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justforbooks · 4 years

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The greatest year for books ever?

Several years including 1862, 1899 and 1950 could be considered literature’s very best. But one year towers above these, writes Jane Ciabattari.

The year 1925 was a golden moment in literary history. Ernest Hemingway’s first book, In Our Time, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were all published that year. As were Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith, among others. In fact, 1925 may well be literature’s greatest year.

But how could one even go about determining the finest 12 months in publishing history? Well, first, by searching for a cluster of landmark books: debut books or major masterpieces published that year. Next, by evaluating their lasting impact: do these books continue to enthrall readers and explore our human dilemmas and joys in memorable ways? And then by asking: did the books published in this year alter the course of literature? Did they influence literary form or content, or introduce key stylistic innovations?

Books that came out in 1862, for instance, included Dostoevsky’s House of the Dead, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. But Gustave Flaubert’s novel of that year, Sallambo, set in Carthage during the 3rd Century BC, was no match for Madame Bovary. George Eliot’s historical novel Romola and Anthony Trollope’s Orley Farm were also disappointments.

The year 1899 is another contender for literature’s best. Kate Chopin’s seminal work The Awakening was published then, as was Frank Norris’s McTeague and two Joseph Conrad classics – Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim (serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine). But Tolstoy’s last novel Resurrection, published also in 1899, was more shaped by his religious and political ideals than a powerful sense of character; and Henry James’ The Awkward Age was a failed experiment – a novel written almost entirely in dialogue.

And in 1950 there were published books from Isaac Asimov (I, Robot), Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles), Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train), Doris Lessing (The Grass Is Singing) and CS Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). But other great fiction writers produced lesser works that year – Ernest Hemingway’s minor Across the River and into the Trees; Jack Kerouac’s The Town and the City, written under the influence of Thomas Wolfe; John Steinbeck’s poorly received play-in-novel-format Burning Bright and Evelyn Waugh’s only historical novel, the Empress Helena (Roman emperor Constantine’s Christian mother goes in search of relics of the Cross).

But 1925 brought something unique – a vibrant cultural outpouring, multiple landmark books and a paradigm shift in prose style. Literary work that year reflected a world in the aftermath of tremendous upheaval. The brutality of World War One, with some 16 million dead and 70 million mobilised to fight, had left its mark on the Lost Generation. In Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf created the indelible shell-shocked veteran Septimus Smith, “with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?”

Looking inward

The solid external world of the realists and naturalists was giving way to the shifting perceptions of the modernist ‘I’. Mrs Dalloway, which covers one day as Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a party – and Septimus Smith for his demise – is a landmark modernist novel. Its narrative is rooted in the flow of consciousness, with dreams, fantasies and vague perceptions gaining unprecedented expression. Woolf’s stylistic breakthrough reflected a changing perception of reality. Proust was also all the rage at this moment, as Scott Moncrieff’s translation of Remembrance of Things Past’s third volume was just out. Woolf admired Proust’s “astonishing vibration and saturation and intensification”.

The year 1925 also contributed to the culmination of Gertrude Stein’s career. She had moved to Paris in 1903 and established a Saturday evening salon that eventually included Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound and Sherwood Anderson, as well as artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Stein responded to her immersion in the Parisian avant-garde by writing The Making of Americans, which was published in 1925, more than a decade after its completion. In over 900 pages of stream-of-consciousness, Stein tells of “the old people in a new world, the new people made out of the old,” and describes an American “space of time that is filled always filled with moving”. Early critics like Edmund Wilson couldn’t finish Stein’s complex web of repetition, but she has been credited with foreshadowing postmodernism and making key stylistic breakthroughs, including using the continuous present and a nearly musical word choice. As Anderson put it: “For me, the work of Gertrude Stein consists in a rebuilding, an entirely new recasting of life, in the city of words.”

Stein’s experiments with language influenced Hemingway’s signature sparseness. Beginning with the autobiographical Nick Adams stories in his first book, 1925’s In Our Time, his fiction is characterised by pared-down prose, with symbolic meaning lying beneath the surface. Nick witnesses birth and suicide as a young boy accompanying his father, a doctor, to deliver a baby in the Michigan woods. He is exposed to urban crime when two Chicago hitmen come to his small town. And as a war veteran trying to keep his memories at bay, he gravitates toward the familiar pleasures of camping and fishing: "He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him."

Modern times

The midpoint of the Roaring ‘20s was a time of rare prosperity and upward mobility in the United States. The stock market seemed destined to climb forever, and the American Dream seemed within the grasp of the masses. 1925 was special, though. In New York, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance were given a definitive showcase that year in the anthology The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke. At the same time Harold Ross launched a revolutionary and risky weekly magazine called The New Yorker, which featured portraits of Manhattan socialites and their adventures and offered what would be a treasured showcase for short stories ever since.

F Scott Fitzgerald dubbed this flamboyant postwar American era “the Jazz Age”. Alcohol flowed freely despite Prohibition; flappers followed the sober suffragettes into a time of sexual freedom. New wealth was spreading the riches and opening doors to players like Fitzgerald’s immortal character Jay Gatsby, whose fortune was rumoured to be based on bootlegging. The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, gives a portrait both tawdry and touching, as Gatsby remakes himself in a doomed attempt to win the love of the wealthy Daisy Buchanan. The tarnished American Dream also was central that year to Theodore Dreiser’s naturalist masterpiece, An American Tragedy. Dreiser based the novel on a real criminal case, in which a young man murders his pregnant mistress in an attempt to marry into an upper class family, and is executed by electric chair. Also ripped from the headlines, Sinclair Lewis’s realistic 1925 novel Arrowsmith was a first in exploring the influence of science on American culture. Lewis wrote of the medical training, practice and ethical dilemmas facing a physician involved in high-level scientific research.

These books weren’t just original, even revolutionary, creations – they were helping to establish the very idea of modernity, to make sense of the times. Perhaps 1925 is literature’s most important year simply because no other 12-month span features such a dialogue between literature and real life. Certainly that’s the case in terms of how new technologies – the automobile, the cinema – shook up literary form in 1925. John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer introduced the cinematic narrative form to the novel. New York, presented in fragments as if it were a movie montage on the page, is the novel’s collective protagonist, the inhuman industrialised city presented as a flow of images and characters passing at high speed. "Declaration of war… rumble of drums... Commencement of hostilities in a long parade through the empty rain lashed streets,” Dos Passos writes. “Extra, extra, extra. Santa Claus shoots daughter he has tried to attack. Slays Self With Shotgun." Sinclair Lewis called Manhattan Transfer "the vast and blazing dawn we have awaited. It may be the foundation of a whole new school of fiction."

Was 1925 the greatest year in literature? The ultimate proof, 90 years later, is the shape-shifting the novel has undergone, still based on these early inspirations – and the continuing resonance of Nick Adams, Jay Gatsby and Clarissa Dalloway. These characters from a transformative time are still enthralling generations of new readers.

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advluv4life · 4 years

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This is me live-blogging to the original Pokemon the First Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back comparing it to the Netflix Mewtwo Strikes Back: Evolution that I watch two days ago. It was kind of fun to type this up. Maybe I'll live blog another movie sometime, lol 😅

Enjoy, or not... 😘

(I'm not going to put a spoiler warning because literally nothing has changed from the original overall. They added a few things and they took away some lines, but it's the same movie at the end of the day)

First, I was wrong the prologue is roughly the same length. It just is even more boring in the new one than it was in the old one so it felt even longer because I typically skip the prologue whenever I watch it. ((I don't want to go on blast, but the only Pokemon movie prologue that I watch is the Pokemon 3 prologue, that's it. Pokemon 3 underrated. It's the best movie. But they remade this one so this is where I'm at.))

One thing I've noticed 10 minutes into the original is that there is no second where there's no music and that's what really frustrated me during the remake. There's so much time when there's absolutely no music or the music is really quiet that it's barely there. It was really depressing and I could not get invested in almost any of the typical scenes you get invested in because I was so disconnected from the film. And it's not even the official Pokemon the First Movie soundtrack songs that I was missing. It was just the score. This movie's score is so amazing and we couldn't even relive that again. So, that kind of killed the entire Evolution remake for me. And now I'm very happy to hear this music.

I press play and then I hadn't even gotten to the song yet, but I do want to point out that during the remake the movie made me feel kind of stupid when they were introducing us to Brock and Misty in the scene of them before lunch, because obviously when the original movie came out they just assumed everybody knew all the characters, so I understand for new kids who don't know who Misty and Brock are they probably need to introduce them, but I did not appreciate it. But also I feel like the original scene, when they're sitting at the table already and Ash is just bored and starving is good enough to introduce the characters. I didn't need a whole extra scene before lunch.

On a sidenote: I hated Misty's voice in the new film. Hated it. Sorry. Especially the lines that were the same to the original I disliked it even more. Which really isn't abnormal with remakes, I just didn't like how her lines were spoken. Or the pitch of her voice.

The joke they had about Ash battling before breakfast or lunch, or whatever falls flat in comparison to Brock's joke about Ashes mouth still working before the battle as well.

And I don't know why they had Pikachu noticing the camera in the remake, because Pikachu doesn't figure out what's going on before hand.. So there's no point in him noticing something above them, you know?

I'm so nit-picky.. I'm sure they just had to change a certain amount of things to feel like it was its own movie, but it's wasn't necessary. Obviously, it was a cash grab, but still- not necessary.

And you're telling me after 20+ years they couldn't use the same remake of the song!? They were working 'with' The Pokemon Company and they couldn't use that song? Or did they not want to? Bad decision. 😔

I'm one of those people who likes the opening, but I love it when they remake it and turn it into something 'else', up the bass, give me more background singers, lol. I really accept different versions of the song though I prefer this movie's version a lot of the time. I like it when they remake all the openings for the first 10 films they redo most of the openings and I love it. I like all the openings up until Black and White and I like all the film remakes of them, so I wasn't against them redoing the song a different way...but I feel like this battle this scene is iconic why would you change that? Plus, it just felt like a cheap knockoff of this version...

Ash's voice overs (in the video) are part of the song to me 😂 "Great job Bulbasaur, you did it!" 🥰

While we're still at the scene I thought in the remake James has 'look at that spread' joke fell flat because they didn't show us close-up of them eating so I was kind of confused, maybe that's just me. Overall, Team Rocket puns throughout the remake are questionable to me. They don't really flow as well as they do in the original.. Man, I'm so mean to this remake, but it's true.

Back on that music thing. When Nurse Joy invites them to Mewtwo's party the music that plays behind her invitation speech is perfect and then when they get off it's silent, but you can hear the birds chirping you can hear noise behind them and that makes their world seem so much bigger. And that was lacking in the new version of the film.

On another note, I know that technically in both films we are completely aware that it is Mewtwo who was behind everything, but it feels much more ominous when we don't see him until he appears coming 'down the stairs'. So, in the remake when they showed him responding to Nurse Joy.. I didn't care for that.

I want to say though, out of context the art of the Pokemon in the remake is amazing. If it was just that someone made 3DCG animation pictures based on the original: 10 out of 10. I'm thinking about the screenshot of Mew in the bubble. It is beautiful in 3D CG, absolutely beautiful, but I still am old school and I prefer the original animation overall.

The scene with the harbor manager was not one that I paid much attention to, because it's not one that I usually pay much attention too (and I was bored out of my mind by that point). So, I don't have much to say in comparison.

The Viking jokes are indeed outdated, but I still like them, lol

Regardless, there is still background music, even at this point in the film. I say this, not only because they are having a comedic scene with lots of puns and jokes, but there is also a rainstorm going on in the background. So it'd be easy to just not have any music, because you already have background noise, but no there is also a score.

Brock calling out Nurse Joy when they arrive to New Island in the remake rubbed me the wrong way, like it was out of nowhere, but I think it was the lack of background music. I feel like that whole movie's issue is the lack of background music. There's nothing to set the tone, so everything's just kind of 'meh'.

They had some fancy doors in the new one, lol

But the original has creaky, scary doors 😉

Mew theme makes me smile 🥰

Prosser props ardeal ready there's a whole list; one it's Pidgeot, two Brock hits on the girl when they arrive, and three (kind of early but) Team Rocket gets Sycther correct during their impromptu game of 'Whose That Pokemon??' 😂

Intimidating background music, I love you.

I like how in this scene Mewtwo explains that he removed the memories of Nurse Joy. Whereas, in the remake, he implies that 'of course she would forget everything that happened', as if he wouldn't want her to, that was weird.

The original's colors and music make this movie feel so much more high stakes than the Remake does. And the voice work is just so natural. It's not overplayed, it's not underplayed, it's just perfect and that's because it's the original, but it's how I feel. For example (I'm going to jump ahead because I still remember watching the remake and being so disappointed) when Ash jumped down the tunnel after the ball that captures Pikachu and he's yelling in the original, but he doesn't do that in the remake and that broke my heart. The yell in the original was so desperate and determined, and in the remake it's so weak.

I can't remember if in the remake they use the same line when Brock says that Mewtwo is going to destroy humans and save Pokemon and Mewtwo corrects him. I honestly can't remember, but that plays a big part in who Mewtwo is as a character and villain. He's not saving Pokemon, he is destroying the entire world to remake it in his image... but I can't remember how they do it in the remake so I can't say, lol

Why do they never tell the other three side characters names in the movie? They don't do it in the original or in the remake, but I'm pretty sure they're listed in the credits, 😓

Charizard's a buttface and I love him (but he's even better in Pokemon 3)

I did notice in the Evolution version that they didn't use the Brock's line of 'carrying the Pokemon away' after Ash's suggestion of putting them in the pokeballs failed. I kind of thought they should have had that line.

And, again, I don't know if maybe it's the music- but the version of the chase in the original feels a lot more hectic and crazy and fast, versus the new version where it kind of feels like it takes more time and it's not as urgent, but maybe that's just me.

"You're not gonna' get Pikachuuuuuu!!!" 🥰🥰🥰

Not going to lie, I don't remember the remake version of when he gets Pikachu out of the Pokeball and the Machine breaks. I don't remember it. I do remember that the release of his Pokemon is relatively the same- if not the same, but I can't remember him in the machine pulling on the ball and chewing on the arms. I don't know if that happened 😅 I don't know why it wouldn't, but this is the moment in the remake where I realized the lack of music. It took me this long to understand why I just didn't care and this was the moment. He didn't yell in the tunnel like he does in the original and then he got in the lab and he was telling Team Rocket that he did not have time for them at that moment and I just thought something was missing and it was the music.

In this scene, if he did not say anything to Team Rocket I would have thought he didn't even see them. He was so focused on getting Pikachu back.

Team Rocket has great puns, they hit right in this movie. In Evolution it feels like they tried, but they didn't stand a chance.

I don't think the remake does this either, but Charizard never reappeared and Ash was like "You're all alright!", but where is Charizard??

So, when Mewtwo's clones appear there's a big explosion, but it's quiet--but when Ash and the originals return it brings up that loud, marching, hero entrance music. There was music in the remake, but it wasn't like a Hero's Return kind of music. It was really quiet it was pretty, but it didn't give that same powerful feeling 😓

On that note, I also don't remember the scene right after yet before Mew appears in the remake. Does Evolution!Ash try to punch Mewtwo and get thrown back into a wall? He must because I saw him climbing down, but I did not notice. I all I was completely spaced off 😅

I like Meowth's commentary in this version better. It's worded so well and the overview is just perfect.

Brother, My Brother. 😭 They had instrumental music during this scene in the remake even though there are plenty of songs out there that you could use in this scene (that are not this specific song, but they didn't even try). And the instrumental music they had was quiet even in the midst of the big fighting versus when it gets to the slow motion scenes of the fight where you get like really really sad because it's just terrible what's going on. I don't think the remake had any music, whereas the original does have really strong long notes and they they stretch on and you see it it emphasizes what's going on in this scene and how painful the fighting is and I felt like there was no feeling in the remake.

The side characters commentary in the remake is different from the original and I feel like (I don't want to sit here and say the original is better but it is) in the commentary in the remake they mainly kept repeating that the pokemon were clones and we already knew that, versus in the original they're explaining that they're all living creatures and that forcing them to fight because of how they came into the world is wrong.

Meowth's commentary with Meowth is spot-on and it hits me hard. I wish they kept that too they changed that and I don't know why they changed that.

Weird observation, but I feel like Ash's climbing in the original.. the wall is so big and makes him look so small and in the remake he did not look nearly as tiny. Which isn't like a criticism it's just a thing that I thought of just now.

I don't think they had a Ash watching Pikachu in the remake like they do in the original..and that builds to the point in which Ash will run out there. I do not remember this much focus on Pikachu's battle when Ash was climbing down, but I could have not been paying attention too so..

"Someone's got to say 'no' and refuse to fight, just like Pikachu." 😭😭

Okay, before I go on to bawl my eyes out (because I can't stand it when Pikachu cries and this scene has torn me apart since the first time I saw it and it will continue to tear me apart because I'm weak). I did really like that in the remake you can hear Pikachu sobbing the entire time they go through all the other Pokemon crying. You can hear Pikachu crying the entire time and I did cry because that was sad. 💔😭😭😭

Just thinking about Pikachu's sobs hurts! 😭😭

"I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant, it's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." A perfect quote is indeed perfect and was not touched- wise decision Evolution 😘

This is actually the last scene where I paid any specific attention, so it's really the last thing I can comment on... so I'll probably just stop this commentary here.

If you read this: props to you, it was a nice ramble.

I don't know if I can rate Evolution, because the only thing that it really had going for it specifically is it's animation and I didn't even really like the animation that much.

I'll be nice, 6/10. If anyone thinks it deserves higher let me know. 3/5 stars. I'd probably have rated it higher if it had a better score. And if the new jokes actually made sense.

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demiiharperr · 5 years

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The issues I have with That 70’s Show:

The different ways the Intro Song is sang throughout the seasons. I was content until they introduced Randy and then the whooooole vibe in the song changed.

The on and off relationship of Jackie & Kelso. Their relationship was very unhealthy. The way Jackie would speak to Kelso, followed by Kelso repeatedly cheating on Jackie.

After Season 1 Episode 3, we rarely ever see Steven Hyde without his sunglasses.

In Season 1 Episode 2, Eric got the Vista Cruiser and Red told him all the responsibilities that come with owning the car BUT how was Eric going to afford it? He didn’t get a job until Episode 5.

Season 1 Episode 2, Midge mentions their daughter Valerie but, we never see Valerie. In fact, as the series goes on we’re made to believe Donna is an only child.

Bob. Don Stark’s cheesy acting was sometimes almost unbearable. The delivery on all of his punch lines just never stuck. Every scene they attempted to make him funny always seemed forced. Especially when he’d go “oh boy”. Bob was too corny for me to ever like his character.

Jackie wears a sweater vest with the initials JSB. I’m assuming it stands for her name except... we later find out Jackie’s middle name is Beulah. Her initials would then be JBB. I need answers!

The air hockey game at The Hub that was there for Season 1 Episode 4 and then never again.

You never see the entire view of The Forman’s house or The Pinciotti’s house.

Season 1 Episode 5 Donna mentions her little sister Tina. Again, another Pinciotti daughter that winds up disappearing. She only makes one appearance and then she’s never seen again.

The Forman kitchen table goes from having 3 legs (S1E4) to then only having 1 leg (S1E5)

Danny Bonaduce is another character who’s lines never landed.

(S1E6) Jackie’s mom (Eve Plumb) is showing the house where the gang is trying to throw a kegger. Jackie’s mom in this episode is not the same woman we later came to know as “Jackie’s Mom” (Brooke Shields) way later in the series.

How pot is perceived throughout the show with the moving wall, the floating heads, demonic voices etc.

Donna occasionally entertaining Hyde’s crush he had on her. She then gets upset with Eric when he makes out with Laurie’s friend, Kate, from College.

Hyde willing to learn how to dance, buying gifts — i mean, the lengths this man will go & step out of his own character in order to impress Donna. But, when he begins dating Jackie, the poor girl almost has to pull teeth to get a romantic gesture out of him. HE WAS WILLING TO DANCE TO DISCO FOR DONNA!

(S1E8)The customer service at Blanigans is quite appalling. Between the rude hostess and the singing employees nearly running over The Forman’s, what kind of restaurant is this?! Then as The Forman’s are storming out, you can see a casting extra mouth the words “what the fuck [.....]”. I couldnt make out what the last few words were but my guess is he said “what the fuck is that guys problem?” How did no one catch that?!

(S1E8) Kitty & Red get caught hooking up in their car by a police officer. Them getting caught isn’t the part that’s the issue, it’s the way Red speaks to the officer and then the officer cowers away from him. What kind of cop is this guy?

(S1E9) Kate, Laurie’s friend from college, not giving two fucks about making out with Eric, a boy who is underage. Kate being unmoved by the possibilities of jail time is worrisome.

When do they ever actually go to school?!

How does Laurie stay Red’s favorite? She smokes in front of him, flunks out of college, drinks all of his beer, marries Fez, is caught lying repeatedly, & is openly slut-shamed by the whole gang in front of Red. CAN THIS GIRL REALLY DO NO WRONG?! It’s only when she gets caught living with a man that for a brief moment Eric is the new favorite.

(S1E17) That cringe worthy moment when Bob picks up Donna’s birth control from the Pharmacy and Bob recreates the Macaulay Culkin/Home Alone face. One of the many cheesy Bob moments that I mentioned before.

(S1E18) The frustration of having absolutely no idea what Kelso’s dad actually does for a living. Based off of many Google searches he’s a Senior Executive Statistical Analysis Technician. If you read the description of what a Statistical Analysist does I could see how a teenager like Kelso would get extremely confused.

(S1E18) “Gross Edna” aka Hyde’s mom asks Hyde if he has his fake i.d., to which he replies “you know it”. So, if Hyde has had a fake i.d. this whole time then why is the gang always on a mission to steal beer?!

(S1E18) Jackie working on Red’s car with him on Take Your Kid To Work Day. This is so out of character for Jackie and her knowledge about cars is never brought up again.

The show starts off in 1976 but, halfway through season 1 we’re in 1977. We chill in ‘77 until the end of season 3 when we finally enter 1978. But then, we stay there until season 6. We then wrap up the show with the final seasons all taking place in 1979. Time really doesn’t make any sense throughout That 70’s Show.

THERE’S A BRITISH VERSION OF THIS SHOW?!?! Why do we as human beings continue to do this?! I get it that the remake of a television show into an American version or the remake into a British version can be a huge hit! I also know how much of a fail this can turn out to be. The British tried with recreating the classic Golden Girls (UK: Brighton Belles), Saturday Night Live aka SNL (UK: Saturday Live), Friends (UK: Coupling). Then America tried with Skins (UK: Skins) and The Inbetweeners (UK: The Inbetweeners). Sometimes you just gotta leave the originals alone. But, if you’re interested in watching the British remake of That 70’s Show, the show is called Days Like These.

(S1E22) Eric tells Hyde that he can’t leave for New York because they were “gonna paint that pot leaf on the Water Tower”. BUT WAIT — HOLD UP!! We already saw them paint the pot leaf on the Water Tower (S1E21). The painting of the pot leaf literally happened one episode before Forman says this to Hyde!! It’s the same episode where Kelso falls off the Water Tower and breaks his arm while he was trying to perfect the Pot Leaf Painting to Hyde’s liking. How did Hyde & Eric forget all of this happening? How did the That 70’s Show crew forget this just happened?

Danny Masterson (Hyde) is a Scientologist IRL?! This has nothing to do with the show, i’m just shook.

There’s never a discussion of Hyde losing his virginity. With the rest of the gang they would all sit around and speak in detail about how it was for them. But, not with Hyde. I’m assuming he lost his virginity to Christy (S1E22) since this is the first sexual partner of his we are introduced to but, since the gang doesn’t talk about it WE DONT KNOW!

(S1E23) The very odd almost accepting nature of The Forman family losing Bernice Forman aka Mother Forman. Other than Red’s brother Marty, nobody really showed sadness to losing a loved one.

(S1E10) We finally get to meet Red’s mother, Bernice. She’s very transparent about her hatred for Kitty, which causes everyone to be on edge and want to stay clear of Bernice’s sharp tongue. Fortunately for Eric, his friend Fez is an admirer of Bernice’s feet and rubs them until her whole demeanor changes. She leaves The Forman home complimenting Kitty’s cooking, as well as complimenting their car. Which brings me to this.. They left episode 10 on such a good note! What happened inbetween episode 10 and episode 23 (the episode covering Bernice’s death and funeral)?! By episode 23 Bernice was back to her snarky self and I need answers as to why she couldn’t just stay nice!

(S1E23) The Funeral Director walking over to Bernice’s casket to close her eyes. This is 1. confusing to me & 2. kind of morbid if you think about what that must’ve looked like.

(S1E23) What ever happened to Red’s train set? You can clearly see how much that train set meant to him and how bad he wanted it for himself but, we never see that sentimental train set again.

(S1E23) The cemetery where Mother Forman is buried and Eric goes to visit at night looks a whoooooole awful lot like The Forman’s backyard. Change the stucco of the house and the fence, then add a tomb stone... boom! Eric’s backyard is now a cemetery.

(S1E24) The gang all go skinny dipping meaning they are swimming butt naked. The skinny dipping isn’t where I find an issue. The issue is actually in the episode later on (S4E20) when the gang is reminiscing on the time they’ve spent together over the years. One of the memories being that Kelso is the only one who’s never seen Donna’s boobs. WHICH DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE! They all went skinny dipping together. They were all naked. Kelso being Kelso.. he would’ve definitely made sure he never blinked. Not even for a second if that meant he could see any girl naked. So, Kelso claiming to have never seen Donna’s boobs seems false.

(S1E24) Midge welcoming the members of the Women Warriors group into her home only to have Sharon so disrespectfully flirt with Midge’s husband, Bob. Bob is not clueless to Sharon’s flirting. He actually seems to enjoy as well as entertain this woman making passes at him. This is one of the first signs that Bob & Midge’s marriage may not be eternal.

(S1E24) This is the episode when Hyde moves in with Eric because Edna (Hyde’s mom) has abandoned him. But, what ever happened to the house that Hyde left behind? We’re aware that his mom was renting the place but, he never went back to pick up anymore belongings. Edna was ok with all of her clothes and other things she owned just being tossed out?

(S1E24) Fez’s tattoo. Fez tells the gang that it’s a tattoo of the Blessed Virgin of Yorba Linda. What that looks like we don’t know because we never see it & after this episode we never hear about it again. The only thing Google gave me was that Yorba Linda is a suburban area in California. Who this Blessed Virgin is, we may never know.

(S1E25) Eric attempts to bounce a bowling ball in the living room, resulting in the ball breaking Red’s TV. I understand wanting to replace the television but, I’m also confused as to why they didn’t just take the TV from the basement in place of the broken television until Eric could afford to buy the house a new one. In fact, you never hear of or see Eric purchasing a new TV for the family after this episode. The replacement is all-of-a-sudden there. AND how did Red expect him to buy one? Eric hasn’t had a job since the Fatso Burger episode. Just as soon as he started working, he quit.

(S2E1) The Forman’s & The Pinciotti’s not realizing that they were high. Midge reveals in a later episode(S3E1) that her & Bob partake in smoking marijuana stating “That stuff was right here in our neighborhood? And to think of all the times we have to drive across town..” after finding out that Hyde was arrested for possession. So, if The Pinciotti’s know what smoking pot feels like you’d think they’d know that they were stoned after eating Hyde’s brownies (S2E1). And Red of all people not noticing that something felt a little off after eating the brownies? How’d he not catch on that something felt different? Which would be a solid reason for Red to be mad once he sobered up. But, I guess he never caught on. Weird.

According to an article I read, Red Forman threatened to put his foot in someone’s ass 38 times. I actually question whether or not this is accurate because I swear it felt like he said it at least double that amount of times. Even if he did only threaten people with his foot 38 times, he still never actually followed through with any of his threats. Red was all bark & no bite.

(S2E5) The gang finds out the Kelso is a year older than all of them meaning he could have been buying them beer this whole time. But, let’s not forget that Hyde has also had a fake i.d. and could’ve been doing the purchasing of the beer as well.

There were several times throughout the series when you can see that it was hard for the cast to execute their lines without cracking a smile or laughing. Thankfully they’re playing teenage stoners so, breaking into laughter can be overlooked.

The on going shame the gang continues to throw at Donna for not having sex with Forman. A teenager wanting to wait isn’t a reason for people to not respect her decision.

(S2E7) Donna tells Eric she loves him and he can’t say it back. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK! Eric has been in love with Donna since they’ve met & for him to leave her hanging like that, ugh—- I cant!

The racist references made throughout the whole series. They were mostly directed towards Fez & I’m aware that the 70’s were a different time. But, racism is racism no matter what era we’re talking about. The jokes about not knowing where he’s from or that his accent is weird— this is can be funny. But, once we cross into poking fun at his skin color by calling him by names of people of color.. that’s disrespectful.

(S2E18) Red forgets Eric’s age.

(S2E24) Red forgets Eric’s age AGAIN! His memory is becoming a concern.

(S2E20) How come we’ve never heard of The Pinciotti’s cat, Mr. Bonkers, until now?! & as quick as we’re introduced to the cat he’s out of our lives. RIP Mr. Bonkers’ short lived screen time.

(S3E2) I’m not a fan of watching The Forman’s & Hyde break out into song.

(S3E8)(S3E9)We jumped from Veterans Day to Christmas. What happened to Thanksgiving?!

(S3E15) The way Donna eats this one piece of candy. Very odd.

(S3E16) Red confirms with Eric that Kelso’s parents are dumb. But, in an earlier season we are to believe that Kelso’s dad is a Statistical Analysist. Not a job for dumb people.

(S3E18) The way directors thought we were suppose to believe this poor excuse of a fight between the Girls Lacrosse Team and Eric, Hyde & Fez. The girls were barely even lifting their legs. Unbelievably Unbelievable.

Eric is way too big for his bed. His feet literally hang off the end.

#love #aesthetic #blogger #boho #gypsy #hippie #namaste #retro #vintage #bohemian #earth #nature #travel #beach #ocean #mermaid

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gamearamamegathons · 6 years

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Dragon Quest V: Baby Dungeons

Circe here! I've only just started Dragon Quest V, but I've been thinking, given the sheer size of my last post on Dragon Warrior IV, maybe I should be writing shorter, more frequent posts rather than letting a huge amount of plot build up before posting, especially now that the games...actually...have plot. Besides, there's a lot to talk about right off the bat. First thing I should cover is that the SNES version of Dragon Quest V has never been localized to English. Dragon Quests IV through VI eventually got DS remakes that were released in the US, but I'm sticking with the original version of every game, so that means either rolling with a Japanese version or finding a fan translation. I know I talked a big game about playing untranslated games earlier, but these games have gotten a lot more text-heavy in the interrim, so that would probably slow things down a lot. I'm still not ruling out the possibility for future games, but for now, I think this works fine. This does mean that there may be localization choices that aren't consistent with any official localization, so this may be quite interesting, we'll see.

As for the game itself, as you might expect from an early SNES RPG, it's a weird mix of graphical and mechanical improvements paired with weird holdovers from the NES era. I was really hoping that the DOOR/TALK/SEARCH menu items would finally go away, but no, it's still here, and it looks even weirder next to the considerably better SNES graphics. However, with the extra buttons, they've added another button that appears to be a context-sensitive shortcut, so I may be leaning on that a lot instead. Menu navigation on the whole is pretty similar, although our characters have a bigger inventory, and equipment purchasing is even further improved by showing how each item in the shop will change each character's stats. I can't say it's not improved, but we're not really at the point of 'hey, this is a modern RPG now' quite yet. And that's...very weird, actually, because Final Fantasy IV was released the year before this game, and despite also having some weird NES holdovers, the UI is better in almost every way (except purchasing equipment, actually, I have to give DQ5 credit there). In fact, I don't know if Final Fantasy has *ever* had anything like Dragon Quest's clunky menu-driven interaction system, so it's very weird that it's lasted, in some form, for five games. But it's not like I haven't acclimated to it by now, so it's not a big deal.

So what is Dragon Quest V about? Well, it opens with our hero's birth. We see our papa...named Papas...and our mother, whose name I forget, celebrating the baby's birth and fretting over a name. As you might guess, they just happen to settle on a name I picked (Papas initially complains that it sounds 'too feminine', which is weirdly on the nose) and then the mother dies. So, uh...well that's kind of a downer to open on. In any case, our gender is fixed in this game (male, as you might guess) but I can't complain too much, since this one is probably going to be even plot-heavier than in the past. I think our character even talks. But it's a good thing, then, that SEN is a gender-ambiguous name. And no, I'm never going to stop using allcaps.

So, skip ahead to when SEN is a young adult...haha, just kidding, you're six. Apparently, Papas is a bit of a wanderer, but we're on a boat just about to make port in his hometown of Santa Rosa. Here on the ship we're going to get acquainted with one of the big changes in Dragon Quest V. At least here in the early game, you're pretty hemmed in, and the game expects you to talk to NPCs in the area in order to advance the plot. A far cry from the wide-open world of Dragon Warrior, but it's little surprise, since each game up to this point has taken little steps in this direction. And our character is, after all, six. Once we reach the dock, Papas immediately busies himself talking to some guy, so of course we wander off and immediately get into an encounter with some slimes. After a couple turns of feeble swings at the monsters, Papas steps in to protect us, taking out the slimes easily with blows upwards of 70 damage. So okay, he's pretty tough. He heals us, and we walk the short distance from the dock to Santa Rosa. This is a scripted sequence where Papas leads the way, but there are still random encounters like normal (okay, they're probably scripted, but it gives the appearance of random encounters). Papas handles the monsters with ease, and we head into town.

Here Papas bumps into the wife of his friend who runs an inn in the nearby town of Alcapa. Apparently, he has fallen ill, and his wife came here to get medicine. And we meet her daughter Bianca, who quickly gets bored of listening to the adults talk, and goes upstairs with us to pass the time. Being two years older, she's able to read, a little, so she takes out a book to read to us. It doesn't take her long to give up, though, complaining that the words are too difficult. It's not long before Bianca's mother comes to pick her up, and then it's just us and Papas again.

Papas seems to be a bit of an inattentive father, to be honest. He's busy with grown-up stuff, and we're left to our own devices. You can wander around town and talk to people, and find out that a man who went to find the medicine has gone into the nearby cave and hasn't come out, or you can, like me, just find the cave and decide this is an excellent idea without finding out why you should go there. There's a guard keeping six year old children from wandering out of town, but the cave is unguarded -- well, no, that's not true, there is a guard by the cave entrance, but he merely warns you that going into the cave is a bad idea and it's not his fault if you get lost. I know we're an RPG hero, but I want you to consider for a moment that by all reasonable standards, this adult human just stands there and watches as a literal six year old wanders to his likely death. Oh well. It would've been inconvenient if he'd stopped us. Don't let the fact that we're six years old give you the idea that we won't be fighting slimes, bats, and moles, or buying weapons and armor at the local shops. It's much funnier to instead picture our hero beating monsters to death with a stick using his tiny baby arms.

At the bottom of the dungeon we find the man trapped under the rock, and give him a hand. So, uh, probably good that someone came down here eventually. That done, Bianca and her mother are ready to return to Alcapa. Papas doesn't like the idea of them traveling on their own, though, so the four of us set out together. Once the medicine is delivered, Papas seems anxious to leave, but it seems that Papas's friends wants him to stay awhile and he, relucantly, agreed. I get the impression that Papas is concerned with...something. Something that's keeping him from his family and friends. But it's too early to say what it is, really. I'll admit, it reminds me of my time playing Taloon in Dragon Warrior IV, getting up in the morning and leaving his family every day to go stab monsters, except this time I'm the child instead. Did Taloon's kid understand why he left for so long, or why they eventually uprooted their lives to move to the much bigger and busier city of Endor? There's no telling, I suppose.

Alcapa is pretty similar to Santa Rosa, although it has a nicer shop and no dangerous open cave for children to wander into. Here, we spend more time with Bianca, and if we chat around a bit, we find a couple more kids tormenting a cat, presumably for no other reason than that they're assholes with nothing better to do. We try to intervene, and they tell us they'll let the cat go if we go fight ghosts in the haunted castle to the north. Okay. This seems a little artificial, especially since, if we're strong enough to do that, we're strong enough to deal with these little shits, but the quest is clear, so that's what we gotta do. We can only leave town at night when the guard is asleep, but that's no big deal, since the shops and everything are still open.

Bianca starts out at level 1 with pretty pitiful equipment, so the first thing I do is grind -- mostly for gold, but I get some decent levels in the process. This game introduces an interesting new feature -- weapons that can hit multiple enemies. I get a boomerang for myself, which can hit every enemy, and a thorn whip for Bianca, which can hit a single enemy group. The downside is that they do less damage to each consecutive enemy, but it's still a huge benefit, reducing large enemy groups to nothing in one or two strikes.

With that done, we head north to Lenoire Castle. I think one purpose of this dungeon is to show off a lot of the new event scripting stuff, kinda like Taloon's chapter in Dragon Warrior IV. This place is pretty damn haunted, with object moving around, doors opening on their own, and, uh, also there's ghosts everywhere trying to kill us. That's, I guess, the biggest hint probably. But it's also clear that they wanted to show off what this new engine can do. Along the way, we meet the ghosts of the former king and queen of the castle, who are apparently being hassled by bad ghosts. Eventually we meet the boss of the bad ghosts, called...Boss Ghost...and he's pretty tough. Bianca drops in this fight, which kinda sucks, but I get through it. Oh, and offensive spells and attacks are finally animated, which is a touch that has been sorely missing until now (our characters don't appear on-screen, so naturally, anything that targets them is not animated). With that done, the good ghosts are at peace, and we get...oh no. A Gold Orb. I mean, okay, we don't know what it's for yet, but I'm wary of generic macguffins at this point.

We hang onto the orb and head back to Alcapa. The shitty kids let us have the cat, and it joins our party...uh, apparently it's a baby panther, which raises a lot of questions about why it's tame and in town. But whatever. Bianca names it Borongo. I think we can rename it if we want, but I decide not to. Papas leads us back home, and we leave Bianca behind, but Borongo sticks with us. Back in Santa Rosa, there doesn't seem to be much going on at first. A lot of townsfolk are complaining about random little objects going missing, which sounds significant. Eventually, if we poke around, we see what appears to be a ghost. The ghost is surprised we can see her, and she says she's been messing with people in order to try and get their attention. Apparently she's really an elf, visiting the human world through some kind of, spirit projection I guess? She leads us to the basement of our home where nobody else is around, and says that the world of elves needs help, and we need to go there right away. Um...so everything I know about fantasy tells me that when an elf tells a very small child to go to their world with them, it's a pretty bad idea. But this isn't really that sort of story, and we don't really have a choice, so off we go.

In the world of elves, we're told that a magical flute has been stolen, and we need to get it back, because they need it to change the seasons, so the human world will fall into eternal winter without it. That sounds pretty bad. The elves have a lot of confidence that a six year old child and his cat can fix this problem, but to be fair, we've got a surprisingly good track record up to this point.

Well, that's all for now. I guess I was right to start writing a new post now, because this turned out to be pretty long anyway. I guess these posts might end up getting a lot more frequent to keep up with the plot, so stay tuned!

#circe #marathon #dragon quest #dragon quest v

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ahouseoflies · 6 years

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The Best Films of 2017, Part II

Part I can be found here. I should have mentioned the films I haven’t seen, which include BPM; Faces Places; The Square; Coco; Thelma; Last Flag Flying; Roman J. Israel, Esq.; Wonder Wheel; Jane; and I, Daniel Blake. Long-time AHOLs also know that I’m in the fifth year of a self-imposed five-year break from superhero culture, so I haven’t seen Logan or Thor or whatever else. With that: ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS 87. The Great Wall (Zhang Yimou)- Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall has a lot in common with Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster. Both are high-concept international co-productions that bear just enough of the filmmaker's signature but feel unfortunately cut to ribbons in the editing room. Computers have made us all a little worse at our jobs, Zhang included, and his spectacle is achieved despite CGI, not because of it. I liked watching a boulder's journey through the stages of being catapulted, even if it eventually landed into a physics-negligent pit of cartoon monsters. By the end, the picture is more bloodless, sexless, and simplistic than a game of toy soldiers, which makes it seem just as child-like. It's a forgettable sort of fun, but it is often fun. 86. The Ghost in the Shell (Rupert Sanders)- A bit more comprehensible than the original but far less beautiful. It's a shame that visions of future exteriors haven't improved or at least changed since Blade Runner. Big advertisements. Got it. (Also, we have telepathic walkie-talkies, but people sleep on the floor?) There are a few good ideas drizzled around. If people can basically toggle back and forth between languages, why not hire a famous actor who doesn't speak English for one of the supporting roles? Speaking of acting though, Johansson is pretty bad in this, hamstrung by the whole playing-a-robot problem. (She looks as good as she ever has though, which is saying something.) She could have taken some notes from Michael Pitt, who brings some edge and skitter to his cybernetic replicant or whatever they call it. 85. Wilson (Craig Johnson)- It hits the notes that a Daniel Clowes property usually does: misanthropy, formlessness, begrudging acceptance at the end. I laughed a few times and appreciated the huge left-turn at the two-thirds mark, but I didn't think it amounted to much. 84. Patti Cake$ (Geremy Jasper)- Other than the Basterd character, there's nothing really broken about this movie, but I'm selling on anything with double-digit dream sequences.

83. Colossal (Nacho Vigalondo)- The ending, both the final act and the final note, went a long way to save what was a tedious sit for me. I appreciate the big swings that everyone took with this budget and material--Sudeikis once again gets to show impressive range. But this is an hour of material stretched to an hour and forty-nine minutes. 82. Rough Night (Lucia Aniello)- Hide-the-body movies never work, but what makes this one disappointing is that there's a daring, original corrective somewhere on the margins. You can tell from the comparatively tame bachelor party or the unexpectedly positive threesome that this movie has refreshing ideas, but both the Machine and TV visuals from a TV director shaved the edge down. No one wants to hear such a thing about a sorely-needed female-driven comedy, but Paul W. Downs is the funniest thing in this. 81. Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon)- Shout-out to the morons protesting this movie's gayness but not realizing that the original was always an allegory for AIDS. These live-action remakes are all around the same quality, but this one feels especially bloated, with really dicey CGI. Things get borderline boring in between the musical numbers, but, man, do those numbers hold up. There's the title track obviously, but songs that would be throwaways in something else--"Gaston," "Be Our Guest," "Something There"--are BANGERZ here. The real IP is the music, and Disney is just going to get each generation's Josh Gad to sing them forever. 80. Darkest Hour (Joe Wright)- This movie reminded me of The Imitation Game in the sense that it's a staid presentation with a solid structure that feels cheap whenever it zooms out beyond its back rooms. The grander version of this, which Joe Wright in some ways already made, is probably just as unsatisfying, but it wouldn't have the pinnacle of goofiness that will hereupon be known as The Underground Scene. I’m a bit bored of this type of film. Darkest Hour might be worth seeing for Oldman's performance, which is a true transformation, absent of any actory vanity but invested with some real myth-making. Churchill gets introduced with just his hat, then lit by just a match, then lit by a shock of sunlight. Oldman is very good in his scenes with Scott Thomas, so it's a shame that her character disappears for a half-hour at a time. The more troubling thing to note is that there are many men in this film who are so English that they can't pronounce their r's. If you catch it eawly, it's a weal distwacting pwoblem. 79. The Fate of the Furious (F. Gary Gray)- Since some of the dumbest stuff is some of the best stuff*, I'm not going to get caught in the web of assessing how much sense The Fate of the Furious makes. But I can say that this entry is the least intentionally funny of the series, and other than "the White girls' soccer team is the Monarchs," it loses some of the class undressing of 6 and 7. From the endless scene-setting to the overstuffed character roster, this is now more of a comic book than a movie, an exercise in being a plot without being a narrative. *- See: the "make it rain" sequence, Statham swinging the baby carrier through a gun battle, Rock redirecting the missile with his bare hands.

78. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (Brian Knappenberger)- The first hour, centering on the Hulk Hogan/Gawker case, is compulsively watchable, even if it doesn't shed much extra light for anyone who followed it when it happened. Terry Bollea explaining that his penis is shorter than ten inches while Hulk Hogan's, the character's, is not: That's what I signed up for. When that case veers into the bizarrely vengeful, pretty much when Peter Thiel comes in, Nobody Speak becomes something else. The final third pits the sensitive, diligent bullpen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal against billionaire liver spot Sheldon Adelson, who bought their paper to suppress it. Then, of course, the doc expands to Donald Trump's vilification of the free press. If that sounds like a straight line, it doesn't come off that way in the film. The Hogan/Gawker stuff, which takes up the majority of the running time, feels unresolved after all the tangents. 77. The Reagan Show (Sierra Pettengill, Pacho Velez)- I'm cringing for the next five years, in which I'll have to judge a movie's success based on how subtly it invokes its mandatory Donald Trump comparisons and allegories. They're coming. In general, it's kind of sad to see how much more literate people were even thirty years ago, even as they populated a medium we all agreed was low culture. This documentary feels sharp at first, understanding something essential about the way Reagan owned his own persona. With the American Right treating him like some patron saint, it's also helpful to remember how much pushback he got at the end of his second term, for something that would be, like, the fiftieth most controversial thing Donald Trump would have done already. (See?) When the doc gets to its own fascination with Reagan's Star Wars program, however, it basically loses its thesis. As lean as it is, it still sort of stumbles to the finish line. 76. Beatriz at Dinner (Miguel Arteta)- I appreciated this portrayal of a culture clash way more than I liked it. For a while the characters are highly specific. (The delivery of "It's 6:13, Kathy" made me laugh out loud.) Then the plot turns into "Oh, so we're talking about Trump's America, right?" (See?) Here's a critique that's catty every time: This film has great ideas about class and race if you've never thought about class and race before. 75. I, Tonya (Craig Gillespie)- Oscar is calling...for the fat dude playing Shawn Eckhardt and no one else. If Allison Janney wins for doing the thing she always does over Laurie Metcalf's fully realized human, then it's a huge mistake. Successful in some of its comedic goals, especially in its depiction of northwestern goons, the shame of the working class, and period detail. (I laughed out loud when I saw the Girbaud tag on Gilooly's jeans.) Unsuccessful in most of its other goals--if I'm even reading the film correctly in my assumption of those goals. The most obvious one is the slippery nature of the truth, and that idea is handled clumsily. Gillespie goes to great GoodFellas-aping lengths to grapple with perception--having characters break the fourth wall even though there are already voiceovers and to-camera interviews. That talking to the camera comes up a few times in the disturbing scenes of domestic violence, which do humanize the characters because the other elements of the film can't, but they distract the viewer with their blitheness. The most puzzling angle of the film is the Hard Copy reporter, played by Bobby Cannavale in yet another example of his agent not knowing how famous he is. It's a missed opportunity in a movie full of them. 74. It (Andy Muschietti)- I don't get why people went nuts for this. The ensemble avails itself pretty well, despite all the sitcom-y dialogue. (Dialogue that, based on the Stephen King that I've read, is probably faithful to the book.) Some of the visuals nail the distinction between surreal and unreal--my favorite is the children's TV show that sporadically drifts into the murderous. But the movie just kind of hangs there, all the way to its interminable ending, satisfied with its own literal presentation of events that seem to be metaphorical. As I understand, It--however It manifests itself--represents the death of childhood and the emergence of an adult banality of evil. But the movie engages with that level as little as possible, and maybe that's why people are going nuts for it. This is a scary movie if you're a child, and most of the moviegoing public seem to be children. 73. Before I Fall (Ry Russo-Young)- I mostly watched this because I think Zoey Deutch is a Movie Star, and if I'm going to be there for her Speed, I have to be there for her Love Potion No. 9's as well. I appreciated Before I Fall's brevity, but the premise offers a lot more fun than the film is willing to have. In the end the balance was off: It had to be either more moralistically PG-13 or go way darker. For example, just like in Groundhog Day, the character realizes that she'll live out the same day no matter what she does, and it triggers a nihilistic phase. But rather than going on a shooting spree or stealing stuff from a mall, she just, like, wears a sexier dress and talks back to her parents. Good swing, kids, but I'm waiting for the crazier version.

72. War Machine (David Michod)- There are some standout moments in War Machine, many of which are thanks to its impressive cast, but I don't think the film is cohesive enough for me to recommend. I know what Michod is against--counter-insurgency, military hubris--but it's harder to figure out what he's arguing for beyond some sort of level of transparency. The war sequence near the end feels at odds with the tone of everything else, even though it benefits from the Nick Cave and Warren Ellis score. In a similarly frustrated vein, I feel as if I know exactly who Glen McMahon is, and the script's greatest strength is how sharply it draws him, but Pitt's studied performance adds distance to it. It's as if all of the film's comedic nature is supposed to come from how people revolve around his straight man, and that expectation is too much to put on his shoulders. There's more than a little Bud Turgidson in the voice Pitt affects, but the difference is that, as mean as this sounds, I always believed George C. Scott when he played a smart person. 71. The Trip to Spain (Michael Winterbottom)- Diminishing returns. 70. Downsizing (Alexander Payne)- There's a meta-effect to the structure of Downsizing. Its characters decide to shrink themselves, finding unpredictable challenges in the process, and the film similarly gets more problematic as it focuses further into each of its four legs. The first part, the outside world, is when the film is at its most cutting and well-observed. It still lays its points on thickly--dude at the bar asking if downsized people should be able to vote, for example--but the questions are worth asking. The second part, Leisureland, the bourgeois subdivision lil' Damon lives in, is more satirical and less satisfying. (I do love that downsizing ends up being such a gauche pursuit though. Payne has always had his finger on the pulse of people with poor taste.) The third part, which takes place in the downsizing slums, is a sharp, unfunny left turn that discards characters but at least develops the protagonist further. And then the wheels come off in Norway. At least we got to hear Udo Kier say, "I do love my boat." 69. Okja (Bong Joon-Ho)- Since Okja is such a unique movie, I feel as if people will overpraise it as a way to brand themselves: Its poster is probably going to be in a lot of dorm rooms. But there's a lot that you have to look past in order to recommend it. In general, I find that Bong's English language work has a bizarre mixture of muddled themes being presented in direct ways. There is some sweetness here--most of it due to the amazingly detailed rendering of the pig--but too much of the comedy doesn't work, and the ending feels a bit easy. I liked most of the stuff with the Animal Liberation Front, and I kind of wish they had been the focal point of the movie. Can I say, as my main takeaway, that I'm worried about Jakey G? He is so big here, so out-of-tune with the rest of the film, that I blame Bong for not reining him in. At the same time, I keep making excuses for Gyllenhaal, claiming that his parts are under-written, but at a certain point, you have to point the finger at him if there's such a pattern of bad performances emerging. I didn't see Everest, but this is his fourth brick in a row. Help us, Dan Gilroy. You're our only hope. 68. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos)- An interesting swing that ends up missing for me. Excepting The Lobster, Lanthimos's works seem obsessed with family dynamics, and he plays some interesting games with this family's perversions. Farrell's character's story about his father dovetails with his somnophilia, which seems to inspire the way his daughter offers herself to her object of affection. From Anna's medical past to Steven's alcoholism, these characters seem to have full lives that have been in motion long before the events of the story. But I kind of suspect I'm worshiping at the altar of auteurism, and I wouldn't have half the respect or patience I do for this film had I not known who made it. The dialogue and performances are purposefully flat and stilted, thus creating an off, eerie quality before we know why we should be unnerved. But what if the performances are just, you know, bad? The film also creates a premise that concludes in an inevitably unsatisfying way. I don't know what I would have done instead, but I'm not a genius filmmaker who gets the benefit of the doubt.

#film #lists #Movie Reviews

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spacepaladinranger · 7 years

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Encantadia: What they did right, and what they did wrong

The right things:

Worldbuilding. Encantadia is arguably one of Philippine TV’s most imaginative show. The sheer brilliance of its worldbuilding -- a perfect mix of fantasy and native mythology, is the core strength of this show. The amount of imagination and research, and the way these ideas are brought to life is what made this show so compelling for its viewers. I love that in this remake, they expanded the world of Encantadia and included new lores and myths that enhance our understanding of its characters.

Lira and Mira. Fated rivals turned into each others’ ride or die. I am living. This kind of friendship is so beautiful to watch because the actors’ (Mikee and Kate) natural charisma and skillful acting brought these characters to life. Lira and Mira were relatable. They made mistakes, but they learned from it. They were funny, but they were also serious when needed. They fought fiercely, but they also showed softness. Oftentimes we see friendships portrayed in Philippine television as lopsided -- there always one in a friendship that is perceived as the ‘sidekick’, but Lira and Mira were equals. They both blossomed and were each other’s support system.

Ybramihan. This is a controversial call because of the proverbial Alebarro pairing in the original series. But somehow, this remake just made this paring work. Ruru and Kylie’s chemistry is explosive and the more I watched them, the more I wanted Ybramihan to be endgame. Their love story was written poignantly, and with such subtlety that is very refreshing to see on Philippine television.

Cassiopea and Ether. Solenn was born to play this role. The way she portrayed Cassiopea as this complicated hero reminded me of a Greek myth. There is something very Greecian about her and the Bathalas and Bathalumans. The way they mold in, and actively take part in the shaping of the world of Encantadia is reminiscent of the way the Greek gods and goddesses interfere with the lives of the mortal heroes simply because they can and they want to. I live for that because they showed these divine beings as infallible and human.

The villains (well, most of them anyway). As I always said, any good vs bad story requires an amazing villain. Hagorn was the perfect antithesis to the Sang’gres. He was cunning, brutal, but also complex. He reminded me so much of Snape; a good character, but a bad person. Asval too was the quintessential villain -- backstabbing, dishonest, and self-serving. Andorra and Agane too were exceptionally loathsome villains.

The wrong things:

The format. Encantadia should have been a weekly series. The pressure to produce an episode 5 times a week is huge, and it showed in the show. Changing the format would have allowed them to refine certain plot points and edit the script, and also more time to prepare for it. The filler episodes (which is like every episode from Tuesday to Thursday tbh) were mostly bad, with a few exceptions.

Etheria. The Etheria arc ruined this show, period. Avria was a poorly-written villain. The time travel thing did not fit into the narrative of the story. There was no reason for Etheria to have been resurrected. The plotholes were too obvious and it seemed like everything were written haphazardly, with no clear direction.

Ariana and the sarkosi. Again, why was this on the show? It was literally pointless, narrative-wise. Ariana as a character was bland and one-dimensional, and the sarkosi bit was not explored enough.

Too many extra characters. They were obviously plot fillers and only existed out of convenience. The show could have exerted more effort in developing characters already there (Aquil, Muros, WANTUK, Wahid to name a few) instead of introducing us to characters that, like Ariana, did not enhance the narrative. Examples are Deshna, Amarro, Gilas, Azulan, Manik, and a whole lot more I could care less about.

Too much focus on moving the plot. Plot is important, I know, but if I were to choose between a good plot and good characters, I’d choose the latter. A good character in a badly written plot is still more watchable than a story with a good premise but botched characterization. The overall lack of character development for most characters made the show difficult to watch at times.

#encantadia

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sashayed · 7 years

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oh BOY! well. look. i know a lot of people really loved it and that is great. we are all different beautiful snowflakes and there’s no such thing as a Good movie because every movie’s “quality” is dependent on the circumstances of its viewer etc. AND maybe it depends on how much the original meant to you: every time a familiar line was delivered differently I winced, even if the delivery was good, because i love 1991 BATB so much and watched it so many times as a kid that it makes it hard for me to be objective. So if you didn’t feel that way about the real version, you might not be so harsh.

but haha, i H A T E D it.

Let’s start with the things I DID like, because there are not many of them and it will be easier!

Luke Evans KILLED IT as Gaston. He’s having a great time, has a voice, and can really communicate the combo of comic grossness, physical menace and real charisma that makes the original Gaston so effective. If I could have enjoyed any of the musical numbers (more on this Later), it would probably have been his.

Ian McKellen is a colossal value add to literally anything he’s in and this is no exception. It’s probably the only case in which the creepy, expressionless design of the objects (MORE ON THIS LATER!) actually is a plus, because all that richness and expression coming out of a lil beady eyed shoebox is hilarious.

I mean, Audra McDonald. Audra McDonald. Although I might have to say her staggering talent is actually a blow to the movie as a whole, because every scene she’s in magnifies the mediocrity of everyone else. They even make her sing a duet with autotune Emma Watson (MORE....ON THIS.......LATER), which is TRULY embarrassing to watch.

Did I mention what a relief it was to be attracted to Human Beast? A nice change from Damn U Glen Keane, What Are These Feelings U Made Me Have, I Was Only A Child Glen Keane.

haha. ahh

Whereas: I did not want ANYTHING sexually to do with CGI Beast, but how much I wanna F hockey hair Dan Stevens? Is a lot.

And I liked the new motivation for the enchantress -- having the prince be a spoiled party-boy Louis XIV asshole is a lot more satisfying than having him be an 11yo who doesn’t wanna let strangers into his house.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s face appears around the same time as Dan Stevens’, which was wonderful, but also terrible, because SHE WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT BELLE, although i understand she may not want to be typecast.

Okay. now. What did I hate about this movie? I would say what I hated about this movie was “all but about 7 minutes of it.” Like, I would almost need to see it again to hate it enough, because almost every single frame contained at least one thing that I hated.

I don’t love the trend of remaking animated movies into live action ones, which is why I never saw Maleficent or Cinderella, and why I should not have seen this movie, hahaha. The adaptation inevitably loses a lot of what feels in animation like magic: the dreamlike quality/suspension of disbelief vanishes and everything has to be overexplained.

So the expressive, graceful objects I loved in the 1991 movie become these awful, clunky Uncanny Valley creeps who cannot make expressions and whom you would not WANT to see making expressions even if they COULD, because you dont want to look at their unsettling faces. Like, Mrs. Potts. Don’t you love Mrs. Potts? Don;t you love Emma Thompson? Two great tastes that taste great together? NO, THEY DON’T, BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

SURE? “We just like doodled a face on there, that’s good enough right? God please let me sleep.” Every design choice in this movie is clearly thought through extensively and yet somehow manages to give the impression of having been turned in 5 minutes before deadline by a frantic, exhausted student who just wants to go home. “Be Our Guest” was just awful to watch. Like, if you gave a 4-year-old some literal candlesticks and had them act out the number by waving them around, they would give those candlesticks 9000x more soul and interest than several million dollars worth of CGI could do. There’s no showmanship. It takes 900 years.*

*which reminds me: when you adapt animation to live-action, the rhythm has to change simply to adapt to physical realities. What can be achieved in animation in a single line of music is going to require more time to do with actual people or CGI figures who have to look like they could belong in the same space with actual people. That means every number has to have ten extra measures of filler instrumentals, destroying the momentum of the songs and making them seem interminable. UGH! Terrible.

Anyway, the design choices ALSO give everything the objects do a new layer of like VISCERAL BODY HORROR. For instance, Stanley Tucci (completely squandered) plays a harpsichord whose keys?? are his teeth????? and during the Final Battle he’s shooting his keys like bullets at the villagers and I leaned over to my buddy and was like IS HE SHOOTING HIS TEETH??? LOL, PEW PEW. But then in the big reveal it becomes clear that HE DID!!!!! HE DID SHOOT HIS TEETH. WHAT????? All the objects turning from people-objects to dead-objects is also an incredibly fucked up scene which, if I were a child, would haunt me.

Speaking of which, this movie introduces like 9000 themes that are physically or emotionally AWFUL, but it doesn’t actually want to deal with them, so they just get thrown at us for 2 seconds and leave us gaping in confusion and horror.

Like: Gaston fought in The War. What War? The War. He had a great time in the War and now he has some kind of toxic PTSD where he can only be happy thinking about blood and “widows.” Why is this necessary? First of all, it’s fucked up. Why can’t he just be an asshole? He could just have been an asshole!! I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out what the fuck War this would even be, and then about whether “widows” was a veiled rape allusion, which obviously it wasn’t supposed to be, BUT YIKES!!!!

Or: The Beast’s mom died and then his horrible dad “shaped” him to be just like him. There is literally a 2 SECOND FLASHBACK of a child singing to his dying mother, and then it just whams back to the regular movie. WHAT THE FUCK? The Objects -- and the movie?? -- also now believe that they DESERVE to be cursed because they didn’t, like, intercede in this abusive relationship, which makes perfect sense, because if there’s one thing that always works it’s when the hired help interferes with royalty, I guess.

Or: Belle’s mom ALSO died, of The Plague, and the Beast has a magic book that takes her back to her babyhood garrett in Paris, so at first you think it’s like, oh, the book like....reconstructs her memories and allows her to share them with the Beast? It’s like a regressive therapy session but with magic? Sure. BUT NO!!!!! It turns out they ACTUALLY WENT TO PARIS PHYSICALLY and like, RETRIEVED OBJECTS FROM PARIS? ??? ???????? This never comes up again.

Also. Why would you cast people. Who cannot do. THE ONE THING they have to do??? FOR THE ENTIRE MOVIE???? Ewan McGregor is great, but he KNOWS he can’t do a French accent, so WHY IS HE CAST AS THE FRENCH ACCENT CHARACTER?? He sounds like your drunk cousin trying to do Steve Martin doing the Pink Panther.

Or, more egregiously: Belle. Like, i truly don’t hate Emma Watson. I think she is young and VERY famous and making some mistakes but doing her best. But the child cannot act. She can’t. She can make two expressions and they’re very lovely. She has great eyebrows and when she squints with them you really Feel her Determination. But she cannot communicate, say, Pain, or Wonder, or Humor, or Joy, all of which she is......called upon to communicate. AND she cannot sing???? Fine. Bring in somebody who can!!!! Pull an Audrey Hepburn/Julie Andrews!!!! THIS IS REGULAR PRACTICE! WE DO THIS ALL THE TIME!!!! DON’T JUST AUTOTUNE HER TALKING AND THEN EXPECT HER TO HOLD UP NEXT TO AUDRA MCDONALD!!!!!!!!! IT’S EMBARRASSING. I WAS EMBARRASSED FOR THIS ENTIRE MOVIE.

Anyway this is 90000 words long and BARELY SCRAPES THE SURFACE of how agonizing I found this movie to watch. BUT, as we were drinking and complaining about it afterwards, we got free tickets to the Caps game and I got to watch live hockey, which was 200x more emotionally involving and compelling than the movie, for the first time!!! So that’s good I guess.

#Things I Saw That I Hated #beauty and the beast #batb spoilers #***

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hentaihunblog-blog · 6 years

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Kino no Tabi Episode 12: Fields of Sheep [Final Impression]

New Post has been published on https://hentaihun.com/blog/2017/12/28/kino-no-tabi-episode-12-fields-of-sheep-final-impression/

Kino no Tabi Episode 12: Fields of Sheep [Final Impression]

W-what did they mean by this?

Impression

Okay. I am amused… yet confused. And also slightly scared. I’m already pretty wary of animals as it is, but I’ll never look at sheep in quite the same way now. What were they even going to do to Kino? If the country they came from provided them with enough food, the implication is that they’re not human-eating sheep, right? Meaning they were just bred and trained into locking onto and attacking whoever they saw? I have a feeling that the man who came before Kino thought that he’d be eaten (or at least that he’d die a horrible death) and so he killed himself to make things easier on him. They were very brave sheep, which was exactly what made them so scary. In hindsight, it was also a good idea for Kino to try to resolve the situation on her own instead of trying to get to the next country in order to ask for help. The animal rights protesters who put the sheep there in the first place would probably have gotten in the way of any attempts to kill the sheep, even on grounds of self-defence. Funny how they didn’t think ahead for a single moment as to whether releasing the sheep into the wild would cause trouble for others – whether they be travellers or even another country (if the sheep decided to migrate after running out of food). There was a nice irony in that country welcoming Kino in happily, all whilst having no idea that she’s actually their mass sheep murderer. Even if they find out from the next traveller who visits and asks about the decomposing sheep bodies just lying all over the place, it’ll be too late by then.

What I didn’t understand, though, was why the sheep don’t attack their fellow sheep. I’m not sure if there’s even any point in trying to think too deeply about this (it’s clearly meant to be a light-hearted story albeit with a twisted sense of humour) but if they were all trained up on other sheep, it’d make sense if they saw the rest of the flock as targets when they were first released into the wild. I guess they’re literal dumb animals – which I think is a first for this series, as the only other one we’re familiar with is the very fluffy Riku. I actually wouldn’t have been surprised if the sheep had started talking to Hermes once Kino had climbed down, especially since they seemed oddly intelligent from the way they passive-aggressively followed her up the ravine. Wouldn’t that have been a brilliant twist? This episode would have been titled Land of Sheep instead, as Kino stumbles upon a country inhabited by sentient sheep like something out of Gulliver’s Travels. That wouldn’t be too out of place in a world with talking dogs and motorrads, right? Kino is practically fantasy at this point.

Other than the loud sheep bleating, the main thing that will stay with me are the hilarious sheep physics that they were animated with as Kino mercilessly rammed into them with her car. Also the way two of them were just casually sleeping on Hermes as he lay there helplessly.

Overall Thoughts

A slightly bizarre final episode to end on, but by Land of Liars I pretty much knew what I was going to write here. Kino remains as intriguing and worthwhile a watch as it’s ever been, even in 2017. In hindsight, I didn’t have to worry too much in light of the way the Colosseum episode was animated – though it was definitely alarming at the time. They really milked Shizu as a character after that, so I can see why they wouldn’t want to waste too much time by devoting an extra episode to it. It was also a nice surprise to learn, week after week, that the 2017 series was actually animating lots of new stories – the vast majority were different, with only Episodes 2 (Colosseum), 10 (A Kind Land) and 11 (Land of Adults) being remakes from 2003. And that was pretty much the bare minimum, with Colosseum being necessary to introduce Shizu and Land of Adults giving Kino some context to her character. It’s even arguable that Episode 10 wasn’t absolutely needed – it was a wonderful remake, but it was essentially identical to 2003. So that leaves both the 2003 and 2017 series as largely different experiences that you can both enjoy with minimal overlap, which is the ideal outcome. They’re very different in atmosphere, and you can definitely see how anime as an industry has changed in the 14-year gap between both Kinos – the rise of CG for example is obvious (which, strangely, I personally got used to over time even though I’m not a fan of CG at all) and while episodes like In the Clouds had beautiful scenery, it just wasn’t the same compared to the quaint watercolour backgrounds that were commonly seen in mid-2000s anime like Aria, Haibane Renmei or of course the old Kino. Potato Kino is also adorable, and no one can convince me otherwise!

But both were good. They’re different, but both are sufficiently Kino to be enjoyable adaptations of Kino. In the same way, I’m sure that reading the manga or light novels would be a different sort of experience as well. If there’s anything I wanted more of, it’d be another Photo episode – one where she’s still travelling prior to having settled down and is still learning about living and the world around her. She can’t necessarily resolve conflicts in the same way Kino or Shizu can (i.e. by force) so that would have been an interesting situation to put her in. I also think Episode 1 (the Land of Permitted Murder) and Episode 9 (the one with multiple short stories) were probably the weakest overall, though that doesn’t mean I didn’t like them – just that they were relatively not as good as, say, Episode 5 (Land of Liars) or Episode 6 (In the Clouds) which were the two I’m definitely going to remember most from the new batch of episodes. Having those air from one week to the next was pretty intense.

Finally, I’m not sure whether Kino was hinting at a sequel in the final hammock scene at the end. She said a ‘sequel’ would start once she woke up, and she did wake up a minute or so later, but that’s way too vague to be anything like a subtle announcement for a sequel. Especially for something as niche as Kino, which is loved within its fanbase but hardly known outside of it – it took 14 whole years for this adaptation to air in the first place! If you want more, it’s probably best to settle with the light novels. I’ve never tried them, but I might pick it up given that my commute will be getting a lot longer from January onwards. A chapter or two every day would be nice.