nextgennews-blog1 - Tumblr blog

[nextgennews-blog1]

Frida: Be Yourself by Allyson Elliott

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon: if you somehow don't know her name, I'm sure you know her face.

Frida was born July 6, 1907, and has become one of the most iconic figures of our time 110 years later, predominately in the feminist movement. How, do you ask? She believed in the equality of all sexes and classes. She interpreted and portrayed shamelessly not only many intimate moments of the female condition but of the human experience as a whole. Regardless of actual fact she insisted on claiming July 7, 1910 for her true birth date as to be unequivocally aligned with the birth of the Mexican Revolution, one of the lesser ways she determined the truth of her own life.

“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”

She had an undeniable tenacity in the face of a life filled with a myriad of physical pain and emotional turmoil. At the age of 6 she was diagnosed with polio leaving her with a limp she would carry the rest of her life. She experienced a nearly fatal trolley accident at the age of 18, which she survived but suffered numerous injuries. The severity of which would incite over 30 surgeries through the course of her life and rendered her incapable of bearing children. Heartbreaking as it is, we can thank that fateful accident for instigating Kahlo’s love of painting. She was confined to a bed in a full body cast for months with nothing to do but consume herself in her art. “I was Born a Bitch. I was Born a Painter” and no one dare combat her on this or any front. She died at the mere age of 47. In her brief lifetime she received acclaim though nothing compared to the persona she now embodies.

She loved herself as all of us should. Never giving way to conventional standards of beauty by plucking or shaving a single hair on her body. She boldly broke convention and never drifted away from who she wanted to be; you could take it or leave it. Her first painting was of herself: "Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress."

On the back of the canvas Frida wrote in German “Heute ist immer noch,” meaning “Today is always.” She lived in the moment and mostly for herself.

“The only thing I know is that I paint because I need to, and I paint whatever passes through my head without any other consideration.”

Her passion for painting was spurred by her need to express and vent her frustrations making it challenging to separate Frida’s personal life from her artwork (not that it necessarily should be.) Many artists often return to beloved themes, Frida’s most beloved was herself. An oeuvre containing 143 paintings, 55 of which were self portraits. “I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.”

One of Kahlo’s most famous and brutally honest works is that of “The Broken Column”

“My painting carries with it the message of pain.” Depicted here crying in anguish from the injuries she had endured. She is split in two with her stable spine replaced by decaying stone. She experienced chronic pain the entirety of her life but never hid behind it. She embraced those cracks as part of who she was and only became stronger for it. Nails pierce her body and face, and yet despite her tears she gazes straight at the viewer as if to defy any weakness.

However, her vulnerability manifested in a similar manner to that of many women today: a man. I am not by any means a man hating feminist and neither was Frida, I say this as for many years she was overshadowed and seen only as the wife of renowned muralist Diego Rivera. Frida and Diego’s marriage was tempestuous to say the least. “There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.” Countless affairs were had on both sides, Frida with both men and women, neither party exerted much effort to conceal their infidelities from the other and yet with this quote she seemingly views herself as the victim. Perhaps it is due to Diego’s most monstrous betrayal. That of a lustful love affair between him and her sister, resulting in their subsequent divorce.

As a result of this deception one of Frida’s greatest masterpieces was created. “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird”

Multiple interpretations are seen in many of her works through symbolism born intensely in her imagery. This particular composition has a slew of interpretations in and of itself. Bearing an unraveled crown of thorns as a necklace drawing blood as they penetrate her flesh dripping to a pristine white frock presents her in a martyr like fashion. It may be a wit hypocritical, as she too had her fair share of lovers. She was duped by both husband and sister. I’d say there are worse things she could do than claim no fault in the matter. The hummingbird indicative of freedom, luck in love, sometimes war, and perhaps even emblematic of Frida herself, dangles lifelessly. A fervent picture of her soul, no doubt. The Monkey on her back (both literally and figuratively) was a personal pet, and gift from Diego (literally and figuratively.) Also symbolic of the devil and animal sexuality. Sitting opposite a black cat, symbol of bad luck and death. Is this a representation of Good vs. Evil? If so which is Good, which is Evil? Feasibly, The Spirit vs. The Flesh? Which side should she choose? Maybe neither. The Butterflies have been said to represent her own resurrection. Considering this and the fact that the couple remarried only one year following their divorce, I believe she chose the path of forgiveness and she knew she would all along. The heart wants what the heart wants and the pain of losing Diego possibly was worse than the pain caused by his scandalous acts. “At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.”  Diego might have been her biggest weakness but she loved him and it took great strength of will be able to accept these facts and move forward. Embracing the life she wished to lead against the judgement of others.

Due to her brutal and unforgiving honesty Frida redefined the personal as political and believed to be painting ‘Revolutionary Realism’. Her Cultural Nationalism is reflected in her "Mexicanidad" (love of things Mexican). Placing an emphasis on Pre-Columbian traditions in an effort to purify the effects of colonization in Mexico and reclaim lost traditional values of the civilization. Yet the intensity of her personal life frequently eclipses the profoundly intelligent woman, utterly brilliant technical painter, and devout Communist/Stalinist that she was.

Fridamania first struck, hard, in the mid 1980’s but over the past few years there has been a definite resurgence in her popularization. Her image is plastered indelibly on every style of merchandise you can imagine. Posters, shoes, coasters, bags and inspiration from her styling expanding further everyday. Numerous exhibitions have surfaced not only of her works but of artists directly inspired by her paintings and personality as well as recreations of her home and belongings. Just last spring she joined the ranks of the top 10 highest selling female artists when one of her paintings sold for 8 million dollars at auction. She undoubtedly deserved every inch of this praise, still how is it that in a day an age where information is at the beck and call of our fingertips Frida’s love of herself had been trivialized with proclamations titling her “Queen/Mother of the selfie”. Outwardly her body of art is once more dwarfed by her personal life when they truly they are one in the same and should be viewed and appreciated side by side. However, because she embodied self-empowerment, if her image or artwork has reached and resonated with you in one way or another I believe she would want me to leave you with this final thought. “I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.”

[nextgennews-blog1]

Why you should be watching Babylon 5

With all the streaming services that are out and about today, it can sometimes be hard to find which ones are slinging the best ‘tent around (that’s content to you plebs). There’s the big players in the game: Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, but lets not forget the mini-bosses in this game of views. Services like: Vue, Sling, Crackle, Twitch, Vevo, Shimmy, Wrangle and Flurp. There are so many out there that I bet you didn’t even realize the last three I mentioned aren’t even real services.

I mean, Yahoo! Screen? Who you trying to kid with that fake news?

Recently while clicking ‘round the wonderful world of Reddit, I noticed I kept seeing an ad at the top of my screen saying that I could stream all of Babylon 5 for free. I shrugged it off as nonsense, some click bait-y type website that would make me read and click through 35 images smothered with ads talking about “What do the People of B5 look like Now?!”

#4 will shock you!

But then, thanks to Big Brother and his tasty cookies, I started seeing the ad more and more on different pages I went to: Reddit, Yahoo! (sorry Screen), Latino-Review, PornHub, xHamster, FistMeisters and Club Penguin. So I decided to take a peek at what this was. Thus I was introduced to a new player in the game: go90.com

I love you.

Sure enough, for free, I could sign up for an account and watch the entirety of Babylon 5 (five seasons) and only have to deal with one 15 second ad before every episode. I couldn’t believe it. ‘Why is this important?’ you ask. Well I will tell you make believe reader.

Babylon 5 is the fucking best sci-fi show of all time.

Come at me Farscape! (but for realzies Farscape is awesome too...)

‘What is Babylon 5?’ you ask again voice in my head. Here’s the Wiki: “Set between the years 2257 and 2262, it depicts a future where Earth has sovereign states, and a unifying Earth government. Colonies within the solar system, and beyond, make up the Earth Alliance, and contact has been made with other spacefaring species. The ensemble cast portray alien ambassadorial staff and humans assigned to the 5-mile-long Babylon 5 space station, a center for trade and diplomacy.”

Sounds complicated and convoluted? You bet your sweet ass it is. J Michael Straczynski (further to be known as JMS because I do NOT feel like typing his last name out 300 times), created this show because he wanted to take an adult approach to science fiction story telling. He has been quoted as saying that he wanted “to take an adult approach to SF, and attempt to do for television SF what Hill Street Blues did for cop shows."

If you think that sentence doesn’t sounds old, then I have a Blockbuster franchise I wanna sell you.

The show mainly focuses around five dominant races/species/civilizations: the Humans, the Minbari, the Narn, the Centuri and the Vorlons). Through the wonders of makeup, costuming and practical effects, these races look, act and feel VASTLY different from each other, despite the fact they are all bi-pedal humanoid type creatures. During the series Babylon 5 goes through many plot lines, all interweaving and intersecting at critical and crucial points that make you slap your head and wonder how the hell they pulled it off. Well the answer is simple, and point number one on my multiple bullet breakdown on why this show rocks.

Who’s ready for bullets and notes, you nerds?!

1) JMS, the creator, wrote 92 of the 110 episodes of the series

Think about that for a second. Almost 84% of the entirety of the series was written by one man, which includes the entirety of the 3rd and 4th seasons (the 3rd being arguably one of the best seasons). A feat, JMS would tout, that had never before accomplished in American Television. Why is this a big deal? Well when you have one singular vision you can expect the unexpected and plan for contingencies you never saw coming. What do you mean by that? Well…

2) Every Character was written with a “trap-door”

Pulled directly from Wiki (because I’m hungover and being a lazy writer for the moment): “Though conceived as a whole, it was necessary to adjust the plot line to accommodate external influences. Each of the characters in the series was written with a ‘trap door’ into their background so that, in the event of an actor's unexpected departure from the series, the character could be written out with minimal impact on the storyline.”  

In the words of Straczynski, “As a writer, doing a long-term story, it'd be dangerous and short-sighted for me to construct the story without trap doors for every single character. ... That was one of the big risks going into a long-term storyline which I considered long in advance…” I can’t think of another series that has done this. Contract disputes? Check. Actors dying? Check. Budgetary constraints. Check. All bases covered by this one simple act of having the entire story thought out, conceived, shepherded and written by one man.

Getting rid of unwanted minions? Check.

Why is this “trap-door” thing important? Take the case of Michael O’Hare who played Commander Jeffery Sinclair in the first Season of B5. During the first season O’Hare started having paranoid delusions and hallucinations. As the show continued they worsened, causing him to be difficult to work with O’Hare lashing out at fellow colleagues. JMS offered to suspend the show for several months while he helped him seek treatment, but O’Hare declined because he didn’t want to jeopardize the series or other people’s jobs. He agreed to finish the first season and be written off the show so he could seek treatment. The treatments were only partially successful, but it allowed Sinclair to make a few cameo appearances in Seasons 2 and 3 to finish out his arc properly. After all was said and done, JMS swore to keep O’Hare’s secret to the grave, to which O’Hare replied "keep the secret to my grave", pointing out that fans deserved to eventually learn the real reason for his departure, and that his experience could raise awareness and understanding for people suffering from mental illness. O’Hare suffered a heart attack in NYC in September of 2012, and true to his word, eight months later at Phoenix ComicCon JMS told the story of his late friend and colleague.

My good…dear friend JMS

3) Visual Pioneer

Most Sci fi shows (and movies for that matter) at the time relied HEAVILY on practical effects. B5 did not when it came to space-time-fun. In order to make the budget stretch, JMS and other producers developed their own in house effects company. This show came out in 1993, the same time Jurassic Park did.

I mean, look at how realistic Goldbulm looks.

Now, while the graphics haven’t aged as gracefully as Jurassic Park did, they also had $100,000 workstations and several years to work on those dino-fects (which total about 6 minutes of the movie) where B5 had $5,000 stations to work on each week, with space scenes taking up a good 33% of the episodes. On top of that, B5 was not filmed in 4:3 aspect ratio like a majority of TV was. It was shot in 16:9 and cropped to fit, which is why today some of the effects haven’t aged really well, but I forgive them.

ZOMG LAZERS PEW PEW

B5 and the effects house Foundation Imaging, also heavily influenced sci-fi TV shows to come after. Star Trek, most notably, were reluctant to use CGI in their TV shows, until B5 showed them that it could be done, and done well. This change happened when the series premiered on television in January 1993, conclusively proving that computer animation, most notably CGI, could be employed in creating spectacular believable VFX on a tight budget. And despite themselves, this was not entirely lost at the time on the Star Trek producers.

David Livingston commented on the use of early CGI in creating the Bajoran lightship for Deep Space Nine: "We were reluctant to do computer graphics, but Peter Lauritson finally came around. He recognized how valuable it is. You can do more stuff with the ship, but you have to do it right.”

Speaking of Deep Space 9, there is a little bit of controversy there. You see, Paramount Television was aware of JMS’ show B5 as early as 1989. JMS attempted to sell the show to Paramount and provided them the series bible, pilot script, artwork, character backgrounds and histories and plot synopsis for the first season or 22 episodes. Paramount declined to produce B5, but then announced Deep Space 9 would be in development two months after Warner Bros. announced that they were produced B5. For those of you not in the know, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 was a notable Star Trek show for one very important reason: it doesn’t take place on a starship…but on a space station. Controlled by the United Federation of Planets (or as B5 had it…the League of Non-Aligned Worlds). There are more “coincidental similarities” but I’ll let JMS say it better than I can in his response to a DS9 fan who took JMS and Warner Bros’ lack of legal action as proof they had no case:

"If there is any (to use your term) winking and nudging going on, it's on the level of 'Okay, YOU (Paramount) know what happened, and *I* know what happened, but let's try to be grownup about it for now,' though I must say that the shapechanging thing nearly tipped me back over the edge again. If there are no more major similarities that crop up in the next few weeks or months, with luck we can continue that way."

Suck it you Ferengei Bastard

4) The Characters

The characters have SO MUCH depth. Without giving up any spoilys, the two biggest arcs in the show belong to G’Kar of the Narn and Londo Mollari of the Centauri. Played with ferocity and earnest by Andreas Katsulas (the one armed man from President Ford’s version of The Fugitive) and Peter Juraik respectively, these two characters go through some of the biggest, hardest and thickest most emotional arcs in the whole show. The Narn and the Centuri have been at war for over 100 years, and they well…hate each other. But every time you think things can come to a peaceful resolution, something happens to reset things back to zero. Both characters (thanks to the wonderful acting by their um…actors) make you feel their despair, pain, struggle, anger and anguish with every line spoken. Every character had a deep backstory and makes you feel for them. Ivanova and her hatred for Psi-Corp. Girabaldi and his alcoholism. Dr. Franklin’s addiction to stims. So on, and so forth.

Something about bad hair and awful decisions...

5) Awards

The show was nominated for eight Emmy Awards, and winning two, including Outstanding Cinematography, Makeup and Hairstyling for a series. It also won two Hugo Awards (basically the Emmys/Oscars of science fiction and fantasy); two Space Frontier Foundation Awards; an E Pluribus Unum Award presented by the American Cinema Association and a Saturn award for Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series. That’s a lot of ceremonies to attend.

So that’s my pitch. I have owned all 5 seasons of Babylon 5 on DVD for quite some time, but it’s always been a hassle to have to break out the Blu-Ray player, find the right HDMI input, etc., when you can just stream almost anything anywhere. So now that I have this option, I have been binging it, much to my delight. So much so that I have been missing out on current seasons of shows I’ve watched for years like House of Cards & Orange is the New Black, and also not even bothering to start shows like The Expanse or The OA.

There is so much to love with this series. There are even multiple movie spinoffs that, while not necessary to view when watching the show, just add even more depth and stories to the universe.

I can’t wait to finish this series for the umpteenth time so I can just start it over again.

—written by Tony Patryn | @patrynize on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook | www.patrynize.com

[nextgennews-blog1]

Knowing My Limits by Elizabeth Scher

The greatest gift I ever received was getting fired for the first time. I, like so many in the restaurant industry, am a struggling performer. I had been making my way through the ebb and flow of constant rejection, and not necessarily handling it well.

For the past few years at this point, I had been bouncing around from restaurant to restaurant. I had just moved to New York in 2013 and was having difficulty finding my footing. Wherever I worked was filled with a myriad of issues. I never made enough money, there were never enough shifts, the managers were terrible, etc. There was rampant sexual harassment everywhere I worked. This, unfortunately, was to be expected.

I have been battling severe anxiety for years, which, at this point, been repressed to dangerous degrees. In July 2016 I reached a point where it could no longer be ignored. Realizing I could not safely live on my own, I went back home. I let my job know, and they were incredibly supportive. At no point did they show annoyance or belittle my experience, and I will forever be grateful for that. In fact, many of my coworkers and bosses could empathize seeing as how many have gone through similar issues themselves. Working in restaurants, you are bound to find people who have gone through what are patronizingly referred to as “imaginary problems”. Issues such as addiction, depression, anxiety, extreme anger, etc. Ailments where ignorant advice is given such as “just learn to smile more,” or “it’s all in your head.”

I eventually got to the point where I could live on my own and go back to work. I insisted that working in a restaurant was not contributing to my anxiety. In spite of the following events  I still believe this to be true. The types of problems that arise in a restaurant are often immediately resolved. My anxiety is generally concerned with the abstract and/or long term. In a restaurant you have many problems at once, but there is often a clear solution. That being said, I did not go back to work full time. I felt, as did my doctor, that I needed to ease into normalcy. My wallet disagreed, but my body felt it necessary to listen. My job was very cooperative, yet again, and I was allowed to come back on a part-time basis. Based on how I have been talking about this place is seems like the ideal serving experience. It is, however, by far the most dramatic place I have ever worked. I have seen drunk servers fight customers. I, myself, pulled a knife out of a cook’s hands to stop him from cutting himself. One time a manager was fired for literally stalking another manager. This place made Maury seem like a lovely family reunion.

There is one important character that is integral to much of the drama that took place. His name is Jake. Jake was the bane of everyone’s existence. He was an annoyingly loud regular who was crude, young, rich, traditionally handsome, and had a hoard of fake friends at his disposal. The main bartender, Evan, who was also good friend of mine, happened to be rather fond of Jake. Jake essentially paid Evan’s entire salary so it’s hard not to see why Evan had his back. Jake is a truly disgusting person. He would sexually harass every woman, but that is to be expected. He manipulated a host into sending what I’ll politely call “suggestive” videos, and then showed them to all of his friends. He would hand out cocaine like it was candy as though we were some sort of drug Santa. He called one of my friends, a fellow server named Brittany, a “miserable cunt” and was subsequently “banned” for 10 days. He tried to go back the next day as if nothing happened. The only reason he even got reprimanded was because Brittany was leaving for graduate school at the end of the week. The minute she left he was back to his old antics with full force. He has done, and continues to do, terrible things with no punishment. The final straw for me was when he exposed himself to a coworker and a female manager. I personally witnessed the female manager reporting it to the the higher ups and nothing was done. Jake didn’t even so much get a slap on the wrist.

Jake started to weigh on my mind more than I care to admit. Before he was just a slimy irritation, but I never thought he actually would effect me in the way that he did. I started to have panic attacks about possible scenarios involving him. They were only in my imagination, but there was something different about them than my other panic induced downward spirals. Although these events were fabricated, they were not out of the realm of possibility. Jake’s money made him very appealing to the higher ups. He was even being courted as an investor for a future location. He was untouchable. I was starting to think that he could literally rape us and the owner would just say we shouldn’t have been in his way. Unrealistic, yes, but given the way rape is treated these days, that idea is more realistic than I wish it was.. At one point I literally broke down crying about this in the middle of Union Square. There I was, sitting on the sidewalk on a Saturday night, crying about a piece of shit who, frankly, had already mostly decided not to mess with me. I wasn’t exactly nice to him after he called Brittany a cunt.

One of the main lessons I took away from my mental breakdown was to stop repressing stress. I decided I needed to confront this issue. I couldn’t go to management because that had already proven to be futile. At best we were ignored and at worst we were openly mocked. What I decided to do was talk to Evan, the bartender, and my friend. Evan and I grew close because we would commute together. We would rant to each other, talk about our fears and frustrations, and confide in each other. He has fought and won many battles that I won’t go into out of respect for his privacy. He helped me while I was struggling and I will always love him for that. What I thought I could do is go to Evan, as a friend, with my fears about Jake seeing as he actually has some influence. Evan isn’t a manager, but he could deny service. Another thing to mention about Evan is that he is incredibly defensive and stubborn. He has alienated a lot of people who have confronted him about similar issues. I knew that if I confronted him there was a possibility that I could lose a friend. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but I had no choice. The conversation went exactly as I expected. I was crying, he was yelling, I was saying we don’t feel safe, he said I should have gone to management and not him. I said that these were panic induced thoughts, but felt they were still legitimate worries. I suggested that Jake not be given so many “perks” which, I felt, validated his behavior. I also said that Evan encouraged this behavior. He did not take kindly to that. Both of us were emotional and probably not as articulate as we could have been. I had to go to work as he was leaving for the day. I went to cry before my shift, he went right to management.

I left for a little while because I was already scheduled to go on vacation with my family. I came back after about ten days where I learned I was no longer allowed to work shifts until I have a talk with the general manager. My coworkers agreed that I was probably going to be fired in this “talk.” We all agreed that this was, in fact, probably what I needed. This place was making me miserable and the environment was toxic. Lo and behold, I come in the next morning and I have the “talk.” The general manager said I was “causing unnecessary drama.” and they can’t have that, especially from a part-time employee. I then asked him if I could explain why I did what I did. I did not hold back. I explained how I was coming to Evan as a friend, how going to management was futile, and how genuinely terrified we all are around Jake at times. I also made a point to tell him about how Brittany, the aforementioned “miserable cunt,” had gone to the owner the day before that incident occurred. She went to the owner, with another manager, and raised her concerns about Jake. She stated that he is always condescending and sexually harasses her. She had also said that she was afraid to go to the owner about this because she was scared to talk negatively about his friend. The owner’s response to these concerns was “well next time they do that say ‘yeah, well Evan doesn’t have these,’” and made fake breast gestures. It bears repeating that this was in front of another manager; the general manager apparently never knew about that incident. I also thanked the general manager for treating me so well when I needed the time off. It is a rare thing, and I still wanted to show appreciation.

I am not happy about how the confrontation went down, but I am happy I did it. If I had to get fired for anything I’m happy it was for standing up for myself and my coworkers. The whole experience made me realize that I never want to work in restaurants ever again. I wish I could say this type of incident is uncommon. I can’t count how many times a female coworker, at any restaurant I’ve worked, has encountered sexual harassment that has made them feel genuinely unsafe. At one point or another, at this place, every single female staff member had to be talked out of quitting over the sexism. We all said the same line: “it’s just part of the job.”

I learned that I can be a commanding force if I need to be. The whole experience has made me stronger. I still battle with anxiety daily and I am adjusting to the treatment I receive for it, but it has made me a better person. I’ve realized that learning how to get rid of unnecessary stress is difficult, but crucial. The second I walked out of that restaurant after being fired a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders, as cliche as that sounds. I mean that in a very real sense; I feel lighter. Job searching is awful, but I will take that any day over forcing myself to suppress more anxiety. I know my limits. More importantly, I know how to properly expand my limits without causing more stress. Baby steps are crucial and not a sign of weakness. I always thought that getting fired would be humiliating. I never considered that it could be the most empowering thing that has happened to me. I will be forever grateful.

[nextgennews-blog1]

10 Animated Movies I’d Like To See In Live Action by Xander Kozak

1. GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES Dream Cast: Lewis Tan, a new female Japanese child actress, Jessica Henwick, Issei Ogata, and Kaori Momoi Dream Director: Kinji Fukasaku

2. MY LIFE AS A ZUCCHINI  Dream Cast: Millie Bobbie Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Nick Offerman, Ellen Page Dream Director by Lynne Ramsay

3. IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY Dream Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Lisa Kudrow, Tim Meadows, Jen Kirkman, Jon Oliver Dream Director by Yorgos Lanthimos

4. WHEN THE WIND BLOWS Dream Cast: Helen Mirren, Bill Nighy  Dream Director: by Steve McQueen

5. THE KING OF PIGS (Set in America) Dream Cast: Andrew Garfield, Zoe Kravitz, Tavi Gevinson, Tom Holland, Thomas Mann Dream Director: Jordan Peele

6. FULL METAL ALCHEMIST Dream CastAlden Ehrenreich, Jacob Trembley, Brie Larson, Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin Dream Director: Denis Villenueve

7. CHICO & RITA Dream Cast: Mahershala Ali, Eiza Gonzalez, Javier Bardem, Jessica Pimentel, Uzo Aduba Dream Director: Alfonso Cuaron

8. THE PROPHET Dream Cast: Shaun Toub, Nasim Pedrad, Riz Ahmed, Maz Jabroni Shahab Hosseini Dream Director: Asghar Farhadi

9. THE SUICIDE SHOP Dream Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Nick Offerman, Bill Hader, Sterling K. Brown, Rachel House Dream Director: Jennifer Kent

10. IDIOTS & ANGELS Dream Cast: Tom Hardy, Tilda Swinton, Angela Bassett, Ken Watanabe, Ana De Armas Dream Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

[nextgennews-blog1]

A Beginner’s Guide To Ryan Murphy by Xander Kozak

Greetings! Welcome to the insane and wildly confusing world of Ryan Murphy’s TV shows. So, you’ve decided that you’d like to binge watch something and you think, “Hey, that Ryan Murphy sure does make a lot of TV shows these days. Maybe I should invest my time into them!”

What a great but mostly terrible idea, potential viewer!

I am here to help you make that decision. Whether it be ‘American Horror Story’, 'Feud: Bette and Joan’, or not watching anything he’s made at all, I am dedicated to making sure you reach the best conclusion. 

The first thing you need to keep in mind is this. Any given Ryan Murphy series has only one good season in it before it starts to get as cocky as the quarterback of a high school football team. It did one thing really well, and will ride that victory for as long as it will go. Which in the case of ‘American Horror Story’ is more than seven years. Why don’t we use that as our prime example? Great idea, I know. 

As an anthology series, the show will have a different theme and set of characters every year. Which is essentially a great way of saying “We are gonna milk this cow until it’s nothing but bones”. Season one, which centered around a haunted house which has the simple curse of harboring the ghosts of people who died inside of it began this congealed ball of tangled Christmas lights on fire.  

To be perfectly honest, this season is legitimately well done, as to say, it is the least terrible of the 6 seasons we have available. That might be a slightly unfair statement, but season 5 is tantamount to ‘Death Bed: The Bed That Eats’, but with more wooden delivery from Lady Gaga and an overly excited Matt Bomer doing a victory dance to Drake’s ‘Hotline Bling’ and less beds that eat people. Not none, just less. 

Once you get past certain terrible dialogue from the pilot such as “I HATE TREES” from perhaps the most annoying set of twins ever shot on film, you have a well thought out and interesting take on horror that blends atmosphere and camp better than it should. 

It also effectively resurrected the career of the great Jessica Lange, so I certainly owed Murphy one for that. 

You see, season one of AHS wrapped up nicely and left basically no unanswered questions, but still managed to have an ambiguous ending which was both satisfying and excitingly debatable. Season two, which was called ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’, was doing rather well up until they decided “Pssshhh... forget the whole haunted insane asylum thing, let’s go all ‘Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull’ on this bitch and make it about aliens!”. 

A moment such as this is what I like to refer to as the Murphy point. A single moment in a series when he stops trying to make his content great and throws whatever skullduggery the writers think of on screen. It’s like if the ideas were darts, and the writers were the drunk patrons of a bar, throwing them at a target, hoping they will stick. Some of the ideas are bad, some are pretty good, but you can bet your bottom dollar that they weren’t looking when they pick up those darts. Was it a good idea to cast some of the greatest actresses we have such as Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates? It sure was! Was it a bad idea to exploit another great actress by having her masturbate to a Minotaur on screen for shock value? A thousand times yes, my friends. That is how a Murphy program works. Once the aforementioned Murphy point has been reached, for every good idea, there are five bad ones.  

Don’t believe me? 

Well, unfortunately for you non believers, I have first hand knowledge of this. I happened to be in a certain hotel lobby at the time Murphy was staying in a hotel (at the same time American Horror Story: Hotel aired on TV... I can only imagine he was doing research on hotels, but after his series aired, kinda like a high school junior studying for a mid term after already failing it) in NYC. He and some of his colleagues were in the lobby as well, and I decided to myself that I would be a nosy Nancy, because how many of you would say that you wouldn’t listen in on a celebrity conversation in public if you had the chance. I don’t see any raised hands. So I turned off my podcast about cooking while naked, and left my headphones in as to give the illusion that I wasn’t eavesdropping on Mr. Murphy. The following quote from is in fact verbatim. I heard Ryan Murphy himself say, “Is AHS: Hotel good or terrible? Because I can’t tell anymore”. 

There you have it folks, straight from the horse on top of a high horse’s mouth. After enough time on a series, even he has no idea what to make of it. 

If you want to see Murphy at his best, then I will turn you to his adaptations of real life events. Because if he isn’t in control of the original story telling, he can actually paint an excellent and surprisingly compelling picture of events from our past. His 10 episode ‘The People v OJ Simpson: American Crime Story’, and his 8 episode ‘Feud: Bette and Joan’ are two of the best series I’ve ever seen. I’m not joking. I wish I was. I’m actually kind of angry that I have nothing bad to say about them. Because as evidenced by everything above, I clearly love to poke fun at Ryan Murphy. But I can’t scoff even slightly at what he did with ‘OJ’ and ‘Feud’. However... these are both the first seasons of new shows that he has created. Which means there will be more of each. Both anthology series will pick up their second seasons with the Versace murder on ‘American Crime Story’ and the heated relationship between Prince Charles and Princess Diana on ‘Feud’. 

For anyone holding out hope that Murphy will break his formula and actually continue to give legitimately good work in future seasons of his successful shows, all I ask is that you don’t go all in with your chips, because you are betting with a terrible hand against a full house that says he won’t.

My advice to anyone who wishes to try out Murphy’s content is to simply stick to the first season of any of his shows. I can not recommend ‘Bette and Joan’ enough. It is truly genius, and the best thing he is capable of. That sounds like another jab, and it is, but the bar is now very high with television thanks to ‘Bette and Joan’. I struggle to think of many who can do better than that, so it’s not quite out of left field to say that Ryan Murphy will never top it. Few will, but he will definitely not be one of those few. 

I hope this has proven to be helpful to you. I’ve navigated enough television dumpster fires to know that it’s easy to get lost in bad shows. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. 

[nextgennews-blog1]

We Tumblin’

Next Gen News will soon be bringing you the best Next Gen News blog you’ve ever Next Gen News’d