#but i just rewatched this film and fell in love with the animation all over again

[nemmet]

🎃 fred jones in trick or treat scooby doo! (2022)

[eternally-smitten]

Drabblecember - Movie Marathon

pairing: Natalie x Ignacio Varga

summary: Natalie shows him one of her favorite movies of all time

word count: 567

author's note: i'll give y'all one guess on what movie i just rewatched recently

“My lord,” Ignacio yawned, “How many movies do you know?”

“Too many.” Natalie replied with a straight face, “Okay, what's next? Holiday or Studio Ghibli?”

He shrugged, “You know more about films than me so I'm leaving it in your hands.”

She looked back and forth between the two DVD cases she held in her hands. The choices she narrowed it down to were Princess Mononoke and Home Alone. Her lips were pulled into a fine line and her glasses started to fall down the bridge of her nose a little as she focused. The way she was acting, anyone would almost think that she was making a life changing decision.

Ignacio reached over and pushed her glasses up for her, “Whatever you choose, I will enjoy, love. Or, we can always do both tonight.”

“Oh, I already planned on that.” She admitted, “I’m just trying to decide on which one we should watch first.”

He tapped the cover of Princess Mononoke, “I like the one with the wolf. She looks cool.”

Natalie’s eyes lit up and she excitedly gasped, “You’re actually interested? You’re not just humoring me?”

“No, I’m not.” He shook his head, “The wolf girl looks neat. I think I want that one.”

“Really??”

“I said yes.” He chuckled.

“Okay, okay, okay,” She practically fell trying to hop off the couch to get to the DVD player. With excited hands, she cracked the case open to pop the disc inside before nestling back in her spot next to Ignacio. 

For a few weeks now, Natalie had been babbling non stop about having a movie marathon together. She even compiled a mental list in her head she swore up and down she’d remember when they finally went through on this plan. Then, this weekend crept up on them and Ignacio innocently mentioned having the marathon once Saturday rolled around. She got so pumped to show him her favorite films that of course, she immediately forgot the mental list she promised to never forget. So, they started from the top and just pulled movies off the shelf as they went. 

Ignacio gestured to the screen, “So, our guy here…um, you know,”

“Ashitaka?” “Ashitaka, yeah. What’s his issue again?”

She lightly hit his arm, “Have you not been paying attention? He got cursed!”

“And…why is that?”

“The boar was cursed too and pissed off because of said curse.”

“Okay…” He said, not understanding at all, “So, why was the giant boar cursed?”

She nuzzled into him, “Well, you’d figure that out if you stayed quiet and paid attention!”

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, “Okay, okay, I’ll be quiet now.”

Like he said before, Ignacio did find himself becoming involved with the plot of the film. He found the wolf girl cool and liked the giant wolves best. He never thought he would ever be interested in anime but here he was, enjoying it with Natalie. He silently thought about how if it wasn’t for her, he would’ve never realized he enjoyed these types of movies. She was right, binge watching movies together was fun. 

The credits for Princess Mononoke rolled and Ignacio had to think about the plot for a little bit. It was such a captivating movie to him. He turned to her to start talking about it a little bit before she interrupted him with, “So, what’s next?”

tag list: @blood-moon-ships @bobmckenzie @kylars-princess @bioexorcizm @felixrichtershubby @fates-theysband @gideongrovel @weirdgirlgf @lieutenantselnia let me know if you want to be added or removed! <3

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

If you dont mind me asking, while dont you want to rewatch how to train your dragon or ratatouille, but spiderverse is a fav?

I love movie vents

Oh Dear

so- to start with, again, these movies are GOOD! they are good and i am glad they exist. i just have to stay far far away from them.

the why starts years ago. it starts with reading book after book after book.... after book... and watching movie after movie after mov- you get it, just basically Everything- where the default non-romance story is about a Boy.

And often this boy is mediocre. He's relatable, you know? He's just normal. But by the end, he's done all this cool stuff and got all this cool stuff- He won the thing! Or got the thing! He showed everyone just how good he was- okay sometimes yes by lying about it for most of the story but he comes clean in the end so it's fine.

Usually he also gets a girl. Or impresses her. Something like that.

That was. Well. It got stale after a while. I have four sisters and was raised by my single mom. People (mostly) looked at me and saw a girl.

But hey, the stories and movies had other stuff I like so whatever, you know? Aliens and swords and stuff. Maybe the main character was character I liked the least, so what. The story needed him to exist.

What does this have to do with the three animated movies so many people fell in love with?

Well.

They each remember girls exist. And ladies can be cool. They can be good at stuff!

But.

No matter how good she is, no matter how much she's trained or how hard she worked or respects this thing or how much it means to her-

the guy will be better at it than her

the guy. who couldn't do the thing at all.

he just needs a quick montage, or a rat under his hat, and suddenly she's in the dust

And you know what that's fine it's fine it's especially fine in Kung Fu Panda where the boy (po) is fat and the point is that's okay he can be fast and graceful and powerful and cool- THAT i've never seen before and it's Amazing-

only. po still.... he still gets the place tigress spent her whole life training for.

This still in a world where most of the powerful people (shifu, tai lung, oogway, the other kung fu masters we see in that and later films) most of them are, well, guys.

It's a whole lot of guys.

Everywhere. Guys. Why? No idea. Their gender doesn't really inform or guide their actions. Tigress and Viper aren't commented on as rare for being lady martial artists. There's no reason for there not to be more lady kung fu masters. I guess this is a movie made by guys and so the default is guys. Fine! No problem!

im so tired

po becomes dragon warrior in a montage of training and a quick dose of self realization. tigress is impressed and stops being mean to him. the fandom wants them married

no big deal

I'll come back to that in a moment, but-

Hiccup is the mediocre guy (by viking standards) who through trickery (empathy) becomes the best at this thing that this girl he likes is really good at. but he comes clean in the end and she's very impressed and he's so much better at the thing now he's the best at the thing and saves her at some point and now she's into him and they get together

tired

hey there's this guy and he's bad at thing and this cool girl is good at thing so through trickery he gets better at her than thing bc there's a rat under his hat but don't worry he comes clean and the girl is very impressed

i can't . im too tired

if she didn't like him before he was cool, i don't want them together afterwards.

I'm so exhausted of being told it's sweet

the same implication bashed over my head again and again- a guy cannot be loved if he is just a dork or just mediocre. He has to also be "cool".

The girl won't notice or like him until he is Better than her at the thing she loves

the other implication- no matter how hard a girl trains, how long she studies, how much she works for it- the guy can learn it in a montage and do it better. Or he can lie about it and that's okay too.

(po was a kung fu nerd but im sorry, im sorry that's not the same as training from childhood)

(do you remember how in legally blonde the ex boyfriend wasn't even that good at lawyer studies like elle getting better than him didn't mean her being the best ever and she ends up being so good bc of the other stuff that WAS part of her main life experience?? remember that?????)

(maybe if they'd leaned in more into Po's fat protecting him and his nerdness or cooking xp guiding him against tai lung, but he uses epic kung fu to fight the most dangerous master around and holds his own. he does better than tigress did with four others to back her up. im sorry. i know it's awesome and im glad it's a film. i can't rewatch it)

WHY did they make tigress want to be dragon warrior?

they never really explore her and shifu's relationship in that movie or the sequels. there's so little pay off to her accepting that she can't be the student or child shifu always wanted and lost. they are never the focus of the movies. never even plot B. Tigress didn't need to want this

the only ones who had to be ANGRY about po as dragon warrior was tai lung and shifu, his master who has to train him and the rival who wants his title. Everyone else could have just been reasonably confused and skeptical. tigress could have gone off to fight tai lung purely out of a lack of faith in po and wish to protect shifu- why why why why why did they have the plot point of her WANTING to be dragon warrior and RESENTING po for taking it? why did they have po filling this role she worked so hard to be ready for?

why did her character have to be a SHE for that, in a world with almost no other important or powerful ladies?

oh. right. girls can be good, but the guy will be better. that's the only way she'll respect him.

i've seen this story before

I don't think it's insidious or anything like that. It's just, the normal.

That's why I can't watch it.

im tired

Atlantis The Lost Empire- Milo is a noodle guy he solves things with brains and compassion and curiosity, Kida is the one with a spear, the lady throwing guys around-

ah but we must have Milo physically brawl with the villain to save Kida. he can be a lame nerd, but only if he also is "Cool"

tired

NOW. Spiderman Into the Spiderverse!

Miles never takes Gwen's place.

They are BOTH their universe's spiderman- he CAN'T replace her, he CAN'T outdo her, he CAN'T be better than her-

because there is no Best version of spiderman

a pig can be spiderman

YOU can be spiderman

so when he gets his confidence in time for the last fight, when Miles finds his groove and takes his leap of faith after a whole movie of stumbling around flailing frantically and turns badass- he takes NOTHING from Gwen. Nothing.

She is still her world's spidy,

and AND she liked him BEFORE he was "cool"!!!!!

When he was a mess desperately trying to figure things out, she tried to help him. Worked with him. Became friends with him.

Friends.

That also. My gods. He tries to flit at the end, she smiles and says friends, he smiles and they fist bump over it.

He got cool and didn't get the girl.

He was himself and already had a friend.

She is powerful and cool and a girl and worked hard to get where she is, and no one EVER outdoes her at it.

You can make a story about a normal guy becoming badass while crushing on an awesome girl, you can LIFT HIM UP without having to PUSH HER DOWN.

They can stand on the same level and be epic together.

I've needed to see that story, for so. Fucking. Long.

so yeah. my tiny personal problem. there 'tis

[noctilucentstorm]

i agreed with you until you said ghost game was better than all the non adventure anime

savers is really good

Savers is really good and definitely one of the more underrated Digimon series. I should probably go back to it sometime since there were elements I did enjoy, like the premise and the story. I didn't really latch on to any of the characters though and for me that's probably the number one thing I care about, which is why I would rate both Adventure and Ghost Game higher in my personal list.

Since you've brought up different series, it's made me think about my own biases to each series and why I have them and how the way one is introduced to a series can make such a difference on their impression of a show.

There seems to be this push recently (...ok, last decade) in fandom for fans to be more objective in their thoughts and feelings on a piece of media. I'm not really sure why, since the whole point of fandom is about being stupidly passionate about something and finding others who support that passion. I've tried being in fandoms where almost all the most-active members would do is analyse and critique every new work that came out. It was frankly exhausting to try and be a part of. That's not to say one can't criticise something, but in my own experience it tends to snuff out creativity in smaller fandoms.

So as a counter to that, here's my personal opinions on each Digimon series and how the way I approached each season likely shaped my viewing. Warning for lots of rambling and bias.

Interacting with media, whether they're books, TV shows or films among others, is deeply personal. The main reason I gave up doing write ups of each episode of Ghost Game wasn't because I stopped enjoying the show, but because I didn't get anything from writing my thoughts out in such a way. I've always preferred the fanfiction and fanart side of Fandom, rather than the side that analyses every scene and critiques and speculates, although I appreciate why others enjoy that.

Like probably many that still hold the original Adventure in their top spot, I started watching it at a very impressionable time. I had watched one non-episodic series before, so a plot going over a whole series in a cartoon was pretty new to me and I loved it. I started watching Digimon during the Myotismon arc at a time when there was no easy way to quickly catch up with a series without trying to tune into every episode on TV I could find. I honestly don't think I would've stuck around if I'd started watching the series sooner, but it's difficult to know for sure. By that point the dubbing changes were less obvious, although still there, and I absolutely fell in love with the characters, the settings and the plot about a bunch of kids around my age trying to save the world with all their virtues and flaws exposed. It's stuck with me even as an adult, so even if an objectively better Digimon series came along, I think it would still be an uphill battle to dislodge Adventure from the top.

I watched almost all of Adventure 02 and Tamers as they came out: weekly episodes that I sometimes had to miss due to other commitments. Unfortunately, I missed the finale of Tamers and it was literal years until I saw the final two episodes. I've done rewatches of both since and have an appreciation for them, but they just highlighted how much I missed the original Adventure kids. Is that fair? Not really. I also didn't particularly like what they did to Rika or Jeri in Tamers who were basically the only reason I kept watching (especially the former). I also wasn't a fan of the final arc, but get why others did like it.

Frontier is a weird one because I will fully admit I rate this one too highly on my personal lists compared to what it deserves. I saw it at a time when I was moving... a lot, so pretty much only saw a handful of episodes from the first half. But again, I loved the characters and I got enough of a hint of the story with Kouji and Kouichi that I was really intrigued. When I finally watched the rest of the series in it's total I was pretty disappointed like many that half the cast was side-lined and the sexism with Zoe/Izumi was pretty off-putting. Still, the initial potential of the series will always stick with me.

Savers was the first series I watched through online so went through binges and breaks as I caught up with episodes. As I said at the start, it was good, but just didn't leave an impression in the same way. Some of that was probably because I just went through episodes, leaving little time to contemplate them after. And the characters didn't hook me the same way.

I've not finished Fusion/Hunters or Appmon. The first dragged like many Digimon series and I found trying to get to where the plot picked up difficult, and Appmon was... loud. I don't think I've ever hated the partnership/evolutions scenes before, which has made viewing more than an episode at a time a real struggle and doesn't particularly leave me wanting more, despite promising characters. Both would've benefitted from me being able to watch in weekly episodes, but I missed Fusion's release and I had held out on Appmon, hoping it would be distributed legally given Tri. was.

Tri, Adventure: and Ghost Game I watched as they were released. I personally really enjoyed Tri. although understand the criticism that fans have. Given it was made by a new team, though, I never had expectations for it to feel the exact same as Adventure and I really appreciated them trying new things even if it didn't always work. In contrast, Adventure: seemed to lean too heavily on nostalgia rather than trying to be it's own thing. The expectations for the latter were too difficult for me to overcome, which is why I dropped the series about half way through. I do appreciate the pandemic may have messed with their original plans though.

And finally Ghost Game. I don't think I've hidden that I was originally disappointed when learning the series was going to be episodic and focussed on getting in new fans. I interpreted that as most of the episodes were going to be stand-alone so a new viewer could pick up the series at any point, which probably appropriately set my expectations. It was designed so someone could drop in part-way through the series without needing to go back to the beginning a bit like how TV shows aired when Digimon first started. Was it a good idea? I'm not sure, but for me I liked the comparatively low stakes in contrast to the others, while being more "realistic" on the consequences of humans and digimon trying to live together - something Tamers tried to do, but I personally thought was less successful in because it focussed more on the action and consequences to the kids rather than wider society. Ghost Game is also the first Digimon series I've watched where I feel I could stitch together a completely different story while still keeping to canon, which offers some great fanfiction possibilities I hope might get explored. I'll fully admit I was pretty surprised and disappointed a new Digimon show wasn't announced on the back of it, since it felt like Ghost Game was going to be the gateway for new fans, but with lots of newer series taking months or years off in between seasons, maybe continuity just isn't as important anymore.

Digimon has been around long enough it has a wide range of viewers since, unlike a series such as Pokémon that sticks to a formulae, it's constantly trying new things. It means some series will work for you and some will not quite resonate.

And that's a good thing!

[userastarion]

tell me about ur comfort shows, movies and video games plsss 🥺🩷🩷🩷

ooooohhh okay i will try to be concise but i can have lots of things to say lol

shows:

the good place - i just love this show. it's about ethics and morality and also choosing to be good to others. and it's funny. what's not to love??

elementary - elementary is like a warm blanket i wear. it was the first show i ever started watching when it premiered and stayed on top of for the entire time it was airing. sherlock & joan are literally everything to me and i fell off my rewatch at the last season bc i didn't want it to end (again)

ted lasso - this one is pretty self-explanatory but much like the good place, it's about kindness and being good to others and it's hilarious. whenever i feel like shit i rewatch the christmas episode from s2 lol

movies:

the princess diaries 1 & 2 - i just love these movies so much. the humor in them is so good!!! i missed so much when i was younger. they're just as funny, if not funnier, as an adult now. maybe they're comforting bc of the nostalgia but i just love how familiar they feel

into the spider-verse - if i want to be entertained by a Quality Film, this is what i'll watch. when i saw it in theaters i wanted to see it again and when i bought it i watched it and then literally started it over to immediately watch it again. it's just phenomenal and i love every second, every frame. this movie has a special pedestal in my heart next to peeta mellark

captain america: the winter soldier - aside from movies i watched as a kid, this may be the film i've seen the most. i just think it's great. the music is so special, the pacing is perfect, and the dynamics between everyone.... this was top-tier moviemaking, particularly for marvel, bc it was before every mcu movie felt quite so formulaic.

video games:

animal crossing - i kind of don't want to count new horizons in this bc it doesn't feel the same but i spent soooo much time playing ac games on my nintendo ds lite and my 3ds. i just love going into the games to talk to all my adorable ass villagers.

the last of us part ii - so this kind of comes with a caveat. i only count this if i skip all the cutscenes. i really really like how the gameplay feels so sometimes i'll just hop into chapters or combat encounters to mess around bc i know exactly how they'll go and i challenge myself to harder difficulties (or just go OP with all the cheats on). the content itself throughout the story isn't particularly comforting sldfjksdfl

skyrim - i have a tough time playing it these days (i just got it again and am playing for the first time in like 10 years) because of motion sickness stuff that hurts my eyes but i love skyrim so much. this was the first huge open-world game i ever really loved and i credit this one and portal 2 for kind of opening the door to gaming for me.

portal 2 - i can't go without mentioning this one bc even though i haven't been able to play it in a LONG time bc i have it on xbox 360 and my laptop can't run it, this game is the first game i remember REALLY loving. it's so special to me. i don't remember how many times i played through it but i know it was at least twice if not 3 times, which is a lot for me as a teenager. it's a quality game with really clever levels, fantastic voice acting, hilarious lines, and a really fun style of play.

it's sleepover saturday! send me... whatever?

[r1ddly]

Top 10 favorite films (or whatever)

I've been tagged by SO many people I don't even remember who exactly LMAO, I don't usually do top 10s and I don't watch movies often so this will be something LMAO

10. Conragion

Another movie I obsessed over, it really is so interesting because instead of being in the perspective of a normal citizen it shows the perspectives of scientists, researchers, doctors who are trying to find a vaccine! And it shows the citizens and reporters trying to find answers and a way to deal with the virus.

9. The bay

It's my FAVORITE found footage film, I remember when it was on Hulu and I watched it everytime I got the chance. It's a lil outrageous but also very realistic and man. I kinda wanna rewatch it now! Lmao!

8. Re-animator

It's really funny, I'm in love with herbert west, it's gorey and I'm actually really into death and I just think it's neat LMAO

7. Shin godzilla

It felt a little long at first but it really took off after a certain point and it's really good and interesting and it really just destroyed me and I teared up at a specific scene that still makes me emotional. It's such an interesting movie and I love the way it portrays their characters! I love the designs for godzilla especially.

6. Us (2019)

A movie with a really good soundtrack and an incredibly interesting plot, I still think about the ending a lot and it's so so good.

5. Puss and boots: the last wish

Watched this movie with my sister, it's absolutely amazing and has really helped me feel more at peace with some personal things! (That and admittedly I really like Jack Horner LMAO)

4. The suicide squad

I think it was one of the few DC movies I watched after coming home to Washington from Georgia, movie actually means a lot to me! And it's a really good and funny one too!

3. Skinamarink

I know this movie is a mixed bad for a lot of people but me personally? Love it, it's one of the few movies I liked so much I rewatched it 3 times! It's by far my favorite horror movie

2. The Batman (2022)

I think people who know me would he shocked that this is second place, like really? The movie that changed your whole being and helped you get out of a sorta toxic relationship is second place? The movie with the riddler your most obsessed with and the one who made you realize you fell out if love with your ex and the one who's just been there to sorta fuck up relationships with how much you obsess over him? Yeah. LMAO

1. Everything everywhere all at once

This movie was the thing that rebirthed me, I can't even go into words with how much this movie means to me. Just talking about this movie is bringing me to tears.

I know I'm supposed to tag a bunch of people but I only have like 3 friends and one has already done this SO ILL TAG THE OTHER TWO @rottinginwonderland @starbeebrite

[mk-wizard]

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol: How to do “child friendly” RIGHT

Hello, fans. I know we’re two months long overdue, but because of what has been going on in my life, I finally got around to watching Netlfix’s take on a beloved Christmas classic with a good feeling after seeing Netflix’s Pinocchio which was a masterpiece and keeping in mind that not too long ago, Netflix made another Christmas movie that the world fell in love with being Klaus. And you know what? I was absolutely NOT disappointed. In fact, I was very pleased and impressed. I will be the first to admit Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (which I will simply call Scrooge throughout this review) is not the most sophisticated adaptation of the book, but out of all the animated versions, this is the best and so far, the only adaptation that is child friendly the right way since Disney’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol. Just to give you an idea of how well done it was: I am an adult and I loved it. I’ll even go that extra mile by saying this film is criminally misjudged, underrated and was treated rather biasedly.

Be warned that there are spoilers ahead.

Number one, the animation style is CGI yet cartoony. Visually, out of all the animated adaptations of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is the most beautiful visually and has the best animation. You can tell that a lot of love was put into art because each character is emotive, unique, alive and entertaining while the animation is as smooth as silk with perfect textures. Unlike most CGI that tries to be realistic and in doing so, winds up looking creepy, unnatural and ugly, Scrooge embraces that it is all fantasy lovingly, so the characters are designed to be whimsical which is absolutely perfect for the fantastical elements like the magical sequences, the three spirits and the ghost of Jacob Marley. Because of this, they stay with you.

Number two, the music is catchy and lively. I know that a lot of people deem the music as not being good, but I have to say it, folks, I couldn’t not disagree more. I think the music is absolutely wonderful and the performances feel like something out of Broadway. Just the opening number “I love Christmas” immediately draws you in and already gives you an idea of what kind film you’re going to be watching: it’s a film people made for fun and you’re having fun with them. Plus, the songs themselves are memorable and you will find yourself listening to them again and again. I mean, I can’t get over how sad yet beautiful “Later Never Comes” is and I even find myself rewatching this movie just to listen to the music. Now I know a lot of people out there do not have the same opinion as I do, but here is a case where I have to come to the film’s defense simply because you cannot fault it for being a musical since that’s what it is. Nobody complained when the Muppet Christmas Carol had people singing at random times. Heck, even things, animals and food would sing. I think it’s pretty unfair to say characters singing is out of place because no one does it real life when that is the point of the musical genre.

Number three, the characters are nuanced. While I cannot say these characters are an extreme departure from their original versions, I can definitely say that they are more multi-dimensional than most versions I have seen. Right off of the bat, we get a hint that Ebenezer is not just some old grumpy miser nor is he completely without heart considering he has a pet dog he takes good care of and a watch that is hinted to have emotional meaning. He does have a heart, but he hides it kind of like the Beast did in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Even his introduction song “Tell Me” is actually (and ironically) telling the audience that he is not happy and has his reasons for being so bitter. In most versions, he is just a big callous bully and his heart often feels like it was pulled out of nowhere. Instead, we catch glimpses of the old grump having one and we’re learning why he just puts up defenses in the form of cruelty. And it’s not just Ebenezer. His nephew Fred is nuanced too. For once, he is refreshingly shown to be much more aware of his actions rather than just being a cheery buffoon for the sake of contrasting his uncle. Fred is cheerful, kind and hopeful because he actively wants to be the best version of himself to honour his late mother, his uncle’s dear sister, and his uncle is all he has left on her side of the family, so he constantly reaches out to him. I also appreciate that unlike most versions, he doesn’t mock his uncle Ebenezer. He toasts him and even stood up for him which shows that he is also much more mature than he lets on.

Number four, the pacing is just right. A common problem I find in most adaptations of A Christmas Carol is that it tends to be too short or drag on for too long. I recall one version that was so long that is was actually a mini-series not a movie though in its defense, it was the exception. Anyway, Scrooge doesn’t feel like a drag or like it came and went at all. It has good pacing that will keep the attention of children and keep the adults entertained. It uses every single second that is necessary to tell a good story and get the main message across. Plus, it tells us several other ones that are food for thought like making use of your time and not taking your negative experiences for granted.

Number five, it respects the intelligence of the audience. You can tell that this film is meant to be enjoyed by children, but it doesn’t hold their hands nor does it shy away from being able to be serious. It doesn’t just play with the children. It educates them by having themes of death, sickness, regret, egoism and how severely our actions can impact those around us. I can tell you this now as a parent that I really happy to see kid’s medias like this make a comeback. The film is a lesson in how greed and callousness can literally kill. I mean, Ebenezer openly accepts that he has been a jerk who is not worthy of mercy, but asks to be spared because in doing so, Tim Cratchit who does deserve mercy gets spared too. THAT is what I find missing in a lot adaptations of Charles Dickens’ famous tale. Yes, Christmas should be appreciated, but the real point of the story is to see how destructive greed and ego can be. In other words, you could teach the same lesson using any holiday or special day which focuses on generosity and kindness. And when I say that out loud, it would be kind of fun if someone adapted A Christmas Carol with a twist where the holiday was not Christmas for a change yet still captured the same deep message, but I digress. The point is that Ebenezer does indeed stay true to honouring Christmas in his heart, but more importantly, he finally gets that he has been egotistical and cruel.

I give this movie an 9/10. It’s not perfect, but it sure is close to it as far as kid-friendly versions go. If you haven’t seen it, I suggest watching it. And if you have yet don’t think much of it, watch it again and this time, please take a really good look at it because I think you may have misjudged it. I know I have made that mistake too and it took taking a second look to see how wrong I was about something.

Have a great night, everyone. And stay safe.

[jacscorner]

An analysis on "Anime Rock, Paper, Scissors".

OR

"Debating the ethical and morals of an AI Tool with an E-Rate Artist."

Okay, so, like, first of all: I love this video. I've been watching and rewatching it all day. I love it that much.

It captures everything about anime I fell in love with. The over-the-top dialogue, the dramatization over something so mundane as, the the trappings of dark fantasy. It taps into a very specific core of nostalgia for me.

BUT!

Yeah, I love this video to hell and back. But, well, there's no real getting around the messy fact that AI was used in the process-hell, you can even see it in the video thumbnail. Even if this is a few steps above most AI art, AI art will always have a certain 'look' to it that makes it stand out.

So, full disclaimer: I'm not an animator. And I feel I have no real horse in this race, even as an artist. Hell, I wouldn't even really call myself an artist. Sure, I can say I have roughly 13 years of experience drawing, but I don't think my art is really on a level that makes it very appealing and I honestly feel as though I've reached a peak. Like I've reached the apex of my potential and, well, it's not much.

So excuse me for putting my foot in my mouth about a topic I don't really have much to contribute to.

So, Corridor Digital's animated short is 1/2 rotoscoping and 1/2 AI art generation. The AI was trained to emulator a dark fantasy anime style by feeding it screenshots of Vampire Hunter D. The process for how its done can be seen here.

I'm kind of on two minds on this. For the most part, I don't think AI is gonna replace actual artists. Cause there's just a lot of stuff an actual artist can do an AI can't do. And while the entire process isn't shown, a lot of editing and manipulating had to be done in order to get the AI where they wanted it. A lot of choreography and filming technique was needed. How effects work, writing-art is more than just scribbling on paper and an AI might be able to mimic art, but it can't 'draw'.

Hell, the video still has a lot of jank going on after what was most likely months of work. Like I said, AI art just has a very specific look to it.

But let's get to the nitty gritty: feeding the Vampire Hunter D art into the ai to replicate the style.

On the one hand, this is kind of what I think of when I think of AI being a tool to be used rather than an outright replacement of animators. And I think this is a good showcase of how amazing the technology can be. It looks amazing despite the hiccups.

And artists try to replicate art styles all the time. Hell, some people market themselves on their ability to replicate a certain show's look. I've seen people try to sell Hades style commissions, there's an artist who redraws screenshots of various anime as if they're an early cartoon network show, and don't get me started on Pokemon, Dragon Ball, and Sonic - the big three of style emulation.

BUT!!!

And yes, it's a big 'but'; that's not really what's happening.

I'm not smart enough to put what it does in my own words, but I'll do my best anyway: it's more-or-less a glorified trace job, with (ideally) hundreds of different pieces to work off of to generate a completely new image. Usually without the agreed upon consent of the artists.

I hate to throw around accusations like this, especially when I lazily and hungrily eat up this content like potato chips, but it really is art theft on a grand scale.

I still admire the technical skill that went into this. Even if 'anyone' can do it, there's still a lot of work that went into making this and getting something that's workable. But I don't blame people for calling Corridor Digital out on this when it's so damn blatant.

Now, I won't stop watching the video - like I said, I'm not someone with a real foot in this race, now do I wanna start some kind of revolution against or anything. It's just something to think about after seeing some backlash.

Now, the movie's out on YouTube. In fact, there are 3 different videos of this movie, dubbed.

And the movie came out roughly 23 years ago. This is NOT yanking it out of starving artists like many are claiming it is. It's practically collecting dust.

However, it's still blatantly robbing other artists who worked on this movie of their credit. But, again, they're using the ai to mimic a certain style and using their photos as a template to follow. But it's still using someone else's work as a reference. Speaking of, it's not like what I uploaded was a legit upload of the film - it's a pirated, uploaded without the rights holder's consent.

So...?

I don't know, I guess I can just kind of see both sides of the argument. I'm not here to tell you that the video is bad or that AI art is inherently bad or that AI generators need to be destroyed. And I'm not telling you that the video is completely and totally free of any shady practices. Personally, this all just feels morally gray to me and Corridor should've hired some concept artist to feed into the AI.

Just wanted to throw my thoughts out there.

[vvatchword]

If left to my own devices, I tend to get up in the early afternoon. Today was no different. I stepped outside and I took a big breath and I got real high and I thought at the top of my brain,

"what's going on"

For the dog was barking and I detected a weird noise under that.

I followed the dog's barking and found my poor freaking mother lying on the floor.

She's not very heavy, but it's awkward trying to pick her up, and i have some old back injuries, so I ran to tell my father that I needed help.

"I need to do paperwork!" he said.

My friend. Can you even halfway understand the blinding all-consuming rage that blew over me then? I briefly lost all connection to my corporeal form and became a being of pure, unadulterated fury. If my dad hadn't been on the other side of the door, I would have slapped the fuck out of him. The only reason I didn't say the most brutal shit you ever heard was because at least four different possibilities came up at once and got stuck in my throat. What did come out was a strangled, half-screamed, "SHE FELL on the FLOOR," and in my words were threats of every very real abuse being spoken out loud where my father can't bear to hear them. (For it is better to appear good than to be so, and as long as they aren't said, he can pretend any number of things about himself.)

My god. I can abide almost every form of abuse with a smile, but lying and cowardice turn me into the fucking devil.

I could tell my scream rattled him, because he came straight out and cared very much. Mom cried only when he showed up. This disgusted me further. Wasting her tears on this piece of shit.

I have been ignoring the job hunt for some time, losing myself in writing and non-stop Best of the Worst episodes, but the idea of relying any more on my father's money fills me with a transcendental rage past reckoning. His kind of love is so careless, so smooth and undifferentiated--like a child's love. He wants to be filled and treated and petted, but he is unwilling to do the same for others. In short, he wants the objects of his love, and he wants the fruits of their love for him, but he doesn't want the work. He's an empty pit we keep throwing treasures into.

When he says he loves you, he really means it, but he doesn't want to do what's right for those he loves. To do what's right for other people, you have to be able to empathize with them--to understand what they really want and need, especially when those wants and needs are completely alien to your own. He can't do that, and what's more, he can't learn, and even more than that, he doesn't want to, and as icing, he has never been able to face his own shortcomings.

Anyway.

Yes. The dog got a treat.

Her treatment of my father makes me wonder how much she picks up on. She will fight him when he puts my mom to bed and if he's lying down she'll tromp over him as hard as she can. She never fights me and if I'm lying in his space, she will politely wait for me to move.

The dog has my back, at least.

In other news, I watched Nicholas Nickleby (2002) and Glass Onion. Exceptionally good films. I think I've watched more movies in the past two months than I have in the past three years combined. I kinda hate it, tbh. Either a film is awesome and worth it or it isn't and I'm impossibly bored. It can't just be good looking. It's got to have something smart or personal (to me) going on.

My father has a predilection for animated children's films, which nine times out of ten are like nails on a chalkboard to me, but I usually end up hanging in there for mi mamá.

That's how I ended up rewatching Kung Fu Panda. I started thinking about how Kung Fu Panda set off the creative community in China--don't quote me, and feel free to correct me, but I believe they were astonished something so good could be produced by Westerners--and of course, I had initially watched it and been like, ho hum whatever babby show be urself. So I watched it a little closer and dredged up what I knew of Chinese philosophy (it's been a hot minute). It ended up being kinda nice for me.

Also, characters being out of their elements and getting fired and shit has been good for me in a whole new way. I watched Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy and I mean. Not completely vacuous, very cute other than the cheap-ass CGI, very serviceable, and least they tried something new and I appreciate that. But what got me was: his character got fired!!! And that's what I carried with me for the whole film for some reason. I just needed the Bob Cratchitts this holiday season. You can guess why. Just trying to make sense of myself, I guess. Where can I fit in? Can I ever work again? I can't even keep a sensible sleep schedule.

I've got to do something. Can't leave Mom unsupported.

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Undiagnosed Autism-spectrum disorder in The Michells Vs The Machines

I'm sure that more well educated people have put two and two together in this film but I really, really want to put my own spin on it from my experience. For me, as an aspie, film is one of my biggest interests. I love studying and more than anything I love watching and rewatching films. My latest favorite movie was one that I just watched last night for my family movie night, The Michells Vs The Machines. I also went 17 years of my life asking myself the same question that both Rick and his daughter ask each other, what is wrong with him/her?

Well, I'll tell you, in my firmly undiagnosed autistic opinion for far too long, that this family is full of people with undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. When I was watching it with my parents my mom made the comment that "the dad was a jerk" and maybe "he just didn't love his daughter enough to let her be her own person." I thought that was so not seeing the bigger picture even though it was only fifteen minutes into the film. I have felt like Katie so much with my own dad. My dad is a computer nerd and a physics major for those of you that don't talk to me very often. That means in laminas terms that he's extremely smart. Way smarter than I will ever be in my entire life. Both of my parents are insanely smart in their own rights. My mom is a CPA accountant. But that isn't what I wanted to talk about here. I want to discuss the effect of undiagnosed autism and what it can do to a whole family when they all have it and just don't know that they do. This will probably go on for quite some time so you may stop here or read below the cut because this also has the probablity of getting super, duper personal.

We'll start with Katie! To me, Katie is one of the most relatable characters that I have ever come across. She's a film nerd, which alone has made her supremely relatable as somebody who is thinking about going into a degree in film studies. I am more of a critic of film than somebody who wants to make her own film but nonetheless, there were SO many little moments that I related to. The first thing that I personally noticed and related to was the stimming technique that Katie has. She chews on her hoodie strings. As somebody who has chewed on the drawstrings of hoodies far too often long before I was officially put into the Aspergers box. Aspies are also known to stick with one "special interest" for the rest of their lives if it's one that is wide enough and varied enough to make it applicable. For Katie, that's film. For me that's animation. I appreciated that little detail of most of her dialogue being references to other films because as a lover of films and movies in general I could go for days on just fumes and movie references that nobody else understands. The little things from her hair being perpetually messy (same that's a whole ass mood like I just learned over quarantine how to tye my own hair back), only having one earring in her ear at all times, the way that she dresses and draws on her own hands, this was just me when I was first in high school. I was one of the few people that wore shorts underneath all my skirts/dresses. Everyone who knew about looked at me like I had grown a third eyeball.

Aaron, the younger brother, also just oozes spectrum lil buddy out of his every pore from his being. I do think that they should have picked somebody capable of doing a bit of a younger sounding voice (I know what they were going for, but like Ben Schwartz has become a huge deal in both voice acting and live action before switching mediums.) His special interest is actually quite a common one, he loves dinosaurs. I've met a bunch of people on the spectrum that are fascinated by dinos and what they meant for the world as well as the universe as a whole. To me, there was one scene specifically that was the scene where Katie was lightly teasing him when they were going to the half assed dinosaur extravaganza. For me, this was SO relatable because both of my parents will mess with me about my interests most of the time it's when we go to Disneyland, they'll tell me that we actually aren't going to land of magic but to Timbuckto (hopefully one day they'll say some place else just to switch things up.) I related so hard to Aaron's protesting and whining in this scene since that is always my reaction to doing something that I want to do but get told that I can't do that thing.

Linda is more of your traditional mom but I think that she's on the spectrum as well. Just a more... normalized version as opposed to her family. She's able to be a teacher, she's able to interact somewhat normally around her neighbors. If anything, she reminded me of my own mom. This independent, takes nobody's trash (especially not her husband's), strong minded, and amazing mother who is completely in control of everything. She knows the special interests of her children and is constantly thinking of what will make them happy. Whether it be taking a detour for something dinosaur related, reminding her daughter that her dad loves her no matter what, and even something as simple as watching something that her daughter made and put her heart and soul into. I can't tell you how many times my mom has watched something with me. She watched my first anime Soul Eater with me when I was 12 and ever since then has been trying to get me to watch other shows with her. She's a lot like Linda, your loving, but firm mother who just wants her family to work things out.

Whew boy. This one is going to be probably where I cry. Comparing my dad to Rick is... something that I did consistently when I was watching the film. He's the strong but silent type usually, unless your me and he's just this constant annoyance when I'm trying to do something. He could be seen as just a "Jerk" but I think that is the undiagnosed aspie talking. Rick and Katie just struggle so hard to see eye to eye because their special interests can't intersect to save their lives. This, this hurt me because so often I struggle to relate to my dad. Especially when he talks to me about computers or physics. Now I took physics but without having been in quarantine and having him as my live in tutor I would have failed, not gotten an A. This has resulted me in saying things that I don't mean in the heat of the moment when we do argue. It doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to back when I was in middle school but when it happened it was because of one thing. I lied. I used to lie a lot because I felt so unworthy of being his daughter because on my best days I am not technically smart. You want to know how many nations of the world there were in 1991 when the original Animaniacs was airing? You want to hear my Dot Warner impression? Did you ever wonder how to recognize a specific voice when your watching anime? Have you ever had to watch a panel of your favorite anime voice actor just to laugh at something? No, well I did. But ever since I have started taking a quarter off from community college I have realized something. I am not technically smart. I struggle at learning the rules for math. My dad can do this with his eyes closed but me, I struggle and look like a complete moron. It took years for my dad and I to see eye to eye. Sometimes I still wonder if I was the product of some laboratory experiment of what would happen if two intelligent people came together, fell in love, and expecting that the daughter was smart I was the reject. Watching this movie with my dad I saw so much of my relationship with him on the screen. Struggling to relate to one another, fighting and getting into arguments about petty things, and not being able to be in the same room as one another without heated words because I didn't get him.

The scene that I related to the most when it was in terms of how much Katie just doesn't understand her dad was after he was nabbed by the machines. When Aaron asked her why she said those things to their dad and her simple answer was "I don't know." This. This right here was when I saw me. So many times I've gotten into heated arguments with my dad when he has simply annoyed me at the wrong time and I've just blown up in his face. Then I regret my actions and not know how to apologize for losing my temper with him because "I don't know" just doesn't seem like a nearly acceptable answer. I felt this in my soul because it happened especially often before I was diagnosed.

When I was diagnosed, things started to get better with my dad and I. We haven't had a fight in nearly four years now. He watches cartoons with me now to try and relate to me, it's mostly Pinky and The Brain but it's more than I could have ever asked for. I love my dad so much, more than anything in the entire world. This movie is so, so good at telling a story about how a family of undiagnosed aspie's and people on the spectrum struggle to relate to one another because their special interests are different.

Special interests and family's are especially difficult and I applaud this movie so loud because of the way that it was able to treat the subject matter with integrity and honesty. I'm sorry if this analysis got a little bit long in the toof but thank you for sticking with me! I really hope that if you watched the film you loved my analysis.

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in May

Sadly, I kind of skipped writing a post for April. It was a mad month with so much going on: lots of emails sent and lots of stress. I started a new job so I’m getting to grips with that... and even then, I still watched a bunch of movies. But this is about what I watched in May and, yeah… still a bunch. So if you’re looking to get into some other movies - possibly some you’ve thought about watching but didn’t know what they were like, or maybe like the look of something you’ve never heard of - then this may help! So here’s every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of May 2021 Tenet (2020) - 8/10 This was my third time watching Christopher Nolan’s most Christopher Nolan movie ever and it makes no sense but I still love it. The spectacle of it all is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had also watched it four days prior to this watch also, only this time I had enabled audio description for the visually impaired, thinking it would make it funny… It didn’t.

Nomadland (2020) - 6/10 Chloé Zhao’s new movie got a lot of awards attention. Everyone was hyped for this and when it got put out on Disney+ I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. Seeing these real nomads certainly gave the film an authenticity, along with McDormand’s ever-praisable acting. But generally I found it quite underwhelming and lacking a lot in its pacing. Nomadland surely has its moments of captivating cinematography and enticing commentary on the culture of these people, but it felt like it went on forever without any kind of forward direction or goal. The Prince of Egypt (1998) - 6/10 I reviewed this on my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. For what it is, it’s pretty fun but nowhere near as good as some of the best DreamWorks movies.

Chinatown (1974) - 8/10 What a fantastic and wonderfully unpredictable mystery crime film! I regret to say I’ve not seen many Jack Nicholson performances but he steals the show. Despite Polanski’s infamy, it’d be a lie to claim this wasn’t truly masterful. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Admittedly I was half asleep as I curled up on the sofa to watch this again on a whim. I watched this with someone who demanded the dubbed version over the subtitled version and while I objected heavily, I knew I’d seen the movie before so it didn’t matter too much. That person also fell asleep about 20 minutes in, so how pointless an argument it was. Howl’s Moving Castle boasts superb animation, the likes of which I’ve only come to expect of Miyazaki. The story is so unique and the colours are absolutely gorgeous. This may not be my favourite from the legendary director but there’s no denying its splendour.

Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015) - 3/10 The next morning I watched some absolute trash. This crazy, over the top Indian movie is hilarious and I could perhaps recommend it if it weren’t so long. That being said, Bāhubali was not a dumpster fire; it has a lot of good-looking visual effects and it’s easy to see the ambition for this epic story, it just doesn’t come together. There’s fun to be had with how the main character is basically the strongest man in the world and yet still comes across as just a lucky dumbass, along with all the dancing that makes no sense but is still entertaining to watch. Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 If it wasn’t obvious already, Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, so more thoughts can be found there. Red Road (2006) - 6/10 Another recommendation on episode 30 of the podcast. Red Road really captures the authentic British working class experience. Before Sunrise (1995) - 10/10 One of the best romances put to film. The first in Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is undoubtedly my favourite, despite its counterparts being almost equally as good. It tells the story of a young couple travelling through Europe, who happen to meet on a train and spend the day together. It is gloriously shot on location in Vienna and features some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve ever seen put to film. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10 This Japanese classic - along with being visually and sonically masterful - is a lot about appreciating the people in your life and taking the time to show them that you love them. It’s about knowing it’s never too late to rekindle old relationships if you truly want to, which is something I’ve been able to relate to in recent years. It broke my heart in two. Tokyo Story will make you want to call your mother. Before Sunset (2004) - 10/10 Almost a decade after Sunrise, Sunset carries a sombre yet relieving feeling. Again, the performances from Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke take me away, evoking nostalgic feelings as they stroll through the contemporary Parisian streets. There is no regret in me for buying the Criterion blu-ray boxset for this trilogy. Before Midnight (2013) - 10/10 Here, Linklater cements this trilogy as one of the best in film history. It’s certainly not the ending I expected, yet it’s an ending I appreciate endlessly. Because it doesn’t really end. Midnight shows the troubling times of a strained relationship; one that has endured so long and despite initially feeling almost dreamlike in how idealistically that first encounter was portrayed, the cracks appear as the film forces you to come to terms with the fact that fairy-tale romances just don’t exist. Relationships require effort and sacrifice and sometimes the ones that truly work are those that endure through all the rough patches to emerge stronger. The Holy Mountain (1973) - 10/10 Jodorowsky’s masterpiece is absolute insanity. I talked more about it on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10 Another watch for Grand Budapest because I bought the Criterion blu-ray. As unalterably perfect as ever. Blue Jay (2016) - 6/10 Rather good up to a point. My co-hosts and I did not agree on how good this movie was, which is a discussion you can listen to on my podcast. Shadow and Bone: The Afterparty (2021) - 3/10 For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, which is why I wanted to see what ‘The Afterparty’ was about. This could have been a lot better and much less annoying if all those terrible comedians weren’t hosting and telling bad jokes. I don’t want to see Fortune Feimster attempt to tell a joke about oiling her body as the cast of the show sit awkwardly in their homes over Zoom. If it had simply been a half hour, 45 minute chat with the cast and crew about how they made the show and their thoughts on it, a lot of embarrassment and time-wasting could have been spared. Wadjda (2012) - 6/10 Another recommendation discussed at length on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Wadjda was pretty interesting from a cultural perspective but largely familiar in terms of story structure.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 2/10 A truly terrible movie with maybe one or two scenes that stop it from being a complete catastrophe. Tom Green tried to create something that almost holds a middle finger to everyone who watches it and to some that could be a fun experience, but to me it just came across as utterly irritating. It’s simply a bunch of scenes threaded together with an incredibly loose plot. He wears the skin of a dead deer, smacks a disabled woman over and over again on the legs to turn her on, and he swings a newborn baby around a hospital room by its umbilical cord (that part was actually pretty funny). I cannot believe I watched this again, although I think I repressed a lot of it since having seen it for the first time around five years ago. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 - (2011) I have to say, these movies seem to get better with each instalment. They’re still not very good though. That being said, I’m amazed at how many times I’ve watched each of the Twilight movies at this point. This time around, I watched Breaking Dawn - Part 1 with a YMS commentary track on YouTube and that made the experience a lot more entertaining. Otherwise, this film is super dumb but pretty entertaining. I would recommend watching these movies with friends. Solaris (1972) - 8/10 Andrei Tarkovsky’s grand sci-fi epic about the emotional crises of a crew on the space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris is much as strange and creepy as you might expect from the master Russian auter. I had wanted to watch this for a while so I bought the Criterion blu-ray and it’s just stunning. It’s clear to see the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration but Solaris is quite a different beast entirely. Jaws (1975) - 4/10 I really tried to get into this classic movie, but Jaws exhibits basically everything I don’t like about Steven Spielberg’s directing. For sure, the effects are crazily good but the story itself is poorly handled and largely uninteresting. It was just a massive slog to get through.

Darkman (1990) - 6/10 Sam Raimi’s superhero movie is so much fun, albeit massively stupid. Further discussion on Darkman can be found on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) - 1/10 Abysmal. I forgot the movie as I watched it. This was part of a marathon my friends and I did for episode 32 of our podcast. Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) - 1/10 Perhaps this trilogy is not so great after all. Only marginally better than Darkman II but still pretty terrible. More thoughts on episode 32 of my podcast. F For Fake (1973) - 8/10 Rewatching this proved to be a worthwhile decision. Albeit slightly boring, there’s no denying how crazy the story of this documentary about art forgers is. The standout however, is the director himself. Orson Welles makes a lot of this film about himself and how hot his girlfriend is and it is hilarious.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) - 4/10 More style over substance, Sony’s new animated adventure wants so much to be in trend with the current internet culture but it simply doesn’t understand what it’s emulating. There’s a nyan cat reference, for crying out loud. For every joke that works, there are about ten more that do not and were it not for the wonderful animation, it simply wouldn’t be getting so much praise. Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10 The first movie I’ve seen in a cinema since 2020 and damn it was good to be back! I’ve already reviewed Taxi Driver in my March wrap-up but seeing it in the cinema was a real treat. Irreversible (2002) - 8/10 One of the most viscerally horrendous experiences I’ve ever had while watching a movie. I cannot believe a friend of mine gave me the DVD to watch. More thoughts on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Don’t watch it with the family. The Golden Compass (2007) - 1/10 I had no recollection of this being as bad as it is. The Golden Compass is the definition of a factory mandated movie. Nothing it does on its own is worth any kind of merit. I would say, if you wanted an experience like what this tries to communicate, a better option by far is the BBC series, His Dark Materials. More of my thoughts can be found in the review I wrote on Letterboxd.

Antichrist (2009) - 8/10 Lars von Trier is nothing if not provocative and I can understand why someone would not like Antichrist, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. After watching it, I wrote a slightly disjointed summary of my interpretations of this highly metaphorical movie in the group chat, so fair warning for a bit of spoilers and graphic descriptions: It's like, the patriarchy, man! Oppression! Men are the rational thinkers with big brains and the women just cry and be emotional. So she's seen as crazy when she's smashing his cock and driving a drill through his leg to keep him weighted down. Like, how does he like it, ya know? So then she mutilates herself like she did with him and now they're both wounded, but the animals crowd around her (and the crow that he couldn't kill because it's Mother nature, not Father nature, duh). Then he kills her, even though she could've killed him loads of times but didn't. So it's like "haha big win for the man who was subjected to such horrific torture. Victory!" And then all the women with no faces come out of the woods because it's like a constant cycle. Manchester By The Sea (2016) - 6/10 Great performances in this super sad movie. I can’t say I got too much out of it though. Roar (1981) - 9/10 Watching Roar again was still as terrifying an experience as the first time. If you want to watch something that’s loose on plot with poor acting but with real big cats getting in the way of production and physically attacking people, look no further. This is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen because it’s all basically real. Cannot recommend it enough. Eyes Without A Face (1960) - 8/10 I’m glad I checked this old French movie out again. There’s a lot to marvel at in so many aspects, what with the premise itself - a mad surgeon taking the faces from unsuspecting women and transplanting them onto another - being incredibly unique for the time. Short, sweet and entertaining!

Se7en (1995) - 10/10 The first in a David Fincher marathon we did for The Sunday Movie Marathon, episode 33. Zodiac (2007) - 10/10 Second in the marathon, as it was getting late, we decided to watch half that evening and the last half on the following evening. Zodiac is a brilliant movie and you can hear more of my thoughts on the podcast (though I apologise; my audio is not the best in this episode). Gone Girl (2014) - 10/10 My favourite Fincher movie. More insights into this masterpiece in episode 33 of the podcast. Friends: The Reunion (2021) - 6/10 It was heartwarming to see the old actors for this great show together again. I talked about the Friends reunion film at length in episode 33 of my podcast.

Wolfwalkers (2020) - 10/10 I reviewed this in an earlier post but would like to reiterate just how wonderful Wolfwalkers is. If you get the chance, please see it in the cinema. I couldn’t stop crying from how beautiful it was. Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) - 6/10 After watching Wolfwalkers, I decided I didn’t want to go home. So I had lunch in town and booked a ticket for Disney’s Raya and The Last Dragon. A child was coughing directly behind me the entire time. Again, I reviewed this in an earlier post but generally it was decent but I have so many problems with the execution. The Princess Bride (1987) - 9/10 Clearly I underrated this the last time I watched it. The Princess Bride is warm and hilarious with some delightfully memorable characters. A real classic!

The Invisible Kid (1988) - 1/10 About as good as you’d expect a movie with that name to be, The Invisible Kid was a pick for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 34. Babel (2006) - 9/10 The same night that I watched The Invisible Kid, I watched a masterful and dour drama from the director of Birdman and The Revenant. Babel calls back to an earlier movie of Iñárritu’s, called Amores Perros and as I was informed while we watched this for the podcast, it turns out Babel is part of a trilogy alongside the aforementioned film. More thoughts in episode 34 of the podcast. Snake Eyes (1998) - 1/10 After feeling thoroughly emotionally wiped out after Babel, we immediately watched another recommendation for the podcast: Snake Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage. This was a truly underwhelming experience and for more of a breakdown into what makes this movie so bad, you can listen to us talk about it on the podcast.

[apocalypse-boogie]

Scooby-Doo! Camp Scare

Initial Thoughts whilst watching

Luke sounds like Robin (checked and he’s voiced by Scott Menville so I was correct)

Matthew Lillard is once again reminding me why I love him as Shaggy so much

Deacon sounds like Mark Hamill and I’m pretty sure he is actually voiced by him

The Woodsman design is pretty cool

They really do sexualize the hell out of the older girls (it’s pretty blatant when it happens but it’s not consistent throughout the whole movie)

The Creature from the Black Lagoon/lake monster thing is suitably terrifying

The animation is a great time honestly

They do a really good job of incorporating the Friday the 13/Sleep-away Camp style of movie and I love it (one of the reasons I wanted to revisit this for the first time since I watched it in 2010 was to see what slasher reference I could catch with my more recent love of horror movies)

I also wanted to see if the movie held up as good in my memory on rewatch (spoiler: it did)

Shag and Scoob being sensible, courageous little cowards is my favorite thing and this movie has it

Camp Scare is one of the newer Scooby-Doo movies that’s good on its own without a cheesy gimmick like the WWE crossover ones (though those have their merit)

Considering how much I liked this I want to rewatch Abracadabra again too

The scares aren’t bad for a kids film at all

I really don’t remember enough of this to be familiar with plot beats and character motivations but I think it’s for the best, it’s much more enjoyable this way

There’s a specter now. Her screech is legitimately terrifying but she herself isn’t as scary as the specters that I remember from the Abracadabra movie or The Witches Ghost. Still pretty scary though, I’m a little on edge.

I’m pretty sure Deacon, who has to be voiced by Hamill, is up to some shit. I just don’t remember what exactly, Gagster related by the looks of this flashback

How they gon just flood a whole town like that wth

Deacon is Babyface, huh

Is the Woodsman a secret good guy copout villain or is he also apart of whatever scheme

Never mind

The Who’s driving gag gets me every time, I love it

Babyface you goddamn bastard

Woodsman kind of reminds me of The Creeper now that I’m hearing him talk while he lumbers around

Mans just fell, oh shit

Shaggy after five minutes in a busted up holding cell: “I can’t do hard time!”

Woodsman pulled a whole Michael Myers. Alright bud.

Scooby biting the fish man, Shaggy saving him, and Scooby then running the fish man over is top tier

The Ranger did it!

I mean he’s a magnificent creature actor, I’ll give him that

Babyface was pretty considerate in the long run since he at least wanted them out before he flooded the camp

*sigh* Fred

The Jessica/Daphne rivalry was so dumb and Jessica wasn’t even interested in him. Good for her.

The beginning and end songs are fairly good and the soundtrack throughout the whole movie was pivotal in adding to the scary vibe at times 👌🏾

I’m going to watch Music of the Vampire next (also one I’ve watched before years ago but remember basically nothing of)

By the way, if anyone’s curious my favorite vampire-esque Scooby movie is Legend of the Vampire (I just love the intro to the Hex Girls and the creature design has always been my favorite, it’s fucking awesome)

Camp Scare gets (in pumpkins) 🎃8/🎃10

I find it hilarious that Music of the Vampire takes place in Louisiana and True Blood also does 🤣

Review OVER!

[clip from Scooby-Doo Music of the Vampire]

Music of the Vampire is a fucking musical. I love!

(I too also wanna go to a Vampire Festival and be seduced by a sexy supernatural creature from a book Daphne)

I think MotV will also get an 8🎃/🎃10, maybe even a 9🎃/🎃10 if the vampire and musical angle really does it for me 👍🏾

[lee-scribbles-and-doodles]

My Top Ten Overlooked Movies With Female Leads In No Particular Order

Note: When you see this emoji (⚠️) I will be talking about things people may find triggering, which are spoilery more often then not. I mention things that I think may count as triggers so that people with them will be aware before going in to watch any of these.

Edited: 3/16/21

Hanna (2011)

So, before I get into why you should watch this movie, I just want to take a moment to say why it's near and dear to my heart. Growing up as a queer kid in the early 2000s, seeing portrayals of people like or similar to myself on anything was rare at best. It was mostly in more "adult" movies or shows that my parents would occasionally let me watch with them that I'd see any lgbtq+ rep at all. Often times they were either walking stereotypes, designed to be buried, evil, or all three.

Then here comes this PG-13 action thriller with a wonderfully written main female lead who, at the time, was close to my age, and who got to kiss another girl (her very first friend, Sophie) on screen in an extremely tender and heartwarming scene. To say the least, it was a life changing moment for me personally.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, Hanna is a suspenseful movie about a child super-soldier named, you guessed it, Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan) and her adoptive (?) father Erik Heller (played by Eric Bana) exiting the snowy and isolated wilderness of their home and taking on the shadowy CIA operative, Marissa Wiegler (played by Cate Blanchette) who wants Erik dead and Hanna for herself for mysterious reasons.

It also has an amazing soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers, great action scenes, and it has an over arching fairytale motif, which I'm always a sucker for.

⚠️ Mild blood effects, some painful looking strikes, various character deaths, and child endangerment all feature in this film. However, given its PG-13 rating, a majority of viewers are presumably able to handle this one. Still, be aware of these going in.

Sidenote: It's recently gotten a TV adaptation on Amazon TV, although I have not watched it, and do not know if Hanna and Sophie's romantic/semi-romantic relationship has transferred over.

A Simple Favor

A Simple Favor is a "black-comedy mystery thriller" centered entirely around the relationship between two mothers, the reclusive, rich, mysterious, and regal Emily (played by Blake Lively), and the local recently widowed but plucky mommy blogger, Stephanie (played by Anna Kendrick). When Emily suddenly goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to find out what happened to her new best friend.

It's a fantastic and entertaining movie throughout, with fun, flawed and interesting characters. The relationship between the two female leads is also implied to be at least somewhat romantic in nature, and they even share a kiss.

⚠️ The only major warnings I can think of is that the movie contains an instance of incest and one of the main plotlines revolves around child abuse, although both of these potentially triggering topics are not connected to each other, so there is thankfully no csa going on.

Edit: I legitimately forgot there was drug use in this movie until now. So, yeah, if that's a trigger, be careful of that.

I Am Mother

I became mildly obsessed with this movie when it came out. I Am Mother is a sci-fi film that centers entirely around a cast of two woman, and a female-adjacent robot who is brought to life on screen with absolutely amazing practical effects.

The plot is such, after an extinction-level event, a lone robot known only as Mother tasks herself with replenishing the human race via artifical means. She begins with the film's main protagonist, Daughter. Years go by as Mother raises her human child and the two prepare for Daughter's first sibling (a brother) to be born. However, on Daughter's 16th birthday, the arrival of an outsider known only as Woman shakes Daughter's entire world view. She begins to question Mother's very nature, as well as what's really going on outside the bunker she and her caretaker call home.

⚠️ This movie features child endangerment and reference to child death.

Lilo and Stitch

When I decided to add a single Disney film to this list I initially thought it was going to be hard but almost immediately my brain went to Lilo and Stitch, and specifically about the relationship between Lilo and Nani.

On the surface, this film is about a lonely little girl accidentally adopting a fugitive alien creature as a "dog," but underneath that the story is also about two orphaned sisters and the older sister's attempts to not let social services tear them apart by stepping up as the younger sister's primary guardian. Despite its seemingly goofy premise, Lilo and Stitch has a very emotional and thoughtful center. It's little wonder how this movie managed to spawn an entire franchise.

Despite the franchise it spawned (or possibly because of it), I often find that Lilo and Stitch is overlooked and many people only remember it for the "little girl adopts an alien as a pet" portion of its plot, and I very rarely see it on people's top 10 Disney lists.

⚠️ This movie could be potentially triggering to people who were separated from their siblings or other family members due to social service intervention. There's also a bit of child endangerment, including a scene where Lilo and Stitch both almost drown.

Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind

Unlike the above entry, I did struggle a little bit with picking a single Studio Ghibli film. Most media of the Ghibli catalogue have strong, well-written, unique, and interesting female leads so selecting just one seemed like quite the task.

However, I eventually settled on this particular film. In recent months, Princess Nausicaä has become my absolute favorite Ghibli protagonist and I'm absolutely enchanted by the world she lives in.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world overun by giant insects and under threat of a toxic forest and its poisoness spores, Nausicaä must try to protect the Valley of the Wind from invaders as she also tries to understand the science behind the toxic forest and attempts to bridge the gap between the insects and the humans.

For those who have never seen the film, I think Nausicaä's personality can best be described as being similar to OT Luke Skywalker. Both are caring, compassionate, and gentle souls who are able to see the best in nearly anyone or anything. She's an absolutely enthralling protagonist and after rewatching the film again for the first time in well over a decade she has easily become one of my all time favorite protagonists.

Whenever I see people talk about Ghibli films, they rarely mention this one, and when they do mention it, it's often in passing. In my opinion it's a must watch.

⚠️ This movie contains some blood, and the folks who either don't like insects or who have entomophobia may not appreciate the giant bugs running about throughout the movie. (Although most insects do not directly relate to real life bugs, and are fantasy creatures).

A Silent Voice

A Silent Voice is an animated movie adaptation of a manga of the same name. While I've never had the pleasure to read the manga, the movie is phenomenal. It covers topics such a bullying, living in the world with a disability, the desire for atonement, social anxiety, and depression in a well thought out manner that ties itself together through the progression of the relationship between its two leads, Shoya and Shouko. It's also beautifully animated. Although very popular among anime viewers, I've noticed that it's often overlooked by people who watch little to no anime. So I suppose this is me urging non-anime viewers to give this film a chance.

⚠️ As mentioned above, the movie deals with bullying, anxiety, and depression (with this last one including suicidal thoughts and behaviour). If discussion of those topics are triggering to you, than you may want to proceed with caution or skip this movie all together.

In This Corner of The World

Another manga adaptation, this one taking place during WWII-era Japan. In This Corner of The World follows the life of a civilian Japanese woman, Suzu Urano, as she navigates simply living and her new marriage as the wartime invades nearly all aspects of everyday life. I think this movie is a good representation of what it must be like to be living as civilian in a country at war where the fight is sometimes fought on one's own soil. It was also an interesting look into pre-50s Japanese culture in my opinion. It's also beautifully animated featuring an art style I don't see often.

Despite it being well known among anime fans, I never really see it be brought up, even among said anime fans themselves.

Side note: I've seen many WWII dramas centering around civilians but they've almost always been about American or UK civilians. This was the first movie I'd seen that features the perspective of a Japanese civilain.

⚠️ Features the death of a child and limb loss. There's also a disturbing scene featuring a victim of one of the atomic bombs near the end.

Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki

This film follows Hana, a Japan-native woman who fell in love with a magical shape-shifting wolf-man, and her trials with raising their children, who can also magically shape-shift into wolves, on her own. It's a very heartfelt movie about a mother's love and the struggles of doing right by your children when you have limited resources to actively guide and care for them. All the characters feel unique and alive in my opinion. Also, the animation is so good that my sister and I initially mistook it for a Ghibli film.

Again, like the previous two anime entries, I don't see it ever brought up outside of anime circles.

⚠️ There's some child endangerment present in the film, although none of it is the fault of Hana as far as I can remember.

Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday is about the fictional Princess Ann (played by Audrey Hepburn), who while on a whirlwind tour of Europe, finally reaches her breaking point over having her entire life be one big schedule and all her words and actions being rehearsed. In the spur of the moment, she runs away in hopes of experiencing what life is like for other women. Unfortunately, she was previously given a sedative, meaning she doesn't get too far before it takes effect. Fortunately, she is found by the kind reporter Joe Bradley (played by Gregory Peck). Believing her to be drunk and unable to get an address from her (because she has none) he ends up taking her home for safety's sake and allows her to sleep off her suppose drunken stupor. The next day, he realizes who she is, and decides to take her on a fun sight seeing trip across Rome in hopes of getting the big scoop. Along the way, they begin to fall for each other.

This is my favorite black and white, old romance film. I think the relationship between the main characters is absolutely beautiful and I have a lot of fun watching it.

⚠️ I'm not entirely sure what kind of warning this film would need. However, it was released in 1953, so values dissonance will probably be at play for many viewers to at least some extent. For example, early in the film Ann is given sedation drugs by her doctor for her behavior, something that is very unlikely to happen today. Also, Mr Bradley deciding to take Ann home to keep her safe rather than call the police or an ambulance is a very pre-90s decision in my opinion.

[atimburtonfan]

How Tim Burton influenced my life

I haven't posted very much on here in the past months so I tried to find the reason why and thus decided to write down how Tim Burton's films and art have influenced my life. I also like to divide his films into three distinct periods to explain how his works have changed over time and what might have been the catalyst behind this.

First period: 1982-1999/2000 These above mentioned years I like to classify as the first period of Tim Burton's films and fame. It started in 1982 with the production of his short animated film, Vincent. It was during this time that Tim Burton started to produce/direct films for a world wide audience and that he started to build up a name for himself.

The short films of Vincent, Frankenweenie and Hansel and Gretel are nowadays true Burton classics and show his distinctive style of art. The beginning of the 80's were basically the beginning of the imagery that nowadays people call Burtonesque. It's this period during which Tim Burton could truly be called an outcast in the film industry, making eclectic films that would captivate millions.

Each of the three periods is also defined by a woman and it was during the first period, 1992 to be exact, that Tim Burton and Lisa Marie met each other, they got engaged in the following year until the start of the second period which is defined by another female actress, the woman most people associate with the name Tim Burton.

In my opinion it was during this period that Tim Burton made his most personal and creative films, my all time favourite film was made during this period. It's clear that Tim Burton was able to express himself quite purely before he got influenced by the studio that once rejected him. Some of these personal and creative films include: Ed Wood, Mars Attacks, Beetle Juice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Pee-wee and his adaptations of the Batman films.

It was also during this period that I was born and introduced to his films at an early age. The first Tim Burton film that I have ever seen was Mars Attacks, an underrated comedy that I still love to watch these days. Even though I saw his films during the 1990's, I never really concerned myself with learning the names of directors or even be remotely interested in the background of them or recognize their distinctive art styles.

Second period: 2000-2012 These years are what I like to call the 'golden age' of Tim Burton's fame and influence. During the late 1990's and early 2000's, alternative music such as metalcore, nu-metal, gothic and industrial metal started to become incredibly popular in mainstream culture. Many teens became obsessed with this type of music and it was especially the explosion of the Emo-culture that introduced many teens, including myself, to Tim Burton's distinctive artstyle.

Shops like Hot-Topic became incredibly popular and many people began to dress themselves as if they were a character of a Burton film. Therefore it isn't very surprising that Burtonesque merchandise started to appear in the same shops where Emo, alternative, gothic and metal teens liked to shop, further fueling his fame as the lonesome different gothic filmdirector.

Why 2000 you might wonder? As I have said earlier, each period is defined by a woman in his life and it was during this year that Tim Burton met Helena Bonham Carter on the set of Planet of the Apes. They quickly fell in love with each other that eventually resulted in them having two children and living inside two homes that were connected to each other. Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Burton together formed one of the most eccentric couples that Hollywood has ever seen and they were much beloved by their fans.

It was during this period that films such as: Corpse Bride, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, Big Fish, Alice In Wonderland, Dark Shadows, Planet Of The Apes and Frankenweenie were made. They captured the hearts of millions of people throughout the world who felt like an outsider in this society and gave them a place they could call home. This was the era of the golden trio, Burton, Depp and Carter.

I myself became an awkward gothic teen at the age of 12 when I first entered high school. It was a time before youtube, the internet was still a relative new thing therefore it was incredibly hard to get your hands on anything remotely Burtonesque. I can remember reading magazines of alternative shops like Large and the McFiber and begging my mother to buy me some stuff.

As I grew more awkward and awkward, eventually getting an autism diagnosis, I got deeper involved into the alternative scene. All of my friends were exactly the same, different, alternative and thrown out by mainstream society. Many of us had serious mental problems which resulted in self harming and even episodes of attempted suicide.

It was then that I started to find comfort in his works. I could identify myself perfectly with the characters of his works and I adored the image and lives of the adorable couple, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. I became truly obsessed with some of his films and started to finally learn English in order to write fanfictions about Sleepy Hollow. The alternative/emo scéne reached its highest moments during this period and it was almost fun to be that weird outsider who liked the art and films of Tim Burton.

Third period: 2013-present day This is what I like to call the decline of the alternative scéne and thus also the decline of Tim Burton's popularity. There are of course multiple reasons why Burton eventually became less popular but I think the most important reason is the fact that the alternative scéne is slowly dying. Most of us who were teens during the early 2000's have now grown up and most have shed off their unique gothic/ alternative/emo skins and entered adulthood life.

The internet has also changed. Platforms such as myspace, vampirefreaks and the countless of forums have died, these spaces were havens for alternative kids. Youtube was by then well introduced and started to commercialize quite badly, I honestly miss the times during which Youtube was just a free platform to share your videos without any intent to make money.

Like I said at the beginning, each period is defined by a woman in the life of Tim Burton and it was around the end of 2012 that the relationship between Burton and Carter started to wobble. It was also during this year that Eva Green made her debute in Dark Shadows. Rumours quickly rose that Eva and Tim were having an affair and in 2014, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter separated, which was absolutely stunning news to their fans as they were long viewed as the ideal 'gothic' couple.

In my honest opinion, the quality of Burton's works started to drop dramatically after the separation. The period of the classic Burton/Carter films was now officially over and this era is defined by films such as: Miss Peregrine, Big Eyes and Dumbo. None of these films really felt like a classic Burton film and I feel like he has sold his soul and creativity to Disney. Where he once was the outcast, the one who opposed Disney in order to produce his own unique works, he is now fully part of the Disney company and his distinctive style is now barely visible.

He also has made barely any works since 2012, the aforementioned films are basically the only ones he directed since the last decade. At this current moment, there is no work in production, although there are rumours he is making a sequel to Beetlejuice and his own adaptation of the Addams Family but this can't be verified. Most of his original fanbase have grown up and either shed the alternative scéne skin entirely or are still stuck loving his older works.

I can place myself in between. Truth be told, I also lost most of my interest after 2012. I became an adult and the emo scéne I once loved so much, was now officially dead. I didn't like the films he produced after Frankenweenie (2012), it somehow lacked that classic Burton magic. Not to mention that Tumblr itself has also been dying, and still is.

I still love his early works very dearly and rewatch them quite often until this day. I have however stopped obsessing about them, with the exception of one film, Sleepy Hollow. Tim Burton created a home for teens and young  adults who didn't fit into modern society. I was one of those teens and his films have really helped me get through an extremely difficult period of my life. He made me feel that I belonged to something and the weekends I have spent holding Tim Burton marathons with my alternative friends were the best moments in my life.

I'm so sorry for this incredibly long post but I wanted to try to explain how Tim Burton influenced my life and how this eventually led to me barely posting anything on this tumblr account in 2021. What do you think of Tim Burton currently? Do you agree with the three periods that I have defined?

[solcomfortssouls]

Anime watchlist Update 5

Update 3.2.2021

What I'm looking for in anime: hurt/comfort and suffering, strong characters, learning to get along and teamwork, enemies to friends, romance. Fave character: Sasuke. If you have any recs for any of these pls say so.

Finished

Promare

This movie is absolute masterpiece. I haven't been this captivated by anime film in a long time. From storytelling to themes to characters and tight plot it's perfection, and the animation here destives it's own category. This is anime as medium at maximum impact, doing magic that jo other media form could. It was a bit more plot than character focused, with no character development, but the characters were greatly developed so it was emotional enough watching them face the story's problems with their own unique attitudes. Plus the enemies to friends dynamic between the two MCs? The bromance and the suffering? Just the way I like it.

Similar rec anime: Brand New Animal and Deca Dence. Is it really similar? Also any good Gundam anime recs? I'm in the mood after this.

Idolish7

This was...unexpected. I don't normally watch this idol genre at all, I can't take guys who think themselves beautiful it's just so unmanly to me. But damn these characters captivated me. I just wanted to jump around for some interesting scenes I saw gifted but I was sucked in and couldn't let go. Every episode became important, with every character and scene playing a role in a larger puzzle. What an incredibly tight net of a plot! Such charming cast! I fell in love with each and every one, plus there is so much angst and emotional turmoil! The boy dynamics reminded me of what I love about sport anime but done more openly and emotionally, which is something I often miss in anime. Sometimes a little over dramatic but so enjoyable I'm dying to know what happens next.

Want to watch

Ace of Diamond

Mostly got inspired for this after rewatching Kuroko no Basket Last Game movie and getting reminded why it is in my top 10 favourite anime shows ever. Knb and Big Windup are the best sports anime has to offer and this has heavy similarities with both. Boys developing friendships and team dynamics while growing into the best they can be? Please be good, I have high hopes for you.🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Bakuman

I'm a writer and the creative process is endlessly fascinating to me. Not to mention as a big anime and manga fan this is quite charming premise. If this has the qualities of a strong sport anime, with competitions, challenges and friendships I'm all up for it.

Gundam 00

If anything Promare gave me strong gundam and giant robots feel, which I'm surprised no one else is recommending in the similar category. I loved Iron-blooded Orphans, but that was my first and only Gundam anime, and I was there mainly for the strong bromance and whump moments, although the storyline and characters were great (I hated the ending though). Right now I'm biased for the attractive character designs and the high rating this has. Is it good? Does it have a happy ending?

Fire Force

My brother is nagging me to watch this for ages but it's the similarity to Promare that is pushing me now. The premise with firefighters on fire is kinda similar...and I wish Promare was a series I could have enjoyed longer so this is a nice solution. Now if the characters were even half as compelling. And I'm worried about the rumoured fanservice here.

Baby steps

Just discovered this is high rank sport anime with romance and not a typical screaming dumb shounen protagonist. Apparently he is hardworking and perfectionalistic? Give me all the perfectionists! Also very little sport anime have romance so👀

Keeping from previous list:

Itazura na Kiss

Romance and emotional opening up with a stoic boy and a bubbly girl.

Honey and Clover

Slice of life university art students romance. High ranked classic. Pls don't be boring.

[neighbourskid]

2020

What a year, huh? Surely not anything anyone has expected to happen when we woke up on this day a year ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m not even sure, now, where to begin to sum up this year like I’ve done years prior. But then again... I may just as well just dive right into all the media I consumed this year, as I have done every year. I haven’t kept track as detailed as I have last year, but my year was definitely punctuated by pieces of entertainment that have come into my life.

Continuing on from 2019, my obsession with Good Omens was still going strong. Which was ideal, since I was gonna spend the first half of the year writing my Bachelor thesis on it. The intensity of the obsession may have waned a bit since, but I still love that show and book dearly and hold it close to my heart, and I don’t think that will ever stop. But while Good Omens was certainly an overall theme throughout my year, there were some other things that actually stood out.

With January came new episodes of Doctor Who, and having returned to that particular bandwagon the year prior, I was all about that. Jodie’s second season finally brought what I had longed for in her first--a darker kind of Doctor. She wasn’t quite as bubbly anymore, you could finally see some of the depths in the character that I loved so in the previous regenerations, which made me love Peter’s Doctor so incredibly much. In this season, I felt, Jodie was finally becoming the Doctor. Overall, that season catered to me personally every single episode. So many of the time periods they visited were of people I loved, and the introduction of Sacha Dhawan as the Master was absolutely....well, masterful. Sacha is brilliant in that role and I am utterly stunned by his talent. Although both John Simm and Michelle Gomez brought things to the Master that I liked, it’s Sacha’s completely unhinged take on it that made me finally like the character. He’s a madman and I love it.

The next major thing was The Good Place. I tend to have a talent of getting into shows just as they either ended their entire show, or the final season is just coming up. It’s happened quite a bit, and it was the same with this. I finally binged the show early in January and it would end its final season at the end of the month. True to form, I was completely obsessed with it for about a month, before I only occasionally thought about it again. But, thinking back now, I get this incredibly fond feeling for this show, and I remember that the finale absolutely wrecked me and I basically ugly sobbed through the entirety of it. Also very true to form, actually. I want to rewatch it again some time, but honestly preferably with someone who has never seen it before. Which, obviously, is a difficult thing to do given, well, everything.

Next up is something that surprised me a lot. In the middle of having to write my BA thesis, my procrastination thought it would be a great idea to rewatch and catch up on the entirety of Criminal Minds. And so I binged 15 seasons of that instead of writing my thesis. Which, coincidentally, had also just aired its final season not long before I started my binge in March. Rewatching this, I realised just how little I took in of the actual, like, stuff in the show when I first watched it as a teen. Although I mostly cared about the characters and their found family this time around--although I do find the cases really fascinating most of the time too--I noticed just how much I am not watching this for the fact that they are in the FBI. I was hyperaware of how often they shot at people before doing anything else, how many of the suspects died before ever being questioned or being brought in, and it made my skin crawl. I am aware how fucked up the criminal justice system is, and especially in the US, how the police functions and how incredibly glorified they are in the media. But rewatching this show, I realised how little I actually paid attention to anything when I was younger. Big yikes. Still, I remembered my love for these characters, and I really enjoyed that rewatch a whole lot. Found family will always get to me.

Once I finished writing my thesis and handed it in early in July, I then found my next momentary obsession: Community. The show had finally come to Netflix earlier in the year and a friend of mine had watched it then. I remember watching that pilot episode back then and being completely uninterested in watching it. The comedy felt like it wasn’t quite up my street, the characters were entirely unlikeable, and I especially disliked Jeff who the show was more or less centred around. I binged Criminal Minds instead, but then decided to give it another try. And, well, I watched it twice through without taking a break to watch something else in-between. Ironically, and maybe actually unsurprisingly, Jeff ended up being my favourite and I found myself relating a lot to him and his arc throughout the series. I even found myself writing some short ficlet-like things in the notes app on my phone. I made an attempt at starting a third watch, but I guess then the month was up, and my brain decided it was time for something else. My hyperfixations usually tend to die out after about a month. Which is why my complete devotion to Good Omens was a pleasant surprise. I did, however, end up watching quite a bit of Joel McHale and Ken Jeong’s The Darkest Timeline podcast throughout August. 

Early in September, while already preparing for the new term at uni, and my first semester in my Master’s studies, I then turned to New Girl. Friends of mine had seen it and recommended it, and I remember watching probably the entire first season on TV while I was in San Diego the first time around back in 2016. Or at least I think it was the entire first season. Either way, I binged that whole thing, realised through Nick Miller that the go-to character I am drawn to and tend to project on in any piece of media is usually what I like to call “the garbage man,” which Nick is a prime example of. And although I spent a month watching the show in-between starting university again and volunteering at a film festival, I didn’t spend much time afterward thinking about it and moved on to other things rather quickly. I enjoyed watching it, that much I remember, and I’m pretty sure I cried at the finale because it was done wonderfully, but seeing as another month was up, my brain was probably like “okay fine that’s enough”.

I then spent most of fall and early winter watching every single bad Christmas movie available on Netflix, which was quite fun. In that moment of festivity, I also watched a movie I found absolutely brilliant and fell in love with immediately. It’s a beautiful movie called Jingle Jangle, it has a magnificent soundtrack and is absolutely incredible. I had no idea Forest Whitaker could sing and he completely blew me away. If you haven’t seen it already, I highly recommend it. It doesn’t matter that Christmas is already over, it’s beautiful either way.

By the time December finally rolled around, I was already over the whole Christmas thing, to be honest and I turned away from festive movies or shows, and eventually ended up finally picking up a gem I had heard much about and had been meaning to watch for a while. A show which, as it were, also aired its final season earlier this year. This little show is Schitt’s Creek. I will be going on about what this show means to me probably in another post at length, but for now just let me say: if you haven’t seen it, find some place to watch it, and put this beautiful show in your eyeballs. I am on my second run through already (although I’ve seen the second half of the show a second time already while watching it with a friend on their first run through), and it brings me so much fucking joy. It’s a gift, this show. And it will likely stay with me for a very, very long time.

That’s about it for the big things. I also watched a whole lot of other stuff, including entirely new things, or just newly released seasons of things I was already watching. Here’s what I can remember off the top of my head:

Charlie’s Angels (2020). The Night Manager. The Witcher. Dolittle (2020). The Librarians (rewatch). Harley Quinn (2020). Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). The Chef Show (S1 part 3, S2 part 1). Avenue 5. Money Heist (part 4). The Good Fight (S4). Brooklyn Nine-Nine (S7). DuckTales (2017 reboot). Frankenstein live. Staged (2020). Hamilton. Sense8. Julie and the Phantoms. The Boys in the Band. One Night in Miami. Enola Holmes. Supernova. His Dark Materials (S2). Happiest Season. The Great Canadian Baking Show.

I also got some reading done in-between what I had to read for my thesis in spring, and then for regular university courses in fall. Here’s some of what I can remember:

Anthony Horowitz, The House of Silk. Ramona Meisel, Sunblind. Donna Tartt, The Secret History. Good Omens novel and script book. Matt Forbeck, Leverage: The Con Job. Keith R.A. Decandido, Leverage: The Zoo Job. Greg Cox, Leverage: The Bestseller Job. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Lost Lamp. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Mother Goose Chase. Greg Cox, The Librarians and the Pot of Gold. Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602. Christina Henry, The Lost Boy. Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology. John Green, An Abundance of Katherines. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh. Maria Konnikova, The Confidence Game. 

Having mulled over all this entertainment I consumed in 2020, there are also some non-tv or book things I need to point out. As many, many other people around the globe, I have also spent a large amount of time this year on my Nintendo Switch, playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It is a game I have waited for since the Switch was first announced, and I fell in love with it from the moment the first trailer dropped. It has brought me great joy in this weird fucking year, and I have more or less consistently played it since it came out in March. I ended this year with the in-game New Year’s Eve celebration and I feel like that summed up this year quite neatly and appropriately.

This year also brought with it another game very close to my heart: Super Mario Sunshine. With their release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars in September, Nintendo finally brought my all-time favourite Mario game to my all-time favourite console, and I played the entire game through in the first week of owning it, in-between university courses and volunteering at the film festival. Also contained in that package was Super Mario Galaxy which I have also played through in its entirety since. All that’s left for me now is Super Mario 64, which I am excited to play through in the coming year.

And to round off my year of entertainment, there are two more things I would like to mention. First, David Tennant Does A Podcast With..., which released its second season this summer. It is one of the only, if not the only podcast I keep up to date with and listen to immediately whenever a new episode drops. I’ve loved the first season dearly, and David came back with some incredibly fantastic guests for the second season as well. I can’t wait for what the podcast will bring in the future, but I will wait patiently until it is time. I can highly recommend it for everyone who likes interesting conversations between lovely people who clearly adore each other a whole lot.

And finally, while this year brought a whole lot of bullshit with it, it also gave me something I never thought possible and did not even dare to imagine in my wildest dreams. My all-time favourite show announced that it would be rebooted with the same main cast (minus one), a new wonderful member, and involvement of the original creators, and even started filming already in summer. Leverage is coming back. I still cannot believe it. I hoped for a movie, always. That maybe one day, they might bring the gang back together, for one last job, just one more encore. But to get a whole new tv-show with Aldis, Christian, Gina and Beth returning? With the addition of Noah Wyle? I can’t wrap my head around it. I am so excited for this. I predict that I will ugly sob through the entirety of the pilot episode, if not the first season, and will have to rewatch every episode because of it, but I have no doubt that it will be brilliant and wonderful.

True to form, I have now gone on about tv shows and movies for far too long, and haven’t really said anything about this year at all. 2020 was fucking weird. And I don’t think 2021 will be much different quite yet. I wrote an entire BA thesis in 2020. I successfully finished by Bachelor’s degree and started my Master’s studies and even got some excellent first grades in as well. I was lucky enough to be able to see some friends and family throughout the year, and even celebrate my birthday with a small circle of friends. I’ve become closer with friends, shared experiences I wouldn’t trade for the world, and, I think, maybe also grown a bit as a person.

I started this year excited to finally be able to start taking testosterone in February, and to finish the first part of my studies by summer. Although I did both of these things, they didn’t happen quite how I imagined them, but I am glad that I could do these things nevertheless.

2020 was a hell year, for sure. But there were some moments in there that I wouldn’t want to lose.

I’ve tried very hard to not be optimistic about this upcoming year, and rather take a more realistic, even pessimistic approach. But I can’t help but be hopeful. Hopeful that this year will be kind to us, and if it isn’t, that at least, we’ll be kind to ourselves and each other. It won’t be easy, and not much will change, I think. But we have to approach the coming time with kindness and compassion. That’s where I’m at currently. And I think that’s all for now.

Be well, friends, and take care.