#i still haven't figured out how to draw daniel

[yourgaydads]

two kinda old very random doodles i don't plan on finishing:

daniel will tide-pen that shit for him

infrastructure week in the dreaming

[onboardsorasora]

35. kissing their bruises and scars. Maybe? 🫢

Isabel thank you for this ask!! This made me think of just let me adore you! and I fought with myself the whole day because I, of course, don't want to spoil anything from teeth! But I figured out a happy medium; a coda for an unwritten scene in Adore you, after they resolved their feelings in the hotel room and fucked nasty about it. This happens after that, where they fucked nasty in the shower! Also, can be read as a stand alone if you haven't read Adore you, but I strongly suggest you do! (pardon my self promotion)

(I'm gonna add the banner cause I never get to use it lmao)

Max’s mind went blissfully blank and his knees buckled as Daniel kissed him. The cool tile at his back shocked him a little into awareness, but it only made him clench Daniel’s hips harder. Daniel’s hands were still going through the pseudo motions of wiping Max down with a soapy washcloth, they both knew where this was going the moment a shared shower was suggested.

“I want to suck your dick.” Daniel whispered against his lips and Max didn’t even bother to hold back his own groan.

“How very ‘save the oceans’ of you.” He grinned and bit his lip when Daniel pinched his ass in response. The waterfall shower head drizzled overhead, cocooning them in their own version of paradise.

“We can like turn the shower off, but if you don’t put your dick in my mouth right now..” Daniel waved in the direction of the shower trim and slid expectantly to his knees. He looked up at Max through his lashes and opened his mouth. Max’s cock was centimeters from his lips and Max could feel the small puffs of Daniel’s exhale.

He reached blindly for the pipes, not taking his eyes from Daniel’s. “You are, Of course, already down there. And I wouldn’t want you to drown.” He muttered in explanation as the water shut off. He ignored Daniel’s mocking nod of agreement, instead resting his palm overtop sopping curls and fed Daniel his dick.

Daniel moaned immediately, sucking Max’s cock like a treat. Languidly gliding his tongue over every stitch of skin, skillfully drawing moans and curses from the man above him. He pressed his tongue into Max’s slit while massaging his balls and that drew a surprised shout

“Daniel!” Max’s accent was strong in his pleasure and Daniel would forever love the way he called his name. Pressing his nose into Max’s wet pubes, Daniel moaned around Max’s dick. His lover made an aborted cry, or his voice gave out, but he was coming down Daniel’s throat.

Daniel licked at the tip of Max’s cock before kissing his hip, then his belly button. He marked his way back up Max’s body, paying special attention to any silvery scars he met along the way. There weren’t any particularly long or bad ones, which made Daniel irrationally happy. Happy to know that Max was indeed safe and no one had hurt him.

Max gripped the back of Daniel’s neck and melded their lips together messily. Devouring him like he couldn’t get enough, because he couldn’t. He never thought he’d have this again, that he would be able to scratch his nails along Daniel’s scalp or bump his nose against Daniel’s as they breathed the same air.

Max’s other hand clutched at Daniel’s waist, his fingers brushing over the raised skin of the newest scar to mar Daniel’s flesh. Daniel’s hard dick twitched against Max’s hip, pressing against where Daniel had kissed.

Max slipped to his own knees lazily, brushing his nose along Daniel’s chest and abs through his chest hair and happy trail. His fingers trailing the path of face, and he felt Daniel’s abs flutter and contract beneath him. Max kissed his way over corded muscle, before honing in on the mark his fingers found. The last bit of Nico and that night. He licked the raised line, kissing the skin around it before pressing his lips along the blemish. Daniel’s breath hitched above him.

Max glanced up to see Daniel watching him with wide eyes, he nosed the scar again before continuing on to concentrate on Daniel’s straining cock. He licked and suckled wetly, slurping at Daniel’s precome hungrily.

“Fuck…” Daniel’s head was thrown back and his fingers were pulling at his own hair as if that was the only thing keeping him grounded and from spilling his load. Max swiped a finger through the dribble on his chin and pressed the slick digit slowly into Daniel’s ass, still a bit open from their earlier session.

Daniel jumped in shock before clenching around Max’s finger, wanting to pull him in further, wanting more. The sensations were overwhelming and he came with a groan. Daniel leaned against the tiled wall panting while Max stood to his full height and grinned at him.

[arainmorn-art]

Do you like ciphers? I love a good hidden message and mysterious paintings, i really like how you set it up in deciphering, it's partially what drew me in to the comic, aside from your gorg art and funny&heartwrenching dialogue so. I was wondering if you liked mystery stories in general, what would be your favorite ones? Owo

Are you that mysterious person from DeviantArt who tried to decipher the canvas and Morse code sketches? If not, hi anyway! If yes, hello, dear!

The name of a last code type you asked about was really hard to track down because of some translation issue. I thought it was a cipher of the Knights of the Rose Croix, but Google was so confused it couldn't give me anything besides this next to the actual Rose Croix cipher, apparently.

And now I'm confused too, so let's make it easier and I'll show you the decoder. What is SPRC cipher Google doesn't know either.

And yes, I like ciphers, but before writing Deciphering I couldn't thought where I can use them. Now I know I can implement them into drawings x)

It's a little bit funny how I found out about ciphers outside of adventure and mystery movies. It may not look like this now, but in 2012-2014 I was pretty devoted fan of My Little Pony G4. I was 20 and went to Czech Republic to attend the pony convention Czequestria 2014. There was a quest, we split into teams and a part of it was to decipher little texts. It looked some gibberish and I couldn't thought what to do with it, until my teammate, a local guy Vojtech, took the paper sheet - and god damn recognised every type of coding was used. He was mumbling under his nose: "Ah, it's Caesar's one. Alright, rotate 4?.. No, it's rotate the alphabet 3 times". I was mesmerized. And you know what? We were the only team who finished this part and got the first place winning the quest - and all thanks to Vojtech! :)

Only a year after I've watched Gravity Falls - and still haven't figured that out how and where could I use ciphers.

And oh hell yeah, I love detective and mystery stories! As much as I love good romance stories, mysteries are my favourite genre. Isn't that the first reason a lot of us played Ace Attorney? It was mine for sure, besides being bored and wanting to play something silly. I didn't know ANYTHING about gay lawyers until I've launched the game last year.

What are my favourites, uf, that's a tough question.

I absolutely loved Endeavour TV series, watched 3 seasons in a row, and I should return to it. The main character is also so sweet, his large translucent blue eyes inspired me to paint Pheenie's eyes that way.

I also love The Silence of the lambs movie.

In terms of books I really love Alan Bradley's series about Flavia de Luce, the first part is called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Flavia is a 12 years old genius chemist and the youngest daughter living in a manor with her father, two older sisters and several servants - and around her always happen murders. I like Flavia so much, I called my cat after her. She is so charming, funny and quick-witted, cynical and in love with chemistry, interested in poisons, graveyards, decomposition and, well, solving mysteries. It's really funny moments when adults are trying to hide her from corpses, but she leans in to investigate no matter what. She reminds me of Wednesday Addams, but still in a very fresh and entertaining way. I love a combination of sweet and jesus-fking-christ in one story, but it's mostly really sweet and wholesome. And, gosh, it's written so beautifully!

I also can recommend Daniel Pennac's La Saga Malaussene, first part is The Scapegoat. It might be not my favourite, but it is unforgettable experience for sure. The main character is an older brother of 10+ little siblings and the only adult, every one of his little ones are just a tiny bit magical, which makes the story a bit with magical realism. It also contains a combination of sweet and brutal, like Flavia, but here the contrast is even stronger. And the brutal murders, ouf, make the wholesomeness shine even brighter.

Woah, I feel like I should stop for now. Such topics make me really talkative, and I should go back to work. We can continue later, my inbox anywhere is open ;)

[thebreakfastgenie]

Ellsberg variant (which I’m sure you’ve told me about but do you think *I* remember?) but also 💜💜💜 (I meant to send this sooner but I saw it when I was still on the train last night at like. 11:57 PM)

No worries!!

So I explained the basics of Ellsberg Variant here but I'll go through some of it again and add some things! So basically, the idea is there is a break in at Josh's therapist's office, and copies of his records are stolen. This is a variation on what happened to Daniel Ellsberg; the future Watergate burglars broke into his psychiatrist's office looking for his file to retaliate because he leaked the Pentagon Papers. They did not find it, but these fictional guys are more successful. The burglars make copies, so nothing is missing, so the break-in isn't really reported and no one really knows about it until an advance copy of an upcoming tabloid with a hit piece on the White House staff, including the stolen records, is anonymously delivered to CJ's office. I don't have a snippet to share unfortunately but I can talk about it!

What I'm really excited about writing is the first day. The high stakes mystery of it all... CJ ends up consulting with Danny, but of course she can't tell him what it's about, and he's the one who finds the break-in buried in local news. CJ spends a couple hours figuring out what's going on before going to Leo, and at first he's made she waited but realizes she was right to wait until she had something concrete. Shortly after that they bring Josh in to tell him together. That goes... not great, but about as well as it can. Josh has to verify the stolen records are real, as well as provide CJ with the rest of his file, in case anything else was stolen and hasn't been published yet so she can be prepared (she doesn't force him to do this; he agrees it's necessary even though he hates it).

The burglars basically sold copies of high profile patient records to the highest bidder. The buyers (Republican) can't give them to a legitimate newspaper, but once they're published in the tabloid, the news media will report on the break-in and leak and they'll be out there. They discuss trying to go to court to stop the publication, but decide that will only draw more attention to the issue, and the records will be entered as evidence and maybe even be posted on the internet by whoever has them.

It's basically a combination emotional story and thriller/drama as they try to figure out what happened. Danny might get a moment where he refuses to write the kind of coverage other papers are writing. It's mostly gen, with the same level of pre-relationship Josh/Donna friendship I would write in a canon-compliant season 3/4 fic. Amy will probably show up, but Josh and Amy are not together (they're already broken up if I can make the timeline work). There will definitely be some CJ/Danny; I haven't decided how far it'll go, but it won't be the main focus, this is more of a plot fic. I tried writing the first scene a couple times but haven't had a draft I'm happy with. I do know the first scene is from Carol's POV and talks about how she later recounts her memory of the envelope containing the advance copy a bunch of times for CJ, Leo, White House counsel, etc., and she's always completely consistent. I really want to play with this idea more!

[iggydabirdkid]

Hi hello! 🥀 for your Annie, if relevant? 💫 too, in case it's not :)

🥀 How would your OC decorate a notebook or journal? What kind of things are written in there? Could you give an example of a nice entry?

Pre-Heartbreak Annie would draw little stick figures crime fighting and such in the blank spaces of the pages. She'd give them each some sort of characteristic to show who they are.

Julia: Long braid

Themmy: little marks around their hands to signify acid

Chen: Big eyebrows. Angry

The entries of the journal would be anything and everything. To something neat she came across while out and about, to the escapades and shenanigans she got into with Themmy and Julia. Especially things like the Nanosurge, Catastrofiend etc.

A nice entry back then would be something like:

"Went out to eat with Themmy and Sparkles today. Insisted on going to Hoots. I think they wanted her to apologize for almost breaking my nose, even though I've told them there's no hard feelings. The woman in question made herself scarce anyways which is fine by me. I'm just here for the food and the company. Both is good, the latter even better. Never thought I'd ever have friends like this, maybe something more then friends with Julia. Hope i don't mess it up."

Post-Heartbreak Annie would still draw stick figures, though not as many, still with signifying features.

Julia: Little lighting bolts around her. Sometimes little hearts when she's feeling a particular way. Sometimes replacing the stick figures head with a mess of scribbled static when she's feeling bad.

Chen: Still the big eyebrows, though less angry. Tired looking if anything.

Daniel: Air lines to show he's flying, sometimes butterflies around his head.

Argent: Pointy teeth. Long claws.

As for what's in it? A good portion of it's contents are ramblings and half-baked thoughts of a drunken mind. Some pages are just scrawlings, some have been torn out completely.

A nice entry would be rare, but they would be there. As an example:

"I spent the day with Julia today. Had therapy early this morning and didn't feel like spending the day alone. She didn't make a big deal of it but i know she's pleased i chose to stay. We haven't hung out in years. It was... nice. I missed it."

And i did already answer. 💫. But in short. Her determination.

Thank you so much for the ask :)

[there-are-always-flowers]

Late and almost forgotten

Almost a fortnight late but here's my April round-up:

Poor Things was a standout this month. I was intimidated by it's long runtime, but the pacing was amazing! The movie through out some Big Themes (TM) that my English major mind just loved mulling over. It was just pretentious enough for my liking. Oh yea, and all the Emma Stone sex scenes kept me invested. Did that defeat it's thought provoking premise? Maybe. Was that the point? Possibly. Did we still love it? Definitely.

Lisa Frankenstein is exactly who I want to be. A weird, but confident, kinda twisted and spunky girl who is figuring it out as she goes. She doesn't always make the right decisions, but she doesn't what's right for her and what makes her happy. This back-to-back monster-creator movie theme made me think a lot about the OG Frankenstein story and Mary Shelley and how much feminism really went into it all. Shelley was a FREAK! It reminds me that Feminism (TM) doesn't have to be branded in perfection but can be dark, twisted, wrong, but still mean something powerful. I haven't thought it though entirely, but I really vibe with the monster.

Bad Vegan was a completely unexpected hit for me. I was expecting true crime and corruption capitalism. I was not expecting cult-like brainwashing, manipulation, and mental abuse. I though about what line I would draw with my loved ones. How slippery I would let the slope get before backing off. What I would allow myself to listen and if I would believe such nonsensical promises. I wasn't expecting so much thought to come from a early-2000s NY vegan socialite.

Dumb comedies like Blockers always draw me in. Sometimes we just need to shut our minds off and consume something wholesome and funny. Blockers was such a film. I wasn't expecting much by what I did get was laugh out loud funny, a little uncomfortable, but ultimately a win. Also I really love John Cena. He seems like he genuinely enjoys what he does as a actor and he does it well.

Now then... I READ A BOOK!! The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans is a book of short stories and the titular novella. I read this on my commutes to/from work and it's the first time in a while where I wished my commutes were longer so that I can read more. The short stories were just long enough to wish there was more. My favorite of which was Anything Could Disappear could have been taken out of an SVU cold opening. It was so interesting the kind of life the main character sort of just fell into. The idea of just moving to a different city, assuming a new name, a new job, not having anyone really ask any questions - it's all so enticing. To do that along with a child (no spoilers) is just fascinating.

[kitty-av]

Hello, I have been thinking of making the clone gang into my OCs for a while now ( kinda inspired by Mortified because it's a great fanfic, I love me some characters we see for 1 min being utilised and explored ) so I kinda just... Did.

Ok so here are my bois, first I shall show a group line-up, then I introduce them in segments.

Sound good? Ok, here they are!

These are the clone squad in human form, though I'm still debating on whether they are hypothetical forms, or if they're all halfas like Dani.

Also I have never really drawn Danielle, so she may look wonky until I get the hang of it lol

Anyway, introductions:

This man is Dante, he's the skeleton ghost, and I based his design off of two things: his nose looks like it would be different than Danny's, and he had a bedsheet.

So therefore, he gets wavy hair, and a similar build to Danny, except his nose is different and I tried to define his brows and their wrinkles a bit more ( I don't know how to explain it better )

Dante is quite possibly the most laid back from the clone squad because there really weren't any expectations he had to deliver on, unlike his siblings.

He's the second oldest, which means Vlad was just ok with him existing because he was still getting the hang of the whole cloning thing.

This means he had time to work on his hobbies, like art and gardening and just wind down after Vlad inevitably did something terrible.

He has leg prosthetics but because I was too excited to post, so I haven't figured out how to draw them yet, so for now he has long pant legs.

He's the mom friend of the gang, will frequently drag the rest of them out of their pods for bonding time because he knows they can get caught up in their problems.

They poke fun at him for his ' bedsheet ghost ' routine but he thinks it's funny and he's vibing, so they just kinda accept it. He actually uses the spooky voice too, just because.

He's the ' We have food at home ' sibling along with Dorian, but can switch to ' McDonalds ' sibling when he wants to make Danielle happy •^•

Now these two.

Oh, boy.

These two are traumatized let me tell you that.

Let's start with Dorian, who for the purposes of my sanity will be Dan level beefy instead of his canon beefiness. Just because I couldn't figure out how to draw it, and it's my design so screw it.

I had the idea of him looking like Jack because he's the oldest sibling so Vlad accidentally tapped into some genetics he probably didn't like.

As you can probably guess, Vlad is not his biggest fan.

Dorian is just the sweetest boi. He's the Jazz of the squad. Often ignores himself and accidentally becomes the therapist friend when there's nobody there to help him set his boundaries.

He's really into social justice, reading, and also rock/metal music ( because why not, it fits his ghost aesthetic too )

He just wants the best for his siblings, even though he's painfully aware Vlad is just... Vlad.

He will not hesitate to curb stomp you if you become a threat to his family, and while he's very patient, the clone gang has sorta given him a sixth sense for detecting mischief.

I'm serious, he walks into a room and just knows they did something.

He chooses to wear formal adjacent clothing himself, it isn't Vlad that made him do it. He feels comforted by the routine of styling himself.

Now, Dominic: I'm gonna put the pic back here for reference.

This lil man

He is just... Full of anger. And issues.

First, his design was meant to have a lot of triangular shapes to kinda match Danny's, as well as to bring more attention to his face.

His eye is just gone in human form as well. It falls off constantly, so he doesn't bother and just carries it in a pouch in his pocket. Dorian finds that understandably disturbing, and Dante is somewhere between ' I can make eye puns when he brings it up ' and ' dude I wish my brother would have better care for himself '.

He's the third clone, and Vlad's favourite until Danielle happened. Unfortunately, because we can't have nice things, he's constantly unstable in ghost form, and because of that Vlad pushed him hard enough for him to develop the shrinking, purely out of his want to disappear and hide.

Dominic despises Vlad from the bottom of his heart, because unlike with Dani, Vlad didn't bother hiding his disappointment and loopiness when it came to his ' almost perfect son '

He's pretty jaded because of this, and he swore to himself that Dani would not suffer like he did, so he allowed himself to get blackmailed into behaving by Vlad. Basically the deal was that Dominic would obey without question, and Dani will be happy and oblivious to the fact he literally doesn't care.

Later on, Vlad tells him that he'll have Danielle overshadow Danny, but he volunteers instead because he knows it won't end well, and he's absolutely right. Vlad probably knew this so he told him specifically so his ' problem child ' wouldn't be a problem.

He would literally fight anyone, despite the fact he has bad depth perception, a lack of real offensive abilities, and an incredible lack of solidity/stability.

He probably waits for the summer with anticipation because he can fire tiny ectoblasts at Vlad and pretend it was mosquitoes.

Besides all the angst and trauma, he has a passion for theatre and mischief. He and Dani are incredibly close and prank everyone. Dominic probably taught her the ' faint to get out of a difficult conversation ' trick.

He can't talk in tiny form, it just sounds like bells ( like Tinkerbell )

Dante probably teases him for ' doing puberty wrong ' and Dominic strikes back with digs against the ' bedsheet ghost routine '. They're vibing.

Dorian and Dominic are also Metal/Rock music buddies and will listen to music together while Dorian is reading some book or other. Dominic is incredibly grateful to have his support despite all the headaches his mischief cause, and he often serves as Dorian's ' boundaries cheerleader ' so to speak.

He's the ' One black coffee ' sibling if you hadn't noticed. Only he'd probably hand it to Danielle because she's his partner in crime.

Now Dani herself, she absolutely adores her brothers. She doesn't understand why Vlad doesn't, but she thinks she can change his mind because he ' likes ' her. Then when he calls her brothers ' mistakes ' she goes ' ok I can't, but if he stabilises me, I can maybe save them too ' because she's precious like that .

Unfortunately, things don't work that way, and so when she leaves Amity park she's kinda confronted with the realisation that ' oh damn, I actually helped murder Dorian, and Dominic wouldn't help Vlad without good reason so he probably took my place ' and that's not exactly a pleasant realization.

The reason she doesn't come back for help earlier than D-stabilized is actually because of guilt. She doesn't feel like she deserves the help after what happened. Then she reminds herself that her brothers wanted her to be happy and goes off to find Danny.

I know this was a lot of angst, so here, have some sketches to balance it out OwO

I'm thinking I also have them come back as ghosts because I want my children to be happy together, but I haven't figured out unique ghost designs for them yet. It feels cheap giving them their clone designs when they're now their own people yknow?

Thank you for reading all this, I'm really happy to finally share my bois with the Phandom •^• if y'all have any thoughts or questions feel free to share.

I'm just glad I did this because doing character design in the DP style is fun, especially considering how Dorian and Dante's facial features had to be built on top of skeletal/unfinished structure ( their noses in particular ) so that was exciting to figure out (ㆁωㆁ)

[weekendwarriorblog]

THE WEEKEND WARRIOR 4/2/21: GODZILLA VS. KONG, THE UNHOLY, OXFORD FILM FESTIVAL

I’m really not sure how I feel about doing the Weekend Warrior at quite the level I was doing last year. Even though the box office is slowly coming back, it’s still very frustrating to write about, and honestly, the Disney announcement last week about all the movies being delayed or dumped to Disney+ kinda brought me down. It just tells me that many studios are giving up on theatrical just as people have gotten so used to watching stuff at home, they don’t care about going out and being in rooms with other people, especially strangers. I guess I can understand that, but all the negativity that pervaded the narrative in 2020 is finally doing its damage as theaters reopen and some may have trouble even filling 25% capacity for some movies.

Then again, I’ve just come back from a weekend at the Oxford Film Festival, which became one of the first American film festivals to go in-person, although it is doing a bit of a hybrid in-person with virtual, so locals and a few out-of-of-towners (mainly me) were able to see all of this year’s great programming at one of the outdoor (and then indoor due to weather) venues. I was on the feature doc jury and got to see 11 terrific documentaries, some of which hopefully will get distribution and get out there, but why wait? While most of the movies are geoblocked to the United States (and some to Mississippi), there’s so much great programming to check out over the next month, and you can do so via OxFilm’s virtual cinema, which includes many great features and shorts. As far as the juries, I can highly recommend the Jury Prize winners, In a DIfferent Key, a fantastic film about autism directed by Caren Zucker & John Donvan, and the runner-up, Patrick O’Connor’s Look Away, Look Away, an amazing bi-partisan look at the fight to keep the Confederate-created flag of MIssissippi or change it, depending on your side of the fight. It’s a doc that really needs to be seen in other parts of the country. (Unfortunately, those are both geoblocked to Mississippi, as is Chelsea Christie’s Bleeding Audio, which tells the tragic story of the rise and fall of San Francisco’s The Matches and won for Music Documentary.) There are movies available everywhere in the United States though, and you can check out the full line-up of movies here.

Anyway, OxFilm gives me hope that there’s a future for theatrical moviegoing and as far as the box office, that hope comes in the form of the first holiday weekend since NYC and L.A. reopened as the Good Friday day off for most schools and Easter Monday that continues the vacation for others might persuade people to check out what’s happening in theaters, and fortunately, it’s a movie that’s so easy to market based on the fact that it has two of the biggest movie monsters facing off for the first time since 1963.

That’s right -- opening on Wednesday is the anticipated GODZILLA VS. KING KONG, starring… well, does it really matter who it stars other than Zilla and Kong? Probably not. The fourth movie in the Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. Monsterverse takes the star of 2017’s Kong: Skull Island ($168 million at domestic box office) and pits him against the title character of 2014’s Godzilla ($200 million) and 2019’s Godzilla, King of the Monsters ($110.5 million). MInd you, I just include those domestic grosses for reference, because even if we take into account that scary dip from Godzilla and its direct sequel, it won’t really matter when you take into consideration a little thing called…. COVID! We’ve already seen movies gross more than $50 million since everything shutdown

I already reviewed this over at Below the Line, so I don’t have much more to say in that regard. It’s good if you like giant monster fights but isn’t much beyond its amazing monster battles, which is why I won’t even mention the actors that appear in it or any of the characters.

Godzilla vs. Kong is probably going to be the widest release since COVID hit with 2,600 theaters on Wednesday and then expanded to 3,000 on Friday when Regal reopens many (but not all) of its theaters. While I expect it to do fine on Weds and Thursday, making probably $4 or 5 million, it should really explode on Good Friday, which should allow it to make somewhere between $18 and 20 million over the three-day holiday weekend, so let’s say $25 to 26 million before Monday.

Also opening theatrically, this one on Friday is the Screen Gems horror movie THE UNHOLY from Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, the directorial debut by Evan Spiliotopoulos (writer of Disney’s mega-blockbuster Beauty and the Beast live action movie and the Rock’s Hercules ), who adapted the story from James Herbert’s novel “Shrine.” The movie stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan as disgrace journalist Gerry Fenn who is trying to get stories for a supernatural tabloid when he comes upon a deaf teenager named Alice (Cricket Brown) seemingly praying at an oak tree in a rural community in Massachusetts. When she seemingly gets her hearing back and is able to talk, word quickly spreads that she’s able to communicate with a benevolent Virgin Mary-like spirit that gives her the powers to heal. Since this is a horror movie, you can probably guess that things quickly get ugly and scary. THe movie also stars the wonderful Katie Aselton as a local doctor, who doesn’t do very many doctor-y things.

Before we get to my review -- and I’ll blame the review embargo on it for this week’s column being so late -- let’s talk about the movie’s box office potential, because religious horror-thrillers have quite a significant draw over a certain audience going straight back to the ‘70s with movies like The Exorcist and The Omen (the latter one of my all-time favorites) and The Unholy does dip into the toe of both of those. It’s been a long since there’s been one of those which might make this a draw for audiences into theaters, especially over Easter weekend -- that may be meant as irony -- but there’s also a little movie called Godzilla vs. Kong, which is just way more of a draw even with it being on HBO Max, but also because it’s likely to get better reviews. I’m not sure how many theaters Sony is getting this into, but I expect it’s somewhere around 2,000 or so, and that might be enough for the movie to make around $4 to 5 million this weekend, but probably VERY frontloaded to Friday.

Now let’s get to that review…

The Unholy begins with a flashback scene to “February 31, 1845” with a scene right out of the Salem Witch Trials of a woman being mutilated and strung up to a tree. This plays a very important role in a story that involves a fairly ludicrous premise that mostly involves Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s character finding something called a Kern Baby, essentially a porcelain doll wrapped in chains that he decides to smash in order to create a fake supernatural story about how smashing the doll causes crops to fail. In fact, smashing it releases the spirit of the woman we saw in that opening scene possessing a deaf teen girl named Alice who starts to heal everyone in her rural community, while also releasing the evil that had that woman’s spirit bound into the doll in the first place.

There isn’t that much more to say about the plot to a stupid horror premise so full of religious hokum as more characters get involved with trying to figure out if Alice is actually healing people or not. This includes the benevolent local priest Father Hagan, played by William Sadler, and a Bishop (really) played by Cary Elwes, who is using such a bizarre accent, kind of like a cross between the Bronx and a heavy Irish brogue, that it’s impossible to take his character very seriously.

Just knowing what studio garbage Spiliotopoulos has written did not make me very hopeful for his directorial debut, which is just all over the place in terms of tone and pacing, dragging at times and then throwing the type of cheap jump scares and schlocky CG horror creatures at the viewer with very little of it actually being very scary. " (The creature version of "Mary" just looks silly.) Besides being highly derivative, ripping off almost every religious horror movie, both bad and good, some aspects of the movie are so laughably bad that it’s hard to take much of it seriously. Worst of all, it ends with just a really horrible climax that reverses any good will the movie might have created with the casual young horror fans that usually like this thing. Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s another one of those unrare “F” CinemaScores we see whenever a studio horror film doesn’t bother matching up to the quality of something like The Witch or Hereditary. Horror fans definitely want more than the usual these days, and The Unholy just seems like a lazy waste of time.

A movie that I’ve been looking forward to seeing and just haven't had time to watch is Emma Seligman’s SHIVA BABY (Utopia) that stars Rachel Sennott as 20-something Danielle who runs into her sugar daddy (Danny Deferrari) at a shiva with his wife (Dianna Agron) and their baby, as well as her parents (Fred Melamed and Pollyw Draper) and Molly Gordon as Danielle’s ex-girlfriend. It’s actually playing at the newly reopened Quad Cinema, so who knows? Actually I did watch Shiva Baby and was kind of disappointed. It seemed very twee and precious, and Sennott's character seems like the type of spoiled Millennial white girl that I hate in indie movies like this. I also just didn't find it particularly funny. Oh, well.

Streaming Friday on Netflix is Ricky Staub’s CONCRETE COWBOY, starring Idris Elba, Caleb McLaughlin and Lorraine Toussiant with McLaughlin being a teenager who moves in with his estranged father (Elba) in North Philadelphia where he learns about his passion for urban horseback riding.

Opening in New York (at the Angelika and Village East) on Friday and in L.A.and other cities on April 9 is the Oscar-nominated International Feature THE MAN WHO SOLD HIS SKIN (Samuel Goldwyn Films), written and directed by Kaouther Ben Hania, and starring Yahya Mahyni, Dea Liane, Koen De Bouw and Monica Bellucci. Tunisia’s submission is the story of Sam Ali, a Syrian who leaves his country for Lebanon to escape the war with hopes of travelling to Europe to be with the love of his life. To fulfill that dream, he allows his back to be tattooed by a contemporary artist that actually brings more trouble to the poor young man.

Hulu will debut the doc WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn (Hulu), which I still haven’t gotten around to watching but seems like an interesting subject for a doc.

A little closer to home at the still-closed Metrograph, they’re playing Claire Dennis’ 2004 film L’Intrus through April 8, and on Friday will open Sky Hopinka’s experimental debut maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Grasshopper Films) which follows Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier as they wander around the Pacific Northwest, mostly speaking in the Chinuk Wawa language. The latter is free to digital members ($5/month, $50 a year!) and $12 for non-members… pretty easy decision there, huh? Ms. Dennis’ film is also available to members.

Not only that, but New York’s Film Forum is also reopening this Friday with the double feature of Almodovar’s remastered Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and his new short The Human Voice, starring Tilda Swinton; the fantastic doc The Truffle Hunters; as well as his Fellini’s masterful Oscar winner La Strada (Janus Films, 1954), starring Anthony Queen and the wonderful Giulietta Masina! (That’s what I’ll be seeing this Sunday!) On top of that, Film Forum will continue its fantastic Virtual Cinema programming, which will launch Eric Roehmer’s A Tale of Winter (1992) this Friday with Roehmer’s A Tale of Summer (1996) joining the Virtual Cinema starting Friday April 9.

Got exciting news that Film at Lincoln Center will be reopening on April 16, but this week, they’ll be launching the latest edition of Neighboring Scenes, its annual series of Latin American films done in conjunction with Cinema Tropical. It’s 10 films that you can watch with an all-access pass for the low price of $80, and it usually has some good movies in the program.

A couple others out this week, including Funny Face and Every Breath You Take (Vertical), which I don’t even have time to look up what they’re about. Sorry!

That’s it for this week. Next week, Neil Burger’s sci-fi coming-of-age thriller, VOYAGERS, will hit theaters.

[yourgaydads]

the corinthian doesn’t take another sick day