#probably feels bad for 2014!dracula

[witchofthemidlands]

i am still battling through my young dracula hyper fixation so to anyone who even still thinks about young dracula have this balls to the wall unhinged thing my brain spawned that if i had the energy (& if i actually thought i could do a decent job of writing vlad) would butcher into a fanfic:

vlad goes back to the dreamworld except he gets yeeted through a dracula multiverse where he meets versions of count dracula from 1931-2023 & after being scarred for unlife & after realises just how good he's got it.

[lumiereandcogsworth]

2, 7 (I might know the answer already BUT HEY), 9, 15, 19, 22, 31, 32, 40, and 44 (ps I might've said this before but I love coming onto your blog and seeing fifty batb gifsets back to back. genuinely makes me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! inside)

EEEEEE thank you for the questions and HEHEH THANK YOUUU!!!!! i just simply love that film ???

2. what movie do you wish you could unwatch? well, doing my movie challenge, there have been a handful of movies that i’ve ended saying “that’s time i’m never getting back!” but ultimately i would love to unwatch “requiem for a dream”, that movie scared the hell out of me and i never wanna think about it ever again. i was already scared of doing drugs so i didn’t NEED THAT. it’s terrifying.

7. name a movie you’re emotionally attached to: HAHA yeah hmmmmm. have you met my beautiful beloved lawfully wedded film beauty and the beast 2017????? 💙💛💙💛💙💛💙 yes very emotionally attached. dare i say, autistically attached??? i simply love that movie SO much. truly a perfect film in my mind. there’s also others i’m emotionally attached to, of course, like forrest gump and lilo & stitch. but nothing compares to my wife🫶

9. guilty pleasure movie? what does this term MEAN!!! i’ve never understood. so this is a movie i feel guilty about liking, yeah? i’m looking through my letterboxd and i legit cannot find a thing. i have movies that i feel guilty about NOT liking because everyone else seems to and i just did not. but guilty about LIKING? i don’t know. everyone seems annoyed with frozen but i genuinely loved it. i don’t think that’s a guilty pleasure but that’s all i got for ya here 🫡 i don’t feel guilty about liking frozen but i do feel weird about mentioning it because everyone seems to be tired of it :(

15. do you like to talk during movies? or silence? it really depends on the movie/situation/who i’m with. but i will say across the board i DO get annoyed when it’s a movie i’ve never seen and someone is talking to me while the characters are having a conversation. like uhhh i need to know what they’re saying!!!! let’s be quiet please!!!!!!! but i’m never fully silent during movies with friends, i think commenting on silly things or the actors is part of the fun. i usually don’t talk when i watch with my family though because my mom definitely prefers silence 🤫

19. name a movie so bad it’s good: i’m also bad with this one because if i liked a movie then i’m not gonna think it’s bad afjskdj. idk, if i have fun at a movie i start looking at it through rose colored glasses lmao. i’m not a good movie critic and i hope i never am <3 was wonka (2023) good?? i had an absolute blast with that one but i have no idea if it was actually good. OH ALSO ACTUALLY, dracula untold (2014) - i do recognize that that was a pretty bad movie, and probably almost nobody’s favorite version of dracula, but i watched it for luke evans and i thought it was fun and the romance elements were very much enough to keep me enjoying it. but like yeah true that was not a good movie lmao. but also? yes it was <3

22. have you ever watched a horror film so scary you had to turn the movie off or walk out of the theater? there were two times that i SHOULD HAVE left the theater but i did not. the first was watching it 2017 with my brother, and i was scared and crying for like the last half hour, and he did ask me if i wanted to go but i knew he wanted to watch it so i said no lol. the second time was for “don’t worry darling” where i regrettably took my mom to go see it and we both hated it, it stressed us out so much and it was just truly an awful experience. we should’ve left but we were both thinking the other wanted to continue watching. and i think a little part of both of us DID want to see how it ended. it was dumb of us though sjdksj but we got a little trauma-bonded from it so that’s fun! lmao

31. do you remember the first movie you saw in theaters? i think it was flushed away (2006) and if i saw one before that i don’t remember. there’s a chance i saw the polar express (2004) in theaters but my parents debate if they just took my brother to see that or if i was there too. and i do not remember <3

32. are snacks a must or a distraction? A MUST. like yeah try to have a quiet snack if you can but oh yeah i be snackin’. that’s one of the many reasons it takes me so many hours to watch batb 2017, there will be at least one break where i pause and fully go to the kitchen to make a small meal lol

40. a film you think everyone should see at least once: boring answer probably but, forrest gump. also legally blonde. also the devil wears prada. also the incredibles. also shrek. also school of rock. also back to the future. also like, i’m glad i’ve seen some really iconic ones now like the matrix and alien. they’re pretty cool.

44. do you like to watch the same movie more than once? YEAH DUDE I GOT THAT MOVIE AUTISM. i was actually laughing to myself the other day when i realized that, currently, i’ve logged batb 2017 and scrooge 2022 both 17 times sjdksjdksj

batb 2017 will surpass it very soon, but then… come december… scrooge will probably beat it again. i become a madman for it in december. but anyway yeah i love rewatching movies. truly one of my greatest passions in life. i know that this year specifically i’ve been watching a lot of new-to-me movies but do not be fooled. i will Always love a movie rewatch 🫶

movie asks!!

[howlingmoonrise]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

thank you for the tag @galvanizedfriend!!!!!!

How many works do you have on ao3? 45!

What's your total ao3 word count? 168,011 words

What fandoms do you write for? i'm an awful, awful fandom hopper :x but i write most consistently nowadays for petshop of horrors

Top five fics by kudos: 1) my dracula/barbie fic la petite mort is in first place, to the surprise of absolutely no one🤦‍♀️ 2) warrior, a post-movie shan yu/mulan oneshot 3) standing sentinel, an alien vs predator fix-it oneshot where lex goes with the predators and scar survives 4) surprising even me????? bonded, a soul eater soulmate au oneshot from 2014???? it has 8 comments total and half of them are my replies???? HOW. 5) not as surprisingly, in the woods somewhere, an ever after high cerise hood/daring charming au where daring accidentally ends up becoming the next riding hood. rare fandom/pair niche ftw!

Do you respond to comments? do you know when you reply mentally to things and then forget to actually do it irl? 😬 i have a really bad habit of opening comments on mobile, where i never type anything if i can help it, gush and draft the entire reply in my head, and then... yeah. i do eventually actually get to them all, but some will suffer through a year of no response before i pull up my sleeves and get to them. but dear gods do i try. the full answer is "yes, i do, and i absolutely love them all" but i feel very guilty about taking so long so i'll stick with "i try" 🙏🙏🙏

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? probably see you soon, a voltron legendary defender shidge fic, or songbird, a petshop of horrors angelica/p-chan oneshot with a bit of an experimental style. i think they're probably only fics i have that have a 100% unambiguously unhappy AND undeserved ending

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? i usually try to aim for at least an ambiguously happy ending, so most of them? buuuuut that being said, i'm gonna point to my earlier fics in the soul eater or the yuri on ice fandoms, i was a lot sappier back in those. i've gotten a taste for a bit of a crunchier ending since then.

Do you get hate on fics? not really. i did receive hate for my voltron ships directly on the blog, but we all know how rotten that fandom was lmfao

Do you write smut? occasionally? i feel like i was in my smut-writing peak back in the soul eater fandom, but i was VERY productive in writing fic in general back in those days, and that no longer holds true. i feel like i'm a lot more self-conscious in writing smut nowadays and about how badly my writing in that genre would sound - the ideas are willing, but the flesh is weak.

Craziest crossover: i hate that my writer's block has cockblocked me from going crazier since despite wanting to write even wilder ships but. once again. my dracula/barbie fic la petite mort.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? not exactly. as far as i'm aware, no one has taken it ipsis verbis, but i have seen unauthorized and uncredited translations of my works floating around.

Have you ever had a fic translated? *side-eyes paragraph above* yep! my works seem to get podficced more than anything though

Have you ever co-written a fic before? i started writing one in my old, old days in the danny phantom fandom (hello, first fandom!), but our email exchanges petered out and it never got finished or posted anywhere

All time favorite ship? how the FUCK am i supposed to chose. my dude. why would you do this to me. it changes with the phases of the moon.

What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will? i am 97.89% made of wips. 😬😬😬 there's just. so many. the first ones that come to mind is a magicstone (magica de spell/gladstone gander from the donald duck comics) angsty-ass oneshot, and also a jane darling/peter pan fic from peter pan 2 return to neverland, both of which i only ever posted snippets for a wip ask game years ago 😭😭😭 i also very much want to finish my shan yu/mulan longfic to the victor, the spoils and i have every intention of doing it but then i look back and. it's been half a decade already. rip.

What are your writing strengths? uhhhh. i find interesting dynamics and ways of bringing characters together? i'm a rare/crack shipping bitch so i need to find a way of really selling what i'm writing so that people will read it, so i guess i've honed my skills in that direction. i also usually get comments complimenting my writing style, though my own taste for it varies wildly. i also think i'm good at adapting my own style to fit the source material one.

What are your writing weaknesses? apart from being in a semi-permanent state of writer's block and never finishing anything, you mean? where do i START. action scenes. comedy. not doing run-on overly-wordy sentences no one but me will understand. too many italics. FUCKING PLOT. why can't i write solely vibes and pining, WHY does plot have to haunt me while blowing raspberries at me for not knowing how to plan anything more complicated than a fairytale-level quest.

Thoughts on dialogue in another language? english already IS another language for me 😂 that being said, i don't generally like it unless it's an untranslateable pun term or plot-relevant, in which case footnotes are appreciated. exceptions are titles/honorifics/actual names of things.

First fandom you wrote in? danny phantom, all the way back in like... 2009? it was how i learned to speak/write english beyond the basics. it was very, very bad, but i'm glad i got to go through that and experiment so wildly in such an encouraging fandom.

Favorite fic you've written? cinq d'épées, my princess and the frog dr facillier/charlotte la bouff 15k oneshot LITERALLY EVERYONE IS SLEEPING ON. why do people keep gushing on the dracula/barbie fic when that fic is RIGHT THERE with far less views than most of my other fics and way better writing quality. i honestly hate reading my own writing and even i enjoy rereading that one, villain/heroine morally grey ships my beloved.

--

thanks again for tagging me!!! tagging @sandmancircus @acernor @nemainofthewater @produdfctititty @starfishride @malgraw @olderthannetfic if you guys feel like it!

[theradioghost]

for no particular reason: opinions on Various Frankenstein Movies I Have Consumed

Hallmark Channel Miniseries (2004)

god i want to love this so much more than i do.

there’s so much to love. the sweet sweet face of henry clerval. that absolute baby of a creature. the fidelity to so many details that somehow just make the few-but-significant departures completely unbearable.

“frankenstein wants to bring back the dead” is for me without question the worst sin any adaptation can commit, but especially in one that is clearly otherwise working so hard to be faithful to the original. as i have said before: IF THIS BITCH KNEW HOW TO BRING BACK THE DEAD HE’D HAVE A LOT FUCKING FEWER PROBLEMS.

Also, don't even get me started on their portrayal of late-1700s graverobbing (the professor would not have been shocked! but also, Germany had laws that significantly reduced the need for body theft, so why does this act like he's studying in Britain? WRONG. oh fuck, i’ve gotten started)

i think i actually might never have finished watching this one? i don’t remember. i probably should just for the fact that it contains Clerval

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Unquestionably the least faithful adaptation.

Unquestionably and by far THE GAYEST ADAPTATION.

This is not a story about scientific hubris and a sad monster, this is a story about Hot Frankenstein gazing lovingly into Hot Igor's eyes and gushing about how wonderful and brilliant he is, and then getting really pissy and jealous when he acquires a girlfriend.

I can almost forgive it for having the single worst creature I've ever been subjected to, and for once again committing the sin of Bringing Back The Dead. Also for having such a flat color scheme in such a weird movie that deserved the jewel tones of the bizarre melodrama that it is.

also, I kind of feel more willing to let this one Bring Back The Dead, because they went so hard on that particular theme? like, these are in no way those original characters from the book, and so it almost works to have given this bizarro frankenstein his own motivation.

a very bad movie objectively but you should watch it anyway

I, Frankenstein (2014)

... I do not hate this movie anywhere nearly as much as I should.

Neatly sidesteps the question of fidelity to the novel by not including any of the events of the novel. It's a refreshing change to have an adaptation truly focused on an articulate, self-aware creature

also I liked that the rank-and-file female soldiers among the gargoyle-people weren't all betitted in their gargoyle forms? If I remember correctly their leader does look very different from the rest, but for the most part all the gargoyles look the same.

It also has a truly, unbelievably bonkers plot? I think this is the rare situation where being such a fan of the source material has made me *more* willing to forgive its many, many flaws as an actual movie. I can really actually live with this one, somehow.

Definitely a So Bad It's Good gem with little hints of a neat idea buried within the weird and bad glory of it

Universal Frankenstein (1931)

I mean, what is there still to say about it?

No, it's not at all faithful to the original novel, but at this point that's almost not a question anymore

It gave us so much. The genius of Jack Pierce's makeup, book-accurate or not. Boris Karloff's star-making role. The iconic censor-terrifying blasphemy - It's alive! Now I know what it feels like to be God! The quintessential images of mad science that have haunted our cultural imagination ever since. James Whale's understanding - which All Us Gays know in our hearts is at least in part because he was one of us - that the creature is as much victim as villain, striking out only against a world that struck him first simply for being who he is. never forget that this movie was made by an openly gay man.

In that sense, I feel like it's ultimately faithful to the novel in the way that most matters? It knows that there is more than one monster on this screen, and it knows which one we should be on the side of when the credits roll.

WRT the sequels I would never neglect to mention the majesty of the Bride, but I also want to give a shout to poor, studio-abused Bela Lugosi, who was told he was playing the creature as blind in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and then blamed for the moaning arms-out cliche when all reference to blindness and all his lines of dialogue were cut from the movie.

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

shoutout to Hammer Films for setting apart their movies from Universal by really focusing on Frankenstein, not the creature

and damn, if Peter Cushing didn’t give us a hell of a villain protagonist though

and of course it's Hammer, so, boobs! Gore! Poor Christopher Lee in that makeup! But what we're really here for is the inevitable gravity that pulls a physically and mentally deteriorating Frankenstein back into this same mistake over and over for decades over the course of this series

I have never heard of Ralph Bates, I don't know who that is, don't call this number again

Ngl I actually prefer the Hammer Draculas and I definitely prefer Sir Christopher there, I know they cast him because he was extremely tall, but he's too dignified for this

There's something very satisfying, though, about the sheer variety of creatures that Hammer goes through set against Baron Frankenstein's complete inability to change or give up. Articulate? Monstrous? Two human souls in one body? Frankenstein himself? It's a wild ride! Every third character's name is Hans!

only watch these if you have a tolerance for Old Movies with Problems but if you delight in cheesy old horror the way I do then go for it

The Bride (1985)

this was the first frankenstein movie adaptation i ever saw and I don’t want to think about it

the creature is played by mr krabs and Sting is there

that’s all

[therachelperspective]

TV | Penny Dreadful (2014-2016)

This review has sat in my drafts for over a year. (It’s been a weird year, don’t judge me). Although I had a few notes sufficient enough to write a review from and could have probably have finished and posted something by now, I will honestly say that I have pondered Penny Dreadful this entire period of time. Even as I watch other series and take part in other media, every so often my mind wanders back to Penny Dreadful. Whether the show intrigued me or irked me has not entirely been decided, to the point where I am almost feel hastened to watch the show again with more attentiveness. But, just as I feel about Marvel’s Iron Fist series, I’m not sure I want to endure some of the more vexing qualities of Penny Dreadful a second time around (though I sadly will for Iron Fist as I once again attempt to complete the entire Defenders collection).

Let’s see what I can make of my long-stored memories.

Penny Dreadful derives its name from what is essentially Victorian England’s version of a comic book, typically with narratives of crime or violence. As per Britannica, these eight-page installments – also called “dime novels” or “bloods” – were carelessly written second-rate works full of gory themes. While I wouldn’t say the series to be careless or second-rate, it definitely hits the crime, violence, and horror right on the nose to give its namesake proper honor.

Set in the late 1800s, Penny Dreadful bears resemblance to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in that it includes characters from various works of classic literature, though Penny Dreadful sticks to the obvious era of Victorian Gothic. Although its main characters Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton), Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), and Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) were created for the show, its supporting cast are directly named after major literary characters – Dorian Gray (Reeve Carney), Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Harry Treadaway) and his Creature (Rory Kinnear), as well as brief appearances throughout by Mina Harker, Abraham Van Helsing, Dr. Henry Jekyll (sadly, while the science is included, Jekyll’s own counterpart Hyde was not), Dracula, and Justine (from The Misfortunes of Virtue). It has been discussed online that the character of Malcolm is based on famed adventurer Allan Quartermain from King Solomon’s Mines and, by name, obviously a derivative of Mina Murray’s father from Dracula; however, he was not mentioned in the novel. Similarly, Vanessa Ives is said to be based on Mina’s best friend Lucy Westenra. Furthermore, the story arc of Brona, who then becomes “Lily Frankenstein,” shares obvious similarities to that of the Bride of Frankenstein.

The rich inspiration from classic literature is what initially drew me to watch Penny Dreadful, along with the hype I read when it was initially released in 2014. Despite the fact that I am typically not one for horror-based film or television, I undertook the task regardless. Per my usual reasoning (I swear I write this in everything and I apologize lol), I wanted to discover for myself if it was truly as great as the critics say. And dare I say, it was actually true for the first season. I remember posting something on Instagram stating how I understood the public interest in the show and that I was excited to continue on. While it has no doubt been some time since I’ve viewed the material, I distinctly remember my personal fascination dwindle shortly thereafter. Had I any sort of ability to abandon the media I try to consume, it might have caused me to not finish the show. But alas, I’m one of those hopefuls that thinks maybe it will get better. Plus, can you really say you watched something if you didn’t watch the entire thing? My answer: no. Must watch it all to have a proper opinion!

Wherein the first season focuses primarily on finding a kidnapped Mina Murray, with tolerable amounts of arc for Frankenstein, his creature, the mysterious Ethan Chandler, and Dorian Gray...  the latter seasons revolving around witches and “nightcomers” (season two), and Dracula (season three) – as well as the constant battles between Frankenstein’s scientist vs. his creations, the dragged out uncovering of Ethan’s background, and Dorian’s inability to keep it in his pants – just didn’t seem to have the same charm to me as the initial season. Maybe it was the story? Were these the best “big bads” writers could come up with? I suppose, yes, considering the source material of that particular period, there’s only so much to work with. But to have the first season’s enemy be simply a vampire and the third season’s Dracula, it seems to me like missed opportunity (like using Dracula in his actual storyline) or they were really just recycling material. You used vampires once already; was doing it again with one buffer season in between really your only option?

Other nagging details that truthfully somewhat prevent me from watching the series again include things like: how much of Vanessa’s “dialogue” actually includes Eva Green’s ability to make guttural sounds; how certain arcs overwhelmed the series (like Frankenstein’s Creature and Lily, though kudos to Penny Dreadful for exploring their thoughts/feelings that other films or shows have not), compared to others tales that were not fleshed out enough; characters from literature left me wanting more, even if I did already know their mythos (Dorian, for example, was merely only a brief glimpse at his portrait, no explanation of its mysticism); and lastly, Lily’s entire story felt too much for me. While I admire the show’s portrayal of feminism, body autonomy, and a sense of sisterhood amongst Lily and her “army,” her approach to these topics also felt preachy and eventually fell more into a “savior” complex. I can understand the rediscovery of life as a newly reanimated human, re-comprehending life and death, not allowing any man to “own” her purely based on his say-so... but the way the show writers approached it was not my favorite. Billie Piper was great in her role, but towards the end of her arc, I was bored with Lily’s endeavors.

My biggest pet peeve surrounding this show, however, was actual a very random detail – Ethan and Brona (Lily, in her previous life) had a very intense relationship during the first season before she succumbs to illness. How is it, despite both of their prominence in the show and their respective arcs, as well as mutual acquaintances with other characters, that Ethan never ever crossed paths with Lily at all once she was reborn? Was it because he would obviously recognize her as Brona and writers didn’t know how to incorporate that detail into the show? Was it because they wanted Lily to remain purely a character in Frankenstein’s and Dorian’s arcs? Someone please answer this for me, because it drives me nuts.

All in all, Penny Dreadful started strong and I did enjoy it at first, but its subsequent seasons and finale felt less than spectacular. What was once an enjoyable suspenseful thriller turned into a psychological drama looking to interpret everyone’s personal issues and traumas rather than working together for a common, supernatural cause. Where the first season saw everyone as a collective group, I feel the show slowly but surely lost its charm by increasing their solo arcs without much interaction amongst everyone as a whole. It’s not to say that they never spoke to one another (Ethan and Lily being the exception), but their interactivity became increasingly minimal. I will give writers some credit in that, for some characters, this solitude reflected their emotions and was necessary for their arc. But maybe I just believe the show was better when the ensemble was a more cohesive whole.

[pixelgrotto]

It’s Castlevania with demons, and it’s good

Quite some time ago, I highlighted Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night in a post on this blog that was all about Kickstarter spiritual successors and how they represented a bold future where franchises deemed unprofitable by big corporations could find the funding they deserved. That 2015 post has not aged especially well in 2019, since several of the Kickstarters that I mentioned were released to a middling reception...the most notable being Mighty No. 9, which is now regarded as more of a pyramid scheme by Keiji Inafune instead of a proper Megaman reboot. 

Bloodstained manages to buck that unfortunate trend, despite a somewhat uncertain development process. Visualized by Koji Igarashi (IGA), a dude who I both like (for his grit at keeping the Castlevania franchise alive) and find overrated (for his odd retcons of the Castlevania timeline), the game was supposed to come out in 2017 but got hit with the delay whip again and again. As the delays piled up, so did fan outcry, especially regarding Bloodstained’s graphics, which looked washed out and a far cry from the concept art which was used to advertise the Kickstarter. Because this was the same problem faced by Mighty No. 9, everyone began forecasting Bloodstained as a similar disappointment that would fail to re-capture the magic of its predecessors and also look like mud. Thankfully, fears were lessened when new graphical shaders were implemented in the final months of development, and now the game’s rated “overwhelmingly positive” on Steam, with most agreeing that it looks fine and serves as a refined continuation of the exploration-focused “Metroidvania” style that Symphony of the Night popularized - just like how its little Kickstarter spinoff, Curse of the Moon, revived the older “Classicvania” style of the pre-Symphony titles. 

Speaking as someone who gulped down all of the old Castlevanias like Halloween sugar cookies, Bloodstained isn’t as evocative or transformative as Symphony of the Night was, but it certainly does feel like Castlevania with the bad guys as demons instead of Dracula. I’d even suggest that it’s the first post-Symphony Metroidvania that doesn’t feel like it was held back by the constraints of handheld hardware. This isn’t to say that the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS Castlevanias were poor efforts, but they nearly all made use of recycled sprites stemming from Symphony (which in turn reused sprites from Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine), sacrificed either graphics or music due to handheld limitations (Circle of the Moon and Harmony of Dissonance) or featured odd decisions, either in game design (Order of Ecclesia’s overly tough bosses and splintered levels) or appearance (Dawn of Sorrow and Portrait of Ruin’s anime character portraits). 

Of all the post-Symphony efforts, Aria of Sorrow was probably the one that had the least noticeable flaws, and when coupled with Dawn of Sorrow, that duology still serves a better story than Bloodstained’s not-especially-impressive lore. But if we’re to consider the pure gameplay of individual titles, Bloodstained is the successor to Alucard’s 32-bit romp through Dracula’s lair that a lot of people were waiting for. The game is big - taking me over 20 hours to complete, which is sizable for this genre - and it manages to capture that unique Metroidvania vibe of “here’s a giant freeform world to explore, and I can’t quite make it up to that ledge yet, but I bet when I beat a boss in five hours I’ll get some ability to nab that chest.” And indeed, once protagonist Miriam gains her full repertoire of skills - including my ultimate fave in every Metroidvania game, the ability to high jump on top of a double jump - zipping around every corner of the castle is a rush.

Bloodstained therefore manages to serve as a nice validation of all the crowdfunding optimism that spilled throughout the gaming community in 2014 and 2015. It’s also an interesting case of a Kickstarted property that seems like it’s going to exist alongside the series that inspired it. While it seems unlikely that we’ll see another Mighty No. 9 game, Bloodstained has done well enough for IGA to let on that he foresees an entire franchise in the future, and while Konami’s neglected Castlevania for years, the positive reception of the very excellent Netflix series (read all about it here and here) as well as Bloodstained’s hype seems to have made the crusty company take notice. At the moment all they’ve delivered is a collection of some of the older games and Grimoire of Souls, a meh mobile thingy that supposedly has okay fan service, but maybe IGA’s independent efforts will initialize the spirit of competition and actually get us some legit official Castlevania games again. 

Barring that, at the very least we’ve got Castlevania with demons to rely on from now on. 

All screenshots taken by me.

[tlbodine]

1930s Horror Continued

The 1930s were a huge era in horror movies, seeing the birth of many iconic movie monsters, so it only made sense to linger there for a little while longer before we carry our film festival into the next decade.

You can see the first half of our 1930s viewing here: https://tlbodine.tumblr.com/post/186906307069/as-comicreliefmorlock-and-i-carry-on-our-weekly

You can follow our whole film series on my tag #horror by the decade

We started off with Dracula, the 1931 classic directed by Tod Browning and staring Bela Lugosi in his breakout role. It’s hard watching this movie as a film at this point, because it is so iconic, and has been such a massive pop culture influence, and has been memed and parodied and redone so many times. I can’t even imagine what it must have felt like to watch it for the very first time without any of that legacy clouding it. I hadn’t watched it in quite a while, too, and it feels a bit...slimmer than I remembered it. Still a must-watch for historical importance, but don’t expect to be terrified by this well-dressed foreigner and his thousand-yard stare. 

Some highlights: 

More homoeroticism than I remember

Renfield being a scene-stealer 

Bela Lugosi being Extra (tm) 

Can’t watch Dracula without Frankenstein, the 1931 classic directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff. Of the two films, I think Frankenstein is a better movie. The plot hangs together more tightly, and Karloff’s performance is heartbreakingly sympathetic. You can’t help but feel bad for this childlike monster who is mistreated at every turn. 

It’s almost hard not to read the monster as autistic-coded: 

Nonverbal

Stiff posture 

Hand-flapping

Meltdowns

There’s an essay in that, probably already written by someone who is not me. Would be a fun project, though. Compare and contrast with Edward Scissorhands. 

We finished it off with Freaks, a 1932 movie directed by Tod Browning (yes, the same guy who made Dracula). This movie is a gem. It’s a favorite of mine and extremely watchable to a modern audience, maybe moreso than other classics of that era. 

We need to take a moment to appreciate Freaks. This movie caused absolute moral outrage. It got massively panned by critics, it upset audiences (the usual stories about people fainting in theaters, women miscarrying, vomiting, all the same kind of hysteria we’d see happening later with The Exorcist). It destroyed Browning’s career and lost money -- like half of its budget kind of losses. The movie was so upsetting that the director had to cut about a third of it out and that footage is lost to history, so nobody has seen what’s in that missing 30 minutes of footage. 

So what’s the big deal? Why all the fuss? 

Well. Freaks is a movie that dares to put the “other” front and center, the hero rather than the villain. It has the audacity to show the “freaks” as sympathetic, complex, human characters. It features several strong women, gender nonconforming people, and unusual relationship arrangements. And it’s a revenge tale about people who take advantage of the disenfranchised getting what’s coming to them. 

This movie is fucking great, is what I’m saying, and you should watch it. 

Some things: 

All of the freaks are real -- no camera tricks or makeup here. They came from various performance backgrounds and were, I hope, well compensated for their time (for most, this was the only time they were ever in film, and this movie is one of the only ways history might remember them).

The scene at the end, where the freaks come crawling out in pursuit of the villain, is chilling, and also immensely gratifying. 

The other villain’s final fate is also quite poetic and a wonderfully disturbing image. 

I stan 

Interestingly, the film is based on a short story with a similar premise but a very different take-away. It’s curious that Browning would choose to adapt that particular story, and be interested in telling this tale the way he does. It seems to me that the narrative is sympathetic to the freaks straight through -- not just because they are performing largely as themselves to bring realism and sympathy, but because the story is crafted that way on purpose. 

Anyway. It’s a neat movie and you can watch it on YouTube. Here’s an essay with some more info on it if you’re interested: https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2014/10/03/the-unseen-freaks

Next week we venture forth into the 1940s! 

[madness-of-lost-memories]

Tagging Game

I was tagged by @sanhatipal , thanks for the tag! ^_^

Answers under the cut, since it ended up a bit long.

How tall are you? ♠ 157 cm! So, 5'2 inches. There was a time when I thought I'd grow more, but meh, at this point I'm pretty fond of my height (I can fit in pretty much every bath tub in existence like how cool is that).

What colour and style is your hair? ♠ I'm a brunette (shade-wise, "brown chocolate" looks the closest). Since my hair is naturally wavy (lol, apparently a "waviness" level exists; looks like mine is "Wavy 2A", aka the softest one), I pretty much only get it layered and leave it like that. As for length - right now it reaches my upper waist. During the summer, I wear it in a low ponytail. Oh, and I have side-swept bangs. Overall - very low maintenance, lol.

What color are your eyes? ♠ Light green, with a bit of yellow-ish brown around the iris. That said, as most light eyes, they can look a bit blue-ish or grey-ish at times, depending on the light.

Do you wear glasses? ♠ No, though my eyes aren't in a perfect condition (I'm slightly near-sighted + I really tire my eyes these days... years... xD).

Do you wear braces? ♠ No.

What’s your fashion sense? ♠ Erm, a simple one? Primarily skinny jeans + blouses/shirts. Main colours: black, red and white.

Full name? ♠ (H) Elena (of Troy).

When were you born? ♠ June 23rd, 1996 (technically, on the 3rd astronomical summer day here).

Where are you from and where do you live now? ♠ Bulgaria and I still live there.

What school do you go to? ♠ I barely remember anything before "high" school, so I'll talk mainly about that + university.

I went to a "Professional technical school"... Erm, kinda hard to explain to non-eastern european people, but basically a school that both teaches the normal subjects regular (high) schools have + special subjects, connected to a specific course (computer technology, optics, etc.). My course was called (lit. translation) "Cinematography, audio and video systems" and it contained pretty much everything from handling old-school movie projectors, to handling movie cameras, video editing, as well as some basics on sound capturing / editing, etc., etc. When you graduate you get 2 different diplomas and I guess you can skip on going to university, but I actually use what I learned there to earn money and pay my university fees xD

As for university - I study law, which many people here consider to be a “useless” degree, as unless you have solid connections (and relatives that work as lawyers, etc.), getting a job can be rather difficult... Still, I'm going to give it a try the "normal" way (aka via legit interviews, etc.) and we'll see how things will work out.

What kind of student are you? ♠ I was actually the student with the 2nd highest grade in my class, but I wouldn't say I had an interest in high grades in general. I was just scared of failing my teachers' expectations, so I tried my best.

As for university - it really depends on the subject, 'cause civil law is not something I'm too interested in and, naturally, my grades aren't too high xDD I try to prioritize the subjects I like / will need in the future and learn just enough to pass for everything else.

Do you like school? ♠ Yup, overall. My class was kinda split into groups, so there were conflicts, but there were a lot of fun moments too.

Favorite subject? ♠ I'd say Biology and later on - Literature. As for university - Criminal Law and Criminology.

Favorite tv shows? ♠ In no specific order - Victor Ros (Murder Mystery/Thriller), Victoria (Drama/History) and Anne with an E (Drama/Based on a book). As for anime - Psych-Pass, Durarara!! and Pandora Hearts (maybe it's the nostalgia, but I still love it, regardless of it's flaws).

Favorite movie(s)? ♠ At the top of my head - The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Red Dragon (2002), Phenomena (1985), Van Helsing (2004), Dog Soldiers (2002), Labyrinth (1986), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000), The Never Ending Story (1984), When Marnie Was There (2014; though a lot of Ghibli movies come to mind), The Lion King (1994; + many other Disney movies), The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008);

Favorite book(s)? ♠ Oh, boy... Crime and Punishment (1866), all of the novels about Sherlock Holmes (The Hound of the Baskervilles being my favorite), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), The Chrysalids (1955), The Secret Garden (1911), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), The Silence of the Lambs (1988), Red Dragon (1981), Psycho (1959), Bring Me the Head of Prince Charming (1991), Dracula (1897), The Phantom of the Opera (1909), Memoirs of a Geisha (1997), the Grimm brothers' fairy tales aaaand more.

Do you have regrets? ♠ I don't really think so. Or should I say, I do, but they don't stay for long. I mean, just because I failed today doesn't mean I'll fail tomorrow as well, you know?

Dream job? ♠ As a kid I wanted to become a vet. Right now, I'm aiming for the position of a police investigator, though working as a prosecutor or private detective (at some point later on) is still a good option in my book.

Do you like shopping? ♠ Only online one, lol. I find (clothes) shopping to be slow and tedious for most of the time.

What countries have you visited? ♠ I've been to Germany for 4 days, during a music festival. At the time I was only 13, so I barely remember anything, aside that it was very cold, the natives seemed nice and I really liked the architecture of the houses + how quiet the small town was.

Scariest nightmare you have ever had? ♠ Once I dreamed my home city was hit by nuclear bomb (I literally saw the explosion out of my window), so I guess that. It's kinda funny how stressed one is after such a dream, before they realize (well, more like their brain realizes) that it was a dream and not reality.

Any enemies? ♠ I don't think so? Though I presume a handful of people online dislike me, but that is to be expected.

Do you believe in miracles? ♠ Not really, not in the classical sense. I think some things, good or bad, happen "at the roll of a dice". Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. No more, no less.

How are you? ♠ In a good mood, probably since I'll be visiting the seaside soon ~

I’m too lazy to tag, so if you see this post and feel like sharing some info about yourself, consider yourself tagged!

[krystalclearfashion]

Fish Of The World T Shirt From AllezyGo

When to do is amenity parts of an AMC theater near you become a Fish Of The World T Shirt From AllezyGo moving disappointed in his walk right up to my desk say Danielle to get to meetand talk to meand we will soon the theater pursue the studio if you’d like to know the scene is young boy right here is my last Transformers legacy is counted here is all grown up like in the early we hired this guy let’s get them Jeremy let’s do it Mr Ellis I thank you ice it should be pointed out that you are still not rich correct no I’m not out of the meter is a liar I was next in 19 like your favorite team in space can balance a new election agreement between style I can draft I can allow the crap directed him to bring the movie were prescribed 20 crusting are irrational because another tarmac on the first fanand I explained to him I buy but I love that comment from James Gunn that that’s awesome which actually makes you certainly wonder what could they have in the bowsprit seat obviously Gabby Santos doing something significant not just grabbing a glove going I go do it myself like Cemex to present these could be due to the significant that directly sets up what’s moving forward the model cinematic universe by the club I thought was really funny again they seem to be putting a lot of focus on the racks in a lot of the marketing is funny one linersand and once again he gave a pretty damn funny one liner this when he saved my I am my turds are famously larger something a lot of my I thought it was great now something interesting is how to Shelley’s point is out of this was debuted last of this past weekend on televisionand it was online but only checked earlier just this morning the clip had been removed from a few sites apparently do this to your request I don’t know going otherwise you are present taken with or even aired on television I’m not really sure it is still online in some places not in others of iron with stories that maybe you will be of the find it online maybe you walk but over I thought the clip is pretty good in my office I only was this silly gut busting but I don’t think it really had to be a thing what it did was showcase the dynamic once againand the showcase what sometimes insert moviesand I go back to the first story know some people disagree with me but I thought Dennings was just completely useless in a moving ally catand the humor itself when humor is done right it’s like guarding the galaxy the way that is put together is ready accepted that this is how they’re going to interact with one another yet when it comes time for it to be epic in the any action to deliver that way to buy I really I think the focus was once again on Batista because like your mission before Batista was a guy that you watching the goal is just it’s he is not the rock United not not many people is whether ox rock but you wondered whether or not he was going to have a film career but the way that he kind of the role attracts is not that Shakespeare not Bonnie Devito need a seasoned thespian the play know you also you gotta have a from what they rely on him to do is nail this it does he moments in comedy is not easyand he from what we’ve seen so far in eclipse as really impressed me out we’ll see what is an avid movie but they been leaning on him in these clips whether it him sitting around when it went to talking about each of their feelings have every line he sits a far as been getting some big laugh so I think that you gotta give credit to Batista so far of the fact that there leaning so hardand himand them in the market you know as funny as I was a I was wondering why they had a poop joke as the backbone of this trailer that I found out it aired on the kids jolly okay makes a little more sense I’ve back I love you I hope you likeand AMA are aliveand I wasn’t crazy but I like the back of for the guardians of the galaxy for some other reason Mike Larry the cable Guy is not in this movie stop at the poop jokes will be up joke with in the Emerson site is always sunny in Philadelphia but for me in the in guarding to the galaxy just didn’t work for me whatsoever if you want to talk about more shit we have transform as a last night Mark what did you think I get one dignity to be talking about neck in the meantime after watching this clip I’m confident I will not be filing a lawsuit on behalf of my client Jeremy regarding sagacity volume 2 this is what I wanted to see two because I like seeing rocket inand Star award the first material we ever saw it seem like rocket might be stranded from the rest of the guardians for a bulk of the movieand it doesn’t appear that the case I love when they’re all interactingand throwing one liners backand forth together to discuss is me a lot confidence in thatand the news that is to be post credit scene is literally a shock to no one at alland there’s a lot of family members I could have imperiled that I would say you have to wait another five mask is I have to watch a little more guardian’s goodness I was next first class from the train transformation in the block after arriving in the new credit painting I nylon a clad planner also really need TV you like my father returns from 2014 contaminated extensionand will be joining gangs do not need to see John came from in 1920 13 I think putting team by sending you had to go to Manis when it’s I can’t sell this stupid movie enoughand Iand I sell it because of Michael Bay I just you just look at it it’s like the same crap it’s like the glossy nonsense with the bullshit dialogueand it’s like I hated to readand I’m not getting sold on this trailer it’s the same crapand the only thing that I did say as the music is so good Steve DuBois always good to see always so goodand occasionally it does give me hope that something can happen through but it does it looks like this is a commercial with the music videoand it just does not shoot you want to change it to make it different looks assume that the clips that they put out the little TV spot having seen this movieand I hated ready to sell it because transfers rolling up to things in one eye other than the first transporters I love I hated all the movies but I love all the marketing every time no matter what I think the trailers for this movie have been awfuland this is the worst of them alland they’ll when you hear a lot of people complain thoseand interest the series that the DiFranco French as you say has standing to their plans of the truly love it but amongst those who are critics of the of the French as a far one of these lot people complain about is Silverlight is always humans are the humans we want to see Transformers today put out the speech Martin it’s like little chance of running with 209 surprisingand go there with 209 it is going to toand I insult to injury they hadand 209 to itand it looked awful but only delayed to you pointed out something else to look a look even more life yet was the gecko familiar salad bar meand I was like that is a gecko for metal gear solid for the pivoting had begun the bipedal feet the way he walks was completelyand for sure are you sure you have now I’m just running with it okay here is one thing I can say is your right the Transformers trailer was darkand the moon still is a good trailer I can actually watch the trailer with the musicand do it even though I saw in each is the way it it stands up but I agree with you the trailers for this one have been noticeably worseand one thing I can say is the trailer campaign for this particular Transformers movie have been more honest probably because no one wants to hire attorney Mark Ellis over here because the trailers were so it looks bad it probably is going be bad like Dracula for Michael Bay his turds are a famously largeand long lines long in two hoursand 40 minutes I way for this one gun youand that if any Transformers movies at this pointand thisand had a lot of kids in itand if you going about you know that I love the wonderment in a child’s eye it it’s so obvious what they’re doing now though is that they’ve given up on us to get up on people like us people who grow plainly Transformers toys in the 80sand 90s they had that ship has sailed they hope that were taking our kids to see it this is going after the kids because they’re trying to hook it’s likeand drive substrate things in the CAT scan Michael Bay did not see thisand the godliness of a building I do that so work in a pan this movie to grabbed the moneyand the cycle just repeats itself the bottom line is do a lot of drugsand go see this I know why it’s in the back of the brain tell me this movie might be good no only reason this is terrible logic terrible logic the nobody’s ever follow I loved all the marketing for the other ones made movies for this may be a flip around Vegas everyone this will release you want outand at least a win would be it wasn’t terrible that youand I don’t knowand we were all here like three months agoand really got his movies get time traveling Hitlerand King are these to be ridiculous I wouldn’t give person King Arthur fighting Hitler right now is better than what I saw today ceiling Michael Bay I say right now I will crown Michael Bayand national hero if he actually gives us as seen of Merlin with Excalibur in his hand fighting a Nazi Hitlerand taking down Hitlerand I see that I’m gonna be alland all you forgive everything elseand I’ll be calling on movie if that plan theories that come into would love to see that we see King Arthur golf against Hitler one on one I will stand upand I will say Your Honor objection withdrawn utilize via the spirit of Hitler is going to possess a deceptive conand is going to be the new go prime is what is often is with I having bumblebee is the spirit of Hitler we just it is because took Hitler’s brainand put in the optimist prime’s had connected with the matrix of leadershipand now off to his prime is a transforming summary DeSantis is good for you will know the eye is one makes you guys know this is not the only show on the collider video there’s a lot of other stuff going on the availability of the brand new episode adjustment to the crew TV talk to be online saloon believes they also last night the brand new episode of The Walking Dead recaps of your collider was also onand of course the brand new episode of Jerry Johnson oh secular is badand so does a link for it in the description below many of you wrote us you know set there was a new episode of the next round of the March movie madness billand started this past week I was ill on Thursday was able to shootand she that this Thursday keep your eye open for that sourcing at the end of the show were to take some time since we live twitter questions you start firing is in right now collider video on Twitter makes your fine was thereand when you pick up loud for you that let’s go to the mailbag Ashley was in the mailbag today array. CAN’T YOU SEE WHAT THEY DO IS GANG IN THE WORLDand ON THE CUBE WAS CUT OFF SCREEN THINGS ALL THE VIOLENCE IS A GOOD REALISTIC MODEL TO BE TWICE MY IS A THINK WE WOULD GUNS IN HIS BC PEOPLE IS NO CERTAIN SITUATIONS WHERE THE IS NOWHERE BUT LOST HIS WAYS WE CAN FIND A WAY OUT ON WE CAN’T SAY THE DESIGNS NOT TO BE HIS MAIN PUERTO RICAN TO STAY. A liaison come back in episode eight is a force ghost which I know one thing is that if we Skywalker dies I will run up to the front as grantee on an iMacand a happy blogger dies at the end of episode seven I want now is Harrison Fordand Carrie Fisher to Tweet out that their brother so they do not episode set in this particular without a spoiler from Natick as well as in the ad campaigns with all the noticing where the hell is Luke we think as he looked towards the end of the film thirdand Carrie in episode it’s not surprising all night you can call it a spoiler if you want we all assume this was happening at his confirmation is something we already pretty much knew don’t call it a spoiler is more of a okay LOL I show now or mailbag if you got a topic or question you like us to dress in the show just email us anytime at collider video Gmail

Source: Fish Of The World T Shirt From AllezyGo

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Fish Of The World T Shirt From AllezyGo

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High speed is ESC he was on the Fish Of The World T Shirt From AllezyGo handles for bike so now I don’t think the fan boy plan to me my family we write everything so I my perspective. Advocacy in the music that they present they advocate social justice they call for an end to war they they wish for a time when there might be a change in the drug possession laws your music did not do that there wasn’t a great deal of outand out editorial is Asian in the songs of the Beatles at least I didn’t feel itand I don’t think that a lot of parents felt allow messages with subliminal in meeting me that we were sending messages out all right that’s a good what kinds of messages just reporting on the state we were inand looking back on itand then we we made things like all you need is love which is without passion is pretty wholesome thousand which it was still a change not really about the psychedelic stuff which group she told members advocate change well I you know I really don’t know them offhand except I sat down one evening with David Crosbyand we were talking about songs that have been done by a number of groupsand Iand since I don’t have them fixed in my memory that I shouldn’t say it. Dennis Pres Obama’s vice president just tackled gun violence and climate change he stood up to dictators and supported our troops he led the recovery effort after the last recession and delivered on a promise to make our healthcare system fairer and stronger through it all Joe Biden’s never forgotten worries from is then sustained by his faith and his family through the toughest of times and he has the heart and a compassion for this moment for all of these reasons and more it’s my honor to second the nomination of my good friend Joe Biden to be the next president of these United States Chester Street crack in the future children are learning about learning about our plan our grief are wary also learning about Joe about how he restored the government integrity to the information See Other related products: 0 Days Without Sarcasm Cat T Shirt

[theantisocialcritic]

Archive Project - September 11, 2014 - Upcoming Fall 2014 Films

Yay! Its fall movie season! Blockbuster season is over and its time for Oscar Bait to rise! There is a lot of stuff coming out in the next 4 months, a lot of which I won't get around to reviewing. Lets take a look at what we're in for! September A Walk Among the Tombstones: Everybody loves Liam Neeson! The fall's first interesting movie stars him in something of a film noir murder mystery. The latter part of September tends to be when a lot of really underrated movies come out like Dredd, Looper, Prisoners and Rush. I have a good feeling about this one! Maze Runner: Hollywood will, for the fiftieth time this year, attempt to make the Hunger Games lighting strike again with another book adaption… This looks terrible… Tusk: If your a fan of the works of Kevin Smith your probably already dying for this one! Human Centipede with a Walrus! If your not familiar with the works of Kevin Smith… Go out and watch Clerks right now!! The Equalizer: Despite some early low reviews, film geeks are all clamming to see this movie! Hopes are high that Denzel Washington can create his own action series. Will it…? Probably not but hope so! October Annabelle: Fans of The Conjuring have been ranting about this too me for months now and i;ll take their word for it! I'm not a horror fan but this should be interesting! Gone Girl: The director of Fight Club, Seven, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo brings us a Ben Affleck film! Theres a lot of hype around this! Should be a good movie! Alexander and the No Good, etc: This looks lame… Automata: Some critics in high places have been mentioning this a lot. I haven't seen much promotional material for it but its supposed to be a decent Sci-Fi movie! We'll see! The Judge: Robert Downey Jr. plays a Judge that must defend his estranged father in court. Sounds good to me! Crimson Peak: Guillermo Del Toro fans have been collectively flipping out about this new horror movie. Del Toro is one of the best directs of horror in Hollywood and has a strong grasp of subtlety and a morbid sense of creativity. Might be something brilliant here! Dracula Untold: This movie reminds me of I, Frankenstein… thats a baaaaaad sign…. Book of Life: Topping the list of my most anticipated movies right now is Book of Life! A Disney movie filtered through the cultural sensibilities of El Tigre with all the racism beaten out of it by Guillermo Del Toro! This movie is visually gorgeous and looks fiercely creative! I'm super excited! BoxTrolls: Have you seen Coraline and ParaNorman? YOU NEED TO SEE CORALINE AND PARANORMAN!! Also see this! A fun, creative stop motion movie by an incredibly talented team! ParaNorman flopped in theaters and BoxTrolls needs to succeed! KingsMan: The Secret Service: Matthew Vaughn's newest pick starts British SS agents in training that have to stop some sort of plot from happening! Vaughn brought us Kick-A** and X-Men: First Class! Both excellent action movies! KingsMan should be interesting! Rifftrax LIVE Anaconda: The last two live shows by Rifftrax have been amazing! The live roasts of Sharknado and Godzilla (98) were absolutely hilarious! Their next roast should be really great! November Big Hero 6: Disney is on a freakin roll!! Frozen, Wreck it Ralph and Tangled were all great animated films that managed to go beyond just being cynically made animated films. They were all genuinely great pieces of film and now they look to be about to make light night strike again! Adapting the barely known Marvel comic series the same way they approach classic fairy tales might be a stroke of genius and seeing it play out with the same energy and style of Wreck it Ralph and Guardians of the Galaxy. This is my most anticipated movie of the fall! Intersteller: Someone once said that if Nolan ever made a forth Batman movie it would have to goto space to be bigger than the Dark Knight Rises. At least part of that was true. In his first movie since the completion of the Dark Knight Trilogy, Nolan presents a high caliper Science Fiction movie about man's last attempt to stave off extinction, looking beyond into the stars for a new home. This movie might be great! Dumb and Dumber Too: sooo… This is a thing…. Theory of Everything: I haven't heard much on this but its an art house romance movie about Steven Hawking. Should be fascinating if nothing else. Fox catcher: Why am I imagining Channing Tatum as Cinderella Man here..? Fury: Brad Pit plays a WWII tank driver, fighting on the front lines with a rookie crew member after the loss of his best soldier. These men must survive the war. Should be fascinating. MockingJay Part 1: I'm not sure how to feel about Hunger Games now that Catching Fire has passed. The first movie was extremely boring but the followup was a vast improvement I rather enjoyed. From here though I don't know where the series is going to go and how well the characters work within the formula of the first two movies is beyond me.. well see.. The Penguins of Madagascar: I generally hate spinoff animated movies. They aren't always bad but they feel terribly cynical and i'd rather they don't exist. Penguins feels like a rather good idea though, simply because there is proof of concept that has me thinking this might be well thought through. The animated cartoon on Nick Penguins of Madagascar has been an intermitedly interesting exercise in cynicism but managed a few really great episodes that I enjoyed as a teenager. It helps of course that the Penguins were the best part of the Madagascar movies. This might be something great! December Paddington: A wacky British bear goes on wacky misadventures! I… don't know how to feel... Exodus: With the rampant success of movies like Son of God and Noah, Biblical epics are becoming popular again in Hollywood. Now Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner) is throwing his hat into the ring with a retelling of the story of Moses. Despite the weird casting and crappy promotional materials, Exodus has a lot of potential and might be one of the year's cinematic highlights! Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies: What is the Hobbit Trilogy? A cynical, forced production? A party to celebrate the Lord of the Rings?  Whatever it is, these movies have been fun if nothing else. Finally the newest run through Middle-Earth will come to a conclusion. Can John Wattson defeat the voice of Khan…? Well clearly, he survives because he is in Fellowship… It'll still be cool though! Annie: I hate Annie… No amount of gimmicks and stunt casting will make me like it… Night at the Museum 3: I actually liked the first movie. It came out when I was young enough to find some enjoyment in it. The second one sucked… Now we have a long awaited by nobody third one which is anybody's guess. At this point the most interesting thing about it is that it is Robin William's last post-mortem performance so that will be fascinating. Into the Woods: This might be quietly brilliant. With Disney currently in the works on producing a full line of live action adaptions like Maleficient and Cinderella, a big production of the famed musical Into the Woods seems.. interesting… I'm not a huge fan to the musical but this might be what it takes for me to really get into it, depending on how they pull it off. The stage production is in my opinion a very disjointed story that only really gets by on its more anachronistic and surprisingly dark comedic moments. Seeing Disney try to pull it off however might be what it takes to elevate the story if they take it somewhere interesting! In any case, the cast is interesting and interested to see it. Unbroken: Angelina Jolie's directorial debut tells the story of an Olympic runner that is drafted to WWII, captured and forced into a prison camp. I don't know how good this is going to be, but at the very least it will be a strange, different sort of movie. The Interview: And to finish off the year, whats likely the thing that will finally spark WW3 with the North Koreans! Seth Rogen and James Franco are spies that infiltrate N. Korea and attempt to kill Kim Jong Un. Given Rogen's incredible recent filmography of This is the End and Neighbors, I think we are in for something special!   This will be an interesting season! Thank you for reading! Live long and prosper!

[zak-animation]

BA1b Narrative Research: The Seven Plot Types and Why We Tell Stories

In this post, I’m exploring the seven types of plot as outlined by writer Christopher Booker, and looking at the psychological reasons why we tell stories in the first place.

Firstly, a little bit of background on Christoper Booker: a British journalist and author, Booker developed The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories over a period of 34 years. In this tome, Booker presents a Jungian-influenced analysis and discussion of stories, and their psychological meaning. He studied stories almost his entire life, and condensed all of these narratives into seven basic plots, of which all stories (apparently) are derived. It’s important to recognise that some stories can have overlapping plot types: what matters is the story follows one of them.

The Seven Plot Types are presented below, along with a well-known example:

1. Overcoming the monster

The protagonist must defeat an antagonistic force which threatens the protagonist and his homeland. Example: Dracula

2. Rags to Riches 

The poor protagonist acquires tings such as power, wealth, and a mate before losing it all and gaining it back upon growing as a person. Example: Cinderella

3. The Quest

The protagonist and some companions set out to acquire an important object or to get a location, facing many obstacles and temptations along the way. This is probably the one we’re most used to, and describes the Hero’s Journey nicely. Example: Lord of the Rings

4. Voyage and Return

The protagonist goes to a strange land (psychologically and physically) and, after overcoming the threats it poses to him, returns with nothing but experience. At first they’re looking for a new adventure, but the new world becomes dangerous and frightening, so they start to long for home again. Example: Alice in Wonderland

5. Comedy

Light and humorous with a happy or cheerful ending; the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion. Aristotle divided plots into two types: comedy and tragedy. Comedy normally centers around regular, average people: and not powerful heroes. These often ended with a wedding whether literal or metaphorical union, and not surprisingly, then, that the majority of romance films fall under this category. 

Example: Four Weddings and a Funeral 

6. Tragedy

The protagonist’s character flaw is ultimately their undoing. The story follows their fall from grace, and ends with the fall of a fundamentally good character.

Example: Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet

7. Rebirth

Illustrations taken from https://www.presentation-guru.com/on-structure-the-hidden-framework-that-hangs-your-story-together/ as a simple way to visualise these concepts. 

An event forces the the protagonist (a villain or otherwise unlikable character) to change their ways and often redeems themselves at the end of the narrative; the villain hangs up his cape becomes the town hero. Example: Megamind

My Thoughts Personally, I think this is an interesting idea. As someone who has a genuine interest in narrative and story, I find it quite exciting to look at a breakdown of story into basic plots, not only for inspiration but as fuel for the fire: reading these classic descriptions of each plot makes me want to challenge the established and predictable; to go against type, cliche and subvert the audience’s expectations of a story. This isn’t true (or necessary) in all cases, but I feel like taking one of these basic plots and subverting the audience’s expectations atleast once in regards to how the story plays out can result in an immensely entertaining and fresh narrative: take Pixar’s Up for example, which flips the boy-hero and wise old mentor dynamic on it’s head.

What is interesting, and what I absolutely do not agree with, however, is Booker’s thoughts on stories and narratives that diverts from these plots. In the book, Booker dismisses these as flawed stories; perverse, even. I feel like a plot that is truly artful, one spoke from the heart or a pure assemblage of surreal parts has a real value in a time of generic block buster movies. The idea that a film is bad because it doesn’t follow a set structure is a ridiculous one.

Resolution vs Revelation The lecture then went on to discuss two separate types of plot structure: resolution and revelation. Defined by Seymour Chatman in 1980, these two types of plot adress plot as a basic narrative question: what will happen? A plot of resolution explores the answer to this question, in which we follow events that take place over the course of the story, often to a main character. This is a classic approach to plot, and one we’re all likely to be familiar with. A more modern and contemporary take would be the latter, the plot of revelation.

In these types of narratives, the question becomes what could happen. Here, there is a focus on character descriptions and setting whilst events, actions and happenings tend to take a lesser role. These are character-orientated, often dialogue-heavy stories in which the focus is on illuminating the characters and setting. Plots of revelation often address a larger thematic question, concept or idea such as adulthood or psychological trauma. Things often stay the same from the beginning and end of the narrative, as we follow a snapshot of a person’s life. As a film fan myself, I enjoy these types of plots on a regular basis: films that put spectacle and action on the backburner in place of a detailed, illuminating and riveting character study.

The Florida Project. (2017). Sean Baker.

A contemporary example of this plot type would be The Florida Project, an effecting and poignant look at childhood. We follow six-year old Moonee and her rebellious mother Hally over the course of a single summer, living in a hotel just outside of Disney World.

Finally, we then moved onto a more introspective and interesting topic of discussion: the reasons why we tell stories. This is something that I’ve touched on before on this blog with the idea of The Dramatic Code, but to put it simply: stories are about more than just entertainment. I’ve discussed how stories exploring a version of The Hero’s Journey inspires us (on a psychological level, atleast) to be better versions of ourselves - but here I’m exploring some other reasons why we tell (and consume) storytelling that moves past just inspiration.

These reasons were established by John Yorke, a British screenwriter who reveals that there is a unifying shape to narrative forms - one that echoes the fairytale journey into the woods, and like true art, comes from deep within the artist. Yorke analyses ancient myths and big budget blockbusters and explores how humanity uses storytelling, both in society and on an individual level. In his book Into the Woods (2014) Yorke suggests six reasons why stories are told.

The Rehersal Reason The human brain is like a muscle, and gains strength by practicing for difficult scenarios, and learning how to avoid them. We can receive life lessons from consuming narrative-based media, and live vicariously through these fictional characters, from the comfort of our own sofas.

The Healing Reason We watch a character heal his flaws, and in the process, we recognise our own. A character is undergoing an experience we have, and that’s appealing; we get a cathartic healing through a fictional character who is going through the same thing.

The Information Retrieval Reason Stories make information easier to remember (by showing us cause and effects). In real life, we like to make people heroes and villains, when the truth is often no so black and white.

The Panacea Reason Stories with happy endings give us hope: even history can be rewritten to suggest a sense of order and justice.

The Procreation Reason A story ends in sexual union, or it’s symbolic manifestation through marriage’ on a basic level these stories encourage the continuation of the species. This applies to fairy tales in particular.

The Psychological Reason Stories separate the disparate parts of our own psyche into external characters: they “play out a process of integration” in helping us to achieve this - overcoming our own shadows, giving up on our shallow ego-driven wants in order to fulfil our needs. Yungen’s idea of wholeness as a person is ideal, and something to work towards.

This last reason, of overcoming our own shadows and maturing into a good person, is what John truly describes in Anatomy of Story, the Dramatic Code. Growth and evolution is integral to a good story, and as Aristotle said over 2000 years ago, ‘all stories are about change’.

This gives credence to Yorke’s belief that stories carry ‘a blueprint for survival’ in their DNA: if all stories are about change, and encouraging it in the reader, this would be true. Humans can only survive by changing and growing, rejecting the old and embracing the new; something that also describes how society advances forward too.

My Thoughts I’ve spoken about the purpose of stories before, but never explored it on an academic level with the reasons established here. Learning about the different plots is always interesting, and reading these set out stories always gives me ideas on how to challenge the conventions and subvert the audience’s expectations: something that I think would result in an engaging storyline. I’ve always considered storytelling to be primarily a form of ‘edutainment’ a way of both educating our audience, but giving them a fun ride in the process. This isn’t true of all narrative media, of course, but if we’re discussing it as a whole - it’s these main reasons - to educate, inspire or entertain - that drive most stories today.

For my essay, I plan to revisit all of these narrative theories and concepts and apply them to my chosen film of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. In this case, I would explore the film’s use of various plots and what the general public received out of watching the film. I feel like the film uses a range of the plots described here, and it is arguable that the film adheres to most of the reasons Yorke describes here, with the notable exception of The Procreation Reason (even though a central character ends up trying to fix his failing marriage, so even that might apply here).

Next, I’m going to discuss experimental animation; the various types and why these can engage (or often confuse) an audience.

[jacobtmcelroy-blog]

Marvel Films Ranked (1998 to 2016)

Comic book films. In my opinion, they are their own genre now. Why is this? Well, look how many are coming out in a year nowadays. A good portion of the summer blockbuster season belongs to the superhero genre alone. Over the past twenty years, there’s been a superfluous amount of Marvel films. Many of them meh, some of them good, and others flat out atrocious. So, I have compiled a list of my personal rankings on the matter. Let’s knock this out.

Also, I will be discussing spoilers at a few points, so beware.

THE ATROCIOUS TIER

43. Man-Thing (2005)

Want to know how bad Man-Thing is? The entire test audience walked out of the theater before the film was even done playing. True story. Because of this, the film was relegated to become a Sci-fi original movie instead of being released in theaters. Yikes. At least one of the film’s stars, Rachael Taylor, would go on to do much greater things in the Jessica Jones Netflix series as Trish Walker.

42. Hulk (2003)

No, that’s not an early development picture of Shrek. Ang Lee’s Hulk has a cult following who love the psychological approach he took to the film. That is cool and their opinion. However, this film harms me psychologically. From the lack of smashing things (It’s a Hulk film!), to the ludicrous plot, to the zombie dog fights, and the part where the Hulk flew on a plane to space, 2003′s Hulk is a boring mess that is not even fun for laughs.

41. Fantastic Four (2015)

What do you get when you combine a group of young, talented actors and a somewhat promising director with a studio that is desperately trying to hold the rights to their non-X-Men Marvel properties? A really, really bad movie is what. Fan4stic, as many call it, is an unorganized train wreck from the production issues down to the person who decided to film every scene in the dark The mid-2000′s films look great compared to this mess.

40. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

This movie did not even need to be a thing honestly. We got enough backstory of Wolverine in X2, and he is the main character in the first three films. Anyways, Origins is a flat out mess. Memory wiping bullets? Special effects worse than the first X-Men? (seriously look how bad his claws look) The Merc with a mouth missing his mouth?! This is just a bad movie. No wonder there were not any other Origins films like originally planned.

39. Blade: Trinity (2014)

Before being booked into a jail cell for tax evasion, Wesley Snipes and his new allies imprison the unlucky viewers of this film into a sentence of 113 minutes of pure boredom. Blade: Trinity is dull, forgettable, and takes away most of the fun the first two films had (even with Dracula as a villain!) It is hard to believe director David S. Goyer, writer of the Dark Knight Trilogy, directed this blood-reduced suckfest.

Still Pretty Bad Tier

38. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

Ghost Rider and the sort of sequel that nobody asked for should be the real title. While Nicolas Cage gives a better, and much loonier performance here, the storytelling and execution really came up short here. Spirit of Vengeance cannot decide what it wants to be. It goes from dark and serious, zany and erratic, to mid-2000′s Nicolas Cage mode at a dizzying and confusing rate. 

37.  Elektra (2005)

In all honesty, Jennifer Garner isn’t a bad Elektra. Not as good as Elodie Yung’s recent version, but Garner does the best she can with the awful script. The film takes itself WAY too seriously and does not have any sort of fun. Some of the plot twists are ludicrous too. The biggest flaw of the film though is the fact it focuses more on some random girl and her dad almost more than Elektra herself.

36. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

The second modern stab at Fantastic Four was unfortunately worse than the first. While I still actually like the casting, (especially Michael Chiklis as The Thing) no one can save the film from the deranged screenwriters who turned Galactus into a giant hungry cloud. The plot and execution also leaves some to be desired. At least it is not as frustrating as the Silver Surfer NES game.

35. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

If we are ranking the worst adaptations of actual comic book story lines, then X3 would probably take the top prize. Brian Singer’s departure from this film for the snorefest better known as Superman Returns tanked both films at the same time. Here, Magneto flat out looked like an idiot after his infinitely stupid plan back-fired. Cyclops died after five minutes of screen time and somehow did as much as he did in the other films. Mystique lost her abilities... for some plot reason. Angel did pretty much nothing after being the focus character in the opening tease. X3 is just a massive disappointment. 

Tier of Mediocrity

34. Ghost Rider (2007)

How do you make a badass anti-hero a lot less cool? Give him the most generic origin story in history. Ghost Rider is honestly not an awful film, it just feels like a tired retread of every other superhero origin story. Oh, but that is not the only problem with the film. Some of the humor is really oddly timed and does not hit a lot. The villain is mostly unmemorable. Sam Elliott is really good when he is on screen, but the most the writers let him do is ride a firey horse in a straight line.

33. Spider-man 3 (2007)

I am actually surprised I ranked this as high as I did. Spider-man 3 is one of my biggest movie disappointments in history. The plot is over-bloated with WAY too many characters (3 villains?!) and subplots, Uncle Ben’s death is downgraded to an accident, and every scene Emo, Cool Peter Parker is in makes my facepalm and cringe at the same time. Yeah, that piano/bar scene is absolutely painful. Venom is absolutely wasted too. If there are so many problems, why is this film not lower? There are good scenes hidden inside this waste dump of a film. The scene in the tower where Peter rips off the symbiote is good. Another is the scene after the Sandman gains his abilities and struggles to pick up the locket. The first fight with Sandman is pretty good too. Overall, Spidey 3 is a disappointing, bloated mess.

32. Fantastic Four (2005)

The Mediocre Four return! The first modern Fantastic Four movie is complicated by a lame plot where the heroes are trying to get rid of their powers rather than use them. Also, the mis-fired plot is not executed very well as the scenes feel like somewhat connected moments patched together into a finished project at times. Although, not all is bad here. While the scenes feel all over the place at times, some of them are pretty fun. I personally like the entire cast, particularly Chris Evans’ Human Torch and Michael Chiklis’ The Thing. 

31. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

This film is so forgettable and mediocre I almost forgot it existed. Not much else to say. Time to move on.

30. Iron Man 3 (2013)

All I really need to ask here, is why whose brilliant idea was it to turn the Mandarin into... whatever on earth he is in the finished product?! Late 2000′s M. Night Shyamalan? Seriously. It is kind of like when they were adapting the Harry Potter movies, if the director decided to turn Voldemort into a comic relief villain with Wormtail as the true villain of the franchise. Ugh. Besides that major error, I guess there is some fun action scenes in the film and Robert Downey Jr. is as good as always.

29. DareDevil (2003)

DareDevil is my favorite Marvel hero, so this film may be higher than a lot of other people put it. The casting of this film is pretty good as I think Ben Afleck’s Matt Murdock actually is pretty good. His DareDevil is decent in comparison.Jennifer Garner’s Elektra lacks some of the edge of the original character,but she’s not bad either. The problems here begin with execution. The scenes, like Fantastic Four, feel patched together and do not flow well at several points making the film feel a bit all over the place. It almost feels like an entire story line is missing. Hmm.....

Hey, These Are Decent Tier

28. X-Men Apocalypse (2016)

Instead of making Magneto looking like a dumbass, 2016′s X-Men film forces that label on Professor X. However, the film’s main problem is that the whole world takeover plot is really forgettable. Mixed in with all of the mediocrity are some good performances and memorable scenes. A couple of these include another ingenious Quicksilver rescue and when Magneto destroys Auschwitz. Otherwise, this X-Men film feels like eating Days of Future Past two week old leftovers.

27. Iron Man 2 (2010)

Iron Man 2: Filler Man. Seriously, Iron Man 2 almost feels like an anime filler episode. At the end of the film, the characters and the plot do not advance at all from where they were at the beginning of the film in the Expanded Universe. Mickey Rourke’s meh Whiplash did not really help much. However, Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and newly added Don Cheadle are all really good here. Additionally, Sam Rockwell gives a really fun performance as Justin Hammer, making him one of the better pseudo-villains of the MCU.

26. The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

First off, The Amazing Spider-man is definitely not a bad film. Actually it is a pretty decent film. The film’s downfall is it feels like a complete retread of the 2002 film, and even the most talented cast cannot save that. I actually laughed last time I heard how hard Uncle Ben tried to rephrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.”. The Lizard is a decent villain, but he’s nowhere near as good as either villain from the first two Raimi films. Basically the TASM is a lower quality version of a movie that already exists. The lone big improvement I can think of is the love story and Garfield’s Spider-man.

25. Thor (2011)

Chris Hemsworth was the perfect cast as Thor, as was Tom Hiddleston as Loki. The scenes in Thor in which the two interacted were a blast to watch. However, everything else was just decent. There were some comical scenes, such as when Thor screams “Another!” and breaks the glass on the floor, but everything else in the real world did not really leave a lasting impact on me. Not a bad film, but not near Marvel’s best effort.

24. Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Some of you reading this are probably shaking your heads in disgust or absolute confusion. How on earth did this commercial and critical failure rank this high on my list? War Zone is probably one of the most entertaining films I have ever seen in the ridiculous, over-the-top action movie genre. Ray Stevenson is a good Punisher. More importantly, Dominic West’s Jigsaw along with Doug Hutchison’s Loony Bin Jim are so over the top and cartoony that they make Colin Farrell’s Bullseye look down to earth. Everything is so overly violent, completely stupid, and laughable in this film that it entertains every time I re-watch it. That is why War Zone ranks this high.

23. The Amazing Spider-man 2 (2014)

Similarly to the last entry, some may question the higher rank of TASM 2 and the fact it is higher ranked than its generally better received predecessor. TASM 2 definitely has a web of problems, but not all is bad. The chemistry of Garfield’s Peter Parker and Emma Stone’s Gwen Stacy is really, really believable and well done. While many others did not, I actually liked  Dane Dehaan’s Harry Osbourne due to his different approach to the character. Despite these positives, tone uneveness (Jamie Foxx’s Electro for instance) and a general lack of direction at times really brings TASM down from the better film it could have been. 

22. Doctor Strange (2016)

Doctor Strange is really uniquet. As one may expect of an actor of his caliber, Bennedict Cumberbatch is a really nice fit as the title character. Also, the soundtrack kicks some major ass. However, the villains of the film are really mediocre and some of the most forgettable in the MCU, which is saying a lot. A good film, but just midpack in a solid library.

21. Blade (1998)

The first of the modern Marvel films still holds up pretty well today. Well, for the most part. As I have stated before in another list, Blade’s opening scene is one of my personable favorites to any film. It is scary, gross, and sets the perfect tone for the rest of the film. Wesley Snipes was a perfect casting choice as Blade, and the rest of the casting was pretty solid as well. However, a mediocre ending, some laughably bad dialogue, and some silly concepts (vampires wearing sunscreen?!) hold Blade back form being as good as its sequel. 

We’re Starting to Get  Pretty Good Films Tier

20. The Punisher (2004)

I feel as if Thomas Jane’s Punisher movie is one of the more underrated gems in Marvel’s cinematic history. Jane had a really nice performance as the title hero as he captures both the vengeful vigilante and tragic hero complex of the comic book character. Many of the action scenes are tight, and the film contains several memorable scenes. (The ripping out piercings scene, for one) However, I feel like the film is almost holding back and playing it safe at points. Solid film, but definitely could have been one step greater.

19. The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Age of Ultron is a film that almost lands with a thud, sort of like the city that fell from the sky. The Avengers sequel is a good film, but feels underwhelming. The great James Spader is never given enough to do as Ultron, the plot is almost too over the top, and it feels underwhelming compared to Cap 2, which came out a year prior. However, the cast chemistry makes the film fun to watch as you can see they are having a great time making it. All of the action scenes are well done as well. Also, giving Hawkeye a personality was nice touch. 

18. Blade 2 (2002)

Blade’s second adventure on the big screen took the impressive fight scenes from the first film and gave it a better story to go along with it. Adding Guilermo Del Toro to the mix helped out the cause too. While the film is far from perfect due to some questionable plot twists, Blade 2 is an enjoyable in a unique way.

17. The Wolverine (2013)

The Wolverine’s story is pretty forgettable, but wow does it have some of the best action set pieces of the X-Men franchise. The setting is super cool, maybe it is because of my Japanese culture bias, but I love the atmosphere and locations in this one. Not much else to say. An entertaining watch even if other X-Men films are better than it. It is a Hell of a lot better than Origins at least. *shudders*

16. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Wow, 2008 was a fantastic year for superhero movies. DC released The Dark Knight and Marvel had Iron Man. The Incredible Hulk got lost in the mix a bit, but the reboot of Bruce Banner’s rage monster was another thoroughly entertaining superhero film. The movie gets a little generic near the end with its giant monster CGI fight, but 2008′s Hulk is a pretty nice picture. This Hulk ALMOST makes me forget about Ang Lee’s atrocity.

15.  X2: X-Men United (2003)

To many fans of the superhero genre, X2′s placement on this list may seem pretty low. Honestly, I have always felt that X2 was a bit overrated. However, that does not mean that X2 is not a great film. The story-telling is mostly tight, the characters’ motivations are realistic for the most part, and it utilizes flashbacks well. (a rare occasion) One of my grievances from the first film still remains in the sequel: Cyclops does absolutely nothing. Oh well, he gets killed in five minutes in the X3 anyway.

Exceptional Film-making Tier

14. DareDevil: Director’s Cut (2004)

Okay, now this could be borderline cheating. However, the director’s cut version of DareDevil is so much better than the theatrical cut that I had to put it on this list. The box for the Director’s Cut says the version adds a “Devilish new subplot”. I think it should just say it adds a plotline that connects everything and makes the film make a lot more sense. Matt doesn’t stay on the rooftop with Elektra, The Kingpin murders an employee of his to show how scary he can be, and the court plot receives nice depth. Coolio is actually pretty good in his role in this cut as well. This version still does not fix the asinine decision of not killing The Kingpin or erase the odd playground fight scene, but give this one a watch if you have not seen it.

13. X-Men: First Class (2011)

First Class stopped the bleeding from the last two awful X-Men films. Most importantly, it brought us Michael Fassbender’s fantastic version of Magneto. (James McAvoy’s solid Prof. X as well) The scene where Magneto forces the coin through his mother’s killer’s head is one of the best in the X-Men franchise, at least in my opinion. While First Class is a solid film, it still feels like a prologue for something to come. Also, it was “outclassed” by its sequel...

12. Ant-man (2015)

This high of a position may surprise people for Ant-man, but Ant-man is just too fun not to enjoy. Paul Rudd was a perfect cast for the title hero possessing the necessary humor and right amount of emotion to carry the role. The rest of the supporting cast of heroes is also really well cast anchored by a sterling performance by Michael Douglas. However, much like many other MCU films, the villain is just pretty meh. Just an evil bald guy with a similar suit to Ant-man.... sound similar to Iron Man at all?

11. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

If one stops and thinks about it, Cap: The First Avengers plot is pretty average and extremely safe plotwise, but the Captain’s likability factor is so high that it carries the movie’s plot through a lot of its,,, shortfalls in originality. The First Avenger takes an old-fashioned film and gives it the perfect pinch of new age style to make it about a perfect blend. Evans’ Steve Rodgers and Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter also have top tier on screen chemistry, which makes the main couple of characters even more likable.

10. X-Men (2000)

With help from 2002′s Spider-man, X-Men was the major catalyst that kicked off the modern superhero era of film. Guess what? X-Men stands up pretty well today. There is good action, fun characterization, and a couple decent twists. Guess what else though? Cyclops does not do anything here either besides be an asshole to Logan. The directors really neglected his character for some reason.

CLASSSICS Tier

9. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

After First Class dragged the X-Men films out of the pits of Hell, Days of Future Past took the franchise even deeper into its past’s glory. Get it? Past? Anyways, much of the stellar cast from the prior film return along with the best members of the original trilogy films.The end result is a film that combined the best of both time periods. Oh, and Quicksilver’s few minutes of screen time were amazing. Not much to knock here.

8. The Avengers (2012)

Thought this would be number one didn’t you? Well, some annoying plot holes and hype caused it to fall a little bit here. Those problems withstanding, The Avengers is terrific film that most comic book enthusiasts hoped for since childhood. All of the heroes finally group up and take on one of the worst baddies of all. In this case, it was Loki, by far the MCU’s best villain. Containing excellent scenes, such as the Hulk tossing Loki around in the room , and clever dialogue, The Avengers is just a pure fun film.

7. Spider-man (2002)

For a long time, this was my favorite film. Period. Nowadays, I still really love the film that kicked off my love for Marvel superheroes. Sam Raimi seems like an odd fit based on his past work looking back now, but it ended up being a solid match. To this day, Spidey is one of the better superhero origins story due to its mix of heart, humor, and fun. The Green Goblin is still one of the better Marvel movie villains. (even though I still do not understand why exactly Gobby hates Spidey so much after the halfway point of the film after accomplishing his original goal...). Even without the webshooters, Spider-man is a top tier Marvel film to this day.

 6. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

After massive lead up and hype of one Marvel’s most famous story lines, Civil War delivered on most fronts. The main flaw was the plot relies on conveniences. While the villain’s plan is cool and different, it would NEVER have worked in retrospect. Besides over-critiquing, Civil War was pretty much all I wanted it to be: a battle royale between two balanced teams. (although Iron Man definitely had a strength advantage...) The airport scene, the Black Panther street chase, and the final fight are all some of the best in the MCU. Good job not letting us down here Marvel.

5. Guardians of Galaxy (2014)

The men and women behind the scenes at the MCU are geniuses. They took an almost unknown property and made it into a cultural phenomenon. GoG was a huge sleeper hit for Marvel and myself, admittedly. I did not really think much of it during the trailer phase, but after seeing the finished product, I was beyond pleased. Guardians of the Galaxy is high octane from beginning to end and is a blast to watch. I am eagerly awaiting to see the continuing adventures of Star Lord and crew this next week.

4. Deadpool (2016)

I dreaded a Deadpool movie being made. I read and read the comics during my high school years and fell in love with the character. After seeing the Ryan Reynold Origins version of the character, I was furious. Why would you sew his mouth shut?! Anyways, I was luckily wrong in my doomsday theories for a Deadpool film. In fact, it is exactly the type of Deadpool film I wanted. It had hilarious jokes and scenes, fourth wall-breaking, ultra-violence, and Ryan Reynolds’ absolutely nailed the character. Not much more I can say that has not been said.  

3. Iron Man (2008)

I feel sorry for this film. It was completely overshadowed by The Dark Knight that came out a month later. What a lot of people forgot was that Iron Man was a fantastic film that broke the chain of mediocrity from Marvel the past few years before. Robert Downey Jr. revived his career even further by playing a character he was born to play. However, I believe the best part of the film was the way it combined realism of the current conflicts in the Middle East to the fantastical technology of Tony Stark. Obadiah Stone was a decent villain, even if he is sort of forgettable now because most MCU villains have been clones of his. Despite that, Iron Man is stellar.

2. Spider-man 2 (2004)

For a long time, up until The Dark Knight’s release to be more specific, Spider-man 2 was the best superhero film of all time. (in my opinion at least) However, one surpassed it in Marvel land a few years back. Spider-man 2 has all you want in a Spider-man movie. A terrific anti-villain, a well-written inner main character conflict where he has to choose between two paths, and a plot that makes sense almost the entire way through. The train scene and the reveal of the lair behind the mirror are still two of my favorite Marvel scenes to this date. Once again, not much more I can say. This movie still rocks.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

A surprising choice to some people I bet to some people, The Winter Soldier is an almost perfect superhero film. Cap’s sequel is a fantastic film in about three genres I can think of, including spy thriller. Kind of reminds of a 60′s Bond film with A LOT better special effects. The plot of the film is modern and well thought up and avoids the common problem of being trendy with current event plot ideas. That is a bigger feat than most films of the kind can say. Besides the modern, appropriate and politically astute plot, the best parts of this film are the fight scenes. In the first Cap, he didn’t get to show off his fighting skills very much. But here, he kicks some major ass. Oh, and Black Widow does too, in what I believe to be her best movie as well. Add in Falcon for a flatout kickass trio. Overall, Cap 2 is fantastic from beginning to end and never lets up. Way to to go Marvel.

[nancygduarteus]

Why People Faint at the Theater

Consciousness is the foundation of the human experience. Lose it even temporarily, however, and it becomes clear how delicate the whole structure is.

This has become clear to certain audience members at the current Broadway production of 1984, which is running until October 8. There have been reports of viewers fainting, vomiting, fighting, and experiencing seizures due to the play’s vivid torture scenes (including electrocution) and confrontational attitude toward the audience (including actors shouting at viewers about their complicity).

Codirector Robert Icke is used to this by now. Before transferring to New York, the production ran for several years in London. Particularly in its first year, he told me, the first-aid charity “St. John Ambulance used to park outside the matinees in advance.” While the New York theater warns attendees of the play’s “graphic depictions of violence and torture,” Icke contends that the play isn’t actually all that explicit. He argues that theatergoers are fainting because of what’s implied. “It isn’t so much staging—we show hardly any violence at all in 1984—it’s about leading the audience to create the unthinkable images in their own imaginations. That way, the images are personal and therefore far more distressing than anything we could depict.”

Whether these faints are provoked by what’s on stage or what’s happening in viewers’ minds, it’s an emotional distress that is prompting audience members to pass out. Physically, they’re probably perfectly safe. So what’s causing them to faint?

Broadly speaking, there are three main types of faints: ones stemming from serious heart problems (cardiac syncope), ones where blood pressure dips due to standing up (orthostatic syncope), and ones caused by specific triggers (reflex syncope). While plenty of animals faint—miniature schnauzers are prone to irregular heartbeats, for instance, and squirrel monkeys can have low blood sugar—reflex faints appear to be unique to humans.

Reflex faints are activated by the nervous system, which slows down the heart rate and/or lowers the blood pressure in response to strain, leading to reduced blood flow to the brain. Triggers for this can be surprisingly benign. For some people, laughing, coughing, swallowing, urinating, or blowing a trumpet can lead to syncope. Win-Kuang Shen, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and coauthor of the recently published clinical guidelines for assessing and treating syncope, explained that the nervous system doesn’t distinguish between physical and emotional distress; they’re both stress inputs, leading to the same response.

The most common reflex faints are known as vasovagal faints. Generally, when people describe ordinary fainting, they’re referring to vasovagal syncope. “One-third of the population has vasovagal faints,” said J. Gert van Dijk, a neurologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The name derives from “vaso” (blood vessels) and the vagus nerve, which extends from the brain to the abdomen, spreading fibers to major organs like the heart and lungs. The vagus nerve is responsible for regulating heart rate, sweating, and other essential functions. Triggers like the ones mentioned above lead to confusion in the mechanism for controlling heart rate and blood pressure. Vasovagal faints are essentially a protective mechanism.

Let’s take an example. You’re watching a scary movie or a play about ghosts. During the tense bits, adrenaline is released into your bloodstream. This leads your heart to beat faster and the blood flow to your muscles to increase. Essentially, the nervous system is bolstering your energy and preparing you to fight, as it doesn’t make the fine distinction that what’s on screen or on stage can’t actually hurt you. The parasympathetic nervous system, of which the vagus nerve forms part, seeks to calm you down by lowering your blood pressure and heart rate. Sometimes, though, it overshoots, and your blood pressure might drop too much or your heart rate might slow too far.

Emotional faints are the most common kind of faints overall. These can be activated by fear, excitement, or anxiety, such as one might experience at an intense play like 1984. As van Dijk commented, “It looks horrible and it grabs you emotionally. And if you have the type of vasovagal faint which is prone to emotional triggers such as seeing blood or pain, that can certainly evoke fainting in susceptible people.”

Shen confirmed that just thinking about something distressing can be enough to cause fainting. The sight of blood is one reported by many people, but clinicians have also reported faints provoked by hearing bad news, encountering needles, or seeing gore.

This gore doesn’t even have to be real to create a swoony feeling. The long list of movies that have been reported to make viewers faint includes not just contemporary horror films like Hostel and Raw, or dramas with intensely gory scenes like 127 Hours’ infamous arm-sawing. In 1928, a nurse at a San Francisco movie theater reported that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, which would be tame to modern audiences, caused about 14 viewers to faint each evening.

In the theater world, as well, every so often a new production will give rise to faints. While theater directors may not have access to all the cinematic trickery of, say, horror-film crews, they have one very valuable tool: The scenes are happening live, in real time. “Live performances would be more of a trigger” than recorded ones, said David G. Benditt, a University of Minnesota cardiologist. “The differences between live events and filmed events may be the realism aspect ... Live events look more real.”

The current version of 1984 is the most recent example of fainting-related notoriety, but there have been plenty of others. There was a notoriously bloody staging of Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in 2014. The show counted among its victims a theater critic from The Independent, who called the production both “exceptional” and “unwatchable”—unwatchable, presumably, because she was unconscious for part of it.

A commonality in these cases is in the quality of the acting. Many of the firsthand accounts from the fainting viewers call attention to the intensity of a performance, even when the violence is implied, as in Alan Ayckbourn’s Haunting Julia (staged in 2011), rather than overt.

Accounts of swooning at the theater are nothing new, though. The 1782 premiere of Friedrich Schiller’s Die Räuber, a dissection of evil played out between two brothers, took place in Mannheim, Germany. The naturalistic response by one actor, on receiving news of a character’s death, so shocked the audience that “fainting women had to be helped toward the exits.” More than 200 years later, and audiences are still passing out at the sight of actors on stage.

Of course, this sort of thing is good for publicity. Audience members and critics often feel a morbid curiosity about a piece of entertainment so apparently shocking that it causes people to pass out, and savvy directors and PR staff have played up these reputations to increase buzz.

“Most fainting in the theater is true syncope due to emotional distress triggered by the show,” Shen said. However, some incidents may not be genuine faints. Even medical professionals and the fainters themselves can find it hard to tell the difference. Without blood-pressure and heart-rate monitors, Shen noted, it would be very difficult to distinguish between psychogenic pseudosyncope (PPS)—where there’s no actual loss of consciousness—and the real deal.

In PPS, psychological issues are manifested physically, in symptoms that mimic fainting. As van Dijk explained, “These attacks are usually the result of unresolved psychological trauma, which can be fairly severe.” For instance, Benditt noted, “physical/sexual abuse is reported in about one-third” of patients with PPS.

This means not that some audience members are faking it, but that emotional distress can lead to either a true faint, which can be medically explained, or PPS, which can’t. Researchers aren’t entirely sure what’s happening in the body during the latter. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening in the body. Benditt said of PPS sufferers he’s encountered, “they are often immune to painful stimuli during the event.”

There are other clues about whether a collapse is a true faint or PPS. There would be catastrophic cerebral harm after several minutes without blood going to the brain, so a person who lies prostrate for 20 minutes or so, without any permanent damage, hasn’t genuinely fainted. But there are also some “very minor indications” that a faint isn’t genuine, neurologist van Dijk mentioned. In actual loss of consciousness, “the eyes are almost always open,” while in apparent loss of consciousness, it’s common to report eyes closed or eyelids flickering, swallowing, and odd postures.

However, he stressed the importance of not stigmatizing fainters and pseudo-fainters, regardless of the cause. Both types can be concerning, in addition to being difficult to distinguish. And “most people who are prone to fainting due to standing ... are also prone to fainting due to fear. It doesn’t mean that they’re psychologically less able to handle stress [or] particularly more frightened than someone else.” So if you swoon at the theater, it may not be a true loss of consciousness. And even if it is, it’s not an indication of weakness.

Shen emphasized, “Reflex syncope is almost always benign. And patients who are prone to reflex syncope shouldn’t be too anxious. Once you’re anxious, it may facilitate more of these spells.” People can “take very simple precautionary steps” like drinking plenty of water, avoiding triggers, and staying seated. But overall, being faint of heart in these situations tends to be, well, only faintly concerning.

from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/09/for-the-faint-of-heart/540984/?utm_source=feed

[ionecoffman]

Why People Faint at the Theater

Consciousness is the foundation of the human experience. Lose it even temporarily, however, and it becomes clear how delicate the whole structure is.

This has become clear to certain audience members at the current Broadway production of 1984, which is running until October 8. There have been reports of viewers fainting, vomiting, fighting, and experiencing seizures due to the play’s vivid torture scenes (including electrocution) and confrontational attitude toward the audience (including actors shouting at viewers about their complicity).

Codirector Robert Icke is used to this by now. Before transferring to New York, the production ran for several years in London. Particularly in its first year, he told me, the first-aid charity “St. John Ambulance used to park outside the matinees in advance.” While the New York theater warns attendees of the play’s “graphic depictions of violence and torture,” Icke contends that the play isn’t actually all that explicit. He argues that theatergoers are fainting because of what’s implied. “It isn’t so much staging—we show hardly any violence at all in 1984—it’s about leading the audience to create the unthinkable images in their own imaginations. That way, the images are personal and therefore far more distressing than anything we could depict.”

Whether these faints are provoked by what’s on stage or what’s happening in viewers’ minds, it’s an emotional distress that is prompting audience members to pass out. Physically, they’re probably perfectly safe. So what’s causing them to faint?

Broadly speaking, there are three main types of faints: ones stemming from serious heart problems (cardiac syncope), ones where blood pressure dips due to standing up (orthostatic syncope), and ones caused by specific triggers (reflex syncope). While plenty of animals faint—miniature schnauzers are prone to irregular heartbeats, for instance, and squirrel monkeys can have low blood sugar—reflex faints appear to be unique to humans.

Reflex faints are activated by the nervous system, which slows down the heart rate and/or lowers the blood pressure in response to strain, leading to reduced blood flow to the brain. Triggers for this can be surprisingly benign. For some people, laughing, coughing, swallowing, urinating, or blowing a trumpet can lead to syncope. Win-Kuang Shen, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and coauthor of the recently published clinical guidelines for assessing and treating syncope, explained that the nervous system doesn’t distinguish between physical and emotional distress; they’re both stress inputs, leading to the same response.

The most common reflex faints are known as vasovagal faints. Generally, when people describe ordinary fainting, they’re referring to vasovagal syncope. “One-third of the population has vasovagal faints,” said J. Gert van Dijk, a neurologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

The name derives from “vaso” (blood vessels) and the vagus nerve, which extends from the brain to the abdomen, spreading fibers to major organs like the heart and lungs. The vagus nerve is responsible for regulating heart rate, sweating, and other essential functions. Triggers like the ones mentioned above lead to confusion in the mechanism for controlling heart rate and blood pressure. Vasovagal faints are essentially a protective mechanism.

Let’s take an example. You’re watching a scary movie or a play about ghosts. During the tense bits, adrenaline is released into your bloodstream. This leads your heart to beat faster and the blood flow to your muscles to increase. Essentially, the nervous system is bolstering your energy and preparing you to fight, as it doesn’t make the fine distinction that what’s on screen or on stage can’t actually hurt you. The parasympathetic nervous system, of which the vagus nerve forms part, seeks to calm you down by lowering your blood pressure and heart rate. Sometimes, though, it overshoots, and your blood pressure might drop too much or your heart rate might slow too far.

Emotional faints are the most common kind of faints overall. These can be activated by fear, excitement, or anxiety, such as one might experience at an intense play like 1984. As van Dijk commented, “It looks horrible and it grabs you emotionally. And if you have the type of vasovagal faint which is prone to emotional triggers such as seeing blood or pain, that can certainly evoke fainting in susceptible people.”

Shen confirmed that just thinking about something distressing can be enough to cause fainting. The sight of blood is one reported by many people, but clinicians have also reported faints provoked by hearing bad news, encountering needles, or seeing gore.

This gore doesn’t even have to be real to create a swoony feeling. The long list of movies that have been reported to make viewers faint includes not just contemporary horror films like Hostel and Raw, or dramas with intensely gory scenes like 127 Hours’ infamous arm-sawing. In 1928, a nurse at a San Francisco movie theater reported that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, which would be tame to modern audiences, caused about 14 viewers to faint each evening.

In the theater world, as well, every so often a new production will give rise to faints. While theater directors may not have access to all the cinematic trickery of, say, horror-film crews, they have one very valuable tool: The scenes are happening live, in real time. “Live performances would be more of a trigger” than recorded ones, said David G. Benditt, a University of Minnesota cardiologist. “The differences between live events and filmed events may be the realism aspect ... Live events look more real.”

The current version of 1984 is the most recent example of fainting-related notoriety, but there have been plenty of others. There was a notoriously bloody staging of Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in 2014. The show counted among its victims a theater critic from The Independent, who called the production both “exceptional” and “unwatchable”—unwatchable, presumably, because she was unconscious for part of it.

A commonality in these cases is in the quality of the acting. Many of the firsthand accounts from the fainting viewers call attention to the intensity of a performance, even when the violence is implied, as in Alan Ayckbourn’s Haunting Julia (staged in 2011), rather than overt.

Accounts of swooning at the theater are nothing new, though. The 1782 premiere of Friedrich Schiller’s Die Räuber, a dissection of evil played out between two brothers, took place in Mannheim, Germany. The naturalistic response by one actor, on receiving news of a character’s death, so shocked the audience that “fainting women had to be helped toward the exits.” More than 200 years later, and audiences are still passing out at the sight of actors on stage.

Of course, this sort of thing is good for publicity. Audience members and critics often feel a morbid curiosity about a piece of entertainment so apparently shocking that it causes people to pass out, and savvy directors and PR staff have played up these reputations to increase buzz.

“Most fainting in the theater is true syncope due to emotional distress triggered by the show,” Shen said. However, some incidents may not be genuine faints. Even medical professionals and the fainters themselves can find it hard to tell the difference. Without blood-pressure and heart-rate monitors, Shen noted, it would be very difficult to distinguish between psychogenic pseudosyncope (PPS)—where there’s no actual loss of consciousness—and the real deal.

In PPS, psychological issues are manifested physically, in symptoms that mimic fainting. As van Dijk explained, “These attacks are usually the result of unresolved psychological trauma, which can be fairly severe.” For instance, Benditt noted, “physical/sexual abuse is reported in about one-third” of patients with PPS.

This means not that some audience members are faking it, but that emotional distress can lead to either a true faint, which can be medically explained, or PPS, which can’t. Researchers aren’t entirely sure what’s happening in the body during the latter. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening in the body. Benditt said of PPS sufferers he’s encountered, “they are often immune to painful stimuli during the event.”

There are other clues about whether a collapse is a true faint or PPS. There would be catastrophic cerebral harm after several minutes without blood going to the brain, so a person who lies prostrate for 20 minutes or so, without any permanent damage, hasn’t genuinely fainted. But there are also some “very minor indications” that a faint isn’t genuine, neurologist van Dijk mentioned. In actual loss of consciousness, “the eyes are almost always open,” while in apparent loss of consciousness, it’s common to report eyes closed or eyelids flickering, swallowing, and odd postures.

However, he stressed the importance of not stigmatizing fainters and pseudo-fainters, regardless of the cause. Both types can be concerning, in addition to being difficult to distinguish. And “most people who are prone to fainting due to standing ... are also prone to fainting due to fear. It doesn’t mean that they’re psychologically less able to handle stress [or] particularly more frightened than someone else.” So if you swoon at the theater, it may not be a true loss of consciousness. And even if it is, it’s not an indication of weakness.

Shen emphasized, “Reflex syncope is almost always benign. And patients who are prone to reflex syncope shouldn’t be too anxious. Once you’re anxious, it may facilitate more of these spells.” People can “take very simple precautionary steps” like drinking plenty of water, avoiding triggers, and staying seated. But overall, being faint of heart in these situations tends to be, well, only faintly concerning.

Article source here:The Atlantic

[erindatesla]

The Great Pretender

March 27, 2014

After living in Los Angeles for more than a year, I finally dated an actor. His best role yet was acting like he didn't have girlfriend.

Shake Rattle and Roll: How We Met

I was dancing the night away to some Golden Oldies at Harvard & Stone when he and his pretty boy face glided into my world. I wasn’t sold on him immediately. There were a lot of cute boys around, plus dancing with one guy versus a group of friends can be a a drag. I just wanted to do the twist, ya know? However, he continued to stand out among the crowd and his dancing was unrivaled.

Eventually, ignoring him was no longer an option and we danced until they turned the music off and lights on and then danced some more when they played just one more song after closing. At the end of the night he pulled me close during a slow song and my face dodged his. He said, "don't worry, I know we just met” and unable to stop myself I said "but it feels like I've known you forever."

We sat at the edge of the stage ignoring the bouncers that were urging everyone to leave and had our first conversation. “So I should probably get your number,” he said. I obliged and we said goodbye six times before we really said goodbye, and even then we met again out front and made small talk while I waited for my ride. He asked when he could see me again, interrupting himself to walk over to my friends sitting on the ground a few feet away. “May I see your friend Erin again?” I melted. On my Lyft home I got a text from him, apologizing to my friends for being "that guy" they had to put up with, and this:

Then He Kissed Me: The First Date

After some debate about scheduling we decided on Monday, which was Saint Patrick’s Day, with the understanding that I’d leave immediately if he didn't show up wearing green. He picked Molly Malone's as our meeting spot because I'm "pretty fucking Irish" and he used to be in an Irish folk/punk band. He showed up late but wearing green and bought us a round of drinks. Conversation flowed naturally from the get-go, as did the Jameson and Guinness, and I noticed he had a sweet but subtle southern drawl.

We migrated toward the live music and he was super into the band, but we still managed to talk a lot. He knew an impressive amount about Irish culture. We traded tales about our visits to Ireland before transitioning to the “get-to-know-ya” part of the night. Then, I learned that he writes and records music for an artist I'd actually heard of, but his real passion is acting. However, he doesn't like to talk about it because 'everyone's an actor in this town.'

After a long night of music and chatting he offered me a ride home since I’d taken an Uber, and when I got in his car he grabbed my face and kissed me.

When we got to my building he parked and invited himself up to meet Dracula, who he was determined to befriend. Within minutes Dracula had drawn blood, so we moved somewhere more comfortable to kiss a bit more. A perfect gentleman, on his way out he asked if he could take me dancing again on Friday. I told him I was busy but could go the following Friday and he asked if he’d have to wait that long see me again. We settled on Thursday for our second date.

You Really Got a Hold On Me: The Second Date

Cautiously optimistic, I wondered if he'd flake because it was too good to be true. The Wednesday before our supposed Thursday date I asked if we were still on and he said "I think I can make that happen. So THERE." I suggested we make pizza at my place and that was that.

Still sure he was going to flake on me because of geographical (LA) and generational (twentysomething) trends coupled with personal experience, I was both flabbergasted and thrilled when he texted me Thursday, unprovoked, to confirm that he'd be over at 8.

And then he actually showed up. We talked while the pizza dough rose, catching up on our day and week. He helped me punch down the dough and form it into a ball before I pressed it into that perfect circle and topped it with my homemade sauce and some fresh mozzarella. We listened to records, mostly Elvis, while the pizza baked, which took forever since the sauce weighed down the delicate dough (something I need to perfect).

While we ate he asked me 20 questions about my love for and experience with pizza, a topic I love to discuss. We migrated back to the living room where he casually investigated the photos I have around the room and my craft space, which was a mess. Full of pizza we continued listening to records, this time a Rilo Kiley album he hadn’t heard. He leaned in and casually asked, “are we gonna make out or what?” He thanked me for dinner, darlin', and asked when he could see me again.  We agreed on Sunday and when he asked what I wanted to do I told him “see you.” He suggested the flea market and I wondered if this was real life. Really, a GUY invited ME to the flea market?? This is what dreams are made of.

Why Do Fools Fall in [Unrequited] Love?

Saturday night I texted him to confirm plans but I didn't hear back. I had that bad feeling. You know in old movies when the teenage girl sits by her phone, waiting for her crush to call? Her mom and friends are like, don’t sit around waiting for him, get a life! Well, that was me, except I was mobile because it’s 2014. Cursing every person that contacted me who wasn't him, I stared at the screen wondering what technological error could have occurred that misplaced his text in transit. Eventually on Sunday I texted him again and by lunchtime I made other plans.

Familiar with the crushing feeling of an unrequited text, I decided to turn my day around with some new shoes and a date with my dad. As I pulled on to my favorite street in Long Beach around 2:30 pm, I got his unapologetic reply: “Hey. Just woke up. Late night. I don’t think this afternoon will work.”

Suspicious Minds: I think you have a girlfriend

This sudden "change of heart" (read: disinterest) had me wondering, and social media lent itself generously to my cause. Although we’re not connected on any channels, he’s also not private – a foolish move on his part.

Upon finding him on Facebook it was obvious there was a girl in his life but also easy to assume it was his recent ex-girlfriend since she was in Atlanta and he's here in LA. When I didn't hear from him Sunday morning, I checked his Facebook out of morbid curiosity, only to discover that he’d tagged who I thought was his ex in a post at 4 am.

When he officially cancelled Sunday afternoon, I got suspicious. With just a handful of scrolls and a few clicks I found that his “ex” had two Facebook pages: one for her professional life as a cocktail waitress and one for her real life, which lists her in a relationship.

For closure one-way or the other, I text him Tuesday to see if he wanted to reschedule. No reply.

Between his girls' in a relationship status on Facebook and several other social media confirmations, I'm now 100% sure he has a long distance girlfriend who happens to be in town this weekend.

Hound Dog: Now what?

There's the moral dilemma: do you tell the girl? send her an anonymous message?

Then there's the vindictive side of things: do I hope he's at the bar this Friday and slap him silly? do I text him incessantly knowing that his girlfriend is in town this weekend, blow up his phone so she has to ask who the hell is texting him so much?

I could play dumb: text him, "hey, you kinda left me hangin Sunday..." (a reference to when he first texted me, smoooooth) part of me wonders if he'd come around when his girlfriend left town and try to pull of a girlfriend in each state.

ACTUALLY, CALLING HIM A "HOUND DOG" IS AN INSULT TO THIS PRECIOUS HOUND DOG.

There's massive social media shit storm potential: I could seriously be a private investigator for a living with the (sick) skills I have. The potential damage I could do is astounding. (I won't because like, ethics and dignity.)

Then, there's nothing. I could just do nothing and continue to feel like I'm in a daze, numb from shock that I was unintentionally the other woman.

What would you do?