topknotstrunk

[topknotstrunk]

Salt and Pepper thylacine beanies!

Two new designs in my series of herb and spice-themed thylacines (don't tell Salt they're not really a spice...)

A few of these beanies are ready to be adopted from Thylacine's Toyshop!

[topknotstrunk]

2021-07-28

[topknotstrunk]

party beetle

[topknotstrunk]

Gilbert Williams 'Entrance Into the Earth'

[topknotstrunk]

Rewatched The Dark Crystal recently and felt compelled to draw Kira 🍃

[topknotstrunk]

Happy 4th trine AOR! 💜 To celebrate, here's Rian - the first fire to blaze 🔥

[topknotstrunk]

[topknotstrunk]

Deet says free Palestine! 🇵🇸

[topknotstrunk]

The Dark Crystal (1982)

[topknotstrunk]

[topknotstrunk]

Jen and Kira from the World of The Dark Crystal Book

[topknotstrunk]

WONDER BAR (1934) | dir. Lloyd Bacon

“The other [scene that stands out above the rest] involved a handsome man, asking a dancing couple if he could cut in. The female partner, expecting his attention, agrees, only to see him dance with her male partner. Jolson then flaps his wrist and says, “Boys will be boys. Woo!”. This scene almost caused the Production Code to reject the film, and was featured in the opening scenes of the documentary film The Celluloid Closet (1996).”

[topknotstrunk]

Sakura Spiger

ufs here

[topknotstrunk]

Review Everything 44 - The Little Mermaid 2023:

I don't think I have anything substantial to contribute to this conversation that hasn't already been said. More black Disney characters? Yay! Making live action mockeries of incredible animated films when they could just be making more incredible animated movies? Boo!

If you're looking for a TL:DR, that's it.

However, the point of RE isn't to contribute necessarily, it's for me to have fun and reflect on movies I'm watching. So here's my thoughts.

The thing that really shocked me was just how dark the movie was. Like, I heard people complaining about it but I wasn't prepared for just how bad it was going to be. Multiple times in the underwater scenes the screen was so dark that I literally couldn't tell what was happening, which caused me to zone out. Which really sucks because in the animated movie the under water parts of the movie are the only parts I really like.

I get that they want to make the movie look realistic... so that's why they made a movie about a mermaid full of talking fish with an octopus witch which they chose not to film underwater even though that's the environment half the movie takes place in because doing so would be "too challenging"... And that underwater, particularly deep on the ocean, is dark. But like, come on. I can tell from the way that many of these scenes are shot that they wanted to go for a sort of animal documentary feel, and those guys use big ass spotlights so the audience [and camera crew] can see what's happening.

And it's not just the underwater scenes, it's also many of the scenes on Prince Erik's ship.

The thing people say on the internet about dark scenes like this is to hide bad cg? Is it because many of the backgrounds in the original movie were dark? Cause the reason they're dark in the animated movie is because the characters are all brightly colored without shading, which makes them pop because of the contrast. I'd be curious to know what the creators of the movie had to say about why they actually chose this for the look of the movie.

So at first I thought the movie had elected to skip Under the Sea, thinking maybe the dancing be too silly for the gritty live action remake with the photo-realistic fish. So I paused the movie and went to check the original to see where it was and no we just weren't there yet. Boy was that a mistake, watching the clearly superior visuals of the animated right before the live action version. This was the best looking scene of all the ones underwater and it still looks flat, boring, and lacking color compared to the original version. I will say though, if the whole under water part of the movie had looked like this scene does I think I would have had an overall positive view of the first half of the movie instead of a negative one. Even the dark scene with the jellyfish is lit well, colorful, and visually interesting. And short! Shown in contrast to the light that most of the scene has. Scuttlebutt is a cute addition. I don't get the hate for Awkwafina.

I was particularly peeved at the "Everything's clearer and brighter and hotter" line in Ariel's new song and the room is dark. Why is the land dark?

I think I'm done complaining about the lighting.

I think making Erik more of a character and less of just some guy is a cool idea. I think giving him a song about how he's so trapped when he is very clearly not is a choice. I think Evermore was one of the best parts of the live action Beauty and the Beast. Whatever this song was called left no impression on me though. But this song, Evermore, and the one from the Aladin remake... three makes a pattern so I suppose we'll be hearing more of these. Adding an extra song for Aerial when she can't speak is also a choice that was made. I get that people have a reason not to look kindly on a female character who cannot speak for herself, but this was, to me, an odd way of addressing that. Just have her use Sign Language or something.

Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was fine. She preforms her songs well. I would have strongly preferred to see a drag queen in the roll though, to honor Divine, who Ursula's look was based on.

What I will say the movie has in its favor is that Halle Bailey can SING. She's incredibly talented. When I could see what was happening and she was singing, those parts of the movie were pretty good. I also really like that the Merfolk are like the stewards of the sea, tending to the underwater nature. There was an element of that in the cartoon that I enjoyed seeing here. I also really appreciate that there was zero sexualizing of Bailey, which cannot be said of the animated version.

In Summary: I still don't understand what the point of these movies are. They don't change enough to make them their own things, and the changes they do make are usually not the ones at least I would like to see.

Overall: 5/10

#review everything #review #fandom #not queued #spoilers #review everything movies #the little mermaid 2023 #the little mermaid #disney

[topknotstrunk]

Hui-Chi Lin - Harvest Full of Berries, 2023

[topknotstrunk]

twilight highlands PleinAirpril days 15-16

[topknotstrunk]

Bluey Backgrounds via Costa Daniel.

#other people's art #costa daniel #bluey #cartoons #fandom #all time faves