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satoru-is-the-way · 1 year

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“Long Long Time”

A/N: Based off the 3rd episode of the last of us and so far my favorite. I am in love with this episode! Cried so much! Next week on Feb 5th or sooner I will release my first chapter of Little Lion Man a Joel x Reader series based on the HBO Max show with hints of the game.

Tag List: Let me know if you want to be on the tag list

Warnings: SPOILERS FOR TLOU EPISODE 3, Cussing, Blood, Death, Depression, PARTIAL SMUT, MDI!

*(S/n)- Sibling name*

Flashback - Italicised

You knew Joel Miller long before the outbreak. You met Joel when your younger brother introduced you. (S/n) ((L/n) and Tommy Miller are childhood friends. They grew up together meaning you had little to do with the group of boys. But you fancied the older brother just a few years older than you. At first, it had been nothing but a childish crush. As the years passed, that turned into more. Regardless, he never saw you in such a way. You both took separate paths resulting in families, spouses, and children. Whether or not you realized it, those feelings towards Joel Miller never left.

One thing led to another 20 years after the outbreak flew by. You lived with Joel in the QZ for years. Tommy went missing and now there is a young girl who claims to be the cure. Now here you stand at your old 'friends' house, Bill and Frank. Bill reminded you more of Joel while Frank is the total opposite. You meet the couple a few years after the outbreak.

Flashback

Joel and Bill sat across the table from each other exchanging glares. Frank cleared his throat. "More wine?" He questioned picking the bottle up. You nod holding your glass out. Frank poured you a generous amount. A few slips later you felt the tense atmosphere drain. It had been a long time since you tasted such a delicious alcoholic beverage. Bill picked up his gun and Joel reached for his side holster.

"Billy stop"

"Joel don't."

With a grumble, Bill dropped the gun allowing Joel to relax. "Would you like to see the house?" Frank asked.

"I would love to!" You replied.

"No, don't!" Replied both the men at the dinner table watching as their other disappeared into the house.

"Oh, this is beautiful. I dare say my dream house!" You laughed (e/c) orbs taking in every detail fingertips dancing over the piano keys.

"How long have you and Joel been a couple?" Frank's question caused you to choke on your semi-dry wine. With a sigh, you sat down on the piano bench.

"We are not a couple. Never have been. His brother and I were childhood friends. So I grew up around them both. Mainly Tommy…But Joel and I never amounted to anything. One-sided romance story." You confessed quicker than expected. Perhaps the wine made your tongue lose.

"Really? I did not get that feeling. The way he looks at you. The side glanced. His posture walking next to you…Bill looks at me the same way. Have you talked about it with him or made any sort of move?"

"No, and I don't plan to. I never need such a stubborn man before. More than I am! And that is saying a lot."

Frank chuckled, "Hm. Well just know I am here if you ever need to talk. What are friends for?" This caused you to smile and raise your glass. "So (Y/n) do you play?"

"I knew the basics but that is when I was a child." You replied Frank sitting next to you.

"Well then let me teach you a little song I know. Bill's favorite."

It had been a year since you last met with Frank and Bill. Their home is overgrown and dead plants are everywhere. No sign of forced entry so you both assumed nature has taken her course. Entering the home felt different. Empty glasses and half-eaten food molded. You frown sitting down at the table. Ellie rushed past you picking up a whole letter. Joel left the two females going deeper into the house calling for your old friends.

"For whoever but probably Joel," Ellie whispered, opening the letter. She began to read the last message that you would receive from Bill or Frank. Your heart sank. It was a good and happy emotion. One that is hard to explain. You at least could say you had made one friend since the outbreak. Had dinner with them on different occasions even if things were for business. It felt nice to see there are still good people. You closed your eyes as Ellie read the letter but paused.

"What is it, Ellie?" She looked up at you with a smirk forming. "Nothing. Just telling Joel to keep people he loves safe."

"The letter is from Bill?" Joel asked entering the room.

Flashback.

"No, don't!" They replied. Joel watched (Y/n) disappear with Frank. He groaned and looked down.

"Never listen." Joel earned a partial chuckle from Bill. "I'm sorry I had no idea what my- my friend had in store saying she was talking to some man on the radio." He comments poking at his home-cooked meal. When you too him about meeting up with some man a jealous and protective rage engulfed his body.

"I don't trust you."

"Same here. But you are going to need our help. That fence has a year tops…Listen you want to keep your partner safe then trade with him. "

"I don't need your help or your girlfriends."

"What? She isn't - nothing more than a friend."

"Look, Joel. I spent all of my life hiding my feelings. You need to be honest with yourself… The fence? Fine. We can work something out. I want to protect the person I love."

"Yes…They are gone. Asked not to open the bedroom door." Ellie whispered. You turned around walking over to the piano. A gentle smile crossed your face. You imagined the lesson Frank taught all those years ago.

"Are you ok?" Joel asked, touching your lower back.

"Y-Yeah. Just …I don't know. Sad."

"Well, I am going to take a shower. They have hot water here!" Ellie left the heading upstairs.

You sat down fingers brushing over the keys before

D E F#M D E A

Taking a deep breath you continued.

" Love will abide, take things in stride.

That sounds like good advice but there's no one at my side

And time washes clean love's wounds unseen

That's what someone told me but I don't know what it means"

You felt the song move through your body. It is related to your relationship with Joel. The male stood lips parted listening to your angel voice.

" 'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think I'm gonna love you for a long long time."

Your voice trembles as the lyrics only pulled those feelings for Joel closer and closer to the surface.

" Caught in my fears

Blinking back the tears

I can't say you hurt me when you never let me near

And I never drew one response from you

All the while you fell all over girls you never knew

'Cause I've done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think it's gonna hurt me for a long long time"

You stopped, unable to finish the song heading towards the door. Joel followed you calling your name each step.

"(Y/n)! Please talk to me!" He sighed, combining through his salt and pepper locks. He thought about letting you walk away. But he couldn't. "No! Stop." He gripped your arm pulling you back.

"Joel enough! I don't want to talk about it!" You yelled tears falling from your cheeks.

"I love you! Damnit!" He yelled, breathing heavy.

"What?..."

"I love you. I always have. I figured you needed someone better than me…You still do but I can't stop how I feel. Ever since we met…And even now I can only think of you. Dream of you. Crave your touch."

You moved close and he leaned in kissing your lips. A soft whimper escaped the adrenaline and ran over your entire body. Joel couldn't keep your hands off you. Feeling your hips, thighs, running up your body to squeeze your round breasts. "J-Joel" You moaned. Joel growled, pressing you against the nearby the boutique. He wraps your legs around his waist grinding hard cock on you.

"Fuck I need you." He whispered not feeling his cock so hard for a while. Joel pants roughly getting the friction he desperately needed. Your pussy clenched around nothing his cock rubbing against your clothed clit.

"Right now?! We are out in the open." You pant.

"Yes, while no one is watching." He chuckled brown eyes gazing up at you with a hungry lust...

-end!

#Spotify #joel miller x you #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x y/n #the last of us hbo #the last of us #last of us #the last of us imagine #pedro pascal #pedro pascal x y/n #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal characters

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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Pirate Month Patreon: Our Flag Means Death: "Pilot" Review (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Yo ho all you happy people! Pirate Month continues.. somehow. With some. The last few weeks have been rough seas, but pirate month sails on. And ironically, into the waters of HBO Max

Yeah after my shockingly popular rant last week, seriously any of you following or coming in from that or just in general

It's great to have you. But yes we're back to the dumpster fire that was once one of the proudest and best streaming services around but is now a self canablizing nightmare that won't go away. I've went from hoping any adaptation went here to hoping many flee in terror and praying some still actually get made. You used to hear me constantly singling disney out for their idiocy

But this somehow tops most of what they've ever done. These shows MIGHT return or someone else might be able to save the company, but for now we're just stuck praying anything we care about dosen't get cannonballed into oblivion and left where it's avaliablity is tenious at best. So why am I reviewing something from the network at the worst possible moment? Simple.. this was planned before. Emma has a busy schedule, so she tends to pick her patreons late unless I ask early, and being a forgetful sort, I can tend to. She's GOOD at it, with her picks having had me review incest civil war laser tag, badly animated sci fi nonsense and this glory

So it was only pure Parker Luck that HBO Max decided to canablize their animation for profit the same week I was set to cover this. But I realized something important: With access uncertain, with HBO max striking randomly and insanely, and with no safe harbor... I have to get off my ass and watch stuff that may be destroyed as soon as the next season is out, and as we've seen with Summer Camp Island it can happen BEFORE too, instead of waiting. Sure this project having a high profile creator attached, being a very high profile queer work , and having a huge fanbase MIGHT be a enough.. but given Logic and tact haven't really entered into this current dumbfuckery, it's best to see the series and review an episode NOW rather than wait and loose it in a tax writeoff next year after season 2.

So several paragraphs and f-you's later, we arrive at our real destination: Our Flag Means Death. And this really has been one i've been meaning to check out for some time: It's produced by Taika Watiti, whose lately become one of my faviorite creators: He's director of the all time cinematic classics What We Do In The Shadows and JoJo rabbit and the fun as hell Thor films Ragnarok and Love and Thunder, and created the excellent What We Do In The Shadows tv show, which is also on the pile. Feel free to boo I know I am, i'm missing peak Matt Berry by being behind on it, as well as producing another show i've heard nothing but good things about, Reservation Dogs. The guy is a genius so while he isn't writer or director here, and his character Blackbeard isn't in this pilot, he clearly picks projects he puts his name on very carefully and if he's remotely involved with something, it's usually a good sign it's awesome. Add in Rhys Dharby who I first fell in love with on flight of the conchords as Murray...

youtube

And while he could've easily stopped with this cult classic I also need to watch (I mostly followe dit via music videos when it was airing and haven't watched it despite having easy access since max launched because i'm stupid and forget it's there), he has since made a sizeable name for him as a voice actor. Seriously while he mostly plays smaller parts he's popped up in TONS of shows since the late 2010's, from Milo Murphy's Law, RIP, to Rise of the TMNT , also RIP, to shows that aren't dead probably. He's played warthogs, snowflakes, gay hypo's, evil pistachios and more but really hasn't as far as I can tell been a leading man in anything. He was important to FOTC, but this seems like the first time the guy has REALLY been let loose and thus that was a huge draw for me.

And i'm happy to say that even before it hits it's peak and becomes a gay love story involving blackbeard, something I didn't know I needed and can't wait to hit as I watch more episodes, Our Flag Means death is an instant classic from the pirate and has finally given Rhys the meaty starring role he's always been capable of. The show is everything I hoped for.

While most of you reading this are likely fans of the show already, a quick refresher for those who aren't as familiar, i.e. Emma most likely: Our Flag Means Death follows Stede Bonnet, based on the real life pirate I know nothing about of the same name, a posh aristocrat who fled his old life to become a pirate, and is trying to clean up piracy a bit: He pays his men wether their succesful or not, and built his ship, the awesomely named The Revenge, with a sauna, rec area, and a personal library he'd be glad to lend out to the crew if any of them besides his assitant, the equally posh Lucius, played by Nathan Foad. Like a large chunk of the cast, i've never heard of him but like said chunk, he's excellent so it really dosen't matter. Steed does compensate by reading the pirates a story every night, as of the pilot Pinnochio. He's essentially trying to run this pirate ship like a modern work place, basically if Micheal Scott and Leslie Knope got combined in some horrible teleporter accident and became a pirate, having the bad need to be loved and have a family and be liked as the other, but like the latter having some compietence, optiism and good intentions, just being too naive to realize how hard ti's going to be to get these through.

Unlike other work coms though, the crew can actually kill their boss if he annoys them too much and the pilot centers around that, with the crew preparing a mutiny, with the only ones not being on board as much being Oluwande, played by Samson Kayo, a kind sort whose fond of the captain even if he's not the best and Jim, a seeming mute great with knives played by Vico Ortiz.. who turns out to be nonbinary. Which is good for me I got spoiled on that as it means I won't get any prounounds long. Though none of the crew is bad, it's just how change is: the rest simply can't accept that stede's way of doing things is PROBABLY better and he just needs to grow into the position, with Oluwande being the only one aware that not only is this much better.. but that it's so rare it' sbest to enjoy it while he lasts. Hey I said he appriacates the captain, I didn't say he was in denial about Stede's odds of survivial. Leading the mutiny is the lisping Black Pete (Matthew Maher) , a wannabe tough guy who claims to have been on blackbeards boat and won't shut up about it and the Jerry from Parks and Rec looking Kristian Nairin as Wee John, a giant who wants to burn things. Naturally I love him.

So to offset the mutiny after several small insignifigant raids, Stede targets the biggest/only ship they can see and with Buttons conformation the crew gets ready to have a bloody good time gettin good and bloody.. but Stede has a full on Panic Attack as we flash back to his past. And this is where the show really got me. See I throughly enjoyed it and was on board to this point, the jokes were that kind of goofy creative type of humor I enjoy from Stede telling everyone to "look scary' to the crew only not killing him at the moment because he's one of the only two people who can read, the only one who can do the voices and they want to know how Pinocchio ends, and Stede deciding the best way to help with disatsifaction at first is a flag design contest. It's truly my kind of show.

But what takes it from really good to great is making stede far more complex than he appears. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a work just being a goofy comedy. That's fine by me and Producer Watiti did wonders with that with What We Do In The Shadows, which had moments of pathos but was mostly just the story of a bunch of goofy vampires in new zeland and their dark bidding on the interent.

So series creator and showrunner David Jenkins could've kept at that and i'd of been fine.. but he took it one step further without undercutting the wacky tone entirely, which can be tricky but he pulls off well. From here we start seeing pieces of Stede's old life.. and it was miserable. The first flashback here has a butcher working for the family slaughter an animal in front of the kid, tell him not to look away then mock him for being soft.

Which is thinly coded as people bullying him for coming off gay. Spoilers, Stede turns out to be VERY gay., but it's always a dickish thing to do to bully someone for being diffrent and to be a homophobic twitsandwitch.

But we see through later flashbacks in teh ep Stede never fit in: He was bullied at school, chased, called slurs and then had his hands tied to oars and forced to row and at home there was literal distance between him and his family... no seriously he sat at one end while his family sat at the other

Stede was an outsider in his own home, his own LIFE, never accepted by anyone it seemed (other episodes may prove this wrong) and even now trying to find a new family, he's not really accepted. While the metaphor there given Stede is also a gay man and a not tradtionally masculine man, is subtle a knife to the eye, it still works because it dosen't overshadow the story but plays into it. Stede is not conventional.. yet he's a good man and while he may not be a good pirate YET his ideas aren't bad and he has his heart in the right place. I mean until someone cuts it out and holds it up as a trophy but for now he's trying to do the right thing he's just out of his depth. BUt he had no real other options: He coudln't get a divorce, given the century, his family , both immedite and other clearly never got him.. leaving to be a pirate, to try ANYTHING else is better than dying on the inside. He also uses the money he came from well: He gives his men a good wage, a tidy ship, and plenty of supplies. Odds are it'll run out.. but he's trying to do something better and more rich people coudl take a note from this fictional gay pirate and try and be better instead of hoarding wealth or cutting people's lifes works from a platform for 2.50 and an expired free pizza cupon.

Turns out though the ship.. is a HEAVILY armed royal naval warship and our heroes only don't die horribly because the Captain, Nigel Badmitton, a gloriously pompus name, is one of Stede's old bullies and thus dosen't buy the rumors that Stede is a pirate and Stede is able to quickly hide the crew as fellow aristocrats and servants.

The meal though is .. uncomfortable. Not only are the pirates naturally not really happy in the roll of high society snobs, but Badmittons crew are a bunch of racist twits who are unplesant to be around, and Badmittion himself a snobby bully who fondly recalls that incident with the oars I mentioned while the rest of the crew slowly get that "Okay this guy is a dumbass but he's OUR dumbass. " Things naturally break down once Stede is forced to humor badmittion and after one joke too many and Badmittion LAUGHIGN at the idea he could be a pirate, Stede tries braining him with a move Oluwande taught him.. and accidently makes the guy fall on his saber and into his eye

While the rest of the crew has a nice bloody massacre of most of Badmittions men after one's a racist to Oluwande starting with jim throwing a knife through a hand. While we don't see it, by the time Stede gets back to them only two are left alive and he's panicking over the corpse, not ready to have really killed someone, and only accepting it because Oluwande helps him, knowing that admitting to killing the guy will help the crew respect Stede.. which it does. Stede cements he can be badass for more than just accidedental murders by giving the one person they send back the same punishment his now dead captain gave Stede, showing that while Stede is out of his element, has clear trauma and may not be happy killin, which is a fair choice.. he's still got what it takes and thus his crew decides he can live for now. Also Jim's not a man OOOOO ALREADY SPOILED IT, and we end on a really nice bit: it being clear no matter how bad it was stede misses his family and treis to convince himself he's got a new one.. and him reading the crew pinoccio. Never has Rhys Darby reading a bunch of grown men to sleep been so touching.

So yeah Our Flag Means Death, at least the pilot is fucking fantastic. I don't know why the creators previous show failed: this one has style, humor and suprising tragedy, and excells at what it's producer does well: taking a mildly goofy but cool genre and poking fun at it while taking it JUST seriously enough to ground it. Our Flag Means Death is everything I hoped for and more and I highlyr ecommend watching it before it possibly burns. These are uncertain times.. but with Rhys Darby as a gay pirate... they might have some good times hidden in them too.

#hbo max #warner bros discovery #rhys darby #our flag means death #david jenkins #stede bonnet #Youtube

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asagi-s-garden · 3 years

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WB is the worst when it comes to DC. It's no coindence that Constantine is leaving 'Legends of Tomorrow" in the wake of the upcoming HBO Max show. And this pandemic ruined a lot of plans. As you said "BL" wasn't meant to be in the Arrowverse put when it happened they were all gung-ho for it. They had plans for Jeff to visit Central City and for Anissa and Grave to chill in Gotham. But then the pandemic and whatever BTS drama that got "BL" canned. Like *something* happened. It got an early renewal in Jan then it was cancelled in Nov. And CW didn't even bother to have proper trailers for new episodes. Don't tell me somebody on the show didn't rub the network the wrong way to result in that level of pettiness

Yeah, WB isn't just the worst with DC, but really the worst with favoritism in my personal opinion

They tried so hard to make the DC streaming service a huge success but as soon as they saw it wasn't going to be they got rid of everything like it was on fire, HBO Max is the new golden child so they're cutting their own throats in other areas to make it succeed- IE: Theaters

My poor Suicide Squad 2 ;_; no I won't say "my THE Suicide Squad" it won't roll off the tongue it was a sacrificial lamb to the damn streaming service :(

I know it's an unpopular opinion to not be all over streaming but they're really clearly cutting way more than just corners in order to feed that specific beast and try to make it compete with Disney+, that's why they're starting to draw the string on the Arrowverse :/ The same thing happened, I think, with the DC streaming service though, when they saw that the biggest success of DC was the Arrowverse, they decided to pull their dying streaming service as well as the DCEU into it to pump the Arrowverse up more, now that the Arrowverse is starting to go under- with three shows being gone, Batwoman being in questionable territory, and the two biggest successes of the year being largely disjointed from it (Superman and Stargirl), I think they're going to try to scramble it like eggs :/ They're doing the same with the DCEU to a degree though, by having loosely connected stories that do more universe hopping and tone changes (IE: Joker coming out just months before Birds Of Prey and having been preceeded by Shazam!) I think since they're seeing more promise in that approach right now for the movies, they might be trying to do the same for TV- or they're just trying to let the Arrowverse die of neglect so they can pump up HBO Max like you said

Ofcourse now that WB has been bought by Discovery, we might get some big changes to this; Discovery already said they wanted to pour seven BILLION dollars into DC properties specifically in the first year alone, and I know the rumor is that they're only going to try to gloss up DC so that they can sell the assets to the highest bidders once their "probation" period ends but like.... seven billion is a hell of alot of gloss..... and if they can start pulling in more numbers like Joker, Superman & Lois, and The Suicide Squad (wich may have not been a huge hit at the box office but wich reportedly smashed the HBO Max numbers enough that WB is circling James Gunn like a starving shark), then I have a hard time believing they'd be wanting to get rid of it, especially when, let's face it, DC is easily the most well known and most marketable asset Discovery has ever had and probably ever will have purely because of Superman alone, you can't find a person anywhere who hasn't atleast heard of Superman, regardless of how much the film properties are hit-and-miss financially, I have a hard time believing anyone would just throw that kind of name power to the wolves....

But onto Black Lightning, I actually have a pretty strong theory about that one

I'm almost certain that China Anne McClain is why the show was canned

And do not get me wrong, I don't mean that in a snippy way, but China quit Black Lightning pretty urgently- to the point that she only wanted to do limited episodes for the final season

Backing up a moment here though, let me explain why I think this was the nail-in-the-coffin

Black Lightning was very quickly becoming centered around Lightning specifically

That doesn't mean to say that it wasn't still Jefferson's story and that Anissa wasn't still important, but Jennifer was getting set up to be The Powerhouse of the show, with the bulk of the drama probably surrounding her and the thought of her potentially taking on her father's mantel

It seemed like the idea of Black Lightning retiring or atleast putting on the suit a little less was starting to become a thing, and with Jefferson firmly accepting his daughters as part of the world of Metas at that point, that would have lead to Anissa and Jennifer taking much more of the spotlight than they had in the beginning- that's a natural progression of things, and although I actually prefer Anissa's storyline (it's just more my personal cup of tea), I will readily admit that Jennifer was the one who had the ability to carry an entire season's worth of story on her shoulders.... not so much Anissa, who has her wife (so romantic subplots are pretty toned down), her powers are developed and stable (nothing quite like the learning curves Jennifer was facing), she has a stable job and a stable superhero identity- two, in fact-, so no literal schoolyard drama or issues with "Am I in my father's shadow? Is this how the world sees me and do I want them to see me this way?" much like what Jennifer was starting to experience in the end of the show either

TLDR Anissa mostly had her shit together, wich is great for her, but it doesn't lend to being able to carry the most dramatic storylines like it does with Jennifer, who's still figuring out pretty much everything

I think Jennifer was already starting to take a very large amount of the story as of the last season and even starting to steal the spotlight before that, if they were to come back for more I feel like she would have been in a place of being much more obviously groomed to take on the main charector status wile Jefferson stepped back just a little bit to be more supportive to her journey instead of the other way around

And the show could still exist very much as Jefferson's story wile that story happened to center on Jennifer

.....Buuuuuuuuuuuuut that's where the problem comes in

China said before the show was cancelled that she was going to step down from playing Lightning because she wanted to focus on her faith more and be removed from anything that wasn't "in service to God", wich is totally fine for her, but it does put Black Lightning in a bit of a difficult position because the charector they were gearing up to make their breakout star was suddenly going to either have to pull a Winn and just... be.... gone.... or have to get recast

To be entirely honest, I'm not sure why they didn't stick with the recasting instead, I thought Laura Karuki did a fantastic job as Jennifer and the "Am I Jennifer or am I JJ?" story would have been a great thing to explore for an entire season, but if I had to guess, they maybe just didn't want to mess with it?

Black Lightning had good numbers but it wasn't in the top five or anything to my recollection, not since it's premiere season anyway, and it could have been a compound decision of "We weren't going to keep this up much longer anyway so let's just take this as a sign to wrap it up", although I think that the way the recast was done could have presented a stable option for them if they had decided to give it a go for a full season, although maybe that's just my opinion and they initially made the recast so that the people behind the curtain could see if Laura would work well enough as Jennifer and when they decided that the vibe wasn't right they went on ahead and pulled the plug rather than risk getting the same um... resistance.... than Batwoman met over their recasting choices

Although I could go on for days about why that situation is different (to be clear: I do like Ryan quite alot but I don't think the Batwoman situation was nearly as seamless as Black Lightning's in terms of recasts, but that's another story for another day)

TLDR I think if China had stayed aboard they would have gone on for atleast another season or two, but there are some shows where members of an ensemble cast are so essential that their leaving is too big of a blow to stay through

It's much like when Dylan O'Brien had to bow out of Teen Wolf for a little wile, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a fan who absolutely loved season six, and even before that people were having a hard time staying with a lack of Tyler Hoechlin, with some even stepping away when Crystal Reed left, even though- at both of those points- most of the core cast was still there and at no point did the titular main ever leave, I feel like Black Lightning's situation is very similar, people were just too invested in Jennifer

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eaffwesf · 3 years

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descending from the sky on night-black wings until every branch of every tree

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 7/23/21 - SNAKE EYES, OLD, VAL, JOE BELL, SETTLERS, JOLT, MANDIBLES, and More!

So I definitely underestimated Space Jam: A New Legacy last week and way overestimated Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, maybe because I liked the latter way more than the former and probably underestimated the nostalgia factor for Space Jam… oh, yeah, and the fact that it was also on HBO Max, which didn’t really matter since it grossed more than $30 million anyway. Meanwhile, Escape Room, a rare theatrical-only movie, failed to bring people into theaters to see it as it ended up making about half what I expected. Oh, well. It happens. Live and learn.

Hey, guess what? We don’t have any sequels this week! Okay, to be fair, we do have a spin-off/prequel sort of thing, so I guess that counts.

The latter is SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS (Paramount Pictures/MGM/Skydance), the latest attempt by Hasbro Films to reboot its G.I. Joe franchise with Henry Golding from Crazy Rich Asians playing the popular anti-hero from the oh-so-popular Hasbro toys, comics and cartoons. As you can surmise from the subtitle, Snake Eyes, directed by Robert Schwentke (Red, R.I.P.D.), is an origin story for the most enigmatic member of the Joe team. Much of the rest of the cast are Asian actors or martial arts specialists like Iko Uwais from The Raid and its sequel. The movie does introduce Samara Weaving from Ready or Not as Scarlet, another popular G.I. Joe character, as well as her counterpart, the Baronness, so it’s definitely a G.I. Joe movie still.

It’s been quite some time since the previous Joe movie, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which was released in March 2013 where it opened with $40.5 million, which is less than the previous movie, 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which opened with $54.7 million. The two movies made $150.2 million and $122.5 million respectively, although “Retaliation” did slightly better overseas to gross $375.7 million to Rise of Cobra’s $302 million. Those aren’t huge numbers compared to Hasbro’s other big toy-related franchise, the “Transformers” movies by Michael Bay, which were doing almost $300 million in the U.S. alone. Retaliation may have been hurt by being delayed a number of times putting more time between the original movie and sequel, but it introduced a few great new ideas and characters played by Dwayne “Franchise Viagra” Johnson and Bruce “You Have My Direct Deposit Info, Right?” Willis.

There is an odd connection between “Retaliation” and Snake Eyes, because the former was directed by Jon Chu, who directed Golding in Crazy Rich Asians, the movie that broke him out. Chu had talked forever about doing another G.I. Joe movie but it seems like he’s moved on and has a lot on his plate now, so who knows if we’ll ever get another direct sequel? It’s hard to say if and how Snake Eyes might integrate with previous or future Joe movies.

Either way, the G.I. Joe franchise obviously has a number of dedicated fans who might want to see more of where Snake Eyes came from, and the trailers make it look like it’s in a similar vein as John Wick Chapter 3. Unfortunately, I won’t be seeing this until Tuesday night and reviews won’t hit until Thursday, so I’m going to have to gauge interest in this without knowing whether critics liked this any more than the previous movies. (Okay, reviews went live at 3 this morning, but I was already asleep, having already finished writing this column, as always.)

I can see Snake Eyes pushing for an opening somewhere in the mid-$20 millions, and maybe it will over-perform like last week’s Space Jam: A New Legacy or Mortal Kombat and bring in closer to $30 million, since one presumes that the Joe fanbase hasn’t gone anywhere and would go with this over Old.

Mini-Review: While I’m not really much of a G.I. Joe fan, I am a fan of martial arts, swordplay, and Japanese culture like Yakuza and samurai and such. Not really knowing that much about the title character of Snake Eyes, I was kind of interested in knowing more about him, especially the fact that they cast a real actor to play him for this movie in Henry Golding. (Sorry, not sorry, Ray Park.)

We meet him as a boy with no name, having gotten his nickname from the man who killed his father when he was a boy, urging his dad to roll dice in order to live. He rolls (what else?) snake eyes. Decades later, the boy is a man working for the Yakuza and a particularly nasty guy named Kenta (Takehiro Hira) who nearly kills Snake Eyes before he’s paired with Tommy (Andrew Koji), the prodigal son of the Arashikage clan who also happen to be Kenta’s sworn enemies. Having saved Tommy’s life, Snake Eyes is urged to stay at the family castle and train to join the clan as an assassin. His training involves a series of tests conducted by Blind Master (Peter Mensah) and Hard Master (Iko Uwais), but we soon learn that Snake Eyes is still loyal to Kenta and used his friendship with Tommy as a ruse to infiltrate the castle and steal their greatest weapon. Oh, yeah there’s also giant snakes, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Having seen Robert Schwentke’s The Captain, I know the director can make great movies, and Snake Eyes is probably one of his better American films, at least that I’ve seen. The reason this movie work at all is the casting for most of the may Asian roles are fantastic. I particularly enjoyed seeing Haruke Abe as Akiko, one of the truly kick-ass women in the movie, but the same can be said for Eri Ishida, who plays Tommy’s grandmother and the head of Tommy’s clan, and she too has some great action moments. The point is that Snake Eyes doesn’t suffer from the decision to cast talented Asian actors in the same way that Mortal Kombat did.

The movie’s biggest issues arrive when they try to fit G.I. Joe and Cobra into the mix (about an hour into the movie), because it definitely feels shoehorned into what is becoming a decent movie about honor and loyalty. I have never heard of Spanish actress Ursula Corbero, but she’s absolutely garbage as Baronness, vamping and trying to make the role more comicky apparently. By comparison, I’m generally a fan of Samara Weaving, but she isn’t much better as Scarlett. Since these are both popular G.I. Joe characters, I can’t imagine the fans will be too happy.

A lot of what happens at the end is telegraphed from a mile away, especially if you already figured out where the relationship between Snake Eyes and Tommy is going. (Maybe it isn’t a secret, but in case it isn’t obvious…)

Snake Eyes works fine as the G.I. Joe origin it’s meant to be, but I would have been perfectly fine without any G.I. Joe references at all, and if this was just a cool Asian action flick like The Villainess or some of Takashi Miike’s yakuza films.

Rating: 7/10

M. Night Shyamalan returns to theaters after a brief sojourn into TV with Apple TV+’s Servant (which is great) with his latest high-concept thriller, OLD (Universal Pictures), which involves a family who goes to visit a remote tropical beach where they learn that something on the beach is making them age extraordinarily fast. The movie stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, Alex Wolff from Hereditary (and last week’s Pig), and Thomasin McKenzie from Jojo Rabbit. It’s a pretty great ensemble cast for sure, but how many of those actors have a proven track record to bring people into theaters? Not many, but will that matter?

Shyamalan has had an amazing career as a filmmaker in terms of box office with six movies that grossed over $100 million (and a seventh that came close), one movie (Signs) that grossed over $200 million, and then his early film, The Sixth Sense, which came close to $300 million domestically. (This is all domestic, if you didn’t figure it out.) Shyamalan’s movies have done very well overseas, often matching the amount the movies made in the States. Shyamalan’s last two movies, 2017’s Split and 2019’s Glass, took the director back to his earlier movie, 2000’s Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis, and both those movies grossed more. (To be fair, ticket prices have increased a lot since 2000.) Glass opened with $40 million in January 2019, roughly the same as Split’s opening, and that’s a fairly standard opening for the filmmaker.

Old doesn’t have that connection to a popular past movie, nor does it really have the starpower of some of Shyamalan’s movies, so it’s definitely at a disadvantage and possibly more in line with his 2015 “comeback” thriller, The Visit, which grossed $65.2 million from an opening of $25.2 million.

Horror movies and thrillers don’t necessarily need to have big name stars but it doesn’t hurt -- look at Ethan Hawke’s forays into genre with Sinister and The Purge for Blumhouse -- and though any of the cast could appear on talk shows to promote the film, I’m not sure if any of them could be considered a draw at this point. (Maybe Alex Wolff, since he’s quite popular among young women for his horror movies and music career.)

Any way you look at it, Shyamalan has become a filmmaker whose name on a film helps drive people to see the movies in theaters, and that will be the case here, as well. You combine the Shyamalan name with an easy-to-sell concept like a beach that ages people (vs. the relaxation beaches normally provide)

My review for this one will be over at Below the Line later on Thursday, but I’m presuming that critics will be mixed on this one at best. If they go negative, which I could see happening, that might theoretically hurt the movie’s chances, although it should still be good for opening weekend.

Because of this, and because Old might lose some of its male audiences to the above Snake Eyes -- oddly, neither of these movies will be available on streaming day and date, mind you -- Shyamalan’s latest will probably end up in the mid-to-high-teens, although it might be able to make $20 million in a push.

1. Snake Eyes (Paramount/MGM/Skydance) - $24.1 million N/A

2. Old (Universal) - $17 million N/A

3. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $15 million -51%

4. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $13.5 million -48%

5. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (Sony) - $4.5 million -49%

6. F9 (Universal) - $4.4 million -43%

7. The Boss Baby: Family Business (Universal/DreamWorks Animation) - $2.6 million -45%

8. The Forever Purge (Universal) - $2.1 million -49%

8. A Quiet Place Part II (Paramount) - $1.6 million -25%

10. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (Focus) - $1 million -47%

There are a few more theatrical releases, but let’s start by getting into this week’s “Chosen One”, which is…

Leo Scott and Ting Poo’s doc VAL (Amazon) refers to actor Val Kilmer, who goes through his entire career in this fascinating portrait in which we see him in the present day dealing with the debilitating throat cancer that’s nearly taken his voice. Culled from almost four decades of archival footage, most of it shot by Kilmer himself, the film puts together an amazing story of Kilmer’s life as a working actor, but also captures his family life, his tough relationship with his father and how his marriage and career deteriorated over time.

It really surprised me how much I loved this movie, because honestly, I’ve never been a particularly big Kilmer fan, other than a few favorites like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and probably a few others. In fact, I finally saw Top Gun for the first time a few months ago, and I wasn’t even that big a fan, as I don’t think it aged well. But what’s great about Val, the movie, is that you get to see some of Kilmer’s own footage from on set and off for movies like Top Gun and even The Island of Doctor Moreau, which he admits was a complete disaster, a shame since it was the only chance to work with his idol, Marlon Brando (who barely shows up to set).

What’s particularly eerie is hearing a younger Val narrating the film, clearly recorded from before he was hit with the debilitating throat cancer, but the filmmakers did a great job editing all of Kilmer’s footage and words into a surprisingly cohesive (and still very linear) story.

Besides seeing the footage and how it meshed with Kilmer’s narration, I also greatly appreciated the score by Garth Stevenson, as well as the song choices, which includes some familiar tunes but always in a different way than what we’re used to. I’m really curious if Val picked some of the tunes himself, but whoever the music supervisor was on this film, really did an amazing job getting songs that meshed well with Stevenson’s music.

Val is a terrific portrait of an actor who probably never got the level of respect he deserved , but it’s also a film that will make you think of your own life and mortality.

Mark Wahlberg stars in and as JOE BELL (Roadside Attractions/Vertical) in this drama directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, who helmed the excellent and underrated Monsters and Men. Green didn’t write this one, but it was written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, the Oscar-winning writers of Brokeback Mountain. With that in mind, you’d expect something more interesting, but as I watched Joe Bell, I actually wasn’t aware that it was based on a real person/story.

The long and short of it is that Wahlberg’s Joe Bell is a father who has decided to walk across the country from Oregon to New York City to talk to anyone who will listen about bullying, and why it’s bad. Yup, that’s it. That’s the movie. To be fair, we do get to see Joe spending time with his gay son Jadin (Reed Miller), and those are generally the best parts of the film, but one thing that really didn’t work for me was the structure, especially the time spent (SPOILER!) pretending that Jadin was already dead before Joe went on his cross-country walk. It’s something that’s casually revealed when Joe stops in a gay bar for a drink and mentions it to a drag queen.

Otherwise, Joe Bell is a movie that leans so heavily on the screenplay and Wahlberg’s performance, which is better than others we’ve seen from him but isn’t that great. Overall, the film is just so dour, glum and frankly, quite dull, that there’s very little that can make it more interesting, especially since the narrative and structure makes the whole thing kind of obvious.

Maybe there’s a better version of this movie but when you get to what is quite a grim ending and then you realize that it’s a true story, you kind of wish that thing called “artistic license” was used more liberally to make a better movie. All Joe Bell does is state the obvious: that bullying is bad, especially towards people different and possibly more fragile than you.

Rating: 6/10

I'm not sure how wide Roadside plans on releasing Joe Bell, but I'd expect 400 to 500 theaters, but I'm not sure that's enough to get it into the Top 10.

Wyatt Rockefeller’s feature film directorial debut, SETTLERS (IFC Midnight) takes place on Mars, and at first, it deals with a couple (played by Johnny Lee Miller and Sofia Boutella) living on a remote base there with their young daughter Remmy (Brooklynn Prince), but it’s soon attacked by a stranger who wants them to leave. The movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last month and will get a release into select theaters on Friday as well as be released in various digital formats.

Settlers starts off as if it might be a home invasion movie with a sci-fi twist, but that aspect of it is fleeting, as it soon becomes a drama where the stranger Jerry (Ismael Cruz Cordova) moves in with Remmy and her mother, and then other stuff happens. Oh, yeah, there’s also an adorable robot named Steve.

Don’t get me wrong, because I genuinely liked Settlers, although I think I was expecting something more genre-y since it’s being released by IFC Midnight. Because of the setting, I was expecting something more science fiction or home invasion, and I guess comparing it to a Western would be fair due to the wilderness setting, but really, it’s a character drama about how three people need to coexist together, especially when one of them is a stranger in their midst. Seeing how Boutella’s character slowly warms up to Jerry while Remmy is still suspicious and even angry at her mother accepting the stranger.

In many ways, this is Prince’s movie, because she’s so good in this role that she almost supports the adult actors by leading. Prince is so compelling that she’s even able to keep you interested when Remmy is just wandering around, exploring various aspects of the environment around their home base. That is, at least until the last act when the film jumps forward a number of years and Nell Tiger Free (from Servant) takes over the role of Remmy (quite fluidly, in fact).

This creates a very different dynamic between Jerry and Remmy that might feel a bit pervy to some women (okay, most women). Cordova is also quite good in a role that’s tough to sell, because he isn’t the typical bad man.

Settlers is a quiet and subdued film with not a lot of action or dialogue for that matter, but it reminds me quite a bit of Moon, and it’s a similarly solid debut by Rockefeller, showing him to be a strong storyteller able to get strong performances out of his relatively small cast. (Oh, and hey, I should have an interview with Rockefeller next week over at Below the Line.)

Rating: 7/10

Kate Beckinsale stars in the action-thriller JOLT (Amazon), which hits Amazon Prime Video this Friday. It's directed by Tanya Wexler (Buffaloed), and in the movie, Beckinsale plays Lindy, a woman with a debilitating condition that gives her insane strength when she gets angry, and she gets angry a LOT. But no, this is not like the upcoming She-Hulk series, though it’s an incredible action movie for sure.

Beckingsale’s Lindy has something called “intermittent explosive disorder” which I’m not sure if that’s a real thing (probably not), but it gives her incredible strength when she gets mad, and it forces her to wear a vest that gives a huge electrical charge when she pushes a button. So yeah, the movie feels a lot like Crank if it had a woman lead instead of Jason Statham. Honestly, if that alone doesn’t sell you on Jolt, then this movie probably isn’t gonna be for you.

It actually starts out as a pseudo-rom-com as Lindy meets a nice guy, played by Jai Courtney, but after a few dates and some great sex, he’s killed, and Lindy is upset but even more furious than normal, swearing to find the man responsible for killing her kinda-boyfriend. So yeah, Jolt quickly turns into a revenge thriller, but it’s one with lots of Beckinsale kicking ass, some great car chases, and lots of funny doofuses getting their asses handed to them, both figuratively and literally.

Surprisingly, Wexler didn’t write this one -- the screenplay’s Scott Wascha -- but her reputation and previous films helped her put together a great cast around Beckinsale, including Stanley Tucci as her therapist who set her up with the shock vest, and Bobby Cannavale and Laverne Cox as the detectives investigating the death of Lindy’s beau, all three of them offering some great humorous dynamics to the mix.

That’s probably why Jolt is quite satisfying, not only in terms of being a female empowerment movie, but also not taking itself too seriously and always keeping the comedy on the darker side. For instance, there’s a scene where Lindy throws live babies at Cox to distract her, but what do you expect from a movie that enjoys giving its main character literal electroshock therapy?

So yeah, I definitely liked Jolt as an action-comedy. Maybe it was a bit too violent for my tastes, at times, but it definitely is everything I hoped to get out of Gunpowder Milkshake last week, and honestly, I had no idea Wexler had this kind of movie in her.

Rating: 7/10

Quirky French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux (Rubber) returns with MANDIBLES (Magnet), a comedy of sorts about a pair of dumbass friends -- Manu (Grégoire Ludig from Keep Your Eye Out) and David Marsais’ Jean-Gab, who steal a car for a job only to find a giant fly inside its trunk, so they decide to train it to rob banks for them.

Yup, it’s another weird one from Dupieux, and honestly, it took me a long time to really get into it, as these two doofuses get into all sorts of predicaments (and who have an amusing “secret” handshake). Where it really takes off is when they meet a group of vacationers, including the one and only Adèle Exarchopoulos as Agnes, a woman who mistakes one of the guys as a high-school lover. Things just get zanier from there as the guys try to sneak in their giant trained fly -- now named Dominique -- into the vacation home where they’re staying with a bunch of Agnes suspicious friends and her brother. (There’s also one woman who literally shouts everything due to a condition, and at first, it was more aggravating than funny, but like everything else in this, she gets funnier over time.)

In fact, after I got to the end of the movie, I ended up going back to rewatch the first half again to see if I missed anything, and surprise, surprise, the two guys and their antics had definitely grown on me by the end, making it easier to enjoy a second view. I certainly wouldn’t recommend any of Dupieux’s movies to just anyone, and that goes for Mandibles, but if you enjoyed the quirky humor of Rubber or last year’s Deerskin, then you might not hate this one, but it’s also not a movie I’d recommend you rush out to see in theaters.

Rating: 6.5/10

A few more words about a few other docs… (As usual, I didn’t get to watch nearly as much as I hoped to get to this week.)

I did get to watch Garret Price’s WOODSTOCK '99: PEACE, LOVE AND RAGE (HBO), which will hit the cable network on Friday. Honestly, I barely remember it, and I’m not even sure I watched it PPV or at all, because there weren’t really that many acts at this year’s festival that interested me. I mean, Limp Bizkit? Korn? Rage Against the Machine? I wasn’t really into any of those in the late ‘90s, and certainly not my sworn-enemy Jewel or Sheryl Crow or Alannis Morrissette, the festival’s token women who were slotted into separate days. Even so, Price is a pretty decent documentation of all the awfulness at that particular festival from portapotties mixing shit in with all the mud or the many cases of sexual harassment, assault and flat-out rape that took place on the campgrounds. I’m sure I heard most of it but seeing it put together like this in the film’s two-hour running time just makes it harder to watch without tearing up. A pretty solid doc that I’m not sure I could fully recommend, but hey, I’ve never been to one of these festivals and after watching this movie, I probably never will. (It is interesting how Price contrasts the disaster of Woodstock ‘99 with the hugely-successful Coachella, which started not long afterwards.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to Jamila Wignot’s doc AILEY (NEON) about choreographer Alvin Ailey, making this the second movie about dance or choreography in a row. It opens in New York this weekend, in L.A. theaters next Friday July 30 and then everywhere on August 6.

Then there’s ALL THE STREETS ARE SILENT (Greenwich), Jeremy Elkin’s doc that covers the crossroads between skateboard and hip-hop in downtown Manhattan during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. For whatever reason, I wasn’t able to get around to this, although it features Rosario Dawson, Bobbito Garcia, Stretch Armstrong, Moby (him again?!), Fab 5 Freddy, and a lot of other rappers I’ve never heard of.

Also hitting HBO Max on Thursday is THROUGH OUR EYES (HBO Max/Sesame Workshop docuseries), a series of four 30-minute films designed for adults to watch with their kids age 9 and up, dealing with things like homelessness, parental incarceration, military caregiving, and climate displacement. Sounds fun.

Hitting Netflix on Wednesday is TROLLHUNTERS: RISE OF THE TITANS (Netflix), a movie based on the popular series produced by Guillermo del Toro, which I’ve also never see, so I guess I don’t have a lot to say about this.

Lastly, premiering this week is the second season of Apple TV+’s Emmy-nominated TED LASSO which is probably gonna win a bunch of those Emmys going by previous awards shows. It’s a very popular show. I’m still on Season 1, myself.

Other films I didn’t get to… (sorry, respective publicists!)

HERE AFTER (Vertical)

FEAR AND LOATHING IN ASPEN (Shout Studios!)

Next week, it’s a doozy! Disney finally releases Jungle Cruise, starring Dwayen Johnson and Emily Blunt, while there are two smaller movies looking to make some money, Thomas McCarthy’s Stillwater (Focus Features), starring Matt Damon, and David Lowery’s The Green Knight (A24), starring Dev Patel. Should be an interesting one.

#The Weekend Warrior #Movies #Reviews #Old #Snake Eyes #Mandibles #Settlers #Val #Joe Bell #Jolt #Streaming #VOD #Box Office

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lettadalokislayter · 6 years

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TMI

I’m feeling adventurous and talkative today. So here is a list of useless facts about me.

I am 21, gonna be 22 in June.

I share a birthday with Anne Frank.

My first name is Lura. Not Laura, nor Lara. I go by Lainey.

Onision’s ex girlfriend/wife/whatever was the only person in the world who I had ever seen have the same spelling.

I am pansexual (or at least I think I am). I love just about anybody, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality. If you’re looking damn fine, then boi (or preferred pronoun), am I gonna be thinkin about you later, regardless of what’s in the trunk.

I am cisgender and white. I’m too white. I can’t even handle black pepper on my eggs.

I have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. I say ADD, because that was what they diagnosed me as at the time. I’m on and off medication, because anxiety is fun.

I am actually born and raised in Alabama. Not a fan. The only thing I really admire about the state is how pretty the farmers markets are, and the Zelda Fitzgerald legacy.

I legit live down the street from that Taco Bell that burned down and had a funeral hosted for it. They left it like that until about 3 weeks ago, where they’re rebuilding it. I’m super happy about that, because I have drive across town for my taco bell.

When I was in high-school, I was a percussionist, but I mostly played the marimba and xylophone. My high-school was too poor for vibes.

I have strange and unusual dreams, that I really should just make a tumblr dedicated to them.

Literally, on Monday I had a dream that I met Napoleon Dynamite giving tours of Target and he gave me a fistbump, and I was bragging about it to everyone in the dream like Napoleon Dynamite giving tours of Target is a normal thing, like how Johnny Depp goes to children’s hospitals as Captain Jack.

I love the heat and humidity. I can’t stand the cold. But boy do I love Florida. It’s like living in the world’s biggest humidifier, and if that feeling intensifies closer to the equator sign me the fuck up.

If you wanna see white arrogance in Alabama, go to Prattville. These people are the absolute worst. A majority of them grew up in Montgomery, but moved because they felt “unsafe” when family of color moves into their tight neighborhoods. I swear to god. They call themselves the “preferred community”. Every time have to drive through there, I need a goddamn shower.

I’m a huge fan of comedy, even if it’s not so politically correct. When I was a kid, my dad and I would bond over HBO comedy specials, such as Sam Kinison, and Andrew Dice Clay, and Ralphie May. I got into Dave Chappelle as I got older.

I know some of the above comedians are controversial, so laying it down here. I don’t think that the things you make fun of as a comedian reflect who you are inside. iDubbbz makes a very good point, that being offended is fine and good, just as long as you aren’t shitting on anyone when you’re no better yourself.

When I was growing up, I went to a private christian school, with uniforms and everything. It was mostly Church of Christ teachings, though I was baptized Methodist. I’m now a hopeful agnostic.

I don’t attend church because I struggle with the rude idea that everyone in the world is going to hell.

If I were born anywhere else, I’d probably be a mormon though (not really though if I’m being correct). I think the Bible has a lot of good messages in it, and it’s a good thing to grow up reading, but people take it way too literally.

If you couldn’t tell by now my favorite musical is the Book of Mormon.

The last two songs I’ve been blasting have been Yeah Right by Joji, and The Suburbs by Arcane Fire.

My favorite TV shows right now range between Bob’s Burgers (because Bob reminds me so fucking much of Joji), and South Park. South Park is hated on more than I think it should be, because it really takes a lot of thought and research to make fun of something, and they are spectacular in doing that.

My favorite Youtuber right now would have to be Max Stanley of course, because what a beautiful shit(er, vomit)poster he is. I love his Pokemon vids, to a point where he’s really made me debate on starting a collection. I also think he’s an extraordinary director when it comes to content, because let’s be honest, he totally directed HTB’s face reveal vid.

I created a twitter solely to follow Max because he is the world’s snidest fucker.

I’m about to finish college with an Associates in Computer Information Systems with a Cisco Networking emphasis, though I enjoy programming more.

That said, while I love programming, I’m only really good at simple shit.

For example, for a Java midterm we were supposed to create a complex program full of booleans (that’s fancy for True or False, but you can also sometimes refer to them as If Else statements). I made this huge complex program where you put in the temperature reading, and it would calculate it as Fahrenheit or Celsius, depending on the input. And then it would tell you if it was hot, mild, cool, cold, or if you did extreme temperatures, it would display the coldest point on Earth, the hottest place on Earth, and the Sun. I even included some decent ASCII art.

But one fucker in my class made fucking flappy bird.

#I'm talking #TMI #This is what happens on a good ADD day #I spent an hour rambling #I should've gone to the store #woops

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canaryatlaw · 3 years

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okay I should get typing because I’m very tired and I’m feeling ranty tonight if you couldn’t tell by my last post. but yeah, today was fine. I woke up at like 10:41 I think, I got a phone call from the client I was helping get the dude out of the house last week about some stuff so I talked to her for a bit and then decided I should probably get up if I wanted some chance of falling asleep at a decent hour tonight (not that it really matters as it’s almost 2 am, but I tried). I had a baking itch, and I decided to make some blueberry corn muffins (my favorite) with the last 1/2 cup of corn meal I had left lol. the recipe I used last time only called for 1/2 cup as compared to others that were more like 1 or 1 1/2 and they turned out good so that works. I cut back on the lemon extract this time since it came through very heavily last time, opting for more like 1/8 teaspoon instead of 1/2. They turned out really good, just a hint of lemon flavor and it complemented the blueberries nicely, which I don’t think using lemon zest as called for in the recipe would turn out the same, so I was satisfied with that. I worked on some stuff for a while and listened to some podcasts, and did somewhat of a kitchen clean up, there’s still a lot of dirty stuff that needs washing but I at least kept from adding to the pile with my new baking exploits. in the evening-ish I decided I was going to look at hbo max and see what I wanted to watch, because if I’m actually going to keep paying for this thing I should at least use it, and I opted for Judas and the Black Messiah, which was super interesting because it was definitely history I was not familiar with much at all. in the movie, the white fbi agent says the panthers are just as bad as the klan, which triggered a memory of being told a similar statement by my parents when I was younger. I’ve known they had views that were not exactly free of racism, but growing up and finding that out about your parents really sucks. I very clearly remember driving around DC on a family trip and passing a sign for “Malcolm X Boulevard” (I think, I might be wrong about the Boulevard part) and I’d asked who Malcolm X was (I was probably around 11 at the time), and I don’t remember exactly what they said, but it was definitely like him being an agitator that didn’t really help anything actually progress, and my dad said something about him making a nasty comment after JFK was assassinated (something about chickens coming home to roost I think?). And being a small child I accepted this as fact and didn’t question it until several years later when I saw his name come up in other contexts that definitely weren’t negative. Idk, looking at your parents with that kind of stuff is weird. I know my dad grew up in the projects in NYC in the 1950s as a child of italian immigrants, and they definitely left that situation with some certain beliefs, though my uncle is way worse than my dad ever was. ugh, I hate that this is a thing. sigh. anyway. after that I put on Scrubs to decompress a bit and watched a couple episodes of that before seeing it was getting late, so I went to shower and start getting ready for bed, and now it’s just past 2 am and I’m on clinic supervisor duty tomorrow so I get to be up bright and early for that, so I should definitely go to bed now. Goodnight friends. Hope your Monday didn’t suck.

#daily journal #February 2021

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perfectirishgifts · 3 years

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T-Mobile TVision Review: More Competition In Streaming Services Welcomed

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/t-mobile-tvision-review-more-competition-in-streaming-services-welcomed/

T-Mobile TVision Review: More Competition In Streaming Services Welcomed

T-Mobile TVision

There has never been a better time to cut the cord. These days, more than ever, people are looking to save money on streaming, and the selection of robust, affordable live TV streaming services make cable TV unnecessary. Earlier this month, T-Mobile launched two new Live TV Streaming Services, TVision VIBE and TVision Live, that aims to disrupt not just cable plans but also the current live streaming service out there that have increased in size and price. Unlike Hulu Live TV, Sling TV, YouTube TV, and FuboTV, which bundle entertainment and sports in a single package, T-Mobile has essentially split out entertainment channels in TVision VIBE, with sports and news going in TVision Live. So, what does this new service offer? What platforms does it support? And when can you get it? I am going to go over all of that and more. I spent a few days trying out TVision on both an iPad and T-Mobile’s branded Android TV dongle, the TVision Hub. Here comes TVision with its low-cost approach. Let’s dive in.

T-Mobile Home UI

What is TVision?

TVision is a T-Mobile brand new live streaming service meant to compete with traditional cable providers and established streaming options like Sling TV, Hulu Live TV, YouTube TV, and FuboTV. But do not get confused with the T-Mobile at-Home service. They are not the same thing that the company offered last year with their acquisition of Layer3 to help build the service, catapulting the relatively small cable company into the national spotlight, where that version with limited to a handful of markets around the country for $100/month. Around this time in 2017, T-Mobile announced its acquisition with the small cable TV company Layer3. At the time, the carrier said it would use the technology developed by Layer3 as the basis for disruptive cable TV service that would challenge competitors like Comcast and Verizon.

What makes Layer3 special? Layer3 is not using the type of internet that you use when you pay Comcast or Verizon. It runs its private IP network to serve users’ content directly. What that means is that Layer3 can manage your bandwidth and content without having to worry about a medium network causing congestion to slow down your speed or throttle your data with the ability to send HD video at a bandwidth of fewer than four megabits per second or at least that is what their CEO Jeff Binder has claimed.

Taking on the challenge and modern approach to putting together a TV service in this day and age, especially with the year we have been having, of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, YouTube TV, and more, Layer3 integrates content from those services alongside DVR recordings to learn what you watch over time to offer better suggestions alongside a more personalized on-demand content. One might consider that T-Mobile is buying an experienced and internet-focused company that encodes live video from streaming over a privately managed network certainly bears some parallels in execution and strategy. I would even say that the self-dubbed “uncarrier” might have something interesting up their sleeve as of now.

T-Mobile TVision

T-Mobile TVision pricing, channels & DVR

A big selling point that T-Mobile is leading heavily on is its value proposition. The fact of the matter is that T-Mobiles pitch is that traditional packages are too inflated or too pricey. They cost too much, as they pile on too many channels and a combination of channels that you do not want or use. While live TV streaming services have certainly disrupted that pattern, T-Mobile says, “some of those bigger players in the streaming space are also guilty and are getting too bloated and expensive over time.” So, here comes TVision with its low-cost approach. Below you will see a total of four plans to choose from what the company has to offer right now.

TVision Vibe: ($10 a month for two simultaneous streams, 30 channels)

TVision Live: ($40 a month for three simultaneous streams, 30 plus channels)

TVision Live Plus: ($50 a month for three simultaneous streams, 40 plus channels)

TVision Live Zone: ($60 per month for three simultaneous streams, 50 plus channels)

The company is splitting its offerings into a few different services. The service has two primary plans to choose from TVision Vibe for $10.00 and TVision Live for $40.00 plus, which can be upgraded to TVision Live, TVision Vibe for $50.00. TVision Vibe can be upgraded to TVision Live Zone for a total of $60.00. With TVision, T-Mobile has essentially split up the entertainment channels in TVision Vibe, with sports and news in TVision Live. TVision Vibe is $10.00, including Food Network, BBC America, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon, Hallmark, none of the premium and more expensive Live plans do. So, to get those channels, you will need both TVision Live and TVision Vibe. One might be more of a decent fit if you have a substantial selection of over the air options and you are looking to supplement that with a few more channels. Up next is TVision channels, which are essentially the premium channels you can also tackle your live or Vibe packages like CNBC, NBC News Now, Fox News, ESPN2, and more. The TVision Live package includes a mix of sports, news, local TV channels, and entertainment.

After TVision Live, the packages become more specialized and customizable. The TVision Live Plus adds many sports channels, but few entertainment channels I found ideal given that NFL Sunday Ticket and other channels are not in the streaming service. Finally, TVision Live Zone adds a mix of news, more sports channels, and Spanish language stations like Telemundo and the NFL Network. If you upgraded to the TVision Live Zone, the most massive addition is the Longhorn Network, NFL RedZone, MAVTV, Universal Kids, and Outside Television. Channels like the Dodgers, which is owned by Spectrum, or NFL Sunday Ticket, which is owned by AT&T, will not be included, and other teams owed by other cable providers.

A significant exception was the lack of CBS local channel support, so T-Mobile customers will need to register and sign-up for CBS All Access Additionally, in some cities, FOX affiliates may not be available on TVision Live, but the national channel will feed on those networks. A&E Networks are missing across all tiers in the entertainment channels, with TVision Live including 17 of the top cable channels and TVision Vibe only includes 15. You can also purchase a few add-on movie channels as extra packages like most other streaming services, like Epix, available for $5.99, Starz for $8.99, and Showtime can be purchased for $10.99 a month. Unfortunately, HBO is not included as an add-on. To receive that content, you would need to pay for HBO Max. Additionally, if you do not find a channel that you like, T-Mobile offers individual channels on which pricing may defer.

Device Support

If pricing and plans are the most crucial detail when a new service launches, device, and platform support are probably not far behind on that list, and for TVision, that support is solid with one exception. Below is a list of platforms that will support the T-Vision application at launch. You can see the mobile site is well taken care of with Android and iOS support. Meanwhile, the ‘At-Home’ streaming can gain access to the new service from the list you see below. What I find disappointing is that there is no Roku support. I am sure it will be just a matter of time before the company will bring Roku into the lineup or continue evaluating future platforms, including next-gen game consoles like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

Mobile:

Android (Version 5.1 and Up)

iOS/iPADS (Version 11 and up)

At Home:

Apple tv

Fire TV

Android TV

Google TV

Platforms Unsupported at Launch:

Roku

Samsung TV

LG TV

All models of Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo Gaming Systems

Web Browser

T-Mobile TVision & Apple TV

Beyond all that, if you are on the TVision Live or channel plans, you can view a maximum of 3 simultaneous streams. For VIBE users at a $10/month plan, that is limited to two concurrent streams and includes a 100-hour Cloud DVR option for all three levels of the TVision Live packages, but it is an additional $4.99 add-on for the TVision Vibe Package. It is important to note that all the package prices are available for subscribers to T-Mobile postpaid accounts. It will be made available for legacy Sprint subscribers later this month in November. As for prepaid T-Mobile customers and non-T-Mobile customers, they will access TVision in 2021, but as for an exact date, I am not sure when that will be next year. T-Mobile customers who signed up for TVision Live Plus or Live Zone before December 31, 2020, could have secured a discounted Apple TV 4K set-top box for $99 and Apple TV Plus for free for a year. If all goes well during those phases, the company expects a full nationwide rollout to everyone, including those who aren’t currently customers of T-Mobile in the future; when that will be, again, I am not exactly sure, but T-Mobile has a sign-up page if you want to be notified when those stages begin.

If you were to subscribe to both TVision VIBE and LIVE, you would get more than any other Live TV Streaming Service out there. If you would like to check out the TVisions channel list on its website, click here or compare the TVision channel line-up against other streaming services – here from CNET. Recently, FuboTV made a switch where you can stream on connected devices from two locations simultaneously, while Hulu Live TV has yet to make that change, which I highly suggest that it does. As for AT&T TV Now, YouTube TV, and Philo, they allow you to stream in different locations. On either the VIBE or LIVE plan, you can stream on a connected TV device from a single location at a time. However, if someone is streaming on a connected TV device at home, you can use a tablet or mobile device while away.

It is straightforward to record shows from the guide. As for TVisions cloud-based DVR, it does work rather well. Although it records the movie or TV show’s actual live airing instead of flipping to an on-demand version, you are limited to only 100 hours of content across all profiles on your account. Like most DVRs, TVision’s does not differ too much; it supports the ability to record single episodes, all episodes, or just new ones. Your recorded content will remain for nine months and then will be automatically deleted. As of now, I am unable to see if you can purchase additional cloud storage, but if two or three individuals are on your account and record at least one show per week, that storage will fill up in just a week or less, so I hope this gets upgraded. It has three unique features that I have not seen on other Live TV Streaming Services before. You can request it only to record recurring episodes on specific channels and give an additional time when recording shows or sports games (5, 10, 30, and 60 minutes), so you can make sure you don’t miss anything. Like its streaming competitors, unlike cable, TVision doesn’t require a contract and doesn’t need special equipment to watch on, just an application. The hub is just extra but not required.

But there is a time delay when you do record a live event. You cannot immediately watch it. I tried turning on the Dallas Cowboys game this past weekend, and I had to wait roughly 15 minutes before I could start playing back the recorded channel. Additionally, there were a few instances, like when watching an episode of ‘Ninja Warrior’ on NBC where the program did not allow me the fast forward a pre-recorded video that wasn’t on my cloud DVR with an error that read ‘fast-forwarding is disabled for this program.’ I hope that changes because I have never run into an issue when watching an episode on any streaming service where I could not do fast-forward unless it was LIVE, which it was not.

The DVR is split out into two tabs, “Recorded” and “Scheduled.” It shows how many hours of your 100-hour DVR have been used on the top of the page. Along with the recorded tab, you can see all the shows, movies, and individual episodes that have been recorded. The ‘scheduled’ tab will show you’re showing that are to be recorded. From there, you can cancel or add padding. I have not had any issues with recording a single show so far. But, speaking of limited on-demand. I tried to check out “Fear the Walking Dead,” and the service only had season six with episodes three through seven, while Hulu Live TV had all seasons. So, since TVision has only been out less than a month, I am assuming it will gradually bring the rest of the seasons of countless shows up to date. If not, then TVision can look for a drop in subscribers just as quickly as they are signing up.

T-Mobile Tvision Guide

TVision Hub & UI

The TVision Hub resembles the TiVo Stream 4K. Powered by Android TV, you can access the Google Play Store, including a ton of other applications as well. TVision hub cost $49.99, just like the TiVo Stream 4K and Chromecast, which is surprising since T-Mobile has been making a lot of noise for less buck for their product. I will only assume that Google is making them charge each company that sets a dongle price. Honestly, the hub is not anything special anyway. Its primary function is for those that use T-Mobile as their primary carrier. The dongle comes with TVision pre-installed from Android TV with an HDMI dongle on one side. Alongside a remote control that integrates TVision-specific functions like the three new buttons: guide, DVR, and TVision, along with a number pad. It is practically a regular remote, just with a few more ‘smart button’ bells and whistles for the hub. You technically don’t even need a TVision account if all you want is a streaming device even though I am sure T-Mobile would prefer if you subscribed, but it’s worth pointing out even with the T-Mobile branding on the side, this is still a relatively an affordable streaming device for $49.99.

T-Mobile gave me an iPad Pro 2nd Generation tablet to check out the was able to check out the application’s iOS version. The home page offers up a general look at the movies of the day and trending shows. As you scroll down, you are shown categories like drama, documentaries, and more and channels given which tier package you have purchased. Watching on the Apple iPad Pro 11″ 2nd generation should not have problems with the quality. Over the past few years, one of the main changes for Live Streaming Services has been the upgradability of 60 fps (frames per second) for its streams. At 60 fps, the higher frame rate will smooth the video quality and make each show, especially for sports games and movies to look better or any performance that requires much motion. This is where TVision falls short and will most likely lose out on some significant sports fans from purchasing this product. YouTube TV, Sling TV, FuboTV, and Hulu Live TV all offer 60fps with their sports channels, but TVision only offers 30 fps, and it shows. TVision does a great job with practically not having any buffering time, and the quality is more than fair when it comes to entertainment. This is just not the right choice as of now until T-Mobile upgrades the fps. So, if you are a massive movie buff and sports fan, you might want to wait. As for the audio, I did not have any issues with it. It was crisp and learned without any delays. I am sure it will depend on which channel and device you stream with.

If you don’t own a smart TV, then this Android hub is undoubtedly dependable, and when you decide to buy that 4K TV, the device even supports up to 4K resolution and 60 fps. Unfortunately, the TVision app doesn’t have any content in that format, yet not counting the TVision In-Home service. This is a significant disadvantage compared to other streaming services that allow you to watch movies and sports games how they are meant to be watched. How much storage is inside the device? There’s 8GB of storage along 2GB of RAM with an ARM-based processor with a 1.8GHz clock speed. Additionally, you don’t need to have a wall charge available. If your TV has a USB available, it can just charge through that to be given power. Like most company’s marketing approach, T-Mobile customers get services like HBO and CBS that is not included in its channel packages. As for pricing, I do not know if they are freebies or just the applications themselves. The TVision home screen has a carousel of featured content. Below the icons for the services you are subscribed to, you will find content organized in various ways.

You can access and download familiar applications and subscription streaming services like Netflix. A nice perk is the Google Assistant for using voice commands for finding a streaming service, channel, show, or movie through the remote. T-Mobile’s attempt at a cable interface lacks pizazz but makes up for it with great functionality. The interface is clean, refreshed, and the navigation is responsive. Additionally, no matter what you are doing that time, if you press any of the maroon TVision buttons at the top, they will take you directly to the application.

When you turn on the TVision hub, the UI will show you what you have recently watched and customized your streaming application to give you recommendations, like Netflix. The UI is very responsive when using the remote control, so latency should not be an issue. The TVision viewing experience has been one of the closest to Cable TV compared to other live streaming services I have used. It is notable how fast the channels switch when changing them. The onscreen guide is quick, intuitive, and responsive and navigates as quickly as you press the button.

I am sure there will be plenty of individuals out there who will not care about the pricing and will be glad to have a TV to watch in the first place, which is fine. However, one other thing that might bother them or at least for sports fans is the lack of CBS affiliates associated with NFL and college football games that air on that channel. I am sure in no time that will change and will the rest of the TVision channel lineup. It will be in your best interest if you fall in this category to pay for CBS All Access instead.

If you happen to be a current T-Mobile customer and want to cut the cord on your cable or satellite TV system, then TVision packages are a very affordable way to get LIVE and on-demand cable TV channels. Sure, you will not have as many channels, but no one needs to watch over 300 channels. I prefer the minimalistic way of life. As I would have liked the various CBS channels to be included in the packages, the web browser access is non-existent at this point, and Roku is not being supported; this should not be a huge problem overall. Applications like Netflix, Youtube TV, and Hulu are innovative with their UI and known for it, but TVision lacks personalization, but I am sure finding various user-friendly UIs and AIs for streaming can be difficult. Streaming services UI is always changing, so it is a work in progress. Additionally, there was an issue with creating a page dedicated to ‘children friendly’ shows. Luckily, these parents will be glad to know that they can create a PIN that will lock out any adult-rated programs in the application. The bottom line is, the TVision app UI and its features are fresh but nothing spectacular.

T-Mobile Tvision Hub

Wrapping up

When it comes to streaming services, one of the biggest questions revolves around price. T-Mobiles most significant selling points at launch are price and choice. It is good plans that are “half the price of cable TV,” and there are no annual service contracts to speak of either. It is even adequate protection from plan blow or, as it describes on the T-Mobile site, “No Exploding Plans.”. It is essentially offering low-cost service plans in configurations that are more attractive to consumers while promising no commitment or price hikes down the road. T-Mobile’s new streaming bundles are competitively priced while other streaming services offer more networks at the same price point, but TVision’s plans include fewer “waste” channels that will most likely not be used, ranging on preference for each person. It is still early days for TVision as it will undoubtedly continue to build out its service as time goes on, especially within the next few months. TVision is a service that is a bridge between cord-cutting and your applications. You can get some of the best of traditional cable but with a little bit of application thrown in that will suit your needs.

For now, if you are looking for a cable replacement, T-Mobile’s offering will do just that. But do not expect much more for some time. T-Mobile’s movement to give it a shot into the TV market is an exciting move by the mobile carrier, even if it is not anything to jump for joy about but as of now. An ideal consumer would be someone who already uses another source for streaming and wants to surf through various channels for background noise or when they are plain bored. That $10/month Vibe package is going to be very tempting. But a lack of CBS affiliates and streaming quality that lags the competition holds it back from being an industry kingpin. Finally, strategically, I would have loved there to have been a 5G option versus WiFi, but we’ll have to wait a bit for that.

Will T-Mobile suffer the same fate as some of their competitors and give in to increasing their streaming price, or are they onto something here by offering lower-cost streaming packages? Either way, we have another streaming option to consider. Of course, I will be keeping a close eye on T-visions pricing and plans moving forward. After all, it is one thing to say you have better prices and choices at launch, but it is another thing entirely to keep that promise over the longterm. The bottom line is that T-Mobile is jumping into the cable streaming alternative ring with a service that works as intended, but there are still a couple of big bumps that need to be smoothed out.

Note: Moor Insights & Strategy writers and editors may have contributed to this article.

Moor Insights & Strategy, like all research and analyst firms, provides or has provided paid research, analysis, advising, or consulting to many high-tech companies in the industry, including 8×8, Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Applied Micro, ARM, Aruba Networks, AT&T, AWS, A-10 Strategies, Bitfusion, Blaize, Box, Broadcom, Calix, Cisco Systems, Clear Software, Cloudera, Clumio, Cognitive Systems, CompuCom, Dell, Dell EMC, Dell Technologies, Diablo Technologies, Digital Optics, Dreamchain, Echelon, Ericsson, Extreme Networks, Flex, Foxconn, Frame (now VMware), Fujitsu, Gen Z Consortium, Glue Networks, GlobalFoundries, Google (Nest-Revolve), Google Cloud, HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Honeywell, Huawei Technologies, IBM, Ion VR, Inseego, Infosys, Intel, Interdigital, Jabil Circuit, Konica Minolta, Lattice Semiconductor, Lenovo, Linux Foundation, MapBox, Marvell, Mavenir, Marseille Inc, Mayfair Equity, Meraki (Cisco), Mesophere, Microsoft, Mojo Networks, National Instruments, NetApp, Nightwatch, NOKIA (Alcatel-Lucent), Nortek, Novumind, NVIDIA, Nuvia, ON Semiconductor, ONUG, OpenStack Foundation, Oracle, Poly, Panasas, Peraso, Pexip, Pixelworks, Plume Design, Poly, Portworx, Pure Storage, Qualcomm, Rackspace, Rambus, Rayvolt E-Bikes, Red Hat, Residio, Samsung Electronics, SAP, SAS, Scale Computing, Schneider Electric, Silver Peak, SONY, Springpath, Spirent, Splunk, Sprint, Stratus Technologies, Symantec, Synaptics, Syniverse, Synopsys, Tanium, TE Connectivity, TensTorrent, Tobii Technology, T-Mobile, Twitter, Unity Technologies, UiPath, Verizon Communications, Vidyo, VMware, Wave Computing, Wellsmith, Xilinx, Zebra, Zededa, and Zoho which may be cited in blogs and research.

From Cloud in Perfectirishgifts

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