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clumsy-hood · 3 years

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obey me! demon brothers + love languages (giving vs receiving)

prompt: how the demon brothers like to show and receive love

word count: 2,633

a/n: another late night attempt i wrote the night before and found in my notes. i really do appreciate feedback if anyone wants to shoot me a message. obey me, the ikemen otome games, and playchoices have really kept me nice and distracted during the pandemic so if anyone even wants to chat about any of those topics, i have thoughts and would like to hear yours. do this for a broke, bored bitch.

Lucifer

giving: quality time

There is no denying that the Avatar of Pride has a fairly hectic daily schedule—excluding his brothers’ shenanigans, that is still putting it mildly—so it seems best fit he best shows his love for you by simply spending time alone together. No matter if it’s a dinner date at Ristorante Six or spending the night together in his room listening to music, that time is strictly dedicated to you and no one else. You have Lucifer’s undivided attention—unless his brothers nearly destroy the house, then that is an entirely different story. One-on-one time with him may not always be as common as you’d like, but he sure as hell will put in the effort—so much so that if you’ve had scheduled plans for quite some time (ones he can’t afford to miss), he will rush every meeting, speed through paperwork, and all-in-all practically sprint to make it to you on time.

receiving: acts of service

As much as he’ll go the extra mile to spend so much as a brief moment with you, the way to his heart is doing the little things to make life just a little more bearable for him. Mammon’s plotting to cheat some local low-tier demons? You’re there to redirect his plans to something less potentially chaotic. Lucifer forgot he had to make dinner for the house that night? You’re already on it so long as he helps with cleanup later. Beel ate someone’s food? You’ve already diffused the situation and now the brothers are heading on a snack run. At first, Lucifer was somewhat convinced you were trying to win his brothers’ favors until he realized every little deed or chore completed was to benefit him. Absolutely no ulterior motives planned! It wasn’t until you’d caught him half-asleep and hunched over the desk in his study and offered him a mug of hot tea did he realize how warm and cared for you truly made him feel. The poor guy just isn’t used to be loved and doted on.

Mammon

giving: giving gifts

As greedy as he is to spend time with you, Mammon is convinced the best way to show you how much he truly cares for you is to give you anything and everything he can. You are the only person he can never bring himself to steal from—that’s just how special you are to him. In fact, you’re so important to him that every gift—no matter how big or small—given from him was purchased, won, or even made in the most honest ways possible. He sees you eyeballing a toy at a carnival? He’ll spend whatever money his broke ass has left just to win it for you. If you so much as mention in passing that you like a certain jacket, that boy will wait tables at Hell’s Kitchen for however long it takes to buy you what he thinks you deserve. You mean so much to him—a price that can never be paid, it doesn’t even exist—and even though you’re not nearly as materialistic as he tends to be, if he can’t afford to give you the world to see you smile, then he’ll damn well try to earn it some way or another.

receiving: words of affirmation

Let’s face it, poor Mammon is often the brunt of jokes and insults from his brothers and the occasional low-tier demons, and your small words of kindness leave him a blushing, bumbling mess as he’d be quick to agree and accept your praise. Even if you complimented his hair or told him he had a cute smile in passing, it was as though someone lit sparklers in his chest and he couldn’t help how damn giddy he was. If the Avatar of Greed had a good idea, you were quick to agree and praise him—even defending his choices to his brothers whenever they dismissed or outright ignored him. The sound of your voice had become his favorite thing as though it could be the soundtrack of his day. Though, as much as he enjoyed your compliments and affirmations, you just listening to him vent or complain or even telling you about his day made him feel more heard than he had been for the longest time. And something about that was exciting and confusing all at once, but he knew he never wanted it to end.

Levi

giving: quality time

The Avatar of Envy himself has mentioned that his type is someone he can spend time with—even if that means you both are doing completely different things. So long as you’re in the room with him, he feels completely at ease. It’s honestly one of the best ways he knows how to show how much he trusts you, simply by inviting you into his room and having you make yourself at home there. If you’re trying to read a book, he’ll offer a seat in his room to keep you nearby while he plays his newest game. And Levi loves inviting you to his room for movie nights or binge-watch whatever anime he’s sure you’re going to absolutely love and will keep peeking over at you to gauge your reaction or will occasionally pause it to explain certain plot points. The ultimate show of his affection? The second he invites you to play a video game together—no matter if it’s an RPG, story-driven, or an all-out battle raid—you know you’ve unlocked some type of high-tier level of trust with him and he never wants you to leave.

receiving: receiving gifts

No matter how often you’d try to reassure Levi you cared for him and didn’t consider him a yucky otaku, your words never seemed to suffice. After plenty of trial and error to show you care, it was after you unknowingly purchased rare Ruri-Chan memorabilia as a gift for him did you realize how he best accepts love. Of course, everything you’d get him anything—even the smallest, most seemingly insignificant thing—he’d become a beet-red, stuttering mess spitting nothing but praise and adoration towards you. Because it means you listened to all the things he loves and went out of your way to show it. No matter if it was preordering a game he had mentioned wanting to play or even picking up a spare treat for him while you were out shopping, he always appreciated knowing you could be out there alone and still thinking of him.

Satan

giving: words of affirmation

Everything the Avatar of Wrath says and does seem to be polished and refined, almost as though he has rehearsed several interactions that may happen to keep his rage at bay. Though, he is quick to realize it is slightly different to do around you. It isn’t that words are difficult for him but expressing them isn’t so much in average verbal praise as it is in written form. Out of all the brothers, he is the most likely to offer books with little notes of paper written inside for you to read, often comparing your relationship to those of fictional characters he has found. I mean, he’s even made you an entire picture book with his own created story starring the two of you just to show how much you truly mean to him. There would never be any doubt how much you truly mean to him, but when speaking those words aloud may come across as more aggressive than intended, it’s the written word where he truly shines in sharing his feeling towards you.

receiving: quality time

As much as he enjoys telling you—or rather, writing to you—how much you mean to him, he has a harder time simply accepting your words for what they are and claims he is not easily swayed with words as his brothers are. Instead, the best way Satan responded to your love and affection was simply from your mere presence. Whether your head rested in his lap while he read his book in his room or the two of you tested different Devildom and human recipes in the kitchen, your general being in the vicinity of him was enough to leave him feeling warm inside. After a suggestion from you, you both would even schedule time aside to take a stroll around RAD and Devildom, just a little adventure here and there where you’d try new restaurants or even pet the random cats you’d find. The demon had a way of coming and going as he’d please—often making acquaintances with those he’d meet—but you were always the one he looked forward to spending time with the most. He could hardly wait for whatever little adventure you’d experience together next.

Asmo

giving: physical touches

Given that he is the Avatar of Lust, it wouldn’t come across as too much of a surprise that Asmo shows his love and affection through physical touch quite often—so long as you’re comfortable with it, that is. Even though he’d regularly praise you with words, he’d much rather feel your hand pressed to his own or nonchalantly toy with your fingers while you relaxed with one another. If he thought your skin could use a little help, he’d offer hands-on assistance applying his regular regimen to your skin. He has such a gentle touch, if he saw you struggling with your hair in any way—tangles or just struggling to style it?—he’d be quick to offer help and would miraculously make it as painless as possible. And of course, he’d practically shower you in kisses—on your wrist, your lips, your cheeks, your forehead, your tummy, your fingertips, your ear, your neck, your nose, etc. If he could every inch of you with his love—in a less lewd way—he would in a heartbeat.

receiving: words of affirmation

While he’d love you reciprocating his physical love with touches of your own, there is nothing Asmo seems to truly desire from you more than the validation of him, his beauty, and your love for him. You knew the demon was well familiar with past lovers singing praises of his beauty and sexuality, but you had no idea just how much he sought your validation until he’d confessed how much your thoughts of him mattered. It would become a habit to wake up to him tangled beside you, whispering an ‘I love you’, and to be greeted with a gentle kiss. If he was ever overwhelmed or concerned with his overall image, you were quick to cease those worries with reminders about how beautiful he was and what a lovely heart he had as well. The moments you had admitted you loved his soft nature and gentle touch and warm embrace left an odd fluttering feeling in his chest. He knew he loved you, but it seemed he had no idea how much until you’d tell him those three words and gave him your undivided attention.

Beel

giving: acts of service

Honestly, Beel was never sure the best way of showing his love for you—he was always worried he’d say the wrong thing or that his hunger would get the best of him. He knew he cared for you and never wanted to cross any boundaries so he figured he’d do little things here and there just to see you smile. If he was excited to try new foods, he’d always get extra just for you. He wasn’t always the best with cooking, but if you mentioned you were homesick for the human world, then he’d ask Barbatos or Luke to help him make human food for you—and some for him to sample. If the Devildom weather left you feeling chillier than usual, he’d offer his jacket—although it was so massive on you, it practically pooled at your feet once he draped it over your shoulders. If you had passed out in the library, Beel wouldn’t hesitate to offer carrying you back to your dorm—or his, per your request. And if he found out you skipped a meal, I swear to Diavolo you are the only one he would ever share snacks with without a second thought. He just wanted you happy, healthy, and in Devildom with him and his brothers.

receiving: quality time

For all the little things he enjoys doing for you, spending quality time with the Avatar of Gluttony is the best way to his heart—aside from food, that is. Offering to go out with him to Hell’s Kitchen for lunch or inviting him in the kitchen while you make cheeseburgers are the simplest ways to see him grinning wide. Even movie marathons in your room were a treat for him—and not just because he’d have brought a tub of popcorn—but it was an excuse to have you pressed against him and he loved that a little more than the bucket of buttery goodness in his lap. It could be a challenge at times with how packed both your schedules could be—especially if he had several back-to-back Fangol games—but you did your best to make it work. In between classes, you’d meet up and make time for little conversation, offering him a snack if you had anything on you, before going on with your day. If he needed a spotter or someone to record him working out? You were there in a heartbeat. It seemed like a lot of work sometimes to find moments alone together with everyone else around, but he was worth it. Beel would always be worth it.

Belphie

giving: quality time

Belphie was never sure the best way to show you how much you meant to him; after all, he was the Avatar of Sloth so he wasn’t as accustomed to offering gifts or doing your chores around the house. But he found the most successful way was to simply spend time with you whenever he could. His brothers often vied for your attention, so if it meant carrying you on his shoulder to take you to the attic room for some one-on-one time then so be it. He did everything he could to stay awake so he could listen to you talk about your day, often nuzzling into your neck and pressing lazy kisses with a sleepy grin. He even tried to make it to more council meetings and RAD classes just so he had an excuse to spend time with you immediately afterward. His absolutely favorite moments would be any time he’d wake up before you or the ones where you’d like curled up against him because he knew he trusted you well enough to sleep on you, but a warm, fuzzy feeling enveloped him wholly, realizing you trusted him enough to do the same.

receiving: physical touches

Similar to his brothers, Belphie could be more than a little greedy for your time and attention—especially any sign of affection—but the best way to show any love was best translated through gentle touches. If you played with his hair and caressed his cheek during a cuddle session, that boy would let out the softest sigh and doze off quickly to sleep. He wouldn’t ever openly admit it out loud but loved the feel of your hand wrapped in his or the way your legs would get all tangled together whenever you were sleeping at night. And your hugs would honestly make his day. If Lucifer was starting to get to him, you’d swoop in with a comforting hug while his heart was practically pounding right out of his chest. Maybe Beel ate the food he was saving? You were quick to salvage his mood with a kiss to the cheek and a squeeze to his arm. He never understood how you could be such a lifeline for him, but somehow a simple touch from you kept him tethered to the rest of the world and left him enjoying being awake.

#obey me #obey me!#obey me headcanons #obey me hc #obey me! shall we date?#obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me levi #obey me satan #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me sfw #obey me drabble #obey me imagine #obey me blurb #clumsy-hood #my writing #commission open

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fischotterkunst · 4 years

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Fischy’s Fave Feel-Good Films

hey guys, i’m willing to bet a lot of us are in the same boat here where we’re watched every Ghibli and Disney movie we can get our hands on and by now we’re running out of ideas on what feel-good films to watch, and all the buzzfeed lists are basically the same 10-20 movies, amirite? so i compiled a list of some of my favorite feel-good films to share - maybe you haven’t heard of them, or maybe they’re old favorites you might not have seen in a while. either way, please enjoy! i’ll add to this list as i think of more!

Romances (some with a bit of angst but all with a happy ending):

Practical Magic - Two sisters, both witches, accidentally murder one of the sisters’ abusive boyfriend in self defense. Instead of confessing, they simply raise him from the dead, and naturally this makes things MUCH worse. While there is a good handful of romance, the main focus of this film is the love between the two sisters and the rest of their family.

But I’m a Cheerleader - Teenagers put in a gay ‘reform’ camp by their parents use their time together to explore their identities and form bonds. This film artfully parodies the absurdity of the prejudices our unaccepting society puts on the queer community and will probably hit close to home for queer kids who grew up with unaccepting families, but the ending is heartfelt and healing.

The Shape of Water - Definitely a dark romance - be warned that there are some jarring and violent scenes here (including hand trauma and animal death), but these are far outweighed by the touching romance between a very unlikely couple.

Pride and Prejudice (2005) - An absolute classic slowburn Georgian-era romance featuring Kiera Knightly as the heroine. What more could you want?

Music on your mind:

Burlesque - If you don’t really care if the plot is bland but do care about talented and gorgeous women performing exotic dance, check this one out 👀

Chicago - A self-serving, ambitious young woman tries to get out of a murder charge, using her time in the spotlight to chase her dream of becoming a superstar.

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (1997) - A refreshing and visually stunning take on the classic story, and yes the songs are all different from the ones in the Disney version.

For All Ages:

The Point - Animated in a conceptual style rather than the representational style of most modern films makes it unique enough, but then add the philosophical plot about a unique little boy struggling to fit into a society where everyone else is the same - a simple enough concept for children while adults are left to ponder further (as well as whether this is really a “kid’s” film).

Matilda - A little girl with an incredible mind finds hope and love despite her not-so-loving family. Tosses the notion of ‘you have to love your family just because they’re your family’ out the window and brings in encouraging themes of finding your own way and your own happiness.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - An incredibly silly movie animated by the same studio who created Into the Spider-verse. The

Sonic - I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out: if I recommended a film about an orphaned alien teenager trying to find a family to call his own, you might actually give it a shot, right? I was actually really surprised by how touching and funny this film turned out to be.

The Iron Giant - One of the films you’ve probably seen but is definitely worth revisiting. If you’re not familiar, this is a really emotional film about a little boy and the giant alien robot he befriends and tries to protect from authorities.

The Road to El Dorado - Another well-known film worth revisiting. Two friends seeking treasure actually manage to stumble upon a legendary city where they are treated as gods, but being immortalized isn’t exactly what they dreamed of.

Megamind - Local supervillain regrets defeating his arch-rival and creates a new one, only to realize maybe his destiny wasn’t written in stone after all.

A little lighthearted drama (action/comedy):

Galaxy Quest - Probably the most elaborate and brilliant parody ever. The cast of a Star Trek-esque sci fi show are mistaken by actual aliens to be actual heroes and are caught up in an interplanetary war. Pokes lighthearted fun at all the corniest sci fi tropes. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman head a fantastic cast.

Charlie’s Angels - Also known as ‘the movie that made me like girls’. Lucy Liu, Drew Barrymore, and Cameron Diaz are all absolutely stunning ladies and their characters perform delightful parodies and subversions of typical sexist tropes.

Bumblebee - Not all dissimilar to The Iron Giant, only the human protagonist is a teenage girl and there’s a lot more giant robot fight scenes. Also John Cena is one of the antagonists (though not a ‘bad’ guy per se!)

Miss Congeniality - Another film that made me gay, following the misadventures of a less-than-refined special agent going undercover in the Miss America beauty pageant.

#feel good films #river babbles

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slothcritic · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 5 Review

Weird yet creative cutaways with strong overarching momentum.

Vegeta: Kills Bugs Dead opens with Goku finally reaching the end of Snake Way and the end of his journey to reach King Kai. The "nice job, jackass" as Goku literally craters into the planet sets the tone for this character in a big way. We're also treated to the incredible hijinks of Vegeta and Nappa.

[Title Sequence]

The pit-stop at Arlia at least receives a well-fitted and rather hilarious incarnation in this series. Even though the episode alternates its focus between King Kai and Arlia, I'm going to talk at length about Arlia first, and then move onto the King Kai segments.

I'm already going into this scene with some personal bias, as the "stronger guy playing along with the weaker guy because it'd be funny" trope is one of my favorites. And here we have exactly this. Vegeta and Nappa allow themselves to be captured and thrown in jail by the Arlians, where they meet an assortment of varied bug characters.

"Don't drop the soap" seems a little outdated for the modern style of TFS, as I feel they've leaned away from really older, cruder, less PC subject matters like calling someone retarded or insinuating prison rape, etc, but it fits Nappa's character completely as someone who is childish, crass, annoying for the sake of being annoying, and kind of a jerk. TFS has at least acknowledged the idea of possibly re-dubbing Season 1 with better equipment and perhaps a more refined script, and I dearly hope they keep this line unedited simply for the sake of nailing Nappa’s character identity.

After very nearly becoming a prison bitch, Vegeta decides he's had enough and promptly kabooms his way out of prison, landing smack-dab in the middle of a coliseum with the king of Arlia and his queen.

Nappa's blunt manner of introducing himself with simply "Hi." will never age.

It’s noteworthy that scene is also the first moment we get a good look at Vegeta as a character. Nappa was firmly established as the goofball from the start, but Vegeta's portrayal has more depth to it than could be conveyed in one-liners. Most of which is just sass, smug pride, and anger, but still.

It's also made clear very quickly that despite their bantering idiocy and gruff talk that they're not just for show, as Nappa no-diff's the thirteen elite Arlian guards with a massive shock wave that we later see level a city.

The king and queen are then more or less blackmailed into fucking. Nappa's eager fascination during this whole scene, the descriptions, visual edits and sound design are... Well, there's no other way to put it, it's fucked up. And it is hilarious! These are some very creative takes and decisions that were made entirely for internal experience of the show itself rather than as a parody of something else. Nappa even takes a photograph of it and sends it to Vegeta, since he's abstained from watching.

The comedic jabs don't stop there either, as Nappa tries to adopt the Arlian Rancor, but just like the kid who can't sit still, Nappa ends up breaking everything he plays with. Just as Vegeta is about to kill the king, rocks begin flying around the coliseum.

"What are you doing?"

Vegeta smirks. "I'm about to rock you, like a hurricane." And then boom, he hurls a rock into the king and kills him. Let's put a pin in that brick joke for later.

The long flashback scene doesn't play any music, which feels like a weird editing misstep after a series of home runs. They leave the planet as heroes, and Nappa sets Vegeta up for another predictable bit of mood whiplash, where Vegeta obliterates the entire planet. This is a huge escalation in power scale compared to everything else we have seen thus far. But then, this is Dragon Ball Z. We've already reached “destroying planets” at only the fifth episode, and everyone knows that it only goes well past 11 on the dial from here on out.

Granted, there is controversy in the official version about whether or not this would’ve been possible for Saiyan Saga Vegeta, considering Arlia is not canon, but I will not be considering that simply because DBZA contains no filler. Everything shown in the flagship series (not counting movies, DBZA Kai, or other shorts) is presented as being canon to DBZA. Also, Vegeta and Nappa are shown standing outside of their pods... in the vacuum of space. Series veterans will understand the massive can of worms this opens. I'm looking at you, Battle of Gods.

Once everyone, including the people that they JUST SAVED from a tyrannical king, have been reduced to space dust, Nappa closes off this scene nicely.

Now that we've discussed Arlia, let's focus on King Kai's role in the episode.

He explains to Goku that the planet has high gravity due to it's small size. Gregory from off-screen pipes up that this doesn't make any sense. I suppose "higher planet density" wasn't considered when writing the script - or perhaps it was, and they just decided that the easy answer wasn't the funniest one. Maybe “there’s an incredibly powerful pirate trapped in the core of the planet, which is why the gravity is so strong" was deemed better for a parody.

Honestly, I agree. Bojack works as an in-the-know reference, and is also fleshed out enough within the show that a newcomer would understand what's being discussed.

At the time of this review, the Bojack Abridged movie has not yet been released, but this is easily one of the longest brick jokes in all of DBZA, since Episode 5 was released in 2008 and it is my expectation that Bojack Abridged will be released within the year, leaving in its wake an 11 year old callback.

When King Kai asks Goku why he had been sought out, Goku explains that the Saiyans are coming to Earth and he requires training. Excellent fade-in and musical choice for Goku's uncharacteristically serious speech to King Kai.

Of course, it gets cut off at the peak swell with King Kai's indifferent "sure", leaving Goku gobsmacked.

In this series, King Kai's indifference and easy acceptance of Goku is attributed to the mind-numbing loneliness of only having a monkey and a grasshopper (cricket, sorry) to talk to for the last 500 years. Goku agrees, as he couldn't imagine anything more boring.

Major flash-forward to Namek. Just this scene being here at all is a major instance of a sequence break. But it is the introduction of another exceptionally interesting character in the series.

In terms of placement, this works as a long-term cutaway gag and reminiscent humor but not much else. We're still about half a season away from even considering Namek within the story, and the Saiyans haven't even arrived on Earth yet. The decision to slide this segment into the middle of this episode leaves some serious questions in my mind. But at face value, it's not that bad.

We're treated to a solid ten seconds of just staring at a massive fat green alien while birds chirp in the background. We hear a fish go "plonk!" in the water, and Lord Guru calls for someone named Nail, who looks a lot like Piccolo, to approach him.

"I saw a fish. That was all, you can go back outside now."

Definitely reinforces the point of boring. And while Nail is lamenting how boring his job is, Lord Guru tells him that he saw a bird and then promptly instructs him to "kick its ass."

But we’re not Nail, are we? We’re the viewer, and for some reason in the human mind, segments of extremely boring content usually pique our interest even more, because we have it drilled into our psyche that something is going to happen to break the tension sooner or later. That notion, the idea of slowly leaning closer to the monitor during the ten long seconds of a single still image, both conveys the boring tone of Namek, but also leaves the reader waiting in anticipation long enough for these dull scenes to just fade from their perspective and only latch onto the climatic moment. In this case, Guru commanding his apparent servant/bodyguard to assault a fish.

Not to overstate the obvious, but if it’s not the viewer’s own sense of tension and curiosity, it’s the pure absurdism and characterization of Guru that carries this scene. Disregarding source material, the design of Guru is meant to make him look old, wise and compassionate. Making him a lazy, annoying, verbally violent fatass is a near-infinite cash cow of writing material. It’s very difficult for me to judge this scene unbiased, knowing what comes next, but I imagine this would be a tryhard non-sequitur at worst, or promising potential for the future at best, with regards to this scene on its own, within the context of this episode and nothing more.

This episode also saw the genesis of perhaps not the first, but one of the most popular jokes in all of DBZA: Piccolo just jobbing the shit out of Gohan. DODGE! The scenes chosen and the delivery are outstanding compliments to this cheesy, simplistic joke. At this point I feel it's important to address that my editorial reflections or descriptions of these skits are relative to the context of these episodes. Even with the best of what this episode has to offer, we're still in peak 2008 internet humor era. The use of the word "outstanding" here will not carry a similar significance should I use it to describe a later episode.

Also the most random cutaway in all of DBZA, full-stop, is the brief look into the Hall of Justice, as Superman, Batman and Aquaman debate how they will stop the approaching Saiyans. This is humorous only in its absurdity, but less-endearingly than Guru was. Even if this scene makes zero sense, and relies upon an almost lower form of comedy than slapstick, Aquaman's voice is still just Krillin's voice. At least Superman and Batman sound different than the main cast. I'm really tempted to dislike this more, but the lackadaisical attitude and context of the whole scene definitely draws your eye more than a lot of the sensible but base-line plot progression of the story. I don't know if it belongs. To me, this scene just screams out that TFS is flinging spaghetti wildly at the wall, any and everything that might be funny, and while some of it sticks for one reason or another, (Jadoshin as Solid Snake, Antics on Arlia, even Guru's abrupt cameo) some of it flops. If anything, this show builds upon the corpses of its failures, and learns what works and what doesn't work surprisingly quickly.

Conclusion

Bizarre, but I liked it. Nothing in this episode that's bad is memorable. I might criticize the Namek cutaway for being out of place, but after letting this review sit for a few days, I just remember Goku saying "Man, nothing could be more boring than that!" and the immediate cut to Namek, and Nail pleading for the love of his sanity for something to happen. I might criticize the Justice League cutaway for being wildly out of the place, but I just remember "WHAAAAAALES!"

The meat of the episode was also decent, as it establishes Goku training under King Kai, and Piccolo's continued training of Gohan, the origin of DODGE! and the realization that Gohan can transform into an Ozaru. And you can nod your head and say that these may be necessary to the story all day, but they're also presented with... let's call it a clumsy grace. It's not bad, but it's miles away from official dub quality. This is in essence what the benchmark or gold standard was for early abridging back in 2008. The quality that TFS will continue to evolve the series into simply defies all logic or explanation, and in comparison makes these episodes look downright crude.

But let's face it, if Episode 1 began with a person lying on the ground and shot in both kneecaps, Episode 5 shows that same person at least hobbling down the street to the hospital.

It might not look pretty on the whole, and some of the dialogue might be clunky, but it seems like a lot of the flaws in this episode are simply caused by being products of their time.

Whether we're looking at Namek or The Hall of Justice, even the most outlandish oddities of this episode have still made me laugh. That's really the end of it.

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"I hope something exciting happens around here soon. I don't care what it is." - Ominous!

"You're surrounded by my thirteen elite *KABOOM* ...dead guards."

"SUMMON THE RANCOR!"

#slothcritic #DBZ #Dragon Ball Z Abridged #TFS #teamfourstar

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rebelsofshield · 5 years

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Star Wars Dooku: Jedi Lost- Review

The radio drama is as essential a part to Star Wars history as the novel, the comic, or even the movie. The early 1980’s saw the original trilogy bring Star Wars to the airwaves and today Del Rey and Lucasfilm continue that tradition with a new audio drama by Cavan Scott, Dooku: Jedi Lost, following the early days of the infamous Sith Lord. Unfortunately, while a nice experiment and an interesting new way to explore the Star Wars galaxy, Dooku: Jedi Lost proves to be a flawed and frustrating product.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

Mystery surrounds the new master of Asajj Ventress (Orlagh Cassady). Rescued from the fighting rings of Rattatak, the former Jedi Apprentice finds herself thrust into the dark and strange world of the Count of Serenno, Dooku (Euan Morton). His instruction is cruel and impersonal, and his motives are just as ethereal. However, when Dooku sends his new assassin to track down a missing member of his courtly family, Ventress begins to uncover secrets about his past with the Jedi Order and how he became the deadly man he is today.

Count Dooku has always been a bit of an enigma. Despite being the central villain to Attack of the Clones, his motivations and past are always kept at arms-length and he doesn’t even appear in the film until well over ninety minutes into its runtime. His hints of his past with the Jedi are spoken of in character asides and Christopher Lee’s performance casts a wide shadow, but the live action Dooku enters the screen with an air of mystery and confusion before quickly exiting in the opening moments of Revenge of the Sith. Since 2005 we have seen Dooku evolve into an intimidating (sleepwear rocking) villain in The Clone Wars animated series and his expansive connection to the larger Jedi Order has grown through glimpses in various novels and comics, including this year’s great Master and Apprentice. A story following Dooku’s early years as a Jedi and his eventual abandoning of the order is an intriguing subject matter and tying it to such an infamously complex point of view as Asajj Ventress seemed like an easy recipe for a standout novel.

There is a lot to like in Dooku: Jedi Lost. While it was billed as an audiobook, the finished product plays out more like a traditional audio drama. While Star Wars audiobooks have for years now featured bursts of music or sound effects to accompany the narrative, Jedi Lost takes this to a new level. Characters speak in bursts of dialogue and internal narration and the experience as a whole feels much more akin to the sort of spoken word stage play that we have seen a boom of in recent years in the podcast market. If you have listened to Marvel’s rather great Wolverine: The Long Night, you may have an idea of the sort of experience to expect.

The result is for the most part a well-produced aural experience. The voice acting is across the board fun and dramatic if occasionally on the hammy side. Cassady’s interpretation of Ventress adheres closely to the sinister, raspy whisper of Nika Futterman while creating her own identity befitting a much younger version of the character. Morton goes the opposite route and doesn’t even attempt to mimic Christopher Lee or even Corey Burton’s take on the malevolent count, and while the difference is at first jarring, Morton quickly makes the character his own and he becomes one of the stronger voice performances in the cast. Marc Thompson’s well-practiced Yoda is another standout, which proves only natural given the amount of work he has had with the character in past projects.

The general sound direction is for the most part strong as well. Jedi Lost often succeeds at creating a strong sense of atmosphere and place with a great sense for ambient noise. Hums of lightsabers, chattering crowds, and zipping speeders fill the spaces of each scene and help bring the setting of the galaxy far, far away to life. It doesn’t prove immaculate though. Some of the more action heavy scenes opt to loop sounds rather than choreographing them to Scott’s script or the character narration and the musical cues are often distracting or ill-fitting to the scene at hand. (I can’t count the number of times “Across the Stars” seemed to slip into decidedly not romantic moments in the story.) The overall presentation is still, for the most part, successful but there are enough chinks in the production of Jedi Lost that as a whole make this feel like an experiment that maybe should have been more tightly honed, especially considering that the stellar work being done in the podcast realm in similar media essentially for free.

Where Jedi Lost proves to be its most uneven, however, is in Cavan Scott’s script. Star Wars regulars will recognize Scott the most from his time writing for IDW’s rather delightful all-ages comic imprint Star Wars Adventures. While Scott has written his fair share of traditional novels in the past, his familiarity with dialogue heavy mediums such as comics make him well suited for an audio project like Jedi Lost. Unfortunately, the narrative that Scott creates for Dooku struggles in its overall structure.

The central concept of Asajj Ventress learning about Dooku’s past for a relevant mission is intriguing, but it ultimately boils down much of the “present time” action to her listening to or reading the writings of her new master. Narrative beats are frequently interrupted or paused so that a new diary entry can be found or presented and while it becomes an accepted part of the story after some time, it can’t help but feel like one of those found footage horror movies where characters have to keep explaining why they have a video camera on them.

Luckily, the actual narrative of Dooku’s upbringing proves much more successful if still flawed. The strongest portions of Scott’s script follow a younger Dooku through his early days as a Jedi initiate and later a Padawan. Scott injects Dooku and his friendship with other infamous Jedi Sifo-Dyas with a Harry Potter-like sense of youthful adventure and curiosity. Their explorations of Temple secrets and Jedi artifacts carry with them a YA flair that also brings an unexpected sense of tragedy and dramatic irony given the dark fates that will befall both of these young men in the decades to come. Scott crafts Dooku as a Jedi that is frequently distracted by emotional attachment and responsibility not only to the citizens he has sworn to protect but to a courtly family on Serenno that he reconnects to as an adolescent. How Dooku deals with his conflicting loyalties and also the mentorship he receives from atypical Jedi Lene Kostana make for some of the most intriguing character work in the story and it gives the first half of Scott’s book a sense of discovery and emotional immediacy.

However, as the narrative progresses the peaks into Dooku’s past become more scattered and episodic in nature. We are treated to only glimpses to his training under Yoda, his relationship with his first apprentice Rael Aveross (a standout in Claudia Gray’s Master and Apprentice but annoyingly one note here), and his education of Qui-Gon Jinn. Each of these could have easily filled a book of their own, but here they feel like frustratingly brief glimpses into other worthy stories.

Scott attempts to keep the relationship of Dooku and his birth family on Serenno as the emotional throughline of the narrative and for the most part this proves successful. It allows for a natural climax to Dooku’s contained arc in this aspect of the story while also providing another example of the larger Jedi Order’s failure to accommodate more renegade individuals in their ranks. However, in doing so, Scott misses one of the fundamental pieces of Dooku’s story, his actual seduction to the Dark Side. While Scott hides hints of the darkness brewing in him throughout the novel and plots his defection from the Jedi in believable detail, when exactly Dooku changed from a lost Jedi to lightning spewing Sith Lord is a beat that is glossed over almost in its entirety. Outside of the initial disappointment that we are not treated to Dooku’s Sith training or even the larger conspiracy regarding the creation of the clone army, this switch in teh character to such a malevolent place proves to be an essential plot point to the resolution of the book’s frame narrative. It may create a strong contrast showing how far the Count of Serenno has fallen, but the end result feels jarring and it can’t help but feel like the listener has simply been obscured from essential information.

The end result is a story that is often entertaining and occasionally thought provoking, but is just as frequently frustrating and stilted in its structure and execution. Dooku: Jedi Lost is an interesting project, but it feels like a product that could have used more refinement both in its conceptualization and in execution. Star Wars fans that are looking for a listen during a long trip may want to partake in this aural journey, but others may want to wait before uncovering the secrets of this Sith.

Score: C+

#Star Wars #Star Wars books #Star Wars novels #review #reviews #Cavan Scott #Count Dooku #Asajj Ventress

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runicmagitek · 6 years

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Hello there! Thank you for taking the time to read this. I've long been an admirer of your work. I was wondering if you had any advice on writing? Especially for someone just new to writing? Or, like, in regards to outlining stories?

Why can’t I give hugs through the internet why. Thank you so much for such sweet words and I apologize for the wait. I spent the past couple of days concocting some writing advice for you and it turned into a thing. Hope it’s worth the wait!

I want to preface this: below is my writing process. It works for me. It may not work for all writers and I highly encourage others to figure out what does work for them. It took me several years to come to this conclusion, so don’t be discouraged if everything doesn’t click for you. Writing takes time to develop and we all learn and create differently. Try things out and see if it’s beneficial.

Also, while I know you asked specifically for writing and outlining tips for beginners, I am including editing tips. A lot of people might view writing and editing in a different light, but I believe that they go hand-in-hand; getting used to editing will help you become a better writer and vice versa. I know countless people who bang out stories and then let the drafts collect dust, because editing is daunting.

Lastly, a massive shout-out to my partner-in-crime, beta reader, and braintwin—Amie @wingsyouburn . She helped contribute to and refine this and is also a brilliant writer and has helped me become the writer I am today. Endless thanks to you, bb!

On that note, let’s jump right into this.

OUTLINING

I can’t write without some vague idea of where I’m going. It’s like having a map with you on a road trip; you might deviate from your route along the way due to pit stops or traffic or simply wanting to go the scenic route, but you at least know where your end goal is. And it can vary depending on what you’re writing. If I have a oneshot idea, maybe I jot down a sentence or two about the plot, usually with a “problem” and then a “conclusion”. For example: Character A is doubting herself and decides to vent to Character B, who offers comfort and kisses. Sometimes I jot these down if I have an idea hits me at work or in line at a café. You can always refer back to it later on. Filling in the blanks of said outline is where the fun of writing comes in!

Even for my drabbles, I will write very brief sentences of what I imagine would happen. It helps me stay concise and stick to that main point instead of meandering.

For longer pieces, I try to write out each scene I want to include. Some people I know do this by writing on notecards. I used to make a bullet list, but now I use Scrivener to map outlines. With a bullet list, you can do it like this:

Scene 1

Scene 2

Scene 3

Scene 4

It doesn’t need to be extremely thorough. Just get those ideas out of your head and onto paper. You can always go back and switch up the order later and if you don’t entirely know what would happen in a scene, but for example, you know the end result? You can easily write something like, “a bunch of shit hits the fan and then the gang run off into the sunset.” Maybe when you start writing, you’ll have a better idea of what shit hitting the fan includes. And when you do figure it out, go back to your outline and make a bullet under that particular scene with the details. I’ve done this plenty of times. Hell, I have an outline for a 200k story I did where the last 1/3 of the outline just never happened in my draft. A better idea came along and I went with that. And that’s ok!

Your outline is there to help you and not hurt you. It’s flexible and bare minimum, when you’re done with a story, you can look back on it and see how much you’ve evolved since your initial idea.

WRITING

Consume art. Read. Read some more. Keep reading. Watch a movie. Go to a museum. Take a walk at the park. Listen to music. So many things inspire people and the tiniest instances can spark an idea for a story. Always be open to them. Figure out what you love and what you don’t. Consume both of those. Inspiration can come even from genres we don’t particularly like. Don’t be afraid of something new. When I was in art school, we were required to take non-major studio classes. I ended up in a weaving class, filled with other textile students when all I ever knew was graphic design. I learned a tremendous amount in that semester to carry over into my graphic design work and I’m sure my peers learned a lot from me, too. That concept carries over into so many creative fields. Embrace that.

Also, if you’re the type that benefits from reading books about writing, here are some A+ resources:

On Writing by Stephen King

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg

No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

Take care of yourself first. This tip simultaneously has nothing and everything to do with writing. For me, I have a handful of health issues. I work a full-time job. I have a ton of other hobbies that eat up my time. Before I write, I need to make sure I’m doing well before I even bother to sit in front of my laptop. I can’t be overly stressed out or in pain or distracted. Sometimes you need to calm down and relax and not write. I can’t focus otherwise and the few times I did write when I clearly shouldn’t have? It was evident in my writing and thus triple the amount of editing work. I know it’s stressful not being able to write. Trust me… I’ve been there numerous times. But I believe that in the long run, you’ll be happier with yourself and your writing if you learn to treat yourself with respect and not beat yourself up when you’re unable to write every waking minute.

Set times to write and then do it. Some people might have inspiration strike them and that’s the only time they write. Yes, that can be helpful, but there’s also something to be said about developing a schedule and sticking to it, even if you’re not motivated. So you’ve done everything mentioned above: your tummy’s full, no one is around to bother you, you got a delicious cup of something beside you, it’s your favorite weather outside, and you’re in your favorite chair. But you’re staring at your monitor and just… uuuuuugh you don’t feel motivated. You know what? Fuck it. Just write. Write something. Anything. 75% of my writing was done out of the sheer willpower. Write! Even if it’s a page, so what?! That’s a page more than what you initially started out with! Squeezing in some scribbles on your lunch break every day can add up by the end of the week. Those 30 minute sessions are suddenly 2 ½ hours!

Again during my art school days, I would be up until 4am trying to do 40 posters in time for the morning’s critique and I’d be on those last 3 poster designs and I was tired with no inspiration and ran out of fucks at 11pm, but I pushed through. You know what? My teachers and peers alike loved those 3 designs I did at fuck-this-shit o’clock. I’m serious. Every single time.

Start writing and never look back. This is your time to write. Not to edit, not to try and craft the perfect sentence Of All Time. You’re writing. You are word vomiting whatever nonsense is in your head. It’s a first draft. It’s going to be messy. It’s probably going to be shit. Who the hell cares? That doesn’t mean you or your writing is shit. Everybody, even the most seasoned writer, doesn’t write a perfect first draft and you can’t fix what isn’t written. So write, write, write! Smack your inner editor each time it tells you to go back and edit a paragraph. Disable your wifi if you think you’ll get distracted. For me, I put on some quiet, ambient music to drown out the world and go into Scrivener’s full-screen mode. I highly recommend checking libraries in your area if you want some quiet time. The librarians are also way more than happy to show you where designated quiet/study areas are if you’re not sure.

Write what YOU want to write about. Don’t write something just because it’s popular and that’s what everyone else is doing. Do it for yourself first and foremost. It doesn’t need to be for everyone, but let it be for you. It will show tremendously in your writing if you’re excited about a thing. Likewise, it’s beyond evident if you’re bored with a scene in your story. Write about what excites you and I promise your writing will display that excitement. On the same note, if you’re stuck on a scene and just don’t know what to do with it, move along. Maybe that scene isn’t needed. Skip to the next, more interesting thing. Write the story you want to read.

Incorporate your experiences. The expression “write what you know” gets tossed around with the assumption that people will go, “Ooooooh, yeah that makes sense.” Think on all your life experiences and draw upon them. You may not be the commanding officer of a prestigious military, but maybe you’ve been in a group project in school where someone needed to step up as leader in order to get shit done in time for the oral presentation. Remember your emotions during times of struggle, elation, anger, and sadness. Channel it into your writing.

Write in chronological order. Some people have mastered the art of writing that one middle scene they’re super stoked about or writing random scenes out of time and then stitching it together later. I am not one of those people. For a beginner, it might be less daunting to write everything in chronological order. That way you can build up things like character development/growth and tension and so forth in a natural way via passing time. If you start writing a scene where the main pairing finally kiss, but don’t write the ten chapters leading up to that, it’s a lot more difficult to flesh out all that tension in one scene when you hadn’t written it yet. I’m also of the opinion that it’s better to write all the things before that One Scene you’re giddy about; it can speed up the writing process because you want to arrive at that One Scene, so hey, anything to motivate you, ya know?

EDITING

After I wrote my first novel draft after years of not writing, I had this massive feeling of, “…shit, now what?” For every single guide to editing, there’s a hundred more for writing. Editing is an extremely personal process. It took me over two years before I became comfortable with editing my own work. Let’s be honest – it’s terrifying. And I wish there was a more concise guide about it when I first started, so hopefully this helps.

I edit in rounds. My first round involves just reading, no editing. I keep a journal to take notes, mostly plot, characterization, redundancies, and cuts/additions I’d want to make. My second round combs through it to fix those bigger problems along with any glaring grammar/spelling errors and mild line edits. I will send it to a beta to read after that for additional commentary/suggestions. My third round addresses all of that on top of hardcore line edits—I want every damn sentence to be the best version of that sentence ever. One more time it goes back to the beta to nitpick the hell out of it. And my last round is spent reading what I wrote out loud. If my tongue trips over anything, I change it. Apply some spit and polish, give it some lunch and a backpack, and then off to AO3 it goes to make some new friends.

Maybe you edit in less or more rounds. Maybe you have more rounds of sending content to beta readers. Maybe you need to rewrite the whole thing three times before it ever sees a beta reader. Do what feels good to you. Only you will be able to figure it out and you won’t know until you try. I promise once you get your feet wet and test it out, you’ll feel more confident about your writing over time.

Here are some more specific tips that no one ever bothered to tell me until after the fact. These might be overwhelming for a beginner, so don’t feel the need to master these immediately. Take it one step at a time and try them when you are comfortable doing so.

Walk away from it. After finishing a first draft, let it sit. Go do something else and forget about your draft. For oneshots, I’ll go back to it after a week. For longer pieces, anywhere between 2-4 weeks. Returning to a draft with rested eyes and a fresh mind will only benefit you in the editing process. You’re still two inches away from your work when you finish the first draft. Walk away from it, come back, and then you can see more, whether it be the strong points or the holes.

Describe what is happening, not how something looks/sounds/feels. I’m sure you’ve heard of “show, don’t tell.” First off, fuck that noise when writing the first draft. Tell to your heart’s content if it means getting it on the damn page. Second off, sometimes telling can be helpful. That’s up to you to decide if it’s beneficial or harmful to your story. I typically go about “show, don’t tell” in the editing phase. Now most people will give this advice and not further explain. So here’s an example:

She was mad at him for once again not doing the dishes.

That’s not a terrible sentence. Though it to make it pack more oomph, take a step back and think. When you’re mad, what do you do? Are you clenching your jaw? Are you grumbling to yourself? Is a headache forming? And when you imagine dishes not done, what does that look like to you? Is it flies swarming around a sink? Is it overflowing from the sink? Is the sponge sitting in five day old water and reeking of mold? Is there a broken dish on the floor because a cat decided to knock it off from the stack of twenty uncleaned dishes? With that in mind, the sentence can possibly be rewritten like this:

Countless plates and silverware wobbled on one another, each encrusted with a previous night’s dinner. She drew a breath, balled up her fists, and glared at him. “Really? I gave you one job.”

Find your descriptions that are comprised of the character feeling or seeing or hearing something and reword them. Breathe life into your words. Make them paintings. I know, it’s not easy. It might even break your brain a little (mine did when I first gave this a serious go), but it will make you think differently and your writing can only grow from that.

Rephrase weaker words. I once had this assignment back in high school where we were given a hundred sentences, each one with “get” in the mix, and we had to rewrite all of them with a unique word replacing “get”. Find words like “get” and forms of “to be” and replace them with stronger words. Something like he got out of bed can turn into he rose out of bed or he jumped out of bed or he slumped out of bed. It rids the sentence of something weak and is more descriptive of what’s going on.

Another thing to look out for are verbs ending in “-ing”. She started walking over or she was walking on over aren’t as direct as she walked over. Trimming out instances like this help make the action more immediate instead of feeling like it’s going or starting or beginning to happen. Just let it happen!

Adverbs are another instance that people will suggest to cut out. They’re at least easy to find (most end in –ly) and when you do spot them, ask yourself this: is there a better word to sum up what I’m trying to express? Something like she said quietly can be she whispered or she murmured or she mumbled. Or something like they ran quickly can be they rushed or they sprinted or they booked it. These all can help get a better idea of what is going on. Plus it can help strengthen your vocabulary by searching for more ideal words!

If your vocab is shaky or you just can’t pinpoint something better, here’s a resource I use all the time. Just remember: always double check the definition of the word to make sure it fits instead of spinning the thesaurus wheel and picking at random.

Lastly, don’t feel the need to go on a witch hunt to purge your story of all of these things. Sometimes it’s best to keep that use of “to be” or that adverb, because there isn’t something better to convey what you’re describing or it distorts the flow of the narrative. And that’s completely okay. It takes time to figure this out.

Cut out redundancies. I tend to overwrite in my first drafts. Editing is where I bust out my figurative chainsaw and kill the extra nonsense. Is there a phrase you keep using over and over? Kill it. Is there a section you read that just bores you to tears? Kill it. Is there a sentence that is proceeded by a paragraph that rephrases that exact sentiment four times? Kill it. Is the process of something we as human beings understand, like opening a door, a three-sentence-long affair? Kill it.

I love poetics in stories and sometimes it can get out of hand. The more concise you are in your delivery, the clearer of a picture you will paint for the readers and the smoother the overall pacing will be.

Never delete. So with all of that in mind, please, for the love of tea and chocolate, never ever delete your work. Doesn’t matter if it’s a conversion from a first to second draft or if you end up hating it, don’t delete it. You never know if you’ll return to it five years down the road or you need to refer back to something from your initial draft when you’re on your third wave of revisions. I keep a folder dedicated to all of my writing on my laptop, which is also backed up to Dropbox. In Scrivener, you can take snapshots of your work for each new draft you start and can always revert back to older snapshots. There’s also an actual editing mode in it, but I believe it’s exclusive to Mac OS. Or if you’re using something simple like Word or Google Docs, make new documents and title them based off of your drafts. Another thing to consider is making a document strictly for lines you love but weren’t able to include in the final version. Don’t get rid of them – keep them. Maybe you revisit it and find a new story for it to fit in or perhaps that lovely line of yours sparks a new story to write. You won’t know if you delete your work.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Make writer friends. Writing is a solitary activity (well, not unless a pet decides to keep you company, but anyways). Having friends who are also writers or even enthusiastic about writing are a blessing. Bounce ideas off of them or vent to them when you hit a brick wall. Maybe said friends will turn into beta readers when you wish to cross that road. My recent writer friends are people I chatted with on comments with fics, either my own works or their stories. You don’t need to be friends with an entire fandom; find those you resonate with. I’m sure they’ll love gushing about things as much as you do.

And if you ever converse with someone who acts above you and everyone else in regards to writing? Fuck ‘em. They are not and never will be worth your time or anyone else’s.

Keep writing. Like any form of art, writing’s a craft and it will only improve the more you devote time to it. There’s always room for growth. Be humble. Accept change. Allow yourself to learn. I guarantee you that your writing will change for the better in the span of a year if you keep at it. Don’t worry about it being perfect or if it’s telling the “same story” someone else has written—you haven’t written your version of it. You haven’t added your personal touches and experiences and insights to it. Think of how many times Romeo and Juliet has been done in storytelling. People eat it up. To use the cake analogy, you might feel like you’re bringing another cake to the party when there’s already one, but others look at it and go, “FUCK YEAH TWO CAKES!” Lastly, I’ll leave you with a quote from the eternally badass Carrie Fisher, “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.”

You got this, anon. I believe in you.

#writing tips #writing advice #writing resources #writing help #writers on tumblr #YOU CAN DO IT ANON #I BELIEVE IN YOU #*FOREVER FLAILING POMPOMS*#long post #Anonymous #my writing

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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Milos Forman: 1932-2018

Milos Forman, the Czech-born filmmaker who helped revolutionize cinema in his home country before moving to America and becoming one of its most celebrated directors as well, has died. The man behind such celebrated films as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975) and “Amadeus” (1984), both of which won Oscars for Best Picture and earned him prizes for Best Director, passed away from what was described as a short illness at the age of 86 at his home in Connecticut. Mixing together surreal humor, documentary techniques and an interesting blend of cynicism and affection, Forman helped put Czech cinema on the map. When he applied those same techniques to the projects produced in his adopted country, the result was some of the most incisive, knowing and most profoundly American films of his era.

He was born Jan Tomas Forman on February 18, 1932 in Caslav, Czechoslovakia. Both of his parents were killed at Auschwitz and he spent a large portion of his childhood in a boarding school for war orphans. (After the war, he would learn that his actual biological father had survived the way.) Having at one point thought to become a theatrical producer, Forman enrolled in the newly established Film Institute at the University of Prague in the early 1950s, a period that saw him working alongside such future names as director Ivan Passer and cinematographer Miroslav Ondricek (who would work with Forman on a number of films both in Czechoslovakia and America). After graduating, he began making short documentaries and first got some notice for “Audition” (1963), a film intertwining brass bands rehearsing for a contest and young people preparing for a theater audition.

In the early '60s, the Czech government began a series of cultural reforms aimed at easing controls over what artists could say and do in their work. Forman took full advantage of this by creating a series of films, beginning with “Black Peter” (1964), which commented on the lives of ordinary people with a filmmaking that combined a documentary-like style (including the use of improvisation and non-professional actors) with a biting and deeply anti-establishment sense of humor. His first great success was “Loves of a Blonde” (1965), which followed the story of a small town woman working at a shoe factory who shares a night with a soldier that she meets at a dance and then follows to Prague in the hopes of a longer-lasting relationship. The movie was a success around the world, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film and helped launch the Czech New Wave.

Forman's follow-up, “The Fireman’s Ball” (1967, pictured above), was even better—a brilliant satire of the Communist state in which a volunteer fire department attempts to throw a party for their one-time boss on his birthday with disastrous results. Although it hits its satiric targets with pinpoint accuracy, it is never cruel towards its characters and indeed, there is a certain sweetness and sympathy to Forman’s approach that prevents it from degenerating into a mere screed. While “The Fireman’s Ball” was another international success and received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, politicians in Czechoslovakia were not amused by the film and it would go on to be banned in the wake of the Soviet invasion of 1968. At that time, Forman happened to be in Paris in negotiations for his first U.S. production and after realizing that the artistic freedoms that he once had were no more, he elected to emigrate to America.

His first U.S. film, “Taking Off” (1971) was an extension of his Czech films, a counter-culture comedy about the generation gap centered on a middle-aged couple (Buck Henry and Lynn Carlin) whose search for their runaway daughter leads to hilarious efforts to understand both their child and themselves. Although not quite as funny as his previous efforts—and more than a little dated when seen today—it is an interesting attempt to transplant his style into an American context and he once again demonstrates a surprising degree of affection towards characters that others might have looked at only as a source of scorn and ridicule. While it good reviews, “Taking Off” was not a financial success. One person who did take notice of it, however, was actor Michael Douglas. For years, his father, Kirk, had owned the rights to Ken Kesey’s famous counter-cultural novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and had struggled to make a film of it. After his father passed the rights on to him, he made a new effort to get the film made and felt that Forman’s humorous yet humane directorial voice was the right one to capture the book’s tricky tone.

At this point I must confess that as a film, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” has always left me somewhat cold. This is not to say that it is not a well-made film containing excellent performances from Jack Nicholson as Randall P. McMurphy, a rebellious criminal faking insanity in the hopes of serving time in a mental ward instead of prison, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, the autocratic head nurse that he bumps heads with and a supporting cast including such then-unknowns as Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif, Will Sampson and Christopher Lloyd. That said, the film went on to become a smash hit around the world, becoming the only the second of three films to date to win the top five Oscars (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay) and is regularly enshrined in lists of the greatest American films of all time.

In a position where he could pretty much make any film that he wanted to as a follow-up, Forman raised eyebrows when it was announced that his next project would be a film version of the hit off-Broadway musical “Hair” (1979). In making a film of this particular show, Forman would be facing a number of unavoidable hurdles—the stage version was not exactly strong on narrative and the immediacy that it had for audiences during its initial stage run would inevitably be lost and transform any film version into a period piece. In bringing it to the screen, Forman and screenwriter Michael Weller made a number of significant changes that strengthened the story, in which a young man from Oklahoma (John Savage) visiting New York City for a couple of days before reporting for military duty falls in with a group of hippies led by the charismatic Berger (Treat Williams), while changing or omitting some of the songs. How one feels about the film depends largely on their feelings towards the original show. Many who loved it on stage felt that Forman missed the essence of the show and transformed it into a garishly overproduced dud that lacked any real connection to either the show or the movement that inspired it. On the other hand, while the film is undeniably uneven, Forman does indeed show some affinity for the counter-culture, no doubt inspired by his own youth living in an oppressive regime, and he presents the big musical numbers with a bold exuberance that extends far beyond the period trappings.

For his next film, Forman signed on for another adaptation of a deeply American story that many felt simply could not be adequately brought to the screen. This was “Ragtime” (1981), the film version of E.L. Doctorow’s 1975 historical novel that weaved together a number of plot threads that mixed real and fictional characters together to create a panoramic view of life in New York City in the early years of the 20th century. For many observers, the only person who could possibly turn it into a film was Robert Altman, who was actually scheduled to do it until he was fired by producer Dino De Laurentis. Rather than try to juggle all the storylines, Forman, reuniting with Michael Weller, chose to focus on one key story—the tale of Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Howard Rollins Jr.), a piano player who is radicalized when the men working under a racist fire chief deliberately destroy his car and his attempts to seek justice are rebuffed—while reducing the others to bits and pieces in the background or eliminating them entirely.

The reaction to this film was mixed—it got good but not great reviews, it received eight Oscar nominations but no actual awards and it proved to be a non-starter at the box-office, at least in part because it had the misfortune to open at the same time as such other high-profile period pieces as “Chariots of Fire” and “Reds” and got lost in the shuffle. And yet, if I had to name one Forman film as my favorite, “Ragtime” might well be the one. Although it necessarily lacks the scope of the original novel, Forman nevertheless manages to distill the feel of the book into a narrative that allows him to fully explore, embrace and excoriate his new home in all of its aspects, good and bad. His recreation of turn-of-the-century New York is exquisite without being overwhelming and the score by Randy Newman is a thing of beauty. He also gets strong work from a massive cast that includes everyone from then-newcomers like Rollins, Elizabeth McGovern and Mandy Patinkin to legends like Donald O’Connor, Pat O’Brien and James Cagney, who came out of a 20-year retirement to portray the police commissioner desperately trying to bring the situation to a close. Largely forgotten today, this film is a genuine treasure and one that is ripe for rediscovery.

Forman had more success with his next project, the screen version of “Amadeus” (1984), his adaptation of the Peter Shaffer play that he had been enamored with after being invited to see what proved to be its first public preview. On paper, the story of Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), the technically proficient and duly celebrated Italian composer and member of the court of Emperor Joseph II, and the jealous rage that he develops towards Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce), a younger and far less refined rival who he recognizes as having been touched with the kind of genuine artistic genius that he himself has been denied, sounds like a dull bit of Oscar bait featuring a bunch of actors capering about in an array of elaborate wigs and costumes. Instead, Forman, who wound up filming most of it in Czechoslovakia, found the heart of the material—that Salieri is less a villain than a tragic figure in the way he is forced to recognize his own mediocrity in comparison to Mozart—and presented in a direct and straightforward manner that made it accessible to audiences of all stripes. The result was a worldwide hit that put Mozart back on the album charts, earned a slew of awards that included eight Oscars, including Best Director, Best Actor for Abraham (Hulce was one of his competitors in the category) and Best Picture, and is now considered to be one of the all-time great films.

His next film, “Valmont” (1989), was an adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s famous 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Unfortunately, his retelling of the story of a scheming widow (Annette Being) who bets her caddish lover (Colin Firth) that he cannot seduce a recently married and exceedingly virtuous woman (Meg Tilly) landed in theaters a few months after another version of the story, the hit 1988 film "Dangerous Liaisons." While Forman's version did deviate from both that film and the book in some key instances, it quickly disappeared from theaters. And though “Dangerous Liaisons” is definitely the better film, Forman’s take is not without interest as well, thanks to its more direct approach to the material, the sumptuous production design and a performance by Bening.

For his next film, “The People Vs. Larry Flynt” (1996), Forman took one of the more potentially dubious cinematic concepts imaginable—a biopic of the controversial pornographer that chronicled his struggles with both the law and the religious right. Aided by a fantastic script by Larry Karaszewski & Scott Alexander and great performances by Woody Harrelson as Flynt, Edward Norton as his harried lawyer and rocker Courtney Love as his doomed love, Forman transformed it into a genuinely heartfelt celebration of the First Amendment and the right to free speech. It's a film that could have perhaps only been made by someone who knew what it was like to live in a world where such rights were not always a given. Controversial upon its release and not especially successful at the box office, it won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and earned Forman his third and final Oscar nomination.

1999's “Man on the Moon” found Forman offering viewers another examination of American culture as seen through the eyes of one of its most unusual practitioners, surreal comedian Andy Kaufman. Working once again from a screenplay by Karaszewski & Alexander, Forman clearly sees Kaufman as a riff on Mozart, a genius whose artistic brilliance was largely misunderstood in its day, except only in its broadest and most obvious applications (such as his immaculate Elvis impression and his work as the adorable Latka on “Taxi”), and is still fresh, vital and controversial today. The film essentially winds up becoming a collection of bits that don’t quite add up, but those bits are entertaining enough to watch thanks to Jim Carrey’s incredible and eerily convincing transformation into Kaufman (not to mention alter ego Tony Clifton) and Forman’s obvious affection for Kaufman himself. (Be sure to check out “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond,” a 2017 Netflix documentary that chronicles the behind-the-scenes chaos that went into the making of “Man on the Moon” that offers glimpses of Forman at work and trying to deal with his beyond-Method star.)

Forman's last movie was “Goya’s Ghosts” (2006), a not-entirely-successful historical drama involving painter Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgard) and his attempts to save a young woman (Natalie Portman) from the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition when she is arrested for heresy. There were other film projects over the years that were announced but never came to fruition but Forman always had something to do even when not working on his own projects. He was named a professor emeritus of film at Columbia University. In 1994, he published his autobiography, Turnaround, and it is a must-read for anyone interested in his career. He appeared before the camera in small roles in “Heartburn” (1986) and “Keeping the Faith” (2000) and there were also the usual array of accolades from around the world celebrating his life and work. Needless to say, Forman deserved all of them and many more for his artistic contributions to the country that he made his home. As anyone who watches his films can readily attest, we were lucky to have him.

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