#so i added the other stuffs. got a little carreied away

[tropospherecircus]

Can you draw maxilla and ranvier eptg Best Friends and play among us together

MR. MAXILLA: Oh, hellooooo, Ranvier~! Care to join me in fixing these darned lights?

RANVIER: YEAG

MR. MAXILLA: Well, there's a space right next to me! Come help m-

He pauses, a distraught expression on his face. An unsavory squelch can be heard from his device. Ranvier is trying and failing to smother her giddy grin.

MR. MAXILLA: ...Did you just kill me?!

RANVIER: YEEEEEUPPPPP

MR. MAXILLA: My goodness. And- oh my-

A siren noise blasts. Ranvier is trying to keep his giggles quiet.

MR. MAXILLA: You reported my body too?! My god, you're ruthless.

Ranvier's attempts at staying quiet fail, and it bursts out laughing. A smile spreads across Maxilla's face as well. He giggles softly.

RANVIER: ITS ALL APART OF THE GAME MISTIE MAXIE CMON THIS IS LIKE EASIEST TRICK IN THE BOOK

MR. MAXILLA: The book of Among Us?

RANVIER: THE BOOK OF AMONG US

MR. MAXILLA: Well then, I guess I've never read it.

RANVIER: YOU SHOULD ITS ACTUALLY PRETTY REALLY GOOD

RANVIER: ONE OF THE GREATEST PIECES OF LITERATURE OF OUR TIME ID SAY

RANVIER: THE AMONG US BOOK

MR. MAXILLA: Sounds like a great read. Any ideas as to where I can find it? I'm very intrigued now...

RANVIER: ILL LET YOU BORROW MY COPY ONCE IM DONE

MR. MAXILLA: Sounds like a deal~!

Ranvier beams toothily, before hurriedly returning to its game. Maxilla smiles back.

[red-sector-rivendell]

media reccs? 👀 since apparently you are a man of good taste?

Wow thank you 😏 I have a masterlist of movies that have changed me I often recommend to people, I'll just copy and paste here with quick synopses lol, it's kinda long. I'm not super great at writing synopses tho so bear with me

Dead Poets Society (1989)

One of my favorite movies of all time and a total classic. It's about a group of boys at a strict boarding school who are inspired by their new English teacher (played by Robin Williams) to think for themselves and chase their dreams. This movie literally changed my life lol

Quadrophenia (1979)

This movie is based off of the story behind the concept album by The Who of the same name. It follow the life of a young man named Jimmy who is in a gang called the Mods. Theres this huge gang war between them and the Rockers (I think that's their name, it's been a while since i watched it) and Jimmy questions his beliefs about coming-of-age and his values in life throughout the film

Cabaret (1972)

Based off of the Broadway musical of the same name, this movie is about a British man who moves to Germany during the beginning of the rise of Nazis. He meets a woman who basically turns his world upside down, and it follows their love affair and sexuality and anti-semitism, and it's hilarious and heart wrenching and a beautiful movie

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This is a super trippy romance film. Basically in the universe of this movie, theres a technology that is developed that can delete memories of an entire person from your mind while you are in a dream-like state, and the main character of this movie (played by Jim Carrey) decides to undergo the procedure after a bad breakup. Its soooo good I highly recommend this movie

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

This is an animated film about a man named Bill who is going through brain cancer. Its told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator essentially communicating everything Bill sees, hears, and experiences. This is the movie that got me into film and it is still a complete masterpiece and one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen

The Dirties (2013)

Loved this one a lot back in high school, it's been a while since I watched it. This is a film made in Canada about a high schooler named Matt Johnson and his friend Owen who decide to make a short film for their class about them killing the gang at their school that bullies them, and things take a dark turn. It's a hilarious movie and hits pretty close to home for me in a lot of ways haha

Logan's Run (1976)

Great movie, pretty cheesy though so be warned. This is based off a book with the same name, and it takes place in the future where most of humanity is wiped out except for a small society that lives under a domed structure. No one is allowed to leave the dome, and to control overpopulation, no one is allowed to live past the age of 30. It's really bizarre but I love this movie

Donnie Darko (2001)

Pretty sure this was Jake Gyllenhaal's first big hit when he was super young (I think he was like 19 in this movie but I'm not sure) basically about this kid, Donnie Darko, who is somewhat schizophrenic and has a habit of sleepwalking. After one particular incident he has a near-death experience and starts seeing a man in a bunny costume everywhere who makes him do weird stuff. Another pretty trippy movie with a crazy ending

American Psycho (2000)

Honestly I'm sure a few on this list you've probably seen (most likely this one included) but I didnt wanna leave any out because they're all so good. If you haven't seen this, it's about a Wall Street executive named Patrick Bateman who is a materialistic phony by day and a serial killer by night. I tried to read the book but the inner dialogue was really hard to get through lmao. Awesome movie though huge recommend.

Clockwork Orange (1971)

Yet another trippy one. And fuck it's been a long time since I've seen it so I might get some stuff wrong here. But it's basically about this serial rapist guy who hangs out with this group of goons and they all like to go beat up homeless people and shit, but the main character gets captured and has to go through reformation therapy to make him a better person. It's an extremely bizarre movie but soooo good and kind of hilarious lol

Creep (2014)

Of course this is on my list haha. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a horror movie about this freelance film guy who answers an ad on craigslist to help a man with cancer film a movie for his unborn son. And shit gets weird real fast. One of my favorite horror movies ever, I wouldnt say it's super scary but it's fun as fuck

Hereditary (2018)

If I'm being honest, I don't like a lot of big movies made in super recent years and especially not horror movies (mostly because they're all cheap cash grabs with no substance) but this one is an exception for me. Hereditary is fucking masterful in my opinion, legitimately creepy as hell and well-produced and well written. To put the plot as vaguely as possible without spoiling anything, it's about a family (mostly the mother) who go through some crazy fucked up shit. That's literally all I can say without giving anything away. Super good flick, big recommend

Gattaca (1997)

This list isn't in any particular order, and I love all these movies to death, but if I had to rank them this would probably be on the lower end. It's not a bad movie, it's still great but it's just not as life-changing as the other ones lmao. This takes place in the future where genetic modifications have progressed to a point where you can modify your unborn child's DNA to have the perfect baby. This has led to, essentially racial bias against those who never had that procedure when they were born. The main character was not one of these "special" children, but he wants an extremely prestigious job which requires that of the employee. Through the film, he is trying to fake his identity and fool the company into thinking he is one of these perfect people. Still a great film

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Johnny Depp, man, he is something else. I LOVE this movie. Based off a true story and a book written by the man who lived it, Hunter S. Thompson, this follows the adventure of the writer and his attorney as they go on a drugged-out, psychedelic romp through Las Vegas with the original intention being to cover a story on a motorcycle race, but things go off the rails as they both terrorize the entire city in a way. Just a fun ride the whole way, a great movie

The Truman Show (1998)

God I'm realizing this list is long as fuck. Don't watch all of these movies, it might take you a lifetime lmao. Anyway, this is a classic Jim Carrey movie and another one you've probably seen. But again, if you haven't, this movie is about a man whose entire life has been fabricated and shot for television without him knowing. Super great, super moving, fantastic film 10 outta 10 I gotta wrap this shit up

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

A lesser known Keanu Reeves movie, but fuck I wish more people have seen this. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it's based off a book which is just as amazing. This movie takes place in the near future, where facial recognition technology has progressed wayyy too far, and drugs have gotten to the point of no return. The plot follows a detective who is undercover in a junkie house trying to figure out who is the top of the drug dealing totem pole, but ends up wrapped in the junkie lifestyle a little too deeply. Seriously, I recommend this movie to everyone who asks, it's so damn good

Fight Club (1999)

Another popular one. If you havent seen it, it's based off a book by Chuck Palahniuk following the story of a man (the main character actually doesnt have a name lol) who meets a guy named Tyler Durden who changes his entire perspective on how the world works. They start an underground boxing club together to help themselves and other men blow off steam and get away from the capitalist consumer-centric lifestyle they are forced into. Big twist at the end, great movie five stars on yelp

Harold and Maude (1971)

This is a weird one. Gotta say. It's about a guy in his 20s who meets an old woman at a funeral and falls in love with her. Sounds pretty ok at face value but theres a lot of really strange subplots and a huuuuge twist at the end (one of the subplots being the guy compulsively fakes his suicide to get his mother's attention) big recommend

Polyester (1981)

This one I cant even explain u just have to watch it its fucking bizarre

Fargo (1996)

Ok lightning round on the synopses, this movie is about a man who wants to commit fraud by hiring guys to kidnap his wife so her father can pay them ransom and instead the husband gets the money but everything goes wrong it's really good

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Another modern movie I actually like, last time I watched this I was on shrooms and it was crazy but it's about this hotel right on the border of california and (Nevada I think?) And all these weird people are staying at it and there are twists at every turn and chris hemsworth is a cult leader in it its great

Memento (2000)

GREAT MOVIE GOD PLEASE WATCH THIS ONE it's about a man who develops short term memory loss after witnessing the rape and murder of his wife AND WHEN I SAY THERE ARE TWISTS LIKE EVERY TEN MINUTES I MEAN IT. The film is chronologically backwards, in that the first scene takes place at the end of the story and works back from there in increments of like 5 minutes. Basically each scene is a segment of time that this guy remembers before his memory loss kicks in and he forgets and FUCK it's so good please god watch it

Almost Famous (2000)

This is another one that would probably be low on my ranking but still a great and fun movie, it's about this kid that wants to write articles about rock stars for the rolling stone (based off a true story btw) and he ends up running away to go ride on a tour bus with some band and gets into all types of shenanigans and its great and sad

Parasite (2019)

Another modern movie I love, fuck this is getting too long lmao. Poor family wants to make money and they hatch a scheme to pretend to be bougie and work for this rich family but shit gets weird and everything goes wrong and it's so good (also literally the only film ever that made me speechless afterwards)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pretty much lives up to the hype, I totally forgot the plot but it's pretty damn good I remember that lmao

The Warriors (1979)

Fun movie, theres a bunch of teen gangs in New York and the leader of all of em is like "hey we should rally all the gangs together and fuck up the cops so we can rule this city" but then he gets shot by someone in the crowd and the gang The Warriors gets blamed so the whole movie is them running from all the other gangs so they can get back to home base and it's just an all around fun time movie

12 Monkeys (1995)

THIS MOVJE IS CRAZY it takes place in the future where a virus has almost completely wiped humans off the face of the earth so these scientists send this guy back in time to figure out where it came from so they can stop it from ever happening but obviously everything goes wrong and yadda yadda yadda it's amazing

Waking Life (2001)

Gonna preface this by saying this film is definitely not for entertainment, it's kind of an arthouse-type flick. It's the type of movie you have to think really really hard about to watch. The basic plot is the main character is stuck inside his own lucid dream, and is walking around listening to all these characters in his dream talk to him about, idk like the meaning of life and consciousness and shit. It's really good if you're in the mood for that type of thing.

Okay I'm finally done, you probably didnt expect this but I've been meaning to put my movie recommendations on this blog anyway haha. I deleted some just cause it was getting wayyyy too long. If u want a shorter list I can just give u like a top 5 in DMs but there u go have at it, every movie on that list is a banger I swear

[amnachil]

The College Society Chapter 3 Part 13

The last part of the Chapter ! Some important informations about Liam’s past here. There is also some big revelation for the main plot :)

Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey Tuesday March 5, in France

It was some sort of joke. Yeah, someone was messing around with him. Why on earth was he doing the shrink for the baboon and his friend all day, all time ? I have others things to do. Like having sex, sex and sex again. After the fatty roommate who fell into the water and the midget who made a little break-down, it was Liam's turn to be depressed. What with this mood ? They can't be happy and healthy like everyone else ? His boyfriend was a real ghost. Not only he was avoiding the Dean's grandson, but he also looked completely elsewhere. I'm not being ignored by him. No way, I'll not tolerate this. My humiliation has gone too far already. Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey was seriously pissed when he entered his boyfriend's bedroom. He looked at Nate, Nick and Colton angrily.

"You three. Out, now."

He truly didn't care if the Good Samaritan guessed their relationship. He probably already did. They obeyed quietly, and he faced Liam.

"Baboon. I'm pissed. I'm furious. No, I'm raging mad at you. Stop dreamin' and look at me."

The chestnut freshman did as he told him. He had puppy's eyes, but Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey did his best to ignore it.

"What is wrong with you ?! You told me you would call me for help ! You put this damned condition ! You asked me to be there for you. And when here I am, you don't talk ! This is not fair ! How am I supposed to help if I don't know what is going on ?! Answer, now."

A short blank followed. Finally, Liam came closer.

"I'm sorry." he whispered. "It's... I don't want to lose you. Please, don't be mad."

Too late. But Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey was already simmering down. He couldn't resent this baboon. I hate myself for being so weak.

"Just talk to me." he grumbled. "I don't want to be laid aside only because it concern your ex."

Besides, I already know the story. Barbara told me months ago. Liam took place on the bed and asked him to do the same. Then, he took a deep breath.

"I started to date Kilian around april in 11th grade. He was my first male partner, and I didn't really know where we were going." he related. "But Kilian's parents are strongly homophobic, and they used to beat him because of that. We were a secret, and we managed to remain like this during ten months. It was a great time... But eventually, they found out. His father was so angry, so mad... I though they would kill him, and me by the same occasion."

Liam made a break. Until now, nothing scary. Stupid peole with stupid habits. Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey held his comment.

"So I suggested we could run away. Kilian and me, together. I know this is a terrible idea, but at the time, it seemed logical. And so we tried. I tried. But it quickly degenerated. We were lacking of everything after only two days. I was so deseperate to be with him. I thought he was the love of my life..."

Again, a break. Liam was making a real effort to talk. It's not shyness nor idiocy. He hates himself for what happened.

"I proposed to steal some supplies. I know, this is even worst than my first idea but... Anyway, I went in this grocery and... I got caught, we ran. We ran so fast, we were so scared. There was a thunderstorm going on. I'm so stupid. So so stupid. It's all my fault."

"Liam. Look at me."

The baboon obeyed. Damn, stop crying already. He looked so desesperate.

"We were crossing a road and I pushed him ahead, to go faster." he finally said. "A car knocked him over. It wasn't going that fast, and Kilian had only minor injuries but... Still, I almost killed him. His parents sued me for manslaughter. My family went true hell. And they called my father. He came back. He took everything from my mother because of me. Because of my judicial situation. I lost everything. I made my mother lose everything. My siblings, Kilian and his relatives... All our friends... Everyone hates me now..."

He couldn't continue. He cried in Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey's arms. He was so vulnerable. The junior gently patted him, quiet. In what mess I went with these boys ? Liam, Nate, Nick... Do I want to spend my times with them and their problems ? His heart was pounding in his chest. He wasn't good to feel emotions. He had zero empathy since his own heart had been broken. I'm a god among the hunter, I don't do feelings.

"I don't hate you." he whispered. "And I'm not mad anymore."

His boyfriend's grasp became stronger.

"I'm not boyfriend material Liam, you know that. I suck at all this stupid foolishness."

Why tho ? Why am I so bad ?

"But I love you."

He said it. I said it.

"I can't explain it." he added. "But it feels comfortable with you around. Your body, your insane personality, your delirium and your incredible appetite, I love all that. I don't know why, and I don't care. So please, don't hate yourself and let me love you."

I'm done. It's enough for now. He hugged his boyfriend in the silent of the night, and just waited.

Liam Wednesday March 6, in France

He was surrounded. They were everywhere, chasing him. He could not escape them. With strenght, one of them grabbed him. Liam ended face to face with his hunter, a truly gigantic baboon. This one yelled :

"I love you ! I love you ! I love you !"

The chesnut lad suddenly woke up. Eyes wide open, he looked his surroundings. He was cozily lying underneath his sheets. The warm feeling got the best of him. He moaned with pleasure. He smelled a sweet flavor. Pancake, this is pancake. Did he die ? Was it Paradise ? (It was a logical theory : a wonderful bed, a restorative sleep and pancakes, he couldn't ask for more.).

"Hey, are you awake ?" asked Dami.

Slowly, Liam stood up and looked at his boyfriend. He was wearing an apron and a chef's hat. I never noticed how cute he's. Dami wasn't tall nor ripped, but he had a graceful body. (Now he couldn't ask for more).

"I... We did a breakfast." he announced. "Your friends were worried, so I let them help with the preparation. They're completely duffer but well, at least they think they did something nice. "

Where did they manage to cook ? (Well, Dami was more than capable to have requested the hotel's kitchen). (A true hero.). Anyway, Colton, Nate and Nick entered in the room with trays full of foods.

"I know you like to eat." mumbled Liam's boyfriend. "I thought it would cheer you up to have a taste of my own pancakes."

"It will." quickly answered the chesnut lad.

He rushed Dami and kissed him. (He didn't care about the secret anymore). (Okay, he forgot they were not completely official yet).

"Thank you. All of you."

Without any hesitation, he took a pancake and started to eat. It was so good. Yeah, he definitely was in Paradise.

"Dude, how I am supposed to watch my figure with this amazing food ?"

Liam shrugged. His hands were diligently rubbing his belly. Next to him, Dami was texting, but he was resting his head on Liam's shoulder. It was the best love gesture is was ready to do for now, Liam guessed. Nick, who just complained, was sat in the chair next to them. He was overstuffed. His belly pressured his too tight shirt. The buttons were about to pop. Nate and Colton were cleaning the trays. Best breakfast ever. The chestnut lad could have eat more, but he was satisfied. After all, he had just devoured a dozen of gigantic pancake.

"Your belly is making weird noise." mumbled Dami.

Their friends were leaving to bring back the dishes downstair. Liam's boyfriend took the occasion to rub the bloated stomach himself.

"Thank you Dami. It really hit the spot."

"Well, my cooking is made for that."

They remained silent for a bit. Liam couldn't describe how happy he was, even if it was only for a moment. (It was like the first time he had met the unicorns.) (When magical horses come to you, you sure are amazed.).

"After this week, I'll have to hit the gym." he finally admitted. "I'm gorging myself so much here."

"Don't worry. You'll be back to your silly routine in no time."

Again, the silent came. Liam watched his boyfriend rubbing his belly with dedication. How can I describe it ? It has been a long time since I felt this way. He had noticed his boyfriend was rather reluctant to show any affection, especially when the others were here. But man, he knew how to rub a belly. (Dami had so many talents...).

"Before all." said suddenly Dami. "Look, I don't want to put any pressure on you but... Nate told me you have a meeting with Kilian tonight."

"I'll make everything clear with him." affirmed Liam.

"Which means ?"

"I'm in a new relationship. I'm with you. I'll tell him I'm sorry for the past, and we'll be friends because he's on the good side. The force of evils will lose this time."

"You're so weird."

To be honest, Liam was only pretending. It was so easy to appear brave in front of his loved one. But in truth ? Could the unicorns send help ? A massive disaster, a flue, anything which would prevent him to meet Kilian ? But no, the evening came anyway. They had made great progress for their group project, despite Rebecca and Barbara's rudeness. And now here he was, right in front of Kilian, at a terrace in town.

"You look nice today." smiled his ex.

Liam quickly drank his orange juice. (Yes he was still using the straw, so what ?).

"So... It's nice to see you're still friend with Nate. You two are really soulmate."

"Yeah."

Liam was sweating. He looked right in front of him. He pictured an angry Dami telling him to man up, but it only made him chuckle. Kilian looked at him, a bit confused.

"And you're in the same university than Barbara. That's cool." he continued. "She told you why she left in 11th grade ?"

"What ? No. We're not talking these days. She blames me for... you know, stuff."

Oh my god, I'm ridiculous. (Yes, he was often ridiculous, he didn't have pride anymore but still).

"You're not friends ?" wondered his ex. "I thought though. Anyway, Liam, I have something important to tell you."

Don't kill me please. (Yes, it was a bit overestimated, but Liam was still convinced his ex resented him for everything). (And yes, he was very scared : Kilian became so tall and strong ! He looked just like his father now...).

"I missed you." confessed the blond lad. "I... I still love you. Barbara told me some creepy guy were using you but I can be there ! I can come back to America with you."

Not what I planned. Not at all. Send help. Was it a tricky joke of the unicorns ?

"I'm not being used." Liam replied. "Dami is my boyfriend. Sorry I didn't say it earlier..."

"Your what ? He was sleeping with my cousin not two night ago ! Liam please, I can tell he's not sane. Don't fall for it ! He's a psycho who will hurt you. I can go to the United State with you ! I can..."

"Kilian stop."

Liam's tone surprised both of them. It was more serious, more mature than everything he ever did. Now I'm here, so let's go for it...

"You do have a special place in my heart." he admitted. "And I thank you for everything. For the ten months we spent together, for your kindness and even for this two days with you around. I deeply respect you, and I want the best for you. But Dami isn't a psycho. He had done so much for me, I won't let you disrespect him. You're right, he has his own problems but... look at us and tell me : are we saner than him ?"

His ex remained silent for a while. He lowered his eyes, seemingly disappointed.

"You really love him right ? Well, so I guess I don't stand a chance ?"

"I'm sorry..." whispered Liam. "But I spent a very long time trying to move on and now I feel I've finally succeeded thanks to Dami. I can't go back."

"In that case, I honestly hope everything will work between you two. I want the best for you too Liam."

"Thank you."

Barbara Thursday March 7, in France LAST PART

Now she started to get pissed. She had worked for years in order to be perfect. Grades, sports, reputation, family, she had mastered everything. So why all her plans were failing anyway ? Why this vulgar king and his pathetic queen were always beating her ? Kilian was supposed to make a move, but nothing happened yet. And here she was, in this stupid group for a stupid project.

"I think we should insist on their labors relations." announced Colton next to her. "It's very known French people have a different connection to work than us american."

"Yeah, that's right." approved Nick. "Everyone agrees ?"

Rebecca and Liam nodded. But the short girl ignored them. Her ally wasn't much useful anymore. Nick had been humiliated, and some people continued to tease him, but it wasn't much. At deseperate time, deseperate moves. She had read in a war manual that it was sometimes necessary to take huge risk for a huge profit. The same applied for economy, and for human's relations. I'll end all of this myself.

She waited until the end of their meeting. Then, she followed Colton while he was going to the restaurant. She hailed him when they were alone.

"Hey hon', I think we need to talk."

He followed her, a bit surprised. You're right, this is not an silly conversation between friends.

"Look, I have right here a video of our first time when you moaned Leila's name instead of mine." she claimed. "You have two choices. Either you do everything I demand, either I post it on internet and everyone will discover you pathetic secret. Your call."

Colton looked at her, stunned.

"I never did such a gross thing..." he whispered. "Why are you so... so... Why are you doing that ? What happened since last year ? I've always been nice to you, havn't I ? But you broke my heart and... and now that ? I don't understant what I've done wrong ?"

"Don't look down on me." she retorted. "Nothing special happened, I just want to be a the top. You can't be perfect without sacrifice. Now, will you listen to me ?"

He didn't hesitate long. Apparently, he was really scared for his reputation. You're such a lame.

"What do you want ?"

"Now I must be fuckin' dreamin'." swore a voice she immediately recognized. "You must be kiddin' me. What a bunch of retards."

Slowly, Barbara turned towards Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey, surprised to see him here. He wasn't supposed to show up. Dismayed, she noticed Matthew right next to him. The sophomore was smiling from ear to ear.

"Little roach, what did I just hear ? You were about to blackmail the guy ? For fuckin' real ?"

"And what ? Don't tell me you had never been dirty ?"

"You jackass. I'm only having sex idiotic moron. And with consenting people, dumbass. Yeah maybe I'm hurting some feelings in the process, but I'm not doing any illegal stuff you cunt."

The blonde girl understood something wasn't right. Why Matthew brought him here in the first place ? The swimmer was so proud of himself. It hid something.

"Doll Man, come here. You don't have to listen to this idiotic bitch."

"One second Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey." she said. "What is all this ?"

For a second, everyone remained silent. Then, a voice came through the Dean's grandson phone.

"Barbara Henrion ? Hi. I'm D.R. The head of the women defensor club, and also the head of the hunters."

The what ?! The freshman froze, astounded. Tell me that's not true.

"By trying to blackmail a student of the university, you contravened to the rules of the college, and also the hunting code. We also made some investigations about you."

"What ? Wait a second. Who are you ?"

"She's the so-called queen you were so eager to replace, stupid." explained Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey. "Now hurry up, I don't have the whole night to lose."

"Sure thing, sorry." D.R continued. "So, we found out you and Roberto Rios had deliberately damaged the university's facilities. You realise you could be expelled for this ? We could call the police straight away."

Barbara didn't reply. She didn't know what to do. I'm in a real mess. What went wrong ? How did they know all that ?

"However, this is your first misdemeanor, so I'll be merciful." decided D.R. "I'm speaking in the name of the Dean. You are dismissed from all your responsabilities in the student union. You'll be placed under the surveillance of Matthew Davos. I'll send you two the detail. Are we clear ?"

Is it even possible ? Was I wrong all along ? She fighted Summer with so much application. All that for nothing ?

"I repeat, is that clear ?"

"I... I understand perfectly well." Barbara finally spilled.

She wasn't stupid. She could recognise when the war was lost. And her defeat was complete.

To be continued in Chapter 4

So much in one chapter !

Damian said the three words. He admitted his feelings for Liam. And that’s good news ! Plus, they finally get rid of Barbara, who met the infamous head of the hunter, D.R !

So yeah, Liam was naive when he was young. He tried to run away, and it failed. But considering how dangerous are Kilian’s parents, that’s not so surprising. Let’s hope things will be better with Damian. At least this one provides food ;)

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior Feb. 14, 2020 – SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, FANTASY ISLAND, THE PHOTOGRAPH, DOWNHILL, OLYMPIC DREAMS

It’s Valentine’s Day on Friday and President’s Day on Monday, which means that this weekend is going to be absolutely nuts in terms of getting four new wide releases.  Last week’s Birds of Prey did not do even remotely close to where I predicted/projected – almost half!! -- and here I thought all those raves reviews might help, but apparently not. It will still make money with its global release but it’s gonna fall short even of last year’s Shazam! and many have already started questioning whether an R-rating is the way to go with a movie semi-targeted towards younger women. (Warner Bros. has already sent out a mandate to theaters to change the title of the movie to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. I cannot believe that it took this long for them to figure out what a terrible title they had previously!)

With the four-day weekend, it’s very likely that Paramount Pictures’ SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, will prevail, as it brings the beloved SEGA video game character to the big screen with James Marsdenand Jim Carrey, the latter starring in one of his first big-screen appearances in a while. It should be an easy victor this weekend in a market that could desperately use another strong family film.

For those unfamiliar with SEGA’s flagship video game “mascot,” Sonic has appeared in all sorts of other media including animated series and comic books, so one can say that the character is almost but not quite as well known and popular as Nintendo’s Pokemon, which has had a much wider reach in terms of both games and cartoons.

Of course, it’s impossible not to look at Sonic the Hedgehog and completely ignore the relative success of last year’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, which had the added benefits of a popular A-list star in Ryan Reynoldsand a summer release. That opened with $54.4 million and made $144 million domestic and $429.7 million worldwide.

On the other hand, Sonic does have Jim Carrey, who hasn’t been in an American wide release since the 2014 sequel Dumb and Dumber To, which only made about $156 million worldwide. At one point, Carrey was one of the biggest box office stars with multiple $240 million plus domestic blockbusters. Maybe the kids won’t be as invested in Carrey’s Mr. Robotnik, but many parents who grew up with Carrey’s comedies will be happy to see him in such a perfect role.

The Presidents Day weekend allows one extra day for parents with kids needing something to do with them sans school. Even so, the biggest movies on the weekend have been superhero movies, including Black Panther, Deadpool and Fifty Shades of Grey, the latter two definitely not for kids. (Daredeviland Ghost Rider also fared well on the weekend.) In fifth place for the weekend is Warner Bros’ The LEGO Movie, which made $62.5 million over the four-day weekend, but that was in its SECOND WEEKEND! So yeah, lots of money to be had for a family movie even though the biggest opener was Christopher Columbus’ Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (now on Broadway!), which opened with $38.7 million ten years ago.

I have to imagine that Sonic is more popular, and even with the tragic misstep of that first trailer last year which got such a negative reaction to Sonic’s appearance, Paramount delayed the movie and went back to the CG drawing board, there will be enough fans interested to see how he translates to the screen that $40 million over the weekend should be doable even with three other wide releases. I also don’t think reviews will be so bad, so it should be good for $100 million plus.

Mini-Review: For whatever reason, Sonic the Hedgehog is the kind of movie that lazy critics love to dump on, maybe because it’s a kids’ movie or because it’s a movie based on a video game they played as kids, or more likely, a character their kids know from popular cartoons and comic books. It doesn’t help that judgments were mostly cast when the first trailer hit last year and Sonic looked different than what people expected. Regardless, I went into the movie with very low expectations, maybe because I really had no passionate connection to the character despite being generally familiar with some of the games.

We meet Sonic as he’s being chased by robots, and we flash back to him as a kid on a planet where he’s able to zoom around freely, until he’s discovered by predators that are hunting him (it’s never explained why), so his mentor owl gives Sonic gold rings that can take him off-planet. Sonic ends up in a small town called Green Hills where he watches the townsfolk in hiding for years, including a local police officer (James Marsden) and his wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter). The former eventually discovers Sonic after he causes a major power outage that gets the attention of the government and its genius robotics scientist, Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey).

Despite not having much previous connection to Sonic, it’s hard for me not to appreciate this character, because I’ve been known to zip around myself. I also enjoyed Sonic’s haste since who knows when we might see that movie based on one of my favorite comic characters, The Flash. Sonic does a good job capturing the intensity and yes, speed, of having speed powers in quite a masterful way compared to previous attempts, giving me hope that a Flash movie is possible. (Granted, they do rip-off the fun thing Quicksilver does in the recent X-movies by slowing everything around Sonic down to a halt, but it’s still amusing.)

Probably the most genius idea by Sonic’s filmmakers was to convince Jim Carrey to return to the big screen as Dr. Robotnik. He quickly reminds us how hilarious he can be when going as fully into a character as he does this one, and it’s prime Carey vs. the semi-lazy Carrey that made movies in the early ‘00s. Robotnik is a super-genius with no patience for anyone on a lower level of intellect (aka everyone), and Carrey takes that idea to the utmost extreme. (It’s hard not to compare what he’s doing in this movie to what Ewan McGregor does in Birds of Prey and see how Carey does it effortlessly whereas McGregor was clearly trying too hard.)

That’s not to take away from Marsden and Sumpter, Sonic’s other prominent human co-stars, who bring such a warmth and humanity to those characters that you rarely even think that you’re watching them interact with a fully CG-character. (Kudos to Ben Schwartz and what he brings to Sonic as his voice.)

Sure, the plot can be a bit predictable with certain parts clearly geared to kids, but there’s also slew of pop references that display some real talent in the writing of the movie so that it can be watched and enjoyed by people of all ages.

Is it possible that Sonic the Hedgehog is the first thoroughly entertaining movie of the year? Yes, indeedy. (Definitely stay through the first bunch of credits if you are a Sonic fan!)

Rating: 8/10

One of the more interesting releases of the weekend is BLUMHOUSE’S FANTASY ISLAND (Sony Pictures Releasing), which as you can guess is a PG-13 horror version of the popular ‘80s show, starring Michael Peña as Mr. Rouke, the head of a program in which people can pay lots of money to achieve their greatest wishes… with a catch! Since this is Blumhouse, you probably know that the catch involves some sort of horror/thriller premise, and if you’ve seen the trailer, you might get some idea how it works… or not. (I wish I can say more but I’m under embargo!)

The rest of the cast is decent including Maggie Q (from Mission: Impossible 3), Lucy Hale, Portia Doubleday, Michael Rooker, Ryan Hansen, Jimmy O . Yang and more, plus it’s directed by Jeff Wadlow, who last did Blumhouse’s Truth Or Dare (a very bad movie!) and then Kick Ass 2 before that. (He was supposed to direct Sony’s upcoming Bloodshot movie but he left that to do other things, like this.)

Unfortunately, Sony Pictures Releasing (another specialized imprint from the parent company?) seems to have taken a cue from Screen Gems by deciding not to screen the movie for critics until Thursday afternoon (just like with The Grudge!), plus there won’t be ANY Thursday previews for this. It’s a shame since… well, I can’t really tell you if I liked the movie or not since I’m under embargo until Friday. J

Either way, it seems like a strong enough counter to Sonic and Birds of Prey that it should be good for $15 million plus over the four days. Personally, I think it would have opened even bigger if Sony and Blumhouse had shown some balls and screened it for critics in advance, but what do I know? I’ve only written about this stuff for ALMOST TWENTY FUCKING YEARS! (Not sure I’m gonna review the movie but we’ll see.)

I know far less about Universal’s Valentine’s Day offering THE PHOTOGRAPH (Universal), which I guess is a romantic drama that’s targeting African-Americans looking for something to see on the biggest date nights of the year. In fact, we’ve seen some interesting hits on this weekend just by putting “Date” in the movie title, as was the case with Adam Sandler-Drew Barrymore’s 50 First Dates ($45.1 million four-day opening) and even Date Movie ($21.8 million), which satirized romantic movies. But the real winner has to be a movie that went all out for Valentine’s Day by actually going with the title Valentine’s Day, which helped it open with $63 million over the four-day weekend ten years ago. ($23.4 million of that was on Valentine’s Day alone!)

Since I won’t see The Photograph until Weds. night, I can only talk about the little bit of marketing I’ve seen and what’s out there. Apparently, this is more in the vein of Valentine’s Day in that it’s a series of intertwined romantic stories, but it has an impressive cast of African-American actors who are on the verge of breaking out such as the great LaKeith Stanfield and amazing Kelvin Harrison Jr., as well as Rob Morgan (from “Daredevil” and Mudbound) and Courtney B. Vance. I’d be neglect if I didn’t mention any of the women involved and having Issa Raefrom the TV show “Insecure” as the primary female lead is something that shouldn’t be ignored. Stanfield isn’t the only connection to Jordan Peele, though, asLil Rel Howery from Get Outis also in this movie as is Peele’s actual wife, Chelsea Peretti!

I actually had to double check to make sure Peele wasn’t one of the film’s producers, but no, this is from Will Packer, a producer who is responsible for so many huge hits among African-Americans that one of these days I won’t underestimate his drawing power, even though all three of his 2019 movies underdelivered, including the comedy Little (co-starring Rae), although did well compared to their lower budgets.

In that sense, The Photograph could be compared to Packer’s Screen Gems comedy About Last Night, which opened with $27.8 million in just over 2,200 theaters in 2014, but that also had the power of proven box office draw Kevin Hartto bring in audiences. I certainly don’t want to be accused of underestimating Packer again, but with such a generic title and premise (and next to no marketing?), I’m just not sure the movie will deliver despite being decent counter-programming for AA audiences. With that in mind, I think the movie will probably make somewhere between $12 and 14 million.

Then there’s DOWNHILL (Searchlight Studios), the new movie from The Way, Way Back directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who also won the Oscar for cowriting Alexander Payne’s The Descendants), this one being a direct remake of Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund’s 2014 film Force Majeure.

In this version, Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus play a squabbling couple who travel to the alps with their kids, but after barely escaping an avalanche – one in which he runs away leaving his family behind – they start questioning their lives. The film also stars Zach Woods (also from “Veep”), Miranda Otto and Zoe Chao, and though it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival (just like the duo’s previous movie), it did not receive great reviews, as it currently sits at 48% on Rotten Tomatoes.

I don’t think that will matter since like Carey above, Ferrell hasn’t been oversaturating the market with movies in the past couple year, maybe because his last movie, Holmes & Watson, reteaming him with John C. Reilly from Step Brothers bombed with $41 million worldwide after horrifying reviews. Fortunately, Louis-Dreyfus is far more loved thanks to her run on “Seinfeld” and her Emmy-winning run on HBO’s “Veep,” and that should help get people into theaters despite all the competition aboe and below.

Searchlight (no more Fox!!) will be releasing the movie into roughly 1,500 theaters, a moderate release to see how it fares, and the extended holiday weekend (plus the chance of it attracting older moviegoers on Valentine’s Day) should help it make $5 million plus over the extended weekend.

Mini-Review: If you’re reading this review hoping for a play-by-play of how Downhill differs from Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure, then you’re bound to be disappointed, because a.) I don’t really remember it, b.) I wasn’t as big a fan of the movie as so many others, and c.) I’m going to assume that a lot of people never got around to seeing it.

In this version, it’s Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus as Peter and Billie Stanton, and there’s much more focus on their roles as parents and the responsibility that goes with that. Once again, Peter runs off when a controlled avalanche comes their way, but they don’t really talk about it so much even as it hangs over their heads.

Nat Faxon and Jim Rash once again find a manageable way of making “dramedy” out of a situation, making sure not to go for constant visual laughs or the zaniness Ferrell usually goes for. (Granted, we can totally believe him as a careless father/husband who does dumb things.) In fact, Ferrell plays his role fairly toned down, which allows Louis-Dreyfus to shine in what’s, oddly, a quite rare movie appearance. How they deal with the aftermath of the avalanche comes to a head when Pete’s work-buddy Zack (Zach Woods) arrives with a ladyfriend (Zoe Chao) allows the two to go at each other. It doesn’t get quite as intense as Marriage Story, but it’s obvious that they both have reached the point in their marriage where they need a separation.

It is kind of amusing that Miranda Otto almost steals her scenes with the two leads because she’s so funny as a hot-to-trot European guest they keep running into and who sets Billie up with a hot Italian ski trainer. There’s a few other funny characters but it mostly stays on Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus either alone or together, and that’ll be enough for most people.

Faxon and Rash find interesting ways to play with the basic premise, although Downhill is very much comedy with a lower-case “c,” and like the original movie, it should lead to some interesting conversations.

Rating: 7/10

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this… (bearing in mind that the below are all four-day projections). It’ll be interesting to see if the name change for “Birds of Prey” will make a difference, but look for NEON’s Parasite to make its first foray into the top 10 this weekend after 19 (!!!) weeks in theaters, thanks to its Best Picture win last Sunday.

1. Sonic the Hedgehog (Paramount) - $44 million N/A (up $1.5 million)* 2. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey  (Warner Bros) - $20 million -39% (down $1.5 million)* 3. Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island (Sony) - $15.8 million N/A (up $.3 million)* 4. The Photograph (Universal) - $13.5 million N/A 5. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $8 million -35% (up .2 million)* 6. 1917 (Universal) - $7 million -23% 7. Downhill (Searchlight) - $5.6 million N/A (up .2 million)* 8. Parasite (NEON) - $5 million +300% (up .4 million and one place) 9. Dolittle  (Universal) - $4.5 million -30% (down .4 million and one place) 10. Jumanji: The Next Level  (Sony) - $4.2 million -24%

*UPDATE: A few minor updates based on actual theater counts with Parasite being expanded into 2,000 theaters, the widest its been so far. I feel like most of the new movies will do well, including Downhill (which will be in 2,301 theaters vs. the 1,500 estimated earlier in the week). Anyway, it should be a fairly hearty and robust weekend at the box office.

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to the regular limited releases opening Friday, I want to mention two special releases for Weds. night, Trafalgar Releasing is giving a one-night screening of The Doors: Break on Thru - A Celebration of Ray Manzarek, which I haven’t seen but I’m definitely interested in as a fan of the ‘60s group (and Manzarek’s keyboard work). You can get tickets for that here. Also, Kino Lorber is giving one-night release of Emily Taguchi & Jake Lefferman’s doc After Parkland to commemorate the second anniversary of the shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people and began a nationwide student movement for gun control. It’s a fairly sobering and emotional doc, as you can imagine, especially since so little has been done to prevent incidents like this even two years later.

My favorite movie of the weekend is Jeremy Teicher’s OLYMPIC DREAMS ( IFC Films), opening at the IFC Center Friday. It stars Nick Kroll (who you’ll know from “The League,” “Oh, Hello” and other things) and (actual Olympian distance runner) Alexi Pappas, who you may or may not be as familiar with. Pappas plays Penelope, an American competitor in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, who is feeling lonely and unable to connect with others until she meets Kroll’s volunteer dentist, Ezra. While at first, it wouldn’t seem like they would have anything in common, they spend a night hanging out and while some might be expecting something romantic, since this is opening on Valentine’s Day, well I won’t ruin what does or doesn’t happen, k?  Either way, it’s a wonderful film co-written by Teichter, Pappas and Kroll, and if that sounds like a familiar formula, then it is indeed the one Richard Linklater used for his sequels to Before Sunrise with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Olympic Dreams isn’t nearly as deep and philosophical (or wordy), but the two actors are so wonderful together, and they actually filmed this in the Athletes Village at the Olympics (the first film to do so) which adds some authenticity to the sweet little movie. (There will be a sneak preview Weds night at the IFC Center with Teicher, Kroll and Pappas all in attendance!)

Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig returns with THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS (Vertical), a star-studded ensemble piece starring Zoe Kazan, Andrea Riseborough, Caleb Landry Jones, Jay Baruchel and Bill Nighy (who appeared in Lone’s previous film Their Finest). This is a New York City story about six strangers whose lives intersect and mingle while trying to find help, hope and love. I know it sounds like the Crash-style movie we’ve seen far too many times before, but I have faith in Ms. Scherfig and hopefully I’ll have a chance to watch it in the next day or two.

I also still haven’t gotten around to watching Kenji Tanagaki’s action-comedy ENTER THE FAT DRAGON (Go WELL USA), starring the always-amazing Donnie Yen as police officer Zhu, who is sent to Japan on a routine police escort of a suspect… who mysteriously dies, forcing Zhu to call upon a former undercover inspector to help solve the murder. I’m assuming the latter is the “Fat Dragon” and Yen didn’t gain 200 lbs. for the part.

Opening at the Quad Cinemaon Friday and in L.A. on Feb. 21 is Dimitri de Clercq’sFrench/Belgian film You Go to My Head (First Run Features) about an architect who finds a young woman lost, alone and in a fog in the Sahara after a mysterious accident, but when he takes her to the hospital, he claims to be her husband. As she gets better, he creates an elaborate life to fill in the life they shared which she can no longer remember. It also sounds perfect for Valentine’s Day, so you have plenty of options!

I didn’t have too much to say about Céline Sciamma’s PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (NEON), because I think I wrote about it last year, and I haven’t seen the movie since the New York Film Festival. Set in the 18thCentury, it’s about a woman painter who travels to a remote island where she’s commissioned to do a painting of a grieving widow, who she ends up falling in love with. I probably should see the movie again as it didn’t really connect with me the first time, but I can totally understand why others love it so much. (Unfortunately, the 7:10 screening on Friday night at the Angelika with a QnA moderated by my pal, Valerie Complex, is already sold out!)

The second documentary in the last year about a man named “Cunningham” (a different one this time) is Mark Bozek’s The Times of Bill Cunningham (Greenwich) about the famed photographer who died in 2016… and whom I know even less about than I did dancer/choreographer Merce Cunningham. Apparently, he was a New York Timesphotographer for four decades and had a long relationship with First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and this doc is even narrated by Sarah Jessica Parker! It also opens at the Angelika and City Cinemas 1, 2 & 3, and maybe L.A.?

Due to the usual conflicts and circumstances, I wasn’t able to see Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn’s Ordinary Love (Bleecker Street) as planned, but it’s an appropriately-timed romantic drama starring Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville as a middle-aged couple who must deal with her beast cancer diagnosis. I actually am interested in seeing this, especially to see Neeson back in serious drama mode (it’s been a while), so hopefully I’ll have a chance to see this down the road.

Also opening Friday is Tanya Wexler’s Buffaloed (Magnolia), starring Zoey Deutch as Peg Dahl, a young woman living in Buffalo, the debt collection capital of America but hopes to get out of town and into an Ivy League university. When she’s accepted to her top choice but can’t afford the tuition, she gets pulled into the rope of debt collection.  Also starring Judy Greer, Germaine Fowler, Noah Reid and Jai Courtney, it will open at New York’s Quad Cinema, the Loz Feliz 3 in L.A., Buffalo’s North Park Theater and more theaters.

Opening at the Quad Cinemaon Friday and in L.A. on Feb. 21 is Dimitri de Clercq’sFrench/Belgian film You Go to My Head (First Run Features) about an architect who finds a young woman lost, alone and in a fog in the Sahara after a mysterious accident, but when he takes her to the hospital, he claims to be her husband. As she gets better, he creates an elaborate life to fill in the life they shared which she can no longer remember. It also sounds perfect for Valentine’s Day, so you have plenty of options!

Another SXSW 2019 movie is Richard Wong’s Come As You Are (Samuel Goldwyn), starring Gabourey Sidibe, Grant Rosenmeyer, Ravi Patel, Hayden Szeto and Janeane Garofolo. The three guys in the middle play men with disabilities who go on a road trip to a Montreal brothel to get away from their suffocating parents. Sidibe (from Precious) plays their travelling nurse who drives them across the border to help them lose their virginity. This is an English remake of the Belgian Film Hasta La Vista about the real-life adventure of Asta Philpot.

Sara Zandieh’s indie rom-com A Simple Wedding (Blue Fox Entertainment) also opens in theaters and On Demand on Valentine’s Day, this one following an Iranian-American named Nousha (Tara Grammy) whose hopes for a Persian wedding are dashed when she falls for a bisexual artist/DJ named Alex (Christopher O’Shea). She has to make sure her parents don’t realize they’re living together before marriage. The film also stars Shohreh Aghdashloo, Rita Wilson, Maz Jobrani, Peter McKenzie and James Eckhouse.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

Some cool festivals and series in New York are happening this weekend to offer competition for all the choices above.

Let’s begin with the “Winter Showcase” for one of my favorite annual film festivals, the New York Asian Film Festivalsubtitled “Love at First Bite,” since they’re including a special Valentine’s Day screening of the Korean hit Extreme Job followed by a reception including delicious Korean food. The rest of the line-up is probably more appropriate for the rep section as it will including Asian classics like Stephen Chow’s God of Cookery (1996), Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman (1994),Tampopo (1985) on Saturday, as well as Ritesh Batra’s amazing The Lunchbox and more on Sunday.

Up at Film at Lincoln Center, there’s the annual “Neighboring Scenes,” the annual celebration of “New Latin American Cinema,” opening Friday with Joanna Reposi Garibaldi’s Lemebel, a documentary about writer/visual artist Pedro Lemebel and his controversial performances amidst Chilean upheaval. Of course, I’m most interested in the Brazilian offerings, but sadly, there just isn’t enough time in the day/week to see as many of the films in this series I’m curious about including the New York premiere of Ema from Chile’s Pablo Larrain (Neruda, Jackie). Click on the link above and check out that line-up.

Further North (in terms of global geography) but South (in terms of New York City geography) is this year’s “Canada Now” series, taking place at the IFC Center from Thursday through Sunday. It will kick off with Guest of Honor, the new film from Canada’s Atom Egoyan, starring David Thewlis and Laysla De Oliveira as father and music school teacher daughter whose lives become complicated when she’s put in prison for earlier crimes. There are seven other movies in this series, most of them getting their U.S. debuts, so that’s another alternative for what could be a busy movie-going weekend.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Lots of stuff premiering on streaming services this weekend including the British animated sequel A Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon on Netflix, as well as the rom-com sequel To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You, which will premiere on Weds and may end up being the “Netflix and chill” choice for many young people on V-Day. (I honestly never got around to seeing the first movies of either of those yet!)

Over on Hulu, they’re premiering the gender-swapped series loosely based on Nick Horny’s High Fidelity, this one starring Zoe Kravitz, the daughter of Lisa Bonet, who appeared opposite John Cusack in Stephen Frears’ adaptation of Hornby’s book from 2000 that was one of my favorite movies that year! Wait a second, even though Kravitz plays a character named Rob, just like Cusack, is she meant to be the daughter of Cusack and Bonet’s characters in that movie? That would be intense! (But probably not. I’m sure I’ll check it out.)

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The Metrograph’s Valentine’s Dayweekend offerings include Casablanca (1942), Howard Hawks’ 1944 film To Have and  Have Not, the 1932 film Trouble in Paradise, Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind (1956) and another screening of Makoto Shinkai’s animated Your Name. The “To Hong Kong with Love” series continues through the end of February, this weekend screening Yellowing (2016), which I haven’t seen.This weekend, the  Welcome To Metrograph: Reduxwill offer two more screenings of Edward Yang’s 4-hour 1991 film A Brighter Summer Day, while Late Nites at Metrograph  will screen Nagisa Oshima’s 1978 film Empire of Passion, also which I have never seen! Rounding out the weekend’s Asian offering is the Playtime: Family Matineesoffering of Yoshifumi Kondo’s 1995 animated film Whisper of the Heart, which guess what? I haven’t seen that either! Clearly, I need to try to get to one of the four movies, right?  

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is the Susan Sarandon-James Spader romantic drama White Palace (1990). Oddly, the Alamo is CLOSED on Valentine’s Day.. is this true?!? On Sunday is a special “Drew Believers: Drew Barrymore Movie Marathon” with four of Barrymore’s movies in 35mm! (As of this writing, there are a few seats available near the front.) Monday’s “Fist City” is Sam Raimi’s The Quick and The Dead from 1995 and that’s quickly selling out as well. The “Terror Tuesday” is James Gunn’s hilarious Slither and then next week’s “Weird Wednesday” is the 1987 Ken Russell film Gothic.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Wednesday’s “Afternoon Classic” is the 1961 Oscar-winning musical West Side Story. Weds and Thursday night’s double feature is Robert Altman’s 1971 film McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Sydney Pollack’s 1972 film Jeremiah Johnson, starring Robert Redford. This week’s “Freaky Friday” offering is the classic The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, while Friday’s midnight movie is True Romanceand Saturday’s midnight is 1978’s Mean Dog Blues in 16mm! This weekend continues the “Kiddee Matinee” run with the Alfonso Cuaron-directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Monday’s matinee of David Lynch’s Wild at Heart is already sold out but that night is a Robert Clouse double feature of The Pack(1977) and Darker than Amber (1970). Tuesday’s Grindhouse double feature is 1976’s Sky Riders and 1981’s Force: Five.  

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Thursday is a “Black Voices” double feature of Car Wash (1976) and Cooley High (1975) with guest including Bill Duke in person. John Sayles and Joe Dante will be on hand Friday night for a “John Sayles: Independent” double feature of Piranha (1978) and The Howling (1981). This weekend is the “HFPA Restoration Summit” including a Saturday afternoon presentation called “Serge Bromberg Presents from the Silent Era” with the Lobster Films founder, while the one and only Jane Fonda will be on-hand Saturday evening to present a 4k restoration of the 1972 film F.T.A., which she produced with Donald Sutherland. Saturday night is a screening of The Black Vampire, the 1953 Argentine adaptation of Fritz Lang’s M, and there’s more classic cinema on Sunday as part of the series.

AERO  (LA):

Thursday’s “Antiwar Cinema” matinee is Richard Attenborough’s Oh! What a Lovely War from 1969 with an all-star cast, while that night is a Eugene Levy/Christopher Guest double feature of A Might Windand For Your Consideration. The AERO is ALSO showing Casablancaon Valentine’s Day and then Saturday is another Levy/Guest double feature of Best in Show (2000)and Waiting for Guffman  (1996) with Levy doing a discussion between films. John Sayles and Frances McDormand will appear in person for a Sunday afternoon double feature of 1996’s Lone Star and 1999’s Limbo.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

MOMI is going a bit crazy with its Valentine’s offering but it’s a good one…Jane Fonda in 1968’s Barbarella as part of its new 2001-inspired series “See It Big! Outer Space”! (If MOMI wasn’t all the way in Astoria, I’d totally go.)  It will play again Sunday with Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) playing on Friday and Saturday and 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Pictureon Sunday. Sunday will also be a repeat of Kubrick’s 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey in 70mm with a discussion before the movie between Doug Trumbull and Piers Bizony. There’s also the usual DCP screening of 2001on Saturday afternoon, as part of the exhibition. On Saturday, they’ll screen Marjane Satrapi’s excellent Persepolis(2007) as part of its “World of Animation.”

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Starting Friday, the Forum will be screening a DCP restoration of Luchino Visconti’s L’Innocente (1976), starring Giancarlo Giannini. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is Guys and Dolls from 1955, starring Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons and Frank Sinatra. (If you read this on Wednesday, you can catch Joseph Strick’s 1963 film The Balcony, starring Shelley Winters, Peter Falk and Lee Grant, in 35mm.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad’s run of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman continues through the weekend, and there will be Valentine’s Day screenings of Alex Cox’s Sid and Nancy on Thursday and Friday night. (How romantic!)

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

The Anthology’s great “The Devil Probably: A Century of Satanic Panic” continues this weekend with screenings of Robert Eggers’ The Witch, Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, another screening of Rosemary’s Baby, as well as screenings of Race with the Devil on Weds. and Thursday night. I missed it last week but they’ve been showing Mark Rappaport’s 1975 film Mozart in Love the past week, as well.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

The Cage-athon continues Weds. with Neil Labute’s The Wicker Man (2006) and 2009’s Knowing on Thursday. Valentine’s Day sees screening of Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, as well as the 1987 Nicolas Cage movie Moonstruck, co-starring Cher. Spike Jonez and Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation (2003), starring Cage, repeats on Saturday.

NITEHAWK CINEMA  (NYC):

Williamsburg‘s “Uncaged” series continues Friday with last year’s Mandy at midnight and 1983’s Valley Girl on Saturday morning. Casabalanca is also playing at the Prospect Park on Thursday, and unrelated but Back to the Future will play there on Monday night. Billy Wilder’s 1954 film Sabrina, starring Bogart, Hepburn and Holden will play on Saturay morning.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuel is back with Belle de Jour from 1967, starring Catherine Deneuve.  Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020 will screen the animated Ghost in the Shell, while Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020 will also go with an Anime film, Paprika.

MOMA  (NYC):

Modern Matinees: Jack Lemmon is off Weds. and Thursday but will return Friday with Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce (1963).

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

BAM will continue to show Horace Jenkins’ 1982 film Cane River through the weekend.

Next week, the second to last week of February (man, it flew right by!) will include Fox’s The Call of the Wild, starring Harrison Ford, and the horror sequel, Brahms: The Boy II.

[samanthasroberts]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

[adambstingus]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

If you loved this article and want more content like this, support our site with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/181849531207

[allofbeercom]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-common-things-hollywood-does-that-instantly-kills-a-story/

[moleofmetal]

GIG Review:  Catalysis EP Launch with Black Blood, Threshold Sicks and more

https://www.facebook.com/events/4312624272

Fresh off the triumph of recording their new EP self-titled Catalysis, the Dundee metal masters have set up this gig to serve as the launching platform. Now it would be rude of me to give this show a miss. The opportunity to see and hear how this band operate the new material live is too tempting an offer to ignore.

Rude or not I still ended up turning up late; and sober to the gig at the Hordes of Belial festivals battlefield venue The Beat Generator, to find it fairly busy with a band already playing. My tardiness meant I missed the opening band The Goatboy (fb.com/thegoatboy182/), and the band on stage now were familiar faces of Houdini Said No rocking the place. A hardworking and busy band, playing their first gig in at the Beat Gen, they seem to be loving the additional space compared with other venues, as this was a much more mobile and energetic performance. The lead guitar demon Pablo even venturing off the stage and into the crowd at one point. Nice! Houdini Said No are experts in boogie! The mixed hard rock and bluesy stoner sound they make is something akin to Viking Skull minus the bulk of the heaviness. Intricate guitar lines weave in and out made of licks of thunder, backed by full and chunky bass movements, make for a great package sonically and a tingle to the ears. Great stuff!

Female fronted and backed they had little trouble getting a good response from the crowd, although a little sparse in numbers. Those who were there enjoyed what the heard with enthusiasm. Spurred on by front lady Katie, who makes for an entrancing presence on stage with her passionate singing, and personality shining through. It’s clear that she and all the band are having fun on stage and that impacts the crowd enormously. Even when mid-song her microphone got disconnected, and scrambled a moment, the band adapted well and kept seamlessly. Another hugely impressive set and show, a terrific start to my night. [8/10]

Get their magic here:

Facebook.com/houdinisaidno

houdinisaidno.bandcamp.com

So the night was off to a great start, now comes the wildcard band of the night. The band that could go either way. Threshold Sicks are up next. Neighboring thrashers from the town up the creek (mostly) Perth, they have had a bit of struggle to get here. A struggle of Spinal Tap proportions really, the problems from a revolving door of vocalists, and a drummer that hasn’t quite died but is away playing jazz, somewhere? Gigs have been rare and far between for the most part of the last few years. The members such a guitarist Paul Macmillan is now known by the locals more for his promotions and gigs with Slow Dragon Music than the band. That is until this year that, where they seem to have their strongest line-up yet, while scoring some impressive gig-slots, such as with thrash legends Virus a few months back. They seem at top form once again.

As they fire up on stage with tremendous bass volume the 4-pieces music takes form on stage, a crushing wall of thrash burst forwards, a death thrash like a wave of oddly timed riffs struck with some might! Raw and intense Riffs that seem to change speed and direction randomly, adding more twists and turns that the average band of the style. While skipping over a lot of pedantic tropes of technical bands of the genre, they kept things bloody raw. This probably made for messy listening for someone looking for polish, but for me, it made for a good challenge.

Oddly interesting and very intense listen just to make sense off! The craziness of as you get set into the groove of a riff, it was whipped out from beneath you in jolting motions. Pummelling dynamics in a different way than the normal. Heavy and rapid, quickly shifting riffs similar to grindcore in rapidity, making the thrashing music they produce the most extreme band on the bill by a big margin. This was right up my street, for extremity! But as for crowd though, the whip motions and change of tone was too much a big step the overcome, so it seems like a lot struggled to get fully on board.

The big change from the last time I had seen the Sicks was the vocalist, the newest member of the pack. I was interested in seeing how he fit in. Providing A set of confrontational and aggressive mid-range growls and shouts were projected with some ease, giving an inherit nastiest to sound! This was a big step up from the last singer who was much more restrained. Good move! While the bass which was super thick in the mix added the best mix of groove and thunder to the rest of the madness that it glued it all well together. While backing this up was the drummer’s intricate work on the kit, worked wonders keep it all fairly cohesive enough and presentable, though understated in his strikes.

This band admittedly can fall under an “acquired taste” label, and I felt like a miss for most of the bars crowd, minus a fair chunk of nutters. The bizarre and unconventional ideas the band launches at you can be overwhelming, though entertaining. The juggling act of style and substance to their harshness might disappoint some and thrill other in equitable measures. The quite murky mix on stage didn’t help them on this outing either. The band’s attitude and sense of fun made up for it a bucket load of headbanging from me. At least. [7/10]

Get Sick here:

https://thresholdsicks.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thresholdsicksofficial

Next up and with a definitely more straightforward sound was local djenty deathcore favorites Black Blood. Who were also having a bit of a mini launch of their own the release of the latest single/music video for “Acension”. (See Below) A track that bullet points their sound extremely well. Nice Job.

Their super bouncy take on this hybrid of sounds is hugely popular, that it surprised me with how empty the crowd looked. There was a lot of younger metal/death/core fans there, but they weren’t taking that much interest in them. Strange! I was expecting the place to be positively bouncing with the kids in the room. Perhaps the tuck shop opened or something.

The style they play is definitely full of passion as that make some super heavy beat downs accentuated and enhanced by electronic noises on the first beat of massively heavy breaks make the ground shake with its pounding. Awesome! While the techy djent rhythms of the guitar work come forth is nothing new, however, they do more than enough to shake up the flow more, with melodic hardcore moments adds a dash of interest to the sound. Bass guitar also adding great flourishes to the music too, with some complex play in amongst the riffs, backed with skillful drumming. There is more than meets the eyes here to be sure.

The star and focus of this band though, and with the territory of their genre is the vocals that were center stage. Powerful screams produced by Sam Field, were fantastic and brutal, giving a broad range in tones from various poses. The most effective the sharp turn to the right of the head as the beat hits! A good watch and listen, while giving the right about of banters between the tunes too. Less can be said for the backing vocals, Shrieks and brutal singing that ripped through loudly, like a knife to the ear. Not pleasant. Perhaps this was more of a soundboard issue, but it was noticeable and irritant. Bar this fault, they did a good job and seem to have fun onstage, although the lacking crowd did put a downer spin on the bands mood I thought. Heavy and a pretty fun set, the played well with the hand they were given. [7/10]

Get a blood transfusion here:

https://www.facebook.com/BlackBloodUK/

Now it was time for the main event, Catalysis take the stage to the obnoxious Christmas (s)hit  Mariah Carrey’s “All I want for Christmas Is You” pumped out of the house as intro music. Mercifully they shut this down in time before the chorus and kick out their first number sharply. This was truly their evening, the EP they were launching had already made a good mark on me (See my double Review), so I was interested in seeing how their work transfers from disc to stage. In this, they have done a great job. The levels for this band in terms of production was pretty much spot on. Crisp guitar sound pierced the room, a pronounced audible bass tone was there to great effect, while drum were less clear but sharp enough to be effective. Seeing them preform live is a treat to say the least, the riffs and movements are wickedly earworm-like and satisfy both the need for melody and aggression. Guitar Solos and some duel ripping leads are quite masterful, both as a sharp tool for precision and as a blunt force strike. Wicked!

The vocal growl and singing are as addicting as the guitar, particularly when the vocals are backed up in a chorus, while holding more than their own solo. Front man Colin is easily able to get a crowd having a good time in no time with his own cheer and personality. Drums are for the main part are impressive if a little overshadowed by the guitar work, but they have their own moments to shine in the gaps.  One of my negative points with the CD’s was some of the songs tend to drag in the last quarter, but seeing them live they make sense, they give the guys on stage a bit of room to breathe, while also working as build up to the riff coming next, so there is a function there.

With their own banners on stage too they also visually looked the part of a much bigger band in terms of presence on stage. They had a lot of fun too between the members fooling about with each other on stage, once almost missing the cue to get back to the microphones for the backing vocals. The rapped vocals one track I was dreading with my cringes ready. But actually turned into a highlight once it started. I can see the spirit in concept and it worked well live. It shows they have ideas up their sleeve and are prepared to do things out of the box.  

Overall this was a great performance, strong heavy and surely a boost for the band. I hope this is the beginning of their tipping point and their trajectory is upwards from here, they have the ethic and importantly the tunes. Great work. [8/10]

Get onboard here:

https://www.facebook.com/catalysismetal/

https://catalysis.bigcartel.com/product/catalysis-catalysis-ep-pre-order

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5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

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[amnachil]

The College Society Chapter 2 Part 2

And the next part is here !

Liam Sunday December 3

"You're free handsome, you can leave."

These words were sweet to his hear. After several hours serving customer, Judy finally let him go. (Of course Liam was glad to be serving and not taking care of the dishes anymore, but he met an old lady really strange who tried to touch his ass and he got a little scared). (She tried twice at least).

"You did well by the way." continued his boss. "I mean you only forgot five orders... That's a day to remember !"

The young lad frowned. He did not. (Ok, maybe he did). His coworkers called him "the lost waiter" for a reason... By the way, he wasn't sure to be useful for business.

"There's someone waiting for you outside." she concluded. "See you next week."

Kinda curious, Liam changed and headed towards the door. Surprisingly, it was Nick. That's new. Usually, he's playing video games at this hour. The dark-haired lad was wearing a fluffy jacket and black jeans. When he saw his roommate, he smiled.

"Hey bud'."

"Hey." greeted Liam. "What's going on ?"

He knew something was odd. The geek never went out of their flat without a good reason. And he just smiled, which was unusual since Rebecca and him had argued. And he got this little twitch when he wanted something. (Liam felt proud of himself. He was a real spy when he decided to). (Or just a good friend, but whatever).

"Nothing in particular." answered Nick. "Let's walk for a bit, please ?"

"Uh, okay."

Then, they became silent. At start, Liam just watched his friend. But then, his eyes got caught by a weird trash can on the other side of the street. It looked broken. I wonder who did that... Maybe Nick ? (He then remembered what he did, like three months ago, and he just blushed). Anyway, they  arrived at their building, but Nick just continued straight ahead.

"I'm not in the mood to listen to Rebbie and her boyfriend fuck." he complained. "Come on, let's go to the fastfood at the corner. I'm hungry".

Liam was honestly sleepy (like almost every night). (Or maybe everytime ?). However, he had also zero willpower. (You could ask him to dance naked in the street, he would do it). (Thinking about it, maybe not).

"Dude, are you coming or not ?" asked his roommate. "Stop looking at the sky like this, it's freaky".

Once inside, Nick ordered two burgers and some fries, and they sat far away the other customer. For a short time, they remained silent again. Liam nearly fall asleep. (Once he started to close his eyes, he had a really hard time resisting).

"So what's the deal ?" asked suddenly Nick. "Between you and this girl ?"

"You mean Judy ?"

"Not your boss silly, Colton's girlfriend. I saw you watching her. I mean, normally you're not looking something or someone in particular, just... dreamin'. But each times she's around, it's different. Have you a crush on her ? Cuz Nate let me thought you weren't... interested in girl anymore ya know ?"

Liam's brain took in the information. He's talking about Barbara. Dude his friend was more observant than he believed. He's always playing with his gameboy, but he saw that... I wonder if everyone else know too. But the truth was... Liam just failed to talk with Barbara. He just chickened out and ran under his blanket each time he tried to approach her.

"I'm not in love with her." belied the young lad. "I just happen to know her from highschool... But can we not talk about it ? Like we're not talking about you running away from our appartment because there are zombies in it."

(It was Liam's conclusion. Nick would only left if he mistakenly summoned undead). (But the unicorns would save the day). His friend stared at him, stunned.

"Man, you're so weird. I honestly don't understand how you're functioning. Anyway, I was just a bit angry at myself for stuff... But now it's ok. Let me finish this and we can go back, I can tell you're dead on your feet."

Rebecca Monday December 4

All the weekend, she had sensed something bad would happen. She had thought it was about sport, and couldn't find what the hell she had been missing. But now, she remenbered. The fucking group project. It was due for today, and they didn't finish it. Rebecca woke up panicked. She barely noticed Emilio who was still sleeping, and got dressed hella fast. Then, she rushed her neighbor's flat. Please, be awake. It's in one fucking hour. Please be awake. She couldn't afford to have a bad grade. Rebecca knocked so hard on the door that she probably woke up the whole floor. But Liam and Nick weren't answering. Those bloody sleepy heads ! She rushed towards the closest library. Let's hope I can do something by myself. She tried to call Colton, but he didn't ansewer either. Damnit. Rebacca was almost there when she ran into Matthew.

"Hey girl !" he shouted. "Where are you heading so fast ?"

"I forget to finish a group paper. I'm sorry but I need to go."

"Oh come on, that's no big deal." he replied ironically. "Stop being so serious about everything. You're already a star athetle, why do you need to study in the first place ?"

She stopped for a sec and looked at him. What a dumb question. My parents want me to. It's for my future.

"C'mon girl." Matthew laughed. "I mean, wouldn't you be better if you only trained ? And you really could use some free time for yourself. You got a bad reputation in the campus to be honest."

"What ? Why ?"

"Well, you're trying to be the best runner, the best swimmer, the best student and all... It's kinda obvious people don't like it. Oh, and your boyfriend got a lot of women after him aswell. They hate you."

Rebecca didn't knew what to say. People hated her... because she tried to be perfect ? What the hell ? Maybe that's the reason why Nick is so raging lately... He simply was jealous of her success.

"Anyway, it's always nice to talk with you, but I should hurry." stated Matthew. "Chelsea's waiting for me at the coffee shop."

Rebecca nodded and watched him draw away. Weird. After everything he did, I thought he just hated me but... now he's nice. Maybe he's trying to make it up on his behavior.

The young girl tried her best on the group project. Sadly, it wasn't enough at all. She headed towards the class quite depressed. Matthew's words were still making her think. And she feared the bad grade incoming. When she entered in the room, she looked at Colton, Liam et Nick. The first one looked a bit stressed too.

"We are screwed guys." he admitted while she sat. "We didn't finish the paper. In fact, we barely did it at all."

"We had a paper ?" asked Liam.

They all looked at him. That guy will turn me crazy one day. Did he know they had exams coming soon ? How the hell he managed to go to college exactly ?

"In fact, you're worried for nothing." assured Nick. "Because while you were all doing god know what, the genius I am did the project. Alone."

He gave it to the teacher with a smile.

"Don't thank me fellows." he added. "I know Rebbie doesn't like to thank people who saved her ass anyway."

She opened her mouth, but nothing came to her mind. He had all the rights in the world to be mad. And she should say something, she knew that. But his provoking look enraged her. Damnit. The runner girl was too proud. She just ignored him. And felt hella bad about it.

Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey Wednesday December 6

The lad moaned. On the screen, the girl just pronounced his name in such a positive way. Bloody hell she had a sensual voice. With the remote, Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey rewound. Oh damn, that was so hot. Yeah, Amber, the chearleader captain, had a beautiful voice. He sped up the video until he saw Zack Jonhson. This one murmured his name. Hell. That's something. Zack had a special tone. Especially when he said "Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey". He just whispered each syllabe with so much passion. The Dean's grandson listened it again. And again. Eventually, he came with a satisfied grunt. That was so good. A bit awkward, but so good anyway.

"Hey Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey !" hailed Summer through the door of his appartment. "Are you in there dude ?"

Well, she didn't pronounced his name like in the video, this bitch. She was way more submissive in bed. The blond lad adjusted his boxers and closed his zipper. He didn't bothered put a shirt, and opened the door.

"What do you want ?"

Stupid cow. She had gained some weight since she had become the head of the student. Just, Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey had nothing against some chub. In fact, he could like it in some people. But this dummy ? She was uglier everytime he saw her.

"You asked me to tell you when the swimmers started their training." she reminded him. "Well they just started. And wow there are some cuties among them. Theo kept his card close to his chest."

She was definitely lusting after those guys. Such a pathetic predator. She was a collector, she couldn't handle the "break-up phase". And that was why she would be in troubles one day. But he didn't care, since he had already fucked her enough. He finally took a shirt, and headed towards the pool without even a glance for her.

When he arrived, he first heard Theo. That man had a strong voice. An unctuous one. He's a sneaky little bastard, but we had our greet time together. They ended it on a mutual agreement. Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey then remarked Laura. The loyal girlfriend. That was a lovely weird story, honestly. Laura was deeply in love with Theo, even if she knew what he was doing. They had a sort of agreement, because he helped her back in times. It's cute, he loves her and fuck chubbies in the same time.

"Uh... Sorry but I need to get to the pool please. I'm already late."

Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey turned over and stared at his prey. Oh god, I'm in luck. It might even be too easy. He had done some research, and knew the boy's name was Liam. He was from the middle of nowhere. He had achieved highschool with an A-, and was now studying economics. He wasn't a scholarship holder, and he lived in a flat outside the main campus with one roommate. I also noticed he's from the same town than this cute soccer player... Muller. I like that boy, he's gifted. Anyway, it was time to start the hunt. And this braindead freshman didn't move yet. He was just looking... What the hell is he lookin' at exactly ?!

"I'm Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey." the Dean's grandson introduced himself. "Nice to meet you."

The boy didn't answer. How come ? Is he that stupid ? Liam was tall, and ripped. Ripped as hell. Broad-shouldered, he had an impressive chest, and a blossoming six-pack. He was probably doing some cardio and muscle-development exercises as well as swimming. His face was kinda sexy. With chestnut hair, masculine feature, he had deep grey eyes, with a glint of blue. And his ass, that fucking ass made the hunter's cock hard in a second. But Liam seemed completely lost in his thoughts. I'm not being ignored by a little shitty swimmer. No way. Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey kicked the lad in the leg. Gently of course. The freshman landed on Earth.

"What ? Did you say something ?" he asked.

"I'm Damian Nicholas Smith-Carrey." repeated patiently the hunter.

"Hello. I'm Liam Strucker. Nice to meet you."

There was something really, really odd about his tone. He sounds completely high, but he isn't. In fact, he didn't seem stupid either. I thought he was but...

"Can I go to the pool now ?" asked Liam. "I should be doing lenghts by now."

"Yeah, just go."

The hunt would be harder than the Dean's grandson expected. I think I understood why Theo failed to pick up this guy. It'll be fun.

To be continued

Some develpment without weight gain I know but we’ll come to it ! So Liam and Damian finally met ! Let’s see if the hunter will succeed to have our dreamy boy in his bed !

Nick is an important character for the story, even if he hasn’t his own pov. He’s a nice guy, doing all the work alone and all. But what’s in his mind ? Maybe it is related to the little belly he’s denying ? ;)

In a month or so, I’ll start to post another long story at the same time (probably every saturday). It’s called To the perfection and the main characters are Thomas Muller and Dan Vince. It’ll feature a lot of pining, kinky desires and weight gain.

[trendingnewsb]

5 Common Things Hollywood Does That Instantly Kills A Story

Usually, the factors that pull you out of your focus on a movie or TV show are external. Someone forgets to silence their cellphone, or your mom asks you a question about the plot, or your date from OKCupid decides that a matinee showing of Dunkirk is the perfect time to start getting handsy. That kind of thing. But sometimes it isn’t the fault of the unforgiving world around you. Sometimes movies and shows do the job themselves and awkwardly tear you from your haze, placing you in the uncomfortable territory of “Oh damn. I am watching something, and am terrifyingly aware of that.” How do movies stealthily slit the throat of their own escapism? Well, they do things like …

5

Pausing For The Cameo Of A Big Star

Despite the fact that modern TV is full of quality entertainment that would make movies break out in frustrated, jealous tears, it still operates on the archaic system of “Movies are where important things go, and TV is where you watch inconsequential drivel that serves as a placeholder for actual enjoyment.” Don’t believe me? Look at how shows treat guest stars who are mostly known from movies or other mediums. They are in awe of them. The camera lingers on them, telling you that while the regular cast is nice and all, you should now place your undivided attention on the god king who has just entered the room.

I’m always down for a good lingering camera if the context is right. Jeff Goldblum is returning for Jurassic World 2, and I will be deeply disappointed if his introduction shot stays at Beautiful Jeff Goldblum Face Level for anything less than 20 uninterrupted minutes. The same goes for when a character has seemingly died but then comes back triumphantly. When Lex Luthor showed up in the last episode of Smallville to remind viewers that Superman’s future would not lack bald megalomaniacs, the camera seems to be more thrilled about this than anyone. And it probably was, honestly. Being a living, breathing Smallville fan was not, how should I put this, a “fulfilling” experience.

But the pause that might as well double as a “Clap Now” sign reeks of desperation, and rips away any chance to view what you’re watching as smooth, organic fiction. I don’t demand absolute reality from things. There is NO ONE in the world worse than someone who can’t put their malfunction behind them for two fucking seconds and just HAS TO remind you that no, Batman couldn’t do that in real life. Those people are fun traitors. But when the camera stops to gaze at the bigger star who is encroaching on the lives of the peons who normally inhabit the show, it’s not just stopping the flow of the episode dead; it’s reminding you that Hollywood has a definite hierarchy. A being of shining light and multiple movie deals has deemed this cast of characters worth their time, and we should feel blessed on their behalf.

Even worse is that usually, these guest stars are pretty damn talented. When Steve Carell left The Office, the employees spent a few episodes trying to find a replacement for him. This led to a parade of guest stars like Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey, and you’d think that comedy powerhouses like these, when supplied with jokes on one of the best-written sitcoms of the 2000s, would provide an avalanche of humor. Homes destroyed and families torn apart from the sheer magnitude of the fucking comedy. But no, they just kind of shuffled through the show as the camera jammed itself into their pores, as if to scream “ISN’T IT COOL THAT WE GOT WILL GODDAMN ARNETT TO BE ON THE OFFICE? ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR WILL ARNETT FOR LOWERING HIMSELF ENOUGH TO BE HERE.”

4

The Biggest Name Is Usually The Killer

Dramatic shows that have any number of “good guys” require guest stars to keep going. Unless the creators of Law & Order want every plot to be “Ice T was the killer all along, but we forgave him, because aww, just look at him,” they need new talent to fill out the ranks of serial killers, pedophiles, and bartenders who just might have seen someone who looks like that. But this necessity has created a painfully obvious trend: Whenever a big name shows up in a series, they’re going to be doing big-name stuff. And apparently, big-name stuff always involves ruining the surprise.

I’ve talked about Dexter in a few columns because, really, I’m still coming to terms with it. You devote eight years of your life to a show, and then it ends with the plot equivalent of a drunk pissing on your head from a third-story balcony. So you begin to think really hard about whether it was ever that good. And I’ve come to this conclusion: Yeah, it had some really great parts, but man, it had the worst “I wonder what THIS guest star will do?” poker face in the industry.

The first two seasons of Dexter tell a perfectly contained story. And then in Season 3, Jimmy Smits swaggers in with a kind of “I’d like to get a beer with that guy” charisma that only Jimmy Smits really has. But then Jimmy Smits turns into EVIL Jimmy Smits, and Dexter has to kill him. Then John Lithgow shows up in Season 4, and while he’s great, the pattern is being established. By the time Colin Hanks burst into Season 6 with a plotline so terrible that it served as a Dexter Is Not Going To Get Good Again trumpet of the cancellation apocalypse, the standard had been set: If a new dude shows up on Dexter, that dude is almost 100 percent going to end up as Dexter’s table dressing.

Obviously, if an established actor shows up on a prestige TV drama, they’re going to be given a role with some meat to it. When William Hurt or whoever inevitably shows up on the fifth season of Westworld, they’re not going to be given the role of Blowjob Robot Bartender #4. They’re going to get Maniacal Douche Who Was Super Integral To The Creation Of Westworld Who We Never Really Discussed Before. And them basically spelling out what’s going to happen in the rest of the season or episode doesn’t stop them from giving a knockout performance. It just momentarily stops us from getting lost in the show.

It’s also admitting that we’ve kind of pigeonholed what we think makes for good, guest-star-worthy roles. Someone with any kind of positive qualities? Pssssh. Demented Man Child That Makes Tiny Doll Furniture Out Of His Victim’s Toenails? You can basically smell the Emmys on that one.

3

Being Waaaaay Too Self-Aware

Having a sense of self-awareness can be helpful. It’s what prevents you from deciding that your show about six friends who live in New York City is a fresh idea, and it gives you a moment of hesitation when you think “A guy named Harry meets a girl named Sally. HOW HAS NO ONE COME UP WITH THAT?!?”

Even adding a little self-awareness to your story isn’t so bad if you do it in nice doses. The reason The Cabin In The Woods works so well is that it comments on horror film tropes, but doesn’t rely on that to be effective. Compare that to something like Scream 4, where hoping that you get the reference is all that that movie has going for it. The first two Scream films are neat little venture into the nature of horror movies and their sequels, but by the time Scream 4 rolled around, the series had looped back through its own butthole and out of its mouth again in order to prove that it was still relevant. And it wouldn’t have had to do that if it had done the basic job of a movie, instead of relying on blistering self-awareness.

Community at its best was a show with so, so much heart. The love that the writers had for the characters bleeds through, and it’s a passion project carefully disguised as a typical prime-time sitcom. And in its early seasons, the series pulled off self-awareness pretty effortlessly. And maybe it’s due to the fact that Community began to lose core cast members starting in the fifth season, and the last half of the show was plagued with a shuffling creative team, but the self-awareness which had initially set it apart from regular shows became a crutch. The emotional stakes were lost, and in their place were constant comments about the nature of TV, which is like hearing your cheeseburger explain its own ingredients while you try to eat it.

Even vague self-awareness can be jarring if it comes out of nowhere. Kingsman: The Secret Service is a fantastic movie when it’s not talking about the spy movies that it’s borderline-parodying. If that scene in which Colin Firth was taking out the church full of bigots was still going to this day, I’d be okay with it. And don’t act like there isn’t a version of “Freebird” that is three years long. I know there is.

But slapped in the middle of the movie is a conversation between Firth and Samuel L. Jackson about the nature of spy flicks, as if they’re assuming that the audiences that have not yet seen the movie are already a little “out of the know” about what it’s trying to do. Come on, movie. Give us some credit.

2

Music That Defies The Laws Of The Universe

Movie soundtracks can do two very different things. They can heighten an experience, pulling you into the film in the way that a music-less scene could never do. They get your blood pumping without you even knowing, and pretty soon you’re first-pumping by yourself in the theater and screaming that you’ll be forever young at the top of your lungs. Hey, you’re doing it too, not necessarily just me. But a soundtrack can also drop you on your head, revealing that the movie that you’re watching is just a big marketing ploy by people who have figured that since you like Iron Man AND Ed Sheeran, putting both in the same movie at the same time will result in a dump truck full of dollar bills and hookers showing up to their houses.

How does it drop you from your cradle? Well, for one, it can bend the laws of time and space, forcing you to question why anyone would make a movie this way. Take the movie Hitch, for example, wherein Will Smith teaches dudes to talk to women, and teaches YOU to be more careful about picking out which Will Smith movies you go see. He teaches Kevin James how to dance in one scene, but starts his lesson by shutting off the music that’s playing at a party in the future? Future humans were dancing to that song, Will. Don’t cut a hole in the continuum of time when a motherfucker is trying to get down.

Will then puts on the song “Yeah!”, which you might remember from it being more popular than oxygen in the mid 2000s. And then Kevin James dances to “Yeah!” both at Will’s house and at this future party. My problem doesn’t lie with the song “Yeah!” showing up at two different places at two different times, because, again, I’ve heard “Yeah!” more than I’ve heard the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, and “I love you” combined. It’s just that this scene is edited in a way that makes you realize A) Hitch is a wizard, and B) this movie is a shallow attempt at getting us to like the song “Yeah!” more.

And sometimes a movie will feature a song that’s performed by an actor in that movie. Like how Texas Chainsaw 3D plays the song “2 Reasons,” and one of the characters listening to it and enjoying it is Trey Songz, the guy who sang “2 Reasons.” That’s not a slight wink and a nudge, filmmakers. That’s a big invisible hand coming out of the screen to jar you out of whatever good things you might be feeling and reminding you to go download “2 Reasons,” because the actor who fucking made “2 Reasons” in real life seems to really be enjoying “2 Reasons” in this completely fake life. If you want to give the audience a cue to simultaneously begin ignoring the movie and start playing around on their phones for a little bit, this one is as good as any.

1

“Event” Episodes Where No One Is Happy To Be There

Earlier, I mentioned guest actors, and spoke pretty harshly of them. My apologies, guest actors. To make it up to you, the rest of this column will be written by John Stamos, and he will be playing the role of me. I make these amends because guest actors aren’t the worst things to take you out of TV shows. That honor goes to “event” episodes in which non-actors are given roles, and we’re supposed to be cool with it. “Suck it up,” your television says, “If it wasn’t for me, you’d be playing charades with people you pretend to like.”

The “events” I’m referring to are usually one of two things: musicians coming into town or pro wrestling events. And they’re so awkwardly crammed into the plots that you can’t help but feel your joy be driven from your body like a screeching ghost while you watch. Nothing says “No one wants to be here, especially the people on your screen” like a sitcom episode that features a rock star or a professional wrestler. For example, watch this clip of the time the band Anthrax showed up on Married With Children. But only do it if you want to see a dozen people lose their enthusiasm for the arts allllll at once.

If you watched that and found your sense of happiness to still be alive and breathing, watch Stevie Wonder’s appearance on The Cosby Show, the kind of thing that only happens when the Devil is handling God’s day shift. And if you still have any delusions about the positive power of fiction, dash them by staring into the abyss of any pro wrestler cameo on any sitcom ever — cameos that are usually announced by characters who are suddenly into wrasslin’. This, as a wrasslin’ fan, is absurd from the ground up. You don’t just suddenly declare that there’s a wrestling show near you and that you’re into wrestling. You are into wrestling, and your family and friends spend their whole lives wishing that you’d shut the fuck up about it.

These episodes usually involve either a member of the cast and their stunt doubles clumsily recreating what a sitcom director thinks wrestling is like (like in Fuller House or The X-Files), or finding a way to work the fact that most wrestlers are seven feet wide into the plot (like in Boy Meets World or Smallville). Admittedly, the wrestlers usually seem like they’re having a better time on the shows than musicians do. But nothing clips the wings of your flight into TV wonderland faster than the harsh introduction of pro wrestling logic into an otherwise normal show. “These five friends are on a mission to find success and love in the big city, and over the years, you will fall in love with their wit and their willingness to find pleasure in the small things in life. Oh, and meet their new landlord, Big Van Vader, who is roughly the size of a Woolly Mammoth.”

Daniel is listening to “Yeah!”, as it’s the only thing that drowns out the loneliness. He is a brittle husk of a man on Twitter.

It sucks that your friends are always ruining movies for you, but you won’t need friends anymore after you get the Amazon Fire stick with Alexa voice remote.

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