#Jake Lawson

[aidenlyons]

It's early Sunday morning and Aiden is barely out of bed when Jake calls.

A: Hi.

J: Hey babe. Sorry, did I wake you?

A: No, I've been up a little while.

J: Good. I waited as long as I could stand. Miss you like crazy.

A: Watcher, I miss you too. How is it?

J: Still fun. We're really getting into a rhythm, it's going to be a good team.

A: I'm glad, I don't want to go and watch any boring games.

J: Ha Ha. How are things there? What have you been doing?

A: Classes are done now, so there's marching practice which is dumb. I've been painting some. Experimenting. It's.. not going well.

J: This your sexy stuff or other stuff?

A: Other stuff. Hah. Tony tried to show me one of her sexy Simstagram guys the other day.

J: Yeah? Should I be jealous?

A: She was hoping it might inspire me, but.. Just made me miss you more, actually.

J: Damnit... this long distance stuff is for the birds.

A: But.. you haven't changed your mind, right? It's just a little longer?

Aiden hates that he still feels insecure about this. He shouldn't. He can't help it.

J: Oh, babe, no. Of course I haven't changed my mind. I love you.

A: I love you too. I'm sorry.

J: Don't be. We knew this was going to be hard. A little distance won't change my feelings. I promise. When I get back you'll see me so much you'll be sick of me.

A: Yeah?

J: Mhm. Now tell me, what else have you been doing?

A: Oh! I might have found a place to stay. It's just renting a room from someone. I'm going to take a trip out there this week to meet him and look at it.

J: Really? That's great! Let me know when you'll be here. Maybe I can sneak out.

A: I will. That'd be nice.

J: Yeah, it would. Hey, I gotta go, I skipped breakfast hoping to call you early and I'm starving.

A: Jake, you didn't have to do that. You shouldn't skip meals. Go eat. Call me when you can.

J: I will. I love you.

A: Love you too.

[chronophotographic-gun]

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022)

"We tried to combine these raw, gritty oil drum recordings with these distorted and pulsing synth sounds... This is the first time I’ve traveled to a set to sample and record actual oil drums, pipes, and found sounds to create a score... We had a drumstick with a super bouncy ball attached to the [oil drum], and we dragged it across the metal pipes to create ominous, resonate drones."

Gavin Brivik on producing the film's opening track 'Why I Destroyed Your Property'

[portraitofadumbassonfire]

"My chemical childhood gave me superpowers"

How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2023) dir. Daniel Goldhaber

[blurrymango]

Eh. Something I ain't have to really try on here. :)

Opposite aspects. :3

[preciouspiastri]

i'm starting a collection

[cinematicmasterpiece]

how to blow up a pipeline (2022)

[colorado-springs]

[moviemosaics]

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

directed by Daniel Goldhaber, 2022

[topherfoxtrot]

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022) dir: Daniel Goldhaber

[aidenlyons]

K: Oh, I just can't believe it, you boys graduating! My baby, and you! Aiden, you've changed so much since we met.

A: Uh.. t-thanks, Mrs. Lawson.

Aiden's not sure what to do with this sort of gushing praise. Even months later, he's not used to it. He hopes Jake will interrupt.

K: Now look, going out into the world as men-

Thank the Watcher, Jake brings dishes in from his room. The mild panic must be obvious.

A: Jake.

J: Hey babe. Mom, stop, you're embarrassing Aiden.

K: What? Oh. I'm so sorry honey. I just can't help it..

She's tearing up.

Kaylie has fully adopted Aiden, the poor boy. She knows how her son feels about him and she wholeheartedly supports it.

K: Come now, boys, it's not forever. This is a celebration!

Kaylie even picked up a cake. In honor of their recent trip, it's a Matcha cake. Jake said he enjoyed the flavor.

K: Okay, boys, lets get some cake. And Congratulations, Jake, on graduating early, and your scholarship. Your father always thought you would be a sport star.

K: Mmhm.

Kaylie is feeling nostalgic, normally she never talks about Edwin Lawson.

J: You never said that before.

K: You were crawling everywhere so fast.. He knew you'd be active.

J: Mom...

Aiden feels the twinge, too. The sadness of never having known their fathers.

Before things devolve into tears which Aiden is not prepared for, he clears his throat and gestures.

A: Well, c'mon! Cake! Can't just let it sit here.

So they eat cake. And talk.

Jake's pretty sure Aiden doesn't realize how much he'll miss him, too. He's glad he'll have the football and meeting new people to distract him. But he absolutely will take every chance he has to call his boyfriend.

Aiden gets to hear some embarrassing stories about Jake while he was growing up while sharing a few of his own experiences.

For a while they just talk and celebrate an don't think about it. But the time comes when Jake has to leave, taking the overnight train to Britechester.

Kaylie hugs Jake a little too long as she says goodbye before moving aside for Aiden.

A: Call or text me when you get there.

J: I will.

A: Be careful. Have fun. I love you.

J: I love you too. You have some fun, too. Don't mope.

A: I don't mope.

J: Mhm.

[race-week]

Red Bull right now:

[batterknowsbetter]

[rookie-critic]

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023, dir. Daniel Goldhaber) - review by Rookie-Critic

My full-length review this week was going to be over Renfield, but I saw this last night and felt like talking about it more (plus Renfield is very cut-and-dry: good, not great. Could have used more Nicolas Cage because his performance was awesome). Also, I felt like I was getting in the habit of only doing full-lengthers for the big blockbuster releases of the week and not giving love to the indie films.

I was very excited to see this film because it looked like a well-made eco-thriller that would show the complicated nature of fighting back against a corrupt system built to punish those trying to enact change. I will say that it is very well-made. The low-budget, sometimes handheld nature of the camerawork did wonders for the overall vibe of the film and the script, from a story standpoint, was very solid and had my anxiety high from beginning to end. The score was also something I picked up on immediately as being both really good instrumental music and really good at servicing the film's intensity. Another aspect that really works in the film's favor is a stunning and quite remarkable cast of up-and-comers, including Ariela Barer (Marvel's Runaways), Marcus Scribner (black-ish/Grown-ish), Forrest Goodluck (The Revenant), Sasha Lane (American Honey), Jayme Lawson (Till & The Woman King), Jake Weary (Animal Kingdom), Lukas Gage (Assassination Nation), and Kristine Froseth (Looking for Alaska). I just went ahead and named all of them because they all deliver such fantastic performances with what they were given. Special mention should specifically go to Goodluck, though, for making me very interested in a character the film doesn't give you a ton of information about.

The part that bugs me about Pipeline is that, despite a solid script and an ensemble cast that is both diverse and extremely talented, the film doesn't critically analyze it's morality or do much to call into question if our characters are truly doing the right thing or not. Of course, there are throwaway lines here and there about how what they're doing is an act of terrorism, and one character in particular brings up more than once the ethical grey-area of what they're doing, but she is the lone voice in a crowd of bullheaded individuals that believe what they're doing is altruistically the right thing to do. It makes a less-than-baseline attempt at holding a mirror up to the ensemble and treats them as heroes when, at best, they're anti-heroes. Well-intentioned anti-heroes, but anti-heroes all the same.

I think one of the biggest proponents of this is the film's character writing. We are given flashbacks throughout the film providing a little backstory for all of our main cast of characters, which, in and of itself, is a great device, but it is used aimlessly and doesn't provide anything close to the kind of insight into our characters' motivations that I was looking for. We seem them all from a bird's-eye-view, getting more of a template of a person than something more fully realized. We see the triggering event that pushed some of them over the edge, but we don't get the context, the build-up, the lifetime of constant reminders that their-world is dying and there is nothing truly substantial that they can do about it. In the case of some of the characters we don't even really get an inciting moment, merely just a footnote onto the film that explains how they got entangled in their current situation. It's character backstory that moves the plot forward, but doesn't necessarily move our characters forward, and that's Pipeline's biggest detriment. It cares more about sending a very black-and-white, blunt-force-trauma message to the audience through plot beats as opposed to a very thought-provoking, nuanced message about complex morality and the pitfalls of well-intentioned extremism through its characters. There are whispers of the latter, moments where the film opens itself up for you to ascribe your own biases to a character and sympathize with their logic, but it is all very surface level.

It's an expertly crafted film with a lot of great things going for it, but it takes a much less effective soap-box approach to a story that would have been way more well-suited to a humanistic one. If you take the good with the bad, all things considered, it is very entertaining. There's something to be said that there are multiple moments when the theater audibly gasped and even more moments where I was literally, physically on the edge of my seat. It was good enough to make me interested in reading the book (something I hardly ever do anymore) and watching director Daniel Goldhaber's first film, Cam. I'll be keeping an eye out for future projects from him, for sure.

Score: 7/10

Currently only in theaters.

[watchingalotofmovies]

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

How to Blow Up a Pipeline    [trailer]

A crew of environmental activists plot a daring plan to disrupt an oil pipeline.

A tense thriller. Not exactly a documentary, but still mostly no-nonsense, it feels very real.

As for the story. It's very timely, and a difficult topic. It's clear that humanity is unwilling to change course in a timely manner to avoid that large parts of the global population will increasingly suffer from the effects caused by global warming in the not too distant future. So how far should you be allowed to go to draw attention?

[blurrymango]

From a little project I'm working on. :P

Did not give them their symbols because uhhh ffuck no lmao.