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epicspheal · 3 years

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Hey! I remember a while back I read a fanfic of yours regarding twilight wings- the unofficial Raihan episode. In it their was an oc of yours, and I was wondering if you have any more? I like making oc's myself and it's fun to see other people's ideas and stories.

Hi there! You have...opened the floodgates (in a good way). I have quite a few champion OCs. I’ll focus on the various champion OCs I have since I’ve mentioned this on my blog before the champions of Pokemon remain my favorite class of characters as they have so much potential as we’ve seen with Leon in SwSh. This is going to be a somewhat long post as I have 5 champions to talk about (plus there are pics here, most of them commissions from some very talented artists that I’ve tagged as I can’t draw)

(There’s Marsha and her starter/ace Rosemary the Audino with @hayleyb100 ‘s character Richard. Thank you HayleyB for drawing this! And if you guys haven’t please check out her amazing art and stories)

I’ll start off with the OC you mentioned in your ask...Marsha (full name Marsha Miller). She’s the Alolan champion that we see in my Conviction, the Raihan twilight wings episode (also shameless plug for my fic). Like many champions she’s a mixed type trainer, but she does have a slight preference for fairy types on her team. Unlike the SM/USUM protagonist, she actually hails from Unova but her family is military (her father used to serve under Lt. Surge before becoming a lieutenant himself) and so she’s lived in Unova, Kanto, and Alola. Before she ended up becoming Alola’s champion, she was content with being head of the cheer squad at her high school while in Kanto (before her family announced moving again and she was needless to say, quite upset at the prospect of throwing away her cheer captain title). Back when she lived in Unova, she would often stop by her grandparents herbalist shop to learn about various medicinal herbs.

I hint to this a bit in my Convictions fic when Marsha asks Raihan a question about him becoming champion elsewhere, but Marsha has a huge bout of imposter syndrome from being the first ever champion of Alola as she doesn’t feel like she measures up to the legends like Red or Blue or known superstar champions like Leon and Cynthia. A lot of her character growth comes after she wins the title as she learns to work with Kukui to help build up the Alola League and make it famous. Luckily she happens to be a pretty friendly, if somewhat reserved character making it easy for her to befriend the likes of Leon and Raihan (and she also gets them to be a couple). Both Leon and Raihan give her tips they’ve learned from being in Galar to help boost the reputation of the Alola League. Back in Alola she is good friends with Mallow, Plumeria and Mina as they often visit Mallow’s restaurant to eat and catch up. She ends up being a big sister friend to Gladion, Lillie and Hau (being in her late teens when she first met the kids) as well as Iris when she meets her at the champion’s conference.

(Credit to @roseltheteacup for this amazing sugimori style artpiece of Calla. Please check out rosel’s artwork as well)

The next one is my probably my most well-developed champion OC and my version of Victor/Gloria...Calla Okoro. She’s the Sword Hero of Galar to go with Hop’s Shield Hero. Calla is a baby genius with an IQ of 162 (so she’d qualify for MENSA in the real world) and graduated college at the age of 12 with a degree in chemistry, a year before she ends up taking on the gym challenge. Her favorite type is poison and she decided that she would take on the gym challenge by using only Poison types, refusing a starter from Leon to train up her Budew and other poison types she found along the way.

Her knowledge of poison types would become very useful towards the end of the challenge and Eternatus awakening and possessing Leon , however this girl struggled so much at the beginning as the poison types she caught don’t really get good until they evolve. It was also a testament to having book knowledge of Pokemon and type advantages doesn’t equate to automatically winning a battle. She struggled especially at Kabu’s gym, resulting in her first official loss (outside of losing her second battle to Hop at Magnolia’s house due to his Rookidee being super effective against her Budew nicknamed Sabi). Calla is persistent though and patient so she worked with her team developing a killer toxic stall strategy (that helped her be the first person to take Leon down). As champion Calla uses her position to promote science and eventually goes back to school to get PhD, becoming the first Galar champion to also be a professor. When Calla is not doing Pokemon battles or giving science demos, she tends to enjoy doing backflip competitions with Gordie or rocking out at Piers’ concerts with Marnie and Hop and Bede (Bede will deny hanging out with them)

(thank you RPG Picrew, I have yet to get official commissioned work of him done)

This is Jabari Revere, my Kalos champion OC and part of the Kalos 5. I’m still working on his backstory and personality as I replay Pokemon Y (I tend to replay the games for my champion OCs to build up their teams and get a sense for the personality). Jabari is a water type champion who enjoys his days swimming in the ocean and surfing on his Mantine, nicknamed Monterey. Like Serena from the anime he is a bit at odds with his mother Grace for wanting him to take up the family tradiiton of Rhyhorn racing. However unlike anipoke!Serena, he did have a goal of training water type Pokemon with the aim of becoming a water type champion just like Wallace from Hoenn. Jabari is definitely an easy going fellow, which helps him befriend Serena, Tierno, Trevor and Shauna as well as Grant and Clemont. Unlike my Galar champion Calla, he is more willing to use Pokemon other than water types, such as when he fought Korrina at the Mega Evolution tower using the Lucario who was attracted to his aura, or when he rescued Yveltal from Team flare and let it get revenge on Lysandre

(this piece was done by @snowythesoft aka ChibiGirl! Thank you again for this and also please check out her art as well)

Yes, you’re looking at a robot. His name is Valen and is actually my first non-self insert Pokemon OC. After watching the first Pokemon movie and seeing Mewtwo be a Pokemon trainer, and also after watching the Watson computer on Jeopardy, I came up with the idea of “what if someone made a robot as a Pokemon trainer”. Hence Valen, the world champion of my version of the Pokemon World

Created by Molayne and Sophocles at the request of Red and Blue as a new fixture for the battle tree, Valen quickly began to learn from the some of the strongest trainers how to battle (with a frequent opponent being Marsha as she needed someone who could challenge her in battle). Once he figured out how to consistently beat the likes of Red, Blue and Marsha in battle...it was a wrap. Valen travelled to every known region and soon became the undisputed most powerful trainer in the world defeating every last living champion. He even took on Leon, Cynthia and Red in a triple battle and won. Despite his absolutely monstrous skill Valen is an absolute sweetheart and always compliments his opponents in battle. He also loves bowties, with his first gift being the red bowtie he sports from Sophocles do not touch or harm that bowtie if you value your life, it’s one of the few things that will actually piss off this gentle giant of a robot.

(credits to the VillainSona Picrew)

So this is my final non-self insert champion OC, His Royal Highness Jack, Duke of Stow-On-Side. In a discord server and on some messages here on tumblr, I’ve described Jack as the unholy combination of Caillou and Jack the Ripper. Jack hails from a disgraced family of aura guardians who learned that they could use their aura powers to create shadow Pokemon. 150 years prior to the main Sword and Shield story line his family managed to beat back the Hammerlocke Royal family (aka the great Raihan’s family) from Stow-On-Side and Ballonlea to claim the two towns for themselves. When Peony stepped down as champion Jack ended up taking the champion title. Now Jack is actually a legitimately powerful trainer without the need to shadowfy his Pokemon, but he does so anyway to ensure absolute control and to hopefully make his royal family the absolute rulers of Galar (his actions would years later inspire Sordward and Shieldbert, the Dukes of Motostoke). He even bribed gym leaders to be extra difficult on challengers he deemed to be a threat (so Leon, Raihan, Nessa and Sonia got hit hard with this).

Jack’s misdeeds are pretty vast. The reason why Sonia is so unconfident in her battling skills? Jack ambushed her in the wild area and destroyed her in a match while mocking her. Why does Leon have that perfect image as champion? He’s trying to build back the reputation the Galar league has after Jack nearly destroyed it’s rep on the world stage with his actions. Why are Leon and Sonia so insistent on you focusing on the gym challenge and leaving the problems to the adults? The adults during their gym challenge were either on Jack’s side or were actually useless against him and his shadow Pokemon. To quote my friends in an rp server I’m in “Jack is the absolute worst” So that’s all of the champion OCs I have. As I continue to write more fanfic will definitely see all of them pop up in various stories.

#pokemon champion #pokemon poc #pokemon OC #ask epic spheal #I love talking about my OCs so if you guys have any questions keep them coming #you have no idea how happy i was to see this question #I screamed at work in the breakroom and spent my lunch answering this lol

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popentertainment-moviereviews · 3 years

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THE SPACE BETWEEN (2021)

Starring Kelsey Grammer, Jackson White, Julia Goldani Telles, Paris Jackson, Andy Daley, William Fichtner, Andrew Kai, Angela Halili, Ashley Eskew, Delon de Metz, Glenn McCuen, Gabriel Hammett, Ashley Eskew, Delon de Metz, Glenn McCuen, Dallas Blake, Derek Berg, Wendell Kinney, Alexandra Fatovich, Jimmy Valdez and John Patrick Amedori.

Screenplay by William Porter.

Directed by Rachel Winter.

Distributed by Paramount Pictures. 95 minutes. Rated R.

It says something – I’m not sure what – when a movie takes its title from an old Dave Matthews band song. (At least they didn’t call it “Ants Marching: The Movie.”) And yet, I guess it makes some sense. The Space Between is about the music industry in the Matthews’ heyday of the 1990s – it takes place in 1996, to be exact – during the last boom period in the music business before Napster and streaming and piracy sort of blew everything up.

Of course, the movie isn’t about Dave Matthews. It is about a fictitious musician named Micky Adams (Kelsey Grammer), who was a huge star for a brief time in the 1970s, before he disappeared (to a luxurious compound in Montecito) and became something of a recluse – with some mental issues and a definite drug habit. He periodically sends in unsellable “albums” that his longtime label must reject – his most recent is called Doors and is just 45 minutes of him opening and closing doors.

However, Micky is not the main character in The Space Between. That is Charlie Porter (Jackson White), a wannabe music exec who is currently toiling in the mail room at a big label. He is determined to make his way to the top, so he frequents the local clubs looking for talent.

He falls for a beautiful young singer named Corey (Paris Jackson), who seems to be incredibly open to sleeping with anyone who might advance her career. Every time she was on screen, I kept thinking two things – 1) I can’t believe that’s Michael Jackson’s daughter and 2) back in the 1990s, it was still pretty rare for people to have nose rings. However, she does a good job with a slightly underwritten character.

To get her attention, he pretends he is higher up the totem pole at his label than he is. Then, he stumbles into an opportunity which may get him promoted to A&R at the label. The catch is this. The sleazy head of the label (William Fichtner) has had it with Micky Adams – even though the guy helped build the label, at this point he is just a drag. Therefore, if Charlie can go up to see Micky and get him to sign a buy-out of his contract, he will get a much better job.

The problem is that Micky is infamously… well eccentric. The last few label reps who went to visit him never returned. He has a pet llama which he parades around his property. Even Micky’s pretty daughter Julia (Julia Goldani Telles) acknowledges he is out of his mind.

Micky doses Charlie’s drink right after they meet and the two end up running around his estate naked. (Don’t ask…) However, the world at large has so much love for his earlier work that most people give Micky a pass for his strangeness.

Strangely, every time one of “Micky’s” songs is played in the film, there is an MTV-type chyron giving the name of the fictional song, artist, album, and record label. (It even uses the same font style as MTV did.) However, these songs are never shown as music videos, they are just songs people are listening to on a CD, on record, or even performed live in a little club, so I’m not sure where those little chyrons are supposed to be coming from.

The songs are rather good – the music was written by Rivers Cuomo of Weezer and is reminiscent of James Taylor or early Tom Waits before his voice was completely ravaged – though none are quite as great as the script keeps trying to convince us they are. Kelsey Grammer’s vocals are not bad at all, although they are a little gruff. (As is his speaking voice in this particular role.)

Through spending time together, Micky regains his desire to create art, while Charlie realizes that the music business is not just about business.

The Space Between seems to be a little unsure of whether to play all of this for comedy or a drama. This also confuses the viewers, who can’t decide whether to take Micky’s oddness as a source of humor, or as a source of pathos.

Therefore, it all comes down somewhere in the middle. (No, I’m not acting like the movie and consciously referencing another 1990s song by Jimmy Eat World.) It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. It’s honestly a bit hard to believe, and Micky seems a bit more like a caricature than a character. The movie finds itself lost somewhere in the space between good and bad.

Jay S. Jacobs

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#The Space Between #2021 #Movie Review #Kelsey Grammer #Jay S. Jacobs

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jessethorn · 4 years

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Some Los Angeles Tips

People are always asking me what they should do when they visit LA. I am by no means the greatest LA expert on earth, but I’ve lived here more than a decade now, and I have some ideas for you. Note that I live in the far Northeast corner of LA, and really rarely travel to the western half of town. So if you are looking for advice on Beverly Hills stuff or Malibu stuff or whatever, I am not that helpful. Also this is very subjective and really non-comprehensive in general. Just some stuff I like!

In General

Rent a car if you drive, but don't be afraid to take the bus or subway. There are some very long distances to traverse, and not everything is convenient to transit, but the transit is reasonably comfortable and efficient for a lot of purposes (going downtown, for example), particularly when combined with some judicious ride-sharing. There's plenty of parking everywhere, despite what Angelenos would have you think. Don't try to do too many things in one day, or cross town on the 10, 101 or 405 at anything even resembling rush hour (ie between like seven and ten thirty or three and seven on weekdays). Stick to one area for the day, maybe two.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology This is the best thing in Los Angeles and one of the best things in the world. It is part museum, part art project. To explain it much further might ruin the experience of visiting it, but please take my word that it is one of the most amazing places in the world.

The Watts Towers As the name suggests, they're in Watts, a bit out of the way for some trips, but absolutely without a doubt worth the travel. They're an incredible artwork/building built in a backyard out of rebar, concrete, glass and tile by an illiterate Italian immigrant in the mid-20th century. Worth signing up for a tour, they are cheap (it's a city park) and not all that long. There's also a little gallery on the site. One of the great works of American outsider art and a deeply beloved city treasure.

Other, More Regular Museums LACMA is a world-class art museum. The collection is a bit scattered (and as of this writing a wing is closed for renovation and replacement), but it's really good. It's in Mid-City on the Miracle Mile, and surrounded by other museums. The Petersen Automotive Museum is pretty cool if you're into cars. La Brea Tar Pits are more park than museum, but the museum is fun in a kitschy way, if you're into prehistoric creatures. It's also a nice place to eat lunch. In Exposition Park are a few major museums - the Natural History Museum is pretty good, though not better than others in other major cities (the Field Museum or whatever). The science museum is OK but significantly outclassed by the competition (it's no Exploratorium), though it does have a real space shuttle, which is pretty sweet. The Annenberg Space for Photography does what it says on the label. A good mid-size museum of photographs, check what show is up. The Broad is a nice contemporary art museum in a beautiful building that's right near Walt Disney Concert Hall, also an incredible building. They have a second campus in Little Tokyo that's very nice but smaller.

Architectural Stuff The LA Conservancy runs affordable walking tours that take you into some of the most fascinating built environments in LA. The subject matter ranges from Art Deco in downtown to the modern skyscrapers of the 50s through 90s. They're mostly Saturdays, but a few also run on weekdays. Can't recommend them enough if you're up for a couple hours of walking. You can go inside the Bradbury Building and up into the upper floors! It's cool. (The Conservancy also runs screenings in the big movie palaces downtown, which are mostly otherwise closed to the public. Definitely recommend those.) A couple of other architectural highlights: the Hollyhock House is in Barnsdall Park in Los Feliz. It's a restored Frank Lloyd Wright estate willed to the city many years ago that as of relatively recently runs regular tours. Also in the park is the city art museum of LA, which sometimes has some cool shows. Cal Poly Pomona students run tours on Saturdays of the Neutra VDL studio and residences in Silver Lake, which can be combined with a nice walk around the lake and some middle-aged-hipster watching. The Gamble House in Pasadena is an absolutely breathtaking craftsman mansion with a lot of

Griffith Park Griffith Park is one of the largest urban parks in the United States. It has all kinds of stuff within it - the LA Zoo, the Griffith Observatory, some great hiking. It's a great place to spend some time. If you have little kids, they will love Travel Town, a train graveyard/museum that's inside the park (and free!). The zoo is good if you like zoos, though not incredibly great or anything. The Autry Museum of the American West is worth a visit if you're into that kind of thing.

The Grove I know that we talk about The Grove a lot on Jordan, Jesse, Go. Please do not waste your vacation time at the Grove. It's a mall. It's fine. This also applies to the Americana at Brand, which we sometimes talk about because we have talked about the Grove too much. Also a mall. A little nicer than some? I went there when I needed a new power cable for my Surface.

Dodger Stadium Look, I am a Giants fan and hate the Dodgers, but if you are a baseball fan, Dodger Stadium is a great place to watch a baseball game. Even I can admit that. Angel Stadium is about as generic as it gets, but if you go on a weekday you can take a train from Union Station in LA.

The Getty Center The Getty Center is a beautiful building on a breathtaking piece of real estate. It's pretty cool to visit, but be aware that most of the art is pretty early, so if you don't like busts or paintings of feasts and stuff from the bible, then it might not be your jam art-wise. And getting up there is a whole thing. That said: it really is a beautiful building and an incredible view, so you probably won't feel like it's a waste. And if you like busts, then get your ass over there.

Downtown Stuff I will again recommend the LA Conservancy's walking tours to get a flavor of downtown LA, which is very walkable and full of incredible stuff. The main library is a beautiful edifice, the history of which is detailed in Susan Orlean's The Library Book. Worth wandering around in. Grand Central Market is a great place to get a bite, though pretty bougie at this point. Right next to Grand Central Market is Angel's Flight, a block-long funicular that is a lot of fun and costs next to nothing. Besides this, there are still functional specialized commercial districts in downtown LA. The flower district is particularly fun - the big flower market opens early for wholesale sales but is open to the public and there are tons of stores selling silk and artificial flowers which are very fun to wander through. There are also areas with stores specializing in selling imported toys, store fixtures (a favorite of mine), jewelry and fabric. Most of the fabric is kinda garbage honestly but there is a good tailor supply store called B. Black and Sons and a great hat making store (worth visiting even if you don't make hats) called California Millinery Supply. FIDM also has a thrift store with cheap fabric leftover from LA-based factories.

Movies The Arclight is a fancy movie chain, and the Hollywood location (near Amoeba Records) is also the home of the Cinerama Dome, which is pretty fun. The Vista is a great single-screen theater on the east side. There are some great rep houses on the west side - check your local listings.

Comedy Stuff The UCB has a few great shows every night at both locations. It's hard to go wrong, though you should be aware you will be seeing things that are a little rougher than whatever makes it to your town as a road show. The signature improv show is Asssscat, which is absolutely as good as it gets. Dynasty Typewriter (right by our office) has a lot of great shows these days. A great standup show is Hot Tub at the Virgil. The big comedy clubs have pretty comedy-club-y comedy in them, not necessarily what I'd recommend, though you will certainly see a lot of relatively big names doing sets. The Improv Lab sometimes has MaxFun-adjacent headliners who've put together their own lineups, as does Flappers in Burbank. Largo has bigger-name shows of this variety as well, and if you go see a show there headlined by a Sarah Silverman or Patton Oswalt, the lineup will likely be packed with their pals, even if they aren't advertised.

Some Places To Eat This is NOT a comprehensive list. First: Jonathan Gold died a few years ago, but he is still the king of LA food. Anything he recommended in the Weekly or Times is still the gold standard (no pun intended). He was also a wonderful writer and a champion of foodways that are unfamiliar to many in LA, much less outside LA. If you are a food nerd, KCRW's Good Food is a superb local food show (and podcast) produced by Nick Liao, who used to work at MaxFun.

Philipe's The French Dip A restaurant that's been around for literally a century, with sawdust on the floor, big jars of pickled eggs, ladies in hairnets and really tasty French Dips. They have competing claims to having invented them but the other competitor turned into one of those goofy sleeve-garter-barman subway tile exposed lightbulb places about ten years ago. Philipe's is totally for real and great.

Pie N Burger This is just a burger place in Pasadena that sells classic SoCal-style burgers and is really great. Cash only, though.

Langer's The only one of the Jewish delis in LA that's really worth a special trip. The #19 (pastrami, cole slaw and swiss on rye) is truly one of the world's greatest foods. Pastrami here is better than anywhere else I've ever eaten, including those famous delis in New York.

Park's BBQ

One of many great Korean BBQ restaurants in LA, but the only one recommended to me personally by Jonathan Gold. (I also like Soot Bull Jeep, which barbeques over charcoal and will leave you smelling like smoke, and Hae Jang Chong for all-you-can-eat.) (There are LOTS of different kinds of Korean food, but I am not an expert on the soups and blood sausages and bibimbaps and etc., but if you're adventurous, you could eat a different Korean food at a different spot every month in LA and make out well.)

Guelagetza Oaxacan food is one of the best kinds of food in the world, and Guelagetza is an LA institution that serves good-quality Oaxacan food. Moles, tlayudas, queso fundido. If you've never eaten any of this stuff, a couple of chicken moles are a great place to start (as is Guelagetza).

Dim Sum You can drive all the way to the San Gabriel Valley and eat at one of the many wonderful dim sum places there. That's where the best stuff is. If it's not worth a special trip to you, I like a place called Lunasia in Pasadena, and they also serve dim sum for dinner. Not a HUGE menu but good food.

Mozza This pizzeria, now a sort of group of restaurants, is an unimpeachably excellent Fancy Meal in LA. So (per my producer Kevin) are the other restaurants run by the same chef, Nancy Silverton.

The Dal Rae This is an old-timey fancy restaurant in Pico Rivera, a semi-industrial part of LA. It's just a great place to wear a suit to and eat Clams Casino. Famous for their table-made Caesar salad (legit great) and pepper steak (too peppery for me). Generally the food is excellent in a 1955 sort of way.

Bludsoe's Best Texas-style barbeque I've had outside of Texas. Used to be a window down by the airport, now a fancier place on La Brea, but I'm told the food is just as good at the fancy place.

Pupusas I love to eat pupusas. Maybe my favorite food. I really like to eat pupusas at Los Molcajetes on Hoover in Westlake (near Koreatown). Note they are weirdly big here (a regional variation of some kind) and they only take cash. (Note also this is one of 10,000 restaurants in LA named Los Molcajetes.) I also sometimes eat at a nice sit-down Salvadoran place called Las Cazuelas on Figueroa in Highland Park.

In N Out In N Out is good! It will not change your life! But it is very tasty, especially for a $4 food! Some people complain about the fries, which are fresh-cut and fried only once and thus are less crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside than some others! I think they are fine! Try In N Out, why not! But maybe don't make a whole special trip to do so!

Tacos and Other SoCal Mexican Food Stuff Everyone has their own favorite taco places, and none of my favorites are so special they should be destinations. They are mostly my favorites because they are close to my home and work. But I can tell you that I like to get sit-down Mexican-American food at La Abeja on Figueroa in LA, where I eat a lot of carne adovada and enchiladas and sometimes albondigas or breakfast. I also really like to eat carne en su jugo at Carnes Asadas Pancho Lopez on Pasadena in Lincoln Heights. I eat tacos from Tacos La Estrella on York in Highland Park or the truck (with no name) across from the Mexican consulate on Park View at sixth in Westlake. At night I sometimes get cheap tacos (I like buche) from the place that opens up on Pasadena at Avenue 37. I like the shrimp and fish tacos at Via-Mar on Figueroa. I like Huaraches from Huaraches Azteca on York. The burritos at Yuca’s in Los Feliz (or Pasadena) are great, though they are totally different from the SF-style burritos that I grew up eating. I sometimes get nachos at Carnitas Michoacan on Broadway in Lincoln Heights, which feature meat and cheese sauce and are gross but also really, really good. I have also eaten at the very fancy Mexican restaurant Border Grill and to be honest it is really good even though the interior feels a little like a cross between a fancy restaurant in 1989 and a Chili's.

El Coyote This is a famous Mexican-American restaurant from the early part of the 20th century, but you shouldn't go there because the food sucks.

Stores I Like This is going to be REAL subjective, but a few stores I like which sell the kinda stuff you'd expect me to want. &etc - A great (small) antique store at 1913 Fremont in Pasadena. The Last Bookstore - A downtown bookstore that is the closest thing to a "destination" book store in LA. Good selection and reasonable prices on used books, and a nice art book room. (Records as well, but they're not very good.) Gimme Gimme Records - I like this record store in Highland Park. You'll pay retail here, but reasonable retail, and the selection (while not immense) is really excellent. Good stuff in all genres.

Secret Headquarters - One time at this small comics store in Silver Lake the lady at the counter asked if I was Jesse from Jordan Jesse Go and they won my business forever in that moment. Don Ville - My friend Raul makes and sells shoes (and repairs them!) in the northern part of Koreatown. If you have the dough, get him to make you some shoes! The Bloke - A really great little menswear store in Pasadena. Sells cool (expensive) trad-ish brands like Drake's and Hilditch & Key and Alden. The Good Liver - A beautiful shop in Little Tokyo specializing in perfect home goods. The perfect scissors, the perfect dish towel and so forth. Some things are expensive, some aren't. H Lorenzo Archive - The "outlet" shop of a designer clothing store on the west side. Discounts aren't huge, but the selection is really interesting, and they have a good collection of one of my favorite brands, Kapital. Sid Mashburn - Excellent classic clothing shop on the west side. Suit Supply & Uniqlo - if you haven't got these where you live, they're the places I usually send people for reasonably-priced tailored clothes (Suit Supply) and cheap basics (Uniqlo). Olvera Street - This is an old-timey tourist attraction, a street of folks selling Mexican handcrafts (and their Chinese-made analogs). Right near Union Station and Philipe's, and a great place to buy factory-made huaraches (the shoes, not the food). They even have sizes big enough for me, which is pretty much impossible to find in Mexico or most Mexican-American shoe stores. Thrift Stores - I go to a lot of thrift stores but if I told you which ones you might buy something I would have bought so I'm not going to tell you which thrift stores.

Flea Markets You may know I am at the flea market every weekend. The good fleas are on Sundays, and there's one every week. First Sunday of the month is Pasadena City College, a big (and free) market with pretty reasonable pricing. PCC has a pretty big record section in addition to the regular flea market stuff. Second weekend is the famous Rose Bowl flea, which is HUGE and has a big new goods section (blech) and vintage clothing area (good!). Third weekend is Long Beach Airport, which is a great overall show. Fourth is Santa Monica airport, which is smaller and a little fancier but very nice. The Valley flea is also fourth Sundays, at Pierce College, and that's not huge but sometimes surprises me. With all of these, the earlier you can arrive, the better you'll do (not least for weather reasons). I usually try to get there around 7:30 or 8:00. The Rose Bowl in particularl is a 4-6 hour operation if you do most of it. There are also a lot of swap meets - I don't know enought to recommend any in particular, but these are much more about tube socks and batteries and bootleg movies than antiques and collectibles. Still can be fun, though, and are certainly a proud SoCal tradition. (The Silverlake Flea and the Melrose Trading Post are garbage, don't go there.)

Going to the Beach I'm not a huge beach goer, but by all means go to the beach if that's your thing. The Annenberg Community Beach House in Santa Monica is a great place to base your operation, though you have to arrive in the morning on busy days to get a parking spot.

Kid Stuff I mentioned Travel Town, that's pretty great. Kidspace in Pasadena is a very good children's museum. The Bob Baker Marionette Theater is a great place to see a marionette show straight out of 1966. There's a good aquarium in Long Beach though it's a bit nutty there on weekends, and the zoo in Griffith Park is a good zoo. I really like Descanso Gardens, a big botanical garden northeast of LA. Huntington Gardens is also very nice, though it's much more expensive and hotter.

Geography Los Angeles is BIG. I'd say try to spend each of your days within about a sixth of it, geographically. It's entirely possible to do west side and east side stuff on the same trip, but don't try to do them on the same day. Look at a map and look at driving times when you're planning. Neighborhoods in LA are BIG, geographically speaking, don't assume two things in the same neighborhood are an easy walk. There aren't a ton of urban neighborhoods suitable for wandering in the way there are in some places. A few manageable general areas for stuff you might like: Silverlake/Los Feliz/Echo Park, Koreatown, Highland Park, downtown, Little Tokyo and the Arts District. (I live in the northeast part of town, and don't spend much time on the west side, which is one reason why this list focuses more on east side stuff. Some folks like West Hollywood and Venice on the west side. Long Beach and Pasadena are both neat towns with their own thing going on that might be worth a visit, too.)

Books & Media The Great Los Angeles Book is probably City of Quartz, a socialist-leaning history of LA. I really loved Susan Orlean's The Library Book, which is about the library as an institution, but also specifically the LA central library and the mysterious fire that nearly destroyed it. And a wild guy named Charles Lummis who was one of the founding fathers of LA culture and was really something else. (You can visit his house - it's right off the 110 near Highland Park.) An LA movie I love is The Long Goodbye, which is sort of a predecessor/inspiration for The Big Lebowski. A shaggy mystery directed by Altman where Elliott Gould just sort of wanders around LA. Another really cool one is Los Angeles Plays Itself, a long (long!) film essay about the ways the real Los Angeles has been used to create fictional worlds in film over the decades.

TV Tapings I'm not an expert in TV tapings. I can say that I've been to a few Conan tapings, and while it takes a LOOOOONG time to get in there, the show is fun to watch live. This is generally true of talk shows and most game shows, which tape more or less as-live. Sitcoms take WAY longer than you were expecting them to. Make sure to try to book tickets early if you have something you want to see. No matter what it's a most-of-the-day thing.

Nightlife Is a word that describes evening activities - especially dance clubs. I am old and don't know about these things.

The Magic Castle I can't get you in, please don't ask me to. I went a couple times. It's fine. If you're not into magic you're not missing too much. If you are, then obviously, it's a priority.

The Walk of Fame and Hollywood Not recommended, not worth it, don't bother.

Disneyland Why would you want my opinion about Disneyland? It's Disneyland. You're in or you're out.

San Diego If you happen to plan a side trip to San Diego, you can take the Amtrak there, and it is a breathtakingly beautiful and exceedingly pleasant trip. I have no San Diego expertise to impart beyond that, however.

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evening-blossoms · 4 years

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SGE movie ideas aka me and Miles pretend to be movie producers for... hours, ig

That's right ya'll thats gonna be a list of brainstorming me and @filipofmounthonora made for the possible SGE adaptation

So let's break it down

1: Screentime and Representation

ACTUAL HESTADIL SCENES

More screentime for Tagatha if possible

Dot. FOR FUCKS SAKE DO NOT MAKE HER WEIGHT THE BUTT OF JOKES

Maybe more poc characters??? East-Asian Agatha, Black Hester, Black Dot seem to be popular hcs - Miles has a Black Tedros w Vitiligo design, a very interesting concept and this Ted looks so fucking cute jfc- aaand I digress

More LGBT and poc rep overall

2: Visuals

IF the chosen media is animation, a good idea would be to shift art styles being Gavaldon and the Schools. Our idea was to make each world be seen through the other’s eyes - SGE’s art style is a storybook-esque one, whilst Gavaldon, which is shown to the Woods through Sader’s painting, is animated in an oil painting style (example for this style - Loving Vincent). A semi-realistic style would be good for this.

No matter live-action or animation, variation in color palette is a good tool for setting mood - a desaturated, washed out palette for the sequences in Gavaldon, bright vivid colors in SGE, which could get darker as Sophie’s descends into Evil and the rift between her and Agatha gets starker: and to symbolize how unhinged Sophie is, use saturated, harsh colors contrasting with the darkness - perhaps red?

SPEAKING OF GAVALDON - have the clothing and buildings have a picturesque design (as described by the book), but washed out colors to give off the feeling of bleakness it does as you read the book

Have shots in the School for Evil be closer and more claustrophobic, given that sense of prison - which goes well with the fact students of Evil are essentially doomed and hopeless

Meanwhile, shots in the School for Good are wider, focusing on the grandeur of everything

Also slight palette changes on the Tagatha scenes for a dreamy feel

3: Soundtrack

Given the fairy-tale setting, an orchestral soundtrack is the best shot

FOR THE LOVE OF WHATEVER YOU BELIEVE IN. NO. POP. MUSIC. PLEASE

Like seriously ESPECIALLY if its put over a montage it cheapens the production so much hhhhh

Quick diversion: The best setting for pop music in Fantasy scenarios like this is either parody (like say, Shrek lmao) Or to replicate a feeling or highlight the opulence/shallowness of a group - although not fantasy, Marie Antoinette (2006) and Great Gatsby (2013) are good examples of this

However, SGE really doesn’t fit any of these scenarios so an orchestral music would be the best shot here

Gavaldon should either have a simple, string-instrument based score or be mostly silent

The Real Fun begins at SGE

For the School for Evil, instruments like oboes can create a quite eery feeling - basically a horror movie-esque track

The School Masters theme could borrow some elements from Evil, that get more noticeable once his true nature is revealed

The School for Good could flip between a dainty, delicate track for the Evergirls and a Militaristic, trumpet/horn/etc based track for the Everboys - yes STUPIDLY Gendered but the School for Good is MEANT to be like this

Agathas theme could borrow some aspects of the Everboys’; Tedros’ from the Evergirls’ maybe?

Sophies theme should get more dissonant and chaotic the more Evil she becomes; one single Borrow from modern could be used there - electric guitar paired with classical instruments to add to a chaotic feel

Again: a dreamy feel for the Tagatha scenes - which suits their quick romance and just,,, yeah. Although it uses more electronic sounds, the Blade Runner soundtrack is amazing at these feelings (google “Tears In The Rain” if you havent watched the movie). Curious on how this feel could be translated into orchestra

NOTE: the dreamy feel for Tagatha is because of how distant the memories felt in AWWP and also how brief and kind of rushed it was - a bit like a dream. Plus, it's good for a romantical atmosphere

4: Scenes

So these are some scene ideas

First is the intro of the movie - it could start with Sophie’s dream. But with a slight change - she dances with various princes, going from prince to prince but always attempting to reach one specific prince. Right as she spins from Prince A’s arms into That Prince, the camera zooms in onto Sophie. When it zooms out, she has stopped and is no longer in the Ball - she’s now sitting in bed as Stefan locks her window

For the very last scene, we could have the palette starting to desaturate again as Sophie and Agatha are sent home Or if we’re going for animation, the art style starts to revert to oil painting - brush strokes start to become noticeable from the corners of the screen as the scenario changes, until Sophie and Agatha are holding each other by the lake. The movie ends in that shot

Sooo yeah thats it!!! It came off a bit messy but this was pretty much a compilation of messages lmao

#sge #school for good and evil #the school for good and evil #sge movie #school for good and evil movie

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deebormzone · 4 years

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Return of Blog

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything on here. Just for fun, here’s a snapshot of the video games I’ve been playing recently.

Smash Bros.

Remember my old prediction for Fighter Pass 2? Well, I’m already wrong.

That’s okay, though! Min Min is pretty good. I do prefer third-party characters for the wow factor, but Arms didn’t have a rep yet, so this is kind of like adding a new franchise.

Special mention to the Vault Boy costume. Despite everything, I still love Fallout.

Still, I might have underestimated how many first-party characters would be in the second pass. This time around, I’m buying them individually, so I can dodge lamers like Pokemon and New Paper Mario.

The punchline here is that I’m not actually playing the game, because if I fight someone I know, I only win, and if I fight online, I only lose. Neither is fun and life is suffering.

World of Warcraft

These being Covid Times, I thought it would be a good idea to use videogame to provide some social interaction, so I re-subscribed and made ten new characters. The following two months were spent grinding. I stopped once I realized that the game is not actually fun, and cancelled my subscription again.

Note: No social interaction occurred in-game during this time. I anticipate paying sixty dollars plus tax for the expansion.

Evil Genius

I guess this has been my main game lately! Out of nowhere, it’s an old PC game from 2004.

The concept is: A James Bond film, but you are the antagonist. Hollow out a mountain and build an evil underground lair. Recruit minions and execute them when they disappoint you. Embark on evil missions around the globe to increase notoriety. It’s all very silly, and the theme is excellent.

Unfortunately there are a few racial caricatures. Most prominently: my favorite playable genius Shen Yu. It hurts a little whenever he says “this is vitar to my pran”, but his ability helps keep agents off my island, so I have to play as him because I hate those fucking agents goddamn it.

He also starts with my favorite henchman, Lord Kane, a morose gentleman in a top hat who is, according to his biography, “responsible for pretty much every major crime or disaster this century.” His special power is to glare at the enemy, causing them to flee in terror. The enemy’s allies also flee in terror. Even if they are in a completely different room.

Another notable henchman is Dr. Neurocide, a fearsome scientist whose backstory is that she invented Evil Juice and then rubbed it on herself by mistake. I like her because, when you command her to eliminate an intruder in your lair, she replies “right away, sugar,” in a country girl accent.

I like the game a lot, but it can get pretty tough. My first campaign ended in failure because, since I was playing as a Bond villain, James Bond appeared and killed me. I wasn’t too mad about it because I got to see the special failure movie.

Incredibly, this old game is getting a sequel this year! Shen Yu isn’t playable this time, so the devs have probably cleaned up their act a little. Also, one of the unrevealed playable characters looks a little like Dr. Neurocide. Fingers crossed!

The Binding of Isaac

Have I even mentioned this on my blog before? Isaac is one of my favorite games of all time. Top ten for sure. It’s disgusting and vile, but the cute art style takes the edge off, leaving only intense dungeon fight and shoot. I have trouble playing some games lately- my thumb hurts if i have to press too many buttons- but Isaac is a twin-stick shooter. No buttons required!

I’d been avoiding it because I wanted to wait for the game’s fifth(?) free expansion, which has been in the works for at least a year. Then I remembered that instead of waiting, I could instead play the game with only four free expansions. So I did.

Recently, though, the dev posted with an update: the expansion is definitely coming next year probably. With that assured, I’m back to waiting. I’ll play some other roguelikes instead, such as

Hades

Some kind of historical-action-roguelike-dating sim. It’s very good. Still in Early Access, which i usually avoid, but this one’s worth it. They’re close to release, too: next update is 1.0.

Somehow the plot is the most substantial part of this roguelike. Every update, they add another 400 lines of voiced dialogue. You don’t even have to be good at the game to advance the plot, since you hear more after each death!

Still, I wish I wasn’t so bad at it. Any time I see someone playing it on stream, or in person in the case of @thewrongexecution, they’re playing somewhere between heat level six and eight. Meanwhile I can’t win on heat level one. Truly, this is... hell... the Greek hell... Hades... because the game is called that.........

Torchlight 3

Speaking of Early Access games I usually avoid, I got this one on “release” day because I really wanted to play Diablo, and the five existing Diablo clones just weren’t good enough.

It’s okay. The classes are great, especially Robot and Train Summoner, but the game needs polish. No surprises there, since I got it Early Access day one, but it can be tough to play sometimes. Last update added a whole new section to the game, but it also made all the UI elements very small.

Still, I’m pretty sure it’s going to turn out well in the end. If it doesn’t, I’ll just have to hope Diablo 4 isn’t terrible when it comes out three years from now.

World of Horror

I got this game thinking it was a roguelike.

It is, but it is also a horror game! There was a jumpscare! How could this happen?

I look forward to the next time I am bold enough to play it. Soon, I swear.

Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!

Yeah that’s the game’s full, unaltered title.

I’m not actually playing this game at the moment. I had to dial it back because it got too hard, and also because my thumb hurts if I play anything too intensely button-mash heavy.

Even though I’m a poor typist, I’m seriously considering switching over to keyboard controls so I can keep playing, because as hard as it is, this game is incredible. The whole series has been good and the third is the best of all. It’s the world’s most hardcore cooking simulator. A hard sell, I know, so I’ll just leave you with this, one of my favorite “you have seven seconds to prepare for the final stop, at which fifty-three customers will each order a personalized sandwich, and your sliced meats are about to spoil all at once” theme songs.

in closing...

It’s tough times. I can’t go without saying one more thing.

I’ve been watching the nationwide protests on twitch for a while now. I’ve been struck by two main things: the strength and courage of the protesters, and the cowardly violence of the police.

I know my audience is practically nil, but please take a look at the peaceful protests if you haven’t. Take a look at their opposition, the officers who launch gas bombs into crowds and fire rubber bullets at people’s faces.

And holy shit, this is during a pandemic! All the protesters out there are risking their lives on multiple fronts, and they have been for months.

Please support the protesters.

Please support Black communities.

Please wear face masks.

And please be kind to yourselves.

#smash bros #world of warcraft #binding of isaac #hades #evil genius #world of horror #Cook Serve Delicious #torchlight 3 #what's the best way to go to a protest against police brutality?#a cab

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paralleljulieverse · 4 years

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Darling Lili in New York, or Where Were You the Night Julie Andrews Played Radio City Music Hall and Stole Manhattan’s Heart?

This is the second in a series of commemorative posts to mark the 50th anniversary of Darling Lili, the last of the 1960s Julie Andrews screen musicals. In the preceding post, we looked at the film’s fraught production history up to and including its World Premiere at Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome on 23 June 1970. Here, we turn attention to the film’s New York bow which took place a month later on 23 July at the city’s fabled Radio City Music Hall.

Nicknamed “the show place of the nation”, Radio City Music Hall was for much of the mid-twentieth century the venue of choice for big event film releases. The theatre’s monumental size, architectural opulence, state-of-the-art technology, and pre-show stage spectacles made it “the quintessential motion picture palace,” and Hollywood studios jockeyed to secure bookings at “the Hall” for their most prestigious pictures (Goldman, 97-98).

During the late-60s, Paramount, the studio behind Darling Lili, enjoyed a run of extremely successful summer bookings at Radio City Music Hall. Its 1967 release, Barefoot in the Park broke house records for the longest run at the Hall with a 12-week season, only to be bested the following year by another Paramount comedy, The Odd Couple which ran for 14-weeks (”Trouble”, 114). It was something of a PR coup, therefore, when, in January 1970, Paramount announced with much fanfare that Darling Lili would make its official premiere as the summer attraction at Radio City Music Hall later in the year (”Par Gets”, 3). The deal even made the front cover of Boxoffice magazine with a photo of Frank Yablans, Paramount general sales manager, proudly signing the booking contract with Music Hall president, James F. Gould (″Sign of Summer,”, cover).

Barely had the ink dried on the deal, however, when Paramount changed tack. Hit by the toughest industry recession in decades and spooked by a precipitous downturn in the market for big-budget roadshow films, Paramount execs implemented a wholesale revision of studio operations, including a brutal hard-prune of their production and release schedules (Dick, 120ff). By April, earlier plans to give Darling Lili a high profile release had been ditched and, in its stead, Paramount decided to offload the film cheaply as part of a bundle of eight titles slated for saturation release during the summer off-season. Dubbed the “Big Summer Playoff,” the aim was to issue the films widely and quickly so that they could “saturate every major and minor market with single-house firstruns and key city multiples” (“Paramount’s Summer Playoff”, 5). In an era when important films were typically given carefully staggered roll-outs, it was an unorthodox move that fuelled advance perceptions of Darling Lili as a bomb of such magnitude that even its own studio had lost hope. As one newspaper commentator put it, Paramount “seems to have dumped the expensive movie rather than spend any more on it” (Taylor, 21-E).

Radio City Music Hall, by contrast, stuck to its original plans to exhibit Darling Lili as a high-profile summer spectacular. With Paramount having started to issue the film haphazardly to theatres across the nation in June, the opening of Darling Lili at Radio City on July 23 would no longer be a world premiere -- that honour was hastily devolved to Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome -- but the Hall persisted in proudly billing its run as “the New York premiere”. As Variety wryly noted: “Music Hall has never played a pic which hasn’t been a New York first, although perhaps someone there thought the tourists may have thought Lili was otherwise in that the film opened nationally a month ago” (”New York”, 20).

While not strictly a roadshow presentation, Radio City Music Hall exhibited Darling Lili with all the trappings of a hardticket prestige release. Seats were available via a mix of both premium reserved and general admission with special complimentary programs issued to patrons at all sessions. The theatre screened the film in wide-gauge 70mm with 6-track stereophonic sound, one of only two US venues to do so. Projected on the Hall’s 70′x40′ motion picture screen -- the largest indoor screen in the world at the time -- the film would have looked and sounded amazing (Goldman, 99). As an added point of appeal, screenings were supported by one of the Hall‘s famous live stage entertainments: in this case, a Spanish-themed spectacular with symphony orchestra, flamenco dancers, guitarists and, of course, the legendary high-kicking Rockettes (Jose, 54). In addition, the Hall lavished Darling Lili with a solid promotional buildup, taking out full page ads in key newspapers, and using strategically-placed billboards and transit ads around town.

It was an old-school approach of event-style cinema showmanship that paid off handsomely. Even before Darling Lili opened at the Hall, there was “an unprecedented advance demand” for tickets, leading the theatre to double the number of reserved seats from 900 to 1,800 for all sessions. “We’ve added reserve seats on a few occasions previously,” observed a theatre rep, but “only during the heavily crowded Christmas and Easter holiday seasons” and never...during the summer,” adding that he had “no idea” what had generated the extraordinary advance demand (Weiler, 37).

The good news continued when the film opened on July 23 with a box-office rush that broke all house records, prompting the theatre to increase reserve bookings even further to 2500 seats in an effort to accommodate the clamour for tickets (“’Lili’ Hitting Peak,” E-2). As Variety commented:

“Radio City’s Darling Lili...is the summer blockbuster all the auspices hoped it would be, with $285,000 or close expected for kickoff session. Pic is curious in that its longtime postproduction shelving had spurred rumors of disastrous artistic results. But film has shown legs in crosscountry openings and both critical and word-of-mouth opinion in Manhattan has been mixed at worst. Some response is downright enthusiastic” (“’Lili’ and Revue,” 9).

Darling Lili continued its bullish box-office run in New York, long after any initial novelty buzz should have subsided. Weekly grosses inched higher for a few weeks before settling into a very healthy $200K+ per week plateau. Come mid-August, Variety noted with thinly-veiled surprise that:

“Radio City Music Hall is experiencing a slight phenomenon with its current Darling Lili attraction. It’s not unusual during the summer tourist season for popular Hall programs to maintain or build grosses...but few remain in such a narrow range as has Lili to date. First week tally of $280,000 was a non-holiday record. Second was upped to $288,000. Now third session is headed for $280,000....70mm projection and sound are plus-values in a package which Hall president James Gould predicts will run until late September” (“N.Y. Full,” 9).

In the end Darling Lili did run at Radio City Music Hall until late-September -- September 23, to be precise -- when it closed to make way for the pre-booked Sophia Loren-vehicle, Sunflower. Across its 9-week run, the film grossed in excess of $2million in ticket sales, making it one of the theatre’s biggest summer hits to date (“Picture Grosses,” 15).

The commercial success of Darling Lili at the Hall was music to the ears of the film’s star who, in a rare moment of unguarded hubris, admitted to a measure of self-satisfaction at news of the booming box office receipts:

“‘I’m not so interested for myself,’ she explained, ‘but I’m happy for Blake. He has been so maligned about this picture that I am delighted he is receiving some vindication...I think he managed to make a vastly enjoyable film...People are entertained by it; the Music Hall figures seem to prove that.’ [T]he actress had mild reproof for the releasing company, Paramount, over its handling of the film: ‘Three weeks before the opening, there was no advertising campaign. None whatsoever. Paramount didn’t seem to know how it was going to sell the picture--or if. I simply can’t understand an attitude like that’” (Thomas: 13).

Julie’s chiding of Paramount for its poor handling of Darling Lili was not mere sour grapes. Once the studio had decided to issue the film as part of a summer saturation bundle, it effectively abandoned any semblance of cogent or even halfway organised marketing. As outlined in our earlier post, there was little rationale to the film’s distribution. Lili appeared suddenly and briefly at second-run theatres and drive-ins across disparate suburban and provincial areas, while major metropolitan venues didn’t get the film till much later, if at all. In many markets, the film was booked for a fleeting season of a week or two – in some cases, just a few days -- and it was frequently paired as a double-bill with a host of poorly selected partner titles (Caen, 6-B).

The studio’s approach to promotion was no better. A generic pressbook and merchandising manual was issued, but it was very bare-bones and perfunctory. In the absence of a clear marketing plan, local exhibitors were left to promote the film more or less any way they liked. Advertisements were frequently altered to pitch Darling Lili in diverse, and often contradictory, ways. The main advertising art provided by Paramount -- with its central image of Julie in mid-song set within a sepia frame of art nouveau swirls -- positioned the film principally as a nostalgic star musical with touches of adult romance. Many local exhibitors took a very different approach. Some tried to reframe it as wholesome child-friendly fare: “This summer’s one and only total family entertainment;” “It’s Julie at her best! It’s for your family” (“This Summer,” 24). Other theatres pegged it as “a man’s movie,” stressing the action and warfare elements with taglines like “See the Best Dogfights of World War I” or “If you enjoyed Blue Max you’ll love Darling Lili” (“Man’s Movie”, 13; “Palms”, 64). Some exhibitors even openly recycled graphics from The Blue Max and other WW1 action films, with one Florida venue going so far as to revive the film’s original working title: Darling Lili, or Where Were You the Night You Said You Shot Down Baron Von Richtofen? (“Amusements,” 11A).

Elsewhere, exhibitors implemented a rash of dubious promotional incentives such as “twofers” or free entry to "one child under 12...with the purchase of one adult admission to Darling Lili” (“Capri”, 2D). A theatre in Fort Lauderdale offered “free admission to World War I veterans in uniform during matinees Monday through Friday” (“’Darling Lili’ Ducats,” 5D). Possibly well-intentioned gestures but it was bottom-barrel marketing that fostered an unfortunate aura of abject desperation around the film that likely turned off more patrons than it enticed.

Against this sorry backdrop of shambolic distribution and ham-fisted marketing, the meticulous handling of Darling Lili at Radio City Music Hall served as a strikingly singular counterpoint. The remarkable commercial success of the film at that venue -- which, if reported figures are to be believed, represented well over a third of the film’s entire US grosses (“US Films,” 184) -- can only be attributed in good part to the care and professionalism with which the Hall managed the film’s exhibition. One can’t help but wonder, therefore, how different the overall commercial fate of Darling Lili might have been had Paramount exercised a more discriminating distribution plan, affording the film the kind of special-event release it enjoyed in New York. It’s unlikely Lili would ever have been a major hit -- it was simply too narrow in appeal and out-of-step with the rapidly changing times -- but it certainly could have gone much further in recouping costs and might even have realised a modest profit. At a minimum, it would have helped redeem the film from its unjust reputation as the “Edsel that almost bankrupted Paramount Pictures” (Rosenfield, 5).

As a coda to this account of the exceptional history of Darling Lili at the Radio City Music Hall, it is interesting to note that the film fared well in New York not just commercially but also critically, Some of the film’s best US reviews came from New York critics -- a surprising turn-of-events given how notoriously hostile the East Coast critical establishment had been to Julie Andrews’ earlier screen musicals. Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News gave Darling Lili three-and-a-half stars out of four, writing:

“Radiantly beautiful, elegantly turned out, Julie Andrews graces Radio City Music Hall in a burst of song and dance, adventure and romance...[I]t’s Darling Lili everybody loves, so will you, you Music Hall patrons--you and the family” (Hale, 39).

Vincent Canby (1970) of the New York Times found Darling Lili “a pure if not perfect comedy” with “a lot of perverse charm and real cinematic beauty.” He continued:

“Although Julie Andrews (the film, not stage, star) has always struck me as a very mitigated delight, she may be the perfect centerpiece for this sort of fantasy. That is, her angular, aggressive profile, combined with her coolness and precision as a comedienne and a singer, give the immediate, comic lie to the adventures of a supposedly irresistible femme fatale. She thus is immensely funny...” (16).

In a rare honour, the New York Times afforded Darling Lili a second review from Roger Greenspan (1970) who argued for the film as a minor masterpiece of refined, borderline philosophical, sensibilities. “[O]ne very bright critic I know...has already compared the film, ecstatically, with Max Ophul’s great Lola Montes,” he remarked before launching into his own rhapsodic paean:

“To her characterisation, Miss Andrews brings a precision of gesture that matches Edwards’s directorial precision and that constitutes one of the most excitingly controlled expressions of theatrical presence I have ever seen in a movie. Not cold; elegant, finely drawn, perfect of its period--and yet inward, self-sustaining, as if already committed to that gorgeously contemplative state of transport that is the subject of the movie within the movie to look for in Darling Lili” (S2-10).

In a similar move, the inaugural issue of the New York-based cinephile journal, On Film devoted not one but two essay-tributes to Darling Lili from Stuart Byron and Mike Prokosch respectively. The former gushed:

“Darling Lili comes at the end of the big-budget musical cycle, and it [is] one of the only...good things to come out of the whole rotten effort to reduplicate The Sound of Music. But in any case, a masterpiece it is--Blake Edwards’ most beautiful film to date and surely his most meaningful. ... Edwards is the first director to utilise Julie Andrews’ full resources. Her rapid manner of speaking becomes the neutral fulcrum of her moods--it is sincerity hiding danger, or bitterness hiding love. Her singing, however tender on the surface, always gives the impression of concealing a quick intelligence ready to spring forth when needed” (Byron 1970, 31, 34).

Prokosch (1970) was equally smitten, calling Darling Lili “the only work of art Hollywood ha[s] released in 1970″:

“First. one must forget one’s preconceptions of Julie Andrews and look at the way Blake Edwards, the film’s director, casts his wife with remarkable shrewdness: Lili Smith is a young British singer caught in a situation she cannot master. What more natural part could Julie Andrews want? ... Darling Lili is really gutsy in its formal expression...Edwards’ control of the...formal means at his disposal--stylized lighting and colour, split-up background compositions, and especially cutting--displays a...complete knowledge of their emotional effect. What makes Darling Lili unique among recent releases, though, is its careful structuring. Almost every sequence...takes a clear place in the design of the film” (96).

If it sounds like these critics were a little woozy on the then new wine of auteur film theory, a measure of sobriety was served by none other than Andrew Sarris, chief architect of American auteurism, who filed a somewhat more reserved, but nevertheless appreciative, review of Darling Lili for the Village Voice:

“Darling Lili is cinema a la folie, a rhapsody of romantic madness amid the current cacophony of absurdist dissonances, a sentimental valentine from Blake Edwards to Julie Andrews complete with gypsy violins and a Snoopy sub-plot about the Red Baron and the Dawn Patrol...but I’m afraid it won’t work for most audiences on any level. Its ingredients -- romance, satire, musical comedy, deadpan farce -- mix without blending. The song numbers don’t soar high enough and the prats don’t fall hard enough. But Darling Lili is never less than likeable, and its graceful professionalism is especially refreshing in this long hot summer of assorted crudities” (Sarris 1970, 47).

Despite his reservations, Sarris still included Darling Lili in his end-of-year list of the best films of 1970 -- as did several other Village Voice critics: Stuart Byron, Richard Corliss, Stephen Gottlieb, and William Paul (Sarris 1971, 59).

Now, if only the critics and audiences west of the Hudson had shown Darling Lili half-as-much love as the crowds at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, who knows how different the course of Hollywood history -- or at least that of the Julie Andrews screen musical -- might have been...

Sources:

“Amusements Today.” Florida Today. 2 October 1970: 11A.

Byron, Stuart. “Darling Lili.” On Film. 1: 1, 1970: 30-34.

Caen, Herb. “It’s News to Me.” Hartford Sentinel. 5 August 1970: 6-B.

Canby, Vincent. “Screen: ‘Darling Lili’ Sets the Stage for Pure Comedy of Romantic gestures.” New York Times. 24 July 1970: 16.

“Capri: Florentines! Something Wonderful! Has Happened to the Movies!” Florence Morning News. 12 August 1970: 2-A.

“‘Darling Lili’ Ducats Pared for Retirees.” Fort Lauderdale News and Sun-Sentinel. 27 June 1970: 5D.

Dick, Bernard F. Engulfed: The Death of Paramount Pictures and the Birth of Corporate Hollywood. Louisville, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2001.

Francisco, Charles. The Radio City Music Hall: An Affectionate History of the World's Greatest Theater. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979.

Goldman, Harry. “Radio City Music Hall.” Journal of American Culture. 1 1, Spring 1978: 96-111.

Greenspan. Roger. “Oh! What a Lovely Spy.” New York Times. 9 August 1970: S2-1, 10.

Hale, Wanda. “Darling Julie Sparkles as Musical Spy.” Daily News. 24 July 1970: 57.

Jose, “House Review: Music Hall N.Y.” Variety. 29 July 1970: 54.

“’Lili’ and Revues, Tally Darling 285G.” Variety. 29 July 1970: 9.

“’Lili’ Hitting Peak.” Boxoffice. 10 August 1970: E-2.

“Man’s Movie.” Winona Daily News. 7 August 1970: 13.

“N.Y. Full of Tourists; Divided Between ‘Darling’ and ‘Denmark’.” Variety. 12 August 1970: 9.

“New York Sound Track.” Variety. 29 July 1970: 20.

“Palms Advertisement.” Arizona Republic. 31 July 1970: 64.

“Par Gets Hall’s Summer Spot for its ‘Darling Lili’.” Variety. 21 January 1970: 3.

“Paramount’s Summer Playoff Strategy: 5,000 Bookings for Eight Major Films.” Variety. 3 June 1970: 5.

“Picture Grosses: Broadway.” Variety. 23 September 1970: 15.

Prokosch, Mike. “On Film/Feature Film: Darling Lili.” On Film. 1: 1, 1970: 96-97.

“Radio City Music Hall’s All-Time Boxoffice Darling.” Variety. 5 August 1970: 12.

Rosenfield, Paul. “Reconcilable Differences.” Los Angeles Times-Calendar. 12 July 1987: 4-5.

Sarris, Andrew. “Films In Focus: ‘Darling Lili’.” The Village Voice. 13 August 1970: 47, 52.

________. “Films In Focus” The Village Voice. 21 January 1971: 59.

“Sign of Summer.” Boxoffice. 26 January 1970: cover.

Taylor, Robert. “‘Lili’ Can Be Charming.” Oakland Tribune. 27 June 1970: 21-E.

“This Summer’s One and Only Total Family Entertainment.” Tucson Daily Citizen. 5 August 1970: 24

Thomas, Bob. “Julie Andrews Praises ‘Lili’.” Courier-News. 15 September 1970: 13.

“Trouble in Paradise.” Newsweek. 25 October 1971: 113-115.

“U.S. Films’ Share-of-Market Profile.” Variety. 12 May 1971: 36-38, 122, 171-174, 178-179, 182-183, 186-187, 190-191, 205-206.

Weiler, A.H. “Big ‘Darling Lili’ Advance.” New York Times. 23 June 1970: 37.

#julie andrews #Darling Lili #blake edwards #radio city music hall #old hollywood #musicals #film premiere #new york #1970

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verved · 4 years

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hey so i love transformers because i love giant robots and think theyre cool but also ive never seen any of the media other than like two michael bay movies and toy lore do you have a rec for one of the shows to start with?

WE GOT ONE BOYS

Ok, so this entirely depends on what you’re looking for in particular. Every show has it’s own strengths, weaknesses, and no two feel exactly alike. I’m going to list my favorites and what I think is best about them.

Transformers Animated: This is a pretty good starting point for a new fan because there’s a small cast and the plot is easy to follow. There’s a lot of great world-building and imo it’s one of the most interesting continuities. The art style, voice acting, and pacing of the show are all great, but because it never got the fourth season it was supposed to get, the ending is a bit rushed and lackluster. There is however a plot synopsis of the last season, as well as a comic I believe.

Transformers Gen 1: This is where it all starts and if you want to know the roots of the franchise this is where to pick it up from. Gen 1 isn’t the best show by far, but it’s incredibly charming and in terms of entertainment value it’s great. If you like cheesy 80s shows this is where you should start. The animation is terrible, every single character suffers from dumbass bitch disease, and it’s mostly composed of plot holes, but it’s great to watch if you’re just looking for something fun. The movie, which is meant to be watched after season two is actually really good. If you like good 80s animation and Weird Al Yankovic, then check it out.

Transformers Prime: This is one of the more serious shows, although it still is very much a cartoon. If you liked the action of the Bay movies this would be a good place to start. The art style, cinematography, and voice acting are all great. It has a small cast and straight forward plot, but with enough interesting elements to keep your attention. If you don’t like annoying human characters, this might be hard to watch. The main three aren’t the most likable of human characters, but they’re bearable. Some people even love them, so it’s mostly personal taste.

Transformers MTMTE/LL: These aren’t shows, but comics. More Than Meets the Eye and Lost Light are one of the best things to come of the franchise, but it may be a bit hard to get into for a new fan. Even as someone who had watched/read transformers media before, it was a bit difficult to keep on top of everything happening in the plot (although I also read RID at the same time). You don’t necessarily need to read the comics that come before this, or read Robots in Disguise, which ties into the events in MTMTE, but they can help. The comics before this aren’t so great though. If you do want to read MTMTE you’ll be treated to actual character development, canon in-your-face LGBT rep, space shenanigans, good world-building, emotional whiplash, and witty dialogue. If you want to read the comics, here is the reading order.

Transformers Cyberverse: This is the newest show and has just been completed, although most fans agree that it could’ve benefited from another season. It has the same level of absurdity as gen 1, but with great animation, voice acting, and humor. The episodes are short so you could watch the whole series pretty quickly. The best thing about this show imo, is the cross-faction interactions. You have characters on opposite sides of a war becoming friends and we get to see their relationships pre-war as well, which is a rarity in this franchise. The cast starts out small and the plot is easy to follow. In season two a whole bunch of new characters are added but not at the confusing rate they are added in gen 1.

There are a few others worth mentioning, like Beast Wars and Rescue Bots, but while they are both great shows, they kind of stand apart from the rest of Transformers shows, so may not be the best for someone looking for quintessence of the franchise.

I hope these recs were helpful! If you need any more info, I’d be glad to help and I’d also love to know what you think of whichever show you choose to start with!

#i hope you enjoy whatever you decide to go with!#welcome to robot hell #hellequinisahomo

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ayearofpike · 6 years

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Master of Murder

Pocket Books, 1992 198 pages, 14 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-69059-0 LOC: CPB Box no. 1081 vol. 14 OCLC: 26075926 Released July 28, 1992 (per B&N)

Everybody’s reading the thrilling Silver Lake series by Mack Slate. With the last book due out in a few months, fans are excited to finally find out who killed Ann McGaffer. Only problem is, Slate — that is to say, twelfth-grade nobody Marvin Summer, hiding behind a pen name — has no idea himself, and hasn’t even started writing the book. It’s only as he works to close the distance between himself and his crush, Shelly Quade, that the grand finale starts to make itself clear to him, in ways that unexpectedly and gruesomely parallel his own life.

This might not be my favorite Pike book, but it has certainly had the most influence on me. I’ve always called myself a writer, since a fifth-grade teacher recognized my ability to craft a narrative and pointed out that somebody had to make books and I should think about it. In high school, it was my defining trait, and it wasn’t until I’d almost graduated from college that I realized it didn’t make me special. Everybody has a story, as Marvin finds out, and some of them are even better at telling it in an engaging way. It’s sad, in a way, that I identified with this book so much (like, I literally carried it in my backpack for my entire senior year) and it still took me so long to get that theme.

What I did get was an intense sense of connection with Marvin. Shy loner? Check. Separated parents who didn’t get along? Check. Younger sibling who wanted to be like me? Check. An English teacher hung up on prescriptive strictures of language who quietly cared about her students, and a language teacher who was more interested in building a classroom community than sticking to a scheduled curriculum? Check and double-check. Writing ability revered by peers? Check, even if my work rarely made it past my immediate circle of friends. Subconscious inclusion of issues I was going through in my work, to the point where it got me in trouble with the girl I liked? Well, not directly observable, but I mean, it’s hard to not come off creepy if you’re writing a love story to a girl instead of, like, actually TALKING to her.

I also really enjoyed the way Pike works with language in this book, and honestly, I still do. Modern YA gets a lot more respect, and deservingly so, but a lot of it is written in a direct, almost sparse way. It makes sense, considering how many contemporary authors write in the first person, and most people don’t actually think in metaphors and syllogisms and even (to some degree) descriptive adjectives. Master of Murder kind of goes hog-wild on this, kind of a leap from representational art to impressionist art. And I buy it. As Marvin is our POV character, it makes sense that as a writer he’d put some more florid prose into his observations and understandings of the world. Plus, this style kind of helps to establish him as an unreliable narrator, as we slowly learn how much he actually doesn’t know and, in fact, how much maybe he’s repressed.

That said, this story does have some holes. Let’s jump into the summary and I’ll get there.

We start out with Marvin in his English class, watching Shelly read his most recent book and thinking about their relationship. They’d gone out a handful of times a year before, but it stopped after the death of Harry Paster, another flame of Shelly’s who’d jumped off a cliff into the nearby lake. Marvin figures enough time has passed that he can ask her out again, but first he has to read the short story he’s dashed off for their creative writing assignment. Man, remember when creative writing was an actual COMPONENT of high school English class? And the only reason I got to do it was that I took a creative-writing-focused senior English course. I mean, I get it — public school English is about preparing you to pass the SAT or ACT, not teaching you how to reach and grab an audience. They save that for us, in post-secondary ed, by which time the interest in writing has already been drilled out of kids by making them do repetitive five-paragraph essays. Most of my students still don’t want to write, but I at least try to give them some room in the assignment structure to flex their creative muscles.

But anyway, “The Becoming of Seymour the Frog” is a legitimately good short-short story. It gives us a sense of Marvin’s author voice straight away, which is of course the same as the narrative, and it legitimizes how much Pike uses what modern writers would call excessive description. The teacher grades it right away (what? I give everything two reads, and this teacher is just going to LISTEN one time?) and tells Marvin he might be a writer someday if he learns to control himself. We both (the reader and Marvin, that is) know he’s already there, and Marvin completely discredits this advice. He writes best by giving up control and going into a state of flow, one where he can’t stop writing but also doesn’t necessarily feel that what’s going onto the page is coming from inside his own head. This is important later.

After class, he catches up to Shelly, but their talking is interrupted by the arrival of her current squeeze, Triad Tyler. Triad is a big dumb football jock who wants to buy Marvin’s motorcycle, which Marvin would never dream of selling. Before he can get around to asking her out, she ducks into the bathroom, and Triad complains that it seems like she’s always trying to escape. This is probably important later too. So already in the first 15 pages, Pike has nicely set up the major characters and their interplay with each other.

We jump to speech class, and I call BS. Like, we learn later that Marvin only has four classes as a senior. Why is one of them speech? My high school only required a half-day of seniors, sure, but our classes were English, math, world history, and economics. It turns out this class would be better called “communication skills,” which was required in ninth grade, but I’d still buy that more than speech. The teacher basically has them engage in conversational debate, and this day the topic they choose is Mack Slate’s Silver Lake series. It’s a good framework for sharing Marvin’s story, and showing the corner he’s painted himself into: Ann McGaffer’s body was found naked and tied up with barbed wire floating in Silver Lake, and five books on we’re no closer to figuring out who did it or why. The description grosses me out a iittle bit, but on the heels of the last two super-tropey thrillers, I’m going to choose to believe that Pike is poking fun at the intentional shock attempts of the genre.

After class, Marvin finally successfully asks Shelly out for that night, then goes to his PO box to pick up his fan mail. His little sister is already there, and once again we’re subjected to the jaw-droppingly beautiful small child. It was gross when it was fifteen-year-old Jennifer Wagner, but Ann Summer is ELEVEN and Marvin’s SISTER. Pike, isn’t it possible to describe a female one cares about without making it all about her looks? He does it with Marvin’s mom in a few pages too, when they get home. We get it — girls we care about are hot. Only problem is Marvin’s mom is an alcoholic who almost never leaves the house except to buy more booze. Dad is an alcoholic, too, but he’s not at home and his child support payments are erratic. Good thing there’s a best-selling author living in the house! But Ann’s the only one who knows, and it kills her to not be able to sing her brother’s praises and brag about how great he is.

They go upstairs to Marvin’s room to read his mail, and one of the last letters makes him pause. It has a local postmark, and the letter inside simply says “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” It starts to pull the book into more general thriller territory, but before we can think too much about it, the phone rings and it’s Marvin’s editor, asking about Silver Lake Book Six, which is four months overdue. I have some serious questions about the timeline of this series, but we’ll get there in a little bit. Marvin soothes her concerns, then goes to take a walk around the lake, trying to figure out where to start his book but not actually ready to start it before he picks up Shelly.

The date is successful, by most measures. They have dinner, go to a movie, and then stop on a bridge crossing a raging river because Shelly wants to look at the water. They sit down on the edge, Marvin landing on an old and weathered piece of rope, and watch the waters pound away down to their final destination — the lake. Then Shelly invites Marvin back to her house to sit in the hot tub, where they get naked and make out, but she suddenly gets sad and pulls away. I give Marvin props for being respectful and apologetic here rather than trying to force her to continue. Woke in 1992! But as he’s getting ready to leave, he learns the reason she’s sad: Shelly is thinking about Harry, which he expected, but he didn’t expect to learn that she thinks he was murdered. And she wants Marvin’s help to figure it out and clear Harry’s name.

There’s no basis for this belief, but Marvin figures he might as well listen and do some research, seeing as he can’t figure out his own murder mystery. He checks his PO box first, and finds another ominous letter that’s been mailed there directly rather than to his publishing house, so maybe somebody really does know him. He calls his agent (whose name is one letter away from a real literary rep, maybe even Pike’s) to ask about it. This insert, plus the editor whose name was close to the woman in charge of YA at Simon and Schuster at the time, made so many of us so sure that this was as close to autobiographical as Pike had ever gotten. I seriously chased leads from this book to try to figure out more about him, back before he started answering questions on Facebook and there was so much less mystery about it.

So then Marvin goes back over to Shelly’s house to talk about Harry. She has the police report and autopsy report, and Marvin looks them over, along with articles about Harry’s death from newspapers at the time. What it boils down to is Friday night a year before, a night when Marvin had taken Shelly out for her birthday, Harry and Triad were drinking beer together. Triad said that he dropped Harry off at home, and that was the last time anybody saw him until a fisherman found his body in the lake on Monday morning. Marvin starts to question the narrative that Harry jumped, because there are several physical symptoms that indicate maybe he was held captive. He talks to the fisherman and to Harry’s mom, and takes a look at the jacket Harry was wearing, and makes note of definite rope burn marks around the back and under the armpits. So Harry was tied up somewhere for a long time — but where? And how?

Marvin goes home to rest and digest this info, and has a dream about his book series that shows Ann McGaffer hanging from a bridge by a rope around her waist. He’s startled awake by Ann, who says that their dad is breaking things downstairs. Marvin gets down there just in time to watch his dad shove a lamp into the TV, and the resultant cuts to Ann and his mom from the exploding picture tube send Marvin into a fit of rage. He starts to beat the shit out of his own father, and only stops when Ann tells him to, even though the dude is unconscious. Like, holy shit, buried violent tendencies that will make you like your father? So Marvin gets the hell out of the house to give himself some space.

He ends up back at his PO box, even though he knows there couldn’t have been another delivery, but there sure is a letter in it. He follows this back to Shelly’s house, where he finds her making out in the hot tub with Triad. Marvin overhears her say that she was using him to get him to do something, and Triad tells her not to go out with Marvin anymore, to which she readily agrees. So now Marvin is scared, he is heartbroken, and he has unlocked some deep-seated rage that will allow him to strike back. He ends up on the bridge, where he starts to figure out what must have happened a year ago. There’s a rope, there’s a giant oil stain on the bridge right behind it, and there’s a dead boy with rope burns on his jacket who was maybe hanging from it rather than being tied up. Marvin figures that Harry was jealous of his relationship with Shelly and decided to stage a little motorcycle accident, but accidentally slipped off the bridge and ended up hanging himself, slowly suffocating to death until the rope broke and he washed down to the lake.

And it occurs to Marvin that this would be a perfect way to get back at Triad.

After a misadventure with two girls in a bookstore who accuse him of trying to pick them up by pretending to be Mack Slate, Marvin buys a new car and a bunch of motorcycle-dropping gear at Sears, then takes the bike to Triad’s house to sell it to him. Marvin says that he left the helmet in a motel in the town across the river, and that the manager said he was going to throw it out if Triad didn’t pick it up tonight. Then he hikes to the car, which he’s had delivered around the block, and goes to stake out the bridge. While he’s waiting, he starts to think about the parallels between his own series and how Harry died. And we learn that the first Silver Lake book only came out after Harry’s death — in fact, that Marvin didn’t start writing it until then.

So this is my timing issue. Master of Murder does have some gaping inconsistencies, I’m not gonna lie. There’s the variable height of the bridge over the river: it’s 150 feet when Marvin and Shelly stop on their date, and maybe 60 when they have the final showdown two nights later. Also, later apparently Shelly knows details of a book that Marvin hasn’t even written yet? But this, in my mind, is the biggest problem. We’re supposed to believe that in a year, five books have come out about Ann McGaffer and her loves and hates. We’re also supposed to believe that he’s four months late with book six, and that it takes at least three months for the publisher to turn a story around and get it into bookstores. We also have the information that the fastest Marvin’s ever written a novel is eighteen days. So by that logic, there’s no way he could have finished and submitted Silver Lake Book One before mid-December. So five books have somehow appeared between probably March and let’s say November (they say the fifth one just came out) — five books in seven months — but they’re going to wait another three months to release the sixth? Also, how does an author, even an experienced and acclaimed one, sell a six-book series to his publisher without knowing the beats and especially the ending? There are too many inconsistencies and timeline impossibilities for me to buy it. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Pike was a new author writing publication fanfiction.

But anyway, Triad races across to the other town. Marvin is too far away to see him, but he recognizes the sound of his motorcycle. He grabs his rope, his knife, his can of oil, and his binoculars, and hustles the probably mile to the bridge to set up his death trap. But as the motorcycle is coming back, he gets his first good look — and sees Shelly on the back. So he drops the rope, but Triad is already braking, stops short of it, and shoves Marvin off the bridge.

So now it’s Marvin hanging from his armpits by a rope under the bridge above a raging river that leads to the lake in his town, and did I mention he’s wearing Harry’s jacket? Shelly’s more annoyed than angry — it turns out she’s expected this from Marvin the whole time. In fact, she DOES know who Mack Slate is, and she’s already read about this scheme in the Silver Lake books. But Marvin doesn’t even remember writing it. She wants to turn Marvin in to the police. But Triad wants to untie the rope and drop him into the river.

And suddenly Marvin knows what actually happened. Harry wasn’t alone on the bridge a year ago. Triad was with him, and shoved Harry just as he shoved Marvin. Shelly doesn’t believe it until Triad knocks her out for trying to stop him killing Marvin too. Marvin manages to get hold of the underside of the bridge just as Triad unties the rope, then he kicks Triad in the face when he leans over to look and see whether Marvin has actually fallen. The semi-conscious wedged body of the football jock gives Marvin a ladder to climb back up onto the bridge, and he stomps out Triad’s bad knee when the dude wakes up and threatens to go after him again. Only the knife falls out of his pocket as he does so, and Shelly picks that moment to come to, and it’s a simple matter for Triad to grab both her and the knife and threaten her death if Marvin doesn’t help him get away.

What’s in it for Marvin, though? The guy who tried to kill him is holding the girl who tried to frame him for a death the guy is responsible for. He gets on his bike, where Triad has courteously left the keys in the ignition, and drives away. I don’t like that he’s left a vulnerable girl at the almost-complete mercy (he can’t stand up) of a confirmed killer. What I like least is that he doesn’t even call the police. But then again, he’s abandoned his new car in the woods near the scene and surely doesn’t want to be implicated if somebody dies. So Marvin drives to a seaside town, rents a house and a computer, and writes an entire book in five days, only stopping to eat and sleep. Of course, within a few pages of the end he has to stop, because he doesn’t actually know how Ann’s best friend, left in the clutches of the boyfriend’s jealous best friend, is going to escape, or whether in fact she does.

Marvin calls his editor and tells her the story is done and he’ll express-overnight it to her. He also asks her to set up a reading from it at his high school that afternoon. More BS? Like, how are they going to allow an author to read from a book that the editor hasn’t even SEEN, let alone put through proofs and galleys? Marvin has to physically print and ship the manuscript — remember, this is 1992 and most people don’t have email yet (and when it would become widespread in a few years, it still had a hyphen). But she does it, and Marvin goes home first to find out that Dad’s in jail and Mom hasn’t touched a drop since. More good news! He takes Ann with him to school, where the entire student body is in stunned disbelief about the identity of Mack Slate, and finally gets some personal acknowledgement from his peers and teachers.

But Shelly doesn’t show up. Neither does Triad. The kids he does ask say neither has been in school all week. Marvin can’t dwell on this, because he has a major book series to finish, but it’s precisely this reason that he hasn’t made it all the way to the end yet. He knows that he needs someone else’s story to finish his own. So he goes back to the lake, and makes his way to the top of the cliff that everyone thought Harry jumped from. As he’s thinking, Shelly shows up with his knife. She tells Marvin that she suspected him of being Mack Slate back when they were dating, and he would tell her stories that had the same voice as Slate’s published work. So she sneaked into Marvin’s room one day and snooped in his computer for proof.

When the Silver Lake books started coming out, she saw the parallels immediately, and figured the only way Marvin could have known so much about how Harry died is if he had killed him. She got Triad, Harry’s best friend, to help her set up a situation where Marvin would implicate himself, not realizing that Triad had always wanted Shelly and been jealous of both of the other guys and didn’t care who hurt if it meant nobody else could have Shelly. That includes Shelly herself: if Triad couldn’t be with her, nobody else would. He didn’t tell Harry that Marvin and Shelly were out together that night, and when Harry realized Shelly was on the back of the motorcycle he did like Marvin and dropped the rope. So Triad pushed him.

Triad obviously has told Shelly all of this, and Marvin figures the only way he would have is if Shelly somehow overpowered him. It’s an interesting twist that she told Triad about using Marvin to get him to figure out Harry’s death and Triad never realized she might use him for the same purpose. (I feel like Shelly has more strength than even the story gives her credit for, seeing as Pike describes all her agency as coming at the hands of her feminine wiles.) Marvin suspects that here, the spot where it all began, is the spot where it has all ended as well, and that the soft soil where he’s sitting is Triad’s final resting place. Shelly doesn’t say as much, but elicits Marvin’s silence before throwing the knife into the lake. But of course Marvin still has a book to finish, and Shelly’s OK with that as she’s apparently the only one who’s figured out the parallels anyway. The book closes with them in Marvin’s car, Shelly driving to Portland so they can get the manuscript on a flight to New York while Marvin writes the last few pages longhand.

I have to admit it: I still really like Master of Murder. Obviously I’m not in high school anymore, so I don’t relate to Marvin the way I used to, but I do connect to his being trapped in his own story and having to listen for others. The book has a lot of holes and inconsistencies in general that either I didn’t notice when I was a teenager or I glossed over in the excitement of having a character I could relate to so well. In particular, the YA publishing description is not without issues, and the ways the industry has changed after the Internet and Columbine and social networks and Trayvon Martin and #MeToo don’t jibe with the already-shoddy impression of how it works that Pike puts on display. The story is consigned to be a relic of its time. But for those of us who were there, who were trying to make our stories heard the way Marvin wanted to, it carries some warm nostalgia. Maybe I only like it so much now because I liked it then, but I’m OK with that.

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fussingoverfassbender · 6 years

Link

The team at KatzSmith Productions explains what it has in store for the feature-length sequel to the hit inspired by the 1980s, now with added star power from Michael Fassbender and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It’s been almost three years since the feature-length follow-up to cult short Kung Fury was first announced by The Hollywood Reporter.

At the time, the news didn’t make much of a ripple. The world — including some 30 million viewers on YouTube — was yet to see all 31 gloriously cheesy minutes of Swedish filmmaker David Sandberg’s excessively over-the-top action-comedy. That would come just a week later, when the film had its world premiere in — of all places — the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar of Cannes 2015.

But the fact that KatzSmith Productions had started working with “unquestionably the greatest director of the '80s” was proof that what had started as a hilarious Kickstarter campaign to raise $200,000 for a bedroom VFX project was morphing into something far bigger.

That something is now taking shape, and appears to be far bigger than anyone would have predicted back in 2015.

During the Berlinale earlier this month, Michael Fassbender and Arnold Schwarzenegger were revealed as having joined the cast of the Kung Fury feature film alongside David Hasselhoff (who had a cameo in the original and sang the theme tune "True Survivor"). Bloom also officially launched international sales (Endeavor Content and CAA rep for North America), while it was announced that Fassbender would produce, alongside KatzSmith, Philip Westgren, Conor McCaughan and, for Sandberg's Laser Unicorns banner, Sandberg and Pelle Strandberg.

With the castings came a synopsis. The film — due to start shooting in September — would see Kung Fury, “the greatest damn cop of all time,” travel through space and time from 1985 Miami to save his elite police force the Thundercops, defend the prestigious Miami Kung Fu Academy and stop Adolf Hitler, the Kung Fuhrer (last seen laughing maniacally atop a robotic eagle in the final scene of the original), from getting his hands on the “ultimate weapon."

Reported fears about the film’s reception after three years of quiet were unwarranted. The casting news began trending almost instantly (the Fassbender story went straight to the top of Reddit), and the project was one of the buzziest titles on offer at Berlin's European Film Market (one impressed buyer said the Kung Fury script read like it was “written by a 10-year-old boy, but a 10-year-old with a great sense of story structure”). And, with several roles yet to be filled, other big names began making inquiries.

“We’ve gotten lots of incoming calls and emails — which is a strange experience — and from a lot of known actors who want to be a part of this,” says Seth Grahame-Smith, co-founder of KatzSmith with David Katzenberg and speaking to THR in Berlin. “But what’s important is making people be a part of this — those who truly get what it is and why they should be in it, as opposed to: here’s a paycheck.”

In the time since they came on board, KatzSmith has grown from an exciting new banner with some bold ambitions (the long-awaited Beetlejuice sequel, being one), to the production company behind last year’s $700 million box-office smash It, now the most successful horror film in history.

While it’s clear the KatzSmith team are adept at taking an already much-loved cultural moment and putting some significant turbo power in its engines, they’re aware of the specific challenges that lie ahead with Kung Fury.

“It cannot just be a rehash of the moments you know,” says Katzenberg, who admits the film should attract those who have never seen the short while appeasing the tens of millions who have watched it online.

“It has to be new and it has to be fresh and it has to raise the bar on those expectations. And I know it’s something that David thinks about constantly — he’s always the first to remind us that we have a duty to the 18,000 people who shelled out money on Kickstarter to deliver the goods.”

It was actually due to the popularity of the original (which aired on Robert Rodriguez’s El Rey Network and later on Netflix) that a feature-length script penned in time for Cannes 2015 had to be shelved.

“None of us had a clue what sort of viral impact this short was going to make, so in the aftermath we basically had to put it away because it was just an extended version,” says Westgren. “We felt this had to play as a proper sequel.”

Not surprising, given the online following, studios have reportedly been kicking Kung Fury’s tires for some time. But the determination has been to keep the project in the independent arena and away from those who might wish to interfere with the original’s purposefully schlocky DNA (THR understands one studio stipulation be that someone else, other than Sandberg, play Kung Fury himself, an instant no-no).

“Why we’ve really resisted taking this off the table is that we’re not sure this movie is one that would survive the studio process,” says Grahame-Smith. “How do you give this script a note? ‘Well, this doesn’t make sense. This tone is a little bit wonky. Well yeah, it’s supposed to be, thank you!”

Even without the deep pockets of a studio, the budget for Kung Fury is going to be “significantly bigger” than the $600,000 that went into the short. And the action won’t be shot entirely with a green screen, which was a necessity for the original. (Although, in keeping with its retro aesthetic, more than half of the film will still use this technology).

“It will be very, very ambitious and will feel much bigger in terms of vision and scope than the short,” says Aaron Schmidt, who joined KatzSmith as senior vp last year. “It reads like a $300 million movie.”

As for the music, Hasselhoff, alongside his role in the film, is once again rumored to be involved, as is Swedish synth-wave artist Mitch Murder, who wrote much of the original’s soundtrack (including "True Survivor"). But, like the casting process, the producers claim they’ve been approached by big names from the pop world wanting to be a part of it all.

“The soundtrack is something that we’re very interested in building out,” says Schmidt. “I get excited thinking who will be on that. I get excited thinking about what sort of game component there will be for this movie; whether it be mobile or platform or a steam-type game.”

Kung Fury is clearly the sort of exciting IP that lends itself to numerous platforms (an arcade-style Streetfighter-type game entitled Kung Fury: Street Rage was already launched in May 2015). But at its heart sits the film, and the main goal for KatzSmith and Sandberg will be to expand the universe of the short — one that inspired countless fan art submissions, plus a successful clothing line, toys and more — without losing any of the intentionally ridiculous elements that made it so widely adored.

While the addition of a twice Oscar-nominated actor and one of the biggest action stars of all time was a clear indication of the filmmakers’ ambitions, any sign that they’ve given Kung Fury a Hollywood makeover will likely see the original fan base turn away. And it’s something the KatzSmith team — who reference the “passion” involved numerous times — is well aware of.

“We all came to this as fans of the Kickstarter trailer, and then meeting David and hearing his plans and being blown away by the short,” says Grahame-Smith.

“It��s endlessly fun to work with him and to watch him continue to build and create this world that came out of his head. We like to say that if the short reminded you of popping a tape in the VCR, the feature will remind you of going to the cinema in the '80s.”

#Michael Fassbender #Kung Fury

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boglog · 6 years

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Wholesome Questionare Tag Meme

Tagged by @80sglamcowboy Rules are: -Post the rules -Answer the questions given to you by the tagger -Write eleven questions of your own -Tag eleven people

This is long as Hell, friends and I apologise.

One inquisitive bitch has asked me:

1. Name one person (real or fictional) that you think you could 100% take on in a fight

Foaming mouth guy from Avatar. He’s got no stamina, barely any health, no skill. He’s unfocused and weak and my noodley nerd-ass could take him. (Though I am a little concerned he has rabies.)

2. What’s your favourite snack rn

Grilled cheese w veggies, mustard, and grilled tofu w a side of ketchup made by my roommate. It’s honestly the purest thing.

3. Which apocalypse do you think you’d do the best in? (i.e. Nuclear winter/ robot uprising/ Too many vampires, etc)

O man. I love apocalypse movies and I love survival horror (that one episode of the X Files where they’re trapped in a cabin, anybody?). I also genuinely love camping and I’m a bit of a medical hobbyist. I also watched an unreasonable amount of prepper videos on YouTube. That said, as mentioned above, I am a couch potato weekling. Furthermore, I don’t do well in conflict so if the world hierarchy collapses into a power vacuum where you have to Orange is the New Black-style intimidate ppl for supplies, I would melt and die quickly.

My best bet, it would seem, is an Arrival-esque alien apocalypse where the ones who have enough patience and sci fi knowledge to communicate w aliens are at the top of the food chain. And worst case scenario it’s better for my ego to die at the hands of an alien than a human.

Sci go apocalypses are just cleaner y'know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 4. Best and worst fandom you’ve been in? Or have you somehow managed to avoid fandom completely?

Worst has to be Steven Universe. I regret not just moving on after I got bored. Ah well.

(I also think celebrity/real ppl fandoms are a dead end.)

My other fandoms all have various pros and cons and it’s hard to pick a favourite.

Adventure Time has great fanart, great meta and ppl have yet to descend into Homestuck-ian chaos. That said, they’re quiet af. People also fixate way too much on the fake fanfic AU Fionna and Cake. I have yet to read a really good Bonny/Marcy fic and that is a tragedy (a few have come close tho). Bottom line for AT tho is that it’s my go to wholesome cartoonist fandom. I like that it has depth but that it’s generally very simple and fun and that the fans are mostly shut in animation adults.

AtLA/LoK fandom’s biggest pro is that it’s huge and you literally never ran out of quality content. I’ve even made a few friends via this decade old franchise. It’s also enjoyably rich and complex. One of my favourite (now inactive) blogs was one that connected world building and little background Easter eggs to real Chinese history and culture. That wAs so cool!! I defs think as a Chinese person it allowed me to connect to non-western culture in a socially acceptable way.

The downsides tho are many: it can be overwhelmingly complicated (esp as someone who knows jack shit abt Chinese history), people take it too seriously, The Great Shipping Wars, it’s so big it’s a little lonely, the show itself has so many flaws upon greater inspection you wonder why you wasted your time on anything related to it, it’s an Asian themed story created by white dudes who make fun of their fans, the best parts of the show were written by other writers but those same white guys get k the credit. Also as w any fandom related to POC culture, racism happens. Anyways most of you know this already. IMO the best thing to have happened do the fandom is korrasami. Now it’s just abt Asian lesbians ruling the world.

(Though I also thoroughly enjoy the Family Rivalry part of the fandom. There are so mNy dysfunctional families to choose from!)

Rick and Morty is technically speaking my newest fandom. It’s got a lot of obvious cons (pickle Rick sexists, Szechuan sauce racists, asfhkkh incest) but one other con is just how pedantic and overly analytical people are abt the world building. I can’t breathe wo being corrected. RM has a misleadingly complicated high sci fi aesthetic that begets the kind of overanalysing my brand of overanalytical nerdiness can’t handle. Too many alternate universes. It’s just too complicated.

However one thing I like is that conversely I can overanalyse the writing and characters’ psychology/relationships (which I LOVE) and ppl take me very seriously. (At least they used to.) it’s kinda validating to have your 3k word essay on an old man’s bedroom and what that signifies for his depression get over 1k notes.

Rm also attracts the fun, super talented animation crowd so there’s boundless fanart and memes. I never knew I would like a gravity falls crossover retirement home AU btwn Rick and Stan so much but the art is objectively gorgeous?? So ??

I really dislike the lack of attention the female characters get from fandom bc they’re all really great? Female rep is limited but both canon and fic really do their 2-3 tokens justice. Also the jerry hatred is getting old (that male aggression… Like… Calm down, Jake) but it’s a refreshing departure drom when Megg from family guy was the butt of the joke.

Harry Potter, one of the pillars of nerd society, has both changed my life and irreconcilably annoyed me to death. (W no thanks to the racist creator herself!) One can’t underestimate how huge the hp fandom is which offers you as many reasons to love it as reasons not to. Harry Potter’s canon has complex world building that’s also charming enough not to take itself too seriously and much the same could b said of fanon. To a degree. Certain corners of the fanbase are fantastic shitposters and meme-ers and can draw you back in like a black hole. Casually enjoying Harry potter imo is where it’s at. The fanfic is probably one of the most impressively vast. Strangers at Drakesaugh, believe it or not, still updates and not only that, I still read it.

Not casually enjoying Harry potter is, um, yikes? HP and Hunger Games love to insert themselves appropriately in real life political traumas and honestly the dedication of the fandom can be overwhelming.

The HP fanart corner of deviantart circa 2010-12 and @flocc HP comics however are the best.

Meet the Robinsons, Ye Olde Fandom, still stands to this day. (Thanks in part to me ngl) As Iroh might say, they are a proud people. MTR is so bizarre and tiny it’s the only fandom I was able to read EVERY fic summary in existence (ones published on obscure sites excepted). The fandom has never ceased to surprise me for better or worse and mostly due to its age range. The original movie was intended for 8-12 yr olds and their (jaded) parents which means that now, ten years later, the fans are anywhere between 12 and 25. It has approximately 20 pieces of professional-grade fanart and fic and I am downright serious abt the quality and thoughtful complexity of this minority of fanart. Like I shit you not some of it’s almost too dark. However, tragically, one can’t talk abt obscure Disney fandoms wo also mentioning the incest ships (this is what happens when middleschoolers have to resort to cartoons to explore their sexuality in an anti sex ed world), the disorganised crossovers, and the blinding lack of imagination. Nonetheless, that a fandom of any kind could sprout from a 90 min cgi movie before the recession, based off an obscure but objectively fascinating children’s book, is still impressive. The fandoms smallness can in many wars work to everybody’s benefit: it’s a tightly knit community w little to no drama. And lots of memes (that I mostly make) to enjoy sincerely or ironically.

I’m also going to mention, very briefly, the Twin Peaks fandom, most of whom, even the die hards, are v casual when it comes to fan content (I need more fic damnit). Nonetheless it’s a decidedly cool art kid crowd for an art house show and I really enjoy befriending twin peaks watchers.

5. What’s one hot food that you prefer cold? (or, alternatively, one cold food you like hot)

Is it snobby to say I like food to be the temperature God intended?

Like I like cold pizza and salad-y pasta but I wouldn’t mind if everything were room temperature as long as the food itself was well made.

6. ya like jazz? What music do you enjoy listening to? Can you recommend any songs/ artists from that genre?

I think in some contexts I can like jazz. It’s very cosy and nostalgic, it can make you feel like a grand dame stepping out of your limo into your martini filled mansion as records pop around you and your fur carpeted living room. I also occasionally like jazz covers and alternate genres of jazz like electro swing etc.

Generally though I also think jazz is a little antiquated and a little all over the place. I lean more towards the ambiguous minimalism of mellow techno music like Jonna Lee, Grimes, Björk, early Lorde, Yasmine Hamdan, Austra, TRST, etc

I mean I don’t stick to just one genre (I imagine most ppl don’t). I like alternative (Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Joanna Newsom) and some musicians who seem to completely exist outside of genre like iMonster and the Gorillaz. Not to mention straight up pop like broods, Ellie goulding, lady gaga and Lana del rey. (I mean technically Ldr isn’t pop but u get the ideer)

7. What binge worthy show do you like?

So many man. There are so many out there! Twin peaks, Transparent, Love, Grace and Frankie, Adventure Time, House of Cards, Bojack Horseman, Rick and Morty, Mad Men, Girls, Broad City, Black Mirror, Avatar TLA, 6Teen, Chowder, Over the Garden Wall, Flapjack, the first season of Downton Abbey, Game of Thrones, etc

The list goes on. I’m a TV fiend.

8. What’s an old meme that you miss and wish would be brought back?

Always liked the Gothic [x town or whatever] meme. It was like a text post version of the cursed images meme. Currently I’m really enjoying the song from another room meme and I hope even after it gets old it’ll make a comeback.

9. Tell me your aesthetic  

O man. That’s a can of worms! Okay. Deep breath.

I like futurism, of all kinds. I like strong lines and clear shapes. I like colour blocking and minimalism and glass and holographic LED neons. I like white Japanese urban tiled buildings. I like aliens and ruins and cubes and white and colour blocking and black. I like technology and aliens and Comme des Garçons and Issey Miyake. Rooms that are empty but for one light and one window and one plant. Love that.

I like the midcentury cubism and Mod and 30’s futurism. Clear and strong industrial shapes and curves and post modernist abstractionism.

I also love nature, I love most every Björk and Iamamiwhoami music video. I love the mountains and the forests and the desert and the winter tundra and most of all I love the water. A vast expanse of sky and sea w so many colours and textures. I love the 2000s and funny blob shapes and y2k’s obsession w secondary colours and shiny round things. Love pink. I am a grown adult who will never tire of pink. (Though I don’t really like when people overdo pink.) I love cursed image family photos taken with flash in a suburb. I love the grime and the sanitary aesthetic of suburbs and hospitals and brutalist office spaces. The fluorescent lights of the institution but with purple carpeting!

I love 70s mod and I love colorful 80s brutalism I like it when houses are shaped weirdly and they have carpets and polished curved wooden countertops and spacious nothingness where everything looks clean and cosy and bizarrely ugly and it all looks like an art gallery w too many plants.

I also really love maximalism and wood and detail and fur and velvet and embroidery and silk and windows and wood carvings.

I love 70s kitsch like John waters movies and Shrimps designer fake fur CDG17 where they just piled on knickknack after knickknack onto white dresses w food long trains. Toys and novelty items and lamps shaped like a woman’s leg in a fishnet stocking. (See also: most Tim burton movies, wes Anderson, Carrie fishers house)

An overwhelming mishmash of wool patterns with clean cubic 70s architecture and so many plants and windows and wallpaper and candles and cobwebs. Also really like witchy mourning jewelry and essentially every house in Harry potter. Love the unfortunately racist boho/hippie aesthetic. Any house designed by bill kirsch is a masterpiece. Woven baskets on the ceiling piles of hats and art supplies everywhere. Stuff!! Everywhere! Hidden passageways reading nooks fireplaces the Pink Palace from Coraline!

Everything!!!

I’m a cartoonist who’s a nerd for design so I like when concepts are taken to the extreme in a humourously charming and clear-minded way. Whatever aesthetic someone chooses, they should go all out and really dedicate themselves to the highest form of that aesthetic. It has to be perfect without being sanitary of fake. It has to be alive yet beautiful, frozen in one perfect moment.

10. Favourite time of day and why?

Dusk. I think it’s a nostalgia thing. I loved the hours before bed time as well the hours before dinner when it was getting dark and the sun was reflecting freaky colours along the horizon while I ran around the grass. It’s cozy but it’s spacious and adventurous. So many things can happen at dusk!

  11. You have the choice to live in any fictional universe - which one do you pick and why?

Harry Potter!!! You get the best of both worlds: magical, over-romanticised Victorian/medievalism, wish-fulfillment surrealism and wifi. It’s great. Likelihood of dying is so low, medicine is so advanced and even then ppls n°1 choice of lethal weapon (Avada Kedavra) is painless. Me and Luna could hang in her garden. I’d never have to pay for the subway again. I could live a nomadic life in a tent w infinite space. If you chose to live as a wizard amongst Muggles you’re basically god and you can cheat capitalism. Gravity is my bitch! And I’m not gna lie my dream house has always been a combination of The Burrow, the Lovegood house, and Shell Cottage.

My turn to pick your brain:

1 Favourite texture?

2 Favourite smell?

3 Favourite children’s book/children’s TV show? (I’m talking about the bizarre abstract ones for toddlers)

4 Best and worst prank you’ve ever pulled?

5 Weirdest beginning of a friendship?

6 When you’ve been in fandom for a while you start to notice you’ve a habit of staying in the same corners. What corner are you in? Are you part of the fluffy ship corner? The intense world building spec meta corner? The shitpost comic fanart corner? Etc

7 If you could invent a class that would be obligatory for all high schools across your country what would it be?

8 What’s the weirdest thing you’ve gotten at Halloween while trick or treating?

9 Weirdest family tradition of yours?

10 Describe your significant other (or your crush, or your dream partner or if you’re aromantic your fave person) through only TV references.

11 Favourite piece of dialogue in a movie?

I don’t know 11 ppl but nonetheless tagging: @that-guy-in-the-bowler-hat @skairheart @nochangenohope @eventheslightestrayofsunshine@autistic-jaredkleinman@phoenixkluke

…and YOU (if you were not mentioned above and so choose to accept this mission)

#tag meme #u #food m ?

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murasaki-murasame · 7 years

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Yuri on Ice Rewatch: Episode 1

I’ve been planning to do this for a while now, and since the one-year anniversary has come around, I figured now would be a convenient time to start this rewatch. I know I might be a day early on this, but I don’t think I’d have time tomorrow to do this, so I’d rather do it now and get it up a day early than get it up a day late.

We’ll see how this turns out, but I at least want to use this rewatch to discuss my own personal history with this show, how it affected me while it was coming out, what the fandom was like at the time, etc. So this will probably be less of a review or anything like that, and more of a trip down memory lane for me as I revisit this show. Basically this is just my way of getting out all my feelings on this show, so keep that in mind.

I only decided yesterday to start this now as part of the anniversary rather than doing it sometime next year before the movie comes out, so this first post might be a little messy and unorganized, but I should get the hang of it soon enough.

My plan at the moment is to rewatch one episode a week, on each of their respective anniversary dates, for the next few months. If I can manage that. After that, I might try and do a cohesive review of the show as a whole, and I might do a post about my speculation regarding the movie. We’ll see.

I’ll put the rest under a cut since everything after this point ended up being like 3.6k words long and I think I spent like three hours on it.

Before I properly sit down and rewatch episode one, I want to talk for a bit about my history with the show before it aired, what my expectations were, etc.

I’ve more or less been with this show from the very start. I remember seeing the initial teaser image of the logo, and all of the proper trailers as they came out. I didn’t really think much about the teaser image when it came out, since I’m not really a huge fan of sports anime in general, I didn’t really have an interest in figure skating in particular, and I didn’t know much of anything about Sayo Yamamoto as a director. I’m pretty sure that after the teaser image came out, I started hearing vague whispers about how amazing Yamamoto was, and how great her shows were, so I decided pretty early on that I was probably going to watch it, even though I didn’t have much to go on.

Right from the start we all pretty much assumed that the show was going to be about female figure skaters. Partly because I’m pretty sure the logo was pink the first time we sure it, partly because Yamamoto was most well-known for doing shows about women, and partly because it had the word ‘yuri’ in the title. It was pretty obvious that that wasn’t actually what it meant, but damn if it didn’t stop people from making jokes about it. Though I guess it didn’t help that we also had Yuri Kuma Arashi from a few years before that did indeed use that exact meaning of the word in it’s title.

Then a few months or so later the trailers started coming out, and we got a better idea of what the show was actually about. And let me just say that the ‘yaoi on ice’ jokes stopped being funny the exact moment the first one was made. And they were definitely made immediately after the first trailer came out, way before the show even started.

At the time, the idea of it being about male figure skaters made me pretty immediately cautious, since sports anime has a pretty bad track record of shallow queerbaiting, and I didn’t really expect this show to be the one that finally delivered. It didn’t help that some of the scenes used in the trailers, like the lip-touching in episode three, didn’t quite come across well out of context.

I also want to take the time to mention that the season right before Yuri on Ice started, we had Battery: The Animation, which was basically like the polar opposite of YoI in terms of being a sports anime with a gay protagonist. It was just . . . not great. At all. It went a long way toward reaffirming my doubts about if the sports genre could ever do this sort of thing well, which made me even MORE apprehensive about YoI. I still have a bit of a grudge against it to this day, but it at least serves as a very convenient way for me to point out how ludicrous it is for anyone to act like any sports anime with a gay protagonist would be popular and successful, because that show sure as heck wasn’t. I should also point out that in the same season we had the Danganronpa 3 anime, and even though this is kinda sort of a spoiler, it had a pretty . . . depressing and not great depiction of a gay male character, so that was like a one-two punch of me getting pessimistic about the chances of ever getting good and happy gay rep out of the anime industry.

Either way, even in spite of that, the animation quality and the music from the trailers alone were enough to win me over and make me want to give it a try, even if I was bracing myself for disappointment.

Also, even though I don’t think I ended up watching it until way later, I highly recommend that any Yuri on Ice fans check out Endless Night, which was Sayo Yamamoto’s Animator Expo short film from a year or two ago. You can really tell how she was regaining her enthusiasm as a director by going all in on her love for figure skating. In hindsight it’s pretty interesting to consider that she probably did Endless Night when she had already begun working on Yuri on Ice as a concept and shopping it around. For the record, she also went on to do the opening sequence of Persona 5, which is another example of her putting her love of figure skating into her work.

Anyway I should probably actually sit down and watch the episode itself before I spend an hour on this whole beginning section alone. I think I’ll keep making these beginning sections for each post before I sit down and watch the episode itself, but they’ll hopefully be less lengthy than this one.

---

OK let me just say first of all that I spent pretty much the entire episode choking up, and I was basically on the verge of tears during the entire ED sequence. I knew that rewatching this would be an emotional experience for me.

It’s kinda difficult to even put into words how much Yuri on Ice means to me as an individual, especially since I’d like to stick mostly to talking about this first episode alone. But I’ll at least say that it is undeniably the most personally meaningful piece of media I’ve ever encountered. It means the world to me. Before it aired, I had pretty much become resigned to the idea that, at least within the anime industry, the best representation I was going to get was some variation of the Bury Your Gays trope. I’ll probably get more into this later down the line, but I don’t think I even consciously realized exactly how much I needed something like this, since even outside of anime I’d never really experienced a story like this. And even when I started watching it, the full effect and realization of how meaningful it was to me was a gradual process that kept building up and up as the show continued to surpass my expectations, more or less culminating in episode ten.

Which is part of why I like the opening monologue of this episode on multiple levels. It obviously refers specifically to Yuri’s sense of unending surprise toward Viktor as a person [which obviously gains more and more context and weight as the show goes on], but it also matches the way that the show itself was an unending series of surprises for us as the audience. We had no idea what to expect from it, and it kept getting better and better.

It’s probably not even worth noting at this point that this rewatch series is going to mostly be focused on the romantic sub-plot in the show, because that’s the part I love the most. Obviously I love the entire show and all of it’s facets, but still. I guess my main point here is more that I won’t be talking that much about the sports aspect specifically, for the most part, since I have less of an interest in sports in general, and I’m not particularly well-versed in how figure skating works so I’d feel hesitant to talk about it much. I have immense respect and love for all of the people in the fandom who ARE actually into figure skating, though, either as fans or as athletes. Their insight into the show has been an invaluable resource for me. I might not be much of a sports fan in general, but having a greater understanding of how it works, by listening to what other people have been saying since the show started, has definitely added to my overall appreciation for the show as a whole.

Also, somewhat ironically, this is one of the episodes with the least to talk about romance-wise since Yuri and Viktor have like thirty seconds of shared screen-time in it, so I’m probably going to spend most of this post talking about other stuff. Mostly.

To start with, I love the animation and art across the show as a whole, but I think we can all agree that episode one is the peak in terms of animation quality. Not that the other episodes are badly animated in any real way, just that this episode really hits it out the park with some stunning sequences. There’s some wonderful bits of character animation in this episode, like Minako’s ballet move when she meets Yuri at the airport, or the cut of Hiroko running up to meet Yuri at the inn’s entrance, or Yuko being all bouncy and energetic. Not to mention really well-done close-up shots like the bathroom scene with Yuri and Yurio. I really like the heavily shaded and sharp style used in that scene.

But of course, the real stand-out piece of animation in this episode was definitely the joint Stammi Vicino performance, which is still one of my favourite scenes in the show. It’s incredibly well done. It’s a bit sad that none of the skating animation after this episode quite matches it, aside from maybe Welcome to the Madness, but I’m pretty sure that this sequence in this episode took several months to animate on it’s own, so I can’t exactly blame them for not keeping this level of quality once we started getting like five or six performances an episode.

One of the things that I remember surprising me the most about the show at first was how dynamic, energetic, fast-paced, and feel-good it was. With how relatively somber and slow the trailers were, and with the vague whispers I’d heard of Sayo Yamamoto being a cult classic director, I kinda got it into my head that the show would have a more . . . low-key atmosphere and sense of pacing than it actually did. I’m not sure how to describe it. In general I tend to think of obscure cult classic directors as the kinds of people who make things that are slow, psychological, moody, probably depressing, etc etc. So I was not at all expecting something as vibrant and fun and full of personality as what we got in this. I still think that the relentlessly feel-good vibe of the show is a huge reason why it struck so well with people. It doesn’t really get mentioned a lot, but it can be a surprisingly difficult concept to describe, at least in a way more detailed than just saying ‘fun things are fun’.

I also want to give a shout-out to the background art of the show, which is fantastic across the board for the entire show. I’m never really good at articulating my praise for stuff like this, but still. I think the show would have looked a lot different, and a lot worse, if it had more generic background art. Especially in terms of colour palette and shading and whatnot.

To this day, I still deeply appreciate the fact that this is a story about adult athletes who are high up in their respective field, and are struggling with adult problems. It helps to set it apart so much from most sports anime out there. Of course, even this sort of concept could be handled badly by a lesser production team, but you get what I mean. It’s a breath of fresh air. And, along the same lines, I also love that it’s clearly aimed at a more adult audience than a lot of other anime in general. It’s easy to not really think about it, because we kinda associate things ‘aimed at an adult audience’ with things that have lots of nudity or violence, but I think the idea still applies here. And even if it’s not handled quite the same as what we’d think of as ‘depictions of adult sexuality in television’, there’s still a whole lot of sexiness going on in this show.

Just to lay it out there, I honestly think that Yuri is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, if not my absolute favourite. I have so many strong feelings about him. He’s absolutely wonderful. His entire character arc and personal journey is one of the most inspirational things I’ve seen in my life. And for a lot of reasons I just see a lot of myself in him, even though we’re very different people.

I don’t know where else to say this, so I guess I’ll just say here that it was his development and journey that inspired me to get into drawing, which I’d been putting off for years because I didn’t think I’d be good at it or enjoy it enough. I haven’t exactly done the best job at keeping up with it as a hobby, but over the last ten months or so I’ve nearly completed one sketchbook, so that’s something! I’ve only posted one drawing of mine thus far, but I plan to post more as time goes on. Probably mostly stuff to do with my OCs. I definitely want to do some proper Yuri on Ice fan art though in the future and post it here, and I’m still kinda sad I didn’t get any done by today, but I’ve been too busy lately to work on it, and I didn’t want to rush something out just to meet a certain important date. I’ll try and post some by the time I’ve done this rewatch, though.

Of course, that’s not the only thing this show has helped me with, on a personal level. I’ll probably get more into this over the rest of the rewatch, especially at the end, but this show really has become an emotional support for me. It’s helped me through a lot of dark places. I don’t know where I’d be without it.

One thing I want to get into is how incredibly different this episode feels in hindsight, now that I know what happens later. I’ve already rewatched it once, so it’s not a big surprise or anything, but still. The scenes with Viktor in particular feel very different when you know who he is as a person. When you know that he’s just a lonely, dissatisfied dude who wants to feel love and passion. The Stammi Vicino scene in particular is even more depressing and emotional when you understand that it’s basically a cry for help.

The fandom hypes up the episode ten twist and how it recontextualizes the entire show, and it really, REALLY does. It makes everything feel way different when you understand that Yuri was the one who asked Viktor to be his coach, and that he was the one who first enthralled Viktor by giving him a glimpse at a possible path to revitalizing his love of skating, and finding true, genuine love along the way. Of course Yuri was already enthralled by Viktor as an idolized god figure of sorts before that, but you get what I mean. The banquet was basically the first time they properly met as individuals. But I won’t go too deeply into the banquet scene just yet. I’ll save that for the episode ten post.

[Also I should probably admit that I still can’t quite remember if the banquet happens before or after the ‘commemorative photo’ scene. I know I should have the exact timeline of events there memorized, but it’s kinda foggy]

It’s also sorta interesting to look at Yurio’s whole attitude in hindsight, knowing that he always secretly admired Yuri and was angry at him because he knew he had so much potential and strength within him. But honestly, just to be blunt, I still don’t really care that much about Yurio’s character in general so this part is kinda vastly overshadowed by, uh, everything else, lol. I don’t really dislike Yurio or anything, I just think that he’s the least compelling or interesting of the major characters.

Before I get into shifting focus toward what the general audience reaction to this episode was, I should probably comment on the OP and ED a bit, since I haven’t yet. Personally I adore both of them. They’re wonderful. I still think that History Maker is one of the more iconic and memorable anime OP songs out there, and it never ceases to make me emotional. I still wish that the actual art and animation for the OP was more . . . interesting, though. The animation style is really good, but it suffers from a lot of noticeable recycling of animation, and the backgrounds are pretty flat and empty, although I still like the splashes of colour done at the start. I’m not entirely sure how I’d suggest improving the OP visually aside from doing it completely differently, though. But there are other Sayo Yamamoto OPs I prefer visually to this one. Like the more recent Kakegurui OP. I don’t really know if that OP’s style would have fit Yuri on Ice, but still. Even with my slight gripes about the visuals, I really can’t overstate how much I adore the song itself.

The ED is also really nice. It gets kinda overshadowed by the OP, but it’s still good on it’s own. The Instagram style is really effective and feels fresh and modern. The song itself is rather good, but not quite as memorable as History Maker. The real strong point of the ED is definitely the visual side of things. Other than the aforementioned Instagram style, I really love the images used. The assorted pictures of all the various skaters are nice, and help set up their characters pretty well, but the best part is definitely the fun, domestic scenes between Yuri and Viktor that are interspersed throughout the ED. They’re absolutely fantastic, and they’re the main reason why I have a desperate need for an entire OVA purely consisting of those sorts of scenes. I’m still internally screaming over how the scenes of them playing at the beach and them playing under the fountain were meant to be actual scenes, but were cut for time. I’d love to see what those scenes would have been like. Even the glimpses we got are wonderful, especially with how they help paint a broad picture of how happy and fun their daily lives were together, and how close they got over the course of the show. Especially after episode four or so. It just kills me in the best way possible, to think that stuff like them playing at the beach and being casually touchy-feely and just being happy and joyful was probably a completely normal daily thing for them. Not to mention the other little moments we see, like that one shot of Yuri smiling with his eyes closed while Viktor’s sitting behind him, combing his hair. It’s such a perfectly domestic and casually intimate little moment. It melts my heart every time I look at it. The more I think back on the entire show in hindsight, the more it rings true that Yuri really is the only one who gets to see Viktor’s hidden cute side. Considering that we see basically the entire show from Yuri’s POV, it’s easy to forget that basically everything about how Viktor acts around him is very different to how he is with other people.

Also I just wanna quickly say that the show’s soundtrack is fantastic. Both the background music and the skating songs. Though the skating songs are a bit more punchy and memorable. Just hearing Stammi Vicino still makes me tear up a bit.

Anyway, now I should probably touch a bit on the wider audience reaction to this episode. I won’t really have a lot to say on this end of things for this entire rewatch, since it’s kinda difficult to dig up the stuff people were saying a year ago, but still.

The most convenient links I can find to reactions are the Anime News Network Preview Guide post about the first episode, and the Reddit discussion thread for episode one.

The main point I want to make with this is that everyone pretty much immediately loved the show, and most people pretty much agreed that it was the best premiere of the Fall 2016 season. Which I agree with. It’s probably one of the best first episodes I’ve seen out of all the anime I’ve watched.

Though it’s also sorta amusing in hindsight to see people’s reactions to the homoeroticism and whatnot, and everyone’s apprehensions about how it’ll go in the long run. That is, just ‘cause at this point we know where it goes, and that it fully commits to itself. I don’t think anyone watching episode one expected that we’d end the show referring to Yuri and Viktor as fiances/husbands with no trace of irony or wishful thinking.

Anyway I should cut this short because it’s like 2am and my brain is gonna melt soon if I keep writing so yeah let’s just stop for now.

As I said before, I’m gonna try and get one episode/post done per week, so I’ll try and get my Episode 2 post out around this same time next week. I expect that most of the rest of these posts will be a whole lot shorter than this one, though, since there’s so much stuff I wanted to say right off the bat that I probably won’t need to go over again later. Some of these posts might actually be pretty short, depending on how much I can find to say about some of the more skating-dense episodes. We’ll see. I’ll try and at least stick to this schedule.

#murasaki rambles #yuri on ice #I was hoping to get some fan art done and posted today but that didn't work out #I'll try and get some done eventually #I hope I can stick to doing this for the next three months #it'll be a bit of a commitment #but I'm happy to finally have a good excuse to go crazy with gushing about my feelings about this show <3

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nearlycassidy · 7 years

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So tell us your story about your history doing art. Make it big and detailed of you want!

oh man.

funny thing, I never wanted to be an artist,

i’ve been drawing since i first learned how to properly hold a pencil. No, really! Since I didn’t qualify for preschool my mother signed me up for this little art school called “Little Leonardos” (i was like 5) since she saw i enjoyed drawing. I loved watching Disney movies and cartoons, I would always try to mimic what I saw, (of course they looked horrible but my intentions were pure!) and I noticed little details, like how their hair moved and the way their expressions changed, I was so fascinated by it. Yo I pretty much had an all-American childhood in regards to television, my favorites were Spongebob, Ed Edd n Eddy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, ok actually i don’t think there was a cartoon show I didn’t like. It was the best part of my day! Coming home from school and hittin up that 3pm time slot of Kids Next Door was what I looked forward to every day. ya dig?

As I mentioned earlier, I seriously just HAD to draw every cartoon I got into, it was like a rite of passage for me for some reason. So I did. I have tons of sketchbooks and folder stuffed with cartoon drawings. It’s..it’s ridiculous actually I refuse to throw them out (much to my mother’s dismay) Anyway. Being the top dawg artist at my school, that was basically my rep, just “the girl who draws good” (yes, grammatical errors and all, the rascals) I used to just draw things for people because they asked. Okay well except for maybe in 6th grade in art class where I would make them pay me to draw their extra credit. {cha ching} In elementary school we had this fire safety poster contest drawing thing every year, and I won every single year. 1st grade to 5th grade dude, I still have all the little trophies. Honestly though, my art teacher loved me and hated everyone else so it was…more than likely a bit biased. Oh well.

I actually stopped drawing altogether for about 2 years. My intentions growing up actually never involved art, because..I dunno, I didn’t actually want to be an artist. I wanted to be a bunch of different things, like an actress or a musician. (let’s be honest I would have so crashed and burned ANYWAY) But yeah for some reason there was just no inspiration to draw. It didn’t hit me again until about 8th grade. Oh this is going to sound so corny, but the moment I knew what I wanted to do was when my super southern friend with a HEAVY southern accent said “Darlin, you have a God-given gift, and I hope you do something with it.” (read that with a heavy southern twang for full effect. So I really thought and I was like…well. yeah, I guess he’s right.

So I had a plan. At first I wanted to be a storyboard artist so I could design the characters and places, mostly because I didn’t think I’d ever actually make it as a show creator/director. But come ON, the fun of cartoons, the art, the life, I really wanna be a part of that world, I have so many stories I wanna share with the world! My drawing style is ever changing, but it’s probably always going to be expressive. That’s the best part. So one semester of college later (one GRUELING drawing comp studio class later. I hate realism, truly I do.) Here I am. Taking a semester off of college and drawing like mad. I love it, I love everything about it, I love creating characters and their own personalities, and idiosyncrasies, and building worlds. I’ve never felt so inspired to create. I have no idea how I’ll even remotely make my dreams a reality but I’m in good spirits. ya dig?

#i feel like this doesnt even fully explain it #im not a talented writer im sorry

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keanuital · 7 years

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5 REASONS KEANU REEVES IS OUR GREATEST LIVING ACTION STAR

Pop quiz, hotshot: What are the five finest moments from the illustrious career of Keanu Reeves?

Trick question. With films like Point Break, Speed, and, of course, John Wick, choosing five moments is near impossible. Look, a case can be made for other actors: Tom Cruise runs through action movie after action movie, hellbent on not aging. The heroes of Marvel comic-book movies all bring 10 tons of charm, though outside their carefully curated franchises, they leave something to be desired. But Keanu is vulnerable, sincere, physical, and supremely watchable, even in his lesser roles. Yes, even Johnny Mnemonic.

This week, John Wick: Chapter 2 hits theaters and Keanu returns as a ray of sunshine in these dark times. There's no better time to remind you that he's the best thing the action-movie genre has to offer. Here's why.

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Gun fu is an art

Scene: The nightclub beatdown in John Wick This whole list could be moments from John Wick and it would be impossible to argue with. But peak Wick is the six-minute scene in which Keanu's hardened assassin slices and shoots his way through a garishly lit nightclub in order to dish out some good old-fashioned vengeance against the son of a Russian mob boss. They killed his dog. They deserve it.

Keanu's action work isn't undergirded by the brute force that the Fast and Furiousmovies and many other American franchises hew toward. The actor relies on grace. As videos of Keanu training for John Wick and its sequel demonstrate, making demanding stunts look easy takes work.

These same physical choices, more so than vocal modulations and scenery-chewing ostentatiousness that many regard as "good acting," are just as vital to Keanu in non-action scenes. In John Wick's subtle moments, a simple glance or half-hearted smirk says more than any lengthy monologue. When interacting with heavies like Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane, and John Leguizamo, Keanu relies not on heavy expository dialogue but the sudden warmth that flutters across his face and ease that betrays a deep history with these people, adding to the mythological world-building that exists in the script. Keanu missed his calling as a silent-film star.

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There's no tone Keanu can't handle

Scene: The foot chase in Point Break Point Break, arguably The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow's most unapologetically fun work, is a rip-roaring action flick propelled through a tender romance, at once supremely silly and surprisingly heartfelt. Through sheer skill Point Break makes the jumble of ideas cohesive.

The thrilling chase sequence between Keanu's young FBI agent and Patrick Swayze's career criminal is one of the best examples of what Bigelow pulls off, partially thanks to an honest and ridiculous ending in which our star fires his gun several times in the air. A lot of this works thanks to Keanu's virility and vigor. Also, did I mention Swayze is wearing a Ronald Reagan mask the whole time? Patrick Swayze's willingness to wear a Ronald Reagan mask.

Bigelow takes full advantage of Keanu with several glamour-shot moments that one might expect in a film starring the latest female ingenue. Seeing the men of action films undressed or shot as sex symbols isn't out of the ordinary. Marvel loves to throw in shirtless shots of its multiple Chrises. But through Bigelow's lens, Keanu's relationship to the camera feels almost subversive. His natural mixture of passivity and physical grace gives his role of Johnny Utah masculine and feminine qualities. Look at him standing in the rain during the opening title sequence. Few can hold a shotgun as sensually as Keanu Reeves. Which leads us to...

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We can't overlook Keanu's soft side

Scene: Constantine summons Tilda Swinton, angel from hell, in Constantine Constantine is not a good adaptation of the Hellblazer comics that the film is nominally based on. It is a damn fine action movie. I was tempted to include the scene between Keanu and a cat acting as a portal to hell (because any time he interacts with animals tugs at my heartstrings), but watching his smart-mouthed, occult-practicing detective John Constantine face off against Tilda Swinton's androgynous angel Gabriel edged out the competition. Because the actor, even while leading a movie, is a great scene partner.

Keanu's vulnerable and understated instincts know when to pull back and let an actor like Tilda Swinton or Rachel Weisz carry the scene. You don't find that in Hollywood. It's hard to think of an action star of his caliber whose characters aren't underscored with toxic masculinity, to one degree or another. A lot of action leads tend to be hotshots that treat friends or romantic partners as disposable until the plot transforms them into nice guys. Even with all the violence Keanu does not require the bad-boy machismo of, say, Chris Pratt's characters in Jurassic World and Guardians of the Galaxy.

I'll take it a step further: In Keanu Reeves action movies, romantic relationships are either nonexistent, underplayed, or they end on somewhat opaque terms. In movies like Point Break and The Matrix, women are comrades who train him and act as windows into new worlds.

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Keanu Reeves allows all of us to be Keanu Reeves

Scene: The "I know kung fu" training sequence in The Matrix Keanu has accumulated a rep for being a blank slate. What people don't realize is how much emotion -- from joy to loneliness and back again -- can be beamed out from the actor's resting face.

One thing I love about Keanu is his tendency to play men who don't know what the hell they're doing or where they belong until they're introduced to a brand-new world. His characters are often profoundly lonely men looking for their place world and when they find it they aren't afraid to express joy. In The Matrix, the actor nails the mix of awe, fear, and joy that we, the viewers, are experiencing as we watch Neo learn all these badass new skills. That "blank slate" is his way of connecting with most of us who spend our days with blank looks on our faces.

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The guy loves action movies

Scene: The final showdown in Man of Tai Chi Keanu's sincere love of his go-to genre gives integrity to outlandish movies like Speedor the dopey Johnny Mnemonic. It's no surprise that his only work as a director was with the 2013 martial arts film Man of Tai Chi.

Not only are the movie's action sequences sculpted by Keanu, it's also the rare instance where he plays the antagonist instead of the hero. The latter role is taken up by Tiger Chen, a martial artist/stuntman who worked on The Matrix films. With the help of legendary fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (Kill Bill, The Grandmaster, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) the narratively simple film is brimming with great fight sequences. There isn't any overly complicated editing cutting from the action. Instead, Keanu, as much as he's done as an actor, gets out of the way, letting the film be a showcase for Tiger Chen and the genre itself.

Man of Tai Chi isn't groundbreaking, opting for reverence toward the genre and martial arts styling that have become synonymous with Keanu’s career. In many ways Man of Tai Chi distills what makes Keanu an amazing action star and director: his respect and knowledge of the craft. The film puts on display what has made Keanu a wondrous presence in action films since the 1990s: grace, impeccable ability to tell stories through balletic stunt work, unabashed joyfulness, and an ambition for spectacle. His films move, in every sense of the word.

#keanu reeves

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reneeacaseyfl · 5 years

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Does Netflix Fail Creators of Color?: raceAhead

Here’s your week in review, in haiku.

1. Is economic anxiety getting you down, “n-word Nancy?”

2. Professor Mueller wonders why no one did the reading assignment

3. Would you rather get cash from Equifax, or have Facebook broken up?

4. Ballot boxes breached: The pravda dies in darkness Also, the country.

5. A new King is here! Lions in formation at the paws of a Queen

Have an anxiety-free and happy weekend.

On Point

‘Tuca & Bertie’ RIP: But why, Netflix? The show was the popular adult cartoon voiced by Ali Wong and Tiffany Haddish, playing two female birds who live in the same apartment building. As my colleague Isaac Feldberg explains, the show “had drawn acclaim for its colorful animation, unique style of surrealist comedy, and sensitive exploration of trauma and everyday ennui told from a distinctly female, non-white perspective.” What’s not to love? But for reasons unknown, Netflix failed to order a second season, launching a wave of online protest, including a Change.org petition. Part of the issue is the algorithm feed that recommends shows for viewers, and which critics charge disfavor quality content from non-white creators. An important read. Fortune

Emmett Till’s memorial vandalized for the ‘Gram The three white men posed with smiles and smirks, but also guns, one an AR-15 semi-automatic. It was night. They stood at the very place where Emmett Till’s battered dead body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River. Except it’s 2019, and the Till memorial plaque they stand by is riddled with bullet holes, and why is this still happening? The three men are fraternity brothers at the University of Mississippi, now suspended. The photo, posted to a private Instagram account and obtained by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica, has triggered a possible probe by the Justice Department. The photo received 274 likes. Emmett Till would have turned 78 this week. ProPublica

Can Democrats entice black voters without Obama? You can’t have a “multi-racial coalition” of voters without black people, who make up the loyal foundation of the Democratic base. But turnout among black voters dropped seven points in 2016 from its record high in 2012. There were many reasons why, but current candidates need to demonstrate they understand and will fight for their issues, explains Nicholas Riccardi and Errin Haines Whack. “What I hope comes across in this story is that black voters, particularly young black men, are also disaffected, disengaged, and disillusioned. With black unemployment still double that of whites, they are the face of ‘economic anxiety,’ too,” Whack tweeted. AP News

New Jersey school board member wishes Rashida Tlaib ‘would die’ Dan Leonard, a member of the Toms River Board of Education member is spending his day deflecting calls from the New Jersey governor for his resignation, after he posted a Fox News article about U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib with the comment, “My life would be complete if she/they die.” And that’s not even the worst of what he posted! Leonard is an Army veteran and retired official with a county workforce development board. “We are disheartened by the racist comments made by a school board member in Toms River. His hateful language is counter to the best interests of our students and does not represent our values,” said New Jersey Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver in a statement. NBC News

On Background

The art of escaping your privilege Escape rooms are all the rage, a live-action group experience in puzzle-solving within a dramatic scenario. But what if the scenario was social inequality? This is the fascinating premise behind a new public art project by Risa Puno called “The Privilege of Escape,” which exists in the atrium in a corporate lobby on Fifth Avenue, and is framed as a fake institute designed to study behavioral science. As in real-life inequality, sometimes the game is stacked against the players in invisible ways, an eye-opening experience for anyone who is expecting a level playing field. Puno was the winner of the first open call by Creative Time, an organization that supports interesting and socially provocative public art projects. New York Times

Today’s Essay: Fat girl on top, but with too much flan Natalie Lima is a 2016 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, and an MFA candidate in creative non-fiction at the University of Arizona. And she is very, very creative. In this alternatively funny and bittersweet essay, she shares the anxiety she feels about the changes in her big girl self, brought on by time, gravity, and lifestyle. “Sometimes my body is on the smaller side of large, more Queen Latifah in The Last Holiday, that movie where she’s told she only has three weeks to live so she jets off to Europe, eats caviar, and falls in love with LL Cool J. And sometimes my body is closer to Chrissy Metz in This Is Us,” she explains. But it’s also a history of her relationship with her own body. “When I was growing up, my mom used to tell people that my excess weight was baby fat,” she recalls in a particularly memorable section. She excels at thinking out loud, to describe the “inherent loneliness of living in a large body, of having to navigate the world in a body that is often stigmatized, made invisible, or hyper-visible at any moment. A multilayered loneliness.” Longreads

Four writers on being ‘on their meds’ There are some 44 million people living with some sort of mental illness, and some 19 million are being treated with a combination of medication and therapy. The stigma associated with medication remains profound, and the casual way people talk about psychiatric states—are you crazy?—can further isolate people with mental illness. “I was a 26-year-old undergraduate who could barely manage to eat or shower once a day. I eventually admitted to myself that I was not well,” writes Anthony James Williams of his. “But I did not know anyone black who was on medication for their mental health and asking for any form of assistance made me feel weak.” It also means making it work at work, depending on your needs. “It’s awkward to bust out a pill bottle in the middle of a small office or classroom, but it would be more awkward to have a bipolar episode at work,” writes Diamond Sharp. The Outline

Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.

Quote

Your destiny is comin’ close / Stand up and fight / So go into a far off land / And be one with the great I am”

—Beyonce Knowles, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Timothy McKenzie, from “Spirit“

Credit: Source link

The post Does Netflix Fail Creators of Color?: raceAhead appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.com/does-netflix-fail-creators-of-color-raceahead/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=does-netflix-fail-creators-of-color-raceahead from WeeklyReviewer https://weeklyreviewer.tumblr.com/post/186566742007

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velmaemyers88 · 5 years

Text

Does Netflix Fail Creators of Color?: raceAhead

Here’s your week in review, in haiku.

1. Is economic anxiety getting you down, “n-word Nancy?”

2. Professor Mueller wonders why no one did the reading assignment

3. Would you rather get cash from Equifax, or have Facebook broken up?

4. Ballot boxes breached: The pravda dies in darkness Also, the country.

5. A new King is here! Lions in formation at the paws of a Queen

Have an anxiety-free and happy weekend.

On Point

On Background

Tamara El-Waylly helps produce raceAhead.

Quote

Your destiny is comin’ close / Stand up and fight / So go into a far off land / And be one with the great I am”

—Beyonce Knowles, Ilya Salmanzadeh, and Timothy McKenzie, from “Spirit“

Credit: Source link

The post Does Netflix Fail Creators of Color?: raceAhead appeared first on WeeklyReviewer.

0 notes