#i find strange new worlds largely unwatchable

[cantsayidont]

When attempting to critique the values of a long-running franchise like STAR TREK, it's important to draw a distinction between superficial issues and structural ones.

"Superficial" in this sense doesn't mean "minor" or "unimportant"; it simply means that an issue is not so intrinsic to the premise that the franchise would collapse (or would be radically different) were it changed or removed. For example, misogyny has been a pervasive problem across many generations of STAR TREK media, which have often been characterized by a particular type of leering-creep sexism that was distasteful at the time and has not improved with age. However, sexism and misogyny are not structural elements of the TREK premise; one can do a STAR TREK story where the female characters have agency and even pants without it becoming something fundamentally different from other TREK iterations (even TOS, although there are certainly specific TOS episodes that would collapse if you excised the sexism).

By contrast, the colonialism and imperialism are structural elements — STAR TREK is explicitly about colonizing "the final frontier" and about defending the borders, however defined, of an interstellar colonial power. Different iterations of STAR TREK may approach that premise in slightly different ways, emphasizing or deemphasizing certain specific aspects of it, but that is literally and specifically what the franchise is about. Moreover, because STAR TREK has always been heavily focused on Starfleet and has tended to shy away from depicting life outside of that regimented environment, there are definite limits to how far the series is able to depart from the basic narrative structure of TOS and TNG (a captain and crew on a Starfleet ship) without collapsing in on itself, as PICARD ended up demonstrating rather painfully.

This means that some of the things baked into the formula of STAR TREK are obviously in conflict with the franchise's self-image of progressive utopianism, but cannot really be removed or significantly altered, even if the writers were inclined to try (which they generally are not).

What I find intensely frustrating about most modern STAR TREK media, including TNG and its various successors, is not that it can't magically break its own formula, but that writer and fan attachment to the idea of TREK as the epitome of progressive science fiction has become a more and more intractable barrier to any kind of meaningful self-critique. It's a problem that's become increasingly acute with the recent batch of live-action shows, which routinely depict the Federation or Starfleet doing awful things (like the recent SNW storyline about Una being prosecuted for being a genetically engineered person in violation of Federation law) and then insist, often in the same breath, that it's a progressive utopia, best of all possible worlds.

This is one area where TOS (and to some extent the TOS cast movies) has a significant advantage over its successors. TOS professes to be a better world than ours, but it doesn't claim to be a perfect world (and indeed is very suspicious of any kind of purported utopia). The value TOS most consistently emphasizes is striving: working to be better, and making constructive choices. Although this can sometimes get very sticky and uncomfortable in its own right (for instance, Kirk often rails against what he sees as "stagnant" cultures), it doesn't presuppose the moral infallibility of the Federation, of Starfleet, or of the characters themselves. There's room for them to be wrong, so long as they're still willing to learn and grow.

The newer shows are less and less willing to allow for that, and, even more troublingly, sometimes take pains to undermine their predecessors' attempts along those lines. One appalling recent example is SNW's treatment of the Gorn, which presents the Gorn as intrinsically evil (and quite horrifying) in a way they're not in "Arena," the TOS episode where they were first introduced. The whole point of "Arena" is that while Kirk responds to the Gorn with outrage and anger, he eventually concedes that he may be wrong: There's a good chance that the Gorn are really the injured party, responding to what they reasonably see as an alien invasion, and while that may be an arguable point, sorting it out further should be the purview of diplomats rather than warships. By contrast, SNW presents the Gorn as so irredeemably awful as to make Kirk's (chronologically later) epiphany at best misguided: The SNW Gorn are brutal conquerors who lay eggs in their captives (a gruesome rape metaphor, and in presentation obviously inspired by ALIENS) when they aren't killing each other for sport, and even Gorn newborns are monsters to be feared. Not a lot of nuance there, and no space at all for the kind of detente found in TOS episodes like "The Devil in the Dark."

#teevee #star trek #star trek tos #star trek the next generation #star trek picard #strange new worlds #i find strange new worlds largely unwatchable #and this is a major reason why #along with their determination to no-homo spock

[film-masochisme]

Re: Elliot Page and the Visibility of Trans Men in Media

I’ve seen a fair amount of confusion regarding his coming out, arguably more so than any other prominent celebrity coming out as trans. I think it boils down to the fact that with there is a startling lack of visibility for trans men in media and in society in general. Some would argue that it’s due to trans men going stealth, or that their identities are rarely brought up because of how “easier” it is for them to blend in. Frankly, a lot of this rhetoric doesn’t help to address the problem. I think Elliot’s coming out will mean a great deal going forward because in my mind aside from Chaz Bono (who was at best famous for his family as opposed to his own identity), there really hasn’t been a major star with a career this successful doing this. I mean, as a massive cinephile and connoisseur of queer films and media, there are probably this many films out there with prominent transmasc characters:

Boys Don’t Cry (1999):  While a trailblazing and brilliantly-made film, the fact remains that being transmale was so poorly-discussed at the time (transwomen were more visible in media then too, with films like The World According to Garp and Dog Day Afternoon), that most people viewed Brandon Teena as a lesbian than a trans man. The film treats him as male and is fairly respectful, but it still deadnames him at the end (after a fairly depressing conclusion) and used a real-life hatecrime to call attention to something rather than an earnest attempt to understand it.

Southern Comfort (2001): A documentary about the last year in the life of Robert Eads, a trans man with terminal breast cancer. Very sad, very moving and honest, but sadly extremely little seen. Find this if you can.

Predestination (2014): A sci-fi time traveling film which I won’t reveal too much about because the labyrinthian narrative is rather unique and clever; it features a transmale character as one of the two leads (the other being Ethan Hawke) and actually makes (without spoiling) a fairly compelling “fantastical” argument about how gender dysphoria manifests itself in a linear timeline of one’s life, which I found interesting. Unfortunately, the fact that the character is trans is largely used for plot reasons as opposed to an exploration of identity. Probably the most visible trans male character in a major film in the past decade though, so props.

Strange Circus (2001): Sion Sono and gender issues seem to go hand in hand. He’s addressed them in numerous films (such as Love Exposure, Noriko’s Dinner Table, and more recently The Forest of Love) and here I can’t really reveal how a trans male character fits into it (used as a very corny plot revelation) but needless to say a character is shown to be transmale in an archetypally irritating way that does nothing for the plot. Also a fairly-little seen movie even in Sono’s eclectic catalogue. 

3 Generations (2016): Fairly banal and borderline-unwatchable platitude fest about a trans male teen’s struggle to get on hormones, told not from his point of view but from that of his confused mother and TERF lesbian grandmother. Stupid, cis-gaze bullshit.

Romeos (2011) and Tomboy (2011): Both are films abut being stealth and/or in the closet at young ages, and both are again, little seen outside art house/cinephile/film festival circles.

And the list goes on and on. Truth is, because of lack of understanding and visibility, society views Elliot as who he was before in such a stupid way (Guys I work with would talk about how hot he was in a typical toxically masculine way that made me sick) that who he was before is how so many people will forever see him. They watch films like Juno or Inception and to them, that person is inextricably linked with him forever. As a trans person, it’s hard for me to say how I feel about myself before. While that person is a part of me, it’s a part of me I’ve spent years burying and running from. And even then, sometimes, it’s hard not to see something of that person when I look in the mirror. I detested that person and it was somebody I’m not, but at least I don’t have to deal with reminders of them except when around family or mementoes from my past.

I can’t even begin to imagine how Elliot must feel with being an A-list celebrity and having an entire film career as someone you aren’t anymore. But risking your entire career to be yourself is the most noble and admirable thing one can do. My fiance is a minor celebrity who achieved some fame before her own transition, and she put it in the best way:

“In my mind, the things I did before transition were still things I did. To credit them to my old name does make it seem as though I was not the one who did them. Yes, the person by my old name did them, but that person is me.”

And so, the point I want to make is this: Everyone’s identity is their own, and everyone has their own views on their pasts. What Elliot is doing is amazing. What news to wake up to. Just when I thought COVID killed the dreamy magic of the movies that bring me joy, something else came along to put a smile on my face. Fantastic. 

#elliot page #trans #transmale #lgbt issues #umbrella academy #gerard way #lgbt #queer #transgender #news #current events #hollywood #movies #cinema #filmblr #film #filmmaking #transmasculine #coming out

[justtheendoftheday]

C.H.U.D. -- (1984)

“Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding.”

People have mysteriously started to go missing in New York City and all signs seem to suggest that something is lurking beneath the streets of Manhattan.

Fright: 1 / 5 - Heartless Government Bigwigs

This movie is too wildly stupid and poorly made to achieve anything resembling a real atmosphere of fright.

Gore:  2.9 / 5 - Nasty Clogs in Your Shower Drain

I hate that a movie this dorky actually managed to score this high in gore. While some scenes do show some intense wounds, there is not a very high quantity of gory scenes, and you only rarely see the actual infliction of a wound. It mostly enjoys occasionally showing the aftereffects of attacks and that’s where the vast majority of the gore is coming from.

Jump Scares: Some

They definitely try for a few of them. Luckily they are far from subtle and you can generally see them coming from a mile away.

Review:

A weirdly memorable bit of cheesy 80’s B-movie horror that will probably either make you laugh out loud at the sheer silliness of it all, or just make you want to turn it off.

Thoughts:

C.H.U.D. is the kind of movie I have to kind of put a caveat on because like all B-movies, it isn’t a good movie by any of the usual standards. It is a weirdly over-the-top premise wrapped in an extremely low-budget and poorly made wrapper.

And yet...goshdarnit if that doesn’t make it a lot of fun. It’s a one of those cult classic B-movie horror films where its failures are so large and its choices so bizarre that you can’t help but laugh at it with your friends.

But if you don’t like watching bad movies for the LOLs then C.H.U.D. will probably make you groan out loud instead and regret your decision to give it a try almost immediately.

While many of the film’s faults wind up being humorous, one of them actually irks me quite a bit and it comes in the form of one of the main characters: a photographer named George Cooper (played by John Heard). I think he’s supposed to be likable (?), but he’s actually just a HUGE asshole. There’s this phenomenon that’s especially prevalent in 80’s/90s cinema wherein they love to make a character that’s a kind of snarky outsider type, but in actuality is just being an asshole most of the time.

This would be bad enough as it is, but it’s exasperated by the fact that his girlfriend—a model named Lauren (played by Kim Greist)—is so sweet! And she is WAY too good for him. The film wants them to be this cute couple with a bright future, yet pretty much every interaction they have together is with him selfishly ignoring her desires to pursue his own whims. I can’t help but get the feeling that the film generally thinks he’s in the right. And he’s not!

I mean just look at this exchange, wherein Lauren has landed a well-paying photo shoot for them where she’ll be the model and George the photographer, but George didn’t want to do because he wants to only do serious photo-journalism. While there he throws a tantrum:

“Is this what it’s gonna be all day? A little tits and ass, ass and tits, sell some perfume, is that what it’s gonna be? Whose idea was this? What genius came up with this concept to sell this perfume today?”

“George, do you wanna blow this job for me?”

“What’s the matter, am I making you nervous?”

“Yeah, you’re making me nervous. This is my first chance at national exposure. You’re making-”

“Very well put. Very well put.”

“Are you upset because I’m posing nude?”

“No, I’m upset because these people are using your body and draping it with the carcass of some helpless little field mouse to sell some worthless perfume, which probably smells like sheep shit!”

“Shh!”

“What are you shushing me for? They know it, they made it, they can smell! They know what’s in it and they know what it takes to sell it.”

“Stop it.”

“I’m sorry, OK? I forgot what all wondrous fun this was for me.”

“It’s a goof. It’s a joke. It doesn’t matter. You don’t care about them. You’re doing this for me. I’m going to bamboozle these guys for big bucks and go home, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be back.”

At this point he gets a call and walks off the shoot without telling anyone to go do something else. And I think it’s fair to assume that he has just tanked their payout and—more importantly—Lauren’s reputation.

You see what I mean? He’s The Worst. That poor woman should get out of this relationship ASAP and find someone who actually cares about her.

It’s no wonder that his scenes are the low points of the movie and if George was the only main character this movie would’ve been unwatchable.

Luckily for us the film has a whole ‘nother set of main characters! The odd couple duo of police Captain Bosch (played by Christopher Curry) and a soup kitchen operator named A.J. Shepherd (played by Daniel Stern). And these two are where the magic happens. Curry plays a bit of a straight man to Daniel Stern who is friggin’ out there chewing up the scenery and I can’t help but love it.

But what makes this movie such a cult classic?

To be honest it probably has a lot to do with its weirdly memorable combination of the world’s dumbest movie title and wacky urban-legendy plot. Not to mention that it probably doesn’t hurt that this movie gets referenced A LOT in other media. The greatest one clearly being:

“Oh, Homer, of course you’ll have a bad impression of New York if you only focus on the pimps and the C.H.U.D.s.”

-The Simpsons, Season 9, episode 1, “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson”

To its credit though C.H.U.D. just checks off a lot of the boxes for silly good fun B-movies: low budget, strange acting choices, bizarre plotting, famous actors slumming it, and so on. And if that wasn’t enough I can’t help but appreciate that in the grand Jaws-tradition the main villain isn’t the monster, but a selfish and inept government. After all, who can’t relate to a story about a government knowingly poisoning its population because to do otherwise would be inconvenient?

What it really comes down to is how do you feel about bad movies? If you love to watch ridiculously bad movies with your friends and get your MST3K on, you’ll most likely have a lot of fun with C.H.U.D.. But if you’d rather spend your time watching movies that are actually well made, ones with moving performances and thought-provoking plot lines? Well, you should probably do yourself a favor and sit this one out.

—————————————

Directed by: Douglass Cheek

Story by: Shepard Abbott

Screenplay by: Parnell Hall

Country of Origin: USA

Language: English

Setting: Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

—————————————

—————————————

Content Warnings: A pet dies.

After-credits Scene?: None

—————————————

“Why would they lie about it?”

“You don’t have a clue, do you, Sherlock? This ain’t no disco. There’s all sorts of shit down there.”

#C.H.U.D. #CHUD #1984 #1980s #Douglas Cheek #Parnell Hall #Shepard Abbott #So Bad It's Good

[g3rmb0y]

Day 32/? Arcane Paths

Hoo boy. Haven’t updated in two weeks. Work’s been kicking my ass, and what down time I do have, I’m trying to spend running, or just recouperating from work, or working on D&D planning for my social skills group- put them on trial last week for blowing up a bank run by warlocks. And then focusing on my 9 to 5, which is turning into an 8 to 7.  It seems unfair to be stuck inside for the best part of the day, tiring myself out, when I could be focusing on training, but whatever. Running is my self care, so I’ll take what I can get. I do need new shoes though, I did 10 miles today and on the second half, my right foot started really hurting, so that’s no good.

Anyway, been wanting to say that I intend to start an actual D&D specific blog. Soon.

So I’ve been putting off talking about casters for a while. I want to revisit rouges, as the entry I did on them is subpar as fuck. Casters, on the other hand, I’ve got ideas for.

To put it simply, the difference between a wizard, a sorcerer, and a warlock is the difference between a PhD working in a nuclear physics department, a self taught weirdo building a nuclear reactor in his garage, and a researcher for DARPA or some shady corporation. After magic leaked into the world, a number of motivated individuals started setting up academies for higher learning, to help educate the masses on how to harness these powers. Initially, these academies were free, but as time went on, the various forces in power realized that giving anyone the ability to learn magic caused all kinds of issues with people leaving their position in society, so they started putting bureaucratic demands on universities, which led to tuition becoming a thing- initially, the mages teaching at magic academies were more akin to Jesuit priests or monks, wanting little compensation for their work, instead wanting to bring these amazing abilities to the common man. Still, as these institutions became highly funded, the field of magic exploded, as suddenly researchers could afford costly libraries and labs, and as knowledge coagulated, it began to split into schools, to the point where a graduate student might state that their thesis pertains to ‘General Psychomantric Choftin Arrays split through non-specific Ley Conduits in accordance with L-Themta wave theory.” This doesn’t mean that all wizards at these colleges are super hard science oriented, recently there has been a resurgence in more applied magic, the difference being that of a physics major vs an engineering major. Even more so, some new fields have emerged that focus on understanding the human impact of magic, most notably Psychomancy (The understanding and application of the arcane on the human mind, focusing on illusion, divination, and mind control spells). Other fields include optimizing farming (Which was a shock when wizards announced a way to end starvation- a type of magically sensitive potato that grew to the size of a large house in a single day. The downside was that after eating, there was a slight chance of some arcane side effect, which were generally non harmful, but alarming, and often including clumps of hair.), Scry-communication, which allowed for relatively fast communication and quickly became popular amongst anyone who could afford it, Arcomputing, which used a bizarre combination of evocation, divination, illusion, and necromancy to create thinking machines (these are relatively rare, once it was revealed that often a brain is required), and Mephendian Tax Code (Finding loopholes was determined to be so difficult and mathematically impossible that those that could were found to have amazing arcane ability.)

The rise of wizarding as a powerful institution led to most people seeing wizards as generally alright people, if a bit pompous and generally sheltered, as wizard colleges tend to be relatively removed from the day to day life of the communities they serve, mostly for the safety of said community. Too many arcane colleges have attempted to host community days that have gone horribly wrong when some unwatched 7 year old wanders into the alchemy lab and decides to start mixing things.

The final note about wizarding is that they tend to keep pets, which over time absorb the various arcane energies they are exposed to over time- most often this manifests in them gaining some degree of sentience and the ability to communicate with the wizard (at least from the wizard’s perspective), while still maintaining their animal form- most often, a cat. However, to the wizard, they seem increasingly foreign and alien, as the wizard’s exposure to the magical energy grants them the ability to see what’s been done, and many wizards have chased their familiars off after claiming it has too many eyes or whatnot. These animals, after being removed from their wizards, very quickly revert to their normal state, any increased intellect being lost.

While Wizarding tends to exist very nicely with affluent communities, the poor make do with sorcerers. Often times, an individual with a strange hunger and prowress for magic finds an old magic book at a book store, and through voracious study, gains proficiency at a number of spells, often times experimenting in their own way and making breakthroughs a wizard would never think possible. Where Wizards tend to be very much tied to money (especially grant money), sorcerers tend to be poor, do their own thing, and not care what others think. As such, the usual explanation of why a sorcerer engaged in some magical experiment is something along the lines of, “I don’t know, I thought it’d be cool to make squirrels 5 times bigger and see what happened.” Given this sort of chaotic DIY attitude, sorcerers are generally regarded with a sense of caution, but one that gives back to their community will find a strong defense of them, if anyone should ever demand they stop.

Wizards and sorcerers tend to get along rather well, oddly enough. At smaller magical conferences, it’s common to see sorcerers and wizards getting drunk and arguing animatedly about the proper way to activate some spell, or trying to outsmart each other in demonstrations. It’s here where a lot of sorcerers actually receive offers to become wizards with official standings with various academies, but given that these offers tend to be incredibly limiting, they rarely accept. In turn, occasionally wizards will be asked to join sorcery clubs, which they almost always refuse, because they’d be giving up the posh life of a wizard for a life that very often means sleeping in your lab (rather than sleeping in your office.)

Where sorcerers and wizards generally require a high level of intellect and innate ability to do what they do, there’s a more egalitarian path towards magic, although it comes with a significant trade off- your soul. Warlocks are the third path towards magic, and to become one, you have to sell off some part of your soul, and serve some dark entity. In the early days, warlocks were shunned and tended to avoid society, living deep in the wilderness as mad witches or crazed hermits, frantically trying to make the stars right. However, there was a man who made a number of deals with various entities, then was able to delete his name, making these pacts still valid, but the wrath was not applicable to him. This bizarre perversion of an eldrich pact led to the man uniting various cabals of warlocks into what would become the soul bank, which became the prime organizer for warlocks. There, entities traded with each other, selling entire souls, sacrifices, or the services of each others warlocks, and strangely enough, this created a sense of order. Now, soul banks exist in almost every city, posing superficially as branches of an esoteric and elite bank, but in reality acting as hubs for warlocks to congregate, communicate with their patrons, and get news on local occult events. Regular bribes to local officials ensure these banks don’t encounter any issues from the guards or bureaucrats, but even so, these places are generally hated, both by the locals and the employees who work there, who know that a negative performance review generally means death.

As for life for the average warlock, their powers require very little training or innate power, instead pulling them from the various pacts they’ve signed, which, thanks to soul bank, tend to have so much small text they’ll never know the extent or what exactly they’ve done- all they know is that if they receive an order from the soul bank, they have no choice but to do it, even if they suspect it may have nothing to do with their patron.

There are patrons who have not aligned themselves with the soul bank, but these are few and far between, and their warlocks are generally on the run, as soul bank representatives have little patience for competition.

Between their lack of academic or intellectual prowress, and their alignment with dark forces, wizards and sorcerers alike will often flat out refuse to even speak to warlocks, and warlocks fine that fine enough, as they’re often fine not talking to anyone but their patron (who, thanks to the soul bank, now requires a number of forms to communicate with.)

#D&D #Pathfinder #Worldbuilding #Wizard #Warlock #Sorcerer

[xoxosarahbear]

The beginning.

Farron woods was a beautiful place. Breathtaking, lush.. As the young elf slowly made her way through the foggy, thick woods her eyes moved from the footpath to the surrounding area. How she would miss the beautiful, tall trees that covered the area and kept her village not only safe from intruders but safe from most all unsavory weather. The foliage that stood waist high - and higher in other areas - provided cover, protection and even medical mixes to the elven village. There was no shortage of uses for the beautiful place. On the woman's back a bow, small quiver and cloth satchel packed with leaves, berries, nuts and a small collection of various herbs - used for cooking, medicine and spellwork. Her walking stick decorated with intricate carvings. Leaves, symbols of the wind, of water and of Pachamama. As she continued down the path, it gradually became more defined and structured. Small planks of wood lined the dirt path and eventually the village came into view. Situated in a somewhat man-made clearing; at the edge of the village stood a tall fence made of small to medium sized logs, standing on end and held taut together with several manner of binding; an opening that the footpath led to open to all who wished to enter, but was by no means left unwatched. Just inside the tall barrier was a door waiting to be secured -- just in case. Homes and buildings of business sat perched upon tall boulderus rocks of various size. Homes and small buildings for merchants dotted the area beneath. As the young woman started to near the outer area, two young elven children came running from around the corner. Giggling and carrying on, they waved at her quickly before hurrying off. She smiled softly.. how she would miss this place. A soft sigh left her lips as she entered the village and took stock of everything around her, making her way slowly toward the market area. Though the village looked small from the outside, it was anything but. Laughter could be heard from the inn, where the door was propped open with a carving of a rux - a small, mouse like creature with a long tail, and tuft of hair on the end of it that inhabited the area. The merchant district was bustling with inhabitants and visitors, looking to stock up for whatever adventure await them. "Good morning, Arro." the woman spoke, as she neared a merchant stall. Behind it, a wiry looking man that stood head and shoulders above the elf. The human had a cheshire smile, tanned skin and a strange copper colored curly hair atop his head. The stall was made up of four posts, and a woven cloth for a roof. A slightly slanted shelf sat between the four posts to display his wares for the day. Various herbs, tied together with twine, a type of medical mash secured in a leaf pouch and a few bundles of arrows. "Ah! My savior has returned with good news I hope?" Arro spoke without looking up from the small cauldron, slowly simmering perched above the small fire he'd built behind the stand. Just off to the side of him was a medium, hand made box filled with small and medium empty potion bottles. "Of course," she replied, smirking. "This isn't the first time I've saved your behind." "I resent that." Arro lifted his eyes to meet hers finally and placed his hand on the center of his chest, grimacing. Of course, a joke between the two friends. Rolling her eyes, the elf removed the cloth satchel and after a moment of rummaging around held out a few brightly colored herbs, leaves tied together with a small scrap of twine. Arro's eyes lit up as though it was Yule morning, his expression changed immediately from one of mock-hurt to one of pure joy. "You. Are. A. Lifesaver." he bowed to the much shorter elf, showing his gratitude. "Yeah, yeah, quit that. People are gonna start staring." She handed over the bundle and Arro quickly removed the twine and added the items into the cauldron. Quickly, the ingredients disappeared into the simmering liquid with a few short spins of his wrist. "Do you think today will be busy?" she asked after a moment. "No more than any mid-week traffic.. Why?" he responded, his gaze shifting from the mixture to her face. To his surprise, her expression was sad, distant. "Hey... Hey!" she jumped, snapping out of her daze watching the swirling concoction to her human friend's face, and his expression mirrored her previous one. "What's going on with you?" he asked, quietly. Her expression again returned and she lowered her eyes to the ground. "I'm gonna need to buy a couple potions from you." her voice was quiet. Arro knew what this meant and his eyebrows knitted together in response. His potions were meant for someone on a long haul.. Someone who probably wasn't coming back. "Why are you leav-" "They know about my magic." she spoke, barely above a whisper. Lifting her eyes only to make sure no one else was listening in on the private conversation. Thankfully, the market area had not yet started to fill - as most the travelers hadn't yet finished breakfast and the rest of the townsfolk were in no rush. ".. How did they find out?" Arro asked, genuinely concerned for his friend. The young elf had never really been outside Farron woods and the world out there could be a scary place. Monsters, thieves.. She shook her head. It was stupid, she was stupid for letting someone find out that she was practicing magic in the first place and it wouldn't be long before the rest of the town knew why she was being forced to leave. The town elder was at least kind enough to give her today, at most tomorrow, to find her way. A short silence told Arro he wasn't going to get an answer, so he began filling potion jars. By now people, elves, orcs and other travelers had started to trickle in and the conversation would have to end anyway. As the taller man held out two large potions to the elf, she shook her head. "Those are too big, I don't have enough gold to-" "Take them or I'll put them in your bag anyway."

A short silence between the two, each held the others stare before she broke it, and took the large potions from him. "Come see me before you leave." "I will." As she turned away from Arro, she offered a smile.. but once her back was turned, she pressed her lips into a thin line and forced her expression to stone. She wouldn't cry, or make a scene. It would only make this harder.

A few short stops to other merchants and a few family friends, she had collected the offered gold and traded items for going out into the forest.  She never minded going out, but being paid in some way or another for the trip was hardly something to complain about. Getting closer to the small bakery, her eyes happened upon a small group hovering outside. "You said you could get us through the woods.. and not get lost." "I didn't get us lost! ... Don't look at me like that!" "A blind, deaf man could have gotten us farther." 

A swordsman, a mage and well intended monk - from what she can gather - are lightly bickering between bites of pirozhki. "We need to find someone who can get us through to the other side of the forest," the swordsman began, and quickly cut off the monk before he could continue again. "And possibly get out of here before the second coming." The elf couldn't help but smirk. Usually not one to eavesdrop.. she couldn't help it. Besides, she was headed into the bakery after all. Making the choice to talk to the small group if they were still around when she left the shop, she entered and made a few small purchases. A couple pirozhki, a few berry jam filled buns and she was back outside to find the same poor group trying to decipher a map that they'd seemingly been conned into buying from someone who didn't know anything about Farron forest. After a moment, she approached and offered a wave of her hand to the swordsman. He was a bit taller than her, and clad in his armor he looked quite imposing. His hair was shaved short on the sides and back, but was slightly longer on top. "G'Morning!" She nods politely in response. "I hear you guys are.." she studies the obviously irritated monk's face. He must have been the one to get dooped into buying the 'map'.. Poor thing. "Misplaced." He can't help but laugh. "Misplaced is definitely a good word for us," he sighs, placing a hand on his hip. "We bought a uh.." he clears his throat, "Map to get us through Farron forest, since we've never been through here and it's.." a pause, and as the elf raises her eyebrows. "It leads you into one giant circle.. doesn't it?" The silence is answer enough. "How long have you..?" "Two days." the mage openly admits, and the elf curls her lips in to try and keep from smiling. The forest isn't a maze by any stretch of the imagination.. But following a map, drawn by someone to cheat you out of your gold is.. well, embarrassing. "Well.. I was planning on leaving the village later tonight," she starts. With no plan on where to go, "And if you need someone to guide you.. I grew up here. I know this forest like the back of my hand." After a few moments, an agreement was made and the group would meet the elf at noon to leave. This left her a short time to return home and gather a few things. In no time, she was ready to leave and started again toward the merchant's district. The marketplace was quiet again, as lunch time drew townsfolk and travelers into homes, the bakery and the inn for something to eat. A few straggling customers browsed the wears of the vendors. 

"Arro." she spoke, nearly scaring the human out of his shoes. He sighed. "I swear, I'm going to tie a bell to you and.." as he turned his gaze, he met the heavy teal eyes of the small elf. This was always his threat to her; tie a bell to her so he could hear her approach, instead of her scaring the life out of him every time. But this time was different. This time wasn't laughed off. ".. You're leaving now, huh?" he asked, a sad smile crossing his face. Had it not been for this elf, Arro probably wouldn't have the merchants stall that he had today. Five years ago, she'd found him on death's door abandoned in the forest. Attacked by thieves. She carried his tall frame all the way back to the village and nursed him to health, before showing him how to make arrows, potions and other things to start earning him enough gold to "get out of this stupid village" .. but this place had grown on him for so many reasons. It was home for Arro, now. "Yeah, " she said softly, returning the sad smile. "I have to." Offering her a hug that was quickly accepted, Arro wrapped his arms nearly twice around his dear friend. "I'll write you when I can." she promised. "I'd like that." the copper haired man replied, quietly. "I wouldn't mind a visit, too, after.. y'know." She nodded and the two slowly released each other. "Stay out of trouble," she insisted, pointing a finger up at him. "And quit sleeping in so late." "Yes mom-- Ow!" The smart response was met with a stiff punch to the arm. "For a little thing, you sure can pack a punch.." he paused, smirking. "Don't let that get you into trouble either." "No promises." the elf shrugged and paused herself, hugging Arro once more before glancing toward the front gate and back to him. "namarie, mellon nin." and with that and a wave, she turned and started toward the exit. "Be well too, my friend." Arro whispered, waving to the woman's turned back. Tears coming to his eyes. "Be safe."

#world of warcraft inspired #dungeons and dragons inspired #WoW #DnD #elves #humans #swordsman #monk #mage #fantasy #writing after a long time of not #shaking off the rust #shaking off the writers rust #writer #it's been a long time #the journey

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/4/20 – TENET! MULAN! I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (but now that I’ve seen Tenet and Mulan, I’m better)… and More!

It’s Labor Day weekend… it is, isn’t it? I can’t even remember what day of the week it is anymore, and it looks like movie theaters across the country are generally all reopened except for a few specific areas. While theaters seem to be playing a variety of old and new movies – and Chadwick Boseman’s breakout 42, in which he plays Jackie Robinson, will be shown in 300 AMC theaters starting Thursday --  it still feels like we’re not quite where we should be. That said, only three states remain fully closed as far as movie theaters go: New York (eff you, Cuomo!), North Carolina and New Mexico. California is slowly rolling out movie theaters reopening in certain sections but not in L.A. or San Francisco just yet. Honestly, I’m having a rough week, and I’ll be surprised if I even get through half the movies that I have seen and planned to review, let alone everything else I have to do.

Finally! The movie that’s looking to be one of the most controversial movies of the summer, if not the year, comes to the United States. Of course, I’m talking about Christopher Nolan’s TENET (Warner Bros.), his tribute to James Bond movies with John David Washington (BlacKkKlansman) playing a super-spy (of sorts) who teams with Robert Pattinson to perform intricate heists on a mission to find out who has discovered bullets that travel backwards through time and brought them back into our time. Also starring Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh, the movie has received mixed to positive reviews with about 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. You can read my full review right here and a second technical review here.

Right now, it looks like Tenet is going to be playing in roughly 3,000 theaters over Labor Day weekend with only a few states fully closed including my own (New York), as well as North Carolina and New Mexico. A few other states like New Jersey and Maryland are reopening but it may be too late to get Tenet in there. California has a few areas open but not Los Angeles or San Francisco.

Although I’m hesitant at making any predictions right now or doing a full-blown analysis – there so many unknowns in a pandemic -- I think a four-day opening of somewhere between $25 and 28 million should be possible even with limited seating in most theaters that have reopened. I think people are ready to go back to theaters despite the negative narrative created by certain irresponsible film critics who seem to care more about their own personal health than that of the industry that has allowed them to pay rent and live large for years.

Another movie that I’ve been looking forward to and actually my most anticipated movie of the year is Disney’s live action remake of their animated classic, MULAN, this one directed by one of my favorite filmmakers, Niki Caro of Whale Rider fame. I cannot tell you how excited I was to finally see this movie after being invited to a press screen back in March, and then have it systematically cancelled as everything else started shutting down. Fortunately, I got a screener and while not my favorite way to watch a movie, I absolutely LOVED IT!

It stars Yifei Liu as the title character, made famous in the 1998 Disney animated movie, and it follows a similar story of a teen girl who steals her father’s sword and armor and pretends to be a man to join the Imperial Army under secrecy. There are definitely major changes in Caro’s version, most notably the lack of songs and no sign of Mushu, the adorable dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy. This is also not meant for small children, because it’s PG-13 not because it has anything terrible like someone waving genitals or swearing but because some of the action does get intense without much blood or anything terrible. I mean, this is definitely a SOFT PG-13, if that’s even a thing.

The movie is gorgeous and in the vein of movies I love like Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and it’s even exec. produced by Bill Kong, who produced many of those films. The point is that I love these kinds of movies, plus I’ve long been a fan of Caro’s, and everything just comes together beautifully from the performance by Yifei Liu to the fantastic characters around her, including ones played by Jet Li and Donnie Yen (reuniting from Hero!), as well as an amazing witch played by the indelible Ms. Gong Li, who is also terrific. Sure, there’s a few issues with the dialogue, but this is not a kiddie movie, as much as it’s something on par with the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I just love all of the decision Caro and her all-Asian cast make in telling this story in a new way. I particularly liked how the film followed Chinese traditions and dealt with things like “chi,” but as with the animated film, the stuff in the army 

On top of the amazing martial arts fights, there are also some terrific battle scene that would do Braveheart proud, and it’s all pulled together by Harry Gregson-Williams’ score, which may be one of my favorite pieces of music this year. Definitely a score I’ll be buying since it brings so much excitement and emotion to every scene, but that’s just as much a credit to Ms. Caro and her fantastic cast, who in a couple scenes, particularly between Liu and Li, had me tearing up almost as much as every single time I’ve watched Caro’s debut, Whale Rider.

I’m sure that fans of the animated movie (which I only saw for the first time earlier this year) will have different expectations, but you can’t fault Disney for being a little bit concerned and undeservedly dumping it to the Disney+ streaming service (which you can watch it at a premium of $29.95) rather than giving it the theatrical release it truly deserved. Honestly, if for some strange reason, Disney decides to play it in a bunch of theaters once they’re fully open, I would not hesitate to watch this again in what I consider a much-better environment for a movie which is likely to end up in my top 10 for year. It’s probably my favorite straight-up Disney movie (not including Pixar or Marvel) since maybe Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella, although I kind of enjoyed Mary Poppins Returns, too.

I also have a crafts review of Mulan over at Below the Line, so check that out!

While I’ve generally been mixed on Charlie Kaufman’s movies that he directed himself, I couldn’t NOT watch I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, his new movie on Netflix, starring Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons as a young couple going to visit his parents, played by Toni Collette and David Thewlis. At first, it looks like they’ll get stuck in a snowstorm, but then they get there and then they leave and once again get stuck in a snowtorm. No, this isn’t Centigrade 2, but actually something far FAR worse, to the point where I’m not even sure where to begin.

It starts with Buckley’s “Young woman” – yes, Kaufman doesn’t even bother giving her a name – being picked up by her boyfriend Jake (Plemons) before the long ride through the snow to his parent’s house. The whole time, we hear her inner thoughts about wanting to break up with Jake for one or reason or another, her thoughts always been interrupted by Jake making a statement that seems out of the blue. When they get to his parents’ farm in the middle of nowhere, things start to get weird, and I don’t want to go into too many details because if you read my review and decide to sit through it anyway, then it’s your own fault.

Apparently, this was loosely based on a book of the same name by Iain Reid, but it was adapted by the guy who wrote Adaptation, so Kaufman pretty much just went off and did his own thing based on Reid’s general premise. What I find particularly weird is that some of the early reviews talked about this movie as if it was a horror movie, but I just don’t see that at all. It’s just a really dry and weird comedy that doesn’t really take off. While parts of it remind me of the comics work of Daniel Clowes (Ghost World), who I genuinely love, other parts just get so weird, and at times, it reminded me of David Lynch’s Eraserhead or M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit, but only because there are so many WTF moments that you wonder what the actors must have thought while they were doing what Kaufman told them to do. Again, I’m not going to ruin the experience of being thoroughly confounded by some of the weirder moments but after Buckley and Plemons leave the farmhouse, they’re back driving through the snow and having far more intelligent conversations about such mundane topics. At one point, I thought, “This movie must be over soon, right?” and I checked, and there were 43 more minutes to go. That’s when I went from angry to outright ballistic, because I knew that there were so many other things I could be doing than listening to all the talking, talking, talking… They eventually arrive at an abandoned school and go there for shelter, and I was like, “Oh, good, now we get to the horror stuff.” Nope.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is the perfect movie for the scant few that raved about Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, or those who consider Holy Rollers a masterpiece of the highest order. Awful, aggravating and almost unwatchable at times, I’d only recommend Kaufman’s movie to people as a practical joke. Nah, I’m not that mean. It’ll be on Netflix tomorrow. Good luck with it.

Filmmaker and Rooney* frontman Robert Schwartzman directs his third feature, the comedy THE “ARGUMENT” (Gravitas Ventures), which takes the simple idea of a cocktail party and turns it into a riotous and sometimes strange comedy of errors, of sorts.

Dan Fogler and Emma Bell play couple Jack and Lisa, he a writer, her an actress, who have been together for some time, and Jack is ready to pop the question. After the final of a stageplay Lisa is co-starring in, Jack throws a cocktail party at which he’s gonna propose. He invites over his agent Danny Pudi from Community) and his wife Sarah (Maggie Q) but Lisa has invited her amorous co-star Paul (Tyler James Williams from Everybody Hates Chris all grown up!), who brought his own bubbly girlfriend Trina (Cleopatra Coleman).  As Trina starts drinking, thing just get worse and worse, and it inevitably turns into a full- on fight between Jack and Lisa aka the “argument” of the title. Jack is convinced that if they have a do-over on the night, they can prove who is right.

Oh, yeah. That couldn’t possibly work, right? Well, I’m not going to spoil it, but the one do-over turns into several, which turns into Jack trying to script the perfect cocktail party with the six of them … or rather five after Maggie Q’s character quits in a hilarious huff where she does impressions of the other five. (I’ve always found Maggie to be hilarious from talking to her years ago, and it’s great that her comic skills are finally being used, along with her beauty.) Eventually, Jack brings in actors to play each of them and perform the script he’s written so they can all sit back and figure out where things went wrong. Honestly, The “Argument” is more like the Charlie Kaufman movies I liked (such as Adaptation), and the movie has a vibe a lot like the play God of Carnage, which Roman Polanski adapted into a movie that nobody saw and few gave a fair shake. Also reminded me of Ike Barinholtz’s The Oath, which I quite enjoyed. The main leads are great, but I gotta give additional kudos to Maggie and Cleopatra Coleman, who gives a surprisingly layered performance as possibly the first ditzy African-American not-blonde “blonde” in movie history?

Although Schwartzman didn’t write this movie – it’s written by Zac Sanford who made The Chumscrubber -- he does a great job using his talented cast to throw many surprises at the viewer, and I was laughing quite hardily as the movie went on, because I really enjoyed the characters portrayed not just by the main six but also the actors playing the actors. Yeah, I know it might get confusing but at least this doesn’t have time travel, so if you want a fun and unexpectedly clever dark comedy, do check out The “Argument” which will be in theaters and On Demand, and apparently, you can even order it bundled with WINE?!?!? (*And you can also check out Rooney on Spotify!)

Another really nice surprise this week was Jeff Barnaby’s apocalyptic horror film BLOOD QUANTUM (Shudder/RLJEFilms), which was released on VOD, Digital HD, DVD and Blu-Ray earlier this week but is also on the awesome horror streamer, Shudder, I guess right now? It involves a community of indigenous people in the reserve Red Crow who face the undead when an infection hits the village through a bunch of animals who come back to life and then infect the humans. The movie starts on the first night of this plague and then cuts forward six months when the people of Red Crow have shut themselves off from the rest of the world with the hopes of keeping those still alive uninfected from the hordes of “Zeds” outside their gates.

I’m a little bummed I didn’t have press notes for this movie because there are so many great characters and performances, but it was hard to keep track of them without a scorecard. It does star Michael Greyeyes from Fear the Walking Dead, as well as Forrest Godluck (The Revenant), Kiowa Gordon and Elle-Máijá Tailfeatures, but other than Greeneyes, who plays the sherriff trying to keep his family safe, I could barely keep track of the characters or figure out who played them, and that’s a shame.

I generally liked the recent Train to Busan: Peninsula but Blood Quantum works just as little bit better, mainly from the interaction of the characters in a world full of sex and drugs and gore galore where you never who is gonna get killed but for the most part, they’re likely to go in a way that involves blood that pours like a waterfall. You add to the quick pace of Barnaby’s direction the amazing score that almost sounds like Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and you have a movie that makes you realize that Barnaby has made a film that perfectly captures the spirit and feel of John Carpenter’s best work. 

I actually watched John Leguizamo’s feature film directorial debut CRITICAL THINKING (Vertical Entertainment), way back in March, literally my very last press screening before movie theaters shut down, little realizing that it would be the last press screening for six months! It’s written by Dito Montiel, who I’ve generally been mixed on, and it’s based on a true story from 1998 where a Miami teacher, played by Leguizamo, tries to save a group of Latino and Black teenagers from the inevitable drugs and crime that kids from the underserved ghetto usually get into by teaching them chess and getting them all the way to the National Chess Championship. I didn’t get to rewatch it to write any sort of intelligent review, but as you can imagine, it has a Mr. Holland’s Opus or Dead Poet’s Society feel, but mixed with the little-seen Disney movie, Queen of Katwe, which I generally enjoyed much more. I do think Leguizamo did a pretty decent job with his first feature as a director and maybe if the crazy early days of COVID weren’t distracting me so much, maybe I would have enjoyed it more. This is a movie that I need to rewatch with a better head on my shoulders.

Tyler Norwood’s doc ROBIN’S WISH (Vertical) takes a look at the last years of comedian and actor Robin Williams, who died from suicide in August 2014 at the age of 63. To everyone who knew him, from close acquaintances to fans, it was a mystery why Williams would take his own life with things going so well in his marriage to Susan Schneider. After his death, the autopsy showed that he was afflicted by undiagnosed diffuse Lewy body dementia, and apparently, that was enough to do his head in to the point where suicide seemed like the only solution.

This is a very different than the equally good Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, because it does focus so much on Williams’ last years and his relationship with Schneider, who plays a much bigger role in this movie with in-depth and intimate moments. It also does a good job talking to Williams’ neighbors in Marin County, who laud the comedian’s commitment to entertaining those in the community. It also interviews Shawn Levy from the Night at the Museum movies, who talks about how Williams wouldn’t let anyone around him know what was going on, maybe because he didn’t really know himself.

Williams’ death was tragic but even moreso when you realize what he must have been going through, and the only thing else I will say is that the notably teary documentary Dear Zachary may finally have some competition as the most tear-inducing real-life film you ever watch. Even so, it’s wonderful and does as great job shining a light on how hard something like dementia hits people when they least expect it. (Also, the score and cinematography for the film are fabulous at provoking those sorrowful emotions even more.)

Arthur Jones’ doc FEELS GOOD MAN is available right now On Demand via the Fantasia Film Festival and will be available via other film festivals, like Oxford Film Festival, starting Friday. (It will also be in theaters, including Oxford’s drive-in!) The movie follows the journey of comics artist Matt Furie, who drew a comic called “Boys Club” that featured a strange frog character named Pepe, who I never heard of, but apparently, the odd underground comic character went from being a popular meme to becoming a symbol of the alt-right. It sounds pretty crazy, but it is an absolutely crazy story as Furie sees his lovable and peaceful slacker character get out from under his control as right wing kooks like Alex Jones from InfoWars gloms onto him.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d find this as interesting as the HBO doc, Beware the Slenderman (which I also happened to see at Fantasia a few years ago), but the way that Jones tells Furie and Pepe’s story is really quite compelling, especially as he (and we) watch the craziness surrounding his character unfold, and Pepe becomes less and less like something he wanted to be associated with. (Furie and his wife spent thousands of their own money-making Pepe T-shirts and merch only to have to destroy it all once Furie gets pegged as the creator of a hate image. I mean, holy shit, this thing gets ugly!)

Apparently, Feels Good Man won an “Emerging Filmmaker” Jury Award at Sundance, and it’s well-deserved. I’d recommend the movie to anyone who likes comics or politics and doesn’t mind when the two things collide.

There are a few other movies that I want to write about that I didn’t have time to watch despite having screeners and who knows, maybe I can watch them over this longer weekend if things aren’t too crazy screener-wise. (I lost quite a bit of time with my trip to Connecticut to see Tenet, unfortunately.)

First, there’s Julius Berg’s THE OWNERS (RLJEFilms), which stars Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones and Sylvester McCoy aka Doctor Who #6 (I think?). It’s about a group of friends who want to break into an empty house in which there’s a safe full of money, but when the elderly couple (including McCoy) return home early, they turn the tables in a deadly game of cat and mouse. Yeah, it does sound like it could be fun, and it’ll be in select theaters, On Demand and digital this Friday.

Also out on Digital, as well as DVD, Blu-Ray this week is the anime CHILDREN OF THE SEA (Shout! Factory/GKids) from director Ayumu Watanabe and STUDIO4ºC who made Mind Game and Tekkonkinkreet. It’s about a young girl named Ruka whose father works at an aquarium where she comes across two mysterious boys who were raised by dugongs (a type of sea cow) so they’re very familiar and acclimated to water, to the point where they have to be in or near it at all times, kind of like Aquaman. I did watch a little bit of this, and I do have to say that it looks gorgeous, definitely more photo-realistic than the work of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. I’m sure I’ll get around to watch the rest of it because I do enjoy well-made anime -- Weathering With You and Ride Your Wave are likely to be in my year-end Top 25, for instance – so hopefully, fans of anime and fantsy will check it out.

On Amazon Prime this Friday is Eric Merola’s doc THE ANDORRA HUSTLE, which look at the country of Andorra, located between France and Spain in the Pyrenees mountains, holding a population of 80,000 people who find themselves at the center of one of the most convoluted robberies in history in 2015 when a the private bank Banca Privada d’Andorra was shut down by the government to destroy the Catalonian Independence Movement, leaving dozens of innocent civilians facing jail time for laundering money after losing their life savings.

A couple prominent science fiction series premiere this weekend, including the Ridley Scott-produced Raised by Wolves on HBO Max and Away, starring Hillary Swank on Netflix. Someday, I hope to have

There’s a lot of other stuff that I didn’t have to watch or even think about it, so yeah, this is a little bit of a “lite edition” of the Weekend Warrior, so I apologize. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do better next week.

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #Tenet #ChristopherNolan #Mulan #TheArgument #BloodQuantum #Movies #Reviews #DriveIns #VOD #Streaming