#to remember them they are free to like aspects of the franchise even without acting like its morals aren't completely fucked up

[kyouka-supremacy]

_

[chrisevansluv]

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

Here is the 2012 Detail Magazine interview with chris evans:

The Avengers' Chris Evans: Just Your Average Beer-Swilling, Babe-Loving Buddhist

The 30-year-old Bud Light-chugging, Beantown-bred star of The Avengers is widely perceived as the ultimate guy's guy. But beneath the bro persona lies a serious student of Buddhism, an unrepentant song-and-dance man, and a guy who talks to his mom about sex. And farts.

By Adam Sachs,

Photographs by Norman Jean Roy

May 2012 Issue

"Should we just kill him and bury his body?" Chris Evans is stage whispering into the impassive blinking light of my digital recorder.

"Chris!" shouts his mother, her tone a familiar-to-anyone-with-a-mother mix of coddling and concern. "Don't say that! What if something happened?"

We're at Evans' apartment, an expansive but not overly tricked-out bachelor-pad-ish loft in a semi-industrial nowheresville part of Boston, hard by Chinatown, near an area sometimes called the Combat Zone. Evans has a fuzzy, floppy, slept-in-his-clothes aspect that'd be nearly unrecognizable if you knew him only by the upright, spit-polished bearing of the onscreen hero. His dog, East, a sweet and slobbery American bulldog, is spread out on a couch in front of the TV. The shelves of his fridge are neatly stacked with much of the world's supply of Bud Light in cans and little else.

On the counter sit a few buckets of muscle-making whey-protein powder that belong to Evans' roommate, Zach Jarvis, an old pal who sometimes tags along on set as a paid "assistant" and a personal trainer who bulked Evans up for his role as the super-ripped patriot in last summer's blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger. A giant clock on the exposed-brick wall says it's early evening, but Evans operates on his own sense of time. Between gigs, his schedule's all his, which usually translates into long stretches of alone time during the day and longer social nights for the 30-year-old.

"I could just make this . . . disappear," says Josh Peck, another old pal and occasional on-set assistant, in a deadpan mumble, poking at the voice recorder I'd left on the table while I was in the bathroom.

Evans' mom, Lisa, now speaks directly into the microphone: "Don't listen to them—I'm trying to get them not to say these things!"

But not saying things isn't in the Evans DNA. They're an infectiously gregarious clan. Irish-Italians, proud Bostoners, close-knit, and innately theatrical. "We all act, we sing," Evans says. "It was like the fucking von Trapps." Mom was a dancer and now runs a children's theater. First-born Carly directed the family puppet shows and studied theater at NYU. Younger brother Scott has parts on One Life to Live and Law & Order under his belt and lives in Los Angeles full-time—something Evans stopped doing several years back. Rounding out the circle are baby sister Shanna and a pair of "strays" the family brought into their Sudbury, Massachusetts, home: Josh, who went from mowing the lawn to moving in when his folks relocated during his senior year in high school; and Demery, who was Evans' roommate until recently.

"Our house was like a hotel," Evans says. "It was a loony-tunes household. If you got arrested in high school, everyone knew: 'Call Mrs. Evans, she'll bail you out.'"

Growing up, they had a special floor put in the basement where all the kids practiced tap-dancing. The party-ready rec room also had a Ping-Pong table and a separate entrance. This was the house kids in the neighborhood wanted to hang at, and this was the kind of family you wanted to be adopted by. Spend an afternoon listening to them dish old dirt and talk over each other and it's easy to see why. Now they're worried they've said too much, laid bare the tender soul of the actor behind the star-spangled superhero outfit, so there's talk of offing the interviewer. I can hear all this from the bathroom, which, of course, is the point of a good stage whisper.

To be sure, no one's said too much, and the more you're brought into the embrace of this boisterous, funny, shit-slinging, demonstrably loving extended family, the more likable and enviable the whole dynamic is.

Sample exchange from today's lunch of baked ziti at a family-style Italian restaurant:

Mom: When he was a kid, he asked me, 'Mom, will I ever think farting isn't funny?'

Chris: You're throwing me under the bus, Ma! Thank you.

Mom: Well, if a dog farts you still find it funny.

Then, back at the apartment, where Mrs. Evans tries to give me good-natured dirt on her son without freaking him out:

Mom: You always tell me when you think a girl is attractive. You'll call me up so excited. Is that okay to say?

Chris: Nothing wrong with that.

Mom: And can I say all the girls you've brought to the house have been very sweet and wonderful? Of course, those are the ones that make it to the house. It's been a long time, hasn't it?

Chris: Looooong time.

Mom: The last one at our house? Was it six years ago?

Chris: No names, Ma!

Mom: But she knocked it out of the park.

Chris: She got drunk and puked at Auntie Pam's house! And she puked on the way home and she puked at our place.

Mom: And that's when I fell in love with her. Because she was real.

We're operating under a no-names rule, so I'm not asking if it's Jessica Biel who made this memorable first impression. She and Evans were serious for a couple of years. But I don't want to picture lovely Jessica Biel getting sick at Auntie Pam's or in the car or, really, anywhere.

East the bulldog ambles over to the table, begging for food.

"That dog is the love of his life," Mrs. Evans says. "Which tells me he'll be an unbelievable parent, but I don't want him to get married right now." She turns to Chris. "The way you are, I just don't think you're ready."

Some other things I learn about Evans from his mom: He hates going to the gym; he was so wound-up as a kid she'd let him stand during dinner, his legs shaking like caged greyhounds; he suffered weekly "Sunday-night meltdowns" over schoolwork and the angst of the sensitive middle-schooler; after she and his father split and he was making money from acting, he bought her the Sudbury family homestead rather than let her leave it.

Eventually his mom and Josh depart, and Evans and I go to work depleting his stash of Bud Light. It feels like we drink Bud Light and talk for days, because we basically do. I arrived early Friday evening; it's Saturday night now and it'll be sunup Sunday before I sleeplessly make my way to catch a train back to New York City. Somewhere in between we slip free of the gravitational pull of the bachelor pad and there's bottle service at a club and a long walk with entourage in tow back to Evans' apartment, where there is some earnest-yet-surreal group singing, piano playing, and chitchat. Evans is fun to talk to, partly because he's an open, self-mocking guy with an explosive laugh and no apparent need to sleep, and partly because when you cut just below the surface, it's clear he's not quite the dude's dude he sometimes plays onscreen and in TV appearances.

From a distance, Chris Evans the movie star seems a predictable, nearly inevitable piece of successful Hollywood packaging come to market. There's his major-release debut as the dorkily unaware jock Jake in the guilty pleasure Not Another Teen Movie (in one memorable scene, Evans has whipped cream on his chest and a banana up his ass). The female-friendly hunk appeal—his character in The Nanny Diaries is named simply Harvard Hottie—is balanced by a kind of casual-Friday, I'm-from-Boston regular-dudeness. Following the siren song of comic-book cash, he was the Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. As with scrawny Steve Rogers, the Captain America suit beefed up his stature as a formidable screen presence, a bankable leading man, all of which leads us to The Avengers, this season's megabudget, megawatt ensemble in which he stars alongside Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth.

It all feels inevitable—and yet it nearly didn't happen. Evans repeatedly turned down the Captain America role, fearing he'd be locked into what was originally a nine-picture deal. He was shooting Puncture, about a drug-addicted lawyer, at the time. Most actors doing small-budget legal dramas would jump at the chance to play the lead in a Marvel franchise, but Evans saw a decade of his life flash before his eyes.

What he remembers thinking is this: "What if the movie comes out and it's a success and I just reject all of this? What if I want to move to the fucking woods?"

By "the woods," he doesn't mean a quiet life away from the spotlight, some general metaphorical life escape route. He means the actual woods. "For a long time all I wanted for Christmas were books about outdoor survival," he says. "I was convinced that I was going to move to the woods. I camped a lot, I took classes. At 18, I told myself if I don't live in the woods by the time I'm 25, I have failed."

Evans has described his hesitation at signing on for Captain America. Usually he talks about the time commitment, the loss of what remained of his relative anonymity. On the junkets for the movie, he was open about needing therapy after the studio reduced the deal to six movies and he took the leap. What he doesn't usually mention is that he was racked with anxiety before the job came up.

"I get very nervous," Evans explains. "I shit the bed if I have to present something on stage or if I'm doing press. Because it's just you." He's been known to walk out of press conferences, to freeze up and go silent during the kind of relaxed-yet-high-stakes meetings an actor of his stature is expected to attend: "Do you know how badly I audition? Fifty percent of the time I have to walk out of the room. I'm naturally very pale, so I turn red and sweat. And I have to literally walk out. Sometimes mid-audition. You start having these conversations in your brain. 'Chris, don't do this. Chris, take it easy. You're just sitting in a room with a person saying some words, this isn't life. And you're letting this affect you? Shame on you.'"

Shades of "Sunday-night meltdowns." Luckily the nerves never follow him to the set. "You do your neuroses beforehand, so when they yell 'Action' you can be present," he says.

Okay, there was one on-set panic attack—while Evans was shooting Puncture. "We were getting ready to do a court scene in front of a bunch of people, and I don't know what happened," he says. "It's just your brain playing games with you. 'Hey, you know how we sometimes freak out? What if we did it right now?'"

One of the people who advised Evans to take the Captain America role was his eventual Avengers costar Robert Downey Jr. "I'd seen him around," Downey says. "We share an agent. I like to spend a lot of my free time talking to my agent about his other clients—I just had a feeling about him."

What he told Evans was: This puppy is going to be big, and when it is you're going to get to make the movies you want to make. "In the marathon obstacle course of a career," Downey says, "it's just good to have all the stats on paper for why you're not only a team player but also why it makes sense to support you in the projects you want to do—because you've made so much damned money for the studio."

There's also the fact that Evans had a chance to sign on for something likely to be a kind of watershed moment in the comic-book fascination of our time. "I do think The Avengers is the crescendo of this superhero phase in entertainment—except of course for Iron Man 3," Downey says. "It'll take a lot of innovation to keep it alive after this."

Captain America is the only person left who was truly close to Howard Stark, father of Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man), which meant that Evans' and Downey's story lines are closely linked, and in the course of doing a lot of scenes together, they got to be pals. Downey diagnoses his friend with what he terms "low-grade red-carpet anxiety disorder."

"He just hates the game-show aspect of doing PR," Downey says. "Obviously there's pressure for anyone in this transition he's in. But he will easily triple that pressure to make sure he's not being lazy. That's why I respect the guy. I wouldn't necessarily want to be in his skin. But his motives are pure. He just needs to drink some red-carpet chamomile."

"The majority of the world is empty space," Chris Evans says, watching me as if my brain might explode on hearing this news—or like he might have to fight me if I try to contradict him. We're back at his apartment after a cigarette run through the Combat Zone.

"Empty space!" he says again, slapping the table and sort of yelling. Then, in a slow, breathy whisper, he repeats: "Empty space, empty space. All that we see in the world, the life, the animals, plants, people, it's all empty space. That's amazing!" He slaps the table again. "You want another beer? Gotta be Bud Light. Get dirty—you're in Boston. Okay, organize your thoughts. I gotta take a piss . . ."

My thoughts are this: That this guy who is hugging his dog and talking to me about space and mortality and the trouble with Boston girls who believe crazy gossip about him—this is not the guy I expected to meet. I figured he'd be a meatball. Though, truthfully, I'd never called anyone a meatball until Evans turned me on to the put-down. As in: "My sister Shanna dates meatballs." And, more to the point: "When I do interviews, I'd rather just be the beer-drinking dude from Boston and not get into the complex shit, because I don't want every meatball saying, 'So hey, whaddyathink about Buddhism?'"

At 17, Evans came across a copy of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and began his spiritual questing. It's a path of study and struggle that, he says, defines his true purpose in life. "I love acting. It's my playground, it lets me explore. But my happiness in this world, my level of peace, is never going to be dictated by acting," he says. "My goal in life is to detach from the egoic mind. Do you know anything about Eastern philosophy?"

I sip some Bud Light and shake my head sheepishly. "They talk about the egoic mind, the part of you that's self-aware, the watcher, the person you think is driving this machine," he says. "And that separation from self and mind is the root of suffering. There are ways of retraining the way you think. This isn't really supported in Western society, which is focused on 'Go get it, earn it, win it, marry it.'"

Scarlett Johansson says that one of the things she appreciates about Evans is how he steers clear of industry chat when they see each other. "Basically every actor," she says, "including myself, when we finish a job we're like, 'Well, that's it for me. Had a good run. Put me out to pasture.' But Chris doesn't strike me as someone who frets about the next job." The two met on the set of The Perfect Score when they were teenagers and have stayed close; The Avengers is their third movie together. "He has this obviously masculine presence—a dude's dude—and we're used to seeing him play heroic characters," Johansson says, "but he's also surprisingly sensitive. He has close female friends, and you can talk to him about anything. Plus there's that secret song-and-dance, jazz-hands side of Chris. I feel like he grew up with the Partridge Family. He'd be just as happy doing Guys and Dolls as he would Captain America 2."

East needs to do his business, so Evans and I take him up to the roof deck. Evans bought this apartment in 2010 when living in L.A. full-time no longer appealed to him. He came back to stay close to his extended family and the intimate circle of Boston pals he's maintained since high school. The move also seems like a pretty clear keep-it-real hedge against the manic ego-stroking distractions of Hollywood.

"I think my daytime person is different than my nighttime person," Evans says. "With my high-school buddies, we drink beer and talk sports and it's great. The kids in my Buddhism class in L.A., they're wildly intelligent, and I love being around them, but they're not talking about the Celtics. And that's part of me. It's a strange dichotomy. I don't mind being a certain way with some people and having this other piece of me that's just for me."

I asked Downey about Evans' outward regular-Joe persona. "It's complete horseshit," Downey says. "There's an inherent street-smart intelligence there. I don't think he tries to hide it. But he's much more evolved and much more culturally aware than he lets on."

Perhaps the meatball and the meditation can coexist. We argue about our egoic brains and the tao of Boston girls. "I love wet hair and sweatpants," he says in their defense. "I like sneakers and ponytails. I like girls who aren't so la-di-da. L.A. is so la-di-da. I like Boston girls who shit on me. Not literally. Girls who give me a hard time, bust my chops a little."

The chief buster of Evans' chops is, of course, Evans himself. "The problem is, the brain I'm using to dissect this world is a brain formed by it," he says. "We're born into confusion, and we get the blessing of letting go of it." Then he adds: "I think this shit by day. And then night comes and it's like, 'Fuck it, let's drink.'"

And so we do. It's getting late. Again. We should have eaten dinner, but Evans sometimes forgets to eat: "If I could just take a pill to make me full forever, I wouldn't think twice."

We talk about his dog and camping with his dog and why he loves being alone more than almost anything except maybe not being alone. "I swear to God, if you saw me when I am by myself in the woods, I'm a lunatic," he says. "I sing, I dance. I do crazy shit."

Evans' unflagging, all-encompassing enthusiasm is impressive, itself a kind of social intelligence. "If you want to have a good conversation with him, don't talk about the fact that he's famous" was the advice I got from Mark Kassen, who codirected Puncture. "He's a blast, a guy who can hang. For quite a long time. Many hours in a row."

I've stopped looking at the clock. We've stopped talking philosophy and moved into more emotional territory. He asks questions about my 9-month-old son, and then Captain America gets teary when I talk about the wonder of his birth. "I weep at everything," he says. "I emote. I love things so much—I just never want to dilute that."

He talks about how close he feels to his family, how open they all are with each other. About everything. All the time. "The first time I had sex," he says, "I raced home and was like, 'Mom, I just had sex! Where's the clit?'"

Wait, I ask—did she ever tell you?

"Still don't know where it is, man," he says, then breaks into a smile composed of equal parts shit-eating grin and inner peace. "I just don't know. Make some movies, you don't have to know…"

If someone doesn't want to check the link, the anon sent the full interview!

[tcm]

“Much More to Movie Monsters Than Meets The Eye” By Raquel Stecher

With his latest book Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond, author and horror expert David J. Skal provides readers with the perfect guide for watching spooky films throughout October and the year. The book takes a look at 31 different horror films from NOSFERATU (‘22) to GET OUT (2017). Skal offers insights into how German Expressionism and WWI influenced early horror classics, how Val Lewton threw out horror conventions with CAT PEOPLE (‘42), how DRACULA (‘31) was a financial gamble and how more recent films like HOCUS POCUS (‘93) achieved cult status. If you’re worried that 31 horror films are not enough, don’t despair, as each of these films is paired with a bonus recommendation on a similar theme. Fright Favorites is now available from Running Press and TCM.

Raquel Stecher: Can you tell us a bit about your background as a cultural historian and horror expert?

David J. Skal: I was one of the original “monster kids” of the 1950s and ‘60s, who discovered the old Universal horror classics when they were first released to television, and for a while I couldn’t get enough of them, or of the fan culture they set in motion. I was an avid reader of magazines like Famous Monsters of Filmland, and when I came back as an adult to write about the history of horror entertainment from an adult perspective, it would never have happened without those photo-filled periodicals that engaged and obsessed me as a kid.

RS: In the book you discuss the connection between Hollywood and Halloween. Tell us a little about how that came about and how the two have become so intrinsically tied with one another.

DJS: In the golden age of American horror movies in the 1930s and 1940s, there was no supplemental merchandizing or other tie-ins to Halloween. It was still a pretty homespun holiday. The holiday’s potential wasn’t fully exploited by the film industry until after World War II, when we saw Universal franchising its monster characters as Halloween masks and costumes. In the ensuing decades, October became the major month for horror movie premieres, including studios other than Universal, and all the major theme parks got on the bandwagon, profitably extending their summer seasons with Halloween nights that are almost always tied in to some horror franchise or another, frequently of the slasher or chainsaw variety.

RS: What was the research process like for writing Fright Favorites?

DJS: Over the years I’ve done much more research for my books than I’ve been able to ever use, so Fright Favorites was an ideal opportunity to make use of information and anecdotes I’d never had room for in previous projects. As a result, it took about six months rather than the usual full year I most often devote to completing a book. Although the final selections were mine, the people at TCM are also—no surprise—very knowledgeable about movies with many favorites of their own that I was able to incorporate. There weren’t really any disagreements, just a bit of a juggling act to maintain a balance between the films included.

RS: In the book you wrote “Some early commentators on the medium worried that film might be nothing less than the arrival of living death. It is in horror movies that this pervading sense of the uncanny still speaks to us.” Were studios worried about making horror films? How did Universal's success with the genre affect the film industry as a whole?

DJS: In a way, the film medium itself is the very definition of the uncanny, bringing dead actors back to life, or its convincing simulacrum. This strange fact is always there, staring back at you. And remember, actors themselves have amounted to a species of shapeshifters, slipping in and out of identities in the manner of movie monsters. Film is a dream-like medium that has been irresistibly drawn to the fantastic and the bizarre from its very beginning, at least in Europe. American movies didn’t approach truly fantastic subjects until Universal took a chance with DRACULA in 1931. Previously, American films observed the tradition of explaining away any ghostly occurrence as a criminal conspiracy or ruse. But DRACULA, along with FRANKENSTEIN the same year, became two of the most influential and imitated films of all time.

RS: Stars like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., Vincent Price, etc. became known for their horror roles. How did some of these horror stars embrace the genre or how did it typecast them?

DJS: By definition, any “horror star” is already typecast, although some deal with the pigeonholing better than others. I once had the privilege of sitting in on a classroom visit by Vincent Price with a group of acting students who asked him if he resented being considered a horror star and how they could avoid being typecast themselves. He told them in no uncertain terms that show business was already a difficult way to make a living and that being typecast would be the best thing that could ever happen to them professionally. Most horror stars I’ve met or interviewed are grateful for their fame and the attention of their fans.

RS: Many horror stories have been revisited in remakes, new adaptations and re-imaginings. Why has Hollywood been so keen to revisit horror classics?

DJS: Horror is a genre with financial profit baked in from the get-go—it’s almost impossible to lose money even on a poorly made scary movie, which is why so many prominent directors have gotten their start in the genre. It’s a fairly risk-free way to take a chance on new talent. In terms of remakes, if a formula has worked before, why not do it again? Fortunately, the remakes usually veer substantially away from the original stories in ways that keep the legacy of one monster or legend perpetually alive. Horror evolves the way anything evolves—through endless change and adaptation.

RS: What are some of your personal favorite horror films?

DJS: I don’t have a number one, or number two favorite. I admire many films for individual reasons: directors, scripts, actors. People most often ask me what my favorite version of Dracula is. I tell them that it doesn’t yet exist, but it would be a master version of the story edited together from all the major adaptations, with actors from different versions interacting with each other. It would be a huge job, but if done with the right flair would be hugely entertaining and probably bring out important aspects of each version that you wouldn’t notice watching them individually.

RS: Some of the films you feature in Fright Favorites are also considered science fiction classics. How do the two genres of science fiction and horror complement each other?

DJS: Literary horror and literary science fiction are fairly separate categories, but on screen the genres tend to blur together. For instance, ALIEN (‘79) is a haunted house story set in outer space. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (‘78) is an alien invasion story that’s also about zombies. Being a visual medium, movies tend to spotlight science fiction’s bizarre and grotesque imagery and end up emphasizing the horrific over the cerebral.

RS: How do horror films tap into the pervading anxieties and fears of their respective eras?

DJS: This is the through-line of most of my books: that horror entertainment amounts to a secret history of modern times, with each new cultural upheaval or trauma setting in motion identifiable kinds of stories and characters. The anxiety and fear need to be processed, but it’s always easier to deal with real-world horror if you don’t have to look at it too directly. WWI tore about human bodies like no previous war, and all through the 1920s and 1930s we looked at one disfigured face after another, even though the films weren’t about battlefield combat. Unprecedented numbers of mutilated men were returning to society, and they were being shunned. Nonetheless, they popped up in our cinematic dreams. During the AIDS epidemic, there was an explosion of books and films about another mysterious, blood-related scourge: vampirism. Repress awareness of an uncomfortable fact, and it will always rise somewhere else in a different form.

RS: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

DJS: So far, the book does seem to be engaging readers who have a general knowledge of horror entertainment but are curious to know more. The most important thing a reader might take away is the simple revelation that there’s much more to movie monsters than meets the eye.

[bluerosesonata]

A Window to the Soul: Game Mechanics and Characters in Ai: the Somnium Files

Spoiler-free!

Ai: The Somnium Files is an adventure game/visual novel for PC, PS4, and the Nintendo Switch by Spike Chunsoft in September 2019. Written and directed by Kotaro Uchikoshi, known for his Zero Escape Trilogy (999: Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors (DS), Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward (DS), and Zero Time Dilemma (DS, PS Vita, PC), also available as the Zero Escape Trilogy on Steam and PS4), this game once again displays Uchikoshi’s signature combination of suspense, humor, and ludonarrative harmony that fans of his previous games are familiar with, alongside a cast of complex, compelling characters you’ll absolutely fall in love with.

For all my fellow Zero Escape fans, you probably remember the issues the series faced with financing, which ultimately lead to Uchikoshi helping to establish Spike Chunsoft and the eventual release of Zero Time Dilemma. In AitSF, more than ever, the fruits of that partnership are apparent. It feels we finally get to see a complete picture of Uchikoshi’s vision; Featuring fully animated 3d models, fully voiced dialogue, and some incredibly goofy and self-indulgent dance sequences, this murder mystery (and yes, it is a murder mystery) is absolutely worth it’s full price and your time.

The game has multiple endings (About 5, without checking), all leading up to and feeding into the true ending. One notable feature is that the timeline allows you to jump into previous played sections at any point of the chapter, and even provides summaries of the events that happened in each “node,” so unlike in the original 999,  you don’t need to replay through every scene of dialogue to get to each ending.

Rather than spend time analyzing the story itself- something that can’t be done to a satisfying level without spoiling the whole thing- I’ll just say that the way Uchikoshi literally has us get inside the heads of characters by “syncing” with them is a great story device, and is realized extremely well in the gameplay. For me, the Sync was used in all the right places to push me into genuinely caring about some characters, that, without the sync, I would be sympathetic to, but not feel a real sense of attachment towards.

What follows is a breakdown and analysis of how well the gameplay is designed, and some non-spoilery discussion of characterization and character design:

Mechanics:

The core gameplay loop can be broken into two parts: dialogue and investigation, and “syncing.”

The investigation portion of the game is similar to most adventure visual novels- investigating crime scenes, talking to NPCs to advance the story, examining your surroundings, and in my case, clicking on scenery over and over again to get funny flavor dialogue.

The flavor dialogue does not disappoint- and for me, the best minor feature included in the game ties to this. When you click on an object, you get an initial string of dialogue- but the indicator with the name of the object will only get grayed out once you’ve seen all the text related to that object. For some people, this might ruin the “fun” of clicking over and over again- like in 999, where some bits of dialogue would only display on the 9th time examining an object- but for me, it was a godsend, because I didn’t spend any time wondering if I missed anything funny.

The Sync gameplay loop is also mechanically brilliant. Part of the in-universe rules, which are emphasized over and over, is that the main character, Date, can only spend 6 minutes within the subject’s “Somnium”- the internal dreamscape of their mind- and that staying any longer could result in disastrous consequences. As such, each Somnium loop attempt can (hypothetically) be experienced in chunks of about 8-10 minutes. This set time frame makes it a breeze to play the game in small sections at a time and let your mind breathe a bit. The time limitation is challenging, but never infuriating; even when I messed up horribly and knew I had to restart a sync from the beginning, I would just use the time I had remaining to try out the goofier actions available to try out as puzzle solutions.

Somnium Files’ adaptability to being played in long sittings or in short bursts, while still maintaining an engaging, tense narrative is an incredible strength that not all games can boast of. Not a single part of the game felt like a slog or a chore to me, unlike a few puzzles in Zero Time Dilemma, where I ran into the perennial adventure game issue of  “okay, so I have this item, but where do I use it?”, “how the hell do I even solve this puzzle without a guide” (I didn’t), and “what do I need to do to unlock the next sequence?”

Characters

So let’s talk about these good characters. Some of you probably recognized the art style for the game’s key visual as the work of Yusuke Kozaki, best known by many as the head artist and character designer for Fire Emblem: Awakening and Fire Emblem: Fates. Even in his work for the Fire Emblem franchise, you can tell he doesn’t care much for drawing armor- which puts him in the same club as literally every artist I know who draws Fire Emblem fan art. His designs really shine in a contemporary setting, with modern clothing, and really give the cast a unified, unique aesthetic. Moreover, the designs are beautifully translated into 3D as well.

For a game that was most likely well underway in development several years prior to the boom of the subgenre, the design for A-set, (AKA Iris), an in-game internet idol and streamer, is incredibly in line with those of many successful “Virtual Youtubers”- for that alone it deserves some accolades. Fittingly, as part of online promotion for the game, Chunsoft posted a series of video blogs starring  A-set, as if she were posting to her own channel. (I missed all of these, and that’s a real shame, because I think they would have gotten me excited for the game if I had been paying attention.)

Despite Iris’ obvious and engineered marketability, I think my favorite design of the game is Aiba, the AI partner of the main character, whose human form only appears in Somnium and in the realm world as an AR projection imposed in Date’s cybernetic eye. The way her arms fade into glowing, electronic “nerves” at her arms is a subtle reminder of her artificiality, but her design also doesn’t make her more playful and goofy behaviors jarring in the least.

As far as personalities go, I would say that Date, our protagonist, manages to hit the perfect median- maybe even fusion- between the past male protagonists in the Zero Escape trilogy. Junpei, Sigma, and Carlos were all likable in their own ways, as the narrative character, but all had a level of blandness to them. To me, they served more as vehicles for us to participate in the Nonary Games.

In contrast, Date feels very much like his own, established person, and that’s not only a huge strength, but central to the overall narrative. (For all non-ZE fans reading this review- I apologize for the heavy use of ZE comparisons here.) Like Sigma, Date is a bit of a perv, but unlike Sigma in Virtue’s Last Reward, I didn’t feel squicked out by his behavior; Like Carlos, he cares immensely for the people important to him, and puts their wellbeing first; Like Junpei, he’s, also, a loveable moron.

There are other characters- Mizuki in particular- whom I can’t speak too much about without spoiling some of the enjoyment of their character arcs, but all of them have incredibly good and complicated interpersonal relationships both with and outside of Date.

Lastly, there’s Aiba. A good companion character is worth their weight in gold. After all, most of the time, they’re who you spend most of your time with, and for that reason, the more “annoying” ones always catch more flac for being so. For me, Aiba easily slides into my top 10 favorite companion characters of all time, along such members as Maya Fey in the original Ace Attorney trilogy and Midna from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Most of the goofiest sequences in the game are instigated by her, and every time she’s on screen there’s bound to be something fun to do, not to mention the fact she’s our avatar used within Somnium. Combine that and her telepathic banter with Date, and you got a recipe for a dynamic duo.

In closing, every aspect of AitSF is absolutely delightful; It has tightly woven narrative gameplay, wonderful and complex characters, a storyline that, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t unravel the details of before they were revealed- and I didn’t even get into how great the voice acting is. If you’re looking for an enjoyable, self-contained game that you can beat in under 35 hours, Ai: The Somnium Files can’t be beat.

[cherry-valentine]

Winter 2021 Anime Season:

What I’m watching:

Log Horizon season 3 is all about the politics. Of all the “trapped in a video game” anime I’ve seen, Log Horizon has always been unique in the way it focuses not on the drama and action (although there is some of that), but on the world building of the “game” the characters find themselves stuck in. It’s less a game and more an entirely new world, one that the players, called “Adventurers,” are keenly aware of their influence on. The show focuses much more on the politics, economics, history, etc. of this world than it does on battles or romance. This sets it apart from things like Sword Art Online and the .hack franchise. Season 3 so far seems to be focusing on how the hub town of Akiba will be governed, with an actual election taking place. The Adventurers have to form good business relationships with the “People of the Land” (NPC’s, who in this world have their own personalities and lives and are just as developed as the players). The series goes into things like power systems, food supply, the politics of arranged marriages, and so many other things that make this world so interesting. Because of this, I’ve seen people calling the show boring or slow. I can understand how it could be seen that way, but I honestly find it fascinating. When the show does focus on action, it really nails it. So far season 3 has had pretty much zero action, but I’m guessing we’ll get some in the later part of the season. The animation is nice, with tons of characters sporting various designs. The music is great too. While I do miss the “Database” opening theme from season 1 and 2, this new one is pretty good. Watch Log Horizon if you’re into fantasy world-building. Avoid if you think a few episodes without a fight makes a series boring.

Beastars season 2 is a delight. I didn’t watch the first season as it aired, so I quickly caught up on Netflix before season 2 started, and I’m so glad I did. The show is definitely something I didn’t think I would enjoy, but everyone seemed to agree it was fantastic, so I gave it a shot. I intended to watch the first episode one evening to see what it was like and ended up watching the first eight in practically one sitting. For those unaware, Beastars is about a society of vaguely human-like animals (almost all of them walk upright on two legs and wear clothes, for example) and the conflicts between the carnivores and the herbivores (many of whom live in constant fear of being eaten, even though eating meat is illegal). The core of the story is about a wolf, Legoshi, falling in love with a rabbit, Haru, and all the complications that arise from that. Apparently, inter-species relationships are allowed, but frowned upon (I guess? It’s never explicitly stated either way). What makes this relationship interesting is the fact that the wolf is shy and awkward (and just generally a sweet guy) while the rabbit is more experienced and worldly. Something that struck me as interesting is that the rabbit Haru is sexually active, and has been with several different male characters. While the other characters, naturally, have things to say about this (calling her a “slut” or a “bitch” - the main setting is a high school after all), the story itself doesn’t condemn her for it. In fact, the story presents her in a positive light, sexual history included. The fact that she sleeps around is never portrayed as a negative aspect of her character, and Legoshi is very much aware of her activities. It’s a surprisingly sex positive take. Of course, this positivity doesn’t extend to the audience. Avoid comments sections on episodes of this show unless you want to see some rampant slut shaming.

I ended up talking mostly about season 1, but I didn’t get to do a write-up about it so there’s that. Season 2 is so far very good, dealing with a plot thread that had been left dangling in season one: an herbivore student was murdered and eaten in the first episode, and the mystery of who the killer is was pretty much dropped in favor of character development and world building. But season 2 is addressing that mystery in earnest, and it’s been exciting to watch Legoshi pursue the case. Overall, it’s an engaging show that I regret sleeping on until now. The opening and ending themes are real bangers and the animation looks great.

Dr. Stone Season 2 was easily my most anticipated series this season. It was my favorite show during it’s first season and is my favorite overall this season as well. The show is just so fun. The very quick and basic plot setup is that humanity was turned to stone in the modern age and, thousands of years later, the earth has been retaken by nature. A teenaged scientific genius named Senku breaks free of his stone shell and decides to save everyone and bring science and technology back to the world. In conflict with him is Tsukasa, a physical powerhouse who wants to destroy all the stone adults and create a utopia for the youth. Season 2 leaps right into the war with Tsukasa’s army, with Senku and his allies actually building a primitive cell phone to communicate over wide distances. The charm of this series has always been in its mixture of science facts and methods (all based on real-world science and theoretically possible) and dramatic action between well developed characters, both presented in equally exciting lights. It’s just as much fun watching Senku and his friends gather materials to make a vehicle as it is watching the various skillful warriors battling it out. The art style is something often commented on, as the character designs take a little getting used to, but the animation itself is very nice. As per usual, it has amazing opening and ending themes, with my favorite opening of the season.

The Promised Neverland Season 2 is a bit of a mess. I don’t follow the manga, but I enjoyed the first season of the anime very much and, just by virtue of being on Tumblr and being aware of the series, I ended up hearing about some major plot points from the manga that had me excited. So season two started and the first few episodes were great. But then things started seeming rushed, or just not quite right. A glance at the comments on the episodes revealed that entire story arcs had been skipped, and it really shows even to someone like me who hasn’t read the manga. And one major event I had seen so many images of from the manga is clearly being done in a completely different way in the anime (one that lessens the scene’s impact quite a lot). So... I’m not sure how to feel about this series. It was one of my most anticipated shows this season, but now it’s dropped down toward the bottom, and that’s disappointing. I guess I’ll finish this out and then consider picking up the manga, since apparently this is so different it won’t be spoiling much.

World Trigger Season 2 was a bit of a surprise. I only found out about it a few days before it began airing, and I honestly hesitated when deciding whether or not to watch it. When the first season aired, I loved it. I was sure it would be a new favorite. But then the filler arcs started, and they were almost unbearably boring. I dropped the series and always wondered if the show went back to its former greatness. So when season 2 started, I wondered if this was more filler, or if the filler arcs had ended in season 1 and I’d missed out on some content that I’d need to watch to understand season 2. Plus, my memory of season 1 wasn’t so great. With these thoughts in mind, I decided to watch the first few episodes of season 2 and see if I could make sense of it. Luckily, all of my concerns flew out the window pretty quickly. By the end of the first episode, I was enjoy it so much that I didn’t care about any of the things I’d been worried about. Sure, I might not have remembered all the names or all the details, but the important stuff was coming back to me.

The thing World Trigger does best is juggling tons and tons of characters. I know a lot of anime have large casts, but few of them have so many characters active in a single story arc, and even fewer of them handle those characters so well. Even though it’s been a few years since I watched season 1, and there were dozens of characters popping up in the first few episodes alone, I remembered most of them as I saw them. This is because all of them are memorable, well-designed, and interesting. I think it says a lot about the cast that, in the first several episodes, the three main protagonists are completely left out of the action, and we only get a brief glimpse of them. And this did absolutely nothing to hinder my enjoyment of the show. The supporting characters are so strong (both in-series and in terms of the writing) that the protagonists were not even missed. And I’m not dunking on the protagonists here. They’re great, fun characters. Aside from all this, the show has simple yet attractive art with a ton of variety in the design work. The music is nice, with one of the better opening themes of the season. The action is well choreographed and it’s just a fun series overall.

Sk8 is one of only two totally new series I’m following this season, and it’s a blast. Following a handful of eccentric skate boarders who engage in one-on-one races, the show is equal parts funny and exciting. The main focus is on two skaters, the energetic Reki and the Canadian snow boarder Langa, whom Reki is introducing to the world of skate boarding. The first thing you’re likely to notice about this series is just how colorful it is. It’s like the show itself is in love with color. It makes the art very striking and pleasing to look at. Honestly, it’s worth watching for the eye candy alone. Luckily, the series has other things going for it as well. The budding friendship between Reki and Langa is humorous and sweet, with very little of the usual “rivals who act like they hate each other but are actually friends” shenanigans we see so often in anime. They’re just two nice boys who are nice to each other, and that’s refreshing. Another high point is the gloriously flamboyant villain, Adam. He’s a real treat whenever he’s on screen. The show has an overall light-hearted feel, with enough emotional moments to keep it from becoming too silly. I don’t know much about skate boarding, but this anime makes it look awesome.

Kemono Jihen is the only other new series I’m watching this season. It primarily focuses on a small group of mythical creatures (or half-human/half-mythical) living in Tokyo, operating a detective agency for cases involving creatures like them. The protagonist is Kabane, a young boy who is half human, half ghoul. He’s apparently immortal, to the point that severing his head doesn’t even seem to cause pain. Due to being neglected and mistreated by his adoptive human family, he lacks social skills, but his earnest attempts to make friends and help his companions make him an endearing character. While this type of “urban fantasy” story isn’t new, it’s executed rather well. The characters and their abilities are varied and interesting, the art is competent, and the music fits. There’s a bit of a gross-out factor, with at least two cases involving insects, so be aware. It’s not my favorite show this season, mainly because it doesn’t seem to bring any new ideas to the table, but it’s entertaining enough to keep a spot on my watch list despite me being absolutely brutal when trimming that list down this season. Worth watching, for sure.

Carry Over Shows From Previous Seasons:

Black Clover

Jujutsu Kaisen

Best of Season:

Best New Show: Sk8

Best Opening Theme: Dr. Stone Season 2

Best Ending Theme: Sk8

Best New Male Character: Langa (Sk8)

Best New Female Character: Kon (Kemono Jihen)

[reroseshi]

🦇Psychological Analysis of Diabolik Lovers❤:

Hi! I've decided for my first own Tumblr post that I should talk about the franchise that I have been a fan of for 6 years: Diabolik Lovers. After being in this fandom for so long I felt personally kinda cheap for me to just do a short funny post about DL

… sooo~~~ i've decided to share my personal psychological analysis on all the diaboys! Disclaimer: 

1-My memory is quite short and trying to analyse 13  fictional mentally ill boys is quite tricky so please be easy on me.^^

2- English isn't my first language so there might be some mistakes so please pardon me for that!

3- I am currently still working on the Mukami's, the Tsukinami's and Kino so they aren't gonna be in this post!

4- I based myself on the manga and MAINLY HDB and MB for my analysis.

Thank you and have a good reading!^^~ <3

-Rero

Sakamaki's:________________________________

-Shu Sakamaki:

Shu is the first born and the heir of the Sakamaki family. Thus, whether he wants it or not, it was decided even before he was born that he will be the victim of a lot of pressure. That pressure to become worthy of being the heir not only came from both of his parents but the servants as well. He couldn’t be free for two seconds. He was obliged to stay inside the castle/mansion (sometimes in the garden with his mom) to study and train, but he wasn’t allowed to go somewhere else. As he lived in a strict environnement, he wasn't happy as a kid and wanted to escape from that life. Meeting Edgar gave him true happiness. He was his first real best friend and he eventually lost him in the flames of his village. Imagine the thing or person who made you discover true happiness burning in front of your own very eyes. You will most likely lose hope in making other close relationship with anything or anyone. That's how Shu is. A depressed, borderline suicidal man who doesn't have any hope anymore and thinks that it is all his fault. Refusing anyone close to him and empty on a daily basis, he uses music as a way to cope with everything. If you think that Shu is easier to love because "he is less harsh than the other brothers" then you are wrong. Shu doesn't want to be involved with anything or anyone. If you try to get close to him, then get ready to be hurt because he is a sadist like his brothers and can hurt you if he doesn't want you near him.

-Reiji Sakamaki:

(If you want a more detailed and a well done analysis, please go check this one:

Reiji was severely neglected as a child by both of his parents. He basically spent his entire childhood trying to get their attention or at least some recognition from them, especially his mom’s, but never got any or if he did it was to remind him that he should be a good younger/brother/servant/right-hand man for his older brother, the next heir of the Sakamaki family Shu. Thus, as he grew up he developed a strong feeling of jealousy for his brother to the point of having a severe inferiority complex. In addition to that, the bitterness that he has for ages inside of him about his mother still resides in him and as we know he is still trying to revive her. Reiji is a man who holds grudges from his past and seeks revenge. He is also someone who loves attention (maybe not as much as Kanato) and wants to be recognized as superior to his brother whom he despises so much to the point that you cannot even talk about Shu around him without having either a death glare or a ass whooping. By putting high standards on to himself, not only in the present but also in his past, he’s become a perfectionist who cares a lot about image and manners. He even forces Yui in his route to learn the perfect lady etiquette. Why does he act this way? Simple, in my opinion it is because he likes to keep a perfect image of himself in a way to detach himself from his brothers whom he despises a lot. You might also ask: if he hates his brothers, then why didn’t he kill them yet? Well, Reiji in one interview (https://prevolt.tumblr.com/post/103068375676/diabolik-lovers-dark-fate-stellaworth-complete )admits that he doesn’t completely hate living with his bros, also if he would’ve killed them, his father would’ve punished him. Even if he seems not that bad with his gentleman personality, Reiji isn’t a kind man. Reiji can easily kill someone. To end this, to go back to the butler-like image he gives himself, I think it could be a mask to hide the insecurities he has. I also believe that he constantly lies to himself and that he doesn’t truly understand his own emotions or even himself has seen many times in his HDB route and in the manga.

-Ayato Sakamaki:

(For Ayato I fell upon this really interesting analysis if you are interested ) 

Ayato, in his childhood, like all of his brothers, was not treated well by his father but he , most importantly, got overpressured by Cordelia to be number one. He couldn’t get out and play freely like any normal child can do because when he would sneak out, he got punished and got slapped in the face by his own mother telling him that if he cannot be number one, he is not allowed to call her “mother” again.(Also, do I need to remind you all the lake scene from his childhood… )For him, you cannot be loved and/or appreciated if you’re not number one. Because he had to live such a childhood, he developed a severe narcissistic personality. Narcissists are not born, they are made, and they are made by being over praised as a kid for their success (such as having a good grade at school, winning a competition or an award, being the best in what they are doing) and by being emotionally neglected. (Ex: throughout the day the child is getting good compliments from their parents by being the number one at school but when the kid will start crying, the parents will ignore or punish him for it. Not giving him any love or support. Which will lead the kid to build himself an ego higher than Yūma’s height and rejecting his own emotions.) I think it describes Ayato’s behaviour and his past pretty well. Another thing that is important to consider about Ayato is that he looks as if he is frozen in time. (Which is a trait that can also be found in any real life narcissists) Even if his mother is dead and that he has nothing to prove anymore, he is still stuck in the “I need to be number one” as if his brain didn’t move on to the present. In addition to that, Ayato is a really childish man. I mean: he needs Yui’s attention and approval all the time, pouts like a kid, acts like a kid (when he asked Yui to stroke his hair in a childish way, plays pranks on Reiji, …) and sometimes speaks like a kid when things are not going the way he wants them to go. Also, once states that he doesn’t wish to have someone special in his life again because the last one who was special (his mom) broke his heart. Ayato himself and himself only and the only goal in his life is to prove that he is the best. To do that, he will use ANY sadistic method and won’t stop even if you beg. Heck, it’ll only excite him more. He is a narcissistic sadist who keeps his emotions far away from him.

-Kanato Sakamaki:

(For this character I highly suggest that you take a good look a this psychological analysis since in my opinion really detailed and the author made a really good job making it: . Thank you~)

Just like his brother Laito, Kanato throughout his childhood was severely neglected and treated very harshly by both of his parents. The only thing that was valuable to his mother’s eyes was his beautiful voice and literally made him sing until his vocal cords bled. I suspect that Kanato probably suffers from Asperger syndrome from how he acts when he is mad, the fact that he doesn’t understand his or the emotions of others and his overall behaviour. In the present we can all see that he is almost, if not, the scariest of all sakamaki brothers and I think that it is mainly due to the lack of attention and support from his parents. Of all the Sakamaki’s, Kanato is the one who, from very early in his childhood, needed attention and support the most. Why do you think he always has a teddy in his arms (with his mother’s ashes in it must I remind you..)and makes his own doll made out of the body of dead women? Kanato simply cannot stand being alone. He would rather have you dead by his side for all eternity than being rejected or even worse, ignored.(I really recommend to read Kanato’s analysis since it really explains well his behaviour on that aspect^^)

He is maybe cute, remember that he is unable to understand your emotions and that he has no problem killing you. Also to be able to survive with him, you will have to abandon your logic and read in between the lines which isn’t an easy task..(This one is shorter because I think that Kanato isn’t that complex. He is just really different but still stays, in my opinion, pretty simple and easy to understand)

-Laito Sakamaki:

Laito is what I would call an empty pervert who uses sex as a coping mechanism. He believes that there’s nothing more real than pleasure. He even goes further in his “crazy” beliefs that “even the sweetest pain can become the greatest pleasure”. Behind his playful, sociable, perverted personality is a really cruel, cunning and manipulator expert who knows the best tricks to manipulate someone since his mother uses those on him in his “young adulthood” to have sexual intercourses with him. Only used as a sex partner by his mom as a child and never received any unconditional love from his parents, he has a bad definition of love. For him love=lust, real love (true love or even unconditional love) doesn’t exist and that it is all fake. He spends his time having sex to forget about the women that broke him and would even go as far as threatening Yui to death if she resist him when she doesn’t want to get involve in his “activities” or “little games”. But even after all that he can’t forget her and still is captive of her “love”, still feeling her, remembering her scent and everything about her. He can’t escape from that jail. Finally, it’s important to remember that Laito is a sadist who takes an amount of pleasure by having someone succumbing to him in a mental and sexual way. He is not someone to be taken lightly. You might not see the danger totally at first by that’s just how Laito is. He even says it himself in his HDB route, he is the type of man who will follow his prey in an alley before attacking it. Therefore, he is not like most of his brothers, he is not going to attack fully. He’s slowly going to take little bites of you and before you even realize it, you won’t be able to escape from him anymore.

-Subaru Sakamaki:

First of all, we need to know that Subaru was born (just like almost all of his brothers) just for the sake of Karl’s plan. What is different about Subaru is that his mother became crazy when she had her child. (I just want to state that she did want the child and Karlheinz did not totally raped her since it is stated that she accepted but we also all know that she was being manipulated. Since for the moment I want to concentrate more on Subaru I will not spend too much time explaining his parents relationship but it is something that we should definitely analyse as well in my opinion) Subaru was severely neglected by his father and he never knew what it was to have a normal mother. Throughout his entire childhood, he’s witnessed his mother’s unstable mind, bipolarity, her tantrums episodes and even worse, not only her insults being thrown directly at him but her literally asking him to kill both her and Karl. Because of that, he’s developed anger issues, a lack of trust with women, a severe depression and he is, if not, borderline suicidal. I also want to state that (He even states in his route in HDB that the two people he hates the most in “this world” is 1) Karlheinz 2)himself)Subaru is one if not the most sensible emotionally. So that means he feels harder than the others. You can also see that he has developed similar traits has his mother has you get to know him more in his route such as: bipolarity (when he orders Yui to always come and tell him where she’s going and then get mad when she does so telling her that he doesn’t care) and random tantrums. (when he gets mad à Yui for no good reason and even makes false assumptions) Not only does he usuels violence as a coping mechanism but he also always isolates himself, not letting anyone in his hard shell because he believes that he can’t do any good and that he is useless. In his presents, he still believes in his mother’s insults and thinks of him as someone filthy, disgusting, weak, a monster who can’t do anything to help the person he loved, his mother. He hates himself. He is constantly irritated by everything. If you want to love him you will have to endure the violence that he’s going to give to you and live with his confusion and irritation against not only everything that surrounds him but also against himself and you, and you will have to give up your life to make him trust you entirely.

[prism-rush]

Welcome to my round table book club discussion about the past three events I’ve translated (Pride Behind the Mask, Joy on the Cherry Blossom Front, Louis’ White Promise Wedding) and why I chose to translate them one after the other in that order. 

(White Promise Wedding was just posted below if you missed it!)

But I suppose you don’t have to read them all first if you don’t want to (if you don’t care about spoilers) because I explain things.

So, these three events are what I refer to in my head as the Louis/Leo friendship trilogy. 

In the early days of Prism Rush, particularly in early 2018 when they really hit their stride, I feel like the writers were just given free rein to do whatever they wanted. And boy they did. We had actual character development and plot threads spanning several months, the most significant to me being the development of a beautiful friendship between Leo and Louis and how that helped to integrate Louis in with the Edel Rose boys. 

So although a lot of people voted for me to translate White Promise Wedding, it’s the pinnacle of that development, so basically I didn’t feel I could post it as is without any explanation of what led up to it.

To summarize: Louis first takes notice of Leo in Pride Behind the Mask, because Leo’s dance with Shin makes Louis jealous. They meet again in Joy on the Cherry Blossom Front, but this time Louis is relieved when he realizes Leo’s special person is Yukinojo, not Shin. The two of them bond over wanting to wear spectacular clothing for their special person, which leads to Louis getting invited to the Edel Rose cherry blossom viewing picnic VIA LEO. Then finally, in Louis’ White Promise Wedding, Louis just straight up goes right to Edel Rose to get their help for a project. This not only deepens his bond with Leo, but he earns the trust of the other Edel Rose boys as well. Even Kouji, Hiro and Yu! And he begins to build relationships with everyone else too. It even ends with him thinking about how kind everyone at Edel Rose is and how he’d like to see them again. 

Which opens the door to SO MANY THINGS...

And THEN... 

Road to SSS 1 happened. 

Which basically pushed a hard reset on every single piece of character development unique to Prism Rush...

Now, to be clear, I do not hate Road to SSS (I wouldn’t have spent six months translating it if I did) and I certainly don’t hate Shiny Seven Stars. It’s just... different. But I can’t say I’m all that surprised with the direction they decided to take the characters.

I remember reading an interview at one point that pointed out there was no “Yuki-sama!!!” Leo in Pride the Hero, and the director responded by suggesting that perhaps Leo is starting to look up to Shin more. And boy howdy. 

Road to SSS/SSS era Leo is insanely jealous of anyone and everyone outside the main Edel Rose cast who comes close to Shin, and that of course includes Louis. 

When it first happened, this change broke my heart. It was especially painful after having JUST watched this beautiful friendship between Leo and Louis develop over several MONTHS... I had been so happy to see Leo get a new male friend outside of Edel Rose who doesn’t immediately make unwanted advances on him and that he could talk with about so many things!

But nowadays I accept it. This is for two reasons. 

First of all, we have Nikkanen now, and he more than fills the void. (He also ends up easing Leo’s jealousy, although only when he’s around in Road to SSS.)

Second of all... There’s this thing in writing called... unresolved sexual tension. It’s what makes writing more interesting. It’s why couples get married at the end of the movie, not the beginning. Basically what I’m saying is, if Louis were able to just come over to Edel Rose anytime... if Shin had no reason to be secretive... if Shin and Louis could just date each other THEY WOULD! And as much as you may think that would be amazing, it... would basically end one of the most interesting and suspenseful aspects of the franchise ahah. There has to be conflict. There has to be that reason they can’t see each other easily to retain that unresolved sexual tension between them and make it so much more special when they do. And Leo’s jealously contributes to that.

And besides, as I always say, Leo is basically my spirit animal. I can’t sit here and lie to y’all as if 14-year-old me wouldn’t act exactly the same way if I was in his position. 

Furthermore, a lot of other good things did happen when SSS took the reins of character development from Prism Rush. For one thing, Alexander and Joji got a whole lot of depth added to their character they never had before. Alexander was usually never all that much more than a villain for most of early Prism Rush, and starting from around Road to SSS 4 he wasn’t anymore. Road to SSS 8 was the first time I ever felt sympathetic for Joji as well. (Not to mention he got upgraded from the Butakin Joji to anime Joji, and thus the Shuffle became real characters as well.) And of course, when the SSS anime got to episode 7, Leo’s character development went above and beyond, fully explaining why he feels the way he does about Shin and more. 

BUT, I suppose where I’m going with this is... Even though it wasn’t meant to be, it’s pretty nice that we have this neat little “what if” alternate timeline of Louis gradually getting to know everyone at Edel Rose. And now you all can enjoy it too.

As I softly hit the nail on the coffin of the Leo/Louis friendship that could have been.

But well, maybe it really was for the best though, considering if you read Leo’s card story for the wedding event it seems Leo’s feelings for Louis were starting to become... more than friendship. And that... would not have ended well for him.

But well yeah, anyway, now that you guys are more familiar with the Prism Rush golden era canon, which version of the characters do you prefer? The way things were going on Prism Rush, or the direction they decided to take in SSS?

[recycledmovies]

‘Parasite’ shows the ugliness of Koreans dealing with their hierarchical society in very high detail. Unlike many other interpretations I’ve seen, I will not deal with the details and the mise en scene, but the overall story, characters and their roles. The details are stunning, but I don’t think that’s an excuse to look away from the main story to focus on the little things. Also, there are two dimensions from a macro and meso point of view that I think are more relevant than finding hidden foreshadows or symbols.

Please note that I am Korean and know enough about Korea to point out the flaws of our society and people, including myself. I know very well that Koreans hate being criticized (just as Gitaek shows signs of anger when Mr. Park points out that he has an weird smell), but the truth is the truth and nothing will improve if we cannot see ourselves objectively. So if you’re pissed at my interpretation because you are a proud Korean, think again about what good pride will do.

The Hierarchical Society

Hierarchy has always been part of Korean culture. But as the movie shows, hierarchy is not based on traditional values anymore but overridden completely by economic status. You can see this in the scene where the young pizza box collector speaks down to the Kims. Traditionally, speaking in this manner to people who are even a year older would be considered absolutely unacceptable. This scene sets the stage as a society where economic values have become the new standard for hierarchy. In reality, money justifies everything in Korea and I’m sure it’s the same in a lot of places around the world. Basic ethics and philosophy is forgotten, or something only the naïve remembers anymore.

Although the Parks have higher economic status, a number of scenes demonstrate that in essence, they are also just human beings and have the same flaws as anyone else. Mr. Park and Yeon-gyo uses Gijeong’s underwear as prop during their role-play intercourse on the couch after criticizing the former driver for indecency and accusing him of drug abuse without any evidence whatsoever. Although the Parks are respectful towards the Kims, they still smell the difference. This is another trait of the Korean middle class. While they act like decent people in general, deep down, they still consider the Parks different. Koreans know very well that this is not a trait of the upper class, but more a trait of the middle class. We like to think that we are different from those that are of lower class in our hierarchy. We may act like we respect others, but deep down, the concept of hierarchy prevails. Even today, when two Koreans meet for the first time, questions go back and forth to subtly reveal the status in hierarchy of the two people. Sometimes this is age, sometimes social status and sometimes economic status, but we always establish the hierarchy. When a difference in status is found, the language that we use suddenly changes. The higher class can speak down and the lower class has to speak the polite version of Korean and show respect in almost every word, gesture and even posture.

Another fascinating feature of Koreans and our hierarchical society that also appears in Parasite is the fact that rather than the middle class cooperating with each other to make their lives better, individuals try to move up to the higher class by stepping on their fellow middle class people. The goal is always to make our own lives better by being better than others rather than making everything better. Choongsook demonstrates this when she finds out that Moon-gwang has been hiding her husband in the cellar. Immediately, Choongsook decides to side with the higher class family and fails to see that Moon-gwang’s family and her own would benefit from a partnership. An example in reality? Although most Koreans get outraged when owners of Korean conglomerates or their family members mistreat and deceive the public, most Koreans would do anything to get a job at Samsung, LG or Korean Air. No matter how inhumanely the upper class treats the lower classes, people will jump at any chance to join the higher class and look down on those that are considered lower once they get there, regardless of how many ethical or philosophical values they have to give up.

The dominance of competition in the Korean mentality is emphasized by the fact that both the Kims and the Parks had gone bankrupt from trying to run a franchise store of a ‘Taiwanese Castella’ chain. Even though the Kims hear that Moon-gwang’s family had gone through the same financial difficulties for the same reason, they fail to feel sympathy and only think about competing with those that can be considered their closest fellows. Sadly, another common characteristic among Koreans.

The Absence Of A Middle Class Family

The middle class is the essence of capitalism. The large portion of middle class sets the norm in most modern societies and creates a barrier for the upper class preventing upheavals from inequality. But there is not middle class character in the movie that influences the plot. It’s hard to see this as accidental and for me it was the single most impressive aspect of the plot.

I have two explanations for this absence of the majority. First is that in a strictly hierarchical society, nobody feels like the middle class. Apart from very close friends, everyone else is either in a higher class or a lower class than myself. In one on one interaction with other I’m either the upper class or the lower class. When two Koreans meet for the first time, we ask questions that can lead to answers which give clues to who is higher in the hierarchy. Usually age, social status or financial status is asked indirectly to establish the hierarchy. Once it is established, it dictates the language, gestures and even postures of the two people. Even if one person is a couple of months older than the other, the hierarchy unfolds.

Another reason I think the middle class was left out was because the majority of the audience would be middle class Koreans and Koreans are terrible at taking criticism. If the plot had a middle class family, most of the audience would related themselves to that family. And if the movie showed any criticism towards them, it would instantly become personal to the audience and Bong would have had a hard time both financially and reputation wise.

The Deranged Husband

Moon-gwang’s husband acts like a crazy person and shows unconditional respect towards Mr. Park, who doesn’t even know that Moon-gwang’s husband exists. But is this really that weird for Koreans? Most Koreans work for tycoons that brainwash their employees to show unconditional obedience while not even knowing their names. We arrive at our desks before our superiors do and leave after our superiors leave even if we have nothing to do at our desks and have to kill time watching Youtube videos. Can we really say that Moon-gwang’s husband is that much different from the average Korean? And just like Moon-gwang’s husband, the middle class does nothing about being forced to show fake respect everyday. We actually encourage it by investing years of studies to pass the company employment exams. Yes. Korean companies have exams because there are so many people trying to become employees. One of them is called SSAT. Guess what the first ‘S’ stands for?

Moon-gwang goes on further by impersonating the North Korean national news caster. The North Korean news caster is a symbol of manipulation and oppression for South Koreans. Are South Koreans really in the position to think that North Korea has extreme issues and we are free from oppression and manipulation?

The Hero

Like in reality, there are always exceptions. The exception in this movie? Gitaek. Gitaek is the only character in the movie that acts against the hierarchical system for values that are innate to humans. As a result, he is forced down into the cellar that Moon-gwang’s deranged husband once lived. This also directly reflects the Korean society where being different is unacceptable. Maybe reality is not as severe as in the movie, but going against popular sentiment brings similar consequences. I remember growing up, people who would had tanned skin were called ‘tanning jok,’ meaning ‘tanning tribe.’ During the cryptocurrency boom, people traded cryptocurrency were called ‘coin choong,’ meaning ‘coin vermin’. Such framing isolates people who show any difference from the majority, regardless of whether the difference is positive or negative. Of course, heroes, who act against the wrong when others don’t, are also often isolated by the majority. Gitaek, the hero of the lower class who couldn’t stay put when Mr. Park showed no concern for other people’s lives than that of his son, ends up in the place where a deranged man once lived. The peer pressure to act the same way that others do in Korea is so strong that they can no longer tell the difference between a deranged person and a hero but can only regard them as misfits.

Socially Acceptable Deception

Although the title ‘Parasite’ has a negative vibe, it must be noted that no character in the film ever shows signs of excessive greed or bad intentions. People might debate that the Kims were greedy, but in reality, lying and pretending is everyday life for average Koreans. It is especially considered acceptable when it’s done for profit. Hell, it’s usually considered clever and smart. You’d get a pat on the back if you were working in Korean company and you showed better performance by deceiving others. The lies can be justified further in the movie considering that the Kims were desperate in terms of finances and they had to deceive in order to survive. Giwoo shows no signs of remorse about deceiving the Parks and justifies his lies by saying that he will enter university once he gets his funds together. Things a lot worse than small lies are justified everyday in reality and this is hardly considered a problem among people that have not been educated properly in ethics or philosophy. Do it long enough, and it becomes a way of life.

When Philosophers Are Considered Failures

There are a lot of interpretations about the rock and what it symbolizes. Overall, the rock was the boundary between cleverness and wisdom. Kiwoo, who had the strongest ties to the rock, was no doubt an intelligent character. He was clever enough to deceive the Parks and actually demonstrated knowledge about teaching high school students. But his obsession over the rock implies the boundaries of his intelligence. The power of the rock is a myth and the rock came to Kiwoo with his new job as a tutor. The reason Kiwoo’s friend came over at the beginning of the movie, was to offer him a job. While doing so, he brought the rock as a gift. But as the story progresses, Kiwoo goes on to believe that the rock brought him the new job and good fortune to the whole family. Such myths are still common in Korean culture and often lead to irrational decisions though not as extreme as the case in the movie. A lot of Koreans still read interpretations about dreams everyday and visit fortune tellers before big events such as marriage, buying an apartment, moving jobs etc. The rock is the hope and last resort that Giwoo chose without any logical reasoning.

When Giwoo first meets Dahye, he captures both Dahye and Yeon-gyo’s attention by saying “I don’t care whether the answer to question 24 is right or wrong. In reality, it’s the attitude that’s important.” It’s a great motivational speech, but at the same time, it shows that Giwoo is focused more on handling situations than the basic truth behind the situations.

The study that focuses on the latent truth is philosophy. In Korea, majoring in philosophy is considered a huge failure. Even if you study philosophy in the most prestigious Seoul National University, people laugh and your degree is a mockery. Giwoo’s attachment to the rock, his short term plans and failure to tend to the truth mimics such aspect of Koreans. Without philosophy, we focus on the wrong things. We live in cramped apartments that cost close to a million U.S. dollars and buy exotic cars to show off. A lot of us focus on the top portion of Maslow’s triangle while sacrificing the bottom portions. In other words, we make our lives better by creating fundamental problems. It’s not just Giwoo.

Mr. Park’s ‘Line’

Mr. Park complains about Gitaek’s smell, but he doesn’t fire him for the fact that Gitaek doesn’t cross the ‘line’ that is so important to Mr. Park. From the moment Mr. Park mentions the ‘line’, the line becomes a big deal not only for Mr. Park, but also for the audience as this line has the potential of becoming the tipping point of a major conflict among characters. This mysterious line becomes so important that the audience forget about the basic moral values or philosophical lines of human society and only focus on trying to understand Mr. Park’s line and whether Gitaek crosses it or not. Ironically, it is Mr. Park that crosses the more important line of basic human ethics at the climax of the story. He reveals that he has no respect for human life other than that of his own family when faced with dramatic situations in reality. In spite of having two people in his garden with critical stab wounds, Mr. Park is only worried about his son who had passed out and manages to show disgust towards Moon-gwang’s husband’s smell rather than being worried about his life. Finally it is Gitaek that snaps, not Mr. Park.

“Your Plan Can’t Fail If You Have No Plan”

This is the life philosophy of Gitaek. I’ve seen reviews saying that this is the basic mentality of losers in society. But is it? How many middle class Koreans have made plans themselves that actually worked out? We show hatred towards the owners of Samsung, Hyundai and all those Jaebols, but most of the middle class try so hard to work for them and become a part of their establishments. Was that the plan so many middle class people had that worked out so well? How many Koreans you know currently work at their dream jobs? Gitaeks philosophy isn’t a sign of his inability. It’s his observation of life as a lower class citizen in a hierarchical society. When absolute powers above us make all of the decisions, your plans often get swept away and you are forced to adapt to whatever those higher class people have in store. In other words, Gitaek knows that ‘plans’ of the powerless are merely dreams in a hierarchical society.

Throughout the movie we laugh at the ridiculous plans that Giwoo makes. But in the end, he comes up with a plan to save his father that makes more sense. But how do we feel about that one? It feels closer to a dream than a plan. This is what plans of the powerless look like. Either short sighted plots or unattainable dreams.

So Who Is The Parasite?

Everyone and no one. All three families leech on another family. Moon-gwang and her husband had been leeching on the Parks while traumatizing Dasong. The Kims leeched on anyone with money. And the Parks leeched on the lower class. Despite the whole family working for the Parks, the Kims couldn’t even afford a motel when their underground apartment got flooded. Moon-gwang and her husband couldn’t afford a home either and had debt problems.

More importantly, both the Kims and the Parks scattered like cockroaches when the light switched on and people appeared. The Kims scattered from the Parks’ house when the Parks returned early from their failed camping trip. The Parks and their wealthy friends scattered when the true face of the capitalist hierarchical society appeared in their garden. The Parks had also been hiding in their dens while leeching on the lower class and accumulating wealth. But when the consequences unfold and real people of the society appear, all they can do is run.

When Koreans get tired of these conflicts among one another, we use the term ‘Hell Chosun.’ It’s a word that represents how Koreans leech and step on one another to get ahead of any and all kind of competition. Maybe this is the real parasite in our minds. It eats away at our rational minds and guides us towards irrational decisions. In the end, Mr. Park, Moon-gwang, her husband and Gijung lose their lives, Giwoo gets impaired and Gitaek has to live like an actual cockroach.

  I’m sure there are other interpretations that have different views. I especially found the detail oriented explanations very interesting since by myself, I tend to focus harder on the forest rather than the trees. It would be fascinating to see how people from other cultures interpret the movie as well and whether other hierarchical societies have the same problems. Let me know what you think of my perspective and I hope I’ll soon come across another movie that I can’t resist writing about.

[silasmadams]

Artemis Fowl and the Movie Adaptation (An Unfortunate Tale)

(image courtesy of Disney trailer flips Artemis Fowl story to make him a hero)

Are there more serious problems at hand? Most definitely. Am I going to be talking about them? Absolutely not, I’m only qualified to talk about media and even then I’d say the word qualified is doing a lot of heavy lifting. 

This post is going to be less structured compared to my previous one and shorter mainly because I just really need to get my thoughts on this whole thing out there. I also want to make it clear that I know I’m not the target audience for this movie, I merely wanted to toss my two cents into this whole mess because I grew up with the series and I want to talk about how this adaptation makes me ~feel~.

For those that have never read the books, a short summary is in order. Artemis Fowl is a series of eight books by Eoin Colfer that follows the titular main character of Artemis Fowl, a rich Irish lad with too much free time and very evil tendencies. The series shows Artemis’ growth from villain to anti-hero over the course of the books along with his growing friendships between Holly and the other Faeries, as well as his relationships with other characters like his seemingly only father figure, Butler.

In short, it’s a lot of fun and though at times the execution can be lacking, it’s a phenomenal Middle-Grade work and I’d recommend it to anyone, adult or kid. Towards the end, I did feel the series was getting repetitive but that’s a discussion for another day. Maybe I’ll put up an Artemis Fowl book review someday just not today. Though I’ll say that there are plenty of aspects the movie could have improved on, like the constant bringing back of Opal as a villain and other more minor problems I had with the series. What I mean by bringing up the repetition of Opal as a villain is that change or deviation from the series isn’t bad so long as the core of the story still remains. However, it does look as though the core of the story has not only been changed but been beaten into something else entirely. 

Now the movie. I can’t speak on the entirety of it yet as only the trailer has been released but let’s just say it’s not….great. Before I start complaining I want to be very clear that going after the actors is not ok, no matter how unhappy you are in regards to the adaptation. The only reason I feel the need to say this is because I know how the internet works and I have no doubt that there are going to be hordes of people harassing the actors, especially the boy that plays Artemis because they want to direct their discontentment somewhere. This is something I’d consider to be a low blow and I’m not going to condone it in any way. That’s why I want to be very VERY clear that my issue is not with the actors but with the story, the casting choice as made by the people running things behind the scenes, the effects, and so on. None of this is going to be a direct call to chase these people down because, to put it simply, not cool my guys. 

Mini-rant about that over, onto the movie portion. When watching the trailer I was struck with a similar thought as when watching the trailer for the live-action Aladdin, “What an expensive yet cheap-looking movie.” I’m aware that plenty of movies, especially the Disney ones love their CGI but just going off the trailer it appears as though the CGI has gone off the rails. Its use is excessive to the point where the whole film has a veneer of uncanniness to it. There’s no other way to say it, the effects look overused. They don’t work because they don’t seem to blend real environments into CGI seamlessly and with the kind of money Disney has, I’d have expected something a lot more eye-catching.

Aside from the effects, there’s the casting. Now I applaud the movie for keeping a mostly Irish cast, Hell even Eoin Colfer praises this and I can’t blame him. There isn’t exactly much Irish representation in media and what little comes to mind is often chock full of stereotypes rather than complex characters. Despite this, I’m personally not happy with some of the casting choices. The main issues I have are with the casting of Artemis, Holly, and Butler. For everyone else, I’m kind of on the fence but I have no real issues. Seems like Judi Dench is the go-to gender-bent actor now what with her recent appearance as female old Deuteronomy in everyone’s favorite movie CATS and now she’s female Commander Root. That in and of itself really isn’t an issue despite my side-eyeing towards Hollywood and its tendencies to just make a gender-bent version of a male-dominated franchise rather than a new female-dominated franchise but I digress. Now, once more, this is not a criticism of the actors themselves nor an intention of hate tossed their way but the kid playing Artemis, he’s too cute. I mean look at him, he looks like a sweet boy rather than a conniving little shit. The Artemis that I and many fans like myself imagine was a real piece of work, pale as paper and more akin to the children in horror movies. I’m sure he’s a nice person but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t feel he fits the role of Artemis, acting aside. Holly, oh Holly what have they done to you. I’ll tell you what they’ve done, they’ve essentially whitewashed her. In the books (I know this phrase is annoying and has been memed to death but just stick with me on this), Holly’s skin is brown, yet here we have a very decidedly not brown Holly. I know this has been an issue in film as a whole for a while, the whitewashing of characters. I remember the Jake Gyllenhal Prince of Persia all too well. It sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Butler, on the other hand, is made black in the film, sort of telling that you’ve made the servant character black and you’ve whitewashed the magical and powerful character, Disney. Not saying anything more than that because I’m sure you can all come to your own conclusions but that leaves me with a series side-eye. I’m only joking, of course, well half-joking.

Onto the story. How she has been butchered before my very eyes. The one thing the majority of the fandom agrees on in terms of their hatred is the shift from making Artemis Fowl the villain to making him the hero. This shift has not only ruined everything the books stood for but it’s taken a very engaging character and turned them into a generic fantasy protagonist filled with wide-eyed wonder. There is, of course, plenty of room for protagonists like that but the reason this series stuck out was because of its refusal to do just that. When I first picked up this series as a kid, I was entranced by Artemis because he wasn’t one-note, he wasn’t wholly good, he was layered and I enjoyed that. I liked that he wasn’t a clear hero, that he did bad things, and that he was slowly learning to be better. I liked that it allowed for Artemis to have a second chance, to better himself. I liked that Artemis was smart and conniving but couldn’t do anything in terms of physical prowess and that, that role was given instead to Holly Short who delighted in the physical and enjoyed a good fight. I’ve seen plenty of people say that they’ve made Artemis one-note but I’m sure they’ve also made other characters very one-note like Holly. Holly is admittedly a more heroic character in the books but even she isn’t without her flaws and issues. Looking at the Holly in the trailer makes me feel as if we’re going to be given another Hermione, that is a character scrubbed of all her imperfections and presented as a perfect being on the screen. That’s not to say that movie Hermione was bad but that she lacked depth and if they go that route with Holly then sure little kids will have a smart and strong female protagonist to look up to but I think kids also deserve more nuanced characters, more nuanced female characters that do get angry and that do hit back when they’re angry, that learn to control their rage and deal with it in better ways. Holly was always cool in the books, she was suave and someone I enjoyed reading just as much as Artemis but she wasn’t perfect, not even close.

Part of me is just salty because I really thought that Disney would be better at adapting “darker” kids material. When I was younger and DreamWorks/Paramount managed to get the rights to make the A Series of Unfortunate Events Movie, which ended up being a flop but not the worst adaptation out there, I often heard the relief of people saying that at least Disney didn’t adapt the films because if they had they would have scrubbed any rough edges from the film clean. At the time I thought this was ridiculous, I mean sure Disney is often squeaky clean in terms of its product but they aren’t shy about heading into darker territory, case in point Frollo from the Hunchback of Notredame. But, now I understand that hesitance that people had and I’m sad to say that they were probably right.  

With all my complaining out of the way, how does the author view these changes, I mean he can’t simply be ok with them, can he? I know if it was my work being butchered this way I’d have a word or two ready. In the Polygon interview, however, Colfer seems to not be bothered by the changes. I’m sure some people will point to the author being fine with most of the changes as a positive and feel the criticisms of the movie invalid but I disagree. Of course, Colfer is happy with the movie finally going forward, it’s been frozen in place since 2001, besides the man is going to get his coin either way, so I don’t exactly blame him for going the Andrzej Sapkowski route, dusting off his hands and giving the reigns to someone else. Even though I don’t blame him for this, I wish we could have gotten a better adaptation, one that understood the core of the Artemis Fowl stories. I do hope that once the movie comes out that I eat my words on this matter but I have doubts that that’s going to be the case.

BOOKS:

Go buy them or get them from your library, they’re a treat and a half. 

Artemis Fowl Book Series (New)

Artemis Fowl Book Series (Used)

ARTICLES I READ ON THIS:

Artemis Fowl author supports — and is a little envious of — the changes in Disney’s movie

Disney trailer flips Artemis Fowl story to make him a hero

Give my blog a look if you want too (it’s got the same stuff on there as my Tumblr):

https://silasmadams.home.blog/2020/03/07/artemis-fowl-and-the-movie-adaptation-an-unfortunate-tale/

[spacejellyfish3]

My Top Ten Movies Of All Time

To elaborate on a previous reblog, I wanted to go a bit more in depth on the movies I chose.

This list will be in order.

10. The Lost Boys (1987)

This movie is pretty amazing. It’s wild and crazy and so completely and utterly 80s in all of its 80sness. It’s about a family who moves to Santa Carla (The Murder Capital Of The World) only for the eldest son to be considered for “recruitment” by a flock of hip and happening bad boy vampires led by a very young Kiefer Sutherland. This movie is great; from the comic book store employees who act with the seriousness of F.B.I agents, the oiled up musclebound saxophone player with way too much or way too little (depending on who you ask) screentime, to what may be the greatest movie dog to ever exist. Watch it, you’ll have fun.

9. Bumblebee (2018)

This movie is pretty recent, but it rules. Despite the boundless cliches, I found myself really enjoying myself while watching Bumblebee (and this is coming from someone who never really got into Transformers). There’s a lot of heart and joy in it, and so much humor AND drama. The movie is CARRIED by Hailey Steinfeld, who gives an incredible and powerful performance as Charlie Watkins. I also really loved the chemistry between her character and literally everyone she meets (most especially Bumblebee). It had some fun villains and a GREAT third act. Love it a lot.

8. Carrie (1976)

Ahhhh...this movie...

This may be the best adaptation of a Stephen King book. Ever. No really.

The eponymous Carrie White is a teenage outcast, bullied and belittled at school and abused emotionally, verbally, and physically by her religiously fanatical mother. Carrie discovers she also has telekinetic powers. Her horrible life seems to soon get better when popular girl Sue, in an attempt to make amends with Carrie, asks her boyfriend Tommy to take Carrie to the prom. This leads to a wonderful night at prom, with Carrie being crowned Prom Queen. This one truly shining moment of pure happiness is shattered to pieces by a viciously cruel prank, giving the audience one of the most famous scenes in cinematic history. A tragic take on the classic Cinderella story, this movie manages to be heartwarming and tearjerking oftentimes simultaneously.

7. Spider Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

This movie is objective perfection, fight me.

6. Mean Girls (2004)

What can I possibly say about this movie that hasn’t been said before? It’s fetch.

But seriously, this movie rules. Not only is it the most quotable movie of ALL TIME, it’s also a great cautionary tale about the dangers of popularity (thank you Musical Adaptation) that makes sure to remember to treat the “mean girls” as actual human beings who have their own hopes and feelings that drive them. It showcases high school social structures in a way that makes it relevant even now. Like its predecessors Heathers and Clueless, Mean Girls made sure to craft its own identity and how to properly approach the theme of popularity. Ironically, though, its success has led other filmmakers and producers to try and replicate it; make the next “Mean Girls” instead of crafting a movie with love and care. This is why I think we haven’t gotten an intensely quotable movie about popular girls that would define a generation like Heathers, Clueless, and, yes, Mean Girls did. This movie still rules, though.

5. The Little Mermaid (1989)

Yes.

Beautiful animation, great songs, and a terrific villain. What more could you ask for? (I could talk about the opinions some people have with this movie that makes them not like it, but that’s for another day I think)

4. Evil Dead 2 (1987)

This is a great horror movie. Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi are just pure condensed awesomeness. I would’ve put the entire Evil Dead franchise in this spot if I could have but if I had to pick just one for my list, this is the one I would pick.

3. Wonder Woman (2017)

My favorite live action comic book movie. While it took a long time to get here, it definitely made it worth the wait.

Wonder Woman tells the story of the character it’s based on so wonderfully (yeah I know, lame pun), because it takes aspects from almost every writer she’s ever had—from George Perez to Greg Rucka to way way back to William Moulton Marston, her creator—while giving it their own unique spin. It keeps true to the key traits of Diana, and makes sure to keep her in character all throughout. And while I have some issues with the third act, I love the message: no one is solely good or evil, we all have a choice to do either. And it’s not about deserving, it’s about what you believe that makes the difference.

2. Tangled (2010)

My favorite animated Disney film. Tangled is a masterpiece of storytelling (I have talked about this before), wonderful animation, and compelling characters. It adapts the classic fairytale while also making smart and interesting changes that elevate it and perfect it. The characters are all amazingly acted; Zachery Levi breathes life into dashing thief Flynn Rider (a.k.a Eugene Fitzherbert), Donna Murphy is simultaneously hilarious and frighteningly realistic in how terrifying she is, while Mandy Moore is Rapunzel. It’s ironic, actually, that this movie has such a...tangle-free story.

...I’ll show myself out.

1. Stardust (2007)

I feel like Belle put it best.

“It’s my favorite! Far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise!”

While it’s honestly amazing and terrifying how well that quote describes this movie and why I love it, there’s a lot of reasons besides that. It has an amazing cast—Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Claire Danes, Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer, a young Charlie Cox (which, fun fact: because this movie didn’t propel him into A-List status as intended, he was able to work way more on his craft which probably allowed him to nab his role as Daredevil), and not to mention Henry Cavill in a hi-larious early role. So yes...this movie has Daredevil fighting Catwoman/Wasp, Dr. Sivana, and Superman.

But it also has a lot of cool scenes and action, great set design and lighting, and a timeless feel to it. It’s The Princess Bride of my generation. I remember when I first saw this movie I wanted to see Daddy Day Camp for some odd reason (11-year old me had horrible taste in movies), and I spent the next few years hating this movie because Michelle Pfeiffer traumatized me for such a long time. It’s only now that I’ve matured a lot more since 2007 that I’ve been able to appreciate this movie.

This movie is amazing and I love it!

Since I did NOT tag anyone else on the reblog that I’m expanding on (cause I’m an idiot), I will do it now.

The rules are simple:

10 gifs of your 10 favorite movies without the movie title. Then tag or don’t tag (it’s not mandatory to do it) others to do the same.

I’ll tag @thefingerfuckingfemalefury @lilmeier @night-gem-shit @bethanyleerose edit*@captain-shannon-becker.

[nat-20s]

Top 5 Breakdowns over David Tennant- any fandom/show/ play you've seen? I really liked the dw one you did, just hoping you could expand over/ include other things he's been in.

Oh anon you are QUITE the enabler thank you.

So this is like half actual breakdown list and half just like David Tennant recommendations in general because I love that funky little scot.

+1. This isn’t going on the official list because I already did the previous list you mentioned (i’m glad you liked it, btw!!!) but yeah. Doctor Who. He plays the doctor in a very fuckin uhh mercutial way (he plays a lot of characters that way and I am 100% enamored by it every fuckin time he just does it SO WELL AUGH) and like highs were so high and the lows were so low and he was so FURIOUS AND CRUEL but also so GENTLE AND KIND and like oof!! The multifacetedness bitch!!!! That’s what it’s all about babey!!!

5. Good omens. I mean, duh. There was no fucking way I was gonna survive good omens. Like, honestly, even without miss tennant I wouldn’t have survived it because HA HA HA HA H O L Y SHIT MY FAVORITE BOOK FOR THE LAST DECADE WAS GETTING AN ACTUAL SCREEN ADAPTATION I GENUINELY DID NOT THINK WE WOULD EVER BE HERE THIS SHIT IS LIT. but then but THEN it was like. The way that he portrayed crowley definitely fit into a particular niche that david tennant KILLS. Like god okay I could spend an whole fucking essay on this point so I’m gonna distill this down to just. THE moment that I was like “okay okay okay okay fuck I’m GOING THROUGH IT” was when his voice cracks as he tells aziraphale that he lost his best friend because like in context OOF and out of context I have been Pavlovian trained for the past decade to Utterly Lose My Shit when David Tennant is like this close to crying and he expresses that with his whole body THE ASSHOLE! LET ME REST. I THOUGHT I WAS OVER THIS MISTER!!

4. The Escape Artist. Lesser known (I think?), but a VERY GOOD miniseries! The tone is much darker, and he’s a much more serious character. Similar vibes, role wise, to broadchurch. I’m not sure how much rewatch value it has but watching it for the first time had me like MISSION STATUS: SICK!!!! It’s like a cat and mouse mystery and like. I’m not gonna go to in depth into the story because I think it’s more enjoyable to go into it not knowing much and too me it was one of those things that took like 3 hours to watch all of and a full week or two to like. Process. Also I’m not usually one for drama and I was ABOUT it so I would recommend!!!

3. JESSICA JONES (season 1). Holy FUCK dude. Definitely his darkest and most evil role, and the subject matter is VERY heavy and I definitely would NOT recommend it for everyone because it could be, how you say, triggering as fuck or even just because it is incredibly dark and that might not be your thing. Funnily enough, it’s DEFINITELY not my thing, personally, I tend to avoid narratives about sexual assault because so many of them are, uh, ya know, bad, but Jessica Jones season 1 really is done FANTASTICALLY! The David Tennant breakdown was just a level of cognitive dissonance because I had never seen him play like a VILLAIN villain. I mean, yeah, he was Barty Crouch Jr., but that was for like 30 seconds and while the dude was creepy there was a layer of campy over the topness that is present in most fun fantasy franchises. I remember when he was cast as the purple man me and my parents were like. Yeah he’ll obviously crush the role because he’s talented but in the back of our minds we’ll probably still be thinking of like the doctor and I wonder if we can fully accept him playing the role. Yeah there was fucking NONE OF THAT. When he played Purple Man I never ONCE thought of his other roles and I didn’t even, like, think of David Tennant, ya know. I was just like oh shit this man is evil and terrifying and I want him dead! Please die!!! And yes, I know that that’s how acting works or whatever but also ACTING ya know!!! Of any of the roles on this list this one definitely made me be the most like SHE HAS THE RANGE because I really think it highlights how INCREDIBLY GOOD at his job he is!!! I have not ever rewatched Jessica Jones season 1 though because while it is honestly like a triumph of television it is also A Lot to deal with and I am very rarely in the kind of mindset where I’m able to watch it. But yeah. David Tennant knows what the fuck he’s doing and it is very good.

2. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING BABEY. Literally I knew nothing about the play or why I should care but the promo material was like. Catherine Tate and David Tennant are costars again and I was like OKAY SIGN ME THE FUCK UP HELL YEAH HELL YEAH HELL YEAH. For real I think on screen chemistry Catherine Tate and David Tennant are one of if not just straight up my favorite duo of all time. They are just so DELIGHTFUL and ENCHANTING and BEWITCHING and basically I want them to costar in everything ever. @azirafeathers was like “sherlock holmes adaptation where she’s sherlock and he’s watson” and I haven’t stopped thinking about that since!!! I would give my left thumb or at least like a solid $60 to see that. Like PLEASE it would be PERFECT. I LOVE THEM. And god this production of much ado is definitely like. “Here’s Benedick and Beatrice. They’re two chaotic dumbass bisexuals that are like fives on the kinsey scale and they fall in love much to their surprise” and it’s TERRIFIC. That’s exactly what I like to see. Like it’s set in the 80s and the set design? The visual gags? The costumes? The soundtrack? THE PHYSICAL COMEDY? It all SLAPS. David Tennant really balances “fun and funky slut” and “utterly PINING idiot” so fucking well. I have said it before and I will say it again David Tennant peaks when Catherine Tate is being mean to him. Also really iconic to give him the role that is like the only man in the play that is (after a bit) CHUGGING his respect women juice. I mean LOOK at this utter buffoon.

I’m in love. This play made me a proud morosexual. Plus it’s all FREE ON YOUTUBE THE NEXT TIME YOU HAVE THREE HOURS AND WANT TO HAVE A GOOD FUCKIN TIME GO WATCH MUCH ADO!!

1. H A M L E T. So imagine that you’re 14 and it’s 3 am and you’re casually watching David Tennant’s hamlet on youtube or at least the parts they put up and you’re painting stars on your ceiling with glow in the dark paint and it makes you realize that you have an excess of black bile and a melancholic temperment and you’ll understand why, while this might not be my all time favorite david tennant role (though it definitely is high up on the list) , this is absolutely my number one David Tennant Related Breakdown. Hoo boy. This probably doesn’t come as a shock to literally anybody that knows me irl bc I Will Not shut up about Hamlet and it is this productions fault. Different people will respond differently too it, and I’m definitely 1000% biased because a: I love him and b: it was the first production I ever watched and it’s what got me On My Bullshit, but this production honestly makes me like. Get Hamlet. Or not get hamlet, personally, as a character, we’re never meant to fully understand him honestly, but it made me understand the ALLURE of the play. I watched it and I was like oh. Yeah. Okay. I can see why people have been obsessed with this for 400 years. I know why it’s considered one of the greatest roles and one of the greatest plays of all time. And I went absolutely feral for it. It solidified Horatio permanently as one of my all time favorite characters in anything ever. David Tennant has this tendency to put manic and desperate energy into the characters that he plays, and that of course works extremely well for hamlet. Plus, like, he plays characters that are drowning, that need the assistance and kindness of love to try and float, and even with that might not be able to keep their heads above water, and the characters that are opposite him are basically always wonderful. Because I am deeply deeply predictable, the core dynamic of Hamlet and Horatio’s relationship is probably like THE most appealing and interesting and important aspect of the play to me, and Peter de Jersey (who is absolutely INCREDIBLE in this production) and David Tennant pull it of breathtakingly beautifully. Every time I watch this I have to lie down for a while. Every time I THINK about this I have to lie down for awhile. So, yeah, number one David Tennant based breakdown is over his hamlet.

Honorable mentions

this gifset-I have not seen what this is actually from but it made me have a conniption. I’m in love with her. She’s my idealized self. I don’t know what to do with myself. I spent 5 hours looking at this now. What the fuck. 

The Decoy Bride- I didn’t have a breakdown over it BUT it is a recommendation. Very silly rom com, very much a comfort movie like music and lyrics or singing in the rain for me. Great for sleep overs or rainy sunday afternoons. 

Richard II- I haven’t seen it but based on one (1) clip and some stills I would be lost in the sauce for a week after a viewing. 

Nativity 2: Danger in the Manger- watch nativity 2 danger in the manger. 

Fright Night- jesus fucking CHRIST mister tennant went full slut

Casanova- Mister Tennant Goes Full Slut part 2- has blue colored contacts and it’s weird

[measlyfurball13]

Bumblebee: A Spoiler-Free Review

There’s no doubt that many of you, when you saw that yet another Transformers film was coming out, ignored it. A few of you may have rolled your eyes. I don’t blame you- the last few Transformers movies have been mediocre at best. The infamous Michael Bay has been churning out these awful films since 2007. Prominent themes of these films feature: explosions, CGI characters that are only distinguishable by their paint jobs, cringy, inappropriate humor, and the over-sexualization of women.

I have been a Transformers fan all of my life. I grew up watching the old 80’s Generation One cartoon on DVD. I am a huge fan of a more recent cartoon named Transformers Prime; I will unashamedly admit that I write fanfiction for it. But what makes me, and millions of others in this fandom, enjoy these cartoons so much? The answer is rather simple. I’ll give you a hint: it doesn’t involve explosions and computer-generated fight scenes.

Simply put, The Transformers as a series has always been focused on its characters. This makes sense when you consider that their very first cartoon had the objective of selling toys. Generation One had simple characters with distinct personalities that had a lot of charm. More recent cartoon series have certainly improved the main storyline, but the fact still remains that the characters and how they interact are the primary focus.

The main storyline of Transformers as a whole encourages this type of storytelling. The main conflict, no matter what the media is, is between two teams of characters: the Autobots and the Decepticons. For those of us in English class, this is man vs. man conflict. This leads to these characters clashing on a regular basis, allowing them to have unique interactions with each other. Even fans who have only seen the live-action movies know, for example, of the rivalry between Optimus Prime and Megatron. In fact, someone who is otherwise unfamiliar with Transformers might only know these two names.

That’s because the Michael Bay films forgot the heart of their story.

What the previous five Transformers movies lacked was any sort of character from their Transformers. Even in the first movie, which is arguably the best as far as writing goes, fails to establish any personality in their main Transformer cast. You may remember names like “Ratchet” or “Ironhide” being tossed around in their introductory scene. You may know that Ratchet is the medic (because he’s the ambulance, see?) and that Ironhide is the tough guy with big guns, but do you know anything else? What are their personalities? What motivates them? I’ve been watching different iterations of these same characters since I could walk, but even I don’t know the answers to these questions.

Even worse, the later movies stopped trying completely. They wouldn’t even introduce a Transformer’s name before having them killed off within fifteen minutes. Only after the movie would you find out that this throwaway Transformer was supposed to be a fan-favorite character from the cartoon. As a result, you didn’t really care about the result of all these giant robo-fights. This was not helped by the fact that in the majority of these fights, you couldn’t even tell who was fighting what. And goodness. . . the sexual jokes only continued to get worse. The female characters, the little that were in those movies, were barely more than poster love-interests, with barely any character at all. You know a movie is bad when it spends more time addressing how the overage man can have sex with the (supposedly) seventeen year-old girl lead than it does telling the audience where the aliens come from.

This lazy writing and filmmaking is because Michael Bay likely saw the Transformers themselves as just gimmicks. Audiences, especially overseas, love giant robot fights. There’s a reason there were five of those horrible movies. Transformers 4, Age of Extinction made about 858,600,000 US Dollars internationally in the box office. That’s nearly quadruple the amount the movie made in the US and Canada. Even the god-awful Transformers 5 (there was a fifth one?!), The Last Knight, made bank at about 472,724,657 US Dollars abroad, nearly double the production cost. These figures allowed Michael Bay and the other filmmakers to coast by, making bad movies with no characters.

If this is the case with all Transformer movies, then should you even bother going to the theatres for Bumblebee?

The answer is absolutely yes!

With the departure of Michael Bay from the director’s role, the writing is allowed to slow down from its previous high-octane action speed. Bumblebee focuses itself on its namesake character and his relationships with the people he meets. The movie overall just exudes a passion for its characters and storytelling. Character development was very obviously put ahead of any other aspect in Bumblebee’s writing and production. The human protagonist of the movie, Charlie, is the single most likeable human character in a Transformers movie ever. Her arc is deep and satisfying, and you’re always rooting for her even in her lowest moments. She and Bumblebee’s relationship define the movie: their chemistry is incredibly strong and believable.

Charlie herself is a strong representation of a teenaged girl. This differs drastically from the franchise’s previous teenage female represented in the first two movies, Mikaela Banes. Mikaela was touted as Sam Witwicky’s (Shia Labeouf's character in the original films, if you remember,) love interest, and not much else. The movie told us that she was a car mechanic. . . but the only time we see her doing that is a shot where she lays sexually on a motorcycle. Mikaela was constantly the butt of sexual jokes and innuendos: it’s no wonder that her character was dropped by the third movie. This is where Charlie comes in. Charlie is the lead protagonist of her story. Better yet, she feels like a believable teenager. Not once in the movie is she sexualized. She’s portrayed as an actual mechanic with legitimate skill in several scenes, which is what leads her to finding Bumblebee in the first place. Her arc is by far the strongest of a female character I have seen in movies this year, and it is independent of anything to do with romance. I would go into deeper analysis, but I intended this to be a spoiler-free review. To summarize, Bumblebee treats its female characters with dignity and respect, which is a vital departure from the franchise’s, and mainstream media’s, previous treatment of woman as a whole. This kind of representation in popular media is an important step forward in equality. So even if you do not care about Transformers in the slightest, Bumblebee is worth the watch.

The films’s storytelling is also at peak perfection. It honors the Transformers lore like no other movie before: it even opens on Cybertron, the homeplanet of the Transformers. The film bends over backwards to make sure that you know that the Transformers are people, first and foremost; independent characters in their own right with their own motivations and lives outside of Earth and humans. Even the Decepticon villains that are introduced in the film are easily recognizable, with distinct personalities of their own.

Bumblebee takes the concepts and ideas that the previous five Transformers movies introduced, and then adds the heart of the franchise back into the mix. Each character has their life breathed back into them by thoughtful, genuine writing and ingenuitive designs that allow them to express emotion. While the film is certainly slower-paced than previous films, the scenes between the action will end up being your favorite. I guarantee it.

Sure, the movie is not without its flaws. Some of the side characters can feel a bit neglected. John Cena can’t act his way out of a paper bag. But these little things are easily excused when you look at the quality of the film overall. Bumblebee has so much heart and care put into it that one film critic said “The first three minutes of Bumblebee are better than all the Transformers film directed by Michael Bay.” (Báez, 2019). I can’t help but agree.

As a longtime fan of Transformers, I am ecstatic that franchise finally got a movie that represents its core values. The film allows itself to be an emotional trip with an emphasis on what really matters most: the characters, whether they be car, truck, plane, or human. Bumblebee truly returns to the roots of what makes Transformers great.

Sources:

https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Transformers#tab=summary

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/bumblebee/reviews/

[kaleidographia]

[Analysis] The "Weird" One: Where The Last Jedi Fits

I have a confession to make.

This may be a weird way to start what is essentially the first post of a new media critique blog, but I consider it to be essential knowledge. Every reviewer and analyst brings their own unique perspective to their writing, and I am no different; sooner or later, this truth will make itself known. To know this fact about me is to gain a new understanding of what makes me tick as a consumer of art, and it is one that it best to get out of the way as soon as possible, for it is better for a reader to lose interest now than to string along until the awkwardness of hiding such a secret reveals itself.

Here it is:

I LOVE the Star Wars prequels.

Oh, not only do I love them, completely and unironically, I actually do not care much for the original trilogy. It’s all right. But it doesn’t make my heart sing.

Attack of the Clones does.

Okay, okay, I can already hear the groans of disgust and the clicks of mice leaving my blog to the wilds of the web, but I promise this is going somewhere. I am not unaware of the many flaws the Prequel trilogy has, and I can’t in good conscience call them cinematic masterpieces, but I think this opinion derives itself not from poor taste, but the relative lack of blockbuster quality movies that tap into very particular themes and structural quirks that I appreciate. I may dive into those specifics at a later time, but the reason why I am bringing this up now is because it inextricably ties into my feelings about the most recent film in the franchise’s main series, which would be impossible for me to discuss without addressing this aspect of my formative film influences.

The Last Jedi has already received tons of coverage, controversy, and counter-controversy, so if you’re interested in picking apart the finer aspects of the plot and characters, feel free to look those up — I am sure there is a brilliant video essay on Youtube tailor-made just for you. I am more interested in the meta-narrative surrounding its position in terms of fanservice to what is an enourmous empire of not only fans of the original trilogy, but fans of its many derivations, spin-offs, and cultural foundations.

Star Wars is no longer just a film about a space farmer who learns he’s a space wizard and goes on a perfect beat-by-beat hero’s journey. It encompasses more than that: two sequels, an expanded universe of books upon books, comics, videogames, pinball machines — a holiday special (and no, I have not watched it) — toys, cartoons, parodies, reiterations, iconic images, phrases, cinematic touchstones, and, of course, the Prequels.

When the new Sequel trilogy was announced, the filmmakers had a real challenge to contend with: How can one follow up on not only a legacy of films, but also a legacy of expectations of what such a sequel would be like? I am not just referring to the fact that Disney, post acquisition of Lucasfilm, decided to just toss out the previous expanded universe, label it “Legends”, and start afresh with a new canon. I am also referring to the literal millions of fans who were already thoroughly familiar with not only the films but also their cultural impact. How could one possibly please them, especially when the Prequel trilogy was so universally mocked?

It was clear that Disney needed to win the crowd over, and to do so they leaned heavily into a safe bet: the Original trilogy. The Force Awakens released with a sort of wink-and-nudge, reflected in its story beats, characterization, and practical effects, that said “hey, we hear you. We know you’re scared because you don’t trust us to do this material justice and we know you love the original films, so we’re gonna give you exactly what you’re looking for”. It’s hard not to see the fanservice and whether or not it was successful has already been discussed to death, so I won’t get into it here, but the point is — and I am sure this wasn’t really intentional — to someone like me, who actually liked the prequels and a lot of the expanded universe, this approach felt incredibly alienating. Everyone was having fun with the new film, but to me it felt like it was saying, “all those things you love about Star Wars are not the reasons why anyone else loves Star Wars,” and I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty hurt, but at the very least The Force Awakens gave me a cast to fall in love with.

This is why when The Last Jedi was in production, I was intrigued to hear that this film was going to be “weird” and “unlike any other Star Wars film”. My expectations were tempered by the fact that ultimately this was going to be a Disney movie anyway, so it was probably not going to reach my standard of Weird (my dad showed me Koyaanisqatsi when I was 7, to give you an idea). Nevertheless, after the very safe rehash of Episode 4 that was The Force Awakens, I was just hoping for anything that might show me the franchise still had room for creativity.

I was in fact happy with the result, although it doesn’t surprise me at all that it attracted controversy. Some of my close friends, whose opinions I highly respect, hated the film for various reasons and I can even agree with them on some points. Others, like me, loved it. Overall, however, what I like most isn’t necessarily anything about the film itself, but its position as a nod to fans who wanted their corners of the Star Wars universe acknowledged. To put it bluntly, as a Prequels fan, I felt represented.

Going even beyond the Prequels, The Last Jedi contains themes from my favourite piece of Star Wars media, the Bioware-produced videogame Knights of the Old Republic and its Obsidian-produced sequel, which layer critique of what it means to be a Force user and what the role of Jedi and Sith are in the grand scheme of things. “Jedi” does not necessarily mean “good”, a fact Luke highlights in his role as reluctant mentor to Rey, and while there are some things I would change about his portrayal here, this perspective is absolutely one I wanted to see more of in the main series. Even as a kid, good-vs-evil stories bored me; it’s one reason why the Original trilogy failed to speak to me, because even though I wouldn’t have been able to articulate why at the time, the setup was just too easy. It didn’t challenge me to think that there’s a side that’s inherently good and a side that’s inherently evil, but when Knights of the Old Republic put decisions about when and how to use the Force in front of me, that was a much more interesting proposition, and the idea that doctrine about the nature of the Force could be wrong or even damaging was outright enticing. I honestly can’t remember whether playing the games or watching the Prequels came first, but I get the feeling it was the games, because that malleable view of what the Force means and who the Jedi and Sith are has carried through for me ever since.

The Last Jedi does kind of play it safe in some ways, ultimately being a Disney property that has to sell lots of merchandise and bring people to theme parks, but it also boldly rejects just about every expectation one might have of a “Star Wars Film”, characters make mistakes, they fail, things go wrong at the worst possible times, some act selfishly or foolishly, and by the time the credits roll there’s actually very little to be excited about, as the heroes are in a much worse position than they were when the film started, which was already very bleak. But in a way, that was the most exciting part to me, as someone who grew tired of the popular culture perception of Star Wars and who felt shut out of the Sequel trilogy by its first film; The Last Jedi may have been agonizing, but it was agonizing in a way that promised more, giving hope to those of us who were looking for a less straightforward narrative at a time when powerful politicians can be comically villainous in public and yet people would bend over backwards to excuse their actions as if an “evil empire” didn’t already exist. Over the last couple of years I have seen people post a gif of Padmé Amidala’s iconic line, “So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause”, saying this was the only part of the Prequel trilogy that aged well, and yet to me the truth was already glaringly obvious back when the film was released, contributing strongly to my own critical interpretation of it. The Last Jedi is a film that picks up on the thought that people can make foolish and terrible decisions and runs with it, but it is by no means the first in the series to approach this theme.

(I should note that as a Brazilian, whose country was freshly out of a dictatorship when I was born and which is now hurtling towards another at full speed, my views on what counts as an Evil Empire and how and why a democracy dies may be somewhat sharper than the average American’s. This is by no means the only reason why I’m into this kind of storytelling, nor is it exclusive to me, but it is a big one, and it would be short-sighted to ignore it.)

Ultimately I understand why The Last Jedi is so polarizing; it doesn’t pull punches and some of the punches it throws are even a bit misaimed, thus the description of it as “weird” and “unprecedented” makes sense. It just isn’t quite as weird or unprecedented when compared to previous attempts at broadening the scope of the Star Wars narrative both within the main film series and the expanded universe (at least pre-Disney; I haven’t engaged with any post-Legends canon aside from the Rebels cartoon, so I can’t say for sure). It also serves as a complete 180° turn from the Sequel trilogy establishing itself as a safe haven for Original trilogy fans and a middle chapter leading into a final film we still know nothing about, so whether its narrative leaps will pay off are still a mystery. In any case, The Last Jedi rejects superficial concerns in favour of theme, leading to a certain degree of dissatisfaction from fans who really wanted to know Rey’s parentage and what exactly was up with Snoke, but I think this is a good thing, because they gave new meanings to previously established Star Wars tropes and drove the whole thing into uncharted territory. I for one am glad the franchise has freed itself of these particular burdens; it simply remains to be seen whether the conclusion will maintain this momentum.

All this to say, I like the Last Jedi because it likes the things I like about Star Wars, and now I know I’m not the only one.

[aion-rsa]

Should the Next James Bond Care About Continuity After Daniel Craig?

https://ift.tt/3zEdm9R

With No Time to Die, Daniel Craig says goodbye to the role of James Bond after 15 years and five films—the longest tenure in the franchise since Roger Moore’s 12-year, seven-film run. Like the five previous Bond actors before him, Craig’s era was marked by both highs and lows in quality, and certain controversial decisions, creatively and narratively.

If the Craig run is remembered by one thing though (besides its return to a grittier, more psychologically complex 007), it will be that for the first time the series told one overarching story over the course of the actor’s entire run. Craig’s debut, 2006’s Casino Royale, was followed in 2008 by Quantum of Solace, which essentially acted as an extended coda to its predecessor—something the series had never done before.

But wait: four years later Skyfall, which delved into the pasts of both Bond and M (Judi Dench), was billed as a standalone adventure. Until it wasn’t. Three years after that, in one of the more controversial decisions in 007’s entire film history, Spectre retconned all three previous Bond outings, making their villains all part of the titular criminal organization. And, oh yeah, that organization’s mastermind, Franz Oberhauser/Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz), also happened to be Bond’s estranged foster brother, using his vast powers and shadowy reach to not just screw with the world but also torment Bond from behind the curtain.

We don’t know at the moment if the villain in No Time to Die, Safin (Rami Malek), has any connection to the SPECTRE organization or Blofeld’s machinations, but we know Blofeld is in the picture, making him the first Bond villain to appear in at least two consecutive films since, uh, Blofeld did it in You Only Live Twice (1967), On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971), where he was played by a different actor in each film (and no, Jaws doesn’t count… he’s a henchman).

Léa Seydoux also returns from Spectre as Madeleine Swann, making the character the first major Bond Girl in the series’ history to appear in more than one film. The only other example is socialite Sylvia Trench, played by Eunice Gayson, who Sean Connery’s 007 briefly romances in the first two movies in the series, Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963), making her the first official Bond Girl.

Of course, M, Q, and Moneypenny—played respectively now by Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, and Naomie Harris—all encore as well, although these characters have often established a sort of background continuity for the Bond movies throughout the years. But with both Blofeld and Madeleine showing up in No Time to Die, it’s reasonable to assume that it will be continuous with the previous four films and serve as a grand finale for the Craig quintet. So this is indeed a first. While the original Ian Fleming novels did offer continuity from book to book, with events in the previous book often being at least referenced or in some cases, such as the “Blofeld Trilogy,” directly impacting the novel right after it, the Bond movies almost completely ignored this.

Even though Blofeld and SPECTRE figured heavily in the first seven movies, the adventures were barely connected. A different actor played Blofeld every time, and most egregiously, after Bond’s new wife (Diana Rigg) was gunned down by Blofeld’s henchwoman at the end of OHMSS, her death was never even mentioned in the next movie, Diamonds Are Forever (we were just informed vaguely that Bond was looking for Blofeld).

By the time Roger Moore took over, the death of Teresa “Tracy” Bond was referenced briefly in both The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and For Your Eyes Only (1981), establishing that the Bond played by Moore was the same character previously inhabited by Sean Connery and George Lazenby. Otherwise the Moore years lacked any continuity at all, aside from the MI6 characters.

But now that Craig is stepping down, the question is this: Does the next actor in the series continue to be the same Bond that Craig played, and does the series pick up from wherever No Time to Die leaves off? Or will the next Bond not reference Swann, Blofeld, Safin, SPECTRE, Vesper Lynd, or any other aspects of the five Daniel Craig movies? Will M, Q and Moneypenny disappear or be recast as well?

It seems self-defeating and pointless to totally reboot the character again. Casino Royale was as good as an origin story gets, and so much of Bond’s backstory has been filled in over time that even looking back at his pre-MI6 years would leave us with an aimless, suspense-free prequel that is the worst kind of lazy, fill-in-the-blanks storytelling. We know who Bond is, and we did watch the 007 of the Craig era evolve over the course of his five movies.

Without knowing where No Time to Die leaves the character, we’re tempted to say that the series should pick right up and send the new Bond on a new set of standalone adventures, just with a new face. The new films don’t need to rehash anything that happened before, but they also don’t need to pretend that this a brand new, fresh-faced 007 straight out of secret agent school (plus they should keep Fiennes, Harris and Whishaw around — both for that background continuity and also because they’re a great team).

This is what the series has done multiple times before, with minimal fuss—and no explanation for the recasting is needed. If an explanation is called for, and God knows that fans seem to need everything explained to them these days, then the filmmakers can simply say that Bond had his face altered surgically to protect his identity (that’s always been part of Bond speculation anyway).

Whether the next set of Bond stories should all connect is a different matter, and again we’re going to argue that they shouldn’t, at least not in the way that Craig’s did. Learning that Blofeld was behind the villains of the first three Craig films was not so bad; discovering that Blofeld and SPECTRE basically existed solely to torment James Bond was a terrible mistake, however. Not everything needs to be connected to Bond on an emotional level. He can certainly be affected by the challenges and enemies he faces, but that can happen without them being part of Bond’s family history. It just makes everything smaller.

Read more

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Daniel Craig Doesn’t Think a Woman Should Be James Bond

By David Crow

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No Time To Die and the Art of Naming James Bond Movies

By Mark Harrison

Let Bond be Bond—a little darker here, a little funnier there, a bit rude or crude along the way—and let him fight bad guys and romance women (without the rampant rapey-ness of the earliest films in the series), and occasionally have his own sense of self, his mission and his view of the world challenged. The Bond films have worked in the past and can work again in the future because one can step right into his universe and not need to know what happened in the previous three movies. In a world where nearly every film in every franchise essentially serves to set up the next movie (hello, MCU), it would be refreshing if the 007 series rejects that philosophy, as it originally had.

We’ll probably know more once the next actor to play Bond is announced, which we expect will coincide with the franchise’s 60th anniversary in 2022. Then we’ll see which version of James Bond will actually be the one to celebrate that landmark—and which universe he operates in.

No Time to Die is out in the UK on September 30 and the US on October 8.

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The post Should the Next James Bond Care About Continuity After Daniel Craig? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[mic-and-cheese]

Because you seem to be in a ranting mood, and the fact you reblogged that whole thing about Despair Arc, can we agree that it basically focuses on Chiaki 100% and tries to make her someone every loves but doesn't have like any interaction with at all? //Excuse me if you don't agree but this is something that I personally think//

(I am about to seriously rant about EVERYTHING I've been thinking about lately, so be warned)Yeah, I have to agree with you there. I don't really like Chiaki much to be honest, but I would be able to put up with the series being about her if it were just executed better (no pun intended jfc). Despair arc could have been better for what it was if it didn't ignore already existing character dymanics for the sake of forcing Chiaki to be a central character to everyone, despite pretty much everyone already having someone that they'd naturally be more invested in than the girl that they played video games with once (ex, mentors, family, close friends). Maybe I'm just not seeing it for what it is because I just don't connect to her. Maybe she is a good main character, I don't know, but what I do know is that it honestly felt forced to me. But that's just one of my main gripes in Danganronpa in general. It's a franchise that has no choice but to be character driven because of the nature of the premise, yet it only focuses on 2-3 main characters? I understand that the series also can't rely too much on fleshing out everyone because the majority of them are going to die anyway, but I feel like there's an equallibrium between character driven and lack of character development that Danganronpa just hasn't mastered yet? Idk the story of the games are phenominal, but the characters feel really weak sometimes? Especially when you can tell that characters have so much potential if different things had just been highlighted. Of course when I say that the first character that comes to mind is Teruteru (mostly because I'm invested enough in his character to see his potential, but I'm sure most if not all of the other characters have untapped potential). Reading between the lines of Teruteru's backstory I and many others have noticed that there's a story there about a boy who was forced to grow up too fast and didn't have the guideance he needed, all while having to deal with selfish, overachieving younger siblings who are in harmful conditions that make him feel like he has to resort to their level of sexual behavior just to feel good about himself, and hiding who he really is in the process. Sure, maybe not all of these things connect to one another in reality, but regardless of the narrative created to explain his character, there's no doubt that there's something deeper than "that one pervert character".And then there's the fate of the remnants of despair. I know it's not really on topic with the rest of my rant but I did say I'd be talking about everything on my mind, but I had hoped I could have transitioned to the topic better. Either way, I'm really happy the remnants lived! And not just because it means that some of my favorite characters lived. As nice and mushy as it would have been if the remnants just fucked off to Jabberwock Island and lived happily ever after (which Hope arc seems to communicate) I think it's good that they lived even just based on the implications of their situation. Think about it. They're going to have to live the rest of their lives seperated from their homes and (remaining) family and friends, unable to achieve their dreams that they went to Hopes Peak to fulfill in the first place. They're going to have to live with being known as nothing more than terrorists by the entire world and by those who previously loved and supported them, instead of as victims in a situation far out of their control. They're going to have to live with the fact that they committed atrocious acts against their loved ones, themselves, and the world, with some of them even having to live with the physical manefestations of those atrocities (ex. Nagito's arm, Fuyuhiko's eye, and those are just the ones actually mentioned). Not to mention we don't know the exact state that (the real) Jabberwock islands are in. For all we know, the place is a wasteland unsuitable for life? I really do want the remnants to be happy in the end which kinda contradicts everything I just said, but saying that they got off scot-free is downright false, even if it's not directly stated in the anime.And of course I can't mention the remnants without talking about the brainwashing video and Chiaki's execution too. Not gonna lie, it felt like a cop out. I'm glad that Chiaki ended up being a real person, but even through my own opinions about her, Despair arc felt like a major disservice to her character, despite how much they tried to show how much everyone loved her, because it really just boiled down to "kill off a beloved character for shock value." Maybe I could have accepted it for what it was if we hadn't been previously told that Junko corrupted them individually and they joined Ultimate Despair on their own accord (to be honest I don't remember any canon material that says or hints at Junko individually breaking the 77th class, so forgive me if I get something wrong, but that's a different topic) but at this point, DR3 just disregarded its own canon for a cop out. Now it wasn't a horrible cop out, being unwillingly brainwashed brings an interesting narrative about how they took the blame for the Future Foundation killing game despite being victims of their own unwilling actions, which I'll admit, I really enjoy from a story perspective. But on the other side, the story of the 77th class being exploited for their weaknesses and then finding the strength to reform themselves after escaping the Neo World Program is really good too!! Really my biggest issue with the canon storyline is that it felt lazy, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was. I can see them merits in its "flaws" though it's the implications of those flaws that breaks the narrative. Even though I've been ranting for a while, I don't really blame Kodaka for going the route he did. I think I see what he was going for, and though I would have preferred a story that was actually about what the remnants actually did while they were despairs (which, is also an entirely different topic) I can accept DR3 for what it is. I can say that from this rant I've noticed that Danganronpa is a series that relies really heavily on its implications due to the lack of fleshing out certain aspects, for better or for worse.Man I wish I could write like this for class

[briangroth27]

Tomb Raider Review

I had a lot of fun watching the latest Tomb Raider! Having never played the video games and barely remembering the two movies starring Angelina Jolie, I essentially went into this one fresh and thought it was a solid start to what will hopefully become a new franchise. I'm a big fan of pulpy treasure hunter movies, and this certainly hit the spot!

Full Spoilers…

Alicia Vikander is excellent as Lara Croft and she’s the strongest element of the film. The script gave Vikander a lot to work with, showcasing Lara as a charming smartass, a brilliant puzzle-solver, a badass survivor, an orphan determined to survive on her own, and a daughter grappling with the apparent death of her father Richard (Dominic West). I thought Lara not signing the papers that would declare her father dead and secure her inheritance because it was his money, not hers, was an interesting and unique spin on the billionaire orphan trope (of course her reasoning was also—if not moreso—about not wanting to admit her father was dead, which played really well for me). I liked that they didn’t have her immediately turn to his money the moment she got in trouble with the police, which legitimized the idea that she wouldn’t use it even if she absolutely had to. Had Ana (Kristin Scott Thomas) not shown up to bail her out, it seemed Lara was content to be fined/jailed for the illegal street race she participated in and for me, that defeats the “fake poor” criticism I’ve seen online: Lara wasn’t just acting poor until it became inconvenient. The early scenes do a great job of showing Lara knows how to handle herself and has a likable, winning way about her despite her tragic family history, making her a captivating action hero and lead. What really sold me on the action hero part (aside from Vikander’s clear dedication to the physicality of the role), however, is that the film takes time to show Lara getting winded and hurt by her incredible feats and fights, both of which clearly take a physical toll on her; she isn't an invulnerable superhero. Vikander is great in those moments and even better when the movie takes the time to show Lara's reaction to killing someone for the first time. That desperate fight to kill or be killed was extremely powerful and it made me wish other action movies would take more time to deal with the gravity of their heroes taking lives. Lara's connection to Richard was strong, but I wish we'd seen more of their relationship than him constantly leaving her in flashbacks (though that does connect nicely to their role reversal at the end of the film and as I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, each flashback ends with her being self-sufficient after he’s gone, which is a cool touch). In addition to the gamut of emotions Lara gets to show off and the thrilling spectacle of the gauntlet she's put through once she reaches a secret island, the film is very clear about how smart she is and I loved that she had to use her intelligence just as much as her fists. Vikander makes a meal out of all of this, playing every aspect of Lara to the fullest, and is clearly having a blast. I hope she gets to come back to this role in a sequel.

Lara's search for Richard (and ultimately, her journey towards letting him go) was a good through-line for the film and I liked what West brought to the role. Seeking out the supernatural as a way to reconnect with his deceased wife was an interesting and understandable motivation. However, we didn't need to hear about the legend of Himiko twice and eliminating Richard’s opening narration would've held the mysteriousness of the island of Yamatai until Lara finds out about it. The film doesn’t really gain anything by putting the audience so far ahead of her and I didn’t need to that hook to keep me interested. I did like that Richard’s madness on Yamatai involved seeing visions of Lara reappearing to him after he'd abandoned her all those times in search of the island, but I wish that madness had been turned into a stumbling block for Lara at some point instead of just something he talks about. He could’ve seen “Lara,” only to have it be an illusion that puts him in danger; the fact that he’s apparently cured of his madness as soon as Lara finds him felt too easy.

Daniel Wu as solid as Lu Ren, Lara’s expedition partner whose father went missing with Richard. I would've liked more to Ren finding out Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins) killed his father; there seemed to be a lot of untapped potential there. That Lara didn't actually lose her dad could've been seen as unfair in Ren’s eyes too. Why not use Ren being such a parallel to Lara's orphan arc to create some drama and possibly division between them? I also found it movie-convenient that Ren wasn't killed for inciting a worker rebellion that lets Lara escape; even with the justification that he'd be a useful slave, he'd been shot and wasn't at full strength anyway. There really isn't a plot purpose to his being around after freeing Lara from Vogel’s work camp either, so while I liked his character and Wu’s performance and certainly didn’t want him to die, I wish there had been more justification to such a ruthless villain not just executing a problem-causer beyond "he's the co-star." I did like that Ren and Lara kept saving each other, though, and would be up for him joining her on her further adventures. I wouldn’t mind a romance blossoming between them at some point, but I also liked that this movie makes no attempt to even suggest that Lara needs a guy to swoon over.

I thought Vogel not wanting to be separated from his family for the entirety of his search for the tomb was not only a clever parallel to Lara, Ren, and their fathers, but gave him dimension most villains in these films don't get. Instead of wanting to rule or destroy the world—or even just getting a big payday—his biggest concern was finishing the job so he could go home. I didn't sympathize with him—obviously his methods were horrid—but I was glad he had that human quality instead of being some monstrous caricature. Vogel is also used exactly as much as he needed to be (except when it comes to the potential fallout of having killed Ren’s father); he has enough presence to be a threat, but he isn’t overwhelming and felt like the cog in a larger machine he is.

I liked that the film fleshed out several facets of Lara’s life with human connections; friends (Hannah John-Kamen), coaches (Duncan Airlie James), gym rivals (Annabel Wood), coworkers (Billy Postlethwaite and Roger Nsengiyumva), and even a lovestruck customer (Antonio Aakeel) on her delivery route gave the sense that she had a full life (despite the hole her father's vanishing left in her) with a lot of history. Even if they only briefly appeared, it was great that the movie took the time to include them rather than limiting Lara’s interactions to plot-centric dealings with Ana and Croft Holdings. I hope to see many or all of these connections continue in any potential sequels: their reaction to Lara's wealth alone, to say nothing of her new day job, would make for some great stuff. Can she keep her normal friendships and be a globe-trotting archaeologist billionaire? Will she find that she’s become more comfortable without the Croft money? Will she need those grounded connections to keep herself level? Would she bring her friend Sophie along on an adventure?

The film reveals an overarching villain and that felt fresh for a treasure hunting franchise, if not Hollywood's affinity for sequels. One thing I found kinda cool about this setup is that Lara probably won’t be raiding tombs for museums (taking artifacts away from their cultures just because), but she’d be negating dangerous potential weapons, which seems more altruistic in a modern context. I liked the reveal of Ana's true motives for wanting Lara to sign off on her father's death, which convinced me of the viability of evil entity Trinity being at least somewhat run by Croft Holdings. I wonder if Richard's search for the supernatural was the basis for Trinity and if he'd been unknowingly feeding them information until his disappearance. If her father inadvertently started/fueled it, that would make Lara's quest to stop them even more personal. Maybe he reached out to those nefarious connections out of desperation on purpose, which could create an opportunity for Lara to see her father as a flawed man, not just the idealized figure whose only sin was that he was always leaving. I'm interested to see what Trinity wants to do if they get their hands on supernatural (or just very dangerous) artifacts; I hope they're not going to be cliché "take over the world" villains. I also wonder about keeping the size of Trinity as an organization to a scale Lara can stop on her own, but that's an issue for a potential sequel.

I've seen criticisms online that the film is clichéd, and while I'll grant that it doesn't have the most distinctive voice in terms of "action movie dialogue," I still found it engaging and thrilling. It's very solidly of the treasure hunter genre and though it doesn't subvert those kinds of tropes often, it executes them very well. A boat crash, river/plane adventure, and fight through a decrepit tomb were all very exciting sequences. I loved the death trapped-tomb and thought the film's spins on classic traps were fun (as was the minor trope subversion that they were in place to keep someone in, not out). I have zero problem with these kinds of pulpy movies embracing the supernatural elements at the center of their mythical legends—in fact, I usually prefer it—but the more grounded approach worked very well here, honoring the supernatural while maintaining a sense of realism and danger. Even without playing the video game this is based on, I'm a casual enough gamer that I caught homages to modern adventure games, like Lara monkey-barring over a destroyed walkway and stealthily sneaking through the villains' camp. Honoring those source material bits didn't pull me out of the movie at all and I liked those nods to the games. On the other hand, Lara getting her iconic twin guns did feel a little more like fan service than a natural evolution of her character (she never seemed to need guns on her adventure and mostly seemed to favor a bow to picking up dropped guns), but that may also be my unease with what felt like a slight glorification of guns (though granted, this wasn’t anywhere near the gratuitous glorification of AR-15s in Thor Ragnarok). Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a little fan service and Lara can have a different opinion of firearms than I do without me disliking her character. That brief throwaway nod to the games didn't sully the film for me or anything.

The action throughout the film was solid and surprisingly brutal. The only sequence that I thought felt extraneous was Lara's chase after—and then flight from—a trio of muggers in China, but it was a well-structured chase and did include a moment of Lara hesitating to leap off a dock after them, showing some early limits to her derring-do. That chase also coincidentally leads her to Ren, and he could've been introduced as belligerently drunk (entertainingly so, for sure!) to Lara by herself without having to scare off the thieves. Otherwise, the action was great and had a really nice variety to it. There were only four or five shots where the CGI was noticeable; in the other action sequences it was totally convincing (if there at all). The sense that they were doing practical stunts (even if they weren't) and the danger in Vikander's expressions definitely helped sell the impact of the injuries Lara sustained as she narrowly escaped death over and over.

Despite a few missed opportunities for greater interpersonal conflict among the heroes and perhaps a need to punch up the dialogue beyond what's expected of this genre, Tomb Raider is a blast! The mystery is cool, the action is great, and Vikander is outstanding. I'd definitely follow her on another adventure and absolutely recommend this one!

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