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samatedeansbroccoli · 2 years

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So I watched MWII… A Review

Welcome back to the fandom, Broccoli! It’s been a little under 18 months since I last paid attention to COD and having just watched Modern Warfare 2022, I thought I’d do a classic Broccoli review. That intentionally rhymed.

I had many strong feelings about this campaign, and though I did enjoy it, I also struggled with it. And I want to talk about it. For those of you who don’t want to be spoiled but want to know a general numbers gauge of my thoughts, or for those of you who are short on time, I give this campaign a 6/10.

Now that we got the angry people out for me giving it a 6/10, let’s move on to the full review of why I came to that conclusion. A reminder that this is just my opinion, and there’s a good chance you didn’t feel the same way. And that’s totally fine. This review also has lots SPOILERS so if you don’t want to be spoiled, in the good words of The Critical Drinker, “Go away now!”

We’re Back, Baby! The Likes

I wish I could play this game because it looks really solid. The maps are beautifully designed and the variety of gameplay options offered the player different ways to adapt to the style of the story. It was fun seeing map layouts that referenced previous MW missions, and a couple other games from the other COD series. The graphics are outstanding, even if they look a little less refined when compared to MW19, but that’s hardly a concern. There’s a lot of variety of action, from CQC combat to sniping from a distance with Price spotting and a fighter plane overlook mission. They also alternate between linear missions and more open choice. I absolutely adore the soundtrack, with the classic MW theme mixing with Piccadilly Circus from MW19 as the main theme.

My personal favorite level was the oil rig one, specifically just the ship. I don’t think we’ve had a moving level before (I know some of the MP maps have moving objects). Working through the containers really helped build up what the first half of this campaign did very well: holding tension. Often, the player character would get shot if you overstepped too much or didn’t come up with a smart way to avoid the enemies. This was kinda the same idea used during the Amsterdam swimming part of the mission. The tougher AI gave the player room to adapt to the situation and improvise to beat it.

Gaz is the best character here. His growth from a naïve yet eager newcomer in MW19 to a strong and sure soldier really is at its best here. I love how his relationship with Price has so clearly grown to the point where they can banter, and it even extends to his relationship with Laswell. And yet he still deeply respects both, never overstepping his boundaries and listening to them when it’s crucial to.

I also found Vargas and Rodolfo really held up their end of the story. From an interview posted on the COD YouTube, they were made out of care for the franchise. It’s rewarding to have new characters in the story that work well for their roles without overstepping previously established characters. Additionally, I love Makarov’s gun build at the end, which made his new plane hijacking suddenly way more intimate.

However, that’s all I have to summarize for the good stuff. And now, on to…

I Guess That Happened…? Moments of Apathy

MW in general isn’t my favorite series, and I never really cared for the characters, which affects how I perceive the campaign. That being said, MW19 is one of my favorite games. Which is why I was disappointed every time a trailer came out. Already, I could tell MW19’s story was going to be ignored, and I was right. So many things happened in this game between new factions, new names, new locations, and much much more that the campaign felt like it was trying to do too much and make a brand new series. A great disappointment to the continuity of the previous game. Not only was Victor Zakhaev never mentioned after being teased in the first game, but we never get the chance to explore Farah and how she’s changed after 20 years of fighting with the Russians. There’s no conclusion to Alex’s story, what happened to Hadir, or how Barkov’s position in the Russian army may have affect the world. This game would have held up well as a stand-alone. But it’s disappointing it lacked acknowledgment towards MW19 outside of Farah, Laswell, Price, and Gaz existing in both stories.

I know I said I like the variety of the missions earlier, but that didn’t quite work for the mission lengths. The long missions were L o n g and the short missions too short. The very first mission takes 5 minutes tops to execute. The next one is more standard 20-40 minutes. And then it goes into missions that can last practically an hour if you’re struggling with it all because you’re required to do certain tasks in certain orders. This sounds more negative than positive, but when the missions were tight, the game flowed, and the ones that dragged to extend the campaign killed any tension.

On a smaller note, I found the climax to be disappointing. The Soap Lost mission worked well with the crafting, even if that mission dragged on too long. But putting crafting in the climax to defeat a couple headshot AI then killing Hassan in just one shot really left the ending forgettable. There were a lot of things you could have done with the crafting in the climax, like pick up a wireless nail gun and slowly craft it to act more like a one shot pistol. Or craft supplies to build mines and protect your teammates from swarming enemies while they disarm the bomb. Hassan’s death also lacked impact, especially following the boss fight with Graves (who I keep forgetting is in this campaign). I think Hassan deserved the Graves boss fight, and Graves deserves the Hassan boss fight. This could have been improved simply with a Mic’d Up Soap so Ghost could hear everything Hassan said before sniping Hassan/Soap or Soap falls out the window.

Like Graves, I keep forgetting Shepherd was in this campaign too.

Lastly, I was apathetic to the dialogue choices. By no means was this a bad thing. For the most part I liked it. It’s nice that the devs listened to the community (for once) when the BOCW said they would have liked Bell/Alex’s dialogue lines voiced. The interrogation scene with Valeria is among one of my favorite. That being said, I did find the Price/Gaz/Laswell and the Soap/Ghost dialogue exchanges annoying sometimes. More on some of this later, but the primary reason is that it felt like the conversations didn’t flow very smoothly.

Hit By a Truck: The Dislikes

My older followers know this: I really don’t like OG Ghost. I’ve never found him appealing, and Soap going “Ghost shut the fuck up” was the best part of MW2 for me. That said, I still read his comics. When MW22 started out with a Ghost who embodied the type of experienced warrior he is, I quickly became a Ghost fan. The game recognized that Ghost was a founding member of 141 and established his knowledge and experience was much greater than Soap and Gaz’s, and I couldn’t wait for the game to explore that…

And then he started talking…

And talking…

And suddenly I didn’t like him anymore. Much of his character relied on Soap, who suffered from feeling like he was too new to the job even though he’s been in 141 for at minimum 3 years given how surely Price spoke of him to Laswell in MW19. I didn’t mind their bantering too much, though it wasn’t my favorite parts, but the part I really hated was Ghost saying “Speak English” (which happened bout 4-5 times in the story) to Soap. To me, it was not funny. It was not cute. It was a way of bringing attention to Soap’s accent and speaking pattern even though Soap was speaking English (Scottish English, but still a variation of English). To me, it made Ghost feel like a dumbass, incapable of discerning information through its context. I wouldn’t have minded as much if Ghost said “what are you saying?” or something more along the lines of his scenes asking what Vargas and Rodolfo said.

I also didn’t like how they’ve rewritten history to say Ghost gave the order to bomb Soleimani (Ghorbrani in the game (Please stop rewriting history COD)).

By the end of the campaign, I was right back to where I started with Ghost: disliking him.

Price too was heavily nerfed from his badass with pained experience behind his eyes we saw in MW19. Even his OG/19 self’s sassy and borderline rude yet endearing type had reduced in favor of sounding like he was written by someone who wanted so badly to ship him with Laswell but couldn’t. Price has always been caring for his teammates, yet Laswell’s capture felt more like Price’s personal rescue mission rather than “Laswell has valuable information and we need to get her back.” It took away a lot of the charm Price had from MW19 for me.

Lastly, I really. Really. Really. Hated the mission with Farah. And it’s massively disappointing because Farah is my favorite MW character and she has been ever since I got into COD. The most obvious reason is that she never more than two lines of personality in and the rest was generic soldier commands NPCs do. The mission is among one of the more disliked ones from the community for its tedious gameplay. It started off strong but then quickly became a pile of empty payoff.

However what bothered me most are the implications behind it. They’re in Urzikstan—a Muslim dominated country—trying to get Laswell back when she got captured by Al Qatala (AQ). The fight takes place on a highway with AQ’s convoys leading and Price, Gaz, and Farah’s army pursuing, dodging around innocents who are also driving on the highway. One of the AQ NPCs starts dropping mines to make a mine field, which causes the innocent cars to blow up and become “fun little burning obstacles for Gaz to avoid! :D”

You can probably see where this is going.

Really? A 6/10?: Conclusion

Yep, a 6/10. But it’s not that bad! It knocked BO2 out of the penultimate low of my COD campaign favorites, and that’s been sitting there for over a year!

I would have loved to see a tighter campaign. Something that was only 4-5 hours long and much tighter. For a game that had so much going on, there was a lot of bloat and mission filler to try and make the campaign longer. Lengthening the story only made what started off as a tight game slowly crumple until it croaked out the final word (minus the part about Makarov. That went pretty hard).

That all said, I did enjoy the game. Especially the first half up until Laswell got captured. It was nice to see the likes of Cliffhanger, All Ghillied up, Clean House, and more return as gameplay layouts. I think the campaign has a lot of strong points, and I expect it’ll be well received among the COD community overall.

Now, I shall disappear into my hole and resurface in 2024 when the next COD comes out. Goodbye!

#call of duty #modern warfare II #MWII

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cyberpunk-2077-hack-gn · 2 years

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Cyberpunk hacking: How to ace the hacking minigame in Cyberpunk | PC Gamer

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 Going high noon in the streets of Night City might sound be a rocker-boy thing to do but we all know that it's the hackers and computer whizzes behind the scene that actually get the job done. As it is, being a hacker in Cyberpunk might be a bit fiddly at first though, it's not all rainbows and butterflies, especially at the beginning. If done right though, a decent hacker in Cyberpunk can commit a massacre with but a mere look. Not many games let players be that kind of person, which is essentially a walking case of Final Destination. If that's what you want then look no further than this guide as we will explain how to make enemies commit suicide in droves or while V struts around Night City with a sparkly clean suit. The thing about being a hacker in Cyberpunk is that it requires patience at the start. The trend here is the opposite of gunplay; whereas that one offers instant gratification at the very beginning, hacking's rewards don't come up until later on. That's because a certain component is required for a hacker to truly shine and without that, they're mostly just going to be revealing enemy positions, blinding them, or disabling cameras. So don't throw away those guns or knives yet, they're mostly needed as backups. This is also one of the reasons why being a hacker sets players off to a difficult start. All points must absolutely go to Intelligence. Even if it looks like allocating a point of two in Reflexes can help since there's no gear to let you take advantage of high intelligence yet, it's crucial to have some discipline. That also means catering to a certain pacifistic or stealthy playstyle. Avoiding unnecessary trouble or encounters is vital because players don't have much health or direct fighting skills. Again, the payoff is worth it so just be smart with your interactions. Now comes the fun part, acquiring a Legendary Hacking Rig or Cyberdeck. This is where all the points you put in Intelligence pay off. Do note that equipping a Legendary Cyberdeck also requires a Street Cred of 14 but that shouldn't be much of a problem. As for which Legendary Cyberdeck to get? Two options stand out, the Netwatch Netdriver and the Tetratronic Rippler. Both allows for Quickhack mods to be quicker and the first one is better for making Quickhack effects spread like wildfire to enemies. The Tetratronic Rippler is good as a cheaper option and is easier to acquire. Just keep going back to Ripperdocs until one of them has one. For the actual hacking training, no other activity serves as a better practice than desecrating Access Points. They're all spread throughout Night City and players shouldn't pass up an opportunity to tamper with any they see out in the open. These are goldmines looking to get cracked as some Access Points not only contain money but also mods. If they're lucky, players might even land themselves some Legendary mods or components to craft one. If anything, they also serve to familiarize the players with hacking. Breach Protocol in the perks tab might sound secondary to the more impactful Quickhacks but they're useful enough for when players find themselves blocked by a stubborn door. Mass Vulnerability is a good one. Another would be Datamine or Headstart. In general, players don't really need most of the other options in Breach Protocols as the aspect that puts the "over" in overpowered hacker lies in the Quickhacks section so be conservative with your points when dabbling with Breach Protocol. Here's what makes the hacking discipline in Cyberpunk a little busted. The Quickhack perks are all mostly good or even crucial depending on your Cyberdeck. Here's the priority list of which Quickhack perks to obtain:. Quickhack perks would be nothing without the actual Quickhacks. These are your bread and butter in Cyberpunk as an overpowered hacker. Truth be told, you don't need much. A few key mods will do. Make sure one of them is a Ping mod. Better yet, make sure it's a Legendary Ping Mod. This lets you assess and determine which threats are worth prioritizing in a building. More than anything, it allows V to be situationally aware, which is priceless when it comes to stealth runs. Getting it is easy, thankfully, and only needs the Bartmoss' Legacy perk. For those who have the Legendary Cyberdecks mentioned above, this is probably the most absurd mod available. It's essentially a silent poison spell that spreads to enemies. With the right perk and Cyberdeck combination, Contagion lets players clear out whole buildings faster than guns can. The Legendary version is even more helpful as it lets the Quickhack jump an additional time to an enemy. The catch is that it only works on enemies who are vulnerable to Chemical damage. Truth be told, that's not much of a downside. Unlock this one by getting the Bartmoss' Legack perk. Contagion can be non-lethal so if players want a full measure instead, they can opt to use the Suicide mod. It's lethal and forces the target to commit suicide. It's also effective when used against a clustered group of enemies. The Legendary version of the mod is even more cruel as it lets players kill any panicked those who have seen their dead comrades enemy at a cheaper RAM cost. Crafting specs for this one are automatically unlocked after acquiring the Bartmoss' Legacy perk. Suicide might be a little too much and Contagion might be a little too limited to organic enemies. Hence, some Quickhacking alternatives are always welcome. If you have space then Short Circuit or System Reset are awesome additions. Short Circuit is useful for dealing with robots and System Reset is a good way to knock a target unconscious. They're not necessary though and are mostly there for ensuring good karma, which a rare sight in Night City nowadays.

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deep-rock-galactic-cheats7z · 2 years

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Deep Rock Galactic Cheats, Cheat Codes, Hints and Walkthroughs for Playstation 4

💾 ►►► DOWNLOAD FILE 🔥🔥🔥 The main premise of Deep Rock Galactic may seem simple right off the bat, but there are a lot of hidden details and hilarious quirks that will allow you to never get bored. Most dwarves stick to missions and beers without exploring any further. However, there are cosmetic secrets, hidden passages, and helpful tips you should know that will help you mine ore in a more fun and fast way. Deep Rock Galactic only came out one year ago, in , so we can expect more things to be added to the game so that there's never an end. Rock and stone brother! The most recent of which was the Lunar New Year. With an official board game in the works and a player base that is absolutely thriving, now is as good a time as any to grab your pickaxe, call some friends into a party, power up your Mule, and get out there to earn interplanetary riches. To make that easier, here are some tips and tricks to make the most of each mining trip in Deep Rock Galactic. While in the Space Rig, your home base where you select missions, you can grunt and burp. By pressing X, your dwarf starts making these strange noises. Maybe you're waiting for a teammate to hurry up at the store so you guys can start the mission, or maybe someone is AFK. Either way, try clearing your throat and using those ostentatious sounds to get their attention. That's right, you can get downed in the Space Rig. Your teammate will have to revive you, much like during a mission in the caves. If you're by yourself when this happens, you'll simply have to respawn on your own. Getting downed while in the Space Rig is a result of a seriously heavy craft beer. The Blackout Stout to be exact. This beer sticks true to its guns and will make you pass out shortly after drinking. There's a special control panel within the Space Rig that removes gravity for all players. While at the back, you can make a left and use a small elevator pad to get upstairs. You can access this area by going up from different routes, like the elevator near the Equipment terminal, instead. This area will have a large control panel that says Danger, Gravity Recalibration. Interact with it to let it all hang loose. So you've learned how to make grunts, guffaws, and burps in the Space Rig. This same button, X, allows you to call for other players during missions. When you're downed, being carried away, or captured by a cave leech, it's best to spam this button. It makes your dwarf say things like "Hey, help me! Using this button is critical for when you're not using voice chat or text chat. It's quick and easy. If you use it while not downed, it will simply call your player friends or Bosco to come over to your location. This can also be helpful for escaping. If someone is lost trying to find the drop pod, call out to them! This is a feature a lot of players perform by accident or are completely unaware of. Every biome and map in Deep Rock Galactic is procedurally generated. No mission ever looks the same. Because of this, you have to always use your wits and solve puzzles just to traverse through these caves with ease. You have to figure out how to reach certain areas and where special ores are. By creating a waypoint, you can mark these important areas and ores and come back to them later. The Laser Pointer reveals the official name of ore or bugs when you point to them. It can also create a ping for other players by pressing left-click. To leave a waypoint, you must press E while the Laser Pointer is out. By doing this, the waypoint will be visible on the map any time you press CTRL and when you look at your Terrain Scanner. No other players can see your waypoint except you. While doing missions, you may have stumbled upon weird machine-like contraptions in these alien caves. Perhaps you weren't able to interact with them. When you find random machines like this and strange ore you can't mine in caves, it's a part of a machine event. Machine events are special side tasks that reward players with next-level cosmetics and gear. You can only interact with machine events if you're dwarf is promoted. A promoted dwarf is like prestige. Once you've maxed out your level for a dwarf, you can't go any further with them until you reset their base level and promote them. This gives you a nice star above your profile border in the game and allows you to keep leveling up that dwarf. When you promote your dwarf, you're rewarded with a Tritilyte Key, among many other things. The Tritilyte Key is a reusable item that activates machine events. Machine events reward players with a unique weapon and dwarf cosmetics if you insert a Matrix core after completing it. If you don't insert a core, you still get experience and credits for completing the event. Both the Scout and Driller can freeze enemies with ease. The Driller starts off with a flamethrower but can upgrade to the complete opposite, a cryo cannon. The cryo cannon unleashes a piercing cold frost, freezing any enemy and ally in its way. The Scout starts off with a regular grenade, but while in the Equipment terminal you can upgrade to a cryo grenade. Freezing enemies prevents them from doing harm and allows all players to breathe and instantly kill these enemies before they can do anything. The special tactic here is that if any enemy is flying and frozen while in the air, they instantly die by themselves. You don't have to shoot flying enemies if they are already frozen. They drop down and shatter like glass. There's a hidden achievement you can get in the Space Rig. Many, actually. One of them involves a mug of beer and the barrel minigame. There's a minigame to the right of the Abyss Bar where you have to kick a barrel into a ring of fire to score points. If you throw your empty beer mug into the ring instead, you get a cool achievement. Many of the cosmetics in Deep Rock Galactic give a friendly nod and cultural reference to other popular media. If you read the descriptions of hairstyles and mustaches carefully, some of them may sound familiar to you. There's a big long mustache, like the one in the photo above, with the description " For some reason, you have an urge to dream up maniac machines and colorful contraptions. You can find other references like a mustache called The Swanson. Its description reads " A classic display of subtle, raw power. The Space Rig can feel like a maze if you really start exploring it. There are many tunnels and elevators and hallways to find. But there's one area that triggers Mission Control to stop you in your tracks. Upon entering a certain area, Mission Control gets on communication and tells you that you're trespassing and to turn back immediately. This leads one to think, what could be here? The location that triggers this Mission Control dialogue is directly above the drop pod. When you go up the elevator to the left of the Deep Dives terminal, turn right instead of walking forward. This will lead you to two entrances. One is the Memorial Hall, the other is titled Top Hanger. If you go into the left entrance that says Top Hanger, you'll find another elevator and eventually reach the top of the Space Rig and drop pod. Currently, there is nothing actually here even though you're asked to leave. Mission Control being adamant about you turning back immediately leaves players to wonder if there will be something special added to that location in the future. It's definitely something to look out for. But there are some tricks to make that landing a little softer. Another neat trick folks have found is that standing on top of an item affected by gravity, such as Lost Packs can also negate any drop damage. So if you find yourself stranded up high or suddenly falling at speed, try to find one of these things to aim for as it might just save your stubby-legged life. Similar to how flying enemies fall when frozen, enemies that pop nasty effects upon expiring can be bypassed by putting them on ice. But, there is a way to use this to your advantage as a Satchel Charge can down but not permanently kill friendly players. So for example, have someone take the full brunt of a bug charge, then after they do some damage and eventually drop, just carpet them with charges then revive them from underneath the huge pile of dead space insects. Ziplines in Deep Rock Galactic are both your mode of transport and the best route of escape. An unlockable for the Engineer, Proximity Mines are fun to use and great for laying traps for big swarms, but please on behalf of every mining group out there, put them anywhere but the floor. Literally anywhere will do but there, please. Unfortunately, they also do a good deal of friendly fire damage. Updated January 22, by Matthew Mckeown: Rock and stone brother! Read Next in indie games.

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bangchanswolfpelt · 3 years

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hello! i've been thinking (for a horribly long time) about Weird Mean Doms skz minho and txt beomgyu and how they'd play you and i've concluded that:

minho's the one with the randomized punishment games. step on the wrong tile in the kitchen? go without underwear for the day. accidentally say a "forbidden" word that he picked this morning? guess you're being gagged. can't walk around the living room without touching the ground? you're licking his cum off the carpet later!

beomgyu, meanwhile, is more about competitions. he'll race you to the nearest lamp-post, or challenge you to finish washing the dishes before him, or ask who can skate further without falling, and punish (or reward :]) you accordingly. (i feel that this could also apply to ur skater boi dirtbag brother!gyu au, especially for an older brother, with that inherent sibling competitive dynamic and the give and take reward system)

yo, i read carpet and fuckin flinched, that's so mean!! 😭 i think you're spot on, though, Minho would absolutely rig up terrible unwinnable games just to give himself an excuse to punish you. he probably has a bunch that he makes you choose from in a jar like you're on a variety show, because he thinks the face you make as you rummage around inside is so funny, or he makes a little wheel for you to spin so you know exactly how bad all your choices are and he can watch the way your face falls as it slowly comes to a stop. 🥺

he'd also like to make weird, random bets with you—you bet on things like whether or not Chan will go to bed before one in the morning, how high of a decibel level Changbin's yelling will reach that day, or whether or not Jeongin's going to lose something that week. those are even worse than the games because Minho always makes sure you feel like you have a chance at winning, which just makes it all that more crushing when he makes sure that you lose. 😩

ugh, i love the idea of competitive brother Gyu!! i feel like you have a slightly better chance of surviving winning your games with Beomgyu; he likes to see you break for him, but part of the fun for him is definitely the challenge and uncertainty. he might be the dom here, but you know him just as well as he knows you, and for every button of yours he knows how to push, you know one of his, too.

Gyu's just also secretly very soft for you (especially big brother Gyu!). some days he watches you fall off his skateboard three times in a row just to see you get back on it for a fourth time and suddenly his heart hurts and he’s filled with the desire to reward you for simply existing—that reward might involve edging you until you cry, but it's still a reward given with love. 😂😭🥰

#cw incest #weird mean dom minho😽#dirtbag brother gyu au📸🎸#skz🔪#txt👾#mail corner 📬

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blu-joons · 3 years

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Board Game Cheat ~ Park Jimin

Your eyes rolled as Jimin landed on yet another empty street on the game, holding his hand out for you to pass him a card as he counted up the money that he had to pay for the card to add to his growing collection.

Your head shook, throwing it across to him in frustration as he added to his pile of double figures whilst you still sat with only three cards to your name.

“You’ve got to be cheating at this, there’s no way one person could be this lucky,” you vented, laying the money he passed over back into the bank which you took care of.

“You’re just terrible at rolling the dice,” he laughed, poking his tongue out at you, “and you keep landing on all my properties.”

You scoffed loudly, “can’t you just give me a few of your properties instead?”

Jimin’s head shook, moving his cards so that they were well out of your reach and safe in his hands. “This isn’t how Monopoly works Y/N, you’ve got no hope of beating me now. You can just give up if you want to call it a day?”

Rather than speaking, you picked up the dice and rolled it, refusing to admit defeat to Jimin of all people and the smug smile that he had on his face.

“I’ll turn it around you just wait and see.”

As you rolled the dice, you finally landed yourself on a property that was yet to be bought, picking up the money and placing it into the bank and taking the card to add to your pile to make it four.

“Congratulations,” Jimin sarcastically spoke up once the street was yours, swiping the dice and rolling for himself. You didn’t even to look, knowing what was happening by the exaggerated sound of him counting out his money.

You snatched it from him as he handed it across, as you looked at where he’d landed, you picked up one of the houses and threw it against his chest. “I hope your house burns down in a fire or something,” you sighed as he placed it down.”

“I don’t think they get housefires in Monopoly,” he teased, watching as your brows furrowed together and your frustrations continued to grow. “I did warn you that I wouldn’t go easy on you. I’ll give you a moment to think whilst I go and grab a drink.”

As he left the room for a moment, you noticed that he’d taken all of his cards with you. Your eyes fell on the lack of cards you had, and then to the board, noticing a street available in between two of the ones that he already had.

Your eyes looked back once again to see that he was still busy, flicking through the cards with the street names on, sliding out the one with the name on, adding it to your pile without Jimin knowing.

You just managed to add it to your pile before Jimin returned with a glass of water in his hand, and a smug smile still etched upon his face. “Who’s go is it?” He asked as you took the dice and rolled it, landing on yet another free street and placing the money down for it.

Once the street was yours, you passed the dice across to Jimin as he rolled, counting on to his new destination. You watched intently as he landed exactly on the street that you’d claimed as your own whilst he was in the kitchen.

“Neither of us has that, so I think I’ll take it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” you smirked, lifting the card up.

“I swear you didn’t have that one a minute ago, because they’re the same colours.”

Your shoulders shrugged innocently, holding your hand out for Jimin to pay up the rent that was on your property. He did it all with a quizzical expression on his face but didn’t argue too much knowing he was still very much in the lead.

“I really don’t remember you getting that one,” he whispered, “I must have been daydreaming.”

Your head nodded back at him, “you need to pay close attention to everything that happens in these games otherwise all your tactics will go out the window.”

It was almost impossible for you to hide your smile as the game continued, your next few rolls brought you a few more places whilst Jimin tried to hold onto what he had and keep his lead, frustrated as you began to catch up.

“How come you’re suddenly getting all the luck?” He frowned as yet another roll left him with nothing, “are you sure you haven’t just rigged this or something?”

“How?” You challenged as his shoulders shrugged, unsure as to how you’d suddenly managed to find some form. “You were the one that said this game all just relies on the roll of the dice, and now it’s finally rolling on my side instead of yours.

His eyes fell on the pile of cards that you had in front of you, “I’m still not sure that you’ve won all of those, you must have done something when I went to the kitchen or sneaked a card or two in whenever I’ve blinked.”

Your head shook, “I can’t believe you’d think so lowly of me. Now who’s the sore loser, just roll the dice otherwise we’ll never finish this game.”

“It just makes no sense,” he continued to mumble as he picked up the dice and rolled it, moving his silver statue across, finally landing himself on a street that was yet to be claimed.

“See, I told you things would get better.”

His eyes rolled as finally it was your own turn to be the arrogant one, “now I appreciate how annoying I must have been to you.”

The two of you continued your game of cat and mouse as you moved around the board until eventually Jimin ended up bankrupt, bringing your game to an end, and ultimately leaving you as the winner of it all.

“I actually have a confession to make,” you smiled as Jimin tipped the board down to start putting it away. You reached into your pile of cards and lifted the questionable one out. “I took this for myself whilst you were getting a drink as a reward for dealing with your smugness.”

“So, you did cheat? I was right all along?” He yelled.

Your head nodded as he reached across and pushed gently against your arm, “you were having too much fun winning that I had to do something to stop you getting too carried away with yourself. I didn’t think that it would change the game that much.”

“You made me think I’d gone crazy by wondering where that card had come from,” he groaned, running his hands through his hair, “I should have known better, I know exactly what you’re like whenever we play a game together.”

As angry as he wanted to be, his arms still wrapped around you, impressed that you’d managed to play the game for so long without dropping your act or admitting what had really happened to him.

“Does this still mean that I won the game?” You joked.

“Absolutely no way, we’re calling this one a draw.”

---

Masterlist

#bts #bts imagine #jimin #jimin imagine #park jimin #park jimin imagine #bts reaction #bts scenario #bts jimin #bts drabble #bts one shot #bts fluff #jimin scenario #jimin reaction #jimin drabble #jimin one shot #jimin fluff #kpop #kpop imagine

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honey-dewey · 3 years

Text

Buckle Bunny

Pairing: Jack ‘Whiskey’ Daniels/Reader

Word Count: 2,582

Warnings: None

Permanent Taglist: @phoenixhalliwell

You were bribed (AKA you lost a bet) into going to a local rodeo and being a Buckle Bunny. Unbeknownst to you, a mildly bored Jack Daniels is waiting in the crowd. Unbeknownst to Jack, the buckle bunny he’s smooth talking is a whole lot more than meets the eye.

“I am not wearing this!” You shouted, flinging the hat at your laughing best friend. “I am wearing my own hat.”

Elle, still doubled over with laughter, took the shitty hat from you, gesturing to Harmony to pass over your actual cowboy hat. You settled the brown hat on your head, sighing.

About a month ago, Elle had made a stupid bet with you, who could stomach one of Harmony’s ridiculously frilly pink drinks the longest. You’d puked first, and therefore lost the bet. Elle’s reward? She demanded you attend your next rodeo as a buckle bunny.

“I hate you,” you growled, wiggling in your tiny shorts. “This is embarrassing! I am competing today.”

“I told you that you can absolutely put on real clothes when you compete,” Elle said, handing you your boots. “But until then, I want you to get some numbers! Find you a nice sugar daddy or something.”

You reached behind you to smack a squealing Elle, Harmony almost falling off the bed with how much she was laughing.

“We’re gonna be late,” Harmony said finally, standing and saving Elle from your wrath. “Come on.”

The drive to the rodeo was quiet, with you sulking in the backseat. Buckle bunnies were often the bane of your existence, and now you had to pretend to be one.

The rodeo was, as expected, crowded. The fair was also in town, and between the rides and the rodeo, there were hundreds of people gathered in what was once an empty field.

“Just find a hot cowboy and go flirt relentlessly!” Elle said as she walked off to find the funnel cake. “Have fun!”

You gave her a middle finger, tried to pull your shorts down yet again, and headed off.

Wandering was easy. The fair and rodeo were your playground, and you knew every corner of the space, from the rigged games to the mildly unstable Ferris wheel.

“Well hey there little lady,” a voice drawled beside you as you finally decided to grab something to eat. “What’s a pretty thing like you doin’ all the way out here?”

Resisting the urge to gag, you turned, seeing an unfairly attractive man raising his eyebrows at you. He was stupidly good looking and dressed like a southerner, but not a full blooded cowboy. The hat looked authentic enough though.

“Oh,” you said, trying to act ditzy. “Just wanted to see what the commotion was. It’s so hot!”

The man grinned, taking off his sunglasses and revealing blazingly amazing brown eyes. In the sun, they looked whiskey gold. “Well, I’m Jack.”

You gave him your name, looking wistfully at the food truck. “I’m gonna grab a drink. You want somethin’?”

Jack shrugged. “Might as well.”

You two stood beside each other as the line moved up, until you were ordering your good luck charm, a shamrock green cup of shaved ice. It was margarita and spearmint flavored, aptly nicknamed the Mojito, despite not having a drop of alcohol.

Jack took a minute, but finally ordered a plain cherry cup of shaved ice. He beat you to the register, winking as he paid.

“I could’ve paid,” you pouted, taking a bite of your shaved ice and immediately feeling a reprieve from the blistering heat.

“You could’ve,” Jack agreed. “But you didn’t.”

Snorting in a likely unflattering way, you led Jack towards the rodeo portion of the field. “So. What’re you here for, cowboy?”

Jack smiled. “The rodeo, of course. Got the day off of work. Figured I’d relax the way my dad used to.”

You smiled. Jack was surprisingly more likable than you’d expected. You and him found a spot in the mostly empty bleachers around the rodeo ring and just talked. The metal of the bleachers burned your thighs, but you ignored it in favor of staring at Jack.

He was gentle with you, happily explaining rodeo terms you’d known since before you could walk. You pretended to be entirely clueless, keeping up the buckle bunny act. You’d almost told him about the dare, but then the thought of him seeing the supposedly dumb bunny getting a nearly perfect saddle bronc score was too good to pass up.

When an announcer called all the competitors to the tent, you jumped up, checking your watch. “Oh goodness, is that the time? My daddy’s gonna kill me!”

Jack chuckled, standing as well. “Sure you can’t stay? The show’s about to start.”

You shook your head. “Sorry cowboy, daddy’s super strict. See you!” You planted a kiss on his cheek and winked as you walked away.

Jogging to the competitor’s tent, you immediately checked in and detoured to the bathroom. Putting on proper pants, a button down shirt, a shamrock green vest, your belt and leg covers, and your spurs, you rushed out to join the other competitors, nodding to men you’d competed with all your life. This wasn’t a real competition, it was mostly just for fun and entertainment, so you weren’t worried about the competitors being nasty. In fact, some of them grinned and clapped your back in greeting, as if you’d been the best of friends for years.

Turning your attention to the blathering announcer, you tuned in just as he announced the saddle bronc. You were second to last, with only five people before you.

Those five people went and were judged loosely, and then they were leading you to the horse you’d be riding. It wasn’t your horse, no, your horse was waiting for the timed events. Saddle bronc was the only roughstock event you rode, and boy was it worth the risk.

Situating your spurs above the chestnut horse’s shoulders, you gripped the bronc rein tied to the horse’s bridle with one hand and secured your hat one last time with the other.

Just like that, a buzzer was sounding, and you were off, jolting around wildly as the chestnut tried to throw you off. But between your hand and your thighs, you weren’t going anywhere. The chestnut kept kicking, and you moved with him, back and forth and back and forth like a wave, your free hand occasionally touching your hat to keep it on your head, but it mostly stayed free, helping keep the balance. Your spurs dug into the chestnut’s shoulders and neck, just enough pressure to piss him off and keep him kicking, but not too much, lest you actually hurt the horse.

The chestnut whirled around, trying to throw you. You’d never ridden this horse before, but he was definitely a bucking horse, and knew as much about the job as you did.

Eventually, you were thrown from the chestnut’s back, hitting the dirt and rolling away from the horse so he didn’t hurt you.

You stood once it was safe, hearing cheers as you swept your hat from your head and bowed deeply, a triumphant grin on your face.

“And for competitor 6, a score of 90!”

It wasn’t your best, but you were extremely happy, bowing to the judges and walking off to go wait for the final competitor. As you waited, you looked over the events list. For the timed events, steer wrestling would be first, after the roughstock events finished. You didn’t compete in steer wrestling. Not because you couldn’t, but because, like the remaining two roughstock events, they were too rough on your body. You’d stick to the other events, thank you very much.

When the final competitor finished, they called everyone out to assess scores. A 90 was damn close to perfect, and if you were paying attention correctly, you’d won.

The small podium was painted with the traditional one, two, and three, and the announcer, a cowboy with a real buckle bunny by his side, began to announce scores.

Third place was a valiant 75. The buckle bunny placed the medal around his neck, grinning widely.

Second place was a damn good 85. He clapped your back as he jogged off to take his prize.

“In first place, competitor 6, with a score of 90!”

You walked to the podium, stepping up above the number one, bowing slightly so the buckle bunny could slip the medal around your neck. As you waved to the crowd, you put on your most natural smile and scanned the crowd for Jack, but it was too late. You were leaving to go wait out the rest of the events you weren’t in, unable to spot your mystery man.

Alone in the stables, you stroked down Lilac’s nose, humming to yourself. Lilac was your rodeo girl, speedy as hell and perfect when paired with you. She nudged into your shoulder, and you didn’t know it was a warning until you heard a voice behind you.

“And so it seems I was fooled.”

You turned, seeing Jack leaning against a wall.

“Shouldn’t you be watching the rodeo?” You asked. “I mean, that’s got to be more interesting than talking to a fake bunny.”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, but I ain’t here to talk to a fake bunny. I’m here for the real rodeo rider. That was impressive. How long have you been competing?”

“Since I was able to ride,” you admitted. “My dad used to put on fake competitions for me to practice in when I was six. Been doing rodeo events ever since.”

“Huh.” Jack drew closer. “Are you the bettin’ kind?”

Smirking, you took a step closer to him, so you were basically chest to chest. “That depends. What’re the stakes?”

“My phone number.”

You were definitely interested. “What must I do to obtain said number?”

Flicking the brim of your hat, Jack began to walk away, calling out over his shoulder, “Win the rest of your events.”

You snorted. Even without something as interesting as Jack’s prize on the line, you’d still probably win your events.

That didn’t stop you from being nervous. By the time they were calling the barrel racers out, you were a ball of anxiety. Lilac nudged into you, snorting as you stroked her nose.

You were set to go second out of the five competing, watching the competitor before you grab a decent score. Swinging up into Lilac’s saddle, you took a deep breath. Decent was good. Perfect was better.

The buzzer went off, and so did Lilac. Swinging immediately to the right barrel, you kept control, turning her in a hairpin turn, your knee just barely grazing the barrel. It remained upright, and you moved on. Lilac was going top speed, tightly turning the next barrel, you atop her, sure this time would break your personal best.

The third barrel was the final one, and it was perfection. You cued perfectly, Lilac turned perfectly, and then it was over.

“Competitor 2 with a time of 15.7 seconds!”

You laughed, adrenaline and joy coursing through you. Your personal best had been stubbornly stuck at 16.1 for months, but this had just shattered it.

In the end, you won the event, immediately moving on to the tie down. The last event.

You were first, Lilac nervously prancing behind the barrier as they brought out a calf. You’d been told all your life tie down events were cruel, and you agreed to a certain degree. But the way this rodeo did it, you were secure in the knowledge that the calf wasn’t getting hurt today. Not without severe consequences.

The countdown began, and you fiddled with your lasso. It was a familiar feeling, and you adjusted it just right, hearing the countdown reach zero. The calf took off, and two seconds after it, so did you.

Your first throw of the lasso was successful, grabbing the calf as you sprung off Lilac and felt her back up, giving you a tighter rope. You moved forward, grabbing the calf and flanking it in one swift movement. You took the end of the lasso and tied an expertly precise and incredibly fast three bone cross, securing the calf and hopefully, your win.

Your time was called. A 9.3. Not a personal best, but pretty damn close considering your best was an even 9 seconds.

The next few riders averaged around a 10, with someone nabbing a neat 9.5 that made your heart pound. And then, the final competitor.

Your blood chilled. Jack, atop a beautiful black horse, sat behind the barrier, adjusting his lasso. Leaning against the fence, you didn’t even blink as his calf raced out, and right behind the calf, him.

Suddenly, your original speculation of him being southern but not a cowboy was gone. He was picture perfect in that saddle, the lasso in his hands moving as if it were alive. He was good. Too good.

As he walked away from the calf, the announcer called his time, and your heart almost stopped.

He’d scored a 9.2.

He’d bested you by a tenth of a second.

Accepting your second place medal was hard. Standing next to Jack, you felt a bit bad for feeling so jealous. Jealousy wasn’t your color, so maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe you were just disappointed.

After the show, you packed up your three medals, two golds and a silver, and gave Lilac a pat as you handed her off to the stable hands. Leaving the stable, you looked around for Elle and Harmony, eager to get some funnel cake and play around with the horribly rigged games before the fireworks.

“Hello darlin’.”

The drawl made you turn. Jack grinned at you from the barn, and you walked over to him.

“Congrats,” you said, nodding to his gold medal. “That was impressive riding.”

“All part of the job,” Jack said, shrugging it off. “Anyway, I believe you earned your prize.”

You were shocked. “I didn’t, actually. I got silver. You won the last event.”

Jack smiled. “Ah, but two golds beats one, doesn’t it?”

He pulled out a pen, and you let him scrawl his number onto your hand. As he pocketed the pen, he tipped his hat to you and turned in the direction of a woman with short hair and a neat white button up who was apparently waiting for him. “By the way, green looks good on you!”

Jack walked away, making a ‘call me’ gesture as he disappeared into the crowd.

“What was that?” Elle yelled as he jumped on you from behind. “He was cute!”

Harmony was a bit nicer, squealing and grabbing your hand. “Jack Daniels,” she read. “Oh hell no, that is not his actual name!”

You yanked you hand back, smiling and taking a picture of the number, just in case. “I want funnel cake.”

Promptly ignoring all the questions for the rest of the night, you tried not to think about the number until you fell onto your bed, hat securely tossed onto your lamp.

Finally, you called the number.

“Jack Daniels, what can I do for you?”

“Jack?”

“Bunny!”

You sighed. “Do not call me that.”

Jack chuckled. “Struck a nerve?”

“Just a small one.” You rolled over, trying to think of what to say. “So, I’ve got another rodeo soon.”

“Oh?”

You nodded, despite it being pointless. “Yeah. I’m a judge, and I’m allowed to bring a date.”

Jack paused. “Bunny, are you asking me on a date?”

“Maybe.”

Another pause, and then Jack laughed. “Consider it done bunny. On one condition.”

You smiled. “You never call me bunny ever again?”

“Nah,” Jack said. “Wear somethin’ green.”

Feeling giddy, you eagerly nodded. “Consider it done Mr. Daniels.”

#kingsman the golden circle #kingsman #agent whiskey #jack 'whiskey' daniels #agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey x you #Pedro Pascal #My writing

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thoughtsaboutshows · 3 years

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21. Touch Football

this took forever but here we are! Set in a post part 4 world where no one dies. Sabrina was in Heaven in the halls of Baxter High. Or at least the version of it that was actually good. Nick’s arm was draped around her shoulder and holding her hand in his, brushing her knuckles as she enthusiastically explained how the week was going to go. Her own hand was tucked into his back pocket and she was replaying the growl he’d let out in her head when she slipped it into his jeans. He was wearing his letterman jacket and she was in her cheerleading uniform and without even trying the two walked as if they owned the school. All eyes were on them, a couple that looked that good were going to draw the attention, but Nick’s entire self was captured by Sabrina. And well, she was paying no mind to the rest of the school. She was full to the brim with joy, and this Heaven was nothing like the Sweet Hereafter she’d spent a week in after she’d died draining the void.

Nick was over the moon as well, with his girl tucked close to him as her lavender lotion invaded his senses. This is what he had envisioned when he showed up at Sabrina’s co- president meet and greet, the two of them together walking close. It was only out matched by the moment Sabrina had shown up in the Academy’s library, hand in hand with Hecate, cheeks flushed and alive. He’d almost tripped over the table leg running to her. He didn’t care if she was a ghost or a dream, he just wanted to be near her, look at her, see the golden specks in her brown eyes. But when he touched her face it was warm and the fingertips that she rubbed up and down his chest sent real goosebumps rushing across his skin. He felt those same goosebumps now, with her hand in his back pocket and a laugh that was more like sweet honey than anything else.

“And Wednesday is jocks and nerds day. And you’re both so that shouldn’t be too hard.” She giggled as she nuzzled her nose into his jaw.

“Hey now!” He mocked hurt and kissed her nose, drawing an even bigger smile from her lips.

“And then Thursday is the powder puff game.” Sabrina nodded proudly. She was excited for this. It was Juniors versus Seniors and had been looking forward to it ever since she started Baxter High. She’d missed it last year, too busy with eldritch terrors and dying to attend homecoming festivities. But now as a senior, she was going to make it count.

“I’m sorry, the what now?” Nick raised his eyebrows as he turned to her. She giggled again and stopped, leaning against a wall and pulling him against her. His hands settled on her hips as hers trailed up his chest and onto his shoulders.

“Powder Puff. It’s a touch football game the junior and senior girls play during homecoming week.” Sabrina smacked her lips and smiled as she smoothed her thumbs over the sinews underneath his shirt. “What there’s nothing like that at the Academy?”

“Prudence and her sisters liked to play some crazy games.” He joked as she rolled her eyes at him and poked him in the side. They both chuckled as he leaned in to kiss her softly. Sabrina and Nick had long since grown out of any insecurity about the sisters or any other aspects of their past. Harvey and Nick even had become something like friends. Nick and Sabrina were just grateful that they were here and alive, choosing to channel their energy into spells or the perfect way to make their bodies tick. Rather than rehashing ghosts of choices past. His lips were still pressed against hers as he spoke again, tasting her smile. “I like our games much better, Spellman. Trust me.”

She bit his lip once but then pushed him away with her gentle fingers, knowing that getting caught engaging in too much PDA could earn her detention and a one way ticket off the powder puff team. The two could hardly be trusted once they got a taste of each other and Sabrina didn’t want to test their self-control today. She and Nick could have their fun later.

“So you’re gonna come and cheer me on, right?” Sabrina asked him as she grabbed his hand and returned it to its spot over her shoulder. The look she gave him was inviting, an unspoken promise of what he’d be rewarded with if he went. But she didn’t need to dangle the carrot in front of him, he was down and supportive of anything she wanted to do. He’d show up regardless and well, they’d end up naked and in their bed later regardless too.

“I’ll be there, Spellman.” He turned to kiss her forehead and she nudged his chin with her nose once before they walked into their first class.

Later that week when Sabrina was donned in her short black shorts and red t-shirt, headband firmly in place, Nick wondered why Powderpuff wasn’t a year round thing. Somehow a masterpiece of adorable and sexy all at once, Sabrina Spellman took the field by storm. The black shorts were a contrast to her milky skin and so different from what he normally caught her in. He didn’t care much what she wore, she amazed him either way. But around Nick Sabrina was wearing her classic sweatered style or nothing at all, saving the headband for last for Nick to pluck off of her.

She knew what she was doing, purposely rolling her shorts up higher and charming her t-shirt to sit just tight enough. She winked at Nick from below on the field as Roz applied two thick, black lines on her cheeks, and bit her red lip before waving and skipping off. Nick swallowed thickly, already thinking of all the games they could play or the football innuendos he could squeeze in later.

But to him, even sexier than she looked, was the way she was playing. She was the strongest person he knew, and that certainly came through. A menace on the field that Sabrina Spellman, she managed to pay both offense and defense, scoring the seniors enough points where the refs didn’t even have to rig the game for the seniors to win. Nick knew well that Sabrina was energetic, dedicated, and can definitely hold her own when it came to being physical. But she took it to a whole new level and made that game her bitch. And frankly, while Nick still didn’t fully understand football, he understood one thing: Sabrina Spellman drove him absolutely wild. He was turned on, and he wanted her.

Despite playing all game, she was all energy and smiles when she saw Nick waiting for her by the football field gate. He was donned in his letterman jacket and when he opened it a bit it revealed a dark shirt with her face on it, making some ridiculous face from over the summer that Nick had snapped a picture of and fell in love with. She rolled her eyes and took off running towards him, his own smile widening at her excitement.

His arms opened on instinct and she threw themselves in them, partly to cover up his shirt and partly because she could feel his desire for her all game. It radiated off him all night, his magic mingling with hers and desperately seeking release. She’d been feeding off of the energy, channeling it into her blocks or feet while she ran. But now it was itching at her skin, seeking out what it has wanted all along. Who she’d wanted all along.

He sunk into her kiss immediately when she finally did kiss him, and one hand trailed into her hair while the other pulled her around the waist to keep her to him. They could both feel it now, that crackle underneath every party of them, humming in anticipation at being reunited.

“Good game, babe.” Nick groaned when she pulled away and slowly slid down his body to her own feet, purposely taking her time when ber hips brushed against his.

“Did you like it?” She asked him with a head cocked to the side as she reached out and brushed a curl out of his face. Her hand trailed down his chest as she picked at the shirt and shook her head. With a smirk he brushed her chin up to look at him.

“I loved it. As for this shirt, well I did say I would cheer for you. And I thoroughly watched you score over and over.” He brushed her hair back now and she shivered at how dark his eyes had gotten. “Think you’ll score again?” He wasn’t talking about the game.

“I don’t know, you might though.” She narrowed her eyes suggestively and he tugged her closer. “If you play the game right.”

“I always take you all the way.” He kissed her so gently it tingled. Neither of them cared that there were people around them still. “What do they call it, babe?” He asked her with his mouth a breath away from her ear. “A touch down? I know you love a good touch, especially down.”

Sabrina swallowed thickly, nearly choking on the desire for him and the magic rushing through her seeking out the connection it only found with Nick. She grabbed his hand and pulled him behind a shed, kissing him wildly and hungerly grabbing at his hands and placing them where she wanted them on her body.

“Take me home, Nick.” She nearly demanded and he gave a biting chuckle against her lips before teleporting them back to what had quickly become their room at the Mortuary.

They both got their chances to tear off the other’s t-shirt, not wasting anymore time or energy on anything else.

#Nabrina #fall prompts #chilling adventures of sabrina #nicholas scratch #sabrina Spellman

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grigori77 · 3 years

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Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10. WEREWOLVES WITHIN – definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic surprises so far, this darkly comic supernatural murder mystery from indie horror director Josh Ruben (Scare Me) is based on a video game, but you’d never know it – this bears so little resemblance to the original Ubisoft title that it’s a wonder anyone even bothered to make the connection, but even so, this is now notable for officially being the highest rated video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes history, with a Certified Fresh rating of 86%. Certainly it deserves that distinction, but there’s so much more to the film – this is an absolute blood-splattered joy, the title telling you everything you need to know about the story but belying the film’s pure, quirky genius. Veep’s Sam Richardson is forest ranger Finn Wheeler, a gentle and socially awkward soul who arrives at his new post in the remote small town of Beaverton to discover the few, uniformly weird residents are divided over the oil pipeline proposition of forceful and abrasive businessman Sam Parker (The Hunt’s Wayne Duvall). As he tries to fit in and find his feet, investigating the disappearance of a local dog while bonding with local mail carrier Cecily Moore (Other Space and This Is Us’ Milana Vayntrub), the discovery of a horribly mutilated human body leads to a standoff between the townsfolk and an enforced lockdown in the town’s ramshackle hotel as they try to work out who amongst them is the “werewolf” they suspect is responsible. This is frequently hilarious, the offbeat script from appropriately named Mishna Wolff (I’m Down) dropping some absolutely zingers and crafting some enjoyably weird encounters and unexpected twists, while the uniformly excellent cast do much of the heavy-lifting to bring their rich, thoroughly oddball characters to vivid life – Richardson is thoroughly cuddly throughout, while Duvall is pleasingly loathsome, Casual’s Michaela Watkins is pleasingly grating as Trisha, flaky housewife to unrepentant local horn-dog Pete Anderton (Orange is the New Black’s Michael Chernus), and Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story) and Harry Guillen (best known, OF COURSE, as Guillermo in the TV version of What We Do In the Shadows) make an enjoyably spiky double-act as liberal gay couple Devon and Joaquim Wolfson; in the end, though, the film is roundly stolen by Vayntrub, who invests Cecily with a bubbly sweetness and snarky sass that makes it absolutely impossible to not fall completely in love with her (gods know I did). This is a deeply funny film, packed with proper belly-laughs from start to finish, but like all the best horror comedies it takes its horror elements seriously, delivering some enjoyably effective scares and juicy gore, while the werewolf itself, when finally revealed, is realised through some top-notch prosthetics. Altogether this was a most welcome under-the-radar surprise for the summer, and SO MUCH MORE than just an unusually great video game adaptation …

9. THE TOMORROW WAR – although cinemas finally reopened in the UK in early summer, the bite of the COVID lockdown backlog was still very much in effect this blockbuster season, with several studios preferring to hedge their bets and wait for later release dates. Others turned to streaming services, including Paramount, who happily lined up a few heavyweight titles to open on major platforms in lieu of the big screen. One of the biggest was this intended sci-fi action horror tentpole, meant to give Chris Pratt another potential franchise on top of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, which instead dropped in early July on Amazon Prime. So, was it worth staying in on a Saturday night instead of heading out for something on the BIG screen? Mostly yes, although it’s mainly a trashy, guilty pleasure big budget B-picture charm that makes this such a worthwhile experience – the film’s biggest influences are clearly Independence Day and Starship Troopers, two admirably clunky blockbusters that DEFINED prioritising big spectacle and overblown theatrics over intelligent writing and realistic storytelling. It doesn’t help that the premise is pure bunk – in 2022, a wormhole opens from thirty years in the future, and a plea for help is sent back with a bunch of very young future soldiers. Seems Earth will become overrun by an unstoppable swarm of nasty alien critters called Whitespikes in 25 years, and the desperate human counteroffensive have no choice but to bring soldiers from our present into the future to help them fight back and save the humanity from imminent extinction. Less than a year later, the world’s standing armies have been decimated and a worldwide draft has been implemented, with normal everyday adults being sent through for a seven day tour from which very few return. Pratt plays biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forrester, one of the latest batch of draftees to be sent into the future along with a selection of chefs, soccer moms and other average joes – his own training and experience serves him better than most when the shit hits the fan, but it soon becomes clear that he’s just as out of his depth as everyone else as the sheer enormity of the threat is revealed. But when he becomes entangled with a desperate research outfit led by Muri (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski) who seem to be on the verge of a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, Dan realises there just might be a slender hope for humanity after all … this is every bit as over-the-top gung-ho bonkers as it sounds, and just as much fun. Director Chris McKay may still be pretty fresh (with only The Lego Batman Movie under his belt to date), but he shows a lot of talent and potential for big budget blockbuster filmmaking here, delivering with guts and bravado on some major action sequences (a fraught ticking-clock SAR operation through a war-torn Miami is the film’s undeniable highlight, but a desperate battle to escape a blazing oil rig also really impresses), as well as handling some impressively complex visual effects work and wrangling some quality performances from his cast (altogether it bodes well for his future, which includes Nightwing and Johnny Quest as future projects). Chris Pratt can do this kind of stuff in his sleep – Dan is his classic fallible and self-deprecating but ultimately solid and kind-hearted action hero fare, effortlessly likeable and easy to root for – and his supporting cast are equally solid, Strahovsky going toe-to-toe with him in the action sequences while also creating a rewardingly complex smart-woman/badass combo in Muri, while the other real standouts include Sam Richardson (Veep, Werewolves Within) and Edwin Hodge (The Purge movies) as fellow draftees Charlie and Dorian, the former a scared-out-of-his-mind tech geek while the latter is a seriously hardcore veteran serving his THIRD TOUR, and the ever brilliant J.K. Simmonds as Dan’s emotionally scarred estranged Vietnam-vet father, Jim. Sure, it’s derivative as hell and thoroughly predictable (with more than one big twist you can see coming a mile away), but the pace is brisk, the atmosphere pregnant with a palpable doomed urgency, and the creatures themselves are a genuinely convincing world-ending threat, the design team and visual effects wizards creating genuine nightmare fuel in the feral and unrelenting Whitespikes. Altogether this WAS an ideal way to spend a comfy Saturday night in, but I think it could have been JUST AS GOOD for a Saturday night OUT at the Pictures …

8. ARMY OF THE DEAD – another high profile release that went straight to streaming was this genuine monster hit for Netflix from one of this century’s undeniable heavyweight action cinema masters, the indomitable Zack Snyder, who kicked off his career with an audience-dividing (but, as far as I’m concerned, ultimately MASSIVELY successful) remake of George Romero’s immortal Dawn of the Dead, and has finally returned to zombie horror after close to two decades away. The end result is, undeniably, the biggest cinematic guilty pleasure of the entire summer, a bona fide outbreak horror EPIC in spite of its tightly focused story – Dave Bautista plays mercenary Scott Ward, leader a badass squad of soldiers of fortune who were among the few to escape a deadly outbreak of a zombie virus in the city of Las Vegas, enlisted to break into the vault of one of the Strip’s casinos by owner Bly Tanaka (a fantastically game turn from Hiroyuki Sanada) and rescue $200 million still locked away inside. So what’s the catch? Vegas remains ground zero for the outbreak, walled off from the outside world but still heavily infested within, and in less than three days the US military intends to sterilise the site with a tactical nuke. Simple premise, down and dirty, trashy flick, right? Wrong – Snyder has never believed in doing things small, having brought us unapologetically BIG cinema with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel and, most notably, his version of Justice League, so this is another MASSIVE undertaking, every scene shot for maximum thrills or emotional impact, each set-piece executed with his characteristic militaristic precision and explosive predilection (a harrowing fight for survival against a freshly-awakened zombie horde in tightly packed casino corridors is the film’s undeniable highlight), and the gauzy, dreamlike cinematography gives even simple scenes an intriguing and evocative edge that really does make you feel like you’re watching something BIG. The characters all feel larger-than-life too – Bautista can seem somewhat cartoonish at times, and this role definitely plays that as a strength, making Scott a rock-hard alpha male in the classic Hollywood mould, but he’s such a great actor that of course he’s able to invest the character with real rewarding complexity beneath the surface; Ana de la Reguera (Eastbound & Down) and Nora Arnezeder (Zoo, Mozart in the Jungle), meanwhile, both bring a healthy dose of oestrogen-fuelled badassery to proceedings as, respectively, Scott’s regular second-in-command, Maria Cruz, and Lilly the Coyote, Power’s Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighofer (You Are Wanted) make for a fun odd-couple double act as circular-saw-wielding merc Vanderohe and Dieter, the nervous, nerdy German safecracker brought in to crack the vault, and Fear the Walking Dead’s Garrett Dillahunt channels spectacular scumbag energy as Tanaka’s sleazy former casino boss Martin, while latecomer Tig Notaro (Star Trek Discovery) effortlessly rises above her last-minute-casting controversy to deliver brilliantly as sassy and acerbic chopper pilot Peters. I think it goes without saying that Snyder can do this in his sleep, but he definitely wasn’t napping here – he pulled out all the stops on this one, delivering a thrilling, darkly comic and endearingly CRACKERS zombie flick that not only compares favourably to his own Dawn but is, undeniably, his best film for AGES. Netflix certainly seem to be pleased with the results – a spinoff prequel, Army of Thieves, starring Dieter in another heist thriller, is set to drop in October, with an animated series following in the Spring, and there’s already rumours of a sequel in development. I’m certainly up for more …

7. BLACK WIDOW – no major blockbuster property was hit harder by COVID than the MCU, which saw its ENTIRE SLATE for 2020 delayed for over a year in the face of Marvel Studios bowing to the inevitability of the Pandemic and unwilling to sacrifice those all-important box-office receipts by just sending their films straight to streaming. The most frustrating part for hardcore fans of the series was the delay of a standalone film that was already criminally overdue – the solo headlining vehicle of founding Avenger and bona fide female superhero ICON Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow. Equally frustratingly, then, this film seems set to be overshadowed by real life controversy as star and producer Scarlett Johansson goes head-to-head with Disney in civil court over their breach-of-contract after they hedged their bets by releasing the film simultaneously in cinemas and on their own streaming platform, which has led to poor box office as many of the film’s potential audience chose to watch it at home instead of risk movie theatres with the virus still very much remaining a threat (and Disney have clearly reacted AGAIN, now backtracking on their release policy by instigating a new 45-day cinematic exclusivity window on all their big releases for the immediate future). But what of the film itself? Well Black Widow is an interesting piece of work, director Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) delivering a decidedly stripped-back, lean and intellectual beast that bears greater resemblance to the more cerebral work of the Russo Brothers on their Captain America films than the more classically bombastic likes of Iron Man, Thor or the Avengers flicks, concentrating on story and characters over action and spectacle as we wind back the clock to before the events of Infinity War and Endgame, when Romanoff was on the run after Civil War, hunted by the government-appointed forces of US Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after violating the Sokovia Accords. Then a mysterious delivery throws her back into the fray as she finds herself targeted by a mysterious assassin, forcing her to team up with her estranged “sister” Yelena Belova (Midsommar’s Florence Pugh), another Black Widow who’s just gone rogue from the same Red Room Natasha escaped years ago, armed with a McGuffin capable of foiling a dastardly plot for world domination. The reluctant duo need help in this endeavour though, enlisting the aid of their former “parents”, veteran Widow and scientist Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexie Shostakov (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), aka the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier intended to be their counterpart to Captain America, who’s been languishing in a Siberian gulag for the last twenty years. After the Earth-shaking, universe-changing events of recent MCU events, this film certainly feels like a much more self-contained, modest affair, playing for much smaller stakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of our attention – this is as precision-crafted as anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, but it also feels like a refreshing change of pace after all those enormous cosmic shenanigans, while the script is as tight as a drum, propelling a taut, suspense-filled thriller that certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action front. Sure, the set-pieces are very much in service of the story here, but they’re still the pre-requisite MCU rollercoaster rides, a selection of breathless chases and bone-crunching fights that really do play to the strengths of one of our favourite Avengers, but this is definitely one of those films where the real fireworks come when the film focuses on the characters – Johansson is so comfortable with her character she’s basically BECOME Natasha Romanoff, kickass and ruthless and complex and sassy and still just desperate for a family (though she hides it well throughout the film), while Weisz delivers one of her best performances in years as a peerless professional who keeps her emotions tightly reigned in but slowly comes to realise that she was never more happy than when she was pretending to be a simple mother, and Ray Winstone does a genuinely fantastic job of taking a character who could have been one of the MCU’s most disappointingly bland villains, General Dreykov, master of the Red Room, and investing him with enough oily charisma and intense presence to craft something truly memorable (frustratingly, the same cannot be said for the film’s supposed main physical threat, Taskmaster, who performs well in their frustratingly brief appearances but ultimately gets Darth Maul levels of short service). The true scene-stealers in the film, however, are Alexie and Yelena – Harbour’s clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a self-important, puffed-up peacock of a superhero who never got his shot and is clearly (rightly) decidedly bitter about it, preferring to relive the life he SHOULD have had instead of remembering the good in the one he got; Pugh, meanwhile, is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE MOVIE, easily matching Johanssen scene-for-scene in the action stakes but frequently out-performing her when it comes to acting, investing Yelena with a sweet naivety and innocence and a certain amount of quirky geekiness that makes for one of the year’s most endearing female protagonists (certainly one who, if the character goes the way I think she will, is thoroughly capable of carrying the torch for the foreseeable future). In the end this is definitely one of the LEAST typical, by-the-numbers MCU films to date, and by delivering something a little different I think they’ve given us just the kind of leftfield swerve the series needs right now. It’s certainly one of their most fascinating and rewarding films so far, and since it seems to be Johansson’s final tour of duty as the Black Widow, it’s also a most fitting farewell indeed.

6. WRATH OF MAN – Guy Ritchie’s latest (regarded by many as a triumphant return to form, which I consider unfair since I don’t think he ever went away, especially after 2020’s spectacular The Gentlemen) is BY FAR his darkest film – let’s get this clear from the start. Anyone who knows his work knows that Ritchie consistently maintains a near flawless balance and humour and seriousness in his films that gives them a welcome quirkiness that is one of his most distinctive trademarks, so for him to suddenly deliver a film which takes itself SO SERIOUSLY is one hell of a departure. This is a film which almost REVELS in its darkness – Ritchie’s always loved bathing in man’s baser instincts, but Wrath of Man almost makes a kind of twisted VIRTUE out of wallowing in the genuine evils that men are capable of inflicting on each other. The film certainly kicks off as it means to go on – In a tour-de-force single-shot opening, we watch a daring armoured car robbery on the streets of Los Angeles that goes horrifically wrong, an event which will have devastating consequences in the future. Five months later, Fortico Security hires taciturn Brit Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) to work as a guard in one of their trucks, and on his first run he single-handedly foils another attempted robbery with genuinely uncanny combat skills. The company is thrilled, amazed by the sheer ability of their new hire, but Hill’s new colleagues are more concerned, wondering exactly what they’ve let themselves in for. After a second foiled robbery, it becomes clear that Hill’s reputation has grown, but fellow guard Haiden (Holt McCallany), aka “Bullet”, begins to suspect there might be something darker going on … Ritchie is firing on all cylinders here, delivering a PERFECT slow-burn suspense thriller which plays its cards close to its chest and cranks up its piano wire tension with artful skill as it builds to a devastating, knuckle-whitening explosive heist that acts as a cathartic release for everything that’s built up over the past hour and a half. In typical Ritchie style the narrative is non-linear, the story unfolding in four distinct parts told from clearly differentiated points of view, allowing the clues to be revealed at a trickle that effortlessly draws the viewer in as they fall deeper down the rabbit hole, leading to a harrowing but strangely poignant denouement which is perfectly in tune with everything that’s come before. It’s an immense pleasure finally getting to see Statham working with Ritchie again, and I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is here – he's always been a brilliantly understated actor, but there’s SO MUCH going on under Hill’s supposedly impenetrable calm that every little peek beneath the armour is a REVELATION; McCallany, meanwhile, has landed his best role since his short but VERY sweet supporting turn in Fight Club, seemingly likeable and fallible as the kind of easy-going co-worker anyone in the service industry would be THRILLED to have, but giving Bullet far more going on under the surface, while there are uniformly excellent performances from a top-shelf ensemble supporting cast which includes Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Sicario), Andy Garcia, Laz Alonso (The Boys), Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Darrell D’Silva (Informer, Domina), and a particularly edgy and intense turn from Scott Eastwood. This is one of THE BEST thrillers of the year, by far, a masterpiece of mood, pace and plot that ensnares the viewer from its gripping opening and hooks them right up to the close, a triumph of the genre and EASILY Guy Ritchie’s best film since Snatch. Regardless of whether or not it’s a RETURN to form, we can only hope he continues to deliver fare THIS GOOD in the future …

5. FEAR STREET (PARTS 1-3) – Netflix have gotten increasingly ambitious with their original filmmaking over the years, and some of this years’ offerings have reached new heights of epic intention. Their most exciting release of the summer was this adaptation of popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s popular book series, a truly gargantuan undertaking as the filmmakers set out to create an entire TRILOGY of films which were then released over three consecutive weekends. Interestingly, these films are most definitely NOT for kids – this is proper, no-holds-barred supernatural slasher horror, delivering highly calibrated shocks and precision jump scares, a pervading atmosphere of insidious dread and a series of inventively gruesome kills. The story revolves around two neighbouring small towns which have had vastly different fortunes over more than three centuries of existence – while the residents of Sunnyvale are unusually successful, living idyllic lives in peace and prosperity, luck has always been against the people of Shadyside, who languish in impoverishment, crime and misfortune, while the town has become known as the Murder Capital of the USA due to frequent spree killings. Some attribute this to the supposed curse of a local urban legend, Sarah Fier, who became known as the Fier Witch after her execution for witchcraft in 1668, but others dismiss this as simple superstition. Part 1 is set in 1994, as the latest outbreak of serial mayhem begins in Shadyside, dragging a small group of local teens – Deena Johnson (She Never Died’s Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), a young lesbian couple going through a difficult breakup, Deena’s little brother Josh (The Haunted Hathaways’ Benjamin Flores Jr.), a nerdy history geek who spends most of his time playing video games or frequenting violent crime-buff online chatrooms, and their delinquent friends Simon (Eight Grade’s Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald) – into the age-old ghostly conspiracy as they find themselves besieged by indestructible undead serial killers from the town’s past, reasoning that the only way they can escape with their lives is to solve the mystery and bring the Fier Witch some much needed closure. Part 2, meanwhile, flashes back to a previous outbreak in 1977, in which local sisters Ziggy (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), together with future Sunnyvale sheriff Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland) were among the kids hunted by said killers during a summer camp “colour war”. As for Part 3, that goes all the way back to 1668 to tell the story of what REALLY happened to Sarah Fier, before wrapping up events in 1994, culminating in a terrifying, adrenaline-fuelled showdown in the Shadyside Mall. Throughout, the youthful cast are EXCEPTIONAL, Madeira, Welch, Flores Jr., Sink and Rudd particularly impressing, while there are equally strong turns from Ashley Zuckerman (The Code, Designated Survivor) and Community’s Gillian Jacobs as the grown-up versions of two key ’77 kids, and a fun cameo from Maya Hawke in Part 1. This is most definitely retro horror in the Stranger Things mould, perfectly executed period detail bringing fun nostalgic flavour to all three of the timelines while the peerless direction from Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and wire-tight, sharp-witted screenplays from Janiak, Kyle Killen (Lone Star, The Beaver), Phil Graziadel, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry strike a perfect balance between knowing dark humour and knife-edged terror, as well as weaving an intriguingly complex narrative web that pulls the viewer in but never loses them to overcomplication. The design, meanwhile, is evocative, the cinematography (from Stanger Things’ Caleb Heymann) is daring and magnificently moody, and the killers and other supernatural elements of the film are handled with skill through largely physical effects. This is definitely not a standard, by-the-numbers slasher property, paying strong homage to the sub-genre’s rules but frequently subverting them with expert skill, and it’s as much fun as it is frightening. Give us some more like this please, Netflix!

4. THE SPARKS BROTHERS – those who’ve been following my reviews for a while will known that while I do sometimes shout about documentary films, they tend to show up in my runners-up lists – it’s a great rarity for one to land in one of my top tens. This lovingly crafted deep-dive homage to cult band Sparks, from self-confessed rabid fanboy Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), is something VERY SPECIAL INDEED, then … there’s a vague possibility some of you may have heard the name before, and many of you will know at least one or two of their biggest hits without knowing it was them (their greatest hit of all time, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, immediately springs to mind), but unless you’re REALLY serious about music it’s quite likely you have no idea who they are, namely two brothers from California, Russell and Ronald Mael, who formed a very sophisticated pop-rock band in the late 60s and then never really went away, having moments of fame but mostly working away in the background and influencing some of the greatest bands and musical artists that followed them, even if many never even knew where that influence originally came from. Wright’s film is an engrossing joy from start to finish (despite clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes), following their eclectic career from obscure inception as Halfnelson, through their first real big break with third album Kimono My Place, subsequent success and then fall from popularity in the mid-70s, through several subsequent revitalisations, all the way up to the present day with their long-awaited cinematic breakthrough, revolutionary musical feature Annette – throughout Wright keeps the tone light and the pace breezy, allowing a strong and endearing sense of irreverence to rule the day as fans, friends and the brothers themselves offer up fun anecdotes and wax lyrical about what is frequently a larger-than-life tragicomic soap opera, utilising fun, crappy animation and idiosyncratic stock footage inserts alongside talking-head interviews that were made with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek style – Mike Myers good-naturedly rants about how we can see his “damned mole” while 80s New Romantic icons Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, while shot together, are each individually labelled as “Duran”. Ron and Russ themselves, meanwhile, are clearly having huge fun, gently ribbing each other and dropping some fun deadpan zingers throughout proceedings, easily playing to the band’s strong, idiosyncratic sense of hyper-intelligent humour, while the aforementioned celebrity talking-heads are just three amongst a whole wealth of famous faces that may surprise you – there’s even an appearance by Neil Gaiman, guys! Altogether this is 2+ hours of bright and breezy fun chock full of great music and fascinating information, and even hardcore Sparks fans are likely to learn more than a little over the course of the film, while for those who have never heard of Sparks before it’s a FANTASTIC introduction to one of the greatest ever bands that you’ve never heard of. With luck there might even be more than a few new fans before the year is out …

3. GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ BEST offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS. Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate side effects, leading her to take on a reparation job to retrieve some missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob. The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the original thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process. Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years. The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly-reined and bursting with zingers. Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen this year, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions. Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father. There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of found family and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing against the brutalities of toxic masculinity. I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

2. THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year is the long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the decidedly hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn has finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016. That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely. Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date. Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kind of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls. Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity that’s being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup. Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re all almost universally definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned. Gunn has already proven himself a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s certainly pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery for its most ridiculous Z-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling. Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and thoroughly unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and thoroughly game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a thoroughly fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most idiotic DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled narrative chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers what has to be one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history). Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT. By far the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year, and if I’m honest this is the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (for me, only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

1. A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Place was MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending. Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain. Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother. Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a true heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already magnificently well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror. The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat. The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a hidden spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again. This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds magnificently on the skilful foundations laid by the first film, as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow. I definitely can’t wait.

#movies 2021 #werewolves within #werewolves within movie #the tomorrow war #army of the dead #Black Widow #black widow movie #black widow mcu #wrath of man #fear street #fear street trilogy #fear street movies #The Sparks Brothers #gunpowder milkshake #the suicide squad #a quiet place part ii #a quiet place part 2 #awesome sauce

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colorseeingchick · 3 years

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Hey Can I ask for a self ship date pls ? I’m a 18yo girl who is 173 cm of chaos and my heart has been stolen by Kise Ryouta from KNB 😩.

We may be very different, he’s more of a warm and a social person while i’m cold in the clouds and ambiverted but his smile, his laugh and how he’s dedicated in basketball made me lose it. I find his whole personality interesting even the more cold and ugly parts of him and he has the pretty face for him too but i’m not the kind of person who can just fall for apparence. He have such a voice too 😳 He has that charming aura, playful but yet still lighthearted and funny. He being two-faced surprisingly don’t bother me that much somehow i understand from where hes coming from. I relate a lot to his overachiever and need to handle all things himself to the point of hurting. As a basketb fan i am also enamored w his way of playing, i gen think he is the best of gom he always do his best to the point of barely breathing and honestly i relate to this too when im into something i love. His quick learning abilities are hyper and i like how Kise try to be honest w himself. I like also the balance he have w masculine and feminine energy and don’t mind him being a dork. His relationship w others characters are gold too like w Aomine and i can see him showing me affection to my touch starved self and just general affection i lack in general even if i don’t say it. Also i can imagine a certain dynamic between us where no one is the lead of the couple but we’re on equal terms.

Now more about me i am an ENTP 8w7, I am independent, creative, honest, prideful and « generous » i don’t think that last one much but my close one describe me like this. I’m very curious, likes experimenting and new things. I am funny/sarcastic, playful and as it iam very memeable but surprisingly top student here who doesn’t behave like it at all both in class and just in general. My aesthetic is a weird mix of everything i love so i am both a tomboy, alt and a baddie somehow. I am into law and economics studies and can talk french, korean and spanish as i learn languages in my free time by myself. I do read, write, draw and listen to music, play all sort of games including sports, get on a walk from time to time, eat cuz food is delicious and just learn in general. I have kind of ✨trust issues ✨so i don’t have many friends. But you sure will have fun w me ! I don’t about chill i have some temper but sure im pretty cool and open minded ! In love i really am a mess, i’m easily flustered but act cool to hide it and because of that i look like someone confident and mysterious except i am not the first one and ugh im lowkey a tsundere so it’s difficult to assume my feelings. But i swear i try !

Thank you for reading me ! I hope i didn’t bother you much.

You didn't bother me at all hun! This was a lot of fun to write so I hope you enjoy :) I think I have a pretty fun date planned for you two if I do say so myself hehe.

Premise: Kise got to know you throughout high school, and saw you as different from his other fangirls. Even though it wasn’t basketball, you also stood out at the top of your class, making you noticeable to Kise. You were actually a good friend (a cute friend at that) and he decided that he wanted to take you on a date during your 3rd year (once the basketball season was over and he had time to make for you). Knowing how fun you are, he had the perfect plan.

As you look into the mirror to examine your outfit, your phone buzzes with the “I’m hereeee ;)” text. You’d decided to lean into your tomboy vibes, given that Kise told you to ‘get ready to do stuff,’ which was not very informative, but exciting nonetheless.

As you walk out, you’re greeted by the blonde man dressed handsome as ever, a dark long sleeve shirt with fitting jeans, his silver hoop shining as the sun starts to set.

“Ready Y/N-chi?” He asks you, smiling as he overdramatically offers his hand for you to grab.

“Ready as ever~” you say as you grab his hand. He pulls you close and winks, flustering you right from the start.

“If I remember correctly, you said something about this being the best date I ever go on?” You take your chance to poke fun at him as well.

“Oh honey, it will be.” You can see the way his eyes shine and his mischievous grin as he walks with a nice hop in his step, guiding you towards the train station.

The train ride was pleasant, his hands protectively on your shoulder and a mean glare on his pretty features when other men looked at you or got too close, but his face was calm as he comfortably bantered with you (you on the other hand were quite unbothered by it all). Once you finally arrived at your destination, you found yourself in the lively district of the city, flooded with restaurants and shops all open late night.

“I forgot how beautiful this area is at night!” You can’t help but say as you look at all the beautiful lights and architecture.

“I had to take a pretty girl to a pretty place, you know?” He squeezes your hand as he drags you along once again, until you end up at your destination.

“I think this’ll be a lot of fun,” he says to you as he pushes open the doors to the arcade, letting all the dark lights and glowing games illuminate your sight.

He buys the coins for you both to play (He’d asked prior if it’d be okay for him to pay for you this date, and you’d agreed), and you set off to play all sorts of games.

It was a lot of fun for the both of you. While the games were enjoyable, playing them with him made it all the better. He also never missed an opportunity to flirt with you, and playing games made it easy. Both of you being overachievers, with Kise being a quick learner and you being open to trying new things made the experience amazing.

“Here, stand like this and loosen your wrists up for a better shot.” you both were playing the basketball game, and to no surprise Kise had absolutely killed it. Now here he is, helping adjust your shot. Standing behind you, he lightly adjusts your waist, turning you a little bit to help your footing. His hands then move up to your shoulders, then down to your wrists, helping guide your form and placement on the ball. While you were learning from him, it was hard to focus with him this close to you. “Y/N-chi, you can focus on me later. You should focus on your shot for now.” He says lowly, teasingly, watching carefully as your face erupts into red. He really did love teasing you, the usually calm, collected, confident top student.

Admittedly, you feel like you got back at him when you watch him try the crane game (the ones filled with stuffed animals) and he couldn’t get it after 7 tries. The frustration was clear in his face, his impatience rising.

“This game is rigged, I know it!”

You ask to try and of course he complies. However, he’s not ready for you to get a cute little stuffed panda on your first try. Suddenly, he’s a lot more embarrassed than you were earlier.

“You definitely used magic or something.” His pout is both adorable and hilarious to you.

You laugh as you hand him the panda. “Here!”

Looking down at the panda and then looking back up at you, he asks, “for me? But you won it!”

“But I want you to have it. It’s cute like you, Kise-kun.”

A huge smile crosses his face as he pulls you into a hug, spinning you around. “Y/n-chi!!!! You’re so generous!! Giving me your stuffed panda~ I’ll take good care of it.”

You have a nice laugh as you watch Kise end the night out by playing Dance Dance Revolution, not afraid to be a bit flamboyant as he goes all out with the footwork and does really well at the game.

After collecting all your tickets, Kise takes you up to the rewards table, telling you that he knows exactly what he wants to get.

“And we have enough tickets for it! Great.”

You can’t help but smile when Kise points to the GIANT stuffed panda hanging on the wall.

“I thought you weren’t the type to return favors,” you recall what he said during a game with Seirin from a long while back.

He blushes, thinking about what he said. “I’m not, just one upping you,” he jokes, sticking his tongue out at you, letting you nudge him in return.

“Do you wanna get food, Y/N-chi?” He asks, his arm wrapped around your shoulder.

“Sure, from where?”

“You decide. I decided on the arcade, you can decide dinner.” He looks at you with a smile, thinking back on how fun the whole night had been. “But I get to decide dinner next time.”

“Next time?” You shoot back, eyebrows raised, a smile forming on your face. “Who said I’d go out with you a next time?”

At your comment, his smile falters as he stares at you for a good second. He gets all serious suddenly, pulling you close (with a giant panda pressed into your side) and making you look into his eyes. “Y/N-chi, would you please go out with me again? Tell me you will!”

Giggling, you smile up at him. “Of course, Kise-kun.”

He sighs out and hums in approval, before pressing a small kiss onto your cheek. “Call me Ryouta.”

Ahhh I hope you enjoyed it! I tried to incorporate as many elements as I could! Please do let me know what you think <3 this was so fun!!!!

#knb #knb matchup #kuroko no basquet #kuroko no basket #kise ryouta #kise fluff #CSC hits 200 #colorseeingchick milestone

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