#also when they’re like pssssh you can’t get me.

[lilgynt]

i love carrying kids and throwing them

[winchesters-favorite-girl]

Step it up

A/N: My entry for @dreamin-of-somewhere-else challenge. The Reader is on a hunt with her twin, Dean, and decides to show her father that they are ready to accept more responsibilites.

Word Count: 1,699

Warnings: Angst, character death

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“Y/N, I got a bad feeling about this.” Dean whispered to you as the pair of you made your way towards the entrance of a barn, “We should wait for him to give the signal.”

You shot Dean an annoyed look, “We’re trying to prove to Dad we can handle hunts De, we’re seventeen, besides, I’m just following Dad’s orders remember? It’s time for us to ‘step it up’ like he said.”

Dean sent a glare your way, “I get that, but Dad’s orders were clear, wait for him to give the signal before we go in there.”

“Always gotta be the good twin huh?” You joked with Dean, slowing your approach to the barn to be as silent as possible, “Always doin’ what Dad tells us?”

“Well kiddo, I am the oldest.” Uttered as he grimaced as he created noise from stepping on a stick.

“What does that have to do with it?” You questioned as your eyes observed your surroundings for any potential danger, “Also stop calling me kiddo, you’re barely five minutes older then me.”

“It means Dad trusts me to keep you and Sammy safe, easiest way for me to show him I can do it is by listening to him...Kiddo.” He explained while repeating the same actions as you.

Rolling your eyes, you turned your head in Dean’s direction, “Yeah well, this is stupid. I’m sick of waiting for him to give the signal. It’s freezing out here and Sam asked me to help him on his science project.” You replied.

“You know we can’t rush hunts Y/N.” Dean told you with a pointed look.

“I know Dean; I just think it’s stupid that it’s up to us to deal with this stuff every time, we should get to have lives of our own too, especially Sammy.” You communicated to Dean.

Dean threw his head back in annoyance, “Not this speech again.”

“What? If we can prove to Dad that we can take on our own hunts then maybe he’ll let us go off on our own. We could take Sammy and have one place we stay at so he could go to the same school while we go off on hunts. It’s a good plan and you know it.” You explained to Dean for the hundredth time.

“It’s a good plan until we lead something back to Sam that ends up killing him, besides, who says I wanna hunt with only you.” Dean replied in a joking yet serious tone. To be honest he loved your plan, he was just worried if it was only you and him on a hunt that he would screw up and get you killed.

Looking back at you Dean opened his mouth to speak more but stopped when he saw the hurt expression overtaking your face. “Kiddo-“

“Don’t bother,” You said quietly, “I’m going in there; you can follow me or wait for Dad’s orders like a good little soldier.”

Quickening your pace you approached the barn door and leaned against the wall so that you could peer in without being seen. There was nothing noteworthy inside of the barn that could be seen. Your head quickly whipped around when you felt a presence on the other side of you but any fear you felt quickly diminished when you realized Dean was now standing next to you.

“Decide to join the fun?” You asked with a smirk.

Your brother let out a huff, “More like needed to make sure someone was there to save your ass; just in case.”

You let out a scoff, “Just in case?”

“You never know with you kiddo, sometimes you have good ideas, other times, not so much.” Dean replied.

“You’re an ass, you know that?” You joked.

“Pssssh, whatever, I’m awesome. Now, what’s the next step in your plan ‘Oh great one?’” He questioned.

“I’m thinking we go in and clear the place. I checked and there doesn’t seem to be any activity, maybe when Dad tried to lure the one skinwalker out the other went with him?” You stated in a serious tone.

Dean nodded his head, “That does make sense, would explain why Dad hadn’t given the signal yet, the plan didn’t work.”

“That’s what I was thinking; so we go in, clear it, then try to meet up with Dad to create a new game plan, sound good?” You asked, pulling your gun out.

“Sounds good.” Dean replied as he mimicked your actions.

“Alright, I lead, you got my back?” You inquired.

“Always do,” Dean responded, “On three?”

You nodded your head as you positioned the gun correctly in your hand. You knew Dean was doing the same thing behind you; the pair of you worked like a well-oiled machine. John always joked it was because of the training he provided but Sam always referred to it as the ‘twin thing’. Dean always knew which way you were going to go and you always knew what actions Dean was going to take. There was no explanation for it other then practice and knowing your partner too well.

Your body positioned itself in a stance that signaled Dean that you were prepared to enter. He positioned himself as well and leaned in closely to you and whispered, “One, two, three.”

The two of you entered the barn on three, you instantly looking towards the left for any danger as Dean was closely behind you looking to the right. Your eyes quickly glanced around the small barn in search of anybody, or anything that could cause damage to you or your brother.

“Clear.” You stated, slowly lowering your gun as you did a double take of the barn.

“Clear.” Dean repeated, lowering his gun as well, “Well that plan was a bust. I wonder where-“

“DEAN!” You shouted and raised your gun as a skinwalker in his dog form attacked your brother. The dog was snarling and attempting to bite your brother as it scratched its long nails deeply into Dean’s chest. You quickly positioned yourself so that you could shoot the animal without harming your brother and discharge three bullets into the animal.

The blonde dog went limp on Dean causing him to let out a groan, “A little help here?” He asked but you were too busy laughing at watching him struggle under the dog.

“I think you got it.” You replied, turning your head so it was sideways to watch.

“You’re a brat you know that?” Dean stated as he pushed the animal off of him. Sitting up Dean looked at the damage the dog had done, “Not too bad, just a few scratches.”

You nodded your head in agreement, “I am kinda bummed though.” You told him.

“Why?” He questioned, shooting you a confused look.

“I was hoping he’d turn back into a man after I shot him, can you imagine a full grown naked dude just sprawled out on you? I never woulda let you live that down.” You said unable to contain your laughter.

Dean glared at you before looking down at his chest once more, placing his hand on one of the scratches, “You are such a-“ Dean whipped his head up at your when he heard your scream and was met with the sight of a much larger brown dog on top of you biting at your neck.

“Y/N!” Dean shouted, hectically looking around for where his gun had fallen. He spotted it and quickly reached for it before emptying his clip into the animal that fell beside you.  

Dean scrambled to crawl next to you to observe the damage the skinwalker had done; he was scared since he had seen the animal bit you, but terror filled his core as he observed blood quickly flowing from your neck where the dog had bitten and ripped at your skin.

He placed his shaky hands over your neck in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Tears filled his eyes as he watched you open your mouth to speak, only to be met with the sounds of blood gurgling in your throat; choking you.

“You’re gonna be okay kiddo, you hear me?” Dean said to you in what you always referred to as his ‘big brother voice.’

You attempted to nod your head, which resulted in you coughing from the blood in your throat. Blood sprayed all over you and Dean but he didn’t care.

“You gotta hold on for me Y/N, okay? Just-just don’t let go.” Dean told you while trying to formulate a plan to save you, only he couldn’t think of one.

The struggle for air continued and soon you were feeling light headed; either from the lack of oxygen or the blood loss. Reaching your arm up you gripped Dean’s arm for support.

“S-scared” You barely managed to get out, but Dean understood what you were saying.

Tears began to fall from Dean’s eyes as he held onto your hand with his free one, “No reason to be scared kiddo, you’re gonna be-be just fine.” Tears were slowly leaking from the corner of your eyes as you slightly shook your head.

Dean looked down for a moment as he realized that you were right, you weren’t going to make it through this. He quickly returned his attention to you as your struggle for air became impossible. Sitting up he placed both of his hands on the side of your face, trying to provide any source of comfort that he could. Your eyes were searching his face, fear evident all over your features.

“It’s gonna be okay sis,” He said in a calm voice, “You’re gonna go be with Mom. Sammy and Dad, they’re gonna be fine. I’m gonna take care ‘em, especially Sammy. I’m-I’m gonna be okay, I’m gonna miss you like hell but we’ll be okay? I promise you.”

You understood Dean’s words however you couldn’t react to them, with one last attempt to suck in air your body went limp.

Dean sat next to you with both of his hands still cupping your face, he was taking in every feature you had as he tried to remember how to breath.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Idle thought: what if a particularly troublemaking reality warping fifth dimensional imp decided to "roleswap" the alternate universe "twins"? Dunno if this means everyone would still have the same powers or not. But I guess that'd mean Kara would suddenly be a forensic scientist, Barry would be a reporter, James would.... still be a reporter, Iris would be a vigilante and a reporter, Winn and Alex would both work at a lab, Cisco and Caitlin would work at a black ops organization...

A few things:

- This is a Very Good Idle Thought- So good, in fact, that I wrote a thing inspired by this Idle Thought (so, thank you!)- It was, though, written at like…twelve at night, so who knows if it makes any degree of sense. Also, beware of spelling and grammar errors. (YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

…

Karadoesn’t notice that something is…off…untilshe’s at the precinct, flipping through some case files when she atlast realizes:

Ihave no idea what I’m looking at.

Dozensof notes written in shorthand that should meansomething to her, but the longer she squints and stares, the lesssense they seem to make.

Shereads through the rest of the files, hoping something will jump out,look familiar at thevery least.

Shegets a sour stomach for her troubles.

“Lookinga bit green around the gills, Miss Danvers,” John says to her asshe rushes to the nearest restroom. (But where the heck isit, she should know this, she’s worked here for…for…uhhhhhh….)

“You’reone to talk,” she shoots back miserably. John looks just asconfused as she feels because honestly? That comeback doesn’t makeany sense. John Joneshas been working homicide longer than Kara’s been alive.Probably.

“…Areyou alright?” Instead of reprimanding her—which she wouldabsolutely deserve, after a remark like that—he expresses mildconcern, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

“…Idon’t know,” Kara admits, rubbing the side of her face.

“Ithink,” John says gently, “that perhaps it would be best for youto go home early today.”

Karasquints.

“Idon’t think that’s allowed, John. Er—” She winces. What is wrongwith her? Calling him by hisfirst name at work—! “I mean. Detective Jones.”

Johnraises an eyebrow, but very kindly ignores her second screw up.“Won’t be a problem,” he assures her. “Especiallygiven…recent events.”

Karanods slowly.

“…Right,yes.” She moves to push her glasses up the bridge of her nose, andends up stabbing herself in the eye. You’ve never wornglasses before in your life.“Which would be…what, exactly?”

John,at last, stares at her like she’s grown a second head. (Or, perhaps,like she’s just stabbed herself in the eye with her own finger.Either way.) “The….coma?”

“Oh!Oh, ha, yeah, the coma.” Kara chuckles. And then. “Wait. Coma?!”

Karadoes not go home, in spite of John’s (very sound) advice to do so.Instead, she spends the rest of the morning frantically Googlingbrain injuries, amnesia, and whether or not that sort of thing istypically linked to nine-month-long comas.

Afterthe fifth or sixth (terrifying) web diagnosis, Kara shoves her laptopaside and drops her head into her hands, massaging her temples as shetries to make sense of all of this.

Shecan’t remember the coma. Which, okay, is probably not something tofreak out over. The whole pointof comas is that you’re virtually dead to the world while you’re inone, right?

Andshe does remembersleeping for a really long time…at some point…? Sothat’s…something. Maybe?

And…andthat might explain why she’s been so out of sorts. If she hasn’t beenkeeping to her routine due to being down and out for nearly a year,then of course everything is going to feel vaguely weird and…off.

Karasighs. Learning that she was in a coma for nine months might actuallybe the best news she’s had all morning.

Thatthought is depressing enough to set her off on a search for coffee.

Shedoesn’t panic this time, when she can’t immediately remember wherethe communal coffee maker is. Instead, she calmly wanders down to thefirst floor to get her bearings. Surely, something will lookfamiliar, and maybe trigger some sort of memory.

Unfortunately,the only thing that’s familiar? Is John’s frowning face.

Sheknows that expression very well.

“MissDanvers, you’re still here?” he asks. She nods.

“I’mfeeling much better,” she lies, “I don’t need to go home. Really.I’m fine.”

“That’svery good to hear,” John says, “but not what I was referring to.”

Karasuppresses a groan. Great. She’s forgotten something else.“What now?” she mutters desperately.

“Youstill have some time,” John tells her. “If you hurry, you canmake your appointment.”

“Myappointment,” Kara repeats slowly. Okay, okay, she can do this.She’s a forensic scientist. (Apparently?) She can solve this mystery.“With…a health care professional. I assume.”

“Areyou asking me?”

“Pssssh,no. I absolutely knowthat I have an appointment with…someone. Obviously.”

“CatGrant.”

“Right!Cat Grant. I—I have an appointment with the Queen of all Media?”

“…Comeagain?”

“No,that's—” Kara frowns in concentration. “Not…not Queen ofall…Dr. Grant runs STAR Labs,” she says, not entirely sure whereshe’s pulled that bit of information from. “I have to go…to STARLabs.”

“Andyou’d better hurry,” John tells her, patting her on the shoulder.“Otherwise you’ll be late. Again.”

Karafully intends on taking a bus to STAR Labs. Really, she does.

Butshe misses the bus, and then she has to jog to the next stop, andthat’s…

Whenthings get a little weird.

Well,weirder, anyway.

Becauseone minute, she’s hurrying down the sidewalk, just about to breakinto a sprint, and then the next…the next the city street isblurring around her, indistinct, like looking through a rain-soakedwindow pane, except all the colors are running horizontally, asopposed to vertical.

Shegasps, and stops running. The city jumps into startling clarity, thesights and sounds seeming to appear suddenly, and out of nowhere.

There’sa crackle of energy—something like static. A car horn blares.

Karajumps, noticing that she’s in the middle of the street (somehow?!?!)and a taxi’s headed straight for her and she has to move—!

Soshe does.

Andends up in the middle of a field, forty minutes outside of town.

“Dr.Grant!”

Ittakes Kara seven tries to stop herself close enough to STAR Labs toactually enter the facility—she’s been overshooting it every timeshe takes a step, and that alone is enough to put a certain amount ofhysteria in her voice, because what?

WHAT?

Sheforces herself to walk through the halls of the building,because any time she starts to run? She travels miles in thespan of seconds and that’s not normal. In fact, it’s very muchthe opposite.

“Dr.Grant!”

Thehalls are eerily quiet—in fact, the entire facility is virtuallyempty, and at first, it’s disconcerting. But then, Kara has thebarest hint of a memory—something about the labs being…condemnedor closed down or…?

Shefollows the spiraling halls to a main office of sorts. She doesn’tknow what compels her to follow that course, but follow it she does.And when the doors slide back, she’s rewarded with a friendly face.

“Winn!”she cries, just barely stopping herself from surging forward, forfear of The Thing happening again. “I remember you!”

“Uh…thanks…?Oh, oh we’re hugging now, okay. I can do this, I can do hugs.”

“Something’swrong, Winn,” Kara says, releasing him from the hasty embrace. Winnsnorts.

“I’llsay,” he chuckles. “I was in that particle accelerator explosiontoo, you know, and you don’t see me suddenly sprouting superpowers.”

Karastiffens. Super powers.

She…yeah.She has those. Super powers.

Butnot…not like this. Not this weird, blurry…staticelectricity thing. She remembers…

Sheremembers cities seen from above, and broken staplers, and her ownblue eyes behind a pair of nondescript glasses—but blue like…likethe bright, hot blue of a flame.

“This…thisisn’t right,” Kara takes a step back and shakes her head.“This…something’s wrong. Really wrong…”

“…Youokay there, Kara?” Winn asks, concerned.

“Idon't—” Kara shakes her head again, trying to make sense of allof this.

“Maybe…maybesit down,” Winn suggests, pulling over the other desk chair. “Sitdown and wait for Dr. Danvers to check you out.”

“No,”Kara says, backing away. “No I’m going to…” Do what,exactly? She doesn’t know, but she should do something.

“You’restarting to freak me out a little bit,” Winn tells her.“Hey…Danvers!” He shouts over his shoulder. “A little help?”

AndKara’s about to go—like, really go, even risk this weirdrunning thing, but a woman with short dark hair appears from one ofthe other labs, brow knit with confusion.

“Whatis it, Wi—” she stops, catching Kara’s eye, and then Kararemembers.

“Alex,”she breathes. Her sister. Her sister on Earth-38, where she isn’tsome sort speedster from Central City, but rather, National City’sGirl of Steel.

Shecan see that Alex remembers as well, the way the features on her faceshift, and then they’re hugging and asking questions and,

“Whathappened?”

Karathinks back to the day before—at least, she hopes it was theday before—when she and Alex had made a quick, impromptu trip toEarth-One after hearing that Barry had been restored, back safe andsound from his not-brief-enough sojourn through the Speed Force.

Anuninvited guest had appeared, though.

“Mxyhappened,” Kara replies darkly, gritting her teeth. “While wewere all having coffee.”

“Theimp guy?” Alex asks. “The one who was going to marry you?”

“Thevery same.”

BothKara and Alex whirl. Sitting in Winn’s chair, grinning wickedly, isthe Fifth Dimension Imp in the Fifth Dimensional flesh.

“Youtwo are very good,” he says, leaning back in the chair. Karascowls.

“Whatdid you do?” she asks.

“WhatI do best!” he exclaims, like it’s the most obvious thing in themultiverse. “Having a little fun, causing a little chaos.” Hebeams. “You were much faster this time around, beat yourrecord by ten whole minutes! The other team isn’t nearly asgood as you, but then, none of them have that unshakable sisterlybond going for them.”

Somethingcold coils in the pit of Kara’s gut.

“Faster…thistime around?”

“Ithink, for this next round, I’m going to have to split you two up,”Mxy declares, standing from his seat. Alex and Kara reflexivelytense, and Kara places herself between the imp and her sister (thoughof course, Alex tries to do the same.)

“Youcan try,” Kara snarls, and she’s prepared to use Barry’s speedto take this guy down.

Butthat would require knowing how to use Barry’s speed, which isdifferent from her own. She charges forward, but overshoots again,and instead of barreling into Mxy, she clips the desk and topplesforward, sending papers flying.

Mxylaughs.

“Hilarious,”he says, pocketing a smart phone that’s appeared out of thin air.“Definitely going on my facebook page. Do you all still usefacebook, in this dimensi—urk!”

Alexhas him in a choke hold.

“Kara,do the lightning thing!” she yells.

“Idon't—what?” Kara struggles to her feet.

“Barrycan throw lightning, right? Do that!”

“Idon’t know how!”

“Alright,”Mxy growls, and snaps his fingers, vanishing from both sight andAlex’s grip. Alex blinks, and looks around.

“What—”

“Enough,”Mxy says, appearing once more. He snaps his fingers, and beforeKara can even react, Alex is gone.

“No!”she shouts, lunging for the imp. This time, she actually hits hertarget, but just as with Alex, his vanishes, and hits another bank ofmonitors.

“Goodeffort,” Mxy says tauntingly, “but even the fastest girl aliveisn’t fast enough to catch me.”

Karaforces herself to her feet with a pained grunt and is about to wipethat smug grin off his face, but Mxy raises his hand…

Andthe world goes dark as the singular sound of a snap echoes in herears.

[spotlightsaga]

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews... Legends of Chamberlain Heights (S02E01) The G-Word Airdate: June 18, 2017 @comedycentral Ratings: 0.191 Million :: 0.10 18-49 Demo Share Score: 7.5/10 TVTime/FB/Twitter/Tumblr/Path: @SpotlightSaga **********SPOILERS BELOW********** Let me be one of the first few at the burgeoning community of TVTime.com to say... Welcome Back, 'Legends of Chamberlain Heights'. I know that I'm a bit late, and most likely either Milk or Grover is going to give me a good slap, henny... But in keeping with tradition of the source material, let me put it this way... I've just been procrastinating. Even so, after watching 'The G-Word', I didn't include Jamal in my inaugural, well deserved belated S2 slap because frankly, Jamal just isn't fit to slap me after turning his back on his boys for a taste of that 'White Boy Fame'... ("Bro, Bro, Bro, Bro, Bro!") Going around slapping mother fuckers like white boys and shaving them stems, Pssssh! In the 'LegendsOfCH' S2 opener, the show takes on 'The G-Word'... No, not Gonorrhea. No, not Gonads, either. It's not Gilgamesh, Gandalf, Gay, Gooch, Guido, Gringo, GHB, Gook or any words of the kind that may ring offensive to sensitive ears... No, no, no. We're talking the dirtiest 'G-Word' of them all - Gentrification. Let's take just a slight moment to veer off the road from the lighthearted, '1+1-2 = No Fucks Given' tone of the hilariously raunchy, Comedy Central show that could even make the legendary 'King of Lowbrow' & 'God of Bad Taste', John Waters, blush, maybe, well, probably not... He is, after all, a god of all things below the belt. Let's get serious for a moment, because goddammit... There's more to 'Legends' than most fans, critics (besides some of our hardworking men & women over at 'BubbleBlabber' - I see y'all!), give the perfectly acceptable companion to 'South Park' credit for. Spotlight Saga has tackled Gentrification many times before, through the vessels of many different series... Including Dick Wolf's slightly butchered take of the very real and very tragic 'Ghost Ship Warehouse Fire' in Oakland. The very same 'Gentrification-Generated' fire that took the lives of 36 of our West Coast brothers and sisters. We don't need to make this one too heavy, but we do need to make a point. There are many critics of this show that dismiss 'Legends' place in this world, yet in one episode they collectively tackle Gentrification, how it can negatively affect our working class & poverty stricken neighborhoods, how 'Arcade Fire' ('Starcade Fire' in the show) can literally Gentrify a riot with a single song that shares the same name of some of their other songs but it is differentiated by a number at the end, always sticking by your friends even when they turn their back on you, Netflix & Chill/I mean FUCK, and how much fun it can be to piss on someone from a rooftop (obviously some lessons more important than others)... All while simultaneously and effectively breaking and reinforcing every racial stereotype known to man. In 'Legends' no one group safe or even remotely off limits. South Park does it and its funny, but creators and voice actors Josiah Johnson (Grover), Quinn Hawking (Jamal), and Michael Starrbury (Milk) of 'Legends of Chamberlain Heights' take it a step further and suddenly everybody is feeling uncomfortable, Fuck y'all! Not only is this animated series absolutely 'Laugh-Out-Loud' hilarious, but it's on the forefront of social commentary... And you can't beat that! What it is about 'Legends' that turns off comedy critics is beyond me. Oh wait, no it isn't. I've actually got a good handle on it. The reason is simple and is exactly why we need a show like 'Legends' on the air ruffling the mainstream, FAR left leaning, SJW members of AV Club and 'Sister Fisting' Lena Dunham clones drooling for a cause to pass in front of their noses like a visible, cartoonish waft of freshly baked, good ol' American Apple Pie stuffed with completely innocent self-deprecating humor that simultaneously makes fun of and champions every minority and their stereotypes, but also shattering them in the same breath. So truly, truly, there's no need for anyone to get riled up, we just need you to fucking laugh, alright? You have our permission! Even publications like 'The New York Times' are coming around to the show's no holds barred style humor, writing articles hailing S2 (where were they in S1?)... Besides the aforementioned show creators, writers, voice actors... Real legends like Erykah Badu lend their musical talents and voice. SNL veteran, actor & stand-up comedian Jay Pharoah sells weed and mentors his little brother as well as 'pseudo-brown' news anchors as the older, wiser, lost soul of Montrel. Breaking Bad star, stand-up comedian and established writer Lovell Crawford gives us the sexually sure, life-saving LaDante. Let's not forget 'The Carmichael Show' staple & television veteran Tiffany Haddish as well as a man who needs no introduction, Jamie Kennedy, both lend their voices to various characters on the show. It would be criminal to not also mention 'The Simpsons' animator, co-creator of MTV's 'Good Vibes', and director of marketing for Illumination Entertainment's 'Minions', Brad Ableson who is also listed as VIP and creator of 'Legends'. That's one helluva diverse group... And one that means no harm. They just want to make you laugh and feel a little somethin', somethin' every once in awhile when Medina isn't tracking down Jamal by the scent of his dick. Yeah, so 'Legends' isn't exactly classy, but it's so much fun... And you should be put on notice, the animated series has stepped up their game for S2. They're just one step closer to actually realizing their hood dreams of becoming.... 'Leeeeeeegennnnnds!'

[atamake]

:///

@custompotato only for you

LAST… [1] drink: water [2] phone call: Steven  [3] text message: my... mom? [4] song you listened to: what if im listening to one now [5] time you cried: 3 days ago

HAVE YOU EVER… [6] dated someone twice: nope [7] been cheated on: nah [8] kissed someone and regretted it: nope  [9] lost someone special: a few,,, [10] been depressed: it’s not ‘been’ if I still am, right? [11] gotten drunk and thrown up: nope

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLORS: [12] Navy Blue [13] Crimson [14] Gold...(is my power colour)

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU… [15] made new friends: yup [16] fallen out of love: nope [17] laughed until you cried: I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard..? [18] found out someone was talking about you: yeah i guess [19] met someone who changed you: a few people, not always for the better though [20] found out who your true friends are: what if they’re dead [21] kissed someone on your facebook list: never used it except for game benefits oops

GENERAL… [22] how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: can’t have friends there if I don’t use it [23] do you have any pets: nah man [24] do you want to change your name: Allen or to like,,, Rachel [25] what did you do for your last birthday: we actually ate out?? Korean BBQ is surprisingly satisfactory [26] what time did you wake up: 8:27 [27] what were you doing at midnight last night: trolling through this shitstorm of a website [28] name something you cannot wait for: the sweet release of death [29] when was the last time you saw your mother: this morning

{30] what is one thing you wish you could change about your life: 

[31] what are you listening to right now: in love with a ghost- mix[MIX-EP]

[32] have you ever talked to a person named tom: uhh sure [33] something that is getting on your nerves: me [34] most visited website: cornhub.c- i mean, tumblr [35] elementary: Scraggy Hill [36] high school: W.M.H.S [37] college: idk yet [38] hair color:Dark, dark brown- but I do  [39] long or short hair: Short [40] do you have a crush on someone: my... boyfriend? [41] what do you like about yourself: my crushing sense of realism  [42] piercings: nope [43]blood type: idfk i think im type AB [44] nickname: Kiwi/Mori [45] relationship status: Taken [46] zodiac sign: Scorpio [47] pronouns: don’t care so long it’s accurate [48] fav tv show: Voltron bc it’s the only thing i remember watching [49] tattoos: keep that shit away from me [50] right or left hand: both! yey

FIRST…

[51] surgery: nope [52] piercing: nnnnnope [53] best friend: my boyfriend and my drawing tablet [54] sport: Tennis and fencing. And... Ice skating,,, [55] vacation: Frost Valley, 6th grade [56] pair of trainers: ....?

RIGHT NOW… [57] eating: popcorn. kill me.  [58] drinking: the blood of my enemies [59] i’m about to: finish homework... or, Daganronpa... [60] listening to: TONIGHT OUR SCHOOL IS VIETNAM,,, [61] waiting for: the sweet release of death. and artistic inspiration. [62] want: honey butter chips, blankets cuddles, and a way to fucking draw [63] get married: probably tbh [64] career: lawyer or artist. Or a writer.

WHICH IS BETTER… [65] hugs or kisses: both are good but I like hugs more [66] lips or eyes: eyes bc they say a lot more than listening to your bullshit [67] shorter or taller: don’t care, so long you’re not an asshole. [68] older or younger: if you’re legal, sure. even though i’m not. [70] nice arms or nice stomach: who cares [71] sensitive or loud: i am potentially loud and not v sensitive [72] hook up or relationship: relationship [73] troublemaker or hesitant: I could probably throw you into a locker and drive your car into the fucking ocean. Is that a good answer?

HAVE YOU EVER… [74] kissed a stranger? no. just. no. [75] drank hard liquor? China takes the blame for this one. [76] lost glasses/contact lenses? to be fair, I couldn’t see... [77] turned someone down: couple of times [78] sex on first date? not interested :   ^) [79] broken someone’s heart? rip josh yen bye bitch bye [80] had your own heart broken? what heart are you referring to [81] been arrested? Potentially, but nope. [82] cried when someone died? yup [83] fallen for a friend? not... really? i mean my current boyfriend also doubles as my best friend, does that count?

DO YOU BELIEVE IN… [84] yourself? ????????????? where have u been these past 84 questions [85] miracles? nope [86] love at first sight?pSSSSH AHAHHAHAAHAHAHA...no. [87] Santa Claus? no comment [88] kiss on the first date? nope [89] angels? hell no

OTHER… [90] current best friend’s name: :   ^)  [91] eye color: Brown/ black ish on one side [92] favorite movie: The Martian. Hands down.

dont feel like tagging people this was just for Carri tbh

[samanthasroberts]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

[adambstingus]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/181849531207

[allofbeercom]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

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5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2xHNr52

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5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

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