#watching it at this point it feels like a parody of itself I keep forgetting it's the blueprint

[dreadpiratedani]

oh to be a freshly made-over nerd being tenderly beheld by 90s freddie prinze junior

[adamwatchesmovies]

The Sound of Music (1965)

I was shocked to learn that The Sound of Music received mixed reviews upon its release in 1965. I can sort of understand someone criticizing the liberties it takes with the story it's based on (though of course, someone who does this should realize that real life is not particularly cinematic) but how can you not fall in love with this musical? Unabashedly sweet, it effortlessly charms you. This is exactly the kind of movie you’d love to watch on a miserable day when you’re sick. No matter how foul your mood is, it’ll lift your spirits.

In 1938 Austria, Maria (Julie Andrews, magnificent) studies to become a nun but doesn't fit in with her peers. She’s always humming a tune and constantly finds her spirit whisked away by music. To help her decide where she belongs, Maria is sent to help care for the seven children of Captain von Trapp (Christopher Plummer). As the family bonds, everything seems blissful, until neighbouring Nazi Germany begins mobilizing its troops…

If you’ve never seen The Sound of Music before, you’ll feel a little foolish once it’s over. You haven't sat down with this movie, but you’ve heard several of the songs before, you’ve seen parodies of the most memorable scenes and you may have even seen clips out of context. It makes you go "Oh! That's from THIS movie!" There’s no way to forget My Favorite Things, Do-Re-Mi, Sixteen Going on Seventeen or So Long, Farewell and you won’t want to. Much credit belongs to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who wrote the stage musical but if that was all the movie had going for it, you could watch a stage version. What elevates this production is the cast. Julie Andrews, best known for her role in Mary Poppins is unsurprisingly excellent as Maria. What she does almost seems easy because - like the children she cares for - you instantly fall for her. She’s so sweet, gentle and kind it’s hard to imagine even the iciest hearts - like the one beating inside Captain von Trapp - staying cold in her presence. What’s surprising is Christopher Plummer. Turns out, he can sing. I don’t know if you’d be as excited at the idea of them becoming romantically entangled if the children weren’t there, but that’s the point. If Maria does fall in love, it won’t be with just the father, it will be with the family.

The film’s best scenes often involve dance numbers. Not the big kind of dances that suddenly has everyone in the country expertly coordinated; playful, childlike dances as the young Von Trapps perform for a crowd or tender scenes between two people who tell us how they feel through lyrics and body language. Though the children are only given limited screen time and character development, they all get enough for you to understand them as people. It helps that the young actors portraying Liesl, Louisa, Friedrich, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl are terrific.

One of my favorite things about The Sound of Music is that while it’s light, happy, romantic and carefree - maybe even corny - it has this tiny bit of tension and a smidge of fear in it too. As we approach the second act, a looming shadow in the distance keeps you wondering. When Germany annexes Austria, it’s a cold bucket of reality dumped onto this musical. Things were so sweet and light before; surely this means the family will be alright? You’re pretty sure they will be, but there’s a part of you that doubts. It’s just enough to give this movie stakes and compels you to keep watching. As nice as the film is, it might’ve been too much without that little bit of vinegar.

The Sound of Music has melted the ice around my heart and rekindled my appetite for musicals. It's the kind of picture that introduces itself to you by handing you a bouquet. You fall in love with the songs, the story and the dance numbers too. There's even a puppet show so darling it'll make your every worry and fear vanish. I can't wait to see it again. (December 13, 2023)

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Dark Greetings this Spooky Season Ms. V. Can we get a list of your favorite Halloween movies and specials? I know you have seen *everything* and I am trying to go beyond my usual rewatches this holiday month.

V. AIMMYARROWSHIGH’S CRITERIA FOR HALLOWEEN EPISODES

Does the Halloween element combine convincingly with the usual universe of the show (ex: Lizzie McGuire 2x09 “Those Freaky McGuires” is not good as a Halloween episode because it changes the rules of the Lizzie McGuire universe, whereas Community 2x06 “Epidemiology” is a GREAT Halloween episode because it manages to logically introduce zombies to the regular Community universe)?

Does the Halloween element advance the plot of the episode/series (ex: the reason Boy Meets World 5x17 “And Then There Was Shawn” is literally the best Halloween episode ever made is that it uses the horror movie tropes it satirizes to provide a CRUCIAL turning-point to the plot of the show)?

Is the Halloween episode in the forefront enough that it’s clearly a holiday episode (ex: HAVING ONE JACK-O’LANTERN ON A DESK DOES NOT A HALLOWEEN SPECIAL MAKE, LAW & ORDER 16x03 “GHOSTS”! You gotta go ALL-IN, like Bob’s Burgers 3x02 “Full Bars”!)?

Does the Halloween theme balance well between spooky and warm-n-fuzzy (ex: Criminal Minds 11x21 “Mr. Scratch” is too fucking bleak, but Criminal Minds 12x06 “Elliott’s Pond” has a joyous/celebratory tone to the ending despite being a genuinely scary episode)?

Is it generally a well-written, acted, and designed episode of television (ex: Saved by the Bell! 3x26 “Mystery Weekend” is seriously, not exaggerating, the worst thing I’ve ever watched in my life; Psych 1x15 “Scary Sherry, Or Bianca’s Toast” is a triumph of the medium)?

THE BEST, bar none, Halloween special ever made is Boy Meets World 5x17, “And Then There Was Shawn.” Period. There can be no argument, except MAYBE Community 3x06, “Epidemiology,” but I like “And Then There Was Shawn” better because the parody and homage as less… biting? And because I think it continues and addresses the emotional core of the regular BMW season better than “Epidemiology” does for Community s3. “Epi” DOES plant the seed (…heh) for the Season 3B major plot arc of Shirley’s pregnancy and Chang Deciding To Murder, but it gets some major minus points for mocking Yvette Nicole Brown’s weight with other characters’ responses to her costume, tbh. And “And Then There Was Shawn” is just fucking iconic. It is THE Halloween episode manual, IMO, if there were to be a textbook on how to write a perfect Halloween episode for your sitcom.

HOWEVER, I also have to give major props to Bob’s Burgers and Psych, as complete series, for their CONSISTENTLY excellent Halloween episodes. A lot of series that have multiple Halloween eps really phone it in after one or two, because they don’t have any more ideas for how to incorporate Halloween pastiches while maintaining the overall feeling of the series (tbh B99, while the Halloween Heists are excellent in general, is/has been coming very close to this line, and I think that if they HADN’T had to switch out the Heist to Cinco de Mayo in s6, they would have jumped their Heist Shark [and I think they know it, too, because it was lampshaded in the episode itself]) or they just straight-up don’t have any more ideas for what or how to have the characters they’re bound to parody or pay homage to a Halloween thing after they’ve already done one or two. And let’s be real: those one or two have probably been either The Shining or Rear Window, because those are pretty much the two that every show starts with.

Bob’s manages to make every Halloween episode feel very fresh and organic to the series, which I think they do have some leeway to do because of the nature of cartoons keeping the Belchers living a kind of loop of never aging, yk, but amazingly they’ve only done the “Tina feels too old to trick or treat, maybe? Nope, she’s not 14 yet, so there’s still time!” thing in a way that felt tropey once (in 3x02 Full Bars). They’ve been able to address Tina being 13/in 8th grade, and worrying about it being almost too late for her to keep trick or treating, in ways that were in-character and added to the overall episode in 4x02 Fort Night, 5x02 Tina and the Real Ghost, and 9x04 Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street, without me rolling my eyes at the screen and going “TINA, EVERY SINGLE SHOW WITH A TWEEN IN IT HAS ALREADY DECIDED THAT THE AGE AT WHICH YOU MUST STOP TRICK OR TREATING IS FRESHMAN YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, COME ON NOW” which… at this point, is a Feat. Because like, I’ve POSTED over a thousand Halloween episodes, right? But I’ve watched and screencapped ::checks folder:: 3,905 Halloween episodes since 2014. Which is, um, a. lot. The ACTUAL BEST Bob’s Burgers Halloween episode is 6x03, “The Hauntening,” which is just… achingly perfect television. I know I’ve posted about it before (probably a couple times tbh) but the way that it aired originally back-to-back with The Simpsons 27x04, “Halloween of Horror,” so that the evening of Sunday cartoons juxtaposed eight-year-old Louise whose family worked so hard to scare her like she wanted with nine-year-old Lisa’s family working so hard to keep her from being too scared and make sure that she felt safe… reader, I FUCKIN CRIED. Little girls being deeply loved while also Spoopy Things!!!!!! IS WHAT HALLOWEEN SPECIALS ARE!!! FUCKIN!!!!!! ABOUT!!!!!!!

Psych, though, has the benefit of not really having any, like… central tone to the series? Beyond “friendship” and “having fun with joking,” tbh? So it’s able to do what a lot of series get docked “points” for in my Foolproof Halloween Special Ratings System That Is Completely Subjective To My Tastes And Mood, which is really just run full-tilt into parody and homage without really worrying about overall tonal connection to the rest of the season or series. 1x15, “Scary Sherry, or, Bianca’s Toast,” while it DOES fall victim to the way-too-common Halloween episode trap of making mental hospitals into a Scary Thing (they are a medical normality and a necessary thing for health for many people and should not be feared), is delightful Spooky Fun AND has the benefit of having Shannon Woodward in it.* We all know by now that if an episode of any show has Shannon Woodward as the guest star, it will by default end up being one of the best, if not THE best, episodes of that series. It’s just how having Shannon Woodward as your guest star rolls. I also really like, with Psych’s Halloween episodes, that quite a few of them understand the underlying thematic scope of Horror, which is “The Monstrous Feminine Is A Thing And All Horror Tropes Are Actually About Women’s Interior Lives Because Men Can’t Write Women And Fear Women Always,” yk, in a way that is neither TOO Actual Horror, which I am too afraid of to Do, or too trite and demeaning, which is the other basic trap that Halloween stuff falls into A Lot. Like, Scary Sherry is very much about women villainizing other women, avenging other women, and being in very specifically-female pain, even though Shawn & Gus are still the lens through which we solve the mystery, and so are 4x04 The Devil Is In The Details And The Upstairs Bedroom and 6x03 This Episode Sucks. But they give their Monstrous Females dignity and breadth, which is impressive, ESPECIALLY since they’re one-off guest characters. Also, 3x15 Tuesday the 17th is just plain funny and well-done, like, just give it props for the title alone.

*(Speaking of Shannon Woodward, another amazingly good Halloween episode is Raising Hope 4x07, “Murder, She Hoped,” which is among my very favorite Rear Window homage episodes and has probably the funniest gag in ANY Rear Window ep, in Martha Plimpton floating across the screen in the Grace Kelly silk nightgown and peignoir and announcing that it was on sale at Walmart, can you believe?! and honestly, yes. Perfection.)

Also excellent:

• The Addams Family (1991) + Addams Family Values (1993) • Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School (RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU WERE GAY FOR SIBELLA AS A CHILD!) • Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost (RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU'RE GAY BECAUSE THE HEX GIRLS!) • Halloweentown + Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge • Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire! • Z•O•M•B•I•E•S (to a lesser extent, Z•O•M•B•I•E•S 2) • Clue (1985) • Coraline • Corpse Bride • 6teen 2x00 Dude of the Dead • Arthur 21x00 Arthur and the Haunted Treehouse • Lamb-Chop in the Haunted Studio • Arthur 8x04A Fern-kenstein's Monster • Arthur 10x02 The Squirrels • WandaVision 1x06 The All-New Halloween Spooktacular (I KNOW YOU, SPECIFICALLY, DEAR @plavoptice, HATE MCU!WANDA AND I DON'T BLAME YOU, YOUR REASONS ARE VERY VALID! But this is a good Halloween special so I'm putting it on my list In General.) • Boy Meets World 2x06 Who's Afraid of Cory Wolf? • Ghostbusters (2016) • Gravity Falls 1x12 Summerween • Leverage 4x02 Ten L'il Grifters Job • The Loud House 2x40 Tricked! • Mockingbird Lane 1x00 Unaired Pilot • It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! (Classic, etc.)

I'm SURE I'm forgetting some that I'll rewatch this year myself. I'm a big Halloween Baking Championship fan, tbh, which is on Discovery+ now so I recommend that if you like mostly-relaxing nice people baking cakes that look like bats and such.

I'm also IMMENSELY INTENSELY EXCITED for The Muppets' Haunted Mansion on Disney+ next week!!!

[maph1]

I dunno why, but watching people froth over Homestuck^2, regardless of the reason just fills me with this intense glee.  I’m not saying it’s a good thing, or that it’s justified.

It’s just that, people are getting so butt mad over a glorified clown show that’s not even canon.  I feel like people forget how fucking goofy and stupid Homestuck was, and that it poked fun at itself, and the audience all the time.

I understand that what’s going on is more than the simple clownish antics Hussie would run us through, and has, kind of become an assault on the narrative, and the people that care about it, but I feel like that’s kind of the point.  It’s become self parody, and a parody of fanfiction in general.  Considering Hussie’s penchant for parody (SBaHJ, Wizardy Herbert), it seems unlikely to me that this is unintentional.  Like, HS2 and the epilogues is basically the Spaceballs of Homestuck.

What keeps me interested is that all throughout Homestuck, a bunch of goofy nonsense is often used to hide big important things right under our noses, and I can’t discount that that’s what might be happening here.  A lot of the churning bullshit engine that is HS2 might be a huge distaction, and I’m interested to see what for.

As a side note, for people who are complaining about Kanaya’s reaction to Yiffy (god I can’t believe that’s a sentence I’ve typed), and especially to people pointing out her jealousy towards Vriska in Act 5, Kanaya is like 30 something years old, and is one of the lead figures of a rebellion.  I don’t understand why people can’t buy that she’s willing to let bygones be bygones.  Like, even if she weren’t emotionally mature enough to forgive Rose, she at the very least should have the sense to keep that stuff to herself for now, since having a huge falling out with Rose right now could literally cost lives, if not the whole rebellion.  The two of them together are an important figurehead in the rebellion.

So I read it one of 3 ways.  Either she’s enough of an adult to understand why Rose would do what she did, and even though she’s upset about it, she’s willing to forgive her, and probably already got most of her emotions out before they arrived at the clock tower, or,

She is pissed, but understands that an emotional outburst/potential falling out would be EXTREMELY POORLY TIMED right now, and is willing to set that issue aside for now, even going so far as to hide her anger to keep the rebellion running smoothly, or,

This was an actual attempt at character assassination, for what I can only assume is some weird meta-narrative purpose about canonicity or something later down the line.

Like, I’m not sure if people who complain about the writing believe it’s not intentionally bad, or if they realize it’s intentionally bad, and just hate it anyway.

[antihero-writings]

Stolen Sunlight (Ch2)

Fandom: Tangled | Tangled the Series | Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure

Fic Summary: Arianna never thought she'd find herself afraid of a fourteen-year-old boy, but the events of Secret of the Sundrop won't seem to leave her.

She needs to talk to Varian in prison. Not for his sake...but for her own.

Character focus: Arianna 

Notes: Oh my GOSH you guys, thank you SO MUCH for that incredible response to chapter 1!! My writing rarely gets into the double digits as far as notes go, and I'm lucky if I get one comment... You have no idea how happy it made me to wake up this morning to so many notes, including a bunch of super nice comments...I really can't thank you enough. I hope you guys like the second chapter too! ...I know it's pretty different from the first one, haha!

(Fyi, I'm not usually this fast in posting the next chapter of something, I just happened to have the two beginning parts all edited together XD)

Chapter 2: The Cracks in Their Hearts 

Arianna’s eyes flare open, her heart firing and misfiring, taking its panic out on her own ribs. And for a second she can still feel the stone beneath her, the shackles around her ankles, can still hear his voice, feel the weight of his gaze.

The world behind his eyes then was so cold then: all hate and no hope. So different from the world she lived in. She didn’t want that world to infect her own view.

She clenches her fingers into the sheets.

It wasn’t a dream. That much she doesn’t have to question; at some point in a twisted history, it was real.

How the scene of the boy who smiled and laughed, helping Cassandra with her chores, making the library gleam for little recompense, and the scene of the boy who created a metal monster as a diversion, wrapped chains around her ankles, and teased death and amber before her eyes, could both exist in the same timeline…How the same boy who created machines and compounds to forge solutions, could turn around and use them to manufacture problems, could be played by the same actor, that the only thing that had changed was time…and, at the very end, the same voice that once laughed, and spoke so happily of alchemy and friendship in these castle halls could scream no and I’ll make you proud from a prison cart…she doesn’t understand. It all seems like some sick joke, played with a trick of the light.

The Queen tosses her legs over the side of the bed, pushing back her hair, careful not to wake Frederic, whose chest is rising and falling to the rhythm of uninterrupted sleep.

This isn’t the first time. That is, it isn’t the first time her mind parroted and parodied her memories as nightmares.

She tiptoes up to the door and slowly turns the knob, glancing back at Frederic to be sure he doesn’t wake, and quietly shuts it behind her.

She needs to walk the halls, clear her mind; if she lays back down to sleep now, her heart won’t be able to stop its war march.

She knows from experience.

The castle halls are quiet, doused in a blue-violet tinge, spilling through the windows. She steps up to one of these panes, sighing to the night sky speckled with stars.

The same stars she and Willow chased the sunrise under. The same stars she kissed Frederic under. The same stars, worlds she and Rapunzel gazed at, charted together, asking each other what was out there.

The same sky he kidnapped her under.

The same sky. The same boy. The same queen. The only difference is time.

Time is a funny thing, isn’t it? Likes to play pranks. Heals things. Makes you forget things too. Bad things, yes, but also good things; makes you forget what you lost…and consequently less grateful for what you have. And sometimes it only makes the bad things worse, when your mind won’t let go of them.

She glances down the hall—the same hall she had met that chipper voice and those eyes so full, so accepting of sunlight.

The same hall he captured her in.

She recognizes too, it’s the same window she was looking through that day, down upon the town square, watching those she loved be attacked by a beast of the alchemist’s making. The same window at which he threw sleep into her face.

He looked so different that night. He wasn’t the cute little boy with the gloves, and the apron, and the stripe in his hair, and the glint in his eye. This was a masked criminal in a large, dark coat, which hid weaponry. No boyish twinkle in that blue this time; now the goggles glowed green, like a demon, no soul or sunlight behind them. His raccoon wasn’t the only one he morphed into a monster that night.

How could a person so easily shut himself off from the bright light inside himself, and turn to such immense darkness? As if the shadows had been asking to play this whole time, and he finally accepted their invitation. That was the question she never could quite wrap her mind around.

How could he treat those he once loved like that?

Is that sweet boy still in there? Is he trapped somewhere inside the darkness, within that prison of blue, crying for mercy?

She couldn’t imagine any circumstances that could drive her to treat those she loved like that, no matter how angry she was, or how much she had lost.

Her heartbeat picks up the pace.

She knows she is safe. Her family is safe. Or at least, she has no reason to believe otherwise. They made it out of that lab, and Varian is just a boy swearing vengeance in the dungeons below her. She knows he cannot come back to haunt her. She knows she is safe.

He’s just a boy.

So why does she still feel so...uneasy? Why does the thought of him in the dungeon feel, not like the end of a story, the end of a nightmare, like justice…but instead like the beginning, like a crime in and of itself? Why does she still feel sick, and cold, and far too old thinking of him?

When Rapunzel was taken from them, so long ago—(though it always felt like yesterday)—sorrow was a constant reminder and companion. A quiet buzz of tragedy in the back of her brain. A crack in her heart, making it so she was never fully whole, never fully satisfied. Today’s melancholy, tinged with tomorrow’s hope, tomorrow’s despair. Now the tragedy, the threat, is over. Nothing is missing from their lives. Their hearts are whole again. And Rapunzel has faced many villains on her own, and defeated them with flying colors—him included.

But Arianna still feels something isn’t right.

Maybe it’s because this has happened before. Because she had spent so much of her life grieving the loss of their daughter, hoping in the deepest corners of her heart she would come running into the castle one day.

Maybe because, when her lost princess did come back there was this new thing in the back of her mind saying Maybe you don’t have her back forever. Maybe she’s not safe. Maybe she’ll be taken from you again. A part of herself she had to willfully soothe each day. …A voice Frederic was unable to quiet within himself.

Is it because Varian gave credence to this voice inside her? Because he took their own personal demons and brought them to life in a lab?

But it wasn’t Rapunzel he took…it was her.

Is that the point? Is it because she herself was the one who was kidnapped, for the sake of her daughter? That he used her to get to, to hurt, to in turn use, Rapunzel, too? Because she hadn’t anticipated that? Because the shock of it brought new ammunition to that voice? That now it was clear her daughter wasn’t the only one who could be taken, that any one of them could be stolen away, and used by the opponent? Was it that act of both of them being used as chess pieces in a grand game, instead of people with souls, who were hurting, that keeps her up at night?

It could very well be. But even so, together they had won against him. Arianna was confident that together—be it the three of them, or Rapunzel and her friends—they could face whatever came their way. She wasn’t afraid of him that night, when she was sitting handcuffed to his laboratory floor. She knew they would win. They always did.

Is it because he was one of her friends, a friend she thought could help Rapunzel face the darkness, a friend who had such light in him? Because he made it so terrifyingly clear that our worst enemies are not faceless monsters in the dark, not really…they are the friends we couldn’t save. His greatest offense was not treason against his kingdom, but against his friend. Is it that thought, that tomorrow’s villains are today’s heroes that sends her heart reeling?

But he is down there, in the dungeon, she repeats to herself, as she walks down the hall. She knows where he is; he cannot surprise attack her at any moment. He was not the first villain they faced, the first traitor, to Corona, nor will he be the last. That prison is filled with people who tried to take their sunlight away, and lost.

But she does not feel sick thinking of anyone else down there.

So why, when he is put behind bars—

Or says a voice in the back of her head, a very soft one she’s been trying not to listen to, maybe it’s because he’s down there.

…Because he’s down there, so close, and if he were to escape it would be so easy for him to strike where it hurt?

—(No, says the voice.)—

Or—(dare she admit it?)—Maybe it’s because he’s down there, when she knows he once was, and still could be, more than this. Because he’s down there, wasting away, repeating threats to empty walls, while she walks safely in her golden palace above, not caring what happened to him, what’s still happening to him, even now…how much pain he’s still in….

How much his mind is surely tormenting him.

(Just like her.)

Two scenes, one boy. But maybe it isn’t the way he turned to the dark…maybe it’s because she knows the dark isn’t all he’s made of.

Corona isn’t a place where villains and criminals are shut up, or beheaded for their crimes. It’s a place where they’re taught to be better.

She hadn’t given all that much time to mull in her head before, but now it gives her pause, sinks into her brain. Perhaps this unease is not entirely for herself, her family. Maybe its not fear…it’s guilt. Maybe some part of it, even if it’s small and cowering, is not for herself, but for him.

They all looked away. Frederic looked away when the rocks were destroying their kingdom. Rapunzel looked away when he came to her for help. They all didn’t go to him; looked away when the storm ended, assumed he was better, for fear of facing the fact that he wasn’t, that the storm had left wreckage behind after all, wreckage they would have to clean up. It was easier to look away.

Maybe this isn’t about the way he treated her…maybe it’s about the way they’re treating him, when she knows he was once a boy who cleaned libraries, fixed problems, helped people. When she knows he is still human…and they left him there to rot in the dark.

They’re still looking away.

What does she know? Maybe they’re right to leave him there. She doesn’t know him well. All she knew were the stories Rapunzel told, and the brief interactions they had. And the stories proved he was dangerous when good, and the interactions proved he was deadly when evil.

—(But…was he ever truly evil?)—

She met him twice, and their second, longer meeting was made of metal, and amber, and moonlight. If he could cross straight into the night without a sunset, then maybe she didn’t know him well enough to say they shouldn’t have looked away.

Still, even though she didn’t know much else, she knew—when she did look at him—the look in his eyes. She was certain that, though his gaze was harsh and unrelenting at those times…there was tragedy behind that ice, frozen in time. She could see the cracks in his heart. Could hear the voices in his head saying Maybe you can’t save your father after all.

A criminal was not all he was. A cell was not all he deserved.

He was just a boy, lost and hurting.

Like she was, once.

She paused, peering around a corner at two guards posted at a door. She knew behind it was the staircase to the dungeon. To …him.

She’s so close…

She could go see him right now. Sleep deprived and unsteady in mind she could march down there.

What would she do if she did? Yell and question him? Lecture him on the merits of a non-criminal life? Demand answers, or expect no answers, just want to see him hurt like he hurt her?

She tempers her breath. The thought fades quickly as it comes.

That is not who she is. That is not who she wants to be, to appear to him as; all fear and anger. If she does, if she wants him to hurt, she is no better than the darkest parts of him.

And it is not what either of them need.

She turns away, deciding the bed is more inviting now that her thoughts have coalesced into resolve, and her bare feet take her swiftly back to her room.

Not tonight. Not now.

She will talk to him again. She needs to, for both their sakes. She’s not going to look away anymore.

Because she knows they are the same.

[mst3kproject]

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Happy Holidays, MSTies!  Your present is Episodes that Never Were are back!  Remember last year, when I said Elves was so bad I wished I’d watched the Star Wars Holiday Special instead?  Let’s find out what those words taste like.

The galaxy may be in the midst of a rebellion, but Chewbacca promised his family he will be back for Life Day, and god damn it, he’s gonna get there!  He and Han Solo dodge Imperial forces and asteroid fields on the way, but the real danger may be waiting for them at home, as Stormtroopers do a treehouse-to-treehouse search for rebel sympathizers.  It won’t be much of a holiday if Chewie arrives home only to be immediately arrested!

That sounds exciting, doesn’t it?  It even sounds like it could be made to mean something. There is perhaps a point here about inter-ethnic empathy – Life Day may be a Wookiee holiday, but Chewbacca’s alien friends still know how important it is to him and they’re gonna help him keep his promise.  We could also compare it to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.  In that movie, the Martians want to celebrate Christmas but aren’t particularly interested in what it means.  They get all their information about it from pirated television and from children who don’t understand anything much more than ‘free stuff’.  We didn’t give Christmas to them, they literally stole it by kidnapping Santa.  In the Holiday Special, the Wookiees are sharing their cultural traditions with outsiders who have become part of their family – Leia’s speech at the ends notes the humans’ respect for this.

But none of that’s relevant, because this is just a bad 70’s variety hour in a Star Wars costume.  We don’t get to see claustrophobic scenes of our brave heroes hiding from the Storm Troopers.  We don’t get sweeping space battles or bickering robots or weird new planets… we don’t get anything we go to see Star Wars for.  Instead, we mostly watch the Wookiees sitting around their house passing the time as they wait helplessly for Chewbacca to get home.  This could have been neat in itself if Wookiees had an interesting culture, but they live in a Mod 70’s Treehouse and seem to spend most of their time watching television.  The brief opening sequence, in which Solo and Chewie outrun their pursuers in the Millennium Falcon, is just a tantalizing offer of chocolate on the tip of a giant turd.

The actual point of the show, as far as the people who produced it were concerned, was the various little musical numbers and comedy sequences along the way, some of which are more Star Wars-themed than others.  Most of these are presented as one or other of the characters watching them on some form of television, which often doesn’t make any sense.  The sequences themselves are usually not very well-presented and a lot of them are just downright boring, so let’s go through them one by one. Top up your eggnog, folks.  We may be here a while.

Our first setpiece is a holographic circus featuring jugglers and acrobats, which the adults use to distract Lumpy so he’ll stop bothering them – like parents at the mall letting their kids watch Paw Patrol on a tablet while they shop.  When you see televised circus acts, they’re usually filmed up close and at interesting angles, to heighten the sense of danger, and give you a good look at what’s going on.  The Star Wars Holiday Special presents it as tiny figures on a table, always shot from far away and looking down, which removes all the drama from the stunts.  Lumpy enlarges a figure, but it’s only the ringmaster.  The others remain tiny, all while this little Wookiee looms over them like a kaiju that will start stomping if it isn’t entertained.

Then we get Mark Hamill’s cameo (in which he looks weirdly like one of the puppets from Invaders from the Deep), followed by Malla’s attempt to cook Bantha Surprise by following the directions on a tv show.  I’m not very interested in cooking shows anyway, but I have a hard time imagining anybody being interested in a fake cooking show featuring fictional ingredients from other planets.  What we see on Malla’s screen comes across as a sort of parody, but not actually a funny one. I’m tempted to think Harvey Korman must have been making fun of some particular 70’s cooking show maven but I don’t begin to know who that might be.

The ‘humour’ of the sequence is supposed to come from Malla’s attempt to follow the directions even though the cook on the show has four arms and Malla only two.  I could pull some commentary on ableism in cooking and cooking shows out of this, but it would be a stretch, and nobody on the writing end was thinking about it that hard.  It’s just stupid, and so is Korman’s plastic wig.  Malla eventually turns it off in frustration, long after we’re tired of listening to it.

By the way, if you’re wondering whose stupid idea it was to set the whole thing on Kashyyyk (or, as a guy in the Special calls it, Kazook) and not have any subtitles to the Wookiee’s dialogue?  That was apparently 100% George Lucas.  The actual script and everything was in the hands of the television producers, but Lucas would not budge on the premise being Wookiee-centric.  At least he exorcised that particular demon here, instead of subjecting us to it on the big screen.

Anyway, next Art Carney drops by to deliver some Life Day presents, among which is the source of our next setpiece: a VR machine which reads Itchy’s mind to present a personalized fantasy!  This takes the form of Diahann Carroll in a sparkly feather wig, singing a song and saying things like “I am your fantasy, experience me!”  The song is okay, I guess, and Carroll has a lovely voice, but what we’re seeing is basically a boring music video.  She’s just standing there on a glittery black background, and we can’t forget that she’s singing to a geriatric Wookiee who is doing the Wookiee equivalent of jacking off to this (emphasized by the appearance of literal little swimmers in part of the sequence!).  The fact that it’s a personal fantasy plucked from his subconscious makes it feel like this was something we weren’t supposed to be privy to, like we’re looking through somebody else’s computer at his girlfriend’s nudes.

Princess Leia (also looking disturbingly puppet-like… are we sure the actual actors appeared in this, and not look-a-likes in heavy makeup?) and C3P0 get their cameo, and then there’s the single actually effective moment in the Special.  This is when we think Han Solo and Chewie are about to arrive home, ending our torment a full hour early, but no, it’s the Storm Troopers!  This bit isn’t fantastic, but it does work.  Then, sadly, we’re on to the next variety act.

This is a holographic music video which Carney shows to the Imperial troops as a demonstration that the device he has brought Malla for Life Day is harmless.  It’s Jefferson Starship moaning out a rock song, in which I can understand at best one word in three.  The visuals are in intense soft-focus that’s probably supposed to be artsy.  The costumes (what I can see of them) aren’t any more Star-Wars-y than anything else bands wore in the 70’s.  And the song sounds like something you’d find in the ‘easy’ setting on Rock Band.  Why does Black Helmet sit there and watch the whole thing when he’s supposed to be searching every house on Kashyyyk/Kazook for rebel sympathizers?

The version of the Special currently available on YouTube, which tragically lacks the commercials, has a lot of comments along the lines of this is what you hallucinate after buying Death Sticks from that guy on Coruscant.

To drive the point home, the next thing we see is Lumpy watching a cartoon about Han Solo and Chewbacca crash-landing on an ocean planet while searching for a mystical talisman that makes things invisible (I wish they hadn’t actually shown this object – then I could have made jokes about it being the One Ring).  This sequence is generally regarded as the best thing in the Special, and it introduced Boba Fett and provided some characterization for him.  It is definitely true that this is the only segment with a plot, and with its weird aliens and grubby outposts it feels a lot more like Star Wars than anything else going on here.

The main thing that keeps me from enjoying this segment is that it just looks weird.  The animators use exaggerated squash-and-stretch on the droids, even more so than on the living characters, which makes them look like they’re made out of jell-o. Princess Leia looks like something out of a cheap 60’s manga and Luke like he was drawn by a twelve-year-old based on an action figure that wasn’t actually of Luke Skywalker.  Luke has no pupils, which is very distressing, but not as distressing as when C3P0 blinks.  Even worse, as far as I can tell Han Solo has no eyes at all.

The design of the alien planet in this sequence is pretty cool, though.  It appears to be entirely covered in a kind of goopy ocean and the creatures that live in it are neat-looking, even if not terribly plausible.  Animation is really a great medium for fantasy and science fiction, because it levels the playing field: we’re not thinking about the special effects because everything on screen looks equally unreal.  This is something Disney, who used it to such beautiful effect in Lilo and Stitch, totally forgot at just about the same time as they acquired the rights to Star Wars.  Oh, for what could have been.

I want to note here that the average review on this blog is about as long as what you’ve read so far.  We’re only about two thirds of the way through the Special, though, and I can’t really divide a holiday review up into two weeks.  Therefore, consider this your permission to take a break and go snag another latke or whatever you’re snacking on, and then we’ll continue.

There’s one fun bit of background social commentary in the animated sequence, too: the only way for humans to survive the virus is to hang them upside-down so their brains will get enough oxygen despite their weakened hearts.  In the city there’s an advertisement for the cure – and the upside-down human pictured in the ad is, of course, a woman in her underwear.  The image isn’t detailed and it’s not the focus of the shot, so I don’t think it’s an actual piece of gratuitous cheesecake.  Apparently somebody at Nelvana Ltd was just salty about the advertising industry.

The self-contained story in the cartoon makes sense within itself. It justifies Fett’s fearsome reputation far better than anything in The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi, and the characters seem to be in-character even when they’re off-model.  The problem is with it as a part of the framing story about the Imperial troops searching Chewbacca’s house!  The Special is very explicit that this is not something that’s actually happening in the real world at the same time as the other events – it is a cartoon Lumpy is watching on TV.  Why, in a galaxy controlled by the Empire, would there be cartoons using the real names of real rebel operatives and presenting them as the heroes?  If nobody’s supposed to know Boba Fett is connected with the Empire, why does the show blow his cover?

More importantly, where can I get one of those awesome giant stuffed Banthas Lumpy has in his room?  I don’t know if that’s a real toy that was available in the late 70’s, but Comic Images does make something similar and you can buy them at Wal-Mart or Toys R Us.

While cleaning up the mess the Stormtroopers made of his room, Lumpy watches an instructional video of how to put together some kind of radio. This features Harvey Korman as an android who keeps getting jammed.  Like cooking shows, instructional videos aren’t very interesting unless you’re trying to follow the directions – since we can’t follow the directions, this one is pointless to begin with.  The ‘joke’ is not funny, and lines like “every one of the ten thousand terminals on your circuit breaker module is a different colour” might be amusing when written down but they just don’t work when somebody says them aloud.  Fortunately, it doesn’t last long.

Then we get on to what’s probably the second-best thing in the Special, the bit where we learn that the Mos Eisley cantina is owned by Bea Arthur.  It would be easily the most expensive thing in the Special were it not made up of b-roll footage and re-used puppets from Episode IV.  It’s also kind of got a plot, in that a guy with a baking soda volcano on top of his head (this is certainly an efficient way to get the alcohol directly to your brain) is trying to confess his love to Bea while she just wants to get on with running her business.  Eventually he gets his heart broken and leaves, and then the Empire shuts the bar down, so Bea throws everybody out with a song.

I have to admit, in The Force Awakens when Han Solo mentioned a female friend who ran a ‘watering hole’… there was a moment there when I was half-expecting it to be Bea Arthur’s character.  I’m relieved that it wasn’t, but also just the slightest bit disappointed.  We had to wait for The Mandalorian to get a proper Holiday Special callback.

This bit almost had a chance to say something with its ‘thwarted romance’ plot.  Usually such a thing in a tv show would get what the male character would consider a happy ending.  He would prove to his love interest that being cared for is important, she would realize that love is better than money, and they would metaphorically ride off into the sunset.  What it looks like we’re going to get here instead is something more like the episode of South Park where Butters fell in love with the Hooters waitress. Harvey Korman’s character (yes, he plays three different characters in this Special and this was apparently supposed to be a selling point) realizes his crush is based on a misunderstanding, and while it makes him sad, he’s not going to be an asshole about it.

Nor is Bea’s character vilified for rejecting him, which she does tactfully but firmly, as if she’s gone through this many times before. He’s just a minor annoyance in her day before she goes on to worry about bigger problems, like getting everybody to obey that Imperial curfew.  Then, however, at the last second he pops up from behind the counter after everybody has left – and that’s where the segment ends.  I think we’re supposed to assume they got together after all, but I kind of hope she just threw him out with the rest of them.  No means no, damn it.

Bea Arthur’s Go Home Song is to the tune the Cantina Band was playing in Episode IV, so it pretty much goes without saying it’s the catchiest piece in the Special.

Then, finally, it’s time to celebrate Life Day!  The Wookiees hold up some glowing Christmas balls, then dress in red robes and walk through outer space into a, uh, wormhole, I guess, that takes them to the base of the giant tree from Avatar.  There it’s time for our final setpiece, the culmination of this whole ninety-minute ordeal… Princess Leia sings!  The Life Day Carol is to the tune of the main Star Wars theme, and the lyrics sound like something from a generic Christmas album you get free if you buy three cards at Hallmark.  Carrie Fisher is a decent singer but she looks like she’s as glad this is over as we are.

Much like Howard the Duck, The Star Wars Holiday Special is a production in which they made all the worst decisions they possibly could.  Focusing on the Wookiees at home rather than following Han Solo and Chewbacca through the action killed the whole thing at the starting gate.  Then that plot is nothing but a frame on which they can hang the various variety acts, and none of those are very good.  It’s only towards the end of the sequence that what we’re seeing even has anything to do with Star Wars.  Watching it is an ordeal on the order of an un-riffed Coleman Francis film.  It’s so bad, it’s not even something people get together and watch like they do Manos or The Room.

So why do we still have it?  The Holiday Special was only broadcast once, and was met by fathomless loathing from critics, Star Wars fans, and ordinary people alike. It has never been released in any other format (Andrew Borntreger of badmovies.org has a story about how Lucas had him thrown out of a Q&A panel for asking if it were getting a DVD release), so the fact that you can find it on YouTube today is down to some nameless hero who recorded it on their newfangled VCR back in 1978.  That person then showed it to friends, apparently on the basis of oh my god, you guys, this is so bad, you have to see it, and then because misery loves company they copied it to show to their friends. What we have today is copies of copies of copies of copies, like fragments of Sappho only with VHS artefacts instead of holes in the papyrus (and without the artistic vision).

Humans like to preserve remarkable things.  Sappho we’ve preserved because it’s remarkably good, but the Star Wars Holiday Special we preserve because it’s remarkably bad.  Lucasfilm has tried very hard to stamp it out.  George Lucas himself has said that if he could he would gather up every copy that exists and smash them with a sledgehammer… but we won’t let him do it. We keep copying the Special and passing it along, in a way that’s very familiar to MSTies in particular.  We’re circulating the tapes!  Why this tape in particular?

I don’t claim to know, but my working theory is that it keeps us humble.  We are a species that can produce great things when we put our minds to it.  We landed on the moon.  We eradicated smallpox.  We built the Taj Mahal and the Sagrada Familia.  We wrote The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Einstein Field Equations and the aforementioned works of Sappho.  But for all that, we are also capable of throwing the same kind of effort into creating utter disasters – and the Star Wars Holiday Special is the rare example of an unmitigated disaster that didn’t actually hurt anybody.  It reminds us to take a step back and look at what we’re doing without getting too invested in it, but does so while being harmless and at times humorous.

Would I still rather watch this than Elves?  You bet your shaggy Wookiee ass I would.  The Star Wars Holiday Special may be longer, but it doesn’t leave nearly such a bad taste in my mouth.

I will leave you with this: the Special was, as I mentioned, only broadcast once, in 1978 – that means its signal is now forty-one light years from Earth and still going.  There are several hundred stars within that bubble, around two dozen of which are known to have planets.  Somewhere out there, aliens might be getting their first signal from humanity right now and it’s the Star Wars Holiday Special.

[tessatechaitea]

Cerebus #15 (1980)

If the story so far had revealed that Cerebus has a vagina, I could make a hentai joke here.

The first time I encountered hentai was at an anime convention at a Red Lion Inn in San Jose in 1994 or 1995. I went to the convention by myself because I had recently fallen in love with the cartoon Sailor Moon and wanted to get some Sailor Moon LaserDiscs unless it was actually Sailor Moon dolls I wanted. It was so long ago, how am I supposed to remember?! They had a room where they were showing movies and one of the movies I watched was Sailor Moon R: The Movie. It was subtitled which was great because then I had the story memorized for all the times I watched my non-subtitled LaserDisc. But that wasn't the pornographic anime I saw! I don't even remember what that was but I watched some tentacle fucking movie late at night in a dark room with a bunch of other sweaty nerds. I didn't know that was what was going to happen though so I didn't have my dick in my hands like the other guys probably did. I was as shocked as anybody when they first find out that cartoons where women get fucked by tentacles exist! I mean, how many penises does an alien need?! I grew up thinking the little gray aliens had zero! That Red Lion Inn was the same one where I played in a couple of Magic the Gathering tournaments. Being in a dark room with a bunch of horny anime fans was less awkward and uncomfortable than playing Magic the Gathering against Magic the Gathering fans. Most of them probably couldn't believe they were actually playing against such a cool and handsome dude. It really threw them off their game when I would say things like, "Yeah, I've touched a couple of boobs. I attack with my Serra Angel." I know what you're thinking: "Anime, comic books, and Magic the Gathering?! This awesome dude must have owned every single Stars Wars figure too!" Aw, you're too kind! I'm blushing! But obviously I never owned Yak Face. "A Note from the Publisher" is still being published so I guess Dave and Deni are still married. In his Swords of Cerebus essay, Dave Sim discusses "Why Groucho?" It seems to mostly come down to this: Dave Sim enjoyed the characters of Groucho Marx as a teenager and memorized a lot of their lines. He also mentions Kim Thompson's review of Cerebus in The Comic Journal (the first major review of the series) in which Kim praised Sim's ability to make his parody characters transcend the parody to become unique creations of their own. This review gave Sim the confidence to put Groucho in the role of Lord Julius. Which worked out so well that Sim later adds Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Margeret Thatcher, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Woody Allen, Dave Sim, and the Three Stooges into the story. I'm sure I'm missing some but I can't remember every aspect of this 6000 page story. Was The Judge also a parody of somebody? Was the Regency Elf based on Wendy Pini? I don't know! I'm sure I'm missing a lot of references in Cerebus simply because I haven't experienced all the same knowledge sources as Dave Sim. Just like I'm missing a super duper lot of references in Gravity's Rainbow because nobody in the history of ever has experienced all the same knowledge sources as Thomas Pynchon. I've been reading Gravity's Rainbow (for the first time but also the third time because I'm basically reading it three times at the same time. You'll understand when you read it) and I'm surprised by how funny it is. I don't think anybody ever described it as funny or else I'm sure I would never have stopped reading it multiple times prior to this time when I'm actually going to finish it. Although I suppose when I read Catch-22, I had done so on my own so nobody ever told me how funny that book was either. But for some reason, Catch-22 lets you know it's going to be a funny book pretty quickly. Gravity's Rainbow is all, "Here is a description of an evacuation of London which is just stage setting because, you know, the bombs have already blown up, but it makes people feel safe. And after that, how about a scene where this guy makes a bunch of banana recipes for breakfast. Is that funny enough for you?" Oh, sure, there are some funny moments like when that one guy pretends a banana is his cock and then some other guys tackle him and beat him with his own pretend cock. But there's a gravity to the scene that doesn't lend itself to the reader thinking, "Oh, this is a funny book!" But if you make it far enough, you start realizing, "Hey! I'm not understanding this!" So then you reread the section and you start realizing, "Hey! I'm laughing at this stuff! This is pretty funny!" Plus there are a lot of descriptions of sexy things that I'm assuming are really accurate because Pynchon is obsessed with details.

Anyway, I was supposed to be talking about Cerebus, wasn't I?

A Living Priest of Tarim crashes Lord Julius' bath to scold him about a party Julius is giving in a fortnight (which is the amount of time your kid has lost to a video game). I don't know why the priest has to declare he's a living priest. You can tell that by the way he's shouting and foaming at the mouth. Although this is a Swords & Sorcery book so I suppose there are many dead creatures that also shout and foam at the mouth. Sometimes I forget I'm reading a fictional book and wind up ranting and raving about stuff that I'm supposed to just assume is fine. Like when I read The Flash and nothing in it makes any sense at all because The Flash should never have any trouble stopping crime or saving people from natural disasters. The comic book should be over in two pages. Even the writers, at some point, realized how ridiculous Flash stories were and decided the only way to make them believable was to have The Flash battle other super fast people. But that just meant Flash stories basically became bar-room brawls. Two people with super speed fighting is the same as reading a story about two people without super speed fighting. Boring! Some writers even decided that maybe a telepathic monkey would make things more interesting and I suppose telepathic monkeys make everything more interesting so kudos to them. I was going to go on a long rant about telepathic monkeys but then I realized how much I love the idea of telepathic monkeys so why should I create an argument against them? More telepathic monkeys, please.

This made me laugh out loud. Not as much as the chapter in Gravity's Rainbow where the old woman forces Slothrop to eat a bunch of terrible candies. But then it isn't a competition, is it? I mean, I guess it's a competition for my time which is why I haven't written a comic book review in a week or more. Blame Thomas Pynchon for being so entertaining (and also Apex).

Baskin, the Minister for Executive Planning, has come to let Lord Julius know what the revolutionaries have revealed while being tortured. The only bit of useful information was one prisoner's last words: "Revolution...the pits." Cerebus immediately assumes "the Pits" is a location and not a summation of the prisoner's feelings about revolution which led to torture which led to his death. Cerebus, being the Kitchen Staff Supervisor, begins an investigation into The Pits. His first step: threatening the Priest of the Living Tarim. Which makes me realize I transposed the word "living" in the previous encounter with the priest and went on a digression that makes no sense to anybody who has read and somehow remembers that particular panel. I'm sure they were scoffing and snorting and exclaiming to their pet rat, "What a stupid fool loser this Grunion Guy is! Living Priest of Tarim! HA! Ridiculous! What a moronic mistake! He has made a gigantic fool of himself!" I don't know that the almost certainly imaginary people who called me on my mistake as they read this have a pet rat but I do know there almost certainly isn't another imaginary sentient being in the room with them. Cerebus learns that The Pits are Old Palnu that lies under current Palnu. It was destroyed in a massive earthquake long ago and the new city built over the top of it. It's like a Dungeons & Dragons module but with a lot less treasure.

This scene reminded me that I need to finish rereading The Boomer Bible: A Testament for Our Times (which is what it was called in the 90s but is just as accurate for today).

Cerebus and Lord Julius engage in another typical misunderstanding (it's not hard when only half of the people in the conversation care about making sense) which ends up with Lord Julius deciding that the location for the Festival of Petunias will be The Pits. This complicates Cerebus' job of not allowing Lord Julius to be assassinated because the assassins are most likely housed in The Pits (along with their giant snakes (*see cover)). Lord Julius, Baskin, and Cerebus descend into The Pits to find a suitable location for the Festival of Petunias. In doing so, they wind up in a trap and confronted by a masked revolutionary of the "Eye of the Pyramid." Which is odd because you usually have to murder at least a dozen kobolds and several goblins before you reach the room with the boss in it.

Typical unbalanced beginning level module. A giant snake as the first encounter!

Cerebus manages to defeat the giant snake by crashing it headfirst into a wall. The wall winds up being a key support structure and the roof collapses. Everybody makes it out alive but the masked revolutionary evades capture. He will be back next issue to ruin the Festival of Petunias. Aardvark Comment is still just a mostly standard comic book letters page. I'll probably stop discussing it until people start criticizing Dave. Right now it's just "This comic book is great!" and "Keep writing, Dave, and I'll never think ill of anything idea you espouse!" while Dave replies, "I owe my fans everything! I can't wait until I can stop feeling that way and start jerking off onto my art boards and selling those as pages of Cerebus!" Cerebus #15 Rating: A. Good story, good Lord Julius dialogue, good Living Priest of the Living Tarim scenes. I wholeheartedly endorse this comic book and Dave Sim. No way a guy with a sense of humor like this is going to go off the rails, right?!

[buzzdixonwriter]

Our Regularly Scheduled Program Vs Binge Watching

Every now and then the little light comes on and I grasp an insight into something that previously stared me in my oblivious face.

I was watching episodes of a popular sit-com* from 35 years ago, not a huge hit but certainly a cult favorite popular enough to stay available on recorded media and now streaming.

Not having seen it in well over two decades, I plopped down and started watching episodes back to back.

I got tired by ep. three.

The problem, I realized, lay in how the material was originally presented.

It used to be we’d have to wait every week for a show to come back at its appointed time, and present us with whatever shenanigans the characters got themselves into that week.

Most episodes were standalones, there was little forward progress in the stories and the tiny bit that did exist was mostly in the backstory, not the main plot.

Every week they gave us the same thing, only slightly different.

Mind you, I can appreciate the diametrically opposed tension facing shows of that era -- I wrote and story edited for TV at that time.

The audience wants the same thing they liked the last time…

…only different.

With daily shows like G.I. Joe and Transformers and Jem, trying to come up with something new enough not to be a dull repeat but not so different to alienate the audience was a challenge.

Luckily, the Sunbow series were awash in Joes and Autobots and pop stars and Little Ponies, so we could always find some underused character to build a novel story around, or to add a fresh twist to our old standards.

But even there, I don’t think one can binge watch too many at a time without feeling a certain sense of sameness.

Modern streaming series take that into consideration, but for me that works against them:  I like my stories done in one.

Your mileage may vary, of course.

I’ll watch a 3 hour epic movie without qualm, but I start balking at 7 - 13 - 26 episode story arcs.

I loved season one of Daredevil, never watched season two.

I loved season one of Luke Cage, never watched season two.

I hear people telling me how great The Mandalorian is and I believe them 100%.

No desire to watch it, however (though this may be more the fault of seeing too many Star Wars features films).

Likewise zero interest in any new Star Trek, or for that matter any of the various Star Trek imitators out there.

One and done ripoffs / parodies excepted, of course.

I have the same problem with old movie serials, a genre and format I adore.

Nowadays I tend to watch serials by viewing the first three and last two chapters.

Everything in between tends to be padding.

The Sopranos seemed to be the exception, but then the show lost Nancy Marchand, who played Mama Soprano, and with it the entire raison d’etre of the series.

I clung with it for several seasons past that before abandoning it long before the final blackout.

The Venture Bros. still grabs my attention, but like the Sunbow shows it has a large enough cast to give it the needed flexibility to keep the stories varied yet part of the same universe as well.

It’s reportedly coming to an end with season eight, and to that I say good:  Better to go out at the top of your game than jump the shark and flounder.

. . .

Modern audiences -- at least modern audiences with cable / satellite / Internet access --  no longer have the tacit sense of an appointed time and often and appointed place to enjoy media.

Prior to the electronic age, few people could be entertained whenever they wished unless they or a family member sang or played music or read aloud or told stories.

There were kings and nobles who kept musicians on tap and theatrical companies close at hand but even they were constrained by time and space.

Today’s audience can just whip out a phone and listen / watch / read whatever they want.

As a result, the sense of being an audience seems vanish.

An audience used to be those who came to a performance of some kind, even if it meant simply showing up in their own living room on Tuesday at 8:30pm (5:30 Pacific) to listen to Fibber McGee and Molly.

Even in one’s home, it meant setting aside a time to come in and listen or watch as a production presented its entertainment.

One may or may not like what one experienced, but the audience placed itself at the disposal of the program.

Transistors started changing that.

Transistors made small cheap radios easily affordable and eminently portable.  

People could take their listening pleasure with them, and that marked the rise of recorded popular music programs instead of live scripted broadcasts.

It proved the first technological step in a long line of dominoes that completely upended the relationship of audience to entertainment.

The audience used to come and absorb patiently.

Now the entertainment needs to break through a thousand and one distractions.

It does so by escalating the sensationalism -- and by sensationalism I mean anything that’s designed to grab an audience’s immediate attention, no matter how well or thoughtfully executed.

It undercuts the lower key / slice of life popular entertainment audiences enjoyed generations ago.

(And, yes, Shakespeare & co. are filled with blood and thunder tales, but again, those were things one committed oneself to experiencing as the performers intended; audiences didn’t walk out en masse and go to a neighboring theater in mid-performance.)

. . . 

The problem with ongoing stories is this:  At any point they can be upended by fiat, negating all that’s come before.

Go ask a comic book fan how many times DC has destroyed the universe.

My reluctance to enjoy open ended fiction is that I like being able to mull over a story once it is completed, teasing out the full measure and meaning of what I’ve just experienced.

I’ll risk a program like The Queen’s Gambit because I know it’s a limited series withn a finite ending.

I wouldn’t watch an open ended series based on Walter Tevis’ book.

My career as a writer and an editor enables me to see the gears turning behind the scenes in a story.

More often than not I’m already several plot beats ahead of any movie or TV episode I’m watching.

I bailed on a highly recommended current program recently just halfway through the first episode.

I got the joke.

I knew where it was going.

Nothing about it enticed me to keep following.

The classic sit-com mentioned above wore thin because it was the same damn joke every time.

It’s a funny joke, mind you.

And when seen the way originally intended, I’d have a week to forget about the details of the previous episode, to be hungry of that particular brand of humor for a bit, and be willing to take a repeat of material a week later.

But back-to-back-to-back?

No.

Legendary writer / producer Stephen Cannel sold the first story he ever pitched to a detective series called Ironside w-a-a-a-y back in 1971.

Cannel began his pitch thusly:  “One morning Ironside wakes up with the worst toothache he’s ever had in his life…”

And instantly everyone in the pitch session paid rapt attention.

Why?

Because they knew that whatever came next, it wasn’t going to be something they’d heard a thousand times before.

I’d rather have one simple thing that grabs me than a million and one fireworks attempting to get my attention.

And I’d rather experience that one thing and be able to process it rather than see another installment that undoes everything set before.

. . .

As I’ve posted elsewhere, there’s a place for comfort food TV.

My wife and I enjoy Emily In Paris.

It reminds us of our trips to France and the stories and characters are just interesting enough to be amusing but not so demanding as to require full attention.

Nothing wrong with comfort food TV.

But the real nutrition is found elsewhere.

And for me, this applies to all modes of art and entertainment.

    © Buzz Dixon

  * No, I’m not going to tell you the title.The point of this post isn’t the particular show, it’s the manner in which televised stories are told now as opposed to how they were told the

[ducktracy]

117. billboard frolics (1935)

release date: november 16th, 1935

series: merrie melodies

director: friz freleng

starring: cliff nazarro (eddie camphor, worm), billy bletcher (rub-em-off)

the first cartoon to use “merrily we roll along”, which, fittingly enough, would become the theme song for the merrie melodies starting in 1936 and all the way through 1964. it wasn’t formally adopted as the theme song until 1936’s boulevardier of the bronx, but still worth noting. if my memory serves me correctly, this is also the first merrie melody whose title isn’t reflective of the song showcased in the cartoon. as always, billboard advertisements come to life, and trouble brews when a hungry cat preys upon a helpless little chick.

it’s night, and a grassy lot in the city is illuminated by a number of stray billboards. focus on a billboard advertising old maid cleanser, some other menial posters, and finally a poster advertising eddie camphor and rub-em-off “and his wioleen”. an obvious reference to singer eddie cantor, a star who would find himself in many a looney tunes short. rub-em-off is also a spoof on his violinist david rubinoff.

eddie does his signature cartoon “eye roll”, referenced in cartoons such as shuffle off to buffalo and slap happy pappy to name a very select few. together they launch into “merrily we roll along”, which cantor sang originally. the impression of cantor is fun and lively, and bletcher’s characterization as rub-em-off is just as amusing. they don’t do much in terms of dance, but it still remains relatively lively.

song number over, dance routine begins. a cocktail shaker in a poster shakes itself like maracas, accompanying a girl advertising all expense tours to cuba. the animation feels looser than normal, but the dance remains fun and playful. your stereotypical freleng girl.

some hot tamales lend their voices, strumming a fork like a guitar, reused from how do i know it’s sunday, as is a sequence of clogging maids birthed from “old maid cleanser” cans. now a sequence with russian rye bread dancing the hopak, their advertisement reading “baked on the five year plan”—a reference to stalin’s five year plan(s). animation is fun for all of these sequences, but none too groundbreaking.

a more upbeat, amusing sequence as a line of penguins engage in a dance sequence, rolling on their mannequin feet like skates and intermittently quacking—because all penguins quack, right? a woman in an above advertisement rains powder below on the penguins to create the illusion of snow. one of the more entertaining dancing sequences in the cartoon, if not the most entertaining. the animation is smooth and flouncy.

the stars of the girl at the ironing board make a comeback and reuse their dances from the aforementioned short. two tapdancing pajamas do their thing, drumming their buttflaps on upturned wash tubs, while the main “woman” from the short (nothing more than an assortment of clothes) dances as well. smooth animation, and the addition of color is a nice touch, but nothing extremelt wow-worthy. freleng’s knack for timing is not to be taken for granted, however.

meanwhile, a hungry chick spots a worm writhing around in an apple. as all hungry, inquisitive chicks do, the little bird jabs its head inside the apple in an attempt to snag the poor worm. reused from pop goes your heart, the worm crawls out of the other end of the apple and gives the chick a spanking, the chick leaping around in pain and clutching its derrière. even more determined (especially after the worm mocks the chick), the bird tugs at the worm, the worm clutching desperately to a nearby twig for support. just as the worm is about to be made into mush, it pushes against the apple, knocking the apple into the chick and sending the chick into a daze.

enter a chase scene, the worm rolling around like a wheel while the bird nips at it from behind. truthfully i forget which exact cartoon it was sourced from, ain’t nature grand!? but the animation of the worm has DEFINITELY been reused in many a harman-ising cartoon. after 100+ cartoons, it gets harder to keep track, especially when those early cartoons are so barebones.

the bird chases the worm right into a junk pile, dragging out a long strand... which turns out to be an air pump. knocking into a branch sends a propped up cellar door crashing straight on top of the pump. an amusing visual as the chick, connector still in its mouth, inflates like a balloon, even floating into the air and flopping to the ground.

enter the same cat from it’s got me now!, creeping along a fence. it passes by the moon, illuminating the cat’s innards like an x-ray, recycled from sittin’ on a backyard fence. the food chain reminds us of its existence as the cat sees the chick, licking its lips. the cat pounces, providing a menacing meowl (animation of the closeup reused from my green fedora).

i LOVE this chick’s face. full of personality, probably the most this cartoon has had so far. the chick provides a smug, guilty grin as it sways to and fro nervously. a cheeky grin as the bird bids goodbye with a wave, trotting away nonchalantly... and instantly picking up into a hurried run.

an advertisement of a bellhop, labeled “‘CALLING FOR PHILMORE’ CIGARETTES”, notices the chick’s peril and shouts “calling all cars! calling all cars!” two police officers in a “police chief gasoline” ad (a reference to texaco’s fire chief gasoline that was used until the 1970s) chase after the cat... figuratively. a fun visual as their car speeds along, a jaunty rendition of “merrily we roll along” underscoring the scene, yet their car only speeds along inside their billboard. in reality, they’re merely suspended. one of the officers whips out a machine gun and shoots at the cat (lovely, huh?), the bullets actually breaking the barrier between realities.

an advertisement for “the electric hand” pokes the victor phonograph dog, alerting the dog to the trouble. the dog (fun fact: he actually has a name—nipper) chases after the cat, running straight into a tube. the conniving cat turns the valves on the tube so as to trap the dog, the dog reduced to a mere barking bump thrashing around inside the metal pipe.

back to the chick, who runs for its life after realizing the cat is free of distraction (i wonder where we’ll see more cat and bird cartoons. curious indeed). just as the cat has the poor bird cornered, the arm from the arm and hammer logo—this time parodied as “ham & armour” conks the cat right on the head with its signature hammer. the little bird perched itself on top of the dazed cat’s head, slapping its sides and crowing like a rooster (parallel to country boy). iris out.

it’s unfair of me to deduct points for recycled animation, but i have a different perspective than a moviegoer in 1935, or even you reading this (unless you’re as much as a nut as i am and have actually taken my recommendations and watched these, to which i say 1) thank you and 2) hang in there). watching all of these cartoons in rapid succession, you pick up on recycled animation much quicker, and so you can’t help but notice it. the average moviegoer isn’t going to say “hey! that was used in the girl at the ironing board, directed by friz freleng, released august 23rd, 1934 as a part of the merrie melodies series!” so, because of that, i won’t try to let that influence my opinion so much. but the retakes were rife in this one, and an indicator that they were either out of time, money, ideas, or all three.

the cartoon felt incoherent and not exactly sloppy, but extremely loose, the closeups of the cat meowing especially. all of the gags have lost their novelty (again speaking as someone who is watching these one after the other), and it’s hard not to say “i’ve seen this before, it’s getting old, it’s not funny.” it’s also difficult to come down from the high that was gold diggers of ‘49. not at all tex’s best, far from it, but from what we’ve seen so FAR it’s like a huge sigh of relief. and thus, going back to cartoons like these make for a harder transition.

this cartoon wasn’t THAT bad, though. the music was fun (how can you hate hearing the merrie melodies theme song, knowing it would be THE merrie melodies theme song?) and the eddie cantor caricature was highly amusing. freleng’s musical timing saved a lot of visuals from being too dry and trite. but it just doesn’t have much going for it, it lacks coherence and confidence. it just feels like friz’s heart wasn’t fully in it. so, i’d say skip it. yet, as always...

link!

[fiftytwotwenty]

Movie Monday - Apr 27th, 2020

"Best Movie Montage"

Rocky (1976):

The Montage is a series of Fast/Short Clips and Cuts of Imagery Pieced Together which Convey Passing of Time or a Journey in a Compacted Story - Basically a Mini Movie in a Movie.

Choosing Rocky seems corny in a way but its The Godfather of the Montage...What's that... The actual movie The Godfather has a montage (The Baptism Montage) and the movie came out 4 years prior to Rocky....Well...if the Rocky Training Montage wasn't PG it probably put Horse's Head in The Godfather's Baptism Montage's Holy Water...Get the Message...

Anywhosel... to Become the Best Movie Montage you have to check the boxes:

EVOKE EMOTION:

The montage needs to make you feel something. A great contender is the Married Life montage in Pixar's Up - It's okay... this is a safe place... you can admit you got dust in your eyes while watching the montage.

Now Rocky is not so much of a tearjerker, but it does get you effing jacked - like seeing a ninja jump across rooftops. As an avid couch potato I don't know how many times I turned to the Rocky Montage to get myself motivated... I watch it the First Day of the New Year when I want to lose that stubborn Holiday Weight (plus all the other weight accumulated from the previous years)... Psyching myself up for a Final Exam, or even Heading DT with the Bros to pound Jag Bombs.

Evoke Emotion: ✔

USES MUSIC EFFECTIVELY:

There is nothing better than the Perfect, Beat, Tune, or Song to Pair with Cut Imagery.

Britney Spears' song "Everytime" in Spring Breakers takes the movie Full Tilt making the Hardest of Ballers join in singing to the Ballad... (Spring Breakers Def' My 1st Runner Up for Best Movie Montage BTW)

Just thinking of Rocky it's hard not to hear the Horns of the Instumental Score which carries Rocco through the streets of Philly right up those flights of steps and just think the relatively unknowkn Compser, Bill Conti, worked for basically nickles to compse this hit in 3 HOURS!

There's no doubt you hummed Conti's tune on your morning jogs...oh, you're a couch potato too... but you looked at other runners and heard the tune, right? Yeah, me too, Cool. Cool. Cool Cool. Cool

Uses Music Effectively: ✔

APPROPRIATE LENGTH:

The montage is meant to tell a story in a short period of time - A Mini Movie which holds our attention and does not derail from the story.

Rocky IV's (Rocky vs Drago for the Uninitiated) is 30% Montage, truly, .... Now, dont get me wrong, the training sequence is pretty dope, but tad drawn out.

Now, the OG Rocky comes in at 2mins 43secs - just 13 seconds longer than the average Movie Trailer. Short, Sweaty, and to the Point.

Appropriate Length: ✔

Lastly...

ICON STATUS:

The Rocky Training all by itself Quenches your Thirst and is Arguably one of the Best Moments of the Entire Film.

And Undoubtedly the Rocky Montage has birthed an Unwieldy Number of Parodys and Knock Offs not to mention it's the Formula Cornerstone for the Rocky Franchise-- The Backstory of Shooting the Montage alone is a Hero's Journey all its own (Doc Clip at the End).

The Training Sequence was shot mostly Guerilla Style with No Filming Permits thus capturing authentic interactions and bemusement of the public.

During the running/sprint scene along the waterfront they had Stallone jump out of Van and told him to Run for his Life. Crew in the Van filming declared they actually had difficulty keeping up with Sly.

And How could you forget the Philadelphia Art Museum's Steps now most commonly referred to as The Rocky Steps. The 72 Step Journey helped established the Steadicam in the Film Industry and Created a Tourist HotSpot - Stallone's Converse Footprints are embedded at the top of the steps so you too can thrust your arms in the air triumphantly... while 1000 other Tourists watch and await their turn.

Icon Status: ✔

Now, Pump Yourself Up...

THE ROCKY TRAINING MONTAGE:

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Here is a segement from The Rocky Story Documentary -- 3mins 12sec is a Great Jump-In point to here some History on the Montage, The Score, and the Steadicam...and seriously, if You Love Film or the Rocky Franchise checkout The Rocky Story Doc - well worth your time.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

- Dirty Dancing (1987)

- Goodfellas (1990)

- Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

- Team America: World Police (2004)

- Up (2009)

- Spring Breakers (2012)

[painfulstitches17]

Keep it slow (Bandit x Jäger)

It was an early morning back in Germany, air cool against his skin, the sun was slowly rising in the horizon, on a road cutting through fields in the middle of nowhere, some place near Dusseldorf he had never encountered. The wind made the leaves dance high in their branches, catching Marius' attention. Did everyone experienced the world as vividly as he did ? The countryside had always been a favorite place of his despite his love for machinery, a way to flee the painful city. Working on motorcycles and cars in a wooden barn around his hometown at sixteen was part of the best days of his life, surrounded by the quiet greenery and the random chirping of passing birds. He could think there, nothing to bother him for hours on end, nothing to crowd his mind. He'd lay down in the grass after a while, looking up at the blue sky. All kinds of books would await him in the evening, helicopters remaining his wildest dreams. The only compensation was to help the old man lending him the space, he sometimes missed those simpler days when things got ugly.

"Do you have any data yet? I'm lost on this fucking map."

Dominic "Bandit" Brunsmeier, his best friend. They've known each other for a few years now, Dominic liked to keep to himself and it had been difficult at first but the ice had melted between them. Now Marius couldn't imagine a life without him in it. The older man hadn't got it easy, a drawn out undercover mission that left both physical and psychological scars, losing his family in the process. The way he talked was akin to dark humour, cracking up jokes to tell the other how he felt, what he had done. Marius didn't always get it but he tried. Dominic was no-nonsense when it came to his work and Marius liked it, focused on the task at end just like he was, if not slightly enjoying it sometimes. They got along well.

So well that Jäger realised he had fallen in love.

Talking about cars and motorcycles, the later being of huge interest to his best friend, even going as far as to work on Dominic's one together. Going on small trips with the rest of the GSG9 (or not) around Hereford, engine roaring, Marius' hands firmly in place on Dominic's sides as they enjoyed the adrenaline. The long hours of doing nothing but being in each other's company, nose in books, watching TV, hands tinkering with objects. The way Bandit could make him focus on days when everything was too much too quickly, when he felt like he couldn't escape the noise and surrounding blur. Marius felt comfortable when Dominic was by his side.

Until he didn't, until Smoke was in the picture and Bandit started talking about past lovers and soiled sheets, until he heard details of tongues in intimate places and mouths full of hot, sticky love, until multiple partners at once were mentioned and how nothing could top off such experiences, how he had lost himself in random bathrooms knees on cold floors too busy doing something else rather than watching the movie on the screen, stranger's hands in his hair and a will to forget everything else. Until he said he wasn't certain he could love someone ever again. Maybe it had to be expected, he was scarred so deep he feared being burnt again.

They have seen each other crying in the middle of the night, uncertainties, fears, traumas, pain, nightmares, words soothing but wounds never healing. When Marius wasn't joyful and gentle he was distant and anxious. When Dominic wasn't confident and mischievous he was depressed and self-loathing. Countless nights were spent with a hand around Marius' arm, resting on his stomach or holding him in his sleep to make sure he was still there and breathing. Countless nights where long gone names resonated off the walls, be it from untimely death or abandon. Countless nights where Dominic would look at him like he didn't believe Marius was still there by his side, realising it had been a nightmare all along. He couldn't blame him.

"Not yet, maybe we should get going, it's stressing me out."

Despite all of this... He couldn't let it go. The blond hair split by a mysterious scar, trimmed beard, brown eyes and hooded lids always on the lookout, pink lips on which his name sounded ten times softer, the tattoos which he thought were over the top but wouldn't question, the outside showing danger but a heart twice as big as he let on, hunched over the hood of the car now and cursing at the paper map threatening to blow away with the wind, the glance he just gave him screaming it'll be alright'. Nothing could make this sliver of hope go away when he looked at Dominic.

They finally arrived after an additional half an hour of struggling to get ahold of Marius' uncle and rolling around the neighborhoods, the rented hall finally revealing itself outside the city. It looked inviting surrounded by trees and other greenery, the large window panes giving them a glimpse of the upcoming chaos. Marius wasn't that fond of family gatherings.

The Streicher way consisted of family and friends getting together for a day, usually during summer, an abundance of food, people, children and music, all of which had a way to wear him down after just a few hours. He always found it funny how his line of work broke him less than these events, still, he wouldn't miss it if he could make time for it as he liked most of these people. Dominic had long been adopted by them so he agreed to join and be somewhat of an emotional support. Marius knew he also craved these sorts of interactions having no family members willing to talk to him left, they complemented each other's needs that way. 

The first few steps inside were just as expected as the noise reached them with full force, children running around, different smells mangling together and worst of all, the addition of a dancefloor and its accompanying DJ. Bandit seemed to have spotted the buffet but stopped himself in time to realise that maybe he should greet everyone before indulging. Gluttony incarnate, Jäger thought.

It was hot inside, Jäger had long since lost Bandit who knows where, though probably close to the buffet. It was time for a break outside away from all the noise, children were playing out there but he could live with it for now. It had felt like an eternity, answering questions over and over from everybody under the sun, most of the time having to repeat himself, again. He took a seat at the furthest part of the venue's garden, bathed in the sun and surrounded by magnificent pink rose bushes. It was nice being around people he had spent his childhood with for a change. A soft breeze against his cheeks reminded him of his adolescence again, the choices and missed opportunities. Overall, he was happy, wasn't he ? As happy as could be when you suffered from PTSD and mild injuries, sure, but happy nonetheless. He had found another part of his family with rainbow, one that could surpass his expectations, one where he didn't worry being himself. He loved his biological one but rainbow was where he was his full self. And... He had Dominic now, too. Fuck, he can't stop thinking about him, can he ?

Where was he anyway? His eyes spotted a figure coming towards him but it was far from the bearded man, a young brunette in a long, ankle length dress and a nice, white brimmed hat was indeed coming closer. He recognized her, she was a family friend. Each and every time they met, she would make sure he felt alright, initiating small talk and offering drinks. She was several years younger, wasn't she ? She took a seat next to him, the same song and dance they usually went through. Now Jäger had to go through the same round of questions he had already went through earlier today. She started monologuing, not unusual since Marius had a hard time relating or even caring. She seemed like a good person but unless you talked about his few interests, he could completely be turned off. Plus, she kept leaning against him.

That was when he felt watched. Eyes darting towards the building, Dominic was standing at the door nursing a drink, looking right at them. After a while of staring, he left. Hm, peculiar.

It was almost midnight, the cold air rolling in from outside alleviating the hot and humid sensation still lingering from such a busy day indoors. Marius was sitting at one of the round tables nursing a glass of alcohol, an ineffective way of drowning the ever growing discomfort his surroundings were giving him. He quickly spotted Bandit coming in big strides towards him, picking up a chair before seating himself close to the engineer. "You're drinking again ? Guess I'll be the one driving us home." "Doesn't it always ends like this?" He earned a laugh from Dom. "We should stick around a bit and then leave, I'm getting tired." "Alright, the buffet is empty anyway and I'm getting bored of your drunken uncles and all. Nice people but I can't stomach the politics." Jäger couldn't help but snort, it was so typical it almost sounded like a parody of himself.

They stayed here for a while, just looking at the others enjoying themselves. The music had gotten softer as the day had progressed, which they were both glad for, until the lights got switched off leaving space for a more intimate ambience. People gathered in pairs towards the DJ, the music started again and... It was a slow. The two defenders looked at each other, surprised. That was new. Jäger felt a feeling tugging around in his stomach, like an envy. Wouldn't it be nice to be so close to Dominic, just like they were ? "You know-... Oh fuck, not again." Dominic put his face in his hands, visibly annoyed. "What's wrong?" "She's coming towards us, that gal you were talking with earlier today." He tried pointing in her general direction as subtly as he could. "She keeps flirting with you Marius." "What ? No, she's not, she's just being nice. I've known her for years, she's one of my cousin's friends." "Yeah and that friend looks at you like she looks at a Snickers bar, believe me, she wants you. Can't you see her body language? Wait, of course you don't but I saw it from meters away!" Dom whispered.

Before Jäger could interject, the woman was taking a seat next to the both of them. "Hi boys, what are you talking about?" "Just work." Bandit's voice sounded like a growl, his expression somewhere near anger. "Need anything ?" "Oh I just wanted to spend some time with Marius, we don't get to do that often, do we?" She put her hand on Jäger's arm as she said this, whom put his glass down before dropping it from stress. The atmosphere was almost suffocating, the two of them ready to jump at each other's throat while he was stuck in the middle. What was going on?

"You know what, let's dance together Marius ! This would be so romantic, don't you think?"

Jäger's mouth felt dry. Dominic was right. How was he going to get himself out of this ? He felt uncomfortable shifting in his seat, the woman staring at him almost pleadingly, hopeful that her advances would be successful. Nobody knew he wasn't into women, he was too scared to be open about it. Should he keep the facade and accept? The thought made his stomach turn not only because it would be lying to others while caging himself down but because the only person he wanted to be close with was Dominic. Looking back at her, her head cocked to the side like a confused puppy, eyebrows raised, Marius felt a slight panic. He had to act, didn't he? He tried opening his mouth but fear pushed his words back in his throat, his heart pulsing harder and harder. Shuffling beside them finally broke the awkward tension rising.

"Sorry darling, this man's taken."

The hand that grabbed Marius' pulled him up from his chair and before he knew it, they found themselves in the middle of the other couples. Dimmed lights were hiding the bright smile on Dominic's face as he tried his best not to erupt in laughter. Marius was unsure if he should be focusing on the divine looking man in front of him, shifting lights changing the features of his face as they tried to 'dance', or the hands firmly planted on his hips. "That's not where you put your hands, you look awkward, have you never done this before ?" Bandit said close to his ear. The negative head shake he got in return made him laugh. "Let me show you." Bandit grabbed his wrist ever so gently, Jäger's arms now placed around his neck, bodies almost flush against one another, hands traveling down to the other's hips again. "God you're clumsy !" Dominic was talking but it was barely registering, Marius laughed when he thought he had to pretending not to be looking at the other's lips with need. He tentatively turned his attention to the rest of the room only to be stopped in his tracks.

"Just look at me." And so he did, his gaze never leaving Dominic's, the only person he had almost no issue doing so. Since when did Dom smell this good ? A faint mix of nicotine and cologne he couldn't ignore now, every fiber of him was screaming how much he wanted Bandit. To Marius he was the embodiment of temptation, perfectly sculpted, charming despite some parts of his personality and he would be lying if it didn't add to it in some way. It had been so hard hiding it, pretending for the sake of their friendship. There was nothing he could do, he needed him, he couldn't do without him, his heart was slamming against his ribcage like it was about to jump out. Marius wanted to show him he didn't have to be alone, heal this ache he knew he had in his chest-

The was, kissing Dominic. The feeling of lips on lips, the taste of alcohol and sweets still on his skin transferring onto Jäger's, hands traveled up to Dominic's hair pulling him closer with desperate need. Was he being pulled closer as well or was it just his imagination ? It was unclear who of the two initiated the addition of tongues in the middle of it all but there was no complaining. Dominic was sure Marius had left out a small whine as he playfully bit his bottom lip, a slight feeling of possessiveness growing. How many times had Jäger dreamed of doing this ? How many times had he been close to act upon his deepest wishes ? There was no going back, he was loving every single second of it, oblivious to the world around him.

The world around him.

The kiss broke as suddenly as it had started, Dominic's fingers hurting his midsection while Marius' hands caressed the messy hair underneath them. The world around him. There was a glimmer in Dominic's eyes, gears turning inside that silly head of his. The world around him, the world around him. Butterfly kisses were placed on his cheeks, beard scratching at his skin. Eyes darted around the room, distinguishing silhouettes from the dark background. Eyes, stares. What was Dominic doing? The world around him. Lips trailed down to his neck, softly kissing the pale skin underneath as they're staring a hand caressing his lower back as they were still attempting to follow a semblance of rythm like the other couples. They're not a couple, what if this is unwelcome? What if he's pretending ? A hand pushed past the collar of his shirt, the tie and first few buttons long gone due to the heat and as everyone was looking fingers traced his collarbone. They shouldn't be doing this here. Whispers fell into his ear but their message was left cryptic in Jäger's mind because he was going to get Dominic hurt, was he going to get hurt? No, that's absurd. What if somebody reacts badly? He shouldn't have done that, but it's irrational

Shaking hands pushed the bearded man away as softly as they could, Marius felt as if he was watching the events unfold, unable to control what was happening. "I'm sorry..." He could hear his name behind his back as he made a beeline for the closest exit to the parking lot. Several people tried talking to him but he wasn't looking for a chat, especially not right now. He swung the double doors open nearly running into the few men having a smoke outside. He ignored his name, the question being raised. Marius wanted out and away.

It was a disaster, he had made a mistake, outed himself to his whole family and friends, kissed his best friend when he shouldn't have and was now ready to ignore everybody and hide until the end of times. He loved Dominic so dearly, it hurt just thinking about how their relationship might change for the worst. He stopped himself against their car, finally able to breathe for a while. Could he even fix this ? Not without time travel he thought. The sound of footsteps on the gravel fueled his anxiety, he didn't want to see anybody, explain himself, or worse.

"Give me the keys."

That was it, he fucked up, Dom was going to leave him here and he would be right to do so. Marius overstepped boundaries and there was clearly no going back, he was going to lose him right then and there for a joke he hadn't understood, or he ignored even. He gave him the keys, barely looking in an attempt to hide the tears threatening to fall.

"What are you waiting for? Get in, we're running away!" Running away ? Curiosity almost overrid his previous thoughts because what the hell was he talking about? What are they running from ? He obliged, avoiding to look at the other German. The car came to life and they quickly made it away from the venue. Dominic wasn't mad.

"Fuck Marius... You're going to hate me." He was clearly suppressing a laugh. "What did you do ? Should I be worried ?" "After you left, a few of your very drunk family members thought they should give me a piece of their mind about two men kissing." Jäger was mortified, the worst case scenario was happening, wasn't it ? "So I told them to go suck a dick or lick some pussy to calm down." Bandit was now trying his hardest not to burst into full blown laughter. "But there were kids around, so a few parents got pretty angry but I kept cursing while running out for you! Don't look at your phone, I'm sure there's nothing worthwhile on it. Your uncle was worried but he just laughed so hard, even waved me goodbye!" That was it. That was the thing that pushed Jäger to a fit of laughter he had rarely had before, closely followed by Bandit's. What was Dominic thinking ? Scratch everything, this was the best outcome possible.

The minutes passed quicker than expected, both finally calming down after a while, still, Jäger couldn't brush off the idea that what he did was wrong in some way. They stopped at a red light not far from the apartment, the car drowned in the shade. "Dominic... You're not mad at me ?" There was a pause as they looked at each other. The eldest finally broke the silence. "No, why would I be ? Wait, did you believe I would be ?" There was a nod on Jäger's part.

"Fuck, Marius... Have you seen how we kissed ? Do you really think I'd be angry? I've been waiting for that to happen for a while. No matter how I tried to make you wary of me you still looked at me like I was your world. Don't tell me otherwise, you're not the best when it comes to discretion." Bandit came closer, faces inches apart making the other look away. "Look at me." Bandit tried softer when he realized his words were sharper than intended, as usual. "Please Marius, look at me." He waited until he tentatively turned his head again. "I've been in love with you too. I love you, I really do." It was Dominic who initiated this time, pressing themselves together as best as they could in the car. It was soft, oh so soft, like he was trying to declare his love as gently as possible in this single act. Hands found themselves traveling down Jäger's torso with an obvious need to discover each and every spot. The heat sure was quickly rising. "Fuck, Dom" the man crashed against him harder at his name, tongues rougher and shirt buttons popping off their holes. "Dom, the light's green..."

Oh. "Fuck !" Bandit left out a giggle that surprisingly made its way down Jäger's stomach, a flutter forming. It was happening, he had what he had dreamed about, it was happening, oh God-A hand sitting on his thigh sure did become a distraction from his own thoughts, which rapidly headed down south.

The car finally came to a stop in the parking lot, the two lovers pressing themselves out of the vehicle. Hands found themselves entangled without even having to wonder about it. It felt natural, didn't it? The elevator came down with a satisfying ding allowing them to enter into momentary privacy, butterfly kisses being spread across cheekbones and necks.

They tried to straighten themselves right before having to step out but anybody could tell, right? Maybe by the way Bandit was pulling Jäger by the arm, an idea rummaging in his mind Jäger was sure they both shared, or the fact that the engineer's shirt was open already. Dominic was the one pinned to the wall when Marius looked for his keys, the keyhole too hard to find while desperately kissing another man in the middle of a barely lit hallway.

But when the door gave in, allowing them in, they both knew the night was long from over.

[christianslaterreview]

Mobsters (1991) dir. Michael Karbelnikoff

Synopsis:

Charlie 'Lucky' Luciano, portrayed by Christian Slater, is a young, working class Italian whose family is being terrorized by the Mafia as his father owes money to one of two main bosses, Don Faranzano (Michael Gambon). Luciano teams up with three of his boyhood friends to overthrow Don Faranzano and the other boss, Don Masseira. The film follows the boys as they quickly rise to top and become embroiled in Mafia politics, love stories, and personal conflicts that threaten to ruin lifelong friendships.

Review:

This is going to be a hard review for me to write because I really don't care about this movie. Like, at all (I mean look at my shitty synopsis lmao). Usually I'm so ardent about my reviews because I so desperately want the film in question to be good. Typically, Christian Slater's films have just enough about them that's good that elements of them are not only salvagable, but sincerely enjoyable. They're also usually just bad enough to remain interesting. Bad enough to make me care.

Mobsters, however, was so formulaic and devoid of any actual substance that the end product feels like a parody. It was so clearly hitching it's wagon to the popularity of other films in the same genre such as Bugsy and Good Fellas, but in their hurry to piece together some semblence of a film before the trend fizzled, they forgot that a movie needs elements beyond snappy one liners, empty banter, period costumes, and pretty faces with famous names. The audience is rushed through most of the narrative with focus only given to a handful of major plot points - but this is of course only when we're torn away from the laughably long and gregarious sex scenes which are peppered throughout the entire film to really help move things along - so all the opportunities to truly get to know the characters, their drives, their vulnerabilities, etc. in compelling B-plots or excellent pacing of the A-plot are nowhere to be found. The result is a film that feels like it was developed purely for flashy, promotional material with the story being tossed inside this hollow, pandering concept as an afterthought.

One of my main issues with most films is the pacing. I expect every film to have Tarentino level pacing where the story is slowly teased out in a seemingly chaotic but methodical progression. Tarentino is the fucking master of knowing just how long to let a certain plot point sit on the back burner before bringing it back full force right before you forget it ever happened. He knows just how long to keep the camera focused on one character's face, how long the back and forth dialogue needs to continue before bursting into action, how long to keep the audience waiting before a reveal (if the reveal ever happens). And before I get totally lost on this tangent and end up becoming a Tarentino stan blog, my point is that Mobsters fails in every single one of these devices.

Instead of feeling like 2hrs passed by so quickly because I was just that engaged, the run time of this film felt unbelievably long because literally nothing of real interest happened until about an hour into the movie. Right off the bat, we're thrown into the drama as Luciano's Mother and Father are assaulted and threatened by one of the main bosses, Faranzano. But rather than feeling like we're being poignantly acclimated to the brutal setting of this story, it just feels sudden and awkward, like a cheap, theatrical bid for emotion and drama. Granted, this might not be the screenplay's fault per se. None of the actors did a particularly solid job throughout this film, which did end up weakening whatever elements of Mobsters could have been salvagable.

After this point, the movie just rushes through introductions in a series of montages with a voiceover by Slater in his ... "accent". The movie barely has time to get on it's legs before we've already reached the next milestone in the boys' story as they're making a name for themselves as bootleggers. However, instead of actually demonstrating the struggle, the danger, the politcs of rising to the top, we just get another expositional montage with voiceovers. Have fun trying to remember what overlapping whispers are important plot points and which ones are just a little flavoring to show the glamorous gangster lifestyle the boys are entering into.

The stitled, awkward pacing of this film can actually be broken down to a pattern if you were paying close enough attention: major plot point, expositional montage mentioning specific Thing, the Thing happens in literally the next scene, 12 minute long sex scene, and repeat for 2 hours. It doesn't make for a very compelling narrative at all.

Additionally, the characters themselves were so one dimensional and poorly acted (sorry Christian :/ ) that not even they could save the movie. The accents were cheesy as hell, but even worse than those was the dialogue which consisted of banter and one liners that wanted so badly to be insidious and clever, but only ended up sounding like borderline nonsensical gangster jargon that was regurgitated by memory from someone who had seen Good Fellas once. And when the dialogue wasn't an unsuccesful mimicry of shrewd banter, it was equally meaningless, psuedo-artfilm dialogue. But instead of using dialogue as a device to allude to greater themes and deepen both the emotional and philosophical landscape of the film, everyone's dialogue was just a series of free floating, psuedo-intellectual lines that when strung together, didn't actually make a conversation or even develop the characters themselves.

Which is yet another problem with Mobsters. Although the characters are based upon real life historical figures, the characters themselves are barely developed on screen. Everyone's personalities are almost indistinguishable from one another because every character is so one dimensional. Despite the bounteous material the writers had to work with such as Lucky Luciano's righteous anger at the injustice his family and others have faced, Lansky's battle against the anti-semitism he faces, or the political landscape of the time controlled by the Mafia, all the characters are still underdeveloped caricatures.

The main focus of the film could have been the conflict that exists between Luciano's desire to see an end to the vicious reign of the Mafia while also seeking to be the Ringleader himself. It could have been a slow burn film focusing on the strategy and politics of attempting to dethrone the cities two biggest mob bosses. It could have been about how Luciano's and Lansky's friendship developed and devolved throughout their enterprise. It could have focused on literally any number of things to help anchor the story in a main conflict. But instead, the focus of the film flits from politics to personal drama to love scenes with only the cast of characters to connect the threads. None of those plot points were artful B-plots that helped flesh out the story and the characters; they were pitiful, unskilled attempts at creating a world to immerse the audience in without having any knowledge about how to effictively do that. As a writer, you can't give equal attention to all the different threads throughout a story otherwise the audience doesn't know what the main point is - that's why they're called B-plots.

Moreover, Mobsters used yelling really loudly and dramatically as a superficial plot device over and over again and each time it did nothing but made me want to hit mute for a moment or two. Syd Field's put it best when she said "All drama is conflict. Without conflict, there is no action. Without action, there is no character." However, what Karbelnikoff doesn't understand is that conflict is not just people displaying extreme emotion; there needs to be substance behind what is creating this conflict and that the audience needs a chance to become invested in the storylines and motivations the conflict is contigent upon. People aren't moved just by emotion itself; people are moved when they can empathize with a character's struggle. But we can't do that unless the director takes the time to walk us through the world they've created so the stakes actually seem real.

This film is chock full of scenes where characters that don't seem to have a reason to fight are fighting. I'm sure it's supposed to demonstrate what a rough business being a mobster is and how the pressure of ambition and the ever present threat it might overtake you, but instead it just makes the characters seem volatile and juvenile to the point that I don't even want to sympathize with any of them.

Lastly, this wasn't even a beautiful movie. Just like a Marvel movie, every shot was obvious, straightforward, and boring. In a movie that is all about the excess and glamour and violent opulence, you'd think the cinematography itself would reflect that. Instead, I wasn't surprised or moved by a single shot throughout the whole film. The overtop villains had such potential for unsettling, aggrandizing angles but every scene felt about as creative as watching talking heads.

And my very last bone to pick with this film is the ENDING. It felt like they decided to toss in a random moral to the story solely for the purpose of offering some kind of closure. I mean, to be fair, there's no other way they could have wrapped it up since the entire film is just a series of loose threads. But it was just the perfect way to punctuate the end of this wishy-washy movie (about MOBSTERS) with a vague cliche sentiment of "can't we all just get along?"

To me, Lucky Luciano is perhaps an anti-hero. I empathize with his desire to seek retribution and justice and instigate egalitarian politics, however, he doesn't seek to eradicate the institution of the Mafia, he just wants to run it *differently*. This could have made Luciano a supremely compelling character, but the movie never really frames him as a good guy or a bad guy. He is just kind of matter-of-factly presented to the audience with no real commentary. So by the end of the film, the fact that he's painted as this feel good hero within the last few minutes felt contrived and meaningless.

If Luciano's aim was to be the biggest mob boss around while also instituting a more egalitarian regime, why wasn't that the main focus of the film? It's definitely brought up, but it isn't given the focus it should have. We just knew that he wanted to overthrow the other bosses, but didn't delve into what his visions for the Mafia were or how much his desire for success was consuming him.

So the ending sentiment of the movie being "and then the bad guys were dead and a really Nice Guy became head of the Mafia and everyone was treated a lot nicer :)" felt juvenile and cheesy.

Mobsters gets a total of 1 Slaters out 10 Slaters. I'm not prepared to give it a zero, but I have no justification for that because, news flash, my rating system is wholly subjective and based on what I feel inside my heart. I will not be accepting criticism on this point. Thank you for understanding.

[lunawings]

King of Prism SSS Episode 2 commentary (Yukinojo)

Watched this episode live with you guys at 1am, stream froze right at the ending. That was the tipping point I needed to stay up to watch it again as soon as it was released on Crunchyroll at 3am, with the few folks who stayed in the chat. And of course after all that extended King of Prism woke me up, now look who can’t sleep and is watching it a 3rd time tonight at... 5am... aha ha... ha...... don’t look at me like that I don’t have work until 4pm it’s fine

So like most folks in Japan I experienced this episode as part of a three pack bundled with the prologue and Taiga’s episode, which makes up the theatrical SSS Part 1. 

While the theater experience is great, it’s also kinda bizarre since the tone in this episode is drastically different from the other two. After the dinner scene ends there is no basically cheering until the end of this episode. What can we say! I just kinda fall into a prism coma until the Prism One show when I am suddenly like wha... WHAAA OH YEAH knocking my concert lights on the floor trying to quickly grab them in time and all that. 

But not because this episode is bad or anything. Quite the opposite. It’s just....

Mesmerizing.... 

Anyway.

ITS ABOUT FRIKKIN TIME 

Renjishi is a pretty famous Kabuki show, and I think “Two Lions” is an accepted English translation so I don’t know why they didn’t bother to translate it? 

 This translator couldn’t figure out what to do with the “18″ either... I would definitely be confused why there is so much 18 this and that in this episode if I hadn’t looked it up for my own translations. It’s a reference to a certain collection of best kabuki plays.

And if you’re wondering why Yukinojo is the 7th generation while his father is the 3rd.... well... hell if I know, because that actually not a mistranslation. 

*throws hands in the air* If someone can explain it to me let me know.

In the theaters sometimes people will hold up two red lights and break them apart here and I always want to do it but I ALWAYS FORGET AHHH. My brain just isn’t in cheering mode during this episode. 

Also it took me like eight viewings before I noticed there is a continuity error where Shin’s chopsticks fix themselves ahah.

FACE

(Also someone in the livestream pointed out his earrings. Not sure if we have seen Yu with earrings yet.)

One of the many things that makes SSS so amazing is how much it changes the first two movies. Just when you thought you were done with them, all of a sudden you want to watch them all over again to see them in a new light. While the movies largely follow Shin’s perspective, for the first time we finally get to see things through the perspectives of other characters and it just adds layer upon layer upon layer and it’s just.... ahh..... 

THE PRISM

THE ONE SPECIFIC PRISM

The way the translator phrased this I imagine them all worshiping a giant stone in the back somewhere. ALL HAIL.... THE BRILLIANT PRISM....... 

This line is super weird out of context. When I translate King of Prism stuff I put in “prism jump” just to add context when it’s not there. But that’s.... just.... m...eee..............

This is my favorite damn Kakeru line in SSS and he doesn’t even say anything. 

Eeeeyaah... ....

Taiga is amazing in this scene too. BE TRUE TO YOUR EMOTIONS YOU’RE  RUINING DINNER DAMMIT 

I thought when I paused on this scene I’d be able to read some of these posters but not really. Wonder if these are a reference to Yukinojo getting into Japanese rock like he did during the curry event on Prism Rush? Maybe they just wanted to show he has typical teenage boy stuff in his room too. Also, of course, cameo from Andy! 

A translation I actually liked. This is basically exactly what he says ahha... the old men group of Edel Rose (2nd year high schoolers).

For anyone who read my shitty out of context spoilers during the first weekend and thought I was kidding when I said Kakeru almost got murdered by Yukinojo but he kinda deserved it.

I’m still reeling from how fucking real Kakeru gets here...... damn........

Someone in the livestream pointed this out, but we almost never hear Kakeru call Yukinojo “Tachibana” do we?

I jumped an inch in my seat when I saw this at the midnight showing. It was the moment where I was like holy moly we’re not in Kansas anymore and started to realize exactly what we were getting into in SSS. This is a whole new King of Prism. 

When you watch the episodes all strung together in the theater, the first episode runs at the same pace as the movies (in my mind I kinda of think of it as a shorter 3rd movie in itself), so it’s not until you get about here where things first start to slow and deepen and it’s you realize wow.... this really is an anime now..... 

I thought Nikkanen mentioned this superhero on Prism Rush, but he said Yossha-Man haha. Well they are both parodying the same series. (Yattaman/Yattawan?)

I really like Yukinojo’s grandpa. He just has the best old man voice. 

WHOOOOOOSH

This scene is foreshadowed in the first episode of SSS. While Shin is introducing everyone you see Yukinojo’s mother look down at her wrist. 

So it was kind of weird to be like is that gonna be a thing--OH THATS A THING right after haha. The theater experience is great, but these episodes are probably better paced week-to-week like this instead of in odd chunks the way they show them in theaters. 

I think this was foreshadowed in Pride the Hero too isn’t it? (His hairpin shines when he looks at his Mom?)

Perhaps something more shocking happened in the next scene though.

At least to me anyway. 

So ages ago, maybe first movie era, I was reading a profile of Yu in a magazine. Specifically this one:

It mentioned that Yu wears Bell Rose pajamas. 

And I always remembered that. Because hey that’s pretty hilarious. 

YEARS PASS

King of Prism SSS episode 2.

Yukinojo just had a breakdown 

AND THERE’S YU

IN HIS GODDAMN BELL ROSE PAJAMAS

AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Seriously my mouth fucking dropped open when I saw this. If only I was at cheering I really would have shrieked and ruined this serious scene ahah.

AND THEN THERES THIS 

This scene just gives me goosebumps everywhere. Yukinojo’s first prism jump. The way Shin screams. AHHHHHHHH--

This scene actually gives me goosebumps too. It’s such a mood. This whole episode is such a mood. 

Kakeru and Yukinojo really have a lot in common. I understand now why they made such good duo partners on Prism Rush. Not only do they both have a lot of weight on their shoulders from their families, but the both inherited it from their mother’s side. Just like Yukinojo’s father married into kabuki, as we learned in Young of Prism it was Kakeru’s father who married into the Juuouin group. Don’t mind my random fact, I just thought it was super interesting.

So. This line kind of confused me a bit. Because I thought a major theme in this episode was about how Yukinojo couldn’t escape his blood. Yukinojo’s mother made that clear.

But then again Yukinojo’s mother also knew his father had this experience where he learned his fate wasn’t controlled by blood at all. 

Maybe that just served for a reason as to why she can see Yukinojo’s soul is in prism shows? I don’t know. 

I’m also really confused by how differently she treats Yukinojo in this scene compared with the flashback. I’m glad she came around, but I feel like we missed something in between. 

I don’t need to say how awesome Yukinojo’s prism show was. It just keeps building more and more tension as it goes on and just ahhhh....

I was really sad the stream froze before you guys found out Yukinojo beat Shin’s score (in sparking). 

Also I feel super dumb because I said something about Yukinojo being only the second male star to do four jumps in a row. I FORGOT ABOUT HIRO

So Louis -> Hiro -> Yukinojo, the first three male stars to successfully do four consecutive jumps. The top male stars by pure skill. 

So this ending.... is NOT the ending we see in the theater. The song and visuals were all new. (Well except for assets reused from the episode well you know what I mean.)

I’m a bit town about this. On the one hand I was REALLY REALLY REALLY looking forward to hearing 366 Love Diary.... But on the other hand it’s cool that they are doing something so special for the TV showing by having different endings every week. And after all, the CD for 366 Love Diary is coming out literally tomorrow.... but....

Okay so clearly I loved this episode but part of me is just really glad it’s over because next week is TAAAIGGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA and I cannot fucking wait to share it with you guys. 

(My favorite episode of the show.)

(I don’t even know if I can fit all my thoughts on it in a post how long is the limit on Tumblr srsly)

[starspatter]

WIP Challenge

Tagged by: @summertime-children

Tagging: @astrologista, @atsushishelteredinmoonlitjasmine, @benditlikegumby, @cryptoriawebb, @ibmiller, @iceperialprincess, and @otherwise-uncolonized

Challenge: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous.

I'll also do what deta did and post comments + short fragments.  (Be warned it'll be very long though, and most of these are actually Pokémon fics since I was a much more prolific writer when I was younger, and that was the fandom I wrote mainly for.)  I also won't be including "Heroes and Thieves" on here (or any DC/superhero stuff really since I’ve essentially “done” everything I had planned for now), as *technically* it is all already completed in draft form, and I'd like to keep things a surprise for whenever I do end up posting~

Hero and Seek

“Well, we’re all together now, so let’s have some fun, all right?  Don’t worry, it’s really simple.  One person is the ‘demon’, and the others have to hide from him.” “Eh?  A ‘demon’?  But that’s scary!” Three pairs of eyes turned up to her in fear.  Those eyes, which screamed and streamed the stark color of blood the first time she saw them – not just from tears, but from the ‘monster’ they believed dwelled deep within.  She thought for a moment, then removed her scarf. “How about this then?  Whoever’s the ‘hero’ has to find and rescue the others.  It’s a very important Blindfold Brigade mission!”

I’ll start with the one Kagepro fic I did attempt at least, which I described previously here, but is basically about Ayano + the Meka Trio playing “Hide and Seek” for the first time.  (I actually had it originally titled as that but just came up with this new version on the spot lol I’m so clever~)  For some reason I’ve always been hesitant about reading/writing Kagefic, but I actually got a fair bit farther in this than I thought, so perhaps I should try to finish it someday... Princes and Frogs

“K-Koizumi-senpai… Um… Please go out with me!” Itsuki stared down at the tiny underclassman, watching a rose mantle spread slowly over her cheeks as she gazed back with shy, but determined hope in her bespectacled eyes.  The older boy could make out his own handsome face reflected off the lens, a virtual image embellished by sparkling hearts and stars.  With dim satisfaction and relief, Itsuki ensured that his bright, patient smile betrayed no hint of the weary sigh that whispered behind it.

This is an intro excerpt of the first chapter I planned to write for an ItsuHaru fic from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, which I only ever posted the prologue for.  ItsuHaru was my first obsessive OTP, and I still think about returning to this story someday (especially since I have now proven to myself I *can* finish a full chapter fic if I put my mind to it), but it’s been so long I feel like I’d need to refresh my memory of the whole series/am still holding out hope for a Season 3 to motivate me again. *shot*

Fall to Pieces

As Itsuki stared at Yuki’s vacant visage, his resentment kept building.  His hands clenched, rigidly gripping the edge of the table.  Somehow, it just didn’t seem fair.  That she could so easily ignore the madness fate had dealt them, never reveal any signs of suffering or bitterness towards her situation, and yet always, always wear the same damn expression on her face. How could she possibly stand it? He can’t stand it. (any more)

An ItsuYuki one-shot, where Itsuki basically blows up at her from pent-up frustration over having to wear a mask all the time and his hidden feelings for Haruhi.  The two start to form a connection over their respective “unrequited loves”/understanding of each other’s pain, and one thing leads to another...  Like “Heroes and Thieves”, this is in fact technically “complete”, since I actually used the leftover steam from the former towards finishing at least one thing I started a long time ago - although I’m still not sure I’m totally satisfied with it/kinda want to wait to figure out what I’m doing with my other ItsuHaru fics before I publish it by itself.  (Incidentally the working title comes from an Avril Lavigne song lol.)

Little White Lies

“Perhaps the best thing for the princess would have been to fall in love.  But how a princess who had no gravity could fall into anything is a difficulty--perhaps the difficulty.” -George MacDonald, The Light Princess - Haruhi Suzumiya was walking on air. Itsuki could tell by the way she glided into the clubroom, sailing like a paper airplane – or a balloon with an inflated ego to match.

...Yeah that’s as far as I got with this.  This was meant to be a “White Day” story, which is Japan’s “answer holiday” to Valentine’s Day, where guys reciprocate by giving gifts to the girls who gave them chocolates.  I always wondered how the boys actually responded in-universe, and I imagine Itsuki secretly stressing out a lot about taking care to not upstage Kyon, but at the same time wanting to sincerely express his genuine appreciation and feelings towards Haruhi - whatever they may be.  In the end, he settles on a copy of “The Light Princess” by George MacDonald, which I highly recommend reading since it reminds me so much of this pair, and in general is such a fun and snappy “tongue-in-cheek” take on the fairytale genre. Sora in Wonderland

But wait- this one was a bit different from all its brothers and sisters.  For one thing, it was wearing a fancy waistcoat with pockets- and sleeves that were far too long for it.  As soon as it passed by her head, it stopped and slowly turned its head around to stare directly at her with its huge circular yellow eyes.  Sora stared vacantly back for a full five seconds before the information registered in her brain and she suddenly yelled, “Hey!”, and sat bolt upright.  The Heartless panicked upon hearing her voice and fled at top speed across the white sands, headed towards an opening in the rocks; Sora jumped down off her perch and immediately chased after it, no longer caring about the heat.  The Heartless hastily disappeared inside the cave, and Sora soon followed after, determined to catch the freaky little thing and ask it some questions, like what it was doing on the island at this time, and where on earth did it get a waistcoat.

OKAY SO I TOTALLY FORGOT THIS WAS A THING but apparently I tried to write a Kingdom Hearts parody of “Alice in Wonderland” lmao.  I’ve never actually played the games (aside from half of CoM), but it was probably inspired by a crossover art my friend drew? ^^; Also Sora is a girl in this bc that’s my headcanon and I’m sticking to it. XP *shot* Note: The following fics are all Pokémon-related so I’ll just be listing them in roughly chronological order (from most recent to ancient, although they’re all pretty old at this point). Stranger

The elder slowly rose to his feet, gazing at the boy, the champion, the stranger.  “In all this time, why didn’t you come back?  You could have seen for yourself how she was.” Lance wanted to yell something defiant, like a child.  But he wasn’t a child.  Children were forgiven for their mistakes.  And he didn’t want to be forgiven. The professor’s ancient hand came to rest on the boy’s shoulder.  “It’s the way this town works.  We don’t talk about things that happen outside our own world.  Maybe it was too long ago – too late for you to understand.” Lance didn’t say anything. “At least talk to Delia.  She’s been wanting to see you.” “Sorry.  It’s too late.” “You’re a bastard.” “I know.”

So this looks to be among the last things I’d written before taking a long break from fanfiction circa... 2007, jeeze.  Over 10 years, huh.  But, I think it speaks a certain amount of maturity that it’s the piece I liked most upon rediscovering.  It’s based on an idea I once had that Lance was (unknowingly) Gary Oak’s father, and he was friends/rivals with Ash’s father, who originally won the title of Champion but relinquished it so he could be with his “wife” and kid (or rather, then-pregnant teenage girlfriend).  *Something* happened though (I forget what I had in mind) and he ended up dying, leaving Lance bitter and depressed so he refused to return to Pallet Town because of too many painful memories.  (Though he *cough* “comforted” their other female childhood friend for one night of drunken grief before he left. ;()  What I like most about it honestly is the parallels bw Lance’s relationship with Ash’s dad and their sons’, and that amidst all the angst I enjoyed portraying the earnest energy and optimism of Ketchum(?) senior (”like father like son” after all).  I was definitely inspired by Mitsuki’s father in Full Moon wo Sagashite/Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist by making him a total “dork dad” who’d brag about his (illegitimate) family on national TV during the championship tournament lol.

Ihavenoidea

Either way, I get the feeling this really wasn’t what I had in mind when I made my decision to quit training.  I mean that in an intuitive sort of way.  Like, sometimes I feel as if I’m not meant to be here, like my life should have ended up differently someplace else.  Perhaps this is just one of those weird inconsistencies I told you about.  Perhaps not.  Even after all that’s happened to me recently, I still can’t really be sure about it.

...No seriously, I have no idea where I was going with this.  As far as I can tell it’s written from the POV of Gary Oak, whom I’ve always had a lot of... “complicated” feelings towards.  It probably has something to do with another concept I’ll discuss next, although for some reason it sounds like I was going for some sort of AU? *shrug* By contrast to the above, it reads like a whiny teenager complaining about his life - which makes me cringe but is probably an accurate portrayal of who I was at the time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This one was actually dated a little after the previous, so my best guess is it was some kind of vent rant where I would “give up” writing/creating and “childish” ideals for a while, as I was wont to do - but I still always come back to it somehow... RainbowMolly

Molly stepped out from the car and onto the dusty road, her heart beating wildly.  She could hardly believe she was actually here, of all places. The ride had been long and mind-numbing with anticipation, and now that they’d finally arrived at the destination, it all felt somewhat surreal to her. A small bear clambered out from the vehicle, joining her as she stopped to take in the rustic view that met her bright blue eyes.  She smiled and picked up her Teddiursa, cuddling its warm, fuzzy body close to her own. Her gaze traveled down the road which stretched in both directions, houses lining up against its margins. She followed it with her eyes towards a hill in the distance, on top of which sat what looked like a quaint little farmhouse with a windmill, turning in the summer breeze.  She breathed in the country air, catching whiff of a faint salt smell from an ocean in the distance. So this was Pallet Town.

...Why I didn’t actually name the file “Chasing Rainbows” - which was the title I had planned for this - I don’t know.  This dates back to an old idea I had where I believed Molly Hale from the third Pokémon movie was secretly the true “God” of the Pokémon world - in the sense that the entire universe was an unknowing fantasy of her own creation, similar to Haruhi Suzumiya (ok fine this was totally a crossover/rip-off of the same concept so sue me OTL).  In a place where children never seem to grow up and can go on grand fantastical adventures forever, Gary always struck me as an anomaly who willingly *chose* to forego such a life to pursue more “adult” interests by becoming a researcher.  So I saw him as filling the role of “Kyon” - the cynical narrator who was destined to ground “God” and bring her back down to earth, but at the same time be won over by her innocence and charm and learn to appreciate “kids’ stuff” again.  However, the Legendaries were actually aware of the power Molly holds, and so saw Gary as a threat to their very being - as by “waking” the dreamer and having her face reality meant erasing their kinds’ entire existence.  As the “apocalypse” nearly occurred in the third film, Mew and Celebi took on human disguises (in the form of May and Max respectively) to investigate Ash, who was able to calm Molly and “save” the world by “perpetuating” the delusion (and whom Molly totally has a crush on btw *shot*).  So it’s a bit of a love triangle lol, with Mew and Celebi (*cough* an alien and a time traveler, get it? *shot*) acting as mediators/interference.  (Although Mew might’ve secretly shipped Gary and Molly herself. ;O)

Betrayal

And these blades, these damned scythes that attached themselves to my arms when I was born, a curse upon me since birth, though it had not been apparent up until now.  They were covered with blood, the vital crimson liquid that flows through our bodies, now dripping down the steel surface in a webbed pattern, drops beginning to splatter the pure, emerald grass below.  The arm felt heavy and weak as I tried to lift it, as if it did not belong to me, but that was only a wishful thought.  I gazed calmly at it, inspecting the intricate designs the flow of the substance had created, as if it were an abstract piece of artwork. Tentatively, a pink tongue rolled out and caught a small droplet of it just before it fell from the sharp edge, just to convince myself that it was real.  The semi-sweet, metallic taste confirmed this.  I had indeed taken these men’s lives, just as I had taken hers.

So I remember this was written from the POV of a Scyther who seemingly went on a murderous rampage.  I only know that I wanted to give him an “Edward Scissorhands”-like story, since the idea of having such sharp objects attached to one’s limbs so that one could never directly “touch” another without being a danger is pretty tragic.  I suspect “her” was someone (a human?) he cared about but killed by accident, and after that he was only seen as a symbol of power/treated as a tool to incite fear before eventually rebelling against his “master”... Roses

“If you love someone, you should give them something that’s yours. That shows how much you care for them.” In the darkness, I pictured his smiling face, explaining to me as he wrapped a present for his girlfriend. His blue eyes were shining with a sort of spirit unfamiliar to me; I guessed, a feeling of love.

Another “dark” take on a Pokémon’s biology (I really liked writing explorations of those back then lol), this time of Roselia.  The idea was that a Roselia was so in love with her trainer that she would do anything for him - including allow him to cut off her arms so he could give them to his girlfriend.  I actually ended up turning it into a poem at one point:

Love is like a rose they say, And affection leads to grief they warned. For in the end love betrays, Its Beauty maimed by a poisoned thorn. You gave me pure water with a smile. Your cheerful face became my sun. I offered up my blood to you, And in return demanded none. Chop off my wrists, and tie them together. I’ll gladly bleed myself to death. In order to give you that which I hold most dear. My dear, my dear, Won’t you accept this bouquet? You take it, smiling warily. A blush creeps onto your face. And in those eyes I can see A garden of roses stretched out, Composing a wondrous place. Then you bound my hands in lace, And brought them to the girl next door. You presented them to her with grace. … My blood continued to pour.

Fanfic

She smiled at me, although something about her expression indicated something wasn't quite right.  I watched as she glanced over towards the west, her gaze lingering momentarily on the setting sun.  The glowing, orange sphere was slowly sinking behind the distant mountains, peaks cloaked in a pale, lavender haze illuminated by flickering beams of gold and scarlet cast across the horizon.

More accurately, I found this buried in a “catch-all” file where I had several (mostly finished) fics saved.  This was meant to be from the POV of an Eevee who had just evolved - supposedly into an Espeon due to happiness and bond with her trainer, which is what both wanted.  However, since it took place at sunset, she didn’t realize she had become an Umbreon instead, and her trainer ended up abandoning her for it. ;( It was a warm

Children’s shrieks and laughter echoed across the park as they flocked towards each other, and soon were chasing one another round the playground, weaving in and out between the swings as they partook in an innocent game of Tag.  One child was It; she was trying desperately to catch one of her friends so that they would take over the job instead.  Then it would be her turn to run away, for none of them wished to play the loathsome role of It.  Or was it because they feared being tainted by the person’s touch?  It must have been one of the two, for while she would struggle to reach them, catch hold of them, they would only flee, thoroughly enjoying the fact that they were vexing her.  Twice she nearly caught one.  Her fingertips were almost within reach of one of the other girls’ dresses, whose russet tresses were flowing wildly from the rush of movement and shining with golden highlights as the rays of the sun struck individual strands.  The target shrieked and shook her head, whisking her skirt free in time to escape capture, laughing with glee at the sight of the girl left behind, miserable and alone. 

Yeah I totally just went with the default beginning of the first sentence lol.  I guess this comes full circle with the first Kagepro fic I mentioned (although I’m not even sure I was aware back then that the Japanese version of the game literally called “It” a “demon”, which is even more fitting).  I believe this was part of a Pokémon series I was writing involving a creepy little girl and Mewtwo who would bring about the end of the world or something like that, but generally I guess I was just going for a “Catcher in the Rye” feel. *shrug* Golden Lights

The pale, rosy fingers of dawn were filtering in through the Granite Cave entrance, basking a small area near the opening in pinkish illumination.  Just out of reach of its expanse sat little Mika, huddled in the gloom of the shadows, watching the light creep steadily towards her as the glowing ball of fire rose slowly towards the East.  She knew about the Light that came from Outside.  There were plenty other small apertures broken into the cavern walls and ceiling that allowed some thin streams of gold brilliance to trickle through.  She had always done well to avoid them.  The brightness was like poison to her skin.  But they weren’t the Lights she’d had described to her by the old Crobat that always resided now deeper within the underground chambers, dozing now, most likely.  He wouldn’t awaken until night came round, and she did not wish to rouse him and perhaps disturb him from a pleasant dream.  She was very wise about things like that, being the young child that she was.  Still, she would have liked to hear a story to comfort her just then.

Last one I could find, about a Sableye who, like Icarus, literally “flew too close to the sun”.  In this interpretation I imagined that Sableye were creatures who could not stand sunlight at all, as it would cause their skin to burn.  But Mika (pronounced like “Mica”) always dreamed of going outside to see the “Light” anyway.  She was eventually tempted by Mew to leave the cavern under her angelic PROTECTion and step into the Light, who was acting as Ho-Oh’s messenger to “recruit” souls to “live eternal as an element of Ho-Oh’s Guarding Flame“, as the PROTECT faded and a “holy fire” began to spread.  I guess I was going for a Biblical/”Rapture”-esque reference.  (...Man I sure was obsessed with the endtimes as a kid. *shot*)

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

SSSS.GRIDMAN - Thoughts

I finished that whirlwind of an anime! On my quest to finish a lot of anime I missed in 2018, Gridman was at the top of my list! My brother recommended it after finishing it, and I can say that *ahem* I actually enjoyed it. I usually do not like mecha, and even though this show is far from original (it’s a parody of the original Ultraman) I found myself admiring the world they built. 

I can say that if you don’t like fanservice, this is not the anime for you. I’m not a fan of fanservice, but I am not deterred so easily. Let me put it this way, the director (forget the exact position) requested thicc ass and thighs and boobs just go without saying at this point. It wasn’t disgusting like some ecchi out there, but they will make their presence known. I found that it got in the way sometimes though. If it means anything, the female characters have a lot of good moments together, and this anime (in its entirety) does pass the Bechdel test.

Bechdel Test:

The work has to have at least two women in it,

who talk to each other,

about something besides a man.

Story and Characters

Yuuta Hibiki is a first-year student in high school living in Tsutsujidai who wakes up without his memories. Yuuta later meets Hyper Agent GRIDMAN who is inside an old computer. Yuuta's quest to fight Kaiju and to discover the meaning behind these events along with finding his memories begins.

The synopsis I made was a bit vague, but that’s what it’s about essentially. In terms of the story, it seems quite light and not that deep, but it doesn’t stay that way for too long. The fights aren’t meaningless, and it’s not a “my power is greater than yours” type of thing. It slowly builds up until a few episodes from the end. While I think the plot twists they pulled were cliche, I still found it exciting. I think I’m going to stop treading around spoilers and just say the plot twists very vaguely. It has to do with creation itself, the meaning of existence, and what is humanity, what is the world, and who are these characters exactly? It will have you questioning everything at times because they don’t answer all the questions they set up (leaving viewers to theorize for themselves). I will include my personal two cents below. But hopefully, that explains enough without spoiling everything. And if you don’t like plot, there are giant robots and fanservice (I say this sarcastically, but I know there are people out there). 

In terms of characters, we have a likeable cast for the most part. I think I wanted the female characters NOT to be overshadowed by the fanservice, but *shrugs* it was inevitable. They both contributed a lot to the show besides the camera angles and sexualized shots. It’s a shame that the focus was taken off that. Besides that, the cast is nice, and I didn’t have any character that I hated enough to say, “TAKE THEM OUT”. In fact, the character I didn’t like still ended up playing a large role and was still cool overall. 

I feel like they could’ve done more with best girl Rikka, but that’s just my opinion.

Art

Studio Trigger is known for its fluid animation, awesome fight scenes, and fanservice. With its main series being Kill La Kill and the notorious Darling in the FranXX (seriously, their robot design is whack), this isn’t too surprising that they took this on. Both are essentially known for fanservice everywhere, and DITF is known for its *ahem* big robots. But this studio is also known for Little Witch Academia, Inferno Cop, and Kiznaiver which aren’t as sexualized from what I hear. Although it's not that old, Trigger has made their presence known. 

The animation in this was pretty darn good. It did everything I wanted (I AM NOT REFERRING TO THE DARN FANSERVICE. I AM TALKING ABOUT FIGHT SCENES). The robots were awesome-looking, and the fights were over-the-top explosive and fun to watch. I’m not a fan of mecha but watching these detailed human-like machines fight and battle each other was exciting!

[”GET ‘EM!!!” - me in the background]

But yeah, the fanservice is heavy to the point where it overshadows the female characters’ actions and sometimes what they’re saying even if it’s important to plot. I don’t mind giving the characters idealic bodies. I just mind the extent of the animators going, “Hey! Did we mention this character has great [insert body part]? Let’s do a pan(ty) shot! How about some yuri baiting?” Ships are built on the actions and what people say and the relationship, not by bait. Most of the gifs that pop up when I search “ssss.gridman” has to do with these shots. There’s even a thing up that’s promoting the body pillow covers with these characters-- I’ll leave it at that. Just a reminder that these are first-year high schoolers. Let’s enjoy some non-sexualized gifs that respect these girls but also pay respect to their design (look at those eyes).

Gridman himself says that he wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. She provides good reasoning and insight. She isn’t afraid to speak up and has more connections than the two other characters. She’s also quite capable and smart just like the other characters. She’s the most normal and down-to-earth. In that way, she reminds me of Hiyori from Noragami.

She is one of the main characters too! She’s mysterious and works her magic behind the scenes. She’s crafty, witty, idealistic, and she’s really creative. She has unique interests that truly drive the series.

Sound

THE OP AND THE ED ARE BOTH AMAZING! I REALLY LIKE OP AND ED. I DOWNLOADED BOTH.

The score provides a lot too! I can’t say it’s the type where I say, “I’m downloading the OST” but for twelve episodes, I sure got hyped when the OST took flight.

I really liked the voice acting for this. Both Yuuya Hirose and Yume Miyamoto are new to voice acting, but Yume has been acting for a long time since she’s in the large famous group called the Himawari Theatre Group which seems to farm talented youth like Kouki Uchiyama, Miyu Irino, Mamoru Miyano, Ryohei Kimura, Yuuto Uemura, and Sumire Morohoshi just to name some off the top of my head. Yume has range, but I really liked the voice she used for Rikka. I really want to hear her take on more roles. Hikaru Midorikawa playing Gridman was also great because it was like a senior leading the youth. Soma Saito was in the main cast too! He was in a few anime that season. He was good comic relief, and he fits the character so well. Reina Ueda has impressed me with her performances in supporting roles in anime like ReLife and Net-juu no Susume, but this was even better. I really look forward to seeing her in more roles soon. The rest of the cast was filled with people I’ve heard before with exception to Ryousuke Takahashi as Calibur. Everything else worked out great, but as much as I like Kenichi Suzumura... I think a newbie would’ve fit the role a lot better. That was a bit of a slip-up.

Spoiler Zone

But what do I think happened at the end? Besides leaving us hanging with no reasoning or any sign of a sequel, here’s my hot take:

I think Akane comes from the real world, goes to this world because she's tired of real life and wants to control a setting. She takes this alternative universe and wreaks havoc with the help of the main bad guy. She alters things to the point of no return, but after the disorder has reached its peak, Gridman is called in. She is sent back to her own world with only a select few keeping the memories of this ever happening. She isn't a god, but she was a human given the abilities of one by the villain who represents disorder and corruption himself. Gridman is a being who restores order.

But what about the ships?

As much as there is a ton of material for both Akane x Rikka and Yuuta x Rikka respectively, I think the fact that Akane no longer being around ultimately makes me prefer the other one. Hey, Rikka can be bisexual and still choose Yuuta. They’re good together too.

It’s implied in the end that Gridman chose Yuuta because he sat beside Akane and also because he likes Rikka, and Gridman is also wingman. He worked so hard to get them together. He even said to her in the end that Yuuta will remember his feelings for her (not said whether it’s romantic). 

In the video below, you can see why I ship it because he says he likes her, her main love interest is gone anyway (Akane is no longer in that universe), and I was good with either with me leaning more towards this one anyway because the other ship was a little too allusive, not as straight-forward, and just look at the look on Yuuta’s face. Do you want to break him? Do you want to break his soul? My heart goes out to the poor guy.

The last scene cuts out before you see the true heartbreak on his face. He invites her out for dinner, and she’s like, “Sure!” He does a small “yatta!” then she says, “But fitting all of us would be difficult.”

Me: I’m sorry for your loss. (+f = I have paid my respects)

For these scenes, I don’t think Yuuta was fully asleep or Gridman was really that determined to play wingman.

Edit: @italiantea commented this link which explains a lot of the leftover things! It’s a bit long, but if you’re confused about the ending, you might find this a good read!

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/moments/1076999602388299776

[amwilburn]

The Lego Movie 1 & 2 (and The Lego Batman Movie)

The first Lego Movie film simultaneously came out of nowhere (I didn't see a huge build up of hype), but at the same time, seemed long overdue. Yes, first and foremost, it's a way to keep the Lego brand front & centre on everyone's mind. But why not also cram it full of fun and heart?

The Lego Movie 2: The 2nd Part (2019)

Last month, we watched The Lego Movie 2: The 2nd Part at an advanced IMax screening on Feb 6th. We hadn't watched the original film in a couple of years, but had enjoyed it, and and *just* recently watched Lego Batman (which we also loved), were really looking forward to this.

TLM2 didn't disappoint, but didn't feel as satisfying as the 2 previous (no we haven't seen the Lego Ninjago film); it was full of laughs, and a song called "Catchy Song" that the film will *not* let you forget (think "Upbeat Inspirational Song" from "Teen Titans Go to the Movies".

In fact, I felt TLM2 film echoed the Teen Titans film in many ways, not just in having an intentionally silly & infectious song; from the overall tone, to even the general protagonist's plot arc.  Not that surprising, when both were produced by Warner Bros. Animation.

If you haven't seen the 1st film, the big reveal / twist at the end gave the 1st film a lot of heart.  In TLM2, I feel they spent *too* much time  on the same 'reveal', and it ground most of the plot pacing to a halt; I actually prefered the way that The Lego Batman Movie ignored the reveal at the end of TLM, but to be fair, you can feel this (along with the 1st film) are aimed at an even younger crowd, and I think it works for them (their attempt to inject heart into this film ended up being a little bit cheesy for me, but I think it works for the target audience), but the rest of the film delivers on laughs. Big time.

In fact, while the plot was nowhere as coherent or as smoothly transitioning as the 1st 2 films, TLM2 had us laughing throughout; in particular, I loved the meta humour as Christ Pratt as Emmet meets Rex Dangervest, a character who is the combination of Chris Pratt's Josh Faraday (Cowboy from Magnificent Seven), his Owen Grady from Jurassic World 1 & 2, and his Peter Quill / Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy.  The fact that Emmet is the everyman from every RPG / hero's journey from obscurity, who would of course be amazed by a wild west cowboy, a dinosaur cowboy, and a space cowboy.

The plot did stall in pacing a few times, especially while the characters were stumbling around, 'bewitched' by  Tiffany Haddish's Queen (the character's name will induce eye-rolling) and it felt like the film maker's themselves weren't sure how the middle portion of the film should connect the beginning and the end, they made sure there were laughs aplenty en route. And, as I'd mentioned, an ear-worm, catchy silly song that measure's up to the original's "Everything is Awesome". Oh, and stay for the credit's if you're also a fan of Andy Samberg's Lonely Island; unfortunately there's no post credits scene though.

Seriously, the soundtrack is so catchy, my wife immediately added it to her workout playlist.  Just going to leave "Catchy Song" from TLM2 here. You'll love it and hate it all at once.

YMMV: it's skewed a bit younger than the other 2 films mentioned here, so that may really bother some people. Conversely, if you were planning to take kids anyway, you may regard this even more highly.

Overall, B, 8.2/10

The Lego Move (2014)

Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Liam Neeson, and Will Ferrell star in... well, essentially the film that everyone who grew up playing with Lego had imagined in some form. But voiced by huge stars; Morgan Freeman & Liam Neeson in particular add a nice gravitas to the film, which just adds to the enjoyable silliness.   Immediately after watching TLM2, we felt it wasn't quite as satisfying as the first and popped that in for a re-watch. We weren't wrong.

TLM's simple, staple RPG plot (the undiscovered diamond in the rough will save everyone) flows smoothly from point to point, and with virtually all the Lego licensed properties to parody, one scene in particular always gives me a chuckle: when Morgan Freeman's Vitruvius is addressing all the Lego licensed characters at once, juxtaposing Renaissance painters and Ninja Turtles, or the fact the Dumbledore and Gandalf are essentially the same character.  One of the great joys of this film is the sheer number of licensed character cameos that they simply crammed in because it was funny (and, probably also to sell some of said minifigs).

Emmet (Chris Pratt) is a nobody, recruited by Obi Wan (er Vitruvius) and who is predicted to be the chosen one to save Bricksburg from the evil Lord Business (Will Ferrell). So while the plot itself is hardly new, it was all so charming. Set to the tune of "Everything is Awesome", the bright colourful characters and intricately modeled backgrounds will have you grinning. Plus, you get to hear Liam Neeson yelling "Darn Darn Darn Darny Darn!" Don't spoil the surprises for yourself if you haven't already seen this. A-, 8.9/10

Oh, also the 3d was great in this film; clear, not detracting or headache inducing. At least, for the rendered parts anyway. The bit at the end with the reveal could have been clearer, but the film didn't suffer for it. I've yet to see the other 2 above in 3d, but hope to someday to see if they're better or worse in 3d.

The Lego Batman Movie (2017)

The Lego Batman Movie avoids the "pulling the curtain back moments" of the 2 main films of the franchise, and while that might give it less heart than TLM, it also doesn't have that same "younger audiences only" target demographic. It's clever and funny, never takes itself seriously, and while still quite slapstick, feels like it's aimed at all ages.

Bruce Wayne/ Batman thinks he works best alone, but accidentally adopts an orphan and discovers that maybe solo isn't the most satisfying way to live his life. The plot doesn't need a detailed synopsis; suffice it to say where TLM provides fan service via all the guest cameos of the various Lego licenses, this film provides fan service to every iteration of Batman, including long forgotten comic book villains you'll need to Google!

And somehow, replacing all the gunshot sounds with someone  literally yelling "Pew Pew Pew" all the way through this movie amps up the comedy (without crossing the line into pure silliness).

Will Arnett nails it as Lego Batman through all 3 of these films, but the casting of Michael Sera as Robin is genius. A, 9.1/10.

Oh, and Phil Lord (co-writer of both TLM1 & 2, producer for TLBM) also co-created Clone High, How I Met Your Mother... and wrote Spiderman Into the Spiderverse.

This guy's pretty good.