#its just that lots of actresses when being reviewed for a film have only their beauty talked about and not their actual acting talent

[carcarrot]

composing an incredibly detailed and informed rant about the indiewire juliette binoche retrospective they're doing for the quad cinema and how there are SUCH better choices from her filmography than the ones they picked

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really That Bad?

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like the universe actively conspired against something until I witnessed the production of The Flash.

Since 1991 there have been quite a few proposals for Flash movies, but they never really got off the ground for whatever reason. Following Barry’s debut in Justice League, a movie finally was announced before multiple delays due to rewrites, in particular to cut Ray Fisher’s Cyborg from the story after he went public about the awful shit he had to deal with under Joss Whedon. Things seemed hopeless until It director Andy Muschietti came onboard, at which point production on the film finally started to go smoothly. Sure, there were rumblings about Ezra Miller having episodes on set, but that’s just typical actor nonsense, right? Surely it couldn’t get any worse!

Look, I’m here to review a movie so I’ll keep this brief: Miller committed crimes. Lots of crimes. So many, in fact, you’d think they were method acting for the role of Reverse-Flash. The thing is, despite all of this, Miller was basically given a slap on the wrist by the studio, being forbidden from doing promos and press tours (oh no! The horror!). And as if the situation wasn’t already a fucking mess, while Miller’s crime spree was ongoing WB canned the nearly-complete Batgirl movie that featured Michael Keaton and Academy Award-winning actor Brendan Fraser while simultaneously inflating The Flash’s budget to nearly $300 million with reshoots. It seems baffling to cancel a movie that was nearly done and that people were marginally interested in for the sake of a movie that people were losing interest in quickly due to its star’s erratic behavior, but remember: Leslie Grace isn’t white, while Ezra Miller is. WB is never beating those racism allegations at this rate.

With a normal movie, this is where the nonsense ends. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!

This film was meant to smooth out the clusterfuck continuity of the “Snyderverse” with a soft reboot, with Henry Cavill filming a end-of-movie cameo alongside Miller, Gal Gadot, Keaton, and Supergirl’s actress Sasha Calle to establish the new direction of DC going forward. Unfortunately, the hierarchy of power at DC changed, and Gunn shot that down. While this meant the ending would probably not get people confused with regards to upcoming projects, it also meant the movie wasn’t going to really have any closure for the old universe. Affleck, Cavill, and who knows who else are just gone, and the future is just a big old question mark. At least Aquaman is safe, maybe?

Literally none of this news was very reassuring to fans. Nothing above is any good for a film’s perception to audiences under normal circumstances, but here we have all this news coming to a fanbase that genuinely did not want this fucking movie. The DCEU was already divisive when the film was announced, and Miller’s portrayal of Barry doubly so; the fact it was adapting Flashpoint was seen as lazy and uninspired, not to mention its not really a story that lets Flash stand on his own merits, making it seem more like this movie was just an excuse to reboot; it was a multiverse story in a day and age with an abundance of such stories, and it was releasing around the same time as Across the Spider-Verse to boot; and Gunn’s reboot plans meant this story was likely a narrative dead end. This movie had an uphill battle the likes of which haven’t been seen since Sisyphus.

But much like that mythological figure, the boulder came crashing right back down when the numbers came in. The movie would likely need to gross $500 million at minimum to break even after factoring in the reshoots and advertising, and it only managed half of that with a pitiful opening weekend followed by a massive 73% drop. It now sits alongside films like The Lone Ranger and Mortal Engines as one of the most expensive bombs in history, to the point where WB would have saved more money by cancelling it like they did with Batgirl. And despite glowing praise from the likes of Tom Cruise and Stephen King, it received middling reviews from mainstream critics.

Audiences haven’t been any less mixed, but considering most people weren’t particularly excited or invested in this film’s existence this is basically a miracle. Sure, there’s plenty of people out there saying this is the “worst comic book movie ever” like they do every time a new superhero movie drops, but even more people are saying they enjoyed the film… although even they tend to have some severe criticisms.

Even though I knew most of what was going to happen in the movie going in, I wasn’t really sure what to expect given everything surrounding the movie. But you know me, I’m willing to give almost any movie a chance, and bombs this big don’t happen every day, so even before it was voted on I was trying to make time to check it out. So sit down, microwave yourself a snack—

—and watch as I try and determine if The Flash is really that bad.

THE GOOD

The biggest shock of this film is that Ezra Miller is actually really good here.

Their Barry is still a bit of a goofball, but he’s clearly matured as a character since his precious appearances. They managed to make him much more charming and likable than he ever was, and this gets compounded when he interacts with the younger Barry and gets confronted with how annoying he was before. I think young Barry could have come off as really insufferable, but the fact he annoys everyone around him and also ends up maturing makes him a lot more endearing.

Miller really kills it with the emotional moments, particularly the ending encounter with Barry’s mom and the scene where old Barry snaps at young Barry. The film is really carried by the dramatic, emotional moments far more than any of the superheroics, and Miller manages to sell a lot of it very well. It was to the point where I started thinking, “I really wouldn’t mind if they stick around.” Then a scene where Barry says the Justice League has no real psychiatric help or where his younger self ends up repeatedly exposing himself in public by accident happens, and then I remembered, “Oh yeah, aren’t they a mentally unwell criminal?”

Unsurprisingly, Michael Keaton absolutely kills it in his role as Batman, but much more shockingly is that Ben Affleck's brief return as Bruce is pretty great as well. I always thought Affleck, much like Henry Cavill, was desperately trying to give a great performance while weighed down by bad writing; here, he gets an actual poignant scene where he talks to Barry about how dwelling on tragedies isn't the way to do things, and you should try and move forward instead. It shows he really could have been great if given better material to work with.

Okay, enough being nice to Affleck, I wanna talk about Keaton again. As much as the marketing hyped him up and as much as he is obviously the most blatant fanservice possible, it's still so cool to see him in the suit again. I am not immune to nostalgia pandering, and as corny as it could have been from anyone else, the zoom into his face when he says The Line really is a highlight of the movie. Keaton has a great deal of charisma, and while there are issues with Batman they aren't his fault at all. Most impressively, he doesn't steal the show away from Miller like I thought he would; he enhances the scenes he's in without stealing the spotlight completely from their performance. I feel like this is a problem in a lot of movies like this, where the lead gets overshadowed by a hyped up character, but somehow The Flash of all things managed to avoid this.

And as bad as the cameos could get, this movie gave two of the greatest cameos ever put to film with the return of the GOAT George Clooney Batman and, best of all, Nicolas Cage Superman from the unmade Superman Lives, fighting a giant spider to the death just as God intended. I am not immune to the charms of Nicolas Cage.

Overall, this movie presents us with a solid story, plenty of fun moments, great character dynamics, and more... for the first two acts, anyway.

THE BAD

Once this movie hits the third act, it basically just loses any and all focus and becomes a big dumb video game-esque battle against Zod and his forces in a bland desert landscape. While both Barrys admittedly get some pretty cool moments sprinkled in and Keaton’s Batman’s second death is actually a well done emotional moment, Supergirl ends up being completely wasted, with her sole role being to angrily scream and then die repeatedly.

This actually highlights the problem with Kara in this movie: She’s basically nothing but a plot device and has zero personality, and a good 80% of her dialogue is just angry screaming. As hot as Sasha Calle is and how much she obviously wants to make Kara compelling, she is given so little to work with that her efforts end up being fruitless. She does nothing of consequence after helping Barry get his powers back, and could be replaced or written out of the story and it would still make perfect sense.

Zod’s inclusion is pretty baffling as well, especially since they chose to water down one of the only good things from Man of Steel into a boring, generic doomsday villain. You can really feel that poor Michael Shannon would rather be doing anything else, and his bored performance just highlights how poorly implemented Zod is in the plot. Like, the Fladh has some of the best and most colorful DC villains in his rogues gallery, one’s that are often overlooked because Batman’s villains sell more toys. Why not highlight some of them instead of taking a Superman villain and stripping him of all personality to the point the actor clearly has no passion for the role? Cutting Zod would make cutting Supergirl even easier, and then two of the biggest problems with the movie are gone!

The third act does manage to mostly rerail itself once it goes back to Barry trying to unfuck the timeline, with only a disgustingly egregious bit of fanservice that I’ll discuss in the next section hampering it. But at the end, despite the incredibly based George Clooney cameo, there’s just so many unresolved and unanswered questions, with the biggest one being who killed Barry’s mom? Considering her death is what kickstarted the whole plot, you’d think this might come up, but it never does. A lot of other things come up and get dropped too, like whatever was going on with Batman in the opening, but maybe I’m just crazy for wanting elements introduced in a plot to have significance beyond just being there to be cool.

Even beyond that, there’s the fact that Supergirl and Keaton!Batman’s final fates are never really resolved, something that apparently wasn’t a problem in early versions of the film since they showed up alive in the final scene. As much as I loved seeing Clooney, I think trading him for getting some closure for Keaton and Calle would have been more satisfying.

Everyone harps on how bad the CGI is—and it absolutely is, don’t get me wrong—but for the most part I found it endearingly bad. Like the opening with the CGI babies? That’s too goofy for me to hate. But once the movie revolves into bland grey and black CGI bad guys and creepy deepfake celebrity cameos, I stop being quite so forgiving.

Oh, and on the subject of cameos, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one as pointless and unfunny as Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman showing up out of nowhere (complete with theme music) to make Bruce and Barry look like dumb assholes. Imagine thinking this was a good idea.

THE UGLY

The biggest point of contention surrounding this movie is the CGI necromancy used in the aforementioned cameo clusterfuck from the climax, which gives us George Reeve, Christopher Reeves, and Adam West posthumously reprising their DC roles in non-speaking appearances (there’s archived audio from West, but his cameo isn't really focused on to the point you can barely tell it's him) where they just stand there before the camera swoops around like in that Saul Goodman gif.

I think this is one of the very few times where I actually think the outrage is mostly justified. To be clear, I’m not getting mad on behalf of dead celebrities I never knew, and as long as the filmmakers went through the proper channels and the estates of these stars were properly compensated, I don’t have any legal objections. All of my distaste is coming from a subjective, moral standpoint.

I have never liked this CGI necromancy ever since Rogue One popularized it. I find it really gross and distasteful, and in most cases I think finding a lookalike actor would be preferable than playing Weekend at Bernie’s with a computer generated facsimile of a dead person. In The Flash, I understand having lookalikes would diminish the wow factor of the crossover, but there was an extremely easy workaround to this: Have cameos from all the living DC stars.

Was Brandon Routh not available to put on the Superman tights? Would it have been so bad to let Grant Gustin pop in for a cameo? They acknowledge Helen Slater, so why not Melissa Benoist? Hell, if you want to reference bad, campy movies, have Shaq show up as Steel or Josh Brolin pop in as Jonah Hex! Or even Ryan Reynolds, I’d bet he’d be down to return if you gave him a real suit this time!

Like there’s just no excuse for ghoulishly parading around dead guys when there’s so many alive guys you could use instead. People can complain all they want about the fanservice and cameos in the past few Spider-Man films, but at least they only had returning characters played by living actors. And when this movie already has the niche, out-there Nic Cage Superman cameo, proving they were down to do things as out there and inoffensively creative as reference unmade movies, it’s really just inexcusable. It doesn’t ruin the movie for me, but it makes me lose a bit of respect for the people who okayed this over less offensive cameo ideas.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

To my surprise, this film actually turned out to be pretty good. Not “great,” not “the best superhero movie ever,” but genuinely mostly good and enjoyable.

My opinion is that the movie is good in spite of itself. The third act is truly a hot mess, the stupid desert battle against Zod is awful and boring, Supergirl is depressingly pointless, so many plot points are just dropped or otherwise forgotten, and the CGI necromancy is nothing short of ghoulish. But the rest of the movie is truly a lot of fun. Barry and his younger self have a fun dynamic, Keaton really manages to take what little he’s given and show that he’s still got it as Batman, the Clooney and Cage cameos were delightful, and most importantly the emotional moments are actually effective.

I think with a bit more polish this film could have actually lived up to the hype around it. There is a great movie in here being suffocated by fanservice and CGI but still managing to get a few gasps of air regardless. I think if they’d kept the conflict more grounded or made Reverse-Flash the primary antagonist, things might have turned out better.

I think its score is pretty fair. My friend @huyh172 described this as “the worst good DC movie,” and it’s an assessment I fully agree with. It’s not as good as Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad, the Snyder Cut, or Shazam!, and it’s definitely not as bad as stuff like Wonder Woman 1984 or Josstice League. It’s also a bit too enjoyable to be mid. It’s just a really solid movie held back from true greatness by some damning flaws… and really, that makes it the perfect capstone to the "Snyderverse," a cinematic universe that had some solid movies but was held back from greatness by incredibly bad ones.

[forthegothicheroine]

One of my favorite negative reviews

I can’t find a full text of it online, so I’m going to copy out some big chunks of Stephen Hunter’s retrospective on Gone with the Wind, which apparently resulted in lots of angry letters to the editor.

Long, stupid, ugly and, alas, back for the sixth time (in theaters, innumerable television showings have preceded this rerelease), it is probably the most beloved bad movie of all time, as its adjusted box office gross of $5 billion makes clear. If you love it, that is fine; but don’t confuse its gooeyness, its spiritual ugliness, its solemn self-importance, with either art or craft, for it boasts none of the former and only a bit of the latter. It is one of the least remarkable films of that most remarkable of American movie years, 1939. In fact, far from being one of the greatest American films ever made, I make it merely the twenty-eighth best film of 1939! It may not even have been the best movie that opened on December 15, 1939! It is overrated, overlong, and overdue for oblivion.

Of the various characters and actors:

It’s profoundly misogynistic...the secret pleasure of the film is watching Scarlett O’Hara being punished for the sin of selfhood. The movie delights in her crucifixion, even to the point of conjuring the death of a child as apt punishment for her ambitions. Her sin, really, is the male sin: the pride which goeth before the fall...

Leslie Howard was a great actor and a brave man, who raced home to join his unit when World War II broke out, thereby missing the famous December Atlanta premiere. He was killed in 1943 when the Nazis shot down a plane he was in. Let us lament him as we lament all the men who gave their lives to stop that evil. That said, the truth remains that on screen, he was a feathery creature, best cast as the foil to Bogart’s brutish Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest, where his cathedral-abutment cheekbones gave him the look of an alabaster saint in the wall of an Italian church. But he was about as believable as a sexual object as he would have been as Duke Mantee...

The wondrous Olivia de Havilland was an actress of spunk and pizazz, and she gave as good as she got, even across from such hammy scene stealers as her longtime costar Flynn. But she, too, is trashed by Gone with the Wind as sugary Melanie Wilkes, a character of such selfless sweetness she could give Santa Claus a toothache.

Of the film as art:

Too much spectacle, not enough action. David O. Selznick, who produced the film and rode it to immortality, didn’t understand the difference between the two. Thus the film has a fabulous but inert look to it; the story is rarely expressed in action but only in diorama-like scenes. It is curiously flat and unexciting. Even the burning of Atlanta lacks dynamism and danger; it’s just a dapple of flickering orange filling the screen without the power and hunger of a real fire. And the movie’s most famous shot- the camera pulling back to reveal Scarlett in a rail yard of thousands of bleeding, tattered Confederate soldiers- makes exactly the wrong point. It seems to be suggesting that Scarlett has begun to understand that the war is much bigger than she is. And yet she never changes. The shot means nothing in terms of character; it’s an editorial aside that really misleads us.

Of the film’s message:

From its opening credits, which characterize the South as a lost land of lords and ladies, to its final images of Tara nestling among the Georgia dogwood, the movie buys into a myth that completely robs the region of its truth. Love it or hate it, it’s a land (as Faulkner knew) in which the nobility of its heroism lived side by side with the ugliness of its Original Sin: slavery. I’m not attacking the South here, just Margaret Michell and Selznick’s version of it. Other movies or 1939 were beginning to find the courage to express some subtle ideas. One of them was John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln.

Of its comparison to other 1939 movies:

I found 797 titles from the year 1939, had seen fewer than a tenth of them, and even on that small list there were 27 that struck me as fundamentally better than Gone with the Wind, movies that I would watch again with utter delight. They are: Allegheny Uprising, Another Thin Man, Babes in Arms, Beau Geste, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, Dark Victory, Dodge City, Drums Along the Mohawk, Golden Boy, Gunga Din, Juarez, The Light that Failed, Made for Each Other, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice and Men, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Real Glory, The Roaring Twenties, Stagecoach, The Story of Alexander Graham Bell, The Three Musketeers, Union Pacific, The Wizard of Oz, The Women, Wuthering Heights, and Young Mr. Lincoln.

Dammit, my dear, I’m just being frank.

[gamerdog1]

Monster Hunter Film Review

We are truly lucky to be living in a time where video games are taken seriously. After years of filmmakers taking on the task of adapting games that they clearly don't care about, we're finally starting to see an era where games as a source material are respected. Just look at the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie, and compare it to the recent Illumination animated film, and you can see just how far we've come.

Though, I wish I could say for sure that EVERY video game adaptation is paying proper respect to its source material. I wish I could say that directors and actors excitedly flock to social media to brag about being part of a new video game movie, and take photos of themselves reading up on the source material (like Marvel does). I wish that every director, screenwriter, and producer that takes up the task of adapting a video game to film has done their research, and sets out to celebrate, instead of make a profit. Not everyone does, and in the case of the live action Monster Hunter movie, its clear that not everyone thinks so highly of what they're adapting.

Monster Hunter (2020) is another team up between director Paul W.S Anderson and lead actress Milla Jovovitch, which leads me to believe that they are either best of friends or have some contract to pump out weird video game movies till the end of time.

The film follows a squad of UN soldiers, who are transported to the world of Monster Hunter by a magical storm, and must fight to survive and get home. Along the way, their captain befriends a bowhunter, and the two work together to get back to our world.

Reading the IMDB synopsis for this film raised quite a few red flags, and unfortunately, the film did nothing to avert my expectations. Making the plot of this film an 'isekai' was a BOLD choice, and what's frustrating is that not much is done with that beyond a half-assed macguffin plot that only comes in at the last 20 minutes of the film. Having the main character come to the game world from our world only complicates the plot, because it steals the focus away from how cool this fantasy world is, and instead forces us to watch the main character figure out every detail of how life is different.

Going into a movie about the Monster Hunter games, you'd normally expect everything the games are about, but with a solid plotline. Long, epic fights against beautiful and dangerous dragons. Magical plants and animals, with lots of exploration. A rich culture full of colorful characters. Instead, we get long, drawn out sequences of Jovovitch wandering around the desert, or being in pain, with hardly anything interesting on screen. By the second 'I-don't-know-who-you-are-but-I-think-you're-evil-so-I'll-kill-you' fight in 20 minutes, I was begging for something different.

It also doesn't help that 80% of the film is set in the most non-descript desert you can imagine. Beyond one big rocky mountain, and small black spider pods, all we see throughout most of the film is an ocean of sand. I'm baffled that anyone on the filmmaking team thought that this was a good idea, in the adaptation of a game featuring dozens of lively and colorful destinations. Hell, even the games' deserts are more interesting, because there's more than just sand! A desert setting is fine, but there's clearly no effort being put in to make it look anything like the games, or anywhere a film should be set (unless your film is a documentary about sand dunes, that is.)

To make matters worse, the monsters (you know, the main focus of the games and film?) are rarely seen, and when they are, they're so unrecognizable that even I had trouble identifying them. Nerscylla, for example, are typically a slate grey with bright orange legs and amethyst colored spikes on their backs. The film, however, thinks they should be black-on-black-on-black horrors that lay eggs in people and are afraid of sunlight. Diablos, the big bad dragon that menaces the main character and her friends in the film, is supposed to be a tan colored herbivore, but I guess the filmmakers wanted it to be jet black and eat humans instead. The monsters show up sparsely, and when they do, they act like generic movie monsters instead of animals (like they should be): attacking and killing for meat, trapping prey in a nightmarish web nest deep underground, and chasing more to scare the audience than to pose a real threat.

If the monsters didn't piss me off first, the film's poor pacing, frustrating editing, and unfocused plot got me for sure. Much of the film is spent either wandering the desert, or standing around and talking, only occasionally interspersed with action sequences, which even if I wanted to care about, are cut up into shots so blindingly fast I couldn't tell what was going on. Quick editing in an action scene is one thing, but snapping from shot to shot so fast that your audience doesn't even have time to register what just happened is something a film should only do if they want a Razzie.

Even when things are still, the color correction in this film is shockingly bad. A nighttime scene slightly tinted blue? Sure. A nighttime scene that looks like they clearly films it during the day, then dipped the frames in navy dye? Yeah, no thanks. Most of the film is drenched in this dry filter that sucks all color from every frame, and just made it a pain to look at. I get that they were trying to convey the dryness and grittiness of the desert, but this is a video game. You can have color, and you really, really should. By the time the characters arrived at an oasis (NEARLY AN HOUR AND 20 MINUTES IN!) I was so shocked to see colors I nearly fell off the couch.

I have no idea what decisions went on behind the scenes while making this movie, but I can safely say that none of them did this movie any good. From the dry plot, to the inaccurate creatures, to the horrible editing, this film was a struggle from beginning to end. Sure, there were moments where I almost had fun (the Rathalos looked decent, and I liked Jovovitch and the bowhunter's dynamic), but beyond that, this is a generic film that masquerades as a big-name video game. If Capcom themselves were more involved with this movie (like how Nintendo was with the recent Mario movie), this could've been a wonderful film, but alas, we can't have everything.

4/10

[the-haunted-star]

My humble thoughts on

Series Review (Spoilers!)

With the completion of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is now 22 films and 2 TV shows deep. It’s not often that Marvel Studios drops the ball. I think it’d be fair to say that while not all the movies may have been home runs, they've hit more often than they've missed. However with two small screen ventures now under their belt with many more to come, it’s disappointing for me to say that I feel they’re only batting one for two so far.

WandaVision may not have been everyone’s cup of tea due to its unique premise and deeper focus on character study over action but it was successful in what it was trying to accomplish. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier by contrast appeared to be a more traditional Marvel action/adventure while exploring equally heavy themes as WandaVision. However unlike WandaVision which was able to remain honed in on its themes and story, TFATWS story was often meandering in direction and mired in bad pacing and heavy handed dialogue scenes. Coupled with sub plots that were either rushed or just unnecessary contributed to the series overall feeling of being uneven and messy.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Netflix Marvel shows was that they perhaps had too many episodes and not enough story to fill them which often resulted in some episodes feeling like a lot of filler. TFATWS had six episodes each roughly just under an hour and in this case six may not have been enough to fully explore the characters in a more compelling fashion. Especially when too much precious screentime was devoted to less relevant material such as Sam trying to get a bank loan to fix his family’s fishing boat, or the many scenes of the Flag Smashers standing around discussing their crusade.

John Walker was the one character that I felt was very short changed in this series. His arc was extremely rushed as by episode three he was already becoming unhinged despite nothing all that traumatic having happened to him yet. One of the things I loved about the comic book storyline was that it showed Walker and Lemar Hoskins going through training and Walker having to learn how to use the shield similar to Falcon’s training montage in episode five. Walker and Hoskins also had several missions on their own which helped illustrate Walker’s more extreme methods and gradual descent into mania which culminated when his parents were killed by villains using them as hostages to get to Walker. This series didn’t have or provide time enough to include any of those sorts of explorations. Lemar’s death was substituted for Walker’s parent’s death to trigger him over the edge. While it provided the same result for Walker’s character it didn’t feel quite as earned as it too came quickly before we got to know Lemar or see him in action enough with John.

Another area this series struggled was with its villains. The Flag Smashers were incredibly bland and ultimately ineffectual in their purpose. They never felt like a legitimate threat and they spent more time sitting around talking about what they wanted to do rather than actually carrying out action to accomplish it. The comic book Flag Smasher was always a D-list villain and the actress chosen to portray the group’s leader was not imposing or interesting enough to elevate the character above that lackluster reputation.

Fans were extremely excited for the return of Zemo, the villain responsible for engineering the break up of the Avengers in Civil War. Unfortunately instead of returning to this series to be one of its antagonists he was instead used to form and uneasy alliance with Sam and Bucky to help track down the Flag Smashers and the stolen Super Soldier Serum. While Zemo, played brilliantly by Daniel Brühl helped elevate and invigorate every scene he was in with his sinister charm and dry wit you couldn’t help but feel like he would have benefited the series much better as its principal villain. Especially considering how blasé and forgettable Karli Morgenthau turned out to be.

Genuine surprises were also something this series lacked. The biggest mystery presented in the series was who the mysterious black market arms dealer, The Power Broker was. Unfortunately many fans including myself saw the reveal coming a mile away and the character revealed to be the Power Broker, Sharon Carter was a head scratcher. There are any number of other characters I would have liked better as the Power Broker which would have been far more interesting and made much more sense than Sharon.

The action and fight scenes left a lot to be desired. Almost all of them were very underwhelming and felt very much like typical tv show fights you'd see on any other random small screen series. The one fight that did manage to rise to the occasion was the three-way fight between Sam, Bucky and John Walker in episode five. It was fast, hard hitting and edited pretty well so you could see the action clearly. That fight felt more like the type action you’d see in one of the movies.

As I mentioned earlier the themes this series was attempting to explore were pretty complex as well as topically relevant. For the most part I feel they were successful in developing these themes even though often it was accomplished in very dry and exposition heavy manner resulting in many overly talky scenes. For example the backstory of Isaiah Bradley which is a tragic one, is related to Sam in a lengthy one on one dialogue scene. That’s not to say it wasn’t a well acted scene but it would have been nice if some of these types moments could have been shown in flashback rather than simply told. Better to show rather than tell.

All of these types of issues continued in the finale resulting is a very messy, poorly paced and ultimately unsatisfying conclusion. The lone bright spot was the debut of Sam Wilson decked out in his new awesome, comic book accurate Captain America uniform. Also as expected John Walker received his black and white uniform to officially become the U.S. Agent which was also a welcome throwback to a cool comicbook moment.

Overall while there were many elements in this series that worked it just wasn’t enough to gel into a cohesive whole. Unfortunately I don’t foresee myself revisiting this series too often if at all. The Loki series is up next and while I thought the trailers looked good, TFATWS has forced me to curb my expectations a bit. ⭐⭐½

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb:

An actress and a perpetually single former boy-band member are reunited as costars on a steamy holiday film in this all new spicy rom-com by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone, bestselling coauthors of A Merry Little Meet Cute.

Kallum Lieberman is the funny one™. As the arguably lesser of the three former members of the boy band INK, he enjoyed his fifteen minutes of fame and then moved home where he opened a regional pizza chain called Slice, Slice, Baby! He’s living his best dad bod life, hooking up with bridesmaids at all his friends’ weddings. But after an old one-off sex tape is leaked and quickly goes viral, Kallum decides he’s ready to step into the spotlight again, starring in a sexy Santa biopic for the Hope Channel. 

Winnie Baker did everything right. She married her childhood sweetheart, avoided the downfalls of adolescent stardom, and transitioned into a stable adult acting career. Hell, she even waited until marriage to have sex. But after her perfect life falls apart, Winnie is ready to redefine herself—and what better way than a steamier-than-a-steaming-hot-mug-of-cider Christmas movie?

With decade old Hollywood history between them, Winnie and Kallum are both feeling hesitant about their new situation as costars…especially Winnie who can’t seem to fake on screen pleasure she’s never experienced in real life. She’s willing to do the pleasure research—for science and artistic authenticity, of course. And there’s no better research partner than her bridesmaid sex tape hall of fame costar, Kallum. But suddenly, Kallum’s teenage crush on Winnie is bubbling to the surface and Winnie might be catching feelings herself. 

They say opposites attract, but is this holly jolly ever after really ready for its close-up?

Review:

An actress used to scandal has to restart her career and a former boy band member are reunited years after a scandalous night that left them both in the media and years later they are about to work together on a spicy Christmas romcom! Kallum Lieberman used to be a boy band member but then his sex tape got leaked and now he owns a pizza chain and is also known as the guy that bridesmaids sleep with before they find the one. Kallum wants nothing more than to find The One, but no matter how many bridesmaids he sleeps with he is always going to. be the guy before The One. When his old sex tape gets leaked and goes viral and he is offered the role of sexy Santa for the Hope Chanel he can't say no. Winnie Baker was the good girl, she did everything right from marrying her childhood sweetheart to being the girl in all the home movies. Yet after one disastrous photo of her get wasted is leaked (by none other than Kallum) her image fell, and then her husband cheated on her, and now Winnie has to find a way to pay back the Hope Channel for her lost role in the movie. Yet Winnie is offered the role of Mrs. Claus and it would help get her back in the media and help her tell her side of the story that her ex-husband had created and bashed her. The only problem with staring in this sexy movie is that Winnie herself has never orgasmed or felt true pleasure.... but thankfully there is Kallum there to help her. Kallum's little secret is that Winnie Baker was his teenage crush, the one person whom he absolutely adored and watched all of her movies. Yet what started as just lessons soon blooms into something more but can these two make it work or will it be a complete flop? This was a pretty fun spicy Christmas rom com. Winnie is dealing with a lot, from dealing with religious guilt. to trying to live her new life and just trying to learn to open herself up again. Kallum had a lot of growing up to do in this movie but one thing is for sure, he was in love with Winnie for a long time and it was cute. Overall definitely add this to your Christmas tbr!

*Thanks Netgalley and Avon and Harper Voyager, Avon for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[rookie-critic]

Rookie-Critic's Top 25 Films of 2022: #1: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (dir. Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, a.k.a. Daniels)

We now arrive at the finish line of the Top 25 Films of 2022. I mean, could it have really been anything else?

There was no reality, no multiverse, in which my #1 pick for 2022 was going to be anything other than this sweeping, zany, beautiful masterpiece of comedically bizarre, but oddly dramatic storytelling. I actually have a really fun history with this film from before it was ever even officially announced. Back in September of 2021, I was newly single out of a 6-year relationship and had started going to a ton of films as a way of spending this massive influx of free time I had just come into. A lot of which, at the time, were free preview screenings of things that were about to come out (generally, my idea of it is they are press screenings that they open up to the public in order to fill the extra seats and word-of-mouth buzz). However, one day I get an email from one of the mailing lists I'm subscribed to asking if I'd like to come to a screening of a new film that hasn't been announced yet. After looking into the details further, it would be a sci-fi film starring Michelle Yeoh and directed by Daniels, and I would have to take a survey before and after the film, as well as sign an NDA and agree to not speak to anyone about it until the time when the film was officially announced and a release date was set. Those were literally the only three pieces of information I was given on the film. I was a fan of the Daniels' previous film, Swiss Army Man, and I generally like Michelle Yeoh, so I decided to give it a go. Why not? I like sci-fi, at worst I will have watched a bad film for free, oh no. So I reserved my spot, signed that NDA, and went to theater the following day for my screening. The movie, as you probably guessed, was Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and let me tell you I hated that NDA with such a passion those next three months. I discussed in a very limited capacity with those in my immediate circle of family (I believe all I told my little brother that there was a scene where the characters turn into rocks and talk to each other through subtitles and that scene had made me cry), but really I just had to sit on the knowledge of this until it was officially announced in December 2021. I went and saw it opening weekend and remember thinking it was even better than I remembered it being in the test screening.

As far as a review, what is there really to say? The acting is superb across the board, especially from our central three cast members: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu (in my opinion, as much as I love Jamie Lee Curtis, Hsu should have won the Supporting Actress Oscar). The effects and editing are out of this world (universe? multiverse?). The humor never misses and never cheapens a more heartfelt or tender moment between characters. In fact, most of the time the drama and the comedy of everything is weaved in so naturally in a way that's hard to even describe. The entire movie almost defies genre or categorization and refuses to be pinned down into any one box. Ultimately, though, what I think really sets this film apart from everything else that came out in 2022 is that, behind the zany, at times unbelievably off-the-wall beats and gags, is an incredibly small story of a family and their struggles, both with the world and with each other. It's a film that analyzes what it means to be a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a daughter, a granddaughter. It's a very uniquely Asian story with an Asian identity at its core, but there are things in the film, especially in the way it analyzes the cyclical dynamic of a dysfunctional family, that can ring true for anyone. It's a film that dares you to dream big, but also a film that asks you, gently, to not take the little things for granted. It's a film that asks you to be kind, and that it's ok to give people space when they need it, but even with that in mind, asks you to never give up on those you love. Most of all, this film asks you to love, to give love and accept love in all its forms, because anywhere will be home, anywhere will be enough, if you're surrounded with those that you love. Not only is this my #1 pick for 2022, this is also just, in general, one of my favorite films of all time.

Currently streaming on Showtime.

You can read my original review of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once here.

[andsalttheearthbehindyou]

january reading wrapup

a bit weak this month but it was my birthday and thats a holiday in and of itself sooooooo

the shards, bret easton ellis - this was so perfect, top to bottom. moshfegh is obsessed with ellis and i totally see where she draws her inspo from, *I* feel inspired, like this is just an incredibly gifted writer and i feel stupid for being like, hey have you heard of this guy?? but i think everyone just thinks of the american psycho film when we really should be like my god this writer is insanely gifted. im gonna read all his work albeit slowly because i imagine a lot of his novels are similar in vibe and i dont wanna get overwhelmed by it hahaahaha. but this ones gonna stick with me for sure. hbo's making this into a show, im gonna message casey bloys and say cAlL mE I wAnNa Be An aCtrEsS!!!

the vulnerables, sigrid nunez - not much to say but it gave satc vibes for some weird reason to me that i cant even explain

vladimir, julia may jonas - chose this because of natalie portmans bookclub, and i could literally envision her envisioning herself in this type of role if this were a movie, especially after her may december performance. i did enjoy this but the moralist ending really wasn't...warranted? and im being vague here for risk of spoilers but the fire seemed like a very cheap cop out? if anyones read this id like your thoughts? also from the vague synopsis id read it made it seem like the prof was an older man obsessing over a younger woman so i was really intrigued by the role reversal here and i really did want to like this.

black swans, eve babitz - cant believe i didnt read this in 2020! especially since i read slow days back then. eves writing makes me swoon

tender is the flesh, agustina bazterrica - okayy. prefacing this by saying ive been vegetarian for 4 years now and that that greatly affects my take on this, i feel like book is heavily reliant on shock value and the grotesqueness of the real world and the author knows that the reader knows this is a real practice irl and is only forcing them to care because its being done to humans now instead of animals. which is so disturbing? maybe its just me but i think its horrific and cheap to pretend like youre making a statement and pretend like youre urging people to give a fuck about a real world problem but people dont see our irl food industry as a problem, if they did there would be more people with plant based diets. i hate to sound preachy in a 'review' where im condemning the author for being fake preachy but any positive reviews of this honestly are from people that will pretend to make a change in their diet for like a week and then revert to eating meat. and then the 'twist' where it also a commentary on surrogacy at the end, i was honestly appalled. modern day surrogacy as glorified by kardashians where its just rich women who dont feel like gaining weight or are only slightly inconvenienced by pregnancy so they turn to surrogacy is obviously disgusting but the main characters wife in this is obviously infertile and i dont see anything wrong with surrogacy in that instance -- (obviously not like its done here with the cattle-woman, hello??) but oh my god this book was really not....it. for me. and i think cannibalism in media had its fun but we need to move on already its tired. this book had nothing even interesting to say on it, whatever, im annoyed, at least it was short.

sirens & muses, antonia angress - very cute i liked this a lot! it reminded me a lot of this book i read in 2022 called cleopatra and frankenstein, which i also liked a lot. this just reads really well all the way through and i loved all the characters, i was a little upset about what happened with preston but only because i really liked him and i do realize that it was interesting to show flashes of his father in him it made him more complex sighhhh! this could be a good mini series tbh i saw karina so clearly in my head as sophie thatcher ooooof

pefume: the story of a murderer, patrick süskind - kurt rec so i knew it was going to be good, wasn’t expecting it to be sooo funny tho! loved

a knight of the seven kingdoms (the tales of dunk and egg #1-3), grrm - i kept putting off reading this one because ive been scared that i’ll never have a new grrm book to read :[ and also honestly i thought this one would be boring lol but it WASNT, i LOVED it, dunk and egg r literally babies omgmggmgmgmg. loved it so much :,(

the last tale of the flower bride, roshani choksi - i think i liked this, i dont know, i dont know if me not knowng if i liked it or not means i didnt like it, i think i did, but idk lol. I did! i did like this. very tangible and idyllic, i love 'we were girls together' relationships, a jennifer and needy type of thing which will always get me. i thought the switches in pov were fun. someone described this as gothic which is why i picked it up and i...wouldnt call it gothic, but it was good.

i guess this month wasnt as weak as i thought but whenever i dont hit double digits im like ugh. slump.

[fearsmagazine]

IT LIVES INSIDE - Review

DISTRIBUTOR: NEON

SYNOPSIS: Sam is desperate to fit in, and not just due to the peer pressure of high school. Turning her back on her Indian culture and estranging herself from her mother and best friend, Tamira . Tamira attracts some negative attention among the students after suddenly becoming withdrawn and unkempt, carrying everywhere a mysterious jar. When Sam confronts her to try and have an overdue heart-to-heart, Tamira reveals that a mythological demonic spirit, the Pishach, has latched onto her and resides in the jar. Before they can finish, Sam accidently breaks the jar and unleashes the spirit. Sam must now come to terms with her heritage in order to defeat it.

REVIEW: Rarely does a genre film come along that draws upon classical mythology, finds a footing for it in a contemporary setting, and weaves it into a generational tale that works on the subconscious and is viscerally haunting. Bishal Dutta Dutta’s IT LIVES INSIDE taps into the lightening of Wes Craven’s original “A Nightmare on Elm Street” while weaving in the literary and cinematic narrative of “the other.”

Bishal Dutta’s screenplay is an outstanding contemporary work of genre fiction. He takes the Hindu and Buddhist myth of the Pishacha, flesh-eating demons often referred to as the very manifestation of evil, and weaves it into a contemporary tale of high school, peer pressure, and assimilation. His main character, Samidha (aka Sam), is not simply dealing with all the pressure of being a teenager, she is revolting against her parents' culture and beliefs. Dutta’s story features many subtle touches of Sam attempting to fit into her view of American life. When Sam finally confronts Tamira, who used to be her childhood best friend, a nightmare is unleashed that forces Sam to confront her beliefs. Dutta crafts a “heros’ journey that Joseph Campbell would be pleased with. Unlike Nancy in Craven’s “Nightmare,” when Sam needs help she has a strong family support system to rely on that adds another dimension to the tale. Additionally, Craven’s Nancy is battling a supernatural that results from the sins of her parents. Here, the appearance of the Pishacha can be seen as a psychological and more complex issue based on Sam’s beliefs and actions. However, like any hero's journey Sam must ultimately find the strength to battle the demon. Dutta’s tale is an exceptional example of horror fiction at its finest.

Clearly Dutta’s previous film work has prepared him well for his feature film debut with IT LIVES INSIDE. The cinematography sets the tone for the film as it maintains a somber mood to the film. He does an excellent job of framing and editing his sequences that adds a lot of tension to the scenes between characters and dread as he builds up to the film's scarier moments. There is a scene when one of the characters is attacked on a wing set that is one for the cinematic history books. Clearly a student and fan of genre films, he plays his creature cards close to his vest as he keeps it in the shadows, building the tension and suspense, building up to its final reveal when Sam must face the nightmare. Even here Dutta keeps it in the shadows, only giving us glimpses, thereby creating a powerful image in the viewer’s subconscious. Truly adding to the emotional intensity of the film is an amazing score by composer Wesley Hughes. There are many unique musical cues that enhance the character’s state of mind in addition to the creepiness of the Pishacha.

The film has a great cast, but the film is clearly Sam’s story, played by actress Megan Suri. Over the years Suri has appeared in numerous television shows, including “Never Have I Ever,” “13 Reasons Why,” and most recently an episode of “Poker Face,” in addition to her film work. She does an outstanding job of drawing the viewer in and taking them along on Sam’s dark epic journey. She conveys the character’s emotional struggles with her family and school life, as well as relationship with her childhood friend. She allows the viewer to feel empathy for the character and she delivers this amazing performance as she builds her resolve in her final battle with the creature.

Bishal Dutta’s feature debut IT LIVES INSIDE is an emotionally disturbing and terrifying coming of age tale. Bishal Dutta is an extremely talented filmmaker who demonstrates a powerful skill as a storyteller. He combines a classic style with a refreshing vision to deliver a formidable tale of terror. Clearly, we can never forget who we are and where we come from because those ancestral myths and legends can haunt a new generation. More frightening is that these nightmares we think we might have left behind can find us regardless of where we settle. IT LIVES INSIDE is a haunting tale that will follow you home. I’m excited to see what Dutta delivers next.

CAST: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan, Vik Sahay, Gage Marsh, Beatrice Kitsos, and Betty Gabriel. CREW: Director/Screenplay - Bishal Dutta; Producers - Raymond Mansfield & Sean Mckittrick; Cinematographer - Matthew Lynn; Score - Wesley Hughes; Editor - Jack Price; Production Designer - Tyler Harron; Costume Designer - Odessa Bennett; SPFX Supervisor - Jak Osmond; Visual Effects - Artifex Studios Ltd., Atmosphere Visual Effects, The VFX Cloud. OFFICIAL: neonrated.com/films/it-lives-inside FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/neonrated TWITTER: twitter.com/neonrated TRAILER: https://youtu.be/L7rjAPpeCmk?si=iDOPuqDWM2MDnbuv RELEASE DATE: In theaters September 22nd, 2023

**Until we can all head back into the theaters our “COVID Reel Value” will be similar to how you rate a film on digital platforms - 👍 (Like), 👌 (It’s just okay), or 👎 (Dislike)

Reviewed by Joseph B Mauceri

[idontwanttowhy]

Review: Love to Hate You (2023)

A rom-com for the 2020s

Synopsis

Yeo Mi Ran is a woman of many talents. She's a street-smart fighter, a sharp lawyer, and a notorious pick-up artist. She only uses her powers for good though, so when she crosses paths with the famous actor Nam Kang Ho, she can't help but make him fall all over her (*wink wink*). Though they are both determined to believe that the other is intrinsically evil based on their gender, they are forced to fake date when Kang Ho's career is put on the line. Will their prejudices keep them apart, or will love prevail?

MZ Overall: 10/10, so fun, WHY was it only 10 episodes!?

I knew in the first 5 minutes I was gonna love this show. Something about seeing Mi Ran break up with a guy when she catches him cheating WHILE SHE IS ALSO BEING CAUGHT CHEATING is so... right. I'll admit I was a little shocked to see how quickly things were progressing between the leads, but when you realize it is only 10 episodes, it does make a lot of sense. My only gripe is that I wish it was longer! There is a ton of physical comedy which the actress portraying Mi Ran, Kim Ok-vin, nails. If you want something that will get you actually laughing out loud, this is your show.

MZ Review (spoilers!): If I had a nickel for every time my favorite drama had the main female lead be a stunt double, I'd have two nickels - which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?

I'll say off the bat that I decided to watch this show because Netflix told me that the main female lead was a stunt double. My alarm bells started going off because one of my top favorite dramas of all time is Secret Garden, where the main female lead, Gil Ra Im, is a full-time stunt double. I said to myself, "self, you need to watch it... just in case." In case of what, you must be wondering. Well, me too... Just in case...

...Anyway, one thing about me is I'm going to make everything about Secret Garden. I definitely enjoyed this drama because it works so well just as it is (which AC will be able to tell you in her review). But I saw a commentary recently that pointed out its faults as a commentary on misogyny that really got me thinking about rom-coms as a genre. I disagree with the author on a lot of points, but I realized that a key difference in our disagreements stems from where our analytic focus is. That is, I'd argue that our focus as (re)viewers should be on what Yeo Mi Ran and the women around her are doing, not on Nam Kang Ho and the himbo CEO Do Won Jun. If we look at how both main male characters develop, all we are going to see is misogyny because that is pretty much all they are able to do. Patriarchal society does not allow for men to develop a critical consciousness about gender dynamics as much as it does not allow for women (and queer people, for that matter) to participate in its systems equitably. The game is rigged!

I'm not going to sit here and say that the show is unproblematic or that the author of the commentary is completely wrong. But I think there is a reading of this show that takes into account how it uses the rom-com genre as a vehicle for feminist commentary that is at least self-aware, though not necessarily subversive. This makes me bringing up Secret Garden perfect, because it is a near-perfect foil for Hate to Love You, though both are squarely within the rom-com genre.

You see, Ra Im, who is a full-time, life-long stunt double in Secret Garden, spends her life being pushed around on film sets and pining over the director of their action company. She is in relation to three other women: her roommate/best friend, her "love rival," and Kim Joo Won's mom. So at least two are adversarial, and for the best friend's part she does her best to make sure she helps Joo Won in his quest to harass Ra Im into a relationship.* Obviously we've come a long way from when this was made in 2010, but if we look at the same sort of character set up for Mi Ran, we can already see important differences. For instance, they set Mi Ran up with a Barbie-esque range of skills and jobs, from crime-fighting ability to lawyer-ing. The organizing impulse behind most of what she does is a strong sense of justice, especially when considering gender-based inequities in society. Her core set of women includes her best friend/roommate, her mom, and her first client (who was also the reason that she got hired at her firm at all). All of these relationships are based in mutual respect; when Mi Ran does encounter women she disagrees with, such as her "love rival" and Kang Ho's fan group, she is not there entirely as Kang Ho's lover, but as someone who is trying to be herself and have a relationship. She goes out of her way to not be defined by her relationship to men, though over and over we see that this is inevitable, even for someone as savvy as her.

The key imagery that makes this comparison between shows made 13 years apart is around when the female lead gets a serious injury (because of course this has to happen). Gil Ra Im, in the very first episode, is robbed of agency in her decision to go to the hospital for her arm, instead whisked off by Joo Won. She is belittled by him and her stunt director for not being more careful or for looking out for herself and her health. This is supposed to be the romantic part, because oh look, both of these guys like her so much that they are getting mad at her. Swoon? When we look at Mi Ran's case, it's almost inverted. Firstly, rather than her injury being a complete accident (which Ra Im's was), she intentionally put herself into the fray when she saw a (potentially fatal) accident about to happen. When she took a fall and was taken to the hospital, she was heralded by everyone for saving so many people. Well, everyone but Kang Ho, whose ideology did not account for a woman being able to make a decision. But instead of being able to whisk her away wherever he wants to take care of her, he has to beg her to stay in his room to look after her. So here, the romance comes from hearing him over and over try to argue that he should be there to look after her after she saved his life. Swoon!

I'm not going to continue these comparisons, but my examples speak to how the creators of Hate to Love You are (presumably) using the moments that are expected in these dramas as points for reorganizing the power dynamics between men and women. Ultimately, its goal is not to say that rom-coms in general are problematic, but that there are a lot of dynamics that are. I mean, the leads still end up together, and we still have a lot of the same beloved shows of affection that are characteristic of rom-coms. I think Hate to Love You just does so in ways that poke fun at the expectations rather than subvert them entirely.

I think the ending brings together a lot of the societal-level commentary. For example, Mi Ran, far from regretting her decision to date a lot of men, fully tells someone off saying that at least she did her due diligence in finding someone she really likes rather than trying to make it work with someone she didn't trust. We even see that at the end, she doesn't "learn a lesson" that what she did by dating a lot of men was wrong. Rather, she learned that public opinion is more often going to rule in favor of patriarchy than not. This is even seen in the final scene with Choi Soo Jin, her client, who comments that there were more reporters when she was being accused of cheating on her chaebol ex-husband than when her name was ultimately cleared. So the commentary on misogyny, rather than pointing at the interpersonal level between Kang Ho and Mi Ran, is actually pointing at the societal factors that organize relationships between men and women.

This got a little meta, so I'll conclude by saying the key point: This rom-com is not about men. They are there, they are problematic, and they are (regrettably) in charge of many aspects of life. I think this drama has done a really good job of creating a hilarious commentary on all of that, while highlighting Mi Ran's relationships with other women. While the men in her life may view her as "not like other girls," she herself is a staunch defender of womens' wrongs, as much as their rights.

*This sounds harsh but I really (really) love Secret Garden. I can be critical and still love it!

AC Overall: 9.5/10, so fun!

UGH! It's been a long time since I enjoyed a kdrama THIS much. I, sorry to say, had forgotten kdramas could *actually* made me blush and laugh OUT LOUD--often! I had to stop myself from bingeing the whole thing So. Many. Times. It was short and sweet, full of funny moments and a romance I actually rooted for?! It's good from first to last ep, and from the cast to the production to the direction, everything was *chef's kiss* damn near perfection. There was such attention to detail in the scenes and camerawork, I just...AND Teo Yooooo! So so good in this (as in everything else I've seen of his--officially a fan). Truly a "modern" kdrama rom-com, updated to better fit today's viewers' appetites while still employing the tropes we know and love. If you want a more mature enemies-to-lovers, relationship contract, and a not-so-typical female lead, give it a shot!

AC Review (spoilers)

I feel like I don't have much to say, MZ really nailed the whole this-is-not-perfect-and-it-was-great-two-things-can-be-true-at-the-same-time-thank-you-very-much thing I had planned, and the connection to Secret Garden that I didn't recognize has only strengthened my views of this drama. One of the things I liked about Love to Hate You was the theme of respect that ran throughout: Mi Ran sought to bait disrespectful boyfriends who were cheating on their partners, her friend Shin Na Eun demanded Do Won Joon respect Mi Ran after seeing the contract (and because of this Won Joon respects Na Eun), Kang Ho repeatedly said how much he respected Mi Ran as a person, and then there's public opinion/respectability politics...the list could go on. For me, what made the romance so pleasing was Kang Ho's fully realized attraction to Mi Ran--more than the basic I-like-you-because-you've-cured-me, or you're-not-like-other-girls feelings he starts with. He actually sees her for who she is and loves her for it (and played so well by Teo Yoo, his emotions were palpable and portrayed in a different way from what I'm used to from male leads in kdramas). SWOON!

My cringe moment: the talking and touching Kang Ho does while Mi Ran was thought to be asleep TWICE was...not cute. Did not appreciate that. And yeah, more could've been done to subvert and blah blah blah....but you get what you come for, and many come to kdramas for those tropes, right? Not a huge deal, and--this drama is a step in the right direction?

[cvzz1555]

The movie Carrie was originally based on a book written by Steven King and then made into a film directed by Brian De Palma. The film stars a young girl in high school who is bullied for getting her menstrual cycle. She is not only bullied by her classmates, but also scolded by her mother. She goes on to discover she has telekinetic abilities. While she continues to be bullied an event happens at the prom that makes her realize her full potential of her powers and the movie ends in an unsuspecting way. The movie came out in 1976 and made over 25.8 million dollars, while it only cost them about 1.8 million dollars. The movie was considered a big success in the film industry as a supernatural horror film.

Carrie was significantly loved by horror movie critics all around. The movie became special in the film industry specifically with its ending. In an interview with Steven King, he mentions how although he wasn’t a part of the filming, Brian De Palma did an excellent job in producing the movie in all its glory leaving viewers with suspense and surprise. A popular movie critic, Roger Ebert, calls the horror film “a real one, in which the horror grows out of the characters themselves.” https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/carrie-1976

The way it is filmed gives the viewers strong feelings towards the characters of the film that continue to grow and grow as the movie goes on until essentially… they erupt. An important scene happens at the prom where we feel so emotionally attached to Carrie as she receives prom Queen and King with her date Tommy before everything goes wrong and she is humiliated. This photo shows that quite well.

Some of the big events that occurred in 1976 included the beginning of Steve Jobs' career with Apple and the unveiling of NASA’s first space shuttle, the Enterprise. The beginning of Apple was huge for not only Steve Jobs but also the world. It grew very quickly over the next few years and became one of the biggest companies in the world. The introduction of the space shuttle was a huge accomplishment for space exploration as President Richard Nixon said “it would revolutionize transportation into near space.” These events reflect the innovation of technology in the world at this time. Just as this movie sort of became a revolutionizing piece in the horror film industry.

While the movie still has an older feel to it regarding the music and storytelling aspects, it doesn’t necessarily follow the typical horror movie stereotypes. It has intimate scenes where we feel empathy towards Carrie and her PE teacher as well. However, the ending is where it takes a turn. It is sad in the sense that Carrie is constantly made fun of and even at home her mother continues to scold her. So it makes us as the viewers feel more inclined to empathize towards Carrie. For example, in this clip Carrie tries to tell her mom about her powers, but sadly she accuses her of being a witch or possessed by Satan. She even calls her "Witch. Got Satan's Power." and Carrie responds "It has nothing to do with Satan, Mama. It's me. Me. If I concentrate hard enough, I can move things." She definitely struggles a lot throughout the movie with her mother and having someone to understand her and this clip shows that pretty well.

The film was very successful in its adaptation from the Novel. It received two Academy award nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, as well as becoming regarded as one of the best horror films to ever be made. The movie is often compared to the suspense of Jaws, another successful film for its production and ending. The culture defined in the movie shows elements of individualism vs. collectivism where Carrie is made to feel like she’s all alone in the world, while her classmates constantly make fun of her. There are also parts of emotional effectiveness vs. feeling neutral. This is shown through Carrie specifically where her powers act off of her feelings, but when she is in school she is shy and reserved. Lastly I noticed actions based on internal and external feelings. In the movie Carrie acts on internal feelings, but people like Christine (her bully) act off of external feelings and appearances. The movie fits into typical high school stereotypes like going to the prom and driving around their dates. However, I think these stereotypes are a bit different nowadays in terms of how people are asked out and going on dates. It also has lots of elements of God and blood tied through out the movie and her mother makes biblical references all throughout the movie, "I'm here on the Lord's work, Mrs. Snell; spreading the gospel of God's salvation through Christ's blood!"

I believe this movie fits into the unconventional category specifically in horror films. It doesn’t follow the typical storyline, nor does it end like most movies. Throughout the movie there are scenes where we think everything is happy and exciting but then they take a turn for the worst, just like the prom scene. It really does bring emotions to the viewer like disbelief, fear, and sadness. The movie is also very understandable to many people mainly because it appeals to the female audience and even those who feel rejected like Carrie. The movie attracts a wide audience which I believe attribute to its filming success.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really That Bad?

Lindsay Lohan is probably one of the saddest cases of what happens to a child star that you can imagine. Once a promising talent starring in beloved films like The Parent Trap, Freaky Friday, and Mean Girls, everything seemed to be on track for Lohan to have an incredible career… and then came the downward spiral. When you put the weight of being “the next big thing” on the shoulders of a child, it’s not gonna be easy for them to cope, and so this led to underage drinking with her mom, erratic behavior, and several trips to rehab.

During one of those trips, she was released to film a movie: I Know Who Killed Me. And while filming it, the subhuman leeches we know as paparazzi harassed her incessantly. The poor woman could not get a break at all, and in the end it led to a film that was so poorly reviewed and bombed so hard that it not only derailed her career in a way she couldn’t recover from, it got eight Razzie nominations (which is meaningless to be fair) and destroyed the director and writer’s careers pretty thoroughly. And worse than that, Lohan became the punchline for every unfunny hack television comedian out there. It really shows just how callous people were towards former child stars a little over a decade ago.

But as time has gone on and sympathy towards children abused by the Hollywood system has become the rule instead of an exception, this film has started to be reevaluated. In the 2010s and 2020s the film has started developing a cult following among people who appreciate its Giallo-inspired surrealism, intriguing plot, and its reflection of Lohan’s real life troubles in the plot. This isn’t exactly an uncommon fate for films of the 2000s led by then-controversial actresses—Jennifer’s Body has received a similar reevaluation and cult classic status—but considering just how reviled this film was when it came out, it is a little surprising to hear.

Then again, I think it’s pretty apparent this film could never be so bad; no matter how I would end up feeling about this movie going in, I knew that ultimately whatever hate this film got was likely overblown due to the tabloids at the time being out for Lohan’s blood. Now that I’ve seen it, and keeping what I just said in mind… Is I Know Who Killed Me really that bad?

THE GOOD

Lindsay Lohan, full stop.

While the writing surrounding her characters isn’t always amazing, I definitely think she’s putting her all into the performance (well, maybe not her all; those clauses in her contract kept her from full nudity in the strip scenes, which I honestly think was good). Dakota is a bit of a jerk with a heart of gold, and while she has a lot of flaws she ultimately comes off as the most noble character in the movie… for whatever that’s worth.

Also, as amateurish as it is, I am a sucker for the red-blue color symbolism the movie has going for it. I also really like the weird and surreal elements of the movie, like the psychic link and stigmata. These things aren’t taken quite as far as they could be, sadly, but it’s a bit more creative than you’d think a film like this would attempt. One thing that can’t be said about this film is that it isn’t stylish, even if it’s stylish in a pretty simple way.

The very best thing about this movie, though, isn’t even anything in the actual movie. Rather, it’s how this movie is a parallel to Lohan’s own real life. Dakota is an angry, flawed human girl who wakes up one day mistaken for this perfect angel of a girl that she clearly isn’t, and everyone around her keeps insisting she’s this perfect girl, all while ignoring her pleas for help because it’s just not convenient for them. It’s eerily on the nose in symbolically portraying the nightmare scenarios Lohan had to experience, and it manages to help at least make the film a bit more compelling than it would be otherwise.

THE BAD

So the movie has a lot of great subtext about how its plot can kind of relate to the nightmare Lohan was going through in real life. That’s neat, but it’s more a happy coincidence than anything that lets you recontextualize the film. What we actually have in the film is just...okay.

There are so many intriguing elements in it: Psychic twins! Stigmata! Red and blue color contrast! Buying a baby off a crackhead! But none of these elements are really held on or fleshed out enough to really be interesting. Like, look at the reveal of who the killer is. It turns out the killer was Aubrey’s piano teacher, a character who had one appearance at the start and basically never appeared again until the climax. His motives are unclear, his obsessions aren’t explained at all, all those prosthetic legs he has hanging around make no sense… Like I get ambiguity is important to these kinds of movies, but there’s a point where ambiguity goes from making something unsettling and mysterious to being really annoying. And it’s an easy fix too! Like give him a more sensible obsession like, oh, let’s say hands (he is a piano teacher after all) and then maybe at the climax have him go into a whole monologue about why he likes women’s hands. Maybe it’s because when he was a child he saw a picture of a famous painting in one of his school books and got a boner. I don’t know, just throwing out ideas here.

It doesn’t help that every single character in this movie is a cunt except Aubrey and her mom. Dakota I give at least a little slack, because having a jaded but driven protagonist is always fun, but she fucks her twin sister’s boyfriend and is pretty hostile to the people around her. Aubrey’s dad bought Aubrey off her bio mom and never told his wife and refused to help Dakota at all until the very end despite knowing she was right, the cops are all utterly incompetent and unpleasant, Aubrey’s boyfriend cheats on her at the drop of a hat just because he meets a girl who looks like her… It’s really hard to root for anyone here. Again, Aubrey and her mom are sympathetic, but they’re barely in the film. Aubrey is a plot device more than anything, and her mom just spends much of her screentime being a punching bag, facing Dakota’s anger or having to listen to her fuck Aubrey’s boyfriend, and by the end of the movie her husband is dead too.

Speaking of the ending, the movie just ends. Like Dakota finds Aubrey, lies down next to her, and then… That’s it. There’s not much in the way of closure of any kind, there’s not really any sort of ending… Maybe this wouldn’t be quite as frustrating since this is pretty typical of these kind of thrillers and can be effective, but the entire rest of this film is filled with so much surreal nonsense and amateurish storytelling and use of symbolism that it feels like a cheat. And the thing is, they had an ending that would have justified this! On the home media releases, there is an alternate ending that reveals the entire story was merely a book report being written by Aubrey, who essentially split her personality in two to make the twins (which is suggested by her smoking while she writes and the fact she’s wearing purple. You know, red plus blue).

And suddenly, everything makes sense: The amateur use of color-coding. The nonsensical symbolism of owls. The characters all acting like assholes. The lack of closure or cohesion. This all feels like shit a teenager would write… and with the original ending, that’s what it would have been! It probably still would have infuriated audiences, but I think it would have added a bit of brilliance to the film that would have helped it find its cult audience faster. It’s definitely not the film-saving masterpiece alternate ending that Fatal Attraction has, but I think it would have been a pretty bold way to conclude the film as opposed to the literal nothing that we got.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

Like I said, it could never be quite as bad as critics said it was, and it’s definitely not bad enough to deserve so many Razzie nominations; everything bad said about this film is colored with the disgusting disdain for a troubled young woman who buckled under the gaze of the entire world. The question then becomes, “Is this movie any good?” And the answer to that is… eh.

Look, I can see why this has a cult following, and honestly, if you want to get a teen into Giallo films this is an okay choice as “Baby’s First Giallo-Inspired Thriller.” But I find the whole thing to not really rise above being just an okay movie at any given opportunity, and a lot of the symbolism and writing choices are extremely shallow (even if I mostly find it charming). If you’re a fan of the movie, more power to you! I certainly don’t hate this film. I just don’t particularly love it.

With that said, this score is just unfairly low. Somewhere between 5.6 – or 6.1 would be fine. Nothing about this movie is so offensively bad that it needs to be skirting with landing on the bottom 100. It’s a perfectly okay thriller with some decent parts and inspired elements that I just never felt congealed into anything greater, not some truly abysmal piece of garbage. I think I’d compare it to films I’ve already reviewed here like Boxing Helena or Gigli, films that never get to be quite as good as they should be but have unfairly negative reputations around them.

So yeah... I’m sadly not part of this movie’s cult following, but at least I can acknowledge it has gotten a pretty unfair rep due to forces outside its control that people weren’t particularly empathetic towards back in the day. It’s ok.

[agentnico]

Cocaine Bear (2023) Review

It’s a bear - on cocaine!

Plot: After a 500-pound black bear consumes a significant amount of cocaine and embarks on a drug-fuelled rampage, an eccentric gathering of cops, criminals, tourists, and teenagers assemble in a Georgia forest.

Honestly, with that ridiculous title this movie only had three jobs - 1) have cocaine; 2) there be a bear; 3) the two combine together. Having seen the movie I can indeed confirm that there is a bear and it does a heck of a lot of cocaine. Like I’m saying this bear is destined to become a hero figure towards druggies all over the world. This bear snorts and eats and breathes cocaine like a champ! It really is a cocaine bear, and satisfyingly enough a kid character in the film even calls it as such. That being said even though primarily this is a cocaine bear, it also has a side hustle of being a murder bear! That’s right, this movie is overly gory, as you see lots of blood, limbs, human intestines and a lot of shocking deaths and the black bear mauls through human meat all in the name of finding another cocaine bag. As character motivations go, I could totally understand where the bear was coming from. The creature only recently discovered cocaine, and obviously enjoyed the high, and to my awareness the bear community lack addiction therapists and drug rehab centres, so the poor bear has zero to no knowledge of finding the support it needs. So its continuous need for more cocaine is perfectly acceptable. As for all its murderous actions? Okay, maybe it shouldn’t have been so aggressive, but look, folks do weird things when on drugs, so honestly can you even blame the bear? In fact this movie is a perfect lesson for kids to not do drugs, as these are the results. That being said there is actually a scene in this film where two kids try cocaine, and both children are completely fine afterward, so the drug lesson may be a bit vague. But to be honest a film titled Cocaine Bear doesn’t really promise many life lessons.

Aside from the titular bear, there are a decent bunch of human characters in the film, and yes, most of them serve to one purpose of falling victim to the bear rage, but overall I actually enjoyed spending time with these characters. They’re all really quirky and over-the-top, and it does feel like the movie exists in its own little detached universe. Not as extreme as Twin Peaks, however think more Wet Hot American Summer, where characters do things just cause. I’m reminded of Wet Hot American Summer as this movie literally opens with Jefferson Starship’s “Jane” song - a definite call-back to the 2001 comedy and its follow-up Netflix shows, and seeing as Cocaine Bear is directed by Elizabeth Banks who appears in that franchise, it all ties up nicely. Again though, the best moments in the film mostly rely upon the titular beast, however most of the cast manage to leave an amusing presence amidst the carnage. Stand outs include Alden Ehrenreich who is much more likeable here than he was as young Solo and his dysfunctional brotherly dynamic with O’Shea Jackson was very enjoyable; Christian Convery as the kid who is so deadpan about everything; character actress Margo Martindale (cheeky Bojack reference there) as the park ranger that exhibits qualities of a grand-nanny and also of course Ray Liotta in one of his final roles. I must admit, it was a bit uncomfortable seeing him at the end be a cause for some deadly intestinal gore only for a few seconds later for the end credits to roll with the statement “IN LOVING MEMORY OF RAY LIOTTA”. 

Shout-out also to Mark Mothersbaugh’s synthetic techno 80′s style music score that really amplified the quirky yet tense moments of the bear necessities, and overall I think Cocaine Bear is a super enjoyable horror comedy, however one that has its specific target audience. Honestly, the way you felt after seeing the movie trailer and hearing of this film’s title is the perfect judgement of if you will or will not get on this movie’s wavelength. Think Studio 666 from last year. I personally did, and am now very much looking forward to the sequel where Paddington shows up and his marmalade gets contaminated with cocaine, resulting in one hell of a party at the Brown residence.

Overall score: 7/10

[mihotose]

het grootste licht thoughts

decided to do some review type things for the lesser watched international versions since theres some real good and some real bad in there. i really didnt have high hopes for het grootste licht considering it only got one series but i was pleasantly surprised

basics:

it did not have the red theatre, gold thrones studio setup, more a comfortable daytime show studio like BiT would have, with screens on opposite walls

episodes were just under an hour long each, with three parts (compared with uk’s four and nz’s five)

there were five contestants, four of whom were permanent and one of whom was a guest for that week

the contestants were not specifically comedians but more television presenters

team tasks were teams of two and three, with the guest always on the team of two

each episode was generally made of the prize task, three house tasks, and the studio task

the vast majority of tasks were direct from the uk with little or no adjustments, and as it was broadcast in 2016 the tasks were all taken from s1 and s2

the tasks were filmed in (one of) the taskmaster’s house/s

the taskmaster is gert verhulst, a children’s tv show presenter who owns a themepark and a girl group

his assistant is ruth beeckmans, an actress

neither are comedians

the taskmaster:

im not sure how much adult television gert does, he seemed a little stiff in that regard but i think he ultimately was fine enough in the role

it was referenced a few times throughout the series about how gert dated members of the girl group he owns and while these tended to be jokes made by the contestants at gert’s expense i dont like that he dated his employees and its a very iffy subject. this doesnt affect how i see him as a taskmaster but it does as a person

some of his jokes were a bit off and could feel a bit mean, especially his introductions which were in the same mould as greg’s s1 intros, but i think since he isnt a comedian he didnt always pull them off amazingly. nobody got too offended thouugh and outside of those (which i dont think he even wrote) he could be really funny

his “character” as a taskmaster was less like greg’s authority figure and more like an extremely rich person who wished to be entertained, which had some truth to it, but was played up to an exaggerated degree. although different to greg i dont think its bad at all, the softening of the character works within the more lighthearted adaptation while still holding potential to “be a taskmaster”

gert boasted about his wealth a lot but i dont think offputtingly so. it was clear it was farcical for the character

i think his scoring tended to be fair and he did sometimes let contestants off the hook when they ought to have been disqualified. he didnt respond much to flattery like greg does, neither punishing nor rewarding it

the contestants seemed to respect him but neither did they shy away from making jokes at his expense which he took with good humour

gert’s observations post-vt i dont remember to be particularly brutal. they tended to be simple lines of questioning to figure out why a contestant chose a certain method, which i think most taskmasters besides greg employ, simply bc greg is so good at not crossing the line into offence while still being funny

i dont remember if gert had notecards like greg does so i wonder how much they told him in advance and therefore how much of it was truly off the cuff which is greg’s true skill imo, but again he isnt a comedian so perhaps its fair if they fed him observations etc

i think overall he seemed to be enjoying himself, although he was much less of a burning spark than greg. a good enough taskmaster who got the job done. serviceable

the taskmaster’s assistant:

ruth was a much different kind of assistant to the others ive watched (alex paul and david who are all similar to each other)

she was a lot more friendly and openly affectionate with the contestants, greeting them with a hug or kiss on the cheek before each task

while the other assistants would stand quietly in the corner with their ipad/stopwatch not interfering unless asked ruth would often sit besides the contestant and be more involved and overtly making jokes like a friend

she often turned to look directly into the camera and shrug when things went wrong unlike the others who would just awkwardly glance towards it

where other assistants would help contestants in tasks as long as they were asked nicely (and even when they werent) ruth was more outspoken in that she was her own person with feelings and that if she did decide to help them (which she did most of the time, in all fairness) that was because she wanted to and not because it was part of the job description

all in all ruth was very different to what ive come to expect of the assistant role and while i grew to like her (i originally didnt like her at all; i think she came off way too strongly in the first task such that i couldnt get to know the contestants - this is probably more of an issue with the order they showed the tasks in rather than her) i still much prefer when the assistant is like alex

also, and this is my least favourite thing about ruth, she had an exaggerated crush on one of the contestants and repeatedly flirted with him. im not sure how much of it was a joke but however much it was i found it really annoying

i really dont think assistants should be friendly to that extent with contestants (although contestants Can be friendly back) or at the very least their taskmaster should come first in the priorities list. or maybe thats just me bc i love the established at least somewhat onesideness that is almost inherent now to the taskmaster-assistant dichotomy

that being said im not sure ruth/the production was interested In her playing the role and archetype of “taskmaster’s assistant” rather than “the assistant of gert (the taskmaster),” especially considering het grootste licht was the first international version and so it hadnt been ‘decided’ perhaps exactly where “assistant” ends and “alex horne” begins - which behaviours are assistant-inherent and which are just alex?

therefore, it ended up that ruth was more of a strictly professional personal assistant to gert, who is sometimes belittled by him but didnt seem to mind it, who respected him as a boss and did what he told her to do bc its her job and decided to let herself enjoy it

ruth didnt get a banter section like alex does (neither she or gert being a comedian, nor her character being one that would thrive on the awkwardness and cringiness of the format of a banter section like alex’s) but i think during discussions and between tasks she and gert had pretty funny banter and they seemed to get along well

where gert would introduce them all he tended to say some disparaging things about ruth’s appearance, but she never seemed too offended, probably understanding whats expected of their dynamic, even if she wasnt subscribing exactly to alex’s blueprint

likewise, ruth could make jokes about gert that alex could never get away with. again, they seemed to have a good working relationship

overall i came to like ruth eventually and you could tell the contestants became friends with her too which i found sweet but i still much prefer the traditional assistant mould. but again, it was the first attempt so i cant complain that much

the first few episodes didnt click for me, after watching them i took several days break before i watched six episodes in three days. as i got more used to the contestants and the format it became a lot more enjoyable

only one of the constestants was a comedian, but the others werent unfunny by any means, and were all at least trying their best. my favourite was olga but i also liked guga. het grootste licht was the first with a rotating guest setup, which i dont mind, but it does stop me emotionally investing in the guests and their performance. guests were an automatic writeoff in my brain since they were only around for three or four tasks and so i wasnt interested in getting to know them and moreso in seeing alternative methods of doing a task. being a guest i think has both its advantages and disadvantages in that they are less cautious about the world and its tricks which also allows them to be route one in their methods that permanent contestants may have been too wary to attempt. either way, i wasnt very interested in rooting for the guests

het grootste licht did not have a series long competition and therefore did not have a gert trophy. the prize tasks were the only prizes given out and so only episode scores really mattered; series scores werent being kept track of nor did gert make any mention that the last episode was in any way special. therefore, episodes could technically be watched in any order and it wouldnt make any difference. i didnt mind there being no long competition aspect, and the contestants seemed to continue trying their best throughout, so i suppose it didnt matter. that being said im pleased that had there been a trophy olga would have won it

task notes:

i love the conceal the pineapple task but every other version did it so weirdly. in uk they had the option of wearing their boiler suit and alex was guessing really specific places on their body which was why he took so many guesses to find all their pineapple, whereas ruth guessed more general parts of their bodies so obviously found all their pineapple really quickly

i did think it was funny how she spun them around on the platform really quickly to make them dizzy so theyd tell her where the pineapple was but again i dont think its very assistantly of her

i actually think the eat the egg task worked a lot better here. in uk most of them suspected the egg was raw so didnt rush into eating it whereas in het grootste licht i think the panic hit them and a lot of them immediately broke the egg onto the table believing it to be hardboiled

there were two (or three) solo tasks, one of which was given to a guest which i thought was clever, which was to send the most money to gert’s bank account. shortly before the vt was shown gert had caviar on toast brought in and revealed afterwards that was what he had spent the money on and i really enjoyed how it played out, especially as gert was so open about his wealth throughout the whole show

neither team managed to work out how to score 11 points, unlike the other versions ive seen where one team did

there was a task where they had to gain the most weight and while it was the first time this task had been broadcast it had actually been a task in the original The Taskmaster in 2010, which i thought was interesting. although it may have been an independent original task as the concept is so simple

ruth said something about not telling everyone what the women weighed to be nice which i thought was odd. either say all of their weights or dont, pick one

the potato throw task had a white green (aka a circle of plastic) rather than a red green and they werent allowed to move it either. they tried to recreate a joe wilkinson moment i think but it personally didnt work on me because the editing of the vt was confusing

one of the contestants got the count the beans and the count the rice solo tasks. for the beans he drained away the sauce unlike josh which i thought was clever and for the rice ruth helped him out a little and said she hadnt come up with it so he shouldnt blame her. while true im not sure if that was any consolation and i dont think blaming alex would have helped either. he didnt get any points and he didnt even ask for any which was really odd

the tears in the eggcup task was really interesting. like in uk two of them didnt get any tears, one of them rubbed tabasco under their eyes, and one got other people to help out (but not before putting toothpaste and shampoo in his eyes). uniquely olga was able to sit down and put sad music on and cry her eyes out

they also had the build a bridge for a potato task with a debajo de la mesa and one of them actually figured it out and built a really tall bridge. olga happened to stumble upon the materials just by chance somehow

other things:

the episodes begin with a “what’s to come” preview narrated by ruth before the typewriter sequence that ends with her saying “all that to please this man” and i really liked it. i like when they emphasise that all these silly things are For the taskmaster

as far as i can tell the seating order was random. it wasnt alphabetical like in the uk and while i suppose its the norm on every show everywhere else to Not put your panel in alphabetical order i really really enjoy alex’s irritatingly methodical ways of doing things

the contestants have their prizes with them when they present what they brought in for the prize task, rather than a photo of them being put on the screens

the contestants didnt have a singular task outfit. they clearly shot the tasks over several days and so had different clothes for each filming day

unlike the other versions ive seen the tasks were not on a singular folded piece of paper, they were card inside an envelope which was then sealed with wax

i believe ruth’s ad breaks were the same every episode or at least reused multiple times, unlike uk and nz where they’re unique

when rolling vts alex and paul tap their ipad whereas ruth ‘swiped’ the vt from her ipad to the screens

ruth’s assistant outfit was a pantsuit but she wore different shirts under her blazer across the task days and studio records making her the assistant, i believe, with the biggest outfit changes (alex changes his socks and david his bowtie to match babben. paul doesnt change)

i noticed that BiT scoreboards are backwards to uk’s and nz’s in that the leader is on the left and its the same here. it may be a european thing but it really took me a while to get used to in BiT

olga was 19 at the time i think she may well be the youngest contestant across all versions

to sum up i finished episode 8 enjoying it a lot more than i liked it at the beginning. i had very low standards based off the fact it hadnt been renewed for a second series but overall i think it was enjoyable enough. i did hear that gert signed an exclusivity contract with a different broadcaster after this which may be why it hadnt been, rather than low viewing numbers, but either way im not especially mad about it, though id have been equally pleased if it had been renewed

[concerningwolves]

I’ve been catching up with The Walking Dead and just watched season 11,episode 6 where the majority of the story is told from Connie’s POV, a deaf woman. I found it really interesting and know that the actress(who is deaf in real life)had a lot of input on how her character was portrayed. Not sure if you watch or have ever watched but if you have, what did you think? Not just about the representation but also the apocalypse setting? I’ve been trying to write an apocalypse but sometimes feel like the whole zombie thing is overdone now.

Excuse me coming to this months after you asked, but! I finally watched it! I started binging the Walking Dead, oh ... four years ago? Three? Idk. I enjoyed it, but somewhere around the prison arc, I just started to lose interest a bit and stopped watching.

But anyway, to address your question: once I recovered from the severe mental whiplash of Carol having long hair and Daryl still being alive, I definitely liked Connie's little bit of story in that episode. I'm always pleased when TV shows depict d/Deaf POVs by muffling or entirely muting sound, so that viewers have to step right into that character's shoes. It's like in Matt Fraction's Hawkeye, issue #19, where dialogue boxes were blank and there were sign language panels in place of traditional dialogue. (Granted I haven't gotten past volume three of the Fraction Hawkeyes so I'm yet to read that issue myself, but everything I've seen of it makes me go 😍). It's always very *chef's kiss* to me.

Knowing that Connie's actress is deaf and had input is also nice. Obviously I was only watching that episode in isolation so I can't comment on the show's representation overall, but I did enjoy it. If you want to know more about what other d/Deaf people thought, see if you can find reviews from non-verbal sign-speaking d/Deaf folks specifically, since they've even more skin in the conversation than I do.

As for zombies being overdone ... I mean, yeah, they are. But I also think that's actually part of the charm of the genre (if one can use "charm" in relation to zombies). Zombie apocalypse is very much a "holy shit, two cakes!" kind of genre, in that its core themes – end of the world because of undead and/or infected people, humanity striving to keep existing – are very replicable. They're easy to repeat across different stories, so you generally know exactly what you're in for when you sit down to engage with zombie media. For some people, the appeal is in the deep humanity that you find in most zombie media; for others, it's the violence; or maybe it's the criticisms of human nature. Whatever the case, there's always an audience for it.

Pieces of zombie media that stand out don't have to be hugely unique, either. The Last of Us (video game), The Girl With All the Gifts (book by M. R. Carey) and Train to Busan (film) all share similar core themes. Across all three, the theme is "caretaker(s) and child traversing a hostile world", and a lot of their popularity comes from the tenderness, tragedy and very human nature of the stories. These things resonate with people, so they'll happily engage with media that is similar purely to get more of those sweet, sweet Feels™.

(Putting the rest of this under a read more, because there are spoilers ahead for the endings of The Last of Us videogame and the book The Girl With All the Gifts.)

With TLoU and Gifts specifically, the shared theme is "people travelling with a child who is somehow immune to the virus, who promises to be humankind's salvation". It isn't the zombies in TLoU and Gifts that are particularly unique – they both use the idea that the cordyceps fungus has evolved to infect humans. It's the plots, and the way these plots are resolved, that makes them stand out. In Gifts, the characters realise that the world can't return to the way it was, so they change it in an alarming and irrevocable way to allow the world to evolve. In TLoU, it's Joel's decision to save Ellie (a tangible goal based off of very human desires) instead of sacrificing Ellie for the intangible concept of saving the world.

There are still zombie medias that take the basic concept and sprint off into the unknown though. Take the TV show iZombie (based off a comic, iirc), which is utterly balls to the walls and flips a lot of genre standards upside-down. Instead of being mindless, the zombies are ordinary people who can live human lives, assuming they get enough brains. (Oh, and they take on key personality traits from the brains they eat, as well as getting visions from the person's life. It's wild). Instead of a massive cataclysmic apocalypse, it's a slow descent as the zombies try to live normal lives, while yet other zombies see their new state of living as a way to make money, thereby threatening to expose the rest of their kind.

On the more serious, genre-typical horror end of the spectrum is Stephen King's Cell, in which the "zombie" outbreak is actually caused by a type of technological virus spread through mobile phones, playing on common fears of technological warfare that were on the rise at the time of publication. The infected gain psionic powers, and there's also some sort of "hive mind" thing going on with the infected, which lends itself to the main plot. (It's been years since I read it so I can't recall details). Basically, King uses the infected as an active antagonist, rather than the more passive, environmental antagonist as is common in most other examples of the genre, i.e., The Walking Dead.

I could truly write an entire essay on zombie apocalypse stuff (... more so than I have here already. Oops), but the TL;DR of this post is: there is always an audience for the basic, "overdone" zombie apocalypse fiction and there are still ways to make it unique. The genre still has a lot to give IMO, and this is a hill that I will, if not die on, at least stand on top of while loudly making my opinions and feelings known.

[staczak91]

KING CREOLE Film Review

Ok guys, this might be blasphemy for most Elvis Presley superfans, but I’ve been listening to his music since childhood and have never seen any of his full movies until tonight. I’ve seen bits and pieces on YouTube, and watched King Creole only once before after I graduated college, but might have fallen asleep during it due to exhaustion from job hunting. Oops. Sorry, Elvis...

But now seeing King Creole in its entirety (without falling asleep!!!), I have to say it’s a great film. Although Elvis is a much better singer than actor, he really shines in this, and his acting skills were definitely pretty good. Although it’s a darker movie than I was expecting, I really enjoyed most of it. And when I learned that Michael Curtiz, who directed Casablanca, one of my favorite movies, directed this, I understood why I really liked this movie.

Elvis as Danny Fisher was a lot of fun to watch. He’s a great character who you can’t help but root for. And I couldn’t wait for the musical performances the whole time, and found them incredibly entertaining and engaging. My two favorite songs are “Trouble” (will never get tired of that song and performance - and the only scene I remembered from the movie before watching it again tonight) and the title song, “King Creole.” Although it was pretty cool hearing “Hard-Headed Woman” in the movie as well, when I’ve been listening to that song on its own for years. Although Elvis’ acting could use some work, once he got to belting out the songs, he quite literally stole the show. 

And the actresses alongside him in this movie almost stole the show from right under his feet as well. Carolyn Jones as Ronnie was amazing in her role, and was a lot of fun to watch, in essence, being miserable and drinking a lot. But she did have some of the best dialogue in the movie, and I really liked her role. And Jan Shepard as Mimi, just an innocent girl who falls for Danny, was nice to watch as well. I did like both women in their roles, and didn’t have a favorite for Danny to choose. 

But speaking of the women....being the 1950′s, how this film handled the women didn’t really age too well. They were more background noise than playing a bigger role. It was a man’s world, and that’s never more apparent than watching it in the present day. 

Still, though, I can understand why this was Elvis’ favorite of his movies, even though I haven’t watched any of his other films fully through yet. From what I heard, his movies go downhill from here, so I’m not sure if it was a good idea to start with his best one, as most people I saw online called it. 

But tomorrow I’ll be watching Jailhouse Rock, and I’ll let you know what I think of it, compared to this one. Look out for a review of that movie tomorrow night!

Also, Elvis’ accent was distracting during the dialogue scenes. I couldn’t help it. I missed some of the things he said because of his thick, but charming, Southern accent. Oh well. Guess there’s always time to watch it again...