#guy sherwin

[schizografia]

Messages di Guy Sherwin (1984)

[rrrauschen]

Guy Sherwin & Lynne Loo, {1974} At the Academy

[ghostnight]

Cat on TV (1977)

[fuzziemutt]

How are we having "lowest in a decade" unemployment rates yet literally over half of who I know, and even myself, for a very long time literally have been unable to find jobs.

Like. How are these equating because last I checked no motherfucker is hiring out here despite the signs

[princesable]

i forgot ask games are fun. did that video game one yesterday and was like wow i forgot i like answering questions about things i enjoy. now if only one of those oc ask games would have more then 2 questions i can answer

[birdadjacent]

every time i look at websites for benjamin moore, sherwin williams, etc. i wonder what qualifications you'd have to have to be the guy who names the paint colors. i think it's my dream job. imagine:

i enter a building, where a single $8000 lounge chair sits in the direct center of an otherwise empty ultra modern room with impossibly high ceilings. i take a seat. within seconds, a hoard of identically dressed people approach me, one of them delicately handing me a single paint swatch.

i examine the color. pale green. i squint for a moment. furrow my brow.

"memories of spinach," i proclaim. unsure murmurings from the crowd, but i raise a hand to silence them.

"nay........ ruminations upon kale," i amend, and the murmurings become excited. there is a smattering of applause.

i go home. one hundred thousand dollars have been deposited into my bank account.

[paper-mario-wiki]

what's ur favorite erb?

i dont have "favorite" as much as i have "the ones i watch every now and again".

"Blackbeard vs Al Capone" i might just like the way EpicLloyd speaks as Capone, but i also cant help but be utterly entranced by a shouting match between to middle aged men who want the other one to be scared. Favorite verse: Capone 1 (of 2)

"Wonder Woman vs Stevie Wonder" although this one still has the signature simple and cheesy bar structure that ERB is known for, this is PEAK in terms of performers. nicepeter and epiclloyd (the main guys) are great, but after the first 30 videos it became very easy to detect their individual deliveries and cadences. t-pain is pretty iconic in his performance of stevie wonder. Favorite verse: Stevie 2 (of 3)

"Stephen King vs Edgar Allan Poe" watzky was unfortunately cursed by god to forever look like a little twerp, but he works with it really well and it fits very well for the real-life twerp that was Edgar Allan Poe. and zach sherwin is always a charismatic force to be reckoned with, his uniquely clever writing style and flow shining. Favorite verse: Stephen King 2 (of 2)

"Steven Spielberg vs Alfred Hitchcock" this one's just good fun. its a little battle royale among a bunch of really famous pop directors. i know that the character-appropriate cgi background is a staple of post-season-one ERB, but i really appreciate these ones specifically for some reason. Favorite verse: Alfred Hitchcock

"Kryptonite" this isnt an ERB and is in fact a completely unrelated normal rap song but i was listening to this one today. my oldest brother listened to a lot of rap when i was young and this one was one of his favorites. i remember listening to it all the time when he would drive me to blockbuster to rent gamecube games. i didnt listen to it for a few decades, but i looked it up on youtube a few weeks ago on a whim and i really liked it a lot. it's all about smoking weed which i love doing, and the chorus is really catchy, plus the instrumental is one of my favorites. Favorite verse: Big Boi 1 (verse 3)

"The Joker vs Pennwise" both rappers somehow look like different versions of matpat in heavy makeup, and joker works in a natural "we live in a society" which i like. i think that's all i got for this one. Favorite verse: Joker 3 (of 3, because this is the one with the we live in a society bar, but all of his bars were actually really solid)

"Tony Hawk vs Wayne Gretzky" another one for the "zach sherwin is one of the best thing ERB has" pile. he delivers in a quaint (if a bit cartoonish) canadian accent a scathing comparison between the actual real-life achievements and significance and skill between the two actual athletes. which i think is very spiritually fulfilling considering the name of the series. Favorite verse: Wayne Gretzky 2 (of 2)

"James Bond vs Austin Powers" might unfortunate austin only gets 1 verse because it's far and away the best part of this one. aside from a clever pussy eating joke near the end between the two feuding bonds. Favorite verse: Austin Powers

"Nice Peter vs EpicLLOYD 2" this is an actual real-life catharsis event between the main two artists behind ERB who seemingly put very real and deep-seated creative and personal frustrations they have with each other into their verses, plus a very real burnout over this series that they put all their money on being The Big One, creating a legitimately tense feeling in watching their performances. for reference, Peter rips on how Lloyd is an alcoholic and is unwilling to let the channel grow or change, and Lloyd talks about how Peter is obsessive and manipulative, referencing a real life issue involving a friend they fucked over in the separate video he appeared in. Favorite verse: Lloyd 1 (of ??? this one is almost a duet at times really)

"Babe Ruth vs Lance Armstrong" this one is specifically here because babe's second verse goes extremely hard in an almost uncharacteristic way for a series with very middling raps in general. Favorite verse: Babe Ruth 2 (of 2)

i could keep going i think but i just scrolled to the top of the list and my face flushed with embarrassment at how long its getting so im gonna end it there. you get the idea.

[cornedbeefhashtags]

Oh cool, so you guys live together in a semi-historic home with your dog and a clawfoot tub? No, that’s awesome! But how did you afford the—oh, yeah, no, for sure. Note to self: be born rich next time!! Haha anyway, yes, you should definitely post another picture of your living room from a slightly different angle. No way, everyone loves repeatedly seeing your calculatedly quirky gallery wall that has just enough exposed paint for an occasional Sherwin-Williams sponsorship.

[whoreviewswho]

You're Serious? - The Time Warrior, 1973

A fact that is becoming somewhat lost to time is that Jon Pertwee's time on Doctor Who was very popular. This is not to say that the Pertwee era is largely disregarded in 2024 but it does seem readily apparent, as time marches on, that the prevalence of Pertwee as a definitive, monolithic icon for the general public has naturally dwindled. Or, perhaps, dwindled is the wrong word – Pertwee's Doctor has truly been eclipsed by even mightier, entirely totemic icons that came in his wake. David Tennant is THE Doctor and the only other challenger remains the indomitable Tom Baker.

But back when I was a kid, circa 2004/2005, Jon Pertwee's era was definitive. My mum, who grew up in regional Australia, recalled fond memories of watching Pertwee and Katy Manning pal around with the Brigadier. A formative step in my journey as a fan was a visit to Hobbyco in Sydney and begging my mum for the Corgi Doctor Who 40th Anniversary Gift Set of die cast models. Like any number of similar curios that shape fan memories, this particular set cemented what were, to my mind, the most iconic building blocks of the series – the Doctor (a S18 Tom Baker, presumably for painting reasons), the TARDIS (not to scale with the rest of the models), K-9 (with lettering in both sides), the Daleks (a Chase model), Davros (no notes), the Cybermen (Earthshock model that I apparently either never got or immediately lost since I have not memories of owning one) and Bessie (also not to scale), driven by Tom Baker. I vividly recall purchasing the set and the guy at the counter being excited to strike up a conversation. He was obviously a fan and talked fondly about the highlights of the series. What I realised in the years that have flowed on since is that, despite speaking highly of the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, the most vivid of those rosy fan memories, the ones he and many other adults always relayed to me pre-revival, were of UNIT and the Master and the Sea Devils and Bessie* and the Axons and the Sontarans.

Put into perspective, this makes a great deal of sense. Leaving aside my home country's personal context (mid-'70s DW was infamously repeated on the ABC, a fact that was immortalised in DWM #104 when Tasmanian Jamie Hillard complained of the tedium of seasons eleven to fourteen being repeated twice a year, every year for the past five years. He was suitably rinsed by the UK fandom), Jon Pertwee's era was the most popular Doctor Who had ever been. While the show chugged along just fine during Troughton's tenure, it was in dire straits when producer Barry Letts inherited it partway through production of season seven, Pertwee's first, in 1970. It was only off the strength of what made it to screen that the programme was renewed at all. Throughout the four years that followed, Letts and script-editor Terrance Dicks retooled Doctor Who from Derrick Sherwin's vision of a hard-edged, political sci-fi thriller into the more accessible glam-infused comic-book show that raked in as many as ten million viewers a week for the first time since 1965. 

But a good thing only lasts so long and, by the time of late 1973, just as Doctor Who was kicking off its eleventh season, it felt like a natural end was coming to what had been an incredibly successful five years. Pertwee’s Doctor Who had became an institution in its own right. Not to get too ahead of myself but there is a strong case to be made that Tom Baker and the Philip Hinchcliffe's era ascent to being the most popular the show ever was in its original run owes as much, if not more, of its success to the goodwill and steadily rising audience of the Pertwee years than it does to its actual quality (and it is of a very high quality). This is entirely hyperbolic but I strongly believe that had anybody else been cast as Pertwee's successor, anything less than the perfect storm we got, the Letts/Dicks/Pertwee run of the show would send out as the cultural peak even today. Bessie and the Brig would be wheeled out by the norms instead of the long scarf and K-9, that you can believe,

As everybody reading this article would know, the earthbound stories of Pertwee's time were notable for a distinct 'family feel', so to speak. Unlike previous eras, and any until 2005, the Third Doctor had an ongoing, regular supporting cast of UNIT personnel and assistants as well as the recurring threat of Roger Delgado's Master. There is a familiarity and comfort to the Third Doctor's run. Over the course of the previous year’s season ten, however, Letts and Dicks decided that the format had well and truly run its course and the Doctor was propelled into space and time full-time once again, leaving behind the UNIT regulars as merely recurring characters. It was during this production cycle that Katy Manning had decided that it was time for her to move on from the show, departing at the end of The Green Death, the last story broadcast that season. The final serial of season ten's production block, however, was actually the first story of season eleven – The Time Warrior.

Throughout the 1973-74 season, a slow (and conscious) dismantling of the Pertwee era begun taking place as well as a distinct sense of a lap of honour for the previous four seasons. In real life, this begins with Manning's departure in 1973 which, while her own instigated decision, was encouraged by Letts for fear his two stars would jump ship at the same time. Letts and Dicks had themselves decided to move on by the time season eleven proper began production which ultimately left Pertwee, self-conscious of his self-proclaimed team breaking up, finally deciding to give up the reigns after the tragic death of Roger Delgado. Onscreen, of course, this plays out somewhat quietly masterful. Malcolm Hulke's Invasion of the Dinosaurs is a conspiracy laden, political thriller such as those of season seven (detractors would call it parody) and saw the departure of now disgraced UNIT captain Mike Yates. Death to the Daleks (the hardest to square this circle, tbf)called back to the season ten’s epic return of the ‘60s Dalek adventure and offered the last gasp of the traditional, Hartnell style adventure serial that still permeated across Pertwee's time. The Monster of Peladon offered a direct sequel to the fan-favourite from season nine with some nice, deliberate telegraphing of the Doctor's oncoming death. And then there's the grand finale, Planet of the Spiders, where the Third Doctor departs the show with his remaining UNIT family under a series of self-referential and, frankly, indulgent circumstances set off by his own cavalier behaviour. Season eleven is a twenty-six episode finale for the Pertwee era that retreads all of the highs and exposes its limitations quite deliberately. With all of this in mind, The Time Warrior, the series opener, is entirely lacking in this sort of farewell mentality stands out as something of a different beast for the year.

For each of their seasons on the job, Letts and Dicks made a conscious effort to open each year with a big event and season eleven was no exception. After an absence of eight years (no, The Time Monster doesn't count), the duo thought that it was time for the return of the historical story. Somebody who disagreed, however, was Robert Holmes. Holmes had been a frequent contributor over Dicks' tenure as script-editor and was less than enthused that his proposal, The Automata, was rejected for him to be reassigned an historical. Dicks suggested an adventure be set in and around a medieval castle (it was filmed between Peckforton Castle and Wessex Castle to stunning results) and Holmes agreed only on the proviso that no famous historical figures were to be featured and that strong science-fiction elements were to still be included. The story that made it to screen has become one of the most renowned and celebrated in the history of the show. Frequently, I see it touted up alongside the all-time greats in the franchise as one of the very best and a real highlight of Jon Pertwee’s time in the show. While I think that The Time Warrior is very good, and there is a lot that I really like about it, this level of high praise has never sat entirely well with me. I don't even really have a lot to say on it. I like it a lot, it is the highlight of season eleven and one of many high points of Pertwee's run, but I have never found it to be an unshakable classic. 

Let's not get too in the weeds too soon, though because Robert Holmes was a magnificent writer. Despite his personal disinterest, the man took his brief seriously clearly put in a lot of thought into getting the most out of this particular assignment. There is almost an overabundance of wit and charm and character to The Time Warrior's ensemble. As with most sharply intelligent people, Holmes was also obviously quite cynical and Instead of leaning into something fantastically Arthurian or romantically noble, he opted for a medieval world of pure grime and nastiness. This could be taken as Holmes leaning fully into the historical story's roots as an educational programme, insisting upon the most realistic depiction of the middle ages he could on a BBC budget for a family audience. I find this hard to believe. No, what Holmes was far more likely to do, and did, was recognise that this approach would have worked perfectly well and then take the next step which is basically to take the piss out of it. The Time Warrior is not just a witty script, it is hilariously absurd and over-the-top in every aspect of its conception. Irongron and Bloodaxe are laughably incompetent and self-absorbed but the pair it is in how gleefully squalid and brutal they are that Holmes relishes in. Yes, there is a realism to The Time Warrior in that it is not the Shakespearean or mythic depiction one might have expected from the Hartnell days how but the over-exaggeration of the repulsiveness and savagery of medieval life is what I truly adore. Mind you, this is largely just what's on the surface. Holmes is obviously doing here is writing an exaggerated depiction of middle-aged England that is functionally indistinguishable from England as it was in 1973. Holmes basically invented Blackadder. As great as this is, though, it doesn't always work in its favour. We'll get to Sarah Jane shortly.

A different aspect of this serial that has made it so iconic is its main villain. Determining that a small-scale threat would be easier both for him and for the production team, Holmes’ plot revolves around a single alien menace attempting to find his way home. Allegedly inspired by his recent reading of the On War treatise, Holmes was compelled to create an entirely militaristic villain and what he created was the character of Commander Linx, as performed by Kevin Lindsay. However well Linx is realised in the story, as much praise as anyone needs to be directed to make-up designer Sandra Exelby and costume designer James Acheson for their realisation of him. Linx, and by extension the Sontarans themselves, is a grotesque creature with a troll-like quality. It has not escaped notice for many that the species design is built around an extended gag – that part one cliffhanger. Still, fans continuously fail to appreciate just how goddamn funny Linx is. The characterisation is brilliant and nobody behind the scenes, until Steven Moffat, seems to realise that this is why he works.

Holmes, in no genuinely dramatic way, utilises Linx as a threat. What he is instead, besides a visual joke, is a scathing satire of militaristic ideals. That avenue also lends itself perfectly to the exaggerated depiction of the middle-ages. In his first scene, Linx emerges before the primitive natives, in strange armour with advanced weaponry, and claims that this new land now belongs to the Sontaran Empire as he plants a flag and assumes dominance over the people. It doesn't require much analysis to decipher what's happening here. Throughout the story, Linx, whose lines almost entirely consist of spouting rhetoric, offers to make weapons for the humans he's met, all the while condescending them and caring little for their lives and livelihoods. It's a simple but fantastically clever move; Holmes has taken the opportunity to depict the English, typically at one of their most mythic and noble periods, as a cowardly and cruel race to be easily oppressed and mocked. 

The Time Warrior also sees the debut of another mainstay in Doctor Who lore in Sarah Jane Smith. Created by Barry Letts in direct contrast to her predecessor, Sarah Jane was pitched to directly address accusations of sexism that the series had garnered by being an obviously capable, career-driven, feisty and adventure-seeking investigative journalist. Incredibly, the role was cast before Elisabeth Sladen had even auditioned and, if to weren't for an uproar made by Pertwee due to his not being consulted, the part would have gone to April Walker show was paid out of the part when Letts cast Sladen (after he'd arranged for her to meet Pertwee, of course). For perhaps the wrong reasons, Pertwee was entirely correct though. From her first appearance, it is impossible not to be enamoured by Elisabeth Sladen. She just has a natural charm in this role and a captivating quality that makes her so very easy to watch. 

As introduced in The Time Warrior, Sladen is certainly strong. She is well-defined, well-performed and plays a major role in the events of the plot. She is also at the core of the serial's biggest stumbling block which can come down to Holmes' poorly pitched snark. It is certainly one of Holmes’ regular tricks to lean heavily into sardony and lampshading things that, he at least considers to be, regressive and absurd ways of thinking. Sometimes this can really serve the story the is telling and the characterisation, it does so elsewhere in this one. Here, however, I think he misses the mark drastically and it comes off very poorly. In making the world of The Time Warrior such an exaggerated and vitriolic comment on contemporary Britain, Sarah has little place to assume control in the narrative and is rather brutally victimised by it. 

Sure, Sarah Jane is firmly established as a feminist icon and it is a fine idea to drop her into the wretched sexism and reality of how horrible women were treated in the Middle Ages but emphasis is all wrong and it comes off so mean-spirited to me. In a similar vein, so much of the Doctor’s dialogue is designed to tease her about her strong values. The effect of all of this is likely intended to be endearing, and it is certainly to be funny but it comes off so smug and unnecessary. Sarah's beliefs, and the entire concept of feminism by extension, are singled-out as a futile gesture. Women are put down, they have also been put down and they always will be. This is perfectly in line with Holmes' approach to storytelling and his flavour of social commentary. It is also does not work at all.

Even though the Doctor frequently becomes Holmes' mouthpiece, I must stress that Jon Pertwee is not the problem at all. At this point in his run, the actor is so comfortable and confident in his performance that it would be impossible for him to disappear in it. To be honest, this is really the last time he properly turns up during his run since the season eleven filming Despite his oddly sexist jabs, the Third Doctor is wonderfully charismatic and relaxed in this story. There is a lovely development of his character from the rather pig-headed, irrational and moody character from season seven to the more mischievous tutor role he starts to settle into here. It is a similar progression to the First and Twelfth Doctors though rarely garners the same recognition. 

The Time Warrior also has a few structural problems in my opinion, especially in episode three. The penultimate quarter of a Doctor Who serial always seems to be the hardest to write without playing for time, the three act structure is so familiar for a reason, and this one is no exception feeling like it does waste quite a lot of time with the Doctor arsing. Getting out of the castle and going back in and all for no really good reason other than to stretch out the runtime. Obviously, all of the antics are fun. This is a good production and Alan Bromley's only true directorial credit but it still has a bit of a sag, in my opinion. Is The Time Warrior a bad story? Far from it. Nothing as fun and as well made as this could possibly be considered wholly bad in my books. It is flawed, certainly but there is so much here to love. In a season of greatest hits, The Time Warrior stands out like a toad-faced git, chuckling with glee at how clever it is.

Later in the year, and despite the reservations of the BBC Head of serials, Holmes would be offered the position of script-editor for season twelve. He took the offer up and, in hindsight, it makes The Time Warrior somewhat of an intriguing curio. On the one hand, this is the last product of the creative fury that was season ten. On the other, it is a tantalising glimpse into what lies ahead around the corner. The Hinchcliffe era doesn't obviously have much in common with The Time Warrior, it is a lot funnier than a lot of those stories would be, but there is a more subtle stylistic shift to be seen here. This is not a comic-book adventure serial. The action is not explosive and the dialogue is not pulpy and punchy in the same way. The Time Warrior is more literary. Not inherently a better or even more intelligent choice but the distinction is palpable. Underneath the sheen of a gritty historical is a silly story about squalid and mean characters  whose lives are miserable and ambitions are low. Even with the Doctor, still under UNIT's employ, there is a clear sense of his ready to move on from this status quo. The wheels of the next era are slowly in motion. Even the title sequence has changed, slowly morphing into its next identity but it's not quite there yet. Instead of looking back on the era that is closing up, The Time Warrior sets its sights firmly on the future. 

It's not even close to the best Pertwee story though. 

*He did, however, question why the Bessie model featured a S18 Tom in the driver's seat saying that it was "mostly Pertwee" who drove the car. Throughout my childhood, I found it easy to reconcile this though thanks to Tom's appearance in the The Five Doctors photoshoot. It's obvious, really.

[kylo-wrecked]

@thesilverandjetsystem ://

— ☾ —

Michel Renella was known for throwing the gaudy neo-20th century parties of babylonic ambition everyone hated but went to in droves. 

This time, Renella and his triad were playing a filmed sensual surrealist enactment of Flahooley over a Sherwin Williams High Reflective White monolith flanked by gold-flecked rose marble pillars, part of Michel Renella's awful penchant for anything art deco revival (like the brown and pink carpeted stairs and split-levels) completing the absurdity and tastelessness of the whole pad and affair. 

Luckily, the silent and runny off-color production of Flahooley was accompanied by one of those big brass bands. They hired a singer who could simulate Yma Sumac's vocalisations and startling range—her right to the golden headdress. 

Ben had quietly planted his frame on something he was not supposed to sit on, watching the salmon-saturated projection of a wannabe actress twirling her wrists and sashaying from resin plaster to marble, resin marble to plaster, the singer's golden voice glissading through his right ear; Birds was the song, and she tittered and cried like one. Castanets thudded against his left ear in competition with the flourishing party chatter. The film no one was interested in watching skipped between the wannabe actress dancing and flashes of burning baby dolls, then the it-girl genie shaking her tits. And who should step through that hokey image but Steven Grant? 

"Look, it's the sheik." 

A few ferns away stood a man costumed, again, in poor taste, as a heavily, you know, made-up Rudolph Valentino, but they both knew Ben was referring to Grant. 

Grant who was like a different guy every time Ben saw him. He could swear, on God, who he wouldn't, so he'd swear on his Ma, the love and bane of his life, that Grant was about three different guys in a tan button-down, a three-piece suit, or the t-shirt with the little scarf. 

Ben rose to approach him not two moments before Michel Renella shrieked, "Get off my Noguchi, you giant shitting fuck—!" 

The giant shitting fuck to Renella, swaggering Grant's way without turning to look at the sculpture he’d defiled: “I'd sit on the furniture, Nella, but you don't own any." 

"So," Ben said when he met his mark. Flashing one of his coyer angles, though, his insuppressible sour grin gave the guise a double edge. "Grant. I heard you're producing a movie or something. How?" 

One of Nella's catering can-can dancers swung by on legs as long as Ben was tall, and he plucked a glass off her tray.  

"Have a drink," he implored, pushing the flute into one of the magnificent Steven Grant's magnificent hands. "That's nice. Go on. Give it a good knock-back. Now tell me about your amazing lives. My mistake; I mean life." 

Ben grinned and pressed Grant's shoulder. 

"I mean, Grant. How are you?" 

[mariacallous]

Early in the morning of July 16, 1945, before the sun had risen over the northern edge of New Mexico’s Jornada Del Muerto desert, a new light—blindingly bright, hellacious, blasting a seam in the fabric of the known physical universe—appeared. The Trinity nuclear test, overseen by theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, had filled the predawn sky with fire, announcing the viability of the first proper nuclear weapon and the inauguration of the Atomic Era. According to Frank Oppenheimer, brother of the “Father of the Bomb,” Robert’s response to the test’s success was plain, even a bit curt: “I guess it worked.”

With time, a legend befitting the near-mythic occasion grew. Oppenheimer himself would later attest that the explosion brought to mind a verse from the Bhagavad Gita, the ancient Hindu scripture: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one.” Later, toward the end of his life, Oppenheimer plucked another passage from the Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Christopher Nolan’s epic, blockbuster biopic Oppenheimer prints the legend. As Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) gazes out over a black sky set aflame, he hears his own voice in his head: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The line also appears earlier in the film, as a younger “Oppie” woos the sultry communist moll Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). She pulls a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from her lover’s bookshelf. He tells her he’s been learning how to read Sanskrit. She challenges him to translate a random passage on the spot. Sure enough: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” (That the line comes in a postcoital revery—a state of bliss the French call la petite mort, “the little death”—and amid a longer conversation about the new science of Freudian psychoanalysis—is about as close to a joke as Oppenheimer gets.)

As framed by Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay, Oppenheimer's cursory knowledge of Sanskrit, and Hindu religious tradition, is little more than another of his many eccentricities. After all, this is a guy who took the “Trinity” name from a John Donne poem; who brags about reading all three volumes of Marx��s Das Kapital (in the original German, natch); and, according to Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s biography, American Prometheus, once taught himself Dutch to impress a girl. But Oppenheimer’s interest in Sanskrit, and the Gita, was more than just another idle hobby or party trick.

In American Prometheus, credited as the basis for Oppenheimer, Bird and Sherwin depict Oppenheimer as more seriously committed to this ancient text and the moral universe it conjures. They develop a resonant image, largely ignored in Nolan’s film. Yes, it’s got the quote. But little of the meaning behind it—a meaning that illuminates Oppenheimer’s own conception of the universe, of his place in it, and of his ethics, such as they were.

Composed sometime in the first millennium, the Bhagavad Gita (or “Song of God”) takes the form of a poetic dialog between a warrior-prince named Arjuna and his charioteer, the Hindu deity Krishna, in unassuming human form. On the cusp of a momentous battle, Arjuna refuses to engage in combat, renouncing the thought of “slaughtering my kin in war.” Throughout their lengthy back-and-forth (unfolding over some 700 stanzas), Krishna attempts to ease the prince’s moral dilemma by attuning him to the grander design of the universe, in which all living creatures are compelled to obey dharma, roughly translated as “virtue.” As a warrior, in a war, Krishna maintains that it is Arjuna’s dharma to serve, and fight; just as it is the sun’s dharma to shine and water’s dharma to slake the thirsty.

In the poem’s ostensible climax, Krishna reveals himself as Vishnu, Hinduism’s many-armed (and many-eyed and many-mouthed) supreme divinity; fearsome and magnificent, a “god of gods.” Arjuna, in an instant, comprehends the true nature of Vishnu and of the universe. It is a vast infinity, without beginning and end, in a constant process of destruction and rebirth. In such a mind-boggling, many-faced universe (a “multiverse,” in the contemporary blockbuster parlance), the ethics of an individual hardly matter, as this grand design repeats in accordance with its own cosmic dharma. Humbled and convinced, Arjuna takes up his bow. As recounted in American Prometheus, the story had a significant impact on Oppenheimer. He called it “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.” He praised his Sanskrit teacher for renewing his “feeling for the place of ethics.” He even christened his Chrysler Garuda, after the Hindu bird-deity who carries the Lord Vishnu. (That Oppenheimer seems to identify not with the morally conflicted Arjuna but with the Lord Vishnu himself may say something about his own sense of self-importance.)

“The Gita,” Bird and Sherwin write, “seemed to provide precisely the right philosophy.” Its prizing of dharma, and duty as a form of virtue, gave Oppenheimer’s anguished mind a form of calm. With its notion of both creation and destruction as divine acts, the Gita offered Oppenheimer a frame of making sense of (and, later, justifying) his own actions. It’s a key motivation in the life of a great scientist and theoretician, whose work was marshaled toward death. And it’s precisely the sort of idea Nolan rarely lets seep into his movies.

Nolan’s films—from the thriller Memento and his Batman trilogy to the sci-fi opera Interstellar and the time-reversal blockbuster Tenet—are ordered around puzzles and problem-solving. He establishes a dilemma, provides the “rules,” and then sets about solving that dilemma. For all his sci-fi high-mindedness, he allows very little room for questions of faith or belief. Nolan's cosmos is more like a complicated puzzle box. He has popularized a kind of sapio-cinema, which makes a virtue of intelligence without being itself highly intellectual.

At their best, his movies are genuinely clever in conceit and construct. The one-upping stage magicians of The Prestige, who go mad trying to best one another, are distinctly Nolanish figures. The tripartite structure of Dunkirk—which weaves together plot lines that unfold across distinct periods of time—is likewise inspired. At their worst, Nolan’s films collapse into ponderousness and pretension. The barely scrutable reality-distortion mechanics of Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet smack of hooey.

Oppenheimer seems similarly obsessed with problem-solving. First, Nolan sets up some challenges for himself. Such as: how to depict a subatomic fission reaction at Imax scale or, for that matter, how to make a biopic about a theoretical physicist as a broadly entertaining summer blockbuster. Then he sets to work. To his credit, Oppenheimer unfolds breathlessly and succeeds making dusty-seeming classroom conversations and chatty closed-door depositions play like the stuff of a taut, crowd-pleasing thriller. The cinematography, at both a subatomic and megaton scale, is also genuinely impressive. But Nolan misses the deeper metaphysics undergirding the drama.

The movie depicts Murphy’s Oppenheimer more as a methodical scientist. Oppenheimer, the man, was a deep and radical thinker whose mind was grounded by the mystical, the metaphysical, and the esoteric. A film like Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life shows that it is possible to depict these sort of higher-minded ideas at the grand, blockbuster scale, but it’s almost as if they don’t even occur to Nolan. One might, charitably, claim that his film’s time-jumping structure reflects the Gita’s notion of time itself as nonlinear. But Nolan’s reshuffling of the story’s chronology seems more born of a showman’s instinct to save his big bang for a climax.  When the bomb does go off, and its torrents of fire fill the gigantic Imax screen, there’s no sense that the Lord Vishnu, the mighty one, is being revealed in that “radiance of a thousand suns.” It’s just a big explosion. Nolan is ultimately a journeyman technician, and he maps that personality onto Oppenheimer. Reacting to the horrific, militarily unjustifiable bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima (which are never depicted on-screen), Murphy’s Oppenheimer calls them “technically successful.”

Judged against the life of its subject, Oppenheimer can feel like a bit of let down. It fails to comprehend the woolier, yet more substantial, worldview that animated Oppie’s life, work, and own moral torment. Weighed against Nolan’s own, more purely practical, ambitions, perhaps the best that can be said of Oppenheimer is that—to paraphrase the physicist’s actual reported comments, uttered at his moment of ascension to the status of godlike world-destroyer—it works. Successful, if only technically.

[llyrawren]

screw it, re:tbg boss ranking. i actually really like these guys #10: yawn 2. except for yawn 2, yawn 2 hurts. i'll give the devs credit for making it so that there's only one boss that feels like a repeat (re2 and re3 felt like you were fighting a lot of the same dudes), but like. yawn 2 is the only fight i actively don't like to fight. feels like there could have been a lot more to shake it up, yawn 2 is the only boss i actively dislike fighting #9: enemy wesker. i love enemy wesker's concept, i love his gamemode, i love everything about this bozo except for the actual process of fighting him. he's just way too weak; five health makes him a joke beyond the first few scenarios, and his attacks and tricks just don't leave enough of an impact to feel like a threat. his main attack is a los move, medium evade, one damage. don't be afraid to unload a full clip onto us, wesker, we are grown adults and prepared to die #8: yawn 1. yawn 2 walked so this guy could speedwalk; i admit that it's not much of an improvement generally from yawn 2, and is certainly much easier, but always feels like a major threat given how early you fight it. i should also clarify that every boss from here i generally enjoy fighting, even if they got flaws #7: awakened tyrant. good stuff all-around; the fight feels like a good representation of the original game, backing up and firing. it doesn't stand out in my head as a major fight (heck, i almost forgot it was even a thing for this list), but it was still generally pretty fun #6: plant 42. it's a little on the easy side, being a general hp pushover especially with the v-jolt and vantage points, but it still remains a super fun fight with a unique height gimmick i'm a fan of. i like to think this is sherwin apologizing after the hellscape that was guardhouse b, and honestly, we appreciate it, buddy, this was fun #5: crimson head prototype. it's my list, and i get to decide what qualifies as a boss. chp isn't technically one, but he's got his own level in crypts a where he's a recorring threat, so i'm just gonna call him one. crypts a is a blast either way, and chp is a genuinely challenging enemy. the fact he can come back through a narrative card is sick as heck, too. i like this funky lil guy #4: neptune. i genuinely wondered what this fight was gonna be iike for 2+ years. it was one of my most anticipated, and man, it did not dissapoint. you have to flip these switches around to electrify tiles, and fend off neptune along the way. i do think the lack of hard-hitting attacks is odd, but still, neptune's a good time, worth the wait #3: black tiger. this one rocks, honestly; unique gimmicks with the ceiling retreat, web tokens, and it feels like a serious threat for when in the campaign it comes in. not only that, but poison is a legitimate threat in the fight, which i genuinely really appreciate. black tiger pretty comfortably secures this spot, is a fun, frantic duel #2: lisa trevor. love this one. it sucks the story wasn't properly represented in flavor text, but i really like this fight, needing to decide when to attack and when to push stones, fighting against lisa's attacks. it was a bit of a shame that they didn't have a mechanic where you could get knocked off the edge, but i feel like that would've been a bit overkill. generally love this one! #1: t-002 tyrant. maybe a copout to have the final boss be the final one up here, but i just really like the tyrant fight. death grip is an awesome mechanic, it incorporates movement with the signal flares, the rocket launcher, the tense feeling of the fight, it's just... man, they capped it off super well, tyrant is awesome

[rrrauschen]

Guy Sherwin & Lynne Loo, {1972} Newsprint

[ghostnight]

Tree Reflection (1998)

[funnywormz]

top 10 lobby boy looks please and thank you rate this man like he's in an issue of cosmo and we're ripping him asunder

this was a toughie bc idk anything abt fashion and his outfits aren't described in as much detail as the manager but i still had fun!! decided to only use publicly accessible canon episodes for this (no bonus eps, nothing patreon exclusive) hehe. also let me reiterate once more that i have the worst fashion sense in the entire world

NUMBER 10: 4.10 - audrey burns

awesome episode but this fit sounds boring as hell. it doesn't sound BAD but just...... boring.......... doesn't even have a hat. sad

NUMBER 9: 4.1 - perry sherwin

he doesn't like it and i don't either. white is definitely not the best colour to be wearing when you're employed at a slimy gross murder hotel lol. maybe it looked kinda cool but thinking abt him trying to get the stains out makes me a little sad. also plain white is kinda boring imo....... although it could look cool in a kind of stark way i suppose

NUMBER 8: 4.17 - debbie houston

putting this one low on the list bc it's uncomfortable for him and he didn't like it which is sad. but it's at number 8 not lower bc i instinctively know he was serving cunt here. like i know he looked kinda sexy in it. but he doesn't like it and comfort should always come before fashion imho, hence its low spot on the list. also he didn't even get to wear it out of the closet.......

NUMBER 7: 4.16 - alex potenski

made the manager cringe but i think it sounds kinda cute in an ugly way. like he could wear this to a barbecue or to the beach or something. i like it when madam hotel puts him in pink.........

NUMBER 6: 4.7 - dorothy rennup

it's giving librarian. it's giving tumblr history teacher aesthetic. unfortunately i have a weakness for that kind of outfit so i think it sounds cute. it also sounds comfortable and warm which is important! and the collared button up under a sweater look is always something i enjoy................

NUMBER 5: 4.3 - the habers

we never actually get this one properly described to us which is why it isn't higher on the list. based on the hotel taking on a 70s aesthetic in this episode and the fact that even THINKING about this made the manager cringe kinda fills me with joy bc i know it was ugly and campy as hell. in my heart i know he was so garish and awkward looking and sweaty in this episode and i love it.

NUMBER 4: 4.9 - mr platt

i think this sounds cute sorry miss manager. once again i like it when the hotel puts him in pink outfits. by "coral" im assuming it's a pink/peachy coral type of colour which i think would look cool in combination with black. tidy but a little bit ugly in a way that i enjoy greatly. idk exactly why i like this one as much as i do. but i do.

NUMBER 3: 5.2 - it watches and it smiles

LOVE THIS THANG! underrated episode imo. i love the way this episode combines ominous terror with like, pleasant night time tropical beach vibes. it's rlly good. the description of the lobby boy in this episode is also rlly good. something chunky and very low to the ground that can't move fast but has very very long grabby arms and bulging big eyes and an evil grin........ i love it. sounds very spooky. love it when he's at the window menacing the guy inside. it's easy to get a vague idea of this creature in my head but hard to pin it down to a specific design which i think is intentional, and i rlly like it. very shaped animal. sounds like he might look at little bit silly if you caught him in the daylight perhaps, although that isn't necessarily a bad thing

NUMBER 2: 2.2 - cracker man

sadly we don't get much of a description of cracker man but im putting him high up bc i think he is awesome. bones sticking out everywhere, joints and the wrong angles, all skinny and tall and bulging and swollen and creaking........ love it. i bet he looks so scary. the idea of the monster chasing you being all broken and sad and in pain itself is very compelling. also the body horror side to the cracker man where he's constantly creaking and snapping with every movement is so uncomfortable (in a good way). also as someone with very creaky and sometimes painful joints i can relate to him.

NUMBER 1: 4.5 - robert watson

maybe this sounds underwhelming but hear me out. HEAR ME OUT OK! this is one of the few episodes where the lobby boy is described as wearing the classic red lobby boy uniform, and it's extra shiny and fancy and pretty this time. i think he was physically at his peak of lobby-boy-ness here. the red outfit with the hat and shiny buttons is a classic and it's his most iconic look ever. most people in the fandom including me draw him this way. it might seem boring or generic bc it's so common but to me this outfit is just His Outfit. it's the lobby boy outfit. unbeatable imo. if he was a cartoon character and wore the same outfit every episode i just KNOW it would be this one. it's a classic. i will not be swayed on this.

[princesable]

hi welcome to my post. my post of charlie game plot summary. because i realized no such post exists. so like. here we are. charlie game has a plot. you wouldnt know this because i keep forgetting to mention it as i have a horrible habit of just assuming people know. for some reason.

so the story starts as all memorable stories do. someone fucking dying. i could not think of any other way to open this. basically sherwin ends up causing a freak accident that ends with twitch's best friend getting killed badly. he then immediately goes into hiding as you do.

twitch kind of assumes he also died because he just vanished without a trace so like. what else would have happened. one day sherwin makes the brilliant decision to leave his house for the first time in like a year or so (i have not decided on how long ok. its long enough) and twitch almost immediately spots him and is like Oh i need to kill him right fucking now. they start chasing after him but due to his abilities (being relatively fast) he gets away. and twitch is like. ok. what the fuck. i need to go tell the 4 (four) people i know that sherwin isnt actually dead so i can get them to help me track his ass down and kill him. so he will actually be dead.

luckily for twitch they exclusively know people who are Fucking Weird and always open to violence because they have nothing better to do or theyre clyde who is convinced hes a super villain. fox is also there but shes mostly ambivalent on this due to not really. knowing any of them. henry and terrence are also there and theyre not really invested either but they think it sounds fun. so theyre down for whatever. important thing to note is that none of them are really taking this as seriously as twitch. everyone else kind of just views this as a "game". subtle reference to the fact this will be a video game.

so twitch is like ok i have. no idea where the fuck he could have gone. so we're all gonna split up and look for him. feel free to do whatever you want as long as you bring sherwin back to me so i can kill him badly. and everyone hears this as "have fun with it be yourself" so instead of setting up traps like normal people they essentially set up. attractions? meant to lure him in so they can mess with him a bit before grabbing him and taking him home. except for fox shes just watching everyone. plotting or something. she says shes plotting.

sherwin on the other hand runs into sam and ellie who are just completely unrelated. they dont know anyone involved. so the only side theyre getting is "weird dude shows up out of nowhere who is clearly running from something and looks absolutely terrified" so they decide to tag along with him so he doesnt immediately fall down a flight of stair or something. also because it means they get to go on a road trip weeeeeeee (they are actively on the run)

and thats the prologue. basically. every chapter/act/whatever you feel like calling them will focus on one of the "attractions" and which ever guy is assigned to them. and how they are really really bad at their jobs. tldr: sherwin fucked up reaaaaaaaaaaaally bad and now everyone wants him dead. it is up to viewer interpretation if this is fair. personally i think its funny.

^ i think hes funny