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scenefox2003 · 3 years

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Okay so ever since that theme song takeover and the trailer dropped I just knew that it was finally my time to shine and share my master list of

✨newt family headcanons✨

~Olivia and Yunan are gay. That’s an obvious one but it’s a prerequisite so I gotta put it in here

~Yunan is definitely the cool aunt type and very playful and down for some fuckery while Olivia is the complete opposite and the only person holding the family together because we all know Andrias is inept

~Andrias is the sweet goofy dad figure (which is an act but no one knows that) and sort of just lets anything happen

~Andrias and Yunan definitely both let Marcy ride on their shoulders

~Marcy loves to braid and style Olivia’s hair and she fucking sucks at it but no one has the heart to tell her

~don’t even ask me where this came from I don’t even remember coming up with this one, but you know those really heavy lawn darts from the 70s that got recalled several different times over the years? (if you don’t, look it up) that’s everyone except Olivia’s favorite bonding activity. Olivia hates it because this involves both Yunan and Marcy so someone usually ends up getting hurt

~Marcy introduces all of them to human subcultures, Yunan is obsessed with punk culture and alternative fashion, Olivia loves the white mom Facebook live laugh love type shit, and Andrias just becomes a full on incel

~Speaking of incel Andrias, he has never been in a relationship and CONSTANTLY bitches about it, and Marcy is the only one who doesn’t find it annoying and always encourages him. He’s also lowkey jealous of Yunan and Olivia for finding love

~Olivia has a really pretty singing voice and will sing to Marcy to help her fall asleep

~On Marcy’s first night in Newtopia, she shyly tells Andrias that she’s never slept without a stuffed animal before and she obviously doesn’t have one with her, so he immediately goes out and buys her one (it’s a cardinal)

~Speaking of birds, Yunan has one and it’s some dope ass raptor or something, Marcy IMMEDIATELY falls in love so Andrias is just like “lol you want one too” and that very same day she gets Joe Sparrow

~Andrias is a little shit and LOVES to make suggestive jokes about Olivia and Yunan, but Marcy is the type of seventh grader that’s completely clueless and naive about adult matters so he’s really the only one who finds any of it funny, it gets a good reaction out of Olivia though

~Yunan trained Marcy almost completely on her own, she was her mentor and REALLY saved her self confidence that had been destroyed by gym class back home

~Since Yunan and Marcy were on a warship together I like to think they both LOVE boats, Olivia gets seasick and Andrias is obviously too big but the two of them go out for a day on the water a lot, Yunan definitely has a jetski and is also the type to take those redneck selfies where you like hold up a fish

~the newts assumed that Marcy would get homesick, but she actually has the complete OPPOSITE problem where she’s absolutely terrified of having to go back home for whatever reason and she even has nightmares about it, she feels like her current life is too good to be true (which it is, just in a different way)

~Marcy will often call them mom or dad respectively by accident, and every time it happens they all think it’s really sweet

~Everyone except Marcy knows that “juice” is a euphemism to hide Olivia’s drinking problem, but she still always uses it no matter who she’s talking to, even around Yunan who is just like “bitch I’m your girlfriend I KNOW that’s vodka”

~Marcy regularly draws all of them, there’s a family portrait of them that she drew up on the castle fridge

~Andrias developed a taste for human teenage girl pop music and everyone around the castle is SO SICK of Carly Rae Jepsen, but Marcy has no regrets

~Marcy obviously introduces them all to video games and Andrias is really pissed because his hands are too big to play, Olivia straight up sucks at it but humors them and Yunan gets WAY too into it, her and Marcy’s Mario Kart sessions usually end in tears

~the worst sort of slang that Marcy has taught any of them is by far horrible gamer language, Andrias LOVES the word poggers and when Anne hears him say it for the first time she nearly has a heart attack

~Marcy is the only one who’s careful with her royal credit card because she’s terrified of the economy crashing, Olivia really appreciates her for that (despite being an irresponsible spender herself)

~Yunan has sworn to kill many of Marcy’s bullies back home, none of the newts can fathom why anyone wouldn’t like or respect her which is really good for her self esteem

~Andrias is the best at comfort, Olivia is the best at advice, and Yunan is the best at distraction

~Andrias is also really good at taking care of Marcy when she’s sick or hurt

~It’s always really sad for the other three when Yunan has to go out on missions, but when she comes back they always throw a big party

~Yunan isn’t the brightest and doesn’t really realize that Grime’s lieutenant Sasha and Marcy’s friend Sasha are the same person, and when she does she immediately feels extremely guilty and everyone swears not to let Marcy find out, because they know if she knew that Sasha and Yunan had a fight it would break her

~Yunan and Olivia regularly argue about who gets to have Marcy as their maid of honor at their future wedding

~When Yunan and Olivia find out that Marcy is staying in Amphibia forever, they’re both so relieved because they didn’t know if they could handle not having her around anymore (which is ironic I know)

#amphibia #marcy amphibia #general yunan #lady olivia #king andrias

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homieswithhades · 3 years

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why steve rogers returning to the past was wrong

disclaimer: im clearly a stucky enthusiast, but please, do not be thrown off by that. i admit, there may be undertones of bias because of that in the following, but i did my best with trying to lay out the facts and draw logical conclusions, so do please give me a chance. also, i may have accidentaly omitted some moments and some quotes may not be 100% word for word, as my memory lowkey sucks. ALSO this is NOT a peggy hate post!! i think shes a dope and underrated character and quite frankly she was done dirty. but i also definitely h8 the trope of badass woman falls for the hero.

first and foremost, every sane person knows endgame was complete and utter bullshit when dealing with steves character, so this post will be more for you to maybe show (and hopefully convince) some stubborn friend or family member. nice, concise (not) and including proof from the movies (+a few tweets and stucky undertones, if u dont fw that i respect it but bucky is an integral part to steves character regardless of how u interpret their relationship) here is why steves character development was thrown away at the end of endgame.

let us begin at looking at the cap trilogy.

in ca:tfa it should be noted that steve had no one to return to in the 40s, except bucky. i believe steves relationship with peggy was no where near as developed as it should have been to elicit him returning exclusively for her. as we are aware, steves driving force has absolutely always been bucky. bucky was there for steve after his parents died, when he was sick, and always protected him from whatever trouble he got himself into. "until the end of the line" right? steves relationship with peggy was forced and short lived, literally, we're talking a matter of months here. i need to keep emphasising the important disparity between bucky and peggy, as it is absolutely key in this whole argument. steve dropped everything and went against every order just to even attempt to save bucky. even the slightest chance of him surviving being captured was enough for steve to break into a hydra camp and free the 107th division. steve even had the chance to capture zola, one of the main villains and masterminds of the war, but again, steve prioritised bucky. when theyre trying to escape the exploding hydra camp, the exchange between steve and bucky is critical. steve says "go! get out of here!" as all he wanted was bucky escaping safely. he put bucky's life over his own (this wasnt the first time he did this, nor the last) but bucky rooted himself to the spot, and yelled back "no, not without you!". they both escaped safely as we know, and then steve gathers the howling commandos to take down the red skull. bucky then falls off the train, nd steve blames himself for his death, even visibly crying over it twice. steves morals went from "i dont wanna kill anyone. i dont like bullies, i dont care where theyre from" before buckys death, to "i wont stop until all of hydra are dead or captured" after. stuff happens and steve defeats the red skull and is now in control of the flying ship with the bombs. he connects the comms with peggy and she tries to convince him theres another way to disarm the ship. steve was so dedicated at that point he didnt even want to hear it. he didnt even attempt to do anything to ensure his survival. this alone proves, peggy was not important enough to him to return to.

next is ca:tws. The stevebucky movie. in the museum, peggy confirms that steve saved the man from the 107th division who eventually became her husband (steve was never in the 107th, just to clarify) i believe her husbands name was daniel sousa (as revealed in the marvels agents of shield show) steve then finds out peggy is alive and talks to her. she, in short, tells him she's lived her life, and it was his turn to live his in the time hes in. the "my best girl" line was unnecessary and out of place; again, steve barely knew her. again, shit goes down, and steve finds out the winter soldier is bucky and immediately drops everything, and becomes dead set on saving him. not killing, not imprisoning, but saving him. no matter the cost. "he saw me, and he didnt even know me" "hes not the kind you save, hes the kind you stop. he won't recognise you" "he will." god, steve KNEW bucky would recognise him. regardless of the brainwashing, steve managed to break through the barrier hydra fought so hard to drill into buckys mind. nothing ever broke him out of that state exept for steve. "im not gonna fight you, youre my friend." "youre my mission" "then finish it. cos im with you till the end of the line." [[good fucking lord let me break out of my essay-esque semi professional format here and just say how fucking heartbreaking those lines are. oh my god. read them, over and over until it hits you.]] steve shows us again, that he is willing to not only die for bucky, but literally die by his hand. he would let bucky kill him. he'd dropped his shield. he didnt fight back. steve always, always, ALWAYS got up and fought back. always. exept that time. the time bucky could have killed him. that scene is the essence of "im with you till the end of the line" because then, it was true. it was true because steve was okay with dying at buckys mercy. theres a difference between sacrificing yourself for the greater good (steve going into the ice), willing to die for someone (steve risking his life multiple times in attempts to save bucky) and finally, being willing to let someone kill you, because you love and trust them so much (hellicarier scene). the difference between peggy and bucky's relationship to steve is that steve may be willing to die for either, but only willing to be killed by one. not to mention, bucky pulled steve from the river. he recognised him. steve broke through 70 years of brainwashing with such impact it literally drove bucky away from hydra out of his own free will.

in between ca:tws and ca:cw its confirmed (im p sure sam says it) that him and steve looked for bucky for two. years. even off screen, bucky was steves priority.

im going to squeeze in 2 points from from age of ultron here, for chronology's sake:

steves worst nightmare, as portayed in the movie, is LITERALLY going back to the 40s and being stuck there (with peggy too??lmfao) and also the quote "family, stability, the man who wanted all that went in the ice 75 years ago. i think another one came out." objectively confirms that steve isn't the man he used to be, and doesnt want to return to the past. aou may have sucked, but that doesn't mean the character development should be thrown away.

ca:cw. hoo boy. steve went against 117 countries and half of his closest friends and colleagues because he believed bucky was innocent of the bombing of the un conference. god, steve quite literally, did everything to defend and protect bucky. though i shall acknowledge that steve did attend peggy's funeral, however, there was no real connotations there other than the fact he was mourning her death (understabdibly so). steve then proceeds to protect bucky for 2 hours 27 mins and 41 seconds to the point where they escape together to siberia after the airport fight. "i dont know if im worth all this steve" "what you did all those years... it wasnt you. you didnt have a choice." "i know. but i did it" again, absolutely heartbreaking quotes if you read it a couple of times and truly understand the meaning of them. steve somewhat indirectly tells bucky yes, yes he is worth all of this. otherwise, he wouldn't be doing it. a quote to support that would be "for the longest time, i always did what i thought was right." (disclaimer this is not a direct quote i deadass couldnt find it to save my life, i belive steve said it at some point during civil war or tws, but the point is, bucky is the only thing that could have shaken steves morals so intensely.) and finally, the most important part of cw, the fight at the end with tony. bucky and steve constantly protected each other. steve kept fighting because he was fighting for bucky. to keep him safe from tony and the world. he got up, time and time again. "i can do this all day." the fact that he said that to tony, some people consider them the closest of friends, proves again, a million times over, bucky is more important to steve than literally anything else, INCLUDING his shield. his mantle. he dropped it and left it like it was nothing, because his priority was bucky. as always.

theres not much to discuss for infinity war other than their hug whicg was honestly just adorable.

mmmmm endgame. i will not go into how much i hate that movie because it would be a rant quintuple the length of this one. in the support group, steve dead ass fucking says "you gotta move on. you gotta move on" and that sentiment was literally forgotten at the end. my main point for endgame is this. people tend to tell me, the reason steve abandoned bucky and went back to be with peggy is because he knew that he was finally safe. :/. if you had half a braincell youd know that's not true. the steve we know, never would have left bucky for good, ESPECIALLY after the "dont do anything stupid until i get back" exchange [[god i want to beat the shit out of the r*ssos]] mostly because, bucky had fucking no one in the time he was living in!!! no family, no friends and most heartbreakingly, no one he could trust. (yes sam was there but were just seeing their friendship develop now in tfatws, all that wasnt there in endgame) and secondly, what made steve think bucky was entirely safe??? half of the worlds population just suddenly reappeared, which as we see now, there were massive consequences for that. i simply believe steve is not that stupid. steve going back was disrespectful not only to his character, but to bucky AND peggy. most importantly, the steve we've been watching since 2011 would NEVER abandon bucky, no matter how safe he thought he was (he visited him frequently in wakanda, the safest place on the planet arguably ffs) especially for such a dumbass and quite frankly, nonsensical reason as going back to be with peggy, who clearly stated to him she moved on, and so should he (which he did. idk endgame writers prolly didnt watch the previous movies :/) its not even debatable. bucky is more important to steve than peggy. even in terms of screentime.

now allow some tweets to speak for me, this one being the absolute most important one:

ladies and gentlefolk, all of the stuff ive said can be summarised in that last line. "it would be contrary to who he is."

heres some more:

and now finally, id like to briefly mention steve and tfatws, so beware of spoilers (writing this as of ep 4 coming out; praying it doesn't age badly)

bucky mentions steve, unprompted, fucking constantly. he clearly isnt over steve leaving, and im hoping that gets acknowledged and talked out in the show.

in conclusion, tl:dr, steve shouldn't have returned to the past and stayed there, it is contrary to who he is, as shown to us through his trilogy and other appearances in the mcu. not to mention the timeline bullshit in endgame makes zero sense in the first place.

#long post #stucky #captain america #steve rogers #mcu #marvel #tfatws #bucky barnes #peggy carter #hwh's marvel thoughts #please dont bullshit me in the comments also i dont have the strength #imma hide this in the tags praying no 1 will b bothered to look but steve and bucky gay #everytime some1 calls their relationship brotherly it takes 10 years off my life nd makes me wanna impale myself ❤#also no beta we die like men #my meta

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smokeybrandreviews · 3 years

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Smokey brand Retrospective: Red Pill Me

Cinemacon has passed and there has been a lot of awesome sh*t revealed. On the top of that list, obviously, Spider-Man: Far From Home has me geeked to high heaven but there were a ton of other noteworthy reveals. There was some Batman reveals, a few Mission Impossible 7 and Top Gun 2 trailers, plus audiences ever got a surprise screening of Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Now, that would be great on it's own but cats even got a little sizzle real for Matrix Resurrections: The long gestating fourth Matrix film. Apparently, this thing is releasing in December. I am lukewarm at best. I have fond memories of the Matrix trilogy as a whole but, since it’s final release some twenty years ago, the Wachowskis have been revealed to be one trick ponies. They kind of suck at film making. I mean, i liked Speed Racer but i just generally enjoy Speed Racer. It helped tremendously that Christina Ricci was Trixie, too, but everything after that was kind of balls. I also really like V for Vendetta but that’s not real their movie, they just adapted it. I guess you can say that about Speed Racer, too. Anyway, in light of there near Shyamalan-esque track record with their films, i wanted to revisit the first three Matrix films and see if they hold up, to try and muster some sense of excitement for what comes next.

The Matrix

Of the trilogy, this is easily the best film. Everything about it is exceptional. The Matrix was a whole ass shift in the cultural zeitgeist. It was a lot of people’s first experience with accessible cyberpunk and I'll always love it for that. I’ll also love it for normalizing Hong Kong style action sequences and giving us the most breathtaking application of Bullet Time I've seen to date. The Matrix s why the theater exists. If you’ve never seen this thing on the big screen, you missed out on something very special. I had just just turned thirteen when it released and checked it out at the dollar theater. I had only ever seen anything like this, in anime. Seeing all of my favorite Eighties OVAs filtered through the big budget Hollywood lens was incredible. I even like the rather pedestrian narrative. I think the story worked for what the movie was trying to do. It’s a shame the Wachowskis have tried to rewrite history about the narrative as of late. I understand the underlying themes of identity and sexuality but come on? That’s some college film theory bullsh*t that got tacked on after the fact. Now, if the original script is to be believed, then, yes, all of that, but what we got is not so profound. This is a basic Chosen One narrative with Dope ass effects that were ahead of it’s time.

A fr as the cast, what can i say? These motherf*ckers were perfect. Keanu Reeves as Neo was inspired. It’s wild to say that because dude is a plank but it works. He’s the POV character, he’s who you see that world through. Making him a blank slate so to speak, helps with immersion and that is a world you definitely wan to be immersed within. This was my first experience with Carrie-Ann Moss and I've loved her ever since. Her Trinity fast became one of my favorite characters and I'm actually pretty excited to see where she is in the new film. Lawrence Fishburne as Morpheus was an interesting choice. I wasn’t mad and it worked perfectly but it was weird seeing him in such an active, action oriented, role. That said, for me, this movie is made by Hugo Weaving. He is absolutely monstrous as Agent Smith. He’s got this scene chewing energy that mirrors Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa and we all know how much i love that Nazi f*ck so that’s really high praise. To this day, I've got his Humanity is a Virus speech memorized. It was just that f*cking good! The Matrix is an exquisite watch and it is absolutely mandatory viewing if you consider yourself a fan of cinema.

The Matrix Reloaded

Whoo, boy, talk about a drop in quality. Reloaded released four years later in 2003 and it screams Studio Mandate. I was a sprightly eighteen years old when this thing dropped and made it a point to see it opening day. I really enjoyed the first outing so i figured this one would be just as amazing. Indeed, i remember leaving the theater thinking to myself how decent of a sequel it turned out to be. It wasn’t better than the first but it didn’t sh*t the bed like most follow-ups do. Fast forward to present day and, after watching this thing again for the first time in probably fifteen years, it’s kind of f*cking bad. Like, as a cinematic experience, it’s pretty tight Everything is amped up. Tons more action, way more bombastic set pieces, stakes have been raised considerably; The Matrix Reloaded is everything you want in a summer blockbuster sequel. However, that’s it. Everything else is worse. The acting has become way too hammy and the new cast members fit into this narrative like a square peg in a round hole. Why is f*cking Niobe even in this thing? Who even is the Merovingian? Why is Mouse? The pacing is all over the place, too. Like, this thing stops dead in it’s tracks on several occasions but that’s not the worst of it.

The worst thing is the narrative. What the f*ck even is the story trying to be told in this movie? It doesn’t make any f*cking sense. The Matrix was, very obviously, a standalone film. That was a closed narrative. Neo’s story had been told. Everything after that is unnecessary. This movie is an exercise in the unnecessary. I appreciate all of how unchained and manic Smith is in this but, outside of that, what the f*ck was the point of this whole narrative? It’s filler. This movie is filler and it feels like it. The returning cast is serviceable and seeing Zion was interesting. I like how all the survivors are just sweaty black people. I literally hated everyone added to the cast though. Well, that’s not quite true. I rather enjoyed Collin Chou as Seraph. Dude was inconsequential but i love seeing Asian martial artists not name Li or Chan getting some shine. Also, Monica Bellucci is in this and i kind of just love her in general. Her Persephone is absolutely disposable but she looks damn fine in that plastic wrapped dress of hers. I literally can’t be bothered mentioning anyone else. They are that forgettable. This movie is that forgettable. And it’s arguably the best of the two sequels.

The Matrix Revolutions

Talk about going out with a thud. Man, i saw this with my best friend, rest in peace B, and we both hated it. He was an even bigger fan of The Matrix than i was so his disappointment was palpable. I’ll never forget his visceral reaction when that rainbow spread across the super happy Hollywood ending. Dude was hot and he had every right to be. The first Matrix set up this intriguing, immersive, world full of fanatic visuals, great piratical stunts, and a very through provoking premise. The second Matrix was your basic Hollywood sequel; More shine, less substance. But Revolutions? Man this is peak Wachowski fail. You saw hints of this messiah sh*t in the first, it’s literally a Chosen One narrative, but thy went all in on that sh*t in Reloaded. By the time Revolutions finished, this whole narrative was so far up it’s own ass, it didn’t know which way was up. It just f*cking ends. Everyone is dead and it’s over. The Wachowskis went heavy on the Jesus imagery, they were not subtle, and the f*cking conflict just ends. Robot don’t stop using people as batteries. Flesh and blood Humans still have to live in Zion. The only thing that’s changed is Neo’s dead and Agent Smith has been deleted. That’s it. The Matrix still exists, people are still trapped in it, and everything that happened in these films doesn’t f*cking matter. Literally right back at the start of the whole goddamn conflict. Revolutions is so f*cking disappointing, dude, by every measure of that metric.

Hugh Weaving is still pretty good as Smith and Keanu does his best imitation of white bread as Neo but, like, everything else is just so pedestrian. Plus, this thing is long. Like, unreasonably so. Why the f*ck is this movie two hours? The entire trilogy is kind of like that but it’s most egregious in this one. This story could be told in ninety minutes, just like Reloaded. Why the f*ck do i have an extra half hour of bullsh*t in this? Like, that whole “Neo Lost” arc was unnecessary, in both sequels. F*cking why? I don’t hate Revolutions. It’s not a “bad” film per say, it’s just disappointing. It’s the poster child for the law of diminishing returns. The Matrix Revolutions is the what happens when you let creatives with fresh egos, run amok with one hundred and fifty million f*cking dollars. So much spectacle but even less substance that Reloaded and that motherf*cker was a hollow mess. Still, The Matrix Revolutions is better than anything Michael Bay or Zack Snyder has ever made so i guess it’s got that going for it.

#The Matrix #The Matrix Reloaded #The Matrix Revolutions #The Matrix Trilogy #Smokey brand Retrospective #Keeanu Reeves #Carrie-Anne Moss #Hugo Weaving #Lawrence Fishburne

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smokeybrand · 3 years

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Smokey brand Retrospective: Red Pill Me

The Matrix

The Matrix Reloaded

The Matrix Revolutions

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gaymafia · 6 years

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I’m legitimately curious why people didn’t like the last Jedi? I saw it and thought it was okay? Is there something I missed or? Like it wasn’t great but it was passable?

ok so i wasnt gonna do this here bc nobody fucking asked but u asked so thank u but also strap in ur ready for a while ride

TLJ spoilers, obviously. also my issues are going to be numbered in no particular order bc my thoughts on this movie are so fucking scrambled but here we go

1. Kyle Ron. First of all fuck Ryeanne for making me see so many goddamn closeups of Adam Driver’s ugly ass face. I did not need to see all that he is so goddamn ugly especially that fucking shirtless scene where he looks like a block of pasty ass pale wood.

But for real, Kylo Ren. I don’t actually take issue with his existence, because Kyle really does excellently represent rich ass white boys who have everything handed to them but throw a hissy fit when they face the slightest adversity an throw tantrums all the time. It’s nice to see a villain that represents most people real-life nightmares instead of like, a Sexy Temptress or Old Evil Man or whatever. That being said, kyle is not given the villain’s treatment in this movie. if you cut out all the scenes where ryan is not actively sucking adam driver’s dick and jizzing all over himself over kyle’s angsty white boy angst, the movie has virtually no real plot (”oh no we are in space with no fuel, nobody is going to do anything except get mad at each other, miscommunicate, and deliberately make all the characters of color worthless while separating Finn and Poe bc fuck the gays”). So much of the movie is spent not just establishing how kyle became kyle (which is good! backstory for villains is good!), but trying to get us to like, sympathize with him? which is the shitty part. I dont care that Luke “”””tried to kill”’’’ (he didn’t) kyle. kyle had turned to the dark side before luke’s mistake. kyle had a million and one chances to change his mind from the start of TFA to the end of TLJ, and he never did. Kyle is an evil guy. We need one of those. He’s a great evil guy bc he’s got so many shitty qualities. But ryin doesnt want us to hate kyle, even tho hes the villain. why the fuck doesnt reean want us to hate kyle? bc rayan is also a shitty little man who thinks giving ur white boy a sob story makes him a sympathetic villain and sidelining ur characters of color will help.

also again the fucking shirtless scene what the shit man that was so gross

2. Will be broken down into A, B, C, etc. bc TLJ treats its characters of color like SHIT.

2A. Finn. Finn gets put in a coma bc why would anyone want to write anything interesting for john boyega its not like hes the MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN and the MOST TALENTED ACTOR who is being sidelined bc ryun hates black people. Yeah Finn is totally into Rey and he wants to save her and is willing to desert the rebellion for her. that happened in the first movie but why give your characters real arcs when you can recycle old ones to jerk off to kyle ron. the rose thing happens, shes like “we can disable the tracking” and like TWO SECONDS after he was dead set on desertion he’s totally down to risk his life for the rebellion at rey’s expense? that sure is a quick 180 with no real reason why and no writing to explain it! then there was the whole “separate finn and poe” thing ryain pulled for the shits and giggles.

2B. Rose. I was pretty chill with Rose, she had a dope backstory, her sister was badass, and I liked that they made that connection off the bat. I’m not mad about anything rayn did with her character but i genuinely believe thats only because i havent thought about it enough yet. give me a week and i’ll figure out how rain fucked it up. open to suggestions.

2C. Poe. Full offense but was I supposed to be mad at Poe for coming up with a plan when that bitch Holdo was like “I’m not gonna tell you my plan sit tight and be convinced we are all going to die :)” i legitimately did not understand how I was supposed to be mad at poe for doing what he thought was best for the rebellion after he asked holdo what the plan was and she was deliberately obstinate and refused to even be like “dont worry i have a plan” she was just like. so dumb. Also poe got thrown around a lot and i am A Little Suspicious of how much physical violence he experienced compared to many other characters.

2D. You guessed what was next! The slaps! Super awesome how the two men of color were slapped by white people!!!! So deep!!!!!!! For real tho uh the second time i saw this movie someone in the audience laughed when poe got slapped by space hitler hux and uh??? not funny. not funny or cute or clever to use the guy you built your entire nazi imagery on to slap the one black man on your cast. i dont care if it was supposed to make us “hate hux” or whatever more. i already hated hux reyn. you could have used that screentime in your 3 fucking hour long movie for something valuable, like giving finn a character arc, or literally anything else besides that goddamn slap. i was livid watching that.

and then with leia and poe? i get that part of the conflict was internal in the resistance and one of the major themes was how failure is the best teacher and all that but like? maybe stop physically assaulting all your characters of color? maybe uhhhh at least think about that first??

2E. like i mentioned before one of the obvious themes was how failure is the best teacher so naturally all the major characters had to fail at something, and then learn from their mistake to be better next time. with luke it was fucking up with kyle, with rey it was being naive enough to think kyle could turn, with poe it was the dreadnaught thing, finn was left out of this because raan dooesn give a shit abt finn bc hes a racist bastard, etc. but it was incredibly transparent how all of the white characters’ mistakes meant either personal losses or something small scale with one person, while the mistakes of the characters of color (poe/finn/rose) were all ones that cost the rebellion the vast majority of their forces. rey got out of her fight with kyle and snoke unscathed. luke got a lot of guilt and character development. What did finn poe and rose get? the deaths of like 99% of the resistance on their shoulders. A little too coincidental that even though rey LITERALLY GAVE HERSELF OVER TO SNOKE she was totally fine a-ok no real scars, finn and poe and rose doing their best to save the rebellion while admiral holdo refuses to tell them anything costs the resistance so fucking much. rey does the DUMBEST FUCKING THING with no real consequences and finn and poe and rose try their best and are punished severely for it.

2F. Really convenient how everything finn, poe, and rose did ended up being useless and just cost the rebellion lives, whereas at least rey’s mishap got snoke killed and taught her a lesson. reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyy convenient how finn, poe, and rose’s plan was a huge waste of time. it would have been much better for us to see an actual plot line with them that contributed to the story and their characterizations instead of “send them on a goose chase, make it pointless in the end, physically brutalize them along the way.

3. R*yl* bullSHIT: ryyn had a really fun time with a lot of very rape-y scenes in this movie. the whole force-connection thing with kyle and rey was soooooo uncalled for, it reeked of non-con fantasies, catered to the r*yl*s like nothing ever before, and was so goddamn gross. the obvious invasion of privacy and lack of consent was nasty, using it as a shitty device to make rey “come around” on kyle was NASTY and that whole thing was nasty. i know im not articulating this well but there was so much about that whole thing that bothered me. i just know reyhan was so fucking into it, inserting kyle into rey’s life, forcing her to completely drop all of her characterization in the first movie to suddenly thing kyle can be good, acting as if rey hasnt seen all the shit and known what hes done. the whole thing was gross and a really obvious example of why men shouldn’t be allowed to direct movies.

4. killing snoke was a dumbass fucking mistake. kyle is a tantrum-throwing temper-losing toddler. snoke was evil and mysterious and shit idk. we knew he was powerful as fuck, he looked like a testicle which is a great villain imo, he was the darth sidious and they killed him off while kyle is still in like. ep2!Anakin levels of angst. i get that kyle is already powerful or whatever but like. hes not cold and calculated the way snoke was. kyle is a good villain, but a weak main baddie bc hes dumb as fuck. he let the rebellion get away bc he was pissed at luke. that was dumb as fuck. kyle is ruined by his emotions, and snoke was a scarier main baddie bc he wasnt so fucking dumb lol

5. it was so fucking long. there were so many scenes that could have been cut or shortened. why did we need to see luke milking the tiddy of that weird alien cow thing. why did we need to see kyle ron shirtless. why did we need so many goddamn shots of the fucking porgs.

6. ya the porgs are cute or whatever but like. that whole “look at how sad the cute big-eyes porg is when chewie is eating his friend” thing was so dumb. i dunno why but i hated that the most. that was the worst thing the porgs did. they were cute but like chill disney u know they like ran algorithm after algorithm to make that porg the cutest it could be with science or some bullshit and like? thats dumb.

7. i get that the humor in star wars movies is shifting but i felt like there was too much of it and it was dumb. a lot of the riffs werent funny and there were too many of them for a star wars film. star wars usually doesnt take itself too seriously, but this one was a little too much for me.

8. there were too many plot twists for shock value. the story went on too long. it should have ended earlier but it didnt. i dont know why ryenn decided to have like 6 different climaxes but it was too much. should have let there be one climax buddy. thats it.

9. holdo. besides holdo being the white feminist icon why didnt she just fucking tell poe the plan. why. why was so deliberately obstinate when it was doing no good. like yeah of course poe sent out a crew to try to save the rebellion all u told him to shut up and let you handle it! obvously what she did in the end was badass or whatever but like uh hun next time dont be a piece of shit and then get mad when people react to you being a piece of shit. i would have been okay with all that happening if holdo wasnt treated like some hero who never made any mistakes. she did make a mistake, and that was refusing to tell poe what her plan was when she knew he was absolutely the type to do whatever he could to save the rebellion whether he had her permission or not. also apparently holdo is a lesbian or bi or not straight or something in like the comics or whatever and like 1. classic bury ur gays but also 2. no more word of god gay characters if a character is not gay in the movies i will not give you the gay cred for it sorry homophobes

10. i didnt buy the story w luke and kyle at lukes jedi training facility or whatever. surprisingly, i was ok with lukes story line and character development, and actually agreed with it for the most part, but i just like. i dunno i didnt feel like that was something luke would do. not because luke is infallible (even tho he is my gay dad who has never done anything wrong ever) but because the entire original trilogy is luke believing darth vader could be saved. and while im not opposed to luke changing his mind about whether or not everyone could be turned away from the dark side (luke was young and optimistic in the original trilogy, and as he grew older he would learn more about the jedi and their history like the whole speech he gave rey about how the jedi have to end bc theyre lowkey shitty). i actually kind of liked luke’s hot take on the jedi, because it was lowkey my hot take on the jedi (esp the prequels jedi who were shitty as Fuuuuuck but we are ignoring the prequels for now lbr) but also because i could believe it was a view luke would come to as he aged. but impulsively drawing his lightsaber to kill kyle before he had actually done anything bad, after suspecting that kyle had darkness in him for a while, even though he felt like he had failed? it just didnt feel like luke to me. i felt more like raeyn had chosen that particular backstory to try to make kyle a more sympathetic villain rather than give a believable and in-character back story for the characters. i understand that luke’s failure ultimately has to lead to the creation of kyle ron in this story line, but that didnt feel like the right failure to me. maybe this is just me being nitpicky but that felt off to me too and i dont know if i can quite pinpoint why.

11. rey was a dumbass fucking bitch in this movie. rey could not be a dumbass fucking bitch to survive as a scavenger who was orphaned at birth on jakku. rey would have had to be smart and not as fucking DUMB as she was in this movie. now im getting heated so i cant articulate this well but she just did so many dumb things that anybody who had to raise themselves would have never done. she would never have delivered herself over to kyle ron like what a dumb fucking idea. who wrote this goddamn movie. fuck u ryeen.

12. why did yoda come back as a force ghost. where is anakins force ghost. he would be so fucking pissed at kyle right now. he would be mad as hell. he would have ended this thing. he would have called kyle out like the shitdickbitch he is and put him in his place. i get that yoda is more like ancient and orginal star wars jedi knowledge shit or whatever and like more of an authority on the jedi but like anakin is off in like force ghost hawaii drinking force ghost martinis while his shitty fucking grandson is being a piece of shit?? nah man anakin would have shut that shit down they better bring him back for ep IX and i expect hayden christensen himself to show up to bitch at kyle about what a fucking dumbass he is.

tbh theres probably more like i know there’s a ton of little things i hated but as scathing as this review is there were things i liked. visually speaking it was a very beautiful movie when we werent getting atrocious close ups of adam drivers ugly ass face. i originally hated but have come to appreciate the darker tone, since it mirrors the mood of TESB in that the rebellion seems dead but obviously isnt bc this is star wars. i liked luke. i dunno. i had a lot of issues with the movie obviously. to be quite honest i cant actually think of anything else i liked atm which is telling.

anyway if anybody actually reads this long ass fucking post feel free to respond with what you hated abt TLJ

#star wars #the last jedi #star wars ep viii #im probs gonna get hate for this but whtvr #anonymous #ask

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tessatechaitea · 7 years

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The Wild Storm #1

Why are all the spaces between issues the same? Did the graphic designer not know Warren Ellis was writing this book?

Oh look! She says her name in the fifth panel on the first page. Now you know when I read a comic book, I just look at the pretty pictures until I feel like I'm forced to read the words.

Zealot works for a covert team she calls Division. Apparently she gives people fatal swirlies if they do things the Division looks down on. This time, the perp was into home-brew gene editing and contraband software. Oh! One other thing I know about Zealot is that she had red stripes on her face. Ellis begins with the blood on her face looking like the Zealot from the old Wildstorm universe. But she washes it off as if to say, "This ain't the Zealot you know, buddy-boy! This Zealot is written by Warren Ellis who already has her story planned at least two years ahead. That means her story is going to fucking mean something! Like, it'll have arcs and themes and shit! None of this half-ass flying by the seat of the pants chump monthly comic book writing bullshit that so many writers think is writing! That's just getting the work done so you can get a paycheck and call yourself a writer. But you're not really a writer, are you? If you just write whatever comes to your mind and then you have Red Hood do that without any thought to what will happen next month until the editor calls up and says, 'The artist needs some fucking pages, Scott!' Then you whip out a few pages and forget about the story until the next time the editor gets hold of you because you forgot to turn off the ringer." That's a lot to say in just a few images although it's still less than 1000 words so it was still just a summary. Meanwhile, Voodoo and what I'm guessing are her stripper friends are planning to put up some billboards in Manhattan. I know it's Voodoo because one of her friends calls her Pris and I remember thinking about Blade Runner when I first read The New 52 Voodoo comic book.

Oh, I also would have known she was Voodoo if I took the time to read the second speech bubble in the panel before turning my attention to the blog.

Voodoo might not be a stripper this time. Or a Daemonite! She might just be a rock and roll star! She's popular enough that some guys holding hands in front of a coffee shop recognize her. The scene shifts to the gay guys who go by the names Miles and Julian. They're Wildstorm characters who will remain a mystery to me until one of them says, "Call me by my codename, dum-dum!" Then the other one will be, "Oh yeah! I forgot that we work for Another Covert Ops Group!" Then I'll be caught up with these gays! I mean guys! Angela Spica happens to wander by so she can call Miles "Mr. Craven." Miles Craven sounds familiar but I still don't know who it is. But I know Angela is The Engineer! I realized that without even having to see her nipples! Angie needs more money from Miles to continue her research but he's all, "It's the weekend, dope!" And she's all, "Gah! I hate things!" Then she denies she's bleeding because she probably put some nanobots in her and she stomps away after threatening a red headed waiter named Phil. I bet he's some famous Wildstorm character too! The point of view decides Angie is more exciting than Miles and Julian so it follows her down the street. It's a good thing it does because she comes upon a guy crashing through a window on the top floor of a skyscraper. I hope it's not the Comedian! It could be the way DC is squeezing as much Watchmen juice out of that grapefruit as they can. Angie decides it's time to get her experimental nanotechnology working and be a hero. Great! I can't wait to see her nipples!

Darn it. It looks like she's going to wear clothes this time around.

Angie's clothes disappear under her nanotech but the armor isn't as form-fitting as it used to be. Also, it has little nipple covers, just in case. The man Angie saves is Jacob Marlowe. He's the head of Halo, some phone company or something. When he notices Angie is bleeding through her armor, he offers to help her. But she's all, "Nope! I signed some pretty crazy contracts with Miles Craven and you probably shouldn't even be looking at me this closely!" Then she flies off, leaving the point of view behind. Jacob realizes there's a moneymaking opportunity here so he calls his personal assistant and is all, "Wake up the CAT! Those are initials that mean Covert Action Team! Unless they mean something else. Whatever, just wake the CAT up and have it find that technology for me. And this time, Adrianna, I don't want to hear about any wild CATs! Especially if they're written by Brandon Choi!" Later, news channels all over the city report on Jacob's rescue. Two of those news channels are WGBS and the Daily Planet. That must mean the Wildstorm universe takes place on one of the unidentified Multiversity Earths, right? Now that the news interrupted the point of view, it switches over to Miles Craven interrogating a man named Michael Cray. I think his codename is Deathblow or Killsmash or Deadpounding. He was in Grifter when Liefeld and Tieri were writing it. Unless he was in Deathstork's Villains Month issue. He couldn't have been in both though because he was white in Deathstork and black in Grifter. Anyway, Deathblow was the guy who threw Jacob out of the window. He must have been sent by Miles and now Miles is going to give him that totally embarrassing speech that Lobo and Deathstork have never had to hear! It's the one where you begin, "So you fucking failed to do your job, you dumby!" Cray describes how the failure wasn't his fault. His team didn't give him all of the intel! Also an exploding bomb knocked Marlowe out of the window. He didn't do anything except not blow up. Since Cray doesn't know exactly what happened when he walked in on Marlowe, the scene shifts to Marlowe explaining what happened to him to Adrianna, his personal assistant and robot girlfriend. Maybe. During his story, Marlowe reveals that he's not quite human and he's well over one hundred years old. He also realizes Cray has some secrets worth discovering too. Finally, Miles Craven does some investigating and discovers his engineer, Angela Spica, is the superhero who saved Jacob Marlowe, the man he wants to kill. So now there's that to deal with. The Ranking! High! This is one of those comic books I'm going to have to keep notes on or else I'm going to quickly forget who is working for what organization and which organizations trust which other organizations and how many people are actually Daemonites and how does Zealot fit into the Marlowe/Craven rivalry?!

#The Wild Storm #Wildstorm #Zealot #The Engineer #Deathblow #DC Comics #Warren Ellis #Jon Davis-Hunt #Ivan Plascencia

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theworstbob · 7 years

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yellin’ at songs: june, week one

the songs that debuted on the 6.3.2017 and 6.2.2007 editions of the billboard hot 100 discussed herein with an appropriate enthusiasm

6.2.2007

33) "Do You Know? (The Ping Pong Song)/Dimelo," Enrique Iglesias

Maybe my earbuds just suck, but the ping-pong ball was disappointingly low in the mix. I needed that ping-pong ball to be the only instrumentation here. Like, the standard Enrique Iglesias drama, but instead of All The Producing, it's just a cascade of ping-pong balls, bouncing arrythmically as our boy has emotions. Like, if ypu're gonna be a bad song, don't play it safe with the novelty noises. Own that ping-pong shit. Throw in some ping-pong metaphors, give shout-outs to the best ping-pong players in the world. You can't just call your song "The Ping-Pong Song" and expect to get away with it, you gotta earn that shit.

91) "Bubbly," Colbie Callait

Comfort food is an important part of a balanced diet. You want to be healthy all the time, but part of being healthy, for me at least, involves keeping a thing of Ben & Jerry's in my freezer. I KNOW I'm gonna need that ice cream at some point, y'know? This weekend, when my computer stopped accessing the Internet, I said nuts to the world, I put some Mario streams on my phone, and when I got bored of those, my DVD player figured out a way to play Beauty & the Beast on a loop without me telling it to, so I could just turn my TV on. Critical thought is important, especially as we slide further into an authoritarian society, but sometimes, you gotta say 'fuck it' and accept a nice thing as a nice thing. "Bubbly" is that nice thing. It's barely anything, but it's nice what it barely is.

93) "I Need You," Tim McGraw & Faith Hill

This is "Whiskey Lullaby" for beginners (yes bob that is a sad country duet also) yes thank you I’m a good at critic-sizing, but can we take a moment to appreciate that TIm McGraw & Faith Hill have duets that charted in 1997, 2007, and 2017? Think of all the loves we've lost. Will Arnett and Amy Poehler. Rhea Pearlman and Danny DeVito. Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens. And all throughout, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill remain a constant. Like, it hurt when Rhea and Danny broke up because they were perfect, but if I'm being honest, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill is the couple I need to stay together forever. I honestly don't know if I could ever let myself fall in love if I knew Tim McGraw and Faith Hill ever fell out of love. I need them to make an "I Need You" every year for the rest of my life. I don't need to hear it? But I need them to make it.

96) "The Great Escape," Boys Like Girls

In 2007 we let pop bands with heteronomrative names make hit songs. Anyway, the song, it's bad. It's like a Yellowcard song by people whose sense of music history only goes as far back as Yellowcard. Honestly, this might be the worst song of 2007. There's been a lot of rap tracks trying to start dance crazes, by dancing is an inextricable part of hip-hop, the genre is nothing without the occasional "Chicken Noodle Soup," y'know? And KaraDioGuardi is trash, but she has noble aspirations: she is trying to infuse pop starlets with attitude, and while she fails horribly, there's at least noble aspirations. This song stands for nothing. It's riding the coattails of the mid-aughts emo wave, a trend we were making fun of AS IT WAS HAPPENING, nothing about it is original or spun in an interesting way or even delivered convincingly, it's just a shitty song with a chorus that would be rousing if any of these dudes had something like charisma behind which a crowd might rally, it's, it's nothing! It's less of a thing than Joe, and Joe was just a dude named Joe! I hate this song and I hate that I'm going to make myself listen to another Boys Like Girls song.

97) "Bleed it Out," Linkin Park 99) "Given Up," Linkin Park

These were almost good songs! Linkin Park is much better at being a rock band than they are emotional balladeers, and they have something going with both of these songs, like those hand-claps really make you feel like Linkin Park is about to hit you with some hot rock sing-a-long action, and then... dude just kinda screams about how much pain he feels? OK, that's not fair to "Bleed it Out," "Bleed it Out" is legit hot, that's one of the rare times that the rapper in Linkin Park is absolutely on his game. He's not a great rapper, but dude knows how to blend in with a great song. And Screams McGee (his name is Chester Bennington, you know I know who he is) can be a compelling vocalist! He does a few subtle things in "Given Up" that make him sound legitimately damaged and frustrated before the song devolves into him screaming "put me out of my misery!" Maybe I just needed this to be good just so I wasn't too bummed out after enduring "The Great Escape," but y'know what, Linkin Park? Not that shitty. Still pretty shitty, but there's enough here that I like that I’m not gonna call it an utter angstfest.

should i still publish top 20s if there are no changes. is there any instructive value to the top 20 even if things did change. 20) "Movin' On," by Elliott Yamin (3.17.2007) 19) "U + Ur Hand," by P!nk (1.13.2007) 18) "Doe Boy Fresh," by Three 6 Mafia ft./Chamillionaire (1.20.2007) 17) "Get Me Bodied," by Beyonce (5.26.2007) 16) "I Don't Wanna Stop," by Ozzy Osbourne (5.26.2007) 15) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007) 14) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 13) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 12) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 11) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 10) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 9) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007) 8) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007) 7) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 6) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007) 5) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 4) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 3) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007) 2) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) 1) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007) alright, 2017. the bar has been set. can you produce one song better than “bubbly?” i see you’re giving me another imagine dragons banger. i’m not confident in your ability to get this w.

6.3.2017

62) "Rollin," by Calvin Harris ft./Future & Khalid

I appreciate the work Calvin Harris has done this spring to get our most morose pop artists to get funky. I don't really remember Khalid, but I do remember not feeling "Location," and he was much better with a song that felt like something, and I don't think I can name a Future verse delivered with higher energy than this. (There's so many, though. I might well be forgetting like seven Future songs.) I'm not here to call it great, it might end up fading from memory completely like "Heatstroke" did (I liked it, right? It's #20 before I dip into the rest of the debuts, but I recall liking it), but, y'know, funky. Calvin Harris is like the only pop megastar insisting that we boogie, and however disposable his music ends up being, his mission is one I can get behind.

80) "Bad Liar," by Selena Gomez

"This is a pretty dope baseline!" Bob thought on his way to Wikipedia, where he was informed this is a Julia Michaels joint sampling Talking Heads. This is great. Like, David Byrne had to think this was good in order for it to be made, I am not quite sure what I come to this space to do, but I know it's not to disagree with David Byrne.

92) "Whatever it Takes," by Imagine Dragons

this is the same song as "thunder" was the same song as "believer." like they made three songs about how awesome it is to be famous, except this song is about how imagine dragons will be imagining dragons so hard to maintain the level of fame which they have attained, because: being famous: is good. no entity has wasted more of my time this year than imagine dragons. and i had to listen to an entire drake album! i mean this! how many more of these songs do i have to listen to? how many of these songs do they have LEFT?

93) "Felices Los 4," by Maluma

If the rousing success of "Despacito" means we're getting more Latin pop on the charts, I am absolutely down. And if a new Latin pop explosion means we get more songs about polyamory, as the basic English translation I have found leads me to believe this is, I am SO DOWN. This is a chipper and fun song about saying "The more the merrier!" when your girl finds a new boy. It's the epitome of a chilled-out groove. "It doesn't matter what they'll say, we like it like this." DAMN SKIPPY. Maluma will not be kink-shamed. I like what I'm 90% sure this song is. Give me more songs about people on different areas on the ever-expanding spectrum of human sexuality. I expect an asexuality anthem by the time we're through, 2017.

95) "No Promises," by Cheat Codes ft./Demi Lovato

Who are Cheat Codes? Like, legit, if I'm gonna complain about the slop of dudes churned out by Nashville, I should also call out the endless parade of dudes at soundboards constructing their tool-assisted pop songs. Does Cheat Codes have any artistic identity? Am I supposed to have left this song having learned something new about the world, or at least heard familiar noises used in a new and fun way? Like, "Bad Liar" wasn't an earth-shatteringly epic statement of purpose, but it used the "Psycho Killer" bassline in modern setting, and that made me want to see who made it. I can't tell you who Cheat Codes are from their music. I don't get the feeling they got into music as an avenue of self-expression, I think the goal is to make formless, unidentifiable dance noises, and that's intensely disappointing. (Demi Lovato's here, too. It's not her fault this song is bad. She tries her darndest.) I can't say what Cheat Codes bring to the table to justify listening to Cheat Codes instead of anything else that's ever existed.

98) "Ghost in This House," as performed by Lauren Duski

So next week is a big week for American Idol, five Idol songs on the chart, and I'm sure the The Voice finale is gonna put more than one song on the chart, so that’ll be a fun comparison. Big couple weeks coming up for reality singing competitions! This is a nice performance of a country song with which I'm unfamiliar, being sung by an attractive blonde with something like a unique voice. It's nothing I'd ever vote for, but I completely get how it ended up in my list of things to do today. Finally: a white country singer is going to win a reality singing competition. Been, what, three months since the last time? TOO LONG.

100) "Me Enamore," by Shakira

It would have been so easy for this to feel like seven dudes in suits screaming FUCK LATIN POP'S BACK WE HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO WRITE A TRACK FOR SHAKIRA, but man, Shakira's just too reliable a pop music entity to let it go down like that. It's basic, simple stuff, "me en-na-na-more" is nowhere near the thundering statement of purpose that is "des... pa... ci-to," but y'all need something basic done right, you call in a pro, and Shakira's a consummate professional. It's hard to tell if I'm reacting to the actual performance or to the band name, but as far as I can sort out, Shakira brings a joy and personality to a song that might've been listless in less capable hands.

Hey! New blood in this Top 20! 20) "You Look Good," by Lady Antebellum (4.22) 19) "The Heart Part 4," by Kendrick Lamar (4.15) 18) "Selfish," by Future ft./Rihanna (3.18) 17) "Slide," by Calvin Harris ft./Frank Ocean & Migos (3.18) 16) "Felices los 4," by Maluma (6.3) 15) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25) 14) "Bad Liar," by Selena Gomez (6.3) 13) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 12) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 11) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22) 10) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 9) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 8) "Either Way," by Chris Stapleton (5.27) 7) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 5) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 4) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 3) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13) I underestimated you, 2017!

Who won the week?

2017! I don’t know what I’m supposed to say in this section so I’ma just bounce, great work today some of you, next week we’re gonna revist “Lip Gloss.”

2017: 6 2007: 4

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smokeybrandreviews · 4 years

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Dog Whistle

There’s been an influx of cast turnovers in animated shows lately over race. Apparently, characters portrayed as people of color who are voiced by white actors, are quitting in droves and i find this sh*t to be ridiculous. Jenny Slate pulled out of Big Mouth where she portrays the biracial Missy. Miss is half black and half white, both are accepts aspects of who she is. Slate is white. Why can’t Slate voice this character but the SJW rules pr whatever? Kristen Bell is in the exact same position, though, she has her own, purple colored problems. Ma’s heart is in the right place but she seems to be going about it in the worst way lately. The creator of Bojack Horseman even refereed to his casting of Alison Brie as the Vietnamese, Diane Ngyuen. That’s bonkers to me! Brie was exceptional in that role and Diane is one of the best characters on the entire show. So much of that passion and humanity was imbued by Brie’s performance but, because some thumb-sucking, armchair activists, are upset that the Asian-coded cartoon they watch has a white woman voicing them, it’s a problem? Get the f*ck out of here.

Look, casting white voice actors for non-white parts, isn't racist. It's not. Stop it. You're not seeing them onscreen, just hearing them. This is not the same thing as whitewashing a character on film where everyone can actually connect a real face to events. This is not the same as blackface. This ain’t a mistral show. This ain’t Emma Stone in Aloha or Jenette Goldstein in Aliens or Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell. That last one, i'm not even sure is a big deal to begin with anyway. Sure, i think it’s f*cked up Johansson is the Major in the eyes of the US. You know who doesn’t? The director of the anime. The people of Japan. They don’t care. They laugh at all of this PC bullsh*t. They were just happen that Johansson, an actor of renown, got to portray the role. If the people who created the property are okay with the change, why are we so goddamn upset? It’s stupid. It’s even more absurd to me when all you’re using is the actor’s voice. The quality, cadence, and detail of the voice are what take precedent. The character being voiced ain't even real, man. Sure, it's cute to have a black person portray a black coded character, but it shouldn't be a goddamn requirement. It shouldn’t be a point of controversy. The character you created has a very, specific identity; One that you, as the master craftsman of this entire universe, forge. That includes what they sound like. Why the f*ck should you have to alter your vision just because it’s not “socially acceptable?”

If you are worth your weight as an artist, as a creator, you wouldn't compromise your vision over something so goddamn trivial. I am a creator. I write and draw. I build worlds. Hopefully, in the next few years, i can share some of them with you all. That said, If I have to choose between Cardi B giving my ethnic coded, femme fatale character life, over Scarlett Johansson because some wuss sees that as problematic casting, then I'm about to be real problematic. Scarlett has one of the greatest voices in the entire history of Hollywood. There's no way I don’t jump at that opportunity. Plus, she’s a consummate professional. Her talent outstrips a great many other options, Cardi B being one of them. I’m not about to crippled the essence of my character just because you think the actor chosen to portray them, has to match the skin tone with which i literally chose to color them. That’s how unstable the grounds for this argument are. It’s literally based on artistic discretion. If i decided to color my Femme Fatale white instead of black, on a him, technically there wouldn’t be a problem. For you. But i would have betrayed everything i put into her by doing that. Scarlett’s voice would have been a part of who she is. It would have been the striking quality you remember most about her. Maybe her dope appearance but definitely them sultry vocals, too. That’s how animation works.

Where are the pitchforks for Grey DeLisle portraying Azula; An Asian coded, very possibly Japanese inspired, character from Avatar? That entire f*cking show is held in the highest regard for it’s diversity but, by these ridiculous new rules and outrage triggers, it would technically be the most problematic show on television because of all the whitewashing. I love Avatar. Just finished watching the entire f*cking show for the third time, last week. It’s spectacular. Great characters, dope lore, unique vision. It’s near perfect television. I hate the fact people call it anime, it’s not, but other than that, outstanding. Not one white person in sight, but a ton of them heard. Where is the ire for Aang and his misadventures? Why not go the other way? Phil LaMarr has voiced a ton of characters in his long ass career, one of them Samurai Jack. Phil LaMarr is not a Samurai. He is not of Japanese descent. He’s as v\black as i am. Why has no one canceled him for his audacity in portraying what can only be described as a character with the basest of Asian characteristics? Hell, how is the Samurai Jack character, not offensive unto itself? Because they’re f*cking cartoons.

If we, as a society, have decided to tumble down this stupid f*cking rabbit hole, where does it end? Why is no one upset that Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick, both white boys, voiced Simba in the Lion King? That entire movie takes place in Africa. Those two cats are decidedly not African. What about Mulan? That Ming-Na Wen casting was inspired but what about Mushu? I man, the name Mushu is a problem for another day but guess who ain’t Chinese? Eddie f*cking Murphy! No one is out here coming for his career over that sh*t, whatever is left of it anyway. I’ll do you one better. F*cking Trap Jaw from He-Man. That motherf*cker is a blue cyborg with a green, necrotic, face. Who gets to portray that character? Is it anyone because he’s a Frankenstein monster or is it because he’s more fantastical than, say, Kidagakesh? What about Bonnibel Bubblegum, Jake the Dog, Marceline Abadeer, B-Mo, or Lumpy Space Princess? What about Panthro from Thundercats or Jazz and Blaster from Transformers? Who gets to voice Piccolo from Dragon Ball? Freezer? Cell? Buu? Yoruichi from BLEACH? Mirko from HeroAca? Any localization roles from all goddamn anime, ever?? Does it actually f*cking matter who voices any character, ever? F*cking no! The only thing that matters is the voice actually fits the character, regardless of their skin color. I can definitely keep going but i think my point is made. This sh*t is stupid. Getting upset over actual f*cking cartoons, drawings created by a person with a singular vision, is the dumbest sh*t i have ever heard in my entire life. Appreciate the art. Immerse within the journey presented by the guiding narrative. Stop getting tied up in your irrelevant opinion and performative indignation. Let creators, create, free from your superficial concern, fickle ass expectation, and transparent, agenda driven, dog whistles. Just enjoy the ride.

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smokeybrand · 4 years

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Dog Whistle

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smokeybrand · 6 years

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This is Snyder

I don’t care for Zack Snyder. I don’t hate his craft as much as i hate Michael Bay, Snyder actually tries to make good movies, but i don’t find his schlock entertaining. He’s not a bad director, i guess, but his movies are always scatter-brained messes. I think Snyder is more a creative than a crafter. He’s the guy you want in your development stages, throwing out ideas and boarding those massive action scenes. If i were to equate him to a sports analogy, Snyder is the Offensive Coordinator on an American Football team. He’s the guy that builds the visual aspects of your scenes, the car who sets up the set pieces. He’s Mr. Battlemaster, the Attack Master, the guy you call in to adds little spice to your drama and conflict laden plot, not the guy you give the keys to an entire cinematic universe where you have to humanize godlike heroes. Emotional subtlety has never been Snyder’s strong point. Since the only DCEU film that was passable was Wonder Woman, the one flick that Snyder didn’t really have his hands on too much, i wanted to take some time and kind of dissect why i hate almost everything Snyder has ever made.

Dawn of the Dead

It’s been years since i’ve seen this movie but i recall enjoying it considerably. But it’s a zombie movie. And it wasn’t written by Snyder. That’s going to be a running theme in this; Other people’s stuff, Snyder is okay. His own stuff, not so much... Zack was only a Director on this flick which meas he just got to bring a script to life. He just got to pick the best scenes and build a cool looking movie. That’s Snyder at his best and it shows. For my money, DoD is his best film.

300

This was his breakthrough. 300 lends itself to Snyder’s style even more than DoD. The comic it’s based on is literally revisionist history written by 80s comic madman, Frank Miller. It is literally a series of splash pages with cool sh*t on them. In comic book speak, it’s literally a series of action set pieces. Splash pages are used to fill every inch of paper with dynamic, poignant, information. When every page of your book is a splash page, it conveys a sense of aggressive action. That is right up Snyder’s alley. There’s no room for plot or character development but that slow-mo buster kick to that persion dude was crazy dope, son! “THIS! IS! SPARTA!” It’s also a superficial, special FX laden, popcorn movie that is borderline sexist with all of the half naked dudes about but still, i had a good time.

Watchmen

Watchmen was the first Snyder movie i saw where i realized he was kind of out of his depth. Dude did his best to bring this unfimable story to the screen, and in some spots i think he did a really good job (Comedian’s arc was okay and that change toward the end made all of the sense to me) but overall, it lacked the emotional, philosophical, and political depth from the source material, you know, literally the reason why Watchmen is so goddamn brilliant. Snyder shot this movie like a mid 2000s cape flick. Think Raimi’s Spider-Man or X2 but infinitely more superficially, which is ridiculous because the Watchmen novel is infinitely more rich. WB kind of let up on Snyder’s leash a bit and he focused way too much on the sh*t that shouldn’t have been focused on. At it’s core, Watchmen is a character study of those old timey 80s archetypes and an indictment of the destructive materialism infecting society at that time. There’s a visceral moral question that my brother and i argue about all of the time and i believe Snyder stuck the landing, but he kept falling off the bar to get there.

Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is one of the worst movies i have ever seen. The mechanics, the technical aspects of this movie, are just the worst. I can go into how this is basically a shittier version of Inception with the dream in a dram aspects or how that sh*t doesn’t make any sense in the movies established lore or timeline. I can go into how this thing technically takes place in between the five minutes that Babydoll is being moved from her cell to the lobotomy chair so none of it matter or how f*cking ridiculous it is that this woman’s name is f*cking “Babydoll”. Sucker Punch is wildly problematic and i’ve written at length about how i feel about it before, i think, but my point with this entry is to high light how messy this movie feels. This is Snyder wit h no brakes. This is Snyder unleashed, When left to his own design. THIS, Sucker Punch, is the type of movie Zack Syder wants to make. He wanted to explore the psychology behind being in such dire straights, the emotional and psychological rationale of those terrible circumstances but he also wanted naked chick, a dragon, and giant robot samurai in it. How does that work? You can’t put Nazi Zombies in Girl, Interrupted, man. that dog don’t hunt. i know because Sucker Punch tried it and IT was AWFUL!

The DCEU

I thought about doing these thing individually but considering he basically directed all of these f*cking movies (except Wondy) i can lump them all into one entry. WB mistook the success of the Grimdark Nolan Batman Trilogy as audiences wanted a bunch of edgelord superheroes. So they gave the Batman Begins treatment to f*cking Superman. And, to bring this car crash of an idea to the big screen, they give the reigns to Snyder. I don’t like Superman. I think he’s a terrible hero. How do you right him? What aspects do you focus on when the guy and turn back time by flying real fast? How do you make that asshole compelling? Snyder’s solution? Uncle Ben his ass! Guilt trip him into becoming the world’s savior! sh*t’s lazy son! Man of Steel was adequate though. it was good enough for the WB suits to hand the entire reigns of the DCEU over to this asshat and, oh boy, was that dumb! My chick is the biggest Superman fan and she hated this movie. For her, someone versed in the Kal-El mythos, this was an affront. From what little i know about Supes, i’d agree.

SO Snyder double-downs on his Batmanfication of Superman by literally introducing Batman into a Superman story. BvS is an abortion of a film. It destroys the archetype of what all of these heroes represent. Batman is a psychopath killer. Superman is a morose pussy. Lex Luthor is the goddamn Riddler from Batman Forever. It’s a goddamn mess. Which sucks because, at it’s core, there are a lot of good ideas here. I liked how Luthor was more Zuckerburg than Rockefeller. I liked the introduction of Wonder Woman, even if it felt a little forces at times. I liked at the whole “Punished Messiah” story line for Supes, even if it never got deeper than a puddle. I hated everything else. Everything was just too Snyder-y. Cool sh*t to look at as opposed to deep sh*t to identify with. But that’s what happens when you forgone character development for mech fights and a Doomsday story line that should have bookend a phase one of pictures. Seriously, Doomsday in the second goddamn movie of your fledgling franchise? No! no, im not going to get into that. We’ll address that later.

Suicide Squad was a goddamn mess. I know David Ayer directed that, and one day i hope we get to see that sh*t, but the studio brought Snyder in to fix what they felt was an unwatchable film. Seriously, Snyder is considered a “guest Director” on that film and it shows. Justice League is the same way but Joss Whedon kind of added a bunch of levity to this ridiculous film. While i think Justice League is trash, i also believe it’s the second best that the DCEU has produced, mostly because there was reprieve to ll of Snyder’s grimdark bullsh*t. Whedon was able to bring out the best of these characters. I eve liked Superman in this and i f*cking hate Superman. But that’s kind of my point. If you remove Snyder from the equation, you get solid sh*t! like Wonder Woman!

Everything about Wonder Woman screams dope. It reminds me of a Phase one MCU outing, which is a fitting tone for Diana’s adventures. It’s not a perfect movie, there area ton of issues with it, but overall, it is a delight. I think Gal Gadot gave her best performance and someone finally used Chris Pine in an advantageous manner. I think going full on Ares was a mistake but, in the context of the world, i get it. I thought this was a decent ride until the end. The climax was whack. Seeing as how Snyder is credited as a writer, i assume he wrote this part because it feels wildly Snyderish. Literally the worst pat of this film is the ending. Tonally, it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t fit. It’s poorly executed. But it’s fun to watch, i guess. That’s Snyder in a nutshell.

Ultimately, putting this guy in charge of the entire DCEU, which wanted to be a direct competitor to the MCU, was a mistake. His vision is ridiculous. He has too many ideas for any one film and with no one to reel that in, you get the mess that we have now. There are certain things that needed to happen in order for the DCEU to be relevant, to be good. Snyder doesn’t have the patience to execute like this though. He doesn’t want to put in the time to world build. He just wants to throw awesome looking sh*t on screen and move on. That, a good movie, does not make. If i had a say, i’d probably loosely follow the MCU Phases. That sh*t worked and gave ample time to develop a proper story. As an example, i’d have done something like this:

Phase One - Trinity

Movie 0: House of El. Prequel to the entire DCEU set in the final days of Krypton. You could establish all of the requisite Supermann necessities while also planting seeds for Brainiac, Doomsday, Apokolips, and Darkseid. This would be the backbone for the first three phases of your DCEU. Think Star Wars but with Krpytonians instead of Jedi.

Movie 1: The Batman or Gotham, dunno about that title yet, Definitely a Year one or Year Two Bat-story. I’d want to introduce The Long Halloween arc. Make it a noir, focus on the assumed Batman doing his detective thing, until the climax which would be an amalgamation of No Man’s Land and The Man Who Laughs. Like, Joker is holding the city hostage and all of the holiday murders were a distraction while he planted his trap. Batman would have to choose between his morals or vengeance in the end.

Movie 2: Superman Sequel. Calling this one Man of Steel as it would have both Superman and Metallo as the primary antagonist. I figure having Clark and Corbin duke it out makes for a clever title, you know? You can introduce Luthor as the mastermind, secretly collaborating with his miraculous AI that turns out to be Brainiac. Deathstroke could be hired muscle. Cadmus can be introduced. You get to see the introduction of Superman on a world wide scale as he and Metallo duke it out in the open. This would feel like that old Superman cartoon on the WB way back when. Light-hearted yet serious tone. Actual stakes. Sub plot of Lois figuring out Luthor is the reason all of the trauma occurs.

Movie 3: Wonder Woman. It will probably be a period peace set against WW1. It would pit her against Aries and the preconceptions of women during those bleaker times. The battle would be against disillusionment; trying to find a reason why Man should be defended or something of that nature. Wonder Woman would be more or less what we already got from Patty Jenkins, with a much better ending. Like, an actual pgysical fight with Aries seems dumb. If we have to go that course because of executive meddling, at least cast a better Ares. Make him more menacing and less inept. Motherboxes and a bit more of Apokolips will be introduced in this movie.

Movie 4: World’s Finest. Basically Batman against Superman while WW actually solves the real issues behind the scene. Like, she uncovers the underlying plot of the Motherboxes and actually tries to prepare for the coming of Steppenwolf. I really like the idea of Wonder Woman adapting her skill set to covert ops kind of like Motoko Kusanagi does. Also, you know, dudes is dumb and punchy. While Supes and Bats are having their tiff, Steppenwolf actually appears and engages the two of them. Ultimately, Wonder Woman arrives and the three of them, the Trinity, send ol boy packing back to Apokolips and the Motherboxes go dead. The Trinity is established, the seeds of Apokolips have been sown, and we can move into Phase Two - Justice League with the first movie of the lot; Death of Superman. Opening with the sidelining of the most powerful hero opens up a reason for Batman, having an established relationship with Winder Woman and Superman, realizing there are bigger things out there and a team might be necessary to combat them.

See, four movies, five if you count the Krypton prequel, and you’ve established the world, the main characters, the underlying conflict, and you have room to grow. You’ve developed characters, established the backbone to your entire universe, and given each of your principal heroes, Batman, Superman, ad Wonder Woman, their own outing, in the vein of their own themes. Grimdark works for Batman because he IS grimdark. Sh*t doesn’t fly with Superman or Wonder Woman. Diana is a warrior, set her story to the backdrop of a conflict to showcase her strengths. Superman wold spend his time trying to save Metallo, not murder him at the end of the goddamn movie because Supes is about believing in the good, not killing troubled assholes. Snyder didn’t have the patience to do this. He wasn’t building anything. He just wanted to put cool sh*t on the screen while trying to make everything dark and deep. He failed at both.

In closing, i don’t think Zack Snyder is a terrible director. I don’t. I think he has too may ideas and no one to reel him in when left to his own devices. When he is making someone else’s material, when he has a guidelines to follow and people keeping his rampant creative energy in check, he can be pretty good at his job, a la DOD or 300. Hell, i’d even give him Watchmen. But, left to his own devices, we get nonsense like Sucker Punch and BvS. Zack Snyder is everything that’s wrong with modern American cinema and it galls me to the core.

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