#filmatic festival
Text
As the third and final wave of toys launches, we must once again reckon with a 'new' She-Ra. The people of Etheria throw the 'Parade of Happiness' and march across the land, until Catra attacks with her sinister Shower Squirter, getting all the princesses soaking wet. Bubble Power She-Ra and Noble Swift Wind save the day with infinite bubbles, face-kissing, and rainbows.
You can't make this stuff up, folks.
Transcript/Image ID below the cut
[Image Description: 14 comic pages from the She-Ra mini-comic, “Don't Rain on My Parade!”.
Cover: Bubble Power She-Ra holds the Sword of Protection aloft, posing heroically in the Whispering Woods. Shower Power Catra lurks behind her in the trees with a sinister smile. At the top of the page is the "Princess of Power" logo, and at the bottom in tangerine is the title of the issue, "Don't Rain on My Parade!". Below that is the copyright information: "Illustrations (copyright symbol) Mattel, Inc. 1986. Hawthorne, CA 90250 U.S.A. PRINTED IN TAIWAN. All Rights Reserved (registered trademark symbol) and (trademark symbol) designate U.S. trademarks of Mattel, Inc."
Page 1: Adora stands atop a small rock, waving at a crowd of revelers in golds and oranges. Her own cape is a high-collared golden affair, matching her boots and bracers. Both she and the crowd are dwarfed by the enormous blue trees of the Filmation-styled Whispering Woods.
A pale blue caption box reads, "Princess Adora stood at the crest of Whispering Woods. Never had Etheria looked more beautiful and never had she felt so excited! The sweet sound of music filled the air and hundreds of people lined the path below her. "There are Frosta and Perfuma!" Adora cried, waving. "And Bow and Peekablue! Oh, I can hardly wait for the Parade of Happiness to begin!""
End Page 1.
Page 2: A pale blue caption box reads, "Bustling about, Glimmer and Flutterina groomed Enchanta for the day's festivities. The winged creature had never looked more beautiful! She was decorated with elegant ribbons and flowers. And the horses? Why… Spirit, Moonbeam and Sun Dancer had never looked more dashing!" Glimmer ties a bow in Enchanta's mane, while SweetBee does the same for Crystal Sun Dancer. In the foreground, we can see that Spirit is no longer crystal, instead a pink-tinged white with a hot pink mane. Enchanta, a maned swan vehicle from all the way back in wave 1, is a little off-model; she has her saddle and bridle, but her beak isn't pink and frankly doesn't look much like a beak.
"Adora will certainly be proud to lead this year's parade!" says Glimmer. Her hair has shifted a few shades lighter between panels.
"...if only Catra doesn't spoil it!" says Adora, with a fierce scowl.
End Page 2.
Page 3: A pale blue caption box reads, "Joining her friends, Adora leaped to Spirit's back. "Let the parade begin!" she cried. In an instant, she was off. A cavalcade of horses, floats and merrymakers fell in behind her."
Adora, cape how red, hops onto Spirit's back, waving at the crowd. Behind her, SweetBee, Glimmer, Bow, and Frosta look on with beaming smiles, and a few civilians with page cuts smile at her and play buisines. Several hanging banners bear an orange flower, outlined in yellow, against a pink background. Glimmer has a green basket full of flowers tied around her waist, and she appears to be grabbing handfuls and tossing them like a flower girl at a wedding.
End Page 3.
Page 4: A pale blue caption box reads, "Together, they marched happily for many miles. "Thank goodness! For once, Catra has left well alone," Adora smiled. But, as Spirit rounded a turn in the road, the fair Princess heard a terrible commotion behind her. She looked over her shoulder and was dismayed by what she saw."
Adora rides astride Spirit, leading a procession of flower-draped Etherians. Peekablue, her tail feathers reduced to a fan-shaped hair ornament, is riding Enchanta. Glimmer rides Crystal Sun Dancer, and Bow rides Crystal Moonbeam—although they were sold in gift sets with SweetBee and Peekablue respectively so that would be a strange choice even if Arrow didn't exist, but it's fine. It's whatever.
There's someone with a portable lap harp, just walking around like that's a thing people play in parades usually. Another fellow with a buisine, hanging off of a float.
"By Etheria… noooo!!!" says Adora, as she and Spirit look behind them.
End Page 4.
Page 5: A pale blue caption box reads, "Everywhere, people were running in every direction. Frightened horses threw their riders from their backs. And the reason for their fear was just indeed, for there stood Catra, scowling. "Rebels!" she cried. "You dare defy The Evil Horde with all your fun and merriment? Well, I shall put an end to that!" "
Shower Power Catra looms over Bow and SweetBee, arms raised but claws sheathed. Glimmer and Crystal Sun Dancer startle slightly in the background, but Glimmer remains un-bucked. Bow is pushing himself up on his elbows, glaring up at Catra. SweetBee appears to be swooning. There's a man with a stringed wishbone which may have been intended to represent a harp running away in long sleeves and no pants. Your typical parade, really.
"Now you wait just a minute…" says Glimmer, glowering at Catra. Crystal Sun Dancer scowls disapprovingly.
End Page 5.
Page 6: "Glimmer! No!" says Bow, horrified beyond reason.
A pale blue caption box reads, "But Bow's warning came too late. Catra paid no heed as Glimmer tried to reason with her. "Foolish child," she hissed. "A little Shower Power will put a damper on your rebel spirit!""
Catra sprays Glimmer and Crystal Sun Dancer, both of whom barely flinch, with the Shower Squirter—basically the fantasy equivalent of a Super Soaker.
End Page 6.
Page 7: A pale blue caption box reads, "In an instant, Catra had drenched everyone and everything in the parade with a blast of her Shower Power. Poor Perfuma's lovely locks crinkled! Enchanta's pretty bows wrinkled! And Moonbeam and Sun Dancer's shiny crystal coats beaded!"
Catra is laughing maniacally and everybody is soaking wet. Sad wet Bow. Sad wet crystal horses, who aren't beading because why the hell would they, sad wet bannerman in the background with a sad wet banner which is indistinguishable from a happy dry banner.
End Page 7.
Page 8: Oh it's a two-page spread. Yes, more sad wet parade-goers. Perfuma's got a bit of a coloring error on her skirt but perhaps the paint got sad and wet too. Sad wet Enchanta, sad wet SweetBee. Glimmer looks moments from tears. Loo-Kee is here and guess what? He's sad. And wet. There's a soggy float and a few more wet people in the background.
End Page 8.
Page 9: A pale blue caption box reads, ""Come on Spirit," Princess Adora cried. "You know what we have to do! " [sic] Quickly, the noble steed made its way into a grove of fruit trees. There, where no one could see them, Adora summoned all the powers of Etheria. She and her horse were swiftly transformed. "For the honor of Grayskull, I am She-Ra! Come on Swift Wind! There's not a moment to lose!"" So I guess she gets her powers from Etheria now? And not the sword? You'd think it would be because she's Bubble Power She-Ra now and has a different weapon but no, still lifting the sword.
Swifty is now Royal Swift Wind, with hot pink secondary coverts and a golden harness with some drapey bits that I'm not sure how to describe. Sorry. I took Ornithology but must have missed Horse Fashion 101. Bubble Power She-Ra is holding the Bubble Blower in her left hand.
End Page 9.
Page 10: A pale blue caption box reads, "Full speed, She-Ra and Swift Wind flew to the aid of their friends. The Princess of Power raised her Bubble Blower and let loose hundreds of perfect bubbles."
They do that.
Catra looks kind of indignant but not surprised or particularly angry to see them, and Bow is still dripping wet in the foreground.
"You can try to burst my bubbles, Catra," says She-Ra, "But don't rain on my parade!" Booooo. One at a time, girl, you gotta let them breathe!
End Page 10.
Page 11: A pale blue caption box reads, "Catra aimed a steady stream of Shower Power at She-Ra's lovely bubbles. Pop! Pop! Pop! The fearsome feline's aim was perfect. Several bubbles burst at once but, try as she might, Catra could not break them all."
Catra sprays She-Ra and her bubbles, clearly unhappy, while She-Ra continues to use the Bubble Blower against her. A few of the bubbles pop.
End Page 11.
Page 12: A pale blue caption box reads, "She-Ra's Bubble Blower worked its special magic. A crystal clear shield formed around her frightened friends. Even Catra's strongest blast of Shower Power could not penetrate it. Kissing their sad faces gently, the bubbles made Glimmer and the others smile."
Catra claws ineffectively at a series of bubbles around SweetBee, Crystal Sun Dancer, uh. Perfuma? With red hair? Maybe? Like they didn't line her well so they just colored everything red? But also there are lines on her shoulders as one might see in a jacket. Also Glimmer is there. Only SweetBee is smiling, and it looks kind of scared tbh.
"Why, Glimmer—would you take a look around us?" asks a startled Bow.
"Ooh, that tickles!" says Glimmer, smiling brightly. Bubbles are touching both of their faces.
End Page 12.
Page 13: A pale blue caption box reads, "No one had ever seen the likes of it! The light of their smiles had turned Catra's drenching drizzle into rainbows—hundreds of them! Etheria's good citizens were merrier than ever. The evil she-cat's dark plans had failed."
This might be the gayest minicomic. It's hard to move past 'Catra gets a bunch of women wet' but they're literally just holding a parade under a giant rainbow and blowing kisses, I mean bubbles which kiss you. Ahem.
Not some of Skip's stronger work though, he stuck too closely to the color palette he'd set with the 'yellow sky' thing and just added some alternating stripes of blue. But with all the characters on this page I imagine he had his work cut out for him… probably wanted to keep it from getting TOO chaotic.
Everybody's smiling at each other, including the bubbles, which is… I mean I guess they're reflecting the revelers' smiles? I don't THINK they're sentient. Bow, Peekablue, that guy with the wishbone instrument and the pageboy haircut, Royal Swift Wind, Bubble Power She-Ra, Frosta, SweetBee, Crystal Sun Dancer and a couple of incidentals are all officially cheered up.
"Bubbles! Bubbles! For all my trouble… I am undone!" says a scowling Catra. A bunch of smiling bubbles float past her face. Probably going in for a kiss, huh.
End Page 13.
Page 14: A pale blue caption box reads, "So it was that She-Ra led the grand parade. And though their spirits had been dampened for a time, no one was the worse for wear. "Long live the Rebellion!" Bow shouted, and the crowd joined in his cheer."
Honestly if there were any place for a two-page spread I'd say it was here, but whatever, not my circus not my monkeys. SweetBee is flying overhead, Peekablue is climbing the float in a new, orange top, Swift Wind is blond, Enchanta, Bow, She-Ra and Glimmer are all beaming. Frosta is there, except she's even blonder than She-Ra. I think the yellow wash may have gotten away from Skip here. The float is back, and the flowers appear to have dried off too. Crystal Moonbeam isn't smiling, but he looks fancy again so I'm sure he's fine.
Some guy is playing the flute in the foreground. He's wearing the same style hat as the wishbone guy, and his sleeves are… hm. You know, he kind of looks like Willawind. I don't think it IS him, but there's a resemblance.
"Loo-Kee here. Did you spot me on page 8?" asks Loo-Kee. Yes, you patronizing little beast, we did. "Now for the moral of this tale: A smile's a frown turned upside down. Wear one each day—you'll chase your troubles away."
End Page 14.
End ID]
#motu#minicomics#she-ra#adora#bow#peekablue#glimmer#enchanta#crystal moonbeam#crystal sun dancer#sweetbee#spirit#frosta#perfuma#bubble power she-ra#shower power catra#loo-kee#swift wind#royal swift wind#uhh#willawind#just in case
27 notes
·
View notes
Text
Looks like the abandoned Looney Tunes all-animated feature, THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP, finally got a U.S. distributor in Ketchup Entertainment. They're known for FERRARI, HYPNOTIC, a more recent Hellboy movie that's debuting later in the year, and a couple other random little pictures... Maybe not a big time distributor or one of the well-known smallies, but at least *some studio* got the picture and it WILL come to theaters.
No release date is set, which tells me that it'll probably debut during some quiet stretch some time next year? March is open, for starters. 2025 is a little sparse on big-time animated features, and might get even more sparse should this animation strike fully kick in soon. Comes on the heels of Warner Discovery posting some very, erm, embarrassing earnings. How's your strategy working out there, Davey?
It's astounding to me that the first-ever all-animated movie featuring characters from Warner Bros.' beloved Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies library is not being released by Warner Bros., but instead some small distributor. And it's already out in Europe...
This reminds me of something...
This was strangely the norm for some animated movies circa the late 1980s/early 1990s...
Some examples of these include... FELIX THE CAT: THE MOVIE, Don Bluth's ROCK-A-DOODLE, Filmation's unofficial Snow White sequel HAPPILY EVER AFTER, and TOM & JERRY: THE MOVIE.
All of these were released domestically well after a foreign release date, many months or even YEARS earlier.
FELIX THE CAT: THE MOVIE was completed around mid-1987 with a lot of the work outsourced to Hungary and Bulgaria, and had lost its original distributor, New World Pictures. It supposedly debuted at an Italian film festival sometime in fall 1988, but a lot of signs point to its January 1989 debut at the inaugural Los Angeles Animation Celebration being the first-ever screening of it. The UK got a theatrical release of the film in mid-to-late 1990, and here in the U.S., it ultimately skipped theaters for a direct-to-video release in August 1991. From Disney no less, under the Buena Vista Home Video label.
ROCK-A-DOODLE is known for being Bluth's bizarre follow-up to his more divisive ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN, which had trouble in theaters playing next to THE LITTLE MERMAID, but did much better on home video. ROCK-A-DOODLE did way worse and its critical reception wasn't great to say the least, but the interesting thing is, it was completed about a year after ALL DOGS' Thanksgiving 1989 theatrical release.
In fact, a trailer for it appears on the spring 1990 ALL DOGS VHS release, featuring cut and re-done footage after the focus groups had their say during post. ROCK-A-DOODLE also has a 1990 copyright date in its credits, but financial agita with their first pick of distributor (the very short-lived MGM-Pathe Communications) held up the release. Switching to The Samuel Goldwyn Company by the next year, they saw that fall 1991 was undoable, what with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and FIEVEL GOES WEST (the sequel to Bluth's own AN AMERICAN TAIL, which he bowed out of) opening around the Thanksgiving frame. ROCK-A-DOODLE finally opened in the U.S. in April 1992... It had already been released in the UK in August 1991, and a few other European markets until then.
HAPPILY EVER AFTER's a curious one, as that film went through at least one other title before being released... And a lot of legal battles with Disney. In fact, the film was released well after Filmation went under. HAPPILY EVER AFTER first debuted in the Philippines under the title SNOW WHITE: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES in June 1989, and landed in various other markets shortly thereafter... The U.S. release wouldn't be until May 1993 via a shady distributor called First National Film Corp., funnily coinciding with Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS making its final run in theaters.
TOM & JERRY: THE MOVIE made its debut in Germany in October 1992, the U.S. release was from Miramax in May 1993. Same day as HAPPILY EVER AFTER, actually, the 28th. Weird how the first Tom & Jerry movie, based on two American cartoon icons, debuted internationally first. And us yanks didn't get it for a while.
I know that all of those movies aren't very well-regarded, and some would argue that their perceived quality factored into their staggered international rollouts. If you weren't Disney back then, you weren't necessarily guaranteed to get out there upon completion. Even Don Bluth didn't get to enjoy that kind of thing, post-Spielberg. But this was a strangely common occurrence during American animation's 2nd Golden Age, more so than the previous decade.
Whereas THE DAY THE EARTH BLEW UP? Everyone who has seen it, that I know of, have praised it out the wazoo. Its U.S. release is only taking so long because the guy running Warner Bros. doesn't seem to like movies very much, and no one else seemed to want to jump at a Looney Tunes feature film of this caliber and quality. I'm guessing this is largely because of GFM Animation, who picked up the film shortly after Zaslav offloaded it. I'm guessing that GFM was determined to get this movie a worldwide theatrical release. Including the U.S., and that it wouldn't just show up on Netflix or whatever here. Maybe they understood that the Looney Tunes are American icons, and goddamnit their first TRUE animated feature film that *isn't* a clipshow movie (like, say, THE BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER MOVIE from 1979) nor a hybrid should get a theatrical release!
That's very nice of them, but jeez, is that how icky 2D animation is to Hollywood that it took this long? And that it landed with Ketchup, a company I hadn't even heard of 'til now? Showbiz is quite curious in America, innit?
Anyways, that's great news... I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for an eventual release date...
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
Holidays 9.10
Holidays
Alpaca Day
Amerindian Heritage Day (Guyana)
Blame It On the Large Hadron Collider Day
Children’s Day (Honduras)
Crayfish Day (French Republic)
Day of the Homeland (Germany)
Dia del Nino (Children’s Day; Honduras)
Festival of the Poets (Japan)
Godsall Day (Day of Rest in Southern Outer Tibet)
Grandparents’ & Family Caregivers’ Day (Florida)
Harvest Home Nibbling Contest (Gremlins)
Heritage Open Days begin (UK)
International Creepy Boston Dynamics Robotic Horse Day
International Gynaecological Awareness Day
International Make-Up Day
National Acid Attack Awareness Day (Nepal)
National American Indian/Alaska Native Hope for Life Day
National Anti-Junk Light Day
National Day (Gibraltar)
National Mamablogger Day (Netherlands)
National Sewerage Day (Japan)
National Stick a Fork Up Your Nose Day
Old-Timers Day
Puyallup Fair begins (Washington)
St. George’s Caye Day (Belize)
Scapegoat Day
Sew Be It Day (a.k.a. Sewing Machine Day)
Stop Junk Light Day
Swap Ideas Day
Take Goofy Pictures Day
Teacher's Day (China)
Top Up Day
White Balloon Day
World Suicide Prevention Day (UN)
Food & Drink Celebrations
Buy a Regular Drink Day
International Canned Cocktail Day
International Vegan Butterbeeer Day
National Hot Dog Day [also 3.30 & mid-July]
National Port Wine Day
TV Dinner Day
2nd Sunday in September
Auditor's Day (Scientology) [2nd Sunday]
Day of the Homeland (Germany) [2nd Sunday]
Grandparent's Day (Canada) [Sunday after 1st Monday]
Great Procession of Tournai (Belgium) [2nd Sunday]
Hug Your Hound Day [2nd Sunday]
Joust of the Quintana: La Rivincita (The Rematch; Italy) [2nd or 3rd Sunday, Pt. 1 in July]
National Bilby Day (Australia) [2nd Sunday]
National Dementia Carers Day (UK) [2nd Sunday]
National Education Sunday (UK) [2nd Sunday]
National Firefighters’ Memorial Day (Canada) [2nd Sunday]
National Pet Memorial Day [2nd Sunday]
PBC (Primary Biliary Cholangitis) Awareness Day [2nd Sunday]
Racial Justice Sunday [2nd Sunday]
Sustainable House Day [2nd Sunday]
Vanavanemate Päev (Estonia) [2nd Sunday]
Independence Days
Gibraltar National Day (Referendum of 1967)
Juclandia (Declared; 2001) [unrecognized]
Schwanensee (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]
Feast Days
Albatross Appreciation Day (Pastafarian)
Alexander Crummell (Episcopal Church)
Aubert (Christian; Saint)
Beaverinne (Muppetism)
Chico Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
Chuseok (Korean Harvest Festival) [15th Day of 8th Lunar Moon]
Edmund James Peck (Anglican Church of Canada)
Finian (a.k.a. Winin; Christian; Saint)
Ganesh Chaturthi (Hinduism)
Karma Puja (Jharkhand, India)
Lope de Vega (Positivist; Saint)
Marianne von Werefkin (Artology)
Media Aestas VIII (Pagan)
Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader, and Dativus, Bishops and their companions (Christian; Martyrs)
Nicholas of Tolentino (Christian; Saint)
Pulcheria (Christian; Saint)
Salvius, Bishop of Albi (Christian; Saint)
Theodard of Maastricht (Christian; Saint)
Thomas Tsugi, Charles Spinola, and Great Martyrs of Nagasaki (Christian; Saint)
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Fatal Day (Pagan) [18 of 24]
Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]
Unglückstage (Unlucky Day; Pennsylvania Dutch) [23 of 30]
Premieres
Blue of Noon, by Georges Bataille (Novel; 1935)
Bullwinkle Takes the Wheel or The Bum Steer (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 212; 1963)
Brand New Day (a.k.a. Bran New Day; Film; 2010)
Cracked Ice (WB MM Cartoon; 1938)
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (TV Series; 1990)
Gunsmoke (TV Show; 1955)
Hellraiser (Film; 1987)
It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (TV Series’ 1986)
Good Old Boys, by Randy Newman (Album; 1974)
The Joy Luck Club (Film; 1993)
King Neptune (Disney Cartoon; 1932)
The Lone Ranger (Animated Filmation TV Series; 1966)
My Little Pony (Animated TV Series; 2010)
Nightmare Alley,by William Lindsay Gresham (Novel; 1946)
The Orville (TV Series; 2017)
Our Song, by Taylor Swift (Song; 2007)
Pluto’s Fledgling (Disney Cartoon; 1948)
The Saint’s Getaway, by Leslie Charteris (Novel; 1933) [Saint #10]
Scooby-Doo! And the Spooky Scarecrow (WB Animated Film; 2013)
Smells Like Teen Spirit, by Nirvana (Song; 1991)
The Spirit of Seventy Sex (Adult Film; 1976)
Test for Echo, by Rush (Album; 1996)
Thunderstruck, by AC/DC (Song; 1990)
The Tick (Animated TV Series; 1994)
Topsy Turvy or Emit Yvrut Yspot (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 211; 1963)
True Romance (Film; 1993)
Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking’ About Him?) (Documentary Film; 2010)
The X-Files (TV Series; 1993)
You’re Too Careless with Your Kisses! (WB MM Cartoon; 1932)
Today’s Name Days
Carlo, Diethard, Isabella, Nikolaus (Austria)
Izabela, Nikola, Sebastijan (Croatia)
Irma (Czech Republic)
Buchardt (Denmark)
Lembe, Lembi, Lemme, Lemmi (Estonia)
Kaleva, Kalevi (Finland)
Inès (France)
Carlo, Diethard, Isabella, Niels (Germany)
Ersatz, Erastos, Kilmentini, Klimis, Minodora, Mitrodora, Nymfodora, Poulcgeria (Greece)
Hunor, Nikolett (Hungary)
Nicola (Italy)
Albertīne, Jausma (Latvia)
Girmintė, Konstancija, Kostė, Mikalojus, Tautgirdas (Lithuania)
Tor, Tord (Norway)
Aldona, Łukasz, Mikołaj, Mścibor, Pulcheria (Poland)
Oleg (Slovakia)
Nicolás (Spain)
Tord, Turid (Sweden)
Anabel, Annabel, Annabella, Annabelle, Arnie, Arnold, Arnolda, Arnoldo, Porter, Pulcheria (USA)
Today is Also…
Day of Year: Day 253 of 2024; 112 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 7 of week 36 of 2023
Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 6 of 28]
Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 26 (Xin-Wei)
Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)
Hebrew: 24 Elul 5783
Islamic: 24 Safar 1445
J Cal: 13 Aki; Sixday [13 of 30]
Julian: 28 August 2023
Moon: 16%: Waning Crescent
Positivist: 1 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Lope de Vega]
Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 14 of 15]
Season: Summer (Day 81 of 94)
Zodiac: Virgo (Day 20 of 32)
Calendar Changes
Shakespeare (The Modern Drama) [Month 10 of 13; Positivist]
1 note
·
View note
Text
Holidays 9.10
Holidays
Alpaca Day
Amerindian Heritage Day (Guyana)
Blame It On the Large Hadron Collider Day
Children’s Day (Honduras)
Crayfish Day (French Republic)
Day of the Homeland (Germany)
Dia del Nino (Children’s Day; Honduras)
Festival of the Poets (Japan)
Godsall Day (Day of Rest in Southern Outer Tibet)
Grandparents’ & Family Caregivers’ Day (Florida)
Harvest Home Nibbling Contest (Gremlins)
Heritage Open Days begin (UK)
International Creepy Boston Dynamics Robotic Horse Day
International Gynaecological Awareness Day
International Make-Up Day
National Acid Attack Awareness Day (Nepal)
National American Indian/Alaska Native Hope for Life Day
National Anti-Junk Light Day
National Day (Gibraltar)
National Mamablogger Day (Netherlands)
National Sewerage Day (Japan)
National Stick a Fork Up Your Nose Day
Old-Timers Day
Puyallup Fair begins (Washington)
St. George’s Caye Day (Belize)
Scapegoat Day
Sew Be It Day (a.k.a. Sewing Machine Day)
Stop Junk Light Day
Swap Ideas Day
Take Goofy Pictures Day
Teacher's Day (China)
Top Up Day
White Balloon Day
World Suicide Prevention Day (UN)
Food & Drink Celebrations
Buy a Regular Drink Day
International Canned Cocktail Day
International Vegan Butterbeeer Day
National Hot Dog Day [also 3.30 & mid-July]
National Port Wine Day
TV Dinner Day
2nd Sunday in September
Auditor's Day (Scientology) [2nd Sunday]
Day of the Homeland (Germany) [2nd Sunday]
Grandparent's Day (Canada) [Sunday after 1st Monday]
Great Procession of Tournai (Belgium) [2nd Sunday]
Hug Your Hound Day [2nd Sunday]
Joust of the Quintana: La Rivincita (The Rematch; Italy) [2nd or 3rd Sunday, Pt. 1 in July]
National Bilby Day (Australia) [2nd Sunday]
National Dementia Carers Day (UK) [2nd Sunday]
National Education Sunday (UK) [2nd Sunday]
National Firefighters’ Memorial Day (Canada) [2nd Sunday]
National Pet Memorial Day [2nd Sunday]
PBC (Primary Biliary Cholangitis) Awareness Day [2nd Sunday]
Racial Justice Sunday [2nd Sunday]
Sustainable House Day [2nd Sunday]
Vanavanemate Päev (Estonia) [2nd Sunday]
Independence Days
Gibraltar National Day (Referendum of 1967)
Juclandia (Declared; 2001) [unrecognized]
Schwanensee (Declared; 2011) [unrecognized]
Feast Days
Albatross Appreciation Day (Pastafarian)
Alexander Crummell (Episcopal Church)
Aubert (Christian; Saint)
Beaverinne (Muppetism)
Chico Day (Church of the SubGenius; Saint)
Chuseok (Korean Harvest Festival) [15th Day of 8th Lunar Moon]
Edmund James Peck (Anglican Church of Canada)
Finian (a.k.a. Winin; Christian; Saint)
Ganesh Chaturthi (Hinduism)
Karma Puja (Jharkhand, India)
Lope de Vega (Positivist; Saint)
Marianne von Werefkin (Artology)
Media Aestas VIII (Pagan)
Nemesianus, Felix, Lucius, another Felix, Litteus, Polianus, Victor, Jader, and Dativus, Bishops and their companions (Christian; Martyrs)
Nicholas of Tolentino (Christian; Saint)
Pulcheria (Christian; Saint)
Salvius, Bishop of Albi (Christian; Saint)
Theodard of Maastricht (Christian; Saint)
Thomas Tsugi, Charles Spinola, and Great Martyrs of Nagasaki (Christian; Saint)
Lucky & Unlucky Days
Fatal Day (Pagan) [18 of 24]
Tomobiki (友引 Japan) [Good luck all day, except at noon.]
Unglückstage (Unlucky Day; Pennsylvania Dutch) [23 of 30]
Premieres
Blue of Noon, by Georges Bataille (Novel; 1935)
Bullwinkle Takes the Wheel or The Bum Steer (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 212; 1963)
Brand New Day (a.k.a. Bran New Day; Film; 2010)
Cracked Ice (WB MM Cartoon; 1938)
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (TV Series; 1990)
Gunsmoke (TV Show; 1955)
Hellraiser (Film; 1987)
It’s Garry Shandling’s Show (TV Series’ 1986)
Good Old Boys, by Randy Newman (Album; 1974)
The Joy Luck Club (Film; 1993)
King Neptune (Disney Cartoon; 1932)
The Lone Ranger (Animated Filmation TV Series; 1966)
My Little Pony (Animated TV Series; 2010)
Nightmare Alley,by William Lindsay Gresham (Novel; 1946)
The Orville (TV Series; 2017)
Our Song, by Taylor Swift (Song; 2007)
Pluto’s Fledgling (Disney Cartoon; 1948)
The Saint’s Getaway, by Leslie Charteris (Novel; 1933) [Saint #10]
Scooby-Doo! And the Spooky Scarecrow (WB Animated Film; 2013)
Smells Like Teen Spirit, by Nirvana (Song; 1991)
The Spirit of Seventy Sex (Adult Film; 1976)
Test for Echo, by Rush (Album; 1996)
Thunderstruck, by AC/DC (Song; 1990)
The Tick (Animated TV Series; 1994)
Topsy Turvy or Emit Yvrut Yspot (Rocky & Bullwinkle Cartoon, S5, Ep. 211; 1963)
True Romance (Film; 1993)
Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking’ About Him?) (Documentary Film; 2010)
The X-Files (TV Series; 1993)
You’re Too Careless with Your Kisses! (WB MM Cartoon; 1932)
Today’s Name Days
Carlo, Diethard, Isabella, Nikolaus (Austria)
Izabela, Nikola, Sebastijan (Croatia)
Irma (Czech Republic)
Buchardt (Denmark)
Lembe, Lembi, Lemme, Lemmi (Estonia)
Kaleva, Kalevi (Finland)
Inès (France)
Carlo, Diethard, Isabella, Niels (Germany)
Ersatz, Erastos, Kilmentini, Klimis, Minodora, Mitrodora, Nymfodora, Poulcgeria (Greece)
Hunor, Nikolett (Hungary)
Nicola (Italy)
Albertīne, Jausma (Latvia)
Girmintė, Konstancija, Kostė, Mikalojus, Tautgirdas (Lithuania)
Tor, Tord (Norway)
Aldona, Łukasz, Mikołaj, Mścibor, Pulcheria (Poland)
Oleg (Slovakia)
Nicolás (Spain)
Tord, Turid (Sweden)
Anabel, Annabel, Annabella, Annabelle, Arnie, Arnold, Arnolda, Arnoldo, Porter, Pulcheria (USA)
Today is Also…
Day of Year: Day 253 of 2024; 112 days remaining in the year
ISO: Day 7 of week 36 of 2023
Celtic Tree Calendar: Muin (Vine) [Day 6 of 28]
Chinese: Month 7 (Geng-Shen), Day 26 (Xin-Wei)
Chinese Year of the: Rabbit 4721 (until February 10, 2024)
Hebrew: 24 Elul 5783
Islamic: 24 Safar 1445
J Cal: 13 Aki; Sixday [13 of 30]
Julian: 28 August 2023
Moon: 16%: Waning Crescent
Positivist: 1 Shakespeare (10th Month) [Lope de Vega]
Runic Half Month: Rad (Motion) [Day 14 of 15]
Season: Summer (Day 81 of 94)
Zodiac: Virgo (Day 20 of 32)
Calendar Changes
Shakespeare (The Modern Drama) [Month 10 of 13; Positivist]
0 notes
Photo
Currently painting/possibly rendering this one ( to see which result looks better ), but I’ve had this idea in my head, of a festival or market day on Trolla, for ages and finally tried to draw it! I now just really want to draw lots of scenes about Trolla and life there. I feel like we already didn’t get to see much of it in the Filmation era and have seen literally nothing ( apart from the planet itself for a moment in Revelation ) since! And that’s a dang shame!!!
So I definitely took lots of liberties, because we really don’t see or know a whole lot. I imagine that while the council and magicians and everything wear the traditional robes and hats, probably the everyday folk and those with other professions, etc., must wear differing clothes and such, like Dree-Elle and Yukkers.
I also want to learn how to draw scenes and backgrounds and am challenging myself to do so more often outside of comics, to improve at it... hopefully! Anyway, I just really love Trollans so much and I’ve been yearning for a planet that doesn’t exist. Unless? >__> * looks longingly at space with the knowledge that there’s an infinitude out there and hey, you never know what’s out there, right? *
17 notes
·
View notes
Note
Glad I could inadvertently help reignite (pun) your love of Dragons. All that’s missing from your version of Granamyr are a few splashes of slime green with his with his cranberry red - to combine his Filmation color palette with his Vintage Comic one. Also would be festive. Otherwise I really like what you did with him. Though I also can’t help but note that your depiction of Granamyr is clearly in the prime of his youth, while I’d imagine that by the time he meets the heroes, he’s far past it.
I drew him in the spur of the moment. I'll have to figure out later how to make a dragon age. Maybe torn wings and broken frills, missing scales or something. I don't see dragons aging the same way a mammal would - with sagging skin.
The scales keep the skin's shape no matter how old the creature is.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Rise Of Skywalker Review [SPOILERICIOUS]
=0=
I’m going to post all the SPOILER stuff way below in section 3, so as not to ruin anything for anybody who hasn’t seen the movie yet.
You’ll get plenty of warnings.
=1=
In my old age I’m starting to divide creative works into three groups: Good, bad, and not-so-good.
A good creative work is any where the strengths overwhelmingly outweigh the weaknesses; a bad one is the obverse.
A not-so-good work is one where the strengths and weaknesses balance each other out.
It’s the kind of a work that will doubtless please those audience members who really enjoy the strengths in it, and equally irritate those annoyed by the weaknesses.
In my estimation, a not-so-good work is one done with straight forward intent and as often as not, a fair degree of technical and aesthetic competency, but fails to jell as a cohesive whole.
No one need feel ashamed for enjoying a not-so-good work, and no one involved in the making of a not-so-good work should feel bad about their contribution (unless, of course, their contribution turns out to be one of the weaknesses that should have been avoided).
Theodore Sturgeon famously observed “90% of everything is crap.”
I think that’s a little harsh.
I agree with him that only 10% of anything is good, but think only 40% falls into the crap bin.
Most stuff falls in the 50% I call not-so-good.
Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker is in that 50%.
. . .
The good stuff is really good.
Elsewhere I’ve posted my enthusiasm for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi hinge in no small part on just how emo Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) could get, and holy cow, does he ever deliver in The Rise Of Skywalker.
Easily my favorite parts of the picture.
Doesn’t really mesh with anything else in the movie but, hey, ya can’t have everything, right? (I’ll discuss his performance in a little more detail in section =3=.)
Other performances range from adequate to doing-the-best-they-can-with-the-material to okay-smartass-you-try-recreating-a-dead-actress-via-CGI.
The dialog in The Rise Of Skywalker is the worst of any film in the series, with the possible exception Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge Of The Sith, which I haven’t seen and have no intention of seeing (but more on that below…).
It’s not an attempt to depict characters talking, it’s a series of shouted declarative sentences.
Elsewhere I’ve referred to The Rise Of Skywalker as the best Jason Of Star Command episode ever made.
For those who don’t get the reference, Jason Of Star Command was a low budget albeit imaginative Saturday morning kid-vid Star Wars rip off by Filmation Studios.
To make sure the youngest kids in the audience understood what was going on, they tended to hammer home plot points repeatedly.
DRAGOS
Jason! In just sixteen hours my space fleet
will destroy Star Command!
STAR COMMAND
Jason! Dragos is going to destroy us with his
space fleet in just sixteen hours!
JASON
Don’t worry, Star Command! I’ll stop Dragos from
destroying you with his space fleet in sixteen hours.
NARRATOR
(i.e., Norm Prescott)
Jason has only sixteen hours to stop Dragos from
destroying Star Command with his space fleet!
There is far too much of that in The Rise Of Skywalker.
Ten minutes into the movie, and there was already far too much of that…
The opening credit crawl reveals an off camera plot development that literally deserved an entire film of its own to fully explore.
There is no sustained coherent plot to The Rise Of Skywalker:
Well, we gotta do this,
now we gotta do that,
first we gotta find this thing,
then we gotta find that thing,
now I’m feeling blue,
now I’m gonna get encouraged,
etc., etc., and of course, etc.
Everything feel frenetic, not fast paced.
There are far too many scenes that exist just to sell action figures and toy vehicles.
There was a desire to tie off loose ends and say good-bye to favorite characters and that was a mistake.
It undercuts the urgency of the story (or rather, the desired urgency; the fact the film is called The Rise Of Skywalker means everybody in the freakin’ audience ALREADY KNOWS HOW THE DAMN THING IS GONNA END!
(This is not a problem unique to Star Wars. Gene Siskell famously upbraided Roger Ebert for spoiling the ending to the third Star Trek movie, to which Ebert retorted, “Oh, come on! They’re going to call a forty million dollar movie The Search For Spock and not find him?!?!?”)
There is one nice little breather scene (“little” only in screen time; visually it’s pretty big and impressive): The Festival of the Ancestors on the desert world Pasaana that gives a nice touch of exotic space opera flavor to the proceedings.
All of the Star Wars movies offer really great art direction and visual design, and The Rise Of Skywalker certainly delivers in that category.
Which makes the occasional mediocre special effects shots all the more obvious.
The Rise Of Skywalker has a few painfully obvious matte shots, a few shots obviously composed in post-production, and a few shots where the audience becomes aware the actors are performing in front of a greenscreen.
You can get away with mediocre visuals so long as there is consistency in their mediocrity.
If everything else consistently looks great, a so-so shot spoils the illusion; if everything consistently looks so-so, it’s simply part of the work’s look.
Indeed, you’re better off with consistently mediocre work highlighted by a few great shots than consistently great stuff undercut by a few mediocre ones.
Best thing about the movie is the complete lack of Jar Jar Binks.
=2=
Before diving deeper in The Rise Of Skywalker, let’s look at the series as a whole (just the numbered theatrical episodes, not standalone films, TV series, video games, comics, novels, etc.).
I’ve said the original Star Wars was the movie an entire generation had been waiting all their lives to see.
George Lucas wanted to do Flash Gordon but when Universal turned him down, created his own space opera.
Lucas, it needs be noted, is not a good writer.
Whatever visual talents he has, they don’t extend to telling a good story.
One can easily find early drafts of Star Wars online, and while they all share certain elements, they’re all pretty bad.
The development of Star Wars the movie grew organically with storyboard and production art, characters and incidents changing and evolving along the way.
It’s long been rumored that a more skilled writer than Lucas came in to do the final draft; one thing’s for sure, the shooting script is head and shoulders above the earlier drafts.
Star Wars the original Han-shoots-first-dammit theatrical release is very much a product of the 1970s.
20th Century Fox thought they had a good enough kiddee matinee movie for summer release; they expected their big sci-fi blockbuster of the year to be Damnation Alley.
Instead, they hit a nerve and found themselves with a blockbuster on their hands.
Lucas did show one great example of foresight: He trademarked all the names / characters / vehicles and held the licenses on them, not 20th Century Fox.
This gave him the war chest he needed to build the Lucasfilm empire.
And let’s give Lucas and his crew their due: They added immeasurably to the technical art of film making, as well as making several entertaining films.
What Lucas did not fully envision was how to mold his Star Wars material into a coherent and thematically cohesive saga.
He started out with grandiose plans -- four trilogies with a standalone film connecting each for a total of 15 movies -- but that gradually got whittled down to 12, then 9.
After Star Wars Episode VI: The Return Of The Jedi, Lucas put the Star Wars movie series on hold, waiting for film making technology to develop to the point where he could tell the stories the way he wanted to tell them.
Okay, fair enough.
But the problem is that while the film making technology improved, the technology of the Star Wars universe didn’t.
As I said, the original Star Wars is very much a 70s movie in taste / tone / style / sensibility.
While the designs look sufficiently sci-fi, they reflect robots and spacecraft designs of the 1970s -- in fact, even earlier in many cases.
That fit in with Lucas’ “used universe” look and the tag line “A long ago in a galaxy far, far away...”
But compare the original Star Wars with Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Kubrick spent a lot of time researching where technology was heading.
Long before visual displays and vector graphics became commonplace in real world aircraft, he showed them being used in the future.
The first example of what we refer to today as a computer tablet appeared in 2001 as a throwaway background detail.
Kubrick’s next film was A Clockwork Orange and he successfully predicted punk culture a decade ahead of reality (his only mistake being the assumption white, not black, would be the base color).
Star Wars Eps I - III take place a generation before the original Star Wars movie.
Star Wars Eps VII - IX take place a generation after.
Name a two generation span since the start of the industrial age that is not marked by radical technological change that produces an ensuing change in the social order.
Now I grant you, the Star Wars universe isn’t trying to tell that kind of story, but the story it is telling is static.
Characters in The Rise Of Skywalker talk about cloning as if it were A Really Big Deal.
Cloning today is cutting edge bio-tech, to be sure, but it’s already common place.
It’s as if the Star Wars characters were getting worked up over steam engines.
One can intercut scenes from the movies and, unless one is a familiar with each movie, it’s impossible to tell one film from another.
Lucas’ financial success enabled him to issue edicts re Star Wars (and other Lucasfilm projects) that undercut the strengths of his projects.
Lucas is a technological guru and a savvy businessman, but he really struggles to tell a story.
Frankly, I think he would have been a better film maker if he’d spent a decade or so making American Graffiti scale movies, not space operas and epic fantasies and adventure movies.
His decision to make the original Star Wars the fourth episode in his saga and going back to start his story with his villain was fatally flawed.
I grant following the Skywalker saga from Anakin to Luke to Rey could work if it started with Anakin.
But what he did was the equivalent of the James Bond movies jumping back in time to follow the pre-Bond career of Ernst Stavo Blofeld.
(And the Bond movies, at least up until the Daniel Craig era, are all standalone films insofar as one does not have to see any of the previous films to understand and enjoy the one being watched, not does the sequence they’re viewed in matter. And the Craig films were conceived from the beginning as having a coherent overall arc, so in that case they are the exception to the rule.)
The joyous whiz-bang space opera of the original Star Wars got bogged down in a lot of meaningless politics and talks of trade treaties, none of which explained why anyone would want to conquer the universe in order to rule it as a decrepit, diseased dictator in a dark hole.
Look at Hitler and Stalin and Castro and Mao and the Kim family in North Korea.
These guys enjoyed themselves (well, Hitler did until things went south for him). They loved the attention and went around preening themselves in public.
The off screen Empire (and implied Emperor) of the original Star Wars served that film well: It was a story about a tactical conflict, not a treatise on the philosophy of governance.
Lucas’ universe does not make sense even in its own context.
And because of that, it becomes harder and harder to fully engage with it.
A sci-fi movie doesn’t have to explain everything, but it has to at least imply there is an underlying order that links up.
Lucas began subverting his own universe almost immediately.
The Force was originally presented as a spiritual discipline that any sufficiently dedicated intelligent being could gain access to. (Robots seem to be specifically excluded from The Force, implying it needs a biological connection. But that would seem to exclude intelligences that may not be organic in the commonly accepted sense of the word, which means such beings cannot appear in the Star Wars universe, which means…well, I digress…)
That was a big hunk of the original Star Wars’ appeal, the thought that literally anybody could become a Jedi if they so desired.
It speaks to a religious bent in audiences from many different cultures around the world, and it offers up an egalitarian hope that allows everyone access to the Star Wars fantasy (“fantasy” in this context meaning the shared ideal).
But already in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back Lucas began betraying his original concept, sowing the seeds for self-serving deception and innate superiority as endemic in The Force.
By the time he got around to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Lucas abandoned the hope established in the original Star Wars movie.
Now one has to be a special somebody, not just dedicated.
Mind you, that sort of story has its adherents, too.
Way back in the 1940s sci-fi fans were saying “Fans are slans” in order to claim superiority over “mundanes”. Today many Harry Potter fans like to think of themselves as inherently superior to “Muggles”.
It’s a very appealing idea, so appealing that the United States of America is based on it, the assumption being that white people are endowed with more blessings -- and therefore more rights -- than non-white people (add force multipliers such as “rich” / “male” / “Christian” / “straight” and you get to lord it over everybody).
Lucas with his stupid midichlorians robbed audiences of their healthy egalitarian fantasy and replaced it with a far more toxic elitism.
It appeals to the narcissistic stain in the human soul, and encourages dominance and bullying and cruelty and harm as a result.
It’s an elitism that requires a technologically and sociologically stagnant society, one where clones and robots and slaves can all co-exist and nobody points out they are all essentially the same thing.
A progressive society -- and here I use “progressive” strictly in a scientific and technological sense (though as stated above, advances in scientific fields invariably lead to changes elsewhere) -- does not let such conditions exist unchanged for generations.
As technology changes and improves, the culture/s around it change (and hopefully improve, too).
As I mentioned above, I’ve never seen Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith.
My reason for not seeing it? Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones.
Little Anakin Skywalker and his mom are slaves in The Phantom Menace.
He saves the Jedis and Princess Padame’s collective asses in that movie.
Okay, you’d think at the end of the movie that Padame would hand Qui-gon her ATM card and say, “Here, go back to Tatooine and bail the kid’s mom out. He did a solid for us, it’s the least we can do for him.”
No, they leave her there because there is no desire to change the underlying social order of their universe.
There can be no changes in Lucas’ bleak, barren moral universe.
There can be no help, no hope, no improvement.
When an edict is issue -- be it Jedi council or Emperor (or president of Lucasfilm) -- it is to be obeyed without question or pause.
Daring to say one can change their status -- change their destiny -- results in tragedy (and ironically, proof that is their destiny).
It’s dismaying enough that a large number of people enjoy cosplaying Star Wars villains, especially storm troopers, as that seems to indicate they’re missing the whole point of why the rebels were striving against the Empire in the first place.
Originally that could be written off as (at best) just enjoying the cool costumes and props or (at worst) finding an excuse for bad behavior (i.e., “I vuz only followink orders”).
But Lucas’ tacitly endorsing a sense of innate superiority pretty much destroys everything about The Force that the original Star Wars audience found enlightening and ennobling.
The Star Wars universe has become at its core a very ugly thing, and The Rise Of Skywalker doesn’t really clean it up.
SPOILERS ahead.
=3=
Seriously, SPOILERS follow.
Holy crap, The Rise Of Skywalker is a damn mess.
Nice eye candy, but a mess.
It pretty much undoes everything good in the previous two episodes.
I’m glad it’s the “official” end of the original saga because now I never need to see another Star Wars movie ever again.
(Oh, I’ll keep my DVD of the original Star Wars and if I find Solo in a bargain bin somewhere I might pick that up, but as far as the rest of Star Wars goes, I am D.O.N.E.)
The series stopped making sense long ago, so I’m really in no mood to analyze why nothing links up or really works.
It’s full of absurd, stupid ideas, such as space barbarians galloping across the deck of a star destroyed on their space horsies.
The whole back and forth between among Palpatine / Kylo / Rey goes on for two long. If hating somebody is bad because it sucks you over to the Dark Side, then why doesn’t somebody start building Terminators that can track down beings with midichlorians and kill them? (They’ve got the technology to detect midichlorians, that’s canon.)
It’s not anywhere near a good movie. It’s not as bad as George Lucas’ Star Wars Episodes I - III, but it’s clearly the worst of the last trilogy.
The scene where Rey gets off camera encouragement from all the dead Jedi? It seemed awfully familiar to me, as if the writers consciously or unconsciously remembered the John Wilkes Booth / Lee Harvey Oswald scene in Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins where all the presidential assassins and would-be assassins past and future encourage him to plug Kennedy.
Not what I want in a Star Wars movie.
I think we may be seeing the end of Star Wars. It’s been crammed down our throats for too long. I’m aware of The Mandalorian series and how insanely popular it is, but y’know, sooner or later every pop culture craze dies out.
Star Wars has nowhere to go. Star Trek is hemmed in, too, but nowhere nearly as bad as Star Wars.
We’re about to enter a generational shift in America, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a badly dated 1970s sci-fi concept fails to make the cut.
It ends on a frustrating note, taking much too long to come to a close, far too much self-congratulatory bullshit, and the deliberate planting of clues for a future set of sequels should the Mouse start jonesin’ for that sweet, sweet Star Wars franchise money fix.
It’s a really bad script, and dragging Carrie Fisher’s digitally reanimated corpse into it and then killing her off by suicide is a damned stupid / offensive idea.
Mark Hamill’s ghost walking out of the flames of Jedi hell (thank you for that analogy, David Brin)? Wow, who didn’t see that one marching down the avenue?
Harrison Ford coming back as a memory / hallucination to tell Kylo to do the right thing? Skrue dat noiz.
(Though I have to say Kylo Ren is the best thing about the movie and his character turn parallels both Luke’s and Vader’s in The Return Of The Jedi only his is much more believable and poignant so dammit, Disney, you could have done a much better job with this movie than you did.)
The plot and pacing is straight out of a video game. First do this, then do that, now ya gotta do another thing -- feh!
And unless I misheard the dialog, this whole film supposedly takes place over a span of sixteen hours!!!
They visit a half dozen worlds, crash and repair spaceships, go undercover, get captured and escape, fight duels to the deal -- all in sixteen hours?!?!?
Yeesh.
And I’ll say this, the last line is wrong wrong WRONG.
If the Star Wars saga has taught us anything, it’s that Force users are a threat to everything.
They should be eliminated for the good of the universe.
Rey shouldn’t have buried the Skywalker lightsabers.
She should have destroyed them -- and the one she made, and any others she found lying around.
And when she’s asked at the very end what her name is, the answer should have been: “Rey…just Rey.”
I know I put The Rise Of Skywalker in the not-so-good bin, but truth be told, that’s the nostalgia talking; it’s only a eyelash away from being bad.
The whole epic saga is a failure as far as I’m concerned. One and done is the way to go; the moment it started making money as a toy franchise it went south.
© Buzz Dixon
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Films of the Decade (1 - 10)
10. Bait
Bait slips onto the list in the nick of time It is a 90 minute, black-and-white film, shot on 16mm with a fully post-dubbed soundtrack, set in a Cornish fishing village. As a technical exercise, Bait is enrapturing. The village is trapped in a filmic past, with a Pathé-like atmosphere tied with a bygone era of thick fog and a thriving industrial landscape. This stylistic choice pares back the clutter of modern soundtracks and brings to the fore an elegiac and foreboding mood. Bait is a wonderfully strange film, and let’s hope the enthusiastic reception in Britain spreads internationally.
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
Mad Max: Fury Road has become the model/rebuttal for how high octane action should work. I don’t think it’s an original model. I still think a lot of the giddy nut-and-bolts foundations of Ozysploitation is carried on into Fury Road. Of course, this time the budget is larger and the audience is wider. Fury Road will be on many people’s list due to many technical elements coming together - believe or not - carefully and with precision. No big wonder that it was the most awarded film of the 2015. George Miller brings out the eccentricity of the characters and the cars with the same glory as we’d expect from a Tex Avery cartoon. So often we are used to action fatigue that when something like Mad Max: Fury Road crashes in, it’s like fresh oxygen. Too right, good action is the hardest feat to pull off.
8. Araby
Araby is a 2017 Brazilian film I just saw this year. A few critics have mused whether what they saw is the Film of the Decade (this claim was initiated by The Hollywood Reporter’s Neil Young, and followed up by Guy Lodge of The Guardian). It would probably be a stretch for me to include it as one of my Films of 2019, but no matter how many cinemas it missed, I still think Araby is indicative of the one-man’s odyssey through worn-down labour. What astounded me is how the film itself stumbles into a story: the first twenty minutes is a kitchen sink drama until a young boy finds a journal of a recently deceased factory worker. From there, it is a film about somebody else; the factory with a more lyrical story than expected. It’s a simple turn which makes sense. Araby is that journal; a precious story stumbled upon.
7. The Master
There Will Be Blood was the film of the Noughties. Over this decade, there were two end-of-year lists which had a Paul Thomas Anderson film at the top. Last year it was Phantom Thread, and back in 2012 it was The Master. The coolness of The Master is that most of the cinematic elements displayed have a drift to them - the hypnotic Jonny Greenwood score, the near-floating camera movements, and the frames which show Joaquin Phoenix as a character who could fly into an explosive rage or lie aimlessly hanging off a ship. It is, indeed, a demonstration of a filmatic masterclass. Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are the compelling acting duo ever put to film this decade.
6. Burning
South Korea has built a reputation of making some of the most warped psychological thrillers of the 21st Century. This year, Bong Joon-Ho’s simmering social treatise Parasite became the first Korean film to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The year before, Burning was touted as the being the frontrunner at the same festival. It is a film which is beautifully mysterious and an outstanding example of side-swiping the audience. What starts off as a love story turns into social critique, but then becomes a film about a possible murder mystery. It might be asking more questions than answering them, but all the questions are tactfully scintillating. Burning is two-and-a-half hours long, I was gripped enough to yearn for an extra hour.
5. The Act of Killing / The Look of SIlence
Joshua Oppenheimer’s double bill The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence make up for the most revealing documentaries of the decade. Both are gut-wrenching, devastating, and mentally exhausting. Especially in The Act of Killing. In what could’ve been a chargeless stunt, the participants of the Indeonesian Communist Massacre are given the resources to produce a film depicting their crimes. The end result is something disorientating, gleeful, and utterly grotesque. Something that lets us, the audience, into their callous ego. By the end, something manages to penetrate. One of the massacre orchestrators find introspection. It is an extraordinary moment. Unforgettable.
4. La Quattro Volte
La Quattro Volte is a made up of four segments, each encompassing the Pythagorean “Four Turns” of life: the human realm, the animal realm, the plant realm, and finally the mineral. As the synopsis indicates, it is a film with a lot to project. Deep thought, awe, and contemplation; the wonderful thing about La Quattro Volte is that it is dialogue free, only an hour-and-a-half long, and spatially aware without coming across as sparse. It’s a methodical film with room for humour. In fact, one long static shot of an uphill street gave one of the biggest laughs of 2010. It will be known as That Goat Film, but La Quattro Volte has more to say than most films twice its length.
3. The Social Network
For half the decade it seemed that The Social Network was set to be the defining film of the decade on the basis of social relevance and evocation. Yet Facebook grew exponentially and so are its issues and, arguably, its dangers in modern society, to the point that the Facebook of 2019 is not the Facebook of 2004. Yet David Fincher has a grapple on the foreboding; of what is lingering in the air. With Aaron Sorkin’s script, the characters are intimidating in their quick-fire smartassery. In the end, there is an inclination that they are stepping down into a rabbit hole. The Social Network is expertly crafted and understands that it need not be a film about Facebook. It’s a film about reputation, legacy and control.
2. Boyhood
For the last three years of the decade, I knew that the toss-up for the top spot was between Moonlight and Boyhood. It was pretty close to being a tie, and part of me wishes it would be. However, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is an epic which lives up to its broad title. Better yet, it doesn’t follow through just one person’s navigation through life and phases: it follows the mother, the father and the sister. Linklater does it on a level which is without any hint of labour. Even with music and technological cues, it is still hard to pinpoint any jarring moments where the boy has gotten a year or two older. So take this as being indicative to Boyhood’s effortless brilliance: only now am I mentioning how the director filmed it over the span of twelve years.
1. Moonlight
Frustratingly, the envelope mix-up at the ceremony overshadowed any right Moonlight had to bask in prestige. It should’ve been a moment of pure celebration, because Barry Jenkins’ film is tremendous: a semi-tragic parable of a boy in three stages of inner turmoil. It is about sexual awakening, parental guidance and, yes, racial preconceptions of manlihood. On a stylistic level, Moonlight has a wealth of cinematic hues; Nicholas Britell’s poignant score feels like a boy trying to float on the surface of the ocean, the lighting is beautiful and it heightens those interludes in between the fights and shouting. Far from me to fawn over what has already been trumpeted, but Moonlight is extraordinary. The Academy may never be this right again.
Top 20 Films of the Decade
1. Moonlight
2. Boyhood
3. The Social Network
4. La Quattro Volte
5. The Act of Killing/The Look of Silence
6. Burning
7. The Master
8. Araby
9. Mad Max: Fury Road
10. Bait
11. O.J. Made In America
12. A Separation
13. You Were Never Really Here
14. Force Majeure
15. Paddington 2
16. Girlhood
17. Under The Skin
18. Dreams Of A Life
19. Song Of The Sea
20. Locke
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
421. Snow White Christmas (1980)
1/10
It is hard to write a review of a movie so studiously shitty as this, a movie which features not one, but two Snow Whites – that is, the Snow White from the original story, now queen, and her daughter, also perplexingly named Snow White. The younger Snow White’s constant companion is a fat, mentally challenged fellow named Grunyon, who entertains the other characters, if not the audience, with his goofy, fatuous antics. Every single line of dialogue sounds as though it is being read stammeringly off the script. The animation, by Filmation, is just like if the old He-Man cartoons were boring and had no monsters.
During the Christmas festival, Snow White Junior makes her first royal decree, which is that the old castle be remodeled into a perennial Christmas castle for the children of the kingdom. Shortly thereafter, a thunderstorm begins, and lightning conveniently strikes a block of ice, which melts to reveal the evil queen. She immediately seeks her magic mirror and demands to know if Snow White is alive, and it informs her that there are in fact two of the bitches now. She, equally as enraged as I am at this revelation, sets this utterly inane plot into motion by swearing to kill them both. (Frankly I would settle for one.) The evil queen freezes the whole kingdom but for the younger Snow White, who escapes to live with the seven friendly giants, and ain’t that just clever? She probably saves the day with the power of love or something, I don’t know.
1 note
·
View note
Text
Etherian Locations
Organizing my notes on Etherian locations. Non exhaustive ‘cause I gotta go through some MOTUC bios :/ (and also I took out the Dimensions) Sorted by ‘type of thing’, italics are sources
Villages
Allwyn, home of Norwin and Arden. in SPOP 2018 as Alwyn Filmation
Brigis, a village whose inhabitants enjoyed eternal life because their chief made a deal with a witch. It reappeared on Etheria for a single day once every five hundred years. Filmation
City of Nagar, a city of witches in the kingdom of Mystacor, UK World POP Annuals
City of Somal, several hours from the Whispering Woods and known for its Horde prison. UK World POP Annuals
City of Wizam, a wizard city in Mystacor. UK World POP Annuals
Colonia, a village robbed of food by the Horde. Filmation
Sven-Town, ruled from Dring House, in the North Fields of the Fright Zone. Managed by Mayor Binon and Attendant Mozz UK MOTU Comic Magazines
Dryl, a village adjacent to a mountain containing Etherium mines Filmation
Elberon, celebrating liberation from the Horde. full of mushroom-shaped buildings and an old well that the Horde used as a fuel tank, which Bow accidentally set on fire (everything was fine) Filmation
Elvok Village, home of the Elvoks, who we don’t need to talk about UK MOTU Comic Magazines
Fellwick Village, home of Madam Razz’s friend Grandma Bella UK POP Comic Magazines
Glenmar Village Filmation
Village of Goldwillow, Filmation
Greenfield Village, another Horde-starving-situation Filmation
Village of Greenthatch, under Horde control Filmation
Jayms-Town, a peasant village in the Fright Zone. UK MOTU Comic Magazines
Koala Village. I don’t want to talk about it. UK POP Comic Magazines
The village of Mandaville was very close to the Whispering Woods. They mostly grew grain and wheat until the Horde took their tools Filmation
The Manikins Village UK POP Comic Magazines
Town of Northland which isn’t part of the Kingdom of Snows, though its mountains can be seen from within town Filmation, Editora Abril POP Comics
Pine Town was a small settlement on the edge of the Valley of the Lost, rebel-friendly Filmation
Village of Seaworthy Filmation
Silverglade, home of wizard who could grant courage. There’s a Horde outpost on the road to it Filmation
Thaymor/e (both spellings canon) Filmation, Ladybird POP Books
The Twigget Village was located outside of the Whispering Woods, so it was subject to Horde attacks. Just a cluster of trees that they lived inside of Filmation
Village of Bluestones in the Orange Mountains, home to the wizard Tub and his nephews Rubadub and Dub UK World POP Annuals
The village of Bright Moon was the town surrounding Castle Bright Moon Filmation
The village of Gailbreth was Horde-occupied & plotting to rebel, so Hordak had Shadow Weaver steal their voices Filmation
The Village of Skee was famous for its apple trees and seasonal festivals US MOTU Magazines
Kingdoms/Castles
Kingdom of Alver, where Bow attempted Act 2 of Disney’s Robin Hood Filmation Bible
Blue Mountain, located far from the Whispering woods & ruled by Prince Highcliff. Few had ever met anyone from here Filmation
Kingdom of Bluestone, allies of the Rebellion. Castaspella had something of a leadership role. Seat of power was Blackmoor Castle. The tops of the castle’s towers looked like helmets. Filmation
Castle Bright Moon. Etheria’s “twin moons” powered the castle via the Moonstone in the Filmation cartoon. In the Ladybird books there’s a big lake called Lake Bright Moon at the base of it.
Castle Chill, Frosta’s castle in the Kingdom of Snows, Filmation
The Ice Desert was Frosta’s kingdom in the German audio plays. She ruled from the Ice Palace
Castle Condore, stronghold of Baron Condore in the Etherian desert, Filmation
Castle Darkspur, home to King Darkspur, Filmation Located in the Hinderlands
Castle Highpoint, stronghold of Prince Norb, located in the desert lowlands of Sand Valley, Filmation
Castle of King Jared, located in Darkedge/Dark Edge, which borders the Valley of the Lost. Home of the Crown of Knowledge Filmation
City of Tine, located on great plains surrounded by the Snowy Mountains of Tobok, surrounded by huge walls. Ruled by King Mola. Fragrant flowers grow in the area. UK World POP Annuals
The Coral Palace, home of Mermista. fortunately I don’t think we get an external shot of the castle so I don’t have to go back and tag it :) UK Pop Comic Magazines
Crystal Castle, usually located on the top of Skydancer Mountain and usually hidden from view (but not in the Ladybird POP Books). In the German audio plays, it was the source of Adora’s transformation, and was itself powered by the Corals of Promise, which were located in the shallow waters of the Ocean of Timebraids and protected by the Guardians of Time
Duke Drear’s Fortress, bones, skulls, etc. Located in the Shadow Kingdom
Elfworld, kingdom of King Varn and Prince Storm, who rule from Elfworld Castle Filmation
Freedom Castle, built by the extinct Guardians of Etheria, built on a site of magical power (which created sort of an Alwyn situation) UK POP Comic Magazines
Galacia, kingdom of the selkies, enemies of Frosta Filmation
Green Islands, a kingdom in the southern Growling Sea ruled by King Arbor Filmation
Greenvale, ruled by King Gruff but under Castaspella’s jurisdiction. Blue rabbit people Filmation
Half Moon, kingdom of magicats Filmation
Honeycomb Palace, home of Sweet Bee, from which she looked after the bees of Etheria UK POP Comic Magazines
Kingdom of Erelandia, subject to the Horde, ruled by King Duplis and Prince Hazar (who supported the Rebellion) Filmation
(?) Kingdom of GreenGlade, which I’m not actually sure is on Etheria bc it’s MOTUC but they’re saying it’s Double Trouble’s home kingdom. Sorry, “Double Mischief”’s
Kingdom of Greenleaf, ruled by Prince Daniel, who was engaged to Princess Ellanella of Stardell Golden MOTU Books
Kingdom of Stardell. While we’re at it. Both of these are rebel friendly btw Golden MOTU Books Ellanella ruled from the Palace of Stars
The Kingdom of Spikeheart was the Troll kingdom before they retreated underground when the Horde invaded & the other Etherians decline the trolls’ help Filmation
Light-Facet was Peekablue’s home in the middle of a beautiful flower garden northeast of the Tree of Living Dimensions. It was shaped like a large insect eye & made of transparent material so it shone like a diamond German audio plays
Not to be confused with Glimmer’s Light-Facet, which was southwest of the Crystal Castle and shone so brightly you could see it from miles away. She lived here when she moved out of Castle Bright Moon (I believe temporarily?) German audio plays
Peekablue’s house was located outside the Whispering Woods in the Filmation cartoon
The.... Perfumed Falcon. was Perfuma’s home in the UK POP Comic Magazines
In the German audio plays, Perfuma lived in the Vial Palace. It was almost a hundred meters tall and resembled a red dianthus blossom. also it smelled nice
The Maze of Mirrors was located within the Prism of Light, Entrapta’s home in the UK POP Comic Magazines
Not to be confused with the Mirror Labyrinth, which was her home in the German audio plays
Kingdom of Mizar, Angella’s kingdom from the POP Minicomics
Moonbeam Palace was the home of Princess Luna, keeper of the Moon Jewel. Located on the moon Elidor UK POP Comic Magazines
Mortella’s Castle was her cursed version of Mystacor. The throne room was populated by her Fire Pit, which burned with blue flames that, if extinguished, destroyed her power. Filmation
Kingdom of Mystacor/e was suspended between two mountains high above a river. The “Mystacore Meridian” was a theoretical line separating Mystacor from Greenvale, but the Horde cut down some of the trees and cut Greenvale off from Casta’s protection. Filmation In the UK POP Comic Magazines Casta kept the Pool of Power (see Pool of Vision below) which allowed her to scry all over Etheria, and an endless library of magic. In MOTUC Mystacor contained a hidden magic archive, which Shadow Weaver led a raid on to enhance her powers.
Salineas, AKA the Sunken City Filmation
Scorpion Hill was Scorpia’s HQ, located within the Forbidden Zone FIlmation
The Tree of Living Dimensions is where Flutterina lived in the German audio plays. It was a tree-shaped palace intangible to everyone but her. If she willed it, the tree could turn red with silver leaves, which could heal the victims of the Isle of Wildflowers
Vargon was a kingdom ruled by King Semor. His son Prince Arkion was a rebel ally Filmation
Caves/Gorges/Valleys
Big Ditch Canyon, a popular campsite in Bright Moon Filmation
The Cave of Dreams. Hordak used the Zodian Crystal and magic stolen from Madam Razz to create illusory monsters. UK World POP Annuals
Cave of Fire, guarded by a friendly demon and containing the “Lava of Age” that turned Rock Creatures into adults when they swallowed it. UK POP Comic Magazines
Cave of Winds, a sealed cavern that if opened would release winds capable of destroying the Whispering Woods, Filmation
Cavern of Fire, home of the First Ones--only the true of heart could enter, all others would be incinerated, Filmation accessed via the Forbidden Corner, via the Jaws of Darkness (think Cave of Wonders from 90s Aladdin)
Center of Etheria, the very center of the planet, home to the Giant Magical Clock, which could control the flow of time on Etheria and was guarded by angry gargoyles. Filmation. Suffice to say this was discarded in 2018 canon. You may be interested to know there was a Heart of Eternia, though
Crystal Cavern, where the Star Sisters had to return every new moon to recharge US POP Magazines hey how do you have a new moon with two moons? like is it every time both of them are new? or just one?
Serenia, which was a valley originally, was the “one place that kept all of Etheria in balance”. If anything happened to the power in this valley, Etheria would tip sideways in its orbit Filmation (obviously 2018 SPOP’s Etheria isn’t orbiting anything, so, problem solved)
Skyland of Wildblossom, the floating island housing the Skylanders--living tree people. Filmation
Snake Tongue Pass was a canyon known for its rocky terrain Filmation
The Valley of Spiders was a region in the Fright Zone. You will never guess what was in there Ladybird POP books
The Valley of the Lion People was the home of the Lion People (see species chart) and cloaked in invisibility via the Gong of Leona UK World MOTU Annuals
The Valley of the Lost was desolate and remote, located just beyond the Freezing Mountains. In Filmation the only locations known within it were an ancient library & a swamp. The POP Minicomics had it contain a dense forest & Catra’s Treeplex.
Mountains
The Blue Mountains, apparently distinct from the Kingdom of Blue Mountain, home to a magic dragon that had its flame stolen by Hordak and Shadow Weaver, UK POP Comic Magazines
“Candor’s” Mountain, so called bc a wizard named Candor lives there with his apprentice, Ely Filmation
Chill Mountains, in the Kingdom of Snows Filmation, POP Mini World Books
The Snowy Mountains of Tobok UK World POP Annuals
The Volcanoes of Cond, two volcanoes side by side, atop which sits the treasure of the wizard Mityu, UK World POP Annuals
Crystal Mines in Etheria’s Crystal Mountains, Horde-controlled, Filmation
Dark Mountains, a mountain range near the Fright Zone UK World POP Annuals
Darkmor Mountains, the steep and unforgiving mountains of the region of Darkmor (see below in Regions/Lands). They were rich in Zaronite, the most powerful substance known on Etheria. The Red Lake stretched between its peaks. POP Mini World Books
Dreaming Mountains, location of Castle Chill in the Filmation Bible
Flower Mountain was celebrated with the Day of the Flowers Filmation
Freezing Mountains, a barrier to the Valley of the Lost and apparently also in the polar region somehow Filmation
The Ice Mountains were located in one of the polar regions. Hordak set something called an Ice Weapon up here but messed up a calculation and it made the ice start to melt UK World POP Annuals
Magic Mountains UK World MOTU Annuals
Mount Kandeela--WAIT like Mount Candila?? Precedent?? What the fuck?? uh. uhhh. hang on i lost my place while i was freaking out about that. Let’s see. Active volcano not far from the Whispering Woods, whose lava tubes ran under the forest & were... killing plants? Somehow? Idt that’s how lava tubes work bro Filmation & apparently that Fire Princess book
The Mountain of the Crystal Spider was a huge mound of crystal & home to the Crystal Spider, which Larry DiTillio based on the one from Krull. Yes, that Krull Filmation.
The Northern Mountains, located in the Kingdom of Snows UK POP Comic Magazines Under them were the Wugly Warrens, where dwelt the Wuglies
Skydancer Mountain, home of the Crystal Castle. In the Mini World Books, it’s just called “Skydancer”, though it is still a mountain. Filmation, POP Minicomics, UK World POP Annuals, POP Mini World Books
Smoldering Volcano, north of the Fright Zone. I refuse to recognize their spelling. death to imperialism UK POP Comic Magazines
Sylvan Mountains Ladybird POP Books
The Trail of the Forgotten was a dark & desolate trail into the Blue Mountains UK POP Comic Magazines
Talon Mountain was where Hunga and the harpies lived. After the fall of Bright Moon, Angella was kept imprisoned there for many years Filmation
The Undersea Mountains were a range of seamounts. Mermista was very familiar with them UK Twins of Power Magazine
The Orange Mountains UK World POP Annuals
Woeful Mountain was the home of the wizard Noah, who taught Hordak magic (which Hordak later rejected for technology) Filmation
Forests
The Black Wood She-Ra told Catra (in her cat form) that she was so beautiful she could be queen of the Black Wood. Yes, it was a trap, but boy was it a gay one. View-Master Reel 1
The Dark Forest. If you walk into it you get depression. In MOTUC it’s where the evil wizard Zin lived with his unwilling slave Broom, until Madam Razz freed him. POP Minicomics, MOTUC
Forest of Fear, sometimes the home of Shadow Weaver Ladybird MOTU & POP Books, UK POP Comic Magazines
Forest of Freedom was just a real pretty forest Filmation
Forest of Storms, full of a bunch of She-Ra’s animal friends UK Comic POP Magazines
The Fright Forest was near Mystacor, containing the Temple of Gloom Filmation
The Great Forest US MOTU Magazines
The Great Etherian Forest, a stretch of forest between Catra’s lair and Rebellion territory, POP Mini World Books
The Shady Glade of Dreams was located near the Forest of Storms UK POP Comic Magazines
The Whispering Woods Filmation, POP Minicomics, Golden POP books
Deserts
The Burning Desert, “vast and tremendously hot”. there’s also a burning desert on Eternia so dubiously named Ladybird POP Books
Crimson Wastes, northwest of the Whispering Woods and pretty much the same across canons. Populated by nomadic tribes in the UK POP Comic Magazines (see Ancient Fort) and in MOTUC ruled initially by Scorpia until she allied herself with Hordak after the fall of Bright Moon
The Sizzling Desert US POP Magazines, Filmation Bible
Tomb Rock is a big old rock in the Crimson Waste. Huntara imprisoned Glimmer here before she learned the truth about the Horde Filmation
The Whispering Desert was the most inhospitable landscape on the German audio play’s Etheria. Sandstorms and quicksand etc. Honestly basically the Crimson Waste
Islands
Beast Island, including Beast Warriors’ village, which had a water supply problem Filmation, Golden POP Books. Sight of a Horde prison
Island of Wildflowers, located near Flutterina’s home, southeast of the Crystal Castle. Completely covered in flowers which paralyzed anyone who drew too close. Victims could be awakened with silver leaves from the Tree of Living Dimensions German audio plays
The Mystic Isle was said to be the storehouse for the greatest treasure of the First Ones, which they sank below the sea to protect its treasure. For a single day, the island would rise again. When it rose (because of course it did) it had a citadel and giant busts of First Ones (who appear human here). The citadel was filled with art depicting love, beauty, freedom, and truth Filmation
Summer Isle was an island which always had a summer climate, home to a flock of geese led by Asner (also a goose). It was the halfway point on their migration Ladybird POP Books
Unicorn Island was an island in the Growling Sea populated entirely by “unicorns” (horses with horns and wings). Ruled by the Unicorn King Filmation
The mystical island of Zhur was the ancient home of Etheria’s Great Mage. The Mage was long gone, but the powerful Dark Pearl could still be found on the island’s shores. Editora Abril POP Comic
Bodies of Water
The Cosmic Well, a legendary location that could only be found by solving the riddle, “On the highest mountain and at the foot of the world”. Horde Prime was looking for the Sword of Evil (don’t ask) and Adora had half of it, so Light Hope told her to throw it in the Well to destroy it. It’s actually a seamount UK Twins of Power Magazine
The Cracking Sea, Filmation Bible
The Dark Pool was in the Whispering Woods, in a hollow surrounded by bare and twisted trees. "No birds chirped, and no breeze rippled the pool’s blackened, bottomless water.” My question is why didn’t MOTUC use this for Ditztroyer instead of inventing the Ebon Pool? Ladybird POP Books
Silver River, inhabited by siren fish, on the border between Bright Moon and the Fright Zone UK POP Comic Magazines. Also exists in the German audio plays
The Etherian Sea, apparently located near Horde headquarters POP Mini World Books
The Growling Sea, specified to be the location of Beast Island in the Golden POP Books
Crystal Falls, home to Mermista in the Filmation cartoon. In the UK POP Comic Magazines its waters had the power to rejuvenate all who bathed in them. In the German audio plays, they were located within the Crystal Castle, and it prevented people from doing evil within the castle (until Catra changed it to a Well of Dissension with a magic potion)
Fetid Pool on the outskirts of the Fright Zone, kind of a soupy dump Filmation
Great Lakes UK POP Comic Magazines
Grim Beach, site of an alien spacecraft crash that Hordak scrapped UK POP Comic Magazines
The enchanted Grotto (wink wink nudge nudge), on Rocky Island, had magical air which prolonged the dying Falcon’s life. Filmation
Horde Harbor, where Sea Hawk delivered goods to the Horde before defection Filmation
Jamie River UK POP Comic Magazines
Kingfisher Falls was one of two waterfalls on the Crystal Castle’s mountain Ladybird POP Books
Lavender Pond Filmation
The Maelstroms of the Twelve Dimensions were located between the Crystal Castle and the Ocean of Timebraids, right after the Area of the Dancing Whales. Hotbed of demons German audio plays
Ocean of Timebraids, the most dangerous of all Etherian seas. The strings of time became tangled there, and it was said that whomever traveled across this sea would become lost in time forever. German audio plays
Octopus Cove was a Horde-controlled port where the Horde Dreadnoughts docked. Octavia commanded the base. Filmation
The Polar Sea, nigh impossible to reach via land on account of all the ice Filmation
The Pool of Beauty lay within the Sizzling Desert. It was said to be all that remained of a once-great ocean. The pool was a definitive judge of beauty and told Catra that there was in fact someone hotter than her out there US POP Magazines
The Pool of Vision was Casta’s scrying pool Filmation
The Rainbow River, with rainbow waters UK World POP Annuals
The Red Lake, POP mini world books
The Sea of Demons bordered Seaworthy Filmation
The Sea of Sighs, an inland sea Filmation Bible, MOTUC
Silver Fall was a magical waterfall behind a large desert. Its water had healing powers German audio plays (probably the same as the Silver Falls?)
The Singing River Filmation, Golden POP books, UK World POP Annuals
Singing River Gorge Filmation
Southern Sea, presumably to the south Filmation Bible
Buildings
Ancient Fort, deep in the Crimson Wastes. All that remained of a once-great city that was swallowed by the desert sands centuries ago. The site was said to be haunted. Controlled by the Horde until She-Ra and the Crimson Fury liberated it and turned it into a rest stop. well this could be fun UK POP Comic Magazines
Cat Tower. my beloved. Located the edge of the Fright Zone, Catra’s lair in the Golden POP books. literally just a building shaped like a cat head. In the Ladybird POP books it’s like a nega-crystal castle, all dark and spindly. All frozen over for some reason
Catra’s lair, inside a cave full of barrels, lion statues, and cat motifs in the Filmation cartoon. In the German audio plays it’s at the foot of a volcano and Catra hates it.
Crystal Light Barrier, a dimensional gate to Crystal World POP Minicomics
Dimensional Gate, located in the middle of the Whispering Woods. Angella used magic to turn it on and create a portal (hahaha) (ouch) Filmation
Dimensional Void--Catra and Shadow Weaver accidentally opened a hole in time and space, sending Adora and Hordak into the Void, where they didn’t know where they were, where they were going, or where they would be on the other end. Filmation these are getting pointed huh
Doom Tower, a huge tower in the Fright Zone. Hordak’s HQ in the Ladybird books but just a tower in the Filmation cartoon
Golden Goose Inn Filmation
Hordak’s Zoo Filmation
Horde Headquarters, somewhat analogous to Doom Tower. Contained a room called the Council Chambers where officers met to make evil plans. POP Mini World Books
Horde Ice Station aw shit I’m gonna have to call the Northern Reach place this aren’t I. Fine. Built in the polar regions of Etheria with the purpose of melting the polar ice with a “Hordebomb”. global warming noncanon? UK POP Comic Magazines
Horde Research Base in the area of Small Oak Filmation
Horror Hall was Shadow Weaver’s house Filmation, UK POP Comic Magazines, MOTUC
Laughing Swan Inn Filmation
The Serenity Stone Temple was in the valley of Serenia, and contained the Serenity Stone, which was the balancing point. Filmation
The Slime Room is just Hordak’s Zoo on offense. And full of slime Filmation
The Sulfur Pit was a place Horde soldiers were sent for hard labor upon failure Filmation
The Teleport Room was where Hordak kept his teleportation equipment UK MOTU Comic Magazines
The Temple of Birindale held the Eldritch Book of Spells over a thousand years ago Filmation. MOTUC had the temple be a burned remnant of the First Ones’ great library of Birindale 😏😏😏
Catra’s Tree-Plex was located in the Valley of the Lost (I think you can see it on the MOTUC map? it isn’t labeled). It was actually pretty nice POP Minicomics
The Valley of the Lost’s library contained innumerable books on every conceivable subject and from every imaginable era. The inner library, which had not been visited in centuries, contained the most ancient tombs. The books lay in uncategorized piles, making locating a specific volume a nearly impossible challenge. Filmation
Regions/Lands
Bibbetland, Bibbet Forest, including Bibbet Camp. Filmation
The Dead Zone was located in the superhot air of one of Etheria’s largest active volcanoes. No life could exist there except for the strange plant called Ghost Blossoms UK POP Comic Magazines
The region of Darkmor, where dwelt the Golden Dragons. They were led by a queen (also a dragon). POP Mini World Books
Desolate Area, at the edge of the Frozen Area. who named these Filmation
The Forbidden Zone, part of the Fright Zone Filmation
Frozen Area, Filmation
Region called Small Oak Filmation
The Land of Endor--this guy (Endor) stole Frosta’s magic to put the surrounding area in stasis as like, life support for his dying wife. She-Ra healed her and sent the land to the “Land of Legends” Golden POP Books
The Land of Legends was apparently a region where the people of Etheria’s past went to “escape death” because fixing his time fuckery would have killed all of them, or something? What are you teaching these kids Golden POP books
The Land of Ferros, where everything is made of metal, even the plants. Legend says a robot used to live and he made the flowers bc he thought they were pretty. aaww UK POP Comic Magazines
Moorstone was an area where a major Horde outpost was located, generally beautiful Filmation
The Patchwork Hills, fertile farmland surrounding an unnamed village under Horde control UK World MOTU Annuals
The Pirate Tunnels were built by smugglers and pirates years before the Rebellion was formed, and crossed under Bright Moon and the Fright Zone UK POP Comic Magazines
The Region of Volcanoes, a region dotted with (you guessed it) several active volcanoes. Hordak set up his base of operations here when he constructed his terrible Volcanic Ray Brazilian Estrela POP Minicomics
Skull Path, leading to the Shadow Kingdom Filmation
Twigget Valley was a special gathering place for the Twiggets, a clearing in the Whispering Woods where they’d hole festivals and such UK World POP Annuals
89 notes
·
View notes
Text
Patrimonio cinematografico privato, la quindicesima edizione di Archivio Aperto
Il mondo del cinema non è solo fatto da quelle pellicole che tutti noi amiamo vedere in sala oppure seduti sul nostro amato divano. In Italia c'è un vero e proprio patrimonio cinematografico privato da conoscere e scoprire. Con questo scopo nasce l'evento "Archivio Aperto" che in questo 2022 giunge alla sua quindicesima edizione.
Patrimonio cinematografico privato, alla scoperta di Archivio Aperto
Archivio Aperto nel corso degli anni è diventato uno dei più importanti Festival internazionali sulla valorizzazione delle immagini d’archivio, un appuntamento fisso per la riscoperta di un patrimonio che va dal cinema sperimentale e d’artista, al film diario e al film di famiglia come fonte storica e antropologica. Nell'esperienza ventennale di Home Movies molte sono le strade percorse per “mettere l’archivio al mondo”, farlo parlare, agire e (re)agire nel contemporaneo.
https://youtu.be/VCjXSThyGQo
Patrimonio cinematografico privato: intervista a Paolo Simoni, direttore artistico di Archivio Aperto e Presidente di Home Movies
Per fare un viaggio alla scoperta del Patrimonio cinematografico privato necessitiamo di una guida esperta. Proprio per questo motivo, abbiamo rivolte diverse domande a Paolo Simoni, direttore artistico di Archivio Aperto e Presidente di Home Movies:
Partiamo con una domanda per conoscerci meglio: cos'è e come nasce Home Movies?
Home Movies è un archivio di rilevanza nazionale con base a Bologna che si occupa della raccolta, conservazione, digitalizzazione e valorizzazione dei film di famiglia e del patrimonio amatoriale italiano in formato ridotto, quindi 9,5mm, 8mm, 16mm e Super8. Ad oggi contiamo più di 30.000 pellicole, un pezzo consistente di storia filmata dal basso che va dagli anni Venti a Ottanta del Novecento. Il nostro è un tesoro sconfinato ed eterogeneo, sia per contenuti che per forma, fatto di memorie altrimenti perdute e sguardi inediti sulle usanze degli italiani, sulle trasformazioni della famiglia, della figura femminile, dei costumi, della politica, del lavoro, delle metamorfosi delle città e del paesaggio. Queste microstorie, come spesso ci piace definirle, racchiudono tutto ciò che in generale riguarda lo scorrere della vita, del nostro stare insieme, della collettività.
Il nostro lavoro si concentra su più aspetti, in una prima fase nella raccolta delle memorie filmate, che può avvenire tramite donazione volontaria, sia di un privato cittadino che scopre di avere delle bobine in casa del genitore o del nonno, ma anche di imprese, associazioni o altri enti culturali e non. A questo patrimonio si aggiungono anche i film d’artista e indipendenti italiani degli anni Sessanta-Settanta e spesso ci capita anche di conservare i film della famiglia degli stessi, come nel caso di Massimo Bacigalupo.
Quali sono gli aspetti del vostro lavoro?
Uno degli aspetti più appassionanti è l’incontro con il donatore e il rapporto che si instaura con esso, specialmente nel caso dei fondi più ingenti, poiché abbiamo accesso totale alla sua storia privata. Una volta digitalizzate cerchiamo di non “chiudere” queste memorie nell’archivio con lo scopo di dare loro nuova vita tramite l’incontro con gli spettatori: dal privato, al pubblico, per poi ritornare al privato, alla sfera di chi osserva
Ciò su cui ci siamo concentrati negli ultimi anni sono le modalità con cui far “uscire” queste immagini. Ci siamo concentrati su percorsi curatoriali specifici che potessero accompagnare il fruitore e nel 2020 è infatti nato Memoryscapes – il cinema privato online, la prima piattaforma italiana dedicata al cinema privato online totalmente gratuita e accessibile worldwide che gode del sostegno finanziario della Regione Emilia Romagna e dal MiBACT. Attualmente ospita solo una piccola parte del nostro patrimonio, circa 4.000 pellicole, ma si arricchisce ogni anno attraverso sezioni tematiche, l’ultima Sport e Giochi.
Memoryscapes ha in questo senso una duplice funzione, di essere un bacino esplorativo per il pubblico comune ma anche una preziosa fonte storica per ricercatori: ogni clip è munita di un numero di inventario e chiunque può contattare l’archivio e richiedere l’intero materiale. Anche se prima ancora di Memoryscapes, il primo vero momento di incontro con il pubblico fu nel 2007 con Archivio Aperto.
Proprio quest’anno Home Movies compie 20 anni: l’archivio nacque infatti nel 2002 come progetto indipendente dalla visione comune mia e di Mirco Santi e dall’unione delle nostre competenze - storica da un lato e tecnico-scientifica dall’altro – e di tutte quelle persone che si sono aggregate nel corso degli anni contribuendo alla crescita dell’archivio. Nel 2010 veniamo riconosciuti dal Ministero come archivio di interesse storico particolarmente importante, che per noi è stato sinonimo del riconoscimento ufficiale del patrimonio filmico familiare e amatoriale italiano.
Nel corso di questi due decenni l’attenzione verso i film di famiglia e il formato ridotto è aumentata, così come la letteratura scientifica a riguardo e siamo contenti del fatto che molte persone si siano avvicinate ad esso grazie anche al nostro lavoro. Crescono anche le richieste di materiale da parte di produzioni e registi, siano le loro opere documentarie, fiction o serie tv: un altro settore in crescita è proprio quello delle ricerche d’archivio, gestito all’interno di Home Movies da Michele Manzolini (regista insieme a Federico Ferrone de Il Varco, vincitore del premio EFA per il Miglior Montaggio 2020).
Ad esse si affiancano anche le collaborazioni con importanti musei nazionali: nel 2022 abbiamo collaborato con il Museo Salvatore Ferragamo per la mostra Donne in equilibrio dedicata a Wanda Miletti Ferragamo, con M9 – Museo del ‘900 di Mestre per la mostra GUSTO! Gli italiani a tavola (entrambe in corso) ma anche con il PAC di Milano dove abbiamo allestito una project room con i filmati scientifici d’archivio di Vincenzo Neri.
Edizione numero quindici per Archivio Aperto, qual è la storia dietro questo festival?
Archivio Aperto nasce nel 2007 con un’edizione zero che era, come si intuisce dal nome, una giornata d’apertura dell’archivio per mostrare alla collettività, principalmente bolognese, il materiale raccolto e digitalizzato nel corso dei primi anni. Cadeva il 27 ottobre, in occasione della Giornata Mondiale del Patrimonio Audiovisivo UNESCO. Nel corso degli anni si è arricchita come una vera rassegna sviluppata su più giornate: sin da subito abbiamo cercato di ampliare il raggio al patrimonio internazionale in formato ridotto, divenendone uno dei principali riferimenti italiani.
La nostra ambizione è sempre stata quella di esplorare portando attenzione ai generi marginali con programmi e retrospettive dedicate ai maggiori nomi del cinema amatoriale, dell’home movies e del found footage, da Ross McElwee a Gustav Deutsch, fino a Jonas Mekas, Boris Lehman, David Perlov, Maya Deren e Péter Forgács. Nel 2018 abbiamo anche inaugurato la sezione speciale Art & Experimental Film, dedicata al cinema d’artista italiano degli anni ’60 e ’70.
Ovviamente Archivio Aperto non è solo proiezioni, la maggior parte delle quali in pellicola, che ne ha fatto una delle nostre principali caratteristiche, ma anche installazioni, workshop, incontri. L’idea è che sia un momento di riflessione sull’immagine, sulla storia, e quindi sul presente, uno spazio di riflessione nazionale ed internazionale sull’uso pubblico delle immagini private.
Quali sono le sue sensazioni per l'edizione di quest'anno?
L’edizione di quest’anno, che è appunto la quindicesima, è portatrice di cambiamenti ma anche di un’evoluzione necessaria e in un certo senso naturale di quello che è stato il festival negli ultimi anni. Una riflessione che è in corso da anni e che si è acuita con la pandemia che ci ha portato a ripensare le modalità di fruizione e definizione del programma (l’edizione 2020 e 2021 sono state la prima totalmente e la seconda in parte online).
Nel 2022 Archivio Aperto diventa infatti festival inaugurando il primo concorso internazionale in Italia dedicato ai film di found footage e al riuso del materiale d’archivio, nello specifico privato.
All’interno delle precedenti edizioni abbiamo sempre dato spazio a queste opere, sia di patrimonio che contemporanee. Inoltre, è evidente come negli ultimi anni il numero di opere di found footage sia aumentato rientrando nelle programmazioni dei più prestigiosi festival internazionali, da Cannes a Berlino. Archivio Aperto vuole essere una vetrina italiana per questi titoli ma anche un laboratorio d’archivio che ha lo scopo di interrogare il ruolo di queste immagini sul piano visuale, storico, etico, politico, sociale e di valorizzare il patrimonio del cinema privato.
Vogliamo crescere come hub di formazione, appuntamento di aggiornamento e networking: ci immaginiamo un luogo dove studiosi, storici, accademici, registi, artisti, musicisti, insegnanti, studenti e curiosi possano ritrovarsi e scambiare idee, esperienze e visioni. Resta l’attenzione al cinema sperimentale di patrimonio, restano le proiezioni in pellicola e la presentazione dei fondi restaurati nell’ultimo anno grazie al sostegno della Regione Emilia Romagna: il passato incontra il presente, come sempre, anche attraverso l’incontro tra locale e internazionale. Quest’ultima è la dimensione su cui abbiamo puntato maggiormente. Stiamo per chiudere la selezione proprio in questi giorni, che ha visto la direzione curatoriale di Sergio Fant, programmatore internazionale.
Altra novità di quest’anno è l’avvio della sezione Archive Lovers Labs, uno spazio rivolto principalmente a studenti dedicato all'approfondimento di alcune pratiche legate alla valorizzazione d’archivio: tra questi un workshop di 3 giorni sulla sonorizzazione delle immagini d’archivio private che sarà tenuto da Laura Agnusdei e Massimo Carozzi, che si terrà a Bologna dal 23 al 25 settembre, le cui opere saranno poi mostrate durante il festival. Abbiamo inoltre aperto una call per una Giuria Giovani composta da studenti e studentesse di cinema provenienti dagli atenei italiani e per Archive Beat, un percorso più strutturato composto da incontri e workshop specifici, pensato per coloro che stanno per terminare gli studi e si muovono in ambito cinematografico. L’idea è di unire una riflessione dedicata al riuso creativo delle immagini e offrire anche spunti di tipo professionale e lavorativo.
"Bring the archive into the world", questo è il "sottotitolo" di Archivio Aperto 2022: cosa vuol significare?
Mettere l’archivio al mondo. È questa l’idea dalla quale nasce questa edizione ma anche tutto il lavoro che come Home Movies portiamo avanti sin dalle origini, con lo scopo di restituire alla comunità le immagini del cinema privato e nella convinzione che siano una grande mappa collettiva che dal passato ci aiuta a comprendere il presente e a costruire il futuro. Come si intuisce dalla call – che per noi è un piccolo manifesto – abbiamo deciso di dare alla selezione un taglio etico e politico, nato proprio da una riflessione sul complesso periodo che stiamo vivendo, privilegiando opere fortemente incisive nella riflessione contemporanea sulla memoria e il racconto storico, le identità culturali e di genere, l’ecologia. Con un messaggio anche di speranza: come abbiamo scritto “rimettere al mondo l’archivio è anche restituire storie cancellate, riportarle in superficie, e tessere assieme la trama di un mondo migliore”.
Quanto è grande in Italia il nostro patrimonio cinematografico privato?
È difficile consegnare una stima precisa delle dimensioni di questo patrimonio che è in continua crescita grazie anche al lavoro di raccolta e conservazione che attualmente stanno facendo le cineteche e i molti archivi minori sorti nell’ultimo decennio, dedicati proprio al film di famiglia. Quest’anno –tra i tanti anniversari –si celebra anche quello del formato ridotto, nello specifico del 9,5mm, formato a cui siamo particolarmente legati. Per l’occasione stiamo sviluppando il progetto speciale homemovies100 che vedrà i suoi primi risultati alla fine del 2022 e nel corso dell’intero 2023.
Lo scorso anno, in occasione della Giornata Mondiale del Patrimonio Audiovisivo e in preparazione al progetto, abbiamo presentato il primo censimento di pellicole 9,5mm in Italia, sia amatoriali che di edizione, organizzato da Home Movies in collaborazione con l’associazione europea Inedits - Amateurs Films / Memory of Europe e l’università di Udine, che ha visto il coinvolgimento di archivi, privati e associazioni. In questo caso abbiamo dei dati precisi: Home Movies conserva il 41% del patrimonio nazionale 9,5mm censito (su un totale di 4013 elementi), di queste il 70% è amatoriale e il restante di edizione.
Read the full article
0 notes
Text
Am relatat recent câte ceva din activitatea Teatrului Malenki, avanpost al teatrului fringe din Israel. Am încercat să scot în evidență faptul că teatrul se luptă zi de zi cu foarte mari dificultăți. Ei bine, toate aceste dificultăți nu l-au împiedicat să organizeze un mini-festival de teatru, și încă unul cu oaspeți de peste hotare. Îmi pare rău că nu pot traduce exact denumirea acestui festival, denumire modestă și elegantă, care conține, în limba rusă, un joc de cuvinte – ”Prieteni de seamă ai unui teatru mic”, malenki în limba rusă însemnând ”mic”.
Cel dintâi dintre spectacolele invitate, a fost un ”Hamlet”, prezentat de Mark Bornstein și de soția lui, Lidia Martinianova, ca emisari ai unui Interior Theater din Sankt Petersburg. E un spectacol care se joacă din 1981, și ceea ce au văzut spectatorii din Tel Aviv, în sala Teatrului Hasimta, în ziua în care, întâmplător, Bornstein împlinea 75 de ani, era, probabil, una dintre ultimele reprezentații.
Spectacolul, conceput de principalul lui interpret, odinioară scenograf, povestește, prin el și prin partenera lui, subiectul nemuritoarei piese, succesiunea de evenimente din tragedia shakespeariană; totul se petrece într-o sală minusculă, în intimitatea auditoriului, între două paravane construite ad-hoc și pe fundalul unei scene de teatru de păpuși, prevăzute cu o cortină care e ridicată și coborâtă ori de câte ori e necesar. Cei doi interpreți trec din rol în rol și se slujesc de păpuși – marionete și păpuși pe mână, de două veșminte ca niște caftane – și de o sumedenie de accesorii (o cască de militar din Evul Mediu, un flacon care conține uneori vin, alteori otravă, pumnale, o pereche de ochelari imenși, o cunună de flori artificiale, eșarfe etc.). Printre accesorii sunt un fagot, un oboi și un flaut pe care Bornstein interpretează când și când niște semnale creatoare de atmosferă.
Evident, realizatorii acestei uimitoare montări nu pretind să înlocuiască prin ea lectura faimoasei piese sau vizionarea unor spectacole obișnuite cu ea. Se pune atunci întrebarea care este menirea acestei versiuni a lui ”Hamlet”, adaptat la mijloace de expresie posibile numai în cu totul alt mediu decât cel pentru care piesa a fost creată.
Am urmărit fascinat spectacolul și încerc acum să-mi explic starea de fascinație – au traversat-o de-a lungul anilor, ca și mine, zeci și sute de spectatori. Admițând că majoritatea lor cunoșteau piesa din lectură și din spectacole tradiționale, trebuie să afirm, mai întâi și mai întâi, că însuși decupajul textului prezintă interes: bunăoară, în scena în care Hamlet e primit noaptea, după episodul Cursei de șoareci, de către maică-sa, adaptarea suprimă încercarea prințului de a-și convinge mama să-și domolească dependența trupească de soțul ei – fostul ei cumnat, dar prezintă uciderea lui Polonius; în tabloul care se petrece în cimitir replicile celor doi gropari au fost drastic scurtate, dar un schimb de replici revelator între Hamlet și unul dintre gropari a fost păstrat.
Montarea lui Bornstein reprezintă, desigur, o reducție a textului; pe scenă se află numai doi interpreți, ei se slujesc de păpuși, totul e, firește, miniatural; toate astea introduc un element de relativizare, de distanțare față de textul shakespearian; sunt detalii neînsemnate din text care devin deodată frapante, altele, foarte importante, apar, pe neașteptate, minimalizate; Rosenkrantz și Guildenstern sunt scoși dintr-o casetă – ei au înfățișarea a două capete de copii bucălați, blonzi și cârlionțați; odioșii spioni iau astfel aspectul unei inocențe depline. Montarea focalizează atenția publicului mereu pe un alt amănunt semnificativ al tragediei.
”Hamlet” e o piesă în care foarte multe roluri sunt de oameni tineri. Să vezi și să auzi un Hamlet vârstnic, cu multă experiență de viață, pune în lumină înțelepciunea prematură a eroului. Să vezi și să auzi o femeie de o anumită vârstă sugerând adolescența candidă a Ofeliei te ajută să înțelegi grozăvia șocurilor pe care personajul le are de încasat în cursul piesei.
Cei doi interpreți se folosesc de traducerea superbă a lui Boris Pasternak, iar faptul că întregul are un aspect de joacă, de actorie serioasă care, totuși, refuză transfigurările totale, înfăptuite cu excesivă seriozitate, ci doar istorisește piesa în comunicare cu păpuși și cu recuzită te face s-o redescoperi cu plăcere sporită. Tehnica celor doi interpreți ai spectacolului amintește întrucâtva tehnica de care Brecht îi sfătuia pe actorii lui să se slujească în repetiții, pentru a se distanța de acțiunile caracterelor jucate. Împrejurarea că Bornstein și soția lui trec tot timpul din personaj în personaj, uneori ca oameni în carne și oase, alteori prin mijlocirea păpușilor, scoate în relief extraordinara unitate a atmosferei în care se petrece tragedia, dar și ambiguitatea acelor personaje care apar o dată ca oameni, și altă dată ca păpuși, așa cum se întâmplă cu Polonius. Iar ingeniozitatea soluțiilor regizoral-scenografice oferă uneori prin ea însăși satisfacție: nu credeam să urmăresc vreodată celebrul ”A fi sau a nu fi” cercetat cu creta pe tablă ca o problemă de matematică sau de fizică; la fel, mă întrebam, la un moment dat, cum va fi realizat în final duelul lui Hamlet cu Laertes; am văzut apoi niște străfulgerări în întuneric și am descoperit după aceea că armele celor doi sunt legate între ele printr-o panglică metalică a cărei mișcare produce acele sclipiri de câte-o clipă; mi-am spus în acel moment că, din păcate, teatrul ”tradițional” e lipsit de asemenea resurse de expresivitate.
Cel de al doilea spectacol invitat la festival a fost ”Eu sunt Edith Piaf”. Piesa era de Nina Mazur, și interpretată, în limba rusă, de Anastasia Weinmar, care și-a și regizat ”spectacolul-monolog”, în colaborare cu Evghenia Boghinskaia, și e însoțită, în câteva scene, de figuranți (între ei doi copii). Spectacolul, creat cu prilejul aniversării a o sută de ani de la nașterea genialei cântărețe, a fost elaborat de către absolvenți ai Academiei de Artă Teatrală de la Petersburg și a fost prezentat la Tel Aviv sub egida Teatrului Internațional de Dramă de la Berlin.
E din partea mea un gest de generozitate să nu intru în amănunte cu privire la această montare, care, după mine, este, din capul locului și în întregime, o eroare. Sunt însă dator cititorilor mei o foarte succintă explicație a atitudinii mele. Actorii sunt, chiar mai des decât s-ar putea crede, în situația de a juca personaje istorice, și uneori personaje istorice foarte bine cunoscute de toată lumea. Sunt însă personaje istorice pe care actorii ar fi preferabil să nu-și dorească și nici măcar să nu accepte a le întrupa și a le întruchipa vreodată. Edith Piaf a fost un asemenea personaj. Geniul ei, consemnat în zeci de înregistrări și în câteva zguduitoare secvențe filmate, era absolut unic, prin fantastica lui ardere lăuntrică, prin timbrul de neconfundat al vocii artistei, prin dicțiunea ei impecabilă, prin ceea ce iradia personalitatea ei fără seamăn; geniala cântăreață avea o biografie fără seamăn în îmbinările ei de trivial și de tragedie antică; pe lângă asta, ea își construise și o imagine publică fără seamăn. Așa stând lucrurile, să apari sub titlul ”Ich bin Edith Piaf” – titlul spectacolului din mini-festival – reprezintă, după mine, o neobrăzare.
Două spectacole-lectură au întregit repertoriul mini-festivalului, care cuprindea, firește, și spectacole din repertoriul curent al teatrului-gazdă.
Prima lectură a fost a unei piese scrise în cehă de către Karol Sidon, scriitor reputat (traducerea în ebraică îi aparține lui Peer Friedmann); autorul se afla în sală în seara lecturii; Sidon a fost rabinul-șef al Pragăi și este acum rabinul-șef al Republicii Cehe. Piesa este intitulată ”Schapira”, iar eroul ei titular este un personaj istoric – a fost un cunoscut negustor de antichități la Ierusalim, Moses Wilhelm Schapira, evreu trecut la luteranism; Schapira a vândut mai întâi unui muzeu din Franța niște statuete de zei moabiți care au fost dovedite a fi falsuri de către un distins savant francez, Clermont-Ganneau; apoi Schapira a încercat să vândă către British Museum, pe o sumă exorbitantă, niște manuscrise străvechi pe pergament, pe care le-a prezentat în 1883 la Londra, manuscrise despre care același Clermont-Ganneau a afirmat că sunt falsuri și care ulterior au dispărut. Schapira a recunoscut că statuetele, confecționate, se pare, de el însuși, au fost falsuri, dar a susținut mereu că manuscrisele erau autentice. În martie 1884 el s-a sinucis într-o cameră de hotel la Rotterdam. Până în ziua de azi nu e elucidată pe deplin întrebarea dacă manuscrisele erau într-adevăr falsuri, sau erau autentice – descoperirea între 1947 și 1956 a Manuscriselor de la Marea Moartă a determinat câțiva cercetători să încline către a admite că acelea pe care voise Schapira să le vândă erau autentice.
În miezul piesei nu se află însă investigația quasi-polițistă în legătură cu persoana lui Schapira, ci dezbaterea spinoasei și dureroasei teme, de importanță capitală în iudaism – cine este și cine nu este evreu, în funcție nu numai de părinți, ci și, mai cu seamă, de convingeri și de manifestări sociale.
Lectura, foarte convingătoare, realizată de Michael Teplitsky, Elena Yaralova, Sharon Tal, Ori Levanon, Anna Dobrovitsky, Rodie Kozlovsky, Dima Ross, s-a desfășurat într-o atmosferă destinsă și caldă, în care disputa de idei era picurată de umor.
Într-un cadru mai intim, dar nu mai puțin voios, a avut loc lectura unei dramatizări după un roman de Serghei Dovlatov (interpreți – Evghenia Sharova, Rodie Kozlovsky, Vitaly Voiskoboinikov, Ilia Domanov, David Ziselsohn, Michael Teplitsky). Autorul, astăzi unul dintre cei mai citiți autori ruși, s-a născut în 1941 la Ufa, în URSS, într-o familie evacuată din Leningrad, și a avut o viață destul de aventuroasă – a fost, printre altele, paznic într-un lagăr de muncă; a lucrat ca ziarist, a fost prieten cu scriitori disidenți cunoscuți și n-a parvenit să se facă publicat în Uniunea Sovietică; întregul tiraj al unei culegeri de povestiri scrise de el a fost distrus; în 1979 a emigrat, împreună cu mama, cu soția și cu fiica lui, în Statele Unite și a fost, în sfârșit, recunoscut ca un scriitor important. În 1990 a murit în urma unui atac de cord. Scrierile lui Dovlatov, sclipitoare, conțin o satiră vitriolantă a realităților lumii sovietice.
Teatrul Malenki a montat în trecut o dramatizare, în limba rusă, a romanului ”Femeia de pe alte meleaguri” (nu-mi vine să traduc titlul prin ”Străina”, ca să nu fie pus în legătură cu romanele intitulate ”Străinul”!). Romanul înfățișează existența imigranților ruși din cartierul new-yorkez Forest Hills. În centrul acțiunii se află personajul unei ”fete cuminți”, descendenta unei familii prospere de nomenclaturiști; fata cuminte încetează destul de repede să fie cuminte; romanul relatează toate avatarurile ei, emigrarea ei în Statele Unite printr-o căsătorie fictivă și modul în care, în noua ei patrie, ea dobândește într-un târziu un fel de echilibru și ceva ce seamănă a împăcare cu viața, într-o existență modestă, dar netulburată de veșnice insatisfacții.
Prin lectura la care am asistat, cei de la Teatrul Malenki urmăreau să verifice dacă textul, tradus în ebraică (traducătoarea, Sivan Beskin, era de față) și cu acțiunea strămutată în mediul imigranților ruși din Israel, are șanse să ”porteze” sau riscă să nu ”porteze” la publicul obișnuit al teatrului. După părerea mea – deși de-obicei mă opun atât dramatizărilor, cât și ”adaptărilor” și localizărilor de texte cu scopul de a le face mai comunicative atunci când sunt aduse pe scenă – o versiune israeliană a dramatizării romanului lui Dovlatov are foarte mari șanse să ”porteze”.
Arhiva rubricii Cronică de festival
Arhiva rubricii Cronica de teatru
Vezi și arhiva rubricii Cronica muzicală
”Un mini-festival de teatru” de Gheorghe Miletineanu Am relatat recent câte ceva din activitatea Teatrului Malenki, avanpost al teatrului fringe din Israel. Am încercat să scot în evidență faptul că teatrul se luptă zi de zi cu foarte mari dificultăți.
#Boris Pasternak#Gheorghe Miletineanu#Hamlet#Lidia Martinianova#Mark Bornstein#Moses Wilhelm Schapira#Serghei Dovlatov#Teatrul malenki#Tel Aviv#William Shakespeare
1 note
·
View note
Photo
As the writer and director of COT, I want to Congratulate the CASUALTY OF TIME team for winning the Honorable Mention Award for Best Short Drama at the AMERICAN FILMATIC ARTS AWARDS in New York. My motto is KEEP MOVING. @jeremiah_jahi @dejuanchristopher@delebiz Melvin Ishmael Johnson and William Bright.) As our festival run comes to an end the needle and thread is still holding up.. #jeremiahJahi #family #explorepage #finance #fitness #faith #pictureoftheday #filmfestivals #menwithbeards #beardgang #shortfilms #beardgangtakeover #americanfilmaticartsawards #marineforlife #marinecorpsvet #southernboy #military #usmc #armedforces #filmmakerslife #cinema #worldcinema #blackcinema #playwright #filmmaking #africandiaspora https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ1KrtbLNEd/?utm_medium=tumblr
#jeremiahjahi#family#explorepage#finance#fitness#faith#pictureoftheday#filmfestivals#menwithbeards#beardgang#shortfilms#beardgangtakeover#americanfilmaticartsawards#marineforlife#marinecorpsvet#southernboy#military#usmc#armedforces#filmmakerslife#cinema#worldcinema#blackcinema#playwright#filmmaking#africandiaspora
0 notes
Text
ALENTEJO: “Alentejo, Caiado de Fresco” premiado em festival internacional
ALENTEJO: “Alentejo, Caiado de Fresco” premiado em festival internacional
O filme promocional “Alentejo, Caiado de Fresco”, lançado pela Entidade Regional de Turismo (ERT), conquistou o 2.º prémio na 16.ª edição do festival FilmAT, em Varsóvia, na Polónia.
A película ganhou o 2.º prémio na categoria de “Melhor Filme Promocional da Região”, segundo a ERT do Alentejo e Ribatejo.
“Alentejo, Caiado de Fresco”, que promove as várias ofertas turísticas do destino, já…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Video
Weekendul trecut, la invitatia @raiffeisenbankro am fost la @neverseafestival si am fotografiat cativa oameni foarte cool ! Ii puteti admira in postarile mele anterioare. @deliatudose a filmat acest making of ca sa gustati putin din atmosfera de festival. A fost foarte tare si abia astept sa ne vedem la @untoldfestival ! #neverseafestival #untold #untoldfestival #untold2018 #festival #festivallook #festivalfashion #igromania #music #travel #follow #instagood #instadaily #igers #igersromania #explore #romanianigers #adventure #life #live #love (at Neversea)
#live#follow#instagood#life#untold#love#festivalfashion#travel#neverseafestival#festival#untoldfestival#music#igersromania#igromania#igers#romanianigers#festivallook#adventure#instadaily#explore#untold2018
2 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
tyin-cherry-knots
୨୧ linen and curls ୨୧
husumdalton
The Love of Larsen 369
attractionsteps1-blog
Untitled
atviera
Beyond the Boughs
