#playing in my head while rendering mel

[captainlion04]

Guns and Roses 🤞

[ilyasorokinn]

WAVES , erik johnson (chapter eight)

note, this is part of the waves series which is part of the heartbreak season series. here's the masterlist if you're interested. kat and erik's relationship is heavily based on jo and alex's relationship from grey's antomy. just if anyone's curious. another note, can't believe we're already on chapter 8. we still have a ways to go before kat and erik sail off into the sunset, but we're getting there and i'm very excited for it. pair, erik johnson x oc (kat foley) summary, the epic love story of kat foley and erik johnson. warnings, talks of child abandonment and child neglect, talks of drug usage word count, 1246 words

(gif not mine)

"So..." Mel sang as Kat walked back to her seat with a drink.

"So...?" Kat asked.

"Boyfriend and girlfriend, huh?" Kat smiled, shaking her head, "Oh, look at her. She's blushing!"

"Hush, will you?" Kat playfully glared, "We're keeping it on the DL for now."

"Does Erik know that? Cause he's telling anyone and everyone who'll listen to him." Mel joked.

"He should know," Kat muttered, taking a sip of her beer.

"Well, it's about time. We've only been waiting for you two to get together since you guys met."

"What do you mean?" Kat asked.

"He started calling you his 'cute bartender'." Mel smiled, "He really liked you, and we could see that, but he didn't know how to express that." She explained.

Kat sat in her seat, digesting all the information she had just been told, "Sorry. Did I overstep?" Mel asked.

"No, no. You're good." Kat looked up and genuinely smiled.

-

After the game, Kat was talking with a few other girls while they all waited for the guys to come out. While Mel was digging through her bag for something, she handed Linnea off to Kat, played with the baby.

Linnea had played with Kat at a few games and at some parties before so they weren't strangers. Kat was swaying with Linnea in her arms as she talked with Mel.

Erik walked out and scanned the small hallway, looking for Kat. He finally spotted her, then his eyes quickly drifted over to the small child in her arms.

Both his heart and eyes softened as he watched Kat and his goddaughter, "Move, dude." Mikko shoved past him.

Erik realized he was still standing in the doorway, and moved out of the way. His legs moved towards Kat before he knew what he was doing.

"Hey." Kat and Mel turned to face him.

"Hi." Kat smiled, "You ready to go?"

Erik was too stunned to speak as his eyes shifted between Kat's smiling face and Linnea's, "Erik, you okay?" Mel teased.

"Huh?" He asked, his eyes drifting away from Linnea's giggling face, back to Mel's, "Yeah." He nodded.

"You ready to go?" Kat repeated.

"Yeah." He nodded, scratching the back of his neck. She tickled Linnea once more, before handing the baby back to her mother.

"Bye, silly girl." Kat beamed, waving to the little girl. Linnea was a giggly mess but waved back, hiding her face in her mother's neck.

Kat and Erik made their way back to Erik's car. Erik was still in a daze after seeing Kat with Linnea. Kat had, of course, interacted with kids before, but something about seeing her with Linnea did something to him and he wasn't sure what it was.

-

Since Kat was working, Erik decided to tag along and help her out. He couldn't get behind the bar, but he would help her bust tables and help serve guests from the other side of the bar. The night was great, and Erik helped her out more than some of the newer workers who were recently hired.

While Erik wiped down the tables, Kat was working on sweeping. The bells above the door jingled, but neither looked up, "Oh, sorry, we're..." She cut herself off when she saw who was standing in the entryway.

"Wow, I've rendered her speechless." The woman spoke smugly, "It's been a while, Emily."

Kat winced, "That's not my name." She spoke through gritted teeth.

Erik looked between both women confused, "Ahh, right. Kat Foley, right?" She scoffed, "Hated us so much you had to change your name." She nitpicked.

"What're you doing here, Talia?" Kat asked, her voice stronger than it was two seconds ago.

"Talia? Usually, people call their mother "mom." The woman scoffed again.

"Mother?" Erik asked.

"You must be the boyfriend." Her mother looked over to Erik.

"Yeah, I'm-"

"What are you doing?" Kat cut Erik off, crossing her arms.

"No, no, let the man finish." Talia crossed her arms back, "What's your name?"

"Erik."

"Ah, the hockey player. We've heard so much about you."

"From who?" Kat asked, her brows coming together in confusion.

"We've seen some stuff on the internet. You don't think we don't keep tabs on our daughter?"

Kat shook her head, "What're you doing here?" She repeated.

"Well, you see, your father and I-"

"No, get out." Kat cut her off right away, "I'm not giving you money." She shook her head.

"Oh, come on. After everything we've done for you?"

"Everything you've done? You've done nothing for me. You gave me nothing." Kat scoffed angrily, "Actually, no, you did give me something. You showed me how not to parent my kids." She gave her mother the harshest glare she could.

"I never want them to feel the same way I did when I was 5, watching my parents get high with their friends, then party till 4 in the morning. I never want them to have to worry about when their next meal is gonna be on the table cause mom and dad spent dinner money on drugs."

"So, yeah, mom, thanks for giving me that, 'cause that's not something any other parent I know can give their kids." She narrowed her eyes, "Now get the hell out of my bar."

"Oh, come on."

"You heard the lady. Get out." Erik told her.

Talia looked at Kat as if she was saying "You gonna let this idiot talk to me this way?"

"Get out," Kat repeated, venom dripping from her voice. Talia scoffed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

The moment she was out of the bar, Kat's shoulders dropped, as well as her strong-tough demeanor. She let out a deep breath and fell to the ground, dropping her head in her hands.

"Kat?" Erik asked, approaching her carefully, "You okay?" The only response he got was a broken sob, "Kat." He dropped to the ground next to her and wrapped his arms around you.

"You're okay." He whispered, pressing a kiss to her head and holding her close, letting her cry, "It's gonna be okay."

After a few minutes, she calmed down her breathing and she was no longer heaving through sobs, "Hey, you're okay." Erik cupped her face.

"I'm not." She shook her head, wiping her eyes, "I'm never okay. I'm never gonna be "okay"." She used quotation marks, "God, I thought by getting away, things would get better and my life would be better, but I was so wrong."

"You did get away from them. Look at this life you built without them." He gestured to the bar.

"I don't want to be serving up drinks for the rest of my life, Erik." Kat looked him in the eyes with so much truth it almost scared him.

"I know, but think of it this way. This is just a stepping stone to the rest of your life. You're not gonna be here forever, this is just you kicking off the wall in the pool. One day, I know you're gonna be doing bigger and much better things."

"You think so?" She sniffled.

"I know." He corrected.

She smiled, wiping her eyes again and wrapping her arms around him, "One more question." Kat nodded, pulling away.

“Who's Emily?" Kat stiffened, wracking her brain, trying to think of something.

"It's my middle name. They would call me by my middle name." She answered.

"Huh." He nodded, "Didn't know you had a last name."

"You never asked." She shrugged.

-

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[365days365movies]

March 7, 2021: Onward (Review)

Guess what my favorite Pixar film is now!

Yeah, it’s still Finding Nemo hands down. Not even a little bit of a question. But there is still a question. Where does this movie rank for me? And by the way, Finding Nemo is my FAVORITE Pixar film, but I don’t consider it be objectively the best.

I mean...come on. It’s Ratatouille. The hell else was I gonna say?

Ahhhhhh, SHIT, you make a good point there. Well...at least there’s only the two choices for objectively best

OH HOW GODDAMN DARE YOU

...Any more you wanna throw at me, you goddamn monsters? Huh? HUH?

...Crying, probably. Goddamn, OK, there are a LOT of good Pixar films, and this one doesn’t have a GODDAMN CHANCE against these movies. So...which ones does Onward beat, for me, anyway?

I mean, yeah, duh. I’d put all of the Cars films below Onward. Brave and The Good Dinosaur, too. All of the Toy Story films are above it, and...I think my initial assessment was correct.

And again, I like A Bug’s Life a lot! But I think that Onward’s about on this level for me in terms of favorites. Why is that? Well...let’s go through it, huh? You an check out Part One and Part Two of the Recap if you’d like, but the Review and my final opinions are down below!

Review

Cast and Acting: 9/10

OK, above everything else, I will say that Tom Holland and Chris Pratt are great in here, and they...mostly disappear into their characters. Maybe it’s because these are currently both MASSIVE names, but I never lost sight of the fat that these guys were playing Ian and Barley respectively. It’s a little odd, especially for a Pixar movie. Not as much for a Disney movie...which is an interesting point to revisit later. But they are good. And they’re also vastly surpassed, for me, by Julia Louis Dreyfus, WHO FUCKING OWNS HER ROLE! Yeah, sorry, Dreyfus is the MVP of this movie for me, and I genuinely love her and Laurel. Octavia Spencer was, of course, also good...but was also weirdly stilted in her line deliveries most of the time. I love Octavia Spencer, but she’s not a voice actress, what can I say? Still, Corey’s another of my favorite characters, so she’s not bad at it. Tracey Ullman and Mel Rodriguez are also good in here, for the record.

Plot and Writing: 9/10

You know...it’s funny. This movie doesn’t really feel like a Pixar movie, as much as it feels like a Disney movie. Not a bad thing, I promise, but it just doesn’t...feel Pixar to me. I can’t quite pinpoint the reasons for that...yet. But in terms of the plot, it’s mostly standard Disney/Pixar adventure fare, with some decent writing and good universe building behind it. However...I’ve been thinking about the ending, and it’s actually the most Pixar thing about the movie, mostly because it was, well...extremely unexpectedly good.

Yeah, I mean that. Ian’s sacrifice is NOT how I expected that to go down, and probably would’ve been different in a straight-up Disney movie. Credit to Dan Scanlon, Jason Headley, and Keith Bunin for crafting a unique and emotionally deep ending. If Pixar’s good at one thing, it’s emotionally complex endings. Coco eventually ends with Coco dying, Boo’s sort of just gone in Monster’s Inc (I know Sulley sees her again, BUT WE DON’T), Toy Story eventually ends in Woody leaving the gang with Bo Peep, and Finding Nemo...I mean, Nemo surpasses his disability, and Marlin learns to let go of his son, so...OK, maybe that’s the exception. STILL MY FAVORITE DO NOT @ ME

Directing and Cinematography: 8/10

Well...on one hand, it’s a Pixar movie. Obviously it’s got good directing (by Don Scanlon), but...I think this movie broke Pixar films for me. YEAH. I’ll explain, and understand: I’m not saying that the cinematography by Sharon Calahan and Adam Habib is bad, but it’s very Pixar formulaic. Here’s what I mean: I’m gonna put a bunch of GIFs of Pixar films up here. Look for the commonality.

THEY’RE PERFECTLY BALANCED. Which, at first glance, obviously isn’t a bad thing. But I just posted GIFs of films from SEVEN different directors! And they ALWAYS balance their characters perfectly on screen! I’d provide more proof of this, but LOOK!!!! It’s a very formulaic form of cinematography, and while it’s obviously not bad, it’s also...obvious. You want more proof? Let’s look at more unique Pixar films and directors. Brad Bird first.

Bird’s scenes feel more dynamic, more interesting, and he has a MUCH higher focus on the foreground vs. the background than these other guys. And yeah, he also centers some of his characters, because that’s find of how film works, but his films are a lot more visually complex, and they’re considered the best of the Pixar movies. OK, what about a more recent film?

A HELL of a lot of shots in Soul are unbalanced. Which is interesting, because this is Pete Docter, one of Pixar’s most prolific directors. He’s also the director of some of their most unique films, like Monster’s Inc., Up, and Inside Out. And his flair is in a lot of unique camera movements, but also interesting angles and shot composition. And maybe I’m going CRAZY with over-analysis here, because I am NOT a film student, AT FUCKING ALL...but this film made me notice this because it just feels so visually...formulaic. Not bad, just plain. And not just in terms of cinematography.

Production and Art Design: 8/10

These are Disney characters. THESE ARE DISNEY CHARACTERS. Which, I must once again stress, IS NOT A BAD THING. But it’s also not really Pixar. I mean, look at that collection of GIFs up there again. One of the things that Pixar is lauded for is its unique character designs and concepts. And, uh...this isn’t that. It’s still good...but it’s not Pixar’s usual fare. Again, not a bad thing, as they’re more than allowed to innovate, but...is a lack of innovation really innovating? Breaking formula, yeah, but pointedly not anything new. Which, sure, fine, but...it ruins something for me, I’m gonna be honest.

Now, again, IT IS NOT BAD. It’s still actually VERY good, from the lighting to the rendering, and to the unique world that’s been constructed. Well...mostly unique. It’s kind of just our world with magic. There’s definitely some uniqueness, but not enough for me in a lot of cases. I dunno, it’s weirdly low-fantasy for something that is POINTEDLY high-fantasy in origin. Which is pretty interesting, now that I’ve typed that out loud. I like the look of this movie, again...but I’d love something a little less Disney, and a little more Pixar.

Music and Editing: 9/10

Music’s good! And so is the editing, for that matter. Composed by Mychael and Jeff Danna, and edited by Catherine Apple, this aspect of the production carried over pretty well, I think. Soundtrack is definitely fitting for a fantasy film, that’s for sure. And, yeah, no problems with the editing (which, to be fair, is not the easiest category to judge for e, ESPECIALLY here). The point of is because, well...not putting it on my playlist. It’s good, but not the best music I’ve heard, this month, or from a Pixar movie. Real talk, whenever I mention Finding Nemo (I KNOW I KNOW I’LL SHUT UP ABOUT IT BUT HOLD ON), the soundtrack plays through my head with reckless abandon. Can’t really say the same for Onward.

I’m more than cool with a 86% for this one.

Look, it’s a genuine rarity for Pixar to make a bad film. Although...it’s funny, this is barely a Pixar movie for me. It mostly just doesn’t feel like a Pixar movie, potentially because it has the overarching structure of your more typical Disney fare. Which, no, certainly isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not...quite the same.

This is still a great movie, and good for families. And I should say, I’m watching this film from the standpoint of an only child, and it was still a heartwarming look at a relationship between two very different siblings. I liked it, is what I’m saying. But this is it: we’re done with animated fare now. Although, blue animated magic characters from Disney does remind me of someone...

OK, the next movie is NOT ALADDIN, I swear. I’ve definitely seen that one. But, uh...since I’m moving to live-action anyway...

March 8, 2021: The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

[ducktracy]

185. porky’s hero agency (1937)

release date: december 4th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: bob clampett

starring: mel blanc (porky, emperor jones), tedd pierce (gorgon, assistant), sara berner (porky’s mom)

the final porky cartoon for 1937, and what a busy year it’s been for him! hard to believe he had an entirely different voice, look, and demeanor just 8 months prior. even then, his character still had much to explore, as we see here—in this cartoon, he’s cast as a child again. curiously, bob clampett is often credited as the one who refined his personality into the one we know today (he did give him his iconic suit and tie), but, like everything else, it was more of a collaborative exploration by all of the directors.

the title card is one of the more interesting title cards in the warner bros. repertoire—it’s a photo of a porky statuette! bob clampett would make several statues during his time at WB and distribute them to his top animators. while the statue in the credits is painted over, you can view an unpainted model here!

here, porky dreams of the wonders of ancient greece, prancing around as the mythological messenger parkykarkus. however, a gorgon has her sights set on turning him into stone, and it requires some quick thinking from porky to weasel his way out of this mess.

bobe cannon animates the expositional sequence, with porky propped up in bed, sucked into a giant book full of greek myths. his mother (offscreen) tells him it’s time to go to sleep, but porky objects, protesting that he was just at the exciting part. cannon’s animation is easy to spot with his trademark buck teeth, yet the gestures he gives porky--finger points, turning the page, etc.--give him a nice dose of youthful energy as he recaps the story, telling tales of gorgons and “great great great” greek heroes.

nevertheless, a disembodied hand turns out the light, dismissing porky’s protests. he heaves a resigned sigh, lamenting how he wishes he could be a great greek hero. 

the cartoon doesn’t make any attempts to keep the dream sequence a surprise--instead, the face of the book’s cover takes up the entire screen, the pillars emblazoned on the front melting to life as we fade into ancient greece. and, as to be expected, our favorite porcine hero proudly stands in front of the building, proudly advertising “HERO FOR HIRE AGENCY -- PORKYKARKUS PROP.”

porkykarkus is a play on parkykarkus (”park your carcass”), a character on eddie cantor’s radio show “the chase & sanborn hour”. truck into porky’s services as he narrates over the specials:

“has anybody any eh-deh-deah-deah-dragons you want seh-seh-sleh-slay-slaye--rubbed out? or maybe ya have some, uh, fair meh-mai-meh-maide--honeys ya want rescued! it’s a peh-pleasure. is your daughter safe? phone eh-peh-porkykarkus at olympia 2222!”

porky’s narration, as always, is fun to listen to, and the physical advertisement has its own charm and appeal, with discounts and deals on certain rescues. not only that, but it’s a damn smart way to save money, having just the narration over the still frame. smart thinking!

conveniently, porky gets a phone call, sparking the tried and true “gear up for a big sprint but merely tinker on over to your destination” gag. as porky answers the phone, filling us in by repeating the hidden dialogue from the other line, we find out it’s the emperor--he wants one hero to go.

chuck jones’ layouts stick out quite strongly throughout this cartoon, especially in the human designs. porky’s statue of mercury is no exception--the bulbous nose and rounded body construction are all surefire trademarks of his work. porky grabs the messenger’s hat and winged shoes from the statue, never once taking a beat to stop as he hobbles along, dressing as he prepares to head out. woodblock sounds simulate the sound of his hooves clopping, but also add an extra jaunty jive to the merry score of “have you got any castles?” in the background, the cartoon’s motif. it would also be a merry melody courtesy of frank tashlin not even a year later.

with that, porky takes off, soaring in the skies like a pro with his winged shoes. if the scene wasn’t appealing enough with the overhead layouts, the animation of porky steadying himself is wonderfully smooth and fun--the cherry on top. he circles the palace where the emperor is located, swooping down to his destination. complete with airplane sound effects, of course.

“howdy, empy!” another bulbous-nosed jones character silences porky from behind his armchair. emperor jones (boy, who could that name reference, i wonder?) speaks in a ridiculously hilarious dialect, completed with a thick accent: “shh! i’m making a fireside chat with my sheeps!” his voice then slips into a rooseveltian draw as he coos “my friends, grecians and customers, this is emperor jones speaking...”

pan to the audience, which consists of a sea of smiling statues. this entire speech sequence is wonderful--not only is his terrible grammar terribly amusing, (”statistics show... what last season at this time was population in greece from 6,000 with 500 with 54 people, with 17 statues.”) but little touches such as one of the audience statues roasting marshmallows and later a hotdog over the fireplace, the emperor making his audience clap by pulling on ropes tied to their arms, and so forth make the entire charade highly amusing with lots of details to look out for. porky standing idly in the background, awkwardly fidgeting as he tries not to intrude is a great little piece of character animation as well.

the emperor gives the skinny, all while chowing down on a hotdog: a gorgon has been turning more and more people into statues, and they need a hero to steal her life-restoring needle in order to turn all of the statues back into humans again. the hero he has in mind is, of course, porky, who bashfully accepts the offer. when the emperor asks those in favor to raise their right hand, he pulls on a lever that causes all of the statues to raise their hands in unison, including a hand on a nearby clock. with a handshake, empy concludes “it’s a deal!”

one of the most impressive pieces of animation in the cartoon (i actually dedicated an entire drawing to it!) is when the emperor sends porky on his way, who waves goodbye as he flies through the air with his winged shoes. just as he tips his hat, he knocks into a pillar, which sends him tumbling upside down, but still airborne. the wings on his shoes form hands as they shake their fists in the glory of the good landing, with porky flashing a cheeky grin to the audience before spiraling lower in the air, regaining his balance, and barreling onward towards a smoldering volcano. the animation is full of life and character--though porky is consistently jolly in the B&W clampett cartoons, the grin towards the camera as he prides himself in his save is a great little touch of personality. slowly but surely, bits of character are now becoming more defined.

a gag that took me just now to recognize it--porky swoops into the heart of the volcano, where we spot the source of the black fumes pouring out the top: the gorgon statue factory. a merry score of “you’ve got something there” serves as some easy listening as we’re treated to a sign gag:

outside of the factory is a human picket fence, comprised of familiar faces: statues of bobe cannon, norm mccabe, john carey, bob clampett himself and chuck jones surround the area. directly outside of the factory is the frozen statue of a salesman with his foot in the door--the joke is not only amusing, but the pose is quite strong and readable, too. though nowhere near the dynamism of frank tashlin’s poses in the mid ‘40s, clampett’s poses in this cartoon are quite defined and exaggerated for the time period. this is especially sharp in the scenes with the emperor.

porky knocks on the door held ajar by the ceramic statue’s foot, holding out an envelope. “telegram for the guh-geh-gee-geh-gee-gor-geh--” a hand snags the envelope out of porky’s grip, causing him to mutter “aww, nuh-neh-nee-nuh-neh-neh-nut--shucks,” a phrase he echoed in clampett’s previous entry, rover’s rival.

we transition to the inside of the factory, where we see the gorgon herself, positioned in front of a camera, awaiting to take “pictures” of her models. tedd pierce voices the gorgon, whose vocal stylings are a parody of tizzie lish, bill comstock’s character on al pearce and his gang. interestingly, the cartoon before this, the woods are full of cuckoos, featured a caricature of lish as well, also voiced by pierce. 

clampett and pierce’s comedic timing is sharp--not nearly as sharp as tashlin’s timing in the woods are full of cuckoos, but abundantly amusing nonetheless. the gorgon asks for a boy--”a sorta young-ish one”--and in comes a decrepit old man who can hardly hold himself up. the gorgon waits for the man to assume his position on the podium where his picture will be taken, singing a pitchy rendition of “am i in love?“, another homage to the characteristics displayed by lish’s character on the radio.

the gorgon snaps her photo, which turns the shaky old man into a stone statue at once, cheekily labeled “ANTIQUE --  $60,000 (P.S.: 000,000)” before he’s yanked off of the podium with a cane. 

“now let’s try a group picture.” you know it’s a ‘30s cartoon if the three stooges come waddling in--they made their caricatured, cartoon debut in the 1934 film the miller’s daughter, notorious for being chuck jones’ first animation credit. as expected, they all beat the tar out of each other while on the podium, rendered immobile only through the power of medusa’s camera. they turn into the three wise monkeys, labeled “3 MONKEYS OF JAPAN -- MADE IN GREECE”. 

norm mccabe’s animation is easy to spot in the next scene with porky, characterized by his signature double eyebrows. porky knocks on a door, parroting a favorite catchphrase from the al pearce show that frequented many a clampett cartoon: “i hope she’s eh-eh-at home, i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope...”

porky shakes the hand of the assistant, unfortunately a blackface caricature (save for the voice, who is just tedd pierce speaking in a deep, suave voice) as he greets “welcome, stranger. won’t you come in?” before porky has time to answer, he’s yanked through the iron bars of the door and placed neatly in line for the photoshoot, where he peeks through the door to see the action inside.

a pile of men form a pyramid, where the camera turns them into a literal statue of a pyramid, with some slight imperfections. “aw, shucks!” laments the gorgon. “you moved!” she approaches them with her life restoring needle, allowing the men to form into the proper position, maintaining good balance. she gets her “genuine egyptian statue”, quipping “ought to make a handy paperweight!”

the assistant informs porky that he’s next. porky backs up anxiously, echoing a short-lived catchphrase of his from the joe dougherty era: “nuh-neh-no! eh-nn-nee-no! a-a thousand times no!” the decision to make his thoughts visible (his head is slapped onto that of a piggy bank’s) is playful, and also reflects just how big of an influence comics had on bob clampett’s work: comic artists such as milt gross and george lichty have been cited by clampett as inspirations. the george lichty influence is definitely noticeable in rod scribner’s animation under bob clampett, as we’ll discover in the coming years.

in the midst of his panic, porky backs into a statue of "dick a. powello” (dick powell and apollo), causing it to break. but, rather than fuss over the mess, porky uses the opportunity to hatch an idea instead.

in comes strolling porky, concealed by powello’s upper body and a blankett hiding his hooves. the triumphant score of “he was her man” and the gorgon’s smitten woos makes the scene hilarious as is, but the blanket falling off and revealing porky’s pudgy little hooves is the icing on the comedic cake.

porky perches himself on a conveniently placed couch, where the gorgon approaches him. “pardon me, is this seat taken?” she doesn’t wait a wink before snuggling right up to him, a heart symbolizing her affections popping in the air. though clampett would play with typography at times and maintain an overarchingly jovial mood to his cartoons, it’s an odd thing to see him play with comic-like visuals in this manner, such as porky physically envisioning himself as a piggy bank or the heart from the gorgon. i wish he had done it more in this nature!

with the gorgon too close for comfort, porky uses this as an opportunity to grab the gorgon’s life-restoring needle, dangling from her neck and lying against her body. it wouldn’t be a clampett cartoon without sexual innuendos--porky reaches aimlessly around for the needle, prompting the gorgon to let out a shriek, cooing “why, mr. a POWELLo!” 

she smothers the ceramic head in kisses, giving him a nice lipstick finish to boot as she pretends the statue has given her a ring. her ecstasy is hilarious and WONDERFULLY conveyed through strong, rubbery poses worth freeze-framing. picturing porky’s befuddlement is another humor within itself. 

finally, porky’s disguise is revealed when the gorgon literally crushes the statue in an embrace, stone crumbling around him as he desperately slips out of her grip. as the gorgon makes threats to call the cops, reciting the WB favorite catchphrase of “calling all cars! calling all cars!”, porky makes with the needle and jabs it in various statues, warning them “uh-geh-uh-get goin’! i-i-eh-it’s the guh-geh-geh-eh-geh-gorgon!”

as the gorgon chases porky with her camera, he continues to revive a barrage of statues: the antique, the famed discus thrower (who throws himself out of the scene rather than the discus), the man from the end of the trail statue, who exits riding his horse like a merry go round (a nod to friz freleng’s sweet sioux), a woman who marches off with popeye’s forearms--note the bobe cannon statue in the back here--and a mermaid who unzips her fin and makes a run for it. the highlight of the entire montage is when porky approaches two temples (the two of them together labeled “shirley temple”) and injects the needle into them, prompting the temples to use their pillars as legs and run for the hills.

the chase reaches its climax as the gorgon pursues porky with a movie camera, turning the crank ferociously as she runs. her plan works--porky slows down, freezing in mid-air as the gorgon cries “hold it!” thus, the gorgon pins porky to the ground, who tries his hardest to fight back, but ultimately flailing around as she commands him to open his eyes.  

we melt into the present, where we find porky’s mother in place of the gorgon, telling him softly to wake up. he does so, after she pries one of his eyes opens. relieved that it was all a dream, he embraces his mother, prompting a happy end and an iris out.

this cartoon has a soft spot in my heart--it was one of the first LT cartoons i saw on this whole venture. i thought i was the smartest person alive, understanding the three stooges, popeye, and shirley temple references. who knew just how much i had (and still have!) to learn! though even without my sentimental biases, this still stands as a very good cartoon.

as i mentioned previously, the poses in this are full of elasticity and energy, especially in the emperor and the gorgon. porky does a very nice job as well--little pieces of animation such as him fidgeting awkwardly while the emperor rambles on, swinging from side to side as he’s offered the job to be a hero, etc. etc. are full of charm and character. while his personality isn’t the most electric in comparison to characters like bugs and daffy, it’s the little things like these that really make porky stand out. with him, a little subtlety goes a long way, and that’s why he’s one of my favorites. he’s so reserved in comparison to such a wild cast of characters that his timidness actually shines through and sets him apart! (though, on the other hand, he can still have quite the personality, as we’ll discover!)

personally, the only gripes i have with this cartoon is the blackface caricatured assistant (which, in comparison to some cartoons we’ve seen and still have yet to see, is relatively mild, but uncomfortable nonetheless). the jokes, while corny at times, still hit, the animation is full of life and vigor, and the short as a whole has a lot of charm, whimsy, and personality. it has my seal of approval! go check it out!

link!

[aion-rsa]

Best Romantic Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now

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Some movies brave enough to tread where only pop songs and poems go, and try to capture all the drama, contradictions and happy, bubbly feelings that come along with romance and love. It’s high-time that we honor them and defend them against their unearned sappy reputations with the best romantic movies on Amazon Prime.

We’ve scoured Amazon Prime to find the best romantic movies available for your viewing pleasure. Here are the best romantic movies on Amazon Prime. Ok, some of them are perfectly sappy.

The Big Sick

Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon’s theatrical debut made big waves when it came out for the singularity of its vision and just how plain funny it is. Now Amazon gets to reap the benefits of producing a bonafide romantic indie hit by getting its exclusive streaming rights. The Big Sick is the real life story of comedian Kumail Nanjiani meeting and falling in love with his wife, Emily (who is played by Zoe Kazan in the film).

Kumail and Emily’s courtship process is difficult enough to begin with due to Kumail’s family pressuring him to find a nice Pakistani girl to settle down with. But soon things get even more difficult as Emily suffers a health scare and Kumail must suddenly contend with that situation and Emily’s eccentric parents who have just come to town. The Big Sick is a clear vision from talented people and tells a beautifully convincing love story while making plenty of room for laughter. Not only that but it’s a big win for our list of best romance movies on Amazon Prime.

Watch The Big Sick

What If

Canadian drama What If (originally known as The F Word before the MPAA got its greasy fingers all over it) is a fun romantic movie and a tremendous showcase for its two young stars Daniel Radcliffe (you know what he’s from) and Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick). Radcliffe stars as Wallace – a directionless young man living in Toronto who decides to become more social after his girlfriend cheats on him.

Enter Kylo Ren (Adam Driver playing a character who is unfortunately not named Kylo Ren) who takes Wallace to a party where he meets the alluring Chantry (Kazan). Wallace and Chantry immediately fall for each other. Unfortunately there’s the small matter of Chantry’s boyfriend. What If? is a sweet little Canadian flick that knows how to push its audiences romantic buttons.

Watch What If

Still Mine

Still Mine isn’t necessarily about romance. It’s about love – a deep prevailing love built up over decades. Craig Morrison (James Cromwell) is a farmer in rural New Brunswick, Canada. He intends to build a new house for his ailing wife Irene (Geneviève Bujold) but runs into trouble with the local municipality’s bureaucracy prevents him from doing so.

Still Mine is as romantic a movie about bureacratic development regulations as has ever existed. Cromwell and Bujold have wonderful chemistry and paint a portrait of profound, abiding love.

Watch Still Mine

Some Kind of Wonderful

Some Kind of Wonderful doesn’t have the same pop culture standing as other John Huges films like Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink. Still this remains a worthwhile entry into the Hughes canon on teenage love. 

Read more

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The Bee: The $50 Million John Hughes Movie That Fell Apart

By Simon Brew

Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz) is a high school outcast who has his eyes set on popular girl Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson). Thankfully he has his tomboyish Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson) to help court her. Based on that meager plot description, you may think you know where Some Kind of Wonderful is going to end up, and…you’re probably right. That doesn’t make the journey any less satisfying. 

Watch Some Kind of Wonderful

To Catch a Thief

You know who would make a great romance film? The guy who did Psycho. Yes To Catch a Thief is a classic romance film from none other than Alfred Hitchcock. Of course, there’s a lot more going on in this heist thriller.

Cary Grant stars as retired cat burglar John Robie. When another burglar starts copying his act, Robie has to undergo One Last Job (TM) to catch…a thief. In the process John comes across the wealthy Frances (Grace Kelly) and the two strike up an unlikely romance for the ages.

Watch To Catch a Thief

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Hello, My Name is Doris

Between TBS’ Search Party and Hello, My Name is Doris, director Michael Showalter had a stellar 2016. Hello, My Name is Doris is a wonderfully sweet, equally tragic and completely hilarious romantic comedy. Sally Field stars as the titular Doris, a lively woman in her 60s who after the death of her mother becomes infatuated with a younger man. 

Read more

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Best Romantic Movies on Netflix

By Alec Bojalad

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Best Romantic Movies on Hulu Right Now

By Alec Bojalad

With the help of cliched self-help materials she does whatever she can to get his attention. Hello, My Name is Doris is an empathetic romantic comedy that will change how you view age. 

Watch Hello, My Name is Doris

Sabrina (1995)

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now. Sabrina‘s theatrical poster is dope. When I was a kid and I would pass the VHS cover in Blockbuster, I couldn’t help but think “Wow, that is a real adult movie.” At a young age, the mere sight of a woman’s lascivious red lipstick (lascivious in my head at least) was enough to fry my brain. Poster aside, however, Sabrina is an excellent romance with some real star power. It’s a remake of the 1954 film of the same name starring Billy Wilder and Audrey Hepburn. 

This version was directed by the great Sydney Pollack and stars Harrison Ford, Greg Kinnear, and Julia Ormond. Weirdly enough Greg Kinnear plays the ultimate rich playboy while Harrison Ford plays his studious older brother. Weird casting choices but it works out alright thanks to each actor’s chemistry with Ormond.

Watch Sabrina

Ghost

Ghost is much more than just the reason you can no longer attend a pottery class without giggling. It’s a legitimately great sci-fi romance yarn. Patrick Swayze stars as Sam a banker who is killed by a mugger. Immediately post-death he discovers that he has become a ghost and can no longer directly interact with his girlfriend Molly (Demi Moore).

Sam sets out to solve his own murder and somehow reconnect with the woman he loves. Ghostcomes along with all the corniness of an early ’90s blockbuster but its central theme of love trying to achieve the impossible plays in any decade.

Watch Ghost

Brokeback Mountain

Longing is a crucial part of the formula in any romance movie and Brokeback Mountain has it in spades. Ang Lee’s 2005 film played a crucial role in bringing queer cinema to the mainstream and it did so by presenting mostly straight audiences with a universal depiction of love and passion – the kind of love that supersedes the norms and expectations of everything in your life to that point.

Heath Ledger and Jake Gylllenhaal star as 1960s Wyoming cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. While herding sheep on the Brokeback mountains, Jack makes a sexual pass at Ennis and the two begin a summer-long physical affair. The movie then follows the pair through the subsequent decades as they try to return to their “normal” lives, all the while unable to forget their time on Brokeback.

Watch Brokeback Mountain

Letter to Juliet

Somewhere along the way, Hollywood decided to let Amanda Seyfried become the queen of romantic comedies set in exotic locales…and that’s perfectly fine with us.

In Letters to Juliet, Seyfried stars as a New York fact checker Sophie on “pre-honeymoon” with her fiancé in Verona. There she learns of the phenomenon of “letters to Juliet” where women women bring love letters to Juliet Montague’s Verona courtyard. When Sophie answers a letter from 1957, she embarks on a decades-spanning journey of love and self-discover.y

Watch Letters to Juliet

What Men Want

Back in 2000, only one film had the distinction…nay, the courage of trying to figure out What Women Want. The answer, apparently, was Mel Gibson. We don’t talk about this movie that much.

Read more

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Which YA Romance Should Netflix Adapt Next?

By Kayti Burt

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Yesterday Is History: Meet the Latest Addition to the Time Travel Romance Genre

By Alana Joli Abbott

2019’s What Men Want is a loose remake of the earlier film. And it has something that the original never did: Taraji P. Henson! Henson stars as Ali Davis, a sports agent who gains the ability to read men’s minds after meeting a shaman. The movie puts Ali’s male-dominated profession to good use and in the process tells a nifty little romance story.

Watch What Men Want

There’s Something About Mary

More than two decades later, it’s still wild to see that above screenshot. Like, that ran in newspapers. It was on a poster! And if you don’t know why a photo of Cameron Diaz with a unique hairstyle is a big deal then you’ve likely not seen the Farrelly Brothers 1998 gross out classic There’s Something About Mary.

This is not so much a romance movie as it is an exploration of the pitfalls of attraction. Diaz stars as Mary Jensen…and there’s just something about her. Ben Stiller, Matt Dillon, Lee Evans, and Chris Elliott all play men who are helplessly in love with Mary and trying to win her affection. In the process, many injuries as sustained.

Watch There’s Something About Mary

Moulin Rouge!

If you like your romance with more than a dash of Baz Luhrmann saturated colors and big, sexy musical numbers then Moulin Rouge! is almost certainly the movie for you.

This 2001 film is set in 1900s Paris amid the Bohemian movement. When Christian (Ewan McGregor) falls in love with Moulin Rouge cabaret actress and courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman), he must contend with her impending betrothal (or really sale) to the Duke of Montrose. As one might imagine, this is resolved with quite a bit of singing and dancing.

Watch Moulin Rouge!

Sylvie’s Love

Amazon Prime’s 2020 film Sylvie’s Love positively oozes jazz era atmosphere and tells a compelling, decades-spanning love story in the process.

Tessa Thompson stars as Sylvie Parker, a young woman who one day meets an aspiring saxophonist (played by Kerry Washington’s husband and former NFLer Nnamdi Asomugha) and in her father’s record shop in 1950s Harlem. This leads to sweeping romance that guides the pair through the era’s jazz music scene.

Watch Sylvie’s Love

The post Best Romantic Movies on Amazon Prime Right Now appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[servalias]

Magia Record ED Analysis

bAs someone heavily invested in Yachiyo and who has watched the ED many times since its release, I figured I’d go ahead and do a full analysis of it and how it relates to Yachiyo as a character as well as her arc. This analysis is made assuming the anime remains largely the same as the game wrt Yachiyo, and it’s by no means definitive, simply my own personal interpretation. Heavy spoilers ahead of course, especially for Chapter 6 and Mifuyu’s side story. Anyone that cares about spoilers and hasn’t at least played through Chapter 6 of the game would do well not to read this until they’ve either done that or watched through the corresponding section of the anime after it’s aired, but otherwise, read on.

Right off the bat we have a shot of the moon being reflected in Yachiyo’s eyes. Yachiyo is a character very heavily associated with the moon, and this shot serves to reinforce that association.

Yachiyo then blinks and when she opens her eyes the moon’s no longer being reflected in them and we get a more zoomed out shot of her laying down in a puddle and it appears to be lightly raining. Water/rain is yet another thing Yachiyo gets frequently associated with, likely due to its association with sadness, since in Magia Record Yachiyo is initially a very sad, lonely person, something that is very heavily conveyed throughout the course of the ED.

The shot finishes with having Yachiyo smile, notably the only time we see her smile in the entire ED.

This is followed by some shots of real world Tokyo and then shots of Yachiyo walking through a rainy real world Tokyo. These show that Yachiyo’s a woman all alone in a big city, and the rain reinforces Yachiyo’s rain/water association.

We then get a shot of a flashing elevator button as we transition to the next segment of the ED, as segment I like to call the “elevator sequence”.

This segment alternates between shots of Yachiyo in a white dress in an elevator and scenes of a shadowed Yachiyo strutting and striking poses, all in front of a stylistic city background whose colors slowly shift. These bits between the elevator shots are meant to represent Yachiyo modeling, as Yachiyo works as a fashion model and her modeling career was the reason she even became a magical girl in the first place.

Now, for the main meat of the “elevator sequence”, the elevator shots themselves. The elevator is a metaphor for Yachiyo’s life as a magical girl, each elevator shot representing a different important stage of her life as one, with the red rapidly increasing floor number representing the number of days she’s been a magical girl and the seven lights at the top represent her seven years as a magical girl. Since only one light is lit in this shot, it represents Yachiyo when she was just starting out as a magical girl, she’s sitting in a school chair and she’s looking a little anxious, probably because she’s still new to this whole thing. 

The next elevator shot here represents Yachiyo at 14 years old, in her third year as a magical girl. We see Yachiyo looking up as if thinking about something, before shaking her head and looking down. What happened that year that’s significant? Well, Yachiyo and Mifuyu would write each other letters once a year from the time they became magical girls, to act as a sort of will in case either of them died. In Mifuyu’s side story, one of said letters we get to see is from when Yachiyo was 14. (Note that Yachiyo’s age is only mentioned in the Japanese version, for the English localization they changed it to a vague “since my birthday” for some reason) In this letter, Yachiyo mentions she’s realized she likes someone, but doesn’t know what to do. Due to her nature as a magical girl she isn’t sure if she could be with someone at all, even if her crush likes her back. But even still, she wrote a letter to her crush because she doesn’t want to pretend she never had these feelings. She’s unsure whether or not she should have Mifuyu deliver this letter in the case of her death, since getting a letter from a dead girl could be seen as unkind. She ends the letter by asking Mifuyu what she would do. This shot in the ED is meant to convey the uncertainty Yachiyo was feeling during that time.

After a couple more poses, she then curls up into this position, showcasing her anguish and despair. Not even modeling brings her happiness anymore. I feel like now is a relevant time to bring up the description from her “As a Fashion Model” Memoria, which states:  "Whenever I wonder why I keep on modeling, I remember that my life as a Magical Girl started from here. If I were to quit, why, that would render everything: all the trials and tribulations, all the miseries and joys, rather pointless."

We then get another elevator shot. From the 5 lights lit up, we can tell this is representing her 5th year as a magical girl, when she was 16 years old. This was the year Kanae died, hence why she looks kind of sad in this shot. We can also see the screen start to fill with water here, the water representing Yachiyo’s sadness and loneliness.

Our next shot has the shadowed Yachiyo running across the screen as the water continues to rise. 

We then get another elevator shot as the water fills up past halfway. All seven lights are lit, so this represents her 7th year as a magical girl, when she was 18 years old, the year Mel died and she decided to breakup the team because she thought her wish was causing her friends to sacrifice themselves for her, hence why she appears to be crying in this shot. Also of note is that the school chair from the previous elevator shots has been replaced by one of the chairs from Mikazuki Villa. 

After a flickering of lights and a shot of the elevator button again, we get a shot of the elevator again but the chair is now empty and the water in the background has now completely filled the screen.

We then get Yachiyo sinking in the water, metaphorically drowning in her own sorrows.

We get a closer shot of Yachiyo sinking with a film reel overlay as the screen gradually becomes monochromatic, and Yachiyo cries into her hands before we get quick flashes of a few images, which I’ll go over, individually, but overall it shows how Yachiyo is a “prisoner of the past”, as she puts it herself in episode 5.

First we have some photos next to Yachiyo’s mug, symbolizing Yachiyo’s sentimental nature, which she primarily expresses through mugs, buying mugs for each new friend she makes and even keeping the mugs of friends no longer in her life as something to remember them by.

Then we have this letter, which is the letter Yachiyo wrote to Mifuyu about her crush, showing that Yachiyo has Mifuyu on the brain.

Next we get an empty white hospital bed, symbolizing death, something that has been a major source of trauma for Yachiyo, losing not only her grandmother who raised her, but most significantly her friends Mel and Kanae, and her guilt over their deaths weighs heavily on her.

Next are some flowers, which I’m not entirely certain the meaning of because I’m not familiar with flower language, but someone who is will probably be able to tell me in the comments.

Next we have what appear to be some ledgers, perhaps a list of boarding house residents or something like that?

And here we have a cake that says “Happy Birthday Yachan”, meaning it must be from Mifuyu, and the 18 candles mean this was from Yachiyo’s 18th birthday. I love how the Y is just below the A because she ran out of room, it’s so very Mifuyu. Anyway this cake again reinforces that Yachiyo has Mifuyu on the brain. Mifuyu is a very important character for Yachiyo as her main goal throughout Magia Record is to find Mifuyu and bring her home, and as mentioned in the last letter to Mifuyu in Mifuyu’s side story, Yachiyo considered Mifuyu a real partner and even after cutting off everyone else because she thought her wish was killing them, she still wanted to stick with Mifuyu to the end.

We then get Yachiyo surfacing and reaching for the moon, reinforcing her moon association and showing that despite everything Yachiyo still yearns for a better life, and an escape from her sorrow and loneliness.

The shot transitions into a shot of Yachiyo under a black umbrella, and then the op ends with Yachiyo walking while carrying a white umbrella on her arm. This bit is notable because it can be seen as a prequel to the bit in the OP where Yachiyo helps up Iroha (she’s even carrying a white umbrella in that part too), so the umbrella is presumably for her. As the protagonist to Yachiyo’s deuteragonist, Iroha is very important to Yachiyo arc, particularly in Chapter 6 where she defeats the Memory Museum Uwasa by herself even though Yachiyo’s certain Iroha’s just going to end up another friend that sacrificed themselves for her, giving Yachiyo a chance to believe that maybe her wish isn’t killing everyone she loves, which is what ultimately allows Yachiyo to be able to move on and be happy again.

[fortunatelylori]

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.” The prophecy is obv about Drago returning and by listing all things that are impossible she's basically saying never to his return. Why all of a sudden would the child be a possibility if none of those others are? This is about Drago not a baby. (1/2)

I think the emphasis on the kid aspect of the prophecy was definitely a misdirect in Season 7. Mirri didn’t even say the whole prophecy in s1. The last 2 lines were left out. We’ve really only had it through Danys POV that dragons were the only kids she could have because of the witch’s curse. She didn’t set out to hurt the child or future children. She was warned. Seems like Dany’s womb paid for Drago’s “life” and not specifically that child. (2/3)

And maybe the reason he was in a vegetative state as opposed to full resurrection is because of the womb. I don’t think she had any intentions of harming the baby but then she came in. She probably meant to put him in that state the whole time but by the horse. Unless the mountains start blowing in the wind along w that other stuff she’s not having a baby

Hey, nonnie!

I agree. Mirri’s prophecy, if it’s indeed a prophecy, is in regards to Drogo, as an answer to D*ny’s question: 

D*ny: When will he be as he was? 

I do think people wrongly assume that Mirri killed D*ny’s baby and, moreover, that she did it intentionally but, considering how events play out, I doubt that, as well. 

Mirri warns D*ny not to go into the tent while she is preforming the ritual which D*ny later on assumes is what kills her child. But since Mirri specifically tells her not to go in there, it’s clear she didn’t have the intention of killing the baby. 

A lot of people assume it because of Mirri saying that D*ny knew what she was paying in order to have Drogo back, implying that somehow D*ny was willing to pay for Drogo’s life with the life of her child and D*ny herself questions this in her thoughts but then decides not to think about it and instead utilizes her mantra of: 

D*ny: If I look back, I’m lost. 

Honestly, I’m not sure D*ny’s womb paid for Drogo’s life. I tend to think that her infertility is her payment for the awaking of the dragons from stone. It’s rather the ritual that follows when she enters Drogo’s pyre that renders her infertile and thus becomes the Mother of Dragons. 

This is given credence in my mind because during her fever post-Rhaego, she actually reaches for her eggs and she keeps having these very strange dreams that eventually lead her to enact the ritual. 

However, the more I think of the baby foreshadowing in season 7, the more I wonder where the writers intend to take this. Because I do think this isn’t just a misdirect and that we will have some sort of pay-off for it. I just don’t think it will come in the form of a baby. 

Somehow, I think it’s connected to this scene: 

This is a difficult scene to interpret for two reasons: 

1. It isn’t part of the visionsthat D*ny gets in the House of the Undying in the books. And when talking aboutthis scene, D&D said they filmed it because they wanted to work with JasonMomoa again. 

Which I’d almost buy if itwasn’t for the fact that in order to reach the tent where Drogo and Rhaego are,D*ny is actually walking through the Wall. They are trying to link the scene ofD*ny seeing her husband and unborn child with the Wall, the location we connectthe most with Jon Snow and the fight against the White Walkers. 

So the show does take the timeto foreshadow D*ny and Jon meeting as well as D*ny being involved in the WhiteWalker war in some way. And the issue of motherhood, family and love is alsopresent. 

2. This vision is, in part, amanipulation on the part of the Undying who want to keep D*ny prisoner in theirtower in order to control her dragons. So obviously presenting her with thehusband that she loved and the child she almost had, is meant to pull at herheat strings. And it almost works. 

What pulls her out of the tentare the distant cries of her dragons. So in a symbolic sense, D*ny once againchooses her dragons over her human family. 

I wonder if this is alsoforeshadowing for D*ny doing the same in the future when she has to choosebetween protecting her dragons and continuing to support Jon in the War for theDawn. 

In regards to the baby, a whileago I put forth the idea that perhaps D*ny will have a shadow baby, via herrenewed connection with Melisandre. I do think Mel is coming back in season 8and that she will end up doing to D*ny what she did to Stannis. 

Stannis became so wrapped up inthe Azor Ahai prophecy that he ended up burning his own daughter at the stake.Mel was wrong in thinking that he was Azor Ahai but I think she will soonrealize that D*ny is, in fact, AA which will lead her to push her fanaticismeven further and attempt to steer D*ny towards whatever she reads in herfires. 

So, at some point, I do believethat D*ny will think herself pregnant and this will be justified by Mel insaying that Jon is, somehow, “Drogo come again”. Which will make sense toD*ny because Jon came back from the dead which is something Drogo didn’t manageand also that Jon is, in actuality, the first man after Drogo that she hasfallen in love with (in the show, she states that she never truly cared forDaario). 

In addition to that, theUndying vision could be interpreted as D*ny finding love and having a childagain, if looked at on the surface. 

However, the fact that D*nyabandons the tent in search of her dragons, that the Wall is essentiallysuperfluous to the entire scene leads me to think that this won’t play outstraight. 

Then there’s thedialogue: 

D*ny: This is dark magic, like themagic that took you from me. 

Incidentally the same magicthat Mel has and that brought Jon back from the dead. 

D*ny: Maybe I’m dead and I justdon’t know it yet. Maybe I’m with you in the Night Lands. 

Drogo: Or maybe I refused to enterthe Night Lands without you. Maybe I told the Great Stallion to go fuck himselfand came back here to wait for you. 

As far as foreshadowing goes,this isn’t all that positive. Drogo essentially says that he’s stuck in someform of purgatory and D*ny thinks maybe she’s dead. 

Drogo: Or maybe it’s a dream. Yourdream, my dream … I do not know. […] And if this is a dream, I will kill theman who tries to wake me. 

All this talk of dreams reeksof self-delusion, which is exactly what the Undying hope  will make D*nystay in the tent. The cries of her dragons give her the strength to pullherself out and leave but will she be able to remain as clear headed movingforward? 

Her falling in love with Jonand convincing herself that he’s in love with her as well, followed by herbelief that she’s pregnant, feels like self-delusion to me. A seemingly prettydream with a very dark reality hidden beneath. 

Also, it’s interesting thatwhile she is in that tent, she never picks Rhaego up or holds him, while we seeher leaving the House of the Undying like this: 

I’m sorry if this answer turned out more jumbled but this aspectisn’t, as of yet, all that clear to me, to be honest. I just feel like thisvision will somehow come into play in regards to the Jon/D*ny romance and thebaby talk. And that it doesn’t really have positive connotations. 

If anyone else has furtherthoughts on this, please leave them in the comments section. I’d be verycurious to hear how you think this vision might come into play in season8. 

Thanks for the ask! 

[hairylime]

Toy Story 4

The Pitch: Tom Hanks’ Woody and Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear are living in a post-Andy era with Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw), the sweet little girl that adopted them in the last movie. But as the years have passed, Bonnie has proven to be a different kind of kid than Andy. Buzz, Jessie (Joan Cusack), Mr. Potato Head (the late Don Rickles), Rex (Wallace Shawn), Slinky (Blake Clark), and most of the old favorites are still in rotation. Yet Woody seems to be stuck in the closet far more often than not. Horse opera’s retrograde these days, after all.

The Toy Story movies to date have served as exemplars of family storytelling, blending humor, heartbreak, sticky situations, and themes of growing pains. Toy Story 4 is no different, but it’s even busier than previous installments. In this adventure, Woody accidentally aids Bonnie in the creation of a new favorite toy named Forky (Tony Hale, with full Buster Bluth neuroses), becoming a de facto dad in the process. Meanwhile, Bonnie’s family gears up for a road trip, and the toys pass through a small town with a traveling carnival and an antique shop.

It’s at the shop that Woody runs into his old flame Bo (Annie Potts), a now-emancipated toy free to roam without a child. Woody also must negotiate with Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a ‘50s doll with an aura of longing and mannered malice about her. Plus there are new characters like a pair of plush toys with the voices of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Keanu Reeves having the time of his life as Canadian stuntman toy Duke Caboom, cameos from Mel Brooks and Carol Burnett … my goodness. And the jokes, the sight gags, the little zingers? It’s all pretty terrific.

Pixar Power: To be blunt: Toy Story 4 is critic-proof. The Disney monopolization of content is in full swing, and Toy Story 4 is a guaranteed smash IP with a massive built-in audience. Proven fans of the 25-year old franchise (some now bringing their own children, funnily enough) will see this baby and be satisfied no matter what the toys do. But thanks to Pixar writers Josh Cooley (Inside Out) and Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) working their magic, Toy Story 4 still manages to find joy in newness. New ideas, new sights, new humor, and new dramatics. And true to the series’ ethos, this is filmmaking as play, confidently balancing its game of cartoony chess.

Old characters manage to affect the things audiences have always liked about them, all while finding new wants and fears, such as Woody’s anxieties over his feelings of uselessness. Duke Caboom, while silly by design with his accompanying “Oh, Canada” music, still manages to sneak in a sense of lament as he tragically recalls his owner’s disappointment in Duke not being as exciting as the commercials. There’s also the joy of going to the fair without getting gunk on your feet. The fears of parenting, empty-nesting, growing up. And, of course, the feeling of having fun with your toys, so much so that you don’t want the time to end. The film moves in all of these meaningful directions by its end, nuanced and as heart-wrenching as ever.

Talking tough, and we’re trying our best in a mostly glowing review, but there’s really not much to protest here. Perhaps the running gag about Buzz Lightyear’s “inner voice” dumbing his astro-dude down? Didn’t he become grounded and not give in to flights of fancy after the first movie? Or what about the lack of screen time for some of the continually growing cast of characters? Or when the movie’s resolution dropped to 240p out of nowhere? (Just kidding on that last one; this is Pixar, and it’s every bit as lavish as that name promises.) All things considered, most complaints would be simple pettifogging for what’s otherwise a parade of great ideas and good vibrations.

Home From the County Fair, by Norman Rockwell: Go to YouTube for just a second, and look up clips from the first three films. It’s wild seeing what quantum leaps the animation has taken between each entry. That’s not to say the old ones look bad — the innovations of the original endure — but looking at Toy Story next to Toy Story 4 is like comparing Sock Puppet Theater to Norman Rockwell.

The antique shop is designed like a mix of The Shining and the ballroom in Beauty and the Beast. One minute there’s the creeping dread of an old shop’s cobwebs, electrical outlets and narrow shelves. The next, those spaces are offset with dazzling chandelier displays and stained-glass color schemes at a dusty micro-level.

You can see the rubber bumps on an old Godzilla, and appreciate the quality control in rendering. Buzz and Woody’s heads have never looked so plasticine … at least until the next movie. And the store and its surrounding carnival play within small town Americana, a kind of nostalgia that fits Toy Story 4’s themes of obsolesce and change.

Simply put, it’s quite the looker. Greetings from the Grand Basin, when you get there.

Parent Trap: One of the movie’s most ambitious new themes is parenting. Woody’s little stunt with Forky is an act of trying to help a child that goes far less smoothly than he’d hoped. It’s Bonnie’s first day of kindergarten, she’s about to lose it, and Woody gives Bonnie supplies from the trash to create Forky. The reasons are well-intended, but like rearing a child, the creation doesn’t go precisely as imagined.

Forky keeps retreating to the trash. He doesn’t understand concepts like, um, existence. He’s like a two-year old, constantly opening cabinets and perpetually in danger of hurting himself. Woody must protect him at all costs, for Bonnie’s sake. At one point, Woody suggests wearily that he didn’t think it would be so hard, and the sentiment is universal. It’s Toy Story 4’s best new idea, an age-appropriate one played up for gags and aches alike.

The Verdict: While the novelty will never be the same as it was the first time 24 years ago, curiosity and invention continue to be displayed in full force in the Toy Story movies. How’s this for praise: I left smiling. And that really counts, sometimes. In short, you get it. Seriously. You know the formula and frankly, it’s one of the best-working ones Hollywood still has: a fun-for-the-whole-family film. In a current market crowded with franchises and pricey theatrics, Toy Story 4 feels like a warm and welcome aside, spinning an epic yarn from an intimate vantage with all the amenities of Pixar’s supremely talented creators and animators. They’re still taking care of their toys with everything they have.

Where’s It Playing? To infinity and beyond, starting June 21st. If any of the last few Disney tentpoles are any indicator, this will be on over 4,000 screens. Like, Dumbo opened on 4,200 screens. This will be everywhere.

[junker-town]

The greatest boxer of all time was actually trash

Pugilist? Pacifist? Pick a side.

Despite being historically tied to dishonest individuals and/or groups, boxing is a fairly honest sport. It makes no attempt to hide its simplicity. Boxing can be boiled down to just three tenets:

You give punch

You take punch

If no one is punched into oblivion then judges decide it

Straightforward enough, but here’s our twist: the boxer historically considered to be the greatest to ever compete in the sport didn’t do the punching part. He also never got punched. But instead of everyone correctly agreeing he was trash since he didn’t even do the boxing part of boxing, people absolutely loved him for it — so much so that the emperor even allegedly took him as a lover. That boxer was Melankomas.

Mel rose to fame in Greece (then part of the Roman Empire) back in the first century AD when it really didn’t take much to become famous. He was a defensive fighter who relied on superior conditioning to avoid his opponent the entire contest. Mel danced around long enough for the unfortunate soul opposite him to get tired as hell. They all eventually said, “no more,” and Mel remained supreme. I want to make it clear: I think conceptually that is awesome, partially because it reminds me of the greatest scene in film history. But the strategy of running away is made even more impressive considering how the sport took place in Ancient Greece. Here are some buff nerds showing how stylistically different boxing was in back then.

It had a lot of hand fighting and posturing, not a ton of direct strikes to the head in the first place, but that video fails to capture a few big things. There was no ring and, most importantly, there weren’t time limits. Mel just bopped around, ducked and dove, outlasted everyone he faced for as long as needed to get them to quit. To hear from someone who saw the boxer do it live, here’s our favorite Roman sports blogger, (Ronnie James) Dio Chrysostom.

“His was beauty of body, his was courage and a stout heart and, besides, self-control and the good fortune of never having been defeated, what man could be called happier than he?”

Oh Dio, you big flirt.

Now, I understand why those qualities make for an ideal individual, and I am by no means saying Mel was a poor athlete. But I have an issue with celebrating Mel as a boxer. There was zero efficiency in his work, needlessly prolonging a fight as though he didn’t want to tarnish a well-conditioned gimmick. Imagine finally getting tickets to see this dude box only for that to completely derail your Saturday. “I’m sorry babe, Melankomos was trying to set a new personal record so I didn’t have a chance to pick up the lamb for sacrificing or the lamb for eating.”

On paper, I should be able to appreciate Mel. He basically bastardized a combat sport and became really good at not getting punched — an admirable trait for anyone, boxer or not. Boxing has never been up my alley, but a good grift definitely is and it feels like that’s all Mel really did. He took something celebrated and rendered it unrecognizable yet very fuckable (at least to Emperor Titus [allegedly]).

While that’s all very cool, our boy Mel did this by taking something already very laborious and making it even more so. As a boxer, he swung and missed despite never taking a swing. Had Mel wished to actually be a good boxer, I believe he should have learned a thing from the Homer J Simpson school of fighting: throw a single punch to end it all.

Homer’s approach was similar to Mel’s, only instead of dodging punches, Homer ate them all until his opponent wore down. At that point, a well timed strike would send his exhausted foe to the mat. By combining their tactics, you get a boxer who could outlast an opponent, maintain a handsome mug, then just throw one blow and let everyone go home early. Plus it just sounds cooler — a boxer who won every fight, never got punched, and every punch they threw was a knockout.

Instead, Mel simply ran around long enough for his foe to grow tired or bored or a combination of the two. He relinquished all control of the fight and just played an exhausting waiting game. Maybe he would have adjusted as age slowed him down, but he died young (but unpunched!), so we’ll never know what could’ve been.

Every week we’ll be writing up a fun historical sports story that we enjoyed. We find a lot of these while researching, but if you want to make suggestions on a thing you want to read about, let us know in the comments.

[poorquentyn]

So Jon broke his vows... but it wasn't his idea to save Mance, even though he sent him later. Why was Mance saved, then? I recall Tormund did not know he was saved, so why? And even so, sending someone to rescue a girl without doing any damage, collateral or otherwise... isn't then defending the realms of men? One girl or one million, it's defending her from further damage, so I don't see the oathbreaking, and once he receives the letter, well... self-defence, Jon said it was to answer his words

Sending Mance to rescue (who he thought was) Arya did do damage–it led directly to the Pink Letter. “I want my bride back.” Because Jon interfered with the realm’s politics, specifically due to the family he’s supposed to put aside in favor of his brothers, he put the Night’s Watch and their larger mission at risk from Ramsay. Jon can’t claim self-defense, because unlike in the show, there was no sign in the books that the Boltons had any intentions of messing with Ned Stark’s bastard…until he messed with them. 

It’s a case study in why the Night’s Watch doesn’t interfere with politics south of the Wall. The Night’s Watch protects all of Westeros. If you tell Westeros that’s no longer the case, that the Night’s Watch is now Jon Snow’s private resource base to fight the Boltons on behalf of the Starks, the lords might decide to stop sending men or threaten to come in force, as in Ramsay’s case. Ramsay is not threatening Jon simply because he is Ramsay and that’s what he does (again, unlike the show). He is threatening Jon because Jon reached out and punched him in the face. Which is an entirely relatable and sympathetic thing for Jon Snow, person who loves Arya most of anything in this world, to do. But it is not an acceptable thing for the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch to do. 

Castle Black cannot be easily defended from the south. Why is that? It is a political statement: you have nothing to fear from us, because we believe in our neutrality so strongly that we have rendered ourselves defenseless against you. We leave ourselves open in that regard because that’s how certain we are that this will not be a problem. It’s a vital precondition for the lords allowing this institution to exist at all…and Jon, quite simply, fucked it up. Let’s not pretend that he was trying to uphold his Night’s Watch oaths when he sent Mance after his sister. He was doing it as the “boy” he’s trying to kill, the son of Winterfell. I’m sure there are many crows whose sisters are in danger, especially with there being a war on. Do they all get to send a special ops team to the rescue? No? Then why is it OK for Jon to do it?

Lord Commander Snow is not supposed to “defend the realms of men” by actively wading into their wars. The Protector of the Realm is not Jon, but Stannis, and he was doing his duty: “I will save your sister if I can.” Bringing justice to the Boltons is his job; whether Stannis succeeds or fails at that, Jon’s job is to hold the Wall. Does that demand emotional sacrifices of him? Yep! Does it demand he make some agonizing decisions about the greater good? Sure does. He has other wars to fight. That’s the job he accepted. That he strayed from his duty for relatable reasons is what makes it emotionally resonant; human heart in conflict with itself, and all that. This was the decision coming for Jon all along, from the very first book:

“Tell me, Jon, if the day should ever come when your lord father must needs choose between honor on the one hand and those he loves on the other, what would he do?”

Jon hesitated. He wanted to say that Lord Eddard would never dishonor himself, not even for love, yet inside a small sly voice whispered, He fathered a bastard, where was the honor in that? And your mother, what of his duty to her, he will not even say her name. “He would do whatever was right,” he said… ringingly, to make up for his hesitation. “No matter what.”

“Then Lord Eddard is a man in ten thousand. Most of us are not so strong. What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms … or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

“The men who formed the Night’s Watch knew that only their courage shielded the realm from the darkness to the north. They knew they must have no divided loyalties to weaken their resolve. So they vowed they would have no wives nor children.

“Yet brothers they had, and sisters. Mothers who gave them birth, fathers who gave them names. They came from a hundred quarrelsome kingdoms, and they knew times may change, but men do not. So they pledged as well that the Night’s Watch would take no part in the battles of the realms it guarded.

“They kept their pledge. When Aegon slew Black Harren and claimed his kingdom, Harren’s brother was Lord Commander on the Wall, with ten thousand swords to hand. He did not march. In the days when the Seven Kingdoms were seven kingdoms, not a generation passed that three or four of them were not at war. The Watch took no part. When the Andals crossed the narrow sea and swept away the kingdoms of the First Men, the sons of the fallen kings held true to their vows and remained at their posts. So it has always been, for years beyond counting. Such is the price of honor.”

(Of course, we know that Ned actually wasn’t the “one man in ten thousand” Aemon is talking about, the person who would sacrifice the people he loved for the greater good. That would be Stannis, as we shall see when the Long Night falls and Mel points to Shireen.) 

As to the question of why Mance was saved, yeah, this is something I was debating with @racefortheironthrone and @rotting-sea-cow a li’l while back. I don’t think Stannis saved Mance–I think Mel acted on her own because she saw in the fires that Mance had a future role to play. Per her inner monologue: “Was I wrong to save this one?” After all, Stannis doesn’t have “Rattleshirt” do anything, whether that’s infiltrate Winterfell or head north to recruit Tormund. The king just leaves Mance with Jon to bum around Castle Black. It’s Mel who reveals the truth to Jon, with no indication that she’s made contact with Stannis about it, and she does so in response to the news about Ramsay marrying Arya, which the king didn’t know about before leaving Castle Black.

[marytagus]

Arrow 5x22 “Missing” - Afterthoughts

Main afterthoughts

While I was watching

After the end

Everyone on Team Arrow and Queen Family goes Missing this episode except Oliver. I’ll order it as Oliver and Team find out the person or persons is missing. Let’s dig in.

First up - Rene

Turns out he’s missing since 5x21, that’s probably why he didn’t show up for his daughter hearing.

The how, who, where he is are still waiting for an answer. It’s strange that by episode’s end we still don’t know anything about him.

Second up - Dinah

We are led to believe she’s taken at her home, while we don’t ever actually see it. 

There is a break in at her house. It’s Curtis that finds this while talking with Felicity on the phone.

Oliver finds evidence that Talia al-Ghul was involved. I found that a bit odd at first but then I remembered that it couldn’t be BS taking Dinah (that face off has to be on screen and it’s going to be epic levels of screaming) and we know there were two persons at least inside Dinah’s home.

Like Rene the episode ends with us not knowing where she is.

Third up - Curtis

He’s taken at Dinah’s home. He get’s to see someone, someone that surprises him. It must be someone he knows or at least someone he recognizes.

Fourth and Fifth - Quentin and Thea

BS goes after them on the safe house. Quentin doesn’t know about “his” Earth 2 daughter, thankfully Thea does. Not that helps, they are rendered unconscious LoA style.

But at least Quentin get’s to understand why “his daughter” is doing this to him.It does help knowing that it’s not in fact his daughter but another Quentin’s daughter, Earth 2 - Quentin’s daughter.

About what they seem to be planning for BS by looks of it they are going for a BS redemption arc (pun intended) those watery eyes and the “care” for Quentin justifying her actions and reasons to help Prometheus to Quentin, just the first step 

I’m so not interested.

Thea being taken has a perk, Malcolm Merlyn comes to aid on her rescue.

As always Malcolm is shady at best and a bastard at worse.

Someone told Chase about William it was Malcolm. At least Oliver seems to think so and Malcolm does not argue against it which pretty much confirms it.

Also Malcolm knows about Thea being taken so damn fast I got the feeling that he had inside information.

Nevertheless Oliver Queen and Malcolm Merlyn banter was

I know Malcolm is on the table to die this Season but I must admit I loved him and I missed him.

Sixth and Seventh - Diggle and Felicity

The drive trough Diggle tries is a great callback to Season 2, Isabel Rochev, just like Felicity states, but this is Talia al-Ghul; it also made me scream... that explosion and the way the car flipped... 

I’m pretty sure Felicity and Diggle should be more hurt (if not dead). It was such a big relief watching them walk out of the car. Short lived relief as Talia is not playing any games.

As far as Oliver knows that’s the extent of the ones in danger when he stops at the Felicity and Diggle’s accident / kidnap site with Malcolm. Malcolm pushes Oliver on doing what Chase wants; Oliver knows that releasing Chase won’t stop him hurting his loved ones, won’t stop Chase from going on with his plans.

Malcolm uses “he’s 50 steps ahead” a call back to the “I’m 10 steps ahead” speech from Chase. Coincidence? Writers playing us a bit? Maybe, but then maybe not. Malcolm still has a grudge on Oliver, he’s not the forgive and forget kind of person. Sure he wants Thea safe but I’m still not so sure if he wasn’t (or still is) Team Prometheus.

Oliver is not releasing Chase. Until he finds himself in a worse place that Malcolm is with Thea

Chase has William. And Oliver breaks. From all the people Chase has taken his son is the one that breaks him.

It’s not that the others don’t matter they do but Oliver knows they won’t stand idle, Oliver knows he will get to them, he had before. William is different, he’s just a child, his child; one he sacrificed a lot to keep safe. One he would sacrifice everything to keep safe.

But we know something Oliver doesn’t:

William was in fact the first being Missing.

The only thing surprising is Oliver only knowing about it now. I’m waiting for 5x23 to give me some explanation about why Samantha didn’t contact Oliver to inform him of William disappearing.

It’s been weeks, not days, weeks, that Chase has him and his mother didn’t told Oliver? Last Season she ran to Oliver as soon as she knew William was kidnap (and to break Olicity up); this Season is like she forgot Oliver existed. Unless she was taken too, which would explain everything, I find this terribly odd. So let's wait for 5x23, we will get answers then.

As masked Oliver with Malcolm back up and with non lethal force Oliver tries to break out Chase. But exactly like Oliver expected Chase’s plans are still on going, he’s not planning on releasing anyone, in fact the chopper isn’t there to take him to prison it’s there to take him wherever he wants to go.

Can I just say I’m glad Chase’s reign and advantage is getting close to an end? I love Chase as a villain but the all “10 steps ahead” thing is getting a bit frustrating and frankly it’s getting harder and harder to understand and to explain. 

Oliver reads him so well now, in fact, Oliver knew William was in danger. The fact Samantha manages to elude Felicity (but not Chase) is a bit ridiculous. The “10 steps ahead” are increasingly less believable and yet Chase keeps getting his way, scheming everything even inside ARGUS.

I was happy to see how Oliver has grown. He knows he can’t tackle this alone and he has called for backup. A back up I was long expecting

Welcome back, Ms Nyssa. I’ve missed you.

Nyssa vs Malcolm gave me life. 

“Still no title”

But Malcolm has something up his sleeve in the form of news for Nyssa... they are going to be facing her sister, Talia.

Nyssa is considerably surprised and concerned by this. As she should. Talia is a top fighter, a fellow LoA member, and her sister. Nevertheless she doesn’t refuse Oliver.

With the help of Felicity’s software Oliver finds out where Chase’s going. Lian Yu.

There while Chase finally meets Felicity, and is surprised that many of his hostages know exactly where they are just as much as we are by the absence of Rene and Dinah. Oliver goes and recruits a new Team member, one he once considered a friend, a brother

Welcome back, Slade Wilson.

Flashbacks

Kovar wants information on why Oliver is there, on the Island. Just and excuse to get Oliver in such a psychological state that he will kill himself (Chase torture parallel is strong). 

The drug brings everything back, even Yao Fey, an even darker version of Yao Fey, he urges Oliver to sacrifice himself to save others like Yao Fey did to save Oliver. 

Then Oliver gets double L “paying a visit”. I know the Flashbacks connect to an Oliver that thought he owe something to double L so I have to live with it and move on. I do like she reminds him of Robert and Sara’s death and that their deaths should not be in vain and that’s when Oliver finds another way. And get’s out by shooting the lock.

It’s Robert and Sara’s death that inspires Oliver to break free of the suicidal cycle in his head.

Birthday party and Olicity

Writers and Showrunners were playing with Oliver’s heart (and ours). First he's going to go to what he doesn’t know if it is a date or not with Felicity and then...

This was so wrong on so many levels. And so right in so many levels.

Thea played sister with a stunning level of perfection making things worse by pushing Oliver to think it was a date when she knew fully well it wasn’t.

Olicity is moving forward. One step at a time and they both looked stunning and so very very happy

Oliver: “...hypothetically dating my ex-fiancee? NOOO”

Felicity: “WOW... No.”

They are both so adorable.

As I thought before the episode aired this episode was bumpy and overall not a happy one (which Arrow episode is) but it was a pleasure to watch, pumped, just enough fluff and it promises us great things to come. The finale is going to be

@vaelisamaza | @hope-for-olicity | @tdgal1 | @bindy417 | @supersillyanddorky06 | @emmaamelia95 | @coal000 | @miriam1779|@felicityollies | @eilowyn1 | @jules85 | @scu11y22 | @quant-um-fizzx | @memcjo | @dmichellewrites | @bringbackianto |@laurabelle2930 | @oli-feli | @oliverfel4 | @mel-loves-all | @spaztronautwriter| @cruzrogue | @bekaoperetta | @charlinert |  @almondblossomme | @oliverdant | @felicitys | @fadinglands | @nalla-madness |   @onceuponarrow |  @leonie1988 | @stygian-omada-fan | @dust2dust34 | @wherethereissmoak

[ducktracy]

155. picador porky (1937)

release date: february 27th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: tex avery

starring: joe dougherty (porky), mel blanc (drunks), billy bletcher (bull)

while mel blanc provided porky’s shrieks in porky the wrestler, this is often considered his first role in a warner bros cartoon, or at least a role of substantial size. porky has also been considerably slimmer down. other directors such as ub iwerks and bob clampett would follow suit, with frank tashlin being the lone fat porky straggler. this is where i think looney tunes really start to shift in tone and truly become recognizably looney. porky gets refined, mel blanc puts his foot in the door... great things lie ahead! (and an interesting note—i’m using the porky pig 101 rip for quality, but the title card music is actually ripped from porky’s tire trouble. this is the beginning of many, many, MANY reuses... so get ready.) here, porky assumes the role of a toreador, hoping to win the cash prize with ease as his buddies promise to dress up as a bull and provide an even fight. however, when his buddies get into the bottle, porky finds himself fighting a REAL bull instead, and a cash prize seems none too likely.

the cartoon opens with an expositional foreword:

slumbering peacefully ‘neath the warm caresses of the noonday sun, lies the sleepy little village of la rosita. it presents a scene of serene quietude and beauty as its inhabitants enjoy their mid-day siesta preceding the annual bull-fight. the solitude is broken only by the occasional strains of a soft guitar.

tex does a wonderful job of painting the perfect setting that almost anyone can imagine (even if he does spell preceding as preceeding). and so, of course, it’s only right that the scene after the foreword completely defies every word. gunshots, shouting, people running amuck, a flurry of activity. this setup would be borrowed at the beginning of bob clampett’s naughty neighbors (which, funnily enough, also has the porky’s tire trouble music tacked onto it).

however, tex was right on the soft strains of the guitar: a mariachi band gets together to play “la cucaracha”. a variety of visual gags accompany the music, whether it be men head-butting each other, a man drying himself off with a towel, or a kid poking his head out of a pot carried by his mother, interjecting “swing it, mama, swing it!”, a man shaking a cocktail, you name it. there’s animation reused from a friz cartoon of a girl dancing with a cloth—i believe it may be from billboard frolics.

enter porky and his two mysteriously unnamed buddies, both sliding into view from opposite sides as they all approach the gate to the town. porky and co are nonplussed by the fervent celebration—we get a rolling pan of the action. gunshots, dancing, confetti, the works. a poster tacked up to a tree captures the audience’s attention:

TO-DAY

BULL FIGHT

1000 PESOS

TO THE

WINNER!

the camera then trucks out to reveal porky and his entourage staring at the poster. i was listening to mark kausler’s commentary on porky’s romance (which is coming up very soon, hooray! next porky cartoon!) and he mentioned how the camerawork could be a bit jittery and choppy on zoom outs such as these. the same applies here, the zoom out is a little jittery, but it’s a niche complaint. something i never would have thought to notice! porky signals for his buddies to bend down low, and he whispers an inaudible plan in their attentive ears.

fade out and in to a costume shop, where porky and co hurry inside. a few seconds later and out marches porky in a matador costume, a makeshift bull outfit marching behind, tail pompously raised in the air. topping the gag off, as if it wasn’t obvious, mel blanc provides his first coherent line of dialogue in a warner bros cartoon as the two buddies unmask themselves, reassuring the audience “it’s us!”

elsewhere, the stadium packs full to bursting with eager spectators, waiting to see the bullfight in action. some of the animation of the spectators streaming into the stadium would be reused as an overlay in porky & daffy. elsewhere, porky and his “bull” tiptoe into the back entrance, where they encounter the actual bull for the fight, pent up in a cage that reads “1st event”. the real bull mistakes the fake bull for a female, hearts pouring out as billy bletcher provides an “mmmmm-mmmm!” from the bull.

porky wheels the bull cage out of the way, fetching an empty cage for his buddies to hide out in until the fight. porky tends to his business, leaving his buddies alone, when a pesky bee flies into the cage. clever visuals of the guy in the bottom half trying to smack the bee, his hand clearly sticking out of the tail. the bee lands on the bull’s “butt”, to which the hand promptly smacks. though he hit himself in the process, the guy has successfully taken care of the bee, flicking it offscreen.

meanwhile, a bottle of alcohol catches the attention of the front half. carl stalling debuts his favorite drunken motif of “how dry i am” as the bull head opens up, buddy #1 taking a hearty gulp of the liquor. mel blanc works his magic as #1 wheezes and coughs, sputtering “hey, this is fine stuff!” buddy #2 pokes his head out of the butt and helps himself. wonderful animation as the alcohol settles in, #2 spinning and contorting the bull costume from the impact. he gives his seal of approval by slurring incomprehensibly.

the next scene has some wonderful animation paired with mel blanc’s hiccups. drunk #2 begins to hiccup, sinking back into the bull costume. what starts as a string of hiccups morphs into an uncontrollably frenzy, the bull’s back half rocketing up and down and flailing all over the place as the hiccups render drunk #2 (and #1) useless. eventually, the force of the hiccups is so strong that #2 lodges the entire bull outfit out of the cage, the cage now empty.

in the arena, a trumpeter blares out the beginning fanfare, and a number of miscellaneous doors—wooden, steel, even a safe—slide out of view, one by one, revealing the bullfighter’s entrance. this gag, paired with the same music, would be reused in porky in wackyland and later the remake, dough for the do-do. the gag would be reused to a similar degree in another one of tex’s shorts, northwest hounded police over at MGM. while the gag is funny as it is, even more amusing is that the doors open to reveal absolutely nothing. a beat, and then tiny little porky jumps out of a hidden door to the (our) right of the grand entrance, posing triumphantly. porky shakes his hands in the glory, eating up the applause.

back behind the scenes, a guard notices the bull is missing. he wheels away the cage, and spots the ACTUAL bull, wheeling the real bull back in its rightful place. another door gag as an assistant opens a heavyset door, pulling a string that reveals the door to be a curtain. the bull is riled up, snorting wildly. without any further hesitation, it zooms straight into the arena, spinning porky around in a whirlwind in the process.

porky, believing the bull is still his scamming buddies, whistles in awe and speaks out of the side of his mouth, “take it easy, boys! that was a little close!” with that, virgil ross animates a scene of porky doing magic tricks (i had thought this was bob clampett animation, seeing as he had such an affinity with magic, but the movements, shiny eyelids, and dimensional snout give it away as virgil), the bull running straight into porky‘s telltale cape. the animation is as wondrous as the magic trick to the spectators. porky turns the cloth inside and out—no bull. eventually, he shakes the cloth, and his bull plops out onto the ground. porky strikes a jubilant pose, with an angry bull glaring him down.

suddenly, porky whistles. “hey, caddy!” a man appears with a golf club bag full of toilet plungers. you know, the essentials. porky begins to attach the toilet plungers on the bull, one by one. the bull, enraged, shakes all of the plungers off except for one, that sticks to his butt. determined to get it off, the bull fights with himself, and in the midst of the struggle, the plunger gets stuck on his nose. he struggles to pull it off, but manages to do so, drastically elongating his snout in the process and giving a hilarious, squeaky whimper. the payoff is amusing with the visual, but this is definitely an instance where tex’s gags seemed to be randomly placed in with no merit. why was porky sticking the plungers on the bull in the first place? nevertheless, the bull, now more furious than ever, prepares to attack.

chuck jones is responsible for animating this GLORIOUS next scene. it’s one of my favorite scenes he’s ever animated. of the three specialties, two of them are included—closeups and drunks. dogs is his third, but i guess you could count these guys as dogs. regardless, porky’s hammered buddies suddenly burst into the arena, the bull costume ripped in half (and the owners of each half are switched). drunk #2 accompanies the vocal talents of drunk #1 singing la cucaracha. mel blanc’s vocals are absolutely HYSTERICAL. the hiccups, the slurring, the random YIPPEE! even better is watching drunk #1 get up in drunk #2’s face, completely expressionless (except for a drunken smile), the cow head occasionally concealing his head as it falls down and he props it back up. chuck’s movements are smooth, rubbery, and utterly hilarious. this is a great scene and the first time mel blanc truly shines for all to see.

elsewhere, porky’s still waving his little flag around, but pauses to admire the drunken music. suddenly, a revelation. he recognizes his drunks. he stares at the drunks, and then at the bull, prying open the furious bull’s mouth. sure enough, no pals of his are lodged down the bull’s throat. they’re over yonder singing a hammered rendition of la cucaracha.

mel provides porky’s “WOO!” of terror as he scrambles away. nice bit of a 4th wall break that unfortunately doesn’t realize maximum speed potential as porky runs across the borders of the screen, running up the sides and upside down, the bull hot on his tail. meanwhile, the time keeper (as his plaque labels in his stand) blows on a party streamer, a hammer popping out of the end and slamming on a bell.

porky and the bull freeze in their tracks, porky petrified with terror, so much so that two assistants have to physically pick him up from the ground and carry him off. the bull snaps in frustration and gives porky a promising glare of vengeance.

transition to a non-petrified porky gargling with some liquid and spitting it into a funnel with the guidance of his assistants. the bull goes through the same routine, and when the assistant points to the funnel, the bull grabs it and talks into it instead. “hello, mama! hello, papa! it’s great, fine. wish you were here!” even better is the bull’s contented smile at the end of the “call”. a genius gag that is enhanced by the deep vocals of billy bletcher.

the time keeper blows on his party streamer/hammer, and the hammer stops to whack the keeper in the head instead of the bell, a loud bell chime reverberating regardless. the chase resumes. bob clampett animates the next scene of porky sliding into the safe zone—i love porky’s giant satisfied, ecstatic grins as the bull waits patiently outside, humming (a scene clampett would incorporate in his own porky’s last stand, a mega-favorite of mine). in tex avery fashion, the bull defies all logic by lifting the painted lines off of the ground and towering over a terrified porky, who zooms out of sight.

porky’s drunken buddies notice the plight, and are at least sober enough to take action. #1 whispers in #2’s ear, and we see the fully formed bull (really a cow) costume hide behind a wooden barrier. an arm reaches out and grabs a baseball bat and a plank, calling “moooohoooooo!” (instead of “yoohoo!”) in a seductive catcall. the bull takes the bait, lumbering over to the barrier, where the drunks await with their weapons. even better than the typography zooming out of the scene as the fight ensues is mel blanc YELLING the onomatopoeia out loud, batman style. “bang! bam! bop! wham!” the action freezes. then more violence. finally, a victorious rendition of “the lady in red” as the costumed bull marches proudly out of the barrier, unscathed.

the disguise approaches porky, the head giving a befuddled porky a wink. then, the “bull” flops over on its back, tail straight up, a white flag of surrender waving triumphantly in the wind as porky is showered with applause, beaming and raising his sword.

just as porky’s about to collect his earnings, the REAL bull shakes himself to his senses. porky grabs the money bag from the judges, bowing as he twirls his hat victoriously in the air. the fake bull suddenly panics, zooming off screen. porky turns around to see a very angry, real, slightly bruised bull snorting heavily at him. porky shrugs it off, celebrating some more, until he realizes that That’s The Real Deal. mel blanc provides porky’s panicked HOOHOO!s as porky zooms out of the arena. a clever pause, and porky zips back to the bull, offering his money bag, and rocketing out of sight once more. iris out as the bull grumbles “well, imagine that!”—another catchphrase used from a previous tex cartoon, porky the rain-maker.

as i said before, this is the cartoon that really starts that looney feel to me. half of it is mel blanc’s prominence, the other half being porky’s slight redesign—he’d be even skinnier in tex’s next porky, porky’s duck hunt. this is a great cartoon for its time. tex’s gags are amusing—that setup with the whole “sleepy village which is actually a village in chaos” is just sublime. some gags made more sense than others. while the joke was supposed to be the visual of the bull’s elongated snout, porky covering the bull in toilet plungers felt too incongruous and didn’t really fit in. funny, but kinda just floating there. porky’s duck hunt suffers the same fate with the gag of daffy swallowing an electric eel—very funny, but has nothing to do with any of the adjacent scenes. regardless, you need to see this one. mel’s drunken rendition of la cucaracha is certainly the highlight, but there are a lot of fun gags elsewhere. very high energy, very fun, very feel good. give it a go!

link!

[aion-rsa]

Taskmaster’s Mike Wozniak: Saluting the King of Our Hearts

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Contains spoilers for the Taskmaster series 11 finale

The suit. The ‘tache. The smile. The preternatural speed with which he’s able to snatch a marshmallow from an opponent using a pair of kitchen tongs. There’s a great deal to admire about Taskmaster series 11 contestant Mike Wozniak, so admire him we will. Right here. Starting now. Tick tock: it’s Wozniak o’clock.

Who is Mike Wozniak?

He’s an absolute bloody milk guzzler, that’s who. 

Like Harry Hill, Graham Chapman, Graeme Garden and Paul Sinha before him, Mike Wozniak trained and worked as a doctor before becoming a stand-up in 2007. Healthcare’s loss was comedy’s gain. His 2013 Edinburgh Fringe show, in which Wozniak played an outmoded light entertainer, received a Best Comedy Show nomination. 

On the subject of Edinburgh, series 11 isn’t Mike Wozniak’s first Taskmaster experience. Before he developed the format for television, Alex Horne performed a version of it with comedian contestants as a live Edinburgh Fringe show in 2010. The winner of the stage version? Dr Mike Wozniak. 

TV-wise, Wozniak played strait-laced financial advisor Brian in Greg Davies’ Channel 4 sitcom Man Down, opposite Davies and fellow Taskmaster contestant from series one, Roisin Conaty. All four series of that weird delight are available to stream in the UK on Netflix, so hurry along and watch. Among many other things to recommend it, Man Down‘s first series features a brilliant performance from Rik Mayall as the scheming and sadistic father to Davies’ character, one of Mayall’s final screen appearances before he passed away in 2014. 

Wozniak also appeared Kevin Eldon’s much-missed sketch show It’s Kevin, several episodes of Drunk History: UK, played various parts in 2015’s Walliams & Friend, and starred in Dave original comedy Dial M For Middlesborough, alongside former Taskmaster contestants Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson. Podcast-wise, you can see him interviewed at length by series 10 champion Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast (always worth listening to) back in January 2020 here, or stream his new collaboration Three Bean Salad, with fellow comedians Henry Paker and Benjamin Partridge here.

Mike Wozniak’s Best Taskmaster Moments

“It’s an absolute casserole down there”

In Taskmaster history, there are a chosen few; special contestants hand-picked to perform tasks set for them and them alone. Mark Watson, Joe Lycett, Josh Widdicombe, Mel Giedroyc… and in series 11: Mike Wozniak. 

Often, the individual tasks are set for the most genial contestants, as an attempt to get under their skin. Mike Wozniak’s task did that in a most surprising, discomfiting and literal way. His task was to “Fart. Fartest wins.” Starting off with no gas in the tank, Wozniak tried a few primary school brewing positions to “massage the inner Mike”, but to no avail. Then later on in the day, he felt success on the horizon and delivered an unsatisfyingly wet ‘sproot’. The flatus had gone through. Task? Tick. But that’s not all that went through. Skip to 3:36 for the moment of truth (though you might wish you hadn’t.)

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“It might be sensing my creeping sense of dread”

This episode one task was the moment the nation started to think they liked the cut of Mike Wozniak’s jib. Given the choice of a scooter, bicycle or hoverboard which which to deliver a stack of plates to Alex, he went for the latter, no doubt anticipating futuristic speed and agility. Instead, we were treated to the sight of a man in a carefully contrived posture progressing at roughly the speed of a paper boat on a puddle. The helmet and kneepads only made it better, as did the optimistic hoverboard instructions to “come on, buddy” and “mush, mush, mush.” Skip to 2:27 for the Wozniak joy.

“For the next five minutes, it’s easy street”

Greg Davies hits the nail on the head here with the observation that that nothing seems to faze Wozniak. Given the task of blowing up a balloon until it’s bigger than his head, gift-wrapping said balloon and then eating three dry poppadoms while saying the word ‘metronome’ after every tick of a metronome, he’s in. No questions asked sir. That’s all part of the joy of Wozniak, who never gripes or protests about the various humiliations required of contestants on the show, and is only ever grateful to be there. You can take his points away, but what you can’t take away is that he’s had an absolutely lovely time. Skip to 1:18 to see him do just that. 

“Tick tock, it’s tough guy o’clock”

This finale reveal is up there with Josh Widdicombe’s ‘Greg’ tattoo as a Taskmaster classic. The prize task for the series 11 final was to bring in something that made the contestants look tough. Charlotte Ritchie went for a leather cap (to be worn backwards). Jamali Maddix went for a baseball bat with a nail hammered into it. Lee Mack went for a coat-hanger. Sarah Kendell went for a rucksack filled with apocalypse supplies. Mike Wozniak though, showing a commitment to the premise that deserves a tear-filled salute, went for an extreme makeover that turned him from geography teacher to Thunderdome gladiator. What a man, what a man, what a man, what a mighty good man.

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Taskmaster series 11 is available to stream now in the UK on All4

The post Taskmaster’s Mike Wozniak: Saluting the King of Our Hearts appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[sid71blog]

A history of Scotland.

Scotland was invented quite a while ago (I'll check later, I've got a calendar through in my kitchen which tells you the date it happened but I can't be arsed getting up at the moment. I'm pretty sure it was a Wednesday though) when mildly cretinous inventor Billy Agesago wanted somewhere to store the wee bit hill n' glen that his granny had given him for Christmas (he wanted a bike from the poor old pensioner; the greedy cunt). After cleverly pasting it together from a couple of spare parts taken from old Airfix models and bits and pieces from an old Meccanno set, he  decided to staple it onto the top of England, for a laugh. For centuries after it sat there doing nowt, but eventually some folk moved in, after getting kicked out of their old country for farting in church. Soon these early primitive people began to spread all over the place (they even went to Glasgow!), and even began to form their own rudimentary language. Just like that scene in Planet of the Apes it was a massive moment when, upon being offered another Tunnock's teacake by Jessie McTroglodyte, Hamish McAlpine first uttered a word: "aye". This was a massive step in the evolution of these early settlers, and soon they had formed enough language to be able to ask the driver of the Stagecoach bus for a ticket to Scara Brae to build some holiday villas. 

Over time tribes began to form, or clans, such as the MacLeans (motto: Whit the fuck you lookin' at? family tartan: like a granny's picnic tablecloth), the Camerons (family motto: Square go cunt! family tartan: doesn't go with the curtains), the Dunbars (family motto: Hope yir next shite's a hedgehog, family tartan: looks garish in wedding photos), the MacDonalds  (family motto: C'mon 'en! family tartan: Even Jonathon Ross widna be seen deid wearin' it), The Campbells (motto: Wid ye like some soup? Tartan: Migraine-inducing), the MacDonalds (motto: Tak a lang, hard, lick o’ ma shite; tartan: so last season), the Gordons (motto: Aye it’s perfectly legal, just touch it; tartan: tartany) and the Chans (motto: I told you we should have turned LEFT at the border; tartan: silky). These clans often fought with each other, usually over the remote, and when they weren’t fighting they were playing games together (the confusing twats), which over time became known as the Highland games. Events in the Highland games included tossing the caber (caber is an old Scots word for headmaster, and this controversial event was finally outlawed in 1901; leading to an 87% drop in applications for headmaster jobs in Scotland, and a coincidental rise of 87% in applications to the priesthood), hammer-throwing, shot-putting, Scrabble, Kerplunk, speed Heelan’-coo shaving, embroidery, anvil-headbutting, angry-facing, Call of Duty, ferret-bothering, and Celebrity cross-fit. When not fighting with each other they enjoyed fighting with their neighbours down south in England, mainly because each country thought that the other one “talked funny”. A bloke called Mel Gibson had a scrap with Englishman Stirling Moss and his pals after they took the piss out of his mullet on a night out, and he gave them a right kicking. They got their own back eventually though, when they got local heavy Eddie Longshanks and his crew to kill poor Mel by hanging, drawing, and quartering him. The Jewish bastards. 

Over time though the Scots got a bit bored with fighting and playing games, so they decided to invent some stuff. Famous Scots inventions and discoveries include pizza; Belgium; the burp; flip-flops; the name Hamish; African-Americans; haggis; the decimal point; the number 17; this face I’m pulling just now; the Krankies; Oor Wullie; slap-bass; the KKK; Kim Yong Un; the Beatles; ironic moustaches; sombreros, and many, many more.  With the royalties from these inventions they invested in something called the Darius scheme, in which they used up all the money sending the singer Darius to the X Factor and promoting him. Despite initial success Darius soon faded from the public eye, leaving Scotland heavily in debt, and they had no choice but to form a partnership with their neighbours down south. Ever since this union they two have gotten on famously, meeting up most weekends for a pint and to discuss Corrie, and in fact it went so swimmingly that they decided to go into business together, and called this new venture: The British Empire. 

 The British Empire (not to be confused with the Brittas Empire) came into being when the main men looked around at the world and realised that those silly foreigners were making a right arse of running their countries, and that the British could help them sort everything out; for a small fee. Soon we were sending ships out all over the world to educate and civilise, and Scots were right at the heart of this new venture, with exports of Krankies DVDs and shortbread to places such as India keeping the money flowing into the vaults. Soon they were squandering this new found wealth, and Edinburgh at the time became famously known as "Okapi-toon", due to the fashion for wealthy people to import okapis and walk the streets with them on leads. To own an okapi became a status of wealth, and many poorer people took to crudely painting pigs and trying to pass them off as okapis to pull the chicks. Over time sanitary conditions began to become a real problem due to all the okapi shit on the streets, and a virulent new disease caused by this exotic new ungulate faeces being everywhere took hold: "the hairy-hell". People who contracted the hairy-hell would at first show little symptoms apart from a sudden interest in acid-jazz and a fondness for corduroy slacks, but over time other, nastier symptoms would begin to manifest. After about week three the left nipple would begin to resemble a mildly irate Frenchman, and it was rumoured that in some particularly severe cases some family members even heard muttered Gallic threats coming from the nipple during the night. Around week five the unfortunate victim's hair would become matted and greasy, and profuse sweating became the norm. At week six hormonal changes kicked in, causing the victim to emit a powerful musk that was sexually alluring to moths, dogs, and people named Kevin. Many killed themselves in despair at the constant leg-humping from dogs and Kevins, and the annoying buzzing of moths flying around their heads carrying tiny bottles of wine. Week eight a leg would fall off, and around week ten was usually when the hairy hell itself kicked in: hair would begin sprouting all over the body, growing at a rate that no decent hairdresser could possibly keep up with, despite their best efforts. A victim could be Matt Lucas in the morning, Chewbacca in the afternoon, and look like the edges of Susan Boyle's underpants by the evening. The hairy freaks would eventually either kill themselves in despair, or boil to death in their beds due to the insulation the hair provided. Eventually the people of Edinburgh had enough of Okapi shit everywhere and boiling to death, so sold all the okapi to a passing Flemish butcher. Meanwhile, with their profits, the people of Glasgow bought a nice hat. 

Eventually Britain got bored with the Empire and handed all the vastly-improved countries back to the natives, because we're nice like that. This left Scotland at a bit of a loose end, and after a couple of unsuccessful years spent trying to export alcoholics to disinterested countries for money, Wee Dodie Johnston hit upon the idea of selling all that oil we had lying around doing fuck all on the sea bed, and so he sold his old Ford Escort and built a couple of oil rigs with the profits ( minus the £47 he owed Archie the Hump for "services rendered" the previous Saturday).

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

Animators Push Tech Boundaries In Hotel Transylvania 3

New Post has been published on http://brummy80.com/animators-push-tech-boundaries-in-hotel-transylvania-3/

Animators Push Tech Boundaries In Hotel Transylvania 3

Drac and his merry band of classic monsters is at it again with Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. The movie is in theaters now and finished its opening weekend on top of the box office charts. The movie is great entertainment for the whole family—but I’m not here to play movie critic. I’m focused on the technology behind the movie.

For those that aren’t familiar with the Hotel Transylvania movies, though, I’ll start with a brief synopsis. The movies have an all-star cast of voices, including Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Mel Brooks, Keegan-Michael Key and others. Drac—short for Dracula—runs a hotel for monsters and mythic creatures. In the first movie, things get crazy when a human boy discovers the hotel and falls in love with Drac’s daughter. In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Drac wants a break from managing everyone else’s vacation and indulges in taking one himself—with the usual cast of classic monsters—aboard a cruise ship.

The inspiration for this movie came from Tartakovsky’s actual life. “After I finished the second film, I needed a vacation – and my in-laws surprised us with a family cruise,” he notes. “I’m sure everyone loves their in-laws as much as I do, but the cruise forced us all to be together in a small space for a week. That inspired me—what would happen if you put Drac’s Pack in that situation?”

As with previous iterations of the Hotel Transylvania franchise, director Genndy Tartakovsky laid out an ambitious vision and the team of animators working on the movie had to push the boundaries to make it happen. Most CG (computer graphic) animated films attempt to keep the character consistent using a base model—treating the character rig like a puppet. Tartakovsky encourages his animators to bring an exaggerated version of the characters to life, but without sacrificing what defines the characters.

The characters in Hotel Transylvania are pliable—displaying a rang of emotions from cartoony to subtle and realistic. Tartakovsky and some of the animators explain the challenges and thinking used to create the movie in this exclusive character shot build video:

“The Hotel Transylvania films really are a chance for the animators to live inside Genndy’s head for a little while,” says producer Michelle Murdocca. “The computer doesn’t always see things the way that Genndy sees them in his mind’s eye, but I think our animators love the challenge of breaking the mold and showing the wide range of expressions that are possible in the name of bigger emotion and bigger laughs.”

The computer technology and graphics rendering used to create the movie is crucial to bringing Tartakovsky’s vision to life. It is a cartoon and it’s a fictional world—but it still has to maintain some sense of realism for the audience to suspend disbelief and become immersed in the story. The animators strive to develop characters that are engaging and entertaining, while also paying attention to detail—like how hair blows in the wind, or how water drops or splashes, or how clothing lays on the frame of the character. The attention to realistic detail on otherwise completely unrealistic characters is part of what makes Hotel Transylvania so appealing and helps the franchise continue to be a hit at the box office.

[lazilysillyprince]

Animators Push Tech Boundaries In Hotel Transylvania 3

New Post has been published on http://brummy80.com/animators-push-tech-boundaries-in-hotel-transylvania-3/

Animators Push Tech Boundaries In Hotel Transylvania 3

Drac and his merry band of classic monsters is at it again with Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. The movie is in theaters now and finished its opening weekend on top of the box office charts. The movie is great entertainment for the whole family—but I’m not here to play movie critic. I’m focused on the technology behind the movie.

For those that aren’t familiar with the Hotel Transylvania movies, though, I’ll start with a brief synopsis. The movies have an all-star cast of voices, including Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Mel Brooks, Keegan-Michael Key and others. Drac—short for Dracula—runs a hotel for monsters and mythic creatures. In the first movie, things get crazy when a human boy discovers the hotel and falls in love with Drac’s daughter. In Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, Drac wants a break from managing everyone else’s vacation and indulges in taking one himself—with the usual cast of classic monsters—aboard a cruise ship.

The inspiration for this movie came from Tartakovsky’s actual life. “After I finished the second film, I needed a vacation – and my in-laws surprised us with a family cruise,” he notes. “I’m sure everyone loves their in-laws as much as I do, but the cruise forced us all to be together in a small space for a week. That inspired me—what would happen if you put Drac’s Pack in that situation?”

As with previous iterations of the Hotel Transylvania franchise, director Genndy Tartakovsky laid out an ambitious vision and the team of animators working on the movie had to push the boundaries to make it happen. Most CG (computer graphic) animated films attempt to keep the character consistent using a base model—treating the character rig like a puppet. Tartakovsky encourages his animators to bring an exaggerated version of the characters to life, but without sacrificing what defines the characters.

The characters in Hotel Transylvania are pliable—displaying a rang of emotions from cartoony to subtle and realistic. Tartakovsky and some of the animators explain the challenges and thinking used to create the movie in this exclusive character shot build video:

“The Hotel Transylvania films really are a chance for the animators to live inside Genndy’s head for a little while,” says producer Michelle Murdocca. “The computer doesn’t always see things the way that Genndy sees them in his mind’s eye, but I think our animators love the challenge of breaking the mold and showing the wide range of expressions that are possible in the name of bigger emotion and bigger laughs.”

The computer technology and graphics rendering used to create the movie is crucial to bringing Tartakovsky’s vision to life. It is a cartoon and it’s a fictional world—but it still has to maintain some sense of realism for the audience to suspend disbelief and become immersed in the story. The animators strive to develop characters that are engaging and entertaining, while also paying attention to detail—like how hair blows in the wind, or how water drops or splashes, or how clothing lays on the frame of the character. The attention to realistic detail on otherwise completely unrealistic characters is part of what makes Hotel Transylvania so appealing and helps the franchise continue to be a hit at the box office.