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eatingbugsanddirt · 2 years

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listen I dont follow the dsmp anymore and don't intend to get back into it but god that shit should have ended a long time ago. Not to say 'that shit' as in it's garbage, and not 'a long time ago' as in as soon as it started. I'm stating a neutral fact. This series, and I dont know when's the right time, should have been concluded a whiiiiiiile back. Please. Please dear god. From the standpoint of building a solid narrative, holy shit.

It happens pretty frequently in media that forcing something to continue for the sake of milking its content, no matter how much the fans want it, will kill the series, the franchise, the creative work, whatever the fuck said media is. Superfans will keep watching it for the title it has and the characters it manages to retain, but even they understand a lot of times that what they're watching isn't what it used to be. Whether that be because content has actually changed, or the production has simply gone on for too long or become lackluster.

Think The Adventure Zone: Balance. I'm NOT talking about the quality of one story versus another, but just how that quality was improved with how one handled its ending. Balance was and is a series people adored, characters people adored, a setting and story people adored. Sure, it had to take some time to pick up and fully realize what it was, but it created a narrative, and it ended definitely at episode 69 (nice). Afterwards, Balance continued, not in its main plot, but as fan content, as one-shots during live shows, as mentions from the creators, as a graphic novel series and a board game and a campaign setting and, possibly, maybe an animated series at one point. But all of these things are either an extension of Balance's true story or a transfer of its story into different media.

The show Centaurworld was so much fun and had so much color, but it had a story, and it ended, after only two seasons. The show Gravity Falls eventually got a solid grasp on where it was headed, fulfilled that path, then ended, after only two seasons (and Alex has told his fans not to worry about it being 'canceled' - because it never was.) The webcomic Snarlbear, however small of a piece of the internet it was, and however short it was in and of itself, was beautiful, and it had a story, and it ended.

Do that, please? This is mostly guided towards independent creators and storytellers, but popular media too. I won't touch on the MCU in fear of being grabbed by the throat and shook around, byt if you want to continue to 1) monetize or 2) give fans the official content that they love straight from the creators' hands, do so by continuation or replication in different forms AFTER the story has actually concluded.

I'd also like to add that a story that is short and neat does not equal a good, complete story. If your story takes more content to tell, takes more time or breaks for hiatuses in between, requires a couple of different attempts to get it just right, or if your story is -> NOT COMPLETE YET <-, you don't have to end it for the sake of simplicity! Don't cut yourself short! Complicated stories are worthwhile ones too! But there are some times where it's pretty damn obvious that something is being shredded to its last thread and unraveled and torn apart and perversed to such an extent that the new content is an obliged, forced, awkward attempt at bringing back the spark of what it used to be.

Your story doesn't have to be simpsons-long to please the crowd. I promise. You're doing yourself a disservice.

anyway kill dream or w/e is happening right now and cut this thing off god fuck. It's gonna slowly fizzle out and everyone who still enjoys the series will leave or drift away unsatisfied.

#dream smp #dsmp #writing #storytelling #tv #media #can you tell that this isn't just about the dsmp and I'm kinda picking at all media #pleassseeeee stop killing series #make a story for the love of god #if you have good fans they'll be satisfied with a story #good on Wilbur for the official fiction shit he did or whatever it was #I don't phrase it like that to demean it I just don't #fully know what it's about or it's role in the story #and I haven't read it bc again. I don't follow the dsmp anymore #that said Wil could have done that a hotttttt second ago and wrapped up the series with it I think #Maybe when he left limbo? Maybe some would say as far back as the disc saga. Idk I'm not the judge and jury on this #Maybe he gets revived and turns around and then boom series over #okay but. /gen about this topic rq #I'm not saying there haven't been important & impactful & cool & emotional scenes pretty recently #like in the casino arc or w/e #the slimecicle and Karl forgetting Quackity and all that was very oof and fucked #but it could have been done differently #earlier or more coherently or simultaneously with other plots or something #Maybe just in a more compact way could have been good?#the issue is there isn't a good cut off at present bc the story just keeps running and even IT doesn't know where ot's headed #It didn't have a plan from the get-go which. Fair #But it didn't see a nice story #Like the disc saga #Wrap that one up #Maybe start a new 'season' officially and in a way that makes sense

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nadjaofstatenisland · 3 years

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Do you ever watch something and all of a sudden see its the source of a popular meme and you're just like 😮😮😮

#watching drunk history and BAM its the episode where that jenny slate meme came from #also watched an episode of the simpsons that was that 'i just think its neat!' meme which was less exciting but still

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fictionz · 2 years

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New Fiction 2022 - January

"2 B R 0 2 B" by Kurt Vonnegut (1962)

This is the first Vonnegut I’ve read in full. Is it satire? It’s certainly dark. I will continue.

"From the Deposition of the Vaginal Teeth" by Elizabeth H. Turner (2022)

They speak for themselves.

Avatar: Book One by S.D. Perry (2003)

This really should have been grouped with its latter half... but as an opening statement, it’s a bold one. I’ve been looking forward to this longer work from Perry since reading some of her short entries in the Deep Space Nine anthologies. Rather than settle into the peaceful promise of the end of the series, it shakes things up with some fairly shocking moments.

Avatar: Book Two by S.D. Perry (2003)

And I just gotta say, the Avatar duology is phenomenal. I love the focus on Kira as commander of the station and that Bajoran faith and religion continue to play a vital role. As a post-war trauma narrative, it's also fascinating to see them deal with their feelings in the aftermath.

"Lot's Wife" by Anna Akhmatova (1973)

I’ve started reading the bible and allow me the heresy of saying that--much like The Simpsons--other stories becomes that much better when I understand the references. I’ve known about Lot’s wife for a while but now I really understand the outrage. God didn’t have to go that hard.

"The Door in the Kitchen" by Abby Howard (2019)

My love of creepy horror comics continues unabated.

Displacement by Kiku Hughes (2020)

Written in the time when Trump was dominating the public consciousness against our will, this is a nuanced examination of experiences we don’t read about in history books. “Never again” feels like something we aspire to and never achieve, so I hope we continue to get books like these to remind us.

"Slide in the Woods" dev. Jonny's Games (2021)

Listen, do you want creepy things? Because that’s what happens when you put a slide in the woods.

Florence dev. Mountains (2018)

I loved everything about it. Light on gameplay, heavy on the feels.

"The Snowman" dir. Dianne Jackson (1982)

I can’t believe this isn’t as big a deal outside the UK as it should be. It’s an amazing animated film.

"Baker Bobb" dir. Billy Burger (2018)

Cute little short from a local group.

"Magnetic Rose" dir. Kōji Morimoto (1995)

Goddamn, that nineties anime hits hard.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie dir. Shinichirō Watanabe (2001)

If you’re going to make a movie from a beloved series, this is the way to do it.

The Tragedy of Macbeth dir. Joel Coen (2021)

German expressionism gets me every time.

The 355 dir. Simon Kinberg (2022)

I want more of these. More women-led action is the way to go.

The King's Man dir. Matthew Vaughn (2021)

What a bizarre movie. Tonally, it's trying to be a period war drama but also a ridiculous action comedy.

Scream dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olphin & Tyler Gillett (2022)

I guess it’s neat, but I hadn’t seen the fourth before I watched this. Then I did and this was missing a crucial character...

Scream 4 dir. Wes Craven (2011)

Bring back Kirby.

Belle dir. Mamoru Hosoda (2021)

This was a great movie, it seems like it's going to be one thing but then takes a turn. And the animation is :chefkiss:.

Licorice Pizza dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (2021)

Nothing has ever inspired me to run for the joy of it like Licorice Pizza does. I had a real strong aversion to it based on the trailer... you know, more nostalgic dude filmmakers who grew up in the valley in the sixties and seventies. But I liked its meandering. I like a good meandering plot. The cast were great of course. Also so white as are all these nostalgic era movies. I think that's strong points against it. It makes me wanna go rewatch The Wood or Dope.

What If...? - "What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?" (2021)

I intended to watch the series, but after the first episode I really just want more of Captain Carter.

Cowboy Bebop (1998)

Yep it’s a classic. I’ll have to rewatch this sometime soon. The early aughts was an embarrassment of space western riches.

Cowboy Bebop (2021)

This isn’t the anime and I think their attempt to be like the anime hurt the series. I enjoyed it as its own work, and really wished they’d gotten a second season to smooth out the rough edges. The casting in particular is great.

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movienotesbyzawmer · 3 years

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August 30: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

(previous notes: Mission: Impossible III)

I bet the powers that be at the Mission: Impossible movie factory didn't lose any sleep over the stupid colon in the title that screws everything up. I mean, just look at that up there with the colon after my date, then the colon in the middle of the OG title, and then it's like, well, you can do whatever you want with punctuation but we're adding a subtitle after it now and you just have to deal with it. On posters and stuff it's just "Mission: Impossible" and then underneath those words they put "Ghost Protocol" so they don't have to deal with it. What a mess. I tell you it is a damn mess is what it is.

Anyway, we have arrived at the M:I movie that, more than any of the others, just really hit the spot for me when I saw it upon its original release. I saw it at the end of a frustrating and tiring work day and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. At some point in the middle I realized that I was enjoying it thoroughly without having to tolerate the kinds of flaws that were apparently part and parcel of this kind of movie. Maybe there were flaws that I just wasn't registering. We'll soon see.

Continuing the tradition of making very hip choices for the directing duties, here we have the live-action directorial debut of Brad Bird, who started off directing episodes of The Simpsons before moving on to no less than The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Dude had two Oscars on his mantle by the time he showed up for this. Press play already!

Um Sweet Christ those opening shots look gook in 4K like HOO boy

Whoa, neat opening where Sawyer from Lost is chased off the top of a building in Budapest but his jacket deploys an air mattress right as he almost-hits, but then he's shot by Lea Seydoux in an alley, rat-a-tat-tat with the action here, like what is up

Simon Pegg is back, and he's being tricksy with the tech in a prison! He's opening cell doors and the prisoners are surprised and delighted with that twist! He plays them a jazz standard on the intercom and Ethan Hunt suavely emerges from one of the cells. Fun silly things ensue involving Ethan's rebellious and confident independent strategy and a small riot that seems kind of like a bar fight.

He has made a pal in the joint and he's breaking him out. Some kind of cool tech creates a really sweet vortex-y hole in the floor and they are swooped up by their helpers, it's fun.

We're introduced to Paula Patton who is a new team member, and then the credits roll, and they are spirited in a way that recalls the first movie, also showing real scenes from later in the movie.

Flashback to the thing that was happening with Sawyer shows how that botched operation, something about a file and a courier, got Sawyer killed because lots of bad guys were all over the place there. AR contact lens technology figures prominently, and that is a good idea (plus we totally might have those soon, right?).

0:18:16 - Once again we begin the movie without the leading lady from the previous one, but we're starting to get an explanation here. Or just a tease of one I guess.

And quickly we get a sneaky-style self-destructing message that sets up that Ethan has to disguise himself as a specific Russian and sneak into the actual Kremlin. This movie 100% gets what a Mission: Impossible movie is supposed to be.

This time, they aren't using fancy masks or voice shifter things, just costumes and a fake mustache. They comment about that in the dialogue but don't explain why.

0:24:52 - Dialogue mixed SO QUIET here I have no idea what SP just said. It seems like you're supposed to have heard it.

But that is quickly forgotten when they use the coolest spy gadget of them all - a screen that is placed in a corridor that makes the guy at the other end of the corridor think it’s the corridor, but it's a screen and SP & Ethan are hiding behind it and it is super super neato I love it

Then just when it's cool that that is going well, it's suddenly cool how NOT well it's going because someone is spying on their spycraft! The thing they were going to heist isn't there, and someone deliberately makes their comms thing be heard by the bad guys!

And THEN we see something we really didn't think we'd see and it is kind of mind blowing - Ethan escapes from the Kremlin with a very smooth quick-change of his disguise that we see him do in all one shot… but then the Kremlin totally explodes and it explodes all over Ethan as he's running away! It looks amazing!

Right after that there is some fun with subtitles - Ethan is in the hospital all damaged and concussed and stuff, and the news is talking about the obvious big story, and the subtitles are in Russian. At first I was like, "hey is my home theater tech busted?" but no, the subtitles become gradually more in English as Ethan starts to come out of it. Then we see with subtitles that Ethan is reading lips about the police people that want to be bad guys to Ethan.

After Ethan escapes, we shift to a wholesome-looking Russian family we haven't seen before. The scene is a nice little piece of drama about how the dad sees the Kremlin news and wants to get the family out of there, and very quickly that goes south and thugs have them all at gunpoint, it's nicely done

Ethan is being extracted by two new characters played by accomplished, Oscar-nominated actors Tom Wilkinson and Jeremy Renner… the conversation is dire and I don't want to type during it gahhh gah gah gah I am watching because holy shit this goes south too! TW informs Ethan that the DoD is going to frame him for blowing up the Kremlin and his only choice is to escape. He's telling him HOW to escape in a funny way, but they are attacked and it's visually very interesting and TW is headshot and they are in the water and it is such bad news for Ethan and his new colleague played by Mr. Renner, I probably typoed a lot during that because it was so hard to look away.

So Ethan is on the hook for the terrorist attack of the century and he's being chased by a little battalion of thugs who just shot that important spy boss, and he's in Russia. It is very not good for Ethan.

He's with JR and JR is playing a different character for him. He's a bookish analyst guy who feels very out of place in action-land.

We're learning about the main bad guy, Hendricks, who was the guy that screwed everything up in the Kremlin. He's a super-smart theoretical physicist or something who has big, well-thought-out ideas about destroying the world with nukes, and he took nuke codes from the Kremlin. So things are just really really hairy and it's effective storytelling is what I'm saying.

Also effective is that they met up with SP and PP on a neat secret train car thing that is well appointed with spy gear

And VERY VERY EFFECTIVE is what happens next, which is a series of establishing shots of Dubai which KILL ON MY TV. I am glad I have a 4K panel, kids. This begins what I recall as being an extended sequence of sweet-ass suspense. Ethan has to break into a server room by climbing the outside of the 130th floor of the Burj Khalifa using glove-gadget tech that will hopefully work. There is at least some actual Tom Cruise clinging to the side of that building. It's so cool looking. And to make matters worse, a dust storm approaches! Or should I say "to make matters even cooler looking". Yes I should. Please read that part.

Paula Patton's character seems underdeveloped so far, especially compared to her teammates Simon Pegg and Jeremy Renner.

Jeez you guys, if you like suspenseful action scenes about barely surviving climbing a skyscraper this movie is for you.

1:05:34 - In the middle of a tense conversation we see that they were using the maskmaker but it wasn't working. They just don't want us to have mask fun in this movie. They hate mask fun. Why does Brad Bird hate mask fun.

Oh then this scene which is neat - bad guys are meeting with LS… but Ethan and JR are taking their place, and PP is taking LS's place for the real bad guys one floor down. The movie explains it better than me, but it is pretty exciting, the two meetings happening at the same time with opposite trickery.

Hah, SP does a sweet fake-hand trick to get the diamonds from the bad guys so he can get them to Ethan and JN, and JN is doing the thing where he uses the contact lens tech… gosh why are you even reading this, just watch the movie. I really like the tricksy espionage.

It all falls apart because LS spots the contact lens in JR's eye. The plot is moving along in a way that, I'm once again noticing, would normally require more half-assed-ness. It's just a solid spy plot. Which probably makes these notes more boring. Poor you.

LS dies by getting kicked out of the open window of the Burj Khalifa with a brewing sandstorm in the background! Neat looking!

And then a thing where Ethan is in a thick dust cloud and he's tracking the important paper thing with his tracker device, and it starts moving quickly at him and we realize just as it's too late that it's in a car that's gonna run him over! Then that mechanic gets used in a car chase in a dust storm, which we don't see very often outside a Mad Max movie, and that climaxes in a really cool looking collision, followed by the reveal that one of the nuclear code bad guys was Hendricks in a supermask. So we DO like mask fun after all! Except why do we care that it was Hendricks?

A scene where JR is confronted for maybe being a double-crosser has a beautifully choreographed gun-get-grabbity-grab thing that was probably super fun for the actors.

1:27:05 - JR tells a story that at first we think is that family we saw briefly almost scramming, but no, he's talking about Ethan, and what seems to be a story about Ethan's wife (Julia from the last movie) getting killed in Croatia, and Ethan killing six Serbians for revenge, and that's why he was in prison in the beginning? It's still a little mysterious and kind of complicated. It doesn't quite fit with what we think we know.

Dubai imagery is pretty. I have been to Dubai. I am standing by for your marriage proposals now.

I didn't really follow how we got to this point, but Ethan went for a walk and met with some underworld Dubai person and made a deal the ended up with a huge cache of spy gear and a private plane to India. I went to India like right after Dubai. I have my own car and a job kind of so you might need to calm your hormones at this point.

A probing exchange with PP establishes that indeed Ethan's story is that he killed the men who killed his wife. Doesn't really seem legit, though. There's more to the story, clearly.

One of the tech things they play with on the plane is the most magic-seeming one. It is a suit that looks like tight chain-mail, and it floats over a cart, like a magic carpet that you wear.

We're introduced to Brij Nath, whose name I had to look up so I could tell you how it is spelled. He has an access code that they need, which seems like they just kind of simplified the situation, and he's one of those only-kinda-bad bad guys that's really just a pawn, for our heroes as well as for these storytellers.

The wearable magic carpet gadget is fun and funny! SP has to remote control JR wearing the floaty-suit and JR is trying not to freak out too badly, and maybe on purpose it recalls the scene from the first movie where Tom Cruise hovers parallel to the floor.

Hendricks is now in a secret room in the place where they all are, and he has a bad-guy briefcase computer and orders some subordinates to do something with a virus, and I don't actually understand what's really happening but am I to believe that Ethan et al are thwarting literal nuclear terrorism here in Mumbai? Right here at this pleasant party at the palace of an only kinda-bad bad guy?

1:48:30 - Ha, the climax of the wearable magic carpet thing involves JR barely surviving by doing an acrobatic stunt that seems oddly intuitive and satisfying. You'll just have to watch the movie to know what I mean.

The spy-tech car they have is rad.

They fail to prevent the launch of a nuclear missile! We see it come out of the sub and start missiling toward its destination which we have learned is California! Hendricks mutters things about how that should get the ball rolling making world powers hate each other and nuke each other and may there be peace on Earth, he also, yes, says that.

A chase on foot has Ethan and Hendricks suddenly brawling on an exotically elegant robotic parking ramp. Platforms move around mechanically and transfer unmanned cars to different areas, and it is against that video gamey backdrop that Ethan and Hendricks struggle to get that sinister suitcase which is all bouncing around that environment. Unexpectedly, Ethan's hope of grabbing it is thwarted by Hendricks suicide-jumping down several stories! We see it! He definitely does that! Ethan drives a car off a thing to follow him, plummeting down hood-first, and the airbag saves him! He gets the briefcase and barely saves the day in time!

Again a denouement making it very clear that everything is really shockingly okay and tidied up. Even the thing with Ethan revenge-killing Serbians and the thing with his wife is cleaned way up, but with an elegance and sweetness that elevates this movie above the others. She's not dead after all, just fake-dead for her protection. And they're only where they are in Seattle so he can glimpse her lovingly across a marina.

So! I feel strongly that this is the best Mission: Impossible movie! It is an extraordinarily deftly-constructed spy thriller! It's got all the funnest types of things that are in the other movies, and other fun spy thrillers, but with so much less garbage! They did a great job and they should be proud.

#Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years

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Bulbamun’s Top Ten Simpsons Episodes!

So now that my new smart tv has Disney+ on it I’ve been watching a lot of Simpsons lately and started thinking about just what are my favorites, this is by no means a definitive list, I may change my mind immediately after posting this but I do tend to hover around the same era when I watch and I just thought about which ones I keep coming back to or otherwise stick with me

10. Round Springfield

So this one fucking makes me cry every time, I don’t watch it as much as I have most of the others on this list but watching Bleeding Gums Murphy die and leave Lisa so distraught always gets me, they do the crazy James Earl Jones cloud ending and it never fails to have me in tears by the end. Also Bart’s small character arc with Lisa believing he’s telling the truth when he wrecks his appendix leading into the end is a very nice touch (and is something that happens in reverse later on in the list).

9. Lemon of Troy

On the other end of things, Lemon of Troy just always makes me feel kind of good, it’s really funny, there’s so many subversion gags that work really well and it’s a neat little adventure story that changes the setting up a bit. Shelbyville is mentioned a lot in various episodes so it’s neat to just go there and see the people are just as weird and freaky as in Springfield despite Shelbyville always seeming to be the better option in most conversations. Also, lemon-shaped rocks.

8. Homer Badman

So this is here for a couple reasons, first of all the Candy Expo in the beginning is an amazing setpiece and I love all the gags they get out of all the crazy candy convention shenanigans. And then the episode just kind of pivots and we get a pretty dire take on media sensationalism that just gets more and more relevant every year. It’s a weirdly nuanced take too since none of the original parties are particularly at fault since they both don’t have the full story but they get swept up into a media whirlwind. (Though the more I think about it, Homer DID still technically grab the girl’s butt even if it wasn’t intended as sexual harrassment there’s still a case to be made that he did do it, but she seems fine to drop it after finding out about Gummi Venus De Milo so I guess it’s okay)

7. Lisa’s Substitute

This is the other episode that never fails to make me cry, like every time I watch this episode I end up having a huge headache from crying so much. This one admittedly relies a lot on its ending and isn’t quite as funny or touching throughout but what an ending, everything from the train scene and Lisa getting the note to how the family wraps up at home and Homer proves he can be a good parent in his own way while relating to all three of his kids on various levels, it’s just really great.

6. Homer the Heretic

So this one is on the list for its atmosphere (and it won’t be the last one) I really freaking love how it sells the lazy Sunday morning feel in the first half, how Homer crafts a fun day off for himself with all these silly little events and snacks and such (which is also how I spend my days off so it probably hit a little close to home). The religious commentary is pretty good too, Lisa the Skeptic was very close to making the list for how it handled respecting people’s faith even when you don’t share it but I kinda like how oddly inclusive this message is for a show that’s usually pretty Protestant-focused, it kind of gets to a message about the intention of faith being more important than the dogma, but also that something like church can still have value.

5. Bart on the Road

This one and the next one are more atmosphere pieces, admittedly the vaporwave meme may have influenced my opinion on this a bit but I find myself coming back to this episode a lot just for the breezy attitude it has about the whole road trip aesthetic and how well Bart organizes this thing on the fly even though none of them have any idea what they’re doing, plus Nelson and Martin are always good to drag along together (see Lemon of Troy) and Lisa’s subplot about connecting with Homer and that being the final test that connects it to the resolution of Bart’s plot I always thought was really cute.

4. Bart’s Comet

Like I said, this is another atmosphere pick. The parts of this one that always get me are the beginning when Bart’s getting up at 4am and everything’s so quiet and still and the day hasn’t really started yet, and then the quiet anxiety that hangs over the town as their waiting for the comet to come crashing down (which if I remember high school earth science it’s not a comet if it enters the atmosphere but whatever). It’s got some really funny jokes and a variety of townspeople to play off each other and a really sweet and poignant ending with Flanders but the early morning scenes and the apocalyptic dread are my favorites here.

3. Bart Sells his Soul

I guess I’m a sucker for the theological/philosophical episodes of classic Simpsons because I love this episode. Just like in an inverse of Round Springfield, this one wraps up with Lisa giving Bart something that solves his grief, and her point about Bart earning his soul through desperation and effort and prayer is really touching. The Moe stuff for the B-plot is really cute and I like the setting of turning Moe’s into a TGI Fridays type deal, plus the oddly heartbreaking scenes of Bart walking around feeling like something is missing, it’s all really good and wraps up in a surprisingly touching way.

2. One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish

I feel like nobody talks about this episode as much as they should. Like it’s an episode about Homer Simpson facing his mortality and how that cuts to the core of his relationships with literally everyone in his life. It strips him bare and makes him thoughtful and introspective in a way we don’t really get to see while we take a quick jaunt through all his connections he’s made with the people closest to him. The scene of Homer mustering up all his dignity and listening to The Bible on tape and waiting to die really kinda touches me, I remember first seeing it as a kid and wondering what was going to happen, I knew they couldn’t kill Homer but part of that moment really sold it in a way I wasn’t expecting and approached mortality in a way that few others that use this stock plot do.

1. 22 Short Films About Springfield

Okay, Steamed Hams, you know it, I know it, Steamed Hams is one of the funniest things The Simpsons has ever done, but the whole episode is pretty great. The fact that it doesn’t have a central plot means that it can basically just be a gag factory and get a ton of variety, sweeping around the whole town and just punching in joke after joke of varying types. And despite its name and structure, it doesn’t feel like they’re isolated vignettes, it does feel like they’re going places since the shorts are decently tied together with good visual segues and some plots that continue throughout like Lisa’s hair story. Aside from the Cletus story and maybe a couple others there aren’t any hard cuts that divide one of the stories from another and it’s just really funny. Seems kind of weird to put all the touching and memorable episodes on the list and then top it off with a nonsense collection of hilarious gags but here we are.

#ooc #long post #The Simpsons #Top Ten

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escarlatafox · 3 years

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Answer 17 Questions, Tag 17 People

Tagged by @dubsxfen

Nickname: Mort. Which is not a nickname I chose, it just sorta... Happened. I got labelled with it and it Stuck, but only among a specific set of fandom friends who aren’t even in the Madagascar fandom LOL. I don’t have a proper “internet name” outside of that, so when I get asked for an online-styled name I’m not sure what else to say, but at the same time, when people call me it outside of that specific friend group it’s always a little jarring ahaha. Maybe I just have to get accustomed to it being used in other contexts/by other people.

It’s also funny cause like.,. It’s not really a name that can be used in Madagascar fandom spaces because of how confusing that would get. Instead, in some Mada spaces I’ve been referred to as Milan instead because of my Discord name. Which is funny, ‘cause my Discord name is just a riff on Milan Kundera’s (the name of a famous author). I never intended to actually get called Milan. Assigned Milan Kundera kin LOL. Or should I say... Milan Kindera. Ayyyy!

Funny story: Being in a Madagascar fandom group voice chat and only half-listening... every single time the word “Mort” got used, because I was zoned out and would snap back to attention when it happened, it psyched me out and I thought they were referring to or addressing me even though I don’t get called that in that space. Due to context it’s obvious they’d be actually referring to the character and not me, but it seemed like I’d developed something of a Pavlovian response to it and I really do answer to it instinctively now after having others call me it so much. LOL

Zodiac: Pisces Fire Ox.

Height: I don’t know but I am very short!

Last thing I googled: emotion research lab

Song stuck in my head: OH lol.... Baby It’s Cold Outside.

Lucky number: 5, fourteen, 37............. Maybe 28 too. Eheh.

Dream job: Neuroscientist, but only in theory. Day-to-day life might not be all it’s cracked up to be as one, plus I realise now that like... Any research I’d contribute would probably be put towards nefarious purposes. Would love to become a translator, am eyeing that off somewhat. But who knows.

Wearing: black shirt, long pink skirt, socks.

Favourite author: In all sincerity.... It seems to be a toss-up between famed novelist Milan Kundera and..... a certain fanfiction author. Not naming names but if you know You Know. UM. Well they’re not just a fanfiction author they’ve published original fiction but! anyway!

Favourite instrument: I really like the sound of the violin. But also the Lisa Simpson worshipper in me thinks the saxophone is pretty damn neat as well.

Aesthetic: in terms of what? in terms of like online presence my aesthetic is clearly very heavy on fox imagery ahahah

Favourite song: can’t pick a favourite because there’s just too many, and I don’t really use Spotify but I do know what my “song of the year” for 2019 & 2020 would have been. 2019 would be Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and 2020 would be Madonna’s Crazy For You... lol. They aren’t FAVOURITE songs like I said, I like a lot of songs.

Favourite animal noise: maybe cats meowing probably.

Random: The new Animaniacs is amazing but I’m not actually really into its version of Pinky and the Brain. That’s probably because my exposure to Pinky & The Brain was first and foremost through their standalone series... I still may not have seen all their Animaniacs shorts, and certainly not all their Animaniacs appearances, because... I never really watched the original Animaniacs lol. Huge chunk of the appeal of Pinky and Brain’s show (and the characters) to me was things that really flourished with a larger episode runtime, which doesn’t have a chance to really rear its head when they’re confined to shorts within another series. When you have an entire episode you can really stretch the plot and subsequent plan for world domination to amusing and interesting lengths and include so much stuff with it. idk, I’m still mulling over why the new versions didn’t really Click with me like with the old show, because it’s certainly not the general consensus among fans. Will be interesting to see how season 2 goes. I really think it’s the shorter runtime that does it though... I’d want a new standalone Pinky and the Brain series so so bad. Also I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the non-PATB stuff since original Animaniacs never really grabbed my attention at all. So it’s this weird reverse situation where for the OG I care WAY more about Pinky and the Brain but for the new series I probably enjoy the Warner stuff a lot more! But yeah I probably feel like Pinky and Brain shine their brightest when going solo and heading their own series...

Bonus question to make 17 since I’m not dignifying the h*gwarts house question with a reply lol: What is your favourite fanfiction and/or fanfiction you read most recently and/or just a fanfiction you really enjoy? If you can’t answer this question you can just give the name of a book you really like instead or something <3

Edit: ok no I just counted and there’s definitely not 17 questions here??? lol what

Tagging (feel free to ignore!): @electricshoop @endless-abysses @vestron @marmitemausoleum @infini-tree @mashanevershutsup @edgeworth-s @gayasscyrus @schemingminor @vonlipvig @cassiathea @rumpleteazergrace @the-chloest @fumu @chuckletons @lovelylovelyartist @the-tao-of-fandom

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adultswim2021 · 3 years

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Aqua Teen Hunger Force #4: “Mayhem of the Mooninites” October 14, 2001 - 11:00 PM | S01E04

Two moon guys come down to earth and act like dicks in this SEMINAL-ASS Aqua Teen Hunger Force TV Episode. There are a handful of Adult Swim episodes that I loved so much and watched so much that I can barely watch them these days without it feeling like some weird out-of-reach facsimile of itself. I need to actively remind myself that this used to make me laugh uncontrollably until one day it’s effectiveness wore off thanks to repetition. With this episode Aqua Teen Hunger Force became truly awesome. This is also the first episode of the show to almost completely abandon it’s formula. Dr. Weird’s segment almost has nothing to do with the episode itself; The Mooninites are shown entering Earth’s atmosphere independently of Dr. Weird’s activities (rocking out with a wall of speakers). In fact, I didn’t even realize that the segment connected with the episode AT ALL until I sat down to write this review: we later find out the Mooninites have stolen Dr. Weird’s gear to give to shake to hush him up regarding their other petty crimes. I also believe there is no mention of the Aqua Teens being detectives. They are simply dealing with random aliens who’ve shown up to act like low-class dirtbags and be a bad influence on Meatwad. The Mooninites themselves are hilarious characters, and the voice of the green one (I know his name but I don’t feel like looking up how to spell it right now - SORRY). All they do is smoke and steal and flip birds. This was one of my few go-to episodes I’d show people to get them into Adult Swim. I had a tape that had this and the Feng Shui episode of Sealab on it that I’d sit many people down to force them to watch and appreciate. It usually worked. Anyway, this episode had a notable legacy because they did several Mooninites episodes after this, making them the most recurring guest characters of all. They tried to spin them off, but it didn’t work out so good. Hell, they were involved in a fucking bomb scare after a botched publicity stunt, for fuck’s sake (fun fact: I live two blocks away from a liquor store that has one of the Mooninite lite-brites from said incident! NEAT HUH?) MAIL BAG: shout out to the person who messaged me advising that I edit a previous bannable slur. I fixed it, and I’m hopefully safe. Here are some thoughts about Home Movies from Kon:

Some assorted thoughts on Home Movies UPN run: I actually watched almost the entire run of the show on UPN. I only missed one episode, The Art of the Sucker Punch, which is a pretty major episode in terms of character introductions. It's the first episode with Shannon, Walter and Perry, first time Duane has a speaking part. So I thought all those guys were invented just for Adult Swim (at least for the like two weeks before Adult Swim aired the UPN episodes)

Some major differences between Home Movies UPN run and Adult Swim run is that 1. the UPN ones are much more heavily improvised, and are in some ways funnier, and 2. not that Squigglevision ever looked great but the UPN run has much shittier animation. Some sort of Squiggietech breakthrough must have been discovered in 2000, shame they discontinued it right after. It would have been cool to get a full season of UPN-era Paula-starring improv-heavy episodes.

I do love the Adult Swim episodes though and I think the show retained its charm. For a long time, Director's Cut was my favorite episode of the series. That means for 4 out of the 6 shows on Adult Swim's premiere, the first episode I saw was my favorite (Sealab- Chickmate, Birdman- Bannon, Brak Show- War Next Door [saw this early at comic con]). I don't still think Director's Cut is the best Home Movies but for those other three, there's a solid argument to make for those first eps being best

One thing I’ve wanted to do with my currently-abandoned/notably-worse Simpsons blog is start reviewing mostly-90s cartoons that I deem “simpsons-esque” in some way; I just haven’t settled on a format yet. I think I will probably try to start that up relatively soon and have it include those UPN Home Movies (also pre-AS Space Ghost).

Anonymous writes:

Sorry I'm late on this one but I just had to tell you that I think the Marbles episode of Home Movies is really funny! Especially the song at the end which is a serious treat. Did you know that the episode was the inspiration for one of the most famous youtubers of all-time to call herself...Jenna Marbles. Awesome!

Wow. That IS awesome!

#adult swim #aqua teen hunger force #adultswim2021

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allieinarden · 5 years

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2018: Year in Review

Hey @fictionadventurer, thanks for the tag!!

No particular order:

Top 5 films you watched in 2018

Actually, I think the following five were the only films I watched in 2018 if you don’t count rewatches (yes, I still haven’t seen Infinity War).

ETA: the BEST movie I saw for the first time all year was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and I can’t believe I forgot about that, they must have...erased my memory...

Black Panther: A solid MCU film. I'm considering rewatching it, I might have been more dazzled by it if I hadn't been watching it on a tiny airplane screen.

Incredibles 2: A sequel to compete with its predecessor it was not (maybe if I'd been wearing my glasses I would have been too blown away by the animation to nitpick the story as much) but the Edna-Jack Jack relationship was worth the ticket price.

Donnie Darko: Pros: great 80s soundtrack, a young Jake Gyllenhaal as a remarkably convincing and arresting vector for a teenaged existential crisis. Cons: If your entire story is only remotely comprehensible based on the bonus material then you didn't do a very good job telling the story.

Wreck-It Ralph: I can't believe I missed this one on the first go-round, my friend's been after me to watch it since like 2013. Nothing to write home about on the story end but the animation, the characters and the arcade-game world are a collective charm overload. Plus it did my heart good to see Jack McBrayer effectively playing Wander before Wander Over Yonder existed.

Ralph Breaks the Internet: See, I wish I could put the emotional plot of Ralph Breaks the Internet into the far more lovable arcade world of its predecessor, because in between the misfires was a great Alan Menken number and a pretty good story about letting go, even if they kind of beat me over the head with it. (Deeply disappointed by the way they dropped what would have been a really excellent B-plot, though. Felix and Calhoun got stiffed!)

Top 5 TV shows you watched in 2018

Arrested Development: I finally pushed through the rest of Season 4 just to watch Season 5, and it was so good that it made me rewatch the entire first three seasons. I was going to plow through the Season 4 recut but I couldn't make myself.

The Simpsons: Usually it's only the newer episodes that are on TV, but I was in a hotel room during a recent marathon on Fox and it was like a game of Spot the Cultural Reference, I swear I saw “I just think they're neat,” “I for one welcome our new insect overlords,” Homer melting backwards into the bushes, “Money can be exchanged for goods and services” and “Tramampoline” in context within just that brief sit-down, and all of it was somehow still funny. (Also, I really don’t understand why this was never a meme.)

Seinfeld: Obligatory watch in order to better communicate with my mom. Best episode: "The Limo."

The Good Place: [Vague spoilers—] Unlike many others, I don't think it's the funniest show I've ever seen, but it makes up for that by being maybe the most bonkers show I’ve ever seen. It started with a straightforward concept and by the second season it's radically switching up its entire premise every 3-5 episodes. (And fine, the handling of philosophical concepts is excellent, I’m actually learning a lot.)

Voltron: Legendary Defender: Say what you will but I really enjoyed Season 6.

Footnote: Where was Milo Murphy’s Law?!??!

Top 5 songs of 2018

Shadrach - Beastie Boys: You go watch that video, okay.

Don't Play No Game that I Can't Win - Beastie Boys ft. Santigold: Yeah, I went on a bit of a Beastie Boys kick this spring, but in my defense they were sleeping on this song back in 2011 and I will do everything in my power to make it the big summer hit of 2019.

When the Levee Breaks - Led Zeppelin: Can’t think of a comment that wouldn’t take away from it.

Say Amen (Saturday Night) - Panic! at the Disco: I make fun of Panic! a lot but darn it they come out with a song and I listen to it 88 times.

All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands - Sufjan Stevens: Made me want to become a film director just so I could put it on a bittersweet montage of time passing.

Looking more closely at this phrasing, I might have been supposed to list 5 songs that actually came out this year but I’m just not very hip, I’m sorry. Did you know I still haven’t listened to the new Twenty One Pilots album because I needed to forestall my heartbreak?

Top 5 books you read in 2018

Vampires in the Lemon Grove and Other Stories by Karen Russell: My favorite of her books, imaginative and visual and really really fun.

Watership Down by Richard Adams: I can't believe how long it took me to read this book. It was so worth the trip.

Rewind, Replay, Repeat: A Memoir of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by Jeff Bell: Intimate, painful and funny.

Fresh Complaint: Stories by Jeffrey Eugenides: Eugenides is really more a long-form guy than a short-storyist, so I was surprised by how solid this collection was.

The Witch Elm by Tana French: Her strongest since 2012′s Broken Harbour, a stirring psychological portrait and a legitimately compelling take on some current issues. I miss the detectives but I think she probably needed the fresh start.

5 Good/Positive Things that happened to you in 2018

I wrote a sci-fi novelette [glorified short story]! I was proud!!

I had an incredible time camping with my dad's family.

I managed to get an ARC of the new Tana French book (see above)!

Having all my family home at Christmas was amazing.

I dressed up as Marty McFly for Halloween and now I think I should dress like him every day, it was a great look for me.

Happy 2019! Do this if you like, everybody!

#fictionadventurer #tagged

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nathanielwharton · 5 years

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My 2018 in Pop Culture

Same plan here as usual. This is what meant most to me last year in pop culture.

Top Forty Things From 2018

40. King Kong on Broadway I wrote about this as an adaptation of the Kong story over at SportsAlcohol.com, but here I'll just say that while I was really disappointed with this as a musical, the execution of Kong himself on stage was breathtakingly rad.

39. Rhyming "is nae" with "Disney" in Anna and the Apocalypse In theory, I don't have much of an appetite left for a zombie comedy, having been well and truly sated by Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, and the wave of imitators that followed them. I felt like I'd seen all of the moves that are possible with that particular genre mash-up, and then I read about a Scottish zombie comedy that ALSO threw in the musical and the Christmas movie. So it was almost with a sense of grudging obligation that I accepted the inevitability that I'd see Anna and the Apocalypse. It won me over. It's got a winning cast, catchy songs, and a surprisingly effective melancholy tone. But I have to admit, the moment that really won me over was a moment in the song "Hollywood Ending" where "is nae" ("is not" in a Scottish accent) is rhymed with "Disney."

38. The Conners/The Roseanne Revival This was a real roller coaster in 2018. I was excited and apprehensive about the revival, and only slightly relieved when it began and was mostly pretty good. Still, there was an uneasiness with the way that the Roseanne character had been conceived for the revival and that basically exploded thanks to the behaviour of the real Roseanne. Still, overall I've enjoyed the revival and The Conners, and while I'm sad about what happened to TV Roseanne and real Roseanne(for different reasons)

37. "The Queen" episode of Castle Rock I liked the show pretty well overall, but oh man did this episode stand out. For most of the run, I'd just thought it was a cute bit of casting to have Sissy Spacek playing what seemed like a strangely minor role. Then this episode happened. It's a real acting showcase for Spacek and it satisfies with suspense and emotion in equal measure.

36. Kurt Russell performing "Santa Claus is Back in Town" in The Christmas Chronicles I'm a sucker for a Christmas movie, and this one is agreeable enough. There is some attempt at telling an emotional story that might hit you if you're in the right mood, and there is pleasant hint of Gremlins in the movie's portrayal of Santa's elves, but mostly it is a pretty satisfying expansion of the thought, "what if Kurt Russell was Santa Claus?" Russell is a hoot in the role, and the movie hits a peak when his Santa ends up in jail and breaks out into a jailhouse rendition of "Santa Claus is Back in Town." Downloaded and added to my Christmas playlist.

35. Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert This new wave of live musicals on TV hasn't always resulted in a great show (I honestly have forgotten a lot of the Peter Pan and Rocky Horror broadcasts), but sometimes they end up with some really cool television. Grease Live still reigns as the champion of these things, but this production of Jesus Christ Superstar was exciting and energetic and featured some neat ideas in its staging. It's shows like this that keep me hoping they'll continue to try these live musical shows.

34. The Death of Stalin Wrote about this for SportsAlcohol.com.

33. Isle of Dogs The visceral aesthetic pleasure of this film might outweigh the delicate emotional effect all of Anderson's films tend to achieve, but even if the complicated story and worldbuilding in the film kept it from succeeding for me fully on a first viewing, it did get me to want to watch it again (and again).

32. Keira Knightley in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms The movie as a whole is a good enough time in the way that all of these lavishly produced live-action Disney fantasy movies tend to be. But Keira Knightley, as the Sugarplum Fairy, single-handedly drags this movie up a notch with her fantastically daffy performance. To explain all the ways that her performance delights would be to spoil what happens in the movie, but I'll just say that she finds a few different registers to play in the film and she is amazing in each one. Think of this snub when you watch the Academy Awards.

31. The Favourite A three-hander where each leg of the triangle is different and spectacular. Turns out that acidic dialogue works just as well in the Yorgos Lanthimos world as alien affectedness, and the cast he's got for this one hurl barbs with aplomb.

30. Ash vs. Evil Dead Series Finale The third season of this show lost a bit of a step for me, not quite balancing the goofs and the horror quite as deftly as the show had done at its best. But it really brought it back around for the last couple of episodes. The finale in particular had some surprisingly big action and an ending that felt perfectly Evil Dead. If that's the last we see of Ash, it feels right.

29. DuckTales The first season wrapped up with some good adventure and some ambitious emotional storytelling. And the second season has seemed, if anything, even more confident so far (including an excellent Christmas episode).

28. Eighth Grade What a lovely, humane, gem of a movie.

27. The Old Man and the Gun I was head-over-heels in love with this one like halfway through the opening scene. If it had ended after that scene, I might have been satisfied, but the rest of the movie was truly wonderful too.

26. A Series of Unfortunate Events Season Two There's no twist for book readers as great as what they did with the Parent characters in the first season, but this second season of the show continued to be really great.

25. Rusty Lake: Paradise & Rusty Lake: Paradox This year I played all of the Rusty Lake/Cube Escape games, and it's probably a good thing that it takes a while between game releases or I might just burrow into these Twin Peaks inspired puzzles and not come out.

24. The last 20 minutes of Halloween I pretty well loved the entirety of this 40-years-later sequel, but the last twenty minutes or so were just next-level great. Basically, once everybody gets to Laurie's compound, this film was as scary as I wanted and as fist-pumpingly thrilling as I didn't know I could have expected.

23. Lost in Space Season One Might have loved this if it was just the one thing after another space survival show, but when you layer on an intriguing mystery and then add on Parker Posey's slitherly Dr. Smith? Yep, loved it.

22. The Haunting of Hill House Mike Flanagan has been doing cool horror work on smaller movies for a few years now, and I'm glad he seems to have found a patron in Netflix. The broader canvas of Haunting of Hill House allows him to do pretty much everything he's so good at, and even allows for some new tricks (like that "one long shot" episode, or the creepy background ghosts that go uncommented on in the story).

21. Creed II Creed was so great, and the notion of Stallone returning to the Ivan Drago well so worrisome, that I was a little apprehensive that this one would disappoint me. What a great surprise, then, that this was basically a best-case scenario for how this could have worked out. Even the Drago stuff is pretty compelling! I'd love to see more with Adonis and Bianca sometime, and I certainly still love Rocky himself, but for this round of playing with fire, I am satisfied.

20. Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters & Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle The first two (out of three) animated Godzilla films hit Netflix last year and they were much more curious and idiosyncratic than I expected when they were first announced. Slowly paced, with an intentional disregard for the expectations of kaiju fans, they take a brilliant concept and proceed to use it to explore the perils of various belief systems. Each of these ends on a cliffhanger, so the success of the whole thing might depend a bit on how Godzilla: Planet Eater wraps things up, but for now it's a fascinating experiment.

19. The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs I can't say I sat around missing the horror host thing (I also love and regularly watch the family-friendly Svengoolie), but I was still surprised by how enjoyable and how nostalgic I found the experience of sitting back down with Joe Bob to watch a trashy horror movie. I didn't watch this as a marathon, but it did make for a bunch of swell weekends catching up with some movies I'd never seen and a charming film buff I hadn't seen in a while.

18. Bad Times at the El Royale Everything about this, from the cast to the aesthetic to the story, was just right up my alley. There was a moment late in the film where Maggie and I turned to each other, our jaws literally dropped, and we burst into nervous laughter.

17. BlacKkKlansman Wrote this one up over at SportsAlcohol.com.

16. Three Identical Strangers This documentary knocked me out. It's an amazing story with a bunch of incredible twists and turns and fascinating characters. It also poses some really intriguing questions and left me with a lot to think about. Don't read anything about it, just see it!

15. Disenchantment As a big fan of The Simpsons and i (and knowing the similar arcs they followed pretty well), I was pretty excited for a new Matt Groening animated show, and the first season of Disenchantment might have surpassed my expectations. It's funny, visually appealing, and takes some effective swings at the kind of emotional storytelling that it took the earlier series a couple of seasons to really nail. The finale sent me scrambling to the internet to see if it had been picked up for more episodes.

14. Nancy by Olivia Jaimes As a regular and avid comic strip reader, I propose that I was more blown away than most of the internet by the new Nancy. I regularly checked in on the soggy Gilchrist version of the strip, so imagine my surprise and delight at the change! It is neat to see a newspaper strip make any kind of impact in the culture again. Plus the strip is really fun!

13. Star Wars Star Wars: Rebels came to a close with a run of really exciting episodes and a really excellent finale. The comics continued to be really good. And Solo: A Star Wars Story showed up with smaller, not so fate-of-the-galaxy stakes and still just nailed the iconic characters it was digging into in exactly the ways it needed to. In a year where Star Wars fandom was showing itself to be home to a lot of the same toxicity as other fandoms, Star Wars itself kept up its end with lots of fun stuff.

12. The Last Best Story I thought I had a good idea what to expect from a high school newspaper riff on His Girl Friday, and this book certainly (thoroughly, delightfully) satisfies that. But I wasn't exactly prepared for the emotional depth and lovely observational detail in Maggie's book (I mean, I probably should have been, but it still sneaked up on me). I finished and just wanted to read it again.

11. "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" episode of The X-Files This second (and seemingly final) revival season of The X-Files boasted a more confident ratio of hits to misses than the previous one (even the nutso mythology episodes showed a stronger grasp of how the show works and what it means in the current moment) but the highlight, again, was a virtuosic episode written and directed by Darin Morgan. It was brilliantly funny, very X-Filesy, and sneakily provided a hilarious alternate series finale for fans in the event that Chris Carter would botch the actual one a few episodes later (luckily, he did as well as I might have hoped, really).

10. Arrested Development - Season 5, Part 1 I disagreed with most of the complaints people lobbied against the fourth season of Arrested Development, but I do think the batch of fifth season episodes released last year did fall prey to some of the shapeless storytelling and clunky greenscreen they were accused of before (I thought the fourth season did wonders with having the characters separated, while they flailed to meaningfully integrate Lindsay in the fifth season). And because episodes weren't as clearly defined in their storytelling, it left some of the character stories feeling both too dragged out and thinly developed (thinking here of Gob's struggle with his sexuality and Tobias's relationship with Murphybrown) by the time the half-season ended on a slight cliffhanger without really building significant momentum. But for all that, I love these characters so much and the show particularly really does right by the way that Michael and George Michael try to navigate their relationship with each other after the events of the fourth season.

9. Mary Poppins Returns This movie had impossible shoes to fill, and you can tell that everybody involved took that seriously. I saw this one twice. The first time, I really enjoyed it. The second time, it made me cry.

8. Marvel Cinematic Universe Black Panther was so fantastic, Avengers: Infinity War felt like a really special theater experience, and Ant-Man and the Wasp was a delightful trifle with an amazing, playful gut-punch of a stinger. Really, I had a great time will all three movies they put out this year and I loved the ride they took us on all the way through to the final text card in the Ant-Man credits.

7. Surprise, it's The Cloverfield Paradox! Sure, this is easily the least of the Cloverfield movies so far (it's still a fun haunted-house-on-a-space-station movie with an overqualified cast), but I don't imagine there'll be a more fun way to see one of these. I was already feeling that familiar Cloverfield excitement as the online marketing game started spooling up, but I pretty much leapt off the couch when Katie and I saw the Super Bowl ad that announced it would be dropping soon on Netflix, and freaked out even further when I looked on Netflix and saw the tag that it would debut after the game ended! We stayed up and watched it that night, and I went to sleep in the glow of a new Cloverfield. Gonna be hard to top that for excitement next time, but I'm looking forward to seeing them try.

6. Support the Girls Basically a "day in the life" movie about a manager of a Hooters-style sports bar, this movie (starring a perfect Regina Hall) is warm and human and reassuring because of the way it eschews the normal reassurances of this kind of thing and just plays it real. It's a beautiful movie.

5. GLOW I loved the first season of GLOW, and I think this second season is even better. It digs a little deeper into the supporting cast, doubles down on its resonance with things happening in the culture right now, includes that delightful episode within an episode, and ends on a perfect and delicate emotional note.

4. American Vandal Here's one of those shows with a perfect first season taking a shot at a follow-up, and they nailed it. Whatever trades are made in taking on a case with less personal involvement for our investigator leads are made up by the incisive observational writing (and hilarious bathroom jokes), this time throwing race and class into the mix. I'm sorry we won't get to see them take on another case and format, but these first two seasons are perfect.

3. Ready Player One I am in the tank for pretty much any Spielberg movie (I've loved the dramas he's done in the last few years) and here he's made a movie with cameos from King Kong and Mechagodzilla. I enjoyed the book this was based on, but I loved the movie even more. The visuals and action (and that amazing Shining sequence) are terrific, but the way that they restructured the game tasks build to make a moving argument for the ways even popular art are used for communication and connection, and Mark Rylance's portrayal of the Wonka-esque Halliday makes it all land.

2. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs I wrote about this one over at SportsAlcohol.com. I loved it.

1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One & Two To be quite honest, this would be hard to beat in any event since I got engaged to be married between Part One and Part Two. Luckily, the show was a really special event even beyond that personal association. A surprisingly moving epilogue to the Harry Potter stories (and more satisfying in performance where the performances of the actors makes up for some of the ways the supporting characters seemed more thinly conceived in the script than they did in the books), it was also a dazzling theatrical experience. The variety of tricks employed to bring the wizard world to the stage meant that just as you figured out how they pulled off one big effect you were met with three other nifty flourishes. I dig Rowling's continued noodling around in her wizard world through things like this play and the Fantastic Beasts films (I enjoyed Crimes of Grindelwald) as a way to tell new stories and explore nerdy minutia without undoing the lovely bow of that original series of books. (Side note: Because my pleasure reading time has been so heavily curtailed as I get through this first school year, I'm only about a third in on Lethal White. Really digging it, but don't feel like I can include it on this list properly.)

Top Twenty Things I'm Excited About in 2019

Godzilla: King of the Monsters Never would I have believed that we'd be getting a big-budget American Godzilla film that would prominently feature Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah as the third film in a shared Godzilla/Kong movie universe. Now it is happening, and everything they've released to do with the film (trailers, posters, etc) have looked incredible. Gonna be hard to top this one for excitement this year.

Marvel Cinematic Universe Captain Marvel looks like a lot of fun, I'm sure Spider-Man: Far From Home will be great, and I'm pretty interested in whatever Marvel Studios ends up doing for the Disney+ streaming service, but the main event this year is obviously Avengers: Endgame. Whatever form this big finale for the first decade of MCU stories takes, I cannot wait to see it.

Star Wars As with Marvel, there's plenty to look forward to this year, with The Mandalorian presumably accompanying the debut of Disney+ along with the revival of The Clone Wars, but the biggest deal will of course be Episode IX, the grand finale of the main Star Wars saga and the story of the Skywalkers.

Arrested Development The original run of the series was nearly flawless. The fourth season is, in some ways, even more ambitious and special. And even though the first half of this fifth season was, to my eyes, guilty of some of the baggy, formless storytelling that season four had been accused of (and splitting the season like this meant that the first half felt weirdly unsatisfying), it still had a ton of joke that I really loved and developed the relationship between Michael and his son in a way that I did find satisfying after the fourth season cliffhanger. Excited for more of the show and crossing my fingers that it nails the landing.

Stranger Things III This one drops on my birthday! Setting the story in summer sounds fun to me, and I'm pretty excited to see these characters again after a year off.

The Twilight Zone The original series is a deep foundation of my pop culture world and I even found things to like about the UPN revival in the early 00s, so I'm predisposed to be interested in this. But giving it to Jordan Peele (also so psyched for Us) seems like a masterstroke and the trailer they just released is so perfect (both for the obvious love it displays for the original and the new energy it promises) that it's driven me to distraction. Cannot wait for this.

The Addams Family I was obsessed with The Addams Family back when the two Barry Sonnenfeld films came out in the 90s. I loved the 60s sitcom, the movies, and the animated series (and more recently was bitterly disappointed by the Broadway musical). But most of all I adored the Charles Addams cartoons. This latest animated film has been kicking around in some form of development for a while now (there was a time when it was reported that they were trying to get Tim Burton to give it the stop-motion treatment) and I'm a little apprehensive that it ended up with Illumination Studios. Still, a new animated Addams Family film is a must see.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance This sounds pretty special, and in any case it is exciting to get an ambitious new puppet project from the Henson Company delivered right to my Netflix queue this year.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood & The Irishman A new Tarantino film would be on this list no matter what, so those photos they released a while back were most exciting to just get a look at what he's going for aesthetically. And of course I'm intrigued and excited to hear that Netflix is throwing money at Scorsese to make a crime film starting De Niro, Pacino, Keitel, and Joe Pesci.

The French Dispatch Not sure if this one will actually hit this year or end up seeking out some awards-friendly release next year, but it's a Wes Anderson film about journalism with a predictably great cast. Exciting whenever it comes out.

Knives Out Rian Johnson writing and directing another mystery film with this cast? Let's do this now.

Little Women Lady Bird was sooo good that I'd be pretty into whatever movie Greta Gerwig made next, so the incredible cast she's assembled for this follow up is just icing.

The Righteous Gemstones When Jody Hill and Danny McBride make another HBO show, I'm going to watch it. Make it about a family of televangelists and make John Goodman the patriarch, and I can't wait to watch it.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters Volume 2 The first volume was a surprise highlight of 2017 and it was a bummer to see this follow up slide further and further back on release calendars. Hoping it finally arrives this year, but the original was so wonderful that I'm ready to wait as long as it takes.

Missing Link There are other animated movies I'll be really excited for by the time they come out this year (Toy Story 4 and Frozen 2 will surely be huge events) but I'm probably most excited that Laika is back with a new feature.

Star Trek It looks like, as an attempt to get people like me to actually keep up their CBS All Access subscription outside of the two months they're offering new episodes of Star Trek Discovery (and I am pretty psyched for this second season!) they are planning on keeping us in new Star Trek as often as possible. An animated Trek comedy! A new series about Picard! More of those very cool Short Treks! I'm pretty into seeing what they have in store this year.

Looney Tunes Cartoons After years and years of grousing about Warner Bros' treatment of the Looney Tunes characters (even when they have something that kinda works, like Wabbit or New Looney Tunes, it has felt like they're on the C-list; and no, Space Jam 2 does not make me feel better), I'm intrigued by this series and am anxious to see some footage to see what they're cooking up.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels I loved the original series, I'm a sucker for stories set in America in the 30s, and I like the cast they're lining up, so I'm definitely into this.

Amazing Stories I don't even know if or when I'll get to see this (we already have so many streaming services and if I'm adding another one this year, it'll be Disney+), but I love the idea of a new Amazing Stories and if Spielberg directs an episode or two it'll make this a must watch somehow.

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evildilf2 · 6 years

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maybe you're losing followers because you've become a simpsons blog and it's nothing personal but if we followed you for history then it's a bit confusing and unaesthetic to see a load of simpsons on your dash (also personally for me, and this is probably not true for other people, but i can't get over the big racism scandal that just happened with the simpsons so it's not for me and it makes me uncomfortable)

HOLY CRAP First let me say that the post I made was 100% rhetorical, I don’t care about losing followers bc I really just like posting about what makes me happy! I like cartoons now, and if other people don’t like cartoons they’re free to unfollow me. But I use this blog as an outlet for my hyperfixations, I’m not gonna change for the sake of their personal interests! But since you seem to care deeply about this, I’ll respond anyways!

Fist of all, I’m pretty sure 99% of the people who have followed me for history have unfollowed me by now since that’s what i posted about like... 3 years ago? I still post about it occasionally, but it’s hard to find blogs who produce content frequently regarding my specific historical interests now adays. Assuming that you’re still following me, idk how this input would particulary inform me on why people just happened to unfollow me this morning. But I appreciate your willingness to share your opinions with me!

I also am not a simpsons blog frtghyjkhgf and I haven’t been posting too much about the simpsons if I think about it? not intentionally at least. Ever since I started watching the show I’ve noticed that like... half of all memes stem from either the show or similar humor. It’s pretty interesting how much the show has influenced our humor today if you ask me! My simpsons tag is pretty small in comparison to all the simpsons memes I’ve ever reblogged, and it’s even smaller compared to all the non-simpsons related content I’ve ever posted.

And about the racism scandal I totally get it. The way the show dealt with the criticism was really lame and full of false equivalencies. The only person on staff who seemed to actually care about the issue was Hank Azaria, who actually made a statement on Stephen Colbert’s show after the contraversial episode was released. And although his response seemed pretty genuine, I doubt the producers will make any changes to the series. The show is about to enter its 30th season, so I really think it’d be best to just end it. The newer episodes of the show are no longer relevant in my opinion, and it was best when it was a product of its time.

Which, speaking of history, here is why I find the earlier seasons of the show so fascinating! It’s so neat to try and understand the time period based on the humor and topics discussed. Another cartoon I find interesting is clone high, which although has its own problematic TM instances, it is super dated and tells you a lot about the early 2000′s! Like, there are references in these shows to things that are super irrelevant now, but were pretty important back then? There’s an episode of the simpsons called A Star is Burns about a film festival that takes place in Springfield when a famous critic comes into town. After doing some research, I found out that this was a crossover episode to promote another fox series called The Critic that was getting low ratings! That’s a pretty lame example actually, but its little things such as this that make me really excited about certain topics!

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curriebelle · 6 years

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Critical Role and Queer Perspective

There’s a little Critical Role analysis I’ve been thinking about that probably won’t fit in my thesis, mostly because it’s too narrow in scope. I wanted to talk about it, though, because it’s been one of the most interesting transitions to watch in terms of how the show thinks about its queer characters.

I have no idea where I read the comment, because it was a very long time ago, but I also remember it vividly. A Critter explained that Gilmore’s scenes made them uncomfortable, because Gilmore fell into the trope that “Queer People Are Funny”. That’s the very 90s-sitcom-esque tradition of writing jokes where the punchline is that the character is A Gay. It’s a problem because it makes people not take queerness seriously - being gay is literally a joke. The first time I saw this comment was when the Whitestone Arc was first airing, but I’ve seen it repeated here and there throughout the run.

I don’t think that argument holds true anymore. Critical Role might not be perfect, but its attitude toward queer representation is not only above average, but also constantly improving. The show started with its singular gay character, Gilmore, who first showed up in Episode 14, and by the end of the series we have a non-binary emperor, two queer happily-ever-afters (Larry and Tary, and Kima and Allura), and multiple characters confirming queer sexualities. More importantly, these characters aren’t just token sexual minorities - they’re quite varied and interesting, and have stories that don’t revolve around their queerness, but don’t ignore their queerness either. The cast does make mistakes with these characters sometimes, but they are very eager to correct them when they do.

I think a really good point of contrast is when Scanlan drinks the love potion and falls briefly in love with Percy near the end of the campaign. That entire scene is utterly hilarious, but it’s no longer made hilarious by relying on the Queer People are Funny trope. It’s hilarious because Scanlan is over the top in his declarations (”your eyebrows...I want to lick them”), because Percy is constantly miffed that Vox Machina is shocked that someone finds him attractive, and because Vex is trying to manage the whole thing and failing not to threaten Scanlan’s life.

This is obviously a matter of opinion, but while the argument that Critical Role uses the Queer People Are Funny trope doesn’t hold true now, back when Episode 14 first aired it sort of was true. For future context, if you didn’t know, I’m queer myself and this episode didn’t bother me at all at the time. Still, I could certainly see how it would put other people off, and it does make me a little uncomfortable in hindsight.

In Episode 14 there are two big moments where the show wrings a joke out of people being queer. The first one is Gilmore’s introduction. The party prepares Vax to flirt with Gilmore for discounts, and they erupt into giggles when Gilmore comes swishing in, and any time Vax initiates flirtation or contact there’s more laughter. I think it’s important to compare this scenes with Vax’s first love scenes with Keyleth in Whitestone - which were notoriously awkward - because it becomes pretty clear after doing that that Vax flirting with Gilmore was A Joke. I don’t think it was meant to be mean-spirited - the players loved Gilmore and the fans did too, pretty much instantly - but there was something giggle-inducing about Matt and Liam trying to out-flirt each other.

The far more uncomfortable moment in Episode 14 is when Kima and Allura reunite. Matt describes them hugging and talking, and Orion - whose character Tiberius has a crush on Allura - starts grumbling that it’s “the story of his life”, implying that Kima and Allura are either together or interested in each other. This one is less “queer people are funny” and more “Orion gets weirdly pissed at his dungeon master for implying a women is attracted to another woman instead of him.” Matt’s initial reaction was to claim the two were ‘just good friends’. Orion’s reaction felt bizarrely possessive and objectifying - like he was upset that the character he’d ‘called dibs’ on, Allura, had the gall to flirt with someone else in front of him. Matt’s denial doesn’t strike me as a bad thing - he was more defending himself from Orion saying “Seriously, Matthew?” - but regardless, he eventually changed his mind on what kind of ‘good friends’ they were.

So we’ve got two early scenes that fall loosely into poor representations of queer characters - one turning gay men into jokes, and one objectifying queer women. In my mind these are more bruises than deep cuts, mistakes that make some people uncomfortable and that are worth pointing out, but that don’t condemn the creators or the show as hateful. It’s worth pointing out that the show does have queer players on it (at least one, possibly more), who didn’t find the scenes disturbing either. The most interesting thing about these moments, though, is how they triggered plotlines that continued throughout Critical Role - plotlines that actually transformed the show’s representation in a really neat way.

Let’s back up a moment. CritRoleStats has previously pointed out that Critical Role now comprises more content than The Simpsons. We’ve spent a lot of time with Vox Machina and their allies; as much time as The Simpsons has spent as an icon of popular culture. In fact, it’s pretty much only sitcoms that can rival Critical Role in terms of sheer runtime and content, but their formulas for churning out this content are very different. Sitcoms are purposefully written so that each episode starts with the status quo being disrupted and ends with the status quo being somewhat restored by the end, with a few lessons learned along the way. Think about i:; nearly forty years later, none of the Simpsons have aged a day. Other long-running shows (like Law and Order or Star Trek) can wring years and years of programming out of single-episode stories, each one forming their own unique adventure. Sometimes the characters grow between seasons a little, and some are killed off or leave the show, but the characters largely remain consistent so their adventures can continue in perpetuity.

Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, by their very design, have to progress. Characters gain experience, learn more about the world, explore it, make new friends, and develop relationships. Change is anathema to sitcoms, but integral to tabletop gameplay.

And alongside the players’ concerted efforts to get better at queer representation, I think this sense of progression was what changed how Critical Role thought about queer characters. The other key factor was that the players are both the writers and actors for their PCs. They know their motivations intimately, and they write their lines on the spot from what they feel like their character would do. And there is only so long that you can inhabit a character before you have to stop taking them as a joke.

I think the moment that drives this home hardest for me is still Vax ‘breaking up’ with Gilmore in Episode 38. He takes Gilmore aside in a tavern, says he’s enjoyed the flirting and that he’s ‘been curious’, but he can’t take it further because he’s in love with someone else. Gilmore is hurt, but gracious, and leaves the tavern. A brief pall hangs over the group after that, until the game moves on and the pain fades a little. Gilmore remained funny, and charming, and bombastic, and flashy, and lovable, but that was a moment he utterly stopped being a joke. His infatuation with Vax, or his love, or whatever you want to call it, was not funny anymore. It was heartbreaking in the way that only love can be, queer or otherwise. As painful as the scene was, it was a huge step in everyone’s ability to understand how to play queer characters. Vax was devastated that he had to break Gilmore’s heart, and Liam still identifies Vax’s biggest regret as “causing Gilmore any pain.” Moreover, Liam was more open and enthusiastic about Vax’s bisexuality as the campaign went on after that scene.

And after that scene, Gilmore disappears in the dragon attack. The group rescues him, and Matt reveals that he nearly died trying to save Uriel’s children. In the Chroma Conclave arc we learn he crafts his own spells, seen when he kills the assassin during the Rakshasa attack and when he helps create the Whitestone barrier. The party meets his parents in Ank’Harel, and learns he changed his name to help his business succeed. We learn during the fight with Thordak that he’s a runechild sorcerer, one of Matt’s homebrew classes. It was like something had snapped, and Gilmore suddenly unfolded into three full dimensions of characterization. Of course, the storyline had gotten more dark in general, but some characters - think Viktor or the mapmaker - remained jokes, no matter how dire their situations were. Not so with Gilmore. The events of the campaign, and the party’s investment in Gilmore’s well-being and their constant instinct to seek his advice or his help, allowed Matt to play him more and to get to know him better. We saw how he reacted to tragedy and pressure and the destruction of his livelihood. He became perhaps the most beloved and fleshed-out of all Matt’s NPCs, to the point where he - along with Cass and Kaylie - was Vecna’s chosen sacrifice to hurt Vox Machina the most.

Coincidentally, Kima went through the exact inverse of this development. In the Underdark, she rebuffed Grog and Scanlan’s advances (both of them hit on her quite a bit) and seemed much happier to be reunited with Allura. The joke that Kima and Allura were a thing began to seem, over time, like much less of a joke. Fans (bless Charlotte Sandmael, for one) helped persuade Matt into getting on that ship. At the same time, though, Matt wouldn’t have gotten them together for kicks or just to please shippers. Instead, he let Kima and Allura develop through the story of the Conclave’s return. The dragons from their past brought them back together again. We saw snippets of their guilt and panic and mutual support, and even of their relationship in less hectic times (”you didn’t have to wear the dress, Kima, it was just a suggestion-”). The storyline would likely have fleshed out Kima regardless, due to her history with the Conclave, but in getting to know both Kima and Allura better, I think Matt eventually saw what the fans were seeing, and he realized that the pair of them falling in love wasn’t really a joke after all.

So, Gilmore started as a beloved if somewhat stereotypical queer cameo, and he evolved into a well-rounded and absolutely adored queer character; and two characters that likely would have been well-rounded regardless naturally developed a queer relationship out of their storylines. I think that happened because Matt is, by all evidence, an extremely empathetic person, and as a dungeon master he strives to understand all the characters he creates inside and out. Look at how well he understands Sylas and Delilah’s relationship: they’re sympathetic and understandable, despite the fact that they’re also despicable. He gets deep, deep inside their heads. And when you get that deep inside the head of someone who is openly queer, you learn to write and play them in a wonderfully rich way; and when you get that deep inside the head of someone whose orientation you don’t know, you might find out that queerness is a part of their personality.

Which brings me, finally, to Tary. I think Tary is just about the pinnacle of this development arc across the story. Up until Tary, the only player character who had a really in-depth queer storyline to explore was Vax, which almost accidentally emerged from him treating Gilmore as a flirtatious comedic bit and then realizing, through roleplay, how strong and conflicted his feelings were. Interesting in its own right, but also more or less concluded as a storyline by Episode 57. By the time Tary shows up in Episode 85, though, Kima and Allura are together, Gilmore’s super well-explored as a character, and the non-binary J’mon has been introduced. Most of the other characters were sort of locked into female-male relationships at this point (or into Epic Single-ness, in the case of Grog Strongjaw), and regardless of their identities (bisexual Vex and Panlan Scanlan) they didn’t get as much time to explore the stories of their orientation as Vax did. So when Scanlan left and Sam had an opportunity to explore a new character, he ended up with Taryon Darrington, who was later established as gay.

The most excellent thing about Tary, besides literally everything else about Tary, is that I still don’t know if Sam knew he was gay from the beginning or if he figured it out along the way. I can’t remember what Sam has said about this, and in a way it almost doesn’t matter. Tary only had about fifteen episodes to explore who he was, and in that time he had a really compelling and honest series of fears and revelations about his sexuality. To me, Tary is pretty much the pinnacle of all the hard work Critical Role has done to try and understand and play queer characters more sensitively. As a character, Tary is far more than his queerness, but he also has chances to explore that queerness in a very real way - and he even gets a happy ending!

And yeah, some things about Tary were a joke - even some things about Gilmore and Kima and Allura are still jokes - but the other thing about love is that, along with being heartbreaking, it can be pretty hilarious. Kima gets grumpy about how perfect Allura’s hair is in the morning. Tary morosely dubs his lost love affair “Larry and Tary”. Gilmore teleports into a hallway where Vax is (for some reason) naked, and cheerfully asks if it’s his birthday.

I think the reason I’ve been so proud to watch all this development is that it doesn’t just explode that Queer People Are Funny joke from the inside, it actually fixes one of the most difficult things about it. Because queer people want representation that doesn’t make a joke out of their identities, it can sometimes be hard to write funny or happy stories about being queer, and that’s part of why we end up with endless numbers of queer tragedies. And that sucks, because queer characters seriously lack for happy endings. They don’t even get to have fun, in some universes.

But being queer is fun. It’s fun and it’s funny. I loved the part where Kima was complaining to Allura about her dress. My first girlfriend was a wonderfully creative seamstress, and she and I used to cosplay together, so - let’s just say it brought back some nice memories. Critical Role remedied the problems that the Queer People are Funny trope created almost as a direct result of its format - as a result of spending so much time trying to understand those characters. Queer characters can be funny again, and they can be tragic, and they can be well-rounded and human. I think there’s a magnificent capacity for greater understanding here. It makes me very, very excited for the next campaign. If they came this far in round one, I really hope round two nets us a queer player character or three, and I can’t wait to meet them.

#critical role #critical role thesis #well it's more or less on that same road but #cut from the Final Product #for space #y'know

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