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borisbubbles · 5 years

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Eurovision 2010s: 10 & 09

10. Elina Born & Stig Rästa - “Goodbye to yesterday” Estonia 2015

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The first time we heard “Goodbye to yesterday”, we all knew Estonia had struck gold. I will elaborate later on, but I don’t think I even need to? "Goodbye to yesterday” just has it. It’s a stroke of brilliance, a gripping story, an instant hit. It is in many ways too good for Eurovision. Therefore I could also immediately tell Eurovision wouldn’t do "Goodbye to yesterday” the justice it deserves and lo and behold it did. I still can’t wrap my head around why the jurors snubbed it? IS THIS BECAUSE OF THE LINNETS it’s because of the Linnets isnt it. Sure, Stigelina provided an experience eerily similar to the Linnets, but also... one much better than that of the Linnets lol? How is “G2Y is a CATS clone” even an argument against Stigelina. They are so great they put the Linnets to SHAME.

You see, “Calm after the storm” did have amazingly well-crafted dramatic tension, but it also felt a bit aloof, a bit pedantic, a bit ‘I am smarter than you’, as all current Dutch entries are (see: the Waylon’s krumping, Duncan’s ‘vintage’ piano). “Goodbye to yesterday” doesn’t have a waft of artistic pretence clinging to it. On the contrary, it is refreshingly unpretentious, sticking to a intuitive approach to storytelling that creates organic, credible drama, which makes for much more likable end product.

From the moment Elina enters the dramatic cues ping-pong back and forth between her and Stig, and they pelt each other with sharp quotes that sting due to their realism. The story is that one giant misunderstanding after a night of passion and it’s just... heart-breaking, honestly.

So heart-breaking in fact it moved Elina to tears.

I’m not sure what else one would want, honestly. “Goodbye to yesterday” is timeless, gracious and so, so real. To be a part of my top ten, you need to able to freeze time, to silence the audience with epic storytelling or with great musical scores. Stigelina may be the least gripping of those still in the ranking, and that should tell you how much quality we still have ahead of us.

Estonia are the best country in Eurovision. Period. They deliver EVERY year and never get the great results they deserve. They are criminally underappreciated by both the casuals and the jurors. It sincerely hope everyone comes to their senses. Estonia are wonderful and deserve nothing but love.

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09. Zala Kralj & Gašper Šantl - “Sebi” Slovenia 2019

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A little look

A little touch

You know the power of silence.

A lot of people claim that “Sebi” was really boring and it just... triggers me? HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE THESE INDIE UNICORNS OF BOREDOM!!! "Sebi” is a pearl of introversion, so beautiful, so touching, so fucking RAW. The romantic tension between Zala and Gašper creates an intensity vortex that renders me silent and humbled every time. It is real, so so so real.

The musical score is an oasis of tranquility which transports me to a place of no worries, no doubts, only dreams of love and happiness, The lyrics are graceful and moving. It’s the ultimate immersive experience. In other words, ZalaGasper delivered exactly what I wanted (and expected they would) pre-show, where I ranked them first with zero regrets. 🤭

So what has changed between then and now?

Well, not much in terms of live performance.🤔 The live in Tel Aviv was an improvement over the EMA one, on all accounts (vocals, staging, camerawork, interaction, lights, sound quality), but my opinion of “Sebi” has remained stagnant for the past few months. The only reason they’re now my #2 for 2019 is because NOTHING’S HOLDING KATE DOWN, which is for another update.

However, what has changed is that I now have more insight on what Zala and Gašper are like ~as people~ and both have have proven that they’re kick-ass humans in their own individual right. 😍 🤗

Zala I think we can all agree is a highly relatable MOOD. Her off-stage muteness only adds to her mystique as she conveys so much meaning with merely her face and b-lang.

GODper otoh, is the opposite, a hilariously blunt, socially-malajusted but well-meaning dork, who provided to two laugh-out-loud interview moments that I will now share:

~Silencing Wiwi at the red carpet~

Gašper: “You look tired! 🙂 You should sleep more.” Wiwi: “what is your #1 tip to sleep better?” Gašper: “To have sex 😁”

Zala: “...” Wiwi: “...oh... yeah... it’ll try that :breaks off interview:”

-Clapping back at bad journalism at the press conference-

Hostess: “What half would you like to perform in?” GODper: “it’s exactly boring questions like that which make us want to go home. 🙂”

DEITY <3 He is right of course, it was boring AND stupid question (exhibit a: literally every other qualifier answered that exact same question with a variation of “dunno / don’t care”)

Of course this makes it seem as though ZalaGasper consider themselves ~above~ Eurovision, but they’re more like AWS than Salvador, tbh. They entered EMA to showcase their music and won it by accident. They never expected to do Eurovision, nor did they ever expect to qualify (omg epic interview moment #3: Gašper admitting to someone (Deban?) that he didn’t expect to qualify and therefore had to cancel all the sight-seeing trips he and Zala had booked during the finale week. <3333445567899). Yet, they were there, they had fun, they bonded with their fellow cast (Let me just mention the everpresent but never remarked on ZalaGasper/Serhat/Katerine bitch coven. Like the three would often gossip in the background as other people were getting interviewed lol <3) but always remained grounded and never put themselves ~above~ the contest. They were two delightfully down-to-earth people thrusted into a crazy camp carnival and all of this makes them very precious to me.

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Estonia #Elina Born #Stig Rästa #Goodbye to yesterday #Zala Kralj #Gasper Santl #ZalaGasper #Sebi

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wings-of-a-storm · 5 years

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So because the space in between the clips of this extended hell week isn’t painful enough, I’ve gone back and revisited the pain of the cafeteria scene. (I can’t help but love that scene though! It is so solid.)

ELIOTT PURSUES LUCAS:

When the cafeteria scene started, I already had one question in my mind: Did Eliott accidentally bump into Lucas when he turned that corner for real, or had he already seen Lucas grabbing a tray ahead of him and was already preparing himself for this encounter before he walks into our view? It is hard to tell since Eliott's reaction never dramatically changes when he looks over and finds Lucas.

It leaves room for interpretation. There is every chance that Eliott had already seen Lucas heading for the line and went to grab a tray to follow him there. He barely looked at the end of the line before zeroing in on Lucas...

It is 50-50, but either way, Eliott saw a chance to talk to Lucas and be near him, and he went for it. Bless this poor guy's heart. He may have triggered the break up but he is clearly missing Lucas so much.

ELIOTT '007' DEMAURY

Eliott cutting in line was actually one of my favourite parts of this scene! It was just so quintessential Creeper Eliott! He is always manifesting out of nowhere to pop up beside Lucas and catch him unawares. And mecs, it is an honour to see his creeping in action :'). It was too dark in the tunnel and at the bus stop he was mostly blurry and off screen. But this, this was a masterpiece.

Creeper Eliott aside, it was also just so friggen endearing and adorable of him to try and sneak in there like James Bond. Like who do you even think you're fooling, Eliott? Those girls and Lucas definitely knew you weren't there before!

I love how he does that little bend and swoop to get his tray in there but then immediately straightens up and grabs food like he was there the whole time and la la la. The pinnacle of cool and calm. But we see you, Demaury, we see you.

I'd love to know what Eliott was thinking though; what he was hoping to achieve by sliding in there and talking to Lucas like nothing was wrong. He was still with Lucille and he was still scared of being a burden to Lucas so it’s not like he had a real reason to talk to him. Did he think they could be friends and he'd at least get to talk to Lucas instead of missing him so much?

Lucas realising Eliott was there though... Ugh. That face was simultaneously hard as marble and soft as sadness. You can almost feel Lucas’ chest constricting, his breath altering, his eyes stinging...

It had only been a few days since his heart (and hand) had been completely shattered and it was always going to be painful as all hell to have to see Eliott again so soon, let alone right beside him... It is almost too much to bear.

A CONVERSATION OF DOUBLE MEANING

"If I were you I'd take both."

I can only assume this attempt at an ice breaker from Eliott is a reference to the first time they 'met' at the vending machine and Lucas helped Eliott pick from two snacks? But this time in the cafeteria, Eliott can return the favour with his own suggestion for Lucas?

The double meanings were just so brilliant though! Of course a seemingly offhand suggestion could so wonderfully remind us (and Lucas) of Eliott's personal affliction with making choices and his fear of missing out.

We know that what happened between Eliott and Lucas had less to do with FOMO/wanting to have his cake and eat it too and more about his fear of being rejected by Lucas if he knew the real Eliott, but still... Lucas doesn’t know that.

I need to take a moment to talk about the Eliott Gaze though. Oh, it is always such an attack on our hearts! The way he looks at Lucas in that moment is somehow so beseeching and forlorn despite him trying to keep things light. It reminds you how much he is suffering too... He just wants to talk to Lucas so badly.

“Sometimes you have to choose."

Hang on, just rolling out the red carpet for the king of comebacks.

Wow, Lucas. What a zinger. And not even a mean zinger, just a heartbroken truth. It was awful seeing how quickly his eyes welled up with tears.

It was so sad because it wasn’t as if Lucas was even waiting for Eliott to make a choice anymore when he made that comment. They had already gone beyond Eliott just needing to choose someone. As far as Lucas was concerned, Eliott had already made his choice: Lucille. Always Lucille. Eliott always goes back to her because he never liked Lucas the way Lucas liked him.

Lucas' eyes felt so: Why aren't I good enough?

How could Eliott even try and salvage the conversation after a pointed comment like that? Lucas was not going to indulge any sort of light conversation from Eliott; his comment cut straight into the heart of the matter.

It was a shame that Eliott chose not to acknowledge the heartbroken barb for what it was and instead tried to steer things back to something light-hearted. I know Eliott was just trying to salvage the situation but it meant he came across as flippant, like he didn’t care that Lucas was hurting.

It would have been so hard for Lucas to see Eliott not only not acknowledging Lucas’ hurt but also making light of it by immediately trying to crack a joke about the kitchen as if Lucas’ feelings didn't matter… Eliott, beloved mec, you can’t just straight up LAUGH at some joke after Lucas stares at you with tears. Keeping things light is invalidating Lucas’ feelings and making a mockery of them...

Like I know Eliott’s safety net M.O. is to smile but oh my god, so not the right time! Especially when it went beyond a smile into an actual grin and chuckle! Like, I know what Eliott was trying to do (trying to break the ice, trying to reconnect, trying to have a moment where he can just talk with him like old times) but it was such a bad choice to keep things light and really unfair to Lucas.

I am so glad Lucas shut that shit right down. The clanging of the plate as he yanked it off the shelf and violently set it down on the tray was the best non-verbal FUCK YOU ever! If I could get it on a t-shirt, I would, because it was ammmmazing. It was so ‘You don’t give a fuck about my feelings, well I don’t give a fuck about whatever the fuck you’re saying.’

It was just such an effective way to cut Eliott off. It used multiple senses - sound and sight - to get the job done. Like, not only did the sudden sharp movement of Lucas’ arm flying up to grab the plate feel like he was visually blocking Eliott’s words or slamming a door shut in Eliott’s face, the noise that accompanied it was like an indirect punch. E.f.f.e.c.t.i.v.e!

Lucas slamming the plate down achieved more than just one hell of a brilliant shut down though; it drew Eliott’s attention to his bandaged hand. Whether Eliott had already noticed it or not previously, he sure as hell saw it then. I imagine that would have added one more piece to the picture of Lucas’ overall current state for Eliott. Lucas is angry, he is in tears, he is physically hurt, and he is nothing like the Lucas Eliott used to see around the corridors. Eliott caused that pain and it is something he has to live with now...

When Lucas storms off, the cheerful act drops from Eliott and he is back to that quintessential nervous, anxious fiddling with his bag strap. The knowledge that he did that to Lucas and he can’t make it better…

I wonder if he realised he had made things worse by trying to engage Lucas in the cafeteria... (I hate this situation so much!)

LUCAS' LONG WALK DOWN THE CORRIDOR WITH HIS PERSONAL DEMONS

Okay this is my favourite part of the whole clip for the sheer brutality of it wrapped in beautiful camerawork.

When Lucas is making that long walk down the corridor and then stands paralysed at the end of it in a tunnel of his personal hell and you see Eliott slowly coming towards him again in the background like his personal demon! That was stunning!

It was like: Oh my god, will Eliott try to talk to him again and push his emotions over the edge? It felt like some ominous countdown.

And then when you realise Lucas is frozen because Chloe is there with the knowledge of his secret, and his friends are there who don't want him near them until he sorts his shit out, it is like: Oh no, is Eliott going to witness this further humiliation of Lucas with no friends? That is the last thing Lucas needs right now when he already feels so stupid in front of Eliott.

And then when Lucas can't handle staying in the cafeteria any longer and dumps his food straight back onto the return shelf, you know that he is going to have to encounter Eliott again so soon after escaping him the first time... And as much as you love Eliott, you don't want Lucas to have to go through that when he is barely holding it together.

What the masochist in me really loves about Eliott's slow approach in the corridor is that the effects of his presence feel subverted, if that makes any sense. Like normally if Lucas was this vulnerable in school, seeing Eliott making his way towards him would feel like comfort, like Lucas is about to get the support he needs from the person he needs it most from (a partner). But this time, Eliott's role changes and his walking towards Lucas feels like pain… It is so brutal! (But I love it. Why am I like this??)

ELIOTT CONFRONTED WITH THE HELL HE CREATED

There is a part of me that is happy that Eliott has to literally face Lucas’ awful situation and see the personal hell he is in.

Knowing Lucas would be upset from their break-up behind the scenes is one thing, but Eliott having to actually see it with his own eyes is kind of gratifying. I think it helps put things into perspective for Eliott: Eliott left Lucas for an imagined possibility (that Lucas would be burdened by Eliott’s bipolar disorder) but this is actual reality and maybe this is worse because it’s Lucas unable to smile or eat or sit in a cafeteria with his friends. Eliott would need to wonder if it is worse to proactively ‘protect’ Lucas if it means sending him straight into the type of emotional hellhole that Eliott had been trying to protect him from in the first place. That is something that Eliott needs to confront.

All that aside though, wow did Eliott’s forlorn face as he watched Lucas discard his lunch and walk away hit me right in the gut. There is always something so gentle about Eliott, and when it comes to sadness, it is even more pronounced. The way he was looking at the boy he loves in so much pain but is unable to go after him and comfort him… That shit hurts.

In a weird way his despondent face makes me a little happy too though? Because when Eliott and Lucas do resolve their problems, that look is such a nice glimpse into how supportive Eliott will be for Lucas in future times of distress? Like if I was facing a tough time, just seeing those understanding, kind eyes would make me feel so heard and understood and supported. I can’t wait until they reach that point!

For now though, everything is painful and Skam France really utilised the cafeteria scene well to hit Lucas from all directions (like a mean part 2 of Chloe's party). It was a really solid scene, I think.

#skam france #skamfr thoughts #3x06 thoughts #elu #lucas lallemant #eliott demaury

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Iceland to Eurovision with a plan to end capitalism... with cakes!

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Meanwhile, in Iceland...

Iceland’s a peaceful nation, innit? So calm, so serene, they wouldn’t even want to squish a fly and would rather wish it a nice day if they were personified as a whole. Except that they’re actually not quite and firstly reacted rather massively negatively on the news of Israel going up for to host Eurovision 2019, even with 23,000 Icelanders signing a petition calling on the Icelandic national broadcaster to boycott the contest, and even the big Söngvakeppnin 2017 darling Daði Freyr signed it. I admire their courage but broadcasters are broadcasters and if they take proverbial decisions and later are fine with everything, I don’t see why wouldn’t try participating anyways, and THEN withdraw if there are issues with something, like last minute call from EBU to get their shit together with funding or a faulty national final contract...

Well, fuck your protests, RÚV said, and went ahead with another Söngvakeppnin edition in the works.

And boy I assume the protest was large af if only 10 entries ended up being chosen for the final cut... what was Iceland gonna do? Have 4 finalists in total? Well no, someone was gonna get a wildcard to round up the finalists in the end.

But enough about that. Out of all of those 10 acts, full of mostly okay songs, we saw a clear win for the ones and only - it's the anti-capitalist award winning techno BDSM bondage unicorn soft boy couple goals kids loving sprinkles and rainbows performance art project group Hatari that went and enjoyed their time in Tel Aviv already, with their kick-ass song, "Hatrið mun sigra".

And oh boy was it an exciting pick for Iceland. Do you remember their last year's entry? Well, this year Iceland decided to shit all over their love and peace mindset by presenting us with series of bold statements like "Life is meaningless!", "Happiness comes to an end!", "Europe will crumble!"... right after the year they were all about the choice we could make to help and to heal in different ways. Feels though as if we should have swapped the entries because with "Hatrið mun sigra"'s events coming to life, "Our Choice" sounds like an aftermath because with happiness ending, so are people's stabilities, and too many would indeed be dying in vain. And how the world is starting to learn all over again about the acceptance of one another, and all that. It truly is Ari in the streets and Hatari in the sheets. ;)

Let's take a minute to appreciate the entry itself though. It opens up with eerie buzzes, off-measure beat and a warning "huh!" shout, that leads us all into this beautiful musical kingdom. Its instrumental is badass. It's one hypnotic techno tune that could easily be used in a car commercial. Or a catwalk. Or a glorious boss fight in an 8 bit game. What makes it more unique is the vocal balance - Hatari's core force are the two cousins Matthías and Klemens, who created the band and recruited their friends to help them on tours I suppose, and now the friends are here with them in Tel Aviv. The thing that makes it somewhat eyebrow raising, despite being a damn fine techno piece, is the instant screaming of the lyrics in the verses (courtesy of Matthías) and the light angel-esque vocal sound that's kinda reminiscent of Sigur Rós's Jónsi (courtesy of Klemens). Yin-yang if you will. A subtle balance of the two, and even the Icelandic meme mother Morges pointed it out that if it were only Matthías's growls on the song or Klemens's falsetto, it would sound too much and people would be bored by it.

Other than this song being perfectly composed (even with including a god damn keychange) and making me wanna dance, there's an image tying it all together. I did say it earlier that one part of Hatari's many descriptions is BDSM and bondage. And this definitely is there on their imagery, especially on the Icelandic NF. The boxes, the choreography, the color red, the backgrounds... everything on here is life. The way Matthías gets one of the Hatari dancers by the neck at the very end of their NF performance is just... unexplainably flawless. Go watch it here.

Some might say that this whole thing is more reminiscent of AWS from last year, but this isn't quite true. AWS were simple boys with nothing much in mind for Eurovision other than to make a "typical metal show". Hatari are here with a proper message to dismantle capitalism. AWS were just fun, Hatari are both fun and condescending. AWS didn't really have all that buzz going on for themselves in the odds, Hatari are still sitting in bookies top 10 as of now. AWS didn't prepare anything shocking for the audiences other than playing really loud and the scream breakdown only coming in on the bridge of the song. Hatari is full on onto you with everything - the costumes, the words, and so on, and the screaming is already on with them verses. And Hatari have way more chances to be memorable than AWS by being completely outstanding in everything. We love bondage kings singing in Icelandic (the language's 2nd appearance in Eurovision from an Icelandic song in this decade, first time it happened in 2013). We truly do. (And so do I still love the AWS boys, don't mind me.)

So as a whole I'd like to say that I really, REALLY adore this. It's expressive, it's divisive, it's brave, it doesn't care if you hate it, it's there and it's divine. I didn't really piece my thoughts well together on this, but I will forever find a lot of nice things to say on it, after all this time, always. ♡ The whole team and the whole marketing from Iceland Music News is perfect. The song is perfect. The composition is perfect. The chorus and the chorus lyrics are love. The performance... could use some good camerawork, but still. I'm crying at how much this is beautiful. Iceland's alternative scene is banging and them finally submitting something from one of its many outskirts among all of those pop songs is a victory on its own. Love, love, love Hatari. I bow down to these great people for existing and ending up on Eurovision.

Now tell me, how are you not going to love a band that was noticed by Icethony Landtano himself? ★

And how are you not going to love a band that loves children? And cakes? If you don’t, then shame on you, really. ;p

Approval factor: no. ....... way I’m not going to approve this ;) I want more epic Iceland after that, too.

Follow-up factor: Actually, that's the best possible way of approval I've ever seen. It's a complete 180 of an entry jump that it's impossible to believe the angel Ari came before Hatari. Good job, Iceland! Keep going that good way!

Qualification factor: Well, this is a case of all or nothing, where an entry is so loudly and proudly different that you don't know exactly where is it gonna place. If AWS had some sort of struggles to qualify (they were 4 fucking points over Romania last year), so would have Hatari, but only if the televote doesn't give them enough love against the jury's hatred. But for now I'd remain extremely and utterly positive over the boys. =) The final will hear of that song about the dystopia, the power and powerlessness, the hope and hopelessness, and that if we don't remember to love, the hatred will prevail and the capitalism will overwhelm the world. (so I secretly hope for them to win too haha)

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Honestly, thank you RÚV for making Söngvakeppnin 2019 happen despite the petition. I love it how a band with the most shocking atmosphere won - kinda embodies the feeling of most of this nation's about what's going in Israel and Palstine. But no more on that. I'll not discuss that anymore. It's highlights time:

• At this point, who needs NF highlights if Hatari are highlights themselves. ♥ I love a token unphased contestant - the one that minds one's own business by not being overly happy - in fact, most of the things that occured to Hatari are, in their own words, "according to plan"! So they're all like, "yeah we entered and thanks to us being here, we're definitely winning this, and will definitely win Eurovision after winning that". Them drinking SodaDream in their tracksuits and not giving a single fuck about the surroundings, especially after being announced as qualifiers to the NF final, was an absolute #mood. They even were amazing on a show named 12stig (where Icelandic NF participants are talking about what will they do in the NF, what will they do if they make it to Tel Aviv after winning, etc.), with Matthías basically serving as the spokesperson for Klemens's piece of mind, and then them both doing a hand gesture,.. Communicating through one's whispers being voiced by a mastermind. Sounds like a horror movie concept.

• And no, I didn't love Hatari only - there was this one joyful great love pop song bearer finalist Tara Mobee whose song I liked. Other favourite acts include this indie blues number by a Faroese madame Kristina Skoubo, a silly pop/dance perfection by Daníel Óliver and a country-ish flavoured folk-ish pop song by Ívar Daníels. Granted they're too tame in comparison to Hatari, but they could have been other great alternatives for Eurovision! Unlike the two returning artists that competed... Hera Björk being one of them... she signed the petition against Iceland in 2019 Eurovision FFS! and yet she's here with her mind changed??

• Ari Ólafsson returning for a both winner reprise AND an epic and unexpected take on "Grande amore", one of the beloved Italian entries. Can't believe that actually became a thing but... here you go I suppose? Flawless vocals. If anyone deserves to repeat their ESC stint from Iceland, it's Ari.

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• Other highlights of the final night were Yohanna reprising her 2nd placer smash hit "Is It True?" 10 years later and even doing an Icelandic "Shallow" cover with the hosts ❤ and even Selma from Jerusalem 1999 fame came on the show too, but only in the green room!

• That one time I saw Friðrik Ómar (one of the two returning artist potential contestants) wearing a Freddie Mercury shirt ❤

• This honest to God mess of a performance and honest to God mess of a song. The song was a football anthem from 00s ripoff, the guy looked like Lil Pump and sounded annoying ("BLÆ BLÆ BLÆ"), the girls were salvageable, the chorus is cute and the performance? "So how many colors and dancers do you want?" "Yes." I hated it but 'twas fun I s'pose.

• I loved laughing at certain things of Söngvakeppnin, like the random insert of all the other contestants into ads and a lot of times I had to see the recap of all the (super)finalists. That's the only non-musical highlight I have aside from postcards, sorry Eleni. ❤ Your repeat performance of "Fuego"/"Tómame" from the Spanish NF and your trashbag dresses were still sleek tho.

Think that's all I'm gonna talk about. For now I would just love to end this by saying that Hatari might be scary, but children indeed love them (a lot of Hatari support posters in the NF were held by children, some of them teens even had bondage masks lol. Besides, 2 of the main members (if you count the band’s drummer Einar alongside the main members list) have kids on their own so it's understandable). Hatari might be impudent, but it attracts some people who love crazy in Eurovision. Hatari might be too political, but they're here in Tel Aviv to raise awareness, not to outright fucking protest - they know their goddamn limits, okay?? So for now, I'd just like to wish everyone involved in Iceland's entry the best in their life and to know that they contributed to one of the best things that happened to Eurovision. Only the eternal glory to the Icelandic lords and saviours. HATRED CAN AND WILL PREVAIL, END OF.

Oh and cakes!

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #iceland 2019 #hatari #hatrið mun sigra #iceland

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Star Trek: Discovery - ‘If Memory Serves’ Review

Spock: "I am not here to absolve you, Michael Burnham."

By nature I love brevity: Star Trek: Discovery plays to its strengths here, delivering a well-paced, measured episode that hits on the nostalgia factor in just the right ways. 'If Memory Serves' is a noticeable improvement over the rest of this season, which was in turn already an improvement over the previous season.

The first and probably most notable quality of this episode is the nostalgic air it has. From the very retro 'Previously on Star Trek' segment at the beginning, bringing us up to speed on the events of 'The Cage,' to the well-placed sound and music cues from the same episode, 'If Memory Serves' displays a clear and respectful knowledge of what's come before. Yet there is the distinct sense that something new is being accomplished, that we're not just uselessly retreading the past. This can be seen in the technical upgrades given to the Talosians, their singing plants, and the planet itself. Not only this, we're going deeper, if not to new places, with Pike and Vina. Anson Mount and Melissa George effectively recapture the old dynamic that Jeffrey Hunter and Susan Oliver brought, but they also lend new aspects to the relationship. Vina, it seems, is happy with the illusory Pike that she's been provided, as 'The Cage' and 'The Menagerie' implied, yet throughout Melissa George's performance there is a tinge of longing for the real thing. Pike can't seem to get Vina out of his head, and his deep-seated desire to return to her is clear in this episode. This new connection to the characters also makes 'The Menagerie' all the more resonant.

We'll get to Burnham and Spock in a moment, but first I want to explore the stuff with Culber and Stamets. I've said for a while now that Culber's character in Season One existed really only in service of Stamets' character. Culber wasn't really all that much of a character in his own right. But here, since his return, the writers and Wilson Cruz have given Culber a depth and an arc that he never had before. I'm just sorry that poor Stamets has to suffer the consequences of this. I can definitely see where they are both coming from here. The loss of Culber was so devastating for Stamets, and his return so filled with joy and hope, that of course he would be overeager and take things too fast or too far. Another viewer pointed out to me that Stamets is very good at helping other people with their emotional and relational problems, but he doesn't seem to have the same clarity when it comes to his own. This is all too human. Likewise, Culber feels like a stranger in his own skin. The need to be himself, combined with the feeling that he's not himself anymore, would of course compel him to make changes and shifts in his life. Despite the temporary rift, I don't think it's over for Stamets and Culber. The good doctor will have to figure out who he is now that he has returned, but once he does so, I expect he will return to his love.

Poor Ash Tyler is becoming more and more a victim of his circumstances as time goes on. First he had to deal with the fact that he had betrayed his entire crew without his knowledge, and he's still reaping the consequences of that. He must also face the fact that another person is lurking inside his psyche, just waiting to come out. This is visible in his defensive fight with Dr. Culber. If Tyler had been more aggressive, if he'd attacked Culber more directly, it's possible that Voq would have come out, and he has no idea what will happen in that case. Let's just say for now that it's a bad idea to proVoq him, and leave it at that. And now he must deal with the mistrust of the entire crew, for something he didn't do. Though I don't expect it to last long, as evil Airiam's reveal appears to be next episode, this will have to really damage the tentative trust he's built with Captain Pike all this season.

It doesn't help matters that his superiors at Section 31 are becoming less trustworthy by the minute. Leland and Georgiou seem to be headed for a substantial standoff, and I'm honestly not sure whose victory would be worse for the crew. Georgiou is upstaging Leland at every turn, even garnering more respect from the Admiralty, and Leland has to be frustrated. I wonder if the boiling point will be reached this season, or if we'll have to wait for the Section 31 series to see the conclusion of this storyline.

This brings us to the main event - Burnham and Spock. Their relationship has been set up as the focal point of the season since 'Brother,' and so far it has not disappointed. The scene where young Burnham hurt young Spock felt very real, and every word hurt because of how we know it must have damaged Spock. Burnham represented Spock's human side, and when she burned him to get him to stay away from her, he rejected his humanity also and dove deep into his Vulcan, logical half. Now that logic has failed to help him make sense of what the Angel showed him, Spock is a broken man searching for something to ground him. I expect that in the end, Burnham will be right; her relationship with Spock will be the thing that ties him to reality. In time, Spock will realize that his relationships in general are his guiding star, with the help of a certain up-and-coming young starship captain and his crew.

I have to give props to T.J. Scott for his direction here. Unlike many of the recent episodes, Scott's fancy camerawork and effects serve a legitimate artistic purpose, like the tilting, twisting camera during the Section 31 sequences to emphasize the uncertain and shifting world of 31, or the lens flares that accompanied Talosian illusions. The episode also spends an appropriate amount of time on the key emotional moments, something that episodes like 'Saints of Imperfection' have failed to do. The pace here is slow and measured, which is a relief after the frantic and rushed feeling of the last few episodes.

Strange New Worlds:

Talos IV first appeared in the unaired pilot of TOS, 'The Cage.' The rendering of the planet in this episode looked very similar to the painting used for it in the original episode.

New Life and New Civilizations:

The Talosians had a huge war on their planet, which drove them underground. When they developed their remarkable mental powers, they became addicted to the pleasures illusion could provide and forgot how to interact with the real world. The illusions they present to anyone who approaches Talos IV help them to relearn, and they are still searching for someone to learn their technology and save their race.

Pensees:

-According to Melissa George, she recorded some of Vina's original lines from 'The Cage,' which were then dubbed in alongside Susan Oliver's voice in the recap at the beginning.

-I'm pretty sure this is Pike's first Captain's log. Come to think of it, I don't think Lorca ever did it either.

-Dang it, more Vulcan Admirals. Look, guys, if Spock was the first Vulcan in Starfleet, and the only one at the time of TOS, there can't be Vulcan admirals.

-I loved Tilly leaning out of her 'office' on the bridge.

-The sound effects for the singing plants and the Talosians' illusions, as well as some of the music cues, were taken from 'The Cage.'

-Spock has been experiencing time as fluid due to the Red Angel.

-Spock mind-melded with the Angel, revealing to him that whoever is in the suit is human.

-The ships that blew up all those planets in Spock's vision looked an awful lot like the upgraded probe from 'Light and Shadows' last week. Hmmmm...

-Mental hospitals in television shows should really give their patients paper in addition to writing utensils. Just a thought.

-Of course, Spock didn't kill the people he's accused of killing. Did 31 kill them when they got there?

-Were those Reno's drones cleaning up from Culber and Tyler's fight?

-Starbase 11 is two lightyears from Talos IV

-I don't think we've seen two ships get a transporter lock on the same person at the same time before.

-I liked Burnham cocking the eyebrow at Spock's smile.

Quotes:

Georgiou: "Why would I lie?" This was only funny because of who was saying it.

Vina: "In some ways, Captain Pike never left."

Stamets: "I think what you're experiencing is a form of neutralizing shock." Culber: "It's not that simple, Paul!"

Spock: "Is there a valuable question in your arsenal?" Burnham: "Yes. Do you really think the beard is working?"

Pike: "This is real." Vina: "As real as it needs to be."

Culber: "I'm not letting anyone fix what I feel."

Illusion-Burnham: "Say goodbye, Spock." Illusion-Spock: "Goodbye, Spock." Anyone else glad this was an illusion? I saw it in a promo, and it didn't feel right. That's more of a Data line.

Georgiou: "Those Talosians tried this trick with me in the Terran universe once, and I blew them, and their stupid singing plants, off the face of the planet."

Best of the season so far. 5.5 out of 6 stupid singing plants.

CoramDeo is an ugly bag of mostly water, and proud of it.

#Star Trek #Star Trek Discovery #Michael Burnham #Spock #Saru #Christopher Pike #Ash Tyler #Hugh Culber #Disco #Star Trek Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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goncalogoisfilmblog · 2 years

Text

Film Narrative 2: Shoot Days Continuation

Day 2: We arrived with our hopes up and ready to finish the film. We did 11 shots on the first day, which meant we had 11 more to get through. One of the biggest challenges we had was setting up the light for our off screen presence character, God. We wanted to shine a bright light on our two characters, which would represent God. However, we had to balance this with not making it look awful due to overexposure. At the end, I feel like we succeeded in showing our off screen presence and it will be further brought to life with some sound design in post production.

The rest of the day went fairly smoothly, we had a good plan coming in, so it was merely just executing all the shots. We did some extra set design, each writing more post its to put on the walls for the shots we had at the end.

Esther did great as director, she was forward and managed to get everything under control and to give us the vision we needed to film. Duncan did well and we worked well as a team as we were both in charge of camerawork. He had good leadership skills and good energy throughout. Saoirse worked on sound and she also worked collaboratively and showed we could leave the sound of the film to her. She made sure to communicate what was going with sound at all times, which was helpful for the rest of us. Mara was our producer and set designer. She made sure we were kept on track throughout the shoot and she also wrote down all the logs for our post production, which was helpful for us in the long run.

Overall we worked excellently as a group and I'm excited to see how the film is concluded in post production.

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tialovestelevision · 7 years

Text

After Life

Dragon and I are doing this one as a dialogue! We’re going to watch this episode, pause after each scene, and talk about it. You get to read that! Aren’t you lucky?

{*\../*} : Hello again, all. ruckafangirl returning to sprinkle cheer, fire and lit crit on your Buffy watchalong. Aren’t we all excited to see how Buffy is coping with her PTSD from literally battering her way out of her own grave? Anyone? .... Anyone?

T: I have to admit that I very much am not. I am, however, looking forward to being through this one and one step closer to the relative shelter from the misery of the beginning of this season that is “Once More, With Feeling.” Yes, I know that one’s depressing too, but at least they sing. If they sang all the misery, I’d enjoy it more.

{*\../*} : Except Alyson Hannigan, who will not sing. Not ever. Not if she can help it. Anyway, on with the show! We’re not getting any livelier (unlike Buffy).

T: That was awful. Anyway, Previously On. There’s the trauma.

{*\../*} : Buffy makes PTSD face to wrap up. We resume with the town still on fire and demons fleeing, and Anya speaking uncomfortable truth. Willow is engaging in rationalization a lot.

T: That whole conversation was uncomfortable. Nobody involved actually has any real idea where Buffy was or what’s happened since then, other than that she had to claw her way out of her own grave. Which, y’know, would break pretty much anybody. I’d say she needs years of therapy, except who would actually believe the story. “I sacrificed my life to keep from letting the world be destroyed, then my friends raised me from the dead, but they didn’t think to dig me up so I had to claw my way out of my casket, and now I have to say that acute claustrophobia is the least of my problems.”

{*\../*} : “I was dead before and I didn’t have these problems, doctor. I mean, just for a few minutes that time instead of months.” Willow is REALLY invested in the whole hell-dimension theory, I suspect because it’s the only way she can justify pulling her big-ass violation of the rules of nature, and the way that she seems to be panicking over the idea that Buffy might not get over it makes me think of her lack of forethought when she put the book in front of Dawn in “Forever.” For a smart girl, she doesn’t engage in a lot of following things to their logical conclusions.

T: To be fair, the Hellmouth isn’t going anywhere, and it had been three months since the last apocalypse (“It has been X months since the last apocalypse” being a sign Anya needs to get for the Magic Box), and the living Slayer and bearer of the line is in jail somewhere in southern California for various high crimes and misdemeanors. I suppose they could have broken Faith out of jail, but I don’t think Willow would do that on account of those times Faith tried to murder her.

{*\../*} : Personally, I’d be more down with breaking out Faith than trying to bring Buffy back from, you know, the dead. But I’m conservative that way. Anyway, while they’re wandering the streets and experiencing justified existential dread, we cut to Dawn taking Buffy back to the house and talking to her like she’s a wounded puppy. Which, to be fair, she did just talk her out of jumping off a collapsing Glory-scaffold-thing.

T: About to hit play again, but I’ll note that the place I most want to go after I’ve been raised from the dead is the site of years of emotional abuse and neglect. Dawn says they’re home and okay now, then opening sequence. No Tara.

{*\../*} : Yes. Okay. That is definitely why we have ominous dark outside lighting instead of, say, a cheery kitchen scene. Everything is going to be juuuuust fine. Pay no attention to Buffy’s “Fire bad, tree pretty” face.

T: So Buffy does a walkthrough of the house, noticing all the things that have changed and kind of listening to Dawn but not really acknowledging her except to ask questions. Walking out of rooms while Dawn’s speaking, not looking at her, stuff like that.

{*\../*} : Points to the director for the fact that she keeps actually walking out of the frame - we stay with Dawn while she does that, which really sells how jarring it is, and she keeps walking into dark rooms with Dawn trailing after her and turning on lights. Also, Buffy is still wearing the clothes she was buried in and that’s really, really creepy the longer it goes unremarked.

T: Might I point out how bizarre it is that, in late 2001, it’s “obvious” that the run-of-the-mill Macbook belongs to Willow? Or that it’s “computer stuff?” That’s weird, right? Like… a relic of the fact that TV doesn’t actually understand how people use tech.

{*\../*} : Comes of being made by people who’re a decade plus behind the characters they’re trying to write. Quick cut, and now Dawn has Buffy in fresh clothes and is washing her in a very mother-washing-her-child way that’s honestly wigging me out. I think it must be wigging Dawn out, too, because she trips right into a classic bit of teenager too-trueness. “Knew you were under that dirt somewhere.” Awkward pause. Buffy says nothing. Awkward mother-referencing joke. Still nothing. And now we’re bringing attention to the fact that her knuckles are still laid open from punching her way out of her coffin.

T: Great makeup job there, by the way. Dawn decides to deal with Buffy’s shirt before getting to the blood, which seems like the wrong priorities from both a first aid perspective and a fashion perspective. It’s a white shirt. It is at this point that I realize that newly resurrected silent Buffy may actually be more traumatic for Dawn to interact with than talkative but in all the wrong ways constant reminder of dead sister robot Buffy, and from Dawn’s expressions around the robot in “Bargaining,” that’s saying a lot.

{*\../*} : Speaking of the robot, Spike has now arrived downstairs and is shouting for Dawn. “It’s just Spike,” she says, which makes me queasy. The fact that he’s ranting about how he could just kill her (graphically) for scaring him does not help. Interesting that she’s still working up to the explanation when Buffy comes downstairs, and he only mistakes her for the robot for about half a second.

T: I think Spike would join you in being made queasy by “It’s just Spike.” And.. yeah. I think we’re supposed to draw from that the idea that it comes from how much he thinks about her, but a better explanation, to my mind, comes right out of “The Gift.” “It has to be blood.” Of course Spike would know the difference between a robot and a person almost at a glance.

{*\../*} : Thought given the amount of time he spent obsessing about both robot and non-robot Buffy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could give you a short volume of on-sight differences. And isn’t that just a happy thought?

T: He can get into their house whenever he wants. Let’s press on, on that thought.

T: Spike is the one who she asks how long she was gone. Given his obsession with her, he’d know. He also knows how her hands got that way, given personal - is it “personal” if you’re not technically a person? - experience. In an odd way, I can see why he’s the one she wants to talk to. She doesn’t know how long she’s been dead, and there’s one very important thing about Spike - he is dead. He doesn’t grow. He doesn’t change.

{*\../*} : The director and the camerawork here - not to mention James Marsters’s acting work here, which is brilliant and given lots of closeups to work with - are really trying hard to sell me on this moment of connection. Given the whole death/undeath/rebirth parallels, they’re almost succeeding. Except that he’s a soulless monster and having him count the number of days she’s been dead does not, does not, does not make me feel better about this connection they’re displaying. If anything, it’s selling the broken state of Buffy for me even harder than her non-interactions with Dawn.

T: It is successfully making me sympathize with both characters involved. Spike is a monster, which is something the scripts often seem to forget, but he has free will and his feelings are at least some close approximation of real, if broken in ways that make things like real love and compassion impossible He’s been hurting, a lot, for months, and has rebuilt his being around the restrictions of his life to continue to survive. Well, to keep the “un” in his “undead.” Buffy, meanwhile, is so urgent for connection that this single shared experience between her and an actual, real soulless mass-mudering monster is valuable to her. I don’t think this is HEALTHY in any sense, but the writers and performers are selling me that the feelings of these characters exist.

{*\../*} : And in bursts Willow at the head of the group. Her first question is “Is she here?” which is interesting. Not “Is she okay?” or “Have you seen her?” but “Is she here?” Let’s see how this goes.

T: Spike walking out as the others approach.

{*\../*} : That is a great touch, isn’t it? And so, so busted. The whole two-couple crew. Bust-ed. The flood of questions and Dawn’s counter-interrogation are just starting to get rolling when Buffy breaks out with a rousing ‘I’m okay, you brought me back, everything is going to be fine’ riff that has no credibility whatsoever. Points to Sarah for selling Buff’s snowjob here, and to the other actors for selling how bad their characters want it to be true. The camera shot of the four of them all staring at her is particularly grim.

T: Tara’s expression. She and Anya have the highest emotional intelligence in the cast. And we see them both - and hear Anya - know that something is very, very wrong.

{*\../*} : Xander and Anya come out and find Spike crying - the camera is very subtle, so you don’t see him full on, but that’s clearly what’s happening - and he and Xander have a set-to. Xander trying to call him on the obsession thing is fair, if ill-timed, but he counter-attacks with some very pointed observations about why Willow locked him out (in case they had to put Buffy down) that Xander is clearly in deep denial about. What I find fascinating about that little scene is how Xander’s line about Spike seeing Buffy being “the happiest moment of your existence” runs right past the obvious problem - it isn’t that he’s wrong, it’s that using Spike’s happiness as a barometer for their actions is a very clear sign that they’ve gone ‘round the bend. Spike isn’t unhappy she’s back, and he’ll take the consequences he can see coming, but he’s self-aware enough at this point to know that his standard for okay isn’t what sane humans ought to be aspiring to.

T: I’ll remind you that this is the guy who once spent an inordinate amount of time and money on the building blocks for an invincible demon capable of burning people up at long range using their human feelings as fuel in order to impress his girlfriend. When Spike is the one with a sense of consequences, everything has gone wrong.

{*\../*} : So now we get a lightly intercut scene of Buffy sitting alone in her room - fully dressed when she said she was going to sleep - and staring into space while Willow and Tara talk. Willow starts off selling the ‘everything is okay’ pitch like she wants herself to believe it, but Tara isn’t having any of that. “This is the room where you don’t have to be brave” is a wonderfully romantic line, I have to say.

T: Willow asks if having hoped that Buffy would thank her makes her a terrible person. Tara doesn’t answer, instead basically saying to give Buffy time. The answer is, to a degree, yes - it is prioritizing her own feeling of value over the needs of someone who, even if she was right about everything, would be suffering from unspeakable trauma. But that’s kind of a mundane sort of bad person, well within human norms.

{*\../*} : And the kind of bad you get to admit to your girlfriend in the dark. That’s kinda part of the point of having a girlfriend, after all. But it does set up an interesting question for later - is Willow worried Buffy hasn’t thanked her because she feels on some level that she did something wrong and she needs the reassurance, or because she feels like she did something heroic for her friend that proves she’s special and isn’t getting an positive feedback for it?

T: Pretty sure both.

{*\../*} : Also, is it just me or does the way Alyson inflicts “intense” when she’s describing the resurrection spell have a slightly creepy/sexual vibe to it?

T: You’d have to be REALLY into snakes to talk about a situation in which you coughed up a snake in that tone.

{*\../*} : Cut back to Buffy, staring at pictures of her with her friends like a semi-dead person, and then all the pictures go to creepy skulls for a moment. She shuts her eyes, opens them again, pictures are back to normal. Cut to black for commercial while we all get tense on cue.

{*\../*} : Creepy monologue Buffy is throwing things at Tara and Willow and berating them for being unclean in some fairly impressively ugly language. Willow’s eyes get huge and betrayed, and then she leaps out of bed and turns on the light. No Buffy in the room. O-kay, that’s genuinely creepy, I gotta give it that.

T: No, that was actually scary. Well done. What the Buffy-apparition is accusing Willow if is stuff Willow actually did in preparation for the ritual - she summoned that deer that was apparently pure and innocent - so, in this universe, probably not something I’d use the word “hart” to describe - and cut its throat to drain its blood into the Urn of Osiris. She got blood all over her hands in the process. And she never told any of her friends about it - even Tara. Looks like SOMEBODY was watching, though.

{*\../*} : Interesting that it’s addressing Willow and Tara in the collective ‘you,’ you - the plural of “bitches” gives that away. Is Tara being held culpable because the apparition is nasty, because she worked the magic with Willow, or because she hasn’t asked and is somehow complicit? Regardless of which it is, she looks spooked (also really cute, but spooked). There’s no glass, so they know it wasn’t “real.”

T: Two theories: Either the apparition wasn’t watching, but does know what’s required for the spell, in which case either it can sense magical talent or Xander and Anya are going to have a very unpleasant visitor quite soon, or the fact that Tara has the tools at her disposal to know - she’s a witch, she knows what books Willow went through, things of that sort - makes her not knowing not really an excuse for her involvement.

{*\../*} : Watching Tara and Willow work the problem together is cool right up until the moment when Tara asks if Willow knows what the apparition was talking about and Willow straight-up lies to her face. Not even all that well. Chalk one for ‘guilty conscience.’

T: At least they have the right initial plan - call Xander. It takes the house rattling at them to get them there, but Xander and Anya are almost certainly in some sort of danger here.

{*\../*} : Meanwhile, over at the Harris residence, Anya can’t sleep and is trying to get Xander to play word games with her. Xander is either the world’s heaviest sleeper or ignoring her on purpose. Heaviest sleeper, apparently, but the phone knocks him right out of it.

T: She deserves so much better than him. And that was amazingly creepy as hell.

{*\../*} : Anya doing the Joker laugh and cutting her cheeks with a knife? Eeep! No sleep for me ever, ever again.

T: We know where he got those scars now. Crime lords shouldn’t be involved in resurrections.

{*\../*} : I love that the next scene is the four perpetrators discussing the situation out in a brightly lit outdoor space with a maximum of ‘normal.’ Like they’re actively trying to hide from whatever’s haunting them by being as suburban cookout as possible without the actual cookout.

T: I adore Anya, but I don’t think I’d want her around on a bad day.

{*\../*} : Truth is uncomfortable and pointy. Also, is it just me or does everyone in that little circle radiate massive discomfort the moment Buffy walks in to ask what needs killing? Either they’ve all got guilty consciences, they’re trying to wrap her in cotton because they think she might break or both.

T: With an additional side order of “she’s strong and fast enough that, if she is broken in a way that leads to violence, we’ll all be dead before we notice.” Anyway, they think it’s a haunting, but not a normal haunting because it can be in more than one place. Anya’s theory - and she has personal experience - is that something hitchhiked back from the afterlife with Buffy. They’re going with that.

{*\../*} : Xander tells Buffy that having her back is “so, so important” and something clicks sharply for me. For all the talk about Buffy being trapped in a hell dimension, the resurrection spell is absolutely a product of Willow and Xander being pathologically unable to accept Buffy’s death, isn’t it? And on some level, they both know it, because they’re both radiating guilt and covering like mad.

T: Yeah, pretty much. I mean, they have all sorts of justifications, but the fact that their favorite one to go to is personal - “We can’t leave our friend suffering” - gives that away. If they weren’t doing it out of personal need, they’d be gravitating toward “It has been three months since the last apocalypse.”

{*\../*} : Research time! Dawn is reading over Willow’s shoulder. Five types of demon and counting. And Buffy cannot be out of the room with her friends fast enough. Cue creepy Dawn eyes while she’s making a lot of noise about how safe she’ll be with the others.

T: Did Dawn’s eyes go creepy before she started talking or after she finished? Her back was to the camera the whole time.

{*\../*} : Pretty clearly deliberate ambiguity. “I miss Giles,” Buffy says, and Willow jumps to being a poor substitute in the research department. But that’s not what Buffy’s talking about at all - she’s barely looking at the book in her hand. Sarah’s reading of that line gives me a very deep “I miss my father figure who could make my world make sense” feeling.

T: Yeah. The line was actually pretty heartbreaking. They haven’t noticed, have they? That Buffy is only talking when she’s saying something really important. It’s almost never the words coming out of her mouth, but she’s always communicating something - it’s never small talk or an obvious statement.

{*\../*} : They are aggressively busy trying to will her and themselves to be okay, and don’t seem to be able or willing to see her straight.

T: This episode is one of our more uncomfortable looks at who Buffy’s friends are, but I can’t say it’s taking them out of character.

{*\../*} : More on that in analysis later. To patrol with Buffy! Or not. We get one shot of Buffy with an angel tomb in the background and then we’re back to Anya delivering coffee and possessed Dawn delivering more judgement. “You stupid children, did you think the blood wouldn’t reach you? I smell the death on you.” I am... uncomfortably in agreement with that line, and the actors are selling the heck out of guilty terror. Well, except for Michelle, who’s just killing it as the vengeful possessing apparition breathing fire at them.

T: I think she actually does a better job as the apparition than Sarah, though she’s helped by the fact that her voice makes its vocal effect a ton creepier. Also, pretty sure the ante for the episode just went up… even after Dawn collapses, things are still on fire.

{*\../*} : “Evil things have plans. They have things to do.” Aaaand we cut to Spike damaging his hand punching the wall. Then laughing hysterically.

T: Is that a barber chair? Did Spike buy a barber chair? Well… he’s Spike. Did Spike steal a barber chair? He’s still got the chip. He couldn’t even eat the barber. Did Spike steal a barber chair from a demon barber?

{*\../*} : Spike’s crypt makes a hella creepy set, I gotta say. And here’s Buffy standing in his front room. And they’re comparing notes about their damaged hands while Spike makes creepy knife innuendo and remarks on Willow's power level. Funny but not funny. He drops the act. Now he’s talking about his feeling of failure for letting Dawn be taken and Buffy die. James is selling the hell out of Spike’s obsession here. “Every night I save you.” For 147 days. Damn.

T: James Marsters never forgets he’s playing a monster. The writers do, but he doesn’t. Even at his most sympathetic, his most pseudo-heroic, like he is here… he’s a monster. This is obsession, and your heart breaks for him.

{*\../*} : But there’s Buffy, knowing exactly what he is, sitting and staring at him. Same vaguely empty look, but she seems more comfortable with him by far than with her friends. Not healthy....

T: So Xander and Tara are talking, which I will note hardly ever happens - Tara and Xander are in rooms together really often, but they rarely address each other. Xander asks Tara about whether this is a consequence of the spell, and whether anyone knew. “Anyone” has an awfully specific meaning here. Tara is having none of it.

{*\../*} : “Willow is a talented witch and she would never do anything to hurt anyone,” bursts out Tara, in a glaringly suspiciously specific denial. Xander’s “I know, I know, huh? Backing up quickly, hands in the air” is not delivered in the voice of someone unaware that they’re both up to their eyeballs in a certain river in Egypt.

T: Pretty sure Xander crossed a line by accusing Willow, even if the accusation is accurate, in Tara’s mind. Of course, if Willow knew this - or something similar - could happen, she was crossing a line by not telling them. These people need to either trust each other more or not work incredibly dangerous magic together.

{*\../*} : Willow interrupts their moment with putting the plot together, so now we’re contemplating the prospect of having actually created a demon as the price of their spell. Which leads to Dawn panicking about the prospect of them undoing it. The line that jumps out at me is “you can’t just mess with people’s lives this way.” Something to come back to. Meanwhile, these people are still terrible at information security and now the demon knows the only way it can avoid dissolving over time is to kill Buffy.

T: Well… I’m not sure the CIA has protocols for noncorporeal, invisible, possessing demons. But they probably should, given that they’re basically demon hunters. … Does the CIA have protocols for noncorporeal, invisible, possessing demons?

{*\../*} : If they didn’t before ‘01, I imagine they do now.

T: They’d better not tell me. I don’t have protocols.

{*\../*} : Back to the house for some creepy white creature following Buffy off the stairs. With the lights off, because she’s walking around the house in the dark.

T: The demon was more menacing as both an invisible apparition that occasionally possessed someone and a mobile floor bump than that special effect. I don’t believe that special effect can kill Buffy. I don’t believe that special effect can kill George the Most Fragile Fly Ever.

{*\../*} : They need protocols. Also, the scene of Dawn and Anya and Xander driving to the house kills the shit out of what tension the show had going. Having to sit through Tara and Willow doing a revolving solidifying spell doesn’t help.

T: The fight isn’t very good either. Sarah’s obviously acting around a green screen, and they don’t really give her much to go on, while the special effect is terrible. The solidifying spell gives us… an old woman thing with white hair. Buffy beheads it. This episode’s climax didn’t.

{*\../*} : And now we’re getting a shiny happy sunny morning with Dawn coming out the door and cheerful music. Why am I more disturbed by this than I was by the monster? Oh, right, because there’s six and change more minutes of episode to go and Joss Whedon hates my happiness. Buffy made lunch for Dawn. Very cute.

T: And, unlike the robot, she didn’t mass produce lunch.

{*\../*} : The gag about repeating history in summer school is pretty funny. And Buffy’s crack about charging money for everyone who asks her if she’s okay is also amusing. But then Dawn rolls out with the “everyone will be better when they can see you being happy. It’s all they want,” line and I want to hide under the couch. Buffy’s face is downright haunted, too.

T: Yeah. No pressure to hide your trauma here, Buffy. None at all. Certainly not piling more on top of the preexisting pressure that comes from you being a destined (to die) hero and a battlefield commander. Nope. Nothin’ to see here.

{*\../*} : Buffy goes to tell them something. Then she tells them about being in a hell dimension, and thanks them, and she’s not looking at them. Then she does look at them, and her face is just killing me. How can they not see she’s lying through her teeth? She ducks out early and finds Spike in the alley. Then she says the most telling line in the episode about their relationship: “I can be alone with you here.”

T: Spike owes her a nickel. But he also knows that she’s lying. She says he can’t do anything for her. That she was happy, wherever she was. “I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time didn’t mean anything. Nothing had form. But I was still me, you know? And I was warm. And I was loved. And I was finished. Complete. I don’t understand theology or dimensions, any of it, really. But I think I was in heaven. And now I’m not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out, by my friends. Everything is hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch, this is hell. Just getting through the next moment, and the one after that, knowing what I’ve lost.” Then she gets up, tells Spike they can never know, and walks away. Fade to black.

{*\../*} : James Marsters acts the hell out of Spike’s reactions while she’s talking. What he does with his face is just amazing. Then she leaves him standing in his over-bright shadow.

T: I have to say… that was better than I expected it to be. Still grim as fuck, but… an honest sort of grim, maybe? It has something to say. I’m not sure what all it’s saying, but it means it.

{*\../*} : The writers seem to have really committed to the idea that they’re telling the story of a fated heroine who wrapped up her fate, got her eternal reward and then got dragged out of it and back to the hard ugliness of life by her needy, well-intentioned friends. And if that’s not a metaphor for depression mixed with toxic friendship, I’m not sure what is.

T: Also, for the situation the show itself is in. It was pretty much cancelled before UPN picked it up for this season and the next, and I think it had said what it had to say at the start. Seasons 1, 3, and 5, in particular, basically handled Buffy’s journey.

{*\../*} : So running themes to watch in the forthcoming 19 episodes: life after purpose, coping with hiding your trauma and depression from your friends, seeking unhealthy outlets for your emotions with people you can be alone while you’re with... anything else?

T: Dawn. I think Dawn is someone to keep an eye on going forward. She never knew Joyce the Abuser - the monks wouldn’t have let her - so to her experience of the world she’s lost her (quite excellent) mother, her sister, then her sister has come back to life. If they don’t do a lot with that, they’ll have failed badly as writers.

{*\../*} : So, solid marks as an episode and good set-up for the season. For as great an hour of serial television as you can have in an action show without an action climax, I sure didn’t enjoy it much.

T: Yeah. That’s the thing with this season, isn’t it? When it’s bad, it’s bad. When it’s good, it’s about depression and misery. Either way, it’s not actually enjoyable to watch. You can tell enjoyable stories about depression - I’m told Zoe Quinn did a bang-up job of it - but the people writing Buffy, at least so far, seem incapable of it. “This was good but wasn’t fun” is not as uncommon an issue as I’d like it to be in either Buffy or Angel, and this episode is pretty much the pinnacle thereof. Maybe it needed a great action scene… that would at least have given something fun to remember after.

{*\../*} : I could have done without the car scene and the spinny camera spell, too. Speaking of the spell, Willow’s glowy light and dark eyes moment when she said “Solid” gave me chills, and not the good kind.

T: There’s a good kind?

{*\../*} : Not in front of the readers, honey.

T: Hai. Anyway, yeah, the car scene in particular killed the pacing of what climax there was, and the spinny camera made me kind of regret the popcorn we were eating as we watched this. Willow’s eyes going black started in the episode with the bag of knives, though I think this is the first time it’s happened without her eating evil.

{*\../*} : That’s surely not going to end badly for everyone involved, right? Right?

T: Nah. It’ll be fine. Anyway, I think we’ve said what there is to say about this one. We’ll have to do this again for an episode that’s, y’know… good? Okay, this one was good. Worth our watch?

{*\../*} : Not crushingly sad. That’d be a good start. Anyway, I now return you to your regularly scheduled Tia-viewing. See you around, everyone!

#dialogue post #buffy the vampire slayer #after life #buffy season 6 #season 6

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cinephiled-com · 6 years

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New Post has been published on Cinephiled

New Post has been published on http://www.cinephiled.com/interview-climber-alex-honnold-achieves-impossible-award-winning-doc-free-solo/

Interview: Climber Alex Honnold Achieves the Impossible in Award-Winning Doc ‘Free Solo’

From award-winning documentary filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi and world-renowned photographer Jimmy Chin (the directors of Meru), Free Solo is a breathtaking, intimate portrait of free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock — the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park — without a rope! Celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death. Succeeding in this challenge places his story in the annals of human achievement.

Free Solo, winner of the Grolsch People’s Choice Documentary Award at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, is an edge-of-your seat thriller and a truly inspiring portrait of an athlete who challenges both his body and his beliefs on a quest to triumph over the impossible, revealing the personal toll of excellence. As the climber begins his training, the armor of invincibility he’s built up over decades unexpectedly breaks apart when Honnold begins to fall in love, threatening his focus and giving way to injury and setbacks. Vasarhelyi and Chin succeed in beautifully capturing deeply human moments with Honnold as well as the death-defying climb with exquisite artistry and masterful, vertigo-inducing camerawork. The result is a triumph of the human spirit. I sat down with Alex Honnold and filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi to talk about the film and his remarkable achievement.

Danny Miller: This was such an awe-inspiring film in every sense of that word. Alex, I feel like I’m a member of a different species when I see you and the other climbers in this film. When you talk to us civilians, do you understand why we have to first move through our fear-based thoughts such as “Are you insane? Why would anyone do something so dangerous?!”

Alex Honnold: Oh yeah, I totally get that. I mean, that’s how I feel about big wave surfing or extreme downhill biking or other human endeavors that I see that I don’t totally understand. But then I just assume that within the context of what those people are doing, it must make sense to them. You know, like if I spent my whole life in the ocean, then maybe surfing a 50-foot wave would feel kind of natural even though it seems totally crazy to me now.

That’s reassuring to hear — I don’t feel quite as inferior as I did a few minutes ago!

(Laughs.) I think one of the main points of the film is that anything like this is an enormous process of preparation. I’ve been climbing for over 20 years, I’ve gone up El Cap more than 80 times, and I dove very deep into one very specific thing. That that doesn’t make me better at anything else, as you can see in the film!

I was a little surprised early on to hear how many times you used the word “scary” to describe some of the stuff you were doing but then then word that disappeared later on. Is it that when you finally commit to such a huge thing as free soloing El Capitan you just banish all thoughts of fear from your head?

Well, I think for the actual free solo of El Cap, I wasn’t really that scared because I’d spent so long preparing for it. But talking about climbing in general? I mean, it’s always kind of scary! Nobody wants to fall to their death. And certainly any time that you think about that possibility, it’s hard not to think, “Oh, this is scary!”

It’s inspiring to see you move through that, and also inspiring to see people like your mom and your girlfriend Sanni deal with their own fears about it. It’s moving to hear them talk about how they would never try to stop you, that it’s just who you are, no matter how fearful they are about what could happen. Chai, you could have made a whole documentary just on the making of this film, I can only imagine the complexities of getting your crew out to where they had to be. Was there a lot of discussion about how much your presence would be felt in the film?

E. Chai Vasarhelyi: Yes. We were always very reluctant to become part of the story because it felt like that was calling too much attention to the process, but it soon became clear that we had to be present to a certain extent. For starters, we had to have people responding to Alex since these free solos usually happen in such a vacuum. Our crew was almost entirely made up of climbers who were very close friends with Alex. They lived through what he was doing and it was important to show some of that.

And they were accomplishing amazing athletic feats in their own right, just getting their cameras to the right position on that wall! I could watch a whole film on the activities of the camera people alone.

Totally. And we were also continually grappling with the existential question of whether or not we should participate in this, given the risks. I remember one conversation between Jimmy and John Krakauer when John asked, “Is Alex going to free solo El Cap anyway, even if you’re not making a film?” The answer was yes. “And are you guys the best people to do it in a meaningful way and do justice to that story?” Yes. But even after we decided to do it, you have to make yourselves imagine the worst because that’s part of your responsibility. It was difficult, but the bottom line for us was knowing that Alex lives a life of total intention He’s thought a lot about it, he’s very mindful, and this is the life he wants.

When I first heard the term “free solo,” I thought that meant that you just start going up a mountain and see what happens. I was relieved to learn that it’s a lot more planned out than that!

Alex: Yeah, that’s a very common misconception. We just did a screening in Yosemite, which was great, but a lot of tourists there say, “Oh, I just saw a YouTube video of you climbing some cliffs without a rope,” and they think you just climb up any way you can. That never happens. There’s a whole history and culture to climbing I’ve spent many years learning about El Cap and planning every move. You need a huge amount of knowledge involved.

I could see that meticulous training in the film. But then, when we see the actual climb, it looks like there are times when you’re making some split-second decisions in the moment about what you’re going to do.

Not really. At least not for anything difficult. I know exactly what I need to do at every step.

Chai: I think he’s remembering that one foot move everyone talks about.

Alex: Oh yeah, the backwards foot thing. Some things may look tentative but they’re not. But then there are some parts to the climb that I don’t need to practice as much. Like there’s this one 200-foot section of crack that once you get inside, you just kind of shuffle along and engage the whole way. But at the more challenging points you definitely have to remember every single move, like your left hand grabs this one thing, your right foot goes here, but for the rest of it you just kind of grind it out.

In addition to the unbelievable achievement of getting up that wall with no ropes, I was surprised at how fast you did it. Was that a deliberate goal of yours, too?

No, that’s just a byproduct of a free soloing, but it was nice, I was excited to break four hours! For me, climbing the wall without a rope was great, it was everything I was looking for — climbing it quickly was just a bonus.

Chai: It was complicated for us, though.

Alex: It was? Why?

Chai: Once we began to realize how fast you were going, we had to adjust a lot of our plans.

Watching your group, even knowing that you’re all climbers, I have to say that you all looked pretty terrified watching Alex!

I’m not a climber myself, not at all. But yes, it was utter terror for everybody!

Alex: Really? I mean, not for everybody, was it? Was Jimmy horrified?

Chai: Oh, yeah.

And I loved that guy who said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m never going to go through this again.”

Alex: That was Mikey. Mikey was pretty horrified. I’ve known him for a long time and one of the first times I worked with him he was holding lights for Jimmy for a photo shoot of me climbing and I remember Mikey would just hold the lights steady with one hand and look away, he couldn’t watch!

Which shows how much they all love you, of course, and don’t want to see anything happen to you. Even though I knew you were going to succeed, I burst into tears when you made it to the summit of El Cap. Can you even put the kind of euphoria you felt in that moment into words?

Just delight. Deep satisfaction.

Chai: You can see it in his face.

Alex: I was very happy. Watching that part of the film is always pretty exciting because I think it really does justice to that feeling I felt when I got to that top and knew that I had lived my dream.

When you watch the climb now, are you ever critical? “Why did I move my left foot that way?”

No, actually, which is interesting, because I can be very critical. No, I watch the footage, and I’m like, “That looks great!” Of course, that’s after many years of practice, I’ve put a lot of effort into it. But I think the execution was great, I’m pretty pleased with myself.

Chai: It was perfect.

Alex: It was well done. I wouldn’t say perfect but it was pretty freaking good!

When you show the film, do you get a markedly different reaction from climbers versus non-climbers?

Oh yeah, for sure. For one thing, they laugh at totally different things — like me eating out of the pan with a spatula. At the New York premiere, everybody laughed at that. In Yosemite, nobody did because they all eat out of the pan with a spatula, it’s completely normal! And people usually laugh at the scene with me and Sanni buying a refrigerator.

I wondered about that scene. Chai, I’m sure you had a massive amount of footage of Alex in his regular life, I was very interested that you chose that one.

Alex: Yeah, why DID you choose that?

I can tell you my interpretation and you can let me know if I’m close. The key to that scene for me was seeing them walk past all these gorgeous, expensive refrigerators and Alex heading towards the smallest, cheapest one. The simplest thing to do the job, no frills.

Chai: That’s exactly why we included that! It was so true to character, such a real character moment. I also think that this is such an intense story, I loved finding moments of humor that endears Alex to people.

Alex, do you cringe at that one moment after Sanni let go of the rope which caused you to injure your ankle and you said that you wanted to break up with her after that? I could hear audiences gasping at that.

Alex: No, that was all true, I did want to break up with her at that moment. We hadn’t been dating that long when that happened and I was thinking, “Well, this is a great girl, I think she’s awesome, and I think this relationship has a lot of promise, but if it’s bad for my climbing, I don’t know if it’s worth it. I remember this lunch we had after that where I basically was trying to dump her and she said, “What are you doing? Will breaking up with me make your life any better?” And I thought about that and said, “No, not at all.” And thankfully, we stayed together!

It’s so fascinating watching you go through this new territory of a committed relationship. On the other hand, I do understand the people in the film who say that to be as committed as you were to achieving that one goal, being in a relationship really isn’t very helpful to that.

It’s not! I mean, it would make a lot of sense to just be totally single, and live a kind of monastic life when you’re in this kind of quest. But, I met Sanni and we thought there’s no reason to throw away a great relationship just because I was was on this quest. As you see in the film, it was challenging, but I think we managed to find the balance!

Well, thank you so much for this film. It made me think about my own passions and how watching you can inspire me to move deeper into those even if I can never get anywhere near any of your physical accomplishments.

Oh, I don’t know, it’s never too late to start.

Ha. Thank you for looking at me and not saying, “Yeah, you’re right, don’t try that.”

Hey, my mom started climbing at 58 because she really wanted to go climbing with me. She’s enjoying it a lot and having great experiences outdoors.

You’ve definitely inspired me to want to spend more time outside and see more of the beauty in this country. We went to Bryce Canyon in Utah this summer and it was spectacular watching the sun rise over the rim at six in the morning.

I used to hike there as a kid. And I love Zion National Park which is close to there. Have you been to Yosemite?

No, not yet.

Dude, you have to go! It’s only a five-hour drive from here. I just did two days of interviews sitting in the meadow underneath El Cap so I spent days staring at that wall. No matter how many times I’ve seen it, it never loses its grandeur. You look at it and you’re like, that is one immense piece of stone. It’s a magnificent wall.

In terms of climbing, are you done with it now, or do you still want to go back to it?

Oh, I’ll be back, there are tons of different things you can do. Earlier this summer I did a speed record on El Cap with Tommy, who you see in the film.

So you might even free solo a different part of it again?

Oh, I don’t know about that. I doubt it, but time will tell.

Chai: I think it would okay if he didn’t.

Alex: (Laughs.) I think I’d be fine, too, if I didn’t — but we’ll see!

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Free Solo, presented by National Geographic, opens on September 28 in several cities. If you are in Los Angeles, click here for the schedule at Arclight Hollywood where Alex Honnold and E. Chai Vasarhelyi will be participating in Q&As following several showings this weekend. The film will also be screened in the theater’s gigantic Cinerama Dome — the best place to see this breathtaking film.

#Alex Honnold #Documentary #E. Chai Vasarhelyi #Free Solo #Jimmy Chin #National Geographic #Interviews #What's Hot

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borisbubbles · 6 years

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EUROVISION 2018 #5 & #4

05. SWITZERLAND ZiBBZ - “Stones” 32nd place

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~*Wild Jokah On A Gole Froam*~

Yanking away the top NQ slot in this year’s ranking is, of course, everybody’s favourite Sibling alliance, ZiBZZ!!

As you know, I looooooooove mental health awareness songs, and I particularly love those with approaches that work (*cough* NOT “Goodbye” *cough*). While most of these songs are doused in motherly, cloddlesome tones, “Stones” doesn’t beat around the bush and argues that one must confront their fears HEAD-ON.

To transliterate the (ridic, amusing) lyrics into Common English:

“People have always been shitbags and have treated others like crap for aeons and there’s nothing I can do about it because people won’t fucking change.. SO fucking WHAT? Why would let those assholes affect my present and future the same way they’ve influenced my past? Fuck that noise. It’s time to let the inner demons rest, grow as a person AND help others get out of the deep end while doing so.”.

Holy fuck what an epic Truth BOMB, I can relate to all of that scalding hot tea. The best way to get around depression, anger and frustration *is* to 1) remove you from the toxic environment 2) find kindred spirits and support each other 3) find the courage to leave your past behind and build a future for yourself. Mental health is a BATTLEFIELD that HITS YOU with its best shots (did I just ref Pat Benatar twice? 🤭) while you’re struggling and “Stones” acklowedges this reality so hard. About fucking time someone lit the flares of ferocity to stand up against BULLYING and HATE. ALL HAIL COCO the ZiBB, FIRST OF HER NAME, THE UNDUN, MOTHER OF FLARES, KHALEESI OF THE DOWNTRODDEN, NON-THROWER OF STONES, BREAKER OF TABOOS, QUEEN OF THE HURT, TORMENTED AND BROWBEATEN.

Ain’t the only one who don’t wanna throw stooooooooooones

But of course, message alone isn’t enough to get such a high ranking, but fortunately ZiBBZ delivered musically as well. “Stones” has the perfect type of melody for Eurovision: catchy, repetitive and accessible, but never boring or tiresome because the arrangement was spot.fucking.on. The horns and tuba’s give the music so much gravitas, the backing AHEMs are excellent and CoCo’s five-packs-a-day type of gravelly voice adds so much realness to the song. "Stones” as a whole is jarring and complex and succeeds at elliciting the emotional response it aims for. This is my favourite song of the 42, by no small margin.

And then there’s the staging, which... I have mixed feelings about, not gonnal ie. It saddens me that even at this high a rank I must again resort to critique. I mean, the ACT was great. That motherfuckin’ flare is one of the few goosebump moments I got from this year, Coco is Minerva in a hipster body, Stee is a lovable goof, but... you have this amazing, dynamic song that is capable BLOWING EVERYONE AWAY and it kinda... doesn’t?

I would say that “Stones” was mostly hampered by its camerawork, which was mostly AWFUL. Which idiot [Hans Pancake 🙄] is responsible for framing such a powerful, uptempo song with slow, drawn-out shots?

I mean, shots such as this one:

(why didn’t they just focus on Stee??? or the audience?)

and that one:

(You can clearly see Coco throwing away a drumstick at the start of the preformance... Why the faraway shots?? Why no close-ups when she’s drumming happening???? NO ONE CARED ABOUT SANNA’S LIGHT CAGE SO WHY WOULD THEY START CARING NOW??? (seriously, fuck you Hans Culpepper))

This is the reason why “Stones” failed to ensnare the audience’s attention. Wrong people with the right to stage and ZiBBZ can’t do anything about it. I chose to not take it into account when I decided on their final ranking, but it’s sooooo frustrating to see Switzerland FINALLY strike the motherload and fall flat because of some moronic cinematographic decisions. Now watch Switz pick something mediocre and be overrated by the Basics/NQ once again (lol I say this without having listened to the Swiss songs, but can you blame me?). Oh well, ZiBBZ have since moved on to better things -

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- and so should we :). Still praying they pull a Poli in five years or so. THE WORLD NEEDS IT

04. SLOVENIA Lea Sirk - “Hvala, ne!” 22nd place

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Damn’ this is such a tough decision. Cutting entries loose at this point really hurts y’all.

So as you know, I really, REALLY fucking love Lea Sirk and even said that, in the unlikely event that she qualified, she’d WIN the ranking. However, while I am probably obliged by contract to grant her the first place, I can honestly say that... I like my top three more? Lea could have easily won this ranking, had my opinions on Elina, DoReDos and Ieva stayed the same; but they didn’t (they went up obvi), so here we are. The above paragraph is just a disclaimer to explain why Slovenia don’t rank higher than they do, because holy fuck this "Hvala, ne!” was awesoooooooooome. Anti-establishmentarian trap-pop that was a shock qualifier and made a flashy gimmick work TWICE <3 There’s a reason why the Good Gays Fanbase (do I include myself in that? hmmm 🤔) have nicknamed it “Hvala Slay!”.

But first, (-- Julie Chen-Moonves) let’s discuss the PHENOMENON that is Lea Sirk. My love for her predates this contest by several years, from the time when I only knew her as the botty cyborg sidekick to the heiress of the Ravenclaw Empire herself, Tinkara Kovac.

“KEN U BEE-LIEF ET???”

who happens to be *my* fave of Outstanding Eurovision Year 2014 (Yes, over Conchita, go cry) and is a contender for fave entry of the decade. The Summer of 2014 was a fantastic experience, partly thanks to Lea and I will forever cherish her for that reason. So when this beautiful dubstep fae was selected to rep Slovenia, now sporting a lilac killer braid, a trashbag jumpsuit and a cabal of slut-dropping dance devas of destruction... like *instantly* fanning my proverbial clit right there. It only got better during Lea’s pre-show content, proving her not only cool chick onstage, but off the stage as well. Having a teenage girl crush on Waylon <3 (Confessing this IN FRONT OF A LIVE AUDIENCE WHICH INCLUDED BOTH WAYLON AND HER HUSBAND lmao bless <3). Impersonating Salvador on some Slovene version of the Soundmix Show <3 There’s no way Lea couldn’t deliver in Lisbon.

And “deliver” is underselling what Lea did, holy fucking hell that live was EVERYTHING. It’s hard to even name what the brightest shining star of their performance was, since Slovenia brought an entire fucking galaxy of them. I’d say the best thing was probably the choreography, which managed to be spellbinding, professional and hilarious all at once. Lea and her dancers-in-crime put on an amazing, electrifying show, aided by dynamic camerawork and lighting (Take note, Hans Pancake 🙄).

My personal fave thing about “Hvala ne!” however was that it QUALIFIED BY A COMFORTABLE MARGIN AND WOULD HAVE UNDER ANY POINTS SYSTEM <345871 I love a deserving shock qualifier (see: Albania), but when it happens to a preshow fave of mine that I considered all but doomed (and a contender for last in the semi). . . There are no superlatives in my glossary that can describe the state of elation I felt when Lea was announced as a finalist. Netta might as well cede her trophy because the Eurogaes were the actual winners of this year 💗🧡💛💚💙💜 “Hvala, ne!” more like “HVALA motherfucking SLAYS HATERS” amirite???

Granted “Hvala, ne!” was the same in Lisbon as during the preshow, with only two marked exceptions. One was Lea had added a chorus in shabby Portuguese (”OBRIGADA NAO NAO!!!” <3) which was hilar, and the other was... the break!

Granted the semi break was kinda *blah* to me. “Zomg the music dies riiiiiiight before the bridge how coincidental”. Sure, Jan. Either way, I found it moderately funny, mostly because of the random extras that were clearly being paid by production to oversell it <3

But the best thing was that it WORKED and brought Lea to the finale where she performed a SECOND break and this one was downright epic. The audience actually sang along with her <3 <3 <3 <3 Two different instances of the same gimmick and making it work BOTH times <3 When will YOUR faves???

I suppose that, at the end of the day, “Hvala, ne!” was an experimental song that you either love or hate. Why anyone would ever hate this radiant nymph is beyond me, but whatever. My ranking, my rules, ya shallow fools. I *loved* this bizarre mix of K-Pop and Hip-Hop, sung in Slovene and Portuguese, (which is the most unique combination of languages ever featured in a Eurovision entry, I’m sure <3), with badass self-referential lyrics that SLAM DOWN musical conformity in a year that was all about rewarding it. In other words PRECISELY WHAT THIS CONTEST NEEDED. You know, there are plenty of countries out there that have never scored a top five in Eurovision and probably never will until they find their monster runaway winner (Lordi, Salvador). I *hope* the next one is from Slovenia. Raiven performing a song by Maraaya, with Lea and BQL as the back-up singers. Come on y’all, let’s make Eurovision Great Again. Hvala, slay, slay, slay, slay

RANKING SO FAR

04. Slovenia (Lea Sirk - “Hvala, ne!”)

05. Switzerland (ZiBBZ - “Stones”)

06. Germany (Michael Schulte - “You let me walk alone”)

07. Albania (Eugent Bushpepa - “Mall”)

08. France (Madame Monsieur - “Mercy”)

09. Hungary (AWS - “Viszlát nyár”)

10. Finland (Saara Aalto - “Monsters”)

11. Bulgaria (EQUINOX - “Bones”)

12. Denmark (Rasmussen - “Higher ground”)

13. Malta (Christabelle - “Taboo”)

14. Cyprus (Eleni Foureira - “Fuego”)

15. United Kingdom (SuRie - “Storm”)

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente”)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We got love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Jozef - “Lie to me”)

#eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Eurovision 2018 #Switzerland #ZiBBZ #Stones #Slovenia #Lea Sirk #Hvala Ne!

20 notes · View notes