#theres also part of me thats like. what if i go open action comics at issue 1 and just fucking go

[mamawasatesttube]

sometimes i think about how many comics i still have yet to read but really do wanna get to and i just .

...and yet part of me still goes hey. what if we reread superboy (1994)

[zontiky]

okay so i tried to save this ask as a draft and it got deleted because tumblr is just such a functional website like that <3 but the prompt was “the hargreeves as ghosts in the apocalypse with five” or something like that i’m going to scream

this is SUPER long so i’m putting it under the cut hfkjsd

pre-five: the hargreeves siblings are dead. wait i feel a drabble coming on ooh

The Hargreeves siblings are dead.

Ben isn’t very aware of this at first. He’s been dead since 2006 -- he’s quite used to it, by now. What he is aware of, first, is light. Blinding white light. And Vanya, in the middle of it. He doesn’t close his eyes because he can’t feel pain, but if he could he thinks she would have made him blind. There’s light, and heat, and power, and then he closes his eyes anyway because the ceiling is collapsing around him and it’s instinctual.

When he opens them again he sees ash. Ash -- and Klaus.

He’s gotten used to Klaus, too. Klaus has a memorable sort of face; even if he didn’t, Ben has seen it every single day for almost twenty years. He doesn’t know if it’s actually been twenty years, for him. He doesn’t know how time moves for ghosts. Klaus has assured him it moves the same as it does for the living. Ben isn’t sure Klaus, stoned out of his mind, bleeding sluggishly from his arm, knew what he was talking about.

Anyway.

Klaus.

He’s wearing the coat he’s been flaunting around for the past week. His shirt is see-through, with little stars on it, like a pale imitation of the sky. Ben remembers his pants had laces on them, he’s sure they did not a minute ago, before the brightness that threatened to wipe out his very soul -- his soul is all he has left, really. His gaze drifts down anyway, to check.

Yes. Klaus’ pants have laces up the sides.

“No,” Ben says. Klaus is laying in a heap on the ground, his fingers curled like his tendons have been cut.

His lips feel numb because they always feel numb. Because Ben can’t feel at all. He takes a step. “No,” he says again, louder, surer. “No!”

Klaus looks up at him. His makeup is smudged, like it tends to be. His lips are bitten raw, like they tend to be. His hair is a mess, like it tends to be, and like it will be, always, because Klaus isn’t breathing.

Klaus is lying in a heap on the ground. Klaus is standing above his own body. Klaus is reaching for Ben like he’s hoping to touch him for the first time in years. Just when Klaus’ cold, dead, fingers brush his face, a voice from behind says, so quietly, dripping with disbelief: “Ben?”

Ben shuts his eyes and wishes desperately he could cry.

He feels a hand on his shoulder, for the first time in so, so long, but he also doesn’t feel it at all. He feels-but-doesn’t-feel someone turn him around, until they are saying, “Ben? Ben!” and he has no choice but to open his eyes and face the music.

Diego is gripping his shoulders like he is a dying man and Ben is the answer. Behind him, Luther and Allison watch them, stunned silent. Allison’s hands are pressed to her mouth. She looks like she wants to cry. 

And Vanya. Little Vanya, painted white. Her head is hung as her shoulders shake with the weight of the destruction she has so inevitably caused. (Ben would say he always knew she was destined for great things -- but he can’t, because he didn’t.) (Nobody ever said great things had to be good.)

The Hargreeves siblings are dead. Their bodies are strewn across what is left of their childhood home, smouldering and burning, and Ben is very aware of that fact.

righto anyway. so they have an emotional reunion but its also kind of bitter? id have to actually write this for it to make sense so lets skip it for now lol

five shows up

he cannot see them obviously bc theyre all ghosts

god if i did write this it would be such a monster of a fic and would take me like 2 years to finish i already know fhkjdsk

somehow ?? they manage to influence the world around them maybe? idk maybe now that klaus is dead hes sober

or maybe hes high for all eternity?

for the purposes of this au lets say he died sober or in the late stages of withdrawal, and bc ghosts cant feel pain in action hes sober

so EVENTUALLY they figure out how to corporealize bc klaus is like blam wham ghost powers

asdlfk that sounds so stupid im sorry

he would say that tho imho,,, it sounds like something hed say,,,

if i DID write this it would be alternating povs also,,,

ok so out of all of them klaus and ben have the most experience homeless

and while being stuck in an apocalypse is not at all the same thing as being homeless it does help to have some knowledge

five doesnt eat the twinkie!! good for him

dammit okay. theres 2 options we can take here. in the comics five couldnt get back bc he fucked up his math and spent 15 years doing the wrong thing, but if u apply that here, with 6 other ppl checking his work this could be avoided and they end up skipping the whole assassin shtick and just hopping straight back to 2019, ready to prevent the apocalypse

OR five still gets hired for the commission but the sibs are tagging along

i think bc five isnt completely alone in this au unfortunately dolores doesnt exist :((

for each other the 2 paths tho theres also options?? bc they (ghosts) can go back in time and inhabit their past selves bodies? OR they could just,,, cease to exist

IM JUST NOW REALIZING HOW MANY PATHS THIS COULD TAKE,, AAH FUCK

okay gonna split this into parts. this is gonna be so long brace yourselves.

1) they go back in time because math checking and the ghosts swap out for their past selves

after multiple years of being stuck in an apocalypse together i think they would learn to get along with each other. like at least a little bit

which would make it easier for them to prevent the apocalypse

bc theyd:

trust each other more

already know abt the apocalypse and not have to wait for five to grace them all with his knowledge

are working as a team from the very beginning

have open lines of communication

yeah uh. so there

vanya is also already aware of her powers so the whole harold goading her into turning against her family and snapping to wipe out all life on earth thing? yeah that doesnt happen

oh and harold wouldn’t know how to do that in the first place because klaus wouldn’t throw out reggie’s journal! this solves so many problems wtf

there’s still commission issues bc they (and by they i mean five) are on the commission’s radar

so there’s still dope fight scenes sdlkfd pinky promise

okay idk. they stop the apocalypse and everything is okay the end hfkjd

2) they fix the math but only five can go back and the ghosts cease to exist

this is just sad! it would be sad okay! im sad! lets move on

subset of the past one: ben CAN go back with five because he was already dead and time travel affects them differently or something idk

aaaaaa

five & ben dynamic duo would be dope as shit BUT five would not be able to see him... so they use klaus as a middleman fjsdsfd

is there 2 bens? is one ben deleted in favor of the time-traveling ben? i dont know! i dont know my brain is melting

either way shit is happening yall!! obviously klaus is clued in, directly or indirectly it doesnt matter but he is on board the ‘don’t let the entire world end in flames’ train

3) they join the commission and then when five goes back in time they all go back

this is fun because now five is a highly trained assassin who is also lowkey a complete marshmallow for his siblings and once again TEAMWORK WOO

basically the first path but now five has a gun fhsdjk

4) they join the commission but five has to leave them behind and they cease to exist

five with a gun but hes sad now

i didnt go into how much losing his siblings would suck in the prev path but like. it would suck so much. he’s already lost them once if you think about it when he time traveled the first time and yeah he found the adult ghost versions but,, its different

and now suddenly hes stuck with these strange adult versions of the people he knows and he KNOWS them but also he doesnt? at all? they dont have all the years of shared experiences together? and theyre all grown up from the first ‘set’ of siblings he had which for five was like 40+ years ago??

SCREAMS

i have losing my mind disease (self-diagnosed)

subset: five has to leave them behind but they still exist because the commission is out-of-time kind of? idk but they’re still floating around somewhere and come back to impact the plot later or something

yeah idk. literally just wrote them down bc i didnt want them to die^2 hfkjwehd

subset: they still exist but instead of being just Somewhere they’re specifically at the assassination of JFK onwards because thats where five left them and they either go on ghosting and make an appearance in s2 OR they cease because them-wise they havent died yet but that doesnt make sense because ghosts can time travel so nevermind

i dont have the brain energy left to explore this one aaaa

okay jesus christ i think that’s all

I DON’T KNOW. i don’t know. i might write some more of this because honestly it is a very fine flavor of angst + hurt/comfort <3

[hazelenergy]

How I Digitally Paint like a Scenic Artist/Designer

Aka: how I did this and put my degree to good use. 

LONG POST WARNING

Step 1: Research. 

First off, get to your image search. If you are going to be using Google, you may want to type “-pinterest” in the search to eliminate the countless boards. 

I had to figure out clothing that is vaguely late 1800s. I found a multitude of reference images that were fancier clothes- but I wanted to find images of clothing for kindred across all social classes. Photographs from the era and paintings are your friend. They will more accurately showcase what was worn. 

After Fashion research comes location research. The 1890s in America is known for the rapid industrialization. Factories were getting bigger and work days were getting longer. But, I wanted the moonlight to be cascading into the place, illuminating the scene. This means I needed to find a structure that had skylights or let sunlight in. And the best images I found? Slaughterhouses. Fitting, huh?

The same rule for fashion still stands- if you can find photographs or paintings from the era- they’re better. There are tons of places still standing today from the 1800s. But today, they look WAY different. Ya know, Abandoned! So just be sure to take this into consideration if you search “abandoned slaughterhouses” or go trespassing like I did.

Lastly, pose research. Finding the poses for a fight scene can be tedious. So, I enlisted some help from a few fight choreographers and stunt men. You can record their fights and play them back at quarter or half speed. You can also get a mirror and flop on the floor a bunch. I did both. This lets you see the action/motion lines you are going to replicate in the drawing.  Heres how we initially did fina’s pose:

And sometimes you have to go back and get a clean shot. I ended up using this pose for the axe.

Step 2: Set up and Background!

When you open a new file, set it to the dimensions and resolution you want. I was working at 600. Usually, I’m working at 300-350. You can always reduce resolution. Its hard to prevent fuzzy lines if you increase it later. 

I cannot stress the following enough:

You work background to foreground. Big Shapes and areas to little shapes. Work your way forward. What this means is you need to fill in as much space as possible first. Then build your details. I prefer working as follows: Big Solid tones, Soft shadows, Dark Shadows, Highlights, then final blend. Once you finish this, put an overlay on top. This knocks everything back and helps create the illusion of depth. See this at work with the video below or here

Step 3: Figure Drawings + Composition

Utilize that research and images you collected to pose your characters. I create subfolders for each set of figures. Organization is important here. This will help keep you on the right layer and prevent the eternal digital artist struggle of “Fuck that was on the wrong layer!”

Even after you move on to lineart and shading, Keep the sketch layer as a reference. You may need to see what youre original notes/ figures looked like as you do the lineart and shade. Don’t be afraid to move them around and alter the composition rn. You want to be able to make changes. Make notes! Detail light sources! 

I’m about to through out some art jargon:

You want to think about asymmetric balance. The easiest way to achieve this in an eye-pleasing manner is to use the Fibonacci spiral. Yeah. This boi:

Place your figures and actions in a similar sequence to the spiral and the viewer’s eye tends to naturally follow it. This is sometimes called the Golden Ratio in the art world. 

Doesn’t need to be perfectly on the spiral. You can break it- but its an excellent tool to plan how things move in the piece. 

Step 4: Lineart

Once you got things sketched- its time to do the lineart. I’m using clip studio paint’s standard brushes. Nothing fancy. I often switch between the G-pen and the For Effect Liner. Mapping and Turnip are for thicker lines. 

Usually I set these pens to a specific thickness depending on where I’m drawing.

My background figures are lined at 0.05 thickness, the midground is .1 to .2, Fina is .3 and the foreground is .4. I set my stabilization high to help keep my lines smooth. Stabilization 100 means there’s a significant delay between where the pen is and the cursor. I like the stabilization to be at 20 for freehanding and at 50 ish for outlining. Dont become completely reliant on the stabilization though. Good and smooth lineart is drawn from the arm not the wrist. Your range of motion is severely limited if you only move your wrist. Practice moving from your elbow and you’ll be surprised how much smoother your lines get. 

Once I finish lining the figures, I usually go around it with an outline. This does three things: 

1. Solidifies the figure and cleans lineart for paint bucket tool. More on that in the next step.

2. Its a stylistic choice. Helps give it that comic book feel with a heavy outline. 

3. Pushes figures forward or back in the composition. Thicker outline helps denote that a figure is farther forward than another. My background figures have no outline to push them away 

Step 5: Digitally coloring

For each figure you are going to select outside the lineart. 

Create a new layer under the lineart

Invert the selection. Paint bucket. You should now have a solid shape of the figure under the lineart. Do not deselect.

Create a new layer above the one color. Title it solid colors. Paint in thick, solid tones. I like to use the mapping pen and turnip pen to color in my solid tones: skin, clothing, hair, etc.  

After that, deselect. Create a multiply layer if you can. If your program does not have a multiplier function, Pick a tone you want to use for shadows and lower the opacity (usually 30-40% I like to use lavenders or blue tones). It will not be as vibrant, but you can edit it in post. Select off of the solid colors layer. I like to start with skin tones. Use the airbrush tool to create soft shadows. You don’t want to create harsh lines on this layer.

Then repeat this process with harsh lines.  

Then knock it all back with an overlay. If you dont have the ability to create an overlay, you can again drop a solid color and lower the opacity, but you’ll have to mess with the color balance/ brightness/contrast to let all the hard work come through. 

You’re going to repeat this for every single figure. Here’s a few color theory tips though.

Your overlay colors should be darker (not more vibrant) in the foreground and lighter (avoid using pure white) in the background. This helps with the depth of the piece. Things closer tend to be darker (not always true, depends on lighting)

You can choose to use color theory to aid your shadows. Instead of choosing black or grey for shadows, choose a complimentary color. I used a lot of green for this piece, I used red for really dark shadows. Its not that black drains color- its just loses some depth if not used carefully. 

Keep your colors consistent. Helps unify the piece. You can strategically break the consistency to draw focus. For example, Fina is the only figure with a true blue overlay. This helps her stand out from the other figures who have reds and greens. 

Step 6: Touch Ups and Final Renderings

Now comes the most tedious part. If you’re like me, your computer fans have been whirring for the last few hours trying to render this monster of a file. If you havent already,  SAVE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD

These are the last four layers I have for the entire piece. Here, I am trying to create effective and believable lighting. This kind of work I have only been able to achieve in clip studio or photoshop. You can do it with normal layers, but choose your colors CAREFULLY. Stay away from pure white. Carefully utilize your knowledge of light and shadow to create soft highlights. Harsh lines tend to be a stylistic choice for me. The final layer, subtract, dulls out harsh red tones. I used this as a final overlay to help put everyone and everything in the scene. Without it, things are a little too green and skin tones are a little too blushed for vampires.

The challenge here is I want to tone down the red, but not lose the vibrancy of the blood. So, shift it to a blue. This also helped reinforce the “nighttime” effect. Its only a slight change.

Final thoughts:

Whenever you finish something, its important to reflect.

1. I am so FUCKING PROUD OF MYSELF. This is easily one of the most complicated pieces I’ve done in a while- and I’ve made 16′ tall faux stained glass. Brag. Let yourself feel awesome cuz you just made something awesome. 

2. I timed myself on the piece. I could have easily spent another 7 hours on it. But its important to know when to stop messing with it. Partially for budget reasons but also when you get down to the details you can make yourself go insane. Theres also a ton of detail work I lost cuz of overlays or its just too small to notice. Fina’s face? hard to see cuz its not close enough. 

3. I needed to take frequent breaks for this piece. That was good. Resting and stretching was very important. That is one of the reasons why I was able to work so fast. 

4. I started doing more digital art in April 2020. I have to say, practice makes perfect. I practice drawing and digital painting for at least 3 hours a day. 

That discipline has allowed me to improve so rapidly. So- I don’t wanna hear shit about I can’t possibly get this good! Or I couldn’t even draw a stick figure! BULLSHIT. You can. Get yourself some free software like Krita or Autodesk sketchbook and start playing! 

And thats what I got! Thanks for coming with me on this long post! 

[edge-lorde]

hp update: its been a long time, boys. ud think that with this plague outbreak id have more time for shitty phone games, and ud be right! however, the time i normally might use to make tumblr posts has been taken up by reading lotr orc fanfiction non-stop for at least 1 full month. id still be in the thick of that obsession even now if only the fics would update. that is how i find you today folks, for the first time in many weeks i am staring at a screen with nothing to do. so come with me friends, theres no better way to fill the soulless void we are all in than reading a nice long tumbler post. 

disclaimer, first of all, a lot has happened, i prefer to keep these updates as plot spoiler free as possible but do to extenuating circumstances i feel like it is necessary to say, [SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER BELOW]

that rowan fucking died,

i wont say exactly how, but i will say that her death was animated as were animations of myself and a few others reacting to our friend fresh corpse. obviously meant to be serious moments but the animations made it seem almost comical. 

i saw at least one post going around right after this update that was like ‘how could the game devs do this to us..... how could they hate rowan so.... this is punishment from on high’ and its like.... u guys do know what a story is right? the events of  a story are not typically done to punish less faithful fans, im pretty sure they were planning to kill rowan off from the beginning. this isnt disney im pretty sure the writers are not writing each chapter the night before its released by popular vote. 

that little “are we drifting away..?” scene with rowan makes more sense now. there was a bit in one of the scenes where the kids all reminisce on rowans life and the mc talks about it being the last real one on one time they had with rowan. a nice bitter sweet moment. i dont hate this turn of events. its a good reminder that actions have consequences and we are way past they days of “should i wear a hat or scarf?” its YA time now. 

i did manage to take 1 screenshot from this time, i had commented that before that when rowan said she didnt have many friedns that barnaby seemed to be hanging out with her without be there as a friend buffer and here was his reaction to her death:

;_;

the funniest part in all of this however, was of course cedericks reaction to rowans death “but she was so young....” LOL fuckin RIP.

lets see... what else.... i forget a lot of what happened but i think there was a time sensitive quidditch event in there somewhere? if so i  dont remember it. what i do remember of the quidditch pals is that im gonna play beater now, skye is being weird and cagey about it, andre is involved.... the others are there.....

sidenote, i love the shitty b characters they throw in to be like yes you know this person but no they are not cool enough for u to even think about befriending. the first one of those is face paint kid, and now we have another, who is a former beater girl with horrible bangs named bean who didnt go to any classes for a whole season so she could just play ball 24/7 and got kicked off the team.  this is a character who only exists to provide an explanation as to why there would be a beater position open but i love them on principle. 

right now im in the midst of another time sensitive event, this one is a bother-your-brother-at-work-day event where recent hogwarts graduate bill weasley is bullied by myself and his younger brother charlie into letting us go with him on one of his curse breaking jobs. 

so for those unfamiliar, bill works for the magical bank of england.... and his job seems to be “retrieving treasure” for said bank. in the books, there is a bit where he takes his family on one of his trips to egypt, where his job seemed to have been tomb plundering indiana jones style for the posterity of the english bank :X. i wont explain here why thats bad but its bad. 

the game devs however in this instance, at least SEEM to be doing what jkr couldnt do by attempting to salvage what is left of gringotts bank and form it into not a super shitty implications factory run by horrible jewish caricatures. bills mission is to retrieve a goblin made artifact that was taken by dragons, so no going to foreign countries to steal things from other people! only going to a dragon reserve to rifle through animal nests. they even appear to be providing us with a likable goblin character, egad!  

my hope for this event is that we get a plotline about how maybe, goblins arent shifty human haters for no reason, and in fact they hate magic humans for very understandable reasons, like being forced to go into hiding with the rest of the magical world even though only the humans wanted to do that, and maybe despite running the bank in england they still dont have a lot of political sway in the world of wizards and witches, and have to rely on the faith that said wizards and witches wont fuck them over at every turn, even as they see how they treat other non-humans, such as house elves, which they desperately dont want to end up like. and maybe they DONT only care about gold... maybe thats a human stereotype based on the fact that theres a long history of humans not respecting goblin ownership customs.... which i could get into..... but i wont.... i just....... very badly dont want them to suck ;__________;

i know i said its ok to still like a piece of media as long as you recognize the problems with it, and i do, but once this game is done im gonna stop hp posting all together. ive been feeling more and more uncomfortable making these posts lately.  

GENERAL GAME NOTES; theres been some new layout changes and such. 

most notably the stairs screen has been changed from a bulleted list of all locations to a screen with tiles picturing an image of each location along with the name + icons of all classes at each place. there is one additional location that is new and yet to be unlocked, and the dragon reservation is appearing temporarily as its own tile as well. i prefer this method of getting in and out of a temporary location to how they did it with car during the last christmas special. the stairs icon also now stays in the corner when you scroll through locations, allowing you to open the stairs menu without scrolling all the way back to the left. 

they also moved a few of the buttons down into the lower left corner rather than the left side & combined the story button and sidequest button. they added a little camera button as well, just like in the dormitory, that makes all the icons in a location disappear and look better for screenshots. 

the daily special add offer thing now has its own button in the top right corner of the screen, and idk if i mentioned it before but now there are daily challenges that appear in the sidequest screen that offer small rewards for completing 3 tasks per day + a better one if u get all 3. the prizes are things like 4 energy, 75 coins, 3 monster food. the better rewards are usually either more coins, 8 energy, 3 gems, or 1 notebook. i think that it does all the different color notebooks but i cant remember for sure if i ever saw the gold one up as a reward. i like this addition in any case. if you dont pick up ur reward by the end of the day, the next time u log on it will force u to stop and accept them, and if one of the rewards is energy and ur energy bar is full, it does not seem to stack beyond the bar so watch out.

 the character stats page is now more zoomed out so you can see your full character instead of just from the waist up. no change to the leaderboard. rowans face in the friendship roster is now a still black and white image that says ur friend may be gone but friendship is forever u-u. 

rowan has been removed from all classes. in the classes where the minigames involved her, those minigames have passed the mantle onto other friends in the class. in potions that person is now liz helping u find stuff off the shelves and in tranfiguration that person is badeea. bless these girls for helping mc get through it. touched my heart. 

theres been a few fun little “i know u have more free time now so uhhhh have some energy” prizes like they do sometimes when they dont update on schedule so thats been nice. just a few days ago they gifted us 3 gold notebooks the same way. :O. 

theres also been a few instances of a energy happy hour where for a limited time energy takes less time to refresh. normally it takes 4 mins for 1 energy to do this but during happy hour its like 2:30 mins. :U its all very interesting.

and that will have to do it for tonight my friends, ill do a post for the dragon event when its done because i do like it so far and i do like getting to bully bill with charlie. 

until next time, remember.......

[misas-biggest-fan]

some detailed thoughts on an LABB movie w a ‘read more’ bc i have A Lot To Say

i want it to be a movie bc i love movies

im also open to the concept of a mini series but a full tv show might be a challenging stretch

animated or live action would both be incredible and both have their unique pros and cons

the whole thing is DISTINCTLY LA

busy streets and palm trees and the Hollywood sign and the shiny, overly false glamour of everything

would really contrast well with Rue Ryuzaki’s disturbing fake-ness

like he’s just as fake as the whole city, that both he and Hollywood have on this costume to hide tragedy and hideous deeds

i want it to have the glitz and glam and extravagance of the recent gatsby movie (which i adore, dont come for me)

if bahz luhrmann doesn’t direct i will RIOT id die for bahz luhrmann he’s Good and he has the same energy and chaotic attitude of beyond birthday himself

i want beyond to have a scene like the one where Nick realizes who Gatsby is and Gatsby turns around with the champagne flute and the fireworks go off in slow motion as he smiles that’s my favorite shot in all of cinematic history no joke

it’s HIGHLY STYLIZED. i want bright colors and weird aesthetic choices

I also want some shockingly beautiful frames of LA and surprisingly sophisicated shots of Beyonds face lit up in different neon colors or something

Indie enough to be weird and fun but pop enough to be easily digestible

it opens with mello writing his book (like moulin rouge!! a;lsdjfk)

his burn scars are just healing and he knows he’ll die soon so he has to write down all his important memories, leave something behind

he wants to write down something important to him, something that he can leave for Near, something that might put his own life and actions into context

something that might help other people understand who he was more

so of course, he thinks of beyond

who he respects and admires and pities

who has such a similar and yet different story from Mello’s own

so maybe in understanding beyond and understanding how mello feels about beyond

people will understand mello

near will understand mello

so mello gets to work detailing this story his incredible mentor L once told him, describing this beautiful memory he has of meeting with and talking to L and how L told him about Beyond

(in this scene, you don’t SEE L. you just get an idea of what he looks like, flashes and shots, so that the audience can know L well enough to still wonder about the identity Rue Ryuzaki throughout the movie)

and then of course, we dive into the story

Beyond is OVER THE TOP. he’s more than unsettling, he’s downright terrifying. but he’s still somehow intriguing and even charming at times, like he can turn the smoulder on and off at will. 

Hes a disaster nb, a fabulous hodgepodge of discarded gender roles and impressive makeup skills

Him practicing his evil laugh and trying so desperately to be this comic villain didjdjdje hes such a loser i love him that scene NEEDS to make an appearance

he and naomi’s chemistry is incredible to watch on screen because beyond dominates any scene he’s in unless naomi is there to challenge him because her acting is also so powerful that when they’re on screen together, it’s like you can’t tear your eyes away from this insane car wreck that is their relationship

and NAOMI

a;lksdfj;dlkfj naomi misora <3 <3 <3 <3 ok im ready

so naomi is also a powerful presence on screen, even though she’s not crawling on the ground or eating with her hands or you know whatever ridiculous garbage beyond is doing

more time is spent on her

her disastrous relationship with raye

her feelings over her suspension from the FBI

and really play up the whole jessica jones thing she’s got going on

i want black leather for DAYS

I want “gritty LA detective who’s on suspension from the FBI because she doesn’t play by the rules” or whatever except it’s a twist because not only is she not a man, like this trope usually calls for, but it turns out she was suspended because of her tenderness and humanity instead of her brutality

she still needs to have MULTIPLE fight scenes, a few with beyond and maybe even a few with other attackers, who she absolutely mops the floor with

but then she and beyond have a scene where they fight against someone together

he’s not a good fighter. she mostly has to save his butt every time but he’s just happy to be there and probably keeps saying stuff like ‘wow misora you’re amazing!’ and she’s like ‘?!?! ryuzaki you loser?1?! run?!?’

and of course, there’s enough twists and changes from the book to keep everyone on their toes, but GOOD changes

like maybe we go back to mello a few times and he has more of his own subplot where his relationship to near is revealed more fully, that he wants near to understand him and he wants to reach out to near emotionally in this way

contrast mello’s story with beyond’s so when we learn beyond’s full story at the end, he and mello are revealed to be foils of each other

we get shots of wammy’s house and we see a and beyond interact and we see beyond’s life-destroying grief over a’s death

we get contrasting shots of wammy’s with mello and near and we’re allowed to hope that maybe they can be happier

A and beyond become something of a subplot leading up to as death but you dont entirely realize who beyond is until the big reveal at the end

maybe beyond does some more unsettling things that are just as creepy and in-character but are a terrible surprise for those who’ve already read the book!! i can’t imagine what other horrific thing he could do to scare naomi, but there’s got to be something

i’m rly into bday massacre bc i love naomi and beyond’s rly twisted relationship so i’d love to see more of him being in awe of her, more of them connecting, more of beyond opening up to her even. maybe she tells him a little bit about her suspension. just a little.

also if we could like clean up some of the plot holes in this joint pls and thank you

id even be ok if it’s insinuated that he self-sabotaged a little, on a conscious level or not, bc i feel like that wouldn’t be tooooooo ooc i mean, he’s a hot mess. most of this is just a really twisted cry for help anyway, at least in my interpretation. he wants people to realize he’s suffering. he just… can’t do it in a normal or healthy way :/

beyond pls a;lkdfj

Anyway. Theres also a boppin soundtrack

Fire is a big motif. Maybe make a connection between wildfires in CA and beyond using this case to self-destruct

A little more closure at the end. Thats part of the drive behind my bday massacre fanfic rn is that i feel like he and naomi never got any real closure on the traumatizing, like, week or two they spent together

I also want more closure on naomi as a character arc. I want her to dump rayes sorry butt and i want her to have had some sort of real internal change. None of this “she picks up her life where she left off and never thinks abt beyond again”

Of course, L is revealed and has his glorious little spill down the concrete subway stairs. Its What He Deserves :)

And of course we have to make the obvious contrast between both beyond and mello having survived serious burn injuries its just another thing that makes them such interestingly comparable characters

If Naomi visits Beyond in prison to say goodbye, i wouldnt be opposed. If they made my fanfiction into a movie i wouldnt be opposed

Mello prints out his book in the mafia hideout, his arms folded and waiting as paper after paper comes out, just begging any of these mafia dudes to mock him for liking to write. None of them do. Its a funny moment tho

He debates sending it to near, feeling so awkward and prideful, but he finally does it, leaving instructions for it to reach near after his death.

In the end, naomi and beyond are revealed to be dead at the same time as near receives the package from his dear mello

Naomi and beyond were doomed, and so were beyond and a, but now… near has mellos last love letter to him, cryptically begging him to try to understand. And so theres hope that although the rest of these relationships were doomed, maybe near can still have one piece of mello and be happy

[kittenn1011]

So I watched the new Live Action Kim Possible Disney Channel movie...

... and it was both worse and better than I thought it would be at the same time.

Warning: spoilers. For what it’s worth.

Pros:

- Some of the voices are on point. If I closed my eyes, Ron could really be Ron on occasion. I actually had to go check to see if Shego and Drakken might’ve been the voice actors actually, they were that close at times. It’s a bit inconsistent though, and tends to depend on how well each line was written. Special shoutout to Mr. Dr. Possible who had probably 10 lines and they were all exactly right. In the first five minutes, Dr. Dementor was really good too.

- Some lines are perfectly written. Special attention goes to a lot of Ron’s lines and moments in general: Unfortunately, a lot of these perfectly Kim-Possible lines are the sort of lines I didn’t find the strongest part of Kim Possible (Ron’s comic relief moments) but they made me smile nonetheless. Kim’s got a few great lines, too. 

- The opening. It’s a bit weird in live action, but the music is the original opening and they do minick some of the most distinctive memorable moments in it: Ron losing his pants, Ron stealing the pom-poms, Kim on the phone, Kim’s power pose... 

- The CGI establishing shots. The CGI is weird but the perfect replication of the Possible Home and the very close replication of Middleton High with ever-changing pun sign included was a nice touch. (”Procrastonator’s Club meeting postponed” haha 100% Middleton High there).

- I kind of enjoyed Kimmy and Nan and Mrs. Dr. Possible on a mission together, though the changes required to get there was a bit pointed making it predictable. 

- Meta jokes. They stand out a bit in the context of a live-action movie but Kim Possible has always had meta jokes so I see them as a pro. 

Cons:

- Another Mary-Sue synthodrone artificial lifeform sent by Drakken to destory KP’s KPness with the power of high school. Predictable from the first moment she stepped on screen, and even with a reason for it the Mary-Sueness was plain annoying. She even had a purple mission suit like Kim’s S4 mission suit wtf guys. I get the Mary-Sueness was the point but could you like not make a point that’s actively painful to watch for anvilicious lesson???

- Why did they not do the cheerleading thing? It was kind of KP’s thing, and replacing it with soccer for no reason was just pointless and dumb.

- They really fucked with the KP lore. Some of it wasn’t fully detrimental and helped with the translation to live action-- I don’t mind Rufus the hyperintelligent test subject found in lab because it explains him in a way his backstory wouldn’t and willing suspension of disbelief would not get past in a live action show. Others made sense for the short form but were just a pain to hear because like... there’s a whole backstory to KP which we’ve seen and it just isn’t as impactful to just gloss over it all when the story literally takes place during what the show considered backstory (KP entering highschool-- seriously, we couldn’t get her epic cheer tryout???)

- With the budget for effects and the translation from the cartoon, some things just didn’t work. Ron’s physical humour was at least discarded pretty quick because it didn’t really work in live action as well, but there are other things too that were weird.

- KIM. Let me give this chick credit where it’s due, she didn’t do horribly. She just wasn’t quite right. Part of it is that she’s in-universe younger than Kim ever was in the show and the actress is younger than Kim’s voice actress-- Kim moved and spoke with a confidence this girl can’t/doesn’t emulate. It stands out when almost everyone else is on point voice-wise. The original opening theme makes the voice difference stand out more too, so despite my general enjoyment of it, it really did make the movie feel weaker by reminding me of the so much better show this is based on. 

- It ends with a deagged Drakken entering Middleton High and the not-synthodrone Mary-Sue joining the team permanently. Like, really guys? I was getting movie pilot vibes, yeah, but if you want to reboot it as a whole show can you at least be more true to the lore so you can use it? Anyways, deaged Drakken is the worst part of this though. I could deal with an un-Sued Sue... but the actor playing Drakken was perfect don’t replace him!!!

- That one meta joke about one outfit being cartoony. Bitch you wore the same mission outfit through the whole movie too. And Kim was notable for animation of its time for its rotating consistent wardrobe, and to be honest I think it’s notably more realistic than most live action Disney’s infinite wardrobe that clearly carried over here. Kim always had lots of outfits, but you also saw some outfits or pieces repeat like a real person’s limited wardrobe causes. Did you guys even look at the source material?

Anyways:

Overall, I was honestly not expecting nearly as much as I got in the areas there were positives, but I was expecting more when it came to lore and Kim herself than we got. Worth a watch if you have a spare few hours but not going to blow you away. The good moments are worth it, but the bad moments drag it down a lot.

[saints-row-2]

film watch day 8: Upgrade

i really really wanted to love Upgrade. i was certain it was going to be a sure thing; anything about people with AIs or aliens or demons sharing their consciousness is on a fast track to my favourites list. in the end though, while i loved a lot about Upgrade, i ultimately felt the film was less than the sum of its parts.

Upgrade is about the improbably named Grey Trace, who is assaulted by a group of men who murder his wife and leave him quadriplegic. Grey is quickly convinced by weird tech genius Eron to become part of a top-secret new experiment that would implant a chip in his spine that would grant him the ability to walk. with that chip comes STEM, an AI who is as eager to find the killers of his wife as Grey is. 

the ‘revenge thriller’ genre is one of the most overused in the universe, and with runaway brilliance in it like John Wick or even this year’s Mandy, its hard to have a stand-out film in the genre anymore. i was immediately put-off by the concept when i first read the synopsis, but was hopeful Upgrade’s unique premise would help it out. and the answer is... kind of?

Upgrade is a very violent movie with a handful of fight scenes that are far and away the best moments of the movie. theyre incredibly well choreographed and filmed. i havent seen any of cinematographer Stefan Duscio’s work before, but i was really fucking impressed. and Leigh Whannell, obviously an old hand at portraying violence after Saw, shines in these scenes. the camera work in the film is fucking great, and did some really cool shit with steady-cams. i thought the sound editing was inspired as well. this is a really good film to like, watch.

my main issue with Upgrade, after the convoluted plot, is the main actor. Logan Marshall-Green, who kind of looks like someone making a bad photofit of Tom Hardy, is bizarrely uncharismatic in this movie. i wasnt sure if the director was trying to make him seem like a cold, terrifying threat like John Wick, but if thats what Whannell wanted, he didnt succeed. watching the film i largely felt like Grey was kind of dumb, and like every badass quip and little speech was something the character had been rehearsing in his head. it came across like he really, really wanted to be cool and scary, but he sure as hell didnt feel it. hes often pretty funny, and i do wish they leant into making him more of a non-action orientated dumbass; the comic scenes were often really good, i just found him utterly unconvincing as an action hero badass. 

i think the most unforgivable part was how weak his relationship with his wife was. huge chunks of the film he doesnt even seem to be particularly thinking about her. i really dont know why the film bothered to include her at all, other than convention; i would have assumed ‘these people severed my spinal cord and tried to kill me’ would be enough to seek revenge. it feels lazy, and the kind of misogyny where having women as throw-away dead bodies and sadness fuel is so usual you dont even stop to question if its necessary. 

in scenes were Marshall-Green is still and silent, hes much better. this isnt meant to be a blow against Marshall-Green; i just wanted to highlight the amount of skill at play in the way the quieter moments of the movie are shot. times when Grey is silent and taking in the scene around him are often very powerful, and i was really impressed by how the film pulled the quiet parts off. 

the real scene-stealer is STEM. Simon Maiden (STEM’s voice actor) is the unsung hero of this movie, because i found his performance way more fucking engaging that Marshall-Green’s. hes sometimes funny, sometimes charismatic, and often chilling. his quick charming of Grey and their back-and-forth was great at times, and while i thought his evolution as a character was obvious, its fucking so good.

i will say this; Logan Marshall-Green’s physical performance is fantastic. his robotic motions and the difference in behaviour when Grey and when STEM are in control is an incredibly piece of acting. 

its a pity that the plot ultimately is so convoluted while also being weirdly simplistic. the film opens up questions about there being much bigger mysteries ahead, and then immediately drops them to bring the ending back around to the most obvious answer. i really wanted something more from it. of the ending twists one is weak, and the other is fucking excellent. genuinely theres some really great concepts in this movie, and i really appreciated a lot of the ideas... just not all of them.

Upgrade is, obviously, a cyberpunk film. i found myself really scratching my head at the politics of it, though. it hints at things, but if there was a political message behind it, its not entirely clear what it is that people rely on technology because they want to escape from reality? shit i mean, i guess, thats kinda the point of entertainment in general.

Upgrade isnt a movie entirely without merit, but i was mostly left wanting more than what the film gave me. its a good film with some cool ideas that came really close to being a great film, which is always going to be more frustrating to me.

[scarletrebel]

of madness and truth: the dark future details

i was going to do this in two sections cause i do wanna go through the present parts of the fic as well. mainly exactly why avia is torturing herself by wanting to see the simulation, why she decides to tell grier, and why osiris helps her. also, why osiris saw the simulation and what my perception of his opinions on toland are. 

but im too excited to share all the dark future ideas i have so uhh here you go @mrpinstripesuit if you have anything to add please please go for it!!

man why do we like torturing our kids aha

(also i broke it down like, a lot a lot not to be patronising but because i didnt wanna overwhelm people with bullet points aha)

“I guess I’ll have to explain it to you, like usual,” Grier says. “Since we killed Oryx? Three years. Since you snuck into my throne world and tried to kill me? Two and a half years. Since you killed Toland and trapped yourself in the Hive Overworld? Two years.”

three years: back in ttk days, grier chose to become the taken king after they killed oryx, so the rest of the clan had to get out of dodge and leave him. 

two and a half years: avia was very, very lost after that happened, and sought grier out by herself (and against the advice of literally everyone) just to talk to him. but, toland being the piece of shit he is, intercepted her and wouldn’t let them meet. then he convinced grier that she’d come to kill him and toland stopped her. avia then convinces herself that if she figures out how to kill toland, grier will be okay.

two years: in the split second after avia killed toland, in a complete panic grier trapped her in the overworld. he was the one who scratched the runes into the wall, theyre basically a strong but hurried version of the hive traps. 

the scene itself, the timeline that present avia sees is set just after the events of d2, around the time the savathuns song strike would have been undertaken. it’s the first time they’ve spoken since avia killed toland, but avia knows grier was responsible for trapping her. him telling her that shes there because she killed toland is the first notion that he’s there to lie to her to get her on his side, because he’s in denial and needs to know if savathun is actually coming to the system. hes not sure he’s strong enough to take her on, so he needs avia to take on the role of toland (or something advantageous to him at least) to give him an advantage. so he lies through his teeth.

“Yes – no,” Avia retches. “The singing,” she spits. “All she does is sing and sing and I can’t take it anymore!”

“Who?” Grier asks, sharp. “Who sings, Avia?”

Avia’s mouth opens around a name, but then she stops, and lets out a dry laugh. She drops her hands and pulls her head up to look at Grier. “Oh. Oh, are you telling me you don’t know?”

“It’s nor Ir Yut,” Grier ruffles, but shakes himself and addresses her with all the manner of a teacher dealing with an uncooperative student. “She’s gone. It’s not his daughters either, and no ordinary Deathsinger on account of how far it stretches across the system. I have my suspicions but you, are the only one who knows.”

Avia pierces him with her eyes, unrelenting and patronising.

“You know,” she says. “You know who it is.”

grier is…….. fucked up. he had toland whispering in his ear that he was doing everything right and he was getting oh so powerful, whilst withholding information about whether either of the sisters would come and kill him bc its toland, all he cares about is the sword logic. if he was actually alive when they came he’d probably just watch grier die with a smile on his face. 

then avia kills toland, and grier is so, so alone. all he has are the tablets of ruin, which explain the sword logic with such clarity, all the info that toland withheld from him, and he starts to get Worried. and then he hears savathuns song.

avia hears savathuns song, too. she actually started to gain control of herself in the hive overworld after she heard it. until then she was having all this information shoved into her head against her will. she knows a lot about the hive similarly to toland, because shes heard all these other songs and all this knowledge. she doesnt want to know, its far too much for her to handle, but she doesnt really have a choice. 

but then savathuns song made her realise the best way to get griers attention, so she just started screaming. every now and then, the screams would affect griers throne world. and that’s when he decided to go to her, to try and manipulate her with all the tools toland had given him. he had a feeling she was transforming into something, but went into the conversation just trying to convince her that she needed to help him.

“If you’re right, if I’m a liar just like Toland was, then even if I told you how they all died on my doorstep, you wouldn’t even think I was telling the truth.” A tilt of his head, the white matted fringe dangles slightly, helplessly. “Would you?”

none of the clan are dead. the eos’s did try and get avia out after rook was patrolling the dreadnaught and heard her voice, screaming. he couldn’t convince the vanguard to deploy a mission cause there was just no proof that avia was alive after sneaking to the dreadnaught to kill toland.

carver used his Hidden talents to track her down, got as far as the room where she was but the hive were about to overrun them. carver knew that avia wouldn’t want them to die in a rescue attempt, so he gets himself and his wife and child out of there and regroups with the others. carina is mad about it, but her mum and dad aren’t giving up.

the only other member of the clan who’s seen grier is rook. after the eos’s got back, he figured fuck it and went to get avia, his heart too broken to have the same clarity that they did regarding if he died.

that part grier wasnt 100% lying about -- rook actually finds the room, and grier is waiting for him. it’s a close fight, grier gets the chance to kill rook in the end, take his ghost and crush it under his heel but. he cant. so he tells rook to run, and if he ever comes back he wont just kill him, but he’ll make avia do it. (more lies about avia not remembering who he is probably idk)

grier lying to avia about their clan mates dying isn’t something he went into the conversation knowing he’d do. he was getting pissed at her holding back info out of spite, and thanks to this little comic by pin I wanted to play with him bitterly making her more and more upset by lashing out in such a vile way. grier is a hard character to find faults for aha but his quick anger and bitterness were interesting to play with when I dialed them up to eleven.

avia’s biggest fear is getting the people she loves and cares about killed, and grier still retains enough of himself to know that. so he just kinda, finds that vein and twists and pulls at it until avia breaks down and believes that she’s all alone -- that it really is just them two now. 

“I, I wouldn’t – no!” Avia yells, and the room shakes once more. Grier takes stock of it this time, his face twisting in amused curiosity as she rages on.

avia is turning into a deathsinger. 

in my head her ahamkara claws loose their silver plates over time and eventually, some time after her and grier talk she hears the ahamkara/worm gods/whatever with a scary amount of clarity, amplified by the fact that shes trapped in the overworld. they just convince her that shes not a guardian anymore, that shes something better, something more powerful. she spent so long being a soldier, a fighter for a dying cause, wouldnt this be better? to forge her own path, to listen to the songs and become something greater?

eventually she’ll decide (or think that she decided) that grier’s the only person she can protect anymore, and begins to accept the transformation. she adopts the same powers, I guess, as oryxs daughters. being able to weave reality and bend it to her/griers will. she’s basically ‘griers deathsinger’. her grief and anger fuel how powerful she is.

(i love...... corruption tropes so yeah this is basically whats happening to her aha.)

its an ironic parallel also because as i said before, grier is alone with the tablets, and avia is alone with the ahamkara. but grier said it was just them. theyre both transforming and changing at the same time into things they dont necesarily want to be because they couldnt see the consequences of their actions after one decision was made. but, they do eventually come together, just them, as grier makes avia believe -- as its meant to be. 

Afterwards 

i like to think eventually the clan decides to take grier on together to try and save avia, but they just get taken one by one instead, basically becoming different members of griers court and only making him stronger. they’re all far, far too attached and know that theres most likely no coming back if they do this. but after the city falls, theres no better time. no vanguard to stop them, no mission protocol. they regather after ghaul attacks and all decide to strike out by themselves. but it goes horribly wrong. 

avia’s full deathsinger transformation makes all of her armour look like the silver plated ahamkaras (because thats just her, in d1 they were my fave exotic and they’re very much a part of her character in that era for me) minus a helmet, and the silver is definitely more rusted. her eyes blacken over entirely and her cloak is massive and swishy and the hood almost covers her eyes, and thats in place of the skirt a deathsinger would normally have (a skirt just doesnt seem right for her aha)

avia becomes a very loyal, very cutthroat deathsinger. she’s literally at griers beck and call. like omnigul for crota, or as it said in the fic ir yut. 

[lexidanger]

My TLJ (way longer than expected) analysis/rant/review

DISCLAIMER: I work for Hasbro but knew NOTHING behind the scenes for this movie like I did for TFA, so I didn’t have any outside influence...also

SPOILERS GALORE, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THIS MOVIE I SUGGEST SEEING IT FIRST ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE A SW FAN

I honestly have a lot of mixed feelings about this movie, because while there were things I absolutely adored in it, but there were also choices made that I really still can’t wrap my head around and ultimately have left me pretty disappointed, I’m not going to go over every little thing but if you have a question about how I felt about a certain character/scene etc just shoot me an ask and i’ll rant at you there. Anyways I’m gonna start with the good shit since I might get a tad ranty with the bad

THE GOOD

The opening sequence- The opening scenes were phenomenal imo, that was absolutely the way to start off the movie, It honestly held a lot of that SW nostalgia and felt really great action/tone wise, it pulled you in like a good hook should.

Leia- So i’m legit a huge emotional baby when it comes to stuff I love, I was already crying as soon as the opening crawl hit, but it wasn’t until they showed Leia the first time that both me and the girl next to me started sobbing (she turned to me and offered some tissues saying she made sure to bring a bunch so it was nice to have some emotional solidarity) But anyways Leia was great and i’m beyond happy with how they handled her which leads me to my next point…

LEIA USING THE FORCE- Everyone in the theater was crushed when she was thrown out into space, and as soon as the shot closed in on her body and she began to use the Force to bring herself back, you could hear the sigh of relief and amazement come from the crowd (as well as the sniffles because everyone was crying at this point) and it was such a magical moment to see her finally use the Force in a tangible way and shut up the fanboys who thought she wasn’t Force Sensitive. And speaking of one half of the twins...

Luke- As always Mark is an absolute delight and gift to this role, and it was so nice to see him back on screen again. A lot of people are crying out about how this movie “””””ruined him”””” by showing his more grey morality (THAT HES ALWAYS HAD B T W) but even as a dark sider I’ve always adored Luke and his views and he made me super proud in this movie. I’m honestly not ready for people to start demonizing him for "almost killing their precious Ben bby uwu” because again that was a moment with a lot of complexity on both sides that I think could bring up a lot of great conversations about Luke’s trauma in the war and wanting to prevent the loss of billions of lives.

Also as a side note I just want to say how heartwarming it was to see Luke reunited with R2, the moment he recognizes him the bitter old facade melts away and we see that sweet excited boy from Tatooine when he gets to talk to his best friend again after so long.

I’m so so sad to see him go, but honestly I couldn’t think of a better way for him to go out, I’m glad it was done in such a peaceful way (except maybe him actually going to Crait and pulling an Obi proper but thats a whole other issue)

Snoke- I adored Snoke, plain and simple. The few scenes he was in he commanded attention and I was honestly captivated by Serkis’ skills as a character actor once again. The CG work done on him was remarkable, his personality was actually very enjoyable and I really wish we got to see more of his Force mastery, it’s so rare we get to see it controlled on that grand of a scale and so effortlessly too (For those of you who read Darth Plagueis you know the difficulty that comes with using the Force on someone over hologram/long distance, so it was definitely a treat to see that). The potential of this character is remarkable and if anyone involved with SW media is smart they will tap into it and release more content with him ASAP

Rey’s Parentage- As someone who was an avid Rey Palpatine theory supporter, I just want to say how glad I am that Rey’s parentage proved to be of no significance, because in a way it still holds kind of what I wanted to see from her being related to Palpatine. I wanted them to show that really in the end, your bloodline doesn’t make you who you are, you decide who you want to be, not your past, and in a way they did that. They showed that someone from humble beginnings, like Rey and even Finn, can rise up to do amazing things, you don’t have to be part of a dynasty like the Skywalkers to be great.

Imagery/Portrayal of the Force- If theres one thing I can really commend this movie for, it’s the visuals. From the color contrasts of Crait to the trippy Force shenanigans everything was visually stunning. Leia using the Force to glide through the void of space to safety was such a magical moment I will never forget (and anyone calling it Mary Poppins or Superman flying is honestly just afraid to have whimsical moments in their SW and therefore a coward) the blend of CG and puppets was super great and using a puppet for Yoda’s return was such a great callback to the original trilogy. After watching so many Transformers movies its nice to watch an action flick that doesn’t rely on shaky cam to sell the intensity of a scene, but instead uses the art direction and imagery as it should.

Also as far as the Force goes, i’ve been so happy that we’re moving away from the two extremes. The Dark Side in not completely evil and the Light Side is not completely good, i’m just glad we’re finally showing that in the movies, and if it makes people mad then good, the truth hurts but they need to understand not everything is black and white.

Humor- Some might argue that a lot of the humor was oriented more towards the younger audience, but tbh most of the bits really hit with me (probably because I am a child) and provided some nice warm moments in what might be considered a tense and dark movie. We’ve been debating for years now how Luke’s first interaction with Rey would go, what would he say to her? What would he do? and it’s my belief that they could not have gone with a more appropriate choice than for him to toss the saber over his shoulder as he did (Luke’s “reach out” moment with her was also so nice and I’m 1000% convinced it was improv by Mark) The bits with the guardians of the island were great, the porgs were surprisingly enjoyable (if not still a bit bizarre) and my favorite running joke of all, turning Hux into what i’ve always seen him as, a huge joke, a slapstick prop to be tossed around and ridiculed, it was quite satisfying.

Additional things- Despite the fact that there wasn’t a saber on saber fight the entire movie, the Snoke’s Praetorian guard fight scene with Rey and Kylo will go down in history as one of the great fight scenes in SW history. Rose was such an amazing addition to the cast and Kelly is so talented, I’m happy she’s a part of the SW family now. And BOY you want to talk about memorable moments, Holdo’s lightspeed crash into Snoke’s Supremecy was absolutely breathtaking. The way it was shot, the sound design, everything was perfect and people are going to be talking about it for a very long time.

THE BAD

Snoke’s Death- The moment Snoke was killed off is the moment I feel like everything shifted in the movie, I was enjoying it quite a bit up until that point, and then as soon as the saber bisected him this huge wave of disappointment and disbelief washed over me, which is why this is probably one of the biggest mis-steps in the movie besides Phasma’s treatment. For years now we’ve been theorizing and trying to piece together who Snoke could possibly be, whether it be the return of an older character or him being his own thing and with every tiny piece of info that came out we were further pulled in to the mysteries that surrounded him. Who is he? What is he? Why does he look that way? How did he come to power? I never expected all of these questions to be answered in TLJ, but a piece of info or two thrown our way to reward our patience and interest in him would have been appreciated.

Instead what we got was nothing and a swift ridiculous death half way through the movie. To say that i’m crestfallen is a bit of an understatement. Those that know me are aware that I’m a huge dark side fan and an even bigger fan of Sheev Palpatine, he’s a compelling character in a lot of the ways Snoke has the potential to be, so to see another great antagonist along the lines of Palpatine just thrown away without any second thought or explanation is an awful thing to see.

And I’m aware that they are probably going to throw his backstory into a book or comic, which part of me is grateful for (especially since James Luceno, author of Darth Plagueis might possibly be writing it right now) but tbh you shouldn’t throw the responsibility of portraying a character off on someone else when you have more than enough time and opportunities to show it in the film. As someone who is heavily invested in the alternative media surrounding SW I still don’t think that you should put your viewers through that, making them ask questions about a character, pay for a ticket to possibly have some of those questions answered and then pull the rug out from under them like “Nope sorry you’ll have to buy the book when it comes out next year” it’s very in-accessible and just downright disrespectful to the writers that set him up for a decent arc.

Plenty of uninteresting things were prioritized over the interesting so don’t tell me they couldn’t have taken 10 minutes out of something inconsequential to slip in some context for this character. It’s such a shame to see an opportunity to flesh out a compelling character passed over for the purpose of subverting everyone’s expectations, cheap and unsatisfying. #AndySerkisDeservedBetter

Phasma- I want to say for the record that I am absolutely outraged, not only did we get even less Phasma than we did in TFA, but they “killed her off” in a way they can either bring her back and do what they said they were going to do after TFA which was give her a decent amount of screen time, or leave her dead. It’s honestly a travesty that they continuously recruit these talented actors to portray these characters and they get shafted as far as content and inclusion goes. I can’t even put my excitement into words when Phasma was first announced, I just wanted female Stormtroopers period but having a woman play a fierce Stormtrooper commander meant everything to me. But alas, just as Snoke it seems these directors can’t seem to find a place to put them amongst the other pointless plots that are stuffed into the film which brings me to…

Canto Bight- A beautiful planet/setting but very unnecessary as a whole. I mean the whole idea of them needing to go to a planet to get a random codebreaker to get on the ship in the first place is absolutely absurd when they’ve had countless ways upon these ships in the past. And the fact that they had to call up Maz so they could poorly stuff her into the movie for 2 minutes as she quickly rattled off their mission in a very Battlefront 2 manner was absolutely ridiculous. The casino itself was neat and I’m glad they touched upon the fact that these people got rich by selling weapons to both sides, but the whole animal chase sequence and everything with DJ felt so out of place and long and distracting from things that would have far better served the characters and plot.

Length- As someone who sat through Age of Extinction after drinking a large soda at the beginning of the film, trust me when I say I know when a movie feels long and this one felt unbearably so. Every time I thought to myself “oh this is it this is going to be the climax and resolution” they would set off on another escape plan. It’s like they came up with 5 different endings and couldn’t decide which one to use so they just kinda tacked them on to the end of each other. After learning that this movie was 3 hours at it’s original cut, I cannot imagine sitting through another hour of squished together side-plots and escape plans, if those cut scenes had more Snoke and Phasma it might’ve been worth it but something tells me it didn’t. We wont know until the bluray with all the deleted scenes comes out next year.

Rey as the future of the Jedi- There was fanboy outcry at the end of TFA saying that Rey was a “”””mary sue””” for being able to defeat someone like Kylo Ren with no lightsaber training/understanding of the Force, but all their arguments are bullshit and there was nothing unbelievable about Rey’s skill with a staff translating to a saber and embracing the Force to gain an edge over Kylo and defeat him.

Now in TLJ Luke’s training of Rey was set up (like many things) to be a main focal point in the story when in reality, it lasts maybe two days and in that time not much training happens at all, in fact Luke tries to show Rey why the Jedi should NOT continue. But in the end it’s very much eluded to that it’s now up to Rey to continue on the Jedi ways and teach a whole new batch of bright eyed young light siders. Rey was skilled enough in TFA to handle herself, but she was still very much a student in need of a teacher herself, something she got only briefly. I honestly have little faith that they can convincingly portray this if they choose to go this route.

Confusing moments with Holdo/Mutiny- I don’t know if was just me but with the movie as a whole being an overwhelming stream of events and developments, the whole Poe mutiny against Holdo was an absolute clusterfuck to me. It was obvious that Holdo was planning something and wouldn’t share it with Poe to the point where it was almost as if she was a traitor/spy and was running everyone into the ground on purpose, and I thought my suspicions were confirmed when she broke back out of custody, but then suddenly Leia shows up and stuns Poe?? Was she a Changeling??? What the fuck was going on??

And then it turns out that she just had a plan to stay with the ship and to get everyone to the Rebel base on the planet below THAT SHE WOULDN’T TELL ANYONE. Like if she would have been a little more up front with this plan I think things would have gone smoother and the whole Poe mutiny thing could have been avoided. It was all very necessary and created conflict and complexity where there didn’t need to be.

Confrontation- While the final confrontation between Kylo and Luke is impactful in it’s end, I think it would have been even more so had it not been needlessly complicated by having him project from Ahch-to. I mean he probably wouldn’t have survived the Walker blasts, but if he could project across the galaxy like that then he could’ve figured something out. When he showed up at the base out of nowhere my suspension of disbelief was already running thin with the loss of Snoke and Phasma, but seeing him look so different from what he looked like minutes ago just ruined the surprise of him not actually being there. I would have liked to see him reunite with Leia in person before becoming one with the Force, and I just think him being there and pulling an Obi Wan by disappearing and leaving the cloak behind just as he did with Vader would have been a nice call back.

Rose/Finn- This moment I did not see coming because tbh, there was no build up to it, and just like the infamous Steve Rogers/Sharon Carter kiss from Civil War, it was awkward and unnecessary and I’m fairly convinced this was added last minute to subvert fans from the whole Stormpilot ship, because you know, how dare us gays want to be included in SW right? Rose is a BRILLIANT character, and even tho Finn suffered the short end of the stick as far as development in this movie went, neither of them needed this rushed moment to make her action or their friendship any more meaningful.

Payoff- Although I was happy with Rey’s parentage I don’t like that it was made to be such an issue that ultimately ended up not being a big deal. Now a lot of this comes from the fact that Rian took it upon himself to “fix” some of JJ’s weaker elements from TFA, but instead of fixing them he eliminated what would have been really nice payoffs for the fans who’ve invested so much time and love into discussing this series. This also goes for Snoke, why create this mystery around this character and have people talking about him if you aren’t going to give them some kind of payoff in the end. That bit of satisfaction that we hoped to get just slipped away and  we’ll have to wait another 2 years to have another chance at it, or maybe not at all and thats incredibly frustrating.

In the end I had fun, but that fun just can’t make me forget about the glaring issues this movie had. And they’re not just issues, they’re needless issues, things that could have been easily avoided or fixed. At this point i’m not even really invested enough in the characters that are left to be excited for the next film.

So yes this film had problems, but is it the worst SW film ever? Is SW really dead? Absolutely not, everyone is being far too dramatic, which honestly isn’t surprising seeing as most of them still pretend the prequels had nothing of value and don’t exist.

It had problems.

Fix them.

Do better next time.

It’s as simple as that and if the filmmakers can’t recognize this film’s shortcoming to avoid making the same mistakes again, then it’s their own fault for the criticism they get. The film isn’t a total loss in the slightest and hopefully some of the deleted content will shed some light on a few things we so very much wanted to see.

[thewolfmancometh]

Glass (2019) [REVIEW]

I saw Unbreakable in theaters back in 2000 and instantly thought it was awesome, despite not being the horror movie I anticipated. I enjoyed Split even more, despite knowing the big reveal that the film was secretly a sequel to Unbreakable. In other words, I was stoked as hell to check out Glass, though I was also trepidatious given writer/director M. Night Shyamalan‘s 50/50 success rate. Having seen Glass, I can confirm that the film absolutely has some rad stuff in it, but it also completely squanders any potential it had been granted with Split and delivers an underwhelming conclusion to a series that kicked off nearly two decades ago.

David Dunn (Bruce Willis) discovered in Unbreakable that he was nearly invulnerable, as well as super strong, using his abilities to help those in need. He’s considered a “vigilante,” even if he manages to track down Kevin Crumb (James McAvoy) and rescue multiple girls that Crumb kidnapped in service of one of his many personalities, the supernaturally strong “The Beast.” Authorities don’t take too kindly to either activity, which gets them both locked into a mental institution with Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who’s smart as hell but has goddamn bird bones. As you can imagine, the bad guys work together to figure out a way to break free to fight the good guy, and–blah, blah, blah, you got your movie.

The first act of this movie, up until Dunn and Beast are incarcerated, is quite good. It gives us everything we liked about Split, with a bonus David Dunn, getting our hopes up that the entire movie will also be, as they say, “good.” Boy oh boy, we are then in for a ride on the “Boring Express.” All of the actors are giving their best, with McAvoy delivering even more wacky characters than we got in Split. Willis and Jackson are both fine, while Sarah Paulson makes a welcome addition, if for no other reason than to break up Willis’ glowering and Jackson being rendered catatonic due to all the drugs his character has been given. Anya Taylor-Joy just kind of exists and could have easily been cut from the movie. In fact, most things in the movie will make you say, “Well, THIS thing could have been cut from the movie,” but there’s absolutely an entertaining 90 minutes in there!

The film’s biggest failure is that it feels like it was written by a kid who wanted to explore the idea of “What if superheroes were real?” back in, say, 1995, when Marvel Comics was on the brink of bankruptcy and he hoped to inspire audiences to look within ourselves to see what we’re capable of while also promoting the effectiveness of comic books as a medium. Now, take that script, put it in a time capsule, and open it up in 2018, and some things might feel a little…off. In addition to this script likely having references to Surge soda and Chumbawumba needle drops, all of the dialogue would feel incredibly pandering and redundant. In the 20 years since Unbreakable came out, few things have become more popular than comic books and superhero movies, but Glass seems oblivious to that. Had this film and/or Split come out in the mid-2000s, it would likely have been much more effective, as we hadn’t been given things like The Dark Knight, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, Sin City, Dredd, or dozens more comic book movie adaptations spanning all genres. In fact, we got a Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse a month ago, which explores themes of everyone having the power inside them to be a hero, which used Miles Morales as its Spider-Man because we have so many Spider-Man movies that we’re all goddamn sick of them. Tell that to the Surge-drinking Chumbawumba-listener in 1995 and he might tweak his script!

I’ve been saying for years (though no one cares to listen) that Shyamalan is an incredibly talented director and a mediocre writer. Rather, when he’s earned success, he runs out of people trying to control him, and he leans into countless self-serving ideas. Even The Happening, for example, has some powerful moments, yet the story itself is wonky as hell. The first act of Glass shows audiences what made Shyamalan such a phenom, thanks in large part to the actions of The Beast. Once the character is taken out of the darkness, he’s a shirtless man huffing and puffing like a maniac in less of a terrifying way and more of a “Wow this dude in the Panera parking lot is still really worked up from his Crossfit class” sort of way. It just doesn’t work, but it feels like no one was there to tell Shyamalan it didn’t work because, “Hey, you made Split! Great job, go nuts!”

As a standalone film, Glass is completely harmless. It’s not great, but there are still a lot of fun moments buried in there, with McAvoy being the highlight. As a sequel to Split, the film is somewhat frustrating and suffers from setbacks that countless sequels suffer by trying to go bigger and forgetting what actually makes the film work. As the conclusion to a trilogy that started 20 years ago, it’s too little, too late, reminding me of a film like Scream 4 by being totally serviceable, yet the anticipation of a “final chapter” overshadowing the film’s actual merits, or lack thereof. This trilogy of films, which is reportedly called the Eastrail #177 Trilogy because that’s the train David Dunn is on in Unbreakable, runs parallel to a trilogy like the X-Men films. The first chapter is better than it has any right to be, the second film is quite good, and the third film fails as both the conclusion of a trilogy and as a movie in it of itself, making you wonder how things could go so wrong so fast.

In other words, Glass ain’t great, but there’s no reason to get too upset about it, because Split is still available and that movie friggin’ rips.

Wolfman Moon Scale

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[penguinbois]

an exhaustive list of all the funniest parts of omgcp

currently rereading the whole fucken comic so here we go

year 1

“shit son, :3 is like, guaranteed pussy”

“…or get into fetal position at center ice. thats also an option”

“holy hell, bitty’s like those fainting goats”

when bitty first opens the cabinets in the haus kitchen and all they have is 30+ bottles of sriracha

when shitty fuckin THANKS THE OTHER TEAMS GOALIE after a game for letting them score (trust me when i say im sobbing over this)

“gentlemen! less chit chat more alcohol abuse!”

“but actually theres a youth hockey tournament today so we have to get out of here by 7″ (what a fuckin classic yall)

“ransypoo is right”

mister jacks dad

“my butt is whack and busted!”

“your butt can be anything it wantes to be.” “even secretary of state?” “e-SPECIALLY secretary of state!”

a closeup of bittys face in like an action shot but hes saying “and i brought yall goodie bags”

“he just shook my hand and said ‘you got my dibs bro.’ what does that mean? um… oh gosh… im sorry- i know this is samwell but i have no idea how that couldve been offensive”

“where are we? was that… did i just hear a theme song?”

year 2

the pin board in the haus, specifically the speech bubble taped to it that just says “jizz!”

just… the whole bitty-sings-halo-and-jack-has-had-enough situation

bittys’ “literally ever?” while talking to nursey about dex. hes so tired.

“you were in town, zimmermann- DWEEB TOWN” (another classic)

chowder aleady being mad tipsy after one (1) natty light

“there are no pies in hazing”

“3000 words. coffee shop verse. imcomplete since 2010.”

“cockadoodle motherfucking doo! rise and shine and get out of my haus.”

when the frogs are talking abt lardos boob drawing and nursey wont stop chirping chowder about him seeing farmers

every single part of the “shoe check” panel

when everyone has their playoff beards going and it all just like lil scruff, then holster has a full fledged fucken beard

“mens hockey team streak derailed by stupidest roadie convo ever”

“et tu, lardo?”

“jack, surprise me and DONT join the nhl. surprise me and do like, competitive fucking horticulture.”

“bits! wanna look at the ice and get all sad with us?”

the fact that lardo beat parse at beer pong then immediately gave him an “honor belch”

“excel says we owe him, like, 3 ovens.”

the nonchalantness with which bad bob says that jacks “uncle” is WAYNE FUCKING GRETZKY

year 3

“… im sure youre wonderful at curling.”

“i have like,,, so many questions”

bylaw numer 13: FFFFUCK THE LAX TEAM

tango thinking bitty means parse is nice by saying “bless his heart.” i just… bless his heart, tango.

“the next five dudes youre going to ask about? were probably all shitty”

holsters jockstrap, aka the “dead goalie’s 7th horcrux”

“its another place to call home. (but with more dongs)”

“yeah okay, thirdy. no one reading your poems.”

“wow, mr. shitty, you must know… a hundred laws”

jack asking bitty to be his bf by giving him a lego of himself. this boy.

“hashtag journalism” AKA, THE FIRST INSTANCE OF NURSEY SAYING HASHTAG OUT LOUD

holster yelling “gobsmacked” at least twice because ransom didnt know about jerrys brunch

jack “rock lord” zimmermann

the wild look in ransom and holsters eyes when they tell jack and bitty how much theyre gonna fine them

BEEP BOOP

“dicky, im married but im not dead!”

the pure judgment in the sentence “wow sin bin already”

jack “im dating one of my teammates” zimmermann and his alter ego, jack “one of my teammates from college!” zimmermann

when marty starts ranting and jack gets so anxious that he accidentally turns on the tool hes holding

this will be continued as comics are released but for now… here it is

[maris457vbucks-blog]

Fortnite generator: It isn't really as Difficult as You're thinking that

How Fortnite Captured Teenagers’ Hearts and Minds

The trend for the 3rd-particular person shooter game has things of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis, and eating Tide Pods.

V Bucks For Free Fortnite

It had been acquiring late in Tomato City. The storm was closing in, and meteors pelted the ground. Gizzard Lizard had designed his way there soon after plundering the sparsely populated barns and domiciles of Anarchy Acres, then by keeping away from the Wailing Woods and maintaining the storm just off to his left. He spied an enemy combatant on higher ground, who appeared to have a sniper’s rifle. Inside of a hollow below the sniper’s perch was an abandoned pizzeria, with an enormous rotating sign up the shape of the tomato. Gizzard Lizard, who had swiftly constructed himself a redoubt of salvaged beams, explained, “I think I’m about to assault. That’s amongst my principal challenges: I want to begin being more aggressive.” He ran out into your open up, pausing ahead of a thick shrub. “This is actually a really excellent bush. I could bush-camp. But naw, that’s what noobs do.”

Two Adult men enter, one male leaves: the fighters closed in on one another. Within the movie game Fortnite Fight Royale, the late-game phase is often one of the most frenetic and fascinating. Suddenly, the sniper launched himself into a nearby field and commenced attacking. Gizzard Lizard rapidly threw up One more port-a-fort, amid a hail of enemy fire. The aim is usually for getting, or make, the high ground.

A minute later, Gizzard Lizard was dead—killed by a grenade. Afterward, he replayed the ending, from several vantages, to investigate what experienced absent Mistaken. To become so near to successful and however appear up brief—it absolutely was discouraging and tantalizing. A person really wants to go once more. The urge is powerful. But it had been time for my son to do his research.

I expended far more time as A child than I care to recall observing other Young children Perform video game titles. House Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Person, Donkey Kong. Ordinarily, my buddies, above my objections, favored this to playing ball—or to other preferred, if fewer edifying, community pursuits, for example tearing hood ornaments off parked autos. Just about every so normally, I performed, far too, but I used to be a spaz. Insert quarter, match around. After gaming moved into dorms and apartments—Nintendo, Sega—I realized which i could just depart. But at times I didn’t. I admired the feat of divided awareness, the knack that some guys (and it was often fellas) looked as if it would have for keeping alive, each in the game and inside the fight of wits around the sofa, as though they have been each taking part in a Activity and executing “SportsCenter” at the same time.

I thought of this one other working day when an acquaintance explained looking at a group of eighth-grade boys and girls (amid them his son) hanging all around his apartment taking part in, but primarily seeing Other people play, Fortnite. Just one boy was playing on a significant Television display, using a PlayStation 4 console. The other boys have been on their own telephones, either actively playing or viewing a specialist gamer’s live stream. And the ladies were actively playing or viewing on their own telephones, or on the lookout around the shoulders from the boys. Among the list of ladies explained to my Good friend, “It’s enjoyment to see the boys get mad if they shed.” No one explained Considerably. What patter there was—l’esprit du divan—arrived from the kids’ minimal screens, in the shape of the pro gamer’s mordant narration as he vanquished his opponents.

Fortnite, for any person not a teen-ager or a parent or educator of teens, could be the third-man or woman shooter game which includes taken above the hearts and minds—and some time, both of those discretionary and if not—of adolescent and collegiate The us. Launched last September, it is right this moment by quite a few actions the preferred movie recreation on the planet. From time to time, there are already much more than three million individuals taking part in it at once. It has been downloaded an believed sixty million moments. (The game, readily available on Laptop, Mac, Xbox, PS4, and mobile devices, is—crucially—free of charge, but many gamers pay back For added, beauty attributes, including costumes generally known as “skins.”) When it comes to fervor, compulsive habits, and parental noncomprehension, the Fortnite craze has factors of Beatlemania, the opioid disaster, plus the ingestion of Tide Pods. Mom and dad converse of it being an dependancy and swap tales of plunging grades and brazen display-time abuse: under the desk at school, at a memorial assistance, in the toilet at 4 A.M. They beg each other for solutions. A pal sent me a video clip he’d taken a single afternoon though wanting to quit his son from enjoying; there was a time when frequently contacting a single’s father a fucking asshole would have brought about massive difficulty in Tomato Town. Within our family, the massive risk is gamer rehab in South Korea.

Game fads appear and go: Rubik’s Dice, Dungeons & Dragons, Angry Birds, Minecraft, Clash of Clans, Pokémon Go. What persons manage to concur on, whether they’re seasoned avid gamers or dorky dads, is the fact there’s one thing new rising about Fortnite, a type of mass social accumulating, open to your Significantly wider array of people as opposed to video games that arrived prior to. Its relative lack of wickedness—it appears to be primarily freed from the misogyny and racism that afflict many other video games and gaming communities—makes it much more palatable to your broader audience, which attractiveness both equally ameliorates and augments its addictive electrical power. (The sport, in its basic method, randomly assigns players’ skins, that may be of any gender or race.) Prevalent anecdotal evidence implies that girls are enjoying in wide numbers, each with and with out boys. You will find, and possibly at any time shall be, some gamer geeks who gripe at these newcomers, equally as they gripe when there aren't any newcomers in the slightest degree.

A friend whose thirteen-yr-old son is deep down the rabbit hole likened the Fortnite phenomenon to your Pump Home Gang, the crew of ne’er-do-well teenager surfers in La Jolla whom Tom Wolfe occurred upon inside the early nineteen-sixties. As opposed to a clubhouse to the beach, there’s a Digital worldwide juvenile corridor, exactly where kids Obtain, invent an argot, undertake alter egos, and shoot each other down. Wolfe’s Pump Dwelling kids went on beer-soaked outings they termed “destructos,” wherein they might, at neighborhood farmers’ behest, demolish abandoned barns. Now it’s Juul-sneaking very little homebodies demolishing virtual walls and properties with imaginary pickaxes. Children everywhere are swinging away at their planet, tearing it down to outlive—Resourceful destruction, of who plays fortnite A sort.

Shall I clarify the game? I should, I’m fearful, Regardless that describing movie video games is a little like recounting desires. A hundred gamers are dropped onto an island—from the traveling school bus—and combat one another towards the Dying. The winner is the last one standing. (You'll be able to pair up or type a squad, also.) This is what is supposed by Battle Royale. (The original Edition of Fortnite, launched last July, for forty bucks, wasn’t fight to your Loss of life; it's the new iteration that has caught fire.) A storm encroaches, steadily forcing combatants into an ever-shrinking spot, wherever they must get rid of or be killed. Along just how, you request out caches of weapons, armor, and healables, while also accumulating constructing products by breaking down existing buildings. Hasty fabrication (of ramps, forts, and towers) is A necessary facet of the sport, which is why it is commonly called a cross concerning Minecraft and also the Hunger Online games—and why aggrieved mom and dad are able to tell on their own that it's constructive.

Before a sport starts, you wander all-around in a sort of purgatorial bus depot-cum-airfield waiting around until finally the following hundred have assembled for an airdrop. This can be a Unusual location. Players shoot inconsequentially at one another and pull dance moves, like actors strolling aimlessly all-around backstage practising their strains. Then appear the airlift and also the drifting descent, by way of glider, on the battleground, with a gentle whooshing seem that is certainly towards the Fortnite addict what the flick of the Bic is to a smoker. You can land in a single of 20-one particular locations over the island, Each and every which has a cutesy alliterative identify, some suggestive of mid-century gay bars: Shifty Shafts, Moisty Mire, Lonely Lodge, Greasy Grove. In patois and in temper, the game manages to be the two dystopian and comic, dark and light-weight. It might be alarming, if you’re not accustomed to these kinds of points or are attuned for the news, to hear your darlings shouting so merrily about head shots and snipes. But there’s no blood or gore. The violence is cartoonish, at the very least relative to, say, Halo or Grand Theft Car. Such tend to be the consolations.

The island by itself has an air of desertion although not of maximum despair. This apocalypse is rated PG. The abandonment, precipitated via the storm, which has either killed or scattered many of the globe’s populace, appears to have already been current and comparatively fast. The grass is lush, the Cover full. The hydrangeas are abloom in Snobby Shores. Buildings are unencumbered by kudzu or graffiti and have tidy, sparsely furnished rooms, as though the inhabitants experienced only just fled (or been vaporized). Seemingly, everyone around the island, in those prosperous pre-storm times, shopped in exactly the same aisle at Concentrate on. Every time I look at a participant enter a Bed room, be it in Junk Junction or Loot Lake, I Be aware the multicolored blanket folded throughout the mattress. Individuals cobalt-blue table lamps: are they for sale? It's possible one day They are going to be.

[topsolarpanels]

Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes films need is high time to marinate’

The director of the cult favorite Donnie Darko was once hailed as the next David Lynch. Now, as fans rediscover his 2007 flop Southland Tales, he explains why patience is still a virtue and Trumps victory was a grotesque inevitability

Talking with the writer and director Richard Kelly, its easy to steer the conversation toward the end of the world. After all, Kelly developed a fervent cult following( and alienated it) through tales of prophesied apocalypse 2001 s cult curio Donnie Darko and 2007 s cult-classic-in-the-making Southland Tales. But its not the collapsing buildings or rivers of blood that fascinate Kelly; its what comes right before. The sneaking anxiety. The normalizing of madnes. The casual disregard for your neighbor. The glob in your throat that signifies your newfound understanding that this was inevitable.

If those impressions sounds familiar in our current Trump-addled dystopia, that was not Kellys intention. Southland Tales, a post-9/ 11 satire melded with a retelling of the Book of Revelation that also includes a complex theory of hour traveling, was never meant to feel like a pre-game show for the next decade of global misery.

The sprawling narrative set in an alternative 2008 in which a nuclear attack on Abilene, Texas, triggers a third world war revolves around an amnesiac action starring named Boxer Santaros( played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson) who falls in love with a porn starring/ talkshow host/ entrepreneur/ pop superstar/ psychic who goes by the professional name Krysta Now( Sarah Michelle Gellar ), who has written a screenplay about the end times.

Oh, and theres also a government agency dedicated to spying on Americans, an underground neo-Marxist cult, alternative solutions energy source that might be ripping a hole in the space-time continuum, a United States military been supported by Hustler and Bud Light, and a mind-altering medication that keeps American soldiers docile and dependent. Jon Lovitz plays a racist cop, Seann William Scott plays identical twin police officers, Amy Poehler shows up as an anarchist improv comic, Justin Timberlake plays a drug-addled war veteran and Wallace Shawn of The Princess Bride fame is the antichrist( or a reasonable fax ).

Its overwhelming to process, and reflects so much of the nervousnes of our age, even if it isnt always pleasant to watch. I actually wanted it to be something that you would get lost in and that would sustain multiple viewings, Kelly tells me over dinner in Los Angeles. When discussing the movie, his eyes widen and he projects an impish yet tentative enthusiasm as though hes feeling out whether youre going to receive his ideas without judgment. Now, that ambition can be a self-defeating prophecy, as we watched clearly.

Kelly seems wistful about the experience of making and releasing the film, which, after a disastrous Cannes screening at which the movie was booed heavily, virtually lost theatrical distribution. We were in Boston, in pre-production on[ his Southland Tales follow-up] The Box, the weekend Southland Tales opened in 50 -some theaters. The upcoming Monday was our first day of principal photography. We were scrambling for our first day. We had done the AFI Fest premiere and they rushed me back to Boston. And then, I remember that morning, were shooting Cameron[ Diaz] and Frank Langella, this really emotional scene in the Boston Public Library. Someone comes up to me and tells me per-screen medians on Southland Tales. It was such a bummer. A screening Kelly attended with the actor James Marsden was attended by only four other people. Roger Ebert likened the cinema to the third day of a pitch session on velocity. One of the rare positive reviews of the movie came from the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who called it funny, audacious, messy and feverishly inspired.

I definitely remain proud of the ambition of it. I feel like sometimes things just require is high time to marinate, he says. The cinema has started to find a new audience. At the time of our meeting, hes in between hosting screenings of Southland Tales thanks to a roadshow tour of the film sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse chain of arthouse theaters. The newfound appreciation for Southland Tales by both audiences and emerging pockets of critics hasnt yet translated to tangible opportunities for Kelly. I dont ever want to feel defeated or that Ive let the system defeat me, he says.

Sarah Michelle Gellar in Southland Tales. Photograph: Publicity image from cinema company

Southland Tales discovering an audience nearly 10 years later would not mark the first time one of Kellys cinemas gained esteem upon second( or third) glance. Donnie Darko grossed a scant $517,375 when it was released a month after 9/11. When it observed a huge audience on video and DVD, Kelly became a hot commodity, an heir apparent to the surrealist tradition of directors like David Lynch. Sometimes, the wind is at your back. Sometimes, its at your front, Kelly says about the ups and downs of his career. Darko remains his greatest up, a cinema thats become a touchstone work for the generation that grew up with it. Darko was a disaster at Sundance too, he tells me. No one remembers that, but it was. Im grateful for any rosy light of hindsight. I remember it took us virtually six months to sell the movie. It nearly ran immediately to the Starz network. We had to beg them to put it in theaters. Christopher Nolan stepped in and persuaded Newmarket to put it in theaters.

After those issues, Kelly could have gone the expected route and taken on a big-budget studio tentpole. He could have directed the sequel, which he declined to do( it aimed up being terrible and running straight-out to DVD ). Instead, he choice this peculiar, dense story about the decline of American power.

President-elect Donald Trump was merely a reality show curiosity when Southland Tales was released, but his mixture of profane and pious could easily have constructed him a character in the film. I think that Donald Trump is this grotesque inevitability that has gotten this far because there was something really, really dangerous concealing beneath the surface, that has been concealing beneath the surface for many, many years. The Republican Kelly imagined in Southland Tales were the neocon religious zealots that seem almost quaint to modern eyes. They seemed like the ultimate boogeymen in 2007, but as Kelly points out , no one in the Bush family would even show up at the RNC[ Republican national convention ].

What Southland Tales conveyed better than most politically charged films of the Bush era was the sentiment that it would get worse, that something had been unleashed that could not be put back. At the time that we were building Southland Tales, it was Iraq war and Britney Spears. That dichotomy on your Tv screen. The branding and everything was happening. It seemed inevitable that everyone would start to co-opt branding. Social media hadnt actually exploded yet. To watch legislators running after each other on Twitter, its bizarre. To insure Elizabeth Warren quoting the monorail on the Simpsons. To see legislators co-opting this millennial social media branding, its a blur of the lines.

Each of his three cinemas reflects that sheepish rebellion that is part of his personality. Donnie Darko was a mostly passive protagonist struggling against both the oppressive system of high school and the levers of fate that he could only pull at the cinemas climax. Boxer Santaros is a pawn in a conflict between fascism and socialism, religion and science, and love and demise. Eventually, those characters succumb to a power greater than any on Earth, something unknowable. So does Kelly think all this is down to higher power pulling the strings?

I dont believe any of this happened by accident. Thats just depressing and absurd, in my opinion, he answers. I do think theres a design to things, and we can never hope to know it in any of our lifetimes. Proportion of the challenge is trying to make sense of it. Thats whats cathartic for me as an artist, to try to make sense of it.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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[alienvirals]

Alien: Covenants Katherine Waterston: We live in hypersexualised yet totally prudish times

The actor following in the footsteps of Sigourney Weaver has been dubbed the new Ripley

Ripley, the indomitable action hero played by Sigourney Weaver in the Alien series, may have hung up her flamethrower for good, but the franchises latest prequel, Alien: Covenant, features a convincing replacement in the form of tough cookie Daniels, played by Katherine Waterston. The 37-year-old actor got her breakthrough role as the enigmatic Shasta Fay in Paul Thomas Andersons fuzzy comic thriller Inherent Vice and was last seen sporting a cloche hat and brandishing a wand as Tina in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

In person, she cuts a jaunty, unassuming figure. She saunters into the room in white trainers and navy trousers, red socks visible in the gap between them: a black tank-top partially conceals a white T-shirt. She is tomboyish and tall, like Ally Sheedy on stilts, so that when she folds her long legs under her chair, she looks exaggeratedly S-shaped. Dealing with the weight of expectation from Alien fans hasnt been too intense, she says, nibbling on a pain aux raisins. The way I looked at it with this and Fantastic Beasts was that it was like being recruited on to a sports team. Theres a devotion from these fans who are just excited for the next game. They arent sat there thinking: Youd better not let me down, Waterston!

Alien: Covenant trailer: Ridley Scott returns with sci-fi thriller

Rumours suggested that Daniels would be Ripleys mother and, whatever the truth, there are resemblances. Both are rational women transformed by circumstance into gun-toting warriors. Both are shown at some point in singlets, or clomping around in magnetic boots, and each has a problematic relationship with a synthetic colleague. The only shortfall comes in the area of the catchphrase, where Danielss multiple efforts (including I got you, you son-of-a-bitch and Lets kill this fucker!) are no match for Ripleys emphatic: Get away from her, you bitch!

Most strikingly, the first note Waterston has to play in the new film is outright panic when technical problems wake her prematurely from hypersleep. The second is grief. Its like slamming on the brakes before anyone has the chance to buckle their seat belts. I didnt know how I would play it or how I could get there, but thats always the most appealing thing to me. The insecurity is exciting. Maybe Im also curious about testing my ability. She widens her eyes. Seeing if its still there.

Although Daniels is treading in Ripleys footsteps, or, given that Covenant is set 20-odd years before Alien, forging the path that Ripley will follow, Waterston didnt talk to Weaver about the part. But the two women have a distant connection. When Waterston was starting out as an actor, she got her first lead role in a play at The Flea, a New York theatre co-founded by Weavers husband, Jim Simpson. Sigourney came to see it and said something like: You were good. Nothing extraordinary. But when someone like her says that, you hang on to it for years. When I got this job, I thought immediately of that moment.

Waterston is big on the idea of all actors as an extended clan, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone whose siblings are in the business, and whose father is Sam Waterston, the veteran from The Killing Fields, Crimes and Misdemeanors and the TV hit Law and Order. Her mother is the former model Lynn Louisa Woodruff. Acting is a community where you come in and out of each others lives. Im slightly envious of the golden age of Hollywood. It must have been frustrating to be owned by the studio, but it was also like being in a company, working with the same people, and that appeals to me.

Working On Alien: Covenant, she was reunited with Carmen Ejogo (Fantastic Beasts) and Michael Fassbender, with whom she shared some fraught scenes in Steve Jobs, as well as her old chum Billy Crudup. At one point during our conversation, she leaps up and yanks open the door in response to voices outside. Billy Crudup, will you shut the fuck up? she hollers down the hallway. Im trying to focus!

Crudup sidles into view. What you doing for dinner tonight, he purrs. You want to join us? Me and Danny McBride? You should be so lucky! What larks. Of course, its entirely possible that she could have put on a more vivid display of her need to cultivate actorly intimacy than bounding out of the room to accost a colleague. Possible, yes, but not likely.

She first saw Crudup when she was 15 in a Broadway production of Tom Stoppards Arcadia, which she now credits with confirming in her mind her acting ambitions. It was the thing that clicked me over to that next level of curiosity. Clicked? You know when youre going up at the start of the rollercoaster and its going click-click-click towards the summit? Id had the initial idea of wanting to act but I didnt know how I could do it.

Even though her dad is an actor? I know! Isnt that weird? On a rollercoaster, theres an inevitability about whats going to happen next.

Did acting feel that way? Yes. Even though I wasnt sure how it would come about, I knew it would.

Determined to distinguish herself from her family, she eschewed performing as a teenager. Didnt appear in so much as a school play. Photography was her bag. I loved the darkroom. Its a good place for an angsty teenager. Her favourite picture is one she took while visiting her father on location in Dublin. Its of this drunk gambler at the racetrack, totally loaded, who had climbed into a tree to get a better view of the horses. She smiles sadly. I cant imagine having the guts to do that now. I wonder sometimes if Ive got in the habit of only being courageous when someone else has written the words I have to say.

Inherent Vice trailer: watch Joaquin Phoenix in the first look at Paul Thomas Andersons Thomas Pynchon adaptation

No one who gave the sort of performance that Waterston did in Inherent Vice should be in any hurry to sell herself short. Shasta Fay appears in only a couple of scenes but her presence permeates the film; she is the personification of its riddles. Attention at the time focused disproportionately on one scene in which Waterston lies naked across the lap of her ex-lover, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and invites him to spank her. One journalist asked if Joaquin left red marks on my butt, she recalls incredulously. I wish Id said: I dont remember but Ill tell you what bend over and Ill spank you as hard as I can and well see what happens.

We live in such hypersexualised yet totally prudish times. People have this expectation about everyone elses relationship to their own bodies. Surely you must have shame about your body? Surely whats scariest for you as actor would be to stand in a room naked? Believe me, Ive been in so many more terrifying situations as a performer than that. This was working with people I trusted in a scene that was rich and complex and there was so much to do there that I hardly even thought about that thing that seems to be all everyone could talk about. Theyre just hoping Ill say: Oh, I was so scared that day and then I drank a few shots of whisky and I felt better. She gives a mighty roll of the eyes.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer: Eddie Redmayne in Harry Potter spinoff video

After Inherent Vice wrapped, she was convinced she would become known as the first actor to be bad in an Anderson movie. That period between finishing the film and opening night is agonising. Thats part of why actors go from job to job so they dont have to live with the anxiety in the interim.

As if to prove that, she has already shot another three pictures since Alien: Covenant, including Steven Soderberghs Logan Lucky opposite Channing Tatum, and is about to start Fantastic Beasts 2.

Having likened acting to a sports team and a rollercoaster, she saves her most conflicted analogy for last. Ive heard this is how cults brainwash people, she says. You wake up and you go to conferences that go on all day and then youre so exhausted that you sleep, and then you get up and do it again the next day. Thats what its like making movies. Youre up before dawn, you collapse at night and then you do it all over again until theres no room for anything else in your brain.

Alien: Covenant is released in Australia today, in the UK on 12 May, and the US on 19 May.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us

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[saints-row-2]

people have been saying that bcs Doomsday Clock is Rorschach II and not original Rorschach that its going to be dealing with people who idolise Rorschach and see him as a hero when like fucking obviously hes a terrible person and you can kinda see that if the “Rorschach’s journal” entries are intentionally badly written poor imitations of what someone think Rorschach might say instead of the writers just not being good at writing Rorschach 

and like i like that concept a lot bcs if youre going fucking shit on human decency and force out a fucking Watchmen sequel you might as well respond to one of the biggest phenomena that has come out of Watchmen fandom: people who dont fucking understand Watchmen or understand Rorschach and think hes Good Actually. but like. 

we dont know anything about Rorschach II currently or who he is or why he decided to become Rorschach but the one thing they did choose to establish about him is that hes a black man. and like, this is the first fucking issue we have no possible way of knowing how this is gonna play out but like. bear with me ok. if youre going to make a character whos meant to explore the fans who idolise Rorschach it feels like... a mistake to overlook the fact that the majority of those fans are straight white men. 

a note here; im also a white man i want to be yknow like.. open about that before i go on for another 5000 words about this. 

like when it comes to these guys like a huge part of why they love Rorschach is because he is a violent white man who is being hunted by the law for trying to uncover the truth and take a stand against society. Rorschach himself is undeniably a misogynistic nationalist and while he never (that i can recall) references race in any capacity in the comic he is a loyal reader of the New Frontiersman, which is a conspiracy theory filled rag of a paper we are explicitly shown has a largely racist, xenophobic audience. and those are the people who, if New Frontiersman published it (which Doomsday Clock seems to be implying) would be the ones who read Rorschach’s journal, which he sent to the paper.

and like. putting Rorschach’s own politics aside, the important factor is that projection. Rorschach himself seems to not particularly care about immigration or race, at least not enough to ever think or write about either (make of that what you will), but these people who love him project their own racism onto him. the people who idolise him in real life are a reflection of the New Frontiersman fans; people who believe society is degrading and that the degradation of society is hurting white men. to them, Rorschach is the personification of their white male hero, the oppressed white man who is trying to fight for the Truth thats being hidden by the... insert whatever fucking racial or ethnic class they hate here. the comic shows this as much in the New Frontiersman story they publish about Rorschach. 

the more and more i think about it the more hilarious it is how the New Frontiersman so directly fucking parodies the whole class of dipshits who idolise Rorschach. 

like my point is, if youre going to do a story about someone who was wrongly inspired by a warped idea of who Rorschach is, it feels like a mistake to overlook the inherent racial element that there is, particularly in a day and age when the violence of white men is still so fucking unquestioned. 

on the other hand entirely, if you ARE going to run with “people accept and love the violence of white men” then comparing and contrasting how people react to Rorschach II as a black man as opposed to Rorschach I as a white man could be very fucking poignant; will the exact same people still be willing to idolise and defend Rorschach’s actions if he isnt someone they can imagine to be their white defender? i can imagine almost fucking definitely not. because in their eyes, if hes not white, then he cant possibly be fighting for their warped vision of whats right. like theres an opportunity to make a really salient point here about the overt fucking racism of the people who idolise Rorschach and how society on a wider level is willing to support white violence. 

like at this stage we’re one fucking issue into Doomsday Clock so i have no idea if theyre going to bring racial politics into the comic at all. i wouldnt be surprised if they dont i expect absolutely nothing out of this comic but like. it feels like they have an incredibly real opportunity here to talk about the excused and acceptable violence of white men who have “beliefs” and itll be disappointing if they overlook it entirely. 

ok uh i dont actually know if anyone i know has even read Doomsday Clock or even remotely cares about Watchmen so i dont really know. why i made this whole fucking post but by the time i hit the 10000th word i had to just go with it. anyway i hope this post makes like. sense. if anyone can like. see the point im trying to make. 

[topsolarpanels]

Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly: ‘Sometimes films need is high time to marinate’

The director of the cult favorite Donnie Darko was once hailed as the next David Lynch. Now, as fans rediscover his 2007 flop Southland Tales, he explains why patience remains of virtue and Trumps victory was a grotesque inevitability

Talking with the writer and director Richard Kelly, its easy to steer the conversation toward the end of the world. After all, Kelly developed a fervent cult following( and alienated it) through tales of prophesied apocalypse 2001 s cult curio Donnie Darko and 2007 s cult-classic-in-the-making Southland Tales. But its not the collapsing houses or rivers of blood that fascinate Kelly; its what comes right before. The creeping anxiety. The normalizing of madnes. The casual disregard for your neighbour. The glob in your throat that signifies your newfound understanding that this was inevitable.

If those impressions audios familiar in our present Trump-addled dystopia, that was not Kellys intention. Southland Tales, a post-9/ 11 irony melded with a retelling of the Book of Revelation that also includes a complex hypothesi of time traveling, was never meant to feel like a pre-game show for the next decade of global misery.

The sprawling narrative set in alternative solutions 2008 in which a nuclear attack on Abilene, Texas, triggers a third world war revolves around an amnesiac action starring named Boxer Santaros( played by Dwayne The Rock Johnson) who falls in love with a porn superstar/ talkshow host/ entrepreneur/ pop star/ clairvoyant who goes by the professional name Krysta Now( Sarah Michelle Gellar ), who has written a screenplay about the end times.

Oh, and theres also a government agency dedicated to spying on Americans, an underground neo-Marxist cult, an alternative energy source that might be ripping a hole in the space-time continuum, a United States military sponsored by Hustler and Bud Light, and a mind-altering medication that keeps American soldiers docile and dependent. Jon Lovitz plays a racist policeman, Seann William Scott plays identical twin police officers, Amy Poehler shows up as an anarchist improv comic, Justin Timberlake plays a drug-addled war veteran and Wallace Shawn of The Princess Bride fame is the antichrist( or a reasonable facsimile ).

Its overwhelming to process, and reflects so much of the nervousnes of our age, even if it isnt always pleasant to watch. I genuinely wanted it to be something that you would get lost in and that would sustain multiple viewings, Kelly tells me over dinner in Los Angeles. When discussing the film, his eyes widen and he projects an impish yet tentative enthusiasm as though hes feeling out whether youre going to receive his ideas without decision. Now, that aspiration can be a self-defeating prophecy, as we considered clearly.

Kelly seems wistful about the experience of making and releasing the movie, which, after a disastrous Cannes screening at which the movie was booed heavily, virtually lost theatrical distribution. We were in Boston, in pre-production on[ his Southland Tales follow-up] The Box, the weekend Southland Tales opened in 50 -some theaters. The upcoming Monday was our first day of principal photography. We were scrambling for our first day. We had done the AFI Fest premiere and they rushed me back to Boston. And then, I remember that morning, were shooting Cameron[ Diaz] and Frank Langella, that is something that emotional scene in the Boston Public Library. Someone comes up to me and tells me per-screen averages on Southland Tales. It was such a bummer. A screening Kelly attended with the actor James Marsden were engaged in only four other people. Roger Ebert likened the cinema to the third day of a pitching session on speed. One of the rare positive reviews of the film came from the New York Times critic Manohla Dargis, who called it funny, audacious, messy and feverishly inspired.

I definitely remain proud of the ambition of it. I feel like sometimes things just require time to marinate, he says. The cinema has started to find a new audience. At the time of our meeting, hes in between hosting screenings of Southland Tales thanks to a roadshow tour of the cinema sponsored by the Alamo Drafthouse chain of arthouse theaters. The newfound expressed appreciation for Southland Tales by both audiences and emerging pockets of critics hasnt yet translated to tangible a chance for Kelly. I dont ever want to feel defeated or that Ive let the organizations of the system defeat me, he says.

Sarah Michelle Gellar in Southland Tales. Photograph: Publicity image from cinema company

Southland Tales observing an audience almost 10 year later would not mark the first time one of Kellys movies gained esteem upon second( or third) glance. Donnie Darko grossed a scant $517,375 when it was released a month after 9/11. When it observed a huge audience on video and DVD, Kelly became a hot commodity, an heir apparent to the surrealist tradition of directors like David Lynch. Sometimes, the wind is at your back. Sometimes, its at your front, Kelly says about the ups and downs of his career. Darko remains his greatest up, a cinema thats become a touchstone work for the generation that grew up with it. Darko was a disaster at Sundance too, he tells me. No one remembers that, but it was. Im grateful for any rosy glow of hindsight. I remember it took us almost six months to sell the movie. It almost went immediately to the Starz network. We had to beg them to put it in theaters. Christopher Nolan stepped in and persuaded Newmarket to set it in theaters.

After those issues, Kelly could have gone the expected route and taken on a big-budget studio tentpole. He could have directed the sequel, which he declined to do( it ended up being terrible and running straight to DVD ). Instead, he choice this peculiar, dense story about the decline of American power.

President-elect Donald Trump was only a reality show curiosity when Southland Tales was released, but his mix of profane and pious could easily have attained him a character in the film. I think that Donald Trump is this grotesque inevitability that has get this far because there was something actually, really dangerous concealing beneath the surface, that has been hiding beneath the surface for many, many years. The Republicans Kelly imagined in Southland Tales were the neocon religious zealots that seem virtually quaint to modern eyes. They seemed like the ultimate boogeymen in 2007, but as Kelly points out , no one in the Bush family would even show up at the RNC[ Republican national convention ].

What Southland Tales expressed better than most politically charged cinemas of the Bush era was the sentiment that it would get worse, that something had been unleashed that could not be put back. At the time that we were attaining Southland Tales, it was Iraq war and Britney Spears. That dichotomy on your TV screen. The branding and everything was happening. It seemed inevitable that everyone would start to co-opt branding. Social media hadnt really exploded yet. To assure legislators going after one another on Twitter, its bizarre. To see Elizabeth Warren quoting the monorail on the Simpsons. To ensure legislators co-opting this millennial social media branding, its a blurring of the lines.

Each of his three films reflects that sheepish rebellion that is part of his personality. Donnie Darko was a largely passive protagonist struggling against both the oppressive system of high school and the levers of fate that he could only pull at the films climax. Boxer Santaros is a pawn in a conflict between fascism and socialism, religion and science, and love and demise. Eventually, those characters succumb to a power greater than any on Ground, something unknowable. So does Kelly suppose all this is down to higher power pulling the strings?

I dont guess any of this passed by accident. Thats just depressing and absurd, in my opinion, he answers. I do think theres a design to things, and we can never hope to know it in any of our lifetimes. Part of current challenges is trying to make sense of it. Thats whats cathartic for me as an artist, to try to make sense of it.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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