#and I had to do the 'Victor looks like a Tim Burton' character one

[victorluvsalice]

Valicer Not-Incorrect Quotes, Halloween Editon

[Context: Alice auditioned for a scare house and was hired on the spot to replace someone who'd quit suddenly; as a result, she was only able to send a quick text to Victor and Smiler saying she got the job and would tell them about it later]

Alice: [jumps out of a corner in the scare house, covered in fake blood and waving a knife] ARRRGH!

Pair Of Sisters: [scream and run on to the next performer]

Alice: [hides again and jumps out at the next passersby] ARRRGH!

Frat Bro: [screams surprisingly high-pitched and flees]

Alice: [hides again and jumps out at the next couple] ARRRGH!

Victor & Smiler, out on a date: [yelp -- then stop dead as they recognize Alice]

Alice: [also freezes as she recognizes them] ...

Victor: So this is where you were hired!

Smiler: [grins and waves] Hi bestie!

Alice: [trying not to laugh] Don't call me that, I'm trying to murder you.

--

Smiler: [entering the house fresh off a shift at Sunny Brews] Hey, I'm home!

Victor: [getting off the couch to greet them] Welcome back! I hope you had a --

Victor: [pauses, then leans in and sniffs Smiler] Goodness, you smell -- really good.

Alice: [getting up as well] They what? [goes in for a sniff too] Huh. You do smell good. Very -- fall?

Smiler: Yeah, that'll be the fifty million pumpkin spice lattes I made today.

--

Victoria: [showing the trio and Emily a new treat recipe she wanted to try out] And now you pipe your meringue on top of the cookie base in a swirl, like so.

Smiler: [looking at the resultant swirl with a raised eyebrow]

Victor: [guessing at what they're thinking] No.

Alice: [also guessing] Besides, it's white.

Smiler: ...that just sent my mind off in a different direction.

Victor: NO.

--

[Context: Victor, Alice, and Smiler are watching The Nightmare Before Christmas with Smiler's other coaster friends]

Thirteen: [glancing over at Victor and jerking her head toward the TV and Halloweentown] So, is that what your hometown looks like?

Victor: Har har. I'll have you know it's not nearly that colorful.

Rita: So more like the town in Frankenweenie, gotcha.

Oblivion: Does Jack come to your family reunions?

Victor: Come on, I don't look that much like a Tim Burton character.

Alice: You really do.

Smiler: You're one oddball corpse-revival away from starring in one of his movies.

Victor: [fake pouts] You're all mean.

Smiler: [winks] And we already know you like spirals.

Victor: [deep blush] Can we go back to watching the movie?

--

Alice: [sidles up to Victor drawing something and leans over him, grinning and showing off fake vampire fangs] Hi darling.

Victor: [glances up at her with a smile -- then does a double take when he notices the teeth] Oh! Ah, hello.

Alice: [still grinning, running a finger along Victor's neck] Like them? I got them just for you.

Victor: [visibly swallows] Ah -- they're -- they're very nice.

Smiler: [abruptly appears at the door in a lab coat and yellow spiral-pattern goggles, lounging against the frame in a way that's meant to be sexy] I understand someone in here needs some serious brainwashing?

Victor & Alice:

Victor: [snorts and turns away to try and hide his laughter]

Alice: [shakes her head, snickering] Way to kill the mood.

Smiler: This is the sexiest outfit in the world and you know it.

--

[after hours at the scare house]

Coworker: Hey, Alice? I saw you kissing some guy behind the attraction on our break --

Alice: Oh, that was my boyfriend, I wasn't making out with a random guest.

Coworker: [fidgeting] Yeah, but -- I saw him come in with some other guy, and kiss him too.

Alice: Oh, that was my boyfriend's themfriend.

Coworker: ???

Alice: We're complicated.

--

[ravns-reviews]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone. 🥂🎄🎉

Today I decided to dive back a little into the world of Halloween by talking about the very popular Wednesday series by Tim Burton that you can find on Netflix.

I'm very divided by this series and I think I'm going to need a season 2 to be sure of how I feel about it.

Already you should know that I was super excited about this series because Tim Burton is my favorite director and I've been a fan of the Addams family since I was little. So I really liked the two together. 🤭

❗️Be careful, there may be spoilers, so read this article after watching the series.❗️

First let's talk about what I didn't like about Wednesday.

First of all: why would you want to put Wednesday in a relationship with someone at all??🤷‍♀️ For me Wednesday is not the type of person to date someone or to take very long before doing so. She is the opposite of her parents in her relationship with love. I admit that this part of the story bored me quite quickly.

Then I find that the development of the characters is not explored enough. Maybe it's intentional on the part of the director to save material for a season 2, but I still find that we know very little about the different characters of the series. for example Eugene who is Wednesday's "best friend" and therefore quite important the only things we know about him is that he has two moms and they control the bees, as well as his love of caramel. It's quite a bit. And I think that goes for all the characters. we really only know the bare minimum and I find that a shame. So I hope we will talk about it a little more in the next season.

In the same idea as the development of characters I find that certain parts of the plot come a bit out of nowhere or on the contrary are abandoned all at once. for example the fact that the director pretends to be Morticia's friend when she doesn't like her I thought it would give rise to a plot but no. We are just given this information without telling us more afterwards. So why give it to us? after that it is always possible that something will come back in a next season, but in this case why tell us now?? I was a bit confused about some things I must admit.

Finally I know it's only a detail but can we talk for a moment about the final fight between Wednesday and Joseph Crackstone?? Am I the only one disappointed by this final fight?? i mean this is supposed to be the climax of the season where the two enemies go head to head to see which one will win and we get to have that?? I expected so much more that I confess that it frustrated me (much like the final fight between Harry and Voldemort.) 🤣

Despite everything there are still things that I like more. 🤭

The sets and costumes are just gorgeous. We can clearly see the spirit of Tim Burton and I really like it. In addition, I like that we kept the essence of the members of the Addams family by adding a touch of modernity. Enid and Wednesday's room decor is definitely still my favorite. I like the fact that we show the character of the two girls thanks to their environment.

Obviously one of the things that I liked the most in the series is the fact that Christina Ricci, the interpreter of the original Wednesday, is present. Moreover the fact that it is one of the antagonists of the season is very interesting I find. a way for the old Wednesday to pass the torch to the new Wednesday. I loved..❤️

A detail that I also appreciated is the fact that the actors who play the Addams are of Hispanic origins since Gomez is supposed to be.

Finally can we salute the performance of Victor Dorobantu who plays The Thing ?? 😱 This actor managed to make me appreciate a hand!! moreover when one looks behind the scene one realizes the enormous work which it had to provide and I find that for that it deserves to be applauded.

Summary of the good and bad things about this series. I hope season 2 will allow me to appreciate it more.

And you what did you think of this series?? More positive or more negative? Do not hesitate to leave me your opinion in the comments.

[bloodykora]

It's spooky season AND almost my bday plus my fav holiday. Which MEANS I am allowed to talk about Corpse Bride all I fucking want.

I know, Tim Burton is racist or whatever but I have loved this movie since my infancy therefore shut up. Also warning, I swear a lot.

I will be going over my favourite things, most of them you've probably heard before but I don't care.

1. The music. I'm talking about the piano songs (like duet and the solo), the addition of the organ. I'm a huge fan of it being added into more gothic films like this one and Phantom (OTO). It can add such a more deep and rich feeling to the song along with more lonesome sounds which itch parts of my brain. I also am very good at hearing a re-occurring theme in the background of movies (like angel of music from phantom, and even hearing anybody have a map+good for you in the DEH movie in that 1 scene) Corpse Bride does it too and I am obsessed with it.

2. The look I'm a depressed bitch which means I have the eyebags and slouch which most characters do not have. You get this more naive and child look from Victoria because of her more round face shape unlike Emily who looks more mature from the sharpness along with her height. I also like the oppositeness of V and V's parents. The super tall with the super short and the skinny with the plump. Victor looks like how he acts, well put together but not given the opportunity to fully express his personality therefore the dull colours and simple design unlike Barkis who has ruffles and puffy sleeves out of his jacket. The old wise skeleton man doesn't look like the others, there are holes beginning to form in his bones from lack of calcium. His head is withering away and he has a slouch when he walks. On the other side of the look. The difference between the "upstairs and downstairs" aka the living and the dead. We are first shown the underworld in a fucking bar, with bright colours. Like what. I know it may seem silly to be this excited about colour but it really shows how we as humans are. We are safe and take precautions, we don't do things in fear of consequence or fear of being outcast. Then as we get older we regret this and when we are on our deathbed we really say everything we wish we had done. The dead now party because they have no fears of dread about what's to come. Which leads into another thing.

3. Their personalities The dead literally have more sense of humour then the living. The captain takes Napoleon's? (i think it's supposed to be him or something) fucking drink OUT OF HIS CORPSE by removing a sword that was in his abdomen. LIKE WHAT. Plus, the dope fucking music they got going. Victor feels more at peace with this crowd cause they don't give a fuck, they're dead and even murdered. When they go upstairs they are peaceful and not demonic like people would assume. They go for a wedding, a wholesome, kind moment. They are allowed to reunite with their family and loved ones which can help so much with closure! The scene is littered with a puke kind of green, settling in the feeling of uneasiness but immediately it turns to the main theme of blue. LIKE AaAAAA. Also, we get one of the funniest lines in the whole movie. "There's an eyeball, in me soup."

4. Butterflies This movie made me fall in love with butterflies, literally was watching Arachnophobia with my bro in law and at the beginning they drug butterflies to look at them. I was watching them fall and out of my mouth slipped "That's a blue morpho." which shocked by BIL. I was hugely embarassed cause I knew it from Corpse Bride thankfully my BIL thought it was cool that I knew it and his respect for went up. I love the theme of butterflies through the movie because of what they represent, and I don't mean Emily. Butterflies normally resemble a big transformation and personal growth along with rebirth, hope and life. Look me in the eyes and tell me you can't connect the fucking dots.

This is where I will leave it for now, but I might make a part 2 cause I love this movie so much. Here are some of my fav lines: "Eyeball in me soup" As previously mentioned. "I spent so long in the darkness, I'd almost forgotten how beautiful the moonlight is!" "Can a heart still break once it's stop beating?" "Excuse me. You don't know me but I used to live in your dead mother." "Now, why go up there when people are dying to get down here?" "Your hands are too fat, and his neck is too thin. You'll have to use a rope." The vows, I like the vows so much I will have them if I get married. "Did things not go according to your plan, Lord Barkis? Well, perhaps in disappointment we are perfectly matched.” "Who invited these people? They must be from your side of the family.” "I've got a... I've got a dwarf, and I'm not afraid to use him!"

I will get a tattoo of this movie I swear to god.

[introvertguide]

Influential Directors of the Silent Film Era

Upon hearing that I am a fan of silent era film, people will ask if I have a favorite actor or movie from the time period. However, when I am asked about my favorites from other fans of silent film, it tends to involve my favorite director. This is because silent film actors had to over gesticulate and performed in an unrealistic way and could not use their tone or words to convey emotion. The directors also did not have a way to review as they shot and would have to use editing skills and strategic cover shots to make sure that everything was done properly and come out the way they imagined it. It was up to the director to be creative and they were forced to be innovative and create ways to convey their vision. Luckily for many average or poor directors of the time, audiences were easily impressed. However, today's more demanding and sophisticated audiences can look back at some of the genius behind the films of silent era Hollywood.

Alice Guy-Blache: Matrimony's Speed Limit (1913) and The Fairy of the Cabbages (1896)

Art director of the film studio The Solax Company, the largest pre-Hollywood movie studio, and camera operator for the France based Gaumont Studio headed up by Louis Lemiere, this woman was a director before any kind of gender expectations were even established. She was a pioneer of the use of audio recordings in conjunction with images and the first filmmaker to systematically develop narrative filming. Guy-Blanche didn't just record an image but used editing and juxtaposition to reveal a story behind the moving pictures. In 1914, when Hollywood studios hired almost exclusively upper class white men as directors, she famously said that there was nothing involved in the staging of a movie that a woman could not do just as easily as a man.

Charlie Chaplin: The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1923), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940)

It is unfortunate that many people today think of Chaplin as silly or for screwball comedy when, in fact, he was a great satirist of the time. He created his comedy through the eyes of the lower economic class that suffered indignities over which they had no control. He traversed the world as his "Tramp" character who found his fortune by being amiable and lucky. The idea that a good attitude and a turn of luck could result in happiness was all that many Americans had during the World Wars and the Great Depression. He played the part of the sad clown and he was eventually kicked out of the country for poking fun at American society. Today he is beloved for his work, but he was more infamous than famous during a large part of his life.

Buster Keaton: Sherlock Jr. (1924), The General (1926), and The Cameraman (1928).

That man that performed the most dangerous of stunts with a deadpan expression, Buster Keaton was a great actor, athlete, stuntman, writer, producer, and director. It is amazing that you could get so much emotion out of a silent actor who does not emote, but Keaton managed to do it. He was also never afraid to go big, often putting his own well being at risk to capture a good shot. Not as well known for his cinematography or editing as many of the other directors of the time, he instead captured performances that were amazing no matter how they were filmed. Famous stunts include the side of a house falling down around him, standing on the front of a moving train, sitting on the side rail of a moving train, and grabbing on to a speeding car with one hand to hitch a ride. If you like films by Jackie Chan, know that he models his films after the work of Buster Keaton: high action and high comedy.

Cecil B. Demille: The Cheat (1915), Male and Female (1919), and The Ten Commandments (1923)

Known as the father of the Hollywood motion picture industry, Demille was the first director to make a real box office hit. He is likely best known for making The Ten Commandments in 1923 and then remaking it again in 1956. If not that, he was also known for his scandalous dramas that depicted women in the nude. This was pre-Code silent film so the rules about what could be shown had not been established. Demille made 30 large production successful films in the silent era and was the most famous director of the time which gave him a lot of freedom. His trademarks were Roman orgies, battles with large wild animals, and large bath scenes. His films are not what most modern film watchers think of when they are considering silent films. That famous quote from the movie Sunset Boulevard in 1950 in which the fading silent actress says "All right, Mr. Demille. I'm ready for my close-up," is referring to this director.

D.W. Griffith: Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916)

Griffith started making films in 1908 and put out just about everything that he recorded. He made 482 films between 1908 and 1914, although most of these were shorts. His most famous film today is absolutely Birth of a Nation and it is one of the most outlandishly racist films of the time. The depiction of black Americans as evil and the Klu Klux Klan as heroes who are protecting the nation didn't even really go over well at that time. Some believe that his follow up the next year called Intolerance was an apology, but the film actually addresses religious and class intolerance and avoids the topic of racism. At the time, Griffith films were known for the massive sets and casts of thousands of extras, but today he is known for his racist social commentary.

Sergei Eisenstein: Battleship Potemkin (1925)

This eccentric Russian director was a pioneer of film theory and the use of montage to show the passage of time. His reputation at the time would probably be similar to Tim Burton or maybe David Lynch. He had a very specific strange style that made his films different from any others. The film Battleship Potemkin is considered to be one of the best movies of all time as rated by Sight and Sound, and generally considered as a great experimental film that found fame in Hollywood as well as Russia.

F.W. Murnau: Nosferatu (1922), Faust (1926), and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

I think that most people would know the bald-headed long-nailed vampire Nosferatu that was a silent era phenomena. It was so iconic that the German film studio that produced the movie was sued by the estate of Bram Stoker and had to close. Faust was his last big budget German film and has an iconic shot of the demon Mephisto raining plague down on a town that was the inspiration for the Demon Mountain in Fantasia (1940). Also, Sunrise is considered one of the best movies of all time by the AFI and by Sight and Sound as well as my favorite silent film. Fun facts: 1) more of Murnau's films have been lost then are still watchable and 2) he died in a car wreck at only 40 when he hired a car to drive up the California coast and the driver was only 14.

Erich von Stroheim: Greed (1924)

Maker of very strange German Expressionist films, Stroheim films are often listed as Horror or Mystery even though he considered himself a dramatic film maker. His most famous movie Greed was supposed to be amazing with an 8 hour run time but it was cut drastically to the point that it makes no sense and was both critically and publicly panned when an extremely abridged version was released in the U.S. Over half the film was lost and a complete version no longer exists. Besides this film, Stroheim was even better known for being the butler in the film Sunset Boulevard as a former director who retired to be with an aging silent film star. He also made a movie called Between Two Women (1937) that told the story of a female burn victim that was inspired by the story of his wife being burned in an explosion in a shop on the actual Sunset Boulevard.

Victor Fleming: The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone With the Wind (1939)

Although not known for his silent films, Fleming did get his start during the silent era. He was a cinematographer for D.W. Griffith and then Fleming directed his first film in 1919. Most of his silent films were swashbuckling action movies with Douglas Fairbanks or formulaic westerns. He is the only director to have two films on the AFI top 10 and they happened to have come out the same year.

Hal Roach: Lonesome Luke films starring Harold Lloyd, Our Gang shorts, Laurel and Hardy shorts, and Of Mice and Men (1939)

It is not really fair to put Hal Roach in the silent era directors because he was influential at the time but he had a 75 year career. He was a producer and film studio head and even had a studio named after himself. His biggest contribution to the silent era was his production of Harold Lloyd short comedies and he continued to produce films in the early talkies including Laurel and Hardy shorts, Our Gang shorts, and Wil Rogers films. Roach was the inspiration for the film Sullivan's Travels, in which a famous director who only did frivolous comedies goes out into the world to find inspiration to find a serious drama. Roach did direct a single serious drama, Of Mice and Men, but it came out in 1939 and was buried underneath the works of Victor Fleming. The wealthy cigar smoking studio head that many people think of when they picture a film studio suit is based on this guy. The man would not quit and stayed in the business into his 90s and lived to the ripe old age of 100.

[mrdrhenwardhykle]

A while ago I made a post about not being able to talk about specific fandoms without someone automatically talking about some random Fredorator or Matpat theory like it’s canon. Since I’m a fan if the Tim Burton claymation movies, I always get people talking about that one theory that Frankenweenie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Corpse Bride are related whenever they realize I like those movies. I just want to take the time to analyze how ridiculous this theory is.

(Ps. I am not bashing on anybody if you like this theory, by the way; I just think it’s way too bizarre and inconsistent for people to think of it like it’s confirmed canon)

To start off with something simple but seemingly obvious; that all three movies have different concepts of death or the afterlife. To my knowledge, it hasn’t been confirmed that Halloween Town is an afterlife; However, it can be assumed that at least some of the residents were alive since there are characters based on already existing characters in literature that have canon deaths (Mr. Hyde and the Evil Queen from Snow White), as well as characters like the hanging men and behemoth who both have appearances implying murder/executions. Halloween Town bares no resemblance to the Downstairs in Corpse Bride, nor does it have the same purpose (Since Halloween Town is obviously a town centered on preparing for Halloween, and the Downstairs is just a small residential area that’s just for living a better life than before). Now, for the sake of this theory, let’s just say Halloween Town isn’t an afterlife and acts as more of a Pet Cemetery than anything and Victor is buried there when he dies; why would Scraps’ soul be there too if he’s already in the afterlife? Also; Zero’s name is on his own grave, proving that he is not in fact Scraps. So basically, None of the dead dogs are related because Zero and Scraps look more like Beagles, and Sparky is totally off the table because his appearance looks more like a Minature Bull Terrier. So basically at this point they’re trying to convince me that the same guy had 3 undead dogs in his life/death.

When considering this theory, I never hear anyone attempting to explain how jumbled up the timeline is. The theory’s timeline claims that the story starts with Frankenweenie and ends with the Nightmare Before Christmas. This makes no sense because Frankenweenie is set in the 1950’s, Corpse Bride obviously takes place in the Victorian era, and the Nightmare Before Christmas is in a more modern era and probably takes place in the year it came out.

The final point and nail in the coffin for me is by looking at the history of Frankenweenie. The original 1984 Frankenweenie came out before the production of Nightmare or Corpse Bride, and (correct me if I’m wrong) was criticized by Disney for being too dark . Tim Burton seemed to always want Frankenweenie to become a feature film, but wasn’t able to follow through at that time. Victor Vandort was likely an homage to Victor from Frankenweenie and was based on his concept art. I’m just going to assume the fact that Corpse Bride came out in 2005 and Frankenweenie came out in 2012 and took 3 years to make, it’s safe to assume the production of the 2012 Frankenweenie was not planned by the time of Corpse Bride’s production. If you don’t really believe that Frankenweenie was not planned out this whole time, scraps of concept art, such as sparky on the bone Biscut box in Nightmare, can be seen referenced time and time again in Tim Burton’s work.

Also, why are you guys acting like Fredorator proved this canon? They didn’t. In that video, (idk I don’t think I’ve seen it since 2014, but take it with a grain of salt) I believe they talk about how the common motif of a long skinny guy and his dead dog is based off of Tim Burton’s personal experiences.

That might have been a bunch of rambling, but I’m tired of people bringing up this theory any time I do as much as wear merchandise from one of the movies. Sure, if you want to, you can headcanon it to be canon, but please look into something before claiming it to be 100% canon to everyone you meet.

[dccomicsnews]

Directed by: Cathy Yan

Written by: Christina Hodson

Starring: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ewan McGregor

Review by: Eric Joseph

Summary

Somewhat capitalizing on the success of 2016’s Suicide Squad, Margot Robbie returns as Harley Quinn in an ensemble tale that kind of functions as a solo adventure all at the same time. The Clown Princess of Crime may share the screen with several other DC favorites, sure, but it still feels like it’s her movie in the end. Think of how Steve Rogers remained the central character in Captain America: Civil War amid guest stars galore, and you have somewhat of a decent parallel here – albeit with a much smaller cast, of course.

Unfortunately, Birds of Prey didn’t rake in the box office dough it should have, but we can only hope that more people discover it once the home video release hits shelves. In my view, this film turned out much better than I’d anticipated, so I’m going to tell you why it’s worth your time and money. Questionable marketing, costume choices, and an unnecessarily long title that should have been simplified to “Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey” in the first place were likely the biggest factors contributing to financial shortcomings, although there’s nothing we can do about any of those at this point.

Basically, the story follows Harley Quinn, Huntress, Black Canary and Renee Montoya as they call come together while the villainous Black Mask and Victor Zsasz hunt the human MacGuffin that is Cassandra Cain. I won’t spoil why they’re pursuing said child in case you haven’t seen the picture for yourself, but that’s the gist of it.

Positives 

The greatest positive to mention is that of the gal whose name is included in the title itself: Harley Quinn. Like I said, this is damn near a Harley solo film, although I can’t complain too much because Margot Robbie simply knocks it out of the park. It’s as if Suicide Squad were the appetizer and Birds of Prey is the main course. Her performance is spot-on, and I can tell she put a lot of effort and research into every onscreen decision she made while inhabiting the character’s skin. My guess is that she’d just begun reading the comics while filming Suicide Squad, and then read a lot more in the time since. I know for a fact that she’s become a fan of the source material, and it really shows.

In fact, I must say that the rest of the main cast did commendable jobs with the roles they landed – even if some of those portrayals were questionable. Well, any missteps when it came to characterization weren’t their fault, as actors just play with the scripts they’re given. We’ll pick up on that point when we get to the “negatives” part of this review, alright?

Actually, it could be argued that some gripes can be tolerated when the end product turns out so well. The narrative itself unfolds in nonlinear fashion, yet it comes across as quite smooth. It’s a far cry from the editing nightmare that was Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s theatrical cut, that’s for sure.

If anyone deserves a round of high fives, it’s 87eleven, the stunt team who choreographed the stellar action sequences. There’s a very good reason why the fight scenes are on par with John Wick films – and that’s because the same talented folks just mentioned worked on those. Here’s hoping they’re brought aboard for more DC projects in the future, particularly anything having to do with Batman.

K.K. Barrett and his production design crew also warrant a tip of the hat. I’m aware that they wanted their Gotham City to look different and more realistic, but it’s my belief they achieved something closer to the comics than anything lensed by Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. Not meaning to knock what those guys did, but their Gothams simply looked like everyday major cities. Gotham City is a character unto itself, and that’s something I haven’t seen portrayed to the fullest extent outside of the Tim Burton-Joel Schumacher era and the Gotham TV series. But here, we’re transported to Black Mask’s nightclub, an eerie amusement park and otherworldly pier that look like they were plucked from Batman: The Animated Series, with daytime romps through the city forcing me to recall something like the Burnside borough from the comics.

And when it comes to supplemental content, WB sure didn’t skimp on that for the Blu-ray release. I recommend checking out “Birds Eye View Mode” for your second viewing of the feature presentation, as it is essentially a video commentary, behind-the-scenes tour, and pop-up video-style factoid dropper all rolled into one. Beyond that, there are featurettes that delve into production design, stunts, costuming and much more.

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Negatives

Okay, here’s where I have to get dead serious.

My first airing of grievances has to be directed at costuming. That particular department may have wanted to avoid skimpy spandex outfits and “onesies” as they put it, but not many characters in this movie are recognizable to readers of comics. Although most people flocking to theaters don’t actually read the books, the core audience will kickoff the snowball effect of advance poor word of mouth without fail, and that definitely happened well before opening weekend this past February.

Now, I’m not saying Mary Elizabeth Winstead had to run around in a singlet as if she were going for a swim, but they could’ve figured out some sort of tactical gear akin to the blueprint laid by comic book artists. If other movies in the genre can do it, why couldn’t this one? And when she finally does don the black and purple complemented by a white cross, it’s in a tracksuit-type whatever-it-is that looks like it was ordered online and arrived several sizes too big. You see, this is what grinds the gears of diehard fans. If their familiar getup is supposedly so impractical and unfavorable to women, then Harley Quinn and Black Canary wouldn’t be cosplayed ad infinitum worldwide, would they?

Now, I’m not going to do likewise for every other character – save for Harley, who couldn’t even wear her familiar red and black color scheme – but there’s a reason why I singled out Huntress: I’d been waiting years for her to come to the silver screen. Not only that, but both the Birds of Prey and Arrow TV series had already struck out when it came to her costume, so that’s why I had high hopes for this. And to be clear, I have no criticisms of Ms. Winstead herself; the casting department found the right actress. It’s just that they missed the mark with her gear.

As for poor characterization mentioned earlier, I can’t fathom how Black Mask and Cassandra Cain got so f—ed up. The former would be more aptly described as “Black Mascara” and the latter is not the disabled hero who once took up cape and cowl as Batgirl in the comics. I’d go as far to say they could’ve called her “Jimmy Olsen” and it wouldn’t have made a difference. Really, why mess up them both when every other major character in this production was pretty much nailed from a writing standpoint? But that’s Hollywood, baby, and they know better than you or I.

Verdict

In the case of Birds of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), the pros far outweigh the cons. Trust me when I say this film is a must-see for fans of Harley Quinn and DC Comics in general, so do yourself a favor and pick it up on whatever home video format you prefer. It’s insane, R-rated fun on the same level as Deadpool, so fingers remain crossed that this finds the larger audience it deserves.

Blu-ray Review: Birds Of Prey (And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn) Directed by: Cathy Yan Written by: Christina Hodson Starring: Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ewan McGregor…

[qcpmedia]

“Birds of Prey”: A Crisis of Infinite Harleys

by Chris Clay

Ok-- let's get this part out of the way first: I love Harley Quinn.

Have done since her debut on Batman The Animated Series. My mother let my dad take me to see Tim Burton’s brilliant 1989 Batman film (I was 5 at the time) because she was under the assumption that Batman was always the high camp she remembered enjoying in the television show from her childhood. Thanks, Adam West! My journey into comics began shortly after learning to read with classical mythology, so I was totally prepared for all manner of tales about monsters, demons, serial killers, human traffickers, etc. Quickly becoming an avid comic reader, 10 year-old me was a DC & Marvel veteran who spent a lot of mental energy filling in the blanks on the softened-for-cartoons versions of Bats, Spidey & the X-Men. 

After years of seeing "versions" of my favorite supers onscreen, I thought this new character, originally the Joker's jester henchwoman, was a breath of fresh air. She seemed like the perfect fit for both the show and the Joker, the first real Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. She was funny but also scary, vulnerable and just overall awesome. Best of all? She didn’t seem nerfed for kids tv. She just seemed oddly... real. And she was contagious. That complex reality bled onto anyone she shared enough screen time with. She helped me to see Poison Ivy as the troubled yet brilliant and sensitive person the show had always hinted she was. Besides Catwoman, no other character tested Batman's rigid sense of right and wrong more beautifully. Even Joker seemed multifaceted when Harley was around. I cheered as loudly as anyone when she ditched that clown, and those Harley/Ivy episodes were some of the best the series had to offer.

OG Harley & subsequent versions over the years tended to show a woman that was preyed upon by a master manipulator who pushed her to the edge of sanity. To the edge, not over it. She was definitely traumatized, but the original portrayals never presented any extreme mental problems. Sure, she was codependent & had a temper. And shitty taste in men. Those traits in moderation are not craaaazy. That's just being human.

Harley continued to evolve over the years, shaped by many creators and performers across multiple mediums. Her look has changed, her status as villain or antihero has vacillated and her relationships have been presented more and more as on her terms rather than something foisted upon her by chance.

The characterization problems started in comics, but David Ayers' disappointing 2016 Suicide Squad film brought this lesser Harl to the masses, along with a version of her *ahem* more revealing New52 costume, seemingly metahuman durability & chalk white skin. I always loved the idea that Harleen had the ability to take her jester clothing & clown makeup off, sit around with an equally dressed-down Ivy and talk about who they really were, what made them tick. This new Harley (like her modern comics counterpart) was always "on", displaying very little of the soulful, mature character many of us comics & animation fans know and love. Despite that, she was definitely the highlight of the film, and there were flashes of brilliance that made me believe Margot Robbie could get to the fundamental truths of the character if given another chance. 

And that brings us rather neatly to Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn).

Harley Quinn, last seen in the aforementioned Suicide Squad, has just been dumped by the Joker & is forced to make her own way in Gotham City’s underworld. In short order, she meets Dinah Lance, Renee Montoya, Helena Bertinelli & Cassandra Cain. All of these ladies have, for various reasons, fallen onto the radar of neat-freak gangster Roman Sionis, played with scenery-scarfing delight by Ewan MacGregor. Forced to band together to survive, they eventually learn that despite their considerable individual talents, they're more formidable as a team.

For some reason I still can’t quite articulate, I remember being slightly underwhelmed when the cast was announced. I liked all of the actors... hell, each of them has had at least one role I absolutely loved them in-- but I still felt they were odd choices for their respective roles in this movie (more on that later). The trailer was where I got genuinely worried that Warner might be climbing back into the hole so many creators toiled to pull the DC film properties out of. 

However, as I said in the beginning, I love Harley Quinn. I was definitely going to see this movie. In Margot Robbie, I felt Harley had a champion on par with Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool or Hugh Jackman as Wolverine; an actor who would work tirelessly to get their character right, on the page & onscreen, however many tries it took. Plus she was saying some interesting things about what she thought the the film & the character should represent during the rollout (and I know the movie isn't the trailer), so I was at "cautious optimism" by the time I sat down to watch the film.

I was totally wrong about one thing: the cast is the best thing about the movie, and that’s not some backhanded compliment. K.K. Barrett's production design is great, colorful while not feeling cheap or phony, and Cathy Yan has a great eye for fun directing choices that keep things zipping along... but the cast is the real MVP. They’re actually great.

Jurnee Smollet-Bell is understated & surprisingly physical as tough-as-nails chanteuse Dinah Lance, a classic “woman trying to keep her head down in a bum situation”. She gave modern comic book moll vibes & I Stan. Rosie Perez's Renee Montoya brought a dose of realism to the candy-coated insanity swirling all around her while also giving Harley an entertaining foil for the first 2 acts. She has probably my favorite fight scene in the entire movie.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the person I went into the movie thinking was the most grossly miscast, is hands down my favorite character in the film. She's equal parts ruthless & socially awkward, a take on Huntress that is somehow both anachronistic & perfectly in step with her comic counterpart. Even newcomer Ella Jay Basco brings a unique charm to what could have easily been an irksome reimagining of fan favorite Cass Cain as a sassy teenage pickpocket. MacGregor’s turn as Sionis is less a character than he is a symbol, acting as a stand-in for various brands of broken maleness, but the guy’s clearly having a blast and he has decent enough chemistry with the leads. Chris Messina as Victor Vsasz is an absolute snoozefest, a waste of both character and actor that I’ll give no more space or attention.

Now for the elephant in the room: Margot Robbie's Harley is my least favorite thing about the whole movie.

"But Chris..", I hear you yelling at your computational device, "...you said she was the lone bright spot of SS!"

True, but in a film with clever, unmuddied direction & other actors that actually display some semblance of emotion or charisma for more than one scene a piece, the bar has been raised this go round & Robbie's frantic mugging limbos under said bar by a mile. What’s worse is that she actively takes screen time that could be better spent fleshing out one of the other four characters. Only Huntress (who has probably the least screen time of any of the leads) actually has a backstory, but her origin is a large part of the plot. One could be forgiven for thinking the she wouldn’t have had one at all otherwise. We don’t really know anything about Cassandra Cain, Montoya is literally just Stock Cop, and you could make a whole movie out of how the hell Dinah ended up singing at Sionis’ club. And where the hell is the Joker?! Why is he letting Harley destabilize Gotham’s balance of power or letting Sionis threaten his ex-puddin’ while also claiming to be the the underworld’s top dog? Instead of answering these questions, we get a bunch of throwaway characters attacking the newly-emancipated Quinn and Suicide Squad flashbacks that look even uglier than before when placed side by side with the production design of this film. The fact that most of these characters are so thinly characterized yet still connect is a testament to the performances and chemistry of the central cast.

You get the feeling that a lot of this movie was Robbie as producer, exerting her ideas & energy onto a massive production that needed a lot of moving parts to line up in order to work. It's not easy to have everything riding on you, whether it’s the future of the DCEU, progressive representation of women in film or just your own movie stardom. I understand that and I sympathize. This frantic, flailing movie is the product of some 3 years of rewrites and pitching, shooting on and off for 9 months, plus all the promo stuff. Every interview that I've seen the cast do has basically been Robbie explaining things ad nauseam while Jurnee Smollet-Bell or Mary Elizabeth Winstead kind of quietly nod in agreement, with the exception of the recent season premiere of Hot Ones, where capsaicin finally allowed someone else get a word in edgewise. The real problem with that comes when you see the movie and realize she’s contextualizing so much of the film on other media outlets because the film itself doesn’t really seem to have the time or interest, leaving it’s star to try and explain what we actually see onscreen on the press tour. This leads to a situation akin to Final Fantasy XV, where the player needed heaps of supplemental content to understand what could and should have been included in the story proper. She just seems overworked, similar to when Ben Affleck wanted to perform the Herculean task of writing, directing & starring in the next solo Batman film. Maybe Margot & Harley both need a little break?

The internet is scrambling to diagnose why a well-reviewed movie starring a beloved character played by a popular actress is underperforming at the box office, citing everything from the trailer to the rating to the movie’s title, with many (including BoP creator Gerry Conway) blaming the lackluster box office on sexism, but I think there might be a simpler answer: this version is trying to pull from the entire history of Harley to create a singular characterization from sometimes disparate portrayals. It doesn’t help that Robbie’s Quinn exists in a universe that’s constantly shifting under her feet after every film.

Most comic characters are criticized for being inaccurate to the source material but Harley has arguably the opposite problem; almost a Crisis of Infinite Harleys, where Robbie and Warner Bros. want to stuff the best elements from every version of Harley into every movie she’s in. It’s supposed to be fan service but instead, often feels scattered and tiring. Not to mention the stuff these films just pluck straight out of thin air that don’t work...

The DC Universe version of the character chose to leave the Joker on her own terms and I thought that was a brilliant and socially relevant writing choice, so it was strange to then see the more mainstream (and arguably more popular) version of Harley be dragged out of Joker’s hideout, kicking and screaming. In a film who’s title was purposely made ridiculously long to accentuate the character’s supposed newfound self-sufficiency, For all of the things that do work well, Birds of Prey just doesn’t feel like what’s explicitly promised on the tin.

I still love Harley Quinn, and I still think Margot Robbie’s the right person for the job. No need to Pattinson her or anything... just put less on her plate and give the character and the movies she’s in a clear, singular direction. Pretty please, puddin’?

[klaudiaspiechowicz]

Frankenweenie

I didn’t really like this movie, I remember seeing trailers for it as a kid and going “oh well that’s boring”. it had an unoriginal story loosely based of Frankenstein but the film was targeting a young audience but everything about it seems to not be doing that. Starting with the obvious the black and white color scheme, it represents Tim Burton’s style very well but it’s simply not something eye-catching enough for children to want to watch. I get it if this style was maintained but the movie would be advertised to adults but because it was deliberatery targeting children I can tell that this style clearly doesn’t work. And it shows as the movie only made 81.5 million worldwide (which is terrible for a Disney movie at that time) which is barely double its budget. As well as something that fails to be eye-catching are the characters. The cast is not distinctive at all and the male and female protagonists look exactly like each other with hairstyles as the only thing that allows people to distinguish them from each other. As for the other characters the only 2 memorable ones are the girl that kept talking about her cats poo (which was disturbing but I guess that’s the tone of the movie) and she could be distinguished by her blond hair, which I’m pretty sure she was the only one with, as well as her massive eyes even further enlarged by eye shadow around them and the fact that she would never blink on screen. And for the other character it was Victor’s friend that could be told apart form the rest of the cast the easiest mostly because he was the only one with a properly different face shape and a hunched back.

“In New Holland, the boy Victor Frankenstein is a bright but outcast student without any friend but his dog Sparky. When the newcomer science teacher Mr. Rzykruski challenges the students to participate in the science fair, Victor's father forces him to play baseball otherwise he would not sign the necessary authorization for his son. During the game, Sparky chases the ball and is hit by a car. Victor recalls Mr. Rzykruski's class about the effects of electricity and successfully resuscitates Sparky using lightning. Victor hides Sparky in the attic but the weird Edgar sees the dog on the garden and blackmails Victor to learn how to bring the dead to life. Edgar does not keep the secret and soon Victor's envious schoolmates revive several creatures to win the science fair contest. When the town is invaded by the monsters, Victor and Sparky are the last chance to rescue the girl Elsa van Helsing from the claws of Mr. Whiskers.”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1142977/plotsummary

I believe the plot is very unoriginal even for an adaptation of The Frankenstein. It’s not taking any creative initiative at all, as if it was trying to be a bland and forgettable. It doesn’t seem the movie was even using the original book to its advantage. The only thing it really does adapt is the fact that a dead thing is resurrected thanks to a science user being creative and going up against nature which in the end backfires. But in the book Victor stole from graves as well as took a body of a man being publicly hanged that nobody else wanted to claim, he didn’t have any connection to his creature meanwhile here in this movie Victor is depressed after his dog died and in the moment instead of learning to accept the loss of his pet he decides ”hey I’m going to become a necromancer with no tools or knowledge or science”. Like in the original book it made sense why Victor succeeded with his creation, he was a Doctor, he studied biology and science at his university ad even then it took him 9 months I believe and multiple attempts to revive the body, while in Frankenweenie it was done by pure chance, that just doesn’t make for a fulfilling plot. Also I hated the love subplot between the 2 human protagonists, literally more attention was put on those two instead of the title character, the movie should be about a boy and his dog like it was advertised to be and not a romance between two 12 year olds. That romance was also in a way based on the romance from the original book, but there it was a huge plot device because Frankenstein’s monster wanted a bride that Victor made for him and after bringing her to life; killed. That’s why his monster takes revenge by killing his wife later in the book resulting in the ending of Frankenstein chasing his monster around the world which leads directly to how the book has started making it a full, well written story. Here the romance made no sense and was useless to the plot and the story ad it felt forced because “woah male protagonist, female protagonist? Guess what they kiss now” which is basically the plot of every older Disney princess movie and I just felt while watching the film it was so unnecessary. And the movie is full of annoying moments like this but those 2 were the ones that bothered me the most because it was so clear it was trying to do the same thing the book did but failed terrifically. 

[letterboxd]

Horror.

Letterboxd presents our community’s 25 top rated horror films of all time.

With the release this month of the newest Halloween, and an embarrassment of riches in the form of thousands of new horror film reviews thanks to all the Hoop-tober / Shocktober / 31 Days of Horror challenges, we are feeling brave enough to open the crypt and pull out the Letterboxd community’s 25 Highest Rated Horror Films of All Time.

Don’t @ or stab us, these are computed from your ratings of all feature-length films tagged in our horror genre, as at 24 October 2018. It’s a wide-ranging list, with some perhaps surprising omissions—for example, the original Halloween, Night of the Living Dead and Evil Dead 2 all just missed the cut. See the full list or read on for data insights and member reviews of our highest rated horrors.

Strangling the numbers:

Though there is some genre crossover (into comedy with Young Frankenstein, mockumentary with What We Do in the Shadows and One Cut of the Dead, and zom-rom-com with Shaun of the Dead), these films are all categorized as horrors by us (and IMDb).

In the battle of great horror decades, the scary sixties wins with seven films, over five films from the slasher seventies and three from the evil eighties. Shout out to the terror twenties, with three films.

By country, USA has most films in the list, but Japan comes in strong second with four, Germany has three and France, Sweden and the UK are represented with two each. India, New Zealand and the Czech Republic also make the cut.

The most obscure film on the list (from a Western perspective) is Manichitrathazhu, from Kerala-born director Fazil, watched by just over 250 members.

All the directors are dudes. We can’t make any excuses for that, but we can point out that, behind-the-scenes and on-screen, women played important roles in these films. The Phantom Carriage, for example, is based on the novel by Sweden’s Selma Lagerlöf, who in 1909 was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. And what would Jaws be without the editing prowess of Verna Fields?

There are five films on the list from this century, some by directors of color, including Jordan Peele, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi. Roll on the 21st century of horror.

On that note: this top 25 is based on member ratings, but we also have a popularity index—based on the sheer amount of activity for each film regardless of rating—which produces quite a different list, heavily favoring the 21st century.

Letterboxd’s 25 Highest Rated Horror Films (as at October 2018):

1. Psycho (1960, USA) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

“Throughout his career, director Alfred Hitchcock has enriched the world of cinema with some truly groundbreaking thrillers and despite that, Psycho feels like something of a first from him. It’s his first stint with the genre of horror, it breaks through the barriers of censorship unlike any film before and over the years, it has played a major role in influencing not only films but pop-culture as well.” —CinemaClown

2. Alien (1979, USA) Directed by Ridley Scott

“When shit hits the fan it comes with the best first impression of any monster. PERIOD.” —TKettle

3. The Shining (1980, USA) Directed by Stanley Kubrick

“As soon as Jack Torrance is in frame, that uneasy feeling takes over. I feel as though I wish I could warn all of the other characters in the movie to walk on eggshells, don’t upset him! Maybe you shouldn’t talk to him right now! Can’t you see it! Just leave him alone! There has never been another character to give me such all-consuming anxiety.” —HollieHorror

4. The Thing (1982, USA) Directed by John Carpenter

“The man responsible for the movie’s stomach-churning physical effects deserves most of the credit for its appeal and success. Rob Bottin worked so hard he was hospitalized for exhaustion, pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer! And he was only 21 at the time! Pure underrated genius.” —Josh Stoddard

5. Rosemary’s Baby (1968, USA) Directed by Roman Polański

“I’m awestruck by how good this is. Every little detail from the very beginning means something and you really experience exactly what Rosemary experiences. Masterful spectatorship alignment.” —Sean Upton

6. Get Out (2017, USA) Directed by Jordan Peele

“When you prod underneath the surface here there’s so much just waiting to be unpacked. As a piece of writing it’s a masterclass in foreshadowing and subtext.” —Alex Secker

7. Jaws (1975, USA) Directed by Steven Spielberg

“Bruce, the mechanical shark, still works today. Even with all the VFX-heavy films that are commonplace now, the shark is [as] scary and compelling now as it was in 1975. The camerawork is masterful, and it feels like films now are still trying to catch up to what was happening behind the camera on this movie.” —EJ Moreno

8. 修羅 (Demons) (1971, Japan) Directed by Toshio Matsumoto

“Matsumoto è stato uno dei più grandi innovatori del cinema giapponese e fonte di ispirazione di grandi registi del cinema mondiale. Quest’opera non fa che confermarne l’importanza e la genialità.”

Translation: “Matsumoto was one of the greatest innovators of Japanese cinema and a source of inspiration for great world cinema directors. This work confirms his importance and genius.” —Tonino Mannella

9. Les Diaboliques (Diabolique) (1955, France) Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot

“It was extremely suspenseful and you can see how this film had such a huge impact on Hitchcock when he made Psycho… Five out of five overly dramatic heart attacks.” —Libby Ajayi

10. Possession (1981, Germany, France) Directed by Andrzej Żuławski

“Ana’s spectral screams as she flows and dances like a ghoul in the subway. All I could do was cry at it, with her, for her.” —Claire Diane

11. 怪談 (Kwaidan) (1964, Japan) Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

“Every frame of this movie is a piece of art… To ask for more would be greedy.” —Gabe

12. മണിച്ചിത്രത്താഴ് (Manichitrathazhu) (1993, India) Directed by Fazil

“Perhaps the most popular film to come out of Kerala in this generation. The screenplay, the performance, and the plot are worth a study in [themselves]. Fantastic package of thrilling entertainment and storytelling.” —Vinay Warrier

13. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962, USA) Directed by Robert Aldrich

“Normally my heart really aches for ‘crazy’ characters who have been brutalized by the concept of womanhood but… it’s very hard for me to feel bad for Baby Jane.” —Caroline

14. The Innocents (1961, UK) Directed by Jack Clayton

“Exquisite and captivating… it’s the only movie I’ve watched this Hooptober that has genuinely scared me. Squirming, nail biting, chills down the back, all of it.” —Xebeche

15. Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) (2008, Sweden) Directed by Tomas Alfredson

“Deep down, it’s just a story about human misunderstanding, but it is gracefully put together to give you a thrilling ride that will make you root for an evil you’re not really sure is there. It makes you question your moral standards and puts you in a nice grey area.” —Charlie Bluu

16. カメラを止めるな！ (One Cut of the Dead) (2017, Japan) Directed by Shin'ichirô Ueda

“The film starts as a Z-list zombie movie and looks cheesy as hell, but when we discover we are watching more of a mockumentary of this film being made and the director on the verge of a breakdown, the fun really begins. The first 37 minutes are completely one cut… one cut, that actually blows my mind.” —Coles84

17. 鬼婆 (Onibaba) (1964, Japan) Directed by Kaneto Shindō

“In good ol’ black and white, Onibaba is a visually stunning erotic horror film painted in deep shadows and flesh… it’s less a ghost or monster tale and more of a morality play about the passions and desperation that arise in splintered, war-torn communities, and how no matter what we fear, we are ultimately our own demons. Creepy, sensual and effective.” —Doug Bellak

18. Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) (1920, Germany) Directed by Robert Wiene

“From Murnau’s Nosferatu and the American noir of the 1940s, to contemporary horror films and every piece of work where Tim Burton asks Johnny Depp to dab black around the actor’s eyes, the influence of Wiene’s film can be felt… it is the stuff of nightmares that still has power nearly a century after it was made.” —Travis Lytle

19. Spalovač mrtvol (The Cremator) (1968, Czechia) Directed by Juraj Herz

“I find it hard to fathom a film as stylish and mesmerizing as this is, 45 years old! It was obviously way ahead of its time! The cinematography is as captivating as the film is deliciously macabre!” —Juli Norwood

20. The Exorcist (1973, USA) Directed by William Friedkin

“The Exorcist remains one of the greatest achievements of the horror genre. The things they were able to accomplish with sound mixing at the time have yet to be outdone. The makeup department deserves a heap of credit, and the effects still look great. Acting is something that typically gets sacrificed in most horror movies, but this is one exception where every actor delivers a quality performance.” —Sean

21. Körkarlen (The Phantom Carriage) (1921, Sweden) Directed by Victor Sjöström

“It was not for nothing that Selma Lagerlöf became the first woman to get the Nobel Prize. She’s a great storyteller, and there’s a melody in her writings that is hard to not get sucked into… Victor Sjöström has really understood the tone of the novel and the music that comes with it is in tune with the melody of Lagerlöf's writings.” —Terése Flynn

22. Faust – Eine deutsche Volkssage (Faust) (1926, Germany) Directed by F. W. Murnau

“I watch this, and cannot fathom how this one man could make the cinematic medium look so relentlessly groundbreaking in its mere infancy. It’s obscene that he died so young… in a sense, Faust’s quest for the ur-truth becomes Murnau’s own quest for his own epic cinema: one that maximizes the potential for awe at every turn, leaving behind mundane methods for totalizing ones.” —Darkness Lingers

23. Shaun of the Dead (2004, UK) Directed by Edgar Wright

“I understand tossing Batman when your other options are [Prince’s] two biggest contributions to the world of music, but it still saddens me that Shaun and Ed so carelessly tossed away a truly undervalued record. Perhaps, we all do crazy things when we’re trying to survive.” —Willow Maclay

24. Young Frankenstein (1974, USA) Directed by Mel Brooks

“When Mel hits, he hits big… [he] may not employ nuance often, but he’s got broad comedy and wordplay down pat, and some of his best examples of this are in Young Frankenstein.” —Joe Campbell

25. What We Do in the Shadows (2014, New Zealand) Directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi

“An absolute must-watch for fans of horror comedy, horror, vampires, brilliant comedy in general, and great improvization. According to their IMDb trivia, Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement and co. shot over 125 hours of improv for this film before finally whittling it down to 90 minutes of the best stuff.” —Voidember

Right. Now that that’s all done with, we are ready to go into town and party.

[luca-scorpii]

edit: I don’t know who we-gurashiera or atimburtonfan are but I’m the poster, idk why they say that.. TOWN KIDS AHHHJGFH Winged demon is difficult to draw. I’m just wanna talk about them a little, long winded thoughts sorry ahh..

…Mummy boy, sweet mummy boy. I’m pretty sure he’s just Tim Burton’s character from his short story of the same name and not actually the pharaoh tutankhamun, he died at age 19 with lots of theorized deformations and large hips. Mummy boy was just a regular born boy who apparently had a curse. Also he was just born mummified..not even, he’s just hollow living gauze with oddly shaped beetles inside. He’s surprisingly similar to Oogie Boogie. Really weird..wonder if they have similar stories, mummy coming from ancient Egyptian magick and Oogie from voodoo/hoodoo New Orleans black magick. That’s about the only thing they have in common tho. Anyway, there’s somewhat of a common theme in Tim’s stories where the two parents have wishy-washy feelings for the children, killing/abandoning/neglecting them isn’t uncommon, usually played as an unfortunate but nonchalant happening, a frank dry dark humor to it too. Soo poor mummy boy was probably never given a name, the parents thought very disdainfully of him and never address him by one, that’s also common. I think maybe that’s the point why most of Tim’s poems are named directly including the person in question but never formally addressed, they just never got a name. But also, it could be an obscuring narrative tool for some stories as they’re usually told in third person, as if the third person is recounting a story of a reject long forgotten by everyone. But also maybe it’s not that deep and I need to get a life, all very possible. mummy boy is just mummy boy. To me, he looks about 11 or 12, hard to say since Victor from Frankenweenie is 11 but the movie is in a considerable different Burton character design style.

Winged demon, I feel like he’s just kinda the weird one, he seems to kinda be out of it and strange sometimes if you notice, he’s cool, the chill unique one. I’ve tried to think of a fan name for him and..idk man. He literally could have any kind of name, me and nasubionna talked a little about it. We agreed It could be random and connected to some allusion, weirdly normal or straight up complicated and made up. I’ve tried to come up with a few. First, stuff that sounded like “demon” because that’s burtonesque enough??? “Demion/Damion,” “Daimon” or “Donte.” But then, I’ve seen some sources call him gargoyle demon or gargoyle boy, so like, he kinda looks like the trickster gargoyle, “Stryge”? BUT, he’s a demon, a pretty scary/unique looking one, “Hiisi” are personifications of mischief/evil associated with woods, streams, and hills in Baltic-finnic folklore. He definitely looks like he belongs in the woods ig. Idk. I have to kinda settle with “Callicantzaros,” or “Calli” for short. Basically, they’re a vampiric bat demon creature in Greek folklore that really only get crazy 12 days a year, eating the newborns and people born in those 12 days - Christmas day and the feast days of the three wise travelers……yeahhh, but hey, we never do see the events right after the minute Christmas begins and how the winged demon would cope. so it’s not impossible..? Jk idk…… But hey, they look alike..

That or Donte.

In short, winged demon, a.k.a Callicantzaros or Donte, maybe. He looks about 9 or 10 for me.

Small tangent, I don’t believe the whole town holds the “but we’re not mean” maxim too equally. Vampires have to eat, evil scientists have to defile corpses (sentient beings in this town) and clowns have to exist.

corpse kid is Ethan, we all know this, corpse mom and dad are Bertha and Ned, bless this viscerally horrifying family. Ethan’s the baby, the mamma/pappa’s boy. He looks about 8 or 9. tbh, I have a little more to say about him later^^

[xxhanachanxx]

When it comes to shipping, am I the only person that’s like a die-hard fan for a ship yet my mind is not screaming that it needs to be canon? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people wanting to see their two favorite fictional characters together as a couple; but then again I’m down with whether or not a creator/developer of a film, show, video game, book, etc. can confirm that a couple is canon. Though even if I can find that adorable, let me stick with any other aspects that I want to see in various outlets aside from romance. Or what I find better, for a fictional character I still want to think about portraying them as the way they’re originally portrayed. Sure that I understand that there are AU’s or any form of alternative just so we can make up anything about our precious OTP. Even though I’m all for anyone doing AU’s, sometimes I can’t help but to think that it would corrupt my head; but I’d like to do an AU one day! I’m usually a shipper that doesn’t think that my favorite pairings are the “oh-so perfect OTP and they need to be together forever”, because even for having a ship I do have other shippings that would involve the same character! So, this would probably be the longest text post I’ve ever wrote but at the same time a lot needs to be put down. And with some of the pairings that I will mention, maybe you would be familiar, maybe I’ll not mention your favorite OTP, but do take my conception in consideration!

So my first ship that I’m going to begin with talking about will be Moana x Ariel (or MoAriel). Do I ship them a lot? Well, I’m more in between with they could be great gfs or just best friends, but the way I see it is that they make great ocean buddies! So I cannot deny they’re cute! Do I want them to be canon? No, and here’s where I say that even if MoAriel is cute I still want my mind to be on the right path where I want to portray Moana and Ariel as the way they were originally portrayed in Moana and The Little Mermaid. For Ariel, I still need to keep in mind that she has Eric and Melody (idfc if I’m mentioning the shit sequel, it was one of my favorite direct-to sequels growing up k bye). I also like seeing Ariel and Eric together! Now with Moana, I just think she’s too good for a man and I’m not even headcanoning that she’s lesbian either. While we’re in the topic with the Disney Princesses as all of the news is spilling for Ralph Breaks The Internet, and as an avid LGBT supporter myself, it’s times that I couldn’t take a few people seriously to where they say that Merida, Elsa, Mulan, and many others are lesbian or bi. NOW DON’T TAKE THIS THE WRONG WAY! I’m all for seeing anything LGBT-related in animation, but sometimes I get a bit iffy on that issue with what will kids think of when they see it. I mean I understand that some people would say that it would mess the kids’ minds up. All I can think for now is that if I were to have kids, I would probably teach them about gay marriage not at a young age but maybe when they get older. I guess I’m that one LGBT supporter who can’t stand some of the SJWs… but hey, if people want to headcanon that they’re gay, well they can do them. I won’t stop them for that. Like for Merida, I’d still think she’s better off without a man but I won’t headcanon about her sexuality. For Elsa, like I get that people want her to be lesbian for the Frozen sequel, but I’d prefer wanting to know about the premise of the sequel more. And with Mulan, okay I get it that her outfit is dope and I’m all for her modern outfit. But I can’t have the mindset screaming “OMFG MULAN’S BI!” I believe that she’s a strong female warrior, and even I can’t help to think that she and Shang are great together! Okay now to get back and wrap up with MoAriel, I will say huge kudos for the shippers for making that happen. Like I can’t deny that it’s an amazing crossover between the land and the sea.

Alright, so another ship I’d like to talk about, and another same-sex ship, will be TwiDash (Twilight Sparkle x Rainbow Dash from MLP:FiM). Oh hey look, Imma throwback to one of my all-time favorite OTPs especially I happen to watch some of the old episodes again! Now let’s get to those 2 questions again: do I ship them a lot? I pretty much do, especially the fact that they happen to be my favorite ponies out of the Mane 6! Do I want them to be canon? No, and it’s not because that I think they should end up with stallions instead (and apparently, I don’t want to have those pairings be canon either!). Obviously RD is one of Twilight’s best friends, so I’d rather stick with whatever chemistry they have for each other! So because I have to bring up the fact that I also have pairings of Twilight and Rainbow with stallions, here’s what I need to say about that: Of course having TwiDash as one of my MLP OTPs, I happen to like SoarinDash and FlashLight (that’s Flash Sentry x Twilight Sparkle just to clarify in case if anyone gets mistaken for literally a flashlight; and yes, I like Flash try me bitch). And as a same-sex shipper, I’m not one for giving another character shit for getting in the way of the same-sex couples that I like. So as a TwiDash fan, I really don’t give flak on Flash if he were to get in the way (and Soarin’ too, I guess). Not even to mention that not only that I’ve had it with the Flash hate, it frustrates me to see some bronies/pegasisters making attack/kill art of him (I do have a vivid memory of seeing an art piece of Flash getting attacked by Trixie just bc the artist likes Twixie.). I mean I get that Flash doesn’t have that much character development (human or pony; in fact I’m more of a pony Flash x pony Twi shipper) aside from appearing near Twilight or Sunset Shimmer to where a lot of people scream “gary-stu” or “waifu stealer”, but I will say that I think Flash deserves better. Now I know saying this as a FlashLight shipper in where they don’t really interact with each other that much, I really couldn’t help myself thinking how cute they are together though. But then again, there’s more to MLP:FiM than just shippings! So to get back and wrap up with TwiDash, sure there’s nothing wrong with having other shippings with one of the same characters! Though at the same time, and just like I mentioned from my previous statement with MoAriel, I’m not headcanoning Twilight or Rainbow’s sexualities at all. So I’ll just let my imagination flow to wherever the hell it wants!

Okay let’s get into another of my favorite ship, and this time it’s a hetero ship, ShadAmy! Yay, time for another throwback to one of my favorite Sonic ships! Though I will get into a later topic that’s kinda like the topic with me as a TwiDash fan and not giving Flash a lot of shit for being in the way. So onto the same two questions: do I ship them a lot? I think shipping Shadow and Amy together was sudden, bc I was a huge SonAmy fan back then (and I still do ship SonAmy don’t worry) and wasn’t really fond with Shadow until to this day. I guess after seeing fan art of ShadAmy, it led me to start shipping them. Do I want them to be canon? Probably not, and it’s not that I think that Amy should be with Sonic (and as an SonAmy fan, I could care less whether or not it’s canon, and if anyone screams at me that it is canon and I can’t change anything about it, leave.); and I don’t think that Shadow and Amy have a huge chemistry with each other (even if they only interacted with each other twice in Sonic Adventure 2). Now here’s the part in where I say that as a ShadAmy fan, I’m not one for giving shit on Sonic or have to make him the bad guy just bc he keeps running away from Amy. And even if I’m more into Shadow than Sonic (I promise y’all I’m not like one of those Shadow fangirls…), that doesn’t mean I won’t stop loving Sonic! And playing the games of that blue blur will always hold a special place in my heart! So what conclusion do I have for ShadAmy? Nothing probably. But no matter what I’m okay with whoever I want to ship with Amy. ShadAmy? SonAmy? I really don’t care!

Now since the pairings that I’ve mentioned so far happen to be my favorite OTPs, let’s take this next topic with talking about a NOTP. And who will I be talking about next? Enter Victor x Emily from Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride. As much as I enjoyed this masterpiece of a Tim Burton film, apparently having to think about this does grind my gears. So onto the questions again: do I ship them a lot? I’ve already stated that they’re not my cup of tea. Do I want them to be canon- okay um yeah let’s get right into that! I guess ever since I first saw the film back then, when I saw the ending scene with Emily turning into butterflies and then Victor and Victoria embraced my mind screamed, “welp, at least Victor and Victoria have each other now”. But at the same time it did sadden me to see Emily go away like that, yet then again Victor has freed her from the memories of pain and shit she’d been through with Barkis. So where am I going with this? Oh yes y’all, I actually like Victor x Victoria. And no, it’s not that I think Victor x Emily is necrophiliac. Pretty much, I’ve had it with everyone talking shit about Victoria all bc she was in the way between Victor and Emily. Tbh I could go on and on talking about defending Victoria, but to keep it a bit short it wasn’t her fault for interrupting the wedding; in fact, that can be saved for a later time. Now before I wrap up, and as I mentioned since the beginning, I’m all for alternatives or “what-ifs” made by Victor x Emily fans but at the same time we gotta accept the fact that the ending of Corpse Bride is just the way it is. Get used to it. Emily had her own happy ending.

Alrighty then, I’ll be taking this last topic discussing about WildeHopps just before I wrap this whole post up! Ah yes, our favorite fox-bunny duo; yet I do have some tweaks with what I think about them for the near future.. But anyway, let’s get into the questions one last time: do I ship them a lot? Now for anyone that have followed me for my Zootopia shenanigans, I do need to say that it seemed sudden of me shipping them out of nowhere. Like sure I can’t deny that Nick and Judy have a great chemistry, but there’s more to the film than just the shipping (or any romance outlet for that matter). I guess I should say that after seeing the film and looking at the fan art of the two, it led me to start shipping them! Do I want them to be canon? Okay see, this is where I get iffy about it bc even if Disney confirmed that they’re canon (or at least that’s what I heard) I still think that Nick and Judy need to start off as best friends first and then we shall see what will happen in the future if there were to be a sequel. So yeah, I think I’m that one person who had to cool off from seeing the ending bc yeah it’s cute but I don’t think I’ll be falling for it sorry! Friends? Couple? Again, these two have chemistry and that’s all that matters to me! So for now, I’m in both platonic and romantic sides of their relationship. And even though having this thought never occurring in my head, I don’t want to think about giving in for them to have their own mate by the same species. But hey, if y’all want to ship Nick with a vixen and Judy with another rabbit I ain’t stopping ya! Which would somewhat lead me to talking about how Judy would be shipped with Jack Savage (quick fyi for those who don’t know him, he’s a deleted character that was the main protagonist of the early version of the film); while I may not be into SavageHopps that much (and this is pretty much the same thing with my TwiDash and ShadAmy topics..), but damn some of y’all are salty on him for trying to “steal” Judy from Nick. If people want to like Jack, let them. If people want to ship SavageHopps, let them! I mean hey, he’s got Skye (who’s another deleted character during the early process) and I’m all for SavageSkye y’all! Okay, yeah I know I brought them out of nowhere as this topic is supposed to be about Nick and Judy but at the same time I kinda had to bring that out there haha. Like I said we shall see where will their future will take them, and we can have our imaginations flow wherever the hell they go!

So that wraps up with what I have to say with shippings! Thank you guys for taking your time reading this~ ❤️

[aion-rsa]

Victor Zsasz Actor Alex Morf’s Journey From Gotham to Batwoman

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This Batwoman article contains spoilers for Season 2, Episode 3.

Classic Batman villain Victor Zsasz burst onto the scene in this week’s Batwoman with what is simultaneously the creepiest and most fun villain introduction on the series yet. Tricking his way into a hotel suite with a bottle of high end champagne, the notorious hitman took out a high roller and his mistress by order of the man’s wife, telling them so as he chased them around the hotel room and killed them, making sure the mistress knew Zsasz’s client splashed out more than her now-dead husband. 

The scene is full of snappy dialogue, juxtaposing Zsasz’s charm with the brutal surety with which he does his job and the sickening creepiness of rearranging the bodies to look like they’re sleeping soundly in the hotel bed. It’s also the perfect introduction to the latest iteration of a character that Bat fans have loved for years, played here by Alex Morf, who spoke with Den of Geek about his performance. 

“I think [episode director] Holly Dale did a great job of guiding us and directing us. It’s a great intro to sort of the combination of his lightness and playfulness and the ease with which he has at this point in his career after becoming a master at what he does,” Morf says. “And also, the abruptness of his violence and how quickly he can strike. It’s an exciting, unpredictable cocktail, really well-boiled down in that first scene.”

Morf is a longtime fan of all things Batman, citing Michael Keaton’s portrayal in the Tim Burton films as one of his favorites. He took the job because of the character, whom he knew from playing the Arkham Asylum video game and from Anthony Carrigan’s “brilliant” portrayal on Gotham, on which Morf guest-starred as gang leader Sykes in 2019. 

“I was on Gotham during the last season. And in some ways, there was something that was a little bit less than satisfying about playing that part because in my head I made up all kinds of backstories and, you know, trajectories and stuff like that and the script had an endpoint. At that point, you know, they knew it was the last season. I never felt like I got to explore that character much from a personal standpoint.”

While it’s obvious to assume an actor from Iowa and a killer-for-hire character who tallies his murders on his skin have nothing in common, another reason Morf took the role was that, in Zsasz, he saw an opportunity to play a fun, juicy part that fit him pretty well. As Morf puts it: “It’s always a weird thing to feel that as an actor, but as much as you can sort of like find the places where any character sort of like sits in your body, it’s helpful.” 

“We’re both independent contractors, you know,” Morf adds of his similarities with the character. “We’re hired for a specific field [for a job] that we’ve been doing for quite a while now. We take a lot of pride in what we do. We both like to have fun. We both enjoy life. We’re both curious about people. When I started thinking about it, there was quite a few things. And I was like yeah, I could be this guy, if he wasn’t a murderer.” 

Victor has a noteworthy experience for any character in a superhero show: he interacts with Ryan both in the suit and out of it. Presumably he has no idea that they’re the same person, but it adds to their relationship dynamic nonetheless, even if that knowledge is one-sided. 

“I think he likes people,” says Morf. “I also think he really values his privacy. And when he meets Ryan in that bar, I think at first he thinks it’s just somebody who’s trying to bug him and I don’t think he has any interest. And then, when he finds out that she dated Angelique – I think Victor has his ear to the ground, especially in criminal circles, and knows what’s going on.”

Victor also has something of a history with Ryan; he knows her ex, Angelique. This is the first we’re hearing about her, but next week’s episode, “Fair Skin, Blue Eyes,” seems like it will shed a bit more light on a woman from Ryan’s past who’s apparently intimidating enough to get Victor’s attention.

“The fact that [Ryan] was able to break someone’s heart so severely instantly makes him really curious, because I think Victor’s kind of obsessed with pain, and even emotional pain, not just cutting himself,” Morf says. “I think that he’s obsessed with the idea of finding somebody who’s capable of destroying him. And so it just makes him lean forward.”

While Victor doesn’t know that Ryan and Batwoman are the same person, he seems to be responding to the idea of a person who might be capable of destroying him in each set of interactions.

“When Victor’s paying attention to you I think he’s pretty perceptive. So, I think that same thing is true in the interaction with Batwoman. He’s instantly interested in her because I think he misses having an adversary and he’s a little nostalgic for the old days [before Batman disappeared] of having somebody capable of hurting him. And I think he sees potential in Batwoman.”

One of the best lines of the episode has to be Victor’s self-professed love of lesbian drama. Coupled with a certain effete affect throughout the episode and as part of the same pop culture that recently saw  Chris Messina and Ewan MacGregor dance around making their Zsasz and Black Mask sexually or romantically involved in Birds of Prey, it raises questions. Is Morf playing with Zsasz’s sexuality here?

“Definitely. I mean, not really like overtly, because I don’t think that that’s completely in the episode,” Morf says. “One of the things I think is so cool about this show, and makes me feel proud to be a part of it, is that it’s not afraid to lean into the complexities of sexuality and human nature.”

The action work this episode was especially good. Zsasz is known for his knife work, which some versions of the character do from afar, or only once they have their prey tied up, but here, Victor vaults over furniture, physically takes people on, and even fights with Batwoman. Morf has experience with hand-to-hand combat and was a wrestler for 21 years.

Morf says, “It was really fun, especially to get to spar with Javicia a little bit, she’s such a powerhouse. We really enjoyed getting to learn that choreography and lock horns a little bit.” 

Batwoman has some unusual interactions with Zsasz – both in and out of the cowl. His observation that she doesn’t seem to be comfortable in her own skin (e.g the batsuit) leads her to realize that she needs to take ownership of her role, as demonstrated by changing up the suit and wig to fit her. It’s a great moment for Ryan’s growth as a hero, and it’s intriguing that the Batwoman writers made Zsasz the catalyst. 

Morf says, “I would certainly not take credit for it, because I think Ryan’s the one who ultimately pulls that trigger and makes that decision and claims her own space.”

Still, he thinks it reflects something interesting about their relationship: “If they weren’t a villain and a hero, part of me thinks maybe they have some stuff in common, which is always I think a little scary for a hero too, to be seen by somebody who’s their adversary, you know, to be presented with something that maybe they weren’t expecting.”

There’s a great moment during the climactic fight when ever-resourceful Mary whacks Victor and manages to make a mark on his head. For a guy covered in scars of his own making, he doesn’t seem keen on the idea of someone else leaving one, and his chase with Mary is perhaps the most riled he gets in the episode. 

“I like that moment too because you know anybody who’s anybody who has killed that many people, you know that there’s some serious rage and darkness underneath,” Morf says. “For a lot of that episode, he’s a pretty cool cucumber. And it’s nice to see some of that boil up.”

This episode made a point of introducing one of Zsasz’s traditional allies, Black Mask. While the two never interacted, that certainly hasn’t been ruled out. 

“I hope that that happens in the future. But, I don’t know, I can’t. That’s something that I actually like, I don’t have that much information about yet so I can’t say too much about it but that would be really fun.”

While Ryan had a satisfying victory over Zsasz, we didn’t see what happened to him afterwards. Does that mean he’ll be back for more fashion tips and lesbian drama with a side of murder? 

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“The thing about Victor is, I think you never, I would never count him out. You know he’s, he’s a survivor, and you never know when he’s going to pop up.”

The post Victor Zsasz Actor Alex Morf’s Journey From Gotham to Batwoman appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2MovW3n

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/01/31/neverending-story-where-is-the-cast-of-the-neverending-story-now/

NeverEnding Story: Where is the cast of The NeverEnding Story now?

The NeverEnding Story entranced viewers when it was released in 1984, and delivered the first instalment of the iconic film franchise. Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, the movie made an incredible $100 million at the box office, and sparked two sequels, and an animated TV show spin-off. The actors in the movie went on to have successful careers, with one of them leaving acting in later life.

The hero of the story is Atreyu – a plucky young warrior who had vowed to take on The Nothing – a dark, malevolent force – from engulfing his world of Fantasia.

Atreyu was played by Noah Hathaway, who was just 13-years-old at the time, and had only acted in three other films prior to that.

After The Neverending Story Hathaway appeared in a number of films, including Quest, Troll, Sushi Girl, and 2013’s Blue Dream.

Hathaway also spent a lot of the 1970s in the TV show Battlestar Galactica as Boxey.

Hathaway now travels the world promoting his iconic role in The Neverending Story.

READ MORE: James Bond 2022 delay: No Time To Die ‘unlikely to release this year’

The Neverending Story tale was told by Bastian Balthazar Bux, who stole the book from his library, and explored the fantastical world of Fantasia from his bedroom.

Balthazar was played by Barret Spencer Oliver, who was just 10 or 11 years old at the time.

After The Neverending Story became a smash hit in cinemas, Oliver went on to be cast in Tim Burton’s short film Frankenweenie as the protagonist, Victor Frankenstein.

Oliver was later cast as the android Daryl in the 1985 movie D.A.R.Y.L. – a role which he later won a Saturn Award for.

Oliver worked in the film and TV industry consistently through to the late 1980s, but then left, becoming a printer and photographer.

His work has since been displayed in museums and gallery exhibitions, as well as being used within films.

The enigmatic Childlike Empress was played by Tami Stronach. The NeverEnding Story was her only motion picture role. 

After appearing in the ’84 movie, Stronach played the role of “Dog” in the Signals of Distress theatre show in 2002 – but hasn’t acted otherwise.

Stronach is also a dancer and a professor in New York City.

The Luck Dragon Falkor was voiced by Alan Oppenheimer, who also voiced Gmork, Rockbiter, and the Narrator.

Oppenheimer is a legendary American actor and voiceover star who has appeared in countless projects over the last 40 years.

Oppenheimer has appeared in the likes of Toy Story 4 as the Old Timer, 9 as the Scientist, Adventure Time as Darren the Ancient Sleeper, and Star Trek as Captain Keogh.

In the movie Hathaway did his own stunts as Atreyu, leading director Wolfgang to say: “I sought a good-looking boy of athletic build with the quality of fierce determination. The role requires the character to ride a horse expertly, fly on the back of a dragon, struggle through a swamp, clamber over rocks and fight a ferocious wolf-vampire.”

Hathaway did suffer some “minor injuries” on set, and later reflected on his time in the movie, saying: “Wolfgang Petersen was notorious for his actors doing their own stunts.

“His actors are always getting hurt, because he wanted… Audiences are very savvy, you can cut away and show the back of somebody and show the stuntman doing their stunt.

“And everybody knows that, so he wants his actors to do as much as they can for the realism of the movie. Accidents happen and actors aren’t stuntmen.

“That’s why they have stuntmen, because if someone gets hurt, they’re ‘expendable’. And some of the times, they’re just more careful… I just ended up paying.”

The NeverEnding Story is available to watch on BBC iPlayer now.

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[her-culture]

Tim Burton and the Cult of the White Freaks

by Archita Mittra (20), India

I almost didn’t write this article. When I was 12 or 13, I went through an intense punk phase, complete with electric blue highlights, ripped jeans, inscribing Green Day lyrics on the walls of my room, and a vocabulary of extremely colourful expletives. I was a devoted rebel without a cause. I was suffering from a severe identity crisis.  I’ve always been a weird person. I’ve always liked the strange and eccentric characters. I took to writing emo poetry and creating morbid art, because I couldn’t speak, because for the most part of my childhood and my teenage years, I didn’t have the right words, the right face, the right personality, to fucking speak. I’m 20 now, and I still make morbid stuff, and things have changed, but only a bit. I close my eyes and I’m back there in that dark room with no light, a child with sewn lips, trying to articulate a trauma that knows no language. Somewhere in that demented darkness, I discovered, among other things, the films of Tim Burton. I fell in love with him and just some months back, I think, he betrayed me. This is why I almost didn’t write this article.  Let me tell you why I fell for him in the first place.  My skin’s brown as a dried walnut, and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it’s going to stay that way, even if in my fantasies I’m white as Mia Wasikowaska’s Alice exploring a Gothic wonderland and having tea with a Mad Hatter wearing too much of white face paint. And, for as long as I could remember, that was a problem to everyone else. Why wasn’t my skin tone as fair as my parents, all my relatives would whine at every wedding and social gathering that my shy and introverted self was forced to attend. In holiday pictures, people teased me by asking if I was adopted. My classmates and I would play a game where the person with the lightest skin tone would win. During the annual school play, I was supposed to be grateful because I was getting to wear an expensive and exquisitely beautiful gown, pretending to be a spoilt stepsister and not the beautiful and oh-so-white Cinderella. Hey, at least I got the limelight for a bit. And yeah, it’s so okay, that even the colour pencils I use to make my art, label the peachy-pink tone as ‘skin’ and my brown flesh as well, just brown. Brown as tree bark, I suppose. For a long time, I kept telling myself that my shyness, my social anxiety, my crippling depression wasn’t because of all the bullying I had to endure at school, wasn’t because I was darker than everyone else around me, that it was just a manufacturing defect. Isn’t it normal for people to make fun of those who st-st-stammer? Isn’t it abnormal to st-st-stammer when you’re talking about the things you love and the things you fear? So, I did the only thing I could. I stopped talking. I wrote instead, but even that frightened me. Tim Burton was the best friend I never had. Because his films with all their Gothic visuals and macabre aesthetics, were about people supposedly like me. Beetlejuice wasn’t my first Tim Burton film but it is significant in two respects. One, it was Burton’s breakthrough film that landed him the offer to direct the blockbuster Batman films and kick-start the superhero industry. Two, it introduced to the world what is now regarded as the popular stereotype of the Goth girl: the charming Lydia Deetz. For my depressed 14 year old self who was tired of making up imaginary friends to play with and slitting wrists, the black-clad, eye-liner-wearing psychic and photography enthusiast became both my role model and my mirror image. She was introverted (yay), creative, super duper depressed and could talk to ghosts. She was me! Of course there was something strikingly wrong with this image and I tried to ignore it by smearing a shit load of face powder on my brown brown face: she was white. Years later, Tim Burton’s trademark vision gave way to the pastiche dark fantasy comedy Dark Shadows, which although failed commercially, greatly pleased me aesthetically. Johnny Depp was playing a delicious vampire, fashion icon Helena Bonham Carter was a psychologist, a sassy teenage girl was later revealed to be a werewolf, the whole family was as dysfunctional as mine and the soundtrack included both the Carpenters and Alice Cooper. What else could a lonely POC girl, steadily losing her mind in a world of Gothic films that reflected back her own emptiness and strangeness, ask for?  And even now, despite everything that has happened to me, Edward Scissorhands still remains as one of my favourite films, and although I pride myself as the type of person who doesn’t cry while watching a movie, my eyes were watery by the time Edward and Kim had parted ways and Edward remained in that dark castle, lonely as he ever was, making snow with his scissor hands. I was simultaneously Edward, this misfit-monster abandoned by God and his parent, and Kim, the suburban girl, slowly tasting what it is to love a stranger whose heart is so familiar and to dance for the first time in snow. And I thought, as I watched the pain in Edward’s eyes that it was Burton and not Edward, who was pleading to the audience to look beyond appearances and voicing for the first time, his childhood issues of alienation and misrepresentation. Soon after watching the film, my diary entries (I kept several journals because I didn’t have ‘real life’ friends to talk to) began to be addressed to a mysterious man named Edward while the Johnny Depp fan art I made bore the note ‘the only Edward I ever loved’ much to the annoyance of my Twlight-obsessed classmates. The movie wasn’t perfect, but then again, most beautiful things never are. And I’d long outgrown my fangirly love for Depp, long before those allegations about abusing Amber Heard began. But the love story with Tim Burton doesn’t end here. In 2010, when Alice having slain the Jabberwocky is preparing to leave, the Hatter softly requests her to stay. Alice promises to come back but the Hatter is unconvinced, saying she won’t remember him. Alice was not ready to comprehend the implications of that exchange, but I did and it terrified me to death.  Tim Burton’s movies were the wonderland I would run away to, to escape my harsh reality, to forget this world that wouldn’t treat me as one of them, because I wasn’t fair enough, because fuck it, I wasn’t normal enough. I was trapped in the world of the Mad Hatter, a dream concocted by Alice, a world that is fragile and ephemeral, a world that disappears the moment Alice wakes up and forgets her dream.  I’ll come back to this later, but for now, let me tell you the final lesson I learnt from watching Tim Burton’s movies: I learned to hope. In his delightful stop-motion animated feature Frankenweenie, Victor attempts to bring his dead pet dog Sparky back to life and he does so with disastrous consequences. Watching it and remembering all the pets I’d loved who died and would sell my soul to bring back, I was filled with a childlike sense of hope and the realization that I wasn’t alone for believing in and desperately hoping for impossible things, I wasn’t alone in being misunderstood and misrepresented. For once being the weird kid in class and scribbling poems and doodles on the sly, didn’t matter. Not having people to connect to, or appreciating me for the messed-up person I was, didn’t matter. I was okay. I didn’t have to be normal like everyone else, because there were people like Tim Burton who could totally get me. At least that’s what I felt when he said stuff like, ‘I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world.’ And as much morbid a Tim Burton film may appear to a first time viewer (especially if it’s Corpse Bride), Burton’s characteristic brand of Gothic-ness wasn’t so much as a celebration of death, as it was a celebration of life. Working within the Hollywood system, Tim Burton has managed to retain his personality and also be, subversive. And that was so fucking inspiring to me.  Why then did this man, who dresses up in black, whose films have tried to teach me to fall in love with myself and to believe in magic, miracles and impossible things, suddenly, betray me?  Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children should have been my perfect film. After all, it’s a film about kids who are eccentric and don’t fit in, has time travel and a love story thrown in the mix and a secret house where they can be themselves. It is exactly the stuff I relate to and enthusiastically devour.  But this is what Tim Burton did. When asked about the lack of diversity in his films, he said ‘Nowadays, people are talking about it more. But things either call for things, or they don’t. I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct, like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black — I used to get more offended by that than just — I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.” In that singular moment, my whole carefully-constructed illusion came crashing down, so efficiently, I didn’t even realize it. Okay, I told myself, I’m a POC and I’m not ‘called for’. All through my life I have been worshipping a man in whose imagination, I have no space, I do not exist. I’m the Mad Hatter in Alice’s world, alive for a short time, useful as a plot device and erased out of the narrative, the moment Alice returns to the real world.  Is this the kind of space WE occupy in the white imagination? Okay, I tell myself. At least unlike Steven Moffat, he isn’t famous for saying a string of problematic things. Okay, perhaps it was someone else’s fault- maybe Ransom Riggs or a Disney executive didn’t want too much tampering with the too-white source material( Never mind what he did with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by adding a back story to Willy Wonka that I totally loved). Plus if he really suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, as his ex-partner Helena Bonham Carter claimed, we shouldn’t take his words to heart. Maybe he didn’t mean it. It’s just one blunder, I told myself. It doesn’t change anything.  But it did. It changed everything. I couldn’t make any more excuses. Taking a look at his entire filmography-a career spanning over three decades- I realized that casting white, pale-as-death people is his artistic and directorial choice. It’s his fucking personal and creative choice. He just said that out loud. And it’s shoved into my face that this is a world running on white privilege and racism and hate crimes. That it’s the discrimination that POC face on a daily basis both from the whites and the communities who have internalized such values is the reason why I’m too afraid to even consider studying abroad in the UK or USA because Brexit and Trump administration yada yada, why I’m never ‘pretty enough’ to be considered to take part in college fashion shows built on patriarchal beauty conventions, why I still spend a part of my earnings on cosmetics that promise me ‘fair’ skin. My skin color isn’t an issue, most charming hypocrites will claim, it’s my shyness and weirdness and my lack of fucking ‘normal-ness’ that’s to blame.  I wish someone would just tell me that I was born okay, that I am okay, that I’m not some sort of manufacturing defect most people think I am. In other words, Tim Burton’s niche audience wasn’t as inclusive as I made it out to be. It had outsiders and misfits yes, but only the white ones. Tim Burton’s fan club is a cult of white freaks, not Black freaks, not POC freaks, not any non-white freaks.  I can’t be a part of this fan club, because in their world, I don’t exist. I am not ‘called for.’ When Ash Davis responds to Burton’s comment, she writes this brilliant article and says, ‘I write fanfiction for the people Tim Burton says are not ‘called for’. My mind, likewise, is a movie theatre where I edit my favourite films and include myself in the lead. I change the endings, add more romance when I’m lonely, put on costumes so outrageous that my mum won’t even let me wear on Halloween, deliver the dialogues my mouth will never speak, and feel a sense of belonging that is every bit delightful and artificial and illusory. In the films I direct in my mind, I look like the typical Tim Burton heroine. I’m white, not brown.  This is what the white gaze has done to me.  When I fell in love with his films, I thought I was seeing myself reflected back in Jack Skellington, in Lydia Deetz, in Edward Scissorhands, in Ed Wood, in Willy Wonka, in the Mad Hatter, in young Victor, in the Corpse Bride, in Ichabod Crane, but I never saw myself. I only saw what I wished so desperately to be seen as. Do I stop watching Tim Burton films after that racist comment? No. A part of me still hopes he’ll apologize or better yet include people who actually look like me in his next film. A fangirl, can hope, right? After all his films did help me to get through some dark times, albeit in a twisted way and I can’t erase those tense growing-up years when his oddball characters were all I could hold onto. But at the end of the day, he belongs to the mold of white film directors who make white movies for a predominantly white audience and think diversity POC-narratives aren’t important at all.  But do Tim Burton films help me feel less lonely and less marginalized and less threatened by the big bad world out there? Not a bit.

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

On the Ending of Logan

Okay so I posted a sphiel the other day about endings and why Infinity War should be the last superhero movie for a while. I stand by that, but in the meantime I’ve watched Logan, which is probably going to become one of my favourite movies because it is completely and utterly  my jam in every respect; dark yet strangely meaningful, fantastic character interactions and drama, Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart giving the performances of their lives and probably the best child actor I’ve seen in recent memory.

This film, despite its minor flaws, should stand as Wolverine’s swansong. But more than that, I think it should stand to end the current X-Men phase, and that’s down to the ending. From a plot perspective, it reaches a little. But from a purely thematic perspective, it is the perfect conclusion to events that have been going on since the very first X-Men film, with an ending that wraps everything up very nearly to where it all began.

Obviously I’m going to be freely spoiling Logan here, as well as the majority of the other X-Men films. But without further ado, let’s dive in.

Jackman’s Wolverine has remained a staple of the series since the first movie, and has pretty much remained the figurehead. X-Men is probably somewhat revolutionary in terms of the superhero movie, having redefined the genre into something that could work in the box office. Sure, Tim Burton’s Batman remains a cult hit, but X-Men showed that the concept of heroes in spandex was viable blockbuster material, and for a little while everyone tried to do the same; some worked, like Spiderman, whereas others, like Daredevil, didn’t.

And X-Men gave pretty much what it promised; superpowered fights, delightfully over the top villains, speeches on justice and humanity, and a cast of eclectic characters bouncing off one another. Classic comic book stuff. X-Men was a good film. X2 was even better. The Last Stand gets way too much flack (and I would argue is still better than the original), but I can see the point that people realized it was getting a bit silly, especially since Batman Begins had come out the year before.

Comic book movies needed to change, and when the Dark Knight came out in 2008, it became clear how; suddenly the silly costumes and campy moments needed to give way to gritty reality and political commentary. Iron Man in 2009, and the MCU in general, took it in a slightly different direction by having their movies essentially be long character studies. The ‘heroes’ became severely flawed; egotistical, naïve, violent, having harsh backstories and even harsher stories. The heroes, and the villains, needed to become relatable and human.

X-Men didn’t cotton onto this, at least not at first. If The Last Stand was getting old, then X-Men Origins was way out of date. They were clearly trying, but it wasn’t viable as a superhero movie anymore. Despite an admittedly interesting dynamic between Logan and Victor, the rest of the movie was fanbaity, cartoony, and frankly just…boring. It was impossible to sell the franchise on cool visuals anymore, and even the face of the X-Men couldn’t carry the old phase any more.

So they changed it up with First Class, which probably remains the best X-Men movie to date. That was the new generation of heroes; human heroes, and weirdly, increasingly human villains. Magneto became far more of an antihero character, and instead was replaced by Sebastian Shaw and the Hellfire Club, who really came across more as a racist arsehole than a grand sweeping theatrical villain. And for the context of the movie, that’s a good thing.

The Wolverine sort of came and went, but that too decided to be more human, looking at Logan’s character more than any of the other movies (with the possible exception of X2, but I think that was a bit of a fluke).

Then came Days of Future Past, which instead of quietly ignoring the previous phase, decided to break all conventions and face it head on; two generations of heroes, fighting side by side, with Wolverine at the centre. It’s here where the phases truly split; the ‘young’ phase, which would go onto a more comic book style (for better or for worse), and the current one.

So many films, always changing depending on what the current audience wanted. And frankly, it’s true; the old films are no longer relevant in today’s society. The franchise knows this, and decided to split them apart to allow for something new. But, and I love them for this, they didn’t forget the old. They couldn’t continue it; even as a campy flashy superhero movie, they would never be able to compete with the MCU. So, they decided to give it the definitive death it needed.

Logan, as a character, is tired. He’s been fighting for so long, the world has changed around him. The mutants he was once friends with have all gone, with the exception of Charles who he keeps locked away, not so much for his own good as for a memento to the past. There are no more tyrannical mutants roaming around; only tyrannical people. Supervillains are no longer relevant; the people who we need to be afraid of now are the people we look up to. The people we depend on. The humans.

This was the biggest change. Magneto was no longer the villain. The Phoenix was no longer the villain. From First Class we had Shaw, who was far more subdued and less theatrical, coming across as an opportunist than a revolutionary. In fact, you could say he was a mutant masquerading as a human. The Wolverine and DoFP took it one step further by having their main villains be humans who were envious of the mutant race, and took control. Characters such as young Magneto, or Viper, would take the stage, but their actions were always driven by the humans. Logan completes the journey; it is the first X-Men film in which none of the main antagonists are mutants. Even the clone is merely a construct; no soul, nor a stop to its rage. Humanity has taken over the mutant, and has crushed it.

The ‘superior humans’ have beaten the ‘inferior mutants’, and in doing so, they have taken their place. And the ‘superior humans’ are bringing the world to its knees.

Logan knows his kind is dying, deep down, but he can’t let go. He’s lost, and he needs a direction. He needs reassurance that there is some way to survive.

There is. But not the way he wants. As he looks at Laura, he sees himself. And he’s split. Deep down, he wants her to be like him. But even deeper, he knows that will destroy her. He holds onto the past for dear life, even though he knows that he has to let go. The franchise knows that it has to let go. All throughout the movie we see the X-Men comics, and we here reminiscing about better times.

We miss them. I miss them. I miss the campy old X-Men films, warts and all. And in a meta sense, I miss the times when we could get behind the superheroes fighting the supervillains, rather than having to cower and look up to the ‘superheroes’ of our own.

It’s so tempting to keep fighting for what’s been and gone, but sometimes, you need to step back and look to the future. The old days are gone. And honestly, that might be for the best. But what you can do is ensure an even better future for the next generation, even if you know you can never see it.

This is Logan’s journey throughout the movie; finally letting go. He must let go of Charles, who he was desperate to protect, being the only father figure he’s ever known. He must let go of what he feels is the only way to fight, and instead teach the next generation how to fight in a better way than he ever could. By surviving. By living. By sending them towards Eden.

All the while, ghosts of his past are chasing him, constantly. The egotistical arsehole, who is relentless, constantly ruining his life. The unethical scientist, who will keep going to new lengths, treating him as an object. And eventually, himself.

While the execution could have been better, having Logan’s final battle be against himself is a stroke of genius, since it finally allows him to see how the humans view him. And possibly, how he views himself. He has lived a long and terrible life, and he’s done many terrible things. He is the Wolverine; savage, unpredictable, more animal than man, and that is the identity he has clung to throughout his years of being a hero. That is the past which will not let him go, and which will kill everyone he’s ever known. It kills Charles, the last memory he has of a better time. And eventually, it kills him.

Logan finally stops fighting to keep the past, when he finally sees the children running towards the future ahead of him. He knows at that point that it’s too late; there’s nothing else he can give, except to give the next generation the best chance he possibly can. But in the end, he can’t stop it. Not completely. His past will never let him go, and it destroys him. Logan dies by his own hand, as he always planned.

But he still wins. For the next generation…Laura…ends the animal right there. The past is destroyed for good, leaving the Wolverine dead. Forever. There’s only Logan, left for a few moments to say goodbye, and to give his blessing.

Logan knew he could never reach Eden. He could only open the gate for the others. And yet, after hundreds of years, he dies peacefully, finally being the hero he wanted.

The final scene may be one of my favourite scenes in movie history. Laura, and the kids, standing there, while she recites the lines:

“There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it. Right or wrong, it's a brand, a brand that sticks. There's no going back. Now, you run on home to your mother and tell her, tell her everything's alright, and there aren't any more guns in the valley.”

The children leave, to where, they don’t know. But to a future, and one they can only hope will be a better one. The camera zooms in on Logan’s grave, with the crude wooden cross. The Wolverine’s final resting place.

Laura turns back, pulls up the cross, and turns it, just a little. Leaving an X.

Logan is dead. The Wolverine is dead. But the hero who saved her life will live forever. The X-Men may be no more, but they will remain a symbol; a beacon of hope, at the border of a better world.

The world is constantly changing, and always will. I’d like to think that, bit by bit, we are heading towards that better world. We are marching, one step at a time, towards paradise. And I want to do my bit to make that happen, even though I won’t get us very far on my own.

As for the future of the X-Men, well…I don’t think there’s much more they can do. I can see us getting a few more on the 80s timeline, but honestly, I think they should leave it for a few years. Maybe even a decade. Because the world is going to change, and the heroes and villains of the world will change as well. And one day, sometime far in the future, something new will come along where we’ll need to stand up and fight once again.

At that time, the X-Men should return. And wouldn’t that be a great way to bring them back. The next generation, standing where the heroes of the past once stood, ready to fight their own battles.

We may even have a new Wolverine standing amongst them.

We certainly have the perfect candidate.

[mysticdragon3md3]

With WonFes 2017 Winter over, it’s time to post the obligatory wishlist!  ^o^

Even though there were a lot of exciting figure announcements and prototype reveals at Wonder Festival 2017 Winter today, I don't feel my wallet is in too much danger.  There were a lot of Nendoroids that looked interesting, but I likely won't buy.  And the figures I ABSOLUTELY POSITVELY HAVE TO PREORDER, were fairly few (at least compared to previous WonFes).  

Below, the squares shaded darkly are figures I likely won't buy.  They caught my eye, but seriously, I'd rather spend my money on other Nendoroids.   The squares clouded in white are figures that if I was forced into a corner, I might be able to give up.  But it'd be nice if I didn't have to.  

Good Smile is going to kill my wallet if they announce more Harvest Moons!  ;u;  If every Crypton Future Media Vocaloid gets a Harvest Moon version, I don’t know what I’m going to do.  Those costumes are just too pretty.  XwX  

I feel like I'm obligated to get Figma Utena and Nendoroids Ed & Al, but I don't feel as strongly about those fandoms anymore, enough to justify the money those figures cost.  On the other hand, I have a rule about not passing up merchandise from an old fandom, for that reason alone.  The last time I passed up a Devil Hunter Yohko artbook, just because it was no longer my all-consuming obsession, I regretted it.  And I kept hunting for it at each succeeding con.  *That* is a regret.  Which is why I bought Figma Hikaru Shidou, even though I haven't been into CLAMP's manga, let alone Magic Knight Rayearth for years.  So when I see Utena, Ed & Al, my nostalgia dictates that I preorder them, even though my current obsessions say that I shouldn't be spending on old fandoms like Utena and FMA.  

I'm not really into these paritcular swords, but I've got a completionist problem.  * I already have Kashuu Kiyomitsu, so I have to get Yamatonokami Yasusada, right?  And Yasusada has a generic hakama!  Before Touken Ranbu Nendoroids, it was so hard to find nice, generic, male wafuku that could go on any character.  Still, even now, though it's gotten easier to get hakama from Tourabu, it's hard to find male kimono or yukata.  So I snatch up any versatile male wafuku wearing Nendoroid, I can find.   * Izuminokami Kanesada isn't really a character I'm particularly attached to, since I'm more a Dategumi fan than a Shinsengumi fan, but I've always liked his character design.  It even managed to make me ignore the long hair, even though I usually don't like that character design on males.  His costume was just elaborate enough, and the color scheme, contrasting between the deep red and intense blues, just really pop.  ^_^   * So that being said, I really shouldn't get Horikawa Kunihiro.  His costume design is closer to modern Western and I'd rather throw my money at wafuku designs.  But damn it, he's got the same intense blue contrasting against dark hair, just like Izuminokami.  ~_~;  That contrasting color scheme---or rather, contrasting intensity or value scale---just work too well on me.  And after seeing Horikawa in the Touken Ranbu Hanamaru anime, I'd feel bad if I split him up from the senpai partner he idolizes.  ~__~!  Anyway, I already preordered his brother (Yamanbagiri Kunihiro), so my completionist itch should be happy about that.  ...Even though the Kunihiro brothers don't seem very close...  x_x   * As for Ookanehira!  You can't trick me into wanting your Nendoroid!  ~w~!  I told myself not to buy any more characters I didn't already know!  (Unless they were exceptionally cute!)  I don't care if your eyes and hair color remind me of one of my main character OCs!  Nor if your seiyuu is Ono Yuki!  You're too full of yourself and I should be spending my money on cuter characters!  Stay back, I say!  Keep your charms away from me!  ~W~!

The Disney Nendoroids are cute and I like those classic "2nd Renaissance" movies, along with Tim Burton, but not enough to get figures.  But if I ran into them at a con or something, really cheap, and there was nothing else I was spending at during a small con, I might go ahead and get them.  Like what happened with Nendoroid Anna.  

I didn't include Nendoroid Yuri, because I already preordered him.  It's strange that I'm certain about getting Nendoroid Victor, even though I'm not as totally obsessed with Yuri on Ice as everyone else seems to be.  But despite YOI not taking over my life, I still do like the characters.  They're sweet!  And I want that ambiance in my display cases!

Karasuno Nendoroids.  No question there.  I just want all my Karasuno starters.  Announcing Yamaguchi and Sawamura together, when there are only 2 more starters on Karasuno, makes me think they'll be announcing them in pairs.  Here's to hoping for some Asahi and Tanaka Nendoroids!  ^o^  And if they decide to make a Nendoroid Ennoshita, I'll consider him.

Japan.  Kiku Honda.  My rule about still collecting for old fandoms, as if they're still my current obsession, applies here.  Except that my Hetalia fandom doesn't feel that long ago.  Probably because I saw Hetalia the World Twinkle at AkibaFest2016.  Let's hope that if we show demand for Japan, USUK will get some Nendoroids too.  *o*!

Nendoroid More Dress-up sets are my favorite Nendoroid more.  The outfits are so nicely generic and versatile, and help put a stop to me buying Nendoroids of characters I have no attachment to, just for their wardrobe.  (I've given Masamune & Yukimura enough wardrobe options already---but I just can't stop!  It's for DateSana!  ;o; )  It’ll be great to put some period era Nendoroids, uniformed characters, and fantasy costumed characters into a modern AU.  Groomsmen for those Nendoroid More wedding sets...Haikyuu boys in formal wear...my KanColle girls as office ladies...  *U*  I could make a cubicle diorama!  O.O  Still waiting for male wafuku Nendoroid More sets, but until then, any Nendoroid More Dress-up sets are always welcome!!!  ^U^

Ice Kirby is so cute and I love blue.  But if I wasn't willing to get original Kirby, with all his cuteness, and I didn't get MetaKnight, despite his cuteness, then I should probably save my money.  I wasn't deluded for a second into buying that robot armor Kirby.  It's on my wishlist because I just like to look at it.  ^^;  I mean, what the heck is that giant, cute thing?!  ^o^

Nendoroid More face cases are cute, but if it comes down to it, those are the first things I cut out of my budget.  After all, I skipped on that Konnosuke faceplate case, and I love Touken Ranbu.  Still, that penguin and fishing bear are ADORABLE.  When I saw the penguine case's announcement last year, I wanted to get it to re-create Chiyo's costume scenes from Azumanga Daioh.  ^u^

I'm not watching Re:Zero, but Emilia is beautiful!  *.*  I have a weakness for pastel hair and her outfit, on top of that, is just so pretty.  Her character design just screams "ingenue" deredere, and that's my favorite type of waifu (alongside kuudere and sometimes dandere).  And if I remember correctly the spoiler I heard once, then she could also be one of my favorite mythological archetypes, the "universal mother goddess".  

I'm not going to buy a Racing Miku.  Let's be honest.  They always look so cool, but they're $80, instead of the usual $50-$60, because they're supposed to support Good Smile's racing team.  But damn, this mint green fairy is cute!  I thought it hurt to pass up the knight themed Racing Miku.  But this is adorable!  ;w;  And I had needed a green female Nendoroid for my rainbow figure photos.  

I was flabbergasted when I saw the Lum Nendoroid and the Rinne Nendoroid.  I thought it might be a hoax, a different figure line from Nendoroid, or maybe even from years ago, long out of print.  But it's actually just one of those Nenodroids made by a different company; Good Smile only does the distribution.  (Like Tomytec's Wixoss Nendoroids.)  So it's not even on Good Smile's WHL4U website, which catalogs all their WonFes announcements.  It might be too easy to not realize when these are even released.  But I absolutely have to support Rumiko Takahashi Nendoroids.  I'm more a Ranma 1/2 fan, than Urusei Yatsura, and I've barely read much Rin-ne.  But if we support these, then maybe Play Future will make some Ranma 1/2, Inuyasha, or Maison Ikkoku Nendoroids.  I would go nutz if Mermaid Saga Nendoroids were ever announced.  

The kimono Nendoroids for Puella Magi Madoka Magica are an absolute buy.  I never thought I wanted more than just Homura and Madoka, but if all the girls are going to get kimono Nendorids, then it's a good time to get the entire Holy Quintet.  ^-^  

Last but not least, Nendoroid More sets for Halloween and Christmas.  I really hope these are Dress-up sets and not just some accessories.  I'm a clay crafter; I can make little accessories on my own.  So these better be full-blown outfits.  Halloween is my favorite holiday and these would just be so useful for holiday figure photos.  I'm really looking forward to more info about these sets.  ^o^    

It was a really great WonFes.  And right on my birthday, it made the best present.  ^u^!  Hopefully, despite this long wishlist, I'll be able to keep things civil with my wallet.  ^^;