#bring back montage parodies

[varhah]

[electricea]

also life-size was the barbie movie before the barbie movie.

[wolfmage553]

I'm thinking about the dramatic possibilities of what could have happened if Axol was spared and given a "self-blame" arc in The Genesis Arc that effected other arcs.

The Genesis Arc is the same up until Axol is about to be possessed when someone else (probably a minor character) jumps between Axol and Eldritch Zero, getting possessed in his place.

Axol is at their side until they wake up, blaming himself for their predicament. Once they wake up, Axol is relieved that they are seemingly okay and apologizes for what happened.

The person then starts acting funny and Axol notices it, his self-blame intensifying with each odd action.

Finally, he is sucked into the Backrooms alongside Mario, SMG4 and SMG3 where he discovers that the person who jumped between him and Eldritch Zero is now possessed by Eldritch Zero.

Axol's section of the mind torture simulation is all of his friends berating him for causing this person to get possessed and he gets really close to giving up every bit of self-love he has in his heart.

Mario is the one who snaps Axol out of his self-blame spiral and brings him hope of saving this person from Eldritch Zero's grasp.

Most of the arcs events up to WOTFI 2021 are the same save that it's Axol who ends up in the mindscape with the person who got possessed.

He simply says he'll do everything in his power to free them, not letting them know he still somewhat blames himself for what's happening to them but he's fanned the fire of that blame into determination to save them.

WOTFI 2021 concludes with Axol unable to save the person and being forced to kill them to save the universe. His final words to the person are "*character's name* I'm sorry!" Before he mercy kills them with Melony's sword.

The celebration of Eldritch Zero's defeat is cut short by Axol crying in remorse and regret.

No time skip but a slight montage set to Regret Message by Mothy (Maybe having Axol sing a parody of it about the person who died) about the rest of the SMG4 crew being there for Axol during his self-blame spiral following the events of The Genesis Arc.

This transitions beautifully into the Revelations Arc with Axol joining Melony and Meggy in attending Omnia Academy, in the Power club alongside Melony.

Mario thinks that Axol wants to share a hobby with the woman he has a crush on. While Melony being with him is a bonus, it's not the reason.

The real reason he joined the Power club is because he wants to get stronger so that what happened in The Genesis Arc never happens again.

He trains alongside Melony but notices that Melony is acting strangely.

Axol worries that history is repeating itself.

Turns out Niles is possessing Melony but Melony is fighting the possession due to her growing feelings for Axol.

Instead of going into another self-blame spiral, Axol awakes to his powers thanks to the determination to save Melony.

Much of the Revelation movie happens in much the same way except that Axol is the one who gets chomped by Eldritch Zero.

In Limbo, he meets the person who was possessed by Eldritch Zero. At first, he wants to simply inform them of what's happened and return but he simply cannot hide from the guilt and self-blame he's been dealing with since that person's death.

He finally reveals that, no matter what he has done and how far he's seem to come in terms of being okay, there's still this self-blame he feels about what happened.

The person simply hugs Axol and tells him "I never blamed you in the slightest for what happened to me."

Axol finally cries the long and cathartic cry that's been building since the ending of The Genesis Arc.

After Axol's crying stops, he simply says "Our friends need me. I won't forget you." and allows himself to go back.

The person shouts back "I'll be watching you. I hope one day I will see you smiling in true happiness."

Axol's powers are enhanced by his mental state getting better but, at the end of Revelations, we see him attend a therapy session.

While Axol will no longer blame himself for what happened in The Genesis Arc, he will still hold onto the memory of the person who died but in a far healthier way than canon Melony does with holding onto the memory of Axol.

After IGBP, Axol helps SMG4 stop blaming himself for what happened to Peach and Peach's castle. While he does acknowledge that SMG4 did make a big mistake buying the demonic keyboard, he wants SMG4 to move forward with his life rather than be stuck on his past regret like he was during the Revelations Arc.

Also, Axol and Melony have a slow burn romance thanks to Axol focusing on healing mentally and emotionally from the events of The Genesis Arc and they officially become a couple at the end of The Puzzlevision Movie.

[robbinggoodfellows]

A very angry rant / personal essay about Wes Anderson parodies and the reduction of his style to just simple visual aesthetic

Recently, I became very invested in a show on Apple Tv called The Afterparty. That investment in it only grew when I learned that season 2 would be promising a “Wes Anderson style episode.” Naturally, as someone who takes a lot of inspiration from Anderson’s films I was excited to see what this episode would be like. I am no longer invested in The Afterparty and it is entirely because of this episode.

We’ve seen this before, the reduction of Wes Anderson’s entire style to just quirky characters and pastel colors. Anyone who participated in the Tiktok trend of recreating this style knows this. Of course, this is done with utter disregard for everything else that makes up his style.

This brings me to my detailed review of The Afterparty, season 2 episode 4. I believe my exact words were “I'm so disappointed.” I was legitimately infuriated with this episode, to the point where I can no longer watch The Afterparty.

First of all, just straight up copying exact things from Wes Anderson movies isn’t cool. This episode literally did the exact same montage from the beginning of Rushmore. I was pissed. Furthermore, this episode copies the easy parts of Wes Anderson without acknowledging the work the actually goes into his films. Just color grading your shots and putting text on the screen in a quirky font isn’t enough. There’s a certain cadence that Wes’ screenplays have, a certain way of speaking that this episode simply did not have. Actually I think the only character who had the line delivery down was Ulysses in his scene with Hannah. His short amount of screen time was the highlight of this episode for me.

Another thing that pissed me off is that Wes would never write lesbians like that (he would write them so much better.) Every analysis of Wes Andersons style as a whole has pointed out one thing in common between his films, they are all about relationships. Wether those relationships are platonic or romantic, maybe even familial relationships, they focus in how people interact with people. And that’s another place where I feel this episode fell short. Hannah and Grace’s relationship felt like it was on the back burner, like it wasn’t important. Of course maybe it wasn’t meant to be important, maybe the main relationship of the episode was supposed to be Hannah and Edgar. But then maybe they could have given the two more than five minutes of screen time together. It felt like they missed the mark on any of the relationships in the episode, even having Hannah be extremely manipulative towards Grace for no reason.

The part that makes the the angriest is, why didn’t they consult with Wes Anderson about his style? For non-fans of The Afterparty, you may not know that every episode is told in a different genre. This episode is actually the first one to describe its genre with the name of a specific director. That’s a big undertaking, even with a director whose style isn’t as bold as Anderson’s. The least the show could have done would be to ask Wes how he does it. Or just not make the episode.

I am very interested to know if Wes even knows about the episode or if he had any opinions on it. Especially now, with the release of Asteroid City which is now reaffirming for newer fans that Wes Anderson is not just a visual aesthetic or a quirky character. Rather, his films have deep stylistic choices that cannot be replacated . Wes is doing things that no other director is doing, and while I understand why that may make people more interested in copying his style, it is not the right thing to do. I truly don’t believe anyone except for Wes Anderson knows what Wes Anderson is doing. And that is okay. I just wish modern media would leave it alone.

[danganronpasurvivoraskblog]

Depends on how you’re gonna execute them

//So I'm seeing a lot of mixed reactions, which is about what I expected.

//I know I kind of just made a blunt statement before, but allow me to address any concerns in regards to this implementation, so I'll start my explaining my reason.

//A big factor of this final arc is getting to understand the emotional state of the characters.

//Because as you might have realized from their actions so far, a lot of our "heroes" are getting way too desperate.

//For even the most passive and strong-willed characters on the side of Hope, falling into Despair and taking what Kuripa's route is is starting to get more tempting every day.

//And I believe that this is a good way to do it because it will be entertaining and will hopefully grab your attention. If you're wondering how I'm going to format it, it will be similar to how A Student Out Of Time does it.

//On that note, if I may be honest about something, I thought about doing something like this a LONG time ago, back when "The Fugitive" happened, but then ASooT beat me to it, lol.

//I guess I'll chock it up to great writers think alike.

//What it will be is I will format it as a series of custom CG's, and then the characters will sing a song, or a parody of a song, that is relevant to the situation. I promise you, I DO NOT plan on doing these for the lulz and for no other reason.

//As I mentioned, the songs themselves can be tied back to the characters and their current emotional state and frame of mind.

//I can't exactly explain the format without showing it though, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait to see for yourself. However, Team Sky Anon isn't far off with their assumption.

//There are two other concerns I want to address besides that.

//First of all, this won't be the only arc that has this. It'd be pretty awkward for this to be just a total one off for this arc alone, so I imagine I will bring it back for future plot points and conflicts.

//So don't worry about it being a throwaway gag.

//And the other concern is one that I consider to be most important: Don't worry, I will not be turning the whole arc into a musical.

//There will literally be like...three songs tops. The rest of the arc will just be the action and plot that this blog is synonymous with.

//I'm not losing my touch, I promise.

//Still though, you may be wondering. Am I concerned that this might not work out the way I want it to? Like, it will break the immersion?

//Well to that, I say...Yes. Very much so.

//But as I said, this is something I've been wanting to do for a while, and the way I look at it is like this...We don't know if these things will work if we don't TRY. If this doesn't work out, big whoop, I just won't do it again in the future.

//And I want to try something new, because god damn this blog needs that.

//And I will say once again for good measure that there is motive for this and I intend to use it carefully. I'm not just going to drop a song in the middle of a dramatic fight scene or death scene, or just put "I Need A Hero" in the middle of a montage like EVERY! MOVIE! EVER!

//Which is why it's so important that I hear you guys thoughts. I'm not necessarily looking for feedback, but I AM looking for ADVICE.

//Are there any things you guys suggest with this? Because my ears are open and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

-Mod

[iviarellereads]

Harrow the Ninth, Chapter 29

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Third House icon) In which a dinner party is planned.

August holds to his promise to gild Ianthe's arm. Mercy is curious-skeptical of Harrow's mental abilities when she can't even get Duty’s name right, even though Harrow obviously DOES get the name right because she says Ortus, never mind the headaches and nosebleed-feeling when Mercy says it and touches Harrow's head.(1) Mercy declares that she lives "in the worst of all possible worlds."(2)

They lay in Ianthe's bed, not laying together but simply staying together for mutual protection. Harrow asks why Ianthe keeps all the scandalous paintings of the Third House founders in her room, and Ianthe says "It is the type of energy I wish to take into my future".(3)

They discuss the mission to kill the Saint of Duty. Ianthe says if it were up to her he'd already be dead, which Harrow doubts privately.

"The real problem is Teacher. I'm not sure you can kill Ortus quickly enough to avoid Teacher bursting through the wall with a merry, 'Not on my watch!' and bringing him back from a deathblow."(4)

Thus, she relays to Harrow that at her request, Augustine has agreed to distract God so they can kill the Saint of Duty. Harrow is surprised that Augustine would agree to helping kill his brother in arms, but Augustine doesn't particularly like Ortus, and with Ianthe at full function, they can totally take on RB 7. So, Harrow will have an hour after dinner, tomorrow.

They lay down to sleep. Harrow feels overwhelmed by all the pillows, the satin texture of the sheets(5), the breath of anyone else beside her. Ianthe expresses that she hopes Corona is sleeping well, as until Canaan House, they spent only three nights apart, and on one of those, Corona cried so hard she vomited. Harrow says she's never slept with anyone in her life, always alone in the cot in her cell. Ianthe says she'd forgotten that Harrow was a proper nun, and asks how old she really is, given Mercy's exaggerations of her youth. Harrow answers, eighteen. Ianthe says she remembers being eighteen. Harrow reminds her that she's only twenty-two.

Ianthe asks if Harrow still carries all those letters from her former self, and Harrow responds affirmatively, cataloguing the location of each in hollow spaces in her exoskeleton. Ianthe asks if Harrow has any regrets, and Harrow answers no. Ianthe says Harrow was more farsighted than herself, and Harrow thinks that's the highest compliment Ianthe's ever spoken.

Before closing her eyes to sleep, Harrow takes another look at a painting of Cyrus the First's cavalier, and realizes the woman would have died at Canaan House, and Cyrus must have brought these paintings on purpose, to remember her by. Her own cavalier doesn't plague her much, except as a headache in the temples, or in words stuck in her head. She mentally recites some of Ortus's Noniad to herself.

Warrior proud of the Third House! Ride forth now as my sister! Ride we to death, and the proving! Ride we with heads held high; we shall bloody our blades in the foe's heart; death shall we bring the foul ones-- Death shall we win for ourselves, as the prize for our high deeds done on the ash-choked plains of the ravens!

And then she falls asleep.

The next morning, they receive an invitation (on real paper!) to dinner, from Augustine. There's a parody of a makeover montage with Ianthe, during which Ianthe says Naberius was a dab hand at sewing, and she wishes that killing him gave her his needlepoint skill along with his sword.

The worst part was your sudden resemblance to your mother. "I am very satisfied," pronounced Ianthe. You said drearily, "I look like am imbecile." "You look just good enough that I'm proud of my handiwork, but not so good that I'll be consumed with lust and ravish you over the nut bowl," she said. "I walked a fine line, and I walked it admirably. Go and fix your paint; your skull's dribbly."

As an act of protest, Harrow applies the least aesthetically pleasing skull in the canon of Ninth face paint. Ianthe wears a gown that looks like a few layers of gauze, with her Canaanite robe over.

They go to Augustine's quarters for dinner. He reminisces about the old days, when Ulysses was a madman (affectionate and complimentary), and Cassiopeia couldn't hold her drink. Harrow asks him why he agreed to help her kill Ortus. Augustine admits that his brother occasionally forms obsessions from which he cannot be dissuaded, and in just the last forty years(6) he's caused Augustine no end of pain. He says not to worry, Duty will leave first and go to the training room, and Harrow and Ianthe will leave at the signal that they will absolutely recognize but he will not tell them first lest they give away that they're waiting for it. He adds that when he wants Ortus to leave, "he'll be giddy-gone" which doesn't make sense to Harrow.(7)

Mercy arrives next, and August asks if she accepts the terms of the offer. Mercy will accept if he swears on the sword, so he raises up his rapier and says "I swear by the sword of Alfred Quinque, best of men and cavaliers, that the details of your, ahem, business will not be told by me, or revealed by me, or let fall from the lips of my mouth nor the pads of my fingers - even though I think it will be the death of us," then bids her accept. She accepts, and demands to know the plan.

"Once you hear it, whatever you do to me, don't do it below the neck. None of my other shirts are pressed." "Stop drawing this out! Tell me!" He cleared his throat and said: "Dios apate, minor." You had a front row seat to Mercymorn's dreamy eyes going quiet; the eye of the tempest, before she reared back and punched him full in the face.(8) There was not much force in that blow, which barely snapped his head back, but he whitened as though her fist had been a battering ram. He gagged, doubled over his washstand, and ejected a mouthful of teeth--a tumbling, plinking bowlful; he held his hand over his red and dripping mouth and closed his eyes, and after a few moments straightened back up, a trifle greyer, running his tongue over his regrown incisors.

He repeats "minor" a few times, she says he's lost his mind, then they exchange information in their wordless shorthand of facial expressions, which seems to placate her. She says she's not wearing the right dress for this, but he says she's perfect. Ianthe looks at Harrow and quirks an eyebrow in a way Harrow recognizes to mean "Who knows?" Harrow worries that, in a myriad, she'll have the same facial shorthand with Ianthe that the olds have.

In the end, Mercy makes disgusted noises, and anxiously complains "White wine!" August takes the young women, one on each arm, and warns them that whatever happens, they are absolutely not to get involved. Ianthe looks smugly at Harrow behind August's back.

The plan moves forth.

=====

(1) Do you have it yet? I think it's safe to say by now that you can guess at least part of the answer to these nosebleeds and headaches and people's lips moving the wrong way for pronouncing "Ortus" when talking about either Harrow's cavalier or the Saint of Duty. Muir makes a mystery of it, not a secret. (2) I wouldn't precisely put money on it, but I would hazard a guess that this is a reference to "the darkest timeline". The TV show Community, which has not aged very well, had an episode where a d6 was rolled to determine who at a gathering would leave and get pizza. One particular roll resulted in several accidents and fires, a lost limb, and other horrible things. This became a meme for the remainder of the show, and in our hearts, the darkest timeline. Where all the bad things that can happen, will happen. (3) I'm not sure how common this sort of vibe is outside my circles, but this felt like a VERY common sort of thing on Tumblr circa… 2013-2015? Especially at the New Year season. (4) Kool-Aid Man reference, almost definitely. Bursting through walls, just casting anti-death magic instead of saying "OH YEAH!" (5) Fun fact a lot of people don't know: satin is a weave (or, really, a family of similar weaves) that can be done with most fabric making materials, not a fabric itself. Silk, polyester, cotton, even linen satins exist. (6) There's that time frame again. (7) But it can make sense to us! Giddy-gone may be a reference to the game Dragon's Lair, which has a room populated with Giddy Goons, and an achievement called Giddy Gone for navigating it a certain way. (8) What in the world could THAT mean? Well, Dios means "god", as derived from Latin "deus", and Apate was a Greek goddess of deceit. And, well, they are deceiving Jod to give Harrow an hour… but why would Mercy punch August like that for these words?

[wildshadowtamer]

my thoughts on MWCA as i watch it:

TL;DR: i adore this show, their brilliant singers, the dialogue and voice acting is brilliant, i’m glad it didnt make me like irving, and i’m never going to get over this. please go watch it if you havent already & like phineas and ferb.

my god, monogram and carl's interactions are so accurate, i love them. also carl is adorable

i totally waved back when carl waved at the screen god, the greenscreen is so flawless oh my god??? phineas' voice??? i swear thats just vincent im terrified this show will make me like irving YEAH THE EXTENDED THEME 'mml season 3' OW 6 minutes in and i already love this show i love how they use some of the shows sound effects their voices are so accurate ferb bringing up the pistachion thing from mml, clever! jesus their such good singers candace's actor is on POINT i've never seen legally blonde but this is the only version of ohmigod you guys i'll ever listen to again AWWW PINKY adggfds buford and baljeet i love them YEAH AGENT P I LOVE HIS OUTFIT HASFGHGFD MONOGRAM I LOVE HIM every single human perry au just got validated, including mine jesus heinz' energy is already so chaotic and on point i adore him not to be panaesthetic on main, but heinz' hair 👀 yay norm's here!! again, heinz' voice is so accurate ah, norm's acting is so good "i thought you being rhetorical" ASDGHGFDS "HA. HA. HA." sdfghhgfds brilliant norm wow perry's actor can chitter well perry looks so norm lmao i've never heard Ya Got Trouble but this is so chaotic i adore it Heinz is a true mad scientist in this i love it haha he has backup dancers fuck yeah does he have a lisp? ooo i'll take that hc thank you HSFGFDS PERRY "with a capital E and that rhymes with P and that stands for poolinator" probably my favourite line in the song kickline! perry's so done at all times i love it "inevitably" ah yes, cuz they wont fill it up (such an accurate doof plot) vaness'a actor wow perry's my favourite i love it "you'll see *long gasp* you were right!" his acting is so aggressive i love it ooo are vanessa and candace gonna be at the same dance? yeah build montage!!! ASDFGHGFD THE BOYS RUNNING FROM THE BABY HEAD IS THAT DELIVERY DRIVER VINCENT MARTELLA????? THAT IS ISNT IT YEAH BIG FUNNNN i'll never understand how isabella va's get their voice that high "im coming for YOUUU" HAHA PHINEAS "sorry that is my bad...sorry" AW BALJEET perry's not even trying to get out hes so done LMAO ooo a news segment dink winkerson adggfds "i say fritten'!" yes hello i love that line delivery wait, is doof's plan gonna WORK? hell yeah! hell yeah, norm being a great son "my husband" woo dink! perry's so tired asdghgfd "this is uhhhhhhhh" haha i love him "and the worst PERISHHHH" this is the  best thing ever linda and lawrence are couple goals YEAH GO DOOF HIS PLAN'S WORKING oop nvm ASDFHGFDSA DOOF POOR GUY thanks for the fact ferb god i love these parody lyrics their so good wow i love coltrane's voice i think heinz gets more unhinged every time he's on screen and i love that for him oh god please dont make me like irving HAHA A.U.D.I.E.N.C.E shows dont usually get this many near laughs from me, this is great AWWW PINKY (x2) YESSSSS THE O.W.C.A Y.M.C.A PARODY I LOVE THIS!!!! shotuout to the person in the lobster(?) suit this is my favourite thing since i found the show YEAH CARL TAP SOLO dammit monogram dont stop him from tapping SWAMPY!! DOOOF'S BACK!! wait his hair's actually gender envy thank you for the brillian impersination norm go heinz!!! honestly this is a good plan haha buford having a tux shirt under his regular shirt only appropriate to have a grease song jeremy's chugging that respect women juice i can just tell HAHAHA BUFORD i appreciate baljeet's oversized bowtie yeah go for it isa- aw bob dont interrupt her i appreciate stacy's dancing canderemy for the win! get yourself a man whos that supportive haha doof has two phones dammit johnny ohhh doof's trying not to call it an inator so it doesnt fail god i love vanessa's hair i'm taking this ferbnessa stuff entirely platonically thank you uh oh norm's here oh candance no thats not vanessa AW LARRY HE SOUNDS SO SAD uh oh phineas' getting mad oh god candace im so sorry AW NO IM SO SORRY JEREMY YOU BETTER FOLLOW YOUR GIRL YEAH FERB HIT THAT NOTE oh my god are they gonna meet heinz yay heinz is back!!! AW NORM AWWW NORMMM AW NORMMMMMMM other-dimensioninator- DAN!! damn stacy, harsh, but true wait if heinz and candace are doing a scheme together, what will perry do? oh hello vanessa's singing voice i'm gay YEAH BUSTED YEAH SINCERELY ME YEAHHHHH CONFESSIONN oh phineas no oh phin dammit no oh isa im so sorry IS THIS GONNA BE BUJEET????? PLEASE LET THIS BE BUJEET "once my nerd always my nerd" thats so gay buford dammit it wasnt bujeet oh i am absolutely taking the ducky mogo doof hc OHMNO PERRY HIDE ohnoohnoohonoohnoohono oh wow its actually working good job heinz aw lawrence i'll go antiquing with you yeah buford break that door! YEHAHHH DOOFENSHMIRTZ BASEMENT jeremy's the best communicate, damn you two yeah jeremy gets a song! wow impressive highkick YEAH KISS AWWWW POWER COUPLE YEAH BALJEET jesus, baljeet uh oh perry VANESSSA???? OH NO HEINZ SAVE YOUR DAUGHTER PERRY DO SOMETHING YEAH VANESSA'S SINGING AGAIN oh my god they even included the farmers couple hell yeah a bit of vanessa rapping Heinz: *celebratory screaming* heinz is so chaotic i love him [ignores the blatant romantic subtext of this ferbnessa plot] new friends! awww sibling bonding AWWW oh phineas YEAHHHHH PHINABELLA KISS HAHA FERB MROWING aw phineas bluescreened well 10's a bit too young to be in love in my aromantic opinion agreed buford bujeet????? bujeetttt???????? YESSSSS YESSSS BUJEET BUJEET RIIIIIIGHTS YEAH SUMMER BELONGS TO YOU hello milo i see u god their voices are so good im glad i still hate iriving tho this...may be better than the original props to the person holding the tree i haven't had this much serotonin in weeks best musical ever YEAH GITCHEE GITCHEE GOO hello cookie i love you brilliant job everyone, i adore this job, best thing since the original show aw this credits song is adorable AWWWW THIS FINAL SONG COVER IS AMAZING god i hope these songs are on spotify why do i feel like crying to the end of this

[taptrial2]

only once i go back to the og animaniacs show do i realize how empty the reboot feels in terms of cast + how effective the meta jokes are. the og animaniacs is a LOT more inconsistent because some entire episodes are rendered completely unwatchable from absolutely garbage segments and i don't want to defend that, but man. the sound of music parody episode (the sound of warners) is an example of what the reboot cant do - EARNEST fourth wall breaks and crossovers

even the beginning where plotz, hello nurse, scratchy, and ralph are all standing in the same room, i can really feel how much more alive the show feels. like, the warners actually have an impact on several different people in different places at the studio. in the new show it feels like theyre in the void, especially because the new ceo is made to be scary to them now and completely overpowers their scenes. it really makes the warners lose their feeling of being in control, if that makes sense? like, in the og it feels like they are In Charge of the whole show, theyre larger than life and they feel that way by being contrasted with very exhausted and mildly stupid human characters who can't match their energy or wit. and that's purposeful

i feel like the reboot has lost the "warners always win" thing. also the "they were made in the 20s" lore seems to be left in the dust which is really annoying - ive seen someone else say this, but it's good so i'll steal it: the OG show is about cartoons from the 20s bringing slapstick sensibilities to a modern era. the reboot is about 90s cartoons saying theyre from the 90s and waiting for you to laugh

like, they dont USE the massive potential they have for actually good meta jokes because they're too busy focusing on surface level observational comedy which is super fucking weird.

i think the new characters/skits dont work because they arent in the same world as the rest of the show, and the characters lack strong personalities and strong dynamics. in the og, before most of the side characters were even properly introduced in skits, they were introduced in the monkey song in one big montage. the warners ran through other characters' segments, the others cameo'd in their segments, they had a relationship with tiny toons, the world just felt alive. in this one, the lot just feels barren and the warners are forced to bounce off of each other instead of other characters, which is FUN and different and thats FINE but i wish yakko wasn't promoted to parent. i wish all three of them were being annoying and outsmarting everyone else while scratchy begs them to just leave santa alone or something

[scroll-of-thought]

Tiktok?

I recently started using tiktok more. Lot’s of cool witches I know and follow have a tiktok, and a lot of them are making some awesome content. Like, @his-craft has been at it for a while, I followed @breelandwalker for all the good witchy content and podcast reminders (but mostly for Penny and Havok, their cats), I found that @traegorn‘s been doing some great stuff on there for a bit, and recently @upthewitchypunx caved and made one too, and their garden is kicking ass. Go look up each of their tiktoks and follow them, and if anyone knows who else I should follow, let me know.

So anyway, now I’m thinking it might be fun to make my own. And I also kinda want to do awesome witchy content, like spellcraft tutorials and analysis, witchcraft discussions, personal discoveries and methods, maybe some vlogs about witchy stuff and daily life, and show off my wonderful chickens of whom I love.

But also I really love making highly edited videos with CGI. Like, part of the reason I did youtube for so long what so I had an excuse to edit together anything from animatics, to gameplay montages, to sequences set to music. It’s just really fun to me. I was bouncing around the idea of making a “dramatic recreation” parody account. Like, picture this scene:

Me “Ok, guys. I was wrapping up this other tutorial when this happened. Don’t worry, the tutorial is still coming, but check this out!”

Jump cut to me standing in front of a mirror

Me “And that’s how you lock a mirror, keeping malevolent entities fro-”

My partner, holding the camera “Oh shit! It’s back!”

Camera turns over my shoulder as we look into the hallway. A mass of black smoke, resembling a face, hovers over the railing of the stairs. We slowly approach.

Me “Hey there little buddy. What’re you doing here?”

We get a little closer. The floating face begins to turn violent looking, snarling.

I suddenly throw something at it and it darts below the railing. My partner runs to look over the railing down the stairs to a 10 foot drop where the door slams shut below.

Me “And stay out!”

I take a moment to adjust my appearance and look at the camera.

Me “and, that’s why I always have salt in my pocket.”

End Tiktok

I have the editing and SFX know how to do something like that. Also I want to do some fake ghost encounters in there. I know I could do fake ghost videos better than so many people, and I was really into practical effects when I was younger, so I want moving furniture and all that stuff without CGI. Another idea, I really want to edit my partner’s reflection out of the mirror, so it looks like there is no camera, and that’s super easy to do, just to confuse people, and could lead to a ton of other videos of me making videos without a camera entirely.

My main problems are as follows:

Firstly, I have no free time, lol. I’m already spending most of my time making 3d models and levels. It’ll have to be next year, after the game is launched and after all the post launch content and possible patches.

I don’t know if I want to real educational witchy content, which would basically be this blog but tiktok edition, or entertaining parody junkfood. I really want to do both, but that brings me to the next problem.

If I get known for making really good fake stuff, and comedic stuff, will my actual witchy content be taken seriously? Or will that line blur?

additionally, my friend really wants to make a ghost hunting channel with me for youtube. If I’m known as the guy who makes fake spirits on tictok, will anything we might be lucky enough to catch survive the accusations?

Should I just not go all out of photo realistic models, particle effects, and editing so it’s obviously fake? Does that take away some of the fun?

If I do the junkfood option, as a real practicing witch of near 20 years, does that reflect poorly on myself and/or other witches? Even if I outright state in the bio that it’s parody and for fun/entertainment. If I do a video about fighting spirits like it’s an anime irl, is that disrespectful to the other content creators giving actual spirit protection advice?

I’ve got some other thoughts and concerns, but those are the main ones on my mind. Even if I don’t do the parody account with CGI videos, I still have the option of doing real witchy content. And videos of my chickens, which is important.

Anyway, just wanted to put my thoughts into text and see if anyone had any thoughts of their own. What kind of stuff would you like to see? Any thoughts on the problems I listed? Anyone think I shouldn’t be worrying about this stuff at 4am?

[thejonzone]

Riverdale is the Best Show You’ve Written Off

About once a month, a tweet will go around, reading something like “I can’t believe Netflix cancelled [SHOW X], but Riverdale is still on?!? *eye roll emoji, angry cussing emoji*.” It can be difficult to read tweets like these, because I like Riverdale. But I understand why it has struggled to keep an audience-- there is a perception that the show has gone completely off the rails, a chaos of hot actors in their mid-20s playing glamorous high school sociopaths, with the show choosing excess over narrative cohesion. That perception is pretty accurate. It’s an easy show to write off and easy to make fun of, especially because, as a CW show, it’s ostensibly geared to teens. So it brings me no pleasure to say that Riverdale, currently in its 5th season, has reached a renaissance, and its episodes so far this season represent its high-water mark. 

To appreciate how stunning and exciting Riverdale’s new direction is, it’s important to understand how we got here.

In the first season, a murder in the titular town revealed an underbelly of thugs, power brokers, and shady backroom rulers, all vying for control with gothic morbidity. What followed after that season though, was something else entirely. 

Riverdale, ramping up during Seasons 2 through 4, became a beautiful mess. I think it’s important to state that no other show on television is even attempting to do what Riverdale did/is doing. The show is, at any one point, 5-7 wholly different shows. There is a season’s worth of plot per episode. It’s storytelling mania and in-real-time dementia. I don’t remember what happened at the end of last episode because SO much happened. And besides, coherence is overrated! Give me hot actors, give me drug-addicted mobsters, give me creepy principals! On Riverdale, the parents are both former teen heartthrobs and serial killers, children operate underground speakeasies, and for some reason not one therapist has realized they could make a fortune helping our cast work through the intense psychological terror and emotional abuse they receive every episode.

This show is beyond pastiche, hyper-loaded with reference. My roommate and I had a joke that the show’s third season could be mapped to a quadrant of influences: Twin Peaks, True Detective, The Sopranos, and Gossip Girl. At any point Riverdale was acknowledging and playing into the influence of one of these shows. Season Four doubled down on the show’s horror anthology tendency. No one wants you to miss the references being made. You know that menacing boarding school Jughead attends in Season Four? You’d be right If it reminded you of Donna Tartt’s A Secret History. After all, consider Jughead’s classmate, whose name is Donna Sweet. Maybe you picked up on the violence simmering underneath the surface of Jughead’s other classmate, Bret Easton-Elli--  I mean, Bret Weston-Wallis.

Every week, the show seems primed for failure, attempting to juggle more storylines than possible or even necessary. The show is like a house of cards that has already fallen, and yet the writers are somehow still haphazardly adding more cards to the top. “Be reasonable!” I would plead. To no avail. And that’s the thrill of it. The plotlines are secondary to the spectacle. The show is a celebration and parody of violent legacy dramas, camp, teen horror, canonical literature, and anything else it can stuff under the hood, as much an ode to other pieces of media as it is an original work itself. 

But now, something completely different is happening. The beginning of Season Five brought an end to the seasons-long saga the show felt trapped in. Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead graduated high school, and the show flashed forward seven years. What might be considered a hokey technique was one of the best decisions the writers ever did. Because now we have a blank slate for our main cast. The writers effectively cut the fat from three seasons of violent, ridiculous maximalism. And it’s psychically refreshing.

At the heart of any good sitcom, we just want to see our main characters hanging out together. Change is part of life, but it shouldn’t be in television. Which is why this new season is so exciting-- Riverdale is now in the process of bringing its four main characters back from their adult lives and re-engaging them in the deadly politics of their hometown. Pop Tate, the owner-manager of Pop’s, Riverdale’s diner, is retiring, and Archie gets the gang back in town to celebrate the man who helped make the diner such a great hang-out spot. In the words of Jughead, “You gave us a home, Pop.” Like so mant other sitcoms before it, Riverdale used Pop’s to establish its characters and their relationships to each other.

I grew up on Seinfeld so I’ve always been attracted to the idea of the diner. The pandemic has made me yearn even harder for the sitcom diner, that idealistic place where all my friends are, where people enter with problems to be solved, drama to be explained, good news to be celebrated. Riverdale’s acknowledgment of Pop and his diner as the show’s connective tissue is a grounding and human choice. It works fantastically to set up this upcoming season, where our gang must confront the newest nefarious plot for control over the soul of Riverdale.

No doubt the show will continue its pattern of naming and spoofing genre. Veronica, in her adult life, had an Uncut Gems-style few scenes where she works as a charismatic (of course) diamond merchant. She married a possessive, boring guy who’s only characteristic seems to be that his voice is *exactly* like Veronica’s megalomaniac dad, Hiram. Something something Freud, something something daddy sexy. And credit where credit is due, Mark Consuelos is really hot.

Jughead is a writer now, in the most white guy college freshman fantasy of being a writer possible. He attended the Iowa Writers Workshop as an undergrad, something that is definitely not possible. He’s written a hit book but now suffers from *gasp* writer’s block?? He’s a cool guy writer who, in his opening montage, gets recognized by, hit on, and then has sex with a college-aged fan. Back in Riverdale, Jug writes a speech for Pop’s retirement and sends it to his agent. His agent is smitten with the work, calling it “tragic americana” and proclaiming that Jughead’s next book will be titled “Elegy for a Small Town”. This is almost certainly a reference to J.D. Vance’s bad book, and I’m sure the show will be bringing in more elements of “tragic” “americana” as the season unfolds. 

Betty is FBI in training, because as the show has loved to tell us, Betty has “the serial killer gene”, but is using it for good. For the record, her dad was a serial killer, and her brother was a serial killer. And it’s not like her mom or sister can cast the first stone. Betty’s endured enough trauma to fill 100 lives with unending pain and I’m sure the show will have no trouble heaping more on top. Already in the new season we’ve seen flashbacks to some point during the time jump when Betty was taken hostage, in what’s clearly a homage to The Silence of the Lambs. 

And then there’s Archie. I don’t know if anyone knows what to do with the guy. Played by K.J. Apa, who is both really good-looking with his shirt off and a god-awful actor, Archie has been in the army. The show is using him to shill for the military-industrial complex. 

I’ve long joked that the Riverdale writers have no idea what they’re doing. But through a global pandemic affecting TV production and *the* major narrative complication in any high school-set show (graduation), the Riverdale writers have seamlessly transitioned the show to a new stasis. Past seasons are informing this one, but we aren’t bogged down by the details in this new season. The bigger joke, of course, is that the writers have known exactly what they’ve been doing this whole time, and I’m just an idiot. Well I mean, of course I’m an idiot. I use television to regulate my emotions and simulate a static friend group that doesn’t leave or change. And Riverdale is perfect for that. If a renaissance is a rebirth, well then my friends, cut the umbilical cord and save the placenta to put in pills, because Riverdale is cranking out episodes that are better than ever.

[arcticdementor]

“Hey bro! Check out this Nike ad!” This was my entry point into a new world.

…

Since Carlos had lived mostly outside the United States, he was able to follow soccer on a level I’d never encountered in my hometown. Back then, before social media and the advent of scarf-wearing Northwestern fútbol hipsters, big-time European soccer was like the metric system: Known to almost all but ourselves. But Carlos knew, and immediately used LimeWire to curate me a massive archive of 1990s through early 2000s soccer highlights. What was I doing in the world without them?

Oddly enough, in trying to inculcate me in soccer fandom, he started not with game highlights, but with the advertisements. Yes, Carlos was an educator and a voluntary footsoldier for Big Apparel. Going in, I had no clue about high-quality, internationally popular Nike soccer ads. The ads, written by the legendary Wieden+Kennedy firm, were miniature movies, films that were often creatively daring but also quite funny. The most popular of these ads might be “Good vs. Evil,” from 1996, where Nike’s best soccer players team up to play Satan’s literal army. The blending of sacrilege, theology and comedy just worked, like a more ambitious version of Space Jam that somehow took itself less seriously than Space Jam.

…

Yes, I know ads aren’t supposed to be high art. I understand that they are the purest distillation of manipulative greed. And yet, they sometimes are culturally relevant generational touchstones. While Nike was weaving soccer into enduring pop culture abroad, it was having a similar kind of success with basketball and baseball stateside. These ads weren’t just pure ephemera. Michael Jordan’s commercials were so good that, as he nears age 60, his sneaker still outsells any modern athlete’s. “Chicks dig the long ball” is a phrase (a) that can get you sent to the modern HR department and b) whose origins are fondly remembered by most American men over the age of 35.

Modern Nike ads will never be so remembered. It’s not because we’re so inundated with information these days, though we are. And it’s not because today’s overexposed athletes lack the mystique of the 1990s superstars, though they do. It’s because the modern Nike ads are beyond fucking terrible.

…

They’re bad for many causes, but one in particular is an incongruity at the company’s heart. Nike, like so many major institutions, is suffering from what I’ll call Existence Dissonance. It’s happening in a particular way, for a particular reason and the result is that what Nike is happens to be at cross-purposes from what Nike aspires to be.

…

For all the talk of a racial reckoning within major industries, Nike’s main problem is this: It’s a company built on masculinity, most specifically Michael Jordan’s alpha dog brand of it. Now, due to its own ambitions, scandals, and intellectual trends, Nike finds masculinity problematic enough to loudly reject.

This rejection is part of the broader culture war, but it’s accelerating due to an arcane quirk in the apparel giant’s strange restructuring plan, announced in June. Under the leadership of new CEO John Donahoe, Nike is moving away from its classic discrete sports categories (Nike Basketball, Nike Soccer, etc.) in favor of a system where all products are shoveled into one of three divisions: men’s, women’s and kids’. Obviously Nike made clothing tailored to the specificities of all these groups before, but now, Nike is emphasizing gender over sport. Gone is the model of the product appealing to basketball fans because they are basketball fans. It’s now replaced by a model of, say, the product appealing to women because they are women.

And hey, women buy sneakers too. Actually, women buy the lion’s share of clothing in the United States. While women shoppers are market dominant in nearly every aspect of American apparel, the clothing multinational named after a Greek goddess happens to be a major exception. At Nike, according to its own records, men account for roughly twice as much revenue as women do.

You might see that stat and think, “Well, this means that Nike will prioritize men over women in its new, odd, gendered segmentation of the company.” That’s not necessarily how this all works, thanks to a phenomenon I’ll call Undecided Whale. The idea is that a company, as its aims grow more expansive, starts catering less to the locked-in core customer and more to a potential whale which demonstrates some interest. Sure, you can just keep doing what’s made you rich, but how can you even focus on your primary business with that whale out there, swimming so tantalizingly close? The whale, should you bring it in, has the potential to enrich you far more than your core customers ever did. And yeah yeah yeah, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, but those were birds. This is a damned whale! And so you start forgetting about your base.

You can see this dynamic in other places. For the NBA, China is its Undecided Whale. It could be argued that the NBA fixates more on China than on America, even if the vast majority of TV money comes from U.S. viewership. The league figures it has more or less hit its ceiling in its home country, so China becomes an obsession as this massive, theoretical growth engine.

…

Here’s the main issue for Nike in this endeavor: The company, as a raison d’être, promotes athletic excellence. While women are among Nike’s major sports stars, the core of high-level performance, in the overwhelming majority of sports, is male. Every sane person knows that, though nobody in professional class life seems rude enough to say so. Obviously, there’s the observable reality of who tends to set records and there’s also the pervasive understanding that testosterone, the main male sex hormone, happens to give unfair advantages to the athletes who inject it.

Speaking of which, there’s a famous This American Life episode from 2002 where the public radio journos actually test their own testosterone levels. The big joke of the episode is just how comically low their T levels are. Sure, you would stereotype bookish public radio men in this way, and yet the results are on the nose enough to shock.

As a nerdy media-weakling type, I can relate to the stunning realization that you’ve been largely living apart from T. Before working in the NBA setting, I was an intern in the cubicles of Salon.com’s San Francisco office, around the time it was shifting from respectable online magazine into inane outrage content mill. Going from that setting to the NBA locker room was some jarring whiplash, like leaving the faculty lounge for a pirate ship. To quote Charles Barkley on the latter culture, “The locker room is sexist, racist, and homophobic … and it’s fun and I miss it.”

…

The “Good vs. Evil” ad boasts a “Like” to “Dislike” ratio of 20-to-1 on YouTube. On June 17th of 2021, Nike put out an ad ahead of the Euro Cup that referenced “Good vs. Evil” as briefly as it could. In this case, a little child popped his collar and used Cantona’s catchphrase. As of this writing, the new ad has earned a thousand more punches of the Dislike than of the Like button.

When you see it, it’s no surprise that the latest Euro Cup ad is disliked. I mean, you have to look at this shit. I know we’re so numb to the ever-escalating emanations of radical chic from our largest corporations, but sometimes it’s worth pausing just to take stock and gawk.

…

But today we are in the land of new football, where we take dictatorial direction from less-than-athletic minors. After her announcement, we are treated to a montage of different people who offer tolerance bromides.

“There are no borders here!”

“Here, you can be whoever you want. Be with whoever you want.”

(Two men kiss following that line, because subtlety isn’t part of this new world order.)

Then, a woman who appears to be breastfeeding under a soccer shirt, threatens, in French, “And if you disagree …”

And this is when the little boy gives us Cantona’s “au revoir” line before kicking a ball out of a soccer stadium, presumably because that’s what happens to the ignorant soccer hooligan. He gets kicked out for raging against gay men kissing or French ladies breastfeeding or somesuch. Later, a referee wearing a hijab instructs us, “Leave the hate,” before narrator girl explains, “You might as well join us because no one can stop us.”

Is that last line supposed to be … inspiring? That’s what a movie villain says, like if Bane took the form of Stan Marsh’s sister. Speaking of which, was this ad actually written by the creators of South Park as an elaborate prank? It’s certainly more convincing as an aggressive parody of liberals than as a sales pitch. Why, in anything other than a comedic setup, is a woman breastfeeding in a big-budget Euro Cup ad?

It’s tempting to fall into the pro-vanguardism template the boomers have handed down to us and sheepishly say, “I must be getting old, because this seems weird to me,” but let’s get real. You dislike this ad because it sucks. You are having a natural, human response to shitty art. This a hollow sermon from a priest whose sins were in the papers. Nobody is impressed by what Nike’s doing here. Nobody thinks Nike, a multinational famous for its sweatshops, is ushering us into an enlightened utopia. Sure, most media types are afraid to criticize the ad publicly. You might inspire suspicion that what you’re secretly against is men kissing and women breastfeeding, but nobody actually likes the stupid ad. No college kid would show it to a new friend he’s trying to impress, and it’s hard to envision a massive cohort of Gen Z women giving a shit about this ad either.

Now juxtapose that ad not just against the classics of the 1990s but also the 2000s products that preceded the Great Awokening. Compare it to another Nike Euro Cup advertisement, Guy Ritchie’s “Take It to the Next Level.”

…

Here’s the problem, insofar as problems are pretended into existence by our media class: The ad is very, very male. Really, what we are watching here is a boyhood fantasy. Our protagonist gets called up to the big show, and next thing you know he’s cavorting with multiple ladies, and autographing titties to the chagrin of his date. He can be seen buying a luxury sports car and arriving at his childhood home in it as his father beams with pride. Training sessions show him either puking from exhaustion or playing grab-ass with his fellow soccer bros. This is jock life, distilled. Art works when it’s true and it’s true that this is a vivid depiction of a common fantasy realized.

Nike’s highly successful “Write the Future” ad (16,000 Likes, 257 Dislikes) works along similar themes.

…

The recent Olympic ads were especially heavy on cringe radical chic, and might have stood out less in this respect if the athletes themselves mirrored that tone on the big stage. Not so much in these Olympics. It seems as though Nike made the commercials in preparation for an explosion of telegenic activism, only to see American athletes mostly, quietly accept their medals, chomp down on the gold, and praise God or country. Perhaps you could consider Simone Biles bowing out of events due to mental health as a form of activism, but overall, the athletes basically behaved in the manner they would have back in 1996.

But Nike forged onwards anyway. This ad in celebration of the U.S. women’s basketball team made some waves, getting ripped in conservative media as the latest offense by woke capital.

…

“Today I have a presentation on dynasties,” a pink-haired teenage girl tells us. “But I refuse to talk about the ancient history and drama. That’s just the patriarchy. Instead, I’m going to talk about a dynasty that I actually look up to. An all-women dynasty. Women of color. Gay women. Women who fight for social justice. Women with a jump shot. A dynasty that makes your favorite men’s basketball, football, and baseball teams look like amateurs.”

When she says, “That’s just the patriarchy,” the camera pans to a bust of (I think) Julius Caesar. At another point, the girl says, “A dynasty that makes Alexander the Great look like Alexander the Okay.” Fuck you, Classical Antiquity. Fuck you, fans of teams. You’re all just the patriarchy. Or something.

Nike could easily sell the successful American women’s basketball team without denigrating other teams, genders and ancient Mediterranean empires that have nothing to do with this. Could but won’t. The company now conveys an almost visceral need for women to triumph over men because … well, nobody really explains why, even if it has something to do with Undecided Whaling. In Nike’s tentpole Olympics ad titled “Best Day Ever,” the narrator fantasizes about the future, declaring, “The WNBA will surpass the NBA in popularity!” ​

…

There are theories on the emergence of woke capital, with many having observed that, following Occupy Wall Street, media institutions ramped up on census category grievance. The thinking goes that, in response to the threat of a real economic revolution, the power players in our society pushed identity politics to undermine group solidarity. Well, that was a fiendishly brilliant plan, if anyone actually hatched it.

I’m not so convinced, though, as I’m more inclined to believe that a lot of history happens by happenstance. If we’re to specifically analyze the Nike Awokening, there is a recent top-down element of a mandate for Undecided Whaling, but that mandate was preceded by a socially conscious middle class campaign within the company.

This isn’t unique to Nike, either. Given my past life covering the team that tech moguls root for, I’ve run into such people. They aren’t, by and large, ideological. Very few are messianically devoted to seeing the world through the intersectionality lens. They are, however, terrified of their employees who feel this way. The mid-tier labor force, this cohort who actually internalized their university teachings, are full of fervor and willing to risk burned bridges in favor of causes they deem righteous. The big bosses just don’t want a headline-making walkout on their hands, so they placate and mollify, eventually bending the company’s voice into language of righteousness.

…

All the guilt and atonement transference make for bad art. And so the ads suck. There’s no Machiavellian conspiracy behind the production. It’s just a combination of desperately wanting female market share and desperately wanting to move on from the publicized sins of a masculine past. So, to message its ambitions, the exhausted corporation leans on the employees with the loudest answers.

There’s a lot of interplay between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy when the former asks the latter for a type of ad, but the through line from both sides is a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Based on conversations with people who’ve worked in both environments, there’s a dearth of personnel who are deeply connected to sports. In place of a grounding in a subculture, you’re getting ideas from folks who went to nice colleges and trendy ad schools, the type of people who throw words like “patriarchy” at the screen to celebrate a gold medal victory. The older leaders, uneasy in their station and thus obsessed with looking cutting edge, lean on the younger types because the youth are confident. Unfortunately, that confidence is rooted in an ability to regurgitate liturgy, rather than generative genius. They’ve a mandate to replace a marred past, which they leap at, but they’re incapable of inventing a better future.

…

Ironically, Nike mattered a lot more in the days when its position was less dominant. Back when it had to really fight for market share, it made bold, genre-altering art. The ads were synonymous with masculine victory, plus they were cheekily irreverent. And so the dudes loved them. Today, Nike is something else. It LARPs as a grandiose feminist nonprofit as it floats aimlessly on the vessel Michael Jordan built long ago. Like Jordan himself, Nike is rich forever off what it can replicate never. Unlike Jordan, it now wishes to be known for anything but its triumphs. Nike once told a story and that story resonated with its audience. Now it’s decided that its audience is the problem. It wouldn’t shock you to learn that Carlos hated the new Nike ads I texted to him. His exact words were, “I don’t want fucking activism from a sweatshop monopoly.” He’ll still buy the gear, though, just not the narrative. Nike remains, but the story about itself has run out. Au revoir. 

[princesssarisa]

from @cinefantasticquemitho, for the fictional character asks: Juliet Capulet

@cinefantastiquemitho​ accidentally answered my ask as a private message instead of a post, so I’m copying and pasting her answer here.

Favorite thing about them: The apeal of Juliet is that she is one of the earliest examples of a young rebel being portrayed positively in western literature. She lives in a world that was screwed over by the violence of the adults around her, and is one of the few people in the story who is inteligent anough to not see this violence as something natural, and question it. Another interesting element of Juliet is that, troughout the play, she learns to be very cunning and witty. Now usually, this characteristics (specially in a female character) would be portrayed as the start of a path to villany, where a character would use them to gain power over the unhapiness of others (think of Tamora and Aaron the Moor, the Macbeths, Richard III, Iago and Edmond). But in Juliet’s writing, she is still the heroine of the story, who as a young woman in the Renaissance, is justified to use cunning and witty as a means of trying to survive and find happiness for her and Romeo, the person she loves, in a world where she lacks power. And this cunning and witty, contrary to the most popular belief, does not contradict her loialty, with is another important characteristic that she shows in relation to her beloved husband Romeo.

Least favorite thing about them: Actually, i don’t have a least favorite thing about Juliet herself. In reality, when i was young and was only familiar with the play trough parodies in pop culture, without actually having readed or watched the play properly, i disliked a caricature of Juliet, that stereotyped her as just “a cute girl who is there to suffer”. Later, when i actually readed and watched montages of the play online, i saw that this wasn’t at all the actual character that Shakespeare wrote.

Favorite line:

So many, is hard to choose just one.

“My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy”.

“Ay me!

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name, And for that name which is no part of thee Take all myself”.

“ O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Do not swear at all; Or, if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, Which is the god of my idolatry, And I’ll believe thee”.

“The clock struck nine when I did send the nurse; In half an hour she promised to return. Perchance she cannot meet him: that’s not so. O, she is lame! love’s heralds should be thoughts, Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams, Driving back shadows over louring hills: Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love, And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings. Now is the sun upon the highmost hill Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve Is three long hours, yet she is not come. Had she affections and warm youthful blood, She would be as swift in motion as a ball; My words would bandy her to my sweet love, And his to me: But old folks, many feign as they were dead; Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead”.

“Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament: They are but beggars that can count their worth; But my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth”.

“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds, Towards Phoebus’ lodging: such a wagoner As Phaethon would whip you to the west, And bring in cloudy night immediately. Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night, That runaway’s eyes may wink and Romeo Leap to these arms, untalk’d of and unseen. Lovers can see to do their amorous rites By their own beauties; or, if love be blind, It best agrees with night. Come, civil night, Thou sober-suited matron, all in black, And learn me how to lose a winning match, Play’d for a pair of stainless maidenhoods: Hood my unmann’d blood, bating in my cheeks, With thy black mantle; till strange love, grown bold, Think true love acted simple modesty. Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night, Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun. O, I have bought the mansion of a love, But not possess’d it, and, though I am sold, Not yet enjoy’d: so tedious is this day As is the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes And may not wear them”.

“O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face! Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! Dove-feather’d raven! wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, A damned saint, an honourable villain! O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell, When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiend In moral paradise of such sweet flesh? Was ever book containing such vile matter So fairly bound? O that deceit should dwell In such a gorgeous palace”!

“Blister’d be thy tongue For such a wish! he was not born to shame: Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit; For 'tis a throne where honour may be crown’d Sole monarch of the universal earth. O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

Shall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

Ah, poor my lord, what tongue shall smooth thy name, When I, thy three-hours wife, have mangled it? But, wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin? That villain cousin would have kill’d my husband: Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring; Your tributary drops belong to woe, Which you, mistaking, offer up to joy. My husband lives, that Tybalt would have slain; And Tybalt’s dead, that would have slain my husband: All this is comfort; wherefore weep I then? Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death, That murder’d me: I would forget it fain; But, O, it presses to my memory, Like damned guilty deeds to sinners’ minds: 'Tybalt is dead, and Romeo—banished;’ That 'banished,’ that one word 'banished,’ Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death Was woe enough, if it had ended there: Or, if sour woe delights in fellowship And needly will be rank’d with other griefs, Why follow’d not, when she said 'Tybalt’s dead,’ Thy father, or thy mother, nay, or both, Which modern lamentations might have moved? But with a rear-ward following Tybalt’s death, 'Romeo is banished,’ to speak that word, Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet, All slain, all dead. 'Romeo is banished!’ There is no end, no limit, measure, bound, In that word’s death; no words can that woe sound”.

“It is, it is: hie hence, be gone, away! It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. Some say the lark makes sweet division; This doth not so, for she divideth us: Some say the lark and loathed toad change eyes, O, now I would they had changed voices too! Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up to the day, O, now be gone; more light and light it grows”.

“ Art thou gone so? love, lord, ay, husband, friend! I must hear from thee every day in the hour, For in a minute there are many days: O, by this count I shall be much in years Ere I again behold my Romeo”!

“Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again. I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins, That almost freezes up the heat of life: I’ll call them back again to comfort me: Nurse! What should she do here? My dismal scene I needs must act alone. Come, vial. What if this mixture do not work at all? Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? No, no: this shall forbid it: lie thou there. [Laying down her dagger] What if it be a poison, which the friar Subtly hath minister’d to have me dead, Lest in this marriage he should be dishonour’d, Because he married me before to Romeo? I fear it is: and yet, methinks, it should not, For he hath still been tried a holy man. How if, when I am laid into the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo Come to redeem me? there’s a fearful point! Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes? Or, if I live, is it not very like, The horrible conceit of death and night, Together with the terror of the place,— As in a vault, an ancient receptacle, Where, for these many hundred years, the bones Of all my buried ancestors are packed: Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth, Lies festering in his shroud; where, as they say, At some hours in the night spirits resort;— Alack, alack, is it not like that I, So early waking, what with loathsome smells, And shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth, That living mortals, hearing them, run mad:— O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught, Environed with all these hideous fears? And madly play with my forefather’s joints? And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud? And, in this rage, with some great kinsman’s bone, As with a club, dash out my desperate brains? O, look! methinks I see my cousin’s ghost Seeking out Romeo, that did spit his body Upon a rapier’s point: stay, Tybalt, stay! Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee”.

“Yea, noise? then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger! [Snatching ROMEO’s dagger] This is thy sheath; [Stabs herself] there rust, and let me die”.

brOTP: In the plays actual text, we see her being great friends and partners with the Nurse, and get some insinuations that Tybalt, her cousin, was also a very close friend to her. The TV series Still Star Crossed gaved to her a close friendship with her cousin Rosaline, what i apreciate very, very much. And i also like to imagine that in a Everybody Lives!AU she would be very close friends with Benvolio Montague.

OTP: With Romeo Montague.

nOTP: With Count Paris and/or Tybalt Capulet.

Random headcanon: 1. Her favorite colors are red, orange, white and gold; 2. Her favorite story from greek mithology is Eros and Psyche; 3. Her favorite fairy tale is Jack and the Beanstalk;  4. In a Modern Day Everybody Lives!AU Juliet  graduates in Philosophy, Psychology and Social Services and becomes a social worker, focused on atend teenage girls and women living at risk of suffering abuse or on abusive situations/child attorney. For more details about it, here is the link for the list of ideas about a Happy Ending Modern Day! AU made in collaboration with @giuliettaluce :

https://cinefantastiquemitho.tumblr.com/post/617097864129200128/modern-headcanon-romeo-and-juliet

Unpopular Opinion: Well, i like some elements of the Zefirelli 1968 movie adaptation: the costumes are beautifull to look at, Nino Rota’s score is the worlds eight wonder of an icon, the casting choice (specially of Leonard Whiting and Olívia Hussey as Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, respectivelly) is pretty spot on… Buuuut: with the cutting of lines like the “Gallop apace” soliloquy, the lines where she reflects, deduces and concludes that Tybalt started the fight against Romeo with the intention of killing him and the “Potion” soliloquy, i think it reduced a lot of the huge inteligence that Juliet actually has, and with its extremely huge popularity it ended up contributing with the pop culture stereotyped idea that Juliet is just a “cute girl who is there to suffer”.

Song i associate with them: Flor, Minha Flor, by Grupo Galpão de Teatro (from the soundtrack of my favorite Romeo and Juliet montage)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIO15cI-8Y

And Nino Rota’s What is a Youth, from the 1968 Franco Zefirelli film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VsgolqoeJw

Favorite picture of them:

[simpsonsnight]

Episode #166

WHAT THIS?

Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala (Annoyed Grunt) cious Season 8 - Episode 13 | February 7, 1997 This episode is absolutely guilty of indulging in the things that make modern Simpsons episodes bad. Broad gags, musical numbers, unrealistic spoofy moments, and there’s even a Mike Scully-esque montage of Marge’s hair falling out. But, this was one of my favorite episodes when I was a kid, and I still really love it. Also, they parody Quentin Tarantino during Itchy & Scratchy which I though was INCREDIBLY cool in 1997 when I was starting to become a budding INDIE MOVIE LIKER. If they did a parody of Clerks I would’ve shit myself.  I tried to watch this with a little bit of cynicism. I guess it does kinda fall apart during the third act, and feels like it’s basically over at the end of the second act. Some of the scenes are ultimately pointless. When I was a kid it genuinely bothered me that Sherry Bobbins got shredded at the end, because I was genuinely bummed at the idea that they WOULD DEFINITELY NOT be bringing her back at some point (she shows up in cameos and couch gags and recently had a bit during an episode where Bart has a coma dream where he communicates with the dead, including her). I guess knowing how shitty the show gets after this season, the idea of a sequel sode would just be a bummer. So, I guess I’m glad she’s fucking dead.

THE B-SODE:

The Spooktacular New Adventures of Casper: "Great Ghouly Governess" Season 3 - Episode 6C | October 20, 1997 Seems like it sucks! I never saw this show when it was on, and Casper was never really in my cartoon wheelhouse. It was on, here and there, and available on cheap-ass VHS tapes. But this show is more in the Tiny Toons vein. There’s a pointless Brady Bunch reference, and a bad song about belching. Yuck.  Okay so I’m smart and know about casper. Did you know it wasn’t until the 1995 live-action film that they actually gave Casper’s backstory as being a dead boy? Whenever the Casper people were asked about Casper’s corporeal form the standard line was that ghosts were actually a species of creature and not meant to be spirits of the dearly departed. So, Matt Groening, no, Richie Rich did not die and become Casper. He died and went to hell, presumably. 

[gascon-en-exil]

Joining the Game Late: S6E6 “Blood of My Blood”

Synopsis

A forgettable Stark from Season 1 is back to rescue Bran and Meera. Sam’s come home with some lies for and about his family, but Gilly blows it and they dine and dash with a sword. Margaery seems to have found the Seven and convinces Tommen to do the same, thwarting the Tyrell-Lannister alliance against the Faith. Arya keeps getting caught up with the King’s Landing plot, then tries rewriting the script both on and off stage. The Waif is coming to kill her now, but she’s got Needle back so that should end well. Walder Frey has problems, but he’s also got leverage in Edmure Tully who’s been in his dungeons for three seasons. It’s Cersei and Jaime vs. the world for like the fifth time. Dany reunites with Drogon and decides to stick with what she’s good at.

Commentary

GoT is going out of its way to get me talking about characters I rarely shine my personal spotlight on. Sure, Margaery’s got her power play(?) around the High Sparrow and her own family and the twincest Lannisters are back to reaffirming that they’re going to kill everyone who isn’t them, but it’s the stuff outside King’s Landing that caught my attention this time. Like the opening on Bran’s story - apparently the return of Benjen was meant to be a clever wink to book readers who’d been expecting him, but all I can think about is how terrible a deal Meera’s been given. She helped Bran go north of the Wall based on the visions of her brother, and ever since she’s been kidnapped, nearly raped, forced to watch her brother murdered, and then had to watch Summer and Hodor get torn apart by ice zombies as she dragged an unconscious teenage boy on a sled too heavy for her through a blizzard while still being pursued by the aforementioned zombies. I know almost everyone in this universe has a terrible lot because that’s just how it is, but still. 

Next up is Sam and Gilly at Horn Hill. I admit that I still don’t care about Sam or his dull little romance and found family, but it dawned on me that this is the first time that the Reach has actually appeared in the show. From my research I’ve picked out that House Tarly was influenced by provincial southern France in contrast to the decidedly Parisian Highgarden and House Tyrell, and GoT makes that evident in the design of Horn Hill and the fashions and behavior of its residence. Laying aside the usual issue of mostly Anglo actors portraying not!French characters I enjoyed this little window into the fashionably pastoral life of Sam’s family. It was considerably more interesting than almost anything else involving him has been, even with his father as starkly cruel as described. What a shame that this clearly isn’t going to be a recurring setting, although I understand that this close to the end the show doesn’t really have time for setting up a character’s background in so extensive a manner.

Last on my list of neglected storylines is one I brought up last time, now with something resembling a conclusion. Arya’s story has always felt like one of the most aimless ones, following her all over the place where she stumbles in and out of the company of various mentors and learns about herself and how to kill more effectively. The problem with this, aside from the general lack of focus, is that both her geographical and developmental momentum practically ground to a halt upon arriving in Braavos at the start of Season 5, with the House of Black and White offering her little more than multiple training montages, a bunch of cryptic lore dumps easily surpassed by those documentary-style shorts produced along with the show, and some ongoing friction between the vengeance that drives Arya and her baffling desire to become a killer with no identity and (allegedly) no opinion on whose time it is to die. This tension comes to a head with her latest mark, an actress portraying Cersei in a stage play parodying events in King’s Landing from the first through fourth seasons. By speaking with Lady Crane Arya comes to the realization that she has something in common with Cersei even though the woman has been on her hit list since Season 1, and this combined with her innate sense of justice leads her to refuse the job she’s been given and strike out from the Faceless Men. 

It’s a solid moment on its own and comes with some good meta commentary on the nature of adaptation and the roles that women occupy in this world, but while watching it I couldn’t help but think of how Arya had already learned sympathy for one of the people on her list before and had even admitted to such in her Faceless training. Of course the Hound is a less significant character than Cersei and certainly less of a villain, but unlike Cersei Arya had meaningful interaction with the Hound and actively chose not to kill him at a pivotal moment. All this time the show has been stacking Arya’s quest for vengeance with her sense of justice; she brutally murders Meryn Trant as he’s revealed to be even more loathsome than previously known, but she spares the Hound because he has a redemption arc coming after their wanderings and can’t bring herself to follow through with the Faceless assassination here. I know the end of Arya’s Braavos arc is coming very soon, as she’s got to get back to Westeros to kill a bunch of Freys and Littlefinger, etc., and here at the end of it I can’t help but think that the main thrust of her time there was just about pointless. What did she learn at the House of Black and White apart from a disguise trick, and how much more did she learn by happening to go backstage at a bawdy street play?

[christianslaterreview]

Mobsters (1991) dir. Michael Karbelnikoff

Synopsis:

Charlie 'Lucky' Luciano, portrayed by Christian Slater, is a young, working class Italian whose family is being terrorized by the Mafia as his father owes money to one of two main bosses, Don Faranzano (Michael Gambon). Luciano teams up with three of his boyhood friends to overthrow Don Faranzano and the other boss, Don Masseira. The film follows the boys as they quickly rise to top and become embroiled in Mafia politics, love stories, and personal conflicts that threaten to ruin lifelong friendships.

Review:

This is going to be a hard review for me to write because I really don't care about this movie. Like, at all (I mean look at my shitty synopsis lmao). Usually I'm so ardent about my reviews because I so desperately want the film in question to be good. Typically, Christian Slater's films have just enough about them that's good that elements of them are not only salvagable, but sincerely enjoyable. They're also usually just bad enough to remain interesting. Bad enough to make me care.

Mobsters, however, was so formulaic and devoid of any actual substance that the end product feels like a parody. It was so clearly hitching it's wagon to the popularity of other films in the same genre such as Bugsy and Good Fellas, but in their hurry to piece together some semblence of a film before the trend fizzled, they forgot that a movie needs elements beyond snappy one liners, empty banter, period costumes, and pretty faces with famous names. The audience is rushed through most of the narrative with focus only given to a handful of major plot points - but this is of course only when we're torn away from the laughably long and gregarious sex scenes which are peppered throughout the entire film to really help move things along - so all the opportunities to truly get to know the characters, their drives, their vulnerabilities, etc. in compelling B-plots or excellent pacing of the A-plot are nowhere to be found. The result is a film that feels like it was developed purely for flashy, promotional material with the story being tossed inside this hollow, pandering concept as an afterthought.

One of my main issues with most films is the pacing. I expect every film to have Tarentino level pacing where the story is slowly teased out in a seemingly chaotic but methodical progression. Tarentino is the fucking master of knowing just how long to let a certain plot point sit on the back burner before bringing it back full force right before you forget it ever happened. He knows just how long to keep the camera focused on one character's face, how long the back and forth dialogue needs to continue before bursting into action, how long to keep the audience waiting before a reveal (if the reveal ever happens). And before I get totally lost on this tangent and end up becoming a Tarentino stan blog, my point is that Mobsters fails in every single one of these devices.

Instead of feeling like 2hrs passed by so quickly because I was just that engaged, the run time of this film felt unbelievably long because literally nothing of real interest happened until about an hour into the movie. Right off the bat, we're thrown into the drama as Luciano's Mother and Father are assaulted and threatened by one of the main bosses, Faranzano. But rather than feeling like we're being poignantly acclimated to the brutal setting of this story, it just feels sudden and awkward, like a cheap, theatrical bid for emotion and drama. Granted, this might not be the screenplay's fault per se. None of the actors did a particularly solid job throughout this film, which did end up weakening whatever elements of Mobsters could have been salvagable.

After this point, the movie just rushes through introductions in a series of montages with a voiceover by Slater in his ... "accent". The movie barely has time to get on it's legs before we've already reached the next milestone in the boys' story as they're making a name for themselves as bootleggers. However, instead of actually demonstrating the struggle, the danger, the politcs of rising to the top, we just get another expositional montage with voiceovers. Have fun trying to remember what overlapping whispers are important plot points and which ones are just a little flavoring to show the glamorous gangster lifestyle the boys are entering into.

The stitled, awkward pacing of this film can actually be broken down to a pattern if you were paying close enough attention: major plot point, expositional montage mentioning specific Thing, the Thing happens in literally the next scene, 12 minute long sex scene, and repeat for 2 hours. It doesn't make for a very compelling narrative at all.

Additionally, the characters themselves were so one dimensional and poorly acted (sorry Christian :/ ) that not even they could save the movie. The accents were cheesy as hell, but even worse than those was the dialogue which consisted of banter and one liners that wanted so badly to be insidious and clever, but only ended up sounding like borderline nonsensical gangster jargon that was regurgitated by memory from someone who had seen Good Fellas once. And when the dialogue wasn't an unsuccesful mimicry of shrewd banter, it was equally meaningless, psuedo-artfilm dialogue. But instead of using dialogue as a device to allude to greater themes and deepen both the emotional and philosophical landscape of the film, everyone's dialogue was just a series of free floating, psuedo-intellectual lines that when strung together, didn't actually make a conversation or even develop the characters themselves.

Which is yet another problem with Mobsters. Although the characters are based upon real life historical figures, the characters themselves are barely developed on screen. Everyone's personalities are almost indistinguishable from one another because every character is so one dimensional. Despite the bounteous material the writers had to work with such as Lucky Luciano's righteous anger at the injustice his family and others have faced, Lansky's battle against the anti-semitism he faces, or the political landscape of the time controlled by the Mafia, all the characters are still underdeveloped caricatures.

The main focus of the film could have been the conflict that exists between Luciano's desire to see an end to the vicious reign of the Mafia while also seeking to be the Ringleader himself. It could have been a slow burn film focusing on the strategy and politics of attempting to dethrone the cities two biggest mob bosses. It could have been about how Luciano's and Lansky's friendship developed and devolved throughout their enterprise. It could have focused on literally any number of things to help anchor the story in a main conflict. But instead, the focus of the film flits from politics to personal drama to love scenes with only the cast of characters to connect the threads. None of those plot points were artful B-plots that helped flesh out the story and the characters; they were pitiful, unskilled attempts at creating a world to immerse the audience in without having any knowledge about how to effictively do that. As a writer, you can't give equal attention to all the different threads throughout a story otherwise the audience doesn't know what the main point is - that's why they're called B-plots.

Moreover, Mobsters used yelling really loudly and dramatically as a superficial plot device over and over again and each time it did nothing but made me want to hit mute for a moment or two. Syd Field's put it best when she said "All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character." However, what Karbelnikoff doesn't understand is that conflict is not just people displaying extreme emotion; there needs to be substance behind what is creating this conflict and that the audience needs a chance to become invested in the storylines and motivations the conflict is contigent upon. People aren't moved just by emotion itself; people are moved when they can empathize with a character's struggle. But we can't do that unless the director takes the time to walk us through the world they've created so the stakes actually seem real.

This film is chock full of scenes where characters that don't seem to have a reason to fight are fighting. I'm sure it's supposed to demonstrate what a rough business being a mobster is and how the pressure of ambition and the ever present threat it might overtake you, but instead it just makes the characters seem volatile and juvenile to the point that I don't even want to sympathize with any of them.

Lastly, this wasn't even a beautiful movie. Just like a Marvel movie, every shot was obvious, straightforward, and boring. In a movie that is all about the excess and glamour and violent opulence, you'd think the cinematography itself would reflect that. Instead, I wasn't surprised or moved by a single shot throughout the whole film. The overtop villains had such potential for unsettling, aggrandizing angles but every scene felt about as creative as watching talking heads.

And my very last bone to pick with this film is the ENDING. It felt like they decided to toss in a random moral to the story solely for the purpose of offering some kind of closure. I mean, to be fair, there's no other way they could have wrapped it up since the entire film is just a series of loose threads. But it was just the perfect way to punctuate the end of this wishy-washy movie (about MOBSTERS) with a vague cliche sentiment of "can't we all just get along?"

To me, Lucky Luciano is perhaps an anti-hero. I empathize with his desire to seek retribution and justice and instigate egalitarian politics, however, he doesn't seek to eradicate the institution of the Mafia, he just wants to run it *differently*. This could have made Luciano a supremely compelling character, but the movie never really frames him as a good guy or a bad guy. He is just kind of matter-of-factly presented to the audience with no real commentary. So by the end of the film, the fact that he's painted as this feel good hero within the last few minutes felt contrived and meaningless.

If Luciano's aim was to be the biggest mob boss around while also instituting a more egalitarian regime, why wasn't that the main focus of the film? It's definitely brought up, but it isn't given the focus it should have. We just knew that he wanted to overthrow the other bosses, but didn't delve into what his visions for the Mafia were or how much his desire for success was consuming him.

So the ending sentiment of the movie being "and then the bad guys were dead and a really Nice Guy became head of the Mafia and everyone was treated a lot nicer :)" felt juvenile and cheesy.

Mobsters gets a total of 1 Slaters out 10 Slaters. I'm not prepared to give it a zero, but I have no justification for that because, news flash, my rating system is wholly subjective and based on what I feel inside my heart. I will not be accepting criticism on this point. Thank you for understanding.

[giulia-liddell]

So here are my thoughts on strangers things 3 episode 2

1) Doppelgangers? Really? Okay... I'm sure this is going somewhere

2) Hopper happily singing in his car and then immediately tell Joyce about the success of the Dad Talk™ is everything (also dinner not-date!)

3) Nancy and Jonathan being the action duo as always is good

4) Mike is a terrible liar

5) Steve and Dustin's reunion is perfect! Also Robin (now I know her name) is looking at them like "oh, these idiots" and it's nice

6) Max seeing El catching her skate and being just a bit scared... They are obviously in a good relationship, but I love that Max is still really aware of what an angry El can do

7) Will setting up a DnD game all on his own while being ignored by his friends is a bit heartbreaking... Mike is too caught up in his relationship with El, Lucas is a bit better but still... They shouldn't forget about Will and Dustin...

8) Why the hell does Mrs Wheeler go to the pool in high heels??? It's dangerous!!!

9) Robin "I know four languages, I was in the band and I'm gonna help you translate Russian because I'm bored" is the love of my life now

10) the old lady saying she got one of the rats while smiling proudly is hilarious

11) Max bringing El to the mall and teaching her that she can do things just for herself is the sweetest thing ever

12) I'm not American and therefore I know little about American 80's pop culture, but what the actual f*** is "My Bologna"??? I never heard of it??? It's a parody of "My Sharona" I get that, but why "Bologna"??? Why do a parody of a pop song using food names??? Americans please explain this "My Bologna" thing to me, I'm lost.

13) Yes! The teacher is back! Joyce you have come to the right person!

14) I'm all in for the montage of Max and El having fun at the mall to "Material girl" (also I like the overly excited photographer)

15) "As cold as ice" is another good 80's songs that also reminded me of Supernatural

16) Poor Hopper alone in the restaurant

17) The russian translation team has made progress!

18) I feel really bad for the poor girl that Billy kidnapped