some pretty solid movies, and that’s largely because those books just translated well to film. Obviously some changes had to be made to account for time constraints and visual storytelling, but they can get away with having a similar structure and still feeling entirely new based on the hard shift in presentation from book to film.

I would make a similar argument for Marvel movies. From what I understand, those movies change more from their source material, and there are a lot of them, but it makes perfect sense to adapt comic books to reach a wider audience. I feel like the main reason people are becoming tired of Marvel movies is their overwhelming quantity, not so much the fact that they’re remakes.

I would also love to talk about the popularity of GoT and LotR, but I don’t think I’m familiar enough with those franchises to properly discuss them, so I’ll leave that to someone else.

But there is something else I want to talk about.

While Harry Potter and The Hunger Games translated really well to film, the same isn’t true for some other cross media adaptations.

Part 2: Adapt or Die:

In the late 70s, Stephen King wrote The Shining. I’ve read the book and I really enjoyed it, largely due to King’s writing style (the prose, the internal monologues, etc.)

The thing is, The Shining doesn’t really translate well into the film format; it’s really long and a lot of what makes it good is tied to its presentation.

So when Stanley Kubrick adapted The Shining into a film in the early 80s, he changed a lot.

a lot.

The setting and characters remain pretty much the same, and the story follows similar beats, but certain events and themes have been drastically altered to the point where I would consider it a different story.

(Brief aside; the three most famous/iconic scenes from the film (”Here’s Johnny!” “All work and no play”, and Jack frozen in the snow) are ALL exclusive to the film.)

Regardless, both the movie and the book have maintained their own popularity with their own audiences. Both are considered good and both are considered classics.

Although, from what I’ve heard, The Shining film did receive criticism back in the day for being needlessly unpleasant. Interesting.

It’s a somewhat similar story with John Carpenter. If you ask people to list good remakes, 90% of the time people will list The Thing (1982). It’s practically the poster child for “hey, not all remakes are bad, guys.”

In this case, Carpenter was working from both a previous movie (The Thing From Another World) and the prior novella (”Who Goes There?”). Carpenter’s film definitely borrows more from the novella, but it was obviously going to be compared more to the previous film, and it is v e r y different from the previous film. Carpenter’s film (like The Shining) received criticism for how gross and unpleasant it was, but became the definitive version of The Thing and stood the test of time to become a horror classic.

Basically, if you need to change the original product when remaking it, do it. That is the best thing you could possibly do. It gives the creator a chance to actually create their own unique product that just happens to be based on or inspired by an existing property. This is actually a legitimately cool phenomenon; taking preexisting stories and altering them to fit a new cultural context or simply expanding and improving on ideas. It’s a similar concept to “old wives tales” and fairy tales, and how those stories are constantly changed and retold and in doing so become timeless. Gee I wonder if fairy tales are going to come up later in this post.

Part 3: Bad Changes are Bad

*Strums guitar* This one goes out to all audience members out there who have convinced themselves that bad remakes are bad because they’re too different from the original. *Strums guitar*

Stop.

Please stop.

Look, comparing a remake to an original to showcase how bad the remake is is perfectly valid criticism. It can highlight how an idea can be botched when it’s not handled properly. Sure. That’s fine. I highly encourage people to compare the dialogue, characters, and world building of Avatar: The Last Airbender and M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. It’s important to recognize how one story is an utter fucking masterpiece and one is a poorly told train wreck.

Here’s the thing:

people seem to criticize the film on the basis of “it’s different” and, I mean, sure. But it’s not just that it’s different, it’s that it’s different and....um....

bad?

Like, one of the “complaints” I saw about the movie was that firebenders now need actual fire in front of them in order to bend it, and I consider that to be just a neutral change. It’s not really better or worse, it’s just different. And please don’t comment on this post with “skflsfjsf NO it’s because in the original firebenders used the SUN as their source of fire” like yeah I know I get it it’s still an inconsequential change.

Now, saying that the earthbenders being held on land as opposed to the sea is a bad change? Yes, that is valid criticism because it makes no goddamn sense within the movie’s universe and just makes everyone look dumb.

That movie is an utter fucking disaster. It’s poorly directed, it’s poorly written, the casting decisions are baffling, the acting is horrible, it’s poorly paced, and it’s bad.

It’s a bad movie.

I would apply the same logic to the new Death Note live action movie (the American one). Putting aside the racial controversy for a minute, I’m fine with changing things about the plot and structure to properly adapt it into a movie. But...yeah. The plot is bad. It just comes across as really dumb and weird.

So yeah, bad remakes are bad, but it’s not as simple as just being “different.”

If y’all keep complaining about remakes making changes, then you’re only encouraging the products I’m about to talk about in the next few Parts.

Arguably the worst and most prolific products of them all...

Part 4: Sometimes, Things That Are the Same.......Are Worse

Alright, I’m gonna start with a really extreme example, but it perfectly captures the essence of what I’m trying to say.

In 1998, Gus Van Sant made the incredibly confusing and brave(?) decision to remake Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. And I do mean “remake,” as in, it is shot for shot the same movie. It’s some sort of bizarre cinematic experiment.

I really like the original movie, so you would assume that, since this movie is literally the same movie, I would like it too.

I don’t.

No one does.

It’s the same movie but with worse performances.

It’s pointless.

Its existence is both unnecessary and confusing. Watching it was a bizarre experience that just made me wish I was watching the original.

(The best part about this is that 15 years after this remake came out, Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin solved remakes forever by making Bates Motel; a contemporary prequel/reimagining of Psycho (1960). This show takes the characters and key events from the Hitchcock film and puts them in a different setting with an altered version of plot points. The creators openly and repeatedly state that they did not want to just remake Psycho and instead wanted to tell a tragedy/thriller using the framework of Psycho. To me, this perfectly encapsulates what remakes are supposed to be. It’s a good show and it’s severely underrated. Please go watch it, just ignore like half of season 3 and you’re gold.)

Unfortunately, the most common and (arguably) the most frustrating type of remake/sequel/reboot/whatever is the “let’s do the same thing...but different” type. They can be a retread of the original plot or just take the title and elements of the original and use them while adding nothing substantially new.

Independence Day: Resurgence, Alien Covenant, The Thing (2011), and proooobably most direct sequels in any popular franchise (like the Transformers movies) fall under this category.

The most notable ones in recent years are D i s n e y r e m a k e s, but those get their own section.

Also, I’m hesitant to talk about these because it might just be a cultural difference, but it deeply bothers me when I see Japanese live action films that are based on anime and they just...keep everything the same?

Like, in a live action remake of FMA, why the fuck wouldn’t you make up some grotesque and upsetting monster thing for the Nina Tucker scene? Why would you just use the design from the manga/anime??? WHY WOULDN’T YOU ADAPT IT TO MAKE IT WORK FOR LIVE ACTION?????????????????????????????????????

But hey, what do I know. It might just be a culture thing.

From what I’ve gathered and experienced, people have the following problems with these types of overly-faithful and/or pointless remakes:

1) They’re boring because it’s just a retread that feels inferior.

2) They try to replicate elements of the original without understanding the actual appeal (aka the tangible details are addressed while the underlying ideas get sidelined or misunderstood).

3) They just...don’t adapt well.

Even if we were to take The Last Airbender and give it to a competent director who has a decently written script, that’s a case where you probably should have changed a lot more to properly make the jump from animated show to live action movie. Obviously, a lot of things would need to be cut or moved around in order to properly pace it.

I’m gonna talk more about this type of movie in a different section so for now let’s move on to the most recent remake craze that’s driving me up the wall.

Part 5: “I’ve got the power of remakes and anime on my side”

Fuck.

So part of the appeal of anime for me has always been its creativity. While some of it is pretty derivative when looking at specific genres, I’ve always found there to be a significantly wider range of creative ideas and concepts in anime than in any other medium.

But now the industry’s running on fumes and someone let it slip that you can make a quick buck by just remaking a popular IP.

Fuck.

And I don’t wanna rag on the new-ish trend of readapting old anime for the sake of following the recently completed manga. This has had unbelievably successful results with FMA:B and Hunter x Hunter (2011) becoming massive critical hits (and two of my favourite shows).

(Although it hasn’t escaped my attention that studios have, in fact, used this gimmick to make half-baked and poorly crafted products with the knowledge that the existing fan base will buy that shit anyways. I’m looking directly at Berserk (2016) and Book of the Atlantic.)

But now they’re also adapting/sequel-ing shows purely for the sake of cashing in on the original (or adapting pre-made sequel products that were already made with that mindset in the first place).

Clear Card was boring as fuck and transparently existed to sell toys.

I dropped Steins;Gate 0 after around 8 episodes when it become abundantly clear that it took the “let’s take elements of the old plot and just....do stuff” route without keeping any of what made the original cool and unique.

The Evangelion movies seem really antithetical to the original show, and the third one feels like it was made by someone who thought they understood Evangelion and hated it. (But luckily the original is coming to Netflix next year so who even cares. Give me that 10/10 show.)

Although I will admit, Devilman Crybaby’s existence kind of falls under what I was saying earlier in this post. It’s one of many adaptations of an old manga that is changed substantially to fit the current cultural climate, with some unique aesthetic changes thrown in there for good measure.

It’s pretty okay.

But um...

Oh boy...

We’re about to get into it lads.

Part 6: Production IG Broke My Whole Brain. Brain Broken. Dead. No Brain.

Hooooooooo boy.

So, FLCL (also known as Fooly Cooly) is one of my favourite shows. In fact, it’s the only show I’ve ever watched that I have absolutely no problems with. None. Not even nitpicks.

I’ve watched it 6 times, including with director’s commentary. It has an utterly perfect and unique/fluid aesthetic and I wish its visuals were just playing in my brain all of the time. It’s an arthouse comedy, which is a...rare (nonexistent?) genre, and it pulls it off perfectly. Its cool, its beautiful, its silly, its poetic, its creative, it has great themes that can reach both teenagers and adults, and there is literally nothing else on the planet like it.

So when it was announced that they were making a sequel 18 years later with a different cast of characters, I was...weirdly excited. Like a pavlovian happy response. I got even more excited after seeing the trailer.

Only a short while before the show aired did it dawn on me.

Wh...what are they doing?

From the trailer, I could see that they were taking some familiar plot elements (Medical Mechanica, Haruko, N.O., Atomsk, etc.) and adding some different protagonists.

who gives a single fuck about the plot of Fooly Cooly?

The plot elements...don’t matter. It’s just a vehicle for cool and amazing things to happen.

So the show came out, and I saw more clips on youtube. While it is cool that they’re using different episode directors with some different art styles, the difference in quality between the directing and overall visual presentation is shockingly noticeable. I partially blame the fact that the anime industry isn’t as financially stable as it used to be, but this is also a Production IG show that’s based on an extremely popular property, so that’s barely an excuse.

It mostly just looks like an anime with some cool stylistic elements, whereas the original looks stunningly perfect, dynamic, unique, and beautiful in every single solitary shot.

I’ve read and watched many reviews of the sequel, both positive and negative, and from what I can tell it’s a textbook example of a “lets take components of the original and just...use them...while kind of missing the point and appeal of the original show.” Fooly Cooly is made of 100% intangible details. That thing is lightning in a bottle, and by taking the tangible details (plot elements and callbacks) and putting them in your show, you’ve already proven that you’ve completely and 100% missed the point.

Also:

this is the new show’s MAL score. While I consider anything between a 6 and a 7 to be “okay,” MAL scores tend to be higher since people rate on separate components of the show.

Like, a 6.7 on MAL is probably a 3 for everyone else. Yikes.

But honestly, the quality of the show is completely irrelevant, because that’s not the actual problem.

The only way to make a new FLCL product would be by accident. Have a director make a deeply personal product in which they do whatever the fuck they want. Have it be stylistically wild and make it look amazing. Create some sort of arthouse comedy with resonant themes and then just get Production IG to slap the FLCL brand on it to appeal to people’s nostalgia.

And that’s when it hit me.

That’s when my whole brain broke.

That accidental, spiritual sequel product can never happen.

Because it looks like a huge risk to producers.

Somehow, by remaking one of the most original and generation defining pieces of media ever created, Production IG proved that we do not live in a world where that type of product is allowed to exist. It can’t exist.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

Part 7: Disney and the Culture of Hype(rbole)

When I was young, my family owned two versions of Cinderella on film. The 1950 Disney animated version, and the 1997 live-action version with Brandy.

Obviously, they’re the same story. They follow the same beats and have the same characters. However, there are some major differences in scenes, character portrayal and, most notably, the songs. Both are musicals, but with completely different soundtracks.

If we want to go even further, we also owned Ever After, which is a completely different retelling of Cinderella with a whole new plot made for an older audience (and it’s also very good. Check it out)

In other words, I have nothing against live action Disney remakes, In fact, I think Disney movies based on fairy tales have become their own type of fairy tale; classic stories that are being constantly retold and reshaped to remain both relevant and timeless. It’s beautiful.

What the fuck is Disney doing in the 2010s?

Right now, the trend seems to be completely recreating older Disney classics, only making them live action and, um, “fixing” them.

If you want a detailed analysis of this, go watch the Lindsay Ellis video about Beauty and the Beast. I’ll briefly sum up, but you should definitely watch the video.

Look, I personally don’t hate Beauty and the Beast (2017), but once you notice that the Beast’s character arc doesn’t really exist...

and that there are a bunch of plot threads that either don’t go anywhere or are just kind of pointless...

and that there’s a weird trolley problem with Belle and the servants that completely botches the moral of the story....

and that by adding a bunch of logic to a fucking fairy tale you’re stripping it of its appeal and also just creating plot holes...

and that the singing isn’t nearly as good as the original...

and a bunch of other problems with acting and characterization....

you start to notice that “hey, they made the exact same movie....but worse.”

But, people are okay with that.

Most people didn’t even really notice. And that’s fine, like what you like. I enjoyed the movie well enough, even though I definitely prefer the original. But...I would probably also like a different retelling of Beauty and the Beast if it was a good product. Except, then it would also be...new? And potentially better? Or at least a lateral move.

I just watched the trailer for the new Lion King (2019), and it looks...kind of good. But even thinking this...I kind of long for death, because the entire trailer is just “hey, remember THIS from the original.”

I’m just...I’m just done. I’m burnt out. I’ve had it.

When are we gonna stop making the same movie over and over again?

Or when are the changes actually going to make sense? I’ve seen most of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and it just goes in the opposite direction of changing everything, but the changes are just.....uggggh. Not good. Bad changes are bad.

The thing with Disney is that they are also a hype generating machine, especially after purchasing both Marvel and Star Wars. I once heard someone say in a video that, back in the day, people were trying to make the best possible product so it would sell and get popular. People...don’t really need to do that anymore. If you get 304958493093 billion people excited about the next movie in their favourite 80s franchise by promoting and hyping the shit out of it, then you’ve already secured tons of butts in seats before the movie even comes out. Every movie is an event movie if it comes from Disney and is part of one of their big franchises. Every new thing based on an old thing is the new “best thing.”

Even a new sequel that I actually liked, The Incredibles 2, was weirdly hyped up. (Also, even though I liked it, it didn’t escape my notice that there were a bunch of plot problems with the villain and the script proooobably needed another draft. Just saying.)

So, the big questions are, in this current culture, are we ever going to get another original sci-fi property, like the 80s Star Wars trilogy? Are we ever going to see a boom in a genre outside of Disney owned properties? Are we ever going to get another insane, passion-project smash hit like Fooly Cooly?

No. I don’t think so.

Not in the current state of things. 10 years from now? Maybe. 20 years from now? Probably.

Part 8: Concluding Thoughts

I don’t know, man.

People are still making original things, but they’re not as popular and/or creative as they need to be to change where we are right now.

The very existence of Get Out does lend me some hope. It was a creative and original movie and a very large audience of people (including myself) really liked it.

Yay.

More of this please.

So, um, yeah.

I’m going to go watch Fooly Cooly for the 7th time and scream into a void.

Mmmm bye.

#movies #Disney #flcl #the thing 1982 #psycho #the shining #beauty and the beast #cinderella #update:i fixed the video link

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loxxxlay · 5 years

Text

I think a big problem with certain, ahem, Discourse™ is the fact that people will look at any number of these categories:

autonomous

mind-controlled

under duress

psychologically manipulated

tortured

:and conflate them into one meaning.

When I say “autonomous,” I’m referring to the state we assume any character to be in unless given evidence to the contrary. they are in control of their actions and their decisions, and all responsibility for the consequences fall to them alone.

Mind-controlled is quite obviously the opposite of autonomous. this is not as simple as someone holding a gun to your head and saying “do this or die.” It’s actually someone taking even that choice away from you. the most obvious example of this in Marvel is Clint Barton the earliest Avengers movie*. In this situation, the character has no authority over their actions and has no responsibility to own up to them.

*Now I could also note Dr. Selvig, but it’s possible that even he was not 100% “mind-controlled” because at the end he admits that he maybe made a choice - for the portal to have an on-off switch. there’s a lot of theory on what this means, but canon leaves it entirely uncertain. So you see? Even here, there is some gray area within these definitions.

thus, psychological manipulation, torture, and duress fall to a sort of gray area in between, and it may be difficult to give them a value of how much control the character had over their actions and how much responsibility they should share for the consequences. For clarification’s sake, the gun scenario (”do this or die”) is duress, which can be any threat of harm; psychological manipulation is pressing on the trigger points of someone’s personality and pressuring/encouraging them into a decision they might not have otherwise made; and tortured is physical harm until one submits to the other person’s wishes.

this is where, as i’m sure you can guess, I’m gonna severely ruffle some feathers :’)

[read more cut]

For starters, let’s look at Bucky. Everyone agrees that he was not autonomous in his decisions as the Winter Soldier.

But was he “mind-controlled”? I say no. If he was fully mind-controlled, then the process Hydra enacted upon him shouldn’t have been able to be broken by a few words/memories from Steve. A parallel to this could be the fight between Natasha and Clint - Clint was going to kill Natasha while he was mind-controlled, and nothing Natasha could have said would have stopped him in that battle. It took that cute little “cognitive re-calibration” thing to stop him because the problem was with his actual brain. Someone else was controlling his actions. Versus Bucky, appeals to his emotions and memories did work, because the problem was less with his brain and more the fact that he had been beaten down into submission - he needed a emotionally-compelling reason to break out of the control.

My wording there is gonna piss a lot of people off because it sounds like I’m saying “hurting innocents” was not a compelling enough reason for Bucky to break out of the control - which puts his character in a negative light. And I guess, for the first half of that assumption, you’re right. :/ But it’s so much more complicated than that. And because of the complexity, it actually gives strength to Bucky as a character.

If he wasn’t mind-controlled, and he wasn’t autonomous, then he was either under duress (yes), tortured (yes), or psychologically manipulated (yes) - in short, All of the Above. He was under a constant threat of having his memories wiped, which was a very painful process - this was an instance of all three. And this doesn’t even go into what we learned about his history with Hydra in Civil War (in which he was used as a sparring partner (or less generously, as a punching bag) for other Winter Soldiers). All of these led to him being beaten down. All of these led to his lack of choice, his lack of autonomy. Personally, I think the effect was so strong that it absolves him of any and all responsibility for his actions during his time as the Winter Soldier. But I still wouldn’t call him “mind-controlled” - because for him to break free of that level of force shows how remarkable and admirable of a Survivor he is. And simply calling him “mind-controlled” erases both what happened in canon and also his character’s goodness & strength in my opinion.

So now that we’ve thrown ourselves to the wolves once, let’s do it again with a riskier subject: Loki. :’)

the fact is (and I think, the reason people argue so much) is that canon doesn’t really definitively give us evidence on way or another on any of the different terms. there’s been arguments for Loki’s autonomy as well as evidence for him being mind-controlled by thanos/the Other with the scepter, similarly to what Loki did to Clint (both arguments of which have flaws imo*).

For one, the Other still saw need to threaten Loki with harm, which is a compelling piece of evidence toward at least duress and also something that sways me from believing mind control because duress would be unnecessary if Loki was as mind-controlled as Clint.

However, the point isn’t really about autonomy or mind-control or the other grayer variations of. It’s about the discourse.

Some frequent statements I see are that “Loki was tortured into obeying thanos so his actions should be excused” or from the other side “Maybe he was threatened/tortured a little, but he acted mostly of his own volition, and to say he was tortured rids him of the moral complexity of his character.”

And my question toward statements like that are - are your two ideas really so far apart as you seem to think?

For the former statement, I see someone conflating mind-control with torture. For the latter, I see someone conflating torture/duress with autonomy. Both are an extremely similar headcanons at the core, but with different attitudes on what it means for Loki’s culpability - and with different (and sorry but also mistaken) views on what the gray areas mean morally.

For example, I don’t think Bucky is responsible for his actions because he was manipulated and tortured--but tony stark does. And while I don’t get that, there are a lot of people who side with tony in Civil War, so I can probably assume my point of view is not the only one that might be correct.

It’s the same thing here.

Judging someone who suffered trauma in their past which directly led them to morally questionable actions is a tough marsh to navigate. You might applaud a victim of child abuse for killing their abuser, even after their abuser is to be imprisoned. You might not applaud a victim of a gun-point robbery for killing their attacker after their attacker is to be imprisoned. Even moreso, you are extremely unlikely to applaud someone murdering their friend for a minor, verbal disagreement. Where do you draw the line of what constitutes culpability and what does not?

thus, the problem with Loki is that all of us might draw the line in a different place. And even then, all of us might put Loki on a slightly different side of that line because of the lack of specific canonical details.

But what few seem to be doing is acknowledging the fact that cases like this aren’t easy. there’s a lot of moral gray area between autonomy and mind control, and I doubt we, as complex individuals, are going to ever be able to find an answer that pleases everyone.

*Note: I have no problem with people who prefer headcanons in which Loki was fully autonomous or fully mind-controlled. While it’s true I don’t think canon supports either stance, I support you; fandom is your playground and you have every right to enjoy yourself how you see fit. I simply ask that you hear me out when I ask y’all to treat each other’s differences of opinions kindly and respectfully. <3

In the end, we are all fans of fictional characters--and because they are fictional characters, we have a huge opportunity here! We don’t need to worry about making the “wrong decision” toward a potential victim of abuse because Loki and Bucky and other characters do not suffer consequences the way someone in real life would. therefore, we have the ability to consider these questions of morality and test them out for ourselves without causing harm.

Unfortunately, what many people seem to be doing is yelling at each other and treating people with a huge lack of respect. :/

See, unlike Loki and Bucky, these are real life people you are hurting in these situations - people who are simply trying to test out their morality on fictional characters, like you. I see terribleness from all sides, even the ones I agree with, and so I just wrote this in the hope that there will be less fighting. And even if this only leads to a couple people somewhere modifying their feelings toward these subjects, I’ll consider it a success.

thanks so much if you read all the way through <3

Being autistic, I do tend to ramble and sound condescending, so if that happened anywhere in this post, I sincerely apologize. It was not my intent, and I did the best I could. :( Feel free to let me know so I can modify any of my language used here to be more polite. <3

Also, I apologize for lowercase t’s. My t key is broken, so I can’t capitalize it without it being time-consuming and annoying >.>

Finally - you’re welcome to reblog and debate on this post if you wishh, but I likely won’t be responding. Many times when people try to debate me, it’s because they haven’t taken the time to truly understand what I’m saying and they end up misunderstanding some of my points. I get upset trying to repeat myself to no fruition, and for my mental health, I will be avoiding that here. But if I feel I have something new to say and I have the spoons, then I will!! ^_^ (However, if you are attack me personally, rather than just my argument, then I’ll flay you or block you - whichever is easier at the time. ^_^)

#loki #loki meta #bucky #marvel #lox .... talks?#this isn't personal lmao #but i don't have a meta taggggg t_t #long post #but with a read more #meta #lox writes

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ao3feed-lokiangst · 5 years

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The Suitor

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2KHYLFy

by DancingGeek2002

You and eleven other women have been chosen to be suitors of the prince Loki. Unfortunately, you have no interest in being involved what so ever. But when a servant with the most alluring green eyes quite literally bumps into you while you read your book, you find a friend in the least likely place.

(And of course, that servant is the god of mischief himself)

Words: 1536, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other

Characters: Loki (Marvel), Reader, Reader-Insert - Character, Thor (Marvel), Odin (Marvel), Frigga (Marvel), Volstagg (Marvel), Fandral (Marvel), Sif (Marvel), Heimdall (Marvel), Laufey (Marvel)

Relationships: Loki/Reader, Loki/you, Loki (Marvel)/Reader, Loki (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s)

Additional Tags: Loki Feels, Badass Reader, Jealousy, Protective Loki (Marvel), Friendship/Love, Humor, Romance, Drama, Flirting, Emotional, Love Confessions, Love, Falling In Love, Prophecy, Violence, Manipulative Loki (Marvel), Asgard (Marvel), Self-Reflection, Odin's Bad Parenting, Fear, Barginning, Secrets, Illusions, Lies, Lots of Loki, I mean lots and lots

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2KHYLFy

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #loki #loki fanfic #loki fanfiction #marvel cinematic universe #angst

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ao3feed-frigga · 5 years

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The Suitor

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2KHYLFy

by DancingGeek2002

(And of course, that servant is the god of mischief himself)

Words: 1536, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other

Characters: Loki (Marvel), Reader, Reader-Insert - Character, Thor (Marvel), Odin (Marvel), Frigga (Marvel), Volstagg (Marvel), Fandral (Marvel), Sif (Marvel), Heimdall (Marvel), Laufey (Marvel)

Relationships: Loki/Reader, Loki/you, Loki (Marvel)/Reader, Loki (Marvel)/Original Female Character(s)

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2KHYLFy

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #frigga

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britesparc · 3 years

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Weekend Top Ten #495

Top Ten Non-MCU Post-Credit Scenes

Oh look, two MCU-related posts in a row! Delightful. Well, kinda. Because this week is a fake-out; it’s not really about the MCU! In fact, it’s almost anti-MCU! How wicked! Because ever since its inception, one of the quirks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – something it’s become famous for, in fact – is its use of a post-credit scene. From the moment Nick Fury stepped out of the shadows to mention the “Avenger Initiative” after all the names had scrolled on by in Iron Man, the ongoing films were almost defined by their last-second teases and delights. You can tell, in the cinema, the fans and non-fans, as they get up and clear off, leaving the True Believers in their seats, wondering how these people could possibly vacate the theatre without really seeing the ending. In fact, as the franchise has gone on, the number of people staying put has – in my own rough reckoning – increased considerably, to now be about fifty percent of the audience. And why not? You’re really not getting the full picture! As these entangled narratives have unfurled before us, we like the connective tissue of the end-credit tease; the reveals of new characters or locations, the subtle hints at what’s to come. Loki has possessed Selvig! The Collector has the Aether! The ant’s playing the drums!

“To challenge them would be to court Death!”

Anyway, MCU films have post-credit scenes. But of course they’re not the only ones. Having a scene after the credits – or, sometimes, during the credits – is fairly common in the history of cinema. I think it’s become a lot more common this century, partly because of Marvel popularising it as a storytelling device or method of connecting disparate films in a franchise, but also (I believe) because CG animated films have often used it as a comedy trick. I’m not sure why or where this really began in earnest, but I think the old Pixar “out takes” was partly to blame, as was the whole “Shrek Dance Party” phenomenon. Anyway, as you will see, there are a few here that fit that bill.

Because that’s what this whole list is! It’s films that have great post-credit scenes, but aren’t Marvel! Or, at least, aren’t officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some of them are classics of the form, thirty or forty years old; some are newer and fall into the categories I’ve mentioned above. Some follow a similar pattern to most MCU end-scenes – comedy skit or tease an upcoming movie, but stuck at the end of the credits – whereas some interfere with the credits throughout. I’ve been wary of scenes which aren’t really post-credit, but if we all the “mid-credit” scene in the MCU – or the multiple scenes from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – then we can allow some of the ones below.

So there we are! Nowt more to it. Let’s roll the credits...

Airplane! (1980): early in the film, our hero Ted Striker (Robert Hays) leaves his cab just as a fare gets in the back. Telling said fare to wait, Striker dashes after his girlfriend Elaine (Julie Hagarty), ends up on her plane, and, well, the rest of the delightfully silly and surreal plot unfolds. The film ends, the credits roll, and then we cut back to the abandoned cab, where the poor unfortubate fare is still sat in the back seat. “I’ll give him five more minutes,” he says, looking at his watch, “And that’s it.” I mean, it’s just sublime.

Deadpool (2016)/Deadpool 2 (2018): where to start? Whether it’s the first film’s Ferris Bueller-aping dressing gown skit (delightfully informing us that Cable will be in the next film) or the sequel’s multiple time-hopping gags – including undoing the film’s unfortunate fridging of Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) and killing Ryan Reynolds (“you’re welcome, Canada”) – this series really knows how to keep you engaged until the very last second. Can’t wait to see what he does when he’s part of the MCU.

Young Sherlock Holmes (1985): it’s funny, but looking back, I can probably trace any interest I have in Sherlock Holmes to this film and Basil the Great Mouse Detective. Anyway, this is a seminal film by any yardstick, featuring as it does one of (if not the) first example of a CGI character interacting in a real environment. But the end credit sting! The film’s Big Bad (Anthony Higgins), having somehow survived, checks himself into a hotel under the name of – you guessed it – Moriarty. This was, arguably, the first example of an end-credit scene teasing a future film! Setting up the Young Sherlock Holmes Extended Universe! Sadly it was a bit of a flop and they didn’t make any more.

Masters of the Universe (1987): Young Sherlock may have been interesting, but I’ll be honest, other people had to tell me who Moriarty was for me to understand the significance. The ending of Masters, however… well, it’s not quite as nuanced or revelatory, but the seemingly-dead Skeletor (Frank Langella) popping his head back up to yell at the camera “I’ll be back!” was a fantastic and exciting shock. We were guaranteed more He-Man! There’d be another film! There was not another film. Still cool, though.

A Bug’s Life (1998): I alluded to this earlier, and we’re only tenuously in “end-credit” land here (these scenes play over the credits, technically), but it still merits a mention. For A Bug’s Life was the film that began the (actually very short) Pixar tradition of showing us “outtakes” from the movie. And some of these first ones are among the best, with characters corpsing or forgetting their lines; subsequent films would lean more towards practical jokes and outright gaggery, whereas I personally prefer those that further the “it’s a movie being filmed” illusion. Anyway, the legend began here, not a sentence you can often say in relation to A Bug’s Life.

Frozen II (2019): in recent years Disney have made end-credit gags a tradition, and they’re pretty good at it. Moana’s fourth wall-breaking catchup with Tamatoa nearly made the list, but I’m giving the spot to Olaf. After recapping the plot of the first film earlier in the runtime, he’s now telling the story of the film you’ve just watched. The kicker? He’s telling the story to Marshmallow and the creepy little snow-brothers! From the first Frozen! And Frozen Fever! They’re at the ice palace, remember? It’s not only a funny bit, it’s also a nice nod to those kids (and their parents) who’ve mainlined anything Frozen-related for the past couple of years.

Winnie the Pooh (2011): a very underrated little gem, this; just so charming. One of the plot threads is the apparent disappearance of Christopher Robin, who leaves a note saying he’ll be “back soon”, but which is misread by stuffy know-it-all bird Owl, and leads to an amusing song of fright and alarm Pooh, Piglet and the gang all believe old Chrissie Rob has been abducted by a monster called a “Backson” (“They use their horns to put holes in your socks!”). Obviously this is a misunderstanding, it’s all resolved, happy endings all round. But then, at the end of the credits, who should rock up, but an actual Backson (who turns out to be very nice). What’s great about this, other than it just being a neat gag, is that it’s playing with the expectations of a young audience; it’s introducing them to a kind of comedic rug-pull. I can attest to the fact that nippers find it very entertaining.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2019): I’m a bit concerned about being too superheroic (I nearly had the Flash/Superman race from Justice League in here, actually, which I like because it’s one of the few moments in either version of that film where the characters act like the characters I know). I’m also wary of leaning into the whole “sequel tease” thing. But hey, this one’s fun; it feels like a sequel tease, another alternate version of Spider-Man voiced by a famous actor. Then it warps into the classic sixties Spider-Man, and references the whole “pointing” meme to boot. It has its cake and eats it, and it’s great.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990): the Gremlins films are great at breaking the fourth wall and poking fun at themselves, and this is no exception. The great Daffy Duck – who introduced the film, and whose anarchic style is a great precursor to the Gremlins themselves – pops up several times to comment on how long and boring the credits are, before finally asking the audience, “Don’t you people have homes?”. There should be more Daffy in movies.

Shrek 2 (2004): there were a few things I could have included in this list: Crank’s 16-bit game homage is quite fun; the Ferris Bueller bathrobe bit is iconic, although personally I find Ferris so unappealing as a character that I wouldn’t want to include it. So we have Shrek 2, one of the first of a whole raft of CG animated films to have a funny scene at the end. And the reason I’ve included it is because, well, it’s quite weird. Basically you find out that Donkey and Dragon have had babies that are, er, half donkey and half dragon (“Look at our little mutant babies!” says Donkey). I mean. There are connotations here that I’d rather not mull over.

So there we are. Now I didn’t want to include this as it’s not really a scene, and if I’m just doing “funny things in the credits” then we’re going to get onto stuff like the Naked Gun movies and all sorts of other weirdness, but I do want to shout out to An American Werewolf in London’s “any resemblance to persons living, dead, or undead” legal disclaimer at the end of the credits.

#top ten #movies #films #end credit #post credit #mcu

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greenbookthebest-blog · 4 years

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Thinking about stereotypes in Elizabeth Banks controversy

The movie “Charlie's angel” is rebooted and released on this fall. Unfortunately, it made quite disappointing box office records. Not only that, most of reviewers didn’t satisfy with this movie. In one of famous movie rating sites “Rotten Tomatoes”, the movie has 52% freshness score and 78% audience score.

Furthermore, the director of the movie, Elizabeth Banks, brings about a whole controversy. In an interview with Herald Sun, she commented “Look, people have to buy tickets to this movie, too. This movie has to make money,” she said. “If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.”

As some moviegoers were quick to point out on social media, “Charlie’s Angels” bombing doesn’t exactly prove men will not go pay to see an action movie driven by women. Earlier this year, the Brie Larson-starring “Captain Marvel” grossed $426 million in the U.S. and over $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office. “Wonder Women” ended its summer 2017 run with $821 million worldwide. But Banks says these female-fronted comic book films are still tied to a large male genre.

She said “They’ll go and see a comic book movie with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel because that’s a male genre,” Banks told the Sun. “So even though those are movies about women, they put them in the context of feeding the larger comic book world, so it’s all about, yes, you’re watching a Wonder Woman movie but we’re setting up three other characters or we’re setting up ‘Justice League.’”

Defining a genre with a gender is inappropriate. As she defined Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel as a “male genre”, she belittled all the fans of other gender of those two movies. There is no way that we can combine and define a genre with a gender, it is making a stereotype of a genre and also it is regulating a potent of that genre. In an article named “ Gender Stereotype in the English Language” by Laurel Richardson, he gave a lot of examples or theories about how the English language is keeping common female stereotypes in our society. Using same base that reinforcing stereotypes of women in the language, If we defined a genre with a gender ‘male’, it will produce a stereotype of a male in the English Language.

On the other hand, she gave us a good chance to think about is a stereotype “men don’t go see women do action movies.”, she mentioned in the interview. It is one of typical stereotypes that occurred from compulsive masculinity which is suggested in “Proving Manhood” written by Timothy Beneke. The content of the stress and distress which is related to compulsive masculinity is divided into three general category in his article, one of them is that “which poses a psychological danger owing of the meaning it is given in relation to manhood. e.g.losing physical strength…..” The reason why men doesn’t want to watch a women action movie seems like it is based on a thought that men is more better for an action because their physically superior than women.

Work Cite

Stephen LaConte. “ Elizabeth Banks Spoke Out About "Charlie's Angels" Being A "Flop" And It Started A Whole Controversy “ 18 Nov, 2019. https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephenlaconte/elizabeth-banks-charlies-angels-sexism-debate-controversy

McKenzie Lynn Tozan. “ Elizabeth Banks Sparks Controversy After Defending 'Charlie's Angels' Flopping At The Box Office” 19 Nov, 2019. https://www.comicsands.com/elizabeth-banks-controversy-charlies-angels-2641396236.html

Rosenblum, Karen. “Proving Manhood”. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Kindle Edition.

Rosenblum, Karen. “ Gender Stereotype in the English Language ”. The Meaning of Difference: American Constructions of Race, Sex and Gender, Social Class, Sexual Orientation, and Disability. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Kindle Edition.

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defunctblogtobedeleted · 4 years

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10/31/19 3:14pm - Lotssaaaa Fet Stuff

I realize now that I wrote concerts, in anticipation of getting to this weekend in the last post, and I only wrote about one concert. Dumb.

I went to my first BDSM play party on the first sat of the month. It was wild. I went in a suped up kitty outfit but found that I didn’t really enjoy my new plug as much as I’d hoped. Everyone loved it though, I met a bunch of people and got to try my first scene! My buddy gerald and Lyn topped me for some elector play and I spent a half hour getting shocked with various metal thingies. Man, it felt like thousands of scratchy tickles. I was laughing my ass off the entire time. It was amazing. It felt like a lot. But it felt exhilarating too. And I watched some intense flogging and some medical scening like needles going through tits and medical staples and electrically conductive wire being run through all of it and then electrified. It was mind blowing. I’m definitely about the scene now. It’s like enchanting to see how everyone reacts to everything in different ways. The screaming, the moaning, the shivering, the stomping. I really like to watch rope play as well, I’m meaning to start learning it myself again. Lyn said she’d practice with me, and another girl Elyse did too but we’ll get to her later. I’ve just gotta make sure I can DO it. Don’t wanna like embarrass myself lol. Though I think they’d both be pretty understanding. But still, that might be one of my next creative projects. So I guess I’ve gotten away from it but the party at the hangar was fun as fuck. Lyn came over afterward, we finally had sex and she’s the first person to successfully convince me to wear a condom since my vasectomy 😂 Sex was sex/10, nothing super special, but delightfully satisfying. Lyn’s on the heavier end of my acceptable BMI range for partners, but she’s not super heavyset or anything. Since then we haven’t been able to hang out, she had to do some surgery and has been stuck at home. But she got some electro play stuff so as soon as she’s feeling better we’re definitely gonna fool around with that :3 So high hopes that she’ll be harem member #2. fingers crossed 😘

Lyn stats - Str - 10, Dex - 6 (currently lol), Con - 13, Int - 13, Wis - 13, Cha - 12 Hob - 16, Spo - 14, Mhp - 14, Sex - 19, Beu - 13, Sta - 10

To be clear maybe this sex stat is a little inflated, but gotta give credit where credit is due. Pretty legendary just watching her love sucking my cock for a half hour.

We were up until like 4 in the morning watching somethingorother. I downloaded the marvel movies I hadn’t seen but it wasn’t the right time to watch them. We watched some anime and cuddled up and passed out. I don’t know when she left but I’m pretty sure I slept in til like 3 or 4 I think lol.

The next day I went to durham early to see KKB play again! Hung out with Kailey and Cane and Pacos beforehand and drank a bit of champagne to pregame the concert. Honestly I was pretty fucking beat by the time the concert happened though. Like was falling asleep standing up during the show. Plus we were way in the back, the venue was way more crowded than when we saw KKB at the coffeehouse. Felt a little less romantic. But I did bump into my buddies john and travis there, that was weird. and my other friends ended up messaging me saying they were there too but didn’t bump into them. I was still happy I saw the show though, and it’s always great chilling with manu and christina and maya and pacos and oliver and rianne. I was actually supposed to switch shifts that day so I could go to another fet event on wednesday, but bailed so I could hang out with them. Despite being tired as balls I’d say it was worth.

OH MY GOD then I’m not sure if it was this monday or the previous one. But I met this thick Chris Pratt looking welsh guy at the local Fet mixer (slosh night). He kept complimenting me and said if I wanted to fool around I should let him know. Well the night rolled around and my friend had tried to introduce me to this girl who wanted to do pet play but I really didn’t hit things off with her, and was talking to this chris pratt guy about his life traveling the world and also anime. So I took him home to his hotel room, and we tried to arrange for a girl to come play with us too. Unfortunately she flaked so we sat there drinking some rum together and reminiscing on our lives and sharing stories. We decided to get some food and then start fooling around, but right then he got a call that his brother died and he’d have to change his travel plans for the week to make it to the funeral. Pretty tragic. We kissed goodbye and that was that. Guy made bannnkkkk though, I probably would’ve been a boy toy for that kinda cash lmfaoooo. It wasn’t like that. But it could have been. Who fucking knows, man.

That week my fet friend Ann came out to do karaoke with me, too. We don’t have a thing, yet. But we talk once in a while. I haven’t seen her in a minute but she’s into nerdy shit. Turns out there’s a Lot of overlap with nerdy and fet. Which is amazing for me. But Ann joined me and Terri and our friend Matt and Skyler and Jacob and Caitlin are usually there and a lot of times our buddy Jonas from emo karaoke comes too so I’ve got a great fucking posse starting to build up. Karaoke is sick. It’s like my home.

But the next weekend was a fetish fashion show, and my second play party.

For the fashion show Lyn and I had been talking about dressing up to compete, but she ended up having her surgery and couldn’t go. I still was ready to go with my kitty outfit that I had given a test run at the hangar a week before, so I was ready to rock it. Tbh I was kinda nervous. It would have helped if I found out I was the only one competing in my category, but I just wanted to make sure I looked beautiful and shit. Did the best job I’ve ever done putting on eyeliner, I’m getting a lot better lol. Actually got some compliments from the host on it. And a whole bunch of my first fet friends were there to see me!

Sidebar - I came out of the closet as bi on national coming out day on oct 11. Figured it wouldn’t matter too much, but I really wanted to. I’ve identified as bi for a long time, and I’ve been telling people in person for years, but idk I just really wanted to be public about it.

It hasn’t been a relief per se, but it definitely has made me the subtlest bit more comfortable with picturing myself in gay situations. Like there was this cute guy at the fashion show who got tied up in rope and the way the rope tied around his cock made it look huge and he was this cute blonde and I kinda imagined making out with him for a while. lolol. I think honestly it was because of my situation the week or two before with welsh chris pratt, like I just wanted to be able to DO these things without people questioning like “is this who you are?” well yes, yes it is and has been for a bit so hrmph. Of course nobody was ever questioning if it was who I am because I always introduce myself as bi, but the imaginary people living in my head definitely question.

The play party that night was divine though. It was newbie oriented, so you could only do things with people if you had someone experienced involved to help show you how to do things right. I bottomed an impact scene for the first time to see how it felt, my friend summer, one of the people I carpooled over with, slapped me around with a bunch of toys. I watched a lot of scenes, my buddy Gerald gave a tutorial on all the different impact toys and how to use them and what you should be looking into when you buy them. I did some wax play with summer and painted on one of the most gorgeous girls I’d ever seen with latex paint with her boyfriend and one of the hosts of the party. Gave her some cute leopard spots and she loved them :3 Me and my friends that I carpooled with skinny dipped in the “hot” tub. Ann later told me that she’s dubbed it the Tepid Tub. It’s not great. LOL but I was stubborn and sat out there for a while with everyone. Still always love to be naked in water, though I would’ve liked it more if it were a better temperature. And I met a bunch more people as always! I started talking to this girl Mariah there. She invited me to cuddle on her lap after my impact scene and I instantly jumped at the opportunity and ended up getting her number and we might hang out sometime. (LOL I’m not fucking kidding I’m really trying to get a polycule going, this is gonna be the hypest thing ever if I actually get rolling.) I had a blast at that party though, and I’m really pumped to go back this weekend. Should be a hell of a good time.

Sunday I went out and did a How To Kink Good roundtable discussion, primarily focusing on consent and some issues surrounding it.

I. LOVE. how much of the BDSM community revolves around consent. Everything you do has to be talked out before and after. What you want to have happen during the scene and after the scene. What kind of things you want to happen and what should not happen. It’s more than just safewords, you basically know Everything you’re going to do before you go in. Really cool stuff.

I think beforehand I played a magic tournament, and so then I think after the fet talk I had nothing to do and hung out with Jill or something as normal.

Also somewhere around here I’ve started playing some basketball. I’m actually finally working on not shooting like a moron. Won some games of 2v2 and horse with the gang when they’re trying to play. I’m actually being a little sporty on top of all this weirdness and I’m still trying to run at least twice a week. Sometimes 3. Though this week I was def lazy and only did 1. Ah well I’ll get back into the groove and shave off the last 15 pounds I want off eventually.

For now everyone is calling me beautiful and I feel beautiful and fun and I’m meeting people and it’s all so great. Everything is wonderful. I love everything I’m doing and it’s all so fascinating and weird and feels unique as fuck lol. Just when I thought I couldn’t get any weirder I definitely took another great big leap 😂

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furederiko · 7 years

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*GASP* Great goodness!!! Kyuranger just refuses to let up, doesn't it? Episode 30 delivers a heart-shattering entry, all wrapped up in a graceful power-up package...

- I'll start with a somewhat unrelated rant: I couldn't watch this episode live last Sunday! Aaaarggh. My internet provider changed the fee (AGAIN... that I'm not even that much surprised anymore), so I'm stuck using free public wifi until yesterday noon. And get this, when I decided to renew it with such heavy heart, let's just say... I got duped BIG TIME. To the point that I'm still slapping my own face in utter disappointment and anger, for falling into the company's sneaky stupid ploy all over again. *SIGH*. Now that THAT's out of the way, on to the recap-view then... - Since the opening scene focuses mainly on Orion and Tsurugi, let's talk about what I forgot to mention on my previous recap-view. That sweet friendly river-side moment between them! Some audience might think that the conversation they brought up regarding Orion's newborn felt... a little on the nose. If you ask me, it's actually NOT. IMO, if you think about it logically and/or chronologically, that dialogue actually made good sense. How? After the supposed final battle with Don Armage, a wounded Past-Tsurugi was brought by Orion to Earth, and put in a cold-sleep aboard the Argo. Fast forward 333 years later, the Rebellions awakened Tsurugi in the present time. He likely spent at least 2 weeks after he woke up, in which during that time he: clashed with the Kyurangers, but eventually became one of them; went to Planet Tocky, and searched for the Horologium Kyu Globe; and along with the 'Time Travel' team, went back to the past to recheck history. Meanwhile, from Orion's side of things, having just completed his deed to the Past-Phoenix Soldier, he spotted the ORION crashing, ran into the Kyurangers, and was reunited with Tsurugi again. If one easily compares the two separate timelines from Tsurugi's and Orion's point of view, then it's become clear. Eventhough they have indeed been 333 years apart, thanks to Horologium, the reality was far more shorter than that! For Orion, it was merely hours if not minutes since he last left Past-Tsurugi in the Argo. Tsurugi on the other hand, had only advanced a month at most due to the cold-sleep. Logically, he still had all the memories prior to the sleep (of 333 years ago) in tact in his mind. THIS is the reason why the dialogue about family between them flowed very naturally! It's just a casual chit-chat between friends who haven't seen each other... fairly briefly. That's all! - Of course, that dialogue still serves as the key for the two of them to deduce that Lucky... might have been Orion's very own descendant. That means, Lucky isn't Orion's son, as the rumor suggested (for now at least, it's still a giant mystery anyway). Regardless of that, he's still an important figure who serves as a catalyst for the Kyurangers, due to having the blood of two Constellation Systems. That's the main reason why Tsurugi, the Kyurangers, and later Orion wants to protect him at all cost. - And that is also where the episode hurts. From the beginning of the episode (or the preview last week), it is teased that Tsurugi might give away his life to heal Lucky. Using the power of Phoenix Kyu Globe is taking the toll out of him, so the chance of him getting out unscathed is minimum at best. We even get to see Tsurugi's quick origin story, of when he first obtained the Kyu Globe when his spaceshuttle crashed. Basically, 'death flag' has been fluttering over Tsurugi, which is why the actual death comes totally unexpected and a lot more shocking. It's Orion's final moment instead!!! - On one hand, Orion IS hiding a severe bloody wound, due to shielding the Kyurangers from Don Armage's devastating attack. So he pretty much has been waving his own giant death flag too. On the other hand, he's a crucial legendary figure who will pass on the legend of the Kyurangers throughout the entire universe. Even the team smartly points out that, without Orion, the Kyurangers wouldn't have existed in the first place. Preview for this episode even showed him in battle, helping Leo Red debuts his new power-up. The general assumption is, there's no way, he's going to die, right? That's where Kyuranger throws us off balance once again, because Orion passes away anyway! It's a HUGE, and genuine "OH MY GOODNESS... NOOOOO!!!" (if not blatantly "WTH!!!") moment, and I'm positive the dead silence or echoes of jaws dropping are reverberating throughout the audience. My heart literally stops! And I'm still mulling over it until now... NOTE: Only several movies (like some Marvel Studios ones, though usually Oscar contenders) and TV shows (mostly anime titles) have managed to make feel so... heartbroken like this. Kyuranger positions itself nicely into this exceptional category, which is a rare accomplishment for a Tokusatsu series. I'm not trying to be sarcastic here, but huge thumbs up for TOEI! - Not only Orion's unfortunate demise works as a twist, but also as a major shakeup to the entire story. It is an unexpected alteration in the past, so there will be massive ramifications going forward. It raises even more questions that will make every fans feel concerned. If Orion no longer lives another day, then who would hand over Carina Kyu Globe to Eris' safekeeping? If Eris never has it, then that means the Argo would not be revived in the present time, and Tsurugi would never be reawaken! More importantly, as has been pointed out before, without Orion, the Kyurangers' existence is in danger. Which urgently prompts Commander Xiao to stay behind, taking Orion's place to spread the heroic legend. Ignoring the fact that it's another giant change to the past, does this mean his role as a Kyuranger also comes to an end? *gasp*. In a way, Champ (who will be part of the "Episode Stinger" V-Cinema, which apparently takes place some time later) is already hinting that he and Xiao will surely find a way back to the present. But it doesn't stop making me feel very... anxiously curious. With the two of them being left in the past... is the show trying to throw either of them as the possible face behind the new Don Armage? That would... still be a possibility, right? One more thing, the loss of Orion pretty much rules out my theory that he is the next Don Armage. For now, at the very least. Unlike Kuervo, the Kyurangers actually bury him for good, so he's truly dead. Then again, lest we forget HOW Darth Vader was created... - The grand power up, The Miracle Star Leo Red Orion debuts! It is channeled through the #315 Supreme Kyu Globe, which is realized through the unity of Lucky and Orion's powers and shared resolution to protect the universe. And of course, through the latter's sacrifice... *sobs*. It's undeniably a GORGEOUS design, with fluttering mantle and all. Probably one of the best White member I've seen throughout Super Sentai history. Assigning the color white is also a very wise decision. Not only because white is the combination of prime colors, but in case of Kyuranger, it also adds balance to the team. No wonder Phoenix Soldier gets to be another Red, because when Leo Red uses this form, each of the original colors are still represented. Speaking of combination, it has a dang fine-looking transformation sequence that unites all 12 powers of the Kyurangers too. Turns out, despite many fan-speculations, Supreme doesn't require Naga to be with the team to pull off. It likely falls inline with my theory that Lucky serves as a catalyst for the other Kyurangers, meaning he's the only one necessary for this upgrade. And that is also one wicked finisher. Nope, not the Gate of Babylon-esque with the Kyu the Weapons, which was... nice. I'm talking about that "ALL STAR GALAXY! IN-FINISH BLAST!" that channels the entire 88 Constellations. Dang it... I feel goosebumps when all those stars lit up and create a big bang. Wonderful, simply wonderful! Fun fact: Supreme Kyu Globe, or SAIKOU KYUTAMA in Japanese, has an odd numbering of #315. If you're wondering the reason why, then well... highly likely the answer is: because it's a nifty pun. 3 - 1 - 5 is SAN - ICHI - GO in Japanese, but it can also be read as SA-I-KO. Get it?! LOL. Also, 3 + 1 + 5 equals...? Yep... NINE or KYU in Japanese. Brilliant, right! The finisher "In-Finish Blast" is also a clear pun for the word 'INFINITE', which explains Leo Red Orion's ability to bend space and time. There's also one theory that the Supreme Kyu Globe is modelled after the 9 planets of the Earth's Solar System. It's unconfirmed for now, but I think it makes a lot of sense... - Before I move on to the last point, allow me to point out several bits of the episode that I find to be really interesting: 1) Don Armage's hideous humanoid form seems to be the extent of his power. He claims that he can't hold back his power in that state, which is probably why he's also more vulnerable to attacks. We also see him reviving Akyanba and Tecchu for the mecha battle, giving us explanation to why the Vice-Shoguns keep showing up and are still alive to the present time. And before anyone complains that he's so easy to be defeated, do remember one thing: we're not even in the finale yet, as the new/present-time Don Armage is ALWAYS meant to be the true big bad. 2) I LOVE how a wounded Lucky doesn't want Tsurugi to sacrifice himself. That's a powerful scene, amped up by Lucky's genuine emotion. The concern and also pain on his face feels so real, which means the actor does a truly fine job. Say anything you want about Lucky, this proves he's definitely one of the better Reds in the recent years. Meanwhile, Tsurugi himself is showcasing a wonderful growth in character. From someone who used to be self-centered, into a team player who would risk his own life for his comrade. 3) Although I'm not quite sure why Xiao doesn't just use his Draco Voyager to form Ryutei-Oh, him being assigned to use Leo Voyager and form Kyuren-Oh is indeed a wiser choice. This way, other Kyurangers (including Raptor who spends most of the time repairing the ORION) get to participate in the big battle. It's supposed to be a final-battle-esque showdown with Don Armage after all, so they need all manpower available. 4) It seems that contrary to what Tsurugi said, Phoenix Kyu Globe does NOT have the power to restore/revive life. It can only be used to regenerate health, as shown by Lucky's critical state, and also Tsurugi's own condition when he was adrift in space. Otherwise, Tsurugi can always use it again to revive Orion and keep the flow of history. Am I right? 5) I have a feeling we'll be seeing Orion again in the future. I doubt TOEI cast a great actor like Kai Shishido for brief appearances that lasted only two episodes (three, if we count that cliffhanger ending in episode 28). Heck, we even get to see Eris several times again. Which is why the theory that either he or Kuervo might be the new Don Armage is still very much in play. Then again, noone can really tell much when it comes to Kyuranger. This show tends to startle audience with genuine surprises... more often than not. LOL. At the very least, I hope we get to see him again somehow, because even in such a short time, he has truly left a strong impression. 6) A good amount of time must have passed between the moment the team discovered Orion, and the flower scene in front of his grave. I doubt Raptor is able to completely repair the ORION for their return trip in a flash, because it was left in such a bad shape before (notice that the ship visually looks much better?). Critical audience might want to consider this before they start complaining about how fast Lucky gets over Orion's death. I doubt that grave scene is Orion's funeral anyway. It's more likely the team comes there to pay tribute for one last time, before departing home (to their era). Oh and yeah, turns out this grave is very similar to a certain character's from "One Piece". Concidence? I doubt. 7) Lastly, regarding Xiao's new role in the past. Things are starting to make much clearer sense the more I think about it. Some folks at RangerBoard (Dukemon, TealMystechRanger, and TavionJackson to name a few) back this up, by speculating that the whole scenario could be a 'bootstrap paradox'. Meaning, it has always been Xiao, and not Orion, who started and spread the "Legend of Nine Saviours" that refers to the Kyuranger. This explains why it's NINE, instead of Ten, Eleven, nor Twelve, because Xiao knows that the team would start out with the number Nine (him being the Tenth and all)! Also, remember his story about Mr. Pega? That might not be a random tall-tale after all, but part of his quest to collect the Kyu Globes. But what about the history that says that it's Orion, and not someone who comes from a dragon-tribe who told the story? Like the whole situation with Eris that I've pointed out above. That would only mean a huge contradiction, right? Now this is where things get surprisingly interesting. Turns out, there IS a particular Kyu Globe that grants its user the ability to... SHAPESHIFT. It's still a speculation/theory for now, but I honestly won't be surprised if Xiao used that to disguise himself as Orion (thus bringing him 'alive' again to do the job), in order to prevent the new flow of history from erasing the Kyurangers in the present time. This one in particular, leads us to the final point... - As if the loss of Orion isn't enough, the show delivers another terrifying surprise. The present... remains the SAME. Jark Matter is still rulling the universe. Akyanba and Kukuruga are still alive and well as they did before. Dark-Naga is now taking Tecchu's place as a new Vice-Shogun, possibly their leader. And Don Armage is still reigning, despite his clear defeat in the hands of Leo Red Orion. It seems NONE of the alterations the 'Time Travel' has done in the past affects the present. Does this mean, everything actually goes... according to the way it should have been? Thus... that causal loop theory that I've stated above gets even more plausible! One thing for sure, Armage's sinister laughter in the cliffhanger, can only mean one thing... it's back to square one for the team!

Overall: To be honest, not unlike that wicked finisher, all kinds of logic was flying off the table in this episode as well. But dang it, if that wasn't another mindblowing rollercoaster episode. One that took my breath away, torn my heart into broken pieces... like a fierce punch in the gut that I haven't been able to fully recover ever since. For an episode that served as a power-up debut (which was simply marvelous on its own), it's still packed with all the right flavors. The humor, intensity of emotions, the high stakes? And yes, I totally couldn't hold back my tears when Orion closed his eyes for good... which says A LOT. If this were another show or Super Sentai season, this episode could easily serve as a finale or some sort. But nope, Kyuranger is not stopping anytime soon. The past might have been altered, yet the present remained the same. If the real Don Armage was eliminated in the past, that means the current Don Armage's identity is someone else entirely. Still a massive question mark that is shrouded in mystery. Personally, I can no longer predict what's going to happen next. It's one surprise after another, and to think that we still have (at most) 19 more episodes after this! This show is NOT pulling any punches, and continues to be a delight week after week. That's why I honestly can't believe some audience are still looking down on it despite a streak of strong features. Oh well, I guess it's their loss... Next week: 'Save Naga' Team is back on center stage! PS: Tsurugi makes his very first spotlight in the ending sequence, pairing up with Lucky. Oh and yeah, Gigant Phoenix and Kyutamajin have already been added to the opening since episode 28. I don't think I have mentioned about it before. LOL.

Episode 30 Score: 8,5 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: September 22nd, 2017 - Version 2.14. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

#tokusatsu #SuperSentai #kyuranger #uchu sentai kyuranger #uchuu sentai kyuranger #review #melancholymoments #awesome

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husid · 5 years

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Uncle Huey’s 2019 Oscars Post!

A confession: I love the Oscars.

A confession, extrapolated: I am an unabashed Oscars fanboy, who legitimately looks forward to the Academy Awards all year long. I love the opening montage where the host skewers self-righteous Hollywood stars, I love the cringeworthy banter of presenters pretending to have a non-scripted conversation (as if they were actual actors!), I love the montages reminding us why we should keep liking movies, I love seeing which recently deceased actors (it’s always the actors) cause people to break the “no-clapping-until-the-end” rule during the In Memoriam clip (Hollywood’s version of “you can only bring Valentine’s Day Cards to class if you give one to everybody”), I love the wildly reactionary vitriol thrown towards the Academy every time they make a decision about anything, I love the Academy reacting one-year too late to everything, I love the politics, I love the self-seriousness, I love the acceptance speeches in which you can tell the actor deeply resents his or her family, I love seeing the loser shots and trying to decide whether they’re legitimately happy for the winner (spoiler: they’re not), and I love seeing the same tired, rehashed Twitter jokes about how long the Oscars telecast is.

Reading back through that paragraph, I realize how disingenuous my love for the Oscars sounds, but I do love the Oscars, if for no other reason than I really fucking love movies. And while I’m no critic, I do fancy myself a semi-educated film buff, and with that, as well as an uncredited extras role in The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas! that I ask that you indulge me in the first annual Hu’s the Boss Oscar Preview!

In the interest of full disclosure, this is where I tell you that I’ve only seen 11 of the movies nominated (Avengers: Infinity War, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Isle of Dogs, Roma, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, A Star Is Born), but whether it’s the utter predictability of some films (Green Book), or familiarity with a director’s work (Vice), I feel reasonably confident in my admittedly underinformed predictions.

You might have heard that the Oscars will not have a host this year, for the first time since 1989, and we all remember how that went! (I was 2 years old, I definitely don’t remember how that went, but the internet does, and yikes, it wasn’t good. Side note: I’d sooner tell my own grandmother that her matzo ball soup was overseasoned than do anything horrible enough to warrant Julie Andrews calling me an embarrassment in an open letter). How did we find ourselves in this predicament? Blame the Academy. Well, also the internet. Maybe Kevin Hart too. President Obama as well. Let me explain.

While in office, Obama had the opportunity to sign an executive order mandating that Amy Poehler and Tina Fey host every major awards show, but failed to do so. Given President Trump’s current feelings towards S&L, it feels like that window has closed. The Oscars are generally hosted by a mainstream comedian, and this year was shaping up to be no different, with Kevin Hart signed on to host. But then the unthinkable happened. The internet internetted, and found that Hart had performed some homophobic material back in 2009 and 2010. The backlash got real loud, real quick, and the court of public opinion sentenced the Academy to 10 years without Kevin Hart as host, with the possibility of parole once we realize that every comic who started writing before 2010 has included something homophobic in one of their sets. So you can blame Kevin Hart, whose jokes were clearly offensive; you can blame the Academy for either not vetting their host, underestimating the research capabilities of internet denizens, underestimating the outrage of the general public (hard to imagine, given the public reception of most of the Academy’s decisions of late), or, depending on your viewpoint, bowing too easily to internet outrage; or you can blame the outraged, for not understanding the evolution of standup comedy, or for making a stand when one may not be warranted.

I’ll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions on who’s to blame for Hart not hosting, but I can tell you who’s to blame for there the absence of a host, period: Critics. Not since Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars for a 73rd consecutive time has any host be universally lauded. The host isn’t funny, the host is too mean, the host is too sophomoric, the host disappears for extended periods of time, etc. It’s been a thankless job for years now, and that was before a dissection of your extended comedy catalog became a prerequisite. Personally, I’d love to see the hosting job go to an up-and-coming comic and let them roast Hollywood for a bit. It would be a way to take the self-reverential mask off of Hollywood for a couple hours, and provide a massive opportunity for an up-and-comer. But ratings dictate that stars and stars alone must host, so I’m not holding my breath.

Ok. That sound you just heard is me jumping off my soap box. Back to movies.

“The field is wide open this year” is a great way to build up buzz for an awards show, but when it comes to Best Picture, it’s also a euphemism sugarcoating the fact that there were truly no great movies this year. Personally, I think nearly every contender has at least one seriously fatal flaw, and that, coupled with the rare lack of a huge late PR push for one movie above the others (a la The King’s Speech, The Artist, Argo, Birdman, etc.) mean that “wide-open field” isn’t just lip service, it’s true. Just not for the best reasons. Still, it makes for an exciting awards show, if you’re into that sort of thing, and probably means that the Academy won’t be on the hook for buying into one film’s hype and looking terrible for it down the line (Shakespeare In Love over Saving Private Ryan, The King’s Speech over The Social Network, Birdman over Boyhood, etc.). But these things aren’t always predictable, and maybe in ten years we’ll be talking about what an underappreciated movie Vice was in 2018.

Now on to the awards, where I’ll give my two cents on each nominee for Best Picture, then a brief thought on each subsequent category declaring my best guess for the actual winner and my personal favorite. In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve watched the Golden Globes and the SAG Awards, and usually pay a lot of attention to movie/Oscars buzz, but I’ve generally tried to avoid Oscar prediction articles for the sake of this post. Again, I don’t claim to be a film critic, but I do have lots of opinions on movies, so take everything with a grain of salt. To further highlight any conscious or subconscious biases I have, I’ve put the films I have seen in bold in each set of nominees.

THE OSCAR GOES TO

Best Picture

Nominees:

Black Panther – A wildly entertaining and legitimately good movie, but it’s not even the best Marvel movie ever. This feels more like an acknowledgment from the Academy that it respects superhero movies, than a legitimate contender for best picture.

BlacKkKlansman – Given the wild true story the movie is based on, it probably didn’t even need Spike Lee’s direction to shine, and yet I left somewhat underwhelmed. Everything was solid, but very little really stood out, aside from costume design and a few warranted but ham-handed references to our current political climate. Spike is one of the most provocative filmmakers of the last quarter-century, but with a story that I expected he’d be able to knock out of the park, I didn’t fell like I gained an interesting perspective or was shocked by anything; a rarity for one of his films. Maybe that’s more reflective of the times we live in, or maybe I just set unfair expectations for Spike, given the subject matter. Either way, despite enormous potential, this had all the trappings of a good-but-not-great movie.

Bohemian Rhapsody – Rami Malek’s performance and the final Live Aid scene alone catapult Bohemian Rhapsody into this year’s contenders. Unfortunately, that was all that was Oscar-worthy about this movie. The rest was a by-the-numbers music biopic that tried to pack way too much into 133 minutes. It’s no wonder this movie took so long to get made and so many writers/producers/directors/actors were involved and uninvolved at one point or another (Sacha Baron Cohen was originally slated to play Freddie Mercury), because there’s a lot to untangle between the rise and “fall” of the band, Mercury’s sexual awakening, and his HIV diagnosis, all while the real-life remaining members of the band did their best to ensure that we got a PG-13 version of Queen history devoid of any real dirty laundry. The final result was a watered down, factually dubious mishmash that doesn’t go deep enough in any direction to have a true lasting impact. Those music scenes though, still make it one of the best music biopics ever filmed.

The Favourite – Of all the Best Picture nominees, the Favourite and Roma were easily the least digestable for mass market audiences. Period pieces aren’t for everyone, especially ones that have little in the way of plot, and take place exclusively on the grounds of an 18th century British palace. But the Favourite managed to be thoroughly entertaining thanks to top-notch set design, Oscar-worthy performances by Olivia Coleman, Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone, sexual intrigue and two hours of steady, if a bit slow, mischievousness.

Green Book – I have not seen it. Obviously the reviews are positive, but no one has yet convinced me that this movie isn’t entirely formulaic. I haven’t seen this movie, but I’ve seen this movie, and I’m pretty sure it’s fine.

Roma – A beautiful movie about an underrepresented social class in an underrepresented era in an underrepresented country. It’s shot well and acted well, and the camerawork makes up for a meandering plotline. It probably is the class of this category, but I can’t help but think that it might be 15% worse if it wasn’t shot in black and white. That was clearly a conscious choice by writer and director Alfonso Cuaron, who, between Gravity and Children of Men, among others, has more than proven he knows how to make a film beautiful, regardless of subject matter. But the Artist won Best Picture for its two-part gimmick of being black and white and silent, and I’m not entirely sure that Roma’s colorless palette shouldn’t be considered gimmicky as well.

A Star Is Born – The most classic Best Picture fodder on this list, by leaps and bounds, and not just because previous versions of this movie have been nominated for Best Picture, among a host of other awards. But Hollywood loves a movie about the entertainment business, not to mention a story about underdogs and redemption. This was a really well done movie across the board, and while I thought the Grammys scene was a little over the top, I now realize that was an integral scene to the previous three versions of the movie, so its inclusion is a lot easier to justify here. Aside from the acting, which was exceptional across the board (Andrew Dice Clay!), I think the most impressive part about this movie was that it was a big-budget film about superstardom, yet managed to feel very intimate, and resisted using tired crutches of story narration/plot forwarding by way of TV/radio news reports or newspaper headlines – something Bohemian Rhapsody was unable to pull off.

Vice – I have not seen it, which is odd, because of every movie nominated, it’s probably the most up my proverbial alley. The initial mixed reviews were a part of my missing it, though I imagine my love for Adam Mckay’s masterful balance between humor and the depression of irresponsibly-wielded power in the Big Short and Succession (to say nothing of his comedy genius displayed in Anchorman, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers et al.) would make me a more likely candidate than most to appreciate Vice. Alas, that’s all I’m able to really opine on.

Will Be: If there wasn’t a strong anti-Netflix bias in the Academy, as has been reported, I would go with Roma, but I fear that the safest choice here is Green Book, and in the absence of anything truly groundbreaking, that’s going to be the pick.

Should Be: I’m on the fence between Roma and A Star is Born. To me, Roma’s lack of plot and failure to explore its main character in depth separate it from A Star is Born, which really has no obvious flaws.

Actor in a Leading Role

Christian Bale – Vice

Bradley Cooper – A Star Is Born

Willem Dafoe – At Eternity’s Gate

Rami Malek – Bohemian Rhapsody

Viggo Mortensen – Green Book

Will Be: Having only seen two of these movies, it’s hard for me to make a real educated guess, but it’s also hard to imagine that Rami Malek won’t be rewarded for flawlessly playing one of the most eccentric entertainers in music history. All I know for sure is that Willem Dafoe will not be winning.

Should Be: Malek. Malek’s apparent real-life persona is shy and understated –essentially the exact opposite of Freddie Mercury’s – making his transformative performance that much more jaw-dropping.

Actress in a Leading Role

Yalitza Aparicio – Roma

Glenn Close – The Wife

Olivia Colman – The Favourite

Lady Gaga – A Star Is Born

Melissa McCarthy – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Will Be: Glenn Close. When an actress from a movie you’ve never heard of keeps racking up awards, it’s a pretty safe bet the Academy will follow suit.

Should Be: I’m going to stick with Close, given how much consensus this pick seems to have. Of the movies I saw, I think Colman and Gaga are both very worthy. I can’t quite figure out Aparicio’s nomination. Given that she had never acted before, she was incredible, but the lack of dialogue and depth that the script afforded her puts her performance in stark comparison to the other women on this list. Close is the biggest lock in any of the acting categories.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Amy Adams – Vice

Marina de Tavira – Roma

Regina King – If Beale Street Could Talk

Emma Stone – The Favourite

Rachel Weisz – The Favourite

Will Be: Amy Adams. This is a really tight race that could legitimately go to anyone. With five very deserving nominees, the biggest differentiator is the fact that Adams has been nominated for an Oscar five times before, with no hardware to show for it. In situations like this, the Academy has shown it’s not above the unofficial lifetime achievement award.

Should Be: I’m a huge fan of every actress in this category, though my two favorites – Adams and King – are nominated for movies I haven’t seen. Given that, my pick would be Emma Stone, who portrayed innocence, quirkiness, resourcefulness, wittiness, ruthlessness and helplessness in one winkingly dry performance. Weisz was just as game from an acting perspective, but the script gave Stone a lot more to work with, making her performance more memorable.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Mahershala Ali – Green Book

Adam Driver – BlacKkKlansman

Sam Elliott – A Star Is Born

Richard E. Grant – Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Sam Rockwell – Vice

Will Be: Mahershala Ali. The Academy loves him, and with good reason. In a tight race, the fact that Rockwell deservedly won this award last year for Three Billboards probably disqualifies him. Elliott was exceptional in A Star Is Born, but had a considerably smaller role than the other actors on this list. I thought Driver was good, but not Oscars-good, and obviously I haven’t seen Grant’s performance, but the buzz is very positive, despite being in a movie that not a ton of people saw. There’s definitely a cynical side of me that thinks Ali is the most justifiable selection among all the minority Oscar acting nominees, and its hard to imagine there aren’t at least some voters who are still trying to erase the scars of #oscarssowhite (to say nothing of minority representation over the course of film history) by essentially casting a vote for inclusion. But ultimately he may just be the best choice in a tight category.

Should Be: Ali. I’ll be rooting hard for Elliott, both because he tends to be my favorite part of any movie or show he’s in, and because it’s nice to see the older guys finally win one. Since Ali and Rockwell already have a statue, there may be some sentimentality votes going his way, and his career in mainstream American cinema spans much longer than fellow elder statesman Grant. Again, I haven’t seen Green Book, but I know Ali is as game as any of the actors in this category, and had the biggest role of anyone in the category. That’s good enough for me.

Directing

Spike Lee – BlacKkKlansman

Pawel Pawlikowski – The Cold War

Yorgos Lanthimos – The Favourite

Alfonso Cuaron - Roma

Adam McKay – Vice

Will Be: Alfonso Cuaron. There’s talk of this going to Spike as a “my bad” award from the Academy for never having even nominated him for best director (not giving him even a nomination for Do the Right Thing borders on criminal). But he did receive an honorary Oscar from the Academy in 2015, and that, coupled with BlacKkKlansman being just a good movie make me feel like this isn’t Spike’s year. Vice is a very hype-typical movie that isn’t getting much hype, and Cold War is the only movie on this list not nominated for Best Picture. That leaves Roma and the Favourite, and the Academy has proven it loves Cuaron’s work, not to mention Roma is the most unique, visually stunning film on this list, which are usually two of the major criteria for this award.

Should Be: Cuaron, for all of the reasons listed above, but I wouldn’t be upset with Lanthimos taking it.

Adapted Screenplay

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

BlacKkKlansman

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

If Beale Street Could Talk

A Star Is Born

Will Be: I really have no clue on this one, but I’m confident that The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and If Beale Street Could Talk are the first two out. The remaining three are all unlikely to win in the other major categories so voters might simply choose their favorite of those three to ensure they win something. If that’s the case, my guess is the most popular among them is A Star Is Born.

Should Be: I won’t rehash my thoughts on BlacKkKlansman again, and I haven’t seen Beale Street or CYEFM, but when considering adapted screenplays, I like to vote based on degree of difficulty jumping from the source material to the screen. That’s why A Star Is Born falls short for me, given that it was adapted from three previous versions of ultimately the same movie. To me, that makes the writer’s job easier, not harder. I definitely have a Coen Brothers bias, so my vote goes to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which managed to take a collection of short stories written over the course of 25 years and transform them into a series of visually stunning, dialogue-rich (aside from Tom Waits’ story) vignettes that somehow formed a (great) movie.

Original Screenplay

The Favourite

First Reformed

Green Book

Roma

Vice

Will Be: First Reformed is getting buzz for this award, and it might be a way for voters to give some gold to a movie than many felt was snubbed in other categories. My take is that if voters loved the screenplay so much, it would have been nominated for those other categories. So the most likely pick here is Roma, a movie about an upper-middle-class family in Mexico City with a relative dearth of dialogue or plot lines that somehow ends up being as captivating as any other movie this year.

Should Be: I thought The Big Short’s screenplay was incredible, so if Vice is comparable in both style and quality, I’m sure I’d love it. But critics are saying otherwise, so I’m going to go with The Favourite, whose screenplay managed to make a thoroughly beguiling and darkly humorous film out of what could easily have been just another dry period piece.

Foreign Language Film

Capernaum – Lebanon

Cold War – Poland

Never Look Away – Germany

Roma – Mexico

Shoplifters – Japan

Will Be: We can pretend Cold War has a chance, but the award has all but been handed to Roma already. If it’s the only movie on this list that managed to be worthy of a Best Picture nominee, logic would dictate that it’s the only movie worthy of winning Best Foreign Language Film

Should Be: Having only seen Roma, I don’t have any great insights to add here, but I’m still confident in saying it deserves this one.

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2

Isle of Dogs

Mirai

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Will Be: Despite winning two of the last three years, Pixar doesn’t have the stranglehold over this category that it once did. In most years, Incredibles 2, Isle of Dogs or Ralph Breaks the Internet would have a great shot to win, but this is simply Spider-Man’s year.

Should Be: I liked Isle of Dogs, but Spider-Man was probably my favorite movie of the year, and quite possibly the best. Sorry Pixar.

Cinematography

Cold War

The Favourite

Never Look Away

Roma

A Star Is Born

Will Be: Roma. Sweeping cityscapes, countryscapes and beachscapes (are those things?) + historical time period + black and white = Oscar.

Should Be: Roma. Sweeping cityscapes, countryscapes and beachscapes (are those things?) + historical time period + black and white = Oscar.

QUICK HITTERS

Production Design

Black Panther

The Favourite

First Man

Mary Poppins Returns

Roma

Will Be: Roma

Should Be: The Favourite

Costume Design

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Black Panther

The Favourite

Mary Poppins Returns

Mary Queen of Scots

Will Be: The Favourite

Should Be: The Favourite

Death, taxes, and a Victorian(ish)-era drama winning Best Costume Design are the only certainties in life.

Visual Effects

Avengers: Infinity War

Christopher Robin

First Man

Ready Player One

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Will Be: Avengers: Infinity War

Should Be: Ready Player One

This pick is based entirely on the trailer and my 1980s and 90s nostalgia.

Original Song

All the Stars – Black Panther

I’ll Fight – RBG

The Place Where Lost Things Go – Mary Poppins Returns

Shallow – A Star Is Born

When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings – The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Will Be: Shallow

Should Be: Shallow

Along with Roma winning for best Foreign Film, this is easily the biggest lock of the night. It’s also a really good song.

I don’t really have anything of substance to add for the rest of the categories, and if you’re somehow still reading, you’re probably not anxiously awaiting my take on all the documentary shorts I haven’t watched.

Happy Oscars Night, everyone! Looking forward to seeing you again next year, when we’ll get to predict the winners of the Academy’s new categories:

Worst Performance By A Best Actor/Actress Loser At Time of Award Announcement

Most Terrifying-Looking Live-Action Genie

Best Performance By People Trying to Bring Matt Damon Home

The Wes Anderson Lifetime Achievement Award for Contributions to Whimsy

Worst Acting Performance by a Musician Who Now Thinks He/She Can Act Because of Lady Gaga

Worst Singing Performance by an Actor Who Now Thinks He/She Can Sing Because of Bradley Cooper

Best Use of “That Guy” (Andrew Dice Clay!)

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