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cosmicjoke · 3 years

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Okay, just have a few thoughts about chapter 115 of AoT.

It’s really interesting that Zeke ends up having the tables turned on him and being manipulated by Eren, the wool pulled over his eyes, the way Zeke is used to doing to everyone else, and it’s interesting because of the reason why, I think.

Part of Zeke’s problem is that he’s a narcissist. He can only view everyone and everything through the prism of his own life experiences, through the lens of himself, his thoughts, his feelings, his beliefs, and has no capacity to consider things from anyone else’ side. He’s incapable of it, it seems, incapable of separating other people from himself, or rather, separating himself from others. He thinks all the world and everything that happens in it somehow revolves around him. This is probably Zeke’s biggest weakness, and it’s why he falls for Eren’s lie that he agrees with Zeke’s euthanization plan. He just assumes that Eren’s life experiences are his own, that his experiences with their father had to have been the same, that Eren will understand things from his perspective, because Eren must have gone through the same things he did, and thus, he MUST feel the way Zeke does. He doesn’t consider Eren as a separate person from himself, but rather just an extension, a younger manifestation of himself, as someone who must hold the same, special, unique understanding he has of the world and how to “save it”. We see Yelena refer to Zeke as a god again and again, her view of him fanatical and reverent, and the Yaegerists perception of Zeke as some sort of savior figure, emerging from the womb, with shafts of heavenly light casting down upon him. This is all reflective of how Zeke views himself, a godly, messiah like figure who’s come to rescue the world with his benevolence and kindness. He believes himself to be special, and he sees Eren as an extension of that specialness. It’s why Zeke is so certain that when he goes with Eren back through his childhood memories, he’ll encounter the same experiences he had growing up. It’s why he’s so shocked when it turns out Eren’s childhood was nothing like his, and that Grisha didn’t plan initially on even taking the Founding Titan. Zeke can hardly conceive of anyone having a better or happier upbringing than him, of having a better life, and it basically shatters him when he’s forced to face that truth, because it destroys his own uncompromising belief in the notion of life being meaningless and worthless. He’s so caught up in his hero complex, in his desire to see himself as special and a savior, in fact, that he doesn’t even realize or appreciate the connection and warmth he experienced in his own childhood, with Mr. Ksaver or his grandparents. He has to believe in the lie that his entire childhood was nothing but misery to uphold his beliefs about the meaninglessness of life in general.

More examples of Zeke’s narcissism is how Mr. Ksaver points out that, after coming in contact with the founder, Zeke still won’t be able to control it’s power, that only the host can. But Zeke doesn’t really believe that. He sees himself as the chosen one, and is confident that once he makes contact with Eren, Zeke himself will be capable of controlling Ymir and her power. It’s why he starts crying and whining like a bitch when, later, Ymir ignores his ass in favor of Eren. When Zeke screams whatever about being a member of the royal family and Ymir being bound to him, it comes across as a child throwing a hissy fit when they’re forced to face the truth, which is that the world doesn’t revolve around them. He can’t accept it, or wrap his head around it. It doesn’t line up with his perception of himself as a god-like savior of the world.

We also see Eren use that kind of arrogance that Zeke has against him when he tells Zeke that “If the Eldian’s in this camp had never been born, then they wouldn’t have to die in this attack we’re planning.” He knows Zeke sees what he’s doing as mercy, as “saving” people, that he’s deluded himself into seeing his actions as that, rather than what it actually is, which is murder. He’s stroking Zeke’s ego here, by offering him absolution from the horror of his coming actions, shifting the blame for what’s going to happen to all of these people off of Zeke and putting it instead on the random, cruel unfairness of “being born into this world”. Zeke swallows it all up, because it reaffirms for him his beliefs in himself as a hero of destiny, or whatever. It makes him feel good about himself.

Okay, anyway, now I just gotta’ talk a little about when Hange finds Levi, and just... ugh, it kills me, these panels.

I hate seeing Levi like this. It’s heartbreaking, and shocking, because it’s the first time in the entire series in which we see Levi in a truly, physically vulnerable state. The first time we see him physically helpless. It’s genuinely upsetting, especially when you consider everything he’s already been through, the psychological and emotional trauma he’s already experienced leading directly up to this moment. Levi truly doesn’t deserve this kind of thing, to have the one thing left to him, his physical strength, stripped away from him like this. A man who’s lost nearly everything else in his life. It’s tragic, it really is. And I think Isayama did a remarkable job here of really conveying that tragedy in the devastation we see in Levi’s physical state. He looks totally wrecked and utterly helpless, and it’s just almost bizarre, because Levi’s only ever been incredibly powerful and strong and confident in that strength throughout the series. Seeing him like this, then, seeing him so broken, is almost unbelievable. But it also almost seems like a tangible, physical manifestation of the emotional and mental anguish Levi has experienced throughout the story. He would always keep his emotions in check, would keep his expression flat, would hide away whatever pain he was feeling, in order to continue on and keep fighting, in order to be strong for those around him and hold them up with his strength. For the first time, we see him unable to do that. For the first time in the entire series, Levi needs to be rescued. And it’s Hange of course who rescues him. And it’s really here where we see Hange’s willingness to to bend to Floch and his followers, to play along with them and compromise, fall away. Hange’s expression becomes genuinely hard and unyielding, almost vicious, as she realizes Floch’s intention to kill Levi. She fully commits in this moment, I think, to fighting against these people with everything she has, and to no longer waffle or in anyway submit to their demands. And it’s Hange’s friendship with Levi that gives her this resolve. It’s her commitment to a friend, the genuine and deep care she feels for him. She may have been willing to submit to the Yaegerists when it was just her life on the line, but she won’t let them kill Levi. It really speaks to the incredible bond the two of them share, as the last remaining veterans of the Survey Corps. That’s a unique experience shared between them, the two of them there since well before the walls ever fell, and all the losses experienced by both before and since. That it’s specifically Levi’s vulnerability in this moment, and the impending danger he’s placed in, that hardens Hange’s resolve, speaks volumes.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #Levi Ackerman #hange zöe #zeke yaeger #eren yaegar #snk 115 #meta

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nomadicism · 4 years

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Now that She Ra is over, what are your thoughts on it? What about that Catradora kiss?

Hi Anon! Thank you for the Ask!

ヽ(*⌒∇⌒*)ﾉ Where to start?

I have so many thoughts on the show, and I’ve had so many thoughts since season 1. I’ve not written much of anything about She-Ra because I keep coming back to this problem of ‘where to start,’ or how to structure my thoughts beyond a +1000 item list. I can’t even pick one or two thoughts to dive into, because they all end up connecting to everything else —> honestly, that’s the mark of a tight narrative, even the big pieces that can fully stand on their own are still leading through to another piece. I fail at every attempt to write something brief.

Section I: Short answer first.

I have a very short and subjective list of media where I not only love (for different reasons) nearly every character (main, secondary, background), but where I also feel that their individual places or moments or arcs concluded in a way that felt right from start to finish. It’s a short list of media where connections and conflict between characters never felt forced, out-of-place, out-of-context, or done for shock value. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power makes that very short and subjective list.

It’s not often that a story hits all the right notes with me, and it’s much more often that a story starts off strong like that, and then turns me off ½-⅔ of the way through. I’ve quit video games during the final boss fight because the story lost me in the lead-up and I wasn’t going to waste 10-20 minutes of my time for something that turned out to be ‘meh’. It ain’t got to be deep, or anything either.

I really loved the voice acting. Everyone is great. A post for another time.

I love the aesthetics, which I wasn’t sure of at first teasers, but won me over in less than 3 minutes of the first episode (season 1) because I love bright pastels, the character designs are fun (can I still gush over variety of body types? YES), so many opportunities to explore stylish takes on the characters, and those Moebius-inspired scenery/background designs are a special interest delight. Season 5 delivered a visual ‘end game’ for the aesthetics in many ways, Section III further down will get into that a bit.

Section II: “What about that Catradora kiss?”

I gotta preface this with, shipping is not my go-to for how I enjoy creative works. It’s not a hobby for me. Sure there’s a few I dig more than others, but I’m otherwise agnostic about ships, unless there is a really bad story-fit (and that’s usually a subjective thing), or involves tropes that are a deal-breaker for me (and those typically relate a lot to the story fit).

With that said, I’m really happy to see Catradora be pulled off so brilliantly, and I think the kiss is a bold and beautiful big deal in a way that might not be obvious when considered in a vacuum. I see it as passionate and heart-felt, but also, it’s achieving(?) a relatable outcome (for me at least) that’s hard to describe. It’s an outcome yielded by a story in which two women—a hero and a villain—are divided and fight bitterly and then reconcile through love, while fighting a purity cult whose founder-prophet-god-king forces subservience through a conversion designed to strip someone of their identity (e.g. names they’ve chosen for themselves), memories-and-motivations, and love for others.

Despite these conversions, love still remains, it can’t just be baptized or therapy-ed away. Controlling puritans and authoritarians wielding religion or peace-panaceas as a weapon have been the villains in the lives of countless women and LGBTQIA people for a very long time. So yeah, I’ve got some feels about that. The last time I felt anything similarly relatable, or as strongly, was the Utena and Anthy relationship in Revolutionary Girl Utena (and really, their kiss during the surreal sequence at the end of the film adaptation).

Section III: Thoughts on Cult Aesthetics and Clones (the rough cut)

(1) In the future scenes at the end, Adora’s white dress with gold tiara and accents have this kind of goddess-like or Pallas Athena feel to it, which is a great mirror of the design choices for the god-like Horde Prime, his Purity Space Cult, mechanics/ship, and flagship interior scenery. Not saying that was the intention, but that’s how it came across to me.

Of course, those colors would be used because She-Ra already wears white and gold with a bit of red accent, which complement how the princesses are bright and colorful (pastels and jewel tones). The bold and bright colors helps signify that Etheria is full of life. Etheria is verdant and magical, and that sets up a contrast to the Fright Zone and the darker colors found in Horde characters (Hordak, Shadow Weaver, Scorpia, Catra, Entrapta, etc).

So the first kind of contrast was with the Fright Zone standing out as a poisoned/toxic against the bright, lively colors of Etheria and the princesses. Season 5 introduces another take on that contrast as Horde Prime is the opposite, or antithesis of Etheria’s colorful life. He’s like anti-life with his shades of light-and-dark grays on white, and only glow-green as an accent. In some cultures and religious traditions, white is associated with purity, and in others it is associated with death.

When Horde Prime ‘purifies’ Hordak for the sins of individuality and emotion (emotion for others, for his own sake), Hordak is drained of the colors he chose for himself during exile. In addition to being a contrast to Horde Prime (and informed by the 80s cartoon design), Hordak’s dark blue (or blue-black) and red color palette reflects the traditional use of red as a color for evil (especially vampirism) from back when diabolism was a stand-in for ‘the Devil’ in many forms of visual media (comics, live-action, animation, etc). In place of diabolic red, Horde Prime has toxic glow-green.

I absolutely love the use of the glow-green accents. Color trends for villains and significations of evil come and go, and I’m glad to see the color green be used again, and used so well. The last time I saw that shade of glow-green used so well was in Sleeping Beauty (re: Maleficent’s magic and the orb on her staff) and as the Loc-Nar in Heavy Metal. In both films, there are connotations of evil as a poisonous and corrupting influence. Green, in the context of evil, almost always signifies poison (and sometimes envy). I also like that the glow-green color is used in ways that aren’t immediately saying ‘this is evil’, such as the green baptismal waters and flames from the purification scene, or the green amniotic protein fluid. The language of piety and trappings of the sacred can cloak a sinister purpose.

I don’t know if any of that was intentional, but Horde Prime feels like the perfect synergy of purity and death (which has additional connotations, but that’s a very personal interpretation).

(2) Horde Prime immediately gave me subtle cult vibes in his first cameo (Season 3), and the follow-through on that was perfect and exactly what I was hoping to see. The background music throughout the scenes aboard the flagship fits well (love the soundtrack), and has the quality of Ecstatic Experience without pulling directly from any specific religion. Horde Prime’s dialogue is a delightful bit of narcissism veiled with the language of piety.

A purity cult comprised of clone-brother-worshippers of the cult’s founder-prophet-god-king reinforces that narcissism and has all the fun-dark feels of shiny-techno-future-dystopias. It is also an interesting use of clones, especially in a story format that usually never has the time to really dive into the complexities of cloning. This is the sort of thing that you’d be more likely to see in a one-off episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, rather than the basis for a greater scope villain, or multi-season nemesis. (and yes, Star Trek: TNG had an interesting clone episode)

Clones in science-fiction tend to fall into just a few tropes, and I generally dislike seeing clones show up in a story because the execution nearly always feels sloppy (in small ways or big ways). I did not get that feeling from She-Ra, where, the clones occupy the “cog in the machine” trope, but it is not their existence as clones that make them that way, it is the Will of Horde Prime that does. They are simultaneously expendable and sacred in their unity. It’s a nice flip on “stronger by working together” that Adora and the others have to learn (and struggle) to do.

It seems like, despite their religious programming, the clones have a little bit of their own personalities until Horde Prime ‘inhabits’ them to exert his Will. I’m trying not to read too much into it, b/c what comes across as ‘inhabits’ to me (especially with the religious/cult context), was probably meant more literal like described in the dialogue as a hive-mind control kind of thing. The first time it happens—to post-wipe/death Hordak—felt to me like a possession scene from The Exorcist, but without the kind of horror visuals that would scare both adults and children. The quick-and-subtle amount of body contortion and sound is still gross and creepy (because it should be), but it also reminds me of Ecstatic Experience in the form of speaking in tongues, or snake handling, or being a medium for a spirit. Again, I’m not saying any of that is intentional, but that’s how I see it.

(3) Finally, there is Entrapta, Hordak, and Wrong Hordak. Clones rarely get to be ‘humanized’ through friendship or romance arcs. I can think of a dozen or more robots that get to be humanized in that way, but can’t recall any clones that have (excluding doomed clones whose friendship/romance only existed for the sake of selling the tragedy of their death). Hordak gets death, renewal, and romance in a way that worked really well, and the totality of it is unique. I was a bit surprised that they could work in another clone—and I love Wrong Hordak—who pulls triple-duty as (1) comedy; (2) relevant to moving various pieces of the story along; and (3) more humanizing of the clones, which, again rarely happens as most stories take the easy low road when it comes to clones.

For Entrapta’s part, she’s never put in the position of giving up who she is (‘weird’ by many standards) for a romance. Her passion for technology is both an amusing double entendre at times, and integral to who she is. A romance for Entrapta does not replace her passion for technology, she can have both. Dating myself but, I came up in a time where most media (for children or adults) would rob a woman of her agency or passions during the resolution of a romance arc. Maybe times have changed, but it’s still nice to see none of that nonsense happening here.

#catradora #entrapdak #spop #spop meta #spop asks #ask me anything #spop s5 spoilers

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omegangrins · 4 years

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A Treatise On the Doctor

I don't know how to start this. Because I think of Peter Capaldi's words when he said that the only thing required to be a Doctor Who fan, is kindness.

I like 13 and think Chibnall is doing his best job writing the show.

So I struggle to write this because I am engaging against that very unkindness in the Doctor Who fandom, and trying very hard not to be angry back. "Allways try to be nice but never fail to be kind." But I've begun to wonder more and more if those who speak so loudly against the show really know what the show itself is about.

Enough of talking about other people though, cause frankly they're only important as set-up for this conversation. And again, I'm working kind.

So here's what you're gonna learn from this lifelong fan (and the best Tl;dr you're gonna get):

1. The Doctor sucks. From the very beginning. People complain about character traits now that have been around as long as the show.

2. Due to the Doctor's suckage, they tend to do more harm than good. (And because of this, most of the Doctor's "friends" along the way have been, well, let's leave it at the air quotes for now cause it's a damn big list of "BOOOO!!!".)

3. All of the showrunners and writers and actors and editors and everyone else has allways knows this and has played it this way.

4. And last but not least, since this is a time travel show. If you wanna know what and why stuff is happening now, look it up. Everything that happened before is allways in play.

5. None of this is bad, and in fact, it makes the show morally grayer. It's about kindness at all costs. Even your own.

A. First things first, the hard thing. The Doctor is not grrrreat. I mean, sure they try, but they fail a lot more often. In Extremis, a majority of those fatality index counts come from people the Doctor failed to save. That's why it's worded so specifically as "cause of death". All the death's caused by the Doctor's very interaction with time and lack of saving those around them. And part of it's not their fault, but more often than not, the Doctor says I can save you, and can't, won't, or chooses not to.

And that would be alright, but it took them over 1000 years to realize they should start letting their companions lead lives outside of theirs so THEY DON'T DIE. A bit too long as someone who claims to be better.

Not to mention how many times the Doctor is dismissive of their companions and the people around them only to use them for their help and just bug off again. If they truly cared and wanted to help, they would stay and listen in between adventures. Their lifespan is near infinite anyway. What's a few extra Earth hours with some friends you made along the way. You know, maybe fix some of the psychological and emotional damage created by encountering things behind a human's original scope of reasoning. But nope, we gotta go adventure more, byyyyeee!!

So when people talk about these qualities in 13 in a negative aspect I have to laugh because I'm not sure if they understand the joke. Cause we're talking about an alien that grew up around a species calling themselves Time Lords. I try not to blame them too much for it. 1 had to learn how to be hospitable to humans and it's been a bit of a slow learning curve ever since.

B. After the Doctor survived the horrors of the Time War and happened upon a human companion they felt worth connecting to, what did they do? They took Rose to watch her planet burn in front of her eyes. Great, first date, amirite?

And that's a little bit of companion damage. Do you know that the Doctor is responsible for the almost complete genocide of the Silurian race across multiple occasions. I am legitimately surprised there are any left after all of the ones the Doctor has killed. Like before, they cause destruction either purposefully or accidentally or simply by force of being there.

Remember before how I said that the Doctor just flies away. Yeah, they leave a lot of problems behind when they do (something that I can see Chibnall is planting the seeds of). If you had a time and space machine and practically unlimited capabilities and you choose to just leave after a situation and not check up on them from time to or see if there are any other underlying crises to be solved. But oh no, "gotta follow that rule of time and keep going even though I stopped in the first place because of how interested I was.". This is why 9 has a great arc about this. He thought he killed all the Daleks. They came back. He thought he'd gotten rid of the Slitheen. They came back. He thought he saved Satellite 5 from aliens. But opsies, they came back. And look! They're Daleks. Which he "finally" got rid of.

The Doctor just bounces around all carefree and without an ounce of care for themselves, their companions or consequences unless there's consequences for themselves or their companions. Then they get indignant.

Is that really kind of the person you want flying around fixing things in time and space? Who knows. But at least they are trying. Most of the time the T.A.R.D.I.S. lands somewhere and the authority figures are the most pretentious bull-headed pigs you can find. To me, I laugh cause it seems like both sides end up getting a taste of their own medicine. Usually with the bull charging to death in a sad glory while the Doctor wiles on metaphorically about not being as good as them.

But again, as a "superior" alien with "advanced" technology and "culture" you'd think they'd just know better already. But that's all part of the character. The Doctor may be in flux, but true change is difficult. The real hero of every story is the other people BESIDES the Doctor.

Cause the title is Doctor *Who* . The Who being half of the title, despite having less letters. It's the constant question of "What and why and who is that crazy person that's trying to help?" Why do you think they keep flying back to Earth? (Besides set construction reasons.) They've grown as attached to us as we have to them. And at this point, a lot of their saving us is guilt and embarrassment at having a hand in our timeline.

This is also the same reason the Doctor dumps companions in a fluff. Baggage. Every time a companion gets too heavy to carry the memories of... off they fly.

Except for 13. She's stayed. To this end, we can see how the Doctor changes. Not on our smaller, human timelines, but on the timeline of a god with way too much power.

D. With that in mind, we go Classic. It's the Who you need to consult if you wish to make any critique on what's happening now. Because how can you know how a part operates inside of a whole without seeing the whole part?

Cause I don't know if you've watched it but it can be rough, and I don't mean in the sense of production value (which admittedly they do a fairly decent job of using what money they had. A problem the BBC plagues to Doctor Who to this day.). The 3rd Doctor shits on every one they call friends constantly and then turns around expecting help. 4 did the same. Then 5 masked that contempt with a plucky face and a cheeky word. But it was still there, bubbling out of 6 and 7 as the inability to suffer fools gladly and using their own righteousness to enact change in their companions. A trait that kept going til an entire war and regeneration was used solving the question of "Doctor Who?" Only for them to try and forget twice more by putting on their pretty grinning faces and running away from it.

And I'm only talking from a companion perspective. Each of the Doctors has enacted their own form of genocide on countless species. Sure, it's to "save humans" but at the end of the day you'd have to ask yourself if we're really worth that blood. And this is all in the Doctor's history. As much as they claim better, they're hands are still gushing red.

The Doctor left Jo because she fell in love. They drove Adric to put their life on the line in order to feel adequate. The entirety of the Silurian race has been wiped out fivefold under their watch, with one time by their hand itself. Same for several other singular and unique species you won't be able to find elsewhere in the universe. 7 used time travel to enact a personality change in Ace while simultaneously using her as a pawn in an interdimensional war. The Time War itself. Sure it got erased but the Doctor still did those things ("War" Doctor or whatever nonsense titles they feel necessary to delude themselves). The entirety of Amy's childhood was destroyed by their presence, and Rory got erased. Twice! Sarah Kingdom. We know the list. Hell, the Doctor whisked Barbara and Ian away because they wanted to teach the snobby humans some lessons.

They may have a time machine, but we have the bill of their actions. This is where 13 excels. Because they're trying to be better than themselves. They've learnt the lessons of all those years traveling and the failures they wish they could reverse but don't as a way of keeping a scoreboard of pain. It's not perfect by any means, but look at 12 needing cue cards to understand and react to human grief under duress. They've come a helluva long way. After 50 years, I'm inclined to believe better. After all, it's what the Doctor would want.

E. You know how people like the ASOIAF series because it offers up morally complex characters existing in a morally complex world where black and white are harder to define than grey? Have you ever thought of Doctor Who as the same? Strip past the fairytale and adventure and "wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness and it's just people reacting to situations. We're just harder on the Doctor because they're hard on us. You could go round and round on who's the bigger killer, but at the end of the day Time Lords and humans fight and feel about the same things. It's allways been a joke to pretend otherwise.

That's why I love the Timeless Child. Not for making the Doctor anymore special but for saying that even despite having all of their specialness ripped away and repurposed to create a lie of a society then having the memory wiped of said event, the Doctor broke out of their mold, stole a TARDIS and told the Time Lords to fuck off. That's not a Captain America/Superman hero. That's Batman in space with a society of Lex Luthor's. Gotham and Gallifrey. The Doctor saw what they were a part of and broke free, without even knowing the more horrifying truth. Cause it's the thing I see many fans missing because they're so preocuppied with the Doctor being special. The thing that made the Doctor different was their ability to know the difference and walk away to find better. Now, the Doctor has a reason to go back and find out why they never stopped running.

The Time Lords might be the greatest monsters in the universe. It is in the name. "Lords". Those who would lord over us and impose their will with a banthium fist.

And this is a children's show.

C the thing is, the people who made and make this show all collectively rail against one thing: Hate. Kindness is the way of Doctor's. Even if they're sawing off your leg, it's to do the kindness of saving your life. This is because the people who make this (United Kingdomers) have seen centuries of war and conflict and oppression enacted by their own country in the name of progress. And they want to see it no more. Look no further than any of the Doctor's adventures with UNIT. Allways advocating for peace and being ignored for the comfortable war-cry. It's why it's hard to blame the Doctor when we do very similar and often worse (though we don't have time travel.... yet). The creators of this show know better, see better, and wrote better, to know that the powers that be nipped would nip their creations and sanitize them. So they wrote their messages so strong that you can feel them from the future. They're powerfull enough that even across eras they have all collectively moved me to write this.

That's another point I have to laugh at people saying Doctor Who has never been in your face about progressive politics. The Green Death. Survival. Trial of a Timelord (Yes, all of it. Sit down and power through.) The Happiness Patrol is one of my all time favorite episodes for going there in this regard. People may poo poo but history has its' eyes on you. Doctor Who loves taking potshots at the issues of the day. As long as you don't make the aliens black of course. Make them all the colors of the rainbow but never make them black. That'd be too on the nose (That's something they used to say back in the day! Crazy how far we've come).

So bravoa to Chibnall for continuing the legacy of Doctor Who. From where I'm standing, he's not doing anything different than any other showrunner before him. Cause if you want to argue canon, you at least have to know what created it. This show owes what it is to those Classic eras. And if you think Chibnall is shitting on those years and your childhood.... well, then why did you read this whole thing?

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two-are-the-trees · 5 years

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31 Days of Poe Day 4: “Berenice”

In regards to “Berenice,” I believe “creepy” is our word of the day. While lacking any supernatural terrors or dramatic climactic deaths, “Berenice” still manages to be one of Poe’s most spine chilling stories, leaving readers more and more uncomfortable until the horrifying end.

The narrator of the tale takes us through his memories, explaining his peculiarities as a sickly scholar and the development of what he calls his “monomania,” a mental condition that causes him to fixate on very specific details from time to time. In his youth, he falls in love with his cousin, Berenice, until she is struck by an unknown illness which affects her physically and mentally. The idealized image of Berenice is tarnished in the narrator’s mind and he struggles with his complex feelings of disgust, pity, and love… that is, until his monomania takes hold of him in a way he never expected.

Poe creates an absolutely frantic mood throughout the entire story as we are given the perspective of a narrator who doesn’t entirely understand his own condition or even his own emotional state. Through this narrator and his obsessive idealization of Berenice, readers might see the origins of characters like Norman Bates; someone with a frighteningly complicated relationship with women. His inner monologue is chilling as Berenice becomes more and more like an object through his eyes. On the other hand, because we are able to see the events from his perspective and we understand his own loss of control, the narrator becomes somewhat of a victim himself. Though he tries with all his might to suppress the compulsions of his monomania, he is simply at a loss to deal with it himself.

Would I recommend “Berenice”? Yes, I think this is one of Poe’s most unique works and it’s truly unforgettable once you’ve read it. It builds an amazing set up in a short amount of time and really saves the peak of terror for the last moment. Be warned, however, it is a little gory at the end; nothing too graphic but it will make you shiver!

For more analysis (which contains spoilers!!!) please read below the cut!

There are a lot of complicated topics raised in “Berenice,” and I think the most prominent are the representation of mental illness and the objectification of women. There has been a lot of discussion recently about the depiction of mental illness in horror and how many narratives use mental illness as the boogey-man, an automatic source of terror and violence. In real life, we know that mental illnesses are extremely varied, even from person to person, and that mental illness does not automatically make someone a violent person. I can very easily see the argument that the narrator of “Berenice” is just another example of mental illness being shown in a bad light. However, I think the narrator’s relationship with “monomania” is a little different than some of the horror plots we get these days.

There are a lot of elements in the story that build the narrator up as sympathetic. For one, the story is told from his perspective, and we can see that he acknowledges his obsessive nature but is very unsure of how to actually cope with it. There is a sense of isolation that surrounds this character. From his youth, he spends all of his time indoors at his studies, with seemingly no friends or anyone in the household that he can turn to. He explains that his mother died when he was born and he never even mentions his father. Even Berenice, the one person he feels closest to, seems distant from him as she is always outside playing, out of his reach. This explains how his monomania, and his overall mental state, grows worse over time; he has no support system and is mostly left to his own meditations, which even he describes as “intense and painful.”

Even in the end, we come to the horrible conclusion that he attacked Berenice and pulled all of her teeth out at the same time that he does. The horror that we feel as the teeth clatter to the ground and we realize what he has done is the same horror that he feels. This is not a character that lacks empathy or understanding. He understands exactly what he has done wrong, and it’s very clear that the situation has spiraled out of everyone’s control. I would never point to “Berenice” as a shining example of how mental health can be explored in horror or the gothic, but I do think the story offers more than simply a villain driven inevitably to violence because his mental illness causes a lack of empathy. From this angle, it seems to me more like a story of isolation and how the actual terror of the plot comes from the narrator’s own realization that he has lost control.

On the other hand, however, when looking at the story with the question of the treatment of women, you might argue that the narrator IS more of a villain, lost in his unhealthy view of women apart from his monomania. The narrator’s problems with women stem from the very origins of his backstory. His mother died after giving birth to him in the library, which is seemingly the start of the narrator’s isolation from the rest of the world. Growing up, the narrator is obsessed with the library and spends all of his time there. This could be because it was the place he was born, the ultimate connection to his mother. But this is also that place in which his mother died and it will always have that violent connotation. I like to think that on some level, the narrator holds a fascination with his mother; she is a mystery that he will never know and yet will always want some connection to, and yet she is also the one who left him in isolation, perhaps causing some deep-seeded resentment.

The narrator’s relationship with his dead mother translates beautifully to his relationship with Berenice. The narrator is obsessed with Berenice’s beauty and vigor, watching her from afar as she enjoys the outdoors while he is stuck inside. He feels that he has a connection to her, and yet she is always distant from him, just like his mother. There’s a sense of envy mixed with exaltation as the narrator regards Berenice and her seemingly charmed life.

The narrator’s adoration appears to be superficial, however, as once Berenice is overcome with illness, the narrator not only loses interest in her but becomes completely disgusted with her. He even realizes that he never actually loved Berenice, but rather saw her as an idealized fantasy. When he recalls the memory of her former appearance, he describes her beauty with ecstasy and dream-like comparisons. After her illness, he is jarred into reality by her deterioration.

It is this distance from and idealization of women that leads the narrator to become obsessed with Berenice’s teeth, the one part of her that has not suffered due to her illness. He describes their health and whiteness, a symbol of Berenice’s former purity and his perfected image of her in his mind. This is what ultimately leads him to pull out Berenice’s teeth and then attempt to bury her alive, saving the image of perfect beauty while discarding the actual person. It’s a very clear representation of the way in which women are objectified and then discarded when their idealized image is stripped away.

There are a lot of different and interesting ways to read “Berenice” and its narrator. What do y’all think? Do you see the narrator as sympathetic? Are there other readings of the symbolism of teeth? If you have an opinion, please add your comment to the post or send me an ask! You can also use the tag #31daysofpoe to create your own response post!

#31daysofpoe #edgar allan poe #gothic literature #halloween #gothic

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freewillroad-blog · 5 years

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1x01 A Journey Begins

Welcome to the beginning. We start out simple, and I think it’s the best way to begin. In time we come to learn that this is an epic tale. A mythological story enormous in scope. The world literally hangs in the balance. Our heroes will make earth shattering discoveries and decisions. They will struggle with their place in grand scheme of the universe and will grapple with questions about existence itself. But they don’t know that yet. And when we decided to sit down and watch this little pilot, neither did we.

I think it’s a great thing about how the foundation of this show was set. It really feels like we as an audience are along for the ride with these characters. Sam and Dean Winchester don’t know about the cosmic plan in which they are key players. When we meet them they’re simply two brothers looking for their father. Okay, when I say “simple” I mean in a relative sense. Because right off the bat we learn that the Winchesters have one pretty significant secret that makes their family drama a little more...unique than the average person’s. But all monster hunting aside, the scope of the story at this point is actually quite insular. Yes ghosts are a thing. But the real heart of the show is this little broken family. It’s their relationships with each other, with all their differences and conflicts, as well as dedication and love. That’s where it starts, and even as the stakes and the universe of the show become bigger and bigger with time, that is what it all boils down to at the end of the day.

I believe it’s the key to why this show has been able to take us on this journey for an incredible FIFTEEN seasons. I’ve always been a character person. I love a good plot as much as the next person, but to me it’s the characters that make or break a story. I love getting to know them and falling in love with them. I’m intrigued by their complexities and enjoy seeing how they evolve and grow over time. Rooting my favorite characters through their struggles and triumphs is one of my favorite things about fiction, and Supernatural has offered such a unique opportunity to do that. To follow the same characters, portrayed by the same actors, continuously for fifteen seasons is a rare gift. I’ve been through so much with these characters, both in the context of the universe of the show and outside of it. They’ve been like my constant fictional companions for over a decade now. I’ve loved so many characters over the years, but these feel so particularly special to me. I’m sure there are many others that feel the same.

The characters are what made me keep coming back, and they’re what hooked me in the first place. I originally wondered if this show would be really be my thing, since I’m not really a horror fan. It’s almost strange to think that this show was originally marketed as a weekly horror movie. There were definitely some horror movie homages present in the earlier seasons specifically, but the show as a whole now feels more on the Sci-Fi/Modern Mythology side of things. And that is a genre I’m more inclined toward anyway. But even in the more horror-orientated early era of the show, there was at the core of it all a family drama.

“Dad’s on a hunting trip. And he hasn’t been home in a few days.”

There it is. The words that started it all. The catalyst for everything that follows in this tale is something very specific and personal for these characters. It’s to do with their father, and it’s connected to their shared family history. Dean gives Sam this simple statement. Another person, Jessica in this instance, wouldn’t have much to go on here, it’s something Sam understands right away. So yes, this is our starting point for our afore mentioned family drama. Narratively though, it is also serves as the call to adventure.

Because in the early seasons of the show especially we can see the arc of a hero’s journey as described by Joseph Campbell. Actually, Campbell’s words in The Hero with a Thousand Faces pretty much describes this situation to a T.

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder.”

Sam Winchester an example of the hero archetype. When our story begins he is a student at Stanford university. He is studying to become a lawyer and has a supportive girlfriend. This is the hero in the ordinary world. When Dean shows up with the quest to find their father, Sam’s everyday “apple pie life” is disrupted and he is called to venture forth into the world

of the supernatural.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we dive into our hero’s journey in earnest let’s take a moment to talk about our heroes as we are introduced to them in this first chapter.

We’ve got Sam, our college boy. We right away see his intelligence and aptitude for research, lore, and investigation. We also see that he has rebelled against the hunter life in which he was raised and has a desire to just live a normal life. He has distanced himself from the world of hunting and has become estranged from his family in the process. He seems to be the most straight-laced of the Winchesters, or at least he’s trying to be. He judges the way his father and brother run credit card scams and talk back to police. He at this point in time is a character inclined towards exemplifying lawful good. When he is thrown back into the secret, very unofficial world of hunting monsters this inclination will be challenged, to put it lightly.

And we’ve got big brother Dean. Dean Winchester, who sneaks into his brother’s apartment in the middle of the night, and after a brief scuffle grins and proclaims he was “looking for a beer”. He walks in with the cocky grin, the wisecracks, and a certain swagger. He’s a leather jacket wearing, muscle car driving, classic rock listening dude. But will this image of confidence that Dean projects eventually be stripped back just as Sam’s attempt at normalcy will be? Spoiler alert: Yes.

And already in this episode we see there’s more to Dean than the cool guy veneer. His dedication to his family and his wish to bring them back together will be a key point in this story, and there a few scenes in this pilot that lay that groundwork.

These two characters both intrigued me right away. As a bookish kid, I found myself gravitating towards that aspect of Sam, as well as the character’s emotional sensitivity, so wonderfully imbued by Jared. And Dean was just so funny. He made me laugh, and overtime we get to see his heart and gain appreciation for who he is under the surface. They both individually have their charms that begin to endear them to you, and the actors settle into to these roles so effectively. And when you put them together, the dynamic between them brings dimension to the characters and the show. It’s interesting to see the ways in which they differ and the ways in which they complement each other.

Eric Kripke has likened Sam and Dean to two heroes from another significant example of the hero’s journey: Star Wars. He said that Sam and Dean are like Luke Skywalker and Han Solo respectively. The Star Wars fan in me loves this, and I think it proves to be an apt comparison. Like Luke, Sam is our young hero pulled from his mundane everyday life into the realm of the extraordinary. There’s a kind earnestness about him, but also occasionally a youthful impatience. And he holds a secret power and a destiny of which he is not yet aware.

And like Han, Dean is the older counterpart, more rough around the edges. He lives outside of the law. His ride is his “baby”. He gives off a devil-may-care attitude. He truly trusts very few people, but to those close to him he is steadfastly loyal.

The parallels in the character archetypes can be seen in these ways,and I think as the story goes on we can see more thematic connections in the the storylines of the Winchesters to their Star Wars counterparts. Sam will be confronted with his own abilities and temptations from “the dark side”, and Dean make steps towards letting down his walls.

In the meantime, here in the pilot Sam demonstrates another part of the hero’s journey arc: the refusal of the call. The hero has some sort of doubt, fear, or hesitation about excepting the call. He sites reasons he must stay where he is. I can’t go to Alderaan, I’ve got work to do on the farm. I can’t go off chasing Dad, I’ve got a law school interview. In Star Wars, Luke agrees to take Obi-Wan as far as Anchorhead but does not commit to the journey Obi-Wan is presenting him with. Sam similarly tells Dean he will help him look for their dad but with the intention of returning to Stanford on Monday.

Now let’s talk about our first “monster of the week”. Why did they choose the Woman in White as our introduction into the Winchester’s world? Maybe it has something to do with this phrase forlornly spoken by the spirit: “I can never go home.”

The Woman in White says this as looks at her old house, unable to enter and confront the spirits of her children, but the words can also be applied to our heroes. When they were just children, the boys’ mother burned on the ceiling Sam’s nursery. On that day the Winchesters’ lives changed forever. In a literal physical sense they left that house that could no longer be their home. They flitted from town to town, never belonging to a place they called their own. They were adrift, as was the Woman In White. The white picket fence days and the apple pie life were behind them.

Perhaps the words can also be connected to Sam’s individual arc in this pilot episode, in two heartbreaking ways. First, there’s the matter of Sam’s estrangement from his father and brother at this point in the story. When he left for college it resulted in a fallout that meant there was basically no contact between him and his family for the years he was away. There was hurt and a feeling of betrayal on both sides of the situation. So Sam at this time holds both resentment for the hunter life —which he never asked to be a part of and wanted to go to college to escape-and bitterness towards the way his father and brother reacted to his choice. Sam therefore, through his time at Stanford and possibly even when Dean first came to get him, might have been thinking, “ I can never go home.”

Then at the end of the episode we see Sam walk back into the apartment he shares with Jessica. He grabs one of the chocolate chip cookies she laid out for his return and collapses on the bed, exhausted from chasing ghosts and missing father. We know what happens next. History repeats itself, and this new version of home Sam was trying to make for himself is torn away just as it was in Kansas years ago. “I can never go home.”

It is perhaps one of the main themes of this episode. The destruction of home and the feeling that it creates. The feeling of being lost and unanchored in a harsh world. Our heroes set off on the road, literally and metaphorically, with no concrete sense of where they are going.

But home can be found in unexpected ways, and it can come in many forms. Our characters will come to learn that with time, and it’s one of my favorite things about the show.

In the episode’s closing scene we see that now iconic shot of the brothers standing over the trunk of the Impala. Dean looks at Sam, silent and questioning. Sam’s eyes are full of pain and a decision.

“I want to come with you to Alderaan. There is nothing here for me now. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.”

That’s what Luke Skywalker says to Obi-Wan Kenobi after finding his homestead burned, and his aunt and uncle along with it. Luke sets on a course to follow in his father’s footsteps. To pick up where he left off, if you will. As he goes along his journey he is called upon to question why he is doing this. Is it for revenge against the man who killed his father? At this point in time Sam’s central motivation for follow

in his own father’s footsteps is to take revenge on the thing that killed his mother, and now Jessica. But what will he get out of this quest for vengeance, and will something else ultimately prove more important?

“We’ve got work to do,” are Sam’s words before the trunk of the Impala closes, bring us officially to the crossing of the threshold. The crossing of the threshold being when the hero commits to the quest and makes that transition from his everyday world to the world of adventure. We’ve started in earnest now, and it’s a long road ahead.

Thinking about Supernatural in the context of the monomyth is now particularly interesting given the context of Chuck and the theme of storytelling itself becoming such a big theme in the show. I look forward to rewatching with that in mind.

And I also look forward to those parts where our heroes go off script. Where they “rip up the ending”. Because this is also a story about free will. It’s about these characters being pushed by forces they don’t understand and a destiny they don’t comprehend. And despite all of it, look for ways to make their choices their own.

But we’re not there yet. Right now there’s just a ‘67 Chevy Impala and road to follow.

Here’s to the beginning.

#supernatural #spn rewatch

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martinahlijanian · 3 years

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In Search of the Lost...CLM

It’s Springtime in Boston – new beginnings, growth, shaking off the doldrums of winter (especially this recent one!!) In that spirit, I’ll throw off my dusty 2020 sanitized cloak and admit to you all something unprofessional, yet based in beauty and a deep love – some might call it a devotion. My beloved?? The Moody Blues. Yup, I’m a devoted fan – have been for decades. Make your elevator music joke – I don’t care. I know – nowhere nearly as cool as Post Malone, T-Swift, Dua, Doja, Don’tya, whomever. But majestic, original, thoughtful, and DEEP. Long ago in a New England portion of the galaxy far, far away, a suburban ethnic kid picked up a handful of vinyl albums at a yard sale, and the incredible double album “This Is The Moody Blues” was in the pile. I was immediately hooked. Have seen the boys several times in concert, and they never disappoint (though to steal a line from Don Henley about his own band, they don’t exactly dance around the stage – they mostly loiter.)

By now you’re probably thinking “the connection between THIS and Contract Lifecycle Management systems (“CLMs”) will be the most tortured bootstrap in history”, but if you followed the Moodies, it would be so very clear and obvious. Back in the medieval era (certainly not the dark ages) the boys released an album called “In Search of the Lost Chord”, an appropriately pretentious title implying not only that the Moodies knew of a unique, world-changing musical chord (typically 3-5 notes played together simultaneously), but that they, and no one else, found it! If your experience evaluating CLMs has been anything like mine over the past few years, you’ve been on a similar quest, but with less than satisfying results. Here are some of my impressions from my search for a perfect CLM.

Keeping with the musical theme for just another minute, my other non-work passion is synthesizers. I’m the proud owner of 6, ranging in age from 29 years old to 4, with the toddler being an absolute musical powerhouse of seemingly infinite possibilities called the Yamaha Montage. The synthesizer market exemplifies Moore’s Law, that old chestnut that says the number of transistors per silicon chip doubles every year, with corresponding performance increases and speed gains resulting from denser integrated circuits. That’s certainly the case with my synths. My boat anchor of a keyboard in 1981, an Italian-built instrument called the Crumar Orchestrator (no longer with us), was very heavy, cost $1,050 (Armenians never forget prices), and produced a whopping 5 sounds, though two sounds could be layered together. Needless to say, the new Yamaha plays rings around it, for only a few bucks more, but requires extensive training and synth engine tweaking. No one could seriously consider the two as peers – the Yamaha is a high-end laptop embedded into an 88-key digital synth with touchscreen programming that would make Dr. Moog himself drool. And yet there was something wonderful about the simplicity, intuitiveness, and real-time access of the Crumar’s sounds. In CLM terms, the Crumar didn’t have many bells or whistles, but did the job, and did so quite well and dependably.

Back in 2016, I had the pleasure of serving the team at SmashFly Technologies. We realized we needed a high-functioning CLM, and after a thorough RFP process, we selected SpringCM as our first system, enjoying a fantastic relationship with both the SpringCM team in Chicago and the platform itself. The integration of our prospects’ contract forms into the platform for redlining, version control, and eventual e-signing was a key element of our use case, shortening the sales lifecycle substantially. And internal workflows created with the system were embraced by both our Sales and Customer Success teams for both new and upsell/renewal business, respectively. Did the platform have every possible mind-numbing feature? No, but it was always there when we needed it and fit our business needs perfectly, with secure, real-time support and document processing. Definitely a Crumar relationship!

Author and theologian Richard Foster has written often on the virtues of simplicity, counseling one to “strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings”, and even the Moodies themselves, despite being known for complex orchestral production and cosmic lyrics, have echoed this concept (yes, with another keyboard reference), singing:

There's one thing I can do Play my Mellotron™ for you Try to blow away your city blues Your dreams are not unfound Get your feet back on the ground

So, in the spirit of the Moodies’ grandeur (pomposity?), I’ll attempt to blow away your CLM blues and get your feet back on the ground with an overview of my CLM experiences and suggestions for core requirements, particularly with respect to recent CLM market developments. As you may’ve guessed, I tend to lean toward simplicity, but as someone who has embraced technology since my garage band days, I get as excited about bleeding edge product developments as much as anyone, so I’ll try to keep the scales balanced.

In my startup-oriented world (ranging back 9 years), speed is everything. Correctness is assumed, whether it be contract version control, updated pricing/BAFOs, or proposal submissions – those are as fundamental as breathing. But speed varies greatly between organizations and markets. A twenty-four month (or longer) RFP pursuit under a federal government procurement, being run by a large publicly-traded company, doesn’t have the same day-to-day time pressures as the end of a quarter at an IT startup, particularly one that is chasing B or C-round funding or later investment/sale avenues. So like my beloved Crumar, a selected CLM must be fast, intuitive, and dependable. I can’t write code, and never want to be deep into programming instructions of my CLM; if we’re at that point, we’ve failed. As I’ve told my engineering colleagues for years, “this company is in DEEP trouble if you want me to write code”. (The corollary to that, of course, is “and we’re in equally deep trouble if engineers are interpreting contract terms”, but I digress, and you know I love you guys. )

Any system that has a steep learning curve, plods along in terms of system performance, and/or has numerous updates (so-called “upgrades”), patches, and maintenance downtime beyond market standards must be avoided.

Uptime availability should be as close to 99.9% as possible, if not higher. If you’re reading this, you’re probably a contracts, legal, or compliance pro, so you know any firm that won’t state that uptime availability percentage specifically in the contract’s SoW or SLA is telling you they’ll never hit it; run for the hills! Similarly, data center operations should be with a well-established, secure North American supplier (you know who they are – they certainly don’t need free advertising from me) to the CLM company, and the history of that relationship should be explored. A firm that bounces between all of the major cloud providers may try to argue that they’re always trying to get the best deal for their clients, but for my money, stability, security, and dependability are best served by a long-standing CLM-cloud provider marriage.

In addition, CLM implementation times should be clean and short. If you hear too many horror stories in the market, or references to “Well, Sue, it all depends on the amount of legacy data you’ll be transferring into our Platinum Platform, and what condition your data is in”, keep looking. You haven’t played the lost chord – just some sour notes. We all understand that dysfunctional customer data is not the responsibility of a new supplier, but my experience has been that a supplier who tries to foist performance concerns on the prospect early in discussions is typically the one who has the most problems during the contract term, and as a result is either terminated or churned at renewal time.

Speaking of pet peeves and more bootstraps, you may not believe there’s any connection at all between CLM demos (or the lack thereof) and a long-term positive relationship, but I maintain there is, and have experienced it. A company that plays hide-the-ball with its product may not be as confident in its features as its collateral or website proclaim. I certainly appreciate the arguments against a “demo right out of the gate” view – limited SE resources, non-serious buyers just trolling, numerous demos placing company IP at risk, SDRs need more due diligence discussions to properly tailor the demo, need to avoid multiple demos for the same prospect (so wait a bit and get all stakeholders on the same call), etc. But any experienced SDR or Account Exec/Regional Sales Manager should be able to tell from the first discussion with a prospect whether she/he is serious, has an immediate need and budget, and has authority to move forward or needs to have a senior exec (or two) participate in any demo. Hiding the ball from a serious prospect is counter-productive to the aims of the relationship and quite frustrating.

Wow – now I’m fired up. Given that I’m writing this late on a Tuesday, perhaps I should play the Moodies’ classic hit “Tuesday Afternoon” and mellow out!

My friends know that I LOATHE the use of jargon, but I have to use the phrase “table stakes” just once here – it’s in the context of a CLM’s e-signature capabilities. Any CLM with kludgy e-signature placement, or non-intuitive use (or worse, multiple drop-downs/windows before insertion in a document) should be avoided. Simplicity really should reign here. In most companies the contracts or legal reviewer is not likely to be the signatory, so any digital doc in a CLM should be easy to prepare and forward for senior management’s execution.

Your company’s templates and forms, and especially your Fallback 1 and Fallback 2 clause libraries, will require a bit more heavy lifting from the CLM partner, but given the evolution of CLM systems across the board, this process should be fast and clear. And the redlining of a prospect’s Word doc should never send the CLM into a spin.

Your selected CLM should have easy-to-create workflows that integrate with your company’s CRM, and appear as a widget or new page within the Account or Opportunity section thereof. If workflow creation requires multiple calls to the CLM provider’s tech support team, or worse, a purchase order for fee-based tech services, you’ve selected the wrong company. Which leads me to report generation…

In the synthesizer world, drum and percussion effects generated from the keyboard sound cool on the sales floor of Guitar Center or Sam Ash, but in terms of live performance, I can unequivocally state I’ve never used them, and never given them a second thought. And my studio friends tell me they’d rather use software-based drum sounds & loops than 90’s-style percussion from their synths. Basically, a “bell” of limited value. Report generation hardly falls to that level, and my CFO and CMO depended upon recurring reports generated automatically from the CLM, as did my SDR Manager. But ad hoc ROI report generation gets too much press, in my humble opinion, and may be touted at great length by your intrepid CLM sales rep. As far as I’ve seen, every CLM in 2021 has report generation; I wouldn’t be too swayed by a firm that crows about this as a product discriminator, unless your senior management is asking for numerous non-standard reports other company systems can’t provide.

I hope my earlier levity about engineers doesn’t generate too much hate mail – I have the utmost respect for them, as they know; that same sentiment applies to my beloved Sales colleagues. But having said that, for the safety of all, I only provide my Sales pros with access to NDA templates. That’s it. Your CLM will certainly have a rules-based structure where you can provide, or remove, access to forms or project documents based on department, unit/function, individual name, or transaction. Again, simplicity should be the rule, not the exception here. Ask for sandbox or live “dummy” system access and have the provider walk you through the gory details of this process. You should be able to do it alone, on a real-time basis; time-sensitive special projects (often M&A related) sometimes arise with little notice, and with strict guidelines about disclosures to other team members. If you can’t readily change access rules yourself, you’ll have problems, and will spin your wheels – while the clock is ticking and the C-suite is waiting for a reply – all because this process is too difficult.

Every app on the planet needs to have mobile functionality, and CLMs are certainly no different. As we emerge from COVID travel restrictions, the need for airport/Acela/in-meeting access to your CLM will return to 2019 levels. Any hiccup or frustration with the mobile use experienced during demo should receive substantial negative demerits in your evaluation phase. I’ve seen everything from a unique mobile app for a vendor’s platform to the identical (though hard to read) platform access using a browser on your iPhone or Android device. This comes down to personal preference, and what an otherwise high-scoring provider is selling. So long as core functionality is present in a mobile platform, I wouldn’t make a final decision based solely on this.

Lastly, a CLM platform’s ability to host a private document that could be shared via public URL, such as your company’s Supplier Code of Conduct or SLA, should be easy to find today and require nothing but the most basic training steps to create.

I suppose no essay on technology would be complete today without a reference to AI or ML. And pitch deck references to AI/ML are just as ubiquitous; there isn’t a major CLM player who isn’t emphasizing AI. However, make sure a vendor’s AI solution isn’t substantially dependent on a third party’s tool; I know of at least three heavyweights in this sector whose AI is subject to the vagaries of their supplier relationship with subs.

The distinction between strategic roadmap and current offering is an important one as well. No one wants to repeat the selection and implementation process any time soon, so a company’s track record of creative product development, as well as its record of actually delivering those future-proof features, should be an important part of your investment strategy. Today’s flavor of the month that either doesn’t have the R&D resources, including funding and personnel) or technical acumen (or both) to evolve the product over time will not be a solid choice, particularly if your company is in high-growth mode.

Another core requirement in 2021 is digital transformation. Where e-contracting automated processes within the Contracts, Legal and/or Sourcing department, digital transformation takes the data in our world and shares it with finance, ops, HR, and other company systems, beyond your CRM. If your vendor doesn’t at least address this, keep looking.

Which brings us back to synthesizers. Do I miss my Crumar? Absolutely. Was one of COVID’s silver linings less time sitting in traffic and more time embracing my Yamaha….oh, and of course my family? Heck yes! But my favorite synth of all-time is actually a wonderful instrument called the Korg N364. It’s modern-ish, but with many live performance capabilities and instant access to over 500 sounds. It’s absolutely bulletproof in terms of construction and reliability, and is playable right out of the box. While the Moody Blues never did find The Lost Chord, I’m convinced one could come VERY close with uninterrupted time, extreme creativity, and the Korg machine. It’s the perfect balance between features, reliability, and intuitiveness.

I hope some of these thoughts help you find the best CLM for your team!

#contractmanagement clm springcm

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Tarung Sarung: The Karate Kid of Jakarta

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Cobra Kai season 3 is the first major streaming hit for Netflix in 2021. With each of the 10 episodes having running time of around a half hour, it makes for a quick binge overall. Dedicated fans inhaled the show in the first weekend and craved more.

Unfortunately, Netflix carries only one other film from the original Karate Kid franchise and it’s the outlier. The Next Karate Kid was Pat Morita’s final appearance as the venerable Mr. Miyagi. The film also introduces two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank in her first lead role as Julie Pierce. However, The Next Karate Kid was a flop. Morita is the only connection to the three previous films and despite Swank’s impressive breakout performance, Julie fails to carry the chemistry that Daniel-san (Ralph Macchio) had with Miyagi.

So where on Netflix can fans get their next Karate Kid fix? How about Indonesia?

Netflix exclusively released Tarung Sarung on New Year’s Eve, one day prior to the Cobra Kai season 3 premiere. The movie was originally slated for Indonesian theatrical release in April 2020, but it was postponed due to the global pandemic like so many other films last year. Tarung Sarung is a loving homage to The Karate Kid. It follows the story of Daniel and Miyagi, with some regional twists. Deni Ruso (Panji Zoni) is Daniel. Get it? Deni Ruso is Daniel LaRusso.

Daniel-san versus Deni Ruso

Just like Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith’s redux of The Karate Kid, Tarung Sarung mirrors the major plot points of the original but includes many deviations beyond being set in a different country. Instead of being a poor kid from New Jersey, Deni is among the entitled rich, the heir to the third richest family in the country that runs Ruso Corp, a major capitalist development firm. However, he’s a spoiled bully who flaunts his wealth and abuses his position.

As punishment, his mom, Dina Ruso (Imelda Therinne), the family matriarch, sends him away to Makassar. Deni is stripped of his bodyguard and no longer has access to his credit card, but is given two bumbling assistants played by an Indonesian comedy team, Gogo (Doyok SuperDJ) and Tutu (Jarot SuperDJ). The excuse is that Deni is supposed to oversee the controversial Ruso Corp development project to convert a local beach to an amusement park. There on the beach, Deni meets a local gal named Tenri (Maizura). Upon seeing that she is protesting the Ruso Corp development, he hides his identity for a prince and the pauper subplot. Tenri invites Deni to a beach party, and from there, The Karate Kid takes over.

Deni meets Tenri on that beach and is confronted by Tenri’s suitor, Sanrego (Cemal Faruk), who is the local sarong fighting champion. Tenri is Ali (Elizabeth Shue) – both with an ��I’. Sanrego is Johnny (William Zabka). Sanrego is also the name of an Indonesian herb used for male fertility and this character has clearly overdosed on it as he constantly harasses Deni.

Tarung Sarung means ‘sarong fighting.’ A sarung – or as it is more commonly spelled ‘sarong’ – is a traditional piece of fabric worn wrapped around the body in much of southern Asia and parts of Africa. The style used in this film takes the shape of a cloth tube that is folded and worn like a kilt for men. Tarung Sarung depicts a unique form of one-on-one dueling where two combatants step into a single tubular sarong together and beat the crap out of each other. It’s not the ‘Karate’ Kid. It’s the Sarong Kid.

From there, references to The Karate Kid come fast and furious. Deni goes on to get revenge on Sanrego, but not by hosing him down while he tries to roll a joint. Nevertheless, it’s still in a bathroom – an outdoor platform over a pond used as an outhouse. As Sanrego goes to relieve himself, Deni kicks down the platform causing him to plunge into a cesspool pond.

After that, Sanrego’s thugs chase Deni and beat him again, but he is rescued by Pak Khalid Rewa (Yayan Ruhian), who trains him in the esoteric ways of sarong fighting. Instead of wax on wax off, its mosquito catching, water carrying, and sandal rearranging. There’s even ‘balance on the bow of the canoe’ training just like Daniel did.

What’s more, Deni makes a blatant nod when he spies some original posters for The Karate Kid at Tenri’s home. She tells him it was her favorite film, and Deni asks if Jackie Chan was in it. Tenri retorts by asking how a movie called The Karate Kid could be about Kung Fu (For the record, Jackie’s redux was retitled Kung Fu Dream in China). Ultimately, Sanrego and Deni agree to settle their differences at the titular Tarung Sarung tournament, which is where the finale fight takes place. However, the tournament goes a little farther off the deep end than Daniel’s crane kick win.

From Star Wars to John Wick

For fans of the martial arts genre, keen eyes will have dialed into the actor cast in the Miyagi role. Yayan Ruhian has been a leading martial arts star since Indonesian cinema caught global attention with The Raid: Redemption. This cult classic, along with the sequel The Raid 2, put Indonesia on the map when it came to brutal sanguineous martial arts mayhem. It earned Ruhian a cameo as Tasu Leech in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

More recently, he brought the fight to John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum as Shinobi #2. Ruhian is a genuine master of the martial art of Pencak Silat and it shows. He moves with a lethal grace that can only be achieved by an authentic master.

Indonesia is the 4th most populous nation in the world, and their indigenous cinema has been steadily growing for years, mostly in the wake of The Raid. But for most westerners, it’s just getting onto their radar. Ever the cinematic avant garde when it comes to global distribution, Netflix has been bringing over a fair amount of Indonesian content lately. The production values on most Indonesian films are good and Indonesia makes for some intrinsically interesting and colorful backdrops. The Makassar village setting of Tarung Sarung is bursting with seaside color and local charm. However, many Indonesian film plots are derivative of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cinema. When Tarung Sarung steals an entire script from Hollywood – ‘80s Hollywood at that – you know they aren’t above poaching stories.

Where Indonesian cinema really shines is martial arts films. The Raid films introduced a stable of hardcore martial actors including Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Cecep Arif Rahman, and Julie Estelle. These masters have been steadily increasing their influence on action movies.

Uwais and Rahman were also in The Force Awakens and Rahman was in Parabellum. As the protagonist in The Raid, Uwais has made the most progress with lead roles in Stuber, Mile 22, and the Netflix original series Wu Assassins. He will also appear as the “Hard Master’ in the upcoming Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins.

Taslim appeared in Fast & Furious 6 and Star Trek Beyond, along with a key role in the Cinemax original series Warrior. He’s cast as Sub-Zero in the upcoming redux of Mortal Kombat.

Rahman and Estelle have remained mostly in Indonesia. Rahman is spearheading the convergence of an indigenous superhero comic series to film. The first installment was Gundala. And the next chapter, Satria Dewa: Gatotkaca, also stars Ruhian.

Estelle is the only one who learned martial arts for movie roles (the others fell into acting after being successful martial arts champions and teachers). She’s more of a scream queen having starred in several Indonesian horror films like The Chanting trilogy, Macabre, and the martial arts infused The Night Comes For Us. Indonesian martial arts films have been the cutting edge of ultraviolence for the last decade with visceral and complex fight choreography and these actors have led the charge.

Indonesian Pride

The most engaging aspect of Tarung Sarung is its Indonesian perspective. There are a lot of moral lessons that engage issues of environmentalism, class separation, capitalism, and Islam. Sarong fighting is portrayed as a duel of honor, one-on-one, not like the gang fights in the big city.

With Ruhian’s influence, it is based on Pencak Silat, which is an umbrella term for a wide range of martial art styles from across South Asia. Here it is intimately connected to Islam. Khalid is a religious leader of a mosque, and just like Shaolin monks espouse Buddhism, Khalid’s martial lessons are intertwined with Islamic wisdom.

As Khalid teaches, he preaches, and his sagacious words are accompanied by a soundtrack of Islamic chants. Even Tenri contributes lessons in Islam. Tenri wears a hijab, and in one scene, she defends her tradition to Deni, who claims to be an atheist. When Deni is first presented with Islam, he regards them all as terrorists, but soon learns otherwise. Deni’s martial epiphany isn’t a crane kick. It comes from his faith.

Tarung Sarung takes some liberties in stating that sarong fighting will be included in the 2024 Paris Olympics. It’s complete fiction – sarong fighting isn’t even in consideration. Ironically, the next new martial Olympic event will be Karate. Karate was slated to be included at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which will hopefully be held this summer. Nevertheless, with the Olympic fabrication, Tarung Sarung teases a sequel.

The Karate Kid is a tough act to follow. Even Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith with a $40 million budget could not eclipse the popularity of the original. Tarung Sarung falls short too. The fight choreography is mediocre, but then so was the choreography in The Karate Kid. Yayan is solid in his scenes but he doesn’t fight nearly enough.

Despite its shortcomings, Tarung Sarung offers a nice slice of Indonesian life and Muslim philosophy. But with a nearly two hour running time, that might not be enough to sustain it for newbies to the Indonesian cinema. Nevertheless, it stands as a testament to the universal appeal of The Karate Kid. And if you really need a Cobra Kai fix, Tarung Sarung is a dose of some Karate Kid methadone.

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Tarung Sarung is currently available on Netflix.

The post Tarung Sarung: The Karate Kid of Jakarta appeared first on Den of Geek.

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icharchivist · 7 years

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Okay I understand what you said about death note, but don't you think you're going a bit overboard with the roasting? It's bad for people who know the original masterpiece, yeah, but it does stand alone as a movie. If I watched it with my non-anime-watcher brother, he might go, "Oh, that was interesting." And maybe finally give the original a shot. It did its job getting people familiar and interested in dn, but of course it couldn't be as good, its an entire sieris shortened to one movie

Well I did say when I started it that I wouldn’t have much pity toward the movie either.

And I’m sorry, but we’re talking about a story that was extremely Japanese, and which not only was stripped of its Japanese intend, but also showed off Asians being killed by Light, and especially a bullshit explaination on them picking the name Kira because “in Japanese it means Killer so they’ll think we’re japanese” and them letting messages in Japanese on the crimescenes to pretend Kira is Japanese.

This is not the kind of things to overlook. Whitewashing isn’t something to overlook, and the movie dealt with it in such a poor way, in an actual offensive way, when you adapt something, you at least try to respect it.

And it’s not an entiere series shortened into one movie. They planned sequels. The movie ends on a stupid cliffhanger. And it follows absolutly no plot from the original. Why do you try to use the L. and Kira’s showdown, and clearly call your characters those ways, while you don’t respect the story at all?

Oh and fyi, for as...... much as they are (i’m not found of them), there are Japanese movies adapted from Death Note. The First movie is all about the mindgames between Light and L, and it ends on L. meeting Light. They changed a lot of things, but they kept the focus where it should be: on L and Light’s mindgames and manipulations. It teased for a sequel while actually leaving you with quite a story that was closer to the original. Of course you can’t adapt 12 volumes into one movie. But, especially when you expect sequels, you can try to cut the story correctly.

Listen, when you adapt something, you’re supposed to at least have read the thing. As bad as the Last Airbender Movie was, at least it did show you a Kid who ran away from his duty because he was scared of wars, two others kids finding him and trying to help him learn the elements, and Zuko the antagonist is still someone extremely wounded in hs honor after his father’s abuse.

And let’s be real, The Last Airbender is one of the worst adaptation of all time, it’s boring, and it’s whitewashing, but at least it kept the characters basic traits and journey. Why would you adapt something and keep the name if you’re not going to at least follow the story?

Like i repeated, it wouldn’t have been as bad if say, they did a whole new story where Ryuk just happens to drop the Death Note in America with enteirely new characters. No L. No Kira, an actualy story. Like the Chapter 0 of Death Note, or why not even explore the BB Murder Case since it’s a novel happening in America?

You can take the idea of the Death Note, but not if you take the characters name and the basics of their showdwn while absolutly nothing about it will be respected.(especially since the movie totally overlooked the mindgames between L and Light because Light did a really obvious mistake.)

And how the fuck does it stands alone when it removed the lore? No really??

Okay so, where the hell Ryuk’s come from? Why did the notebook say “Do not trust Ryuk”? What did Ryuk do in the movie that wasn’t trust worthy aside from not letting Light know Mia was doing bullshit? What was the point about this plotline?What was Mia’s deal? We just had to accept that a cheerleader would get into murders right away?Besides have you seen how those two bounded without even blinking at the idea of murders? Especially since Light is supposedly a victim we’re supposed to feel bad for in the movie?

Why do we have to accept that? Why do we have to accept the lowest of effort, of writting a basic Teenage Horror Screenplay, while the actual story was supposed to be One of The Kind?

Seriously though, Awkward Teen with a Crush on Cheerleader Who Gets The Girl After Getting Mysterious Powers is a cliché. Turning Ryuk, a sympathetic figure in the manga, a passive observator, into a sort of creature always pushing you to do bad is cliché. Hell, they removed entierely the relationship between Light and Ryuk while it was the focus of the original.

Not to mention it was a story about a greater scale. The original manga was a commentary on how Law Enforcement works in Japan, and how a priviliged, popular, “will go far” kid like Light, who had access to the information, would believe he would have some reasons to clean it up.But instead, it became a teenage drama. Light was always pushed by other people in the movie to make murders, and he often want to get out of it. Even the God persona is something coming out of their ego, while in the manga it’s something that just happens. Here, it’s kids who want the attention, and get backlash for doing so. An underdog, who just want to keep his life going in school, who plays God just because he was pushed by his girlfriend and because he is a poor kid who’s traumatized.

We went also from a story which was a commentary on Japanese Law Efforcement, to a story who was so oblivious to the Law Efforcement Commentary, that they showed a white cop choke the black lead before letting him go, and you’re supposed to cheer for the cop.

Is it worth showing someone who don’t want to watch anime for them to get interested?? No.

It’s a watered down stupid teen flick which plays on Edgy Fuel. It’s a project that was born and kept going with racist intends. It’s a story you may watch, think “bleh” and leave. Not get interested in more. And if you do, jfc. I’m sorry but I hate the idea some people might come into the manga expecting say, Ryuk to be like this movie bullshit, or Light, or L, or anyone.

And okay, as a standalone movie?

The movie is poorly paced. The exposition scenes are hilariously bad. The characters motivation are inexistant, explained by a sexy montage of them having sex while killing people (of color), showing how immature the whole subject was treated. The montage itself was incredibily bad, the whole idea of seeing the ascension of Light’s godlike persona was totally overlooked for his stupid romance. It gives tragic backstories to the two main leads to explain somehow why they’re like that.

The whole fun of this story, which was to see how L and Light was trapping each other, was ruined by the fact the plot runs on stupid and Light doesn’t make any decision. It’s Mia doing them. L. discover Light is Kira halfway throught he movie because Light fucked up. The manipulations of say, getting rid of the FIB agent, was completely overlooked in a cheap twist. Because that wasn’t important.

The whole plot requires you to just accept they are whatever genuis and overlook the batlant mistakes they make to make the plot running. And, because it didn’t make it through, spelling out the message of “chosing the lesser of two evils”, removing the reader’s freewill to chose who to side with.

It was not fun. It was not exciting. It was seeing Edgy to be Edgy.

And I’m sorry this is insulting? Death Note was a serie that run for 3 years. For 3 years, the authors went out of their way to make an unique story, with unique characters, with a complex view on mankind. They put 3 years to elaborate the themes, to develop the characters, to tie up the looses ends. And Hollywood saw from it just an opportunity of a quick cash, to be Edgy by taking the name and concept, and make the usual soup they do with teenage horror movies.

Death Note wasn’t the franchise to do it. We can’t blindly accept adaptation because “it stands as a stand alone movie”. It’s completely disregarding the fact it was someone else’s work that you decided to strip from everything that made it so unique to start with.

Even more when it’s America disregarding a culture and somehow managing to be offensive toward it, making them the victims of a story they were the main characters of to start with.

So I completely disagree with your point of view on it. I’m sorry if i’m harsh, it’s not against you nonny, much more against the movie.

If an adaptation isn’t capable of getting the basic understanding of the story right, they have no right to claim themselves as such. I’m not asking an adaptation to the comma, i’m asking to an adaptation which would respect its root.

Which isnt what this movie gave.

#Anonymous #ichareply #ichablogging noteflix #ichatalks about noteflix

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chicagoindiecritics · 4 years

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New from Jon Espino on The Young Folks: Interview: Trey Edward Shults, Kelvin Harrison Jr., and Taylor Russell talk about the complexities in ‘Waves’

Every decade or so, we get new media that only entertains us but educates us on the experiences of the next generation. Many times they highlight the new complexities and differences of their experience to ours, but they also remind us that while it may be put in a different context, at its core they are things we have also gone through. Trey Edward Shults delivers exactly that in his latest film, Waves, which explores not only how these experiences affect a family unit, but how race can also play into them.

We spoke with Trey Edward Shults, and actors Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Taylor Russell collaborating together, revisiting their teenage years, MySpace and the start of social media, and more.

Since your first film, Krisha, you’ve created films that explore different family dynamics. We revisit topics like addiction and overbearing fathers. What attracts you to these types of stories?

Trey Edward Shults: I just connect to a lot of them. Personal experiences and loved ones’ experiences, especially in these 3 movies [Krisha, It Comes at Night, Waves] because they weren’t made that far apart. They were probably all brewing in the brain at around the same time. Whether it’s conscious or not, I think I was still rustling with some certain things, and remain fascinated by them.

As the film starts, everything seems almost idyllic, nearly perfect, but as it goes on, we learn the true complexity of each character. What was it about your respective characters that drew you in?

Kelvin Harrison Jr.: For me it was seeing this boy who had so much love and respect for his dad and those around him, but he really didn’t know how to communicate that or know what to do with that information for himself. He starts trying to appease everyone in a way that ultimately strips him away from his own identity and his own voice. I wanted to show the humanity of a black boy where he doesn’t fall into the cliches, but who can make mistakes that also don’t define who they are. I also wanted to show how a family would have to grow because of the historical traumas that come from being a black family in America right now. It wasn’t just about the character but also the entire message of what we have to go through as African Americans.

Taylor Russell: It’s really rare that you get characters like this for a young woman. I haven’t ever seen a script like this come across my lap, so it was a no-brainer to be a part of it. To see a story that is so nuanced, truthful, and authentic to the complexities of the black experience, which is so vast and so different for every person, made me admire how that was portrayed in this story. I liked how quiet she was, and how her strength was unconventional and unique. Even the storytelling style was perfect, how it was told in the two halves, was something that felt unique and that I had never seen before. I knew Trey’s work from Krisha. It was shot in such a beautiful way and unlike any other cinema. People were telling me that it was going to be quite close to Krisha, and I was like, “Oh my god, if it’s going to be like that then hell yes! Let’s do it!”

I like the way the film is split into two different perspectives. The first half focuses on the male experience, while the second half follows the aftermath and the female experience. Was it always your intention to split the film up this way?

TES: I think it was in the DNA way before even writing it. It functions in dichotomies, literally from highs and low, white and black, male and female, love and hate, and everything else in between. I liked the idea of the movie functioning in these dichotomies, but what it’s really about is the link and complexity of how we’re connected by the contrasts in our lives.

Although the film mostly focuses on the individual struggles and the family as a whole, there are a few moments in the film that talks exclusively to the black experience in America. What resources did you use to research this before incorporating it into the film?

TES: Kelvin was such an invaluable resource, and he’s the reason that the story is about a black family. We met on our last film [It Comes at Night] and first started talking about Waves. I didn’t have it written yet, but I started talking about ideas of what I thought the movies was, and broad strokes about what I wanted it to be. Then, we were like, “We should do it together.” When I was first writing it, we were texting a lot. Almost like little therapy sessions as we were learning about each other, learning about our commonalities and shared experiences with families, especially around the character’s age. Kel got a first draft, 8 months before we started shooting and then we kept building it further and further at that point. I let the actors kind ad-lib and make some changes to the scenes so that it would feel more natural and authentic. I felt like it was my job just to listen and understand and try to capture everything I could.

So this was truly a collaborative process?

TES: Oh, absolutely.

KHJ: It was so easy because it really feels like the script and Trey’s version of it really understands the family. It was like the skeleton and the muscles, setting a strong foundation so that we can come in and be like, “Well, let’s put some brown skin here and a little blush and we’re good to go.” I was never fearful of speaking up and being like, “Well this is how I feel and this is how I experienced this.” He would also respond with, “Well that makes sense and I understand that so now let’s shoot it that way.” To me, that’s beautiful.

While watching the film, it takes a turn partway through where it turns into a horror film. It feels almost nightmarish at a certain point.

TR: On the day of shooting those scenes, you could tell right away the tonal shift the movie was taking. It felt scary, and that day of filming was really intense too. Although a lot of that was in the script, it is still quite shocking when you see the final version.

TES: I talked about this with Sterling [K. Brown] a lot too. For this family, the greatest tragedy has happened and a nightmare has come to life. It started with exploring how this would feel for this family and this situation, and from there it grew to adding the visuals and audio elements that would end up giving it more of a horror feel.

One of the things that really helped push some of the more unnerving elements was the sound design and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score. How did that come together?

TES: It just got super lucky. One day, I got an email from Trent and Atticus saying they were interested in working together. It was unbelievable. For sound design, I had Johnnie Burn and his whole team create that atmosphere and mood.

I’m still haunted by the sounds of the ligaments and muscles tearing. It was almost like ASMR, but in the most stressful kind of way.

TES: Johnnie had such an amazing foley team and I don’t even know how they got most of the sounds they used in the film. We played with that beyond just what would sound natural and tried out things that would be more subjective to the characters, like whenever Tyler would use his shoulder.

KHJ: Oh, I was on the ground and I could definitely hear it and feel it.

Did you know how to wrestle or did you have to learn just for the role?

KHJ: Hell-to-the-no. I had to transform. I did 3 months of wrestling training. I did 3 days a week of CrossFit with wrestling twice a day. My wrestling coach Vlad is actually in the movie. He would tell me, “Kelly, get tough!” It was a tough experience but ultimately great for the movie because I could feel free and authentic when playing the character.

For some people, their teenage years are either the best or the worst. How did it feel revisiting that time for your characters, or even while developing this film together?

TR: I mean, we play teenagers a lot. I feel like I’m constantly in high school. Maybe I’ll finally graduate one day. One can only dream. I think I got a little bit longer because I have a babyface. This story though feels so transcendent beyond being a 16-year-old, it’s more about the human experience. In that way, it feels like it could be at any age. At the same time, it’s telling the story of teenagers and experiencing and feeling things for the first time. It was a fun thing to explore, but also a hard thing.

KHJ: It was therapeutic for me. My parents saw it for the first time and they told me that that could really understand the relationships. That’s what the movie ends up being about: relationships. At the end of it, I was feeling like maybe I should call my mom and try to figure out how to communicate with her a little bit better. It transcends age in a lot of ways, but the specificity of the 2019 kid experience is fascinating to me. I remembering having MySpace growing up.

I honestly still miss MySpace. It’s basically the only reason I have the limited HTML coding knowledge I have. I mainly miss that you could set specific songs on the page.

KHJ: I don’t miss it at all. So many fights when you would set your top 5 or top 10. It was the beginning of proper social media drama, and I was just not interested in it. The intensity of that now with apps like Instagram and Snapchat is insane.

TR: In the film, you see the role that social media plays after the major event happens. Just the way people comment and speak about it so realistic. Even the cussing in the movie feels real, like when Trey has the phone autocorrect “ducking” for the f-word. We all know about that and that feeling when you’re so mad that you just don’t even care that it typed that out because we all know what they’re trying to say. It just adds to the overall relatability and speaks to real experiences.

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acelucky · 6 years

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Exploring themes in mother! and Darren Aronofsky as an auteur director.

I’m gonna add a little note at the start - I started to write this back In january, I find when I don’t work on an essay properly until it’s done, it never really gets finished. I planned on writing this in a proper film theory kinda way but instead you’ve got a rambling half-essay, half-thoughts kinda nonsense text going on.

I first watched mother! in the cinema with my now husband, six people walked out as the film reached the climax of the second act, many did not. We went to the cinema that evening as I needed escapism from the real world, and although I found escapism within the walls of the multiplex, I was reminded

The metaphors are abundant, from how we treat the earth, to how wrapped up we can become in ourselves or more in searching for meaning in life, putting all our hopes into one idea or person. Some are, a little on the nose, but I think that’s the point. There are subtle references that you really have to be looking for, but the film was made with passion to tell a story and therefore I cannot be angry for making some of the references stand out. It is in a way, a variation of the oldest story their is, ‘The creation,’ which is also the theme of Aronofsky’s 2014 film Noah.

I have my biases, for sure, I have admired Aronofsky’s work for many years. But what he did with mother! was unique, bold, beautiful and in many ways, unforgivable. The film stays with you for days afterwards, the way the high and immediate low after a holiday lingers, you get over the initial shock, the pain after just a few days, but somehow it’s always there. You can’t switch it off, the memory stays with you.

The silence is what struck me, from the very opening of the film we experience the world through the mother’s eyes, there is the faint noise of birdsong and insects but aside from this the world is at peace. It’s perfect and calming in a way, but also a reminder of how deafening silence can be in a world so preoccupied by technology and noise, the sound of distant traffic, a train, fans in summer becomes like a comfort blanket to us. With the sound stripped away we become vulnerable, forced to listen to our own heart beat, to the voices in our heads.

Sometimes we need to take a moment to listen to the silence, whether that’s the sound of the world outside, the birds in the trees, water, a breeze… or whether it’s the beating of our own hearts. Time to reflect on what we have built up from the ashes.

Aronsfky is an auteur in the truest form of the word, I cannot help but compare mother! to Aronfsky’s other films that have many central and underlying themes;

Complex and intense relationships between the characters.

Fantasy, but not within the realms of the unbelievable.

A creator/God

The use of colour - whether saturated colours or the use of mute colours. Extremes often feature.

Music - With Clint Mansell as his go to composer, yet mother! omits all non-diegetic sound, even the credits leaving you feeling incased.

A quest - okay so this isn’t unique to one director’s films, or films in general. Most good stories focus on a quest, but the type of quest in Aronosky’s films can be catergorised in a similar way. Perfection, wanting to better oneself and the world around it. A quest for the unobtainable.

Perhaps this last point is the real horror in mother! but also in his earlier films such as Black Swan and The Fountain. There is a need for love, acceptance and above all to prove oneself before time runs out. But time always runs out, the pacing of Aronfsky’s films reflects life, our lives. At first the tempo seems slow, there is time to take time, to make time, to watch the world go by. But the older we get, the quicker time seems to fly by, our understanding of the concept of time changes due to the number of years we have spent on this earth and bearing witness to our own mortality.

When Jennifer Lawrence pleads, “Please don’t leave me” and is still left alone feels reminiscent perhaps of our own lives, when we have spoken to a god and hear nothing in return, no matter how desperate our words.

Throughout mother! there are small moments, gestures, items, that could easily represent things often overseen here on earth. Of course some of these symbols are obvious (such as the use of the snake in Noah) others are left for interpretation.

The breaking off of the door knob to stop others getting into the study - a metaphor perhaps for how we have destroyed parts of our earth, how some areas are now off limits due to destruction

When the blood stains won’t come out and grow when others are close,

We constantly ignore mother earth’s suffering, though maybe that’s twee.

No matter how strong the foundations, things can easily be destroyed, just like the house cracking at the end, this could easily represent earth quakes. Whilst earth quakes are a part of what keeps our world turning and are a natural occurrence - man made earthquakes caused by fracking are quite a different story.

It is the first part of the film that feels more like a horror than the gore itself in the Second Act. Whilst the Second Ace features all the horrific imagery, from depictions of war, jealousy, obsession, lust, pain, fear and the grotesque nature of man kind, there is an unease that slowly creeps up on you in during the First Act. It is the kind of unease that truly gets under your skin and remains with you for days afterwards. We witness Jennifer Lawrence’s character slowly loosing the peace her and her husband are used to, loosing her home, her husband and finally her child.

“Get out, get out all of you.” A line that harrows the truth that boundaries are important, even when it’s with those we love. Ultimately it represent’s Eve’s resentment of how we have treated earth, of the pain that man let in. I use man here on purpose, many comment on how it is Eve who takes the first bite of the forbidden fruit, much like Pandora opening a box, it must be women who are to blame for suffering. Yet it was Adam who was told not to eat the fruit, Eve was unaware of this warning and Adam looked on, watching her taste it before he dared.

Circular imagery is important throughout the movie, the forest around the house, the stairs. Everything represents earth and a centre.The theme of continuation, a spiral, something that has no clear defined beginning or end is represented through even the camera angles and shots that are used throughout the film. There are only three shots used, over her shoulders, faced on and continuously tracking. The shots are long, sometimes almost exhausting to watch.

In mother! we have the concept of God’s word speaking to all - “These words, I feel like they were written for me.” How many times do we feel the same? Whether it’s talking about religious text or lyrics in a song.

Numerous lamps are used to create soft lighting rather than main lights. Warm, like a mother’s love. The use of lighting to convey emotion is something that isn’t new to Aronofsky’s work, shadows play a huge part in Black Swan and The Fountain is full of warmth and rich tones that symbolise the earth. Much like the colours inside the house, the pallets that are being used to paint the walls are full of soft soil and sand like colours that represent the salt of the earth.

“This doesn’t belong to you,” When people are stealing everything from her house, people stealing all of earth’s natural resources.

The crescendo of the movie brings together the mania that paparazzi and fandom can create, there is a circle, almost like the eye of a storm where everything is sucked in and once you are a part of that movement it can consume you and make it difficult to separate yourself from it. In mother! we see how God’s love their ‘subjects’ and cannot let go, but the onus is on both sides as we witness the subjects unable to let go of their god, unable to part with something that may give them the ultimate answer, “Why are we here?” But the answer never comes.

Black Swan deals with perfectionism, for the lead character, Nina, that is her purpose, to be perfect, to dance in a way like no-one has before, it becomes her sole ambition and she becomes blind to the other things that make up her world, forsaking them for dance. In The Wrestler we see a similar story, Randy “The Ram’ Robinson, becomes fixated on his past self and being unable to let go of what has been. Instead of living out his life in peace and contemplation, he trains for another fight, seeking glory and fame. And in both The Fountain and Noah, religion is at the heart, there is a chase for something else. Whether that is the cure for cancer or the hunt for the holy grail in The Fountain or the re-birth if the world in Noah. Arronofsky’s films all have central characters who are on a quest that consumes them and solidifies their own ideal of their purpose on this planet. Aronofsky’s films constantly feature characters who have to find ways to ‘live with themselves’ and outside of these concepts we see them struggle to cope with identity.

Whilst Mother! does not address mankind’s purpose on earth, it explores the emotions that are attached to those ideals and in the end perhaps the suggestion that Aronofsky gives us is that it is okay to not put all our trust in a ‘god’ that maybe instead we should be looking out for one another. Maybe greed and selfishness are not ideologies we should feed into, but rather it is the planet that needs our protection, perhaps that is our purpose, to protect what we already have before it is too late.

And maybe that reading is, like some of the metaphors in the film, a little on the nose, but considering the themes of the film, it fits.

Mother! is a cinematic marvel, with two defined acts, the horror is too real, too close to home to bare at times. The silence is, as the saying goes, deafening It stays with you for days afterwards leaving you asking what did you just witness? Because mother! isn’t a film you feel you just watched, you experience it and bare witness to the horrors and warnings that are within. It felt true to all of Aronofsky’s work, in that the film brought together all of his usual motifs and ideals.

#film #darren aronofsky #mother!#film essays #ramblings

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booksong · 7 years

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Top 10 Books Read In 2016

Bringing this back again this year (and yes I realize March is now almost over, I’m a little late oops), because I really enjoyed putting together a list last year, and one thing I always love in a new year is looking back on the great experiences I’ve had with reading, and hopefully lining up some new recommendations from others to look forward to in the rest of 2017!

2016 was a rough year, but as with so much of my life, books were there to provide comfort, knowledge, escape, and new friends and perspectives. Here are my 10 best titles of them, in no particular order (long post warning as always because it’s me talking about books):

1. Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks

The experience of sensing things that aren’t really there has long been considered a hallmark of the crazy and overemotional. And yet hallucinations have been startlingly well documented in all types of people, and neurologist Oliver Sacks has compiled a wide range of anecdotes, personal accounts and sources, and scientific studies of the various forms they can take. Vivid, complex visual and auditory hallucinations by the deaf and the blind, near-death and out-of-body experiences, phantom limbs, unseen 'presences', supernatural-esque encounters, sleep paralysis, and hallucinations induced by surgery, sensory deprivation, sleep disorders, drugs, seizures, migraines, and brain lesions--Sacks takes all these bizarre (and occasionally terrifying) case studies and conditions and approaches them with an attitude of fascination, curiosity, and clinical appreciation.

I came into this book expecting to hear mostly about things like LSD trips and schizophrenia, which honestly are probably most people's touchstones for the concept of hallucinations. And while there is a single chapter devoted to drug-induced hallucination (with compelling and pretty eerie first hand accounts from the author himself), Sacks barely touches on schizophrenia, setting it aside right away in his introduction in order to focus on other altered brain states I'd barely heard of but found deeply engrossing. One of the things I found most personally fun about this book was that you get tons of potential scientific explanations for a lot of strange phenomena that have puzzled and frightened humans for centuries. Why might so many different cultures have similar folklore about demons and monsters that assault or suffocate people in their beds at night? You find out in the chapter about hypnogogic hallucinations and sleep paralysis. What about things like guardian spirits, demonic presences, the 'light at the end of the tunnel', or historical figures hearing voices from God(s)? There are case studies about them not just in history and theology, but medical science too. Instances of people seeing ghosts, faeries, balls of light, moving shadows in the edges of their vision, or even doppelgangers of themselves? All touched on in this book as part of various differences, injuries, and misfires in people's brains, brain chemistry, and neural makeup. It's really, really cool stuff.

2. Captive Prince trilogy by C.S. Pacat

Prince Damianos of Akielos has everything. He’s a celebrated war hero, a master sportsman, and the heir to the throne, utterly primed to become king. And every bit of is stripped away from him in a single night when his half-brother Kastor stages a coup and ships him off in chains under cover of night. Just like that, Damianos becomes merely Damen, robbed of his power, freedom, and identity—the newest slave in the household of Prince Laurent of Vere. Trapped in an enemy country that shares a bloody history with his own, surrounded by people and customs that confuse, disturb, and disgust him, and under the total control of the icy, calculating and seemingly unfathomable Laurent, Damen has no way of knowing that the only way to return to his rightful throne and homeland will be through strange alliances, brutal battles and betrayals, chess-like political maneuvering and negotiation, and the fragile, complicated, impossible bond he will come to forge with the man he despises the most.

I knocked out this entire trilogy in about two weeks, and it would have been much, much shorter than that if I’d been able to borrow the last book from my friend any sooner (thanks again @oftherose95!!). The second book, Prince’s Gambit, even traveled across the Atlantic and around a good portion of Ireland with me in a black drawstring backpack, and was mostly read in Irish B&Bs each night before bed. The series was the best of what I love in good fanfiction brought onto solid, published paper (and I mean that as the greatest compliment to both fanfic and this series); it had unique, complicated relationship dynamics, broad and interesting worldbuilding, angst and cathartic triumph in turns. It’s a political and military drama, a coming-of-age and character story for two incredibly different young men, and yes, it’s an intensely slow burn enemies-to-friends-to-lovers romance full of betrayal, culture shock, negotiation, vulnerability, power plays, tropes-done-right, and some of the most memorable and delightful banter imaginable, and it will drag your heart all over the damn place because of how fantastically easily you will get invested. Yes, be aware that there are definitely some uncomfortable scenes and potential triggers, especially in the first book (and I promise to answer honestly anyone who’s interested and would like to ask me those types of questions in advance) but in my personal experience the power of the story and the glorious punch of the (ultimately respectful, nuanced, and well-written) relationship dynamics far outweighed any momentary discomfort I had. A huge favorite, not just of this year but in a long while.

3. Where the Dead Pause and the Japanese Say Goodbye by Marie Mutsuki Mockett

After her beloved father dies unexpectedly, the author returns to the Buddhist temple run by the Japanese side of her family, not far from where the Fukushima nuclear disaster claimed the lives of many and made the very air and soil unsafe. She initially goes for two reasons: to help inter and pay respects to her Japanese grandfather’s bones during the Obon holiday, and to find some kind of outlet and solace for her grief. But during her travels she finds more than she ever expected to about Japan, its belief systems, its values, its rituals of death and memory, and the human process of loss.

There are actually two non-fiction books about Japan on my list this year, and they’re both about death, grief, growth, and remembering. It’s a coincidence, but seems oddly fitting now looking back on 2016. Part memoir and part exploration of Japanese cultural and religious traditions surrounding death and its aftermath, I was fascinated by the line this book walked through the interweaving of religion and myth, respect and emotional reservation, and most of all the realization that there is no one single accepted way to mourn and to believe, even within a society as communal as Japan’s. It’s something I find constantly and absolutely fascinating about Japan, the meeting and often the integration of old and new traditions, and of outside influences. Probably one of the most thoughtful and uplifting books about death I’ve ever read, and a great one about Japanese culture too.

4. Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

When Mia Corvere was a child, her father led a failed rebellion against the very leaders he was charged with protecting. Mia watched his public execution with her own eyes, the same way she watched her mother and brother torn from their beds and thrown into Godsgrave’s brutal prison tower. Narrowly escaping her own death, completely alone and a wanted fugitive, Mia now has only two things left—an ability to commune with shadows that has given her a powerful and eerie companion shaped vaguely like a cat whom she calls Mr. Kindly, and a desire to join the only people who can help her take revenge: the mythical and merciless guild of assassins called the Red Church. But even finding the Church and being accepted can be life-threatening—graduating from their ranks will mean more sacrifice, suffering, revelation, and power than even sharp-witted and viciously determined Mia could ever imagine.

Let me preface this by saying this book is probably not for everyone. Both its premise and execution are undeniably dark and graphic: the cast is necessarily full of antiheroes with unapologetically bloodthirsty aims and a range of moral standards and behaviors tending heavily toward the ‘uglier’ end of the spectrum. The violence and deaths can be brutal, emotionally and physically, and despite their pervasiveness they never seem to pack any less of a punch. But I’ve always looked to books as my safe guides and windows into exploring that kind of darkness every so often, and this book did so extremely well. Kristoff has a way of writing that makes Nevernight’s incredibly intricate and lovingly crafted fantasy universe feel rich and seductive even with the horrors that occur in it (the dry, black-comedy footnote asides from the nameless chronicler/narrator are a good start, for example). On one hand, you don’t feel like you want to visit for obvious reasons, but the worldbuilding—with its constant moons and blood magicks and fickle goddesses—was so fluid and inviting it caught my imagination like few other books did this year. I absolutely got attached to many of the characters (especially our ‘heroine’ Mia), both despite and because of their flawed, ruthless, vulnerable, hungry personalities, and I found myself fascinated by even the ones I didn’t like. This was one of the books this year I could literally barely put down, and I can’t wait for its sequel.

5. Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard

Ever since the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan and ended WWII, the name of the city Hiroshima has become synonymous with the tragedy. Nagasaki is almost always mentioned second if at all, almost as an afterthought, the city bombed three days later that was a second choice target. But 74,000 people still died there, and 75,000 more were wounded or irreparably affected. In this book, author Susan Southard tells the story of not just the day of the Nagasaki bombing, but the months and years that came afterward: of suffering and healing, protest and denial, terror and hope, interwoven at each stage with the painfully intimate and powerfully humanizing interviews and life accounts of five hibakusha survivors.

This was definitely one of the heaviest books I read this year (in length and content), but it also felt absolutely necessary and was luckily very readable, thoroughly researched, and respectfully told. You can tell just through the writing how much the author came to like and respect her subjects as people and not just mouthpieces for their stories, and dear gods the stories they have. Nagasaki is definitely graphic, and horrifying, and achingly sad, as you would expect any book that details one of the worst tragedies in human history to be. But ultimately the stories of the hibakusha and Nagasaki’s slow but constant recovery are ones of hope and survival, and much as when you read memoirs from Holocaust survivors that urge you to remember, and learn, and walk armed with that new knowledge into the future, this book also makes you feel kind of empowered. It’s been seventy years since the bombing happened, many of the survivors are passing on, and nuclear weapons are now sadly looming large on the political landscape again, so while it’s not an easy book, it was without a doubt one of the most important I’ve read in recent memory.

6. Front Lines by Michael Grant

The year is 1942. World War II is raging. The United States has finally decided to join the struggle against Hitler and the Nazis. And a landmark Supreme Court decision has just been made: for the first time, women are to be subject to the draft and eligible for full military service. Into this reimagined version of the largest war in human history come three girls: Rio Richelin, a middle-class California girl whose older sister was already KIA in the Pacific theater, Frangie Marr, whose struggling Tulsa family needs an extra source of income, and Rainy Schulterman, with a brother in the service and a very personal stake in the genocide being committed overseas. But while women and girls are allowed to fight, sexism, racism, prejudice, and the brutality of war are still in full effect, and the three girls will have to fight their battles on multiple fronts if they’re going to survive to the end of the war.

I think this is probably one of the first non-fantasy historical revisionist series I’ve ever read that worked so incredibly well. There are probably a million places author Michael Grant could have easily screwed up executing this concept, but I was extremely and pleasantly surprised to find my fears were pretty unfounded. Grant (husband of similarly clear-eyed Animorphs author KA Applegate) has always been a writer who doesn’t shrink from including and even focusing on uncomfortable-but-realistic language, violence, sexuality, and real-world issues of prejudice, and he brings all these themes into Front Lines and places three teenage girls (one of whom is a WOC and another who’s a persecuted minority) front and center without letting the book feel preachy, stilted, or tone-deaf toward the girls’ feelings, motives, voices, and flaws as individuals. It’s also obviously well-researched, and there’s a whole segment in the back where Grant shares his sources and the similarities and liberties he took with historical events in order to tell the story. Especially in today’s political climate, it’s a powerful and engrossing read. And what’s more the sequel just came out not long ago.

7. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

In the year 2044, a single massive virtual reality interface called the OASIS has got most of the declining Earth’s population hooked into it, living out all kinds of video game and sci-fi fantasies. But some of the more hardcore players, like Wade Watts, are exploring the OASIS on another level—hunting for the easter egg clues to a massive fortune its eccentric developer left behind after his death. But no one’s been able to find even the first clue, let alone begin solving the weird and difficult puzzles and challenges that might follow…until one day, Wade does, and draws the dangerous attention and greed of everyone inside and outside the virtual world to himself in the process.

I’m honestly not that big of a gamer, or even someone particularly attached to or affected by pop culture nostalgia. Everything I know about most of the references throughout Ready Player One was picked up through cultural osmosis, and some I’d never even heard of—and I still thought this book was a blast, so take note if that’s what holding you back from picking it up. The book has a lot of the raw thrill anyone who loves fictional worlds (video game or otherwise) would feel upon having a complete virtual universe full of every world, character, and feature of fantasy and sci-fi fiction you could ever dream of at their fingertips. But it also explores, sometimes quite bluntly, a lot of the fears and flaws inherent in the whole ‘leave/ignore reality in favor of total VR immersion’ scenario, and in the type of people who would most likely be tempted to do it. All the different bits and genre overlaps of the novel really come together very seamlessly too—it’s a little bit mystery, a little bit cutthroat competition, a little bit battle royale, a little bit virtual reality road-trip, a little bit (nerdy) coming-of-age. And despite how much world-building is necessary to set up everything, the book rarely feels like it’s info-dumping on you (or maybe I just loved the concept of the OASIS so much I didn’t care). Probably the most unashamedly fun novel I read this whole year.

8. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

In the 1980’s in Northern California, a little Hmong girl named Lia Lee began showing symptoms of a severe and complicated form of epilepsy. The hospital the Lees took her to immediately began issuing their standard observations, treatments, and medications. But her parents, first generation immigrants with their own complex cultural methods of interpreting and caring for medical conditions, didn’t necessarily think of epilepsy as an illness—for the Hmong it’s often a sign of great spiritual strength--and were wary of the parade of ever more complicated tests and drugs their daughter was subjected to. Lia’s American doctors, confused and then angered by what they saw as dangerous disobedience and superstitious nonsense, begged to differ. What followed was a years-long series of cultural clashes and misunderstandings between Western medical science and the rituals and beliefs of a proud cultural heritage, and the people who tried with the best intentions (but not always results) to bridge that gap.

I had never read anything you could classify as ‘medical anthropology’ before this book, and I’m kind of mad I didn’t because it was fascinating. Using her firsthand interviews and observations Fadiman creates an entire case study portrait of the Lee family experience, from their life in America and struggle with Lia’s condition and American doctors to the history of the Hmong people’s flight from Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos and their experiences as immigrants. And as the best anthropological works should be, there’s also a very compassionate and analytic line walked that criticizes, explores, and accepts both cultural sides of the issue without assigning blame or coming out in favor of one over the other. By the end of it, I think my strongest emotion was hope that we might embrace a new type of medicine in the decades to come (even though it might look grim right now); something holistic that can find a way to mediate between culture and science, doctor and family and patient, so that maybe everyone ends up learning something new.

9. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Crowley has a pretty good life for a high-ranking demon living on Earth. He can cruise around in his monstrous Bentley, and do assorted evil deeds here and there to keep from getting bored. He even has a pleasant frenemy in the fussy, bookshop-owning Aziraphale, the angel who used to guard the flaming sword at the gates of Eden a very, very long time ago. But then the various denizens of Heaven and Hell get the word from their higher-ups that it’s time for the Antichrist to come to Earth and the End Times to begin. The extremely unfortunate baby mix-up that ensues is only the first step in a very unusual lead-up to the end of the world, which will include the greatest hits of Queen, duck-feeding, the Four (Motorcycle) Riders of the Apocalypse, a friendly neighborhood hellhound, modern witch hunters, and a certain historical witch’s (very accurate) prophecies.

Reading this book was long overdue for me—I’ve read and enjoyed works from both these authors before, and had heard a ton about this one, basically all of it good. But I only finally picked it up as part of a ‘book rec exchange’ between me and @whynotwrybread and I’m so glad I got the extra push. Good Omens has a dark, dry, incredibly witty humor and writing style that clearly takes its cue from both Gaiman and Pratchett; it was really fun picking out their trademark touches throughout the novel. Couple that with a storyline that’s tailor-made to be a good-humored satire of religion, religious texts, and rigid morality and dogma in general, and you’ve got a pretty winning mix for me as a reader. It’s endlessly quotable, the characters are extremely memorable (and very often relatable), and despite the plot using a lot of well-known religious ‘storylines’, there are enough twists on them that it keeps you guessing as to how things will eventually turn out right up until the end.

10. Scythe by Neal Shusterman

At long last, humankind has conquered death. Massive advancements in disease eradication, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence means that not only can people age (and reset their age) indefinitely, but they can be revived from even fatal injuries. And a benign AI with access to all human knowledge makes sure everything is run peacefully, fairly, and efficiently. In order to deal with the single remaining issue of population control, a handful of those from each generation are chosen to be trained as Scythes, who selectively mete out permanent death to enough people each year to keep humanity stable. And when Rowan and Citra are selected by the cool but kindly Scythe Faraday as his apprentices, neither are exactly willing, nor are they at all prepared for what the life of a Scythe will come to ask of them.

Neal Shusterman always seems to be able to come up with the coolest concepts for his novels (previous examples include getting inside the mind of a schizophrenic, two kids trapped in a very unique version of purgatory, and the Unwind series with its chilling legal retroactive abortion/organ donation of teens), and not only that but also execute them interestingly and well. They always end up making you really think about what you’d do in this version of reality, and Scythe is no different. Would you be one of the Scythes who gives each person gentle closure before their death? Glean them before they even know what’s happening? Divorce yourself emotionally from the process altogether so it doesn’t drive you mad? Embrace your role and even come to take pleasure in it? You meet characters with all these opinions and more. It doesn’t lean quite as heavily on the character depth as some of the author’s previous books, which gave me some hesitation at first, but the world was just too good not to get into. And the fact that it’s going to be a series means this could very well just be the setup novel for much more.

Honorable Mention Sequels/Series Installments

-Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (‘No mourners, no funerals’—as perfect a companion/conclusion to the already-amazing Six of Crows from last year’s top ten list as I could have ever hoped for)

-The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (one of the most unique and magical series I’ve ever read comes to a powerful and satisfying close)

-Morning Star by Pierce Brown (a glorious and breathtaking battle across the vastness of space starring an incredible and beloved cast kept me pinned to the page until the very last word—this was a brutally realistic and totally fantastic political/action sci-fi trilogy)

-Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (I rec’d the epistolary sci-fi novel Illuminae last year and this was an equally gripping sequel to it—can’t wait for the third book out this year!)

-Bakemonogatari, Part 1 by NisiOisin (the translated light novels for one of my all-time favorite anime series continue to be amazing!)

If you made it this far, THANK YOU and I wish you an awesome year of reading in 2017! And I want to remind everyone that my blog and inbox are always, ALWAYS open for book recommendations (whether giving or requesting them) and talking/screaming/theorizing/crying about books in general. Or write up your own ‘top 10 books from last year’ post and tag me!

#top 10 books of 2016 #personal post #top 10 meme #long post #books #send me your recs!#and yell into my inbox/messenger/submission box about your favorite books!

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invokingbees · 4 years

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Top Games of the Decade

IT ME FAVOURITE GAMES OF THE LAST DECADE!!!!! OH SHIT!!!!!

Entirely predictable but here you go:

2010 - Demon's Souls

Fuck you! Came out in PAL territories, aka, me, in 2010, so it counts. I played the Souls series ass backwards, and played Demon's nearly last, but I completely and utterly fell in love with it. I've babbled like a fool about it before, but it boils down to its powerful atmosphere of horror and strange hostility, as well as its gameplay which holds up so well, it's still fluid and satisfying, the soundtrack is unique, its mechanics are baffling and weird and I just really, really honestly love it to bits. And you can get back online again with the fan server! Or emulate it if you have a powerbeast of a PC, but no online.

2011 - Dark Souls

I mean, I guess, I've played it four or five times now. It's actually my least favourite of the Souls games for gameplay, it's a step back from Demon's in terms of general movement and combat, but it can't be denied that its lore is so powerful. It sets up a fascinating mythological world of pseudo-materialist fantasy, it's full of implication and possibilities, full of holes and shit that makes no sense and we love it, it's perfect. It's enthralling. I might not enjoy actually playing it but I could talk about it for hours.

2012 - Dishonored

I was never one for stealth games, because I'm shit at them. But for some reason I checked this out and I'm REALLY glad I did. I found the gameplay really fun, the powers are super fun and the levels are great to explore. Also, time stop. But what I came out of the game with was a fascinating setting with a weird Victorian/Dieselpunk setting that goes HARD cosmic horror, but really subtly. Dishonored's world is incredibly well structured, the story of Corvo's revenge against the assassin who killed his girlfriend THE EMPRESS and kidnapped his daughter THE HEIR TO THE THRONE takes precedence, but throughout it all is a looming sense of a cold, hostile universe of weird alien horror. There's the ever-present implication that killing off the whales will make something horrible happen. There's the occult nature of the nameless Outsider and the people who worship it and try to contact it. There's a supercontinent across a monstrous ocean filled with who knows what horrible shit. The setting is so full of flavour and I love exploring it every playthrough.

2013 - Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen & MGR: Revengeance

This poor, poor fucking game. Gutted in production, whittled down, concepts stripped away, areas ripped out. The game isn't even half as big as it was in early production. And yet it is STILL amazing. A grand fantasy adventure with a rich, classic, mythological feel to it, with a fairly unique metaphysical component behind it all. Dragon's Dogma is the story of you, a no-name fucko whose comfy little village gets attacked by the best dragon in all of media, you're the only madman with the sheer balls to attack it, get slapped away, and then get your heart stolen and turned into a semi-immortal Arisen, who is goaded to go fight that fucking dragon. But there is a LOT going on behind the scenes, both in the Duchy of Gransys and the very universe. Dragon's Dogma is like the best loveletter to medieval European fantasy I've ever seen, its monsters have a gnarly medieval manuscript look to them, ripped right out of Classical mythology, folklore and traditional fantasy. There's court intrigue, dark secrets, much talk of destiny and epic quests. Everything about Dragon's Dogma is just pulsating with ADVENTURE. You get up to three other companions, your Pawns, inter-dimensional pseudo-humans whom only the Arisen can command. That's where it starts getting weird, the game has a whole theme about the power of will, cosmic cycles and shit. And that's not even mentioning the SICK FUCKING COMBAT. Directed by Hideaki Itsuno, he of Devil May Cry fame, the game has robust and really powerfully satisfying combat, even a DMC Stinger. You can climb on monsters to attack weak points, glide on harpies, your pawns mimic your strategies like re-lighting extinguished lanterns - there's so many little details you can discover for yourself in exploration and combat. Of course, the game also has the most visually impressive and satisfying magic of any videogame. You haven't felt powerful until you've played a Dragon's Dogma Sorcerer, calling down meteors, summoning spires of ice, point blank sniping drakes out of the fucking AIR, or piggy-backing on your Sorcrer pawn's in-progress spell to suddenly unleash a massive torrent of DAMAGE. Gransys is also a beautiful place to explore, and the main hub, Gran Soren, feels like a proper huge town, as well. The game has quirks, mainly in its slightly weird levelling system, as well as the delightful pawn chatter that reminds you at every turn how wolves hunt, or what goblins are weak to. But then there's Dark Arisen, a tragic tale set in a pocket dimension or possible 'outside' realm, pitting you against the rage of a former Arisen who spurned the cycle, a massive hard as shit megadungeon full of really great stuff. I just cannot recommend it enough, and it's on just about literally every fucking platform.

I have never played a Metal Gear game before. I'm a shitter and they're kind of hard to track down where I am. Just how it is. I'm also massively intimidated by them. But then I watched Super Best Friends (RIP) play this fucking nonsense and I knew I had to feel it for myself. What is there to say? It's fun, it's goofy, it's played totally straight and quite serious at times, it's an absolute meme engine, it's so full of character and flavour, it is undistilled HYPE jammed into a disc by divine spirits and doled out to humanity. I'm not a character action man, never been good at DMC games, and I will never be good at them, or this, but by GOD do I have fun whenever I play it. Zandatsu is just the shit, forever, every song is GREAT, the game so expertly drives and controls moments of exciement and tension, it's like a big blockbuster movie that actually cares and has something complex at the core of it. Yeah there's like political and cultural concepts and musings and that's great, but I'm an idiot who wants to cut things with my sword. Everything and everyone is charismatic, and most importantly, totally earnest. It never really winks at you or says 'hurr we're sooo cuh-razy amirite', it just does its thing and nothing ever feels out of place. We can be talking about destabilizing impoverished nations with corporation-led private armies one moment and chuckling at MEMES DNA OF THE SOUL the next and it feels fucking normal. I'm rambling but I just really love Revengeance and I have no idea how to handle it. What an entry point into such a convoluted series.

2014 - Dark Souls II

Ah yes, the black sheep of the family, the only one not directed (but kinda overseen) by Miyazaki, with a notoriously troubled production whose director was fired halfway through and replaced, then the game kind of scrambled together. But, like Dragon's Dogma, it kind of worked out well. DaS2 is recognizably Dark Souls. But what I like most about it is, like a lot games I love, the story, the world, the feeling. Dark Souls 1 and 3 are grand, they're about cycles and fates and illusions, but DaS2 has a really personal angle. You came to Drangleic to free yourself of the curse. You're not a Chosen Undead or anything, you're someone that by their own hand, went out to cure themselves of the undead curse. You got there, and found the kingdom in shambles, the king gone, something horrible having happened. So you find out that he probably has the answer, and you go track him down, only slightly unwittingly following in his own footsteps, doing what he did. Before you know it, you're fit to become the next monarch. And when you finally do find the king, hollowed and mindless, well you best pick up the pieces and do this monarch thing. And you do it...maybe. You take the throne, the most powerful being in the world. It's up to you what happens next. Or maybe you don't, and leave to find another way out of the curse. I love the feel of Drangleic, it feels wartorn, I love the details put into making you feel like you're traversing an old battlefield with the hollowed out soldiers still following their last orders, their last memories. The Giants, as characters, are fascinating, however little we get of them. Revealed to not be monsters, but a people King Vendrick attacked and stole something from, who struck back in violent retalation for a horrible wrongdoing. Dark Souls 2 is just far enough removed from Dark Souls 1 that it could be its own things that brings over a few core ideas. I would have liked to see that happen in Dark Souls 3, but alas. My love of Dark Souls 2 is almost all lore, world, flavour. Its gameplay is actually fine, I think, a lot of people think its bad but I think DaS1 combat is pretty bad. The game has issues, like the doubling down on difficulty but not really getting it well, but for all the problems it has, it does a ton of things very well. It introduced some great ideas we never saw again, like bonfire ascetics, powerstancing, a changed up NG+, full left-hand movesets, and so on.

2015 - Bloodborne

You don't even know, you can't even comprehend, I doubt you could even imagine my love for this thing. It was my first 'Souls' game (although I think it's different enough it shouldn't be lumped under that banner) and it is, to this day, and forever shall be, my favourite. It is, in my opinion, THE best piece of modern Lovecraftian media out there. Period. It handles everything just so right, despite being an action game, it never betrays what makes Lovecraftian, and wider cosmic horror work. I could go on a very, very long time about all of this and one day I might. Bloodborne is just basically perfect, tonally, thematically, it's so rich and weird and intricate and it is, all of it, balanced with masterful precision. Gameplay-wise, it's just so f u c k i n g o o d. Like, this here, this is the best it's ever been. DaS1 feels like glacial ass compared to this, awkward, stuttering, lacking in energy. DaS2 is fine, in fact I think it's the best speed for the Souls game, but man are like all of the movesets just really bizarre and unsatsifying. DaS3 is just turbomode seizure-souls with zero weight, and don't get me started on the bossfights. But Bloodborne? It is both fast and heavy, the ferocity of attacks has weight, everything hits with satisfaction, every weapon is tailor made to be unique and feel unique. The game is a labour of love made with tech more than capable of realizing it, and it shows. There's nary a thing in the game that doesn't feel polished, that doesn't feel out of place. We know from datamining Bloodborne got switched around and whittled down a lot, but these were clearly necessary changes by a director honing a concept into perfection. And just as a weird cosmic horror gothic action game, it's so strange in just general existence it deserves to stand out and be praised. And although shitters and fools will bandie around the word edgy, they're tasteless jackasses with no ounce of aesthetic nuance.

2016 - Dark Souls III and Far Cry: Primal

CAVEMAN SHIT IS COOL AND WE REALLY DON'T GET ENOUGH OF IT. Never played a Far Cry game apart from this one, never plan to! I just like me unga bungas! What can I say, the land of Oros is gorgeous, the light, the trees, the mountains, the marshes, the animal sounds and deep rumble of caves, the proto Indo-European language crafted especially for the game, it's a place I just like walking around. It's supremely comfy and dangerous and exciting. Gameplay is a complete template sure, regardless of having never touched another Far Cry game I can feel that, but it sure as shit works.

Dark Souls 3 is a very complex game, because while it's a total smorgasbord of top tier dark fantasy aesthetics, none of it really comes together very well, it's a game oozing with creativity, but also feels like a haphazard mishmash. It's a game Miyazaki didn't really want to make, but had to, after the reception of DaS2. But for all that it's just Bloodborne Souls, it's still a fantastic game full of memorable enemies, areas, bosses, a game with a really unique general tone of exhaustion in every little detail, of a world falling apart at the seams. And you don't save it, either. The good end of Dark Souls 3 is the end of fire, but it doesn't really accomplish anything other than letting nature take its long diverted course. The DLCs don't fix that either, everything ends up in the Dreg Heap, all of 'human enterprise' for naught, but there's a smidgen of hope in the new painted world whose pigment is Dark. As you can tell I like DaS3 far more for its atmosphere and flavour rather than its story (which actually makes no sense whatsoever and is the worst in the series due to being literally incomprehensible and unfinished) or gameplay, which is perfectly fine and fun at many points, but the bossfights mostly boil down to flailing around like a fucking lunatic with 15 hit combos. There's concepts like the Deep which are so fundamentally important to major players but vague and with little to no elaboration. I literally couldn't tell you what Pontiff Sulyvahn was about, and he's supposed to be the main villain? DaS3 suffered its internal change arounds in a way that it came out weaker, with many other concepts dashed aside. But that doesn't stop it all from being fascinating and being a nicely definitive, if massively obscure, ending to a landmark series. When your game ends at the literal end of all time, you're done. Good night.

2017 - 2019 fucking nothing I guess

Yeah not even joking here, gaming more or less ended in 2016 for me. Yes I've played games since then but nothing's left an impact for me the ways the others have, and I played all those past their prime. All but two of my favourites were Japanese games, too.

Honourable Mentions:

The Elder Scrolls Skyrim

Gotta mention it. Dumped literal years into this fucking thing. And that was on Xbox 360 with no mods! But it proved far too shallow in the end, and even with the Special Edition that allowed mods on consoles, it's just not good enough. Frankly, Dark Souls has ruined videogames for me and I pray Bethesda pull up the slack with TES6 and reintroduce the flavour that makes TES what it is, and gives us more than serviceable combat. But as for Skyrim, it's fucking boring and shallow, story is rail-roady as fuck, combat is just terrible aside from some magick, although Shouts will be forever iconic, and will be one the more fun and interesting videogame powers for me.

Death Stranding

I got to this a little late, and had I played it earlier and completed it, it would likely be 2019's best game for me. As I'm still barely into it, I can't say much more than its mechanics are fantastically fresh, no game has made just walking around so enthralling and the world is compelling and bizarre. Every BT encounter is tense and boy are they fuckin spooky. I'm dying to know where it'll go next.

God of War

I'm a fan of the old GoW games because they're really fun and super over the top. GoW2 is one of my favourite games, it's incredibly well made, great environments and combat and bosses. It's a big ol' blockbuster. Dad of Boy is a very different beast. Scaled way, way down, and given the Sony Cinematic treatment, though not necessarily to its detriment. The game has problems. I mean, yeah, Kratos snapping Baldr's neck and saying 'violence is bad' is kind of fucking stupid, but I guess I get what they were going for. Gameplay-wise, pretty good. The axe is satisfying, though the Blades of Chaos are more so, and actual hits do feel nice and heavy, though I bemoan the lack of blood. What's most suprising is how it felt like a God of War game just from a different angle, the exploration and puzzles were familiar in feel. In fact I have a lot of praise for the game in its characters and gameplay, even its story. But I'll probably never play it again. Once completed I felt absolutely no want to go back again, despite the NG+ introduction. I hope they follow it up.

Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order

I was very unsure about this but something took a hold of me and one trade in of Skyrim later, I was home playing Star Wars. And oh look, it's the best piece of Star Wars media since the buyout! Mandalorian aside, but there's very little that feels 'Star Wars' about that other than the paintjob. Anyway. Fallen Order takes place somewhere between episodes 3 and 4 in a newly risen Empire before Luke and all that shit happens. Ex-Padawan Cal Kestis is hiding out on some junkyard scrapper world and has to run when he saves a buddy with the Force. He teams up with an ex-Jedi, a space goblin, the best droid buddy ever and eventually a goth alien to find a Jedi Holocron containing info on young Force-sensitives throughout the galaxy before the Empire gets it. It has a wonderful sense of adventure to it, and that really holds it together. I actually think it feels like a remaster of an older gen game, to be honest, especially the platforming which just feels far too videogamey, but that doesn't stop it from being fun. The combat is almost ripped right out of Sekiro but I like this waaaaay more than Sekiro. Effortlessly deflecting blaster shots back at Stormtroopers and taking out whole groups is the good shit. Fighting melee guys is challening but never oppresively so, and bossfights against Inquisitors are fairly gruelling but rewarding. If you're a shitter with no reaction times like me, you can switch that up almost on the fly so you don't end up feeling like every encounter is a chore. Best of all is the lightsaber customization, a necessity for any Jedi-centric Star Wars game and now you can even remove Cere Junda's ligthsaber switch with the latest update! But you know what? Unless they release DLC, like God of War, I don't know if I'll ever play it again.

Ziggurat

Combining wizards, Quake and rogue-likes, Ziggurat has you playing a wizard shooting your way through a trial to be accepted into an order of magicians. That's it. You get your wand and can pick up a rapid fire staff weapon, mid-range spell weapon and slow but powerful alchemy weapon. There's a bunch of different ones for each type, some better or more satisfying than others. There's talismans that can grant special abilities but with long recharge times. Most importantly there's the level up system where you must choose one or two random perks each time. This is where the variety and replay value comes in, making the most of perks you get and potentially building absolute beasts of characters over five levels. Games are short but sweet. You unlock different characters too, based on things achieved in-game. Each character starts with a number of perks and some have unique handicaps like low starting health or levelling up slower. Honestly, not much to say other than I really enjoy it, it's super fun to pick up for half an hour and play.

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lthasablog · 4 years

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The Pop Culture Essence of 2019 -- Part I: Movies

The mere existence of the year 2019 is a mystery to me. One need not do more than glance at Twitter, or just have a conversation with a friend, to notice that this year was unique in its ability to torture anyone who had the nerve to exist. Perhaps it was the horrors of the Trump presidency or the snuffing out of black lives like so many candles in the wind. Maybe it was the government-sanctioned camps cruelly detaining the most vulnerable or the existential threat of climate change bearing down on us all with intense inevitability. No matter the reason, I think we can all agree that 2019 has been the absolute worst and can die in a fire.

Now, It is no surprise that the artists who supply our pop culture took full advantage of the one thing 2019 supplied in spades: chaos. It has been one hell of a year and, most often, I chose to handle my feelings by escaping into movies, television, music and podcasts. To prove to myself that I didn’t waste an entire year of my life, I thought I would take this opportunity to distill the essence of 2019 into a list of the pop culture moments that most personify what 2019 meant to me. If you’re reading this, I hope that you learn a little something about me and how I see the world. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll have a little fun. After all, the real joys of 2019 are the distractions we found along the way.

Before we begin, a small preface — I really enjoy writing but I have never thought that I might have an audience for my work until just now. I’ve seen some of my peers publish their work online to great readership and personal success. I’m looking at you, Lincoln. Don’t worry, I’m not even going to attempt to write down my thoughts about debate, so your domain is safe. That said, if you all like this, then I’ll post more. If not, I will probably post more anyway.

Oh and also, I will only be writing about things I have seen and/or heard for myself. While I steep myself in all things pop culture like it’s my job, I do not feel it intellectually honest to analyze or critique a work with which I have no personal experience. Also, 2019 is, sadly, not over yet. There are many things that would likely be on this list that I just have not had the opportunity to see yet! Queen and Slim, Little Women, Cats (because, like, why and how?), Just Mercy, The Farewell, Uncut Gems and so many others come to mind. So if I leave out some of your favorites, or you just flat out disagree with what I have written here, great! I welcome the opportunity to discover new things and to have an open, civil discourse on mainstream culture.

Part I: The Movies That Defined 2019

Let’s begin with movies. As for every part of this essay, this list in no particular order. So, here are the movies I think most reflect the ouvre of 2019. Oh, and there are some mild spoilers ahead for many items in pop culture, so continue at your own risk.

Hustlers

Immediately after leaving the movie theater, I began telling everyone who would listen, and some who really did not want to, that we were now living in a post-Hustlers world. Perhaps it was the soundtrack. I mean, it is just full of songs which effortlessly evoke the energy of a post-2007/2008 financial crisis New York which reverberated throughout the rest of America in myriad ways. Casting Jennifer Lopez as a dancer in a popular New York strip club, and making her a supporting character in your movie is a major flex. Introducing Lopez’s character, Ramona, by showing her bring down the house to Fiona Apple’s iconic 1996 song, “Criminal” is a stroke of movie-making genius unparalleled by any I have seen in recent memory. Once you get over the majesty of that scene, Hustlers takes the viewer on a thrill ride that can only truly be understood by those who have spent their lives being underestimated by society and yearning to steal back just a fraction of what they are rightly owed. Watch out for your wallets in 2020; we’re living in a post-Hustlers world. Oh also, this movie could NEVER have worked if it were directed by a man. Hollywood, take note.

Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his brilliant debut film Get Out is a weird, winding and wonderful story from beginning to end. While the movie may not have fully fleshed out its mythology as did its predecessor, Get Out, I definitely left the theater with more questions than when I entered. One may find it impossible not to get lost in the metatext of Peele’s take on class divides in the United States and the nation’s many broken promises to black America. Also, Lupita Nyong’o’s dual performances as Adelaide and Red are worth the price of admission! She is truly one of the best actresses of our generation and you know that we are truly living in a bleak timeline when an Academy Award winning performer of her caliber can still be considered underrated by the media meritocracy.

Avengers: Endgame

And now for something completely different…Okay yeah, I know, it’s a comic book movie. However, I will not apologize for the fact that Avengers: Endgame was, by far, the best movie-going experience I had all year. The movie is a marvel, no pun intended, in storytelling, quality of performances and the never ending capitalist machine that is the Marvel and Disney partnership. When you think about it, it is truly awe-inspiring that the folks at Marvel sketched out a decade-long plan that actually worked. Endgame delivered near non-stop thrills and emotion, save perhaps the scene between Black Widow and Hawkeye on Vormir. I don’t think I need to say too much more about this one, especially given that the people have spoken with their dollars, as the movie has set a box office record, with grossed $2.797 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Also, isn’t it just beautiful when a plan comes together? Honorable mention goes to Captain Marvel, Marvel’s first lady-led feature. I do hope that the promise of Endgame’s seeming pivot to passing the torch to black, women and queer characters actually bears some fruit. A changing of the guard is definitely in order and I am eagerly awaiting Marvel’s next phase.

Midsommar

Warning: Do not break up with Ari Aster. If you do, he might write a film wherein the avatar for his ex will face some nightmarish comeuppance. All kidding aside, Midsommar is definitely not for everyone. The film is a portrait of grief, mental illness and isolation, all set against an idyllic Sweedish backdrop. It is a horror film, but it almost defies genre. While most horror films deal in hiding the monsters in dark corners and opt for jump scares, Astor chooses instead to bathe all of the wretchedness of his characters in sunlight, and many monsters lurk in plain sight. In Midsommar, you can see everything with a cold clarity, and that alone is disorienting. The most terrifying part of Midsommar is that you will walk away questioning the motives and sincerity of every person in your life, while also reevaluating your previous notions of community and what it means to be a part of something larger than yourself. If that is not the perfect allegory for 2019, I don’t know what is.

High Flying Bird

Tarell Alvin McCraney’s screenplay for High Flying Bird is deep, funny and thought-provoking. That said, it was greatly elevated by performances from the tragically underappreciated André Holland, and rising star Zazie Beetz. Set during an NBA lockout, Holland’s sports agent, Ray Burke, begins the film by discovering that all of his company credit cards have been frozen, and that his job hangs perilously in the balance due to a situation over which he seemingly has no control. Watching Holland navigate the NBA brass, his player clients and the media with a demure and suaveness typically only reserved for the DiCaprios or Pitts of the world is not only refreshing, but necessary. Beetz lends heart and charasma to the film, playing Burke’s assistant, Sam. Beetz’s character motivations are clear yet ever-evolving. She gets to be complex, smart and just cool. It is also really interesting to see a movie lend voice to the idea that if professional athletes ever just decided to unite and refuse to play by the rules of the NBA or the NFL, those in power who profit from their labor would become nearly powerless. It’s a pretty cool premise and frankly, you love to see it.

Parasite

I only recently saw Parasite, but I now understand what all the hype is about. It is difficult to know for sure what director Bong Joon-ho, and his writing partner Han Jin-won who helped Bong pen the screenplay, meant for the audience to take away from this film. Now, I do not want to spoil it for those who may not have seen it. In many ways, Parasite is the long lost sibling of Us. Both movies are tales of the upstairs/downstairs nature of class division. While Peele examines America, Bong gives American audiences a glimpse into the haves and have-nots of a Korean city, and its literal highs and lows. While the Parks are an affluent family who live in their own city which is at the top of an actual hill, the poverty-stricken Kims, meanwhile, live in a literal subterranean basement. This makes the Kims’ quest to improve their lot in life a true social climb. Also present in Parasite is the inescapable reality of climate change, along with the stark contrast on how its effects on the rich are inherently disparate to those on the poor.

Now for the movie grab bag…

These are films that I think capture something of the spirit of 2019, but in a manner explicable in a few sentences or less. They are:

-Glass: So much promise…so little pay off. I mean, apparently one of the heroes’ kryptonite is puddles…

-Ready or Not: Who among us would not hunt down wealthy, would-be murders in a wedding gown that is sleek, yet allows for a shocking amount of mobility?

-Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood and The Irishmen: I was surprised by how “whelmed” I was by these films. Perhaps they warrant a rewatch, because I truly love Tarantino’s work and I grew up idolizing Scorsese. To me, these are quintessential dad films. That’s not a knock on dads or dad films, it’s just not where I am right now…

-Marriage Story: Loved it. I’ll simply say this – For your consideration: Adam Driver and Laura Dern.

-Joker: This movie was a pastiche of 70s and 80s era Scorsese films, which took itself far too seriously for me to give it any serious consideration. Was this movie unflinchingly a product of 2019? Yes. It thrived on the buzz, provided by the dual weapons of entertainment writers and social media. The whole origin story of a white terrorist thing was cute. Was Joaquin Phoenix’s performance good? Sure, it really was. However, I liked the character better when he played it in The Master, or Her…I think you get what I’m going for here.

Next up, television! I think this might be my favorite category. Be on the lookout for part two. Check out LT Has a Blog. Yeah, I know, but I wanted the name to be a statement of fact. ‘Til next time!

#LTHasaBlog ThePopCultureEssenceof2019 firstpostforrealthistime

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