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silverfoxstole · 23 days

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OK. Right. I've sorted my panel photos, which I'll start posting tomorrow (I won't bombard you with them all at once!), so I can get my thoughts straight about yesterday. This is going to be long; sorry! I'll divide it into two parts so that those who want to skip my wittering and just see the pics can.

I hadn't actually thought I'd ever go to a con again; my last one had been back in 2009 and they've got a hell of a lot bigger since then, which sort of puts me off as I don’t really like crowds, and living as I do right down on the south coast they're usually too far away. However, when back at the end of January an ad popped up out of the blue on my Facebook feed informing me that Paul would be appearing at Portsmouth Comic Con (less than ten miles from me) my heart skipped a beat and I started wondering whether I'd be able to go. Of course, there was nothing stopping me but I wasn't keen to go on my own, and I knew my DW-and-anything-else-related-to-scifi-fantasy-etc-hating sister would never agree.

When not long later I saw Sylvester was going to be there as well I mentioned it to my friend P (with whom I’ve attended cons in the past), lamenting that I had no one to go with and not really expecting her to suggest that she try to come down from Manchester so we could go together but to my surprise she did and so the tickets were duly booked. Fast forward to about three weeks ago, unfortunately, and things started to go - literally in this case - off the rails thanks to a driver's strike and then engineering work that meant no trains into Portsmouth for the 11th and 12th and P very reluctantly having to drop out because she wouldn't be able to get down here and back in time for work on Monday. Still wanting to go but not really wanting to do it alone I had no choice but to ask sis to come with me, which she very gamely did and I owe her. Big Time. It’s really not her thing and I know she didn't enjoy it at all. She works in town and made me stand on the outside in the queue in case she saw anyone she knew!

I had been worried about how I was going to react as I do suffer from anxiety and I've not been amongst crowds since before Covid, but much to my surprise I was completely relaxed, even when talking to the guests; I'm obviously long past my 'OMG it's Paul!' phase (thank goodness!) and instead it was a case of 'Oh, yeah, there he is, and Sylv and Sophie (a later addition, and one I'd been hoping for) too.' I don't know whether it's because they're so familiar or I just got used to actors popping in when I worked in a shop near a theatre, but it was easy and I'm so glad! The reflexology session I had in Thursday might have helped keep me calm, too; if you’re feeling tense I recommend it!

I had only previously visited the Guildhall for concerts (sis knows it better as she's had to do presentations to the city council in the past) so it was rather odd to be in there during the day. I have to say that I think they could have put aside more room for the guests as it was difficult to work out who was queuing to see who (ho ho). It was very warm and the setup also made taking photos a bit awkward with people having to dance round each other a bit. We went to see Paul first (of course), and when he clocked me in my NotD cosplay he leaned back, smiled and announced 'It's like lookin' in a mirror!' I honestly can't remember exactly what I said in response to that! Probably nothing that coherent! He asked if I'd made it myself, which gave me a neat opportunity to present the gift I'd made for him: an Eighth Doctor bear and Mr Bush bear.

I think i've wanted to make bears for Paul ever since I put together the first one nearly three years ago, but I never thought I'd get a chance so when I knew I'd be going to the con I started planning. I was originally just going to do the Doctor, and make a Seven bear for Sylvester, but as they were coming to Portsmouth I decided to do Bush as well since I can’t imagine Paul gets a lot of Hornblower-related gifts. Of course, when it was confirmed that Sophie would be there I had to make an Ace bear too and here they all are before I packed them up yesterday morning, sitting on the bags i'd also run up to put them in (not pictured, my terrible embroidery name tags to help me tell who was who):

I'll do some more detailed posts so you can see them properly another day, but I was so pleased with they way they turned out that it was really hard to give them up! At least I knew they'd be going to good homes!

When I gave Paul the bag he just looked at me in surprise and went 'Is that for me? Can I open it now?' and there was a smile on his face as soon as he saw what was inside. 'That's my career! Doctor Who and Hornblower!' He absolutely loved them, couldn't believe I'd made them and told me 'I have a room where I keep all the gifts I've been given, and these are going to take pride of place.' I couldn't wish for more than that! Well, maybe a photo of him with them but it was busy and I didn't like to ask and possibly hold things up. I hope he's found the alternative Dark Eyes outfit that I added for Eight bear as I had some fabric leftover from my jacket; the sonic for that one took a bit of ingenuity!

He asked about my costume again while we were getting into position (for want of a better term) for a photo and commented that so many people are paying someone to make their cosplays now and spending a hundreds of pounds, something I'd guess he finds quite astonishing given the incredulous look on his face when he said it. I could be wrong, but I got the impression that he likes to see what different fans have come up with; there are a lot of people who seem to be patronising Steven Ricks since Paul got his remade costume last year, which I can understand because the man is a brilliant tailor, but sometimes it must be a bit like seeing clones.

Jen took the photo and we were about to leave it there but then this strangely confident person I found inside me asked Paul a question:

‘Can I be cheeky?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can I give you a hug?’

‘Of course!’

Well, if you don’t ask, you don’t get! (says the woman who hates asking for things in shops) He gives very good hugs. 🥰

I did manage to let him go (it wasn’t easy!) and he thanked me again for the bears before we moved on to see Sophie, which involved going round to join another queue in the same small space. Confusing? Yep!

I don't know who here has met Sophie Aldred but you should because she is so, so lovely. Ace has always been one of my favourite companions and I was so pleased when I saw she would be coming. I'd already started an Ace bear with the intention of giving it to Sylvester with his, but of course that got changed and Sophie was smitten. She looked really closely at it, remarking on the little details - 'Oh, it's even got the plait. And a rucksack and baseball bat!' - and sat it proudly on the corner of her table, where I assume it stayed for some of the day. Apparently it's the best Ace bear she's ever seen - you can't get a better accolade than that! (My head was swelling somewhat by this point, by the way. I don't like to blow my own trumpet but I don't often get so many compliments, and never in such a short space of time, so i hope you can forgive me for including them.)

Last but not least, of course, there was Sylvester, which meant another queue in the same space, which was just daft as because their tables were next to each other you didn't know whether people were waiting for him or for Paul. I'm sure that could have been organised much better than it was. In the same section there were also two chaps who had somethng to do with Star Wars who weren't getting much attention at all which was a bit awkward. They haven't gone back today and I can't blame really them.

I've wanted to meet Sylv for years and he didn’t disappoint. He liked the fabric the bag was made from because its starry night pattern was similar to his waistcoat, which admittedly was why i bought it in the first place. When he got it open and saw what was inside he said 'Oh! I'm a little bear! That’s lovely!’ and when I said I'd made one for Sophie too leaned round trying to see it on Sophie's table. I half wish I'd made a set of both for each of them now but that might have been overkill, and I would have needed a rucksack of my own to transport them all; my bag was full to bursting as it was. Maybe if I see them again I’ll give Sophie a Doctor bear and Sylvester an Ace. As it stands I am so, so pleased that all three of them liked something I'd made so much, and Sylvester and Sophie were both also taken with the cartoons of the Seventh Doctor and Ace that I asked them to sign.

Phew! If you've reached the end of this, well done! I know I have tendency to ramble on and I commend your stamina! I'll put the photos in a separate post but I was one happy camper, especially as just afterwards i got another compliment on my costume and was asked to pose in the TARDIS! We didn't stay the whole day as it was hot, I'd pretty much seen what I wanted to (the Doctor Who 'exhibition' was just a few monster replicas, most of which weren't that good, unlike the really impressive experience they had last year for the 60th and which I would have loved to see. And there were no daleks! My ambition to hug a dalek sadly remains unfulfilled *sniff*) sis had developed a headache, but I'm very glad I went. 😀

#long post #my rambles #paul mcgann #sophie aldred #sylvester mccoy #portsmouth comic con #my bears #doctor who bears #doctor who

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thessalian · 11 months

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Thess vs Good News

Iiiiiiii’m going to MCM Comic Con! And if the stars align and everybody’s on the ball, Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii’m finally getting autographs from the cast of Critical Role! As soon as I heard they were coming back, I was emailing my mother being like, “Hey, remember about three years ago when I asked for an early Christmas / birthday present in the form of tickets to the event and autographs? And then Covid happened and the whole thing had to be scrapped and I was very sad? Well, they’re finally coming back so could we do that deal again, please?” And she said yes and I just now got the ticket confirmation and I think I’m pretty clear on how to get an accessibility badge and while I’m not relaxing until I have autograph bookings for the cast, I am still at least going!

But no, I’m not going to see them run live at Wembley. I did try, but they got sold out way too fucking fast. Which is disappointing not just because I wanted to see that once-in-a-lifetime thing, but also because my bestie threw money at me for the tickets pretty much ten seconds after I squeed about it, because he so wanted me to be able to go because I wanted it so much. But I think in the end it’s just as well. The accessibility options for Wembley are a little ... complicated if you’re not straight-up in a wheelchair, apparently.

(Bestie would not let me give the money back. I asked repeatedly. He said no. So I thought long and hard about something he would really want me to have and did that instead. I’ll show you later.)

Anyway, insofar as the convention goes, there is one tiny bummer. See, when I asked for this as my combination Christmas / birthday gift three years ago, I asked my mother to maybe come with me on the Friday. I really want her to see a convention, at least a little bit, on the least busy day so she doesn’t get overwhelmed. So obviously when the opportunity came around again, I asked her to come with me on the Friday. Unfortunately she’s going to be in Montreal so she won’t be able to make it. So I’ve said maybe we can make a day trip of it in May 2024 and I’ll buy her ticket that time. Because gods know this is almost certainly going to be the last convention I attend in full. It’s going to be rough enough as it is.

There is one plus point to Mum not being able to make it, though, and it comes back to yet another previous convention - one that actually happened. When the CR crew came to London five years ago, they had to arrange a separate smaller panel on Sunday because it was standing room only and still hundreds of people couldn’t get in. Seriously, because the UK is easier to reach for people in Europe and other parts of the world than the US is, we got people from all over Europe and beyond. Furthest away I heard about was the Philippines. (Though in fairness it’s going to be slightly more complicated for Europeans this time around because Brexit is in full swing and Freedom of Movement is a thing of the past. Still easier than flying to San Diego, and probably cheaper too.)

Anyway, Sunday panel, I was in the queue, and I’d made it a point to say something nice to people I came across because I wanted them to have as many good memories of the day as possible. So I told the young woman in the queue just ahead of me that I liked her T-shirt. She reciprocated the compliment, we got to talking, and she was saying how she’d really love to find a campaign and that mine sounded fun but wasn’t it a shame she lives in France but I live here in London? At which I had to explain that my party spanned three countries and four time zones at that point. So, two weeks later, we had a new Monster Hunter Ranger in the party, and she’s been a source of delight ever since.

She’s trying to arrange to come back to get pictures with the cast members she missed (Travis and Laura were on paternity leave at the time, and Ashley had Blind Spot to finish), and if she can come, I have offered my sofa for a few days and the possibility of getting a carer badge so that she can help me if I’m in too much pain or hit with a dizzy spell or something. We’ve discussed it and I just told her that if she really feels like she needs to contribute, she can toss me £20 for groceries while she’s here (because you know I am going to take every opportunity to cook for people I care about). I haven’t seen her in person in years and I hope she can come. (I mean, I’d love it if all of my players could come but it’s an expensive trip and I only have so much sofa.)

So yeah, if all plays out according to plan, I’m finally getting those autographs. I do need to decide once and for all whether I want them to sign my copy of Tal’Dorei Reborn or the original Green Ronin Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting. I’m leaning towards the latter just because ... I mean, it’s where they started, and look at them now! Plus I want them to sign something sturdy because while I have kept them in good condition, I do occasionally fear for my small collection of autographs from the likes of Courtenay Taylor, Mark Meer, Ali Hillis, Alix Wilton Regan, Raphael Sbarge (his in particular, honestly), and Troy Baker calling me ‘Rebel Scum’ because I mained a Jedi Consular in SW:TOR.

(Okay, I originally mained a Smuggler in SW:TOR but then my RP guild wanted a healer for Ops so ... yeah. Republic anyway.)

So ... fun D&D session yesterday, and now good news today, and the added gloriousness of, “A bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors are going to sell out Wembley fucking Arena".

Sometimes life is good.

#Thess loves her friends #Tumblr and otherwise #mcm expo

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grigori77 · 5 months

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2023 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30. SICK – the year’s first real horror cinema surprise was also one of its VERY FIRST standouts period, a brilliant little streaming sleeper from Peacock which snuck in under the radar but EFFORTLESSLY captured my attention AND the darker parts of my imagination. Best of all, though, it was SO COOL to see legendary revisionist horror screenwriter Kevin Williamson return to the “big screen” again after spending so long plying his trade on TV – I was VERY MUCH the target audience for Scream when it came out, I just ATE UP his delicious post-modern deconstruction of the slasher genre and its subsequent follow-ups (although Robert Rodriguez’ The Faculty, his fantastic take on alien invasion movie tropes, remains my very favourite of Willaimson’s creations to date), even if it did lead to a fresh sub-genre which, paradoxically, became increasingly tired and toothless as the years progressed. In the end, I think it’s probably A GOOD THING he took a step back – he just needed a chance to rethink things and find a fresh angle to come at the genre … and BY THE GODS has he ever found one with THIS. Interestingly, for Williamson at least, the Pandemic couldn’t have come along at a better time, giving him fertile ground indeed in which to grow a particularly potent darkly comic slasher which EASILY lives up to his masterworks. Taking place in the early days of the original outbreak, when the first Lockdown was just starting, infection alerts and self-isolation were only just becoming a major thing and everybody was PANICKING over how much they really DIDN’T yet know about what was REALLY going on, the setting was already ripe for some pretty intense, chaotic storytelling … so adding a brutal serial killer with a penchant for killing off the idiots who flagrantly flaunted the COVID safety restrictions and purposefully went out of their way to pretend things were the same as normal was a slick move. The main bulk of the narrative revolves around three college kids in some nondescript part of the US – Parker (Blockers and The Society’s Gideon Adlon), a well-off party girl who’s looking to make some major changes in her life, and her best friend Miri (up-and coming R&B artist Beth Million), who go to Parker’s family’s expansive country home to quarantine in comfort, and Parker’s newly-EX boyfriend DJ (Man of Steel and Teen Wolf’s Dylan Sprayberry), who turns up ostensibly to try and patch things up between them but may simply have come for an opportunistic hook-up – who are targeted by a killer who subsequently hunts them during a night of fraught tension, smartly staged stalk-and-slash set-pieces and a hefty dose of Williamson’s characteristic jet black-but-enjoyably geeky sense of humour, which is this time pitched to a particularly sharp edge of biting finger-on-the-pulse satire given the rich socio-political real-life material he’s able to mine here. The small but extremely potent cast are all BRILLIANT, although the film really is DOMINATED by Adlon, who once again shows that she’s destined for GREAT THINGS INDEED in the future with a brilliant turn that runs an impressive gamut from irresponsibly entitled brat to vitally determined survivor once circumstances have fully driven her to take proper responsibility for her childish behaviour, making for a compellingly sympathetic young heroine we find easy enough to root for. It probably helps the man behind the camera is John Hyams (All Square, Alone), son of legendary genre-hopping director Peter Hyams, who shows he’s definitely inherited his dad’s impressive skill by crafting a lean, tight and precise slice of thrilling cinema which takes full advantage of a tight budget and (mostly) a single location, which results in a brilliant little comedy horror gem that I’d heartily recommend folk hunt down on streaming, or at the very least keep in mind for Halloween …

29. HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE – it’s always nice when a sharp little indie banger sneaks in under the radar to place on one of my lists for the year, and this impressive critically acclaimed underdog thriller definitely shaped up as one of the year’s most memorable examples. It’s a very low-fi, gritty down-and-dirty procedural slice-of-life thriller about a motley collection of eco-terrorists banding together to sabotage an oil pipeline in West Texas, focusing almost entirely on this core group of disillusioned youths played by eight uniformly EXCEPTIONAL actors each handing in genuine (ahem) dynamite performances. Ariele Barer (Marvel’s Runaways), The Revenant’s Forrest Goodluck, American Honey’s Sasha Lane and Marcus Scribner (probably best known as the voice of She-Ra & the Princesses of Power’s Bow) are the undeniable stand-outs here, but all of these kids are ON FIRE throughout, showing they’ve got truly BRIGHT futures ahead of them indeed, while Irene Bedard (Smoke Signals) also impresses in a supporting turn as Joanna, an FBI agent who may be onto their plans … the film bounces between the varying points of view amongst the characters, gradually unveiling their motivations to commit a morally complex terrorist act through a series of scattered flashbacks punctuating the planning, execution and aftermath of the bombing itself, with writer-director Daniel Goldhaber (Cam, here co-adapting Andreas Maim’s incendiary non-fiction novel with Ariele Barer herself and Cam’s co-writer Jordan Sjol) weaving a suitably taut and atmospheric slowburn path throughout the flawlessly executed narrative, the film brilliantly building its wire-taut tension to a rewardingly cathartic climax which is as provocative as the challenging subject matter. This is a film that asks some VERY BIG QUESTIONS and delivers some suitably complicated and rightfully TROUBLING answers, a razor sharp piece of indie cinema which definitely deserves the critical acclaim and cult hit status it’s earned …

28. COCAINE BEAR – gods, if EVER there was a true story that seemed TAILOR MADE for cinema, it’s the bizarre tale of Cokey the Bear, AKA Pablo Eskobear, an American black bear that died after ingesting 34 keys of cocaine that were dumped out of a smuggler’s cargo plane over the Tennessee wilderness in 1985. That being said, it’s not a huge surprise it’s taken Hollywood SO LONG to actually get it made, perhaps it’s just TOO CRAZY a concept for it to have been made before now. Ultimately, the film takes A LOT of liberties with the truth to instead craft an entertaining story, but in the end that’s definitely the smart move, simply using the concept as a springboard to craft a gloriously batshit horror comedy with a JET BLACK sense of humour populated by an offbeat collection of quirky characters. Keri Russell stars as Sari, a nurse and single mother who has to brave the woods in order to find her young daughter Dee Dee (The Florida Project’s Brooklyn Prince), who’s playing hooky in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest with her best friend Henry (Sweet Tooth’s Christian Convery) right when Cokey goes on her drug-fuelled homicidal rampage; meanwhile, recently bereaved widower Eddie (Solo’s Alden Ehrenreich) and his best friend Daveed (Straight Outta Compton’s O’Shea Jackson Jr.) are two drug cartel enforcers reluctantly scouring the area in search of their lost product at the behest of Eddie’s overbearing St Louis drug kingpin father Syd White (the late, great Ray Liotta, to whom the film is dedicated); and then there’s hapless but dogged Knoxville detective Bob (the venerable Isaiah Whitlock Jr.), who knows he can bust White if he can just get his hands on the evidence. All three parties converge in the park while the bear wreaks merry havoc in Elizabeth Banks’ third film as a director (after Pitch Perfect 2 and the CRIMINALLY mistreated and overlooked Charlie’s Angels reboot), which looks like it might FINALLY get people to start taking her serious BEHIND the camera as well as IN FRONT of it – this is a proper laugh-riot of a film which is also delightfully non-PC, and it’s liberally peppered with impressively blood-soaked effects to thrill the gore-hounds as well as an impressively well-realised digital animal character in the eponymous drug-addled beastie. The cast are brilliant too, Russell and Ehrenreich both particularly impressing in their respective nominal lead roles while the kids are EXCEPTIONAL (particularly Convery, getting to gleefully overact as one of the most hyperactive-yet-not-irritating kids I’ve ever seen on screen), and it’s both enriching and a little heartbreaking to watch Liotta once again act his socks off in one of his very last film roles; that being said, several of the scenes are thoroughly STOLEN by the irrepressible Margo Martindale, who’s clearly having the time of her life in one of her most gloriously OTT roles as foul-mouthed, much put-upon park Ranger Liz. Ultimately this is a horror comedy where the balance is definitely tipped very much in favour of the laughs over the scares, but that’s fine, because with a concept this batshit bonkers we were always gonna find it too funny to ever be remotely scary, so the end result is one of THE FUNNIEST MOVIES I ran across in the cinema all year, rightfully revelling in its own inherent irreverence. It’s just about the most fun you could ever expect it to be, which is just what you want from a movie about a cocaine bear, really …

27. THE FLASH – oh boy … yeah, this one is gonna be a COMPLICATED talk. This was one TROUBLED project from day one, from the major shake-ups surrounding the Joss Whedon-compromised Justice League film and the subsequent mess THAT unleashed, through the whole conflicting debate over Zack Snyder’s original vision for the DCEU, and then the eventual collapse of the Cinematic Universe itself, this film, originally entitled Flashpoint (which personally I like A WHOLE LOT more, actually, since it really does pay DIRECT reference to the actually storyline they went with) went through a whole collection of incarnations and reiterations and, for a while, it was starting to look like we might NEVER see it hit our cinema screens at all … and that’s without even mentioning star Ezra Miller’s ongoing legal troubles and essential CANCELLING after their continued outrageous, unacceptable off-set behaviour, which looked set to torpedo the film all on its own. Honestly, I have to admit I was MYSELF a little wary going in, not because of these particular problems but more just the prospect of what I would actually do if, in spite of all this, I actually still LIKED IT … unfortunately for me, that was VERY MUCH the case, which is why we’re here in the first place.

But I must forge on, and so I’m gonna just take this film on ITS OWN face value and ignore the external problems … at least until THE END of the review … because The Flash is, actually, pretty fucking GREAT. Barry Allen (Miller) is finally coming into his own as a fully-fledged member of the Justic League, even if this does frequently mean he’s essentially cleaning up the extreme messes left behind when Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) gets involved in particularly BIG potential world-shattering events, as brilliantly illustrated in the film’s suitably SPECTACULAR opening set-piece, which does a BEAUTIFUL job of not only letting us know EXACTLY what this incarnation of the Flash is actually capable of, but also revealing Barry’s own distinctly unique, offbeat and, frankly, really rather ADORABLE personal style of superheroism. Then the plot itself kicks off when Barry’s father Henry (Ron Livingstone), serving life in prison for the wrongfully-convicted murder of Barry’s mother Nora (Pan’s Labyrinth’s wonderful Maribel Verdu), sees his latest (and, it looks like, FINAL) appeal fall flat due to a crucial new piece of evidence turning out to be useless, and Barry decides he's had enough of ignoring a particularly potent aspect of his superpowers –

the ability to run SO FAST that he can actually GO BACK IN TIME!!! So he races back to the day of his mother’s death and tweaks circumstances so that she survives, only for Barry to then get punted off track before he can return to the present by an unknown entity within “the Speedforce” which then lands him in 2013, just days before Earth’s invasion by the hostile Kryptonian forces of General Zod (Michael Shannon), as seen in Man of Steel. Still with us so far? Yeah, well it gets EVEN MORE complicated, cuz it turns out that, while his mum is now STILL ALIVE, Barry hasn’t got his powers in this universe, which means that he has to reform the Justice League himself in THIS timeline in order to defeat Zod. Except that there are FAR MORE consequences to messing with time than Barry ever took into account set to make things all but insurmountably complicated for him to succeed … beyond this we’re getting into DANGEROUS spoiler territory, beyond the fact that these new developments give rise to whole fresh and very complicated ideas of alternative universes somewhat akin to what the MCU’s already started experimenting with (which is also, actually, something that the DC comics universe does ALL THE BLOODY TIME), which gives rise to whole new incarnations of beloved characters from the established DCEU, some of which HAVE already been revealed in the trailers and beyond, but others not so much, so … yeah, anyway, it’s a glorious MESS of a narrative, but somehow this film does a REALLY IMPRESSIVE job of navigating this jumble in an impressively coherent and breezy way that ultimately makes this a whole lot of fun to watch, actually. Of course, the lion’s share of the praise for this HAS TO go to screenwriter Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey & the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) for wrangling the UNHOLY MESS of development done for the previous incarnations into an actual WORKING script, which was then brought to life with suitably brave and adventurous SKILL by director Andy Muschietti (Mama and It Chapter One and Two), but the uniformly EXCEPTIONAL cast shoulder a good deal of that responsibility too –

Miller may be problematic in real life, but there can be no denying that he is FUCKING BRILLIANT in his signature role, crafting a hyperactive, ultra-awkward social misfit of a superhero that us various underdog kids just can’t help rooting for, while it is a MASSIVE pleasure to get to see MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE Batman return as this AU’s altered version of Bruce Wayne, the legendary Michael Keaton himself again proving why he really is THE VERY BEST VERSION of the character out there (and I will accept NO ARGUMENT AT ALL about that, I swear you can all FIGHT ME on this particular hill upon which I am determined to DIE if I must), and Livingstone and Verdu bring an IMMENSE amount of pathos to their characters throughout which makes it ABUNDANTLY CLEAR why Barry tries SO HARD to save them both, and it’s also great fun getting to see Michael Shannon back as the Big Bad here again, I always really liked this spectacular scenery-chewing version of Zod. For me, though, the biggest win here has to be The Young & the Restless’ Sasha Calle, making her big screen debut as the most impressive and DCEU-consistent incarnation of Kara Zor-El, aka SUPERGIRL, that we could ever have hoped for, she’s a truly AWESOME creation, EASILY as badass as Henry Cavill’s Supes but also a good deal more complex as a character too. Ultimately it’s a shame that circumstances mean that we likely won’t get to see more of her in future projects, much like Keaton’s returning Batman, as they’re definitely the unexpected heart and soul of the film, easily delivering in the most impressively iconic set-pieces and memorable character beats. Indeed, this is SO BLOODY BRILLIANT all round as a film – from its spectacular action sequences, through its frequent gleefully anarchic screwball humour, to a variety of impressive jaw-dropping game-changer twists in the narrative – that the fact that the DCEU itself is officially over and all of this means PRECISELY ZERO in the face of where it’s all going in James Gunn’s incoming Cinematic Universe reboot makes this feel all the more ultimately pointless, which lends any viewing a bittersweet aftertaste no matter HOW enjoyable it all is. I mean granted, it’s NOT perfect (there is, famously, some pretty clunky CGI that ALMOST takes you out of the experience, especially in the climactic sequence when we see the timelines start to collide), but then very few of the DCEU movies HAVE BEEN anyway, and this one still works just fine for what it is. So it may not have any actual VALUE for the series moving forward, but it’s still a really great movie that MORE THAN deserves to be seen for its own merits, and I highly recommend you give it a chance anyway. At least Gunn and co have seen the sense to keep Muschietti onboard for their reboot (namely helming the new DCU’s Batman reboot The Brave & the Bold), and if they’ve any more sense they’ll bring Christina Hodson back for more too …

26. THE EQUALIZER 3 – Director Antoine Fuqua and Denzel Washington have had a long and extremely fruitful working relationship, from their earliest collaboration on his best-known film, Training Day (which finally landed Washington his long-overdue best actor Oscar, although many of us agree that it SHOULD have gone to him a few years prior for The Hurricane), through the EXTREMELY impressive remake of the classic western The Magnificent Seven, to their most lucrative and long-running collab to date, a series of feature adaptations of a cult classic TV thriller show from the 80s which has now reached its THIRD instalment and STILL seems to be running at full steam with no sign of flagging. Indeed, this just might be THE BEST ONE YET … Washington once again effortlessly delivers a coolly sophisticated, often understated but still typically deeply nuanced turn as Robert McCall, the former special-forces soldier turned SOCOM operative who reemerged from self-imposed faked-death-retirement in the first film in order to deliver bloody retribution for the brutal assault of a young girl, only to subsequently find a new calling as a freelance guardian angel for the weak and powerless who have nowhere else to turn with a dangerous problem. This time round his antiheroic adventures has brought him to Italy, where the ill-fated end of his latest operation sees him near death from a bullet in his back, being nursed back to health in the remote coastal town of Altamonte. It’s here that he finally finds that true peace that’s so long eluded him as he recovers from his injuries, but he finds himself ultimately dragged back into the fray when a

Camorra crime outfit from Naples, looking to expand their operation to new territories, starts trying to exploit the townsfolk that Robert has grown so close to beyond their breaking point … ultimately this is a more slowburn, understated affair than the previous two films, but that actually proves to be this instalment’s greatest strength, allowing us to get closer to our Equalizer than ever before, as well as the people he’s driven to help, which makes this BY FAR the most emotionally investing film in the trilogy, and makes us root for Robert like never before as we wait for him to FINALLY bring the pain to these Mafioso thugs. That dam-break, when they finally come, is as viscerally intense as we’ve come to expect from the series, but thanks to the additional groundwork this time round the kills and cathartic payback delivered feel more satisfyingly substantial, while the film’s greatest pleasures ultimately lie more in the anticipation as Fuqua cranks the tension tighter and we edge further forward in our seats. Once again, the supporting cast all shine through, with Andrea Scarduzio (Colour On the Cross) giving great bad guy as subtly reptilian Mob boss Vincent Quaranta, ably backed up by Andrea Dodero (Thou Shalt Not Hate) as Vincent’s vicious, jumped up thug of a little brother Marco, while Gaia Scodellaro (CentroVetrine) and Eugenio Mastrandeo (From Scratch) deftly show us what’s so worth fighting for in this town as effervescently friendly local café owner Aminah and Altamonte’s principled but pragmatically fair sole Carabinieri Gio Bonucci; the biggest standout, however, is Dakota Fanning as Emma Collins, the smart and dogged FBI agent who ends up tracking Robert down following his involvement in the opening showdown and uncovers a whole nest of previous overlooked criminal chaos. At the end of the day though, this is ONCE AGAIN every inch Washington’s film, the erstwhile star clearly enjoying himself immensely in one of the best and most iconic

roles of his career, although this third instalment looks like it might be the last Equalizer with him in the lead since it becomes abundantly clear that it’s looking to wind things up for Robet’s final adventure in a suitably satisfying way. That being said, there’s definitely room, interest and clear demand for more from both the fanbase AND the creatives here, with the pervading theory being that we may be going back to the early days of McCall’s time with the CIA, in which case the obvious choice moving forward would be to let John David Washington step into his dad’s shoes as young Robert. In truth it’s the only smart choice …

25. ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA – coming off the back of 2022’s decidedly hit-and-miss big screen slate for Disney and Marvel’s current flagship property, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, THIS past year’s first MCU release had A LOT of eyes on it. Gods know, I definitely had TWO OF ‘EM … and it probably wasn’t the best title to be laying all this weight on, either – the Ant-Man movies in particular have always been a bit of a marmite property within the larger universe, with as many detractors as fans, which definitely didn’t help things here. If this turned out to be third time unlucky for Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and the rest, it could spell much larger disaster for the MCU overall, or at the very least signify that the cracks are definitely growing beyond the studios’ capacity to patch ‘em up on the run. So I’ll admit, I went into this one with a whole lot of trepidation … was it unwarranted? Well, being completely honest … not ENTIRELY. Tried-and-tested comedy director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man films have always been a pretty mad collection anyway, as much a full-blown comedy sub-franchise as the Guardians of the Galaxy movies or Thor under Taika Waititi, but even so they still managed to keep ONE FOOT on the ground even while the rest was set EXTENSIVELY in the Quantum Realm, but this one has somewhat jumped the shark. Granted, part of this film’s particular OTT outlandishness and unabashed WACKINESS is down to narrative necessity – giving too much away plot-wise unfortunately runs the risk of dropping some MASSIVE spoilers, but it’s at least safe to say that the lion’s share of the story takes place ENTIRELY in the Quantum Realm this time, and it’s a place which is A WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT from anything we might have imagined from our very brief visits in Ant-Man & the Wasp and Avengers: Endgame. For a start, it’s A WHOLE LOT BIGGER than we thought it was, and MUCH more heavily populated by some truly WEIRD SHIT … the film also has some major heavy-lifting to do with regards to setting up the Big Bad for Phase 5 and 6 both – Kang the Conqueror (The Last Black Man In San Francisco and Creed III’s Jonathan Majors), a Multiverse-based Thanos level threat we first encountered (sort of) in 2021’s runaway hit first season of Loki. This at least is one of the areas in which the movie definitely SUCCEEDED – ultimately problematic as he may have become since the film’s release, Majors at least did a commendable job of establishing one of the franchise’s most interesting and effective supervillains, a near God Tier Bad Guy who’s clearly gonna give the whole Avengers roster a run for their money when they finally come face to face with him (in whatever recast form he ultimately takes). The plot, such as it is, is pure scrambled bananas, a heavyweight mindfuck it’s best to just DISENGAGE the brain to go with in order to get proper enjoyment

out of – this is definitely a cinematic GUILTY PLEASURE, and trying to take it even remotely seriously immediately draws the eye to a thousand gaping plot-holes and glaring narrative stumbles. At least the patented stunning, primary coloured visuals, winning sense of humour and cavalcade of delightfully wacky set-pieces (the clone-spawning “probability explosion” sequence is a particularly overblown, super-trippy highlight with an unexpected tear-jerk factor built in) are all fully functional and behaving correctly, and the thoroughly endearing cast all deliver admirably with nary an off-note hint of miscasting – Rudd and Evangeline Lilly (returning as Hope van Dyne AKA the titular Wasp) are both still pitch perfect, while it’s nice to see Michael Douglas and PARTICULARLY Michelle Pfeiffer getting to do a whole lot more this time round as Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, and the glaring Michael Pena-shaped hole is ALMOST filled by a few other quality comedic turns from the likes of deadpan laugh-MASTER Bill Murray and David Dastmalchian (here returning in a VERY interesting but also very DIFFERENT role to what we’ve seen from him here before), as well as a surprise returning face (ahem) from this trilogy’s past. Meanwhile, alongside Majors there are other similarly noteworthy series newcomers who make BIG IMPRESSIONS, from Z Nation and The Mandalorian’s Katy O’Brien (who’s been a growing favourite of mine for a little while now), who’s a completely EPIC badass I wanna see A LOT more of in the future as hard-nosed Quantum freedom fighter Jentorra, to Kathryn Newton (Supernatural, Freaky), making the role of Scott’s now (pretty much) full-grown daughter Cassie ENTIRELY her own, and she’s clearly got a MAJOR future ahead of her in the MCU herself now she’s started carving out her own super-powered secret identity (roll on Young Avengers, I say!). The movie may be another flawed, somewhat unwieldy and occasionally downright CLUNKY beast, but the franchise is still managing to stand up where it counts, and compared to the likes of Thor: Love & Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever it definitely holds up a good deal better in its own right. Most of all, though, it’s A WHOLE LOT of pure, unadulterated FUN, which is ultimately exactly what you want from a big primary-coloured superhero blockbuster. In the end, it still remains to be seen if the MCU can be clawed back from the brink it’s still teetering perilously on the edge of, but despite all that’s still wrong with it, this is at least a VERY SMALL step back in the right direction …

24. THE PALE BLUE EYE – largely sneaking in under the radar on Netflix to start the New Year off, the latest offering from highly acclaimed indie writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass, Antlers) is, much as we’d likely expect from such a consistently varied, genre-hopping filmmaker, a strange, unique and deeply intriguing beast of a film. Adapted from Louis Bayard’s well-received speculative fiction novel about a young Edgar Allan Poe aiding the investigation of a bafflingly macabre murder in the US Military Academy at West Point in the early 1830s. Christian Bale returns with typical stoic, intense and magnificently brooding megawatt presence for his THIRD leading man tour of duty for Cooper (after Out of the Furnace and Hostiles) as Augustus Landor, a former West Point graduate-turned misanthropic former detective brought in to lead the investigation into the brutal hanging and evisceration (with additional heart-removal) of a young cadet that’s baffling the faculty and local police, which is soon compounded when additional bodies start piling up. He’s aided in his endeavours by another cadet, the young Poe himself (played to PERFECTION by Harry Potter’s own Harry Melling, continuing his meteoric and deeply impressive rise to prominence with another TOUR-DE-FORCE performance here), while the clues lead to a variety of deeply troubling twists and revelations as well as an intriguing collection of suitably odd and often highly charismatic characters played by the sterling likes of Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney and a fascinatingly unusual turn from Robert Duvall, although the real standout here is a truly MAGNIFICENT career-best performance from Gillian Anderson. Cooper piles on the story’s doom-laden gothic atmosphere to great effect throughout while cranking up the slowburn and deeply uncomfortable suspenseful tension throughout, while the plot is nothing short of MACHIAVELLIAN in its levels of ingenious labyrinthine intelligence, dropping an ultimate denouement that you really have to be paying SERIOUS ATTENTION to see coming, and the production design, costumes, period detail and, most of all, the thoroughly MOODY bleak-midwinter cinematography make for a freezing cold but thoroughly rewarding feast for the eyes for the most discerning film-fanatic. Altogether Cooper’s delivered another winner, and I hope he continues to make films this good well into the future.

23. DOOR MOUSE – Avan Jogia may be best known as an actor in fare like Caprica, Zombieland: Double Tap and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, but his debut feature as a writer-director definitely shows he’s got a lot of potential as a genuine filmmaking talent moving forward. This is an edgy, offbeat and enjoyably quirky little indie oddity that CLEARLY doesn’t care to play by anyone’s conventional rules, telling its unapologetically DARK and dirty little story the way IT WANTS TO without ever trying to spell its message out for the viewer. Riverdale’s Hayley Law is, as ever, simply MESMERISING as Mouse, a tough, hard-bitten burlesque dancer looking to make a better life for herself as a comic book creator, only for fate to throw a wrench in the works for her when girls at her club start disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Her resulting investigation leads to the shocking realisation that they’re being kidnapped into a life of sexual slavery, and it looks like she’s going to have to make a bold and very dangerous choice in order to effect a rescue … as always, Law simply OWNS the screen, powering the story along with equal parts guarded bravado and well-hidden wounded vulnerability, and she’s ably supported by the likes of Keith Powers (Straight Outta Compton) as Mouse’s best friend Ugly, the club’s unassuming but VERY capable bouncer, the great Famke Janssen as Mama, the club’s owner and Mouse’s laconic mother figure, and Jogia himself as her ex-boyfriend, local drug-dealing hood Mooney. The plot twists and turns with suitably pulpy skill while Mouse’s comic book bleeds into the narrative through striking imagery and quirky little animated episodes, while the film tackles big, dark themes with an unflinching eye and refuses to deliver easy answers, particularly in the cathartic but suitably JET BLACK ending. This is a hell of a debut for a promising new filmmaking talent, then, and I’d LOVE to spend some more time with Mouse herself if Jogia and Law are willing …

22. SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS – it’s interesting that, at least on here, the DC Cinematic Universe (AKA the DCEU) has managed to stand up so well this past year, especially given the recent MAJOR upheavals that have rocked the franchise as a whole. Not least because said Universe is essentially about to get hit with a Hard Reset under the guidance of new DC Studios CEO James Gunn, so none of this even MATTERS any more going forward … certainly this fact has NOT been lost on cinemagoers, who were already starting to pull away when Black Adam came out in late 2022 and subsequently seemed content to STAY away IN DROVES for this one, likely waiting to give it a go in the privacy and safety of their own homes once it hit streaming. In a way this sounded a pre-emptive death knell for the DCEU which I was genuinely sceptical about it recovering from … which is a shame, because 2019’s Shazam! was one of the franchise’s BEST FEATURES, a gleefully anarchic post-modern deconstruction of the overblown superhero antics the franchise largely glorified before while never taking itself particularly seriously but simply playing itself with just the right amount of knowing wink-and-nod. Even more of a shame, then, that this follow-up has proven to be SUCH a performance TURKEY, because it’s JUST AS GOOD as the first one, taking all the lessons learned from the first movie to heart and delivering more of everything that really WORKED once again while trying something new and fresh to expand on this little corner of the Universe with impressive aplomb and consummate skill.

Returning director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out) once again delivers in HIGH STYLE and customary spooky flair as he and returning screenwriter Henry Gayden (Earth To Echo, There’s Someone In Your House), along with Fast & Furious franchise lynchpin scribe Chris Morgan, expand on the adventures of coming-of-age young hero Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) and his (still unnamed) superpowered alter ego (Zachary Levi), alongside his now similarly gifted teenaged foster siblings, as the Daughters of Atlas – Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu) and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), a trio of immensely powerful but (somewhat) morally dubious classical Greek goddesses – come to claim their powers for their own in order to rejuvenate the Tree of Life and punish Mankind for its wickedness. The usual existential high stakes, then. Angel and Levi are, once again, ON FIRE here, the former star of Chuck in particular once again proving what an undisputable comedic MASTER he is while they both deliver MAGNIFICENTLY in the dramatic moments too, while their returning co-stars and sterling veteran support are once again just as great as before, It’s Jack Dylan Grazer particularly getting to really SHINE this time round in a particularly WEIGHTY role that nonetheless once again manages to utilise his own impressive comedic talents to full effect too, while it’s also GREAT to see This Is Us’ Faith Herman get a much more expanded role this time round as the irrepressible Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, also gets a lot more to do as he returns as the enjoyably crabby and pompous Wizard Shazam, who’s none too happy with Billy for breaking the staff last time round and setting this all off in the first place. The Daughters, meanwhile, are FANTASTIC antagonists, Liu and Mirren clearly enjoying the opportunity to be flamboyant, majestic and over-the-top in proper Shakespearean

style, while Zegler invests “Anne” with a good deal more moral fibre and complexity as the most sympathetic (and ultimately conflicted) of the trio. Sandberg and co again deliver IN SPADES on the action, atmospherics, gorgeously exotic design and sheer creativity which made the first movie such an unexpected treat, while also delivering more of that winning, sometimes downright SCREWBALL BONKERS humour to keep it entertaining and let you know that, just like its predecessor, this film knows FULL WELL how ridiculous it is and is fully prepared to just OWN IT. The end result is, ultimately, one of the best of the closing slate of DCEU films, which just makes it even sadder to think that they probably won’t continue the story once the franchise reboots.

21. GODZILLA MINUS ONE – as much as I LOVE the new efforts of Warner Bros’ impressively robust Monsterverse Expanded Universe to bring the greatest big screen kaiju of them all to life, I am not even REMOTELY surprised that it took a Japanese writer-director to truly get right down to the heart of the character with what feels like the truest, most respectful and, quite simply, VERY BEST big screen reworking of the classic original to date. Mostly I just count myself lucky I was able to find a showing at my local cinema that I could actually get to – this is definitely one of those features that really does DESERVE to be seen on the BIG screen. Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki certainly has an impressive track record, having helmed the likes of Space Battleship Yamato, The Great War of Archimedes and Lupin III: The First, but even so, this came somewhat out of the blue to not only become a MASSIVE, runaway hit in Japan but also in foreign markets, particularly blowing away western audiences who are universally praising it as one of THE greatest movies of this decade so far. All right … from a purely critical point of view, I may not quite think THAT about this, but this IS an EXTREMELY GOOD FILM, Yamazaki guiding an impressively game cast and clearly deeply committed crew to create a work of rare emotional power and uplifting intensity that tells a breathless tale of the unbreakable power of the human spirit even in the face of HORRIFIC cataclysmic events … a theme which has, of course, remained close to the hearts of the Japanese ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which famously directly informed Ishiro Honda’s beloved original. This time round, Godzilla is a pure, monstrous and thoroughly TERRIFYING force of nature throughout the film, a devastating and unstoppable mutated aberration created by the fallout of America’s H-bombs, which is unleashing unfathomable chaos across post-World War II Japan, leading a band of desperate civilians to take matters into their own hands and attempt a desperate stand to stop the horror before all is lost. Ryunosuke Kamiki (probably best known for his years of work as one of Studio Ghibli’s key voice actors) proves a compellingly fallible hero as deeply traumatised failed kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima, who finds himself battling internal demons even worse than the monster he’s up against in the real world, ably supported by Minami Hanabe (The Great War of Archimedes) as Noriko, the spirited young adoptive mother that Koichi takes in after returning from the war and forms a tight bond with, Hidetaka Yoshiaki (Always: Sunset On Third Street) as Professor Kenji Noda, the former Naval weapons engineer who becomes Koichi’s mentor, and Munetaka Aoki (Rurouni Kenshin) as Sosaku Tachibana, a former Naval fighter mechanic suffering from his own deep-seated traumas after the War. This is an interesting departure from the classic Kaiju cinema recipe, because while the Big G is definitely a powerful and potent threat that casts a very BIG shadow over events here, Minus One is ultimately less of a monster movie than a movie with a monster IN IT, Yamazaki preferring to focus on the human story and concentrate our attention on the horrors these people have to endure at the unfathomably massive claws of this terrible creature, certainly physical but predominantly mental and emotional. That’s not to say it ain’t suitably potent in the action stakes, EASILY delivering some suitably THRILLING set-pieces while the creature himself and the chaos he unleashes is portrayed with impressively executed visual effects flair … it’s just that, ultimately, this is a film which is much more of a triumph of GREAT WRITING, peerless direction and awards-worthy performances from an astonishing cast. In other words, it’s just a really GREAT FILM, period. Which makes this something TRULY SPECIAL after all, I guess …

#2023 in movies #sick #sick movie #how to blow up a pipeline #cocaine bear #the flash #the equalizer 3 #ant man and the wasp quantumania #the pale blue eye #door mouse #door mouse movie #shazam fury of the gods #godzilla minus one

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deathanddiatribes · 7 months

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Hey How Are You?

Cause i'm not doing great.

I don't really know why I started this one other than to rant into the void about being a deathcare worker and all the baggage that entails.

So I should probably introduce myself.

Hi, my name is Cait. I'm a licensed funeral director and embalmer, and of all the many names for what I do, I prefer mortician. I've been in deathcare for just about five years. I went back to school in 2018 to get my degree in Mortuary Science, and after a couple short apprenticeships, really started working just about 3 months before Covid hit in 2020.

I've worked as a removal tech, a night-shift embalmer, a trade embalmer, a funeral director, a crematory operator, and I am currently working as a funeral director/embalmer/natural organic reduction operator. At least, those are the licenses I currently have.

What I actually do most days is funeral directing- which is an amorphous, incredibly frustrating, sometimes deeply satisfying, always exhausting field to be in.

Because funeral directors aren't just funeral directors. We're also corpse wranglers/accountants/the IT department/unofficial therapists/officiants/party planners/babysitters/record keepers/scapegoats/family mediators/servants. Some folks work for big companies where they only have three or four of those jobs, but I can promise you that no one in this industry is ever just doing one thing.

I'm also a comic artist (not ha ha comic but paper comic), so I make a lot of comics about deathcare and what it means. I'm a nerd, so I read a lot of books about grief and philosophy and how our brains work. People always seem to want to interact with my comics about what I do, so I figured I would keep making them, and start writing about a lot of the things we do as well. I want to make our current culture less death-phobic and more proactive about what they can do to maintain their autonomy even after they're gone.

I also want to talk about what it means to work in this industry (because it is an industry, and often it can feel like working in a bleak, Orwellian factory from a future without color) and what effect it has on the people who care enough to make it their lives. There's a reason people burn out of this line of work quickly and often. We don't take care of the people who take care of our dead, and that's a huge problem.

So that's it, I guess. I wanna scream into the void about all that stuff, so I will. You're welcome to join me if you'd like.

#death #deathcare #death care #mortician #funeral director #mortuary science #mental health #burnout #comics #rambling

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prettywitchiusaka · 2 years

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So I meant to make this post last week, but, gonna be honest, I wasn’t feeling super great up until a few days ago.

Now that I’m starting to feel like myself again (and with the recent announcement regarding who will be writing Secret Wars), I figured that now is the time to make an addendum to my post about today’s writers (at least in Hollywood, anyway) don’t seem to do any research, be it for adaptational purposes, or just to enhance their own work to make it better/flesh out the world and characters a little.

And honestly, I feel like Michael Waldron is a perfect example of this (with Jessica Gao being a close second).

I’ve made no secret that I have very mixed opinions and feeling regarding Multiverse of Madness, mostly staked in my love of Doctor Strange in general, and his MCU counterpart in particular. I tend to be a lot kinder to it than most, as I do think it’s a decent film that needs another rewrite or two before it could’ve been something great. But let’s be clear, I actually don’t entirely blame Waldron for what went wrong with this film. From what I know about the production, it really seems like Kevin Feige is the real villain of Multiverse.

I recently discovered watching MauLer’s take down of the film (I skimmed through it, tbh) that, as Waldron puts it, he was hired by Feige to come on board shortly after Derrickson left. Now that part I knew, as I’d been keeping up with the film’s production on and off since the initial announcement back in 2019. What did surprise me, though, was that they already had sets being built when Waldron came on board, meaning that not only were they still building sets that were made for the Jade Bartlett draft, it also meant that shooting was set to start soon. This meant Waldron was left to write a new draft with very little time to prepare (three weeks) according to him. And...well, this is where I’m actually going to defend the man for a moment.

Do I blame Waldron for performing the job he was hired to do? No. Unless your Harlan Ellison or (maybe) John Hughes, NOBODY can write a polished shooting script for a big budget film in three weeks. It simply doesn’t happen, and I put the blame entirely on Feige for that one. It’s INSANE for him to think that Waldron (or anyone for that matter) could turn in something worthy of being called a Doctor Strange film in that timeframe, especially when he’d already wasted time, resources and freaking MONEY creating standing sets and character designs for the original script that was discarded because he wanted his precious Multiverse saga, and couldn’t be bothered to wait another film or two before getting to that.

So yeah, I don’t blame Waldron for that.

That being said...I do blame Waldron for what happened after.

It’s no secret that the film industry (Marvel included) was shut down for a bit due to Covid, and Multiverse was no exception. This means Waldron was given a second chance. He could watch the first DS film, read some comics, do a quick wiki search and figure out which Doctor Strange comics are essential to the character and which ones he should read to write a new draft. You think he did any of that? Nope. Of course he didn’t.

This is what I mean about how we’re heading into an age of writers who don’t seem to do any research. Instead of studying Bartlett’s draft extensively, reading up on some comics, hell, maybe even phoning up Benedict and consulting with him on basic DS lore, he doesn’t do any of that. Instead, he just makes up his own plot and makes Wanda the villain because “Marvel wanted a Multiverse movie, so I had to figure out who’d be a threat to it”, even though he could’ve easily re-worked Nightmare into his plot if he’d been bothered to look up anything about the character. I mean, dreams are established to be windows into the lives of one’s Multiversal selves, how hard would it have been?

And before anyone chimes in and says “Well, he was probably busy with other projects”, I’m sure he was. But guess what? If you’re a professional writer in any capacity? You’re ALWAYS working on several assignments at once. Especially if you’re freelance. And yeah, sometimes you don’t always turn out something great. Sometimes you have several projects going on, and you have to whip up something that’s not your best due to time constraints. It happens. But if you’re passionate about writing, you’ll still put in the time and effort to make something worthwhile. You’ll do research and try to understand the material you’re writing about. And if fail that’s fine, because at least you tried.

And Waldron very clearly didn’t.

I’d hate to say “Don’t quit your day job”, but if you don’t want to put in the effort to improve your craft than maybe you should stick to being a producer, Waldron!

#Prettywitch Rants #prettywitch's philosophies on writing #research #writing #marvel cinematic universe #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #michael waldron #anti waldron #just realized another issue with waldron's writing #as i was typing this #he and a lot fo writers today are fucking lazy!#kevin feige #side note #fuck feige

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starryevening · 1 year

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2023 resolutions & goals

lol i post these for myself so they’re easy to find and archive. took me a month to think of the big hits but here we go.

Life & Living

Better Manage Deadlines This is probably the biggest ongoing goal-but I want to see you improve your time management this year and generally hit more deadlines. It was really rough last year and we wanna try to improve.

Explore More You’re still struggling with social anxiety and reverting from some hermit like habits you gained over 2020. Try getting out there more, even a little.

Leave your apartment at least 4 days a week prioritize consistency even if it’s brief.

Try dedicating one day a month to go on some kind of ‘outing’ by yourself to get more comfortable with your own company (such as going to an art gallery, music show, movie etc).

Initiate Socialization More Try to be more proactive in in-person hang outs this year. Offer game nights or go out of your way to see more folks in person. Also don’t be afraid to initiate discord calls/hangouts-we did a little better last year but we can do more this year.

Add Good Habits to Your Free Time Now that you have a pretty regular schedule with work, try reintroducing things you used to love and set aside while too busy in college/post grad. Aim for at least one of the following;

Read a book on nights before work in office

Read at least 12 new books ( comic & novels )

Sing more often, even if it sounds bad

Settle into your Apartment We’ll be moving this year to a more long term place, so take some real time to make it home as soon as you move in. Don’t wait half a year this time for the love of god-prioritize it asap.

Health

Maintenance Medical Appointments I'm glad you’re finally set up with your new health insurance - now it’s time to actually use it. There are some regular maintenance things you haven’t done need to prioritize this year.

Go to a Dentist

Go to An Eye Doctor

Get a General Practice Doctor

Discuss Birth control, Discuss Pap Smear, Discuss Mammograms, Possibly Discuss Metal Ankle implant, Possibly that other thing.

Find a Reliable Physical Activity Post covid you've still had a lot of trouble with keeping active, especially given that you don’t live in a super walkable neighborhood. Try finding a physical activity of any kind that you can tolerate and do on a weekly basis. Some ideas are:

Walking in the park ( Photograph nature )

Yoga inside ( to podcasts etc. )

Renew YWCA and Swim again

Improve Hygiene Routines I’d like to try to make some reasonable additions to your personal hygiene this year, you grubby backwoods creature. Some suggestions include:

Start a daily skincare routine

Wash your face daily

Look into better skin and hair care methods.

Continue Maintaining Mental Health

You’ve done a great job of managing your mental health in the past year-honestly I don’t have any improvements to suggest, just want to encourage you to keep up the pace.

Art & Profession

Create New Portfolio Work Generally an easy task, but Considering putting additional focus into some of the ideas on the below list

Create at least Three new Pieces

Experiment with color, & more dark / dramatic shading

Experiment with Mock Comic / Book Covers, Posters

Experiment with Prop or Background focused pieces

Experiment with weird comic paneling & composition

Experiment with Product Design ( Pins, Patches etc. )

Revise & Overhaul Your Portfolio This is going to be a pain in the ass but it’s long overdue. Move your site to a new host that’s less expensive and take some time to get feedback from peers to retune and refine your Portfolio site. Create a Commission Site / Carrd and Open them Again Add a small commission side-site as well and use that to set aside funds for fun events or bigger future projects. This is kind of gonna be your play money. Plan a Larger Scale Project Try planning out, in a tangible form a larger scale project. This could be a longer mini comic, creating some enamel pins or organizing a zine project. But I’d really like you to make headway on some of your many larger scale projects this year.

#personal #resolutions #2023

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therecordconnection · 2 years

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A Man-Made American God: Bo Burnham’s "Bezos" Tetralogy as an Analogy for Religion

(Left: Lex Luthor, Superman’s arch enemy. Right: Jeffery Bezos, former CEO of Amazon.)

Jeffery Preston Bezos, Executive Chairman of Amazon, is the closest we will ever get to having a real life Lex Luthor. A man with more money than a human being could ever need and someone so known for callous disregard for working class people (and human life in general) that he may as well be a real life comic book supervillain. Since he is indeed a real guy, one can only hold out hope that Superman is also real. Though in the world of Amazon Prime original shows The Boys and Invincible (now streaming!), Superman is shown to be the bad guy.

Regardless, in real life we have Lex Luthor, but Superman has yet to show himself... but at least we have Bo Burnham.

In March 2020, much like the rest of the world, Burnham went into lockdown, being confined to his California home for months on end due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike the rest of us, Burnham came out of that quarantine with a Netflix special, 2021′s Inside, that has gone on to enjoy immense success and critical praise. Due to the special's wide array of topics, some have found it hard to call it a straightforward comedy special. Hell, some people (myself included) have found difficulty labeling it as any one thing. Inside contains multitudes: comedy, drama, documentary, theater, music, stand-up, meta-commentary, a psychological character study, and tinges of postmodernism. Have a look around and take your pick at what Inside is. There’s no need to panic, this isn’t a test.

In addition to containing many structural elements, Inside also boasts a healthy variety of comedic song topics, from the aggravations involved with FaceTiming with your mom, to a sock hand puppet (appropriately named "Socko") giving vital lessons on how the world works, to the wonders of sexting and the despair that comes with turning 30 years old (a milestone birthday Burnham celebrated during the quarantine). With Inside, Burnham somehow finds a way to cover all of the things that people probably experienced or thought about during the pandemic-era, all without ever using words related to "COVID-19" or "Pandemic." However, one man in particular gets two songs dedicated to him in the special ("Bezos I" and "Bezos II"), and another two ("Bezos III" and "Bezos IV") that saw the light of day later when Burnham released Inside: The Outtakes, commemorating the one year anniversary of Inside's release. That man is:

Jeffery Preston Bezos.

In the context of where these songs appear in the special, “Bezos I” is just another short comedy number sandwiched between a short lament about how much being an unpaid intern sucks and a song where Bo worries that sexting his girlfriend a ferris wheel emoji will somehow imply that he thinks her vagina is as big as one. “Bezos II” has the tougher job of being the song that has to provide a comedic breather after the dread and darkness found in the songs "Welcome to the Internet" and "That Funny Feeling." Hell, "Bezos II" is the final song one could classify as funny, seeing as "That Funny Feeling," "All Eyes on Me," "Goodbye," and "Any Day Now" are anything but outright funny. "Bezos III" and "Bezos IV" exist only as outtakes so it's questionable if they were written before or after the two Bezos songs that made it into Inside proper. Still, four songs about Amazon’s (in)famous founder, even if three of them are under a minute in length (“Bezos III” breaks this by being 1:25) is an interesting and rather overlooked part of the music Burnham both included and excluded from his special. What does the Bezos Tetralogy become when all four songs are combined and listened to in sequence?

They become a short suite where each part works together to transform Jeff Bezos and his rise to power into an analogy for the development and collapse of a religion. There is more to Burnham’s four “Bezos” songs than meets the eye. Let’s explore.

Bezos I: From “Humble Beginnings”

“Bezos I” begins the tetralogy with satire at its finest. Burnham sings the song from the point of view of someone who praises ol' Jeffery as a "self-made" man. The story begins simply with "CEO, entrepreneur / Born in 1964 / Jeffrey / Jeffrey Bezos." There are no lies yet. All of those are true statements.

The lines after are entirely fictional. Burnham (as well as a good chunk of his audience) knows this.

"Come on, Jeffrey, you can do it / Pave the way, put your back into it" is an obvious nod to the standard American Dream mantra. Hoist yourself by your bootstraps, work real hard, and anybody can strike it rich in this country. That's one form of the famous saying. The obvious joke is that Bezos didn't have to "put his back into it" at all. When he started Amazon in 1995, his mother and stepfather invested $245,573 in the company. See? You too can be just like Bezos! (You know, just make sure you have parents that are well off and have close to $250,000 laying around). So maybe he had a little help. That kind of money is still "coming up from nothing"... right?

The next lines are where things get really interesting.

"Tell us why / Show us how / Look at where you came from / Look at you now." One can interpret Burnham's lines as disciples asking a spiritual leader to guide them to the plateau Bezos stands upon. Another skeevy American mantra, this time one that is commonly found in lazily written self-help books and budding entrepreneurs treat as gospel: "I did it! You can do it too!" If Bezos can become richer than God through one company, one great idea, surely I can do it too! Surely he must know some secret that I don't! So tell us why, Jeff! Show us how, Jeff! If we follow in Bezos' steps, surely he will lead us to the answers! Keep believing in him and I'm sure he will! Just don't ask him for any bathroom breaks.

The final verse celebrates Bezos, considering him to be the best of the best, a man carved from a different stone. It goes like this:

"Zuckerberg and Gates and Buffett

Amateurs can fucking suck it

Fuck their wives, drink their blood

Come on, Jeff, get 'em”

Burnham sings these lines like a deranged sports fan rooting for their favorite team to win a championship, as if rooting for one specific billionaire is any different or better than rooting for Jeffrey. It isn't hard to change the lyrics of this song and replace "Jeffery Bezos" with "William Gates" or "Warren Buffett." Nobody mentioned here is worth celebrating this intensely.

"Bezos I," both in this context and on its own, is basically a high quality shitpost... and it's fantastic. Burnham hilariously captures the idiocy of the now all-too-common trend of chuds engaging in billionaire-as-hero worship, coming to the defense of billionaires such as Bezos and Zuckerberg whenever they’re under attack in Twitter threads. It's a hilarious song because it's an exuberant synth-pop banger that takes the complete piss out of a man they admire way too much. It resonated with the audiences that saw its satirical nature, one of those audiences being Tik Tok. When Bezos blasted off into space for ten minutes in July 2021, streams of "Bezos I" and "Bezos II" jumped 21% in a single day. "To the moon!" as budding entrepreneurs and smooth-brained crypto bros say.

To the ones that don't recognize the satire and view it at face-value, "Bezos I" becomes an anthem to a man who perfectly reflects the goals, values, and beliefs of the group of people that idolize him. Burnham, even when done satirically, provides a voice to those who wish to celebrate Bezos' success and what they see as the man's admirable qualities. To the ones who see Bezos as a symbol of what we are all supposed to do and how one goes about doing that so damn well, he must be the thing to aspire to. He must be a role model. He must be... a god among men.

Bezos II: Congratulations!

"Bezos II" is a lot simpler in structure than the previous part. Musically, it still retains the synth-pop sound of "Bezos I," but now the lyrical content has been thrown out the window completely. Perhaps it's due to where "Bezos II" appears within the special (sandwiched between the lyrically intense songs "Welcome to the Internet" and "That Funny Feeling") or because Burnham by this point has nothing else to say about him that wasn’t already covered the first time. Lyrically, there are only four unique lines besides "Jeffery Bezos": "Uh," "You did it," "Congratulations," and "Ow."

Because there isn't much said, it's easy to look at "Bezos II" as simply a comedic and fun song, due in part by both the jubilant celebration of the blaring synth lines and by the fact that Burnham appears as a man in a ghillie suit singing the name “Jeffery Bezos” over and over again while alone in his home.

(The quarantine hit everybody in different ways...)

Despite the absurdity of the visual component, there is still something worth taking note of in the song: the sarcastic manner in which Burnham says both "You did it" and "Congratulations." Again, because the only other words in the song are "Jeffery Bezos," it's difficult to know just what exactly Burnham is congratulating him for. It could be any number of things. One obvious hypothesis could be that Bunrham is "congratulating" Bezos on the fact that between March 2020 and May 2022, Bezos saw his wealth rise from $113 billion to close to $185 billion. Another hypothesis could be that Burnham is "congratulating" him for doing what he wanted him to do in "Bezos I." He paved the way! He put his back into it! He fucked wives and drank their blood! This calls for a celebration! Though it's a celebration tinged with sarcasm. Burnham, by the point in the special where "Bezos II" appears, is far removed from a standard comedy special. Burnham sings the song with extreme sarcasm because it's the only coping mechanism left in order to deal with the fact that there's at least one single man in the United States who has more money than several small nations combined.

Now, when following the established thread of a man being turned into a god, if "Bezos I" is a song about an "ordinary" man making it big and becoming idolized, "Bezos II" is the point where it has gone past mere idolization. The idolized man is now a god in the eyes of the devout followers of Bezos. "Bezos II" is a song that celebrates the god's success. He did it! In a way, we gave him that power and he has transformed the world with it (through the wonders of Amazon). We are congratulating him for achieving what us mere peons could only dream of. He did it! So, once one reaches godhood and enjoys the power and the adoration that comes with that title, the question becomes, where do we go from here? What happens next?

Bezos III: A Hymn to the Old God

"Bezos III," the opening to the outtakes of Inside, is a Gregorian chant that speaks only one name: "Jeffery Bezos." It is the coldest and darkest sounding of all four "Bezos" songs, but retains humor by the ridiculousness of a chant based around Amazon’s founder. It sounds like a hymn to an old god that no one truly understands anymore. How did they get their power? Who gave it to them? How long have they been worshipped? Where did all of these followers come from? Why do they continue to worship this figure? The answers are hard to come by, for Bezos is a god that came to prominence in a now-forgotten time (pre-pandemic, as far as Inside is concerned). To the devout, respect and admiration towards this old god feels like common knowledge, to the point that if anything contradicts this then it's the fault of the non-believers who simply haven't been enlightened. Respect and admiration for Bezos, his entire legacy, everything he's created from "nothing," has mutated into something that doesn't stand to reason and doesn't need to; it's simply powered by faith.

Just like how Bo Burnham returns to the Inside house at the beginning of the outtakes, we return to the realm of Bezos. In real-time, a lot had changed in the year between Inside's release and the release of the outtakes. In that year, Bezos made more money than one would know what to do with in a hundred lifetimes, he traveled to space for a brief moment, and has continued enjoying his seat on the throne of the Amazon Empire. The rest of us have suffered for it.

"Bezos III" is the only song on both Inside and the outtakes that segues into another song. That song is "The Future," which isn't part of the tetralogy, but it is a good pairing that still makes sense thematically if one follows the thread of Bezos being viewed as a god. The hymn to the old god leads us directly into a lament of the future that Bezos had a hand in creating. A future with massive income inequality, worker’s rights becoming non-existent (especially in Amazon warehouses), books on getting better being hand-delivered by drones, and a general depression and confusion over how to continue facing day-to-day life in a world that keeps constantly reminding people things are only going to get worse before they get better. In a way, "The Future" sounds just as cold and empty as the echoes and chants found in "Bezos III," reflecting the overall darkness and pessimism found among the people who are utterly lost and wish to reject and revolt against the world that the modern American god had a hand in creating; to reject and revolt the ones that gave that god the power in the first place and continue to worship him. The old world is sadly dead and gone, and having to adjust to the new world has taken its toll on many.

But luckily, not all gods are blessed. Some of them don't get to be worshipped forever. This country has worshipped its Lex Luthor for a while now, but maybe it's still worth it to hold onto hope and wait for Superman a little while longer.

Bezos IV: Give Me That Old Time Religion

"Bezos IV," the final song in the tetralogy, plays with a change in style again. There's no synth-pop to be found, nor is this song a Gregorian chant. No, "Bezos IV" chooses a 50s doo wop style for the finale. The antiquated genre of doo wop is appropriate, as the song feels like a fight against the waning relevance and popularity of the old values that turned Bezos into a god. "I'm sticking with Jeffrey," Burnham sings. Why? A romantic answer: "I get a feeling when I look in his eyes." Burnham then asks, "Do you need 180 billion different reasons why?" A not-so-subtle joke about Bezos’ net worth at the time of the song's recording, but also a question that reeks of being trapped in a by-gone era. "Bezos IV" is a bit sad when looking at it through this narrative thread. It's a blunt, silly, and stubborn refusal to move on, to change with a world that has abandoned Bezos' values and has rejected all that he is. A god like Bezos can't be worshipped in a time when the phrase "Eat the rich" has re-entered the general lexicon. A god like Bezos can't be worshipped in a time when absolute hatred for the upper class and the wealthy elite has reached a new fever pitch. Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Buffett, none of these men are popular figures and worth admiring right now in a country where the people below them have to struggle to decide whether they have enough money to comfortably order their next meal or try and save up a little more and just starve for the rest of today. The remaining followers of Bezos found in "Bezos IV" are electing to stay in the past; comfortable with conservatism and comfortable with worship towards a demonstrably false idol.

Conclusion: Waitin’ For a Superman

Bo Burnham's Bezos Tetralogy, when the songs are separated and scattered, are four incredibly silly nonsense songs about Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. However, once they're all combined, the four songs become an analogy for the development and collapse of a religion, with Bezos serving as said religion's god. Each song has a different degree of ridiculousness, but like any great work of comedic art, it’s through that ridiculousness that one is able to observe something poignant in what it’s satirizing. Burnham took the now-too-common sight of seeing people defend billionaires like Bezos online, particularly Twitter. No matter what heinous, out of touch thing someone like Bezos or Elon Musk do, a good number of their devotees will be there to defend them, for reasons that defy any logic or reason. But when one has such an unbreakable faith in something, even faith in the worst that America has to offer, logic and reason are completely abandoned. Burnham’s special spent a good deal of time observing the world and trying to make sense of what was happening from March 2020 to May 2021 he asks a question in “Comedy” that many asked: “What the fuck is going on?” Of the many things Burnham observed, Bezos and his cult of strange, devout fans who are quick to idolize him was one of those things.

Ultimately, Burnham decided to make several cuts to Inside and kept only the first two Bezos songs, but their inclusion was enough to show that Bezos had been on his radar and that there was something about him that was worth commenting on. That, or Burnham just came up with stupid, silly songs about Jeffery Bezos because he thought it would be funny. After all, this is the same goofball who once went on a Kanye-esque rant about how difficult it is to fit your hand inside a Pringles can. Quoth Burnham: “Art is a lie, nothing is real.”

The outtakes album for Inside ends with a piano ballad called "The Chicken," a beautiful song that gives a genuine and philosophical answer to a stupid joke seemingly older than time itself: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Burnham's song has the titular chicken serve as a stand-in for a sad woman who wishes to break the life she has been confined to and seeks to run away to "the life of brighter days, a width of road away." Burnham sings that in order to get there, the chicken must first cross the road. The chicken's story ends with these two verses:

"The road is gigantic, the chicken is little

She moves ahead left-right-left, right-left-right

All of a sudden, she stops in the middle

Frozen in place by a pair of headlights

It's anyone's guess what then happened next

But most think she died

But I think we ought to believe that she got to

The other side

So that's why she did it"

Burnham's final song for the outtakes of Inside sends an important message: that perspective is important and that perhaps one method for bringing brighter days is to simply put forth the effort to try and believe that the chicken made it to the other side instead of having her dreams snuffed out by being hit by a car. It's a simple, yet beautiful message for a time where people are, now more than ever, bombarded with nothing but bad news and despair. To circle back to the Bezos Tetralogy, since a real life Lex Luthor continues to enjoy being richer than everyone else (except Elon Musk, who has surpassed Bezos in terms of net worth at the time of this writing) perhaps one thing that can get us through the day is to believe that if there is a real life Lex Luthor walking among us, then perhaps that means a Superman will come in some form and finally beat that bald-headed jackass. Maybe it's naïve to think a man-made god could ever be defeated, but history has shown that all empires eventually turn back into sand, and decades of comic books have shown that eventually Superman always finds a way to save the day in the end. Much like believing that the chicken made it to the other side of the road, I think we ought to believe that the Bezos' of the world will one day finally be defeated. It isn't much, and perhaps it’s foolishly optimistic, but it’s better than just sitting around and just waiting for the end.

In the words of the Flaming Lips: "Tell everybody / Waitin' for Superman / That they should try to hold on best they can.”

#original content #music criticism #music essay #bo burnham #inside #bo burnham inside #jeff bezos

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arctimon · 3 years

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What If...? (Big Hero 6 Edition)

So the next Marvel series set to release is What If...?, a series of nine episodes that will focus on alternate events and timelines that occur within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series, based off of the comic series of the same name, will premiere on August 11th, running straight through October 6th. The show was suppose to have ten episodes in both Season 1 and 2 (which is already being worked on), but producer Brad Winderbaum mentions in an interview that they had to push an episode back because of, you guessed it, the pandemic:

"We had to push an episode into Season 2. It was just, honestly, like everything else, that was a COVID impact," Winderbaum told Collider. "There was an episode that just wouldn't hit the completion date, but luckily we do get to see it in the second season of the show."

youtube

Judging by both the poster and the trailer, we know of a few scenarios: Peggy Carter becoming Captain America, an alternate Avengers lineup battling at New York, Black Panther as Star Lord, Marvel Zombies (of course there’s zombies), and Spider-Man as the Sorcerer Supreme. Inverse has an article breaking all of the possibilities down.

A lot of the actors who portray their characters in live action will reprise their roles for the animated series, including the late Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther/Star Lord. Star...Panther? Black Lord? That last one sounds wrong. Among those not coming back are Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, and Dave Bautista as Drax. Bautista was, according to the man himself, wasn’t even asked to come back to voice Drax. Others include Brie Larson as Carol Danvers, Tom Holland as Spider-Man, James Spader as Ultron, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Elizabeth Olson as the Scarlet Witch, Letitia Wright as Shuri, Gweneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, and various members of the Dora Milaje. They have all apparently been confirmed to be appearing in What If...? in some form or another, but voiced by different people.

It will certainly be an interesting show, but I hope you can see where I’m going with this.

The Big Hero 6 fanbase has a lot of burning questions for the show and movie, and it’s not all just unanswered ones about what happens after the show ended. I think collectively there are a few common “what-ifs” that we have in our minds about the team. I think the most obvious one involves one of the Hamada brothers, and that branches off into other what-ifs as well.

Granted, not all of these are reality-altering hypotheticals like there are in the show or comics, but they can still change the course of the movie or show in a huge way.

1.) What if...Tadashi had survived the fire?

Tadashi being a survivor of the fire that takes down the exhibition hall brings up a few interesting conundrums. Would he be scarred for life? Would he even be able to complete school?

And if Hiro still made the team, would he end up becoming Sunfire like a lot of fans theorize?

The thing is that Callaghan knows that Tadashi died in the fire. If he knew that he didn’t, would that change his motivations? Would he still be using the Microbots knowing that the person that was trying to “stop” him was still alive? Alternatively, you also have...

2.) What if...Hiro had died instead of Tadashi?

Hiro was probably about two seconds away from being fully engulfed in that giant fireball. It’s entirely plausible that he (or possibly both Hamadas) could have perished in the fire instead of his brother, which sort of leads to the same circumstances as the first question, just with different powersets. Tadashi would no longer be tied to fire-based powers but the magnetic equipment that that Hiro currently uses.

But one has to think about whether Tadashi would be in the right state of mind to be a hero long term. Seeing his kid brother perish in the accident would probably cause him to go insane, and perhaps the rest of the team would have to reel him in.

3.) What if...Baymax had killed Callaghan?

It’s worth noting that if Honey Lemon had been about three seconds later on getting the healthcare chip back into Baymax, this wouldn’t have been a “What If?” question.

And sure, the team would have saved the day, but at what cost? The permanent scarring of a fourteen-year-old? And what would have come of the major revelations after that fight concerning Project Silent Sparrow and Abigail?

Maybe they would have been the ones to build the portal to the other dimension to try to save her. That would similar to what happened in the original manga (where Tadashi actually helps with the construction of the original portal and got sucked in as a result). 4.) What if...Baymax had saved Obake in “Countdown to Catastrophe”?

Obake dismissed Baymax after his hideout started collapsing near the end of Part 2, and you could tell that Baymax was seriously considering rescuing him before leaving him in his chair amongst the rubble. Ultimately, however, he did leave him behind after Obake’s insistence.

Imagine what would have happened if he had gone against his programming and saved his life.

The relieved group hug on the beach would have been replaced with a disheveled (and probably a little damp) Obake. Hiro would have been staring hiim down in disbelief. Perhaps there would even be another fight, or at least the makings of one.

And then Obake would give himself up for arrest.

Maybe that’s where Chief Cruz could have been introduced. It would have given a good lead into the next season, and it would give Megan’s meeting with Hiro in Season 2 a little bit more meaning.

And finally, because I’m a shipper and we have to go there:

5.) What if...Karmi had never left SFIT at the end of “City of Monsters”?

We know from the boards that Bob Schooley posted that “City of Monsters” was originally going to end very differently than what actually made the final cut. It seemed that Karmi, in addition to getting a nonsensical boyfriend named “Flammarion”, was not suppose to leave SFIT in the early draft.

So what if Hiro had shown up to her lab, and instead of seeing this...

He saw this?

Or...something a little less dramatic? Maybe just her packing up stuff because she’s in the process of leaving? And Hiro had to say something in order for her to stop what she was doing? And how exactly would you achieve that? See, if that scenario happened, I think that this particular point would be where Hiro told her about being in Big Hero 6. And of course Karmi wouldn’t believe him, even though she’s now in love with him crushing on him.

Then, he takes her to the base.

And she turns back to him with an incredulous look.

And roll credits. What a cliffhanger to go into Season 3 with. I vaguely remember fanart depicting that exact scene (Hiro taking Karmi to the base), but I don’t remember who did it. I would like to give them the proper credit. Season 3 would have looked totally different if that took place. Maybe it would have been an actual season and not a bunch of mini stories. Also...perhaps Karmi would have joined the team proper.

And maybe we would have finally had a giant canonical Karmiro moment.

...Now that is a big “What if?”.

(Marvel’s What If...? premieres on Wednesday, August 11th on Disney+.)

#big hero 6 #big hero 6 the series #big hero 6 season 3 #hiro hamada #tadashi hamada #big hero 6 movie #karmi #karmiro #marvel's what if #obake #liv amara #countdown to catastrophe #city of monsters #baymax #yokai #professor callaghan

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endcryst4l · 3 years

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favorite galaxies

technoblade x gn!reader! this is a sbi au where the reader is friends with techno and they go to the same school. they’re around 18 in this fic! enjoy :)

find part 2 here and part 3 here :]

prompt: You were going to Techno’s house to work on a physics project after the library had to close because of covid. You knew each other for a while now, sitting next to each other in your shared classes and even in lunch.

“He-” Phil tried to say to the stranger at the door before Tommy cut him off. “NEW FRIEND!!!” he yelled while running to you with his arms open. Techno told you about his brothers and how the youngest is a tiny devil. You laughed and accepted his hug. “Hey bud, what’s your name?” you asked him, not noticing that Techno was now watching you two.

“Tommy!! Who are you?” Tommy replied. “Well Tommy, I'm (Y/N), i’m here to work on a project with Techno.” you smiled at him when his eyes lit up at the mention of his brother. “Tommy please leave (Y/N) alone. You’re probably annoying them and we need to work on our project.” Techno said and Tommy and you pouted at the same time, making each other giggle. “You don’t annoy me Tommy but Techno is right.” you said to the blonde toddler. “Can I join?” he asked with the biggest puppy eyes and you looked over to techno, who was violently shaking his head no. “Only for a little bit.” you told him and Techno sighed, walking to the kitchen table, Tommy following happily.

“Sorry about him, he is really excited about meeting new people. I’m Phil.” Phil chuckled as he closed the door after you came in. “No worries, really. I’m (Y/N).” you said as you followed him to the kitchen, where Techno was already sitting in his chair and tommy was sitting next to an empty chair. “Saved a spot for me huh big guy? Thank you.” you smiled at him and he nodded excitedly. You sat down beside him and began unpacking your stuff.

“What were you thinking of doing?” Techno asked and you shrugged, “maybe something about the planets and galaxies? or stars?”

Techno hummed and began spewing his ideas about the topic, occasionally showing you some articles that might be of help. After you’ve decided on a more specific topic regarding the great above and divided the tasks you felt a small hand on your arm. You looked at Tommy, who was looking at the two of you with big eyes. “(Y/N) what is a galaxy?” he asked and you chuckled. “It’s a big system of millions of stars, together with gas and dust, all held together by a force.” you answered and he nodded, scooting closer so he could see your laptop screen. “Woah..” he commented and you smiled at him, showing him pictures of what some looked like.

Techno watched with a soft smile and felt his heart warming. This didn’t help his tiny little crush on (Y/N) at all. Phil perked up at the sound of Tommy's voice and noticed the way his son looked at the person in front of him and grinned.

You told the youngest more about galaxies in baby terms and he kept nodding, giving you his full attention. “That one is my favorite I think.” he said and pointed to the picture that was up. “Really? It’s my favorite too!” you gasped and he smiled widely. Suddenly he stood up and ran upstairs. You smiled and returned your focus back on the project, typing away about some of the tasks you got. After some time the blonde came back, now with paper and crayons. You almost audibly aww’ed and pulled up the picture of his favorite galaxy again, whilst editing some of your text. Tommy sat next to you again and began on his drawing, occasionally asking you about which color he should use. Techno’s eyes could barely leave the sight in front of him, yes Tommy was a social kid but he didn’t have the longest attention span. This was new to the whole family.

“Tech?” you called for him a second time, making him blush furiously. “Y-yes?” he answered and you giggled, “how many pages were we allowed again?”

“Ten, I believe, I’ll check it real quick,” he hummed, “yeah, ten.”

You nodded and thanked him.

Phil tried not to laugh, he’s never seen Techno this flustered by someone before. He smirked, coming up with a great plan. “Hey (Y/N), do you want to stay for dinner?”

Techno’s eyes widened and looked at his dad like he was crazy. You checked the time and frowned, seeing it would be too late to join dinner at home if you went now. “Only if it’s no issue, I wouldn’t want to be a bother.” you replied shyly and he shook his head no, “of course not! Besides, I think both of the boys would enjoy your company a little longer.”

You laughed as Tommy loudly agreed and Techno softly nodded, his cheeks red again. “Alright then. Is there any way I can help?” you asked. “No no no, you’re our guest. No helping allowed. Besides, Techno is here so it’s fine.” Phil answered and you nodded. The older man stood up and walked to the kitchen, Techno following him.

“(N/N)! Look!” Tommy said as he tugged on your sleeve and you turned around to see what he wanted to show you. “It’s done! What do you think?” he held up his drawing. “I think it looks great! I wish I could draw like that, it looks really good.” you told him as you looked at it up close. It really were just some different colored lines with black here and there but sometimes lying is okay. “It’s for you!” he giggled and you gasped, “thank you big guy, that’s really sweet of you.”

Techno watched the two a few seconds longer before glaring at his dad. Phil cackled and shrugged, “just helping you out! You obviously like them and I saw them look at you a few times and I wouldn’t be surprised if they liked you too.” The pink haired boy almost dropped the ingredients he was holding. No way, it couldn’t be possible. He scoffed and gave the ingredients to his dad. “You’ve got to be quick though before someone else steals their heart.” Phil said while nodding to you and Tommy, now drawing galaxies together. Techno laughed and shook his head, “I can’t believe they go along this well. They’re usually not that fond of kids.” Phil’s eyes widened, not believing what his son said. If anything he thought you must’ve had younger siblings or babysat. “I know.” Techno said knowingly and began chopping the ingredients his dad had washed.

At the sound of plates rattling (Y/N) put away their school stuff. “Let me at least help set the table.” you asked Techno when he came back from the kitchen and he firmly shook his head no. You huffed and tried to collect Tommy’s crayons, making him pout. “I know, but we have to make space on the table to eat dinner.” you told him and he nodded, helping you clean up. Phil smiled, grabbing the oven mittens. He was really hoping it would work out between you and Techno, you seemed like a great addition to the family. He was sure Wilbur would like you as well, feeling a bit sad he had to work a long shift today.

“Lasagna! The pan is still hot so be careful though.” Phil told the three of you, walking over to the table. He put the pan down on the coaster and took a seat next to Techno, dividing the lasagna in equal portions. Tommy eagerly held his plate up, making you smile. Phil gave him a smaller portion and motioned for your plate, which you held up and he put a portion down. “Thank you, it looks and smells really great.” you told him. “can’t take all the credit.” he said while putting food on Techno’s plate. Techno shrugged and smiled at you, making your stomach flutter.

You all ate the lasagna in a comfortable silence, listening to Tommy’s rants. He was telling his dad all he learned about galaxies today, you nodding when he looked at you for confirmation. After he finished he smiled proudly at his brother and dad, who clapped for him. You laughed and clapped along, impressed with how much he remembered.

After a bit of small talk and questions about school, Phil cleaned up the table and cleaned the dishes. Techno and you began talking about the new comic that came out in the series you were reading together. Tommy watched the two of you discuss the topic and began playing with your fingers. You shot him a small smile and continued the conversation. Techno’s expression visibly softened, making you blush slightly.

“Would you like some tea, (Y/N)?” Phil asked from the kitchen. You took a quick glance at the time and said yes. Not long after Phil came back with a tray that held three cups of tea and some cookies. As soon as the tray touched the table Tommy grabbed a cookie and quickly put it in his mouth. You shook your head laughing and grabbed a cup and a cookie as well.

All of you talked, Phil sharing some embarrassing stories about his sons, Techno filling up the details, you shared some stories from when you were younger and even Tommy shared some stories from the daycare he goes to.

Time flew by and after a few cups of tea you had to announce your leave. Phil offered to drive you home but you declined, it was only a small ten minute walk anyway. You quickly gave Tommy a hug first. “Come back soon okay?” he whispered in your ear, to which you nodded and ruffled his hair. You thanked Phil and told them goodbye again before following Techno to the front door.

“I’m sorry if I was too interested in Tommy, I’ll work some more on the project when I get home. Thank you for inviting me over though and for the food, I had a really good time.” you smiled at Techno.

He looked up at you with a smirk, “didn’t picture you as a person that likes children, you always laugh when they trip and start cursing them when they cry.” You laughed in response, “I know, I know. I saw my baby cousins a few days ago and they changed me.” you dramatically sighed and Techno chuckled. “He’s not going to stop talking about galaxies for forever now.”

“Hey you should be thanking me, you’re going to ace the test about them.”

Techno was about to reply when he got interrupted by a loud scream of Tommy. “(Y/N)! You forgot your drawing!” the small boy yelled while running to the door. “Oh! I knew I was forgetting something, thank you Tommy.” you said when he handed you the drawing he made. He quickly ran back to the living room, definitely not because Phil told him not to bother them.

“I really should go now, so again thank you. I’ll text you when I get home okay?” you told him and he nodded, already excited to be able to talk to you again. “See you, Tech.” you said as you kissed his cheek. His face immediately heated up and he sputtered out a bye, awkwardly waving after you. He stood shocked in the door frame for a few seconds, did you really just kiss his cheek? Was Phil right?

“Techno? Are you alright” Wilbur began asking brother before he followed his gaze and saw you walking, “oooo does little Techno have a crush?” he smirked. Techno groaned and walked back into the house again, “shut up Wilbur.”

Phil greeted Wilbur and looked at them with a raised eyebrow, not failing to see Wilbur’s smug expression and Techno looking like he had just seen the stars up close. “Well?”

“They uh, they kissed my cheek when- when they said goodbye?” Techno tried to tell them, but it came out more as a question, still unsure if it really happened. They cheered and congratulated them, catching Tommy’s attention.

“Is (N/N) coming back?” he asked with a big, hopeful smile. Phil laughed, “No Tommy, (Y/N) just left.”

The blonde boy sighed sadly and Techno nodded understandingly. Wilbur watched with an amused smile as he went to put his bag on the table, which still had the drawings on it.

“Did you make these Tommy?” he asked and Tommy enthusiastically nodded, “with (Y/N)’s help! They told me about galaxies today and then we drew them.” “Oh really? What did they tell you?” Wilbur asked, earning groans from the other two. He huffed and listened to Tommy patiently.

After his little ramble Phil went to put him to bed. Wilbur looked at Techno, who was smiling at his phone. “You’re so in love it’s gross. Now when am I meeting them?” he asked him and Techno rolled his eyes, “I don’t know, soon probably. If they don’t come back soon I think Tommy will start crying. ” “Yeah just like you.” Wilbur laughed as Techno’s face went red for the millionth time today. “N-not true!” “Sure Tech. But seriously, invite them over again. A time when I’m home as well.”

“You suck.”

“Love you too.”

#mcyt x reader #technoblade x reader #technoblade x you #sbi x reader #sbi au #sbi

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mossy-rat-moved · 3 years

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Commissions!!

I'm unemployed due to covid, but I still need to pay rent and bills and feed myself, so I'm opening up commissions (all traditional art)! Here's the info!

Line art/semi color

Pricing:

Portrait/bust - $12, additional person + $6

Waist up - $17, additional person + $8

Full body - $25, additional person + $10

Full watercolor

Pricing:

Portrait/bust - $17, additional person +$8

Waist up - $25, additional person +$13

Full body - $40, additional person +$18

CQL/MDZS* comics

What: Traditional, fully water colored comics with semi detailed backgrounds centered around a lyric, quote, poem, etc., for MDZS/CQL

How: Send me the quote you want the comic to be centered around, what relationship/character/concept/etc. you want it to be focused on, and any other important details, including things you do not want included in the comic (as in certain relationships, gore, etc.). You can be as specific or as vague as you see fit!

Pricing: Min. $50, increasing based on concept, complexity, length, and what seems fair to both of us! Feel free to inquire how much other commissions I've done in the past have cost.

*I can do similar comics for other peices of media (or ocs), but you will have to be very specific with what you want for each panel, as I cannot come up with concepts on my own if I am unfamiliar with the piece of media.

Links to examples:

Example one | example two | example three

Misc.

I will do other stuff that does not neatly fit within any of the other sections listed, such as regular comics or art focusing on flora and fauna instead of people. I do a lot of different kinds of art that go beyond examples given in this post so please feel free to inquire if I'll do commissions similar to other work I've done in the past! Prices for that kind of stuff is negotiable based on complexity, medium, concept, etc., with the minimum price being $12.

Prices for add ons not listed, such as animals or complicated backgrounds, can also be discused, as well as cheaper prices for art with no/little color!

Examples of other kinds of work I do:

Wills & Wonts

I will not draw:

- NSFW

- Mecha

- Anthro

- Incest/pedophilia/rape

- Anthing I deem harmful or offensive (racist, transphobic, antisemitic, etc)

- MDZS/CQL specific: nieyao/xiyao/3zun, xuexiao/songxue/songxuexiao, xicheng, any romantic junior ship, and anything that falls under the above parameters (yes, that includes chengxian)

I will draw:

- Ships/non explicit physical affection

- OCs

- Blood/gore

- Violence

- General angst/trauma

I have the right to reject any request I am uncomfortable with!

Other info!

Payment via PayPal or Venmo in USD

Contact me at [email protected]

Note: I am only ever really on this account to post art so if you send me an ask or dm me here I probably won't see it for several days! If you have questions that don't require a whole email you can dm me on my insta mossy.rat or send me an ask/dm my other tumblr, @trans-xianxian, where I'm most active!

Reblogs are appropriated!! Thank you sm!!!

#I tried to make a nice little graphic but baby.... it just looks bad with traditional art #art #commissions #traditional art #artists on tumblr

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grigori77 · 1 year

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Movies of 2023 - My Pre-Summer Rundown (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10. SICK – Ultimately the year’s biggest horror cinema SURPRISE (so far, anyway) was also one of the year’s VERY FIRST standouts period, a brilliant little streaming sleeper from Peacock which snuck in under the radar but EFFORTLESSLY captured my attention AND the darker parts of my imagination. Best of all, though, it was SO COOL to see legendary revisionist horror screenwriter Kevin Williamson return to the “big screen” again after spending so long plying his trade on TV – I was VERY MUCH the target audience for Scream when it came out, I just ATE UP his delicious post-modern deconstruction of the slasher genre and its subsequent follow-ups (although Robert Rodriguez’ The Faculty, his fantastic take on alien invasion movie tropes, remains my very favourite of his offerings to date), even if it did lead to a fresh sub-genre which, paradoxically, became increasingly tired and toothless as the years progressed. In the end, I think it’s probably A GOOD THING he took a step back – he just needed a chance to rethink things and find a fresh angle to come at the genre … and BY THE GODS has he ever found one with THIS. Interestingly, for Williamson at least, the Pandemic couldn’t have come along at a better time, giving him fertile ground indeed in which to grow a particularly potent darkly comic slasher horror thriller which EASILY lives up to his masterworks. Taking place in the early days of the original outbreak, when the first Lockdown was just starting, infection alerts and self-isolation were becoming a major thing and everybody was PANICKING over how much they really DIDN’T yet know about what was REALLY going on, the setting was already ripe for some pretty intense, chaotic storytelling … so adding a brutal serial killer with a penchant for killing off the idiots who flagrantly flaunted the COVID safety restrictions and purposefully went out of their way to pretend things were the same as normal was a damn slick move. The main bulk of the narrative revolves around three college kids in some nondescript part of the US – Parker (Blockers and The Society’s Gideon Adlon), a well-off party girl who’s looking to make some major changes in her life, and her best friend Miri (up-and coming R&B artist Beth Million), who go to Parker’s family’s expansive country home to quarantine in comfort, and Parker’s newly-EX boyfriend DJ (Man of Steel and Teen Wolf’s Dylan Sprayberry), who turns up ostensibly to try and patch things up between them but may simply have come for a lucky hook-up – who are targeted by the killer who subsequently hunts them during a night of fraught tension, smartly staged stalk-and-slash set-pieces and a hefty dose of Williamson’s characteristic jet black-but-enjoyably geeky sense of humour, which is this time pitched to a particularly sharp edge of biting finger-on-the-pulse satire given the rich socio-political real-life material he’s able to mine here. The small but extremely potent cast are all BRILLIANT, although the film really is DOMINATED by Adlon, who once again shows that she’s destined for GREAT THINGS INDEED in the future with a brilliant turn that runs an impressive gamut from irresponsibly entitled to vitally determined survivor once circumstances have fully driven her to take proper responsibility for all her childish behaviour, making for a compellingly sympathetic young heroine we find easy to start rooting for. It probably helps the man behind the camera is John Hyams (All Square, Alone), son of legendary genre-hopping director Peter Hyams, who shows he’s definitely inherited his dad’s impressive skill by crafting a lean, tight and precise slice of horror cinema which takes full advantage of a tight budget and (mostly) a single location, which means the end result is a brilliant little comedy horror gem that I’d heartily recommend folk hunt down on streaming, or at the very least keep in mind for Halloween …

9. COCAINE BEAR – gods, if EVER there was a true story that seemed TAILOR MADE for cinema, it’s the bizarre tale of Cokey the Bear, AKA Pablo Eskobear, an American black bear that died after ingesting 34 keys of cocaine that were dumped out of a smuggler’s cargo plane over the Tennessee wilderness in 1985. That being said, it’s not a huge surprise it’s taken Hollywood SO LONG to actually get it made, perhaps it’s just TOO CRAZY a concept for it to have been made before now. Ultimately, the film takes A LOT of liberties with the truth to instead craft an entertaining story, but in the end that’s definitely the smart move, simply using the concept as a springboard to craft a gloriously batshit horror comedy with a JET BLACK sense of humour populated by an offbeat collection of quirky characters. Keri Russell stars as Sari, a nurse and single mother who has to brave the woods in order to find her young daughter Dee Dee (The Florida Project’s Brooklyn Prince), who’s playing hooky in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest with her best friend Henry (Sweet Tooth’s Christian Convery) right when Cokey goes on a drug-fuelled homicidal rampage; meanwhile, recently bereaved widower Eddie (Solo’s Alden Ehrenreich) and his best friend Daveed (Straight Outta Compton’s O’Shea Jackson Jr.) are two drug cartel enforcers reluctantly scouring the area in search of their lost product at the behest of Eddie’s overbearing St Louis drug kingpin father Syd White (the late, great Ray Liotta, to whom the film is dedicated); and then there’s hapless but dogged Knoxville detective Bob (the venerable Isaiah Whitlock Jr.), who knows he can bust White if he can just get his hands on the evidence. All three parties converge in the park while the bear wreaks merry havoc in Elizabeth Banks’ third film as a director (after Pitch Perfect 2 and the CRIMINALLY mistreated and overlooked Charlie’s Angels reboot), which looks like it might FINALLY get people to start taking her serious BEHIND the camera as well as IN FRONT of it – this is a proper laugh-riot of a film which is also delightfully non-PC, and it’s liberally peppered with impressively blood-soaked effects to thrill the gore-hounds as well as an impressively well-realised digital animal character in the eponymous drug-addled beastie. The cast are brilliant too, Russell and Ehrenreich both particularly impressing in their respective nominal lead roles while the two kids are EXCEPTIONAL (particularly Convery, getting to overact as one of the most hyperactive-yet-not-irritating kids I’ve ever seen on screen), and it’s both enriching and a little bit heartbreaking to watch Liotta once again acting his socks off in one of his very last film roles; that being said, several of the scenes are thoroughly STOLEN by the irrepressible Margo Martindale, who’s clearly having the time of her life in one of her most gloriously OTT roles as foul-mouthed, much put-upon park Ranger Liz. Ultimately this is a horror comedy where the balance is definitely tipped very much in favour of the laughs over the scares, but that’s fine, because with a concept this batshit bonkers we were always gonna find it too funny to ever be remotely scary, so the end result is one of THE FUNNIEST MOVIES I’ve run across in the cinema so far this year, gleefully revelling in its own inherent irreverence. It’s just about the most fun you could ever expect it to be, which is what you’d want from a movie about a cocaine bear, really …

8. ANT-MAN & THE WASP: QUANTUMANIA – coming off the back of 2022’s decidedly hit-and-miss big screen slate for Disney and Marvel’s current flagship property, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, THIS year’s first MCU release had A LOT of eyes on it. Gods know, I definitely has TWO OF ‘EM … and it probably wasn’t the best title to be laying all this weight on, either – the Ant-Man movies in particular have always been a bit of a marmite property within the larger universe, with as many detractors as fans, which definitely didn’t help things here. If this turned out to be third time unlucky for Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and the rest, it could spell much larger disaster for the MCU overall, or at the very least signify that the cracks are definitely growing beyond the studios’ capacity to patch ‘em up on the run. So I’ll admit, I went into this one with a whole lot of trepidation … was it unwarranted? Well, being completely honest … not ENTIRELY. Tried-and-tested comedy director Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man films have always been a pretty mad collection anyway, as much a full-blown comedy sub-franchise as the Guardians of the Galaxy movies or Thor under Taika Waititi, but even so they still managed to keep ONE FOOT on the ground even while the rest was playing EXTENSIVELY in the Quantum Realm, but this one may just have finally jumped the shark. Granted, part of this film’s particular OTT outlandishness and unabashed WACKINESS is down to narrative necessity – giving too much away plot-wise unfortunately runs the risk of dropping some MASSIVE spoilers, but it’s at least safe to say that the vast majority of the story takes place ENTIRELY in the Quantum Realm this time, and it’s a place which is A WHOLE LOT DIFFERENT from anything we might have imagined from our very brief visits in Ant-Man & the Wasp and Avengers Endgame. For a start, it’s A WHOLE LOT BIGGER than we thought it was, and MUCH more heavily populated by some truly WEIRD SHIT … the film also has some major heavy-lifting to do with regards to setting up the Big Bad for Phase 5 and 6 both – Kang the Conqueror (The Last Black Man In San Francisco and Creed III’s Jonathan Majors), a Multiverse-based Thanos level threat we first encountered (sort of) in 2021’s runaway hit first season of Loki. Thankfully, this at least is one of the areas in which the movie definitely SUCCEEDED – Majors IMMEDIATELY makes his presence keenly felt as one of the franchise’s most interesting and effective supervillains, a near God Tier Bad Guy who’s clearly gonna give the whole Avengers roster a run for their money when they finally come face to face with him (in whatever form this ultimately takes). The plot, such as it is, is pure scrambled bananas, a heavyweight mindfuck it’s best to just DISENGAGE and go with to get proper enjoyment out of – this is definitely a cinematic GUILTY PLEASURE, and trying to take it even remotely seriously immediately draws the eye to a thousand gaping plot-holes and glaring narrative stumbles. At least the patented stunning, primary coloured visuals, winning sense of humour and cavalcade of delightfully wacky set-pieces (the clone-spawning “probability explosion” sequence is a particularly overblown, super-trippy highlight with an unexpected tear-jerk factor built in) are all fully functional and behaving correctly, and the thoroughly endearing cast all deliver admirably without a single off-note hint of miscasting – Rudd and Evangeline Lilly (returning as Hope van Dyne AKA the titular Wasp) are both pitch perfect as always, while it’s nice to see Michael Douglas and PARTICULARLY Michelle Pfeiffer getting to do a whole lot more this time round as Hank Pym and Janet van Dyne, and the glaring Michael Pena-shaped hole is ALMOST filled by a few other quality comedic turns from the likes of deadpan laugh-MASTER Bill Murray and David Dastmalchian (here returning in a VERY interesting vut also very DIFFERENT role to what we’ve seen from him here before), as well as a surprise returning face (ahem) from the franchise’s past. Meanwhile, alongside Majors there are some other similarly noteworthy series newcomers who make BIG IMPRESSIONS, from Z Nation and The Mandalorian’s Katy O’Brien (who’s been an growing favourite of mine for a little while now), who’s a completely EPIC badass I wanna see A LOT more of in the future as hard-nosed Quantum freedom fighter Jentorra, to Kathryn Newton (Supernatural, Freaky), making the role of Scott’s now (pretty much) full-grown daughter Cassie ENTIRELY her own, and she’s clearly got a MAJOR future ahead of her in the MCU herself now she’s started carving out her own super-powered secret identity. The movie may be another flawed, somewhat unwieldy and occasionally downright CLUNKY beast, but the franchise is definitely still managing to stand up, and compared to the likes of Thor: Love & Thunder and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever it definitely holds up a good deal better in its own right. Most of all, though, it’s A WHOLE LOT of pure, unadulterated FUN, which is ultimately exactly what you want from a big primary-coloured superhero blockbuster. With the arrival of the new (and, apparently, FINAL) Guardians of the Galaxy movie now imminent, it still remains to be seen if the MCU can be clawed back from the brink it’s still teetering perilously on the edge of, but this, despite all that’s still wrong with it, is at least a VERY SMALL step back in the right direction again …

7. THE PALE BLUE EYE – largely sneaking in under the radar on Netflix to start the New Year off, the latest offering from highly acclaimed indie writer-director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass, Antlers) is, much as we’d likely expect from such a consistently varied, genre-hopping filmmaker, a strange, unique and deeply intriguing beast of a film. Adapted from Louis Bayard’s well-received speculative fiction novel about a young Edgar Allan Poe aiding the investigation of a bafflingly macabre murder in the US Military Academy at West Point in the early 1830s. Christian Bale returns with typical stoic, intense and magnificently brooding megawatt presence for his THIRD leading man tour of duty for Cooper (after Out of the Furnace and Hostiles) as Augustus Landor, a former West Point graduate-turned misanthropic former detective brought in to lead the investigation into the brutal hanging and evisceration (with additional heart-removal) of a young cadet that’s baffling the faculty and local police, which is soon compounded when additional bodies start piling up. He’s aided in his endeavours by another cadet, the young Poe himself (played to PERFECTION by Harry Potter’s own Harry Melling, continuing his meteoric and deeply impressive rise to prominence with another TOUR-DE-FORCE performance here), while the clues lead to a variety of deeply troubling twists and revelations as well as an intriguing collection of suitably odd and often highly charismatic characters played by the sterling likes of Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney and a fascinatingly unusual turn from Robert Duvall, although the real standout here is a truly MAGNIFICENT career-best performance from Gillian Anderson. Cooper piles on the story’s doom-laden gothic atmosphere to great effect throughout while cranking up the slow-burn and deeply uncomfortable suspenseful tension throughout, while the plot is nothing short of MACHIAVELLIAN in its levels of ingenious labyrinthine intelligence, dropping an ultimate denouement that you really have to be paying SERIOUS ATTENTION to see coming, and the production design, costumes, period detailing and, most of all, the thoroughly MOODY bleak-midwinter cinematography make for a freezing cold but thoroughly rewarding feast for the eyes for the more discerning film-fanatic. Altogether Cooper’s delivered another winner, and I hope he continues to make films this good well into the future.

6. SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS – it’s interesting that, at least on here, the DC Cinematic Universe (AKA the DCEU) is currently WINNING OUT over the MCU, especially given the recent MAJOR upheavals that are now rocking the franchise as a whole (and look set to continue well into the remainder of this year and beyond). Not least because, technically, once The Flash hits cinemas and the Universe essentially gets hit with a Hard Reset under the guidance of new DC Studios CEO James Gunn, none of this even MATTERS any more going forward … certainly this fact has NOT been lost on cinemagoers, who were already starting to pull back when Black Adam came out late last year and subsequently seemed content to STAY AWAY IN DROVES for this one, likely waiting to give it a go in the privacy and safety of their own homes once it hit streaming. In a way this sounded a pre-emptive death knell for the DCEU which I’m genuinely sceptical about it recovering from … which is a shame, because 2019’s Shazam! was one of the franchise’s BEST FEATURES, a gleefully anarchic post-modern deconstruction of the overblown superhero antics the franchise largely glorified before while never taking itself particularly seriously but simply playing it with just the right amount of knowing wink-and-nod. Even more of a shame, then, that this has proven to be SUCH a performance TURKEY, because it’s JUST AS GOOD as the first one, taking all of the lessons that were learned from the first movie to heart and delivering more of everything that really WORKED once more, even while trying something new and fresh at the same time to expand on this little corner of the Universe with impressive aplomb and consummate skill. Returning director Drew Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation) once again delivers in HIGH STYLE and customary spooky flair as he and returning screenwriter Henry Gayden (Earth To Echo, There’s Someone In Your House), along with Fast & Furious franchise lynchpin scribe Chris Morgan, expand on the adventures of coming-of-age young hero Billy Batson (Andi Mack’s Asher Angel) and his (still unnamed) superpowered alter ego (Zachary Levi), alongside his now similarly gifted teenaged foster siblings, as the Daughters of Atlas – Hespera (Helen Mirren), Kalypso (Lucy Liu) and Anthea (Rachel Zegler), a trio of immensely powerful but (somewhat) morally dubious classical Greek goddesses – come to claim their powers for their own in order to rejuvenate the Tree of Life and punish Mankind for its wickedness. The usual existential high stakes, then. Angel and Levi are, once again, ON FIRE here, the former star of Chuck in particular once again proving what an undisputable comedic MASTER he is while they both deliver MAGNIFICENTLY in the dramatic moments too, while their returning co-stars and sterling veteran support are once again just as great as before, It’s Jack Dylan Grazer particularly getting to really SHINE this time round in a particularly WEIGHTY role that nonetheless once again manages to utilise his own impressive comedic talents to full effect too, while it’s also GREAT to see This Is Us’ Faith Herman get a much more expanded role this time round as the irrepressible Darla; Djimon Hounsou, meanwhile, also gets a lot more to do as he returns as the enjoyably crabby and pompous Wizard Shazam, who’s none too happy with Billy for breaking the staff last time round and setting this all off in the first place. The Daughters, meanwhile, are FANTASTIC antagonists, Liu and Mirren clearly enjoying the opportunity to be flamboyant, majestic and over-the-top in proper Shakespearean style, while Zegler invests “Anne” with a good deal more moral fibre and complexity as the most sympathetic (and ultimately conflicted) of the trio. Sandberg and co again deliver IN SPADES on the action, atmospherics, gorgeously exotic design and sheer creativity which made the first movie such an unexpected treat, while also delivering more of that winning, sometimes downright SCREWBALL BONKERS humour to keep it entertaining and let you know that, just like its predecessor, this film knows FULL WELL how ridiculous it is and is fully prepared to just OWN IT. The end result is, once again, one of the best of the current slate of DCEU films, and it just makes it even sadder to think that they’re likely not gonna continue with this once the franchise reboots. Gods know it don’t bode too well for The Flash, Blue Beetle or Aquaman & the Lost Kingdom, which is a shame cuz they also look pretty promising …

5. EVIL DEAD RISE – sometimes you just can’t keep a good franchise down, and that’s ALWAYS been the case with the Evil Dead movies. That being said, each movie has always happily been its own thing too, so even when Sam Raimi was making his original trilogy they were all movies you could easily pick up and watch as a standalone without needing to see the others too (although it was well worth doing it). Better, though, is the fact that every offering so far has been consistently GREAT, even 2013’s sort-of reboot from Don’t Breathe and The Girl In the Spider’s Web writer-director Fede Alvarez, which did a genuinely spectacular job of bringing the franchise kicking and screaming into the new Millennium while also delivering something which was unapologetically old school in the very best way. Thankfully this is definitely the way that the latest writer-director, relative newcomer Lee Cronin (The Hole In the Ground), has decided to do things, although he’s also taking this newly-rebooted story in a fresh new direction with a MAJOR setting change as the Deadites are, for the first time (at least on the BIG screen) unleashed in the big inner city. It’s a bold move, but certainly has the instant charm of doing something we’ve never seen before, bringing the claustrophobic madness of the originals into a very different but equally close-quarters environment as we’re now seeing the demonically possessed monsters terrorising their victims in tiny apartment rooms, cramped corridors and malfunctioning elevators which make for a whole host of new opportunities to change up the scares, the action and the delivery of the thoroughly skewed plot. Best of all, this is BY FAR the most female-centric film in the franchise to date, making for a much more interesting and far less testosterone-heavy atmosphere this time around as the women get to take the lead far more than they did in the previous movies. The gods know that’s VERY MUCH my shit right there … Vikings’ Alyssa Sutherland is a veritable FORCE OF (UN)NATURE as Ellie, the downtrodden single mother trying to keep her three kids and her whole life from going off the rails until she’s taken over by the Evil when her calamitously foolish young wannabe DJ son Danny (Storm Boy and The End’s Morgan Davies) finds and reads from the Book of the Dead, while Picnic At Hanging Rock’s Lily Sullivan is endearingly vulnerable and fallible but ultimately steely as her Ellie’s estranged kid sister Beth, who comes home in a bad spot just in time to get thrown into the middle of the ensuing chaos; Gabrielle Echols (Reminiscence) and Nell Fisher (Northspur), meanwhile, are both similarly exceptional and thoroughly memorable as Ellie’s teen and pre-teen daughters Bridget and Kassie. The majority of the action plays out in the impressively squalid confines of the newly-condemned apartment building, turning uncomfortably familiar surroundings into downright TERRIFYING nightmarish hellscapes as the horrors unfold within, Cronin pulling out every trick in the book to deliver a knuckle-whitening scare-fest that skilfully works its way under your skin and grips your heart tight enough to make it explode with sheer anxiety, and, like every one of its predecessors, he has managed to pull it all off with the absolute BARE MINIMUM of digital assistance, this film representing another resounding triumph for spectacularly NASTY physical effects. This is DEFINITELY the scariest thing I’ve seen so far in what’s ALREADY proven to be a genuinely GREAT YEAR for horror cinema, but more than that it’s ENTIRELY lived up to its legacy, earning its place in one of the greatest horror franchises of ALL TIME with pride. I look forward to seeing what Cronin does next, and I can’t wait to see what the series is gonna throw at us next, either …

4. PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH – my current top animated feature for 2023 is an interesting one because, while I am a MASSIVE fan of Dreamworks Animation Studios’ output in general and the Shrek films in particular, I have to admit that the FIRST standalone spinoff featuring Antonio Banderas’ awesome fairy-tale character left me somewhat underwhelmed … yes, I know, it’s a travesty, STONE ME!!! I know I deserve it … but really, even with Salma Hayek on board it just didn’t reach the same levels of sheer unadulterated COOL that the Shrek movies did for me. So I approached the EXTREMELY belated follow-up with a definite sense of trepidation, despite the intriguing new animation style makeover that’s clearly HEAVILY inspired by the recent success of the first Spider-Verse movie and the massive anticipation for its incoming sequel. It looks GORGEOUS, but as we’ve learned to our cost over the years with this kind of filmmaking, looks DO NOT always automatically mean it’s gonna be a belter. Thank the gods, then, that I was proven wrong THIS TIME … yup, for his sophomore spinoff movie, Puss FINALLY got a vehicle he could truly be PROUD OF. It’s got a BRILLIANT premise about it which PERFECTLY fits with the amount of time that’s passed since the first one, and definitely means that the older fans among us (like myself) can definitely find A LOT to resonate with in terms of the themes here – Puss discovers that he’s only got ONE of his nine lives left and it sends him into a DEEP existential crisis as he realises that he’s pretty much WASTED much of the time he had, and technically that means he’s only got ONE CHANCE left to truly be alive. So he abandons his riotous adventurer lifestyle and “retires” as a lapcat for one SERIOUSLY weird cat-lady, Mama Luna (High Fidelity’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph) … only for his past to catch up to him in the form of a quartet of bounty hunters, Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman and beloved up-and-coming British comic Samson Kayo). This prompts Puss to escape onto the road for one final adventure reuniting with his long-lost love Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek), who’s none too happy to have him back in her life after he abandoned her at the Altar, as well as a deeply odd new companion, Perrito (What We Do In the Shadows’ Harvey Guillen), a diminutive therapy dog who was masquerading as one of Luna’s cats, as they set out in search of the Wishing Star, a fallen star that can grant whoever finds it their heart’s desire, which means Puss could get his other Eight Lives back. Except that they’ve still got the bounty hunters on their trail, along with (now decidedly) Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney), a magic-item collecting entrepreneur who has a score to settle with Puss which definitely coincides with his fervent desire to claim the Star for himself, and a mysterious Wolf (the irresistibly silky tones of Narcos’ Wagner Moura) who may actually be Death Himself, who has his own, much darker reasons for finding Puss. Y’know how they say you judge a hero by the strength of the villains he faces? Well with antagonists of THIS calibre, Puss just might have finally met his match … and even better, EVEYTHING ELSE about this movie is as strong as its villains – it’s one of the most well-written, well-directed and deeply, affectingly resonant movies that Dreamworks have EVER DONE, EASILY on a par with the rest of the Shrek canon and even matching up impressively well with the true Gold Standards like Kung Fu Panda and the How To Train Your Dragon movies, everyone involved in this project clearly giving it their all in a total labour of pure, unadulterated LOVE that pays VAST dividends on the screen. The cast, of course, are among the greatest key ingredients in this, and as we’ve come to expect from these movies they’re all pulling their weight MAGNIFICENTLY – Guillen and Mulaney in particularly deliver SPECTACULARLY in their respective roles, while Pugh and her cohorts are at once hilariously good fun but also elevate their characters FAR ABOVE their one-note bad guy potential thanks in no small part to some VERY intelligent, well-rounded and deeply complex character development from the writers, but in the end the main weight of the film OF COURSE rests on the shoulders of Banderas and Hayek, and once again they’ve both proven they are MUCH MORE than capable of bearing it with grace, professionalism and a glorious evergreen twinkle in their eyes. As for the animation and design, this is a BEAUTIFUL piece of work, definitely one of the year’s most visually arresting films as well as, quite simply, one of the most gorgeous films that Dreamworks have ever put together, the studio effortlessly adapting to the sexy new style that made Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Netflix’ Arcane such glorious feasts for the eyes, and the animation team deserve JUST AS MUCH praise as director Joel Crawford, a storyboard veteran who previous proved his helming pedigree in fine style with 2020’s wonderfully oddball The Croods: A New Age. Ultimately, given the storyline, themes and the way the film ties things off so neatly, I suspect this really will be the last we see of Puss In Boots on the big screen, but if that really is the case then I gotta admit it’s ONE HELL of a swansong …

3. RENFIELD – my current horror movie of the year sits very comfortably in the genre’s sub-category that I’ve always loved best, a horror comedy of particularly rare quality and gleeful abandon that made it one of the best and most entertaining viewing experiences I’ve had so far this year. Yeah, like the best horror comedies it has enough genuine darkness that it CAN be genuinely scary when it wants to be, but by the sheer (literal) batshit craziness of its premise this is a BONKERS FILM, and so it wisely embraces its sheer lampoonery to full effect by delivering one of the most deliciously dark black comedies I’ve seen in a good while. Not that it’s overly surprising – director Chris McKay cut his teeth helming The Lego Batman Movie before branching out into live action with Amazon’s criminally underrated time travelling alien invasion blockbuster The Tomorrow War, both of which were excellent vehicles for him to master the gloriously anarchic style that he finally unleashes fully formed for this brilliant alternative sequel to the classic Universal Dracula movie with Bela Lugosi. That being said, the big box office draw here was always going to be Nicolas Cage, who replaces Lugosi as the infamous Count, clearly kicking into his typical “manic” setting here to chew the scenery with ruthless abandon and, as a result, frequently steal the show right out from under Nicholas Hoult as his titular ghoul manservant, the long-suffering Robert Montague Renfield, who just wants the opportunity to finally find a real, simple life for himself and thinks he can pull it off in modern day New Orleans, only for his Master to himself become inspired by Renfield’s newfound ambition and set his sights on world domination with the help of the Lobos, a brutal local crime family. Thankfully Hoult DOES ultimately manage to hold his own in his scenes with Cage, like always proving ADEPTLY talented enough to deliver another winningly endearing performance while playing perhaps the single most pathetic specimen of his career to date … meanwhile the thoroughly adorable Awkwafina once again proves that she’s well on the way to becoming the PREMIER kooky goofball female comedic lead in Hollywood as Rebecca Quincy, the one truly honest cop in one of the most corrupt police forces in all of America, who winds up falling for Renfield’s hangdog charm and puppy-dog eyes as he inadvertently becomes the key to her quest to bring down the Lobos after they murdered her legendary detective father. Shohreh Aghdashloo brings a much needed touch of class to proceedings as Bellafrancesca Lobo, the family’s seductively sly matriarch, while Space Force and Sonic the Hedgehog’s Ben Schwarz is a frequent non-PC laugh riot all on his own as her entitled constant disappointment of a son Teddy, and Ghosts’ Brandon Scott Jones is lovably flaky as the leader of Renfield’s endearingly pathetic support group for people trapped in toxic co-dependent relationships. This genuinely is a DEEPLY FUNNY FILM, perfectly geared up for a maximum hit count with the one-liners, in-jokes and situations, but then there’s no surprise here since writer Ryan Ridley (adapting a pitch from The Walking Dead’s original creator Robert Kirkman) is a seasoned veteran of TV comedy, particularly well known as an alumnus of the similarly edgy and madcap Rick & Morty, and this carries a lot of the same twisted, anarchic charm as that rightly beloved series, just in a much more big budge live action form on the big screen. It’s also SPECTACULARLY bloodthirsty when it wants to be, the welcome reliance on what are clearly LARGELY physical effects meaning that this movie is another gore-hound’s wet dream, even if the film does mostly play the horror elements for laughs throughout, and it’s an impressively inventive and chaotic beast in THAT regard too, delivering some of the most gloriously OTT splatter-fuelled action sequences I’ve seen in a good while whenever Renfield eats a bug and gets an ultraviolent power boost. Altogether this is definitely some of the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year, and I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind a bit more of this …

2. JOHN WICK CHAPTER 4 – and so, it has come to this … honestly, who’d have thunk it, back in 2014 when the first movie came out and (rightly) became a surprise sleeper hit that went a long way to revitalising Keanu Reeves’ career for a SECOND TIME as he found THE GREATEST ROLE HE’S EVER HAD, that almost a decade later it would’ve blown up into something THIS BIG?!!! I mean sure, back then it definitely was The Little Movie That Could, but still … well, after two increasingly BIG sequels which each maintained a surprisingly impressive level of quality throughout, the fourth and final John Wick chapter is finally here, and GODS is it good. I mean it’s FUCKING BRILLIANT. It just might be THE BEST ONE YET. Certainly it’s proving to be the most well received, landing BY FAR the best rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it genuinely seems like almost nobody has ANYTHING bad to say about this movie, even the CRITICS largely seem to LIKE this one. And it deserves every lick of love it’s been getting, this is definitely both the pinnacle of the series AND a perfect swansong for the greatest assassin in cinema history. I don’t wanna give too much away about the plot, even those who HAVE seen what’s come before don’t deserve to be spoiled since, even if these movies have never exactly been SHAKESPEARE in their construction they do still frequently leave you guessing in the best ways as to how they’ll turn out, and this one definitely is no exception. I’ll just say that, after all the killing John’s done to get to this point, his one-man-war with the international criminal network’s High Table has finally reached his zenith when Winston (the great Ian McShane), the Manager of the newly-demolished Manhattan Continental Hotel, gives him the means to finally find a way to get out and find peace while he’s still alive – namely by challenging the Marquis Vincent de Gramont (It’s Bill Skarsgard), a high-ranking Table member who’s taken it upon himself to rid the criminal underworld of the “cancer” that John and his constant disrespect have wrought, to single combat in a ritualistic duel in order to take his place at The Table should he win. The subsequent battle that ensues as John sets about facilitating this duel and the fallout that follows as he fights his way to that final, fateful meeting fuels the film in HIGH STYLE, so that even though this movie’s almost THREE HOURS LONG it never feels overlong or outstays its welcome. Once again the cast are all ON FIRE, Reeves once again proving that he is just about THE BEST LOOKING and most interesting action star working in Hollywood today when he’s mowing down endless bad guys with a stoic expression and the odd deadpan response, the role once again VERY MUCH playing to his strengths, while McShane and Laurence Fishburne (returning once again as the dethroned Bowery King) are both on fine form throughout, while it’s both a pleasure and privilege but also a genuine heartbreaking SHAME to watch the late Lance Reddick deliver one of his very last performances as Charon, the noble and quietly charismatic Concierge of the Manhattan Continental (at least he also shot one more turn as the character for the upcoming Ana de Armas-starring spinoff feature Ballerina, so it’s not QUITE the end); meanwhile the newcomers all serve admirably as well, with Skarsgard particularly impressing as one of the franchise’s best villains to date, slimy, entitled and exquisitely arrogant, the kind of Big Bad you just LOVE to hate, Wynnona Earp’s Shamier Anderson is a delightful revelation as Mr Nobody, a precocious up-and-coming hitman talent who certainly has a whole lot of potential for a possible future spinoff franchise of his own within this larger universe, Donnie Yen excels as usual as Cain, a former friend of John’s that the Marquis brings out of forced retirement in order to take the unkillable Baba Yaga out (clearly the filmmakers saw his blind badass take in Rogue One and they were like yeah, let’s have a whole lot more of THAT), Hiroyuki Sanada once more delivers effortless class and cool gravitas as Koji, the honourable and principled Manager of the Osaka Continental, and Scott Adkins is viciously impressive but also thoroughly surprising in an almost unrecognisable prosthetic getup as Killa Harkan, the brutish Head of the High Table in Berlin. In the end, though, we’re once again here primarily to MARVEL at all the action exploits on display while wallowing in some of the richest and most well-crafted world-building there’s EVER BEEN on the big screen – this is a thoroughly fascinating universe, realised with exquisite precision with so many cool little winks and nods and in-jokes to make the geeks among us grin and chuckle with sheer joy over the immense bounty on display, while veteran stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski once again wrangles some of the VERY BEST cinematic action EVER COMMITTED TO FILM in a series of truly astonishing and thoroughly punishing set-pieces bravely executed with nary a visual effect in sight. There are almost TOO MANY cool action beats in this movie to count, although the final BIG sequence, in which John fights his way up the spectacular but infamously punishing Stairs of Montmartre in Paris against an endless onslaught of thugs all determined to not let him reach the top, which includes one of the BIGGEST belly laughs I have EVER HAD at the cinema in my life, as much just over the joke’s sheer, ingenious AUDACITY, has to be the film’s undeniable highlight (closely followed by a genuinely INSANE run/gun/drive chase/shootout/fight sequence through the sheer chaos of the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe – every single one of these sequences is thrilling, they’re adrenaline fuelled and each is crafted with such precision but also such brilliant varied inventiveness that it NEVER leads to vicarious battle fatigue. Best of all, though, as with the previous film’s there’s a surprising amount of soul and heart and heft to the film too, which ultimately leads to a climax which is both immensely satisfying but also pretty devastating in its emotional power. Altogether then, this is EASILY my action movie of the year, I really can’t see that changing, as well as a fitting climax to an action cinema franchise which has come to SET THE BENCHMARK for the entire genre, and, honestly, just a damn fine movie in its own right.

1. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: HONOUR AMONG THIEVES – so what, then, could POSSIBLY have beaten John Wick Chapter 4 to the top spot? If you’d asked me that at the year’s start I DEFINITELY wouldn’t have thought it could be THIS … I mean SURE, I love D&D as much as the next geek, but even so this felt like SUCH a shameless cinematic cash-grab from Wizards of the Coast and Disney (producing through Paramount) that I felt there was NO WAY it could REALLY be an actual GOOD FILM. At best I was expecting to be mildly entertained by a serviceable guilty pleasure, something that’s good for a Saturday night-in with a pizza and a six pack, not a genuine MASTERPIECE of cinematic adaptation. And yet, it turns out that’s EXACTLY what we got here – this is a film which is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT clearly made with the utmost love and respect for the source material because the only possible interpretation for the way they wrote this was by taking Player’s and Dungeon Master’s handbooks, a Monster Manual, some character sheets and a few dice bags and just turning the mini-campaign that ensued into a two-hour screenplay. It’s clear that they are heavily steeped in love and knowledge of the game itself, or were at least CONSTANTLY advised by experts who are, because this movie is AT EVERY STEP a pretty much PERFECT representation of the Forgotten Realms setting, the bestiary and even the game mechanics themselves IN ACTION, and it EVEN colours the way that the plot is laid out, how the characters interact and how some of the action sequences go. (Seriously – a perfectly executed knockout on a knife-wielding hostage taker with a hurled potato? That’s the Barbarian’s player landing a Natural 20 Critical Hit on their Attack Roll. It love it.) Sure, the results are likely to INFURIATE some people who think a little too highly about how FORMALLY WRITTEN their cinema is, but for most folk this actually makes for a refreshingly honest and pretty unique piece of cinematic storytelling that actually works DAMN NEAR PERFECTLY from start to finish. It also helps that the writer-director duo in charge here are a pair of stalwart comedy movie veterans, namely Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daly of Horrible Bosses, Vacation and Spider-Man: Homecoming fame, whose previous directorial collab Game Night actually likely provided a useful throughline for them to get into tackling this one. The main cast of dysfunctional heroes that we follow through the story are even put together like a typical motely crew of player characters – Chris Pine once again proves that he’s at his best when he’s doing broad comedy, thoroughly delightful as self-centred, opportunistic roguish Bard Edgin Darvis, who, along with his platonic partner, tough-but-fair and sweetly naïve Barbarian warrior Holga Kilgore (played to absolute PERFECTION by Michelle Rodriguez in what’s UNDOUBTEDLY the best role she’s ever had, and definitely my FAVOURITE character here), enlists the help of bumbling, neuroses-riddled half-elf Sorcerer Simon Aumar (Detective Pikachu’s Justice Smith, twitchy, unsure of himself and UTTERLY adorable) and shape-shifting Tiefling Druid Doric (It’s Sophia Lillis, forthright, dependable and immediately done with all of Edgin’s shit) to help them knock over the accumulated fortune of their one-time colleague, Rogue-turned-nobleman Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant once again expertly bringing home the scheming sleaze persona he’s perfected in more recent years now he’s finally said goodbye to his earlier days as an upper class heartthrob) and foil the dastardly machinations of the monstrous undead Red Wizard Sofina (a genuinely chilling and unsettling turn from Shadow & Bone’s Daisy Head); meanwhile there’s a top-notch supporting cast of “DM-controlled NPCs” that help the story roll and breathe as effortlessly as the main stars, from Bridgerton’s Rege-Jean Page as deliciously dry Paladin Xenk Yendar, the obviously-overpowered PC from another campaign that the DM brings in to help the party out when things go COMPLETELY WRONG for them, and Chloe Coleman (Gunpowder Milkshake) as Edgin’s estranged young daughter Kira, to Bradley Cooper in a truly INSPIRED and genuinely hilarious cameo as Holga’s decidedly diminutive ex-husband Marlamin. Every single one of these is a well-rounded, living-and-breathing vital person in their own right, and the writers have crafted them and their misadventures with proper precision throughout, while the world has been realised with genuine skill and clear loving attention to detail, as well as, yet again, a welcome reliance on real sets and locations and good old fashioned physical make-up and animatronics over pure digital effects wherever possible. There are some pretty spectacular action sequences on offer here (the Underdark sequence with a decidedly overweight dragon is a particular highlight, although my personal favourite has to be the scene in which Doric has to pull off an unexpected escape by Wildshaping between different animal forms, all unfolding in a spectacular unbroken “single” take), but in the end this film is, first and foremost, a COMEDY, and while there’s plenty of heart and pathos on offer, as well as more than a little genuine DARKNESS here and there, ultimately everything is VERY MUCH played for humour, and the end result is definitely the funniest film I’ve encountered this year (so far, anyway). It’s also just about the most effortlessly ENDEARING film I’ve come across in a very long time, and I have to admit I am SO GLAD that it managed to defy my low expectations SO MUCH, I feel VERY HAPPILY HUMBLED that I was proved SO WRONG this time round. I’m genuinely hopeful that we get LOADS MORE of this going forward, I can’t wait for a whole long campaign’s worth of movies to grow out of these humble beginnings. Best get those D20s rolling again, guys!

#2023 in movies #sick #sick movie #sick 2023 #cocaine bear #ant man and the wasp quantumania #the pale blue eye #shazam fury of the gods #evil dead rise #puss in boots the last wish #renfield #renfield movie #john wick chapter 4 #dungeons and dragons honor among thieves

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sineala · 3 years

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RL update

I hate to have to do this again, Tumblr, but: all asks are off. Anon comments are off on AO3.

I have had one of the worst weeks of my entire life.

It's been the kind of week where the best things about it are:

My wife's head injury is not severe and is healing well.

My debilitating vertigo has been cured (thanks, emergency room).

Whatever happened to me on Monday morning that made me have severe difficulties remembering words for several hours (anomic aphasia) was definitely not a stroke, and was most likely not a TIA or a seizure (yes, they ran All The Tests, no, really, All The Tests) so the very, very bad things that it could have been have all been probably ruled out, and the remaining options are things like "it was because of the vertigo" and "it was a weird migraine." (I am covid-negative -- they swabbed me before they admitted me to the hospital -- and I am fully vaccinated anyway.)

I have now been discharged from the hospital after an overnight stay.

Even though no one knows what is wrong with my brain right now, I have the soonest available new-patient neurologist appointment (unfortunately not for three weeks) and am on the cancellation list in case anyone before me cancels theirs. Because apparently if you have existing brain damage and new neurological symptoms you are a "soonest available appointment" kind of person.

Even though I have never had a migraine ever in my life before Tuesday night (several hours after I got out of the hospital, ironically), my brain apparently just loves to surprise me. I am assured that, even though migraines feel weird and bad, they are not damaging to my brain and don't go on forever and someday soon the light and sound sensitivity will fade, I will be less exhausted, and hopefully at some point in my life I will again be able to ingest things that aren't tiny meals of the blandest food possible without experiencing severe nausea and indigestion. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway.

But, I mean, hey, I'm still alive and as far as I know all of my loved ones are fine. That's good. Also my wife has been so great. I love her. I would also like to thank all my friends who were willing to tell me about their migraine experiences, because this is new to me and also Not Fun.

Anyway, yeah, also asks are off and anon AO3 comments are off because I cannot deal.

I was already behind on answering Tumblr asks, and this week an anon decided now would be a great time to send me multiple incredibly personal and incredibly insulting asks and AO3 comments, and I literally cannot handle any more stress at all in my life at this moment. So, congratulations, anon, you have the worst timing in the world and you're extremely rude!

I'm going to return to lying in a dark quiet room with my eyes shut now. I hope the rest of you are having a better life and fewer neurological problems than I am currently having.

It will probably be at least a few more days before I am well enough to do anything fandom-related. But if you’re interested, here is a meta post that I wrote up last week about comics you might want to read if you are enjoying FATWS, which I did not get around to posting before this entire week happened. (I have not yet watched Episode 2; I don’t think TV is good for my brain yet. Also I haven’t caught up on comics.)

#posts i actually wrote

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onlyhereforangst · 3 years

Text

WWR

i mean i only had three weeks to get it done so naturally i’m finishing it three days before the next ep airs, would you expect anything less?

Ok we start off hot with a subtly jealous Nick scene and I love it. Ellie is like stunned that such a thing even exists “a covid crush” because lets be honest, she probably has no eyes for anyone else at this point - even if it’s been a YEAR (well 10ish months) a whole ass YEAR since the jail cell scene and can I just tell you I am mad about that. Why they do us dirty and skip a whole dang year?? Why can’t we quick flash forward every couple of months?? I mean I know it has felt like an entire year has gone by in a week, RIP 2020 no one will miss you, but like I wanted to see it 😩 and I better get at least some kind of explanation for whatever the F has gone down between these two from “well what are we gonna to about that as we stand 5 inches apart” to now. I demand this explanation.

Anyways, back on track here - Nick is jealllllllous BUT different kind of jealous for this man because for once he’s not all dark and broody about it. He’s over here willingly, *willingly* bringing up said jealousy aaaand he’s smiling about it (!!!) because despite them still not being together (where’s the Gibbs’ headslap when you actually need it amiright) he’s not worried about this crush. He knows her feelings and his so it’s like yeah I’m a little jealous but also I’m gooood, I got this one in the bag 😏 (also can I just say I need Ellie to show him he does not in fact ‘have this in the bag’ if he’s gonna act like a little shit and push her away).

This whole thing about babysitting and not wanting to take care of other living beings is very very very interesting considering they both loved taking care of Charlie (Cody, I blame this on pregnancy brain thank you @thekeyboardninja) in the end AND EVEN TALKED ABOUT PARENTING EVENTUALLY. So like, where did we backtrack??? Excuse me who allowed you to do such things. I’m feeling like they likely backtracked (this was s16 after all) because once again, the dust settled after their super close vulnerable moment and they went and hid behind those stupid walls they both have and somehow convinced themselves that being alone was better for them. IT’S A LIE YALL IT’S A LIE. You being together and taking care of each other is exactly what you need and it’ll be perfect and amazing and just DO IT ALREADY 😭

The team moment with Jimmy is so 🥺 and throughout the episode. I’m not going to touch on that stuff much because this is ellick focused but also because I truly do not need to sob again (even if I called Breena dying from covid like months ago and knew exactly what was coming with all of it but you know, I still cry, it’s fine, I’m fine).

Ellie knowing Gibbs uses a weighted blanket and Nick doubting her is just comical to me 😂 mini side note before we get into how they have a thiiiiiing and it’s called always getting dibs on the elevator in tandem for months and McGee HOW CAN YOU NOT TELL. These two are so in sync even if they are still spectacularly failing at talking this out & taking that next step. Also months of Gibbs riding down the elevator with just those two…….the third wheeling must be slowly killing the old dude, give him a break you two.

Tell me why these two have the exact same stance in the bullpen- could you be more obvious?? You rubbing off on each other. And then the walking up to the barbershop scene I caaaan’t. Ellie is SO flirty. Like so flirty. Who is this new Ellie and why do I love her so much. But Nick gives it right back too and her little giggle with shoulder shrug is just perfect. She’s fiiiiinally letting herself *feel* more and let it be out in the open and it’s just so great. I love seeing this character development for her 🥺 walls coming down, being more forward with her flirting and feelings and it’s all I’ve ever needed. Also we’re gonna take a small detour into Nick’s pants I mean the notebook he casually stashes in the front of his jeans like it doesn’t make a person look RIGHT. THERE. Don’t ask me why it’s hot, I don’t know the answers to the universe, it just is. We knoooooow Ellie is loving it’s location there, she wouldn’t mind flirtatiously taking it out at the next stop to “check” where they needed to go. You know, just helping a partner out- don’t worry Nick she’s got it handled 😏😏🔥🔥 Ok back from our detour, when Nick asks if she’s got him and she answers so quickly and almost with the undercurrent of “of course I do how is that even a question I’ll protect you until the day I die” (yes this is what she says), I love.

Ok since when does Nick like puzzles and how does Ellie know this??? He was most certainly NOT a puzzle kind of guy when he first joined the team so are you telling me that maybe Ellie and her nerdiness (come on there’s no way she doesn’t love puzzles) got Nick into puzzles??? Also also also does everyone remember that time in covid lockdown where literally everyone and their mother did five thousand puzzles because we couldn’t leave our houses? Soooooo is this a nod to Ellie & Nick spending some time together doing puzzles (at presumably Ellie’s apartment because she’d be the one to have said puzzles) and turns out Nick loves them even more than she did???? Is this what you’re making me read in between the lines NCIS? Because I am most certainly ok with this.

Ooooooooh-kay this 8pm thing for Nick. SO many possibilities. It’s been confirmed it wasn’t Ellie (which I won’t lie was my immediate wish) via Steven Binder on twitter (which I also won’t lie, my angst heart loves it’s something else). My take is it’s something (not another girl though) personal- I would *love* if it was therapy or some type of personal development thing. I think he realizes over the past year he has involuntarily retreated emotionally from Ellie even if outwardly it doesn’t show (no personal space and continued flirting). I think he *knows* he’s doing it emotionally and yet can’t figure out how to stop himself from doing it- like on the outside of his body watching him make a dumb mistake but unable to change a damn thing. SO I feel like whatever this 8pm thing is will play into that. It’ll somehow be related to Nick diving deeper into himself and trying to get more in touch with the parts of himself he loves to ignore/hide/push down. That could be therapy, a self-help class, getting in touch with family (but I don’t think he would feel the need to get secretive about this. i mean he already brought up Lucia to this dude, why would he all of a sudden be ashamed of a dinner/meeting with his mom or dad or something? i just don’t buy that). But anyways back to the point- it’s something Nick feels the need to hide in shame because that’s how he’s been conditioned as an undercover agent who feels the need to be tough and strong for everyone and being vulnerable is WAY too scary (helloooooo enneagram 8 nice to meet you I’m also an enneagram 8 Nick isn’t it fun).

I don’t know why them talking so casually on the phone, while Nick is getting ready for the day no less is so damn pleasing to me. The simple domesticity of it all because it’s totally something one would do with their spouse is just 🥰🥰 And then their little freaking smiles can THEY NOT. Ellie you like glazed donuts?? Is this some kind of hint? Innuendo? Just a glaringly obvious chance to flirt and you don’t give a rat’s ass you’re in the middle of the bullpen with Gibbs’ listening to your conversation so you’ll take that chance anyways because you’re head over heels for this guy? Either way Nick’s little smirk oof. I think he takes it as all three of those things and he’s *perfectly* ok with it. UNTIL until, there’s always an until with you Nicholas god damn. Ellie nervously asking about NIck’s apartment 🥺 she may be head over heels but she’s still a little shy and unsure. She thought that jail cell moment would break things through for them and yet she’s- not to quote Taylor swift or anything because why on earth would I do that- right where you left her. WHY NICHOLAS WHY. Since we know Ellie has seen and is very familiar with the inner workings of Nick’s apartment come 16x10, I presume he moved, and it sounds like recently. From the looks of this new place it’s niiiiice. For someone who doesn’t like a lot of things (see s14 when he joins team I don’t remember the exact ep sorry) - he sure managed to settle into that apartment quite nicely. It’s furnished well, it’s homey for DC. And if he’s moved into it since after the jail cell, letting Ellie in is likely a big step in his eyes. But we know this has got to be a weird shift for Ellie. Seemingly so comfortable in each others’ spaces and now she hasn’t even been invited over?? Yeah you smell something fishy girl just like I do. Even if Nick has a cute ass smirk at the end of his little charade to hang up the phone. Wipe that smirk off your face sir you owe us I mean Ellie an explanation and a visit to your apartment. SHE WANTS TO BE YOUR HOUSEGUEST. SHE WANTS TO BE IN YOUR HOUSE. SHE WANTS TO BE IN YOUR PANTS WHILE IN THAT HOUSE. JUST LET HER ALREADY. Ok I’m done, moving on.

Ok the guys opening the doors dramatically to let the one (1) woman on the team make a super badASS entrance is just 🔥🔥🔥 yes love it.

Excuse me why does Ellie feel the need to completely turn her body from the rest of the team/bullpen to be 100% faced on Nick. Body language don’t lie bitch I see you. And Nick stealing a glance at Ellie before having to answer McGee’s question about roommates…..interesting, very interesting sir. You thinking about how she’s going to react to some rando being in your apartment AND staying the night before she has?? You thinking about making her a permanent roommate?? But of course he turns to quick humor for a hot sec because this is Nick and then shockingly, like actually shockingly (is this that personal development, soul-searching, deep dive into emotional wonderland rubbing off on him??? Is it working is this foreshadowing???) he goes and gets deep on ‘em. And McGee calls him on it and I love it, I really think this is some foreshadowing here. I think we’re seeing some of the work Nick is doing on himself, getting himself ready for as serious as a relationship as he knows it’ll be with Ellie, paying off. He’s thinking about ~*emotional*~ consequences to actions and OOF yes. The growth, I live for the fucking growth. “It’s not easy to get through the tough transitions on your own” you say as you literally tried to do that for actual YEARS until you met this team. Until you met Ellie. Until you realized that emotional fallout was a real thing and you my friend are a terrible victim to it. Because guess what- exhibit A is right here about to ask you to dinner and you gonna turn her down. You quite literally tried to get through a tough transition (re: Ellie’s kidnapping & the two bombs) by yourself. That dust settled and you immediately emotionally retreated, not physically- emotionally. You went back to what you always knew, the lone wolf on your own, endure the tough transition. And yes you’ve been doing some work on yourself, but now- now you realize it. You can’t do work on yourself alone. You can’t go through this shit alone. You need your support system- your person. But that thought truly terrifies you. You’ve realized it but are you ready to act on it? Not quite yet. You might be close, but you still can’t bring yourself to be honest with her yet. When Ellie nervously asks Nick if he wants to grab a bite you can feel her start to (it’s probably been there quite a while but she’s tried to ignore the feeling of him emotionally shutting her out and pushing her away but the houseguest thing brought it back full force) really worry about where they stood. She won’t completely admit it to herself because she knows what was said in the jail cell wasn’t a lie or a dramatization for either of them, but that worry that’s been creeping in like a vine is taking hold. Nick saying “there’s something I need to take care of” hmmmmm I feel like this is SO vague. And probably purposely done so by the writers but I just - if it was solely him bringing the dude back to his daughter’s why wouldn’t he just tell Ellie that? What would be the harm in her knowing this? She’s aware you’ve bonded so why would he not just say that? I feel like there was definitely something else he thought he would go do after it. With all the talk of tough transitions and then his obviously pre-made plans to drop this guy off, I just feel like there was some other task he had planned before McGee called him. And him discussing the reset button (I’ll get to this) just kind of solidifies that for me. He’d been doing a LOT of reflection that day and he had something more major planned, I just wish I knew what 😩 Ok back to Ellie’s response, she’s honestly shocked and a little confused at his ominously vague answer. And I’d wager a tiny bit of hurt is in that expression too. All those vines of worry taking hold? Yeah, that’s why. They even just tightened and made her speechless for a second. The emotional withdrawal she feared was being confirmed in front of her very eyes. Because (at least on our screens) the last time Nick turned down a bite to eat with her? Oh yeah, he was dating fucking Elena. (Once again, I don’t think he’s got another girl but y’all this is the parallel Ellie could easily draw seeing as it was only a few months ago, supposedly.) And he even looks almost guilty about turning her down, like he knows it’s probably hurting her (and their relationship) but he can’t help it. He hates that he’s doing it and the words coming from his mouth (good lord it’s like the end of 17x07 with overprotective/you’re like a sister to me all over again) but he can’t stop it. And then my heart breaks for Ellie when she tries to put on a brave, strong face that claims she isn’t bothered by his rejection yet we all knoooooow 😭😭😭 He gives her a small little “night” and she’s just standing there wondering where the hell she went wrong with this, how she read them all wrong.

Ahhhhh the glorious reset button, ya love to see it. When he claims he has the opposite problem you can see his faraway look in his eye. You know *exactly* what, or better yet who, he’s thinking about in that moment. He knows he has to stop avoiding his emotional growth with Ellie. He knows he has to stop hitting the reset button the second things between them get real. And I think he’s known this for a while now but is finally, finally coming to grips with taking real steps forward. Taking steps to embrace the vulnerability he’s terrified of. Finally putting that reset button away 🥺

Ellie knowing Nick has one tie is just another swoon moment. Yes I could get dirty with that (see my tags on previous gifsets for proof) but like, also this is so real of them? They know so damn much about each other it’s insane. She may not have even been in his apartment yet but she knows he owns one tie. Like- come on. Nick you think you’re emotionally distant from this woman but my god it’s the opposite. You two are so intertwined you don’t even realize it as you chuckle and try once again to avoid thinking about that reset button. And then Jimmy goes and reads that letter and I sob. Yes I sobbed. Like I said not getting into this part because my pregnancy hormones can’t handle this (I’m barely rewatching this part with audio ok). But Jimmy’s words voiced over a shot of ellick…take my heart why don’t you. “To hear a laugh, and know that your life would change for ever” like come ON. First, Jimmy you slay me and second, all I can picture is Ellie chuckling with Nick in the bullpen showing him the clicker settings and Nick loving it. Nick your life would be changed forever in that moment I hope you knew. Ellie, pulling her arm around Nick’s for strength, support, I just-. Despite the turmoil she’s been going through, the doubts and the worry that’s crept in- she still feels it. She still feels love for this man and knows her life was changed forever when she met him. No matter how long she tried to deny it, she knows. And that little piece of her that desperately clings to Nick getting his head out of his ass and opening up emotionally to her, that piece decides to break that sliver of personal space and lean on him for support. She needs to touch him- the man who she can’t picture losing like Jimmy lost Breena. She needs to feel him still there, even if he hasn’t completely realized his life changed forever because of her- she has. Gripping his arm for the comfort it gives in knowing he’s still by her side, his hand brushing hers as an involuntary “I’ve got you” (even a reset button pusher like Nick can’t help his reflexes). The gravity of the fragility of life weighing heavily on them both, they hold each other. They’ve got each other. And good god is that poetry we just need them to actually fucking TALK ABOUT IT 😩😭

I don’t know if I even have side notes but I do appreciate NCIS paying homage to the utter grief this pandemic has been. Jimmy being the one to lose a loved one was quite honestly the perfect scenario to me. It shows just how cruel this pandemic has been, ripping even the most optimistic, happy people down to their knees in grief. It’s something that shouldn’t be glossed over and I do hope they continue to have this arc of struggling with grief throughout the season. I think it is so relatable and refreshing to see played out legitimately on the screen. I don’t want happy, go-lucky stale content. I want something real and something tangible. Yes I love my mindless entertainment, but it’s also nice to see *real* drama on a TV drama. At least, that’s my opinion 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’d apologize but isn’t that why you’re reading this to begin with? 😘😘

#ellick #ncis #wwr #18x07 #torres x bishop

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chaoticpete · 3 years

Text

Our lives is a movie?

Peter Parker x reader...I think, Avengers x reader, Tom Holland x Reader (if ya squint)

Warnings: none

What would it be like if the team found out they were just a movie series in our world?

A/n: This is just an idea I had like last year, will probably end up rewriting it, well at least the end, hope you guys still enjoy it though!

“Oh come on! I was so close to an almost perfect winning streak!” You yell at Bucky. Tossing the controller beside you, you cross your arms and start pouting as your Yoshi finally crosses over the finish line.

“Guess I’m just better.” He replies with a smug smirk. “Is that why I beat you the first three games.” It’s your turn to smirk when he glares at you. An alarm starts going off through the tower. A code red. Someone is inside the tower. You wave your hand and your suit appears on.

“FRIDAY! Where’s the intruder?” Tony asks, running into the room, Nat and Wanda following behind. “They’re trying to get into the plans vault, sir.”

“L/N would you mind pulling up a portal?” You make one leading to the vault. “Why of course Papa Stark!” Tony summons a suit and the rest of you jump through your portal seeing a blue man trying to get past the actual vault.

“Hey, Smurf! Who do you think you are?” You ask, throwing a mini explosive his way. He jumps out of way throwing back a disk towards you guys that set off a bright light.

Then he sent another one.

“Void! Look out!” Peter says pushing you out of the way the same time you made another portal causing it to mix with the blue guy’s device.

Before anyone else in the team could do anything the guy was gone, and so were you and Peter.

You land landing on your face. “Ow...I really don’t get paid enough for this.” You grumble as you get back up and brush off your clothes. You notice a golden disk by you. It’s the one the guy threw.

Picking it up and slipping it into your suit, you begin looking around you, you see lots of people walking around some talking other carrying items. “Where the hell am I?” You say starting to walk around.

When you spotted some familiar brown curls. “Peter!” You say running towards the boy and pulling him into a hug. “Ugh, I have absolutely no idea whe- when you change your clothes?” You ask actually getting a good look at him.

‘Peter’ looks at you confused. “When did I change my clothes? Darling, I think the real question is what are you wearing and who are you?” He says in a British accent.

Before either of you can say anything else ANOTHER Peter runs up to you. “Y/n!” “Peter?!” You say back pulling this one in a hug.

“Are you okay?” “Yeah. But when I came out of that portal this woman automatically started coming at me saying that “I needed to get ready for the next scene” and “I needed a touch up” THEN SHE TRIED TO UNDRESS ME! I ran so fast.”

Quickly remembering the other Peter you step back from that Peter and look between the two. Peter looks over at the next person, who he saw...was him. “Holy shit!” He says jumping closer to you.

“Y/n, what is happening?” “I don’t know but I don’t like it. Do you think this is Loki’s doing?” “No, no.” He's on that time mission, remember.” “She.” “Oh yeah.”

The fake Peter looked just as confused as the both of you. “I feel like I should be calling security, but it’s not every day you meet someone who looks, exactly like you.” He says staring at Peter.

“Whoa, you’re British?!” Peter askes shocked at the accident. “Would it help better if I talked like this?” He asked now in an American accent.

He sounded just like Peter.

Both your and Peter’s eyes open wide. “Noooo.” You both say. “You both already look very much alike. Don’t you guys talk alike also?”

A loud bell rings and you and Peter automatically jump into your fighting stances. “Shit! Break is just about done.” Fake Peter says panicking a bit.

“Uh, okay follow me. You guys can stay in my trailer till I’m done for the day then when you get to the hotel we can figure this out.” He says starting to walk towards the trailers.

He goes to one labeled “Peter Parker” and opens the door. “You guys can wait till I’m done. Please, don’t let anyone in. I have a key so I’ll just lock it. Um, there are some snacks in the cupboard, water in the fridge, and feel free to watch anything on the tele. Even got youtube!” He yelled before closing the door.

“...did you catch any of that?” “Nope.”

Turning on the tv, you see the date. “February 16, 2021. What the hell is Covid-19-“

You get cut off by someone trying to open the door. “Fucking div locked the door again. And left the tele on.” You hear a voice mumble on the other side before walking off.

“N/n look at this,” Peter says flipping through pages of paper.

“What is it?” “It’s a script. For a “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” He says looking at the first page. “It has everyone in here. Aunt May, Mj, Ned even that European trip we went on.” “Wait what?” You ask, looking over his shoulder.

“Dude...where the hell are we.”

Hours passed and before you know it you hear the trailer door unlocking. Sitting up in the bed you see the fake Peter (whose name you learned was Tom) walking in looking tired.

“Hey. Okay, so before I actually bring you guys back home. Who exactly are you?”

“Well, my name is Peter. Peter Parker. Spider-Man. Um, I’m pretty sure you know me.”

“Yeah kinda. I am...you? Technically...in this universe. Well, one of you. I’ll explain better at the hotel. Oh, I’m Tom by the way. Don’t think I’ve actually introduced myself.” He says chuckling. “And you?” He asks turning your attention to you.

“I’m the actual Y/n. Or Void as my hero name.”

“Y/n huh? Yeah, we don’t have you here.” “Wait what? Really? But I’m Peter’s partner in crime. We’re always getting blamed for everything with the team.” You say pouting.

“Is there at least an actor that looks like me?” “No, I don’t think so darling. Sorry.”

Before anything else can be said there’s another knock on the door. “Tom, are you in there mate? We’re going to go get some pizza.”

“Uh, no thanks I’ll just meet you back at the room. Be safe.” “Who was that?” “My brother, Harry.” “Aww, he has a brother.” “Three actually.” “Awww!”

“Okay it should be safe to get you two out of here but first. Here,” Tom says opening up a kit bag and giving Peter some clothes and you an oversized hoodie. “They might think you’re trying to steal the suit.”

“Oh, and you’ll need these.” He says grabbing a box and handing you each a mask after Peter was done changing.

“Yeah what’s with these?” “We’re in a pandemic?” “Like the plague?” “Ehh, sort of. Now let’s find a way to get you two back home.”

**************************************************************

“So here, we’re all just...comic book characters? There are no avengers? No flying robots? Nothing?”

“Nope. No alien villains. Just regular people who wanna bring harm.” “Huh.”

The three of you were now in Tom’s suite.

“So how did you guys even get here.” “Well, my theory is when the guy threw his little disk thingy, it merged with Y/n powers and made a new portal.”

“But how do you know that’s what it was meant to do?” “It’s the only explanation with how he got into the compound and the vault unnoticed.”

“You guys never thought about that?” “Blame Tony.” You say as Peter hisses and moves back from getting shocked.

“You okay?” You say grabbing his hand to inspect the slight burn. “Yeah, just a sting. It’ll heal in an hour or two.”

“Can you get us back home?” “Yeah, but I’ll need a few supplies.” “Well,” Tom speaks up. “I’m off tomorrow so we can go pick up what you need. You can stay here tonight if you like.”

“Thanks, dude,” Peter says and you nod with him.

“You guys hungry? I can ask Harry to bring back some pizza for us.” “Ohh yes please.” You say bouncing on your toes a bit. “I’m absolutely starving.”

“So Tom you’re an actor right?” “Mhmm.” “And you said you play me?” “Yep.” “And they have the rest of the team?” “Besides me apparently,” you say under your breath.

“Maybe they’ll bring you in soon. The company is starting a new phase so,” Tom says shrugging.

“Do you guys wanna see them?” “How many are there?” “23 movies and more coming out. There's also shows.”

“23 MOVIES ABOUT US?!”

Tom can’t help but laugh at your guy’s reaction. “Yeah, Marvel movies are some of the biggest ones these days. Going on for almost 13 years.”

“How much have you acted in?” “Like five, two solo films, and this one we’re currently filming will make it six. Three solos and three with the actual avengers.”

There was a knock on the door. “Must be Harry with the pizza,” Tom says going to the door. “Why didn’t you just use your key?”

“Cause my hands are full ya div. Why did you get so much food any-“ Harry stops when he sees you and Peter sitting on the couch.

Tom quickly grabs the food from his hands before he can even think about letting it go.

Looking between his brother and his duplicate you couldn’t help but start laughing at his expression.

All three turned to look at you like you completely lost his mind (which I’m sure is exactly how Harry was feeling). “I’m just gonna...nice meeting you guys I guess.” He says walking to what you think is his room before looking back at Tom and Peter causing him to almost walk up into a wall.

“Uh...sorry about that. That’s my little brother Harry, he came along as my assistant.” You and Peter nod. “Well guess we can dig in and watch the movies.”

“I- it was not that dramatic when Mr. Stark took the suit.” “Yes, it was. You could barely talk properly when you called me.”

“I can’t believe they included Flash but not me.”

“Okay, but why is the guy who plays Mysterio kinda hot though.” “Y/n I swear.” “Okay, but am I wrong?!” “...no.”

“Tony’s ego is gonna be ruined if he ever knows they killed him off.”

“Sucks we didn’t have enough time to watch all 23 films. I’m sure it would make more sense.”

And that’s how your night went. You just watched the Spider-Man stand-alone ones before everyone started to crash from the long eventful day. Harry even came out and joined you guys.

After figuring out what was needed and put together his own device, it was time for you guys to go home.

“You guys got everything?” Harry asks as Peter puts the finishing touches. “Yeah, thank you, guys. Really, I don’t know what I and Peter would’ve done if we didn’t end up here.”

“Oh! These are for you.” Tom says handing you a bag. “It’s the whole MCU collection. I saw how much you guys loved the Spider-Man ones and it was confusing since they all interact. Plus, I’m sure the others would wanna see them.”

“As if some of them need an ego boost. Especially Tony and Loki. I’m pretty sure if Loki ever found out he was actually worshipped here he would find a way to get here.”

You go and pull Tom into a hug. “Nice meeting you Peter’s British half. I’ve never really cared for them but eh, I guess I have a little soft spot for two of them now.” You say shooting Harry a wink before placing a kiss on Tom’s cheek and then going to give Harry a hug as Peter says his byes.

“Ready N/n?” “I guess. I just hope we actually end up in our world and not a different one.” You say grabbing Peter's hand as he gets ready to throw the disc.

You both look back at the two Holland brothers. “See you again one day boys.” You say as Peter throws the disc and a portal opens and the two of you jump through it.

The two of you crash to the floor. “Ugh, Peter get off me! You’re skinny but really heavy.”

“Kids!” You both look up to see the team rushing to you guys. “Where did you two go?!”

Getting up from the ground, both tackled with hugs.

“YOu'll never believe us. But we do have the next movie night!” “What are those?” “Movies about us. Avengers! To the theater room!”

Tags:: @tommyunderoos @spideyspeaches @frenchfrostpudding @holland-styles @gwenvrse @allegra-writes @petersgroupie @cherry-hyejin @kitkatd7 @buckys-other-punk

#marvel #x reader #peter parker #peter parker x reader #spiderman #peter x reader #tom holland spiderman #avengers #mcu peter parker #tom holland x reader #alternate universe #peter Parker and Tom Holland #avenger reader #chaoticpete writes

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