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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 4 years

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RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.” Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?” If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham.

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season. Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid)

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx)

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor)

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods)

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech)

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown).

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.”

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech. Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it.

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32. Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys. Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

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Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

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Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone. There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.

#betterdaysareatoenailaway #anygivensunday #al pacino #jamie foxx #dennis quaid #james woods #matthew modine #jim brown #lawrence taylor #cameron diaz #ll cool j

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loveafterthefact · 4 years

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Love After the Fact Chapter 71: Reaching Out

TOUCHING MEEEEE.... TOUCHING YOUUUUU

This has nothing at all to do with the episode. But I just can't help myself

SWEET CARLOINE BA BA BAAAAAAAA

ALSO, click this link to choose what y'all want for Thanksgiving 2020!!!

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Adam is used to his first impressions being correct. This is because he is exceptional, and most people are incredibly ordinary. Lance and Keith are exceptions, proving extremely predictable, but endearing all the same. They’re well-meaning, capable, kind. They always welcome him, which is far more than can be said for most.

He’s only the slightest bit biased.

The point of these thoughts is that Captain Takashi of House Shirogane of Daibazaal is not particularly complex, but he is… dynamic? Layered? Interesting?

No. Interest- ed. That’s really the only special thing about him, the only thing sets him apart. Although… Being interested in him is interest- ing. Perhaps the man has some kind of undiagnosed mental illness, or maybe some brain trauma-

“Everything good?”

Adam starts. “Hm?” He’s leaning on the heel of his hand, elbow on the holodesk in Shiro’s quarters. It’s where he’s done his work nearly every day, aside from occasional trips into the villages with Shiro and learning about Daibazaani vegetation from Shiro.

“You’re staring at me. Like you’re trying to set me on fire with your mind. Everything good?”

“Apologies. I was just thinking.”

“Okay…” Shiro clearly doesn’t believe him.

Despite the occasional bout of supreme idiocy, Shiro is not a stupid man. He knows a half-truth when he hears one.

“I was wondering what I see in you.”

“And?”

“No idea. There’s not much.”

“I’ll try not to take that as an insult.”

“I believe you.”

“You are a very abrasive person, Adam.” The Galra meets him, eyes gray like the Night Mother Moon. “On the outside.”

Adam smiles. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“Not a soul. And I like you too. More than like.”

Adam licks his lips, opens his mouth to speak, closes it again. He’s not certain what he can say. What they have is so fragile. Adam doesn’t want to risk anything.

He’s rescued by a knock at the door.

“Enter.” Shiro turns off his desk. He’s working on new training exercises, based on the most recent science. He doesn’t want anyone to see them before they’re ready.

Shiro’s a perfectionist.

A very thin Galra walks in, head and face bare except for a thin stripe of fur where their scalp should be. Adam has since learned that Galra of this type usually inhabit the marshier areas near the planet’s equator. They’re relatively uncommon in this region outside of the military.

“Haxus. Hello. What can I do for you?” Shiro swivels his chair, leaning slightly away from Adam.

“Sorry, Captain. Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all. What is it?”

“I’ve brought the hard copies you asked for.” The Blade hands over a thick stack of papers.

“Ah. Thank you.” Shiro flips through the documents, making sure everything is there.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why paper? Why not files?”

“Electronic files can be traced. I want these for myself. Training scenarios.”

“Oh. I… suppose that makes sense.” Haxus shifts uncomfortably, seeming reluctant to leave.

“Did you need something?” Shiro asks.

Haxus hesitates. “I just wanted to know… If you have any news? I know it’s been a long while, but I have to ask.”

Adam narrows his eyes at the Galra. He’s about Shiro’s age, maybe even a decaphoeb or two older. He feels like sadness. It puts the Altean on edge. This kind of sadness is deep and unpredictable. It can turn a person into an empty, or it can turn them dangerous.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t.” At the Galra’s visible disappointment, Shiro finds scrambles to offer some reassurance. “I won’t stop looking, Haxus. You know I won’t.”

“I know you won’t. Neither will I.” Haxus nods, shoulders slumped. “Even just something to bury…”

Despite his outward demeanor, this is the dangerous kind of sad, Adam realizes with a shiver. He can feel an angry chill rolling off the man, a biting, burning frost. He will not trust Haxus.

“With your permission, I’ll return to my duties,” the soldier says.

He leaves with Shiro’s nod. Once haxus is gone, Shiro throws down the thick stack of papers with a sigh.

“What was that all about?” Adam asks, fascinated, a little scared. What sort of secrets might be necessary on Daibazaal? What is Haxus?

“Haxus’ mate is missing. One of my other men, Sendak. I’ve known them as long as I’ve been in the military. We grew up together.”

“But why is that a secret? He didn’t want to talk about it in front of me.”

“They’re both biologically male. Such pairings are currently illegal on Daibazaal.” At Adam’s raised eyebrow, Shiro elaborates. “An expanding empire needs soldiers. Two males don’t produce soldiers. Zarkon declared it ‘conspiracy against the empire’ and banned new pairings before I was even born. Before Haxus and Sendak were born. But much like someone else we know, bonding can’t always be helped. We were with the blades by then. We all helped them keep it quiet.”

Adam stares at his datapad. “I didn’t know such bigotry could exist among your species.”

“It doesn’t. It’s just a law. Galra can be attracted to anyone. Someone’s sex doesn’t really matter to us. But it matters to Zarkon. He wants more warm bodies. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky that he didn’t decide to forbid established same-sex mates. Considering what he did to his own nephew under the guise of ‘cultural differences’, it’s not too much of a stretch to say he would be that cruel if he could justify it.”

“So… Haxus’ secret mate just vanished?”

“Yes. I sent a company of soldiers to assist with subduing a planet about a decaphoeb and a half ago. Sendak was part of the company, and disappeared in the fight. Soldiers on the ground are still searching, but between you and me? He’s dead.”

“Haxus must be miserable.”

“He is. He’s mellowed out a lot. Before, he was actually quite unpleasant to be around. Now… He’s not the same. Which is convenient, but… He’s hurting.” Shiro sighs. “I hate losing people. I do my best to take good care of my agents, but not everything can be helped, you know?”

“I know.” Adam watches Shiro return to his planning. “There was little I could do for Keith, except try to steer him away from Alfor and the higher-ranking guards. But he doesn’t need that anymore. He’s an adult now, and if what Lance has told me is true, he’s more than capable of handling himself.

“Lance, though…”

“He still has some growing up to do,” Shiro agrees.

“He’ll learn.” Adam leans back in his chair. “Lance has experienced some personal hardship, but never struggle or sacrifice. He’s lived spoiled and comfortable all his life. I know he wants to travel, though. Visit the various Altean territories. He’s already made a good deal of progress. He’s grown up a fair bit since marrying Keith.”

“Yes, I imagine raising your… ‘humbend’? Will do that to you.”

“Husband, and yes. I imagine it did, in many ways. For instance, he’s learned the difference between ‘the many outweigh the few’ philosophy, and ‘it’s morally abhorrent, but also what’s most convenient, so just do it’.”

“See, I always imagined that a parent was supposed to teach you what to do, not what not to do. I mean, that’s how Kolivan raised his sons. That’s how the military raised me. They weren’t my parents, but they treated me like their kit.”

“You’d know better than I. My parents were deployed and killed shortly after my birth. I was raised by various servants. And Lance, his sister, Romelle, and Lanval.”

“You and Lance seem unlikely friends.”

“Hm…” A smile curls Adam’s lips. “I suppose we do, don’t we?”

“Do you wanna… tell me about it?” Shiro presses.

Right. That’s what he’s supposed to do. Engage. Offer something about himself.

“I was born an earl. It’s the highest rank outside the royal family. After my parents were killed, I was raised by servants. Coran heard of my state and suggested me as a playmate when Lance was born. He wanted the royal children to have friends, and normal relationships.

“The others never liked me very much. Even when I was younger, I was… me. But just as I was me, Lance was Lance.”

“Friends with everyone,” Shiro murmurs, smiling.

“He’s my friend,” Adam whispers. “Maybe my only friend. Over time, I grew not only to love him, but respect him, as well. I forsook my title and lowered myself to serve him, leaving my estate behind.”

“What happened to your estate?” Shiro asks. “Is it waiting for you when you retire?”

“No. I gifted it to Lanval. His own fortunes were mismanaged by his family’s accountant after the death of his own parents. Lance needs him among the people, schmoozing and minding everyone’s business. I gave him a way to do that.

“The court considers it all a huge disgrace of course, but I don’t particularly care. I believe in what I’m doing, and that won’t change just because so many Alteans are spoiled and shallow.”

“Of course not, because you’re not spoiled or shallow.”

“Spoiled, yes. Shallow, no.” Adam pulls up a new file on his tablet. “Lance has just informed me that he and Keith plan to expand their house.”

“I guess Keith made his choice then,” Shiro murmurs.

“You don’t approve?” Adam bristles, ready to rise to the princes’ defense.

“Not exactly. I just don’t understand.” The Galra frowns. “Given the choice, I wouldn’t bring a kit into this empire. We’ll see what happens after Lotor ascends, but for now? I can think of more reasons not to have a kit than to have one.”

“It’s different for him,” Adam murmurs. “The princes have a responsibility to provide two heirs. And… I think he wants to do better than he had, you know? He and Lance have the perceived power to do better, and set a new standard for living.”

Adam sighs. “Keith has a lot to give, and he’s desperate to give it. I wonder what that’s like.”

“What what’s like?”

“To know what you want and just make it happen. But I suppose I gave that up when I took my position.” He returns to his work, drafting a missive to Lance to remind him to begin working actively on preparations for the spring festival.

“Adam…”

“Takashi.” Hazel eyes dart to the Galra for a brief moment before returning to his work. There’s nothing to say. They’re at a dead end, at least for the time being. They can grow as close as they like, and talk as often as they like, and still they can never be together, save for brief moments like this.

“That’s all you have to say?” Shiro whispers.

“What could there possibly be to say that we haven’t both already thought?”

“I’ll wait for you.”

A soft, violet hand touches his wrist, leathery pads brushing over the back of his hand. Adam stares at his datapad, unseeing. He’d been expecting silence, perhaps a few words of reluctant agreement.

“Until you’re ready to let go, or until I can find a way out of my duties, fuck, the rest of my life- I’ll wait for you… Will you wait for me?”

His hand shifts, gripping Takashi’s tightly as he dares. It’s a difficult choice for him, to let someone in, to promise them a space in his heart. He’s lost so much, and the less he has, the less he stands to lose.

Adam sighs, shifting in his chair so he can lean against the larger man, cheek pressed against his upper arm. "Every time I think life's run out of things to throw at me, you take me by surprise."

"Yeah, well." Shiro moves to wrap an arm around his shoulders, kiss his head. "The man I'm trying to impress has extremely refined taste."

"Not really." Adam closes his eyes. "Just you. Wanting me."

"I've never wanted anything so much. However long it takes."

"I'll wait for you, too," Adam decides. "And... I more than like you, too."

"How much more than like?"

Adam sighs. "A lot more than like, and that's as much as you're getting today."

"Ugh. Fine."

Love.

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #altean lance #galra keith #adashi #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

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spiftynifty · 6 years

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TeeVee Podcast’s Voltron s8 review

I’ve been waiting eagerly for TeeVee’s review of s8. If you recall, their s7 review was what gave us the man getting choked up about Shiro’s relationship.

The link to the podcast is here but if you’d prefer a sort of transcript, here are some of the highlights for me. I didn’t always catch who was speaking but I wrote down initials where I could. S=Shanon, A=Antony, M=Moises, C=Chip D=Dan. The panel is divided on their feelings on the season. 2 of them seem to have hated it, one liked it, one thought it was fine, and one feels mixed about it. Anyway here we go, some great quotes ahead.

Under the readmore cuz it’s long.

S: "After 7 seasons of a show that was going to be one of the animated series of the decade, they not only did not stick the landing, they fell on their butts, rolled off the mat, off the lines, into the judge's table and their leotard popped open"

"A lot of the plot was callbacks to things from seasons ago that we really probably didn't need to see again." "I wasn't entirely sure that they weren't gaslighting me."

Man Shannon is calling out some great points. She's calling out the dropped druid plot thread, and wondering what the point was of showing Lotor's past when he's dead, and nothing can change in his present and his redemption can't really happen.

A: "endings are hard. I was disappointed with this season [...] it was let down by poor plotting and that final battle made me throw my hands up in despair most of the time. But I have enormous sympathy for the EPs. Maintaining a longform episodic story is hard. And to pull off an ending that satisfies even MOST of the audience is harder yet. and let's not forget they were always upfront that vt always had 'editorial interference' from up top. Toys, the fact that it's aimed at children, corp resistance to some of the more modern social issues that they've tried to tackle. THAT SAID, we don't know what happened on this production, who had the final say, what they argued over. and I say this cuz a lot of the fandom drama over it assumes a LOT over how media and entertainment like this is made that simple ARE. NOT. TRUE. Some of the stuff I've read has been ABSURDLY offbase, like that there were different writers rather than just 1 the whole way through which ignores how TV is made. And if you think these writers just go off and write a script without talking to anyone first and then they come back with something that must be filmed without any changes, THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS. [..]we don't know who made these decisions. The studio isn't always the bad guy. Sometimes they rescue things that would otherwise have been a horrible mess. And unless you were IN THE ROOM, you don't know, and neither do any of us. So let's all bear that in mind. [...]You can't lay the blame OR credit on any one person. For any of this."

They're laughing & making so much fun of the final 3 episodes and how baffling they were.

"Don't even get me started on Voltron merging with Atlas [and the crew disappearing] that was a bad, bad idea."

"But that was the ONE time Shiro was back with the team!"

a couple dudes are relatively ok with the Allura death because we've never seen a WOC heroically sacrifice herself for the universe and usually it's the Shiro hero character D: They also point out that technically she wasn't fridged so.. yay?

Antony and Shannon vehemently disagree.

A: "My problem with that ending was more just that it was... not. good." he makes a comparison to RotJ where Vader still dies and it's his SON, who lives, who 'redeems' him. "This was none of those things. It felt like a terrible lesson. You can be so evil that you kill literally billions of people for 10k yrs but if you say sorry just before you're about to be executed it's alright, dw about it, we'll put the universe back to rights. NO, that's a terrible lesson!!"

S:"They had the LIONS. That's my problem. Throughout this series we've had stakes going up but there has always been a trading of ideas, what can we do, what can we figure out, up to the point where they wind up sacrificing the castle, but they go through steps before that 'is there anything else we can do’. And here, there's not even... she didn't even get to say goodbye to Coran! This is the one character, WOC, and she has sacrificed throughout this entire series. She lost her planet. She lost the last connection she had to her father in the AI. She kept LOSING things over and over to the point where she sacrifices her crown to help Shiro. and the thanks she gets is that she has to turn around and say nope I've got to away and fix all of this and apparently never see you all again. It really, REALLY REALLY bothered me. All of my friends who have CHILDREN who watch this show, universally the kids were upset and angry and tearful and HATED that outcome. This did not feel like a triumph. Having to lose Allura like that robbed any kind of triumph in the success of saving all the universes. And I think that's one of the reasons that this last part of the season sits so poorly with me. I feel like it should have ended in a triumphant way. even if it meant losing a couple of the team members or the lions. Of course that takes away the toy aspect which is why that's not an option. We already had several tragedy arcs in this series. Zarkon, Honerva, and Lotor had tragedy arcs. Why does Allura have to have one too? We've had enough."

Antony & Shanon KILLIN IT on this podcast y'all.

C: "This series relies so much on 'oh wait, there's a new upgrade', 'oh wait, there's this new thing'" A: "Well that was the entire final battle." C: "So there's this handwavy Allura has to sacrifice herself. The heavy lifting wasn't done to make this an earned moment."

S: "I do think, whether it was at the direction of DW or WEP (Vld IP), without those little epilogue cards, there is the potential opening that Allura might be able to return.[..]It was open to interpretation."

One guy likes the Shiro ending for the surprising progress aspect, even though he's not thrilled about how it was put together. also he isn't convinced the epilogue wasn't planned. He likes a lot of s8 but all the stuff he likes is tied to stuff that he really didn't like.

S:"The shiro card is the other reason that I think those things were shoved in. For me, that turns Shiro's entire character into a token when he wasn't before. When they introduced his sexuality, it was done BEAUTIFULLY. There was this conversation with his significant other a mature relationship that ran into its problems and therefore couldn't happen anymore. Adam could've been Adele, and nothing would have changed about that conversation. It was not the defining characteristic of Shiro. It was just something else about him."

S: "And then s8 happens and Shiro is divided from everybody on the team. There are so few interactions of any kind that aren't just barking orders. or making plans. Keith is the prime example. Their friendship had been a backbone of this series and suddenly they can't even stand more than feet 5ft from each other.

A: “It’s barely evident, yeah.”

M:”And the same with the rest of the main cast. And if they had set that up at the end of s7, that he’s going to go into the background a bit, it wouldn’t have felt as weird.

S: “And they didn’t! S7 was miraculous in the fact that even though he’s no longer in a lion, he’s still got a vital part to play in the series. And s8 erased that. It pretty much neutered him! And the kind of message is once you've revealed this character to be gay, we've gotta keep him out of the way. And if they had not put those end cards in, again the fact that he's a gay man is just the fact that he's a gay man and it's not any bigger or smaller aspect of his character, but they did not EARN him marrying random bridge crew member #3."

A: "and RETIRING! A man who LEFT adam because he felt he had to go and fight."

A: "He left the guy he loved before because of his devotion to"

S:"To fighting to making things right"

A:”To being a soldier and doing the right thing.”

C:”Isn’t the whole point then that he achieves that?”

M:”The fighting’s over and he can leave that behind and he can actually be happy.”

S: “He wouldn’t’ve. I don’t see it.”

M: “I violently disagree.”

C: “I think it was a nice endcap for his character."

Moises also likes this because it’s not a BYG scenario and he gets retired. Shannon is extremely exasperated by these takes.

S:”For me, it’s like Tangled. You go through Rapunzel and Flynn, going through their adventures, getting closer, getting to know each other, they save each other, things like that. And then she’s reunited with her parents and then we get and endcap that says ‘for political reasons her parents decided they needed to marry her off to the prince in the next county, sorry’. That would’ve had people RIOTING. Thats not how you do a story with characters that people care about. And to shove shiro off onto this random character that we--his name is never spoken!”

A:”No he had like 3 lines in the entire season.”

S:”He had 3 line sin the season, you don’t know his name unless you watched the subtitles, and in the audio narration for the visually impaired, they called him Adam in the endcap. They called him Adam! They fixed that now. It feels like a hugely clumsy attempt to grab the woke points for a character that didn’t need them.”

Moises then talks a little about Shiro and Keith and how he and Shannon both thought there was something there, and still do, but they can’t know what happened behind the scenes and to theorize on the intent of that relationship is “conspiracy theory land” and trying to decide what the writers were prevented from doing is like “reading tea leaves and chicken bones”. He references people extracting things from his own writing.

M: “As much as I wanted to see that relationship flower and flourish, the fact that it didn’t, look, it’s one of a million times that’s happened for me, with fiction, where things didnt turn out the way I wanted to see them.”

S:”I’m talking about 2 different things, as far as Shiro’s character, vs shipping issues. I feel Shiro’s character was done a disservice that if they were going to end him in a relationship with another man, they didn’t earn it by throwing that little endcap on.”

M:”Yeah, they could have brought back one less robeast or something.”

S:”The other thing is, I think there is enough out there as far as interviews with JDS and LM to show that at the very least I think they meant to leave it openended. Again if you take out that endcap, the last shot includes a shot of just Shiro and Keith, together, same screen, looking up as the lions go away, without saying anything further. I know I pie in the sky hoped that they were gonna kiss this season when we did our s7 recap and yes that was the shipper in me talking. I truly did not expect that they would be able to go that far. What I did not expect was for them to tear it down. And I feel like that’s what they did. Between the complete absence of interactions in s8, and then throwing that epilogue in there.”

Dan doesn’t understand how that could be because he sees no reason for them to do that. Shannon patiently explains about DW’s history with LGBT characters but Dan insists that the creators told the story the way they wanted to and he’s fine with Shiro getting a marriage even if it’s a character they don’t know.

Overall the panelists love the show still, and in most cases prefer to consider it in the realm of s1-6 with a weak final double season (7&8) or that the show ends after s7. They would all love to know how long the NDAs last, a making of perhaps, to know what the heck happened and what changed along the way. Big mood my dudes. Big mood.

#voltron #vld #teevee #transcript

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trashartandmovies · 4 years

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Berlinale Film Festival 2021, Industry Event, Day 2

One of the great treats of going to a film festival is getting the chance to wake up and see some transgressive mindfuckery first thing in the morning. This can be either thrilling, like seeing ANTICHRIST at 10:00 AM in Toronto and then being excited to see if the rest of the day’s movies can top that; or it can knock you out for the rest of the day, like seeing IRRADIATED at last year’s Berlinale and needing to process my contempt and hope for humanity.

Of course, part of the thrill of these experiences has been sitting with an audience and going through the mindfuckery as a collective, feeling the energy, seeing people walk out, getting through it together. When things are moved online, and the timing and schedule of your streaming film festival is more or less up to you, many pleasures are lost. But I have to say, there was a thrill in getting up at sunrise to put on some headphones and sit with THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST, an effectively wild and perverse shriek of a movie from first-time director Dasha Nekrasova, and part of this year’s Encounters section.

Shot in New York City, on beautiful 16mm film, THE SCARY is a steep plummet down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, triggered by the death of Jeffrey Epstein and two roommates moving into a new apartment on 61st Street that may be linked to the man and the sex trafficking ring he was involved with. These details are merely the place setting for an aggressive and sometimes messy assault on good taste and mainstream cinematic conventions. The two roommates descend into different kinds of madness — Addie seems to be possessed by some sort of evil within the apartment, while Noelle is quickly consumed by the conspiracy theories circling Epstein, the royal family, pizzagate, etc. Wedged between the two is Nekrasova herself, playing an amateur sleuth who indoctrinates Noelle with lurid websites, pharmaceutical speed, and sex. From there, the rabbit hole just keeps getting wider and weirder, Addie becomes obsessed with Prince Andrew and creepy tarot cards keep popping up. There will be blood.

I found it all pretty damn intoxicating, but I can understand that others will be put off by its shrillness and lack of subtlety. While the movie is dedicated to Stanley Kubrick, and it gets some inspiration from EYES WIDE SHUT, it’s more along the lines of John Waters crossed with John Carpenter. If you hated FEMALE TROUBLE, you may want to stay away from THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST. Otherwise, this movie sits comfortably next to the kind of outre indie horror movies that got passed from VCR to VCR in the late 80s and early 90s. But what really makes THE SCARY kick, is how directly it speaks to the age of QAnon, the equal parts seduction and repulsion of violence, and the horror that comes from being trapped in a system you have no control over. My only complaint is that the film leans a little too heavily on old horror tropes right at the end, but this couldn’t take away the thrills it provided up to that point. I’m already looking forward to how Nekrasova might follow-up this one.

This year’s Golden Bear for best film went, deservedly, to Radu Jude’s BAD LUCK BANGING, OR LOONEY PORN. Another extremely transgressive film, this one takes a flamethrower to contemporary values in Romania and any other place where racism, sexism and authoritarian fetishism have taken root — meaning, it’s both very specific to Romania and quite universal.

The movie begins with a very graphic and absurdly funny home porno, being shot on a phone. Soon enough, we find out the woman in the video is Emi, a respected history teacher at a private school in Bucharest. The first act of the movie is Emi walking through Bucharest. The city is littered with signs of capitalism run amok, juxtaposed against fervent religiosity. Gambling and wholesomeness. Tastelessness and righteousness. The camera makes these connections with some choice camera panning maneuvers. These movements bring to mind Robert Altman’s style of movement — casual yet smart and impactful.

As Emi makes her way to her destination, the film’s regard for realism begins to deteriorate. Bit by bit, drivers begin showing less regard for the safety of pedestrians. Everyone is foul-mouthed and inconsiderate of others, even while wearing pandemic masks. If you can’t afford a car, who cares about you? It’s not that far from reality, but the pointed exaggerations start piling up and lead us into the mid-section of the film, where we’re treated to an A-Z montage of our most pressing issues and what’s wrong with the world. It both serves as a rundown of the topics that are going to present themselves in the final act of the movie, as well as more visual evidence of our corrupted values and moral decay. It’s a bitter and bleak hoot.

It’s all leading to a confrontation between Emi and her school’s parent-teacher board. It’s one of the most absurd, insulting and cuttingly insightful trials put on film. What are a teacher’s responsibilities outside the classroom? What if the teacher in this situation were a man? What if the teacher is also including lessons about Romanian history that today’s citizens would rather not deal with? All of this and much more is on the table for riotous discussion. More than once, someone cackles the Woody Woodpecker laugh when the debate really goes off the rails. While the visual language in the final act settles into a more conventional groove, the sound editing is something of a tour de force. It’s punchy, freewheeling, obscenely hilarious and brings the movie to an unbelievable final moment.

BAD LUCK is a hard act to follow. If I’d known how ambitious it was, I would have saved it for day’s final screening. But for better or worse, the next film was a very quiet, understated Competition title — this one from Hungary (which was well-represented this year), entitled NATURAL LIGHT. Written and directed by Nagy Dénes, this is a gorgeously shot war-is-hell movie that follows a weathered unit of Hungarian soldiers as they try to round up Russian partisans during WWII. Yes, the title of the movie perfectly describes the golden, autumnal hue of the movie, as it is primarily set in barren forests, small, sooty villages and fields with plenty of mud.

The film is based on a massive book by novelist Pál Závada, but Dénes made the interesting decision to just focus his movie on a few days in the life of István Semetka, who is forced to step up and take charge of his unit early on in the film. Aside from capturing the unrelenting force of their natural surroundings, cinematographer Tamás Dobos also does an amazing job of capturing people’s faces — not unlike the films of fellow countryman, Bela Tarr. Ferenc Szabó, who plays the beleaguered Semetka, has two of the most soulful eyes I’ve seen on screen lately. This is of critical importance since the film has very little dialog until a couple of well-written monologues at the end. Semetka’s eyes say it all.

As mournfully beautiful as it is, NATURAL LIGHT isn’t an easy movie to sit through. It’s quiet and heartbreaking. But this level of sorrow and atrocities is also very familiar to cinema. In a way, it’s unfair because this story, in its way, is unique. But the message of how indifferent war is to soldiers with good intentions, has been told before. Few movies, however, have told it in such a wordless and poetic way.

Throughout the history of film, there’s always been a struggle to turn good theater into cinematic art. When talkies began and TV took off, we turned to the wealth of good theater scripts that already existed as readymade source material that could meet the demand for content. Sometimes it works, and the scripts can be well-adapted into the cinematic language. Other times, it’s like we’re just looking at a filmed documentation of a theater piece, which relies heavily on the strength of the words and performance, and not on any tools of the filmic trade. Denis Côté’s new film does a neat job of adding a new wrinkle to this long tradition of finding ways to turn monologues and long chunks of dialog between two people into an engaging work of film.

Côté has always had a strong experimental streak to his work, and even though he wrote this script and titled it “Social Hygiene” in 2015, it would seem that the current pandemic gave him the final push to turn the unusual idea of long, socially distant conversations in a field into a movie. Aside from a few shots that follow a young woman as she walks through nature, says hi to some livestock and offers an intermission dance sequence, SOCIAL HYGIENE is a series of static shots, framing different sections of rolling Canadian countryside, and containing a couple of people talking to each other across a certain distance. The framing, the sounds, the tone and rhythms of the conversation, are all very stylized. And in its way, perfectly cinematic. Côté pays attention to the ambient noises during these scenes. Birds turn into a cackling audience, construction noises go quiet and resume at just the right moments — it’s all very well-orchestrated.

The story and conversations of SOCIAL HYGIENE have nothing to do with the pandemic. It’s the fairly universal story of a charismatic, smooth-talking guy of unmet potential, who is consistently disappointing the women in his life. This man is Antonin, and we first meet him as he bickers with his sister. While Antonin is married, he’s currently living in a friend’s car, getting by through small-time theft and avoiding plans that might improve his lot in life, like working on that screenplay he’s been kicking around. Both his wife and his mistress try to prod him in the right direction, but he’s such a charmer that he enjoys spinning his destitution as the life of a lovable rogue, who’s morals and values can’t be met by traditional means.

More than any other film seen, so far, from this year’s Berlinale lineup, SOCIAL HYGIENE had me laughing-out-loud the most. And I’m very willing to admit that this is likely due to how much I related to Antonin’s faulty reasoning. But it’s also due to the fact that the script is supremely sharp and its deadpan delivery brought to mind Hal Hartley’s films. Like Hartley, Côté is anti-realist in his staging and delivery, meticulous in his timing, and yet uses humor to get at some very fundamental human dilemmas. I love Hartley and miss his sensibility dearly. So, yes, I loved every minute of SOCIAL HYGIENE.

Even with a press pass, it can be a challenge to sit for every Competition screening. There are simply too many other films that call for your attention. But in this streaming scenario, I was committed to seeing every last one. I felt like I didn’t have any good excuse not to when you can make your own daily schedule. So, Xavier Beauvois’s ALBATROS (or DRIFT AWAY, as it may end up being called in your neck of the woods) got a late Tuesday night home screening. It didn’t go down well.

The only one of Beauvois’s previous films that I’m familiar with is 2005’s THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT, which follows a homicide detective in La Havre. ALBATROS follows a police chief in the much more idyllic region of Normandy. Jérémie Renier plays the cop, Laurent, and just as the movie starts, he’s just proposed to his girlfriend of ten years, with whom he already has a young daughter. In the next scene he’s cleaning up after a suicide on the beach, and then there’s news of child abuse by local resident, and his friend is at the end of his rope dealing with farming regulations. Things are piling up quickly, and the chipper Laurent is soon getting edgy and taking his work home with him.

The beginning of the movie isn’t bad. It’s clearly building to something and it can hold your interest while it does that. But when that shoe drops, the film goes off the rails and descends into a completely ridiculous and phony final act. It doesn’t help matters that Beauvois never really finds an interesting visual language with which to tell this story. From the get-go, his camera is just there, shooting scenes and conversations in a way that makes everything seem slightly off and unnatural. It feels like things are being staged, much as the wedding photo on the beach that gets interrupted by a death at the very beginning. Unfortunately it never shakes this feeling, and two hours later, you can’t believe that you’re watching an ending so clichéd that Hollywood would probably think twice before giving it a greenlight. It’s the kind of denouement that is so cheesy and unearned that instead of choking back tears, you feel completely cheated.

Aside from ALBATROS, Day Two was a rich abundance. The punk stylings of THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST, the anarchic Molotov cocktail of BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONEY PORN, the austere meditation of NATURAL LIGHT, the playful theatrics of SOCIAL HYGIENE — these all had something special to offer. Tomorrow, we’ll visit China, France, Georgia and, once again, Hungary, for two more films with big rewards and two that struggled to transcend their formal trappings.

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kaiayame · 7 years

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ok i’m gonna vent and rant and gush about stranger things 2 now, spoilers under the cut....

LOVED the role of Steve as super hero babysitter, that was amazing. random, but still fun.

Steve in general was super likable, but they almost made him too perfect this season, you know?

if they make another season (i’m assuming they will) I really hope Will isn’t the person in peril yet again. It made sense this time around, but... Personal indulgence, but I’d honestly be interested in seeing Jonathan fill that role, above all other characters.

Season 1 of Stranger Things is so perfect to me, I knew it’d be hard to follow up, and I think this quote from this review said it well: “The show is now a known quantity, and so the joyful sense of discovery that accompanied Season One could never be recaptured.” I think they tried to replicate that sense of mystery too much and it didn’t work out as well, leading to a very slow start to the season as a whole.

why were no kids dressed up for halloween at the kids’ school???

LOVED all the jonathan x nancy development, but felt the choice to make the random conspiracy theorist beard guy with the creepy underground bunker have ANY role in pushing them together was forced and weird. so so so weird and out of place. but that said......... OMG THAT KISS. and also, before that, the “I waited for you” line was really good. and OMG AT THE END of the season WHERE JONATHAN CRUMBLES INTO NANCY AS THEY’RE TRYING TO UN-POSSESS WILL, I DIED.

LOVED the role of Hopper as adopted father for El, but also felt that that was kind of forced.... tho i was more on board with letting it be forced because it was an interesting dynamic that I thought worked really well by the end.

when the show creators mentioned they were gonna deal with giving some justice to Barbara, they REALLY meant it, geez. I’m not upset about how much her death was referenced, especially in terms of it being the central drive to Nancy’s storyline. I’m just surprised by how much they touched upon it; for some reason I didn’t expect that.

THE CHICAGO EPISODE WAS SO STUPID. OMG. OMFG. THE SET DESIGN WAS SO TACKY AND TERRIBLE. THE ACTING WAS TERRIBLE. THE WRITING WAS TERRIBLE. HONESTLY WTF WAS THAT, IT DIDN’T EVEN FEEL LIKE IT BELONGED IN STRANGER THINGS AS A SHOW. DELETE IT PLEASE. i’m hoping i’m about to go read a bunch more reviews that justify a good, thorough bashing of that ridiculous stupidity.

i gotta say, i..... never really grew to like Max. I thought the whole thing with her “brother” was going to turn into some awesome twist about how they’re hiding from the government and it’s her fault that they had to do that, even though they’re not “really” related, but.... i guess not. The abusive father/divorced parent thing was so dumb and such a narrative let down and really cliche.

And speaking of Max, I’m just never into that one type of character that gets injected into follow up seasons of fantasy/sci fi shows that’s basically just there to be like “you’re making all that up, it never happened! I don’t believe it! that sounds nuts! prove it!” like.... as a member of the audience, we don’t need to be convinced that what happened in season 1 actually... happened. It’s boring and tedious to have to put up with a character like Max who needs such gratuitous amounts of convincing and filling in.

basically loved the mid point in the season where you realize Steve/Dustin, Nancy/Jonathan, Hopper/Eleven, and Lucas/Max are all becoming more solidified as narrative pairings and was kinda digging it.

Omg, as soon as you saw that shot of Bob leaving his gun behind in the lab, you just knew he was a goner.... and I was sad about it (it was more gruesome than I expected!), and I liked his inclusion as a new character (pretty much more so than any of the other ones). But what I was really devastated about was what it put Joyce through. This woman has had enough. Like, holy crap. Give her a freaking break, let her go on vacation or take a nap please, she needs to be happy.

I get that Finn Wolfhard had to go film “It”, but it was seriously so weird and a big negative in my opinion to have Mike shoved into the background for most of the season, if he was there at all. I know it’s an ensemble show, and I love all the characters, but I would argue that season 1, Mike was the “main” character of the whole shebang. And to feel so disconnected to him and shuffled around other storylines instead made me sad. Actually, the review I linked to earlier talks about how disappointing Mike’s writing was this season, too, so I’m glad I’m not alone in that respect.

That being said, Noah Schnapp did a pretty good job handling so much more focus put on Will as an actual character under distress, not just a plot point that needed saving as an end goal, like Will was in season 1.

Millie Bobby Brown is such a freaking good actress, perfectly casted and she proves it again this season.

Mike’s mom got shafted this season. Wtf were they doing with her? She was so compassionate and normal in season 1. Now, it seemed like she didn’t care about her kids at all (Where the fuck even was Holly??) and the end scene with her and Billy was stupid.

I agree with this article that some of “the cross-cutting between the stories can sometimes feel a little arbitrary”

That same article has a good general quote about the show as a whole: “Thus, the show is better at macro plotting, but still not terribly great at micro plotting. It moves in fits and starts, able to suddenly, wondrously impress with a gigantic moment, and then frustrate when it cuts corners to get characters exactly where it needs them to be.”

I’m kind of not super interested in the shadow monster as a threat? idk, i’m not sure i really want to see more of him unless they really switch things up going forward...

THE SNOW BALL. EVERYONE AT THE SNOW BALL. STEVE DRIVING DUSTIN THERE. NANCY AND JONATHAN MAKING LOVEY DOVEY EYES AT EACH OTHER. MIKE DANCING WITH ELEVEN, THEN NANCY DANCING WITH DUSTIN, I JUST. I CAN’T.

and like i can vent and complain about stuff, but at the end of the day, i still had fun watching it and i’m still in love with this show and if/when there’s a season 3, i’m gonna eat it up for sure.

#spoilers #stranger things s2 #stranger things 2 #stranger things spoilers

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leio13 · 7 years

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I was Tagged!!! Thrice!!! (Holy Cow...)

I’m back with 33 more questions to answer! I was gonna make a joke last time about it being the ultimate get-to-know-me post, but I guess not. Good thing I held off on that joke, huh.

1. Post the rules

2. Answer the questions given to you by the tagger

3. Write 11 questions of your own

4. And tag 11 people

First, I was tagged by the lovely @missmizpah! Thanks, Emily!

1. Opinion on nuts?

Nuts are alright. Honey nut roasted peanuts though are more than alright. They are some good stuff.

2. Favorite book genre?

Hmm... I don’t really have a favorite genre. I’m really picky about books and a lot of other things honestly but my pickiness applies to all genres. I just like books with complex characters really.

3. Worst injury/illness?

I don’t actually get seriously injured that often; however, there was this one time I dropped my metal water bottle on my thumb. It hurt like hell and there was some blood under the nail. No big deal, right? That’s what I thought too. And I don’t really remember the transition that well, but in a few days, the area under my thumb nail was a navy blue and swelling out under the nail. a lot. It was probably one of the grossest things I’ve seen. good thing my mom took before and after pictures before they drained it. Don’t worry though. I won’t be posting those here.

4. What attracts you to someone platonically?

Er... kindness, loyalty, respect, AKA the really cliche stuff, and uh, chivalry, I guess. Treat me like a princess (for some reason) and you’re halfway there!

5. What was the last dream you had?

I had an interesting dream about Ouma from NDRv3. I went to his house which was more of a shack since his single parent family was super poor. His dad said that Ouma was actually a good boy (I have doubts). Ouma owned a crap ton of rainbow shark plushies (he really liked sharks apparently), and some bad dudes who were pissed at Ouma chased us back to the school (which was apparently a safe place that we wanted to be at). I skipped some details, but that was basically it. Also, keep in mind that I’ve only seen up to the death of chapter 2 (haven’t even started the investigation yet), so I kind of just made these details up in my dream and don’t spoil me. Orz.

6. Are you someone who eats cough drops like candy?

I haven’t had cough drops since I was in eighth grade and thought was I was having an asthma attack and my inhaler wasn’t working. In hindsight, it was a panic attack, but I recall the cough drop working a bit strangely enough. Anyway, I don’t really eat cough drops, no.

7. Native language?

English.

8. What size shoes do you wear?

Size 8 apparently. I think some of my shoes are a 7 1/2 though.

9. What is your current hair length?

Around my shoulders.

10. One habit you’re sure is specific to you?

I don’t know if I have any habits that are specific to me. um... I don’t really like the part of the utensil which you stick in your mouth touching anything besides me, my plate, or a napkin, so I tend to hold utensils in my mouth (knives excluded, duh because they don’t go in your mouth). It’s kind of a habit now, I guess. Does that count?

11. How far would you swim out into the ocean?

Negative feet. I’m not going in the ocean. There are things in there that I want nothing to do with such as seaweed, angry crabs that I could accidentally step on, sharp rocks or shells, sharks, jellyfish, etc.

Next, @excitable-nugget‘s questions! Thanks a bunch, Gnugs!

1. If you could have one sense enhanced, what would it be?

Definitely not taste. Tastes are wonderful (or some of them at least), but I’m already picky as it is, so I don’t really want more tastes to discriminate against. Touch probably wouldn’t be such a good idea either since I get startled easily and tongue (one picky dude, I tell you) is actually pretty sensitive to food textures too. Smell wouldn’t be bad except sometimes when I’m sick, everything smells like vomit, so I don’t really want to risk that being enhanced. Overall, I’m gonna go with sight (yes, I did skip hearing. I didn’t have much to say about it). Better vision in the dark could be pretty lit. Might also help ease some of my night paranoia. 2. Can you link your hands behind your back with one over the shoulder and one under? (like this)

One way. I can do it with my right hand reaching over. Kind of freaked me out though. I wasn’t ready for my hands to meet like that even if it was the goal. 3. Favourite colour to wear, or your favourite colour in general?

Favorite color to wear? Black. I just own a lot of black. Favorite color in general? Orange. 4. What was your internet pseudonym when you were 12-14?

It was Leio13. I’ve been Leio13 for as long as I’ve been on the internet. 5. What’s your favourite meat-based dish? If you don’t eat meat, what’s your favourite dish in general?

My favorite meat dish is steak. It’s just sooooo good. 6. Would you rather be known as wise or strong?

Probably wise. I used to think I was super smart as a kid, but now I feel pretty average and/or stupid/incompetent, so it would be nice for that feeling to come back. 7. What’s your favourite physical feature about yourself?

Probably my hair even if it knots excessively when no one wants it to. 8. Would you rather explore the ocean depths or space?

The ocean is such a vibrant, beautiful place! I love underwater images and would love to see it in person, but it would have to be in a submarine or something because I’m not going out there with only a wet suit protecting my flesh. 9. What’s your favourite snack food?

This is hard... I eat so many snacks. Hmm... I’m feeling ritz bitz. 10. If you could make one thing from fiction (e.g. a character, a place, a food, a machine) real, what would it be?

I don’t really have any deep answers here, but I think Odasaku (as he is in Bungou Stray Dogs) and his orphans being real would be really sweet. They’d be such a cute family. #familygoals 11. Is Australia real or just a conspiracy?

Australia? don’t know her.

Finally, I was tagged by the wonderful @chom-raaa! Thanks, Chomra!

1. Heroes gone bad or villains becoming good?

How could I choose???? They’re both so fantastic!! Wonderful character development opportunities abound with both!! ...that being said, while I appreciate the psychology of both of them, I tend to side with the good guys, so if all you wonderful villains could join the side I support, I guess that would be better.

2. Did you ever get in trouble in school? When was the last time and what was it about?

er... I don’t think so. No wait. One time, we were playing a game in class but my friend and I got out, so we were chatting on the sidelines even though we were supposed to be paying attention to those still playing (this was an ice breaker game). Anyway, the teacher said something about being quiet, and my dense self took it as “you can continue talking but quietly,” so I did. The teacher had to yell again for it to click with me. This was in like 5th grade, but I’m still disappointed in that me. I wasn’t that dense normally in fifth grade.

3. Hot drinks or cold drinks?

cold drinks.

4. Any siblings? Older/younger? Would you have it any other way?

I’ve got two amazing siblings, both older than me! I don’t really think I would want it any other way. I’m content with what I have now.

5. You most prized possession?

My technology and anime merch maybe?

6. What’s a fandom trope that makes you uncomfortable?

hoo boy. Where to begin??? I hate slave AUs (can’t really understand why you would like them). As you probably already know, I dislike smut, so the appeal of A/B/O universes is beyond me entirely. er... sexualizing characters? calling out the soukoku fandom: Chuuya always seems to be the more sexy one who other dudes and Dazai are always eyeing and lusting after. Like, can we appreciate the guy for more than his looks and impeccable fashion taste?? uh... also, Fyodor being depicted as some dude who is dead set on destroying soukoku (usually by the means of torturing Chuuya in some way to hurt Dazai which by the way is just... no.). I’m pretty sure Fyodor has better things to do??? Like kill all ability users?? Er, sorry. Not sure if you wanted specific fandom tropes or not, but uh, yeah.

7. What do find attractive in a fictional character?

BLAZERS!!

If you meant personality wise, I like passionate, kind characters, and also the mysterious, probably misunderstood type.

8. If could bring a character back to life but sacrifice another character in return (major-ish characters for those fandoms with a big cast), who would you choose?

Bringing back Odasaku, sending Fyodor to hell where he belongs. Of course, I wouldn’t actually because as much as I cry over the events of the dark era, I know that these things needed to happen for Dazai to end up where he is currently.

You know what? Better idea: still bringing back Odasaku but killing Lovecraft. The dude should’ve died after Chuuya destroyed him. I’m still bitter about his survival even if his parting scene was hilarious.

9. Long fics or short fics? In terms of both reading and writing?

I’m typically hesitant to read long fics because I have difficulty keeping up or finishing things. I bet there are a plethora of interesting long fics out there that I haven’t clicked on because I fear my motivation might die before I finish them. Likewise, it takes me centuries to write long fics, but I do really admire the art! Creating a complex story that spans over chapters is an epic feat that should not be underestimated. That being said, I do love short fics too! Short fics that still fill me with intense emotions are an equally epic thing. Like, how do you get so many feels in so little words???

10. Are you content with who you are?

haha nah. There are a lot of things about me that I wish were better. For one, i wish my motivation actually existed. I’m so unmotivated to do anything, even the littlest of things. Even things that I know would be fun. I just can’t convince myself to do them... Orz. Er... There are more things, but I don’t want to make this super sad. You came here for memes, not angst! Maybe not, but anyway...

11. What is holding you back from getting what you want?

I don’t know what this thing I want is referring to, but I’d bet 5000 imaginary monies that its my motivation or anxiety that’s interfering.

Thanks for the wonderful questions, y’all! <3

Now, it’s my turn!

er... actually, I’m not feeling any creative question vibes, so if I tag you, please refer to the questions of the last time did this meme (psst! over here!). Without further ado, I’m tagging @haruki-00, @dusttodawnn, @melrw22, @bandaged-chessmaster, @ai-san-arts, @4nimenut, @96percentdone, @monokumamastermind, @sadtiredbaby, @wymoup-nox, and @yesterdayohhowimissit! As usual, only do it if you want, and do it if you want but you weren’t tagged.

#I was tagged!#sorry for that negativity at the end #orz #I had things to say in the tags but I have them no longer it would seem #I forgot #what's new?

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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Russia Just Sentenced Unlikely ‘Spy’ Paul Whelan to 16 Years. Will the U.S. Trade Real Spies to Free Him?

Sergei Savostyanov/Getty

MOSCOW—On Monday a panel of three Russian judges sentenced former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan to 16 years of “strict regime” in a labor camp. The charge against him: espionage.

Whelan stood in the courtroom’s cage listening to the verdict pronounced in Russian, pressing a piece of paper to the glass wall: “Sham trial!” it said, and “Meatball surgery!,” referring to the hernia operation he had in prison, and “No human rights!,” as well as other slogans.

Prior to the sentencing, Whelan reportedly shouted that his case is a “political charade” by a Russian government that “feels impotent in the world, so it’s taking political hostages.”

Later Whelan complained to reporters in the courtroom that nobody bothered to translate what had just happened.

Whelan says his prison guards and investigators humiliated him from the first day he was arrested in his hotel 18 months ago to the day. He was kept in a small cell at Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison without a chance to speak with his family. He suffered from agonizing pain for months because of the hernia, without a chance to consult with his doctors.

Accused U.S. ‘Spy’ Paul Whelan Turns 49 in Moscow Prison With Freedom Nowhere in Sight

Whelan’s state appointed lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, is convinced that now it is up to the former spy Vladimir Putin to decide what to do with Whelan.

“It must have been hard for the judge to hand down that sentence: the prosecutors presented only one witness, who most probably works for the Russian special services and claims that Paul had intended to recruit him, while we presented 12 Russian witnesses, including retired military who confirmed that Whelan had never tried to recruit them, that he loved Russia,” Zherebenkov told The Daily Beast. “I told Paul that there is no justice in Russia. He knows his case is a political provocation. He’s been prepared. We have not seen any Americans convicted of espionage in our labor camps for at least 15 years—he was taken to be swapped, it became clear already in December.”

Story continues

There is a common saying in Russia: “The intelligence services do not give up on their own.” There are at least two prisoners in United States that the Kremlin has been eager to bring back home for years, both of whom are suspected Russian intelligence operatives, most likely for the foreign intel service known as the SVR.

One is Victor Bout, a former Soviet military officer whose arms trafficking earned him the sobriquet “Merchant of Death.” He was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to 25 years for agreeing to sell weapons to undercover agents posing as Colombian terrorists who intended to kill Americans. The other is Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, also convicted in 2011, who was sentenced to 20 years for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine.

“A few weeks ago Mikhail Alekseyev, a spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, mentioned that Paul should be swapped for Bout and Yaroshenko, which means that the SVR now admit both men are theirs,” Zherebenkov told The Daily Beast. “The decision to swap Whelan for Bout and Yaroshenko must have been considered at the very top; now the two [American and Russian] presidential administrations and intelligence services will discuss the details.”

The Kremlin’s major newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, reported on Monday that investigators discovered a memory stick in Whelan’s hotel room with “a list of employees of one of the Russian special services.” The state newspaper says that once Whelan’s verdict goes into effect, “The Washington side might raise a question about a possible exchange of Whelan and some Russian citizens convicted in the United States.”

When Whelan was arrested in December 2018 there was widespread speculation he might be traded for Maria Butina, who used gun rights advocacy and a glamorous makeover to work her way into the confidence of GOP lawmakers. But she served only five months of an 18-month sentence for failure to register as a foreign agent, and was deported back to Moscow last year with, it appears, with no deal to let Whelan go.

U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan told a crowd of reporters that he felt “disappointed and outraged” after hearing the verdict and seeing Whelan in the courtroom. The ambassador, a lawyer, called the court process “a mockery of justice.”

“An American citizen has been sentenced to a term of 16 years for a crime of which we have not seen evidence,” said Sullivan. “He was denied an opportunity to work cooperatively with his defense council who was appointed for him; in addition he was horribly mistreated.”

Ambassador Sullivan said that Whelan had been denied medical help until surgery was needed to repair a hernia. That also was conducted on Russia’s terms. “He wasn’t able to speak with his family, with his elderly parents for almost a year and a half. To say that I am troubled by this is an understatement.”

In vain Whelan’s family tried to get in touch with Paul during three months of COVID-19 lockdowns. In late May the family found out about the hernia operation. “We do not know how his health is, no-one has spoken with Paul since his emergency surgery, and that was a brief call to the Embassy,” Whelan’s twin brother David told The Daily Beast on Monday. “Our family has not spoken with Paul, except for the single phone call that the Lefortovo prison allowed him in May.”

Ambassador Sullivan called for all fair-minded people in Russia and around the world to demand Whelan’s release, “because if they can do this to Paul, they can do this to anyone.”

Since Whelan also holds Canadian, U.K. and Irish passports, four embassies are now working on appealing his sentence. “Out of all the criticism against the United States over the years, one thing I have not heard Russia criticize was our federal criminal of justice system, our commitment to due process, the fundamental rights, the fundamental human rights around the world of a public trial, an opportunity to present all the evidence on all charges—he was denied that from the beginning,” Sullivan said.

Whelan’s defense now waits for the deal proposal from the state, Zherebenkov told The Daily Beast. “Prosecutors ask us not to appeal the verdict now—we’ll wait until next week and see what they have to offer us.”

The family also hoped for a prompt release. “Paul’s attorneys Vladimir Zherebenkov and Olga Karlova are better situated to answer questions about whether to appeal or go straight to a petition for clemency. Paul will be involved in that choice too. I am in favor of whatever arrangement gets Paul released most promptly,” said his brother, David Whelan.