#^ this is a big over exaggeration it was more /crit

[jrwiyuri]

Why is it that can’t I recognize my own beloved mutuals but I can recognize the Neil Gaiman /neg blog poster

[twothumbsandnostakeincanon]

anyway teen wolf is actually a long running casual meetup roleplaying game where the GM is just whoever happens to be there and wants to do it, which is why the storyline is so bad. 

Peter and Derek are twin brothers, with Derek being five minutes older and constantly lording it over Peter, so when they were building their characters Peter took the opportunity by the reins and said, “I’m older! I’m older than Derek. I’m his fucking uncle. I’m smarter and sexier and a bigger werewolf.” 

Stiles really gets into it, playing as the human scholar, but Peter’s really busy for the first few rounds so he sends his boyfriend to play without him. By the time he makes it back to the game he finds out that the GM three GM’s ago put him in a fucking coma. He immediately decides to go black hat. 

“I put my claw under his chin and tilt it up toward me,” he says.

“Ooooh, sexy babe,” Stiles interjects with an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle. 

“Then I kidnap him.”

“Wait what?” 

A few rounds later Peter has another big work deadline coming up, so he decides he’s going to go out with a bang. 

“Hands still dripping with Kate’s blood, I move toward Allison,” he says.

Stiles follows up with, “I’d like to use my readied action.”

“What readied action?” Peter says, narrowing his eyes.

“The one I readied while you were getting more chex mix.”

“Alright, roll to molotov I guess,” the GM says as she paints Jackson’s nails. “Dexterity, probably.” 

Stiles rolls, and crits. 

“HA!” Peter gleefully celebrates. “I fucking caught it!”

“I’d like to use my readied action,” Allison cuts in. 

“How many of you readied an action while I was getting snacks?!” Peter demands to know. “Is this a coup?!”

“I can’t be a coup if you were never leading anyone, babe,” says Stiles. 

Allison does not crit. 

Peter gets to have his big dramatic death scene and Derek gets to build his Brooding Angry Man backstory. It’s a win for everyone.

“I can’t believe you tried to light me on fire,” Peter complains on the way home that night. 

“You kidnapped me and tried to bite me!” Stiles defends himself. 

“I asked! Nicely!”

“You didn’t ask Lydia though,” Stiles reminds him. 

“Well yeah. I’ll be able to cut back to normal work hours in a few weeks and I need to have a way to get back into play. What, did you think I was going to roll an entire new character sheet? Please.” 

[atsushishelteredinmoonlitjasmine]

Fire Emblem: Awakening Thoughts

As of the date May 20th, 2020, I finished my playthrough of Fire Emblem: Awakening on its one year anniversary of when I got it. It is now June 5th of writing this. This post will be my thoughts and feelings on Awakening, much like the KH3 Grievances and Blessings post last year. Let's get into some history between me and Fire Emblem before I go into Awakening.

As I've said before, Awakening was both my first Fire Emblem game and my first Tactical RPG. Smash Bros. was where I had heard of Fire Emblem but it wouldn't be until Ultimate came out that I would start to get interested. It was because of my friend's preference for Lucina that got me into playing as her in Smash and that's pretty much how she became both one of my mains and a favorite. It honestly wasn't till I listened to the Smash remixes of Id, Conquest, and Lost in Thoughts All Alone that I decided to play Awakening and then Fates. So thanks go out to both Smash and my friend Eric for converting me to Fire Emblem trash!

Much like the KH3 Grievances and Blessings post, I'll be going over every aspect of Awakening I can think of, from the graphics to the gameplay to the story. I'll even include a Best/Worst Girl and Boy of both generations because that kind of thing seems to matter to some people, along with my reasons for why X is Y. Keep in mind that whoever I choose as those categories, it is just my opinion and you're free to disagree with me. I say this because I know that, no matter what I say, some diehard fans will get pissed at me and come at me for daring to shit on their favorite character. I already know some people are gonna get mad because they think X should be Best/Worst and that'll be fun to see (You can interpret that as sarcasm if you want).

Listed below are Awakening spoilers, so if you want to play the game and don't want to be spoiled, now's your chance to stop reading. I know Awakening came out in 2013, meaning 6 or 7 years ago, but there may be some people who haven't gotten around to playing it yet so I want to be courteous to them. Here are my thoughts on Fire Emblem: Awakening!

First off, the graphics. I think they looked really nice for a 3DS game that came out in the early 2010's and I believe this was Fire Emblem's first fully 3D game as well so that's really impressive. The in-game models were nicely detailed, the in-game sprites were nice looking, and the prerendered cutscenes were beautiful. This doesn't mean they're not without their faults, though. I wish the in-game cutscenes were more animated because it's easy to tell when an animation's been used over and over again, I feel as if the in-game sprites have some dissonance with official art, and there are times where expressions or animations for the prerendered cutscenes have looked pretty awkward. In terms of the first and last point, I'm giving IntSys some slack because, as I stated earlier, they were developing a game for the 3DS, a powerful handheld device but it's still a handheld, and this was FE's first 3D game so there may have been issues transitioning from 2D sprites to 3D models. I'll explain what I mean by my second point. I've looked at Cynthia's official art and when I see her face, I tend to see what I'd call a baby face, pudgy cheeks and all. Her in-game sprite, however, her face is sharper, more mature, if that makes sense. Maybe it's the pigtails throwing me off or it's just a difference between two art styles, I don't know. I'm not an artist so there's not much weight behind this but I'm just saying there's somewhat a dissonance between official art and in-game sprites.

Secondly, gameplay. I loved how easy it was and how I could switch between a simple and complex UI if I wanted to see which attacks could hit or what the enemy's stats were. This may sound stupid but I honestly thought it'd be way more difficult due to this being a Tactical RPG. I know strategy's a big part of Fire Emblem but strategy's not a big problem if you're like me and you grind to hell and back. Speaking of which, I played on Easy Casual mode so that might be why it seemed so simple from the get-go. Just to give you an idea of how much I grinded, I put in 200+ hours and that mostly consisted of buying a shitton of Reeking Boxes, spawning Risen on some of my favorite grind spots, and fighting them over and over again. I went through the 3 basic classes each character could have, maxed out their default class one last time, promoted them to their advanced class, and maxed out those classes 2-3 times over. I have a video on my Twitter that shows the stats of these characters and most of them are over 220 (The shapeshifters 300). Needless to say, I loved each and every fucking crit I got. Cordelia even got what I call a miracle crit, which means she got 2 crits in one round and after the enemy attacked, she got another 2 crits. Level grind ain't a joke in this game.

Thirdly, the music. Considering it's part of why I got into this game in the first place, I loved it. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to the OST and it sounds so much better when you don't have the ambient sounds and you're not listening to it through the 3DS speakers. The song that hit me the most and just gave me the overwhelming feels was Id~Sorrow as it played in Chapter 21. It fit so well with the tone of the scene and I just sat there for a few minutes, letting it play in the background as I did shit. Other notable mentions are Id~Purpose, Destiny, Conquest, and the song that is just ellipses. If the music is this good in Awakening, I can't wait to see what's in store for Fates!

Fourthly, the voice acting. For a game where most of the voices come in forms of clips, I thought they were good. Each of the actors tried their best to convey their characters in the clips they were allowed to have and I think it shows. The only critique I have, and it's not the actors' fault, is that some of the characters' voices don't fit them. I'm not saying they miscast these characters, it's more like the direction was off, if that makes sense. Let me bring up Cynthia, Kjelle, and M!Morgan as examples. I don't think it's a stretch to say that, sometimes when you look at a character, you kinda imagine what they'd sound like before you hear their actual voice, right? I already brought up Cynthia's looks so I imagined her voice to sound very high-pitched and maybe a little childlike. I hear her voice and, while she's high-pitched and some of her voice clips do go into that childlike territory, she's nasally sounding and more mature. Kjelle is a complicated case in that, her voice fits her appearance (minus the armor) but not her personality. Her personality is similar to Sully's so I figured her voice would sound gruffer and not...cute, if that's the right word. M!Morgan's, I think, everyone can see the problem with. He's supposed to be the youngest of the kids, right? Since he's the only third generation character and all that? I think he just sounds a little too old for the supposed baby of the kids. Again, I'm not saying the voices are bad or that the delivery/emotion was bad, I just think the direction in which they were voiced don't fit some of the characters. Maybe I'm just thinking in terms of archetypes or something.

Now we move on to the story. I can't say as to whether it was good or not, mainly because I spoiled myself on it way before I decided on playing Awakening, so I don't think I can say much to the quality. The least I'll say is it's serviceable. I'll admit, the one thing I was shocked by was the appearance of the Grima Avatar because I thought Grima was inside Robin the whole time and I didn't think he'd have a separate vessel. I straight up thought Grima!Robin was either my mother or a twin I wasn't aware of so I'm giving credit to the writers for surprising me. Anyway, I think the only flaw I have with the story is with the pacing. I thought the first half was fine, it wasn't too fast or too slow. It was the second half that the pacing couldn't find a middle ground. Now I'm going to say that this half was stretched out over months of my playtime so whatever I say next might be exaggerated because of my procrastinating ass so... I feel like the Valm arc was way too slow and the Grimleal arc had so much trouble finding a middle ground. The beginning of the Grimleal arc was quick but Grima himself decided that I had to finish 2 and a half chapters before I finally got to beat him and you have to deal with constant reinforcements before you kill off the target. I think if it weren't for my overleveled as fuck units, I wouldn't have finished Awakening in time for my birthday.

Just for shits and giggles, I'm gonna say what I picked for my choice with both Luce's judgement and Grima's fate. I picked the self-sacrificial choices, which means I accepted Luce's judgement and allowed her to kill me and I dealt the final blow to Grima so Chrom didn't have to. While I knew the outcomes of both choices and them ultimately not meaning anything, I wanted my Robin to reflect what I would've done and I'm a very self-sacrificial person. Because I made Chrobin happen in my playthrough, which meant Luce was my daughter, I believe that, if my child who came from an apocalyptic world told me I was the reason for that happening and that she came back through time to stop that future from happening so she and the others wouldn't suffer, I would've let her kill me. Parents would and should do anything for their kids and if my death possibly gave my daughter the chance for a better life, I'd take it in stride. As for me dealing the final blow to Grima, if it was to save everyone I loved, I would've done it. Although there's some feelings of wanting to give a big "Fuck you" to Grima and to permanently end the problem so any future descendants wouldn't have to deal with it. This section may sound more philosophical and personal than I usually write but I think it deserved it.

Now we're on to Supports and who I chose to be together. I don't think it's wrong to say that this is where the characters really get to shine and it's because of the Supports I love these kids and how much I'm going to miss them when I move on to other FE games. As for the "canon" couples, I mainly went with characters that I thought would complement each other and this was one of the few things I tried to choose for myself. I tried my best to go for pairings that weren't fan favorites but I'm also not very connected with the fandom as of writing this so I may be completely wrong in which ships were favorites or not. So here are the pairings I got for my playthrough!

Chrom-Robin

Frederick-Sumia

Virion-Miriel

Vaike-Nowi

Stahl-Sully

Lon'qu-Cordelia

Ricken-Lissa

Gaius-Maribelle

Gregor-Cherche

Libra-Panne

Henry-Olivia

Lucina-Inigo

Owain-Cynthia

Brady-Nah

Kjelle-Laurent

Severa-Yarne

Obviously, there are some characters missing from this list and I can explain why. I didn't recruit Kellam and Tharja and it's because your girl is a dumbass. Kellam, I thought, was already on my team, he was just labelled as an ally so I didn't need to recruit him. They really should've made that clear. Tharja, on the other hand, was an even bigger dumbass than me because she decided to charge after Robin, who happened to be in front and was way overleveled, and got her ass promptly beaten with a crit. I regret not getting Kellam but after hearing how awful of a person Tharja is and how many fans are willing to put aside emotional abuse and stalker-like tendencies to have a chance to fuck her, she can stay buried in the sand where I electrocuted her ass. Unfortunately, this does means Noire didn't pop up in my recruitment list and that fucking sucks. The only characters left I didn't have a pairing were Gerome and Morgan. I think Gerome wouldn't really care for a romantic partner because he's all about not wanting to create ties in this time and shit and, since I see Morgan as the baby of the kids, I figured he'd be a little too young to be in a relationship. Despite that, I wish I got him and Nah together because I found out after she was shipped with Brady that Morgan's the only S-Support she'll say "I love you" to and I was immediately filled with regret.

Before I move on to the Best/Worst contest, there's something I need to bring up because I can see what sensible fans have shown now. This game is HELLA gay. Like, holy fuck, how many instances are there where you have two characters of the same sex and they have dialogue that seems to have been written with romantic intent but the writers decide it's meant to be platonic? Maybe I just have this weird line of thought on how straights are because there's no fucking way some of these gay moments would be a thing with even the most accepting straights. Maribelle calling Lissa darling and other pet names, Robin blushing from some of the girls and even mistaking Flavia's proposition for a marriage proposal, Severa looking at Kjelle's abs, the list goes on. I'm not straight because I'd be doing some of this shit with a potential girlfriend if I could! Why did it take IntSys until 3 Houses to implement LGBT+ pairings when this game is right here?! At least this game doesn't have the weird student/teacher relationships 3H has and believe me when I say that, if it weren't for the fact I could give less of a fuck for 3H, I wouldn't play that game for that reason! Anyway, Awakening is hella gay and it should've been the first LGBT+ FE game instead of 3H.

The Best/Worst contest... As I said in the beginning, there'll be a Best/Worst Boy and Girl for both generations because that's fun and it seems to matter a lot to some people. Repeating what I said, this is just my opinion and you're free to agree or disagree with me. One rule I'm putting in is I will try my best to not pick fan favorites. Don't get me wrong when some of the crowd pleasers are good but there are other characters that deserve just as much love as the fan favorites so this is why I'm putting in this rule. Without further ado, here are the rulings!

1st Gen

Best Boy-Lon'qu

Best Girl-Panne

Worst Boy-Virion

Worst Girl-Miriel

2nd Gen

Best Boy-Owain

Best Girl-Cynthia

Worst Boy-Inigo

Worst Girl-Severa

Let's see how many people I piss off with these judgements. So, my reasoning: Best Boy for 1st gen was a big toss-up. I kept wanting to choose between Chrom, Frederick, Stahl, and Lon'qu because they really endeared themselves to me but I chose Lon'qu in the end because he's honestly such a dork (I mean, all of them are) and I gotta admire how he tries to overcome his fear of women and try being there for his wife and daughter if he happens to have one. There's also the fact he has to literally psyche himself up to talk to women if you check in with him in the Barracks and I'm just like "Fucking hell, that's adorable and I GET it". Best girl is Panne because believe me when I say that the moment I see this woman and hear her voice, I'm immediately gay for her. Then she transforms into a giant rabbit, kicks so much ass, and I'm in love. Funny story, I'd talk to my friend about my progress in Awakening on Discord and the moment he asks me who best girl was and I answered Panne, he called me out for being a furry. Granted, I would've automatically said Luce but I'm trying not to pick fan favorites so I get his criticism. If a woman like Panne existed in real life, bunny ears and tail and all, I'd probably become a furry for her, no questions asked. As for worst boy and girl, Virion and Miriel are characters I honestly don't give much of a fuck about. Not that they're bad, I just don't care about their archetypes, if that makes sense. Miriel I found to be boring and Virion's of the Casanova archetype and I've always kinda hated that archetype so that's why they're on the ranking.

Oh boy, 2nd gen. So, best boy being Owain. This boy is going to kill me. He's so adorable and sweet and he's just a good boy. There are literally Tweets on my Twitter where I just gush about him and he deserves so much love. He's just a sweet boy who loves his parents so much and is so proud to be their son and how he manages to rope his cousins (Luce and Morgan) into going with his fantasies and how they just go along with it! Owain is a cinnabun and I want to protect him and love him. Anyway, best girl being Cynthia is sorta the same reason as Owain. She's just so bubbly and happy and just adorable. Yeah, she may get carried away with showboating but I just love her earnest desire to be a hero. I think everyone can see why I paired Owain and Cynthia up. Now for the worst. Inigo and Severa are probably the only characters in this whole game that straight up got on my fucking nerves and for different reasons. Outside of his supports with Olivia and Henry, Inigo's constant flirting with the girls and Robin and inability to take no for an answer just rubbed me the wrong way. I actually put out a Tweet saying how Inigo's like an r/niceguy and I still think he is one. Course, this doesn't mean I didn't have my fair share of laughs from him. I fucking died at his and Gerome's A-Support where he ends up pathetically crying after the emo loner got more game than him and Gerome has to comfort his ass, that was hilarious. It also helped the fact that Liam O'Brien, who I've only heard him as the brooding emo loner role, voiced Inigo as the complete opposite of that and I had a blast. Severa, on the other hand, was...really unpleasant. There's a reason I hate Tsunderes with a passion and it's because they're unnecessarily bitchy towards everyone they know, even if they have no reason to be. Severa, however, was somehow worse because she went out of her way to be horrible to people. My dislike for her was cemented the moment I saw her and Cynthia's C-Support and she chose to make fun of her, despite Cynthia minding her own business and Severa just going "fuck it". However, I should express that I understand why Inigo and Severa are the way they are and that's why I'm not being as harsh on them as I could be. They still have their good moments and I can appreciate them while also raking them over the coals.

So that concludes my review/experience of Fire Emblem: Awakening! Despite some moments of frustration and annoyance, I had fun playing this! I mean it when I say I'm gonna miss these kids but I had plenty of time to spend with them so it's time to move on to newer lands. Next up on the list is Fates and I think I'm siding with Hoshido first. It's funny how, despite me spoiling the story for myself 3 separate times, I still can't remember much, if any, of it so that may say something about the quality. I also know Fates is pretty divisive among the fandom but the thing I know it for is the weird pseudo-incestuous ships it has so that's going to be fun! Hopefully, I'll get around to playing as one of my other mains in Smash, my water horse dragon Corrin, sometime soon and I'll be sure to let everyone know when my journey will start!

[klaudiasfilmblog]

CRIT 03/05/2021

TARTAN DREAMS

In the crit, we got a lot of great feedback and got to hear the thoughts of our classmates after weeks of working on this film without hearing the opinions of others. The film had to fit in the brief of creating a sense of ‘place’. Andrew pointed out that the film was enjoyable and that it did create a sense of place, however, there could have been more stuff added to create that overall sense such as inserts of the shop or referring back to the master shot. In the original draft of the film, we did have this included but were just worried that it was taking too much of the time we had. Looking back this is something I wish we would have kept in as it did establish the environment of the shop more. The issue that was mostly brought up was the film's pace. Since we established a mix of different styles, editing the pace just right was a challenge. Andrew and Kieren both brought up the fact that cutting things and making them a little sharper would aid the film in its execution which I personally fully agreed with. When reviewing the film after the crit with these points on my mind, I saw how the pace being shaper would add to the overall feel and comedic aspects of the film which is what we initially wanted for the film. The one point which I didn’t fully agree with after hearing this brought up in the crit a few times was that Ruaridh being an unlikeable character did not add to the story. From the start of the project, we wanted to write a character that although came off as unlikeable was in fact quite relatable and real. Ruaridh’s over-the-top negative energy is an exaggeration of some people who work in businesses that serve many tourists. Therefore we played off that in the script and in the final film. However, I absolutely value and respect those who have a different option of unlikeable characters and what they should bring to a story.

STOP SIGNS

Stop Signs is also a film I was co-producer on so it was really great getting to hear feedback on two films I really loved working on thought the process of this module. A lot of the feedback we got was really fair and I agreed with a lot of it. A lot of the positive feedback was addressed towards the pacing of the film, the performances of Georgie’s actress Frankie and the cinematography. Anton said something that I and Hollie would often speak about when talking to the actors and analyzing the script which was that we really didn’t want to create a sense of dramatisation and cliches. We wanted this film to feel as if it was a smaller part of a big picture and didn’t want the scene to feel over the top but really natural and personal. We were suggested to work more on the dissociation of Georgie’s initial introduction on the log as it didn’t really feel like she was in her had at the moment and it would have added a lot to that. However, that is an easy fix in the post and it is defiantly something that can quickly be adjusted. Working on these films was a highlight of this module and I felt like these were some of my most successful projects at University so far. As a group, we achieved a lot of what we initially pitched from the very start. I would love to work with both groups again in the future and they made the experience so great.

[studiotomemersonfs20]

FS20, Dance Arena, Group 11

The lumberjack meets the jogger: That is how we introduced the project in the first upload. The site as the edge of the city, a place where you can feel apart from everyday hectic, where you can feel the modern archaic of neatly piled up wood and a Christmas tree nursery with grid layout. It may feel like entering wilderness, the last witnesses of civilization being outsiders: The tennis courts which looks like a bargain for posh sportsmen, the Strassenverkehrsamt, one of the cantons most unpopular institutions, the shooting range with its undesired noise emissions and a latent smell of militarism, which does not fit the cosmopolitan city life. Considering itself in good company, a shooting range for policemen settled right next to its bigger brother, with a competence centre for police dogs as companionship. If the police consider this piece of earth safe, free of petty crime and impolite scribbling, then it really must be the edge of the city, we thought.

Is this central park? That was our impression when we decided to approach the site in a different way. Walking across the Allmend, we believed ourselves in a big urban leisure park. The crowded landscape did not resemble a calm retreat with remnants of undesired program. Artificial groves, meandering pavement and viewing platforms were assembled on a big field, a pedestrian bridge spanning over the whole scenery. On the short walk through the strip of forest which separates this park from the shooting range, we began to see our site as the continuation of this landscape.

Not the edge, but the secret heart of the city. The long-lost cousin of the Tempelhofer Feld. The one who did not want to assume his affinity. Lack of smoothness might have been a reason but now turns out to be its biggest advantage: If one squints, the pockmarks could easily be mistaken for battle scars. Small bumps and irregularities prove to be the most attractive elements on the otherwise rather flattened terrain. We found ourselves crawling up slopes, jumping over fences and fighting through thicket and thorny bushes, driven by the curiosity of what might appear next. What view would offer itself to us behind the bushes? We decided to make a catalogue of elements which are characteristic for the area, as they could serve as a design vocabulary.

Last time we came to the realization that we would like to design a landscape which inspires for gathering and movement. Thinking of a dance arena for contemporary dance, we decided to turn the whole landscape into a scenery, which dance ensembles could interact with. Questions that arose were how we would organize the space and what the interaction between the spectator and the dancer would be like.

Our present proposal on how to organize the site is based on the found borders on the terrain. The earth wall aligned parallel to the forest serves as spine for the area. On each side of it, collages of observed and artificial situations are arranged according to requirements. Willows seam the ditch, an evergreen forest closes the place towards the northeast, existing bumps are kept, but receive an exaggerated extension. Our aim is to break down the very vast field into a more fragmented space that would allow for discoveries and changes of dramaturgy. To achieve this, we intend to work with vegetation and earthwork to separate different sceneries. These newly created borders are permeable but still manage to clearly define the enclosed spaces.

With this initial design in mind, we decided to play through a dance event. Our first discovery was that guiding the visitors is a main issue. We did not want to lead the spectator with our design, to leave freedom for the choreography. Still we introduced the wall as a visual element of reference, to help people locate themselves within the area.

While we feel confident about the design intention, we still face uncertainties. For the interim crit, we want to get rid of those and be more precise about the design and about how we want it to represent our ideas.

[yougotcrit]

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Welcome home, Spider-Man.

Since his successful appearance in Marvel’s Captain America: Civil War (2016), the anticipation to see our favorite web-slinger in his next movie was high. Sony had struck out with its last three Spider-Man films, but they had established a mutually beneficial agreement with Disney/Marvel, allowing Spider-Man to be part of the MCU and giving Marvel creative control. It’s an uneasy and fragile alliance, but it’s worked well so far, and with Marvel at the helm, a new Spider-Man movie would be welcome and superior to its predecessors. So it’s with much relief that I can announce that Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) was totally worth it.

When I wrote my review for Civil War, I mentioned how Spider-Man was one of the best parts of that film and that Marvel’s properties are at their best when in Marvel’s hands. I thought that Tom Holland shined in that film; his portrayal of Peter Parker was everything that Andrew Garfield’s wasn’t. A great casting decision, I couldn’t wait to see more from Holland. As far as I’m concerned, Peter Parker is a sweet, awkward, intelligent, teenager who’s just trying to get through the intricacies of adolescence. I emphasize teenager because from the very beginning, that’s what has set Spider-Man apart from every other superhero. He’s a lovable klutz, juggling high school drama with his other life of crime fighting. Tom Holland embraces this role perfectly, as we see him continuously wrestle with choices of popularity and duty, and ultimately making the responsible decision each time.

And maybe that’s what I like about the 6th Spider-Man movie the most. We didn’t have to endure another Uncle Ben death nor did we have to hear about responsibility and its relationship to great power. I mean, we see how those things have influenced Peter to develop him into the man he is, but we’re not beat over the head with it. Homecoming delivers two stories centered around the events that followed Avengers (2012), demonstrating how well this movie benefits from being part of the MCU. Peter Parker aspires to be worthy of the Avengers, struggling to balance his social life and his superhero life. The story doesn’t focus on heavily upon the romance either, putting too much emphasis on his relationships as previous Spider-Man films have. Much of the film’s inspiration seems to conceived from the latest animated show, “Ultimate Spider-Man”, which also showcases the many high-tech gadgets that Spider-Man receives from S.H.I.E.L.D., though in this case it’s Tony Stark. The second story revolves around Adrian Toomes, The Vulture, as he turns to a life of crime in the aftermath of Avengers. No convoluted origin story, no world domination/destruction scheme, just a movie that focuses on characters, motivation and awesome action.

That’s another strength that the film has: character motivation. The Vulture is more complicated than a typical MCU villain. He’s not a true evil, though he uses his family as justification for what he does, having indirectly lost his job due to the Avengers. Adrian Toomes is the working man’s villain, the little guy who gets cast aside by Big Brother, or corporate America. From his point of view, his stealing is no different than what the rich and powerful do on a daily basis, so why shouldn’t he? It’s a much more believable rationalization than most villains have. Michael Keaton is great as Vulture, and I just love how he has essentially become Birdman (2014). Keaton has a wonderfully threatening presence about him, but he can turn on the charm as well. I’m really hoping that he reprises the role in future movies.

The secondary characters were very enjoyable as well, especially Peter’s friend Ned, who provided the obligatory comic relief. Played by Jacob Batalon, he was one of many characters that showcased the film’s diversity. A wide range of talented people were in the film, like Donald Glover, Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr., though I felt as though their talents were not fully employed to their fullest, especially Glover. Robert Downey Jr.’s presence is appreciated but it’s clear that the amount of Iron Man we were promised in the trailers was greatly exaggerated.  There are some awesome cameos in the film as well, and it’s not bloated with characters the way The Amazing Spider-Man (2014) was. Thank goodness.

All in all, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a solid movie. The action is so much fun to watch, the writing is hilarious, and the plot doesn’t rely on some overly-complicated construct to motivate the characters. The film also doesn’t fall into the usual MCU tropes (disposable villains, sky beams, faceless CGI hordes), but fits in perfectly with the continuity. I can’t wait for Spider-Man’s next appearance, but I can’t help but worry about his future in the MCU. Sony made it clear, with several Sony logos popping up before and after the film, that the movie rights are still theirs. So despite this success, they could walk away and take their Spider-Man with them if they choose not to play nice. They’ve got a good thing going now, so let’s hope it never comes to that.

Spider-Man: Homecoming,

You Got Crit

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[ioanacurelea]

Unit 2: Crit II

STUD ( Vaults Festival, Network Theatre, Thursday  15th February 2018)

Written and directed: Paloma Oakenfold

Designed: Anna Kezia Williams

STUD is a touching story about a sixteen year old – Tom who’s family is falling apart. The only thing that brings him joy is football and his goal is to ‘make it big’ so he could take care of his broken family. In all honesty football does not interest me in the slightest so this is where my initial scepticism started to bloom from. The interesting turn, however is Tom’s secret.

Funny and engaging, STUD follows Tom as he is trying to get selected to play for Chelsea. He meets one of his idols in the locker-room and in dream-like sequences the true nature of the play is revealed: it is in fact a piece about passion in all its forms.

All the other characters except Tom are played by Liam Bergin, from the alcoholic, gambling father, to the successful but closeted football player and sexist friend. Although the separation between these characters is fairly visible, the characters are plagued by elements such as the father’s fake belly (a pillow- a questionable costume decision) that distract from the characters’ individuality. Inevitably, they end up just caricatures instead of complete characters. Simon Paris makes an excellent remark on that: ‘Having found such an excellent topic to explore, I was disappointed by the lack of depth in all the characters except Tom. The ‘sexist friend’ seemed to be throwing up cliché quotes that you would find deep in the comments of article’s posted by THE LAD BIBLE. A father who gambles everything on his son’s success, then beats up a footballer because he “didn’t save the goals and was outside a gay club” seemed a little incongruous’

Although the subject of the play slowly transcends into ‘football as a toxically masculine and heterosexual industry’ the over the top sexual puns and interlude scenes do not seem to do justice to the narrative, turning it into a bit of a joke. There was an issue with the text in itself as well: an important issue worth writing about, but a very familiar and straight narrative.  

The set was very simple and elegant in design and so were the costumes (if ever someone described Adidas sportswear as elegant!) and invoked Tom’s passion for football.

There were a couple of attempts to shove in some physical theatre elements, however they appeared to be misplaced and exaggerated creating a significant incoherence in the play’s narrative.

The play concluded after 1hr – a very reasonable timeslot to not tire its audiences out too much, but personally I would have preferred an extra 30mins to familiarise more with the characters and the action. The pace of the performance was a bit too rushed but I must say it did keep the audience awake.

[bloggerblagger]

82) Obession. Futility. Joy.  (Late summer notes from home and abroad.)

Sitting in a café in a village called Lisle near Perigourd in the Dordogne.

Probably sounds a lot better than it is. The weather has been awful and is still very iffy. As I write I am listening to ‘Talksport’  through my laptop - I am only in this particular café because it has ‘weefee’ as they say ici.  I am glued to Jim White on transfer deadline day. Only football victims will understand why. It would be impossible for any sane person to imagine a bigger waste of the diminishing time I have left. (No, nothing to get alarmed about. Just a general observation about the eventually inevitable.)

Apparently the Ox has gone to Liverpool for sixty thousand a week more than he was offered at the Emirates. (Don’t know who the Ox is? Or think that the Emirates are somewhere near the Persian gulf? Count yourself lucky.)

It always make me smile grimly when  gaziliionaire footballer salaries are talked about in terms of  ‘wages’ of so much a week. I have a vision of one of those cashier’s offices they used to have in offices and factories where, every week, staff queued up to collect their money which was dispensed in small, top-pocket-shaped manilla envelopes through a tiny sliding window. I see hundreds of thousands of pounds stuffed into a suitcase size version of one of those, being squeezed through by some old gorgon who barks out, ‘Mbappe! Sign here.’

Time wasting, continued.

Last week,as keen readers of my Facebook page will know, I was up in Edinburgh for the Fringe.  (Not sure that ‘keen’ is really the word. Very bitter  that I am not getting the number of likes that I deserve. I’m taking it personally.)

I started off by writing potted reviews of the first few shows I’d seen, and pasting them on Facebook. As I suffer - or masochistically enjoy - take your pick - from a mild but very definite case of OCD, I was then compelled by my inner demons to finish as I’d started. So I reviewed  them all - each day’s reviews getting a little less potted than the last.  

Regardless of the degree of potting, writing these reviews was a pretty pointless  exercise, as it was the last week of the fringe. Even if someone was daft enough to take any notice of what I thought, how much use could they be when all  the final curtains were about to come down? (Not content with that, I have now taken pointlessness to whole a new level by reproducing all these reviews a few paragraphs below, a week after the Fringe finished.)

Purpose  discovered.

However what would most definitely not be pointless would be going to the Edinburgh fringe next year. This was the second year I have been and I have to report that it is a  better mood improver than any amount of Prozac. If you need a swift uptake of serotonin, go north young man/woman/non binary whatever.

Wait. I need to qualify that. It could equally be a terrible downer if you fancied yourself as a comedian, actor, dancer, singer, magician, acrobat or any other kind of performer. For, at the Edinburgh fringe, the bar is set dizzyingly high.

I was told that during the four weeks of the festival there are three thousand - THREE THOUSAND!!! - different shows to see, and if the twenty three that I saw were anything to go by, about 80% are three star good or better, and about 15-20%, five  star  stunning. The competition must be terrifying.

You will probably never have heard of the vast majority of performers and given how few opportunities there are for them to make it to the big-time - however  talented, you’d still need a supersized slice of luck - chances are you never will again. But in that in no way diminishes their genius, just the opportunity to appreciate it.

Best in show.

Of all the many delights that I witnessed, there is just one that I will single out. ‘Butt Kapinski’ is the persona adopted by an American comic called Deanna Fleyscher, and Butt is a Sam Spade-ish private eye with a sort of bendy desk-lamp  sticking out of the back of his mac and over his invisible trilby. It is the only light source in the show and the key prop in setting the scene of an impromptu film noir, the cast of which is Butt and everyone in the audience. If that doesn’t sound barmy enough, all the men in the audience are cast as women and the women as men.

Oh and Butt’s voice is another thing; sort of wildly exaggerated Noo Yoyick mixed up with a childish lisp. Why? I haven’t a clue.  Why was any of it funny? I really couldn`t say. I am someone who normally likes his comedy to make sense, to be able to trace the path of the gag, and understand  the lateral jump that allows  two and two  to make five. Butt Kapinski is anything but that. Yet I found it as LOL as LOL gets and l was not alone.  Pythonesque? Possibly but not quite. Milliganesque? In a way, I suppose. Perhaps more Marty Feldman with shades of Stanley Unwin, You have to be my age to get those references but any age will get Butt Kapinski. I really hope Deanna Fleysher is one of the happy few who does manage to break through.

Roll up, roll up.

I have a suspicion that she may be back next year at Edinburgh, because lots of these artistes travel from one Festival to another. There is a worldwide circuit apparently - Adelaide in Feb/March is another considered to be up there with the best. A little far but a lot warmer than Edinburgh.

Yes, the weather is ordinary at best, and the streets are packed -  the population is said to double during the Fringe - but Edinburgh is a magnificent city,  and worth a visit in its own right. Not that you will see that much of it, if you go for the Fringe. You’ll be dashing from play to comedian to magician to dancers to improv to musicians to acrobats and back again.

Do yourself a favour. Next year, skip the beach for a week and try a bit of funbathing in Edinburgh instead.

Five point three days at the Fringe 2017. Twenty four reviews of shows it’s too late for you to see. Plus a thrilling personal highpoint midway through Thursday that had nothing to do with anything I saw. (Skip the rest by all means but do not miss that bit.)

Tuesday.

Arrived in Edinburgh about 6pm on Monday night to see stuff from last week at the Fringe. So far seen 5 shows. If you too are up in Edinburgh, here, for what they are worth, are my potted crits. (Just my opinions - I claim nothing more.)

TWO shows get 5 stars from me and are very highly recommended. ‘Woke’ a one woman drama with the magnetic, totally convincing Apphia Campell. And the astonishing ‘Butt Kapinski’, comedy as you have never, ever seen it. (At least I hadn’t.) Completely crackers but captivating. I give 4 stars to Kai Humphreys a charming Geordie comedian with a refreshing angle on the world. And a measly 2.5 stars to Tiff Stevenson, who has been well reviewed and had some good material but she took aim at what I thought were some pretty easy targets and her relenless de-ermination to ge down with the people by omi-ing every T really eed me off. Finally a black hole to 'Would You Adam and Eve It.’ Enough said.

Four more to see tomorrow.

Wednesday.

Today saw 4 more shows.

1. 'Tutu’ - see photo - all male French comedy ballet troupe. By turns breathtakingly brilliant (the dancing) and completely incomprehensible (the comedy). But I have been to enough Club Med shows to know that what passes for humour en France est très bloody étrange. 4 stars.

2. Gavin Webster, my second Geordie comic of the week. Playing in a tiny space which wasn’t full which was a great pity because this guy deserves an audience. Great delivery and lots of good stuff with one really clever running gag that alone made it money well spent. Very nearly 5 stars and certainly 4 and a bit.

3. 'The Joni Mitchell Story’. A young woman with a beautiful voice and a dowdy dress and lank hair and no make-up and bunions on her bare feet sings Joni Mitchell songs whilst a male voice-over whining in best Estuary tells us the strange story of Joni’s early life as accompanying slides are shown above the stage. Great songs well sung, interesting tidbits, effortless - as in no effort made - presentation. I feel a bit guilty saying this because she seemed very pleasant, but honestly, music apart, it was so half arsed. Average audience age about 170. 2.5 stars.

4. 'We are Ian’. Using dance and mime and a video backdrop (and a lot of neo-gurning) three twenty something girls tell the true life tale of a Mancunian dj called Ian living through the halcyon (apparently) House Music days of 1989. (Ancient history to them and much too late for me to relate to the story.) It was as odd as it sounds and I started off wanting to hate it as I was three time as old (literally) as 95% of the audience. But in the end I was forced to admit they had something and the audience absolutely loved it, just about all bar one - me - finishing up dancing manically on stage. 4 stars.

Thursday.

Seven - SEVEN - shows today! 

1. A man sits on stage completely naked playing with his dick which he refers to as his pussy. No idea what he was on about, nor when he started prancing about giving incomprehensible little monologues as a bitter Glaswegian husband and wife (both parts) and a prancing old queen, in between further sessions of dick handling. The audience nervously tittered occasionally though I doubt they had any idea what they were laughing about. Was it art? Or was it pretentious shit?I went for the latter and left after 20 minutes. Show was called ‘This is Not Culturally Significant’ - and the title was the one thing you couldn’t argue with. No stars but another Black Hole. (Of the astronomical metaphorical variety. Happily I didn’t to stay long enough to see if the audience were ever exposed to the literally anatomical kind.)

2. Not a show but a game called 'Werewolves’, in which twenty people take part under the aegis of a ringmaster with a silvery beard and a voice so quiet I might almost have thought I was a bit mutton jeff. (I am.) The idea is that the villagers have to kill off the werewolves and vice versa. Lots of fun. 4 stars.

Just been asked for my senior’s ID at the box office! Yesss! GET IN!!!

3. A comic and a chef called George Egg cooks breakfast lunch, and dinner using DIY tools from his shed.You even get to sample the food at the end. Ingenious and jolly. 4 stars and a bit of an extra star because George comes from Brighton.

4. ’Notflix’. Six young women make an impromptu musical out of a non-musical film title that they have picked from a hat filled with suggestions from the audience. The title they got was ‘Wardogs’ which was about big biz and oil and the CIA in the Iraq war. Not promising material but they made a decent if not dazzling fist of it. 3 stars.

5.’Ben Hart’ is a magician who left me seriously impressed. At one point he took rings from three different people in the audience and rubbed them until they interlinked. How on earth was that possible unless they were trick rings that were swapped for the originals - and back again when he separated them - or the audience members were plants? Neither seemed likely but what other explanation could there be? I love a good magic show. Who doesn’t? (Well, I suppose some people don’t.) Four stars comfortably.

6. Sarah Kendall, an Aussie comedian - I presume comedienne is no longer PC - produced a cleverly structured hour which had a bit more depth and tad more polish than your average turn. She touched on some tricky family issues and some quite profound ones and smoothly managed the tonal changes required as she went from outright gag making to being thought provoking. Very nearly 5 stars.

7. Denim is a 5 person drag act. I have never quite understood the appeal of drag - Danny La Rue never did it for me. Quite liked La Cage Aux Folles but that was about it. And, in the era of LGBTQ etc when the closet door is so wide open, I wonder whether the outrageousness of drag is really necessary? Is there that much to be outraged about? Notwithstanding all that, they were brilliant singers and performers and gave rousing renditions of a lot old favourites of the ‘I will survive’ variety. 4 stars.

Friday.

Five more shows.

Should have seen ‘Trashed’ first, a play that had been highly recommended to me but for which I contrived to be 6 minutes late, and was consequently refused admission. They kept me out but kept my money. Fuck them.

1. 'Not for Prophet’ a stand-up routine by half Pakistani, half Bangladeshi, ex-banker and lapsed Muslim, Eshaan Akbaar, who had a winning, easy charm but too few really good jokes to be worth more than 3 of my hard to earned stars

2. ‘These Trees the Autumn Leaves Alone’. First of two shows with blokes with long curly red hair and beards. This one was a 'story telling’, or so Curly Ginge no.1 explained. This seems to be some sort of new (or really, I suppose, a revival of a very old) niche art form in which someone reads and semi-acts out a story they have written. A sort of prose version of performance poetry. I started off wanting to hate it, not least because his occasional and rather pointless musical accompanists, a smug male guitarist and a simpering woman singer, were each, at the outset, the subjects of a declaration of love from Curly Ginge no.1, delivered without any noticeable irony. On top of that he was barefoot. However, I have to say that in the end my entirely understandable prejudices - not against red hair by the way, I am absolutely not gingerist - were overcome by the charm of his story. Three and a bit stars.

3. 'Double Feature’. Two comedians or possibly actors called Andy Gray and Grant Stott, who are apparently well known in Scotland but not to me, perform a rather stagey show in which they are supposed to be tradesmen of some sort - they wear overalls, that’s the clue - working in an old cinema being converted into flats. Having often come to this cinema when they were childhood friends they reminisce about the old days and act out passages from famous films they once saw. No, it doesn’t sound like a very good idea and it wasn’t. Not even two stars.

4. 'Letters to Morrisey’. Started off wanting to hate this too - default position of card-carrying curmudgeons comme moi - but beardy Curly Ginge no.2 (Gary McNair) gives an electrifying performance in a one man play about a boy with teenage angst and a heavily weighing secret who feels that only Morrisey (lead singer of eighties Indie band, the Smiths, if you didn’t know*) will understand. Four stars and almost five. (*Don’t be too embarrassed if you didn’t. I barely did and certainly couldn’t name a single one of their waxings.)

5.’Siblings’. Had I known more about these two girls (not quite as young as they look in the pic) I would have wanted to hate this too - bloody privileged showbiz kids grrrr - but I have only just discovered on the internet that they are Maddy and Marina Bye, real life sisters, which I would never have guessed as they look nothing like each other, and, more to the point, turn out to be Ruby Wax’s daughters. Not knowing that at the time, and as neither had curly hair and a beard, I was prepared to give them the benefit off the doubt. But even if I had been my usual misanthropic self, I would have been easily won over. They put on a completely barmy sort of sketch show, some of which made sense and was hilarious and some of which made none but which still kept the audience in fits because they radiated such good humour and effervescence. Two stars to each of them. (For the benefit of anyone under forty, get your calculator out and you’ll find that makes four.)

Saturday.

Went to twenty one shows earlier in the week - in four full days and one evening only. (Well, walked out of two, but I walked into twenty one.) Three more today, although one of them is not actually in the fringe. So that’ll be 24 in all!

1.‘Borders’. A harrowing, thought provoking, cleverly worked two handed play about the world of the refugee, unflinchingly and unsentimentally told both from the point of view of the refugee and the people behind the camera lens through which the refugee’s story is brought to us. I thought it was gripping and unsettling and I shower five stars at least upon it. However, i should say that I am possibly biased. Its author, Henry Naylor, a former comedian who, with his comedy partner of the time, once had a BBC radio show, 'Parsons and Naylor’, is someone I have thought of as a friend since he featured in a series of commercials that I *helmed for Direct Line about 200 years ago. (*Never used the word 'helmed’ before but I keep hearing it in film reviews and I rather like thinking of myself as ‘helming’ something. Sounds rather dashing, a bit Jack Aubrey.) Last year, by the way, another of Henry’s plays called ‘Angel’ played to rave reviews - and not just mine - at Edinburgh, and is finally coming to London in the very near future. if you haven’t seen it, look out for it.

2. Cirkopolis. After my conscience had been given a right old prod by ‘Borders’ it was off to the circus. Well almost. Against a dazzling, constantly evolving projected backdrop, French Canadian dance, juggling and acrobatic troupe 'Cirque Éloize’ gave a fantastic demonstration of breathtaking, body bending, gravity defying, ooh-and-aah provoking trickery and dare-devilry in a show loosely themed around Fritz Laing’s legendary silent film,’Metropolis’. All sorts of gravity defying feats but the act that really did my head in was the chap with the diabolo. (See the illustration if you, like me, didn’t know that a diabolo is called a diabolo.) Such whirling, catching, pirouetting, juggling as you have never seen. Unless you’ve seen him of course. Five stars.

3. Finally, the long slow climb to the very top and 32nd row (officially designated row FF. That’s FF as in For Fucks sake, how much further?) Up and up we climbed to the summit of the monster three sided stadium set into the side of the steep granite hill (or whatever it is) that Edinburgh Castle is built upon, there to see - along with 8,799 others - the Edinburgh Tattoo. Easy to be sniffy and cynical about it, and nobody does cynicism with more sniffiness than your reviewer, and yes, there is something faintly comical about military marching bands constantly evolving into new and ever more pointless formations as they play - columns that become circles which become windmills and then back into lines, but why? (A sort of mass group dressage but without horses.) Despite all that, and the Scottish dancing - curiously I am sure there was just one bloke amongst about sixty girls - and the corny voice over (Ken Bruce?) booming through the speakers and the guest dancers from India to mark the 70th anniversary of independence - where were the Pakistanis you might well ask? - and the nippy mid-August chill, I did, in the end, buy into it. It is a staggering feat of organisation and the music - particularly the drumming - is impressive. And when the lone piper stood way up on the castle parapet to play the final piece, I found it really quite moving. If you are going to Edinburgh you have to go. Five stars.