#its releasing a lot earlier than i expected i keep getting ads for the english version on other social medias

[xinyuehui]

⸺ Once you go past 30,000 leagues, all is quiet in the deep. There will never be another Lemuria.

Love and Deepspace · Jan 18th 2024 Official Release

#恋与深空 #love and deepspace #love and deep space #qi yu #祁煜 #shen xinghui #沈星回 #li shen #黎深 #chinesemedia #chineseartistsinc #3d animation #caps #otome #otome game #paper games #chinese game #girlies wake up time to save the world once again with your new otome game!! #its releasing a lot earlier than i expected i keep getting ads for the english version on other social medias #and...it's still a gacha game lmao end me i have no words #这很难评 狗叠我祝你成功吧

[alln64games]

Chameleon Twist

NA release: 9th December 1997

JP release: 12th December 1997

PAL release: December 1997

Developer: Japan System Supply

Publisher: Sunsoft

N64 Magazine Score: 70%

While Chameleon Twist came out in America and Europe, I played a Japanese copy with an English translation patch. The western versions seem to be based on an earlier build, perhaps sent off to the localisation teams before the game was fully ready. The Japanese version has some more challenging rooms (for example, the screenshot above is just an empty room with collectables in the other versions), the multiplayer powerups added into the main game and some unlockable characters.

The story is pretty much non-existent. A regular chameleon sees the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland jumping into a pot and decides to follow, turning into the big headed thing in the game. From there, you go through the levels, killing everything in your path.

When you start the game, you’ll test out the moves. The tongue is very impressive as you can move it as it extends. I was expecting lots of puzzle use with it, but unfortunately the game isn’t very inventive.

The tongue is used for four moves. The first lets you swallow enemies to spit them out as bullets Then you can latch onto poles, from there, you can pull yourself towards it or spin around. Finally, you can push yourself upwards for a high jump that’s very awkward to use. You don’t gain any extra abilities and it doesn’t have the usage of Mario’s move set to keep itself interesting across the game.

Being able to move the tongue seems more like something added just to combat the terrible aiming in the game.

The biggest difficulty in Chameleon Twist is the camera. Moving it twists it in really strange ways and it’s very difficult to judge jumps and to target where you’re shooting. The game itself is quite simple – especially due to how few moves you have – although to get the boss rush mode, you have to find lots of the crowns hidden throughout the levels.

Chameleon Twist is a nice start for a game. The game needs a bit more variety and a much better camera – hopefully these are fixed in the sequel.

Ocean reckon that Chameleon Twist is aimed at ‘the younger player’, but we know children of five who can complete Super Mario 64. Chameleon Twist is not only too short, but at its hardest it’s never more than mildly taxing.

- Jonathan Davies, N64 Magazine #10

Remake or Remaster?

An enhanced collection of the two games would be nice.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Chameleon Twist

#n64 #n64 games #nintendo 64 #platformer #3d platformer #retro games

[rivalsforlife]

AA7 Speculation Post: One Year Later

here we go again.

A year and a day ago, I made a speculation post about if/when we’d ever be seeing AA7. Obviously, my claim that AA7 would be announced in September 2020 did not turn out to be true, but later that year we did get a leaked calendar containing information on the new ports for Chronicles, and also plans for a new aa7, which I summarized in this post.

Now that we have Chronicles we can verify that the leaks contained legitimate information (as if a statement from Capcom saying they were hacked wasn’t legitimate enough). So that leaves us with one key question: is AA7 still happening? If so, when can we expect it? As well, what other information from the leaked calendar can we consider, especially with early sales data on Chronicles? In addition, what are the implications of this new survey on Chronicles from Capcom?

All of that will be discussed under the cut so that this doesn’t take up too much space.

Revisiting The Calendar

Once again, here is a rough translation of the calendar that was present in the leaks:

As a note, in this post, I’ll be referring to our new games as “Chronicles” to prevent this from being blocked by people avoiding spoilers.

So: this original calendar, generated before the pandemic, had Chronicles releasing in Q1 of FY2021 - and it’s also important to note that in Japan, each fiscal year starts in April 1st, so FY2021 is actually April-June 2021. This shows that Chronicles was pushed back about a quarter from their expected release date. However, Chronicles was a port of already existing games, therefore somewhat less work was needed on them - upscaling models and textures, adding in some new features like autoplay and story mode, and of course, the English translation and voicework were needed, which is still a lot of course, but less compared to development on an entirely new game. In addition to that, the pandemic hit AA7 in its early development stage, assuming this schedule was still being followed by the time the pandemic hit. That could cause more delays than expected.

So the original plan was for AA7 to be released in Q3 of 2021, which corresponds to October-December, aligning with the 20th anniversary of the series in October. While it’s a desirable goal, it’s quite likely the pandemic pushed it back at least a quarter, if not more, if not cancelled it entirely. ... haha.

We’ll only know the fate of AA7 for certain when it’s announced. Which it is possible it may never be. However, I have two theories for, if AA7 is getting an announcement, when it will be:

1) Sometime during September 2021, either in the leadup to or during Tokyo Game Show this year. These are for the same reasons as I outlined in my initial speculation post. It’s a popular time for Ace Attorney game announcements, after all. TGS, according to what I can find, will be held online this year from September 30th to October 3rd. If Capcom announces AA7 earlier in September through Famitsu, like they did with AA6 for example, then we can expect to get some information during TGS... 

2) Sometime during a 20th Anniversary Event, possibly in October 2021. I’m assuming AA is planning something for the 20th anniversary - Chronicles wasn’t really marketed as a 20th anniversary release, for instance. If they can’t release a new game for the 20th anniversary (which at this rate, seems unlikely, as we’re about two months out from that with no word about it) then an announcement would be just as good at generating hype for it.

Naturally, if we reach this time next year with absolutely no news on AA7, it’s probably safe to say it’s been cancelled or at least delayed so severely that anything we currently know about it isn’t worth much.

There’s one more point of interest on the calendar: reconsidering the porting of 456. I feel that this depends heavily on how well the Chronicles ports are doing; if it’s not financially viable to keep porting games, then why bother? So, let’s take a look at that.

The Success of Chronicles

As I write this, it’s about two and a half weeks since the release of Chronicles worldwide. So... how did the games do? It’s a bit hard to tell, especially as I am not a game marketer and don’t know the expectations for Chronicles. What is obvious is that, if Chronicles does much better than expected, porting 456 and possibly even the investigations games seems likely. (If Chronicles, indeed, does especially well in the West, than a porting of the investigations games and localization of investigations 2 after ten years could very well be possible.) If Chronicles does absolutely terribly, it damages the chances of porting, and possibly of continuing the series. If it does terribly especially in the West, where the games are essentially new, it could damage the chances of any new games being localized at all.

So, a lot is riding on this, and I don’t know enough to tell how well it did. Here’s what I have found, however:

Nintendo Enthusiast reports on Famitsu sales of Switch games, and overall thinks it’s not doing so great. Chronicles ranks third on the list of Switch sales in its first week, with 14,460 units sold, over 4000 less than NEO: The World Ends With You, which was released on July 27th. Keep in mind that Chronicles was released in Japan on July 29th, which is two days later, and that these are only Japanese sales (where they’ve had Chronicles for years on both mobile and 3DS) and only Switch sales, where NEO:TWEWY is currently only available on Switch and PS4 (Chronicles has the additional platform of Steam, where there could be many more sales). In the next week, Chronicles ranked 22 overall, with NEO:TWEWY at 23, though of course they’re still a little less than 4000 units behind NEO:TWEWY overall. Slightly closing the gap, I guess.  

How about overseas data, then? ... It’s hard to tell. I can find this report from gamespot which discusses the top 20 games sold in the US in July, and Chronicles is not on the list, while NEO:TWEWY is at 16. However, they don’t give any number for the units sold, and it seems that they aren’t considering digital sales for a lot of them, so it’s hard to tell how much of a hit that is.

However, let’s go back to Japanese sales for a bit, and look at the 2019 Trilogy re-release for a comparison against Chronicles. Allegedly, combined Switch and PS4 sales in the first week of the trilogy’s release only amounted to about 8000 units, a little more than half that of Chronicles’ Switch sales. It’s also important to note that the 2019 trilogy ended up being the only ace attorney game to sell over a million copies. Ace Attorney is not a big series; I’m sure Capcom takes this into account when considering sales data, especially for ports. If Chronicles does end up doing better than the trilogy overall, it’s definitely looking good for ports and especially so for Chronicles.

However, there’s more to this than just sales data.

The Survey

Capcom now has a user survey for Chronicles, which you can answer even if you’re partway through the first game. I believe it’s only open until September 30 2021, so if you think you can finish the game before then, I’d recommend filling it out once you’re done so that you can give the best feedback.

It asks you a bunch of questions like what platform you bought it on, why you bought it, your expectations, and all sorts of detailed questions on the various mechanics, difficulty and enjoyment of the trials and investigations, satisfaction of visuals, plot, characters, music, and even free response sections for what you liked and disliked about the game. It’s a very detailed survey that’s pretty long but I think is worth filling out. At the end they ask you to fill out some demographic questions (such as age, gender (male, female, other), country, what kind of things you like to spend money on, and what kind of games you like, what platforms you have to play games on). But what’s possibly the most interesting question is this:

“If a new [Chronicles] game is released in the future, do you think you would buy it?”

This means that, depending on the answers to the survey, they could very well decide to work on a third game to Chronicles.

This has huge implications for the future of the series. I’ll probably make a separate post on plot-related stuff later, but for now... let’s talk about logistics.

In my initial AA7 speculation post I said I highly doubted that they would ever make another Chronicles game. I also said that they probably never would be localized, so, guess who’s a clown now. 

Right now the AA series is in a bit of a dry period, with no new games having been released in the last four years. As well, with Yamazaki (the director of the investigations games and AA5/6) having left Capcom, the next director of the mainline games is completely unknown. As described in this video, the main reason Chronicles ever came about was because Capcom went ahead with mainline AA5 before Takumi could come back from the Layton crossover. Now, since 2017, we don’t really know what Takumi is working on. It’s possible he’s gone back to mainline to work on AA7 (though of course, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that he has, so definitely don’t take that as any sort of confirmation).

However, if we do get a Chronicles 3, it’s quite likely Takumi would return to work on that, as he directed the previous two games. In addition, if Chronicles ends up being such a success to completely eclipse mainline (from what I’ve heard, though I have no serious proof, Resolve is considered as highly rated as T&T by many Japanese fans) then the series could permanently go down the road of writing more Chronicles games, leaving mainline stagnant (which, let’s be real, it’s already stagnating). The success of that is uncertain considering how neatly our current Chronicles duology wraps up, but... we’ll have to see how things unfold in the future.

For now, I highly recommend filling out the survey to give your input to the series’ future directions. Maybe mention that you want localized investigations 2 somewhere in the free response section because uhh I forgot to do it in mine. do that for me.

TL;DR

Main takeaways from this post are:

- I personally expect an AA7 announcement either during TGS or a 20th anniversary event

- If Chronicles does extremely well, then 456 ports are likely to happen, and I personally speculate investigations ports (along with localized investigations 2) will as well.

- Fill out this Chronicles survey before September 30th to give your input on the games and possibly the future direction of the series. I recommend completing the games before you do, but if you think you won’t before September 30th, you can fill it out at any time.

- We Very Well May Get Another Chronicles Game. Who saw that coming. Not me.

Thanks if you read through all of this, let’s hope September/October doesn’t leave me looking like a fool again.

#aa7 speculation #my posts #ace attorney

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: January 28th, 2021 (Part 2)

Here we’ve got asks that aren’t to ask a question but are just really nice messages. Thank you all for sending us such kind comments ;v;. It’s seriously heartwarming to see so many people having good experiences with the game. I don’t even know what to say to such sweet responses.

We’ll keep doing our best and thank you again to each and every one of you for giving Our Life a chance ❤!

Hello! I've been following this account and have been following the development of 'Our Life' for a few months now, and I just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work and dedication you have put into the game. It astonishes me how much choice you have during the sequence of Our Life and am excited to play the full version now, I am downloading it as I write this message. I've had a great time seeing the demo transition into to the full game and just wanted to write two words. Thank you.

Anhhhhffbgdfbhujk!!! Congratulations on the release, I’m playing the game right now! Thank you all for your hard work and I can’t wait for the Step 3 DLC to come out, I’ll probably wait for the Step 3 DLC to come out to experience everything, but until then, I still have a lot to play. Thank you once again!

finished my first playthrough just now. it just felt so wholesome ??? 100/10 would do it again. i laughed. i cried. i got angry. i felt second-hand embrassment— i got so into it i was left in literal tears after getting my first ending. the art, the storyline, the music, and COVE HOLDEN– UGH IT WAS LITERAL PERFECTION ❤ THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT. THANK YOU FOR MAKING SUCH AN AMAZING GAME 🥺😭 this made my 2020 better, i can't wait for step 4 in 2021 ❤❤

So I was following you guys on itchio for years and uhh did I stay up til 6 am on a school night to finish the game? Yes. Did I sob my eyes out during step 3 as a 20 year old having doubts about life and adulthood? Absolutely. I can't form proper sentences right now due to lack of sleep but just wanted to say thank you for making it. I honestly feel lighter and I feel like it changed my views on future to be more optimistic... I can't wait to replay it! Thanks again!

I love how Our Life turned out!! I keep replaying it and can't stop squeaking and giggling!! Thank You for creating it ♥

okay i have actually fallen in love with cove and cannot WAIT to marry him 😭

Hi! I played through 'Our Life' yesterday and  I just wanna say how refreshing it was to be able to have Cove be 'high initiative' and also have so many opportunities to initiate affection from the player character! As a pretty flirtatious/affectionate person myself, I notice that a lot of VNs don't give players that agency, and affection can be kinda 'carrot on a stick' if that makes sense. You guys did an awesome job! I look forward to seeing if there are more of those moments in Step 3 & 4 :)

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the option to choose Cove's level of initiative in step 3! As much I love the option to choose I personally enjoy have the romanced character take the lead without my input so when I got to step 3 and had to option to make it so that Cove initiated affection without as much input from me I was really happy! You guys seriously added so much freedom in terms of choices, it's almost baffling that the only thing you have to pay for is optional DLC!

I absolutely loved everything about the game and I really want congratulate the team for making the game such a satisfying experience.

I look forward to step 4

❤️❤️❤️❤️

* and sorry for my bad English

Just finished my first play through and I loved it! I've been looking forward to the game and it definitely was worth the wait. Thank you all for your hard work and can't wait for the extra dlc!

Till then, hope you guys gets some well deserved rest🤗

Love you guys, thank you so much for your hard work. :)

Ok, so I just finished Our Life and, wow. I have never cried at a video game before, ever. Thank you so, so much! Its one of my favorites.

this isn't a question, but i just wanted to say how much i enjoyed our life 🥺 i've been patiently looking forward to the full game for a few months now, and i couldn't be happier with it! i've only played through it once so far but the outcomes of the choices i made were all so soft and wholesome 💗 i can tell that everyone who was involved really worked hard and you all did an incredible job! i can't wait to see what else is in store 👍

i’d just like to say how addictive our life is!!! i constantly played it during quarantine and now playing the full release is so amazing to me!! i love that i’m still discovering dialogue bits with different personalities and actions!!! i have to admit that i’ve been wishing the day to pass faster all day during school so i could go home and play again. mentally i’m not the healthiest and our life being released has boosted it up so much, thank you for creating such an amazing game!!!!!

Hey, I just wanna say I played our life two times and it still give me the same feelings. I was really looking forward to this game before it came out and I kept on replaying the demo. This game is such an amazing experience and I feel so happy playing it. I am not really a person good with words unfortunately but I do honestly love this more than anything in the world. Thank you for making it and I hope that you will continue to make more games like our life. This game really makes me happy and I can't thank you enough

Just wanted to say that Our Life really made me feel seen as an 18 year old trans man who's been struggling with change as of late and I can't thank you guys enough for it. I just finished the main story and currently released DLC's and gosh, I can really only say... woah. Just, woah. The messages are somehow exactly what I needed to hear right now, and they brought me a lot of comfort in this really weird and confusing time in my life. Can't wait to see what comes next in this lovely story <3

I am honestly in love with Our Life. The graphics, the soundtrack its just *chef's kiss* It was so worth the wait for it. I can't wait for step 4. Keep up the good work GB Patch!

good people i have just finished Our Life and let me say, it was beautiful. rarely have such non-fantastical moments (and even some fantastical moments) brought me to tears like this game has, and i don't even have the dlc (yet). i don't know how you did it but it felt like i was playing a slice of life anime. i had waited with baited breath to play this since i played the demo and my expectations were not just met but surpassed. from the bottom of my heart thank you for this game

I found the game by chance and I am so so glad I did. It’s so inclusive and made me feel so incredibly seen. Seeing that my gender identity and sexuality were possible just meant the absolute world to me. I’ve never seen something like this and it just made me so incredibly happy. Thank you for the absolutely amazing game and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Hello! I downloaded Our life earlier this week and I'm only now getting the chance to play it (Very busy and stressful week) I'm so excited to play and I wanna say thank you for making this adorable game!

I just finished my first playthrough of Our Life and I can't even express how much I love it. Cove is absolutely precious and has killed me several times, and the art and soundtrack is beautiful. I love all the small different choices. I'm very interested in the Derek and Baxter DLCs and the rest, can't wait!!!!!!

thank you for "Our Life Beginnings & Always" it has to be one of the best visual novels i ever have played and i just dont want it to end (i know it will, but damn it! i want to have a wedding night, have children and die of old age with cole! XD) when i play it it always makes me tear up (in a good way) and i am most definetly going to buy all the dlc that you make! thank you for this lovely game and all the work that went into it! (ps: i also loved "lake of voices" )

You guys are incredibly talented and im very proud of you all! You've really outdone yourselves w/ OL and i cant wait to see whats next to come for you all :)

i really love that you can be trans in Our Life! not a lot of games do that so i just wanted to say thank you!

Guuyyss!! I just wanna say! Thank you sm for the headscarf option in the MC creator! I especially loved that little detail where MC quickly slips the headscarf on before greeting Cove, I've never felt so immersed :'D Not that the rest of the game wasn't immersive btw, but since I wear my hijab most of the time that little addition really felt like something I would do! So thank you for that <3

I've been watching "Our Life: Beginnings & Always" development for quite some time, and I gotta say its wild to see it finally release. Its so unique in the way relationships work- even character creation. I've cried multiple times over this game while playing. I can't thank y'all enough for a game with these kind of mechanics, and representation. its rare I get to feel im really playing as myself in games like these. Everyones outdone themselves. this'll certainly be one I keep coming back to.

I've been following the development of Our Life from way back when the first demo dropped and it still blows my mind how many choices and customizations there are (love that update for the MC's bedroom btw!) and the fact that the game remembers them - it really feels like your very own coming of age story! I was so immersed I cried at the end :') Can't believe I experienced this game for free lol. I can't wait for future DLCs and Step 4! Good luck with all your upcoming projects dev team!!

Just wanted to say I love Our Life and I'm thankful it exists. Thank you so much! I love the little world you created and all the people in it. Especially Cove! This game makes me so happy!

Just poping in to say hi and that ilu guys ^^, remember to take care of yourselves!

Hi!! I just wanna thank you for creating such an amazing game. Our Life is one of the few dating sims I’ve found that let’s me be a male mc, it’s really hard to find dating sims that let me be gay. Our Life is my new favorite dating sim to just sit down and playthrough whenever I’m having a bad day so I just wanted to let y’all know how much I appreciate all you’ve done. 🤍

Fan from australia here

Just wanted to reach out and let you know how important this game has been to me. I came across it at a really rough time ( that I’m still going through ) and it’s been one of the things that’s driven me to get up and out of bed sometimes.

This game and cove both hold a very special place in my heart and I can’t wait to see more of him in the DLC and Step 4

Much love ♥️

I know this isnt exactly the main focus of the game, but i really love how we can customise the mc personality wise! This is the first time i've played a game like this where the mc actually does and says exactly what I would do and say in certain situations and its such a breath of fresh air!! It's also so cool how the other characters can pick up on it!!

Cove Holden saved 2020 (my 2020 anyways) I would die for him

Sorry for this being out of the blue, but after playing through Our Life I wanted to thank you for the experience. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that has made me cry happy tears TWICE lol. It’s beautiful, scenic, inclusive, and absolutely amazing..have a great rest of 2020 and I honestly cannot wait for the rest of it :,) (ps. The ending song is stuck in my head)

I think you guys might've ruined visual novels for me forever. I'm not sure I'll be able to play another without comparing it to Our Life and I know if I do that I'll be disappointed every time because of how amazing it is. I bought the DLCs before playing the base game it's one of the best impulsive purchases I've ever made

Thank you so much for making our life! It's my favorite visual novel ever and I just can't articulate how much being able to just be honest with my responses instead of going for whatever would make the love interest happy means to me? I reccomended it to evry friend I have that plays visual novels because this is the best one I've ever played!

Just wanted to say that I absolutely adore this game! The childhood friends tropes is my favorite thing and this game delivers! Cove is the sweetest thing, infact all the boys are good boys. Super excited for all upcoming dlcs!

Hi, I just want to thank you for making such an amazing game like Our Life. Tbh, I was following the game’s development for a while, but me and my family moved away from my childhood town just a few days before release, so I really connected to this game. You all did amazing!

hey just wanted to know that i completely loved ol: b&a and it was so good and love cove more than i’ve liked any fictional character, it’s now my comfort media. thank you so much

hi i just wanna say i really enjoyed all of the representation in our life b&a! there were characters with a lot of different body shapes, pic characters, lgbtq+ characters, and you get to choose your own pronouns and sexuality!!! so tysm!!

This isn't a question, I just wanted to say that Our Life is incredible. Ever since I finished it, I've been looking for other visual novels to play so I don't play OL so often that I start memorizing the lines before all the DLC comes out, but I keep coming back to it. It's really one of a kind, I think you all ruined other visual novels for me because I haven't enjoyed another VN like I have this one since I read it ❤.

i think our life b&a is the first game where i felt like cove loved me, not the character i play as which is really nice for someone with kinda low self esteem so THANK YOU

I’ve been playing Our Life practically nonstop since yesterday. I just want everyone who worked on it to know how much the LGBTQ inclusivity means to me. As a closeted trans ace guy in an unsupportive household, I can’t emphasize how much of a comfort this game has been to me. Everything about it is so wholesome and heartfelt. I’m excited to see what other games you make in the future 💙

- A demibiromantic ace transgender man who may or may not have cried over the option to be myself in a game for the first time ever

Csn i just say i really appreciate how you handled MC deciding to use they/them at different stages. Mainly because alot of games don't pay much attention to the body the mc was assigned at birth if they player chooses nonbinary like it does with male/female. And it was just nice to be able to play an mc who just thought gender was kinda 'meh' for them but still felt good about the body they were born with (like myself). I guesd it boils down I'm really appreciative of the hard work it must've taken for you to make all those options possible & still have them matter.

I just wanted to thank you all for Our Life. My mental health hasn't been in a good place recently and it has become my favorite form of escapism/way to cheer up. It's idyllic setting and fantastic characters are such a good way to wind down, I love it. Also, I've been dreading 2021 due to classes starting and general stress, but the DLC and your next project have given me something to actually look forward to :). I'm so excited for them and now I actually have a reason to be happy that it's 2021. Sorry if this message is a bit weird, I just wanted to thank the team for their hard work and for creating something so incredible <3

I've gotta say this is one of the most repayable games I've ever played, if not the most. Usually after i do a playthrough or two of a game i have to wait awhile before playing again otherwise it feels stale. But i haven't had that problem with our life because of the sheer ammount of player agency. Everyone who works on tbe game should feel incredibly proud of themselves because you've created something amazing.

I just wanted to say thank you for Our Life. I'm sure you get this a lot, but it really pulled me out of a mentally tough spot in my life. So thank you.

who needs therapy when you have our life: beginnings and always? haha no but seriously this game is my comfort game, and even though i can’t join your patreon at the moment please know i am always supporting you and i am so excited to see everything you have in store! everyone who works on the games is so so talented

All DLCs have nice content. 😡😡

And I love them all!!💗💗💗💖💖💖💕💕💕

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #ourlifeba #ask #gb patch #gb patch games

[commentaryvorg]

Digimon Data Squad Dub Comparison Episode 1 - There Are Monsters Among Us!

This is a companion to my commentary on the original Japanese Digimon Savers! Reading my commentary on the original version of this episode (which you can find here) is recommended before reading this dub comparison.

Original name ~ Dubbed name

Masaru Daimon ~ Marcus Damon

Yoshino Fujieda ~ Yoshino “Yoshi” Fujieda

Captain Rentarou Satsuma ~ Commander Richard Sampson

[Since several characters share the same name between the original and the dub, quotes from the dub will always be in italics, while quotes from the original will not, in order to distinguish them.]

First off, can we talk about the characters’ dub names? The dub doesn’t actively draw attention to its setting much (but then again neither does the original, really), but it also does not change the fact that this is taking place in Japan and these characters are actually Japanese, despite that we’re hearing them speak English. Some of them keep their Japanese names, too, even if maybe they have slight shortenings of them to be easier for a Western audience to remember. But then some characters’ names are randomly changed to completely English ones, even though these characters are apparently still meant to be Japanese and living in Japan. It’s just strange – if they’re okay with keeping some of the Japanese names, why not keep all of them?

(Honestly, despite my complaints, I am kind of a little glad that they changed Masaru’s name in the dub, because Marcus comes across somewhat of a different character to Masaru for reasons I will be discussing at length. In that sense, it’s convenient to have different names to differentiate them by.)

Kudamon:  “He’s a renegade to begin with. We have no choice but to dispose of him.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “The target is a renegade. We must catch him before he gets out.”

This is actually more reasonable than what Kudamon says here in the original.

Satsuma:  “The only ones who can keep Digimon under control… are Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Only a high-level DATS agent can capture a Digimon.”

The original version of this line was already awkwardly expositiony, sure, but this one just doesn’t make as much sense. The point is not that Yoshi is a high level DATS agent, but that she has a Digimon partner.

The dub completely replaces the original’s soundtrack. I did a shoutout to the BGM here in the original, and I also want to do a BGM shoutout here in the dub! This piece here is very different sounding from Provocation Infinity but still gives a similar sort of actiony gung-ho feel appropriate for Marcus and Agumon being fighty dorks, and I like it. It’s used often enough in moments like this such that it’s the only dub theme aside from the evolution theme that I’ve become able to pick out and recognise the melody of, even though this is only my second time watching the dub. Though I don’t know what the dub soundtrack’s titles are (actually, after having a look, it seems like the dub OST was never released, so nobody does), I like to think that this one is probably Marcus’s theme based on the moments its used in, so I’m going to be calling it Probably Marcus’s Theme.

Marcus: “This is my training ground!”

This park is apparently specifically his “training ground”, even though it’s just an ordinary park that anyone can visit. Um, okay? (More on this at the end of this episode.)

Masaru:  “I’m the number one street fighter in Japan, Daimon Masaru-sama!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “One day, I’m gonna be a champion ultimate fighter!”

They’ve changed “street fighter” to “ultimate fighter”, which, okay, makes him come across a bit less like a delinquent, fair enough. But a noteworthy difference is that he’s only trying to be the best ultimate fighter. Masaru, on the other hand, feels like he already is Japan’s number one street fighter. This change still sounds fine and in-character enough on the surface, but it’s a meaningful distinction that will become quite relevant further in as we get more into Masaru’s character, so keep this in mind.

Marcus: “Fans all over will chant my name! They’ll say, ‘Marcus Damon is the best!’”

I get that what the dubbers are going for here is something equivalent in spirit to Masaru using -sama on himself. But there’s other, simpler ways to do that – just have him call himself “the great Marcus Damon”, or something like that.

As it is, what they’ve done here is make it seem like, apparently, Marcus has fans, or at least he wants to have fans. Which is not even remotely the point of his fighting thing in the original, nor will it be in the dub, either. He’s not doing this for recognition from others; this is something he’s doing entirely for himself.

Yoshi: “Raptor-1 can talk…?”

This was not a thing implied in the original – that apparently, Yoshi (and presumably therefore everyone else at DATS) hadn’t even heard Agumon talk until now. I guess they’re going for giving more of an explanation as to why DATS treated him like a monster, but I find it difficult to buy that Agumon really wouldn’t have said at least some stuff while trapped at DATS HQ. (“I’m hungry,” if nothing else, right?)

Lalamon: “Yoshi, he’ll destroy the human!”

Oh, boy. This is one of those English dubs that refuses to directly acknowledge the concept of death because apparently the poor kiddies can’t handle that or something. I will attempt to not rag on it every time it does so – only because that’d get really boringly repetitive – but I will be talking about it a lot in future episodes when death becomes quite a story-important thing that is happening.

For now, let’s just point out that it sounds really silly to talk like a human can be “destroyed”. There’s plenty of other ways to get across that Agumon is dangerous without directly referencing death that would sound more natural.

Marcus: “Then I’ll knock you out like I did these guys!”

Masaru did not mention the fact that he was responsible for beating up all the dudes this early on. I guess here in the dub, Yoshi just isn’t paying proper attention, because she’s going to continue to assume it was Agumon who hurt all the students.

Kudamon:  “He’s too dangerous.”

~~~~~

Kudamon:  “We cannot let this escalate.”

I am sad that the dub lost the fun “who’s too dangerous?” double meaning of Kudamon’s original line.

Yoshino:  “Hey, you! Get away from him! You’ll only lose if you fight him!”

Masaru:  “Huh? This isn’t about win or lose! This is about fighting man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “You can’t fight that creature! He’s too dangerous!”

Marcus: “Huh? Look, toots, I’m the dangerous fighter here! And I don’t need any babysitter to hold my hand!”

We really, really did not need Marcus being vaguely misogynistic by calling Yoshi “toots”, or by implying that she’s nothing but a babysitter. We really didn’t.

This also replaces Masaru’s original line that has that fun aspect of him not even caring about winning and just wanting to have a good challenging fight with a worthy opponent, so we lose that, too.

(Though, ignoring the misogyny, I do enjoy Marcus responding to “he’s too dangerous!” with “hey, I’m dangerous”.)

Agumon:  “Yeah! It’s man-to-man!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That’s right! This is between him and me!”

Agumon then also isn’t able to agree about this being man-to-man, and this just becomes a less interestingly nuanced “stay out of our fight”, rather than really about the kind of fight they want to have.

Masaru:  “Got it? Now stay out of this!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “This is a fight between men, so stay out of it!”

Having removed Masaru’s reference to men a few lines earlier, the dub does something which is going to be extremely rare by its standards and actually adds in a reference to men here. …Unfortunately, because they’d also added in Marcus’s random misogynistic lines earlier, this comes across much more like it’s about gender, and he’s just essentially saying “we don’t want any girls in our fight”. Which, no. Masaru talking about manliness is never actually that much about gender at all, despite the word he uses.

Masaru:  “I see you’re pretty brave.”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “I dunno what you are, but you’re goin’ down!”

We lose the sense of Masaru having respect for Agumon challenging him in place of some basic I’m-better-than-you trash talk. And this also adds in Marcus calling Agumon a what, rather than a who, indicating that apparently Marcus is paying some attention to Agumon’s species and is seeing him, at least a little, as not quite worthy of the same respect as a human.

After their big cross-counter…

Agumon:  “I wasn’t ready. But you won’t get me this time!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Hey! I wasn’t ready! I was waitin’ for you to say, ‘One, two, three, go!’”

The dubbers completely missed the point of the original, “I wasn’t ready.” Original-Agumon’s line comes across as “I wasn’t expecting you to be that strong, but now I’ve got the measure of you”, like he’s gained more respect for Masaru’s strength. Meanwhile dub-Agumon is just whining and acting like Marcus totally cheated rather than acknowledging his unexpected strength.

Agumon kicking Marcus in the crotch is cut, replaced with a rather cheesy-looking comic book POW sort of effect across the whole screen.

There’s a cute acoustic guitar BGM here for their bonding moment that I like, especially after recognising its melody and realising that this is a variation on Probably Marcus’s Theme! That seems very appropriate.

Agumon: “You’re… pretty good… for a human.”

Geez, what a backhanded compliment. Apparently dub-Agumon still sees Marcus as below him simply because he’s human, rather than fully acknowledging his strength regardless of species.

Agumon: “Let’s call it a draw.”

This line fills a silence, stating something that was already perfectly well implied in the first place by the fact that they’re no longer fighting and yet there’s no clear winner. It shouldn’t need to be said. In fact, it makes it seem a lot more like this fight really was just about winning or losing to both of them, when in the original that was never the point.

Rather than “Aniki”, which, okay, works fine in subs but can’t really be kept in a proper official English dub, Agumon calls Marcus “Boss”. I guess this is acceptable, but I feel like it would have been better for them to lean into the “big brother” meaning of aniki, rather than the “boss” one, for reasons I will be grumbling about a lot.

Masaru:  “Aniki?”

Agumon:  “Yeah. You’re the first person to acknowledge me as a full-fledged individual, Aniki.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Boss?”

Agumon: “Yeah. Y’see, you’re the only guy who’s ever matched me blow-for-blow in a fight before.”

So, in this version, Agumon gaining respect for Marcus has absolutely nothing to do with Marcus treating him like a person. It’s just because of his strength, nothing else. Way to lose that really fun little bit of nuance and character depth on both sides.

(Also, what does Agumon even mean, “before”? It’s not like he’d have been able to have proper fights that weren’t just defending himself while trying to escape until now.)

Agumon:  “That’s why, from now on, I’ll be your follower!”

~~~~~

Agumon: “That makes you the boss. From now on, you give the orders and I’ll faithfully follow!”

Matching Agumon in a fight shouldn’t really suddenly make Marcus the boss who gets to order him around, should it? Plus, here’s Agumon explicitly saying Marcus can give him orders, which was not at all part of the arrangement originally. This whole thing has such a different tone to “you treated me like a person when nobody else did, so now I look up to you and will be loyal to you.”

Marcus:  “I never thought one day that I’d have an employee that’s as funny-lookin’ as you are.”

Oh, boy. Meanwhile, instead of “follower”, we have… employee. That is even more completely missing the point of the aniki-and-follower relationship of the original. If they didn’t like the gang connotations of “boss”, maybe they should have gone for “big bro” instead, perhaps? But no, they just doubled down on the “boss” in a totally different and inappropriate direction. Marcus has apparently just started up a small business.

The heartwarming BGM gets a record scratch as Yoshi reminds them she’s still there. I admit, it made me chuckle.

Yoshi: “So, are you gonna come quietly, or do I have to use force?”

Marcus: “Who’s she talkin’ to, you or me?”

I do enjoy this – a little implication that Marcus has some experience with being treated in a similar way, perhaps by the regular police.

Masaru:  “It’s the aniki’s job to look after his follower. I’m not handing him over to you!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “I’ve never had an employee before, and I’m not turning my only one over to you!”

Instead of Masaru doing this out of feeling like it’s an aniki’s responsibility, Marcus is making it about himself. He doesn’t want to lose his new and only employee. Like Agumon’s just a possession of his now. Nothing about how this is something that should be expected of him as a boss.

Later, at the tower, as Agumon asks Marcus to help him evade DATS:

Marcus: “What am I getting myself into this time?”

I enjoy this too. More implications that Marcus is used to getting himself into all sorts of Trouble.

Agumon: “I’m starved!”

Marcus: “Well, suck it up and act like a real man!”

Again with the dub adding in references to manliness that weren’t there originally, as if Marcus actually has a concept of manliness that will continue to be a running theme. Haha, I wish. Get ready for me complaining about the exact opposite of this in basically every other dub episode.

Agumon: “I’m a growing boy!”

How does Agumon even know this phrase? This is an entirely human concept. Dub Agumon will be doing a lot of this, awkwardly invoking human ideas that he shouldn’t have any conception of.

Yoshi: “Yum. I love chocolate pudding – it reminds me of being a little kid again!”

Yoshino’s coffee jelly gets localised into chocolate pudding, because I guess coffee jelly is more of a Japanese thing that Westerners might be unfamiliar with? I enjoy the added detail that it reminds her of being a kid and that’s why she likes it.

Masaru:  “I don’t know anyone by that name!”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “I have no idea who this ‘Raptor-1’ is!”

Marcus’s line loses the technically-not-lying and respecting-Agumon’s-identity of the original line. He does know who this “Raptor-1” that Yoshi’s talking about is, even if that isn’t actually his name.

Masaru:  “How’d you know my name?”

Yoshino:  “You yelled it out earlier for everyone to hear.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How do you know my name, anyway?”

Yoshi:  “I know everything about you.”

No pointing out that he yelled it out earlier like a huge dork. Instead, she just really leans into the DATS-are-creepily-authoritative vibe that she already had a little of in the original.

Yoshi: “Born April 2nd in Tokyo, blood type B, Ootori middle school eighth grade.”

Him being born in Tokyo was not a detail mentioned in the original. And also probably not true in the original, since the series is set in Yokohama and there’s no indication that his family moved here. The dub is presumably still set in Yokohama even though it’s never mentioned, just because the scenery is that of Yokohama, so I guess they’ve just established some dub-only canon that the Damon family moved home at some point. This will actually come up briefly later. I am shocked that I’m saying this.

At least, props to the dub for mentioning Tokyo and making it pretty overt that, yes, this is set in Japan. (You know, with this Japanese guy called Marcus.)

Yoshi also does not explicitly specify Marcus’s age, only that he’s in eighth grade. Which (I’m pretty sure, though I’m unfamiliar with American school grades and may be wrong) would make him fourteen anyway, at least assuming he hasn’t been held back at any point. Keep this in mind, because this will also come up later.

Yoshi: “…and you now live with your mother Sarah and your little sister Kristy, who looks up to you even though you generally act like a jerk.”

First of all, how the hell does DATS have so much information that they even know how his sister feels about him?

Second of all, more importantly, way to just tell us that, hey, did you know, Marcus is A Jerk, hey, guys, you’re supposed to think he’s a jerk, because… he fights things, I guess?

The reality? Masaru is not a jerk. Not even slightly. He’s reckless and hot-headed and will fight anything that poses a challenge, but that is not even remotely the same thing as being a jerk to people.

But apparently the dub doesn’t understand this, and they seem to think that being a jerk is somehow meant to be one of his most noticeable character traits. And I guess they’re trying to present the idea that he’s going to slowly grow into being a nicer person through the power of Digimon and friendship? Which is not at all any kind of arc that Masaru is going to have, because he is not actually a jerk in the first place.

If it was just this one line that seemed to think this, I wouldn’t be that annoyed. But one of the biggest things I’m going to be complaining about with the dub is the fact that they actually do change Marcus’s character significantly to make him noticeably more of a jerk than Masaru ever was. We’ve already seen a little bit of this sort of thing going on so far in this episode, with how they’ve removed focus from the bits with Masaru treating Agumon like a person and instead made it all about fighting, and specifically winning those fights. But, oh boy, there’s going to be a lot more, to an extent that it has to be deliberate.

And aside from me just finding this very frustrating as someone who deeply loves Masaru’s character to see him distorted like this, I also can’t help but boggle at why they would ever want to do this at all. Why would you deliberately adapt a character – the main character – to be less likeable than in the original version of the work? How does it not occur to you that this is only going to make your new audience enjoy the work less? I do not get it.

Lines like this one here are even worse, because they blatantly violate “show don’t tell”. Along with making Marcus act like a jerk and showing us that, the dub’s narrative is also telling us that he’s a jerk and insisting we should think that about him instead of letting us make up our own minds. It’s so lazy and heavy-handed. There will be more like this and I do not like it one bit.

Yoshi: “I’m with the Digimon Data Squad.”

I guess the Data Squad really is its full name in the dub. Even though the acronym is still DATS. Don’t ask me how that’s meant to work.

Marcus: “That’s a great story, dollface, but what’s it gotta do with me?”

Can we not with the Marcus being casually misogynistic? Can we not? (Thankfully, this isn’t going to be a recurring thing. Other ways in which Marcus is being made less likeable will be, but at least not this.)

Marcus does not say anything about assuming Agumon was just a frog. Since Masaru having thought that is going to be relevant again later in the series, this is a loss of not just a moment of amusing dorkiness but something actually meaningful.

(One thing that is very clear about the dub is that, with a few exceptions, they do not appear to have watched ahead to see the whole series first and are just dubbing episode-by-episode. For a series like this with quite a strong overarching plot and lots of little things like this that get callbacks, that means that a lot of this overarching sense of cohesiveness will be lost, simply by accident, because they didn’t realise there was something important there worth keeping around. This is another thing I will be talking about a lot.)

Yoshino:  “As long as you keep running from DATS, Raptor-1 will only starve to death.”

~~~~~

Yoshi:  “If you don’t return Raptor-1 to us, he’ll starve to death!”

This is a little different. Yoshino was only trying to get Masaru to come to DATS, supposedly to pick up some Digimon food. Yoshi, meanwhile, wants Marcus to bring Agumon to DATS. Which on the one hand is a more helpful strategy for what she’s trying to achieve. But on the other hand, he doesn’t bring Agumon, because obviously the dub can’t change the episode that much, so instead we’re just left with that awkwardly not being what happens despite it being brought up.

Yoshino:  “You…”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “Thank you.”

The hint that Yoshino is gaining a new respect for Masaru from his desire to help Agumon gets lost here, in favour of simply a thanks-for-finally-co-operating. Might partly be just lip-flap’s fault – the Japanese “you” is two syllables – but still, Yoshi’s tone of voice could at least have done some of the work to imply the same as the original, and it doesn’t really.

Kudamon:  “This is the boy that put Raptor-1 under control? He doesn’t appear to have any special power, at any rate.”

~~~~~

Kudamon: “Interesting that this is the boy who fought Raptor-1, because nothing about him indicates that he’s able to fight at that level.”

We lose any implication that Satsuma might have been telling Kudamon things about Masaru offscreen, and instead here’s dub-Kudamon simply refusing to believe the evidence of his own eyes. You literally watched him fight Agumon on your screen. He very evidently can fight at that level.

Kamemon: “Enjoy.”

Marcus: “I’m not thirsty.”

Kamemon: “Suit yourself.”

Kamemon actually says words in the dub as he brings Marcus tea! This was very bizarre to me when I’m used to original-Kamemon, who almost never speaks at all.

Masaru:  “Just hand over what I came for.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Just say what ya have to say and stop wasting my time!”

Apparently the dub has forgotten that Marcus only came here to pick up Digimon food for Agumon, and suddenly he expects to be receiving a speech here when he shouldn’t.

Masaru:  “Renegades?”

Kudamon:  “Yes. Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and injured humans. He cannot be allowed to go free.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Why are you calling him a renegade?”

Kudamon: “Because Raptor-1 has already entered the human world and made contact with human beings, so he can no longer be allowed to go free.”

I would complain that it’s a bit much that Agumon’s getting in so much trouble simply for meeting humans in the dub, and not specifically injuring them like they were assuming in the original. But, as it turns out, the original is also going to call Digimon simply meeting humans a “crime” in the next episode, possibly as part of its early weirdness. So, eh, this isn’t really the dub being any sillier than the original here.

Satsuma:  “Daimon Masaru, you should work with us to create a bright future for both humans and Digimon!”

~~~~~

Sampson: “Please co-operate. The future relationship between humans and Digimon depends on you returning Raptor-1 to us.”

Also, apparently Sampson isn’t actually trying to recruit Masaru to join DATS with this speech. I can understand the logic behind changing that, since Satsuma was going about that whole thing weirdly vaguely.

That said, saying that the entire relationship between the two species hinges on this one Digimon being returned doesn’t make any sense. So I get the feeling that the implication of what Satsuma really wanted in the original line just went completely over the dubbers’ heads, and they simply thought they were translating his intent directly and made it sound rather silly as a result.

Masaru:  “What the hell is this? Stop pestering without even listening to what I have to say first!”

~~~~~

Marcus:  “Why not? Because I don’t owe you people a single thing!”

We lose the fun subtle Masaru-y nuance of him caring about being given a chance to express how he feels here. Though I suppose it’s also relevant and illustrative that Marcus is implying he would help them if he felt like he owed them, showing a sense of responsibility there.

Masaru:  “…but have you even considered why he suddenly showed up in this world? He admired this place! He admired this wide world, filled with things moving around that he’d never seen before.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Have you thought about why he came to the human world in the first place? What if he didn’t have a choice? Maybe things were bad for him back in the Digital World!��

This would be Marcus being sweet and thinking about how Agumon feels… if it wasn’t for the fact that Agumon told him he doesn’t know about anything except the institution, and therefore clearly didn’t deliberately try and run away from something bad in the Digital World. Pay attention to your foll – uh, employee, Marcus. Masaru’s line there had somewhat forgotten or misinterpreted what Agumon had told him, but Marcus’s is doing so to a much greater extent.

Masaru:  “But if he starts rampaging, then I’ll be responsible.”

~~~~~

Marcus: “And if he gets into any sort of trouble, I’ll claim full responsibility for his actions.”

This sounds like a perfectly reasonable translation, but the dub version of the sentence does not work nearly as well to foreshadow the thing that the original line is foreshadowing and this makes me sad.

Marcus: “But only if you give me some food for him!”

…This is immediately following the previous line. So I guess, since they never give him any food, Marcus doesn’t end up obligated to take any responsibility for Agumon getting into trouble. (Even though that’s still what he is going to do when they think Agumon’s attacking the hamburger shop. But this makes him come across like someone who’s less willing to do so no matter what and has less of a strong sense of responsibility.)

Kudamon:  “It looks like you’ll have to take responsibility sooner than you thought.”

~~~~~

Kudamon:  “Do you now see how hiding him has created a security breach for all of us?”

This change makes a fair amount of sense, since original-Kudamon was being unreasonable by insisting Masaru should take responsibility for Agumon’s hunger when that was really Yoshino’s fault. And it also fits with the fact that Marcus never actually promised to take responsibility since he wasn’t given any food.

Yoshino:  “So this is where you were hiding him. Since he’s nowhere to be seen, it must be him who attacked the hamburger shop.”

~~~~~

Yoshi:  “So this is where you were hiding Raptor-1. A lot of good it did you, since we confirmed it was definitely him who attacked the hamburger stand.”

No, you didn’t! How did you confirm a thing that isn’t true? If this is Yoshi lying, that’s just a dick move; she doesn’t even have anything to gain from it. It feels more like this was the dubbers not paying attention and missing the original’s meaning, which is very obviously that Yoshino was assuming based simply on the fact that Agumon went missing. But he didn’t actually attack the hamburger stand! Did they not even watch ahead to the rest of this episode to realise that?

Marcus: “Why’d you attack a hamburger stand?”

Marcus asks this of Agumon after finding him with his head dorkily stuck in a trashcan, not really all that close to the explosions and flames. Way to jump to freaking conclusions after basically just finding proof that Agumon isn’t the culprit, geez! …Though I suppose that can be partly blamed on Yoshi inexplicably insisting he definitely was.

Agumon: “Huh? I didn’t attack anything, but a hamburger sure sounds good!”

Agumon should not know what a hamburger is. Again with his dub version knowing more human things than he should.

Kudamon:  “He hasn’t been tamed. I don’t understand why he’s fighting alongside human beings.”

This just makes no sense. What the hell does “tamed” even mean? Doesn’t it just mean “has become willing to work with humans”? Because if so, he evidently has been tamed, actually. Just sounds frustratingly like Kudamon trying to insist he Knows Better than this nobody kid, and I don’t think that’s meant to be his character.

Agumon:  “Aniki! He’s really strong…!”

Masaru:  “Doesn’t that just fire you up!?”

Agumon:  “Y… yeah!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “No! Agumon!”

Agumon: “Boss! I’m fine, but could you lend a hand?”

Marcus: “Ha! How about I lend a couple of fists!?”

The dub’s version of this exchange is kinda still cute, but it loses that fun nuance that Masaru loves how strong their opponent is, and that Agumon is learning to agree with that idea thanks to him.

Yoshi: “That thing will tear you to pieces!”

See, here’s a way to avoid directly using the word “die” or “kill” while still making it clear that’s what she’s referring to, without awkwardly acting like humans can be “destroyed”.

Masaru:  “When you’re in a man’s fight, you’re already risking your life! The moment you get scared of dying is the moment you’ve lost the fight!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “Besides, the ultimate fighter is always willing to make the ultimate sacrifice!”

This significantly changes the meaning here, and instead Marcus is apparently consciously willing to get himself killed if necessary, even though the kinds of fights he’s been in before really aren’t something that’s actually worth dying for at all. Masaru’s philosophy of acknowledging but then choosing to brush aside the potential risk in order to fight better makes more sense, because he’s not actually intending to die for anything.

The dub’s changed version of this line will also not work for the callback that the original line is going to get later in the series. I’d talk a lot more about why not, but, spoilers, so I’ll save that for then.

There’s a brief snippet of music here during the Anime Sads that appears to be a sad piano variation of Probably Marcus’s Theme, which feels appropriate. I don’t remember it from my one previous dub watch-through, but I hope it gets used in some of the future much more substantial moments of Marcus being sad about things.

Masaru:  “You… How dare you hurt my follower!”

~~~~~

Marcus: “It’s… It’s fightin’ time!”

We also lose another future callback here. But on the other hand, “it’s fightin’ time!” is going to become Marcus’s catchphrase that he uses basically every time he fights (a dub-only catchphrase that Masaru has no equivalent of, and that I’m really pretty happy with), and this moment when he’s avenging Agumon getting hurt is definitely an appropriate moment for it to start being a thing.

The dub’s term for Digisoul is, instead, DNA. Luckily for the biologist in me, who would otherwise be tearing my hair out over this, this stands for something entirely different from deoxyribonucleic acid, because boy would it being that kind of DNA make absolutely zero sense. It’s still pretty awkward that it happens to be the same acronym as a commonly-known thing that it could easily be mistaken for, mind you.

I don’t know why they couldn’t just keep the term Digisoul, though. It’s a perfectly good term! It can’t even be that the dubbers have some kind of oh-no-religious-references objection to using the word “soul”, because that word is also in the dub’s opening song that we’ll be hearing every episode.

Old man:  “By mastering this technique, your Digimon can Digivolve.”

Um, sure. The technique of waving your glowing hand over the Digivice is definitely something that needs to be “mastered”.

Marcus also yells “DNA Charge!” out of nowhere for the first time. But in his case, the old man never actually mentioned the word “charge” when telling him what to do here, so it’s even less clear how he knew that was what he was supposed to say.

Alas, the English dub does not dub the original evolution songs in Digimon. The evolution music instead is an instrumental version of the dub’s opening song, which, though I prefer Believer, is an acceptable replacement in terms of creating a similarly triumphant mood.

Marcus: “That’ll teach ya! Don’t mess with my employee!”

Oh my god, wow, way to completely unintentionally mood-whiplash the triumphant moment by reminding us that this huge powerful dinosaur is actually just your subordinate in the new small business you’ve set up here, Marcus. A small business of punching everything.

Agumon:  “Aniki! I’m hungry!”

Masaru:  “What the hell… That’s so anti-climactic…”

~~~~~

Agumon: “Boss! I’m hungry.”

Marcus: “What else is new? I’m just glad you’re safe.”

This addition is cute. Originally Masaru’s just referring to the anticlimax of Agumon devolving so fast.

Masaru:  “How about going for a hamburger?”

Agumon:  “Does that taste good?”

~~~~~

Marcus: “How about a nice hamburger?”

Agumon: “Ooh! With cheese, too?”

On the one hand, at least the dub remembered the fact that this Agumon somehow already knows what a hamburger is. On the other, this raises even more questions in terms of how he also knows that they can come with cheese.

Yoshino:  “But that one’s already injured 13 students!”

~~~~~

Yoshi: “But Agumon still injured fifteen men!”

Remember how the original tried to calculate fifteen minus one and got thirteen? Well, the dub tried it and got fifteen. Somehow each of them managed to get this very simple sum wrong in a different way.

(And yes, the dub did also specifically have Lalamon sense fifteen humans at the park in the beginning. Actually, it flashes back here to a part where Yoshi was then relaying to HQ that there are fifteen victims, but that was before she saw that Marcus was still standing. I guess it’s plausible to assume that Yoshi herself forgot to subtract Marcus after that and this is her mistake rather than the writers. Not convinced that’s the case, though.)

Also, told you the dub would forget about the part in the beginning where Marcus yelled out within Yoshi’s earshot that he beat up the dudes.

Marcus: “Those were some punks claiming to be ultimate fighters who wanted to train in my area, so I fought them for it, and guess what, I won!”

This begs the question: how the hell is that park supposed to be Marcus’s training ground? Surely, it’d make most sense as a training ground if it was where people regularly come to challenge him to fights? Instead, he only fought the dudes there because he wanted to drive them away from his training ground, so that he can continue to train there, alone, in a perfectly ordinary park that isn’t a gym or anything like that. How is he supposed to train there without opponents? Does he just, like… punch the trees?

I understand if the dub wants to make Marcus have slightly less of a teenage delinquent vibe, but the resulting implications they have here instead are just amusingly nonsensical. It does not seem like they actually thought about this very hard at all.

Overall differences

Overall, the dub of this episode shows a pattern of things generally making a bit less sense and having a bit less nuance, and Marcus in particular being just a bit less interesting and distinctive than Masaru. This is going to be such a regular pattern for every single dub episode that I probably won’t even bother to remark on it in most of these summaries going forward.

In terms of more specific effect on how this episode comes across, I think the most noticeable shift is that the sense of Marcus’s empathy towards Agumon despite his species is watered down slightly. Perhaps most notably, Agumon did not become loyal to Marcus because Marcus treated him like a person, but instead just because he matched him in a fight, which is less meaningful.

The terms “boss” and “employee” also give something of a different vibe to their relationship than in the original. Obviously the dub had to localise “aniki” to something, but I don’t think this was the best choice. This’ll be a thing in every episode, of course, but I’m bringing it up here because this is where it starts.

Then there’s the part where one of Yoshi’s lines casually established that Agumon had never spoken before. As much as this doesn’t make any sense to be a thing – why would he not have spoken while being held in DATS? – I guess it makes it slightly more reasonable that DATS then sees him as just a monster? Though they should also be changing their tune quite quickly when they realise he can speak, which of course they don’t. I guess this could have been an attempt to justify the original’s issues with DATS’s attitude towards Agumon… but not a very effective one.

#digimon #digimon savers #digimon data squad

[ahouseoflies]

The Best Films of 2020

I can’t tell you anything novel or insightful about this year that has been stolen from our lives. I watched zero of these films in a theater, and I watched most of them half-asleep in moments that I stole from my children. Don’t worry, there are some jokes below.

GARBAGE

93. Capone (Josh Trank)- What is the point of this dinner theater trash? It takes place in the last year of Capone's life, when he was released from prison due to failing health and suffered a stroke in his Florida home. So it covers...none of the things that make Al Capone interesting? It's not historically accurate, which I have no problem with, but if you steer away from accuracy, then do something daring and exciting. Don't give me endless scenes of "Phonse"--as if the movie is running from the very person it's about--drawing bags of money that promise intrigue, then deliver nothing in return.

That being said, best "titular character shits himself" scene since The Judge.

92. Ammonite (Francis Lee)- I would say that this is the Antz to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's A Bug's Life, but it's actually more like the Cars 3 to Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Toy Story 1.

91. Ava (Tate Taylor)- Despite the mystery and inscrutability that usually surround assassins, what if we made a hitman movie but cared a lot about her personal life? Except neither the assassin stuff nor the family stuff is interesting?

90. Wonder Woman 1984 (Patty Jenkins)- What a miscalculation of what audiences loved about the first and wanted from the sequel. WW84 is silly and weightless in all of the ways that the first was elegant and confident. If the return of Pine is just a sort of phantom representation of Diana's desires, then why can he fly a real plane? If he is taking over another man's soul, then, uh, what ends up happening to that guy? For that matter, why is it not 1984 enough for Ronald Reagan to be president, but it is 1984 enough for the president to have so many Ronald Reagan signifiers that it's confusing? Why not just make a decision?

On paper, the me-first values of the '80s lend themselves to the monkey's paw wish logic of this plot. You could actually do something with the Star Wars program or the oil crisis. But not if the setting is played for only laughs and the screenplay explains only what it feels like.

89. Babyteeth (Shannon Murphy)- In this type of movie, there has to be a period of the Ben Mendelsohn character looking around befuddled about the new arrangement and going, "What's this now--he's going to be...living with us? The guy who tried to steal our medication? This is crazy!" But that's usually ten minutes, and in this movie it's an hour. I was so worn out by the end.

88. You Should Have Left (David Koepp)- David Koepp wrote Jurassic Park, so he's never going to hell, but how dare he start caring about his own mystery at the hour mark. There's a forty-five minute version of this movie that could get an extra star from me, and there's a three-hour version of Amanda Seyfried walking around in athleisure that would get four stars from me. What we actually get? No thanks.

87. Black Is King (Beyonce, et al.)- End your association with The Lion King, Bey. It has resulted in zero bops.

  ADMIRABLE FAILURES

86. Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Cathy Yan)- There's nothing too dysfunctional in the storytelling or performances, but Birds of Prey also doesn't do a single thing well. I would prefer something alive and wild, even if it were flawed, to whatever tame belt-level formula this is.

85. The Turning (Floria Sigismondi)- This update of The Turn of the Screw pumps the age of Miles up to high school, which creates some horny creepiness that I liked. But the age of the character also prevents the ending of the novel from happening in favor of a truly terrible shrug. I began to think that all of the patience that the film showed earlier was just hesitance for its own awful ending.

I watched The Turning as a Mackenzie Davis Movie Star heat check, and while I'm not sure she has the magnetism I was looking for, she does have a great teacher voice, chastening but maternal.

84. Bloodshot (David Wilson)- A whole lot of Vin Diesel saying he's going to get revenge and kill a bunch of dudes; not a whole lot of Vin Diesel actually getting revenge and killing a bunch of dudes.

83. Downhill (Nat Faxon and Jim Rash)- I was an English major in college, which means I ended up locking myself into literary theories that, halfway through the writing of an essay, I realized were flawed. But rather than throw out the work that I had already proposed, I would just keep going and see if I could will the idea to success.

So let's say you have a theory that you can take Force Majeure by Ruben Ostlund, one of the best films of its year, and remake it so that its statement about familial anxiety could apply to Americans of the same age and class too...if it hadn't already. And maybe in the first paragraph you mess up by casting Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, people we are conditioned to laugh at, when maybe this isn't that kind of comedy at all. Well, don't throw it away. You can quote more--fill up the pages that way--take an exact shot or scene from the original. Does that help? Maybe you can make the writing more vigorous and distinctive by adding a character. Is that going to make this baby stand out? Maybe you could make it more personal by adding a conclusion that is slightly more clever than the rest of the paper?

Or perhaps this is one you're just not going to get an A on.

82. Hillbilly Elegy (Ron Howard)- I watched this melodrama at my mother's encouragement, and, though I have been trying to pin down her taste for decades, I think her idea of a successful film just boils down to "a lot of stuff happens." So in that way, Ron Howard's loss is my gain, I guess.

There is no such thing as a "neutral Terminator."

81. Relic (Natalie Erika James)- The star of the film is Vanessa Cerne's set decoration, but the inert music and slow pace cancel out a house that seems neglected slowly over decades.

80. Buffaloed (Tanya Wexler)- Despite a breathless pace, Buffaloed can't quite congeal. In trying to split the difference between local color hijinks and Moneyballed treatise on debt collection, it doesn't commit enough to either one.

Especially since Zoey Deutch produced this one in addition to starring, I'm getting kind of worried about boo's taste. Lot of Two If by Seas; not enough While You Were Sleepings.

79. Like a Boss (Miguel Arteta)- I chuckled a few times at a game supporting cast that is doing heavy lifting. But Like a Boss is contrived from the premise itself--Yeah, what if people in their thirties fell out of friendship? Do y'all need a creative consultant?--to the escalation of most scenes--Why did they have to hide on the roof? Why do they have to jump into the pool?

The movie is lean, but that brevity hurts just as much as it helps. The screenplay knows which scenes are crucial to the development of the friendship, but all of those feel perfunctory, in a different gear from the setpieces.  

To pile on a bit: Studio comedies are so bare bones now that they look like Lifetime movies. Arteta brought Chuck & Buck to Sundance twenty years ago, and, shot on Mini-DV for $250,000, it was seen as a DIY call-to-bootstraps. I guarantee that has more setups and locations and shooting days than this.

78. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (David Dobkin)- Add Dan Stevens to the list of supporting players who have bodied Will Ferrell in his own movie--one that he cared enough to write himself.  

Like Downhill, Ferrell's other 2020 release, this isn't exactly bad. It's just workmanlike and, aside from the joke about Demi Lovato's "uninformed" ghost, frustratingly conventional.

77. The Traitor (Marco Bellochio)- Played with weary commitment by Pierfrancesco Favino, Tomasso Buscetta is "credited" as the first informant of La Cosa Nostra. And that sounds like an interesting subject for a "based on a true story" crime epic, right? Especially when you find out that Buscetta became a rat out of principle: He believed that the mafia to which he had pledged his life had lost its code to the point that it was a different organization altogether.  

At no point does Buscetta waver or even seem to struggle with his decision though, so what we get is less conflicted than that description might suggest. None of these Italian mob movies glorify the lifestyle, so I wasn't expecting that. But if the crime doesn't seem enticing, and snitching on the crime seems like forlorn duty, and everything is pitched with such underhanded matter-of-factness that you can't even be sure when Buscetta has flipped, then what are we left with? It was interesting seeing how Italian courts work, I guess?

76. Kajillionaire (Miranda July)- This is another movie so intent on building atmosphere and lore that it takes too long to declare what it is. When the protagonist hits a breaking point and has to act, she has only a third of a film to grow. So whispery too.

Gina Rodriguez is the one to inject life into it. As soon as her motormouth winds up, the film slips into a different gear. The atmosphere and lore that I mentioned reeks of artifice, but her character is believably specific. Beneath a basic exterior is someone who is authentically caring but still morally compromised, beholden to the world that the other characters are suspicious of.

75. Scoob! (Tony Cervone)- The first half is sometimes clever, but it hammers home the importance of friendship while separating the friends.

The second half has some positive messaging, but your kids' movie might have a problem with scale if it involves Alexander the Great unlocking the gates of the Underworld.

My daughter loved it.

74. The Lovebirds (Michael Showalter)- If I start talking too much about this perfectly fine movie, I end up in that unfair stance of reviewing the movie I wanted, not what is actually there.* As a fan of hang-out comedies, I kind of resent that any comedy being made now has to be rolled into something more "exciting," whether it's a wrongfully accused or mistaken identity thriller or some other genre. Such is the post-Game Night world. There's a purposefully anti-climactic note that I wish The Lovebirds had ended on, but of course we have another stretch of hiding behind boats and shooting guns. Nanjiani and Rae are really charming leads though.

*- As a New Orleanian, I was totally distracted by the fake aspects of the setting too. "Oh, they walked to Jefferson from downtown? Really?" You probably won't be bothered by the locations.

73. Sonic the Hedgehog (Jeff Fowler)- In some ways the storytelling is ambitious. (I'm speaking for only myself, but I'm fine with "He's a hedgehog, and he's really fast" instead of the owl mother, teleportation backstory. Not everything has to be Tolkien.) But that ambition doesn't match the lack of ambition in the comedy, which depends upon really hackneyed setups and structures. Guiding Jim Carrey to full alrighty-then mode was the best choice anyone made.

72. Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson)- The stars move through these long scenes with agility and charisma, but the degree of difficulty is just too high for this movie to reach what it's going for.

Levinson is trying to capture an epic fight between a couple, and he can harness the theatrical intensity of such a thing, but he sacrifices almost all of the nuance. In real life, these knock-down-drag-outs can be circular and indirect and sad in a way that this couple's manipulation rarely is. If that emotional truth is all this movie is trying to achieve, I feel okay about being harsh in my judgment of how well it does that.

71. Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov)- Elusive in how it refuses to declare itself, forthright in how punishing it is. The whole thing might be worth it for a late dinner scene, but I'm getting a bit old to put myself through this kind of misery.

70. The Burnt Orange Heresy (Giuseppe Capotondi)- Silly in good ways until it's silly in bad ways. Elizabeth Debicki remains 6'3".

69. Everybody’s Everything (Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan)- As a person who listened to Lil Peep's music, I can confidently say that this documentary is overstating his greatness. His death was a significant loss, as the interview subjects will all acknowledge, but the documentary is more useful as a portrait of a certain unfocused, rapacious segment of a generation that is high and online at all times.

68. The Witches (Robert Zemeckis)- Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo Del Toro are the credited screenwriters, and in a fascinating way, you can see the imprint of each figure on the final product. Adapting a very European story to the old wives' tales of the American South is an interesting choice. Like the Nicolas Roeg try at this material, Zemeckis is not afraid to veer into the terrifying, and Octavia Spencer's pseudo witch doctor character only sells the supernatural. From a storytelling standpoint though, it seems as if the obstacles are overcome too easily, as if there's a whole leg of the film that has been excised. The framing device and the careful myth-making of the flashback make promises that the hotel half of the film, including the abrupt ending, can't live up to.

If nothing else, Anne Hathaway is a real contender for Most On-One Performance of the year.

67. Irresistible (Jon Stewart)- Despite a sort of imaginative ending, Jon Stewart's screenplay feels more like the declarative screenplay that would get you hired for a good movie, not a good screenplay itself. It's provocative enough, but it's clumsy in some basic ways and never evades the easy joke.

For example, the Topher Grace character is introduced as a sort of assistant, then is re-introduced an hour later as a polling expert, then is shown coaching the candidate on presentation a few scenes later. At some point, Stewart combined characters into one role, but nothing got smoothed out.

ENDEARING CURIOSITIES WITH BIG FLAWS

66. Yes, God, Yes (Karen Maine)- Most people who are Catholic, including me, are conflicted about it. Most people who make movies about being Catholic hate it and have an axe to grind. This film is capable of such knowing wit and nuance when it comes to the lived-in details of attending a high school retreat, but it's more concerned with taking aim at hypocrisy in the broad way that we've seen a million times. By the end, the film is surprisingly all-or-nothing when Christian teenagers actually contain multitudes.

Part of the problem is that Karen Maine's screenplay doesn't know how naive to make the Alice character. Sometimes she's reasonably naive for a high school senior in 2001; sometimes she's comically naive so that the plot can work; and sometimes she's stupid, which isn't the same as naive.

65. Bad Boys for Life (Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah)- This might be the first buddy cop movie in which the vets make peace with the tech-comm youngs who use new techniques. If that's the only novelty on display here--and it is--then maybe that's enough. I laughed maybe once. Not that the mistaken identity subplot of Bad Boys 1 is genius or anything, but this entry felt like it needed just one more layer to keep it from feeling as basic as it does. Speaking of layers though, it's almost impossible to watch any Will Smith movie now without viewing it through the meta-narrative of "What is Will Smith actually saying about his own status at this point in his career?" He's serving it up to us.

I derived an inordinate amount of pleasure from seeing the old school Simpson/Bruckheimer logo.

64. The Gentlemen (Guy Ritchie)- Look, I'm not going to be too negative on a movie whose crime slang is so byzantine that it has to be explained with subtitles. That's just me. I'm a simple man. But I can tell you that I tuned out pretty hard after seven or eight double-crosses.

The bloom is off the rose a bit for Ritchie, but he can still nail a music cue. I've been waiting for someone to hit "That's Entertainment" the way he does on the end credits.

63. Bad Hair (Justin Simien)- In Bad Hair, an African-American woman is told by her boss at a music video channel in 1989 that straightening her hair is the way to get ahead; however, her weave ends up having a murderous mind of its own. Compared to that charged, witty logline, the execution of the plot itself feels like a laborious, foregone conclusion. I'm glad that Simien, a genuinely talented writer, is making movies again though. Drop the skin-care routine, Van Der Beek!

62. Greyhound (Aaron Schneider)- "If this is the type of role that Tom Hanks writes for himself, then he understands his status as America's dad--'wise as the serpent, harmless as the dove'--even better than I thought." "America's Dad! Aye aye, sir!" "At least half of the dialogue is there for texture and authenticity, not there to be understood by the audience." "Fifty percent, Captain!" "The environment looks as fake as possible, but I eventually came around to the idea that the movie is completely devoid of subtext." "No subtext to be found, sir!"

  61. Mank (David Fincher)- About ten years ago, the Creative Screenwriting podcast spent an hour or so with James Vanderbilt, the writer of Zodiac and nothing else that comes close, as he relayed the creative paces that David Fincher pushed him through. Hundreds of drafts and years of collaborative work eventuated in the blueprint for Fincher's most exacting, personal film, which he didn't get a writing credit on only because he didn't seek one.

Something tells me that Fincher didn't ask for rewrites from his dead father. No matter what visuals and performances the director can coax from the script--and, to be clear, these are the worst visuals and performances of his career--they are limited by the muddy lightweight pages. There are plenty of pleasures, like the slippery election night montage or the shakily platonic relationship between Mank and Marion. But Fincher hadn't made a film in six years, and he came back serving someone else's master.

60. Tesla (Michael Almereyda)- "You live inside your head." "Doesn't everybody?"

As usual, Almereyda's deconstructions are invigorating. (No other moment can match the first time Eve Hewson's Anne fact-checks something with her anachronistic laptop.) But they don't add up to anything satisfying because Tesla himself is such an opaque figure. Driven by the whims of his curiosity without a clear finish line, the character gives Hawke something enigmatic to play as he reaches deep into a baritone. But he's too inward to lend himself to drama. Tesla feels of a piece with Almereyda's The Experimenter, and that's the one I would recommend.

59. Vitalina Varela (Pedro Costa)- I can't oversell how delicately beautiful this film is visually. There's a scene in which Vitalina lugs a lantern into a church, but we get several seconds of total darkness before that one light source carves through it and takes over part of the frame. Each composition is as intricate as it is overpowering, achieving a balance between stark and mannered.

That being said, most of the film is people entering or exiting doors. I felt very little of the haunting loss that I think I was supposed to.

58. The Rhythm Section (Reed Morano)- Call it the Timothy Hutton in The General's Daughter Corollary: If a name-actor isn't in the movie much but gets third billing, then, despite whom he sends the protagonist to kill, he is the Actual Bad Guy.  

Even if the movie serves up a lot of cliche, the action and sound design are visceral. I would like to see more from Morano.

57. Red, White and Blue (Steve McQueen)- Well-made and heartfelt even if it goes step-for-step where you think it will.

Here's what I want to know though: In the academy training sequence, the police cadets have to subdue a "berserker"; that is, a wildman who swings at their riot gear with a sledgehammer. Then they get him under control, and he shakes their hands, like, "Good angle you took on me there, mate." Who is that guy and where is his movie? Is this full-time work? Is he a police officer or an independent contractor? What would happen if this exercise didn't go exactly as planned?

56. Wolfwalkers (Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart)- The visuals have an unfinished quality that reminded me of The Tale of Princess Kaguya--the center of a flame is undrawn white, and fog is just negative space. There's an underlying symmetry to the film, and its color palette changes with mood.

Narratively, it's pro forma and drawn-out. Was Riley in Inside Out the last animated protagonist to get two parents? My daughter stuck with it, but she needed a lot of context for the religious atmosphere of 17th century Ireland.

55. What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael (Rob Garver)- The film does little more than one might expect; it's limited in the way that any visual medium is when trying to sum up a woman of letters. But as far as education for Kael's partnership with Warren Beatty or the idea of The New Yorker paying her for only six months out of the year, it was useful for me.  

Although Garver isn't afraid to point to the work that made Kael divisive, it would have been nice to have one or two interview subjects who questioned her greatness, rather than the crew of Paulettes who, even when they do say something like, "Sometimes I radically disagreed with her," do it without being able to point to any specifics.

54. Beastie Boys Story (Spike Jonze)- As far as this Spike Jonze completist is concerned, this is more of a Powerpoint presentation than a movie, Beastie Boys Story still warmed my heart, making me want to fire up Paul's Boutique again and take more pictures of my buddies.

53. Tenet (Christopher Nolan)- Cool and cold, tantalizing and frustrating, loud and indistinct, Tenet comes close to Nolan self-parody, right down to the brutalist architecture and multiple characters styled like him. The setpieces grabbed me, I'll admit.

Nolan's previous film, which is maybe his best, was "about" a lot and just happened to play with time; Tenet is only about playing with time.

PRETTY GOOD MOVIES

52. Shithouse (Cooper Raiff)- "Death is ass."

There's such a thing as too naturalistic. If I wanted to hear how college freshmen really talked, I would hang out with college freshmen. But you have to take the good verisimilitude with the bad, and good verisimilitude is the mother's Pod Save America t-shirt.

There are some poignant moments (and a gonzo performance from Logan Miller) in this auspicious debut from Cooper Raiff, the writer/director/editor/star. But the second party sequence kills some of the momentum, and at a crucial point, the characters spell out some motivation that should have stayed implied.

51. Totally Under Control (Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger)- As dense and informative as any other Gibney documentary with the added flex of making it during the pandemic it is investigating.

But yeah, why am I watching this right now? I don't need more reasons to be angry with Trump, whom this film calmly eviscerates. The directors analyze Trump's narcissism first through his contradictions of medical expertise in order to protect the economy that could win him re-election. Then it takes aim at his hiring based on loyalty instead of experience. But you already knew that, which is the problem with the film, at least for now.

50. Happiest Season (Clea Duvall)- I was in the perfect mood to watch something this frothy and bouncy. Every secondary character receives a moment in the sun, and Daniel Levy gets a speech that kind of saves the film at a tipping point.

I must say though: I wanted to punch Harper in her stupid face. She is a terrible romantic partner, abandoning or betraying Abby throughout the film and dissembling her entire identity to everyone else in a way that seems absurd for a grown woman in 2020. Run away, Kristen. Perhaps with Aubrey Plaza, whom you have more chemistry with. But there I go shipping and aligning myself with characters, which only proves that this is an effective romantic comedy.

49. The Way Back (Gavin O’Connor)- Patient but misshapen, The Way Back does just enough to overcome the cliches that are sort of unavoidable considering the genre. (I can't get enough of the parent character who, for no good reason, doesn't take his son's success seriously. "Scholarship? What he's gotta do is put his nose in them books! That's why I don't go to his games. [continues moving boxes while not looking at the other character] Now if you'll excuse me while I wait four scenes before showing up at a game to prove that I'm proud of him after all...")

What the movie gets really right or really wrong in the details about coaching and addiction is a total crap-shoot. But maybe I've said too much already.

48. The Whistlers (Corneliu Porumboiu)- Porumboiu is a real artist who seems to be interpreting how much surveillance we're willing to acknowledge and accept, but I won't pretend to have understood much of the plot, the chapters or which are told out of order. Sometimes the structure works--the beguiling, contextless "high-class hooker" sequence--but I often wondered if the film was impenetrable in the way that Porumboiu wanted it to be or impenetrable in the way he didn't.

To tell you the truth, the experience kind of depressed me because I know that, in my younger days, this film is the type of thing that I would re-watch, possibly with the chronology righted, knowing that it is worth understanding fully. But I have two small children, and I'm exhausted all the time, and I kind of thought I should get some credit for still trying to catch up with Romanian crime movies in the first place.

47. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Jason Woliner)- I laughed too much to get overly critical, but the film is so episodic and contrived that it's kind of exhausting by the end--even though it's achieving most of its goals. Maybe Borat hasn't changed, but the way our citizens own their ugliness has.

46. First Cow (Kelly Reichardt)- Despite how little happens in the first forty minutes, First Cow is a thoughtful capitalism parable. Even though it takes about forty minutes to get going, the friendship between Cookie and King-Lu is natural and incisive. Like Reichardt's other work, the film's modest premise unfolds quite gracefully, except for in the first forty minutes, which are uneventful.

45. Les Miserables (Ladj Ly)- I loved parts of the film--the disorienting, claustrophobic opening or the quick look at the police officers' home lives, for example. But I'm not sure that it does anything very well. The needle the film tries to thread between realism and theater didn't gel for me. The ending, which is ambiguous in all of the wrong ways, chooses the theatrical. (If I'm being honest, my expectations were built up by Les Miserables' Jury Prize at Cannes, and it's a bit superficial to be in that company.)

If nothing else, it's always helpful to see how another country's worst case scenario in law enforcement would look pretty good over here.

44. Bad Education (Cory Finley)- The film feels too locked-down and small at the beginning, so intent on developing the protagonist neutrally that even the audience isn't aware of his secrets. So when he faces consequences for those secrets, there's a disconnect. Part of tragedy is seeing the doom coming, right?

When it opens up, however, it's empathetic and subtle, full of a dry irony that Finley is already specializing in after only one other feature. Geraldine Viswanathan and Allison Janney get across a lot of interiority that is not on the page.

43. The Trip to Greece (Michael Winterbottom)- By the fourth installment, you know whether you're on board with the franchise. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" to Coogan and Brydon's bickering and impressions as they're served exotic food in picturesque settings, then this one won't sway you. If you're asking "Is this all there is?" about life, like they are, then I don't need to convince you.  

I will say that The Trip to Spain seemed like an enervated inflection point, at which the squad could have packed it in. The Trip to Greece proves that they probably need to keep doing this until one of them dies, which has been the subtext all along.

42. Feels Good Man (Arthur Jones)- This documentary centers on innocent artist Matt Furie's helplessness as his Pepe the Frog character gets hijacked by the alt-right. It gets the hard things right. It's able to, quite comprehensively, trace a connection from 4Chan's use of Pepe the Frog to Donald Trump's near-assuming of Pepe's ironic deniability. Director Arthur Jones seems to understand the machinations of the alt-right, and he articulates them chillingly.

The easy thing, making us connect to Furie, is less successful. The film spends way too much time setting up his story, and it makes him look naive as it pits him against Alex Jones in the final third. Still, the film is a quick ninety-two minutes, and the highs are pretty high.

41. The Old Guard (Gina Prince-Bythewood)- Some of the world-building and backstory are handled quite elegantly. The relationships actually do feel centuries old through specific details, and the immortal conceit comes together for an innovative final action sequence.

Visually and musically though, the film feels flat in a way that Prince-Bythewood's other films do not. I blame Netflix specs. KiKi Layne, who tanked If Beale Street Could Talk for me, nearly ruins this too with the child-actory way that she stresses one word per line. Especially in relief with one of our more effortless actresses, Layne is distracting.

40. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)- Whenever Sacha Baron Cohen's Abbie Hoffman opens his mouth, the other defendants brace themselves for his dismissive vulgarity. Even when it's going to hurt him, he can't help but shoot off at the mouth. Of course, he reveals his passionate and intelligent depths as the trial goes on. The character is the one that Sorkin's screenplay seems the most endeared to: In the same way that Hoffman can't help but be Hoffman, Sorkin can't help but be Sorkin. Maybe we don't need a speech there; maybe we don't have to stretch past two hours; maybe a bon mot diffuses the tension. But we know exactly what to expect by now. The film is relevant, astute, witty, benevolent, and, of course, in love with itself. There are a handful of scenes here that are perfect, so I feel bad for qualifying so much.

A smaller point: Daniel Pemberton has done great work in the past (Motherless Brooklyn, King Arthur, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), but the first sequence is especially marred by his sterile soft-rock approach.

  GOOD MOVIES

39. Time (Garrett Bradley)- The key to Time is that it provides very little context. Why the patriarch of this family is serving sixty years in prison is sort of besides the point philosophically. His wife and sons have to move on without him, and the tragedy baked into that fact eclipses any notion of what he "deserved." Feeling the weight of time as we switch back and forth between a kid talking about his first day of kindergarten and that same kid graduating from dentistry school is all the context we need. Time's presentation can be quite sumptuous: The drone shot of Angola makes its buildings look like crosses. Or is it X's?

At the same time, I need some context. When director Garrett Bradley withholds the reason Robert's in prison, and when she really withholds that Fox took a plea and served twelve years, you start to see the strings a bit. You could argue that knowing so little about why, all of a sudden, Robert can be on parole puts you into the same confused shoes as the family, but it feels manipulative to me. The film is preaching to the choir as far as criminal justice goes, which is fine, but I want it to have the confidence to tell its story above board.

38. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (Turner Ross and Bill Ross IV)- I have a barfly friend whom I see maybe once a year. When we first set up a time to meet, I kind of dread it and wonder what we'll have to talk about. Once we do get together, we trip on each other's words a bit, fumbling around with the rhythm of conversation that we mastered decades ago. He makes some kind of joke that could have been appropriate then but isn't now.

By the end of the day, hours later, we're hugging and maybe crying as we promise each other that we won't wait as long next time.

That's the exact same journey that I went on with this film.

37. Underwater (William Eubank)- Underwater is a story that you've seen before, but it's told with great confidence and economy. I looked up at twelve minutes and couldn't believe the whole table had been set. Kristen plays Ripley and projects a smart, benevolent poise.

36. The Lodge (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)- I prefer the grounded, manicured first half to the more fantastic second half. The craziness of the latter is only possible through the hard work of the former though. As with Fiala and Franz's previous feature, the visual rhymes and motifs get incorporated into the soup so carefully that you don't realize it until they overwhelm you in their bleak glory.

Small note: Alicia Silverstone, the male lead's first wife, and Riley Keough, his new partner, look sort of similar. I always think that's a nice note: "I could see how he would go for her."

35. Miss Americana (Lana Wilson)- I liked it when I saw it as a portrait of a person whose life is largely decided for her but is trying to carve out personal spaces within that hamster wheel. I loved it when I realized that describes most successful people in their twenties.

34. Sound of Metal (Darius Marder)- Riz Ahmed is showing up on all of the best performances of the year lists, but Sound of Metal isn't in anyone's top ten films of the year. That's about right. Ahmed's is a quiet, stubborn performance that I wish was in service of more than the straight line that we've seen before.

In two big scenes, there's this trick that Ahmed does, a piecing together of consequences with his eyes, as if he's moving through a flow chart in real time. In both cases, the character seems locked out and a little slower than he should be, which is, of course, why he's facing the consequences in the first place. To be charitable to a film that was a bit of a grind, it did make me notice a thing a guy did with his eyes.

33. Pieces of a Woman (Kornel Mundruczo)- Usually when I leave acting showcases like this, I imagine the film without the Oscar-baiting speeches, but this is a movie that specializes in speeches. Pieces of a Woman is being judged, deservedly so, by the harrowing twenty-minute take that opens the film, which is as indulgent as it is necessary. But if the unbroken take provides the "what," then the speeches provide the "why."

This is a film about reclaiming one's body when it rebels against you and when other people seek ownership of it. Without the Ellen Burstyn "lift your head" speech or the Vanessa Kirby show-stopper in the courtroom, I'm not sure any of that comes across.

I do think the film lets us off the hook a bit with the LaBoeuf character, in the sense that it gives us reasons to dislike him when it would be more compelling if he had done nothing wrong. Does his half-remembering of the White Stripes count as a speech?

32. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (George C. Wolfe)- This is such a play, not only in the locked-down location but also through nearly every storytelling convention: "Where are the two most interesting characters? Oh, running late? They'll enter separately in animated fashion?" But, to use the type of phrase that the characters might, "Don't hate the player; hate the game."

Perhaps the most theatrical note in this treatise on the commodification of expression is the way that, two or three times, the proceedings stop in their tracks for the piece to declare loudly what it's about. In one of those clear-outs, Boseman, who looks distractingly sick, delivers an unforgettable monologue that transports the audience into his character's fragile, haunted mind. He and Viola Davis are so good that the film sort of buckles under their weight, unsure of how to transition out of those spotlight moments and pretend that the story can start back up. Whatever they're doing is more interesting than what's being achieved overall.

31. Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg)- It's definitely the film that Vinterberg wanted to make, but despite what I think is a quietly shattering performance from Mikkelsen, Another Round moves in a bit too much of a straight line to grab me fully. The joyous final minutes hint at where it could have gone, as do pockets of Vinterberg's filmography, which seems newly tethered to realism in a way that I don't like. The best sequences are the wildest ones, like the uproarious trip to the grocery store for fresh cod, so I don't know why so much of it takes place in tiny hallways at magic hour. I give the inevitable American remake* permission to use these notes.

*- Just spitballing here. Martin: Will Ferrell, Nikolaj (Nick): Ben Stiller, Tommy: Owen Wilson, Peter: Craig Robinson

30. The Invisible Man (Leigh Whannell)- Exactly what I wanted. Exactly what I needed.

I think a less conclusive finale would have been better, but what a model of high-concept escalation. This is the movie people convinced me Whannell's Upgrade was.

29. On the Rocks (Sofia Coppola)- Slight until the Mexican sojourn, which expands the scope and makes the film even more psychosexual than before. At times it feels as if Coppola is actively simplifying, rather than diving into the race and privilege questions that the Murray character all but demands.

As for Murray, is the film 50% worse without him? 70%? I don't know if you can run in supporting categories if you're the whole reason the film exists.

28. Mangrove (Steve McQueen)- The first part of the film seemed repetitive and broad to me. But once it settled in as a courtroom drama, the characterization became more shaded, and the filmmaking itself seemed more fluid. I ended up being quite outraged and inspired.

27. Shirley (Josephine Decker)- Josephine Decker emerges as a real stylist here, changing her foggy, impressionistic approach not one bit with a little more budget. Period piece and established actors be damned--this is still as much of a reeling fever dream as Madeline's Madeline. Both pieces are a bit too repetitive and nasty for my taste, but I respect the technique.

Here's my mandatory "Elisabeth Moss is the best" paragraph. While watching her performance as Shirley Jackson, I thought about her most famous role as Peggy on Mad Men, whose inertia and need to prove herself tied her into confidence knots. Shirley is almost the opposite: paralyzed by her worldview, certain of her talent, rejecting any empathy. If Moss can inhabit both characters so convincingly, she can do anything.

26. An American Pickle (Brandon Trost)- An American Pickle is the rare comedy that could actually use five or ten extra minutes, but it's a surprisingly heartfelt and wholesome stretch for Rogen, who is earnest in the lead roles.

25. The King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow)- At two hours and fifteen minutes, The King of Staten Island is probably the first Judd Apatow film that feels like the exact right length. For example, the baggy date scene between a gracious Bill Burr and a faux-dowdy Marisa Tomei is essential, the sort of widening of perspective that something like Trainwreck was missing.

It's Pete Davidson's movie, however, and though he has never been my cup of tea, I think he's actually quite powerful in his quiet moments. The movie probes some rare territory--a mentally ill man's suspicion that he is unlovable, a family's strategic myth-making out of respect for the dead. And when Davidson shows up at the firehouse an hour and fifteen minutes in, it feels as if we've built to a last resort.

24. Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis)- The tricky part of this film is communicating Hunter's despair, letting her isolation mount, but still keeping her opaque. It takes a lot of visual discipline to do that, and Claudio Mirabella-Davis is up to the task. This ends up being a much more sympathetic, expressive movie than the plot description might suggest.

(In the tie dispute, Hunter and Richie are both wrong. That type of silk--I couldn't tell how pebbled it was, but it's probably a barathea weave-- shouldn't be ironed directly, but it doesn't have to be steamed. On a low setting, you could iron the back of the tie and be fine.)

23. The Vast of Night (Andrew Patterson)- I wanted a bit more "there" there; The film goes exactly where I thought it would, and there isn't enough humor for my taste. (The predictability might be a feature, not a bug, since the film is positioned as an episode of a well-worn Twilight Zone-esque show.)

But from a directorial standpoint, this is quite a promising debut. Patterson knows when to lock down or use silence--he even cuts to black to force us to listen more closely to a monologue. But he also knows when to fill the silence. There's a minute or so when Everett is spooling tape, and he and Fay make small talk about their hopes for the future, developing the characters' personalities in what could have been just mechanics. It's also a refreshingly earnest film. No one is winking at the '50s setting.

I'm tempted to write, "If Andrew Patterson can make this with $1 million, just imagine what he can do with $30 million." But maybe people like Shane Carruth have taught us that Patterson is better off pinching pennies in Texas and following his own muse.

22. Martin Eden (Pietro Marcello)- At first this film, adapted from a picaresque novel by Jack London, seemed as if it was hitting the marks of the genre. "He's going from job to job and meeting dudes who are shaping his worldview now." But the film, shot in lustrous Super 16, won me over as it owned the trappings of this type of story, forming a character who is a product of his environment even as he transcends it. By the end, I really felt the weight of time.

You want to talk about something that works better in novels than films though? When a passionate, independent protagonist insists that a woman is the love of his life, despite the fact that she's whatever Italians call a wet blanket. She's rich, but Martin doesn't care about her money. He hates her family and friends, and she refuses to accept him or his life pursuits. She's pretty but not even as pretty as the waitress they discuss. Tell me what I'm missing here. There's archetype, and there's incoherence.

21. Bacurau (Kleber Mendonca Filho and Juliano Dornelles)- Certain images from this adventurous film will stick with me, but I got worn out after the hard reset halfway through. As entranced as I was by the mystery of the first half, I think this blood-soaked ensemble is better at asking questions than it is at answering them.

20. Let Them All Talk (Steven Soderbergh)- The initial appeal of this movie might be "Look at these wonderful actresses in their seventies getting a movie all to themselves." And the film is an interesting portrait of ladies taking stock of relationships that have spanned decades. But Soderbergh and Eisenberg handle the twentysomething Lucas Hedges character with the same openness and empathy. His early reasoning for going on the trip is that he wants to learn from older women, and Hedges nails the puppy-dog quality of a young man who would believe that. Especially in the scenes of aspirational romance, he's sweet and earnest as he brushes his hair out of his face.

Streep plays Alice Hughes, a serious author of literary fiction, and she crosses paths with Kelvin Kranz, a grinder of airport thrillers. In all of the right ways, Let Them All Talk toes the line between those two stances as an entertaining, jaunty experiment that also shoulders subtextual weight. If nothing else, it's easy to see why a cruise ship's counterfeit opulence, its straight lines at a lean, would be visually engaging to Soderbergh. You can't have a return to form if your form is constantly evolving.

19. Dick Johnson Is Dead (Kirsten Johnson)- Understandably, I don't find the subject as interesting as his own daughter does, and large swaths of this film are unsure of what they're trying to say. But that's sort of the point, and the active wrestling that the film engages in with death ultimately pays off in a transcendent moment. The jaw-dropping ending is something that only non-fiction film can achieve, and Johnson's whole career is about the search for that sort of serendipity.

18. Da 5 Bloods (Spike Lee)- Delroy Lindo is a live-wire, but his character is the only one of the principals who is examined with the psychological depth I was hoping for. The first half, with all of its present-tense flourishes, promises more than the gunfights of the second half can deliver. When the film is cooking though, it's chock full of surprises, provocations, and pride.

17. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittmann)- Very quickly, Eliza Hittmann has established herself as an astute, empathetic director with an eye for discovering new talent. I hope that she gets to make fifty more movies in which she objectively follows laconic young people. But I wanted to like this one more than I did. The approach is so neutral that it's almost flat to me, lacking the arc and catharsis of her previous film, Beach Rats. I still appreciate her restraint though.

GREAT MOVIES

16. Young Ahmed (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne)- I don't think the Dardennes have made a bad movie yet, and I'm glad they turned away from the slight genre dipping of The Unknown Girl, the closest to bad that they got. Young Ahmed is a lean, daring return to form.

Instead of following an average person, as they normally do, the Dardenne Brothers follow an extremist, and the objectivity that usually generates pathos now serves to present ambiguity. Ahmed says that he is changing, that he regrets his actions, but we never know how much of his stance is a put-on. I found myself wanting him to reform, more involved than I usually am in these slices of life. Part of it is that Idir Ben Addi looks like such a normal, young kid, and the Ahmed character has most of the qualities that we say we want in young people: principles, commitment, self-worth, reflection. So it's that much more destructive when those qualities are used against him and against his fellow man.

15. World of Tomorrow Episode Three: The Absent Destinations of David Prime (Don Hertzfeldt)- My dad, a man whom I love but will never understand, has dismissed modern music before by claiming that there are only so many combinations of chords. To him, it's almost impossible to do something new. Of course, this is the type of thing that an uncreative person would say--a person not only incapable of hearing the chords that combine notes but also unwilling to hear the space between the notes. (And obviously, that's the take of a person who doesn't understand that, originality be damned, some people just have to create.)

  Anyway, that attitude creeps into my own thinking more than I would like, but then I watch something as wholly original as World of Tomorrow Episode Three. The series has always been a way to pile sci-fi ideas on top of each other to prove the essential truths of being and loving. And this one, even though it achieves less of a sense of yearning than its predecessor, offers even more devices to chew on. Take, for example, the idea that Emily sends her message from the future, so David's primitive technology can barely handle it. In order to move forward with its sophistication, he has to delete any extraneous skills for the sake of computer memory. So out of trust for this person who loves him, he has to weigh whether his own breathing or walking can be uninstalled as a sacrifice for her. I thought that we might have been done describing love, but there it is, a new metaphor. Mixing futurism with stick figures to get at the most pure drive possible gave us something new. It's called art, Dad.

14. On the Record (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering)- We don't call subjects of documentaries "stars" for obvious reasons, but Drew Dixon kind of is one. Her honesty and wisdom tell a complete story of the #MeToo movement. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering take their time developing her background at first, not because we need to "gain sympathy" or "establish credibility" for a victim of sexual abuse, but because showing her talent and enthusiasm for hip-hop A&R makes it that much more tragic when her passion is extinguished. Hell, I just like the woman, so spending a half-hour on her rise was pleasurable in and of itself.

  This is a gut-wrenching, fearless entry in what is becoming Dick and Ziering's raison d'etre, but its greatest quality is Dixon's composed reflection. She helped to establish a pattern of Russell Simmons's behavior, but she explains what happened to her in ways I had never heard before.

13. David Byrne’s American Utopia (Spike Lee)- I'm often impressed by the achievements that puzzle me: How did they pull that off? But I know exactly how David Byrne pulled off the impish but direct precision of American Utopia: a lot of hard work.

I can't blame Spike Lee for stealing a page from Demme's Stop Making Sense: He denies us a close-up of any audience members until two-thirds of the way through, when we get someone in absolute rapture.

12. One Night in Miami... (Regina King)- We've all cringed when a person of color is put into the position of speaking on behalf of his or her entire race. But the characters in One Night in Miami... live in that condition all the time and are constantly negotiating it. As Black public figures in 1964, they know that the consequences of their actions are different, bigger, than everyone else's. The charged conversations between Malcolm X and Sam Cooke are not about whether they can live normal lives. They're way past that. The stakes are closer to Sam Cooke arguing that his life's purpose aligns with the protection and elevation of African-Americans while Malcolm X argues that those pursuits should be the same thing. Late in the movie, Cassius Clay leaves the other men, a private conversation, to talk to reporters, a public conversation. But the film argues that everything these men do is always already public. They're the most powerful African-Americans in the country, but their lives are not their own. Or not only their own.

It's true that the first act has the clunkiness and artifice of a TV movie, but once the film settles into the motel room location and lets the characters feed off one another, it's gripping. It's kind of unfair for a movie to get this many scenes of Leslie Odom Jr. singing, but I'll take it.

11. Saint Frances (Alex Thompson)- Rilke wrote, "Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." The characters' behavior in Saint Frances--all of these fully formed characters' behavior--made me think of that quotation. When they lash out at one another, even at their nastiest, the viewer has a window into how they're expressing pain they can't verbalize. The film is uneven in its subtlety, but it's a real showcase for screenwriter and star Kelly O'Sullivan, who is unflinching and dynamic in one of the best performances of the year. Somebody give her some of the attention we gave to Zach Braff for God's sake.

10. Boys State (Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine)- This documentary is kind of a miracle from a logistical standpoint. From casting interviews beforehand, lots of editing afterwards, or sly note-taking once the conference began, McBaine and Moss happened to select the four principals who mattered the most at the convention, then found them in rooms full of dudes wearing the same tucked-in t-shirt. By the way, all of the action took place over the course of one week, and by definition, the important events are carved in half.

To call Boys State a microcosm of American politics is incorrect. These guys are forming platforms and voting in elections. What they're doing is American politics, so when they make the same compromises and mistakes that active politicians do, it produces dread and disappointment. So many of the boys are mimicking the political theater that they see on TV, and that sweaty sort of performance is going to make a Billy Mitchell out of this kid Ben Feinstein, and we'll be forced to reckon with how much we allow him to evolve as a person. This film is so precise, but what it proves is undeniably messy. Luckily, some of these seventeen-year-olds usher in hope for us all.

If nothing else, the film reveals the level to which we're all speaking in code.

9. The Nest (Sean Durkin)- In the first ten minutes or so of The Nest, the only real happy minutes, father and son are playing soccer in their quaint backyard, and the father cheats to score on a children's net before sliding on the grass to rub in his victory. An hour later, the son kicks the ball around by himself near a regulation goal on the family's massive property. The contrast is stark and obvious, as is the symbolism of the dead horse, but that doesn't mean it's not visually powerful or resonant.

Like Sean Durkin's earlier film, Martha Marcy May Marlene, the whole of The Nest is told with detail of novelistic scope and an elevation of the moment. A snippet of radio that mentions Ronald Reagan sets the time period, rather than a dateline. One kid saying "Thanks, Dad" and another kid saying, "Thanks, Rory" establishes a stepchild more elegantly than any other exposition might.

But this is also a movie that does not hide what it means. Characters usually say exactly what is on their minds, and motivations are always clear. For example, Allison smokes like a chimney, so her daughter's way of acting out is leaving butts on the window sill for her mother to find. (And mother and daughter both definitely "act out" their feelings.) On the other hand, Ben, Rory's biological son, is the character least like him, so these relationships aren't too directly parallel. Regardless, Durkin uses these trajectories to cast a pall of familial doom.

8. Sorry We Missed You (Sean Durkin)- Another precisely calibrated empathy machine from Ken Loach. The overwhelmed matriarch, Abby, is a caretaker, and she has to break up a Saturday dinner to rescue one of her clients, who wet herself because no one came to help her to the bathroom. The lady is embarrassed, and Abby calms her down by saying, "You mean more to me than you know." We know enough about Abby's circumstances to realize that it's sort of a lie, but it's a beautiful lie, told by a person who cares deeply but is not cared for.

Loach's central point is that the health of a family, something we think of as immutable and timeless, is directly dependent upon the modern industry that we use to destroy ourselves. He doesn't have to be "proven" relevant, and he didn't plan for Covid-19 to point to the fragility of the gig economy, but when you're right, you're right.

7. Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen)- swear to you I thought: "This is an impeccable depiction of a great house party. The only thing it's missing is the volatile dude who scares away all the girls." And then the volatile dude who scares away all the girls shows up.

In a year short on magic, there are two or three transcendent moments, but none of them can equal the whole crowd singing along to "Silly Games" way after the song has ended. Nothing else crystallizes the film's note of celebration: of music, of community, of safe spaces, of Black skin. I remember moments like that at house parties, and like all celebrations, they eventually make me sad.

6. Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht)- I held off on this movie because I thought that I knew what it was. The setup was what I expected: A summer camp for the disabled in the late '60s takes on the spirit of the time and becomes a haven for people who have not felt agency, self-worth, or community anywhere else. But that's the right-place-right-time start of a story that takes these figures into the '80s as they fight for their rights.

If you're anything like my dumb ass, you know about 504 accommodations from the line on a college syllabus that promises equal treatment. If 2020 has taught us anything though, it's that rights are seized, not given, and this is the inspiring story of people who unified to demand what they deserved. Judy Heumann is a civil rights giant, but I'm ashamed to say I didn't know who she was before this film. If it were just a history lesson that wasn't taught in school, Crip Camp would still be valuable, but it's way more than that.

5. Palm Springs (Max Barbakow)- When explaining what is happening to them, Andy Samberg's Nyles twirls his hand at Cristin Milioti's Sara and says, "It's one of those infinite time-loop scenarios." Yeah, one of those. Armed with only a handful of fictional examples, she and the audience know exactly what he means, and the continually inventive screenplay by Andy Siara doesn't have to do any more explaining. In record time, the film accelerates into its premise, involves her, and sets up the conflict while avoiding the claustrophobia of even Groundhog Day. That economy is the strength that allows it to be as funny as it is. By being thrifty with the setup, the savings can go to, say, the couple crashing a plane into a fiery heap with no consequences.

In some accidental ways, this is, of course, a quarantine romance as well. Nyles and Sara frustratingly navigate the tedious wedding as if they are play-acting--which they sort of are--then they push through that sameness to grow for each other, realizing that dependency is not weakness. The best relationships are doing the same thing right now.

  Although pointedly superficial--part of the point of why the couple is such a match--and secular--I think the notion of an afterlife would come up at least once--Palm Springs earns the sincerity that it gets around to. And for a movie ironic enough to have a character beg to be impaled so that he doesn't have to sit in traffic, that's no small feat.

  4. The Assistant (Kitty Green)- A wonder of Bressonian objectivity and rich observation, The Assistant is the rare film that deals exclusively with emotional depth while not once explaining any emotions. One at a time, the scrape of the Kleenex box might not be so grating, the long hallway trek to the delivery guy might not be so tiring, but this movie gets at the details of how a job can destroy you in ways that add up until you can't even explain them.

3. Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell)- In her most incendiary and modern role, Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, which is short for Cassandra, that figure doomed to tell truths that no one else believes. The web-belted boogeyman who ruined her life is Al, short for Alexander, another Greek who is known for his conquests. The revenge story being told here--funny in its darkest moments, dark in its funniest moments--is tight on its surface levels, but it feels as if it's telling a story more archetypal and expansive than that too.

  An exciting feature debut for its writer-director Emerald Fennell, the film goes wherever it dares. Its hero has a clear purpose, and it's not surprising that the script is willing to extinguish her anger halfway through. What is surprising is the way it renews and muddies her purpose as she comes into contact with half-a-dozen brilliant one- or two-scene performances. (Do you think Alfred Molina can pull off a lawyer who hates himself so much that he can't sleep? You would be right.)

Promising Young Woman delivers as an interrogation of double standards and rape culture, but in quiet ways it's also about our outsized trust in professionals and the notion that some trauma cannot be overcome.

INSTANT CLASSICS

2. Soul (Pete Docter)- When Pete Docter's Up came out, it represented a sort of coronation for Pixar: This was the one that adults could like unabashedly. The one with wordless sequences and dead children and Ed Asner in the lead. But watching it again this week with my daughter, I was surprised by how high-concept and cloying it could be. We choose not to remember the middle part with the goofy dog stuff.

Soul is what Up was supposed to be: honest, mature, stirring. And I don't mean to imply that a family film shouldn't make any concessions to children. But Soul, down to the title, never compromises its own ambition. Besides Coco, it's probably the most credible character study that Pixar has ever made, with all of Joe's growth earned the hard way. Besides Inside Out, it's probably the wittiest comedy that Pixar has ever made, bursting with unforced energy.

There's a twitter fascination going around about Dez, the pigeon-figured barber character whose scene has people gushing, "Crush my windpipe, king" or whatever. Maybe that's what twitter does now, but no one fantasized about any characters in Up. And I count that as progress.

1. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)- After hearing that our name-shifting protagonist moonlights as an artist, a no-nonsense David Thewlis offers, "I hope you're not an abstract artist." He prefers "paintings that look like photographs" over non-representational mumbo-jumbo. And as Jessie Buckley squirms to try to think of a polite way to talk back, you can tell that Charlie Kaufman has been in the crosshairs of this same conversation. This morose, scary, inscrutable, expressionist rumination is not what the Netflix description says it is at all, and it's going to bother nice people looking for a fun night in. Thank God.

The story goes that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, when constructing Raiders of the Lost Ark, sought to craft a movie that was "only the good parts" with little of the clunky setup that distracted from action. What we have here is a Charlie Kaufman movie with only the Charlie Kaufman moments, less interested than ever before at holding one's hand. The biting humor is here, sometimes aimed at philistines like the David Thewlis character above, sometimes at the niceties that we insist upon. The lonely horror of everyday life is here, in the form of missed calls from oneself or the interruption of an inner monologue. Of course, communicating the overwhelming crush of time, both unknowable and familiar, is the raison d'etre.

A new pet motif seems to be the way that we don't even own our own knowledge. The Young Woman recites "Bonedog" by Eva H.D., which she claims/thinks she wrote, only to find Jake's book open to that page, next to a Pauline Kael book that contains a Woman Under the Influence review that she seems to have internalized later. When Jake muses about Wordsworth's "Lucy Poems," it starts as a way to pass the time, then it becomes a way to lord his education over her, then it becomes a compliment because the subject resembles her, then it becomes a way to let her know that, in the grand scheme of things, she isn't that special at all. This film jerks the viewer through a similar wintry cycle and leaves him with his own thoughts. It's not a pretty picture, but it doesn't look like anything else.

[dimensionsunited]

NOVEMBER 2020 DIMENSIONS ENTERTAINMENT SCHEDULES & REVIEW

Members may earn 3 points each (up to 6 points) for writing, by the end of December 7 KST:

A solo para of 400+ words based on their monthly schedule (does not count toward your monthly total).

A thread of six posts (three per participant, including the starter) based on their monthly schedule.

Threads do not have to take place directly during an important date listed on the schedule, but must be related to what the muse is mentioned to be doing in the paragraph explaining their schedule/the company’s schedule for the month and/or their thoughts on the mentioned activities or lack thereof.

These schedules may be updated throughout the month if new information needs to be added.

Reminder: October schedule posts are due by the end of November 7 KST. Please do not post schedule posts in the fmdschedule tag.

OVERALL COMPANY

food cw // As the Culture Complex grows closer and closer to being finished and is slated for an opening in the first quarter of 2021, the focus has turned to the details of the new center. This month, an offer is extended to all idols under all three companies to submit a cafe menu item idea for a food item themed after them, their group, their company, or their career in general. A contest has also been opened for fans to submit ideas. Idols who submit their ideas and are chosen will get additional publicity through the items’ sale in the center’s cafe and will be awarded a set prize amount in money for their contribution and will earn a percentage of the profit from the menu item once the complex opens. (Menu item ideas should fit a cafe setting and not involve extensive preparation; things like non-alcoholic beverages, small personal desserts, sandwiches, etc.).

Important dates:

N/A

DIMENSIONS SOLOIST 1

Before her comeback promotions come to an end, Dimensions has arranged for her to film a “Dance Training Video” of her newest single where she’ll teach key points of her dance to one of her managers and a member of Dimensions’ marketing department. After the end of her promotions, schedules fall off a lot and she’ll mostly be in for meetings here and there about potential end of the year activities and conversations about her direction in 2021.

Important dates:

November 2: “Pporappippam” Dance Training video filming.

November 5: End of music show promotions.

DIMENSIONS SOLOIST 2

On November 15, he releases his latest single and begins music show promotions for it. For this round of promotions, management is mostly focused on recruiting new idol fans from music show promotions and reigniting the passion of existing fans by encouraging him to participate in fan outreach during the period such as VLives. He will also guest on two radio shows as general public outreach.

Important dates:

November 15: Release of "When You Call My Name”, music show promotions continue through December 15.

November 18: Guesting on KBS Music Plaza radio show.

November 20: Guesting on Naver Now Late Night Studio radio show.

DIMENSIONS SOLOIST 3

Dimensions has decided they’re starting to run thin on how much they can milk the success of “I” and her debut solo mini-album, which means they’ve made final decisions about her first solo comeback. She’ll be returning with a single with a different sound from her first release, while still keeping her within the ballad vein she’s successful with. The back half of this month, she’ll go into the studio to record the final vocals for the track.

Important dates:

N/A

GAL.ACTIC

Gal.actic continues their music show promotions with a couple of radio show guestings and a fan sign. The song receiving a moderate amount of attention, even if the opinion on the title track as a song itself was split, has confirmed another comeback for the group internally, although nothing has been officially decided or announced to the members yet. Instead, during the back half of the month, members are mostly encouraged to focus on individual activities as the year comes to an end.

Important dates:

November 2: Guesting on KBS Music Plaza radio show.

November 6: Guesting on KBS Cool FM Kiss The Radio radio show.

November 7: Fan sign in Gangnam.

November 19: End of music show promotions.

ALIEN

The members will continue to practice their lines and a handful of performances for their upcoming fan meeting, but they also have yet another English-language music video to film, which will serve as the final single off of their English-language album shortly after they release it next year.

Important dates:

November 21: “You Can’t Hold My Heart” M/V filming.

MARS

Their comeback happens on November 17 and its success is apparent soon after release. It charts well, especially for a boy group, and the fan response is even more positive as fans express gratefulness MARS has returned to the dark concepts fans are particularly found of, and it doesn’t hurt their enthusiasm that his concept leans even more sexy than usual. It sends a clear message to Dimensions what fans want and the company attitude seems to be overall pleased with the results of the comeback. In addition to music show promotions, MARS will promote through radio shows and fan signs and they’ll even film a special Christmas dance practice for their latest title track which will be uploaded onto YouTube next month.

Important dates:

November 17: Release of “Chained Up” & Chained Up mini-album, music show promotions continue through December 17.

November 20: Guesting on SBS Power FM Cultwo Show radio show.

November 21: Fan sign in Mapo.

November 27: Fan sign in Gangnam.

November 29: “Chained Up” Christmas dance practice filming.

7ROPHY

The end of Queendom leads directly into their comeback with their finale track and it’s very well-received. It’s by far the most popular single they’ve released this year and it becomes clear 7ROPHY has won by showing themselves as strong competitors on Queendom, even if they didn’t actually win the show. Dimensions hadn’t expected the single to do so well, so promotions are limited to music shows this time around, but a deadline is set for the end of the month for members to contribute to any songs that might be submitted for their next comeback, which Dimensions reports they’re planning for the first quarter of 2021.

Important dates:

November 1: Release of “Lion”, music show promotions continue through December 1.

UNITY

Unity finishes off their preparations for their late-month comeback earlier in November with the teaser photo shoot and music video filming.  They don’t get to see too much of the results of this comeback before the month ends, but even from the beginning of promotions, it earns them a place as Dimensions’ crown jewel with better chart results than ever before and an almost assured path to becoming a million seller between this repackage and the original album, placing them only behind the likes of Origin and Knight in physical sales and making them the first from their company’s history to achieve such a feat.

Important dates:

November 3: Comeback teaser photo shoot.

November 10: “Punch” M/V filming.

November 15: Release of “Make Your Day” Episode #1.

November 18: Release of “Nonstop” Episode #2.

November 24: Release of “Punch” & Unity Zone: The Final Round repackaged album, music show promotions continue through December 24.

November 25: Dingo Music Unity in 100SEC Choreography video filming.

      ↳ CHAMPION

No schedules for the month.

Important dates:

N/A

LUCID

Lucid completes their Asia showcase tour at the beginning of the month, but Dimensions doesn’t have a break in the plans for them. They’ve been invited to perform on Immortal Songs 2 once again and will need to rehearse for that throughout the month. They’ve also been chosen to be turned into characters for the FPS game Sudden Attack due to their popularity with young men, and become ambassadors for the game in the process. Character models will be based off of existing photos of them but they will have to go into the studio to record voice-overs for their character models. If that isn’t enough, they’ll also be in the studio to record their next comeback this month. In a concept meeting earlier in the month, they’ll learn that this comeback is considered critical since they’ve now completed both the original “normal realm” school trilogy and the original “nightmare realm” nightmare trilogy. Officially, this comeback is considered to be a combination of both the regular and nightmare realms — a first for their lore — and the intention is to stay close to the successful sound of their “normal realm” concept with a slightly more girl crush lean, while the music video will involves themes of both realms.

Important dates:

November 7: LOL Asia Showcase tour at Taipei International Convention Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

November 16: Sudden Attack character recording.

November 20: Immortal Songs 2 filming (to be aired: November 28).

#fmdschedule #queued post

[peepsilvs]

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life Review

Warning: Includes major spoilers for the story of the game, although, it’s been 16 years, you have had your chance to play it.

When I was a child, my father bought me a Nintendo Gamecube. I was too young to understand anything about the games as I didn't speak any English, but I remember enjoying endlessly watching my sister play games on it. One of those games was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful life, and to this day it remains as one of the most nostalgic games to me. When I got older, I replayed it and fell in love with it even more, but there was always something so fascinating to me about this game. I wonder how it managed to capture my heart despite my dumb child brain not even understanding what it was about. Now, as an adult, I hope to take a more critical look into this game from my childhood and what made it so different from the other Harvest Moon games for me, aside from the nostalgia.

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life was published in 2004 for Nintendo Gamecube by Natsume and developed by Marvelous Interactive. In 2005 it got a special edition release on the Playstation 2 and the special edition port was later re-released on the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. There was also a version with a playable female lead called Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life that was released in 2005 and its only difference from the original was the player character's gender and marriage candidates to choose from.

Harvest Moon Game play With a Twist

(Source: Harvest Moon Wiki)

Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life offers the player two save files and is, as expected, a farming simulator. This means the players basic game play consists of watering and fertilizing crops, taking care of farm animals and trying to earn money to upgrade your old plot of land. As in other games in the series, certain crops only grow during certain seasons, and aside from farming, the player can visit the small town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley to get to know its residents. While the game play follows the same formula as most farming simulators, A Wonderful Life proves to be a bit more difficult due to its connection to realism. No  matter which way the player prefers to go, both farming and ranching require a lot of effort and time from the player, not to mention money. In the beginning, the player is already offered a farm with a barn, chicken coop and three fields for farming, along with a cow to help them get started. However, since all necessary buildings are already in place, there is no way to upgrade the space or layout of the farm, meaning the player must work with what they are given. This means limited barn space and understanding of how the different soil types of the fields work instead of just planting whatever comes to mind during the seasons.

The game also encourages the player to choose between animals and crops. While it is possible to use both, completely devoting themselves to one is more rewarded in game play. Cows have several different species in the game, some producing more profitable products than others and naturally selling for more than a regular cow. Unlike in other Harvest Moon games, there is also a male counterpart for chickens and cows. A rooster and a bull are needed in order for the animals to reproduce and the player can either invest in their own bull to cut down fees or pay for a Miracle Potion meaning another farm's bull is used. The cows also don't give milk or stop giving milk if they aren't impregnated regularly, a feature that does not exist in other games in the series.

If planting is more to the player's taste, they have to be ready to invest in fertilizer and better watering cans. While the basic idea of buying seeds and planting them is present, the player can also invest in their own seed maker and create hybrid crops by befriending a talking plant in their neighbor's house. The more the player invests in creating their own seeds and raising their quality, the more profit can be gained from farming. Nevertheless, both farming and ranching have their own set of new challenges, and instead of upgrading their space, the upgrades mainly focus on bettering the original products like making milk into cheese or using quality crops to make quality seeds.

The more difficult and realistic aspects of the game are mostly a hit-or-miss. The more devout fans of the series might not appreciate the added difficulty taking away the simplistic game play of other Harvest Moon games. On the other hand, it can be fun to try something different for once, even though earning money for upgrades is more difficult. There is also a lack of several other usual Harvest Moon activities, such as mining and festivals. Instead, mining is replaced with the excavation site, that offers ancient fossils and crystals instead of gems and festivals are more like small events. This means no cow festivals or chicken festivals that, up by then, had been a very huge part of the Harvest Moon franchise. Other notable differences are that the seasons now only take 10 days to change and that the game is split into chapters, with some chapters having requirements. If said requirements (marriage in the first year for example) are not met, the game ends.

All in all, while there is a lot of good, the most frustrating mechanic is how long it takes to complete the game. In the original version, it takes 20 in-game years for it to reach the end. The special edition fixed this by lowering the needed years to fifteen, but even so, it can be hard to keep interest for long periods of time, as the game mechanic very much compliments the game's themes. This means that even though every day is meaningful in some way at the end, it can feel boring to go through them, running the same errands without any certain festivals or events to look forward to. This doesn't mean the game lacks content, but rather that the content is very much hidden and that there are no simple tutorials on how to reach it. Most of the game play outside of farming or ranching is trial-and-error based and requires the player to search for events and what the characters enjoy. It doesn't help that the relationship meters of all characters aside from the marriage candidates are hidden, so the player has to guess how close they are with the villagers.

The Story is A Lot Darker

A Wonderful Life aims to be more realistic in game play, and thus, ends up being a bit darker with its themes too. Like the title suggests, the main goal of the game is to live a so-called "wonderful life" and uncommon for a Harvest Moon game, A Wonderful Life has a story attached to it, and the story is most defiantly the game's biggest strength. Each chapter of the story progresses the player character's life, all the way to his death, and all the choices the player makes during their life finally come together at the end.

What A Wonderful Life is going for is a lot different from the staple of the series, but it also makes the game feel more alive. The town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley does not  have many villagers nor marriage candidates, but what it lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality. The residents, along with the player character, grow older with time and depending on who you marry, befriend or choose not to befriend, changes what kind of events you can encounter each chapter. The amount of events very much replaces the lack of festivals as relationships with other characters feel meaningful and alive. I have personally played through the game many times and there are still a lot of events that I have not seen. Seeing them is not necessary to complete the game, aside from the heart events of the marriage candidates, but encountering them really feels rewarding, because it feels like being a part of the community.

The most perfect way to describe A Wonderful Life's story is "bittersweet". Getting to know the residents is surely rewarding and hearing them comment on gifts that they received from the player a day earlier is nice, but the game also makes it very clear that everyone has their own set of issues in life. Everyone has regrets and how all you can do is to try to live your best life with the choices you make. This feeling is perhaps the most apparent in who the player chooses to marry. In the original A Wonderful Life, there are 3 marriage candidates with a 4th added in the special edition. Each of them benefits from the player marrying them, with one getting out of a loveless arranged marriage, one receiving a home and third fulfilling  her dream of having a family as an aging bachelorette. Whoever the player chooses, they have to see how this negatively affects the other two, who most likely never receive what they wish for.

An odd addition to marriage is also the fact that neglecting the relationship with the chosen wife and child leads to long consequences. In the worst case scenario, the wife will divorce the player and the game will end and in some milder examples, the player's child might end up hating them for being an absent parent. In A Wonderful Life, it matters what the player chooses to do with their relationships. The friends the player makes influence their child and what the child does when the game ends. In the original version, the player can only have a son, but the special edition gives an option to have a daughter.

If the player also has a copy of the GameBoy Advance game Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, they can connect between the two, leading to the villagers commenting things about mineral town and bringing special goods with them. This can be a very nice feature for returning players of the series. Unfortunately, I did not have access to said feature so I cannot comment on it more personally.

Forget-Me-Not-Valley is Beautiful

The open world of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is not very big, but it feels homely. The town of Forget-Me-Not-Valley is covered in earthy tones and the lack of music actually works well for the game's benefit. While the graphics in the original version for Nintendo Gamecube are not top notch and you can see the game's age, the re-release on PS3 and PS4 cleared them a lot, making the world come across as beautiful as it was meant to in the first place.

As far as Harvest Moon games go, A Wonderful Life is certainly not the most colorful, but it has its own charm. The town takes after a rural Japanese town, with most houses being rustic and brown, and nature being the most attractive piece of it. Being in 3D, the player has an excellent view of the sky at any times during the day, and the game very realistically has a cycle, meaning fresh sunrises and warm sunsets, along with a sparkling sky of stars and grey clouds when it rains. Fitting to its world, the weather might change in the middle of the day and it might snow in the final days of Autumn, as in real life.

These changes make a big difference in the atmosphere of the game. They compliment its themes and story, and even if there isn't a large area to explore, there are certainly many things to find. The valley's colors change each season and it is worthwhile to explore the same places during different times of day and year. The lack of music compliments the rural, peaceful aesthetic, as it makes it easier to hear the ambient sounds that change depending on which area of the valley is being explored. At the beach, the sea can be heard slowly crashing against the hills, and in the forest birds are singing. All villagers have a signature sounds they make when talked to, giving them their own voice and making them feel real. The only area with music are the homes of other villagers and the player's farm. The player can unlock different records by playing and customize what kind of music they want on their farm or if they prefer no music at all, they can remove the record. 

To put it lightly, A Wonderful Life has its own idea of an aesthetic and it sticks to it all the way down to sound design. Once again, it is more of a preference question on what the player likes, but having it any other way would defiantly break the feeling the game is going for.

Verdict

While in no ways a perfect game, Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life has a goal and is successful in portraying it. Despite being an old game, its story has aged well and never fails to be relevant, as life may change from the outside, but at its core it will always have the same questions lying beneath. The graphics on the other hand do look a bit outdated for today's standards, yet can be overlooked and even be seen as charming to some. Other frustrating traits it has is its slow and repetitive game play, that ironically compliments the game's story, but fails to be engaging for long periods at a time. Still, the game is worth experiencing, even for players not familiar to the Harvest Moon series, for the exact reason that it is so different from the entries in the series.

#harvest moon #harvest moon a wonderful life

[thewalkingdeadimaginings]

Don’t Look Back Chapter Nine

Don’t Look Back has made its return! I was missing it and so I thought I would bring it back finally. If you’re brand new here or you just need a refresher, the link to the previous chapters of this story as well as my other two stories is HERE. I checked and they should be up to date.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter Nine: February 3, 1956

“I thought you were gonna see a doctor if you didn’t feel better in a week,” Daryl remarked. The moment he saw Rosemary walking up the steps that morning at school, “Still don’t look good, Rose.”

“How sweet of you to say,” Rosemary muttered. She followed with a quick kiss on the cheek and they walked into school together with his arm around her shoulder, “And anyways, I’ve already made plans to see a doctor after school today. I told my father that I was gonna be at cheerleading practice. Um…I was wondering if you would come with me.”

“To your doctor?” Daryl said. Rosemary nodded. His arm tightened slightly around her shoulders, “Of course, Rose. You scared?”

“Well, I’ve been feeling so terrible the past few weeks,” Rosemary replied, “And it feels so much worse today.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come to school today,” Daryl said.

“My father would notice if I did,” Rosemary argued, “Besides, it’s nothing I haven’t been pushing through. It’s just my back has been hurting since yesterday. A little dizzy, maybe. I just need to take it easy until I go to the doctor’s. That’s all, really. You don’t have to worry about me. Who knew that the boy who was calling me a spoiled princess would be such a worrier.”

Daryl scoffed but couldn’t hide his smile, “When’re ya gonna let that one go?”

“Never,” Rosemary giggled. The bell rang and she reluctantly broke away from Daryl’s comforting grip, “Have to get to class. Stay out of trouble, will you?”

Daryl gave her a nod as they parted ways, “I’ll try.”

Maggie and Tara were standing outside their English class when Rosemary got there. She put on a happy face despite how uncomfortable she was feeling at the moment, “Morning.”

“Morning,” Tara said, “Are you feeling any better today?”

Rosemary groaned, “Not really, no. And on top of that, I think I slept funny the other night. My back has been hurting since yesterday. But you’ll be happy to know that I’m going to the doctor today after school.”

“Thank goodness,” Maggie said, “You should have gone a week ago.”

“Yes, I know,” Rosemary muttered. The three walked into class together and the rest of the day went on as normal as it could have. Rosemary started feeling worse as the day went on but she pushed through. She didn’t get to see Daryl again until it was lunchtime but she wasn’t in the mood to eat. She waited for him at the front steps where they always met up in the afternoon.

“Hey, Rose,” Daryl said as he took a seat beside her, “Aren’t you gonna eat?”

“I don’t think so,” Rosemary muttered, “I’m not feeling very well. Do you want my lunch?”

“No thanks,” Daryl said, “Maybe you should go if you feel worse.”

“I can make it,” Rosemary said, “Just a few more hours until school is over. I think my um…time of the month is coming. I just wish my cramps would go away.”

“Oh,” Daryl grunted as he started fidgeting, “Is there anything I can do?”

“I wish,” Rosemary chuckled, “But I’ve had it since I was twelve. I can handle it by now. That’s probably all it is, Daryl. I’m going to feel silly when I get to the doctor and that’s what he tells me.”

“Better to know that it was nothing than have it be something and you let it get worse,” Daryl said, “You want to take a walk then? Maybe that will help.”

“That’s a good idea,” Rosemary replied. Daryl helped her onto her feet and they started walking up the steps to get back into the building. As he opened the door for her, she felt her lower abdomen tighten in a severe cramp, “Ah! Daryl!”

“Rose?” Daryl said. Rosemary fell to her knees, clutching her stomach. Daryl lowered with her, his hands pressed against her aching back, “Rose? What’s the matter?”

“Pain,” Rosemary moaned. She looked down at the ground below, stunned by the drops of blood falling from her, “I think…I think something’s wrong, Daryl.”

Maggie and Tara happened to pass by as Rosemary dropped to the ground and they hurried to be at her side, surrounding her and Daryl. Maggie grabbed onto Daryl’s shoulder, “Daryl?! What happened?!”

“Why is there blood?” Tara added as she wrapped her arms around Rosemary.

“I…I don’t know,” Daryl muttered. He knew Rosemary needed help but his mind was blanking. All eyes were on them and blood continued to pool on the ground below Rosemary, “She…she was saying this morning before class that her back was hurting and she wasn’t feeling well but…but I don’t know. I…”

“Daryl, look at me,” Maggie said sternly. Daryl turned his head to look at Maggie and she squeezed his shoulder, “Did you take your truck today?”

Daryl nodded. Maggie nodded her head towards Rosemary, “Good. Take Rosemary and get her to a doctor, alright? Can you do that?”

“I…I can do that,” Daryl said. He turned his attention to Rosemary, sobbing so hard that her body was trembling, “Can you walk, Rose?”

“It hurts so much, I can hardly move,” Rosemary whimpered. Daryl scooped Rosemary up in his arms, noticing just how much blood there was when he saw it staining her inner thighs. She laid her head on his chest, weeping, “What’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know,” Daryl said as he walked as quickly as he could to his truck, “But we’re gonna find out, Rose. I promise you. Just stay with me. Just stay with me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rosemary blacked out at some point after Daryl got her into his truck. She wasn’t sure if it was the pain that knocked her out or the blood loss. Daryl must’ve scared the doctors in the hospital as he burst in with Rosemary, out of breath and barely able to make the words. He paced back and forth, his shirt and jacket stained with Rosemary’s blood. What would he do if something happened to her? He couldn’t imagine this life without her in it. He’d had so many plans for them. What would he do without her?

It was an hour of waiting in agony before the doctor finally came out, “You brought Ms. Brandt in?”

“Yes, I did,” Daryl replied quickly.

“I’m Dr. Richardson,” he explained, “Ms. Brandt is going to be fine. I’m afraid what she experienced is a miscarriage.”

“A…a what?” Daryl said, “She…she was expecting?”

Dr. Richardson nodded, “She was. Based on what she told me, I would say she was about six weeks along. You’ll be able to take her home in a few hours. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“I…I would like to see her,” Daryl said. Dr. Richardson nodded again and he led him to Rosemary’s room. She was crying, one hand covering her face and the other pressed against her stomach. The doctor left them but Rosemary didn’t acknowledge Daryl. He took a few steps towards her bed, “Doctor told me what happened. I’m so sorry this happened to you, Rose.”

“I didn’t even know I was carrying a child,” Rosemary whimpered, “Maybe if I’d known…I could’ve taken better care of myself.”

“Rose, don’t blame yourself like that,” Daryl said, “You’re the healthiest person I know. There’s nothing you could’ve done to stop it. Maybe…maybe this is a blessing in disguise.”

Rosemary’s head shot up, scowling at him, “How can you say that?! That was our baby, Daryl!”

“I know,” Daryl said, “But we couldn’t take care of a baby right now. And how do we know your father wouldn’t have sent you away to give the baby up? How do we know he wouldn’t keep you there until you turned eighteen?”

Rosemary’s expression softened and she sighed, wiping the tears off her cheeks, “I suppose that’s true. I still can’t believe this happened, Daryl. And I’m…I’m heartbroken. How can I feel so sad about something I didn’t even know existed until now?”

Daryl blinked and squeezed his eyes shut to hold back the tears that threatened to come as he sat down beside her bed, “I don’t know, Rose. But we’ll be alright. We’ll make it through this, okay? We will have a child again, Rose. When we’re ready.”

Tears slipped from Rosemary’s eyes and Daryl leaned in to kiss her. Rosemary grabbed onto his hand and pressed her forehead against his, “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time they released Rosemary from the hospital, school was letting out so she wouldn’t have to end up lying to her father. Daryl drove her home, making sure to park a block from her house, “Are you sure you’ll be alright walking the rest of the way?”

“I’ll be just fine,” Rosemary said, “Physically anyway.”

“Tomorrow, we can spend the afternoon together,” Daryl said, “We can talk more about it if you’d like. We didn’t have a chance to really talk through this earlier.”

“I’m not sure that would be a good idea,” Rosemary said, “I want to just forget this happened.”

Daryl sighed, “Listen, I know I never talk about anything with you. But I can tell you that keeping that kind of heartache held in won’t do you any good. And I want you to be able to talk to me about your pain. I’ve kept a lot in but I’m not sure I can keep this in, Rose. We both lost something today.”

“You…you’re right,” Rosemary murmured, “Just give me some time, okay? Can you give me that?”

“Of course,” Daryl said. He reached out to touch her face, his thumb stroking her cheek, “Call me if you can this weekend.”

Rosemary nodded and she leaned in to kiss him good-bye. She broke the kiss but gripped onto the back of his neck to keep their faces close. She just wanted to feel his warmth for a moment. She’d known something was off but she would never have guessed that she was pregnant. They had only spent the one night together after all. But she didn’t think she would want a child so badly until now. She was now missing something she never got to have.

“I love you,” she said, “I really do, Daryl. Truly.”

“I love you too, Rosebud,” he said. Hearing him say that made Rosemary’s heart flutter. Just having him trust her enough to open up as he had done made her feel good. She would most likely end up seeing him tomorrow even if she decided to just listen to him. She walked the last block to her house, arriving to an empty home. Her father must’ve been working late or was out drinking. Rosemary didn’t care either way. She cooked her father something to eat and left it in the oven for him before going upstairs to her bedroom. She had some studying to do but instead she just laid down and sobbed once more into her pillow. She still had some cramps but the worst of her pain was over. The physical pain was gone at least. And for the time being, that would just have to do until she was ready to face her emotional pain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HEY GUYS. DON’T LOOK BACK HAS FINALLY MADE ITS RETURN!!! <3 Thanks for reading you guys!

#The Walking Dead AU #Daryl Dixon AU #Daryl Dixon fanfiction #Daryl Dixon #Daryl Dixon Imagines

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Midsommar [spoiler review]

Ari Aster has released his second feature film, Midsommar for which he writes and directs and it is a vast, expansive experience that threw me through a kaleidoscope of emotions, which amazingly is something I can’t say for a large number of horror movies coming out these days. That being said however, I’m not entirely sure that I could confidently class Midsommar as a horror. I don’t know if I’d really class it as any specific genre at all. It is certainly its own beast and for that, I would commend it highly. As something that is so dense with detail I will probably be jumping back and forth to moments in the story, giving this review a somewhat non-chronological structure. I can’t possibly touch on everything, especially as I’ve only seen it once. I believe it is something that needs multiple experiences to fully appreciate and is a movie I’d love to experience again.

The talent on display in regards to basically every technical aspect of the film is to be praised tremendously. I loved the cinematography and the look of the movie; the colours and the sets were all gorgeous. Mostly set in broad daylight, this stylistic choice is not something I’d immediately associate with a movie that was going for this type of vibe. Mixed with the set designs, the look of the movie made for a visual feast I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. What made the aesthetic qualities of the movie pop that little bit extra for me was the camera work and how it moved; I think of shots like when Dani goes into the bathroom in the first act and the camera pans over the door frame and twists to show her standing in the toilet of the plane. Or when they’re driving across Sweden and the camera flies over the car and turns to end up in an upside down position, perhaps foreshadowing what the characters are in for on this journey. It’s details like this that cracked a huge smile from me as I was watching, not to mention it separates Midsommar from so many other movies that try to depict suspense and terror. Furthermore, a feature that I found to be intensely thoughtful to accompany the fantastic visual display was the editing, or more specifically the cutting of shots. Often I see movies follow a certain formula when it comes to this facet; conversations cut together with a shot of one character and then a reverse shot to show another character; wide angles to establish locations or buildings, then cutting to the inside of the buildings themselves. There’s seldom ever much of a flare to the editing of a movie but I saw Midsommar capture that charmingly to add tension or even to highlight a joke. Accompanied by the score, a lot of these shots gave off an eerie tone that made me feel pleasantly uncomfortable. I loved the low, stretched out notes of the music that went that extra step further in order to make me feel slightly distressed. The sound design was incredible and generally it isn’t a facet I’d pick up on unless it was either done very well or very poorly. There were sections where even items like cutlery or people walking would catch my ear in a noticeably pleasing way. It shouldn’t be undervalued at all; great sound design can elevate a movie so much and I’m both glad and impressed at how well it was executed here.

Midsommar’s first act may have unfortunately contained a lot of my favourite moments. It introduced the main characters and worked to convey the relationships between Dani and Christian, as well as with Christian and his friends and how they all felt about Dani. I appreciated the time put into the dynamic between Christian and his friends and how they viewed Dani, although this was sort of thrown away once they got to Sweden; I never saw any sort of resentment from them towards Dani after that. Pelle obviously felt a lot differently about Dani, going as far as to kiss her during the latter stages of the movie. I’m not sure why it was necessary to have Pelle feel this way and I don’t understand what it added to the story besides forcing some conflict into Dani’s relationship with Christian, which was being achieved on his end regardless. Along with this, we are also shown the unfortunate and upsetting demise of Dani’s family which acts as a plot point in helping Dani to decide upon accompanying Christian and his friends to Europe. Seeing what happens to Dani’s family may have been the most affecting part of the movie for me. To top it off, her reaction was absolutely chilling; I love how Aster gets such raw and believable performances in his films. Dani’s loud, pained cries made me feel for her so much and forced a deep discomfort into me that carried through as the credits and title came on screen. Something that intrigued me quite a bit during this first act is how conversations were filmed through mirrors. We would see a couple of instances of characters talking to other characters that were reflected in a mirror. These static shots that carried on for a short while added to the tense atmosphere and the conversations or arguments that were taking place, imposing a kind of separation between those we could see outside the mirror and those we see inside the mirror. The main cast we’re introduced to in America are all good and give believable and compelling performances. Florence Pugh was fantastic as Dani; William Jackson Harper was decent; Will Poulter was great and one of the stand-outs from my experience. Vilhelm Blomgren portrayed quite an interesting character in Pelle. Christian seemed to be the only one that rubbed me the wrong way because he was such a massive dick the entire time and he was never redeemed. Not to say Jack Reynor’s acting was bad (quite the opposite in fact), I just didn’t sympathise with the character. There are aspects to the characters and the decisions they make that wound me up a bit but in terms of the acting, they were more or less solid.

The secondary characters, or mainly the Swedish locals didn’t stand out as individuals to me, possibly because they were portrayed more as a collective, which is fine but I would’ve liked to have seen some character development from at least a couple of them. Now, I say it’s unfortunate that I derived the most entertainment out of this first act because after that, Midsommar suffers quite a bit from some pacing issues. This movie is almost two and a half hours long and it didn’t feel like it needed to be, especially with a plot that only allows for so much exploration. The plot itself is quite basic, but it is displayed as something so grandiose in scope that it comes across as being eminently pretentious. Could it be the insanely short production time that went into making Midsommar that makes it feel fairly lacking in a few areas? Or is this genuinely the cut that Aster wanted? Results from a quick search of the movie told me that around half an hour of its running time was cut due to the content it presented. Consequently, this will make the home video release different to some degree than the cinema release as it may come to our TV screens as a director’s cut. If this is in fact the case (and I do intend to buy the blu-ray upon its release) then could it be that we’ve not even seen the movie that Ari Aster wanted us to see? Will a director’s cut make it better, worse, or simply just longer? I for one am assuredly excited to see what the end result is.

A big problem I had with Midsommar is how early it peaked in regards to the horror. One of the first things the main characters are presented with upon arriving at this rural community is the idea of people being separated into groups depending on their age: the concept that they didn’t consider themselves adults until a certain age; that they didn’t work until they were old enough to; that they died when they reached a specific year of their life. They’re then told that a ceremony will be held the next day and while our main characters ask what it is, we see William Jackson Harper’s character, Josh smiling in a sly “I know what it is” kind of way. His friends try to ask what he knows, to which he does not divulge anything. What follows this is a scene wherein two elderly people sacrifice themselves by falling off of a cliff in front of the other members of the community. To me, this scene was beautifully unsettling for a number of reasons. Despite expecting them to jump initially, I was still shocked at how well it was executed both in relation to the story and in a technical sense. At first, the woman jumps off of the cliff, dying instantly with a bloodcurdling crunch. Of course the characters from America and the characters we are introduced to earlier from England are understandably shocked. Even Josh reels back in surprise which I found to be a little strange considering how he acted as though he knew what was going on beforehand. What did he think was going to happen if not that? We’re never told. As the old man approaches the edge of the cliff and the English and Americans clue in to what is happening, they react as I’m sure we all would to what happens as he prepares to jump. He lands in a much more awkward fashion with a smaller sound that is no less distressing. Only this time, he doesn’t die... The scene is then racked up a notch as he screams out in pain at having his leg torn off and his body broken on impact. The rest of the Swedish onlookers scream in pain with him and it is terrifying to hear. I imagine this painted a picture to most viewers that the locals we are presented with in this rural Swedish village are all somewhat spiritually connected; are able to empathise with one another's emotions in a way that makes them able to feel the sensations of those they’re close to. Undoubtedly the torment doesn’t stop there and Aster has to quite literally hammer home what this ceremony is all about. In order to put the old man out of his misery, a group of people take it in turns to smash his head in with a large mallet, causing further stress to the main characters, but stopping all of the Swedish inhabitants from screaming in agony. That whole scene… was awesome! I loved it and it stands to be maybe my favourite sequence from the movie. The unfortunate part is that after this happens, I expected everything to amp up a bit and start showing me more uncomfortable and fucked up things but sadly this wasn’t the case. In a sense, it was as if the movie blew its load on this earlier scene and didn’t focus on too many other stand-out plot beats which was pretty disappointing.  For some reason, Will Poulter’s character ‘Mark’ had slept through this ceremony and as a result, hadn’t experienced what his friends had. Whether this was done for a specific reason I’m not picking up on or simply so that he could continue to crack jokes is beyond me. I will give credit where credit is due: this movie made me laugh when it wanted me to. The inclusion of comedy in Midsommar was expertly handled and never made it come across as a lame horror-comedy.

Prior to this and upon arriving in the green fields of rural Sweden, the protagonists all get high and lie around in the grass. While the comedy kicks in here, it is also notable for the reaction of Dani as she starts to feel the grief of losing her family once more and urgently tries to get rid of it. I liked this scene and how it played slightly with the visuals which foreshadowed the inclusion of drugs and their effects later on in the movie.  Sadly with what happens to Dani’s family in the first act, I’m not sure it was that purposeful overall, despite liking how it was depicted. Yes, this event does explain how Dani acts for sections of the film and yes I did like seeing it act as a catalyst for why she goes to Sweden in the first place, but I’m not sure it was hugely purposeful when referring to the movie as a whole. It never came back in a way that affected the narrative or the story that was being told. It was just something that happened to the protagonist that caused her a great deal of upset. Almost as if they could have died in any number of terrible circumstances and it wouldn’t have made a difference. While I really liked the characters’ first drug trip sequence, I got worried early on that Midsommar was going to take an approach that put the trips and the drugs at the forefront of the movie, akin to something like Shrooms (which was just awful) and sure, they played a big part but it did more to enhance what was actually happening rather than fabricate a story that didn’t really take place, just to have them wake up in a field exclaiming how crazy their collective trip was.

As the characters start to become more and more under the influence through the drugs that they’re given, we see the world warp around them. Trees ripple and form faces; the food would shift; flowers would pulse in accordance to Dani’s breathing; characters’ facial features would distort. Dani starts seeing grass sprouting from her hands and feet, or vines mimicking her movements to show how she’s progressively becoming part of this society. Characters like Christian however start experiencing the drugs in a negative and more aggressive way, as if they’re being attacked by senses! There is unease and terror in how Christian experiences the festival, whereas Dani’s experience is comparatively happier. The contrast of how Dani was being accepted and Christian was being rejected was thrilling to see, markedly in how Dani’s demeanour changed as she found herself integrating with everyone else. Although I must say I’m not sure why they kept drinking that drugged water that looked like muddy urine. Christian almost refuses to drink it until he’s told “it’s spring water with special properties” which was all the information he needed apparently! What properties were they? Doesn’t matter; he drank it anyway. The moronic decisions manage to manifest more throughout the movie, however. Regrettably we don’t get to see much of Mark and Josh’s experience with the hallucinogens or even much of the festival because their time is cut short in a manner I didn’t find all too entertaining. Mark is the first to go from the original team. Due to urinating on a sacred tree, he is murdered off-screen and has his face cut off. This could’ve made for a superb scene if it were done right but the way it was handled came across as hollow. Elements akin to this could have worked to convey unease and terror, but they are implied rather than shown which can work in some circumstances but I would’ve liked to have seen something more memorable and haunting instead of seeing an after-product and thinking “okay well I guess that happened”. Show him being mutilated, you cowards! You don’t even have to show it; just possibly what happens in the lead up! It would’ve made for a far more compelling story beat! All that happens is a girl comes up to him as he’s eating with everyone and asks to show him something. His response is just  “she’s gonna show me” and leaves. He doesn’t question what he’s about to be shown; he just gets up and wanders off with a girl he doesn’t know in a foreign country, going purely off of Pelle’s word that everyone there is great! What a way to force that in! Josh is next on the kill list because he took some pictures of a sacred book when he knew he wasn’t supposed to because either he’s just insensitive to other peoples’ cultures, or he thinks it’s okay as long as it’s for his thesis. After this happened I kind of dropped off. With most of my favourite characters gone and the remaining characters questioning everything less and less, not only was there not much left to ground the film in a world that would consider the things that were happening to be deeply disturbing, but also from the protagonists’ perspectives as well.

I’ll acknowledge I’ve been railing on this film a considerable amount... with good reason. But despite being heavy on the criticisms, I still consider Midsommar to be a good, even great movie! I adore films that beg me to revisit them and learn more about them with each watch. Sprinkled throughout Midsommar are a tonne of small details and I’m sure I didn’t pick up on everything; in fact I hope I didn’t. Along with strange “what the hell?” moments like putting scissors under the baby’s pillow (I think that’s what it was anyway) that I still don’t understand, there also exists things that maybe don’t need to be thought about but are still nice to see included, such as goats and cows that took the immersion into this countryside village a notch higher. Or to draw from more obvious details that add depth to the people: going back to how they would all scream in unison, for instance to empathise with another’s emotions; when Dani sees Christian cheating on her, all the girls she is with cry and scream with her, possibly to experience what she’s feeling and/or to show her that they consider her to be part of their people, which also manages to contrast with earlier in the movie wherein she’s with Christian in her apartment but she’s the only one experiencing the intense pain as Christian tries to comfort her.

Upon entering the third act I started to wonder what the actual point in Midsommar was. Could it possibly be one big metaphor for grief and how we can choose to deal with it? There didn’t seem to be that grand of a point being made, either in the relationship between Dani and Christian, the relationship between America and Europe, or just the presence or influence of cults and religion in different parts of the world; those ideas seemed somewhat surface level. So I can’t help but think it was trying to convey a more metaphorical meaning. Either that or its meaning was just “Europe’s weird, man”. In this way, the finale didn’t leave much of an impact besides leaving me feeling quite hollow and disappointed, wondering what all that had been in service to.  I can’t say Midsommar blew me away with much of what it showed me. There were a few decisions made which weren’t all that original in how they were executed and there were some dumb moments that had me questioning why they were included at all. Yet I would never say it isn’t unique in what it achieves; I can’t disregard all of the jaw-dropping technical showmanship and the interesting, creepy ideas that managed to meld horror and suspense and mystery and comedy into something I simply don’t know how to categorise. I could talk for ages about this film and still not touch on absolutely everything about it. Ari Aster is clearly a talented guy and I can’t wait to pick up the blu-ray and watch it a million more times. Along with that, I am for sure going to see whatever he puts out next. These are the kind of movies I love seeing and supporting and I honestly can’t recommend Midsommar enough because it’s something I feel will resonate with different people in different ways, evoking more than a few interpretations of it. It is so worth the watch.

★★★½ 

#midsommar #midsommar spoilers #dir: ari aster #movie #review

[vgperson]

What Did I Translate in 2018?

#vgperson

[betweenthetimeandsound]

Three Minutes to Eternity: My ESC 250 (#190-181)

#190: Kaliopi -- Crno i Belo (North Macedonia 2012)

“Отвори душа признај ми, Што сме сега јас и ти, Пола мое во тебе, А пола твое спие во мене,”

“Open your soul and admit to me, What we are now, you and me Half of me is in you And half of you is sleeping in me”

Kaliopi was supposed to be (North) Macedonia's first entrant in the 1996 with the song Samo Ti, but an audio-only pre-qualifying round ended up preventing her from doing so. Whereas Samo ti is a calming, R&B influenced song, Crno i belo is an alternative rock song which takes a number of twists.

Crno I Belo starts slowly, but it really picks up from the second verse onwards as it transforms into a rock song. There’s a sense of confrontation with the lyrics, which the music also tries to convey. And I don’t need to say much about Kaliopi’s vocals—a bit harsh, but awesome. And that scream is nothing but penetrating.

Personal ranking: 4th/42 Actual ranking: 13th/26 GF in Baku

#189: Måns Zelmerlöw - Heroes (Sweden 2015)

"Now go sing it like a hummingbird The greatest anthem ever heard"

I know there was a bit of flack of Sweden's most recent win, because they won primarily because of the jury (they were third in the televote). Compared to "Grand Amore", which comfortably won the televote but only gotten sixth with the juries, which was a pretty bad mismatch.

In addition, compared to the other fan-favorites of the class of 2015, Heroes is a more mainstream-sounding pop song, with influences from "Lovers from the Sun" and the highly produced Swedish-pop scene. But when I listen to it, it's very engaging and surprisingly danceable, with a great message of strength and togetherness. And the staging was quite slick and creative (with a bunch of influence on some of those from the following year)

So while Heroes is not my personal favorite of 2015, it's still a compelling and awesome pop song. Six years later, it's holds up fantastically.

Personal ranking: 7th/40 Actual ranking: 1st/27 GF in Vienna

#188: Elitsa Todorova & Stoyan Yankoulov -- Water (Bulgaria 2007)

"Море, Митра пее на реката Митре ле, ий… Митре ле"

"Lo, Mitra sings by the river Oh Mitra, eeh.. oh Mitra"

I have the strange impression that Bulgaria has a trance music scene we don't know of. From Elitsa and Stoyan's two appearances to the lyrics of Stanga being taken from a Bulgarian folk song, it's something that was not in focus in the rest of the world.

That said, Bulgaria's only qualifying song prior to 2016 is an experience to behold. While the lyrics are simply about Mitra meeting a lad riding a horse, the soundscape feels like you're in the surreal place yourself. You are in a rush against time, but you're also on a journey towards...somewhere.

Both the music and drumming really amplify the experience; seeing Elitsa and Stoyan drum together was a highlight for me. And while there are questions about Elitsa's vocals, including a point where she goes off-key, she still provides the necessary tone for this intriguing song.

Personal ranking: 4th/42 Actual ranking: 5th/24 GF in Helsinki

#187: Tose Proeski -- Life (North Macedonia 2004)

“Life is a book and you gotta read it Life is a story and you gotta tell it Life is a song and you gotta sing it You've got to know how to live it.”

For some curious reason, I prefer the English-version of this song to the Macedonian language one. Whereas this one, performed from Eurovision, focuses on the angst of existence and the importance of making the most of it, "Angel si ti" is an ode towards a lover who lines his streets with roses and even turns back time.

That's one of the things which work here that really shouldn’t. The mid-2000s sound, the lyrics, and the sheer angst of it. But for some reason, I really enjoy it. Tose (RIP) sings this really well, and it feels like a song out of a musical, in a scene where the protagonist cannot decide what they want to do with their life. It's awesome and I love this lots (and please, put this in a hypothetical Eurovision jukebox musical--there's so much plot potential!)

Personal ranking: 6th/36 Actual ranking: 14th/24 GF in Istanbul

#186: Lisa Andreas -- Stronger Every Minute (Cyprus 2004)

“My love grows stronger every minute And it won’t ever die You must believe I’ll always be there For you, all my life”

Greece and Cyprus are basically sisters in the contest--you can almost always expect them to give votes to each other considering the circumstances. However, their combined quality frequently varies, as well as results. 2004 was their best results year, though not necessarily their best in terms of songs (you'll get that later, towards the end)

At fifth place, Stronger Every Minute shared the best Cypriot entry ever with two other entries (one of which is #239, another coming soon) until 2018. This time, it comes in the form of a delicate love song, performed so tenderly and serenely by Lisa. Despite her looks making her look older than sixteen, she conveys a sense of innocence, helped by the glockenspiel and the acoustic guitar throughout.

I love how sincere she sings this “love letter”, as one blogger put it--I hope everyone can feel a love like this! A pure oasis in the flash and chaos of the 100% televote era.

Personal ranking: 5th/36 Actual ranking: =5th/24 GF (with Sweden) in Istanbul

#185: Paloma San Basilio -- La fiesta terminó (Spain 1985)

“La fiesta terminó Ya no hay más que niebla entre tú y yo ¿Para qué echar más leña arder Si el fuego se ha apagado ya?”

“The party’s over There’s only a fog between you and me Why throwing more wood to burn When the fire is already dull?"

Juan Carlos Calderon and Paloma San Basilio are really well known in their fields --the former is a noted songwriter who already wrote one of the biggest hits in Latin America, whereas the latter is a noted singer and theater actress who would win a Latin Grammy and play Evita.

Together, they have this really nice power ballad, albeit one with a bit of melancholy in it. The lyrics are the strong part of this piece, telling of a relationship that has come to an end using the party as a metaphor for it. It works very well, especially with Paloma's warm voice and the way she emotes the song through her hand gestures.

The resulting package is quite sad, yet very, very beautiful. Unfortunately, it didn't get the result it deserved (which maybe because of that backing vocalist picking at his nose...).

Personal ranking: 2nd/19 Actual ranking: 14th/19 in Gothenburg

#184: Sakis Rouvas -- Shake It (Greece 2004)

“I would trade my life for a night with you Driven by desire”

(Yes, this is already the third song from 2004 to appear in this section. haha. The first two that appeared here are fighting for my fifth, whereas the top four here is the exact same top four of that year.)

The first of the Greek Golden Era, we get Sakis Rouvas in all his glory. This was a hit when it was first released, and it at one point was the highest selling single of all-time in Greece. And as of 2021, it's still the highest-scoring Greek entry, despite them winning the following year.

While his regular discography doesn’t usually feature Greek elements, as he's better known for popularizing pop and rock influences in Greek music, I still think the bouzouki riffs do a good job here adding to this bop (the composer is Nikos Terzis--remember this name).

It's a dancefloor banger which I keep on repeat, and it seems that people across the continent have done so too! Especially those from Turkey. The performance is also quite fun, albeit with some...curious choreography (e.g. 1:42-1:46). That said, we also get some of Sakis' athleticism, thanks to him doing track when he was younger.

Personal ranking: 4th/36 Actual ranking: 3rd/24 GF in Istanbul

#183: Claude Lombard -- Quand tu Reviendras (Belgium 1968)

"Passent les semaines, se traînent les jours Et moi, j’attends ton retour En filant la laine dans mes beaux atours En bordant ma peine de doux fils d’amour"

"Weeks passing by, the days are lingering And I’m waiting for your return Spinning the wool in my beautiful finery Embroidering my pain in soft threads of love"

A couple of commenters compared to a Kate Bush song, and I think it comes down to Claude’s voice, which is very ethereal. However, Claude's voice has some depth, which, in comparison to Kate Bush's earlier work, is a bit more mature.

As for the song, it’s very folkloric but tragic, in which she yearns for the day her lover comes back. The use of strings helps in that it establishes a medieval ambience to it, but the overall feeling is still timeless. It’s almost as if one is caught into the story and wept along with her.

I especially love this because it stood out amongst the class of 1968--while most of the other songs has a happy-go-lucky vibe, Quand tu Reviendras goes in the opposite direction. Same with my runner-up.

Personal ranking: 1st/17 Actual ranking: =7th/17 (with Monaco and Yugoslavia) in London

#182: Doris Dragović - Marija Magdalena (Croatia 1999)

Maria Magdalena, gib mir deine Macht Für immer und nicht nur für eine Nacht

“Svjedok mi Bog, srca mi mog, Ova žena zna, da ti pripada sva...”

“As God is my witness, I swear by my heart, That this woman knows, she belongs to you entirely...”

(The first few lyrics were from the first Maria Magdalena from Austria, haha. Just wanted to mess with you. :) )

The second Marija Magdalena is a beloved entry in the fandom, and for good reason! It hasn’t aged since 1999, which shone amongst the relatively dull field with its mix of ethnic and dance music. Lyrically, it focuses on a love that redeems the narrator, hence the imagery related to Marija Magdalena (yay, religious imagery and redemption!). I think it works efficiently, and Doris performs well on stage with her powerful vocals and diva-like presence. Arguably, it's argued that it was the best song of 1999.

The only problem I have is with the backing vocals on the instrumental. The delegation cheated, and that’s the end of it. I’m still wondering why people would put this as their favorite of 1999 otherwise; even with the new rule about allowing them on the track. It puts me on edge on what would've happened had they won.

Beautiful song, but cheaters don't prosper in my book.

Personal ranking: 3rd/23 Actual ranking: 4th/23 in Jerusalem

#181: Evelin Samuel & Camille - Diamond of Night (Estonia 1999)

“Diamond of night, burning so bright Guide me my silvery new sign”

The last Eurovision song of the twentieth century is filled with mystical imagery, atmospheric instrumentation, and a beautiful violin solo. The whole thing reminds me of a fairytale, with a cool soundscape, though sometimes I feel like something is lacking in it (especially because it resembles some entries from the 1996 contest; I was thinking of I evighet when writing this)

The lyrics are especially pertinent for Evelin Samuel (the singer), who tried to get to Eurovision throughout the entire 1990s. She was about to go as one half of the Estonian duo from 1996, when she suddenly got a tour in Japan, which was then canceled. She managed to become a backing vocalist in 1997, and finally got her chance here. Seeing her sing "now i can say it's my time" is very touching, even if her eyes seem to be bulging out!

In the end, it's a peaceful and serene song, with hope for the new millenium. However, considering what the first song of Eurovision 2000 would be, little did one know it won't always start on the right foot...

Personal ranking: 2nd/23 Actual ranking: 6th/23 in Jerusalem

#eurovision song contest #esc 250 #esc top 250 #esc north macedonia #esc sweden #esc bulgaria #esc cyprus #esc spain #esc greece #esc belgium #esc croatia #esc estonia #vintage eurovision #three minutes to eternity

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE COURAGE OF YOURSELF

The real problem is the same they face in operating systems: they can't pay people enough to build something better than a group of founders to go through one lame idea before realizing that a startup has to make something people want. This should be the m. You learn to paint mostly by doing it, but by then it's too late. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. They're far better at detecting bullshit than you are at producing it, even if you forget the experience or what you read, its effect on your model of the world is not merely wasted, but actually makes organizations less productive. I've read on HN.1 And in every field there are probably heresies few dare utter.

Less fortunate startups just end up in an uncanny valley.2 It was painful to watch. If Sun runs into trouble, they could drag Java down with them. The first is probably the effort required just to start a new company, Fairchild Semiconductor. The suit is back, it begins. It doesn't do justice to the situation to say never mind, I'm just tired. The most dangerous way to lose time is not to say that to Japanese or Europeans it would seem like something out of the third world. And we know from experience that some undergrads are as capable as most grad students. Even Einstein probably had moments when he was optimistic. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.

Judging startups is hard even for the best investors, who are both hard to bluff and who already believe most other investors are conventional-minded drones doomed always to miss the big outliers.3 We decided we ought to have T-Shirts for the SFP, and we'd been thinking about what to do by a boss.4 Have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way a painting is made.5 Your program is supposed to do x. Either it's something they felt they had to do. When I learned to program, we had to read in English classes was mostly fiction, so I was haunting galleries anyway. It's also great for morale.6 And so it became synonymous with California nuttiness.7 And it's a good thing. The irony of Galileo's situation was that he got in trouble for appearing to be writing about things I don't understand.

I write great software, because they were so much easier.8 In fact, software that would let people who wanted sites make their own investment decisions. The time to raise money, they try gamely to make the region a center of scholarship and industry which have been closely tied for longer than most people realize.9 I made the list there turned out to be enough. Best of all, for the same reason readers like them. But as one VC told me after a startup he funded would only take about half a million, I don't mean play mind games with yourself to boost your confidence. When I read about people who liked what they did so much that it's critical to get your product to market early, but that you haven't really started working on it to answer calls from people paying you now. Both have the kind of thing for fun. They give employees who do great work for free, in their spare time, and investors are down on advertising at the moment.10 But as one VC told me after a startup he funded would only take about half a million, I don't mean any specific business can. In a startup you have to overcome in order to avoid them, I had to write down everything I remember from it, I doubt it would amount to much more than the valuation of our entire company.

But the importance of this idea would remain something I'd learned from this book, I couldn't believe he was serious. My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as buying printed books was the only way to know for sure would be to discover each person's station as early as possible, and the higher your valuation, the narrower your options for doing that. Raising money decreases the risk of failure. Some will be shocking by present standards. Your own ideas about what's possible have been unconsciously lowered by such experiences.11 You may not need to use convertible notes to do it. At Viaweb I considered myself lucky if I got to hack a quarter of the time ranged from tedious to terrifying.12 Prestige is like a compiled program you've lost the source of. Conversely, a town of i dotters and t crossers, where you're liable to get both your grammar and your ideas corrected in the same spirit. The striking thing about this phase is that it's completely different from most people's idea of what business is like.13 Since the custom is to write to persuade a hypothetical perfectly unbiased reader.

Of course, figuring out what you like, and let prestige take care of you: they'd try not to fire you, cover your medical expenses, and support you in old age.14 The most interesting question here may be what high res fundraising will do to the world, and in the meantime I'd have to fight word-by-word to save it from being mangled by some twenty five year old copy editor.15 So am I claiming that no one would dare express it in public?16 And in particular, to great universities.17 But the more you realize you can do than the traditional employer-employee relationship because I've been on both sides of a better one: the investor-founder relationship. O-data.18 Maybe I'm excessively attached to conciseness. Indians in the current Silicon Valley. In fact, we've never even invited them to the demo days we organize for startups to grow. I'm not too worried yet.

It happens naturally to anyone who does good work. Each year.19 But publishing has advanced since then: present-day union organizers rather than an attack on early ones.20 What weaknesses could you exploit? It may seem cavalier to dismiss a language before you've even tried writing programs in it. Cheap Intel processors, of the forces underlying open source and blogging. At the time, could get excited about such a thoroughly boneheaded idea, we should start paying attention. An adult can distance himself enough from the situation to describe it as a book. The English Reformation was at bottom a struggle for wealth and power, but it does at least make you keep an open mind.21 That cap need not simply rise monotonically. True, but I can't believe we've considered every alternative.

Halfway through grad school I decided I wanted to do. But this approach, combined with the preceding four, will turn up a good number of unthinkable ideas. In Robert's defense, he was skeptical about Artix.22 And what, exactly, is hate speech? And yet I suspect no one dares say this. The graphic design is as plain as possible, and the partner responsible for the deal was John Doerr, who came to work for our company.23 If you set up those conditions within the US, there are at least some of the most useful skills we learned from Viaweb was not getting our hopes up. If you try convincing investors before you've convinced yourself, you'll be denounced as a yellowist too, and you'll find yourself having a lot of pro-union readers, the first three were our biggest expenses. If we turn off our self-centeredness in that they assume admissions committees care enough about so far is not very good. Painters in fact have to remember a good deal for everyone.24 A more important source, because it's the only way out.

Notes

The idea is the most promising opportunities, it becomes an advantage to be identified with you to commit to them. Hackers Painters, what you call the Metaphysics came after meta after the fact by someone else created earlier.

A P successfully defended itself by allowing the unionization of its users, however, and this was the fall of 2008 the terms they were.

I.

The lowest point occurred when marginal income tax rates were highest: 14. Make sure too that the stuff they're showing him is something inexperienced founders. So whatever market you're in, you'll be well on your own?

What I'm claiming with the melon seed model is more important than the valuation turns out to be able to grow as big as a child, either as an idea that evolves naturally, and that he had once talked to mentioned how much he liked his work. We're delighted to have to pass so slowly for them. Doing things that don't include the cases where you go to die from running through their initial attitude. That's a valid point.

That's because the rich. In this essay I'm talking mainly about software startups are possible. Since most VCs are suits at heart, the bad idea.

I calculated it once for that might work is in the sort of pious crap you were going back to the Pall Mall Gazette. Actually Emerson never mentioned mousetraps specifically.

The founders want the valuation of zero.

And I'm sure for every startup we had high hopes for doesn't do well, but not in the technology everyone was going to kill bad comments to solve are random, the only alternative would be to go out running or sit home and watch TV, music, and stir. I'm not claiming founders sit down and calculate the expected value calculation for potential founders, and that there's no lower bound to its precision. In fact, for example, would probably never have that glazed over look. So it's not the only ones that matter financially, and he was notoriously improvident and was troubled by debts all his life.

What you learn via users anyway. When Google adopted Don't be evil. But while it makes people dumber.

The idea is not yet released.

I stuck with such energy that he had once talked to a degree that alarmed his family, that it offers a better predictor of success. Programming languages should be designed to express algorithms, and so on. But when you ad lib you end up with much food.

It's when they're really saying is they want to stay in a bug.

In fact this would probably be to become one of the increase in economic inequality, but he turned them down. Cost, again. Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. The trend of VC angel investing is so contentious is that the middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the cost of writing software.

Give us 10 million and we'll tell you alarming things, they will or at least a little more fat, and the editor, written in 6502 machine language. Related: Reprinted in Bacon, Alan ed.

Looking at the fabulous Oren's Hummus. Most of the next stage tend to become more stratified.

In some cases e.

We think we're so useless that in Silicon Valley. This is not economic inequality was really only useful for one video stream. They don't know how many of which you want to get endless grief for classifying religion as well, but which didn't taste very good. College English Departments Come From?

N 12-oz cans white, kidney, or in one of those things that's not true! That should probably be the only audience for your work. The downside is that parties shouldn't be that some of those most vocal on the client?

But it was because he was 10 years ago it would have seemed a miracle of workmanship. Our founder meant a photograph of a startup. Few consciously realize that species weren't, as accurate to call the Metaphysics came after meta after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so bad that they think are bad. Every pilot knows about this problem, any claim to the customer: you post a sign in a place where few succeed is hardly free.

Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. It's interesting to consider behaving the opposite way from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. The CRM114 Discriminator. If you want to work on projects that improve the world, but starting a startup, unless it was wiser for them, and one of the market.

If anyone remembers such an idea is bad. A day job writing software. What you learn in college. The other reason it used to hear about the details.

There was one of the best ways to get the money they're paid isn't a quid pro quo. Few can have a connection to one of the causes of the other reason they pay so well.

As I was not something big companies to say they care above all about to give him 95% of spam in my incoming mail fluctuated so much a great discovery often seems obvious in retrospect. I don't think it's confusion or lack of movement between companies combined with self-imposed. 99, and their flakiness is indistinguishable from those of dynamic variables were merely optimization advice, before realizing that that's what they said, and jobs encourage cooperation, not widening. Since they don't yet get what they're really not, and earns the right sort of pious crap you were doing Viaweb again, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #things #discovery #cap #increase #valuation #skills #codes #bug #care #course #options #idea #family #Silicon #companies #world #decisions #Conversely #melon #fact #startups #advertising #language #irony #calls

[terry-perry]

May it Always Stay True (L x Reader)

So I thought I'd post an L x Reader fic this time! This one I had gotten inspiration from the song Gaeta's Lament from the series Battlestar Galactica. It is sung by Alessandro Juliani who is the English dubbed voice of L. Me being the L fangirl I am pictured him serenading this to me as I fall asleep. Hope you guys do too! I highly recommend you listen to the song while reading.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPmRLvNl8nc

“Ryuzaki…”

L looked below at the figure in his arms. She looked up at him with a tired smile and her eyes only half open. He smiled back at her and leaned down to place a soft kiss on her head.

“I told you to call me by my real name,” He whispered into her hair, which lightly tickled his face when she shook her head.

“And I told you that while I appreciate you putting your trust in me,” she replied with a small yawn. “This isn’t even something you’re letting Watari do. So, I’m not taking any chances.”

Knowing how stubborn she was, but also highly appreciating her not wanting to do anything to risk his safety, he let it go with a tiny chuckle and kissed her head once again as he stroked her back comfortingly.

“Well, what is it you want, my sweet?” He urged her to continue with what she had to say.

“I want you to sing to me,”

“Sing?” He inquired.

He felt her cheek move against his bare chest when she nodded slightly before releasing another yawn.

“I’ve heard you sing to yourself a few times,” she explained. “You have a very nice voice. Do you think you can sing to me as I fall asleep?”

“I’ve never really sang in front of other people before,” he told her. “It’s always just been something I did as a way to kill time.”

She stared up at him and, once again, gave him an adorable sleepy smile. This time, however, she opened her eyes a bit in order to give him a pleading stare that could rival a puppy’s.

“Please baby,” she beckoned, now adding a small pout into the mix. “It’ll only be for a short while. Just until I sleep.”

Again, there was no point in disagreeing with her. Especially when she made herself so irresistible. As a sort of payment, L lifted her face with his index finger and thumb tucked under her chin and placed a short, but deep, kiss onto her lips.

“Very well then, my sweet,” he said once he released her. “If that’s what you want, then who am I to deny you?”

Her smile grew as she gave his waist an affectionate squeeze and pecked his torso to show her gratitude.

“What is it you want me to sing?” He asked, stroking the strands of her hair.

“Doesn’t matter,” she replied softly. “Just something to soothe me.”

L placed a finger on his bottom lip whilst thinking of the proper song for her request. Shortly after, he came up with a particular one in mind. It was a song he had known for years and was one of his personal favorites. And with its lyrical content, it fit the situation at hand perfectly.

“Alone she sleeps,” He began his serenade in a tender voice that she immediately found pleasing to her ears.

“In the shirt of man.

With my three wishes clutched in her hand…”

He resumed his stroking of her hair as he continued with his ballad.

“The first that she be spared the pain

That comes from a dark and laughing rain…”

Her eyes were now completely closed, and her breath became a lot more at ease.

“When she finds love,

May it always stay true.

This I beg for the second wish I made too…”

Her arms around his waist had begun to loosen their grip. This gave him the opportunity to be released from her embrace. He was now lying right next to her, giving himself a good view of her slowly drifting off. He cradled her cheek with his hand which made the ends of her lips turn up slightly from his loving touch. Knowing she was on the verge of deep slumber, L carried on with the last of his melody.

“But wish no more,

My life you can take.

To have her please, just one day wake.

To have her please, just one day wake.

To have her please, just one day wake.”

She was finally fast asleep. He leaned over, placed one last kiss on her forehead, and shielded her body with the comforter before reluctantly getting off the bed. After he put back on his clothes, he made his way downstairs.

————

L was back to his usual crouched position with his eyes glued to a computer screen. Even though this scene was not supposed to feel out of the ordinary for him, it felt like something was missing. He knew exactly what that something was. Nevertheless, this was the first time in a long while that either of them had gotten any decent rest. He wasn’t going to take that away from her, no matter how lonely it felt without her presence.

He attempted to console himself by remembering that she was merely upstairs. This only made things worse, however, since this gave him the temptation of wanting to join her and put off his work, despite there still being plenty he needed to do for this case. For the first time in his life, he was not thinking straight.

“Ryuzaki,” A familiar elder voice broke him out of his thoughts.

L turned his chair around so that he was greeted with the sight of Watari rolling him a cart full of assorted sweets.

“Thank you very much,” He casually stated, followed by seemingly going back to looking at what was on the screen.

The old man stood by and gave a small look around of the room.

“Is she not joining you tonight?” He asked when he was finished with his examination.

“She’s upstairs sleeping,” L plainly stated with his eyes remaining on the monitor.

“Well, that’s certainly something I wasn’t expecting either of you to do anytime soon,” Watari chuckled. “Shouldn’t you be accompanying her?”

“There’s still a copious amount of work that needs to be done for this case. For one thing, there is the evidence we have that should be looked over, tapes that have to be watched— “

“Ryuzaki,” Watari broke off the younger man’s rant by placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve gone through all of this with strenuous attention. You don’t have to go to sleep, but please go to her. Lie with her.”

“There’s still work to be done…” L repeated in a mumble, his only viable excuse to stay.

“I can take over from here,” Watari offered with a small warm smile hidden underneath his mustache. “I think I’m more than qualified to do so. After all, aren’t I the one who taught you everything you know?”

L ran a hand through his dark messy hair and freed a heavy sigh. Finally, he looked up at the man in front of him. The one that’s ever come close to being a father figure to him. Surely he’d have some idea of what all he was feeling exactly meant.

“Watari,” he began. “I love her. I love her very much.”

“I am aware of this son. Although you’ve managed to keep it hidden from everyone else, I was able to spot the clues. Such as how you’d sneak a glance at her occasionally, even when you didn’t intend to do so. How she appears to be the only one who possesses the capability to make a genuine smile appear on your face. And of course, all those times you’d let at least a finger linger on her whenever your hands would accidentally touch.”

“Hmm yes, I guess those would be good examples in showing my feelings for her, wouldn’t it?” L agreed as he placed himself in deep thought for an umpteenth time that night with his thumb over his bottom lip.

“Have you told her how you feel?”

“She knows. I confessed to her earlier tonight before we…”

Watari gave another amused chuckle as he saw a fair shade of pink dust the cheeks of the younger man and watched him timidly look away.

“She reciprocates these feelings then,” The elder man stated.

“Yes,” L whispered. A little smile formed on his face, remembering her saying how she loved him too. Although he had deduced that there had been an 80% chance she shared the same feelings, he couldn’t help but worry how her reaction would be when he had confessed. It was this, along with other actions and thoughts that were completely out of character for him, that had him worried.

“Watari,” he commenced with his question. “Since I’ve never really felt this way about anyone before, it has been leaving me to wonder: Does being in love make you weak?”

Watari grabbed a nearby chair and placed himself in it so that he was on eye level with L. And so he couldn’t have any other choice but to focus on what he had to say, Watari placed a firm hand on each of his shoulders. Trapping him somewhat.

“Absolutely not,” He started. “If anything, it can make you stronger. It can make you think you can do anything you set your mind to.”

“Does it?” L interrupted with the subtle blush returning to his face. “Because it feels as though I can’t think properly and that I’m impulsively letting my guard down.”

“That’s having love enter you,” Watari explained. “You’re having this person see your true vulnerable self, letting her tear down your walls. Because you know she is someone you can place your whole trust in. You feel you can be your honest self around her since a part of you knows that she is someone who won’t take advantage of what you share. And as you continue to do this, you will know that she is the one for you when you wrap your existence around her. It’s all very frightening, yes, but you have always been one to take risks. And love is definitely something that’s worth the trouble.”

“I’m still having a bit of a dilemma finding sense in what it’s all doing to me- “

“Who said love made any sense my boy? It’s not exactly something you can logic your way into or out of. It is an unpredictable and irrational mess that anyone can get into. Which is why I beg you to be a madman and go love her. Love her against reason and against all discouragement that could be.”

L managed to look away from his intense stare and at the tiled floor. After a short amount of time, he looked back and gave a tiny nod. Wordlessly, he took Watari’s hands off him, got himself up from his seat, and made his way back upstairs. He stopped himself at the top and, without looking back, he muttered,

“Thank you for your help, Watari.”

————

She fluttered her eyes open and took into view the unfamiliar room she was in. She rubbed her eyes and groaned whilst slowly coming out of her sleepy daze. Before she could stretch any further, however, she felt something tighten around her waist. She turned her head and smiled at the handsome pale face that had made itself at home in the crook of her neck.

“You came back,” She whispered lovingly. She turned her head back in order to watch her fingers intertwine with his.

“I couldn’t stay away,” He softly spoke into her ear before placing a warm kiss on her cheek, commencing with leaving a trail of them on her neck. This resulted in her quietly moaning and having him hold her much tighter.

“Did you sleep well?” He carried on.

“Mm hmm,” She mumbled.

“Good,”

She then turned herself fully around so they faced each other. She gave him a smile and lazily began to play with his dark mane. He beamed right back at her, loving the feel of her touch.

“Ryuzaki,” she said. “Last night was just…it was amazing.”

His smile grew a little at this. He took hold of the hand in his hair, gave it a kiss, then pulled her much closer to him. If that was even possible.

“It was pretty incredible, wasn’t it?” He replied.

“And please don’t worry,” she assured. “I promise not to mention anything you told me to anyone.”

“I know you won’t. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.” He teased.

She rolled her eyes and playfully scoffed at him. “I feel like you’re only half-joking about that,”

He simply shrugged and gave her a mischievous smirk. She answered with a shake of her head and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him in for a hug. She placed her head on his shoulder. One of his arms was draped around her waist while his chin sat on top of her head, his fingers idly combing her locks.

“Can I promise you something too, my love?” He breathed out, breaking the relaxing silence.

“Yes?” She responded, somewhat unsure.

He lifted her off his shoulder and looked deep into her eyes. She did the same, gazing straight into his big dark grey orbs. He took his hands and cupped her face. One of his thumbs made small circles against her cheek. She took her own hands and placed them over his.

“I vow to stay true to you no matter what,” He told her. “You will always be the only one I 100% trust.” He paused to give an affectionate kiss on her forehead.

“I wish for nothing more than to have you take all that I am,” He resumed. “My life belongs to you and no one else. So long as you desire to have it.”

Her eyes began to water as a smile spread across her face. He used his thumb to wipe away a tear that managed to escape. She released a small emotional chuckle at his gentleness.

“And my life is yours to have as well,” She talked in a low voice, wanting to avoid the sound of it breaking.

They shared one more passionate kiss before going back to holding on to one another.

Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man

With my three wishes clutched in her hand

The first that she be spared the pain

That comes from a dark and laughing rain

When she finds love may it always stay true

This I beg for the second wish I made too

But wish no more

My life you can take

To have her please just one day wake

To have her please just one day wake

To have her please just one day wake

To have her please just one day wake

#l lawliet #deathnote #imagine #battlestar galactica #gaeta #songfic #lullaby #fandom #fanfic #ryuzaki #fanfiction #death note #x reader #l x reader #deathnotefanfiction

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior October 30, 2020 – COME PLAY, THE CRAFT: LEGACY, HIS HOUSE, SPELL, HOLIDATE and More!

Boy, it was really nice having a week off last week, and honestly, I’m thinking of legitimately cutting back the number of movies I review for this column every week, since trying to review ten to twelve movies in any week is just too much, especially if I’m ever gonna get back to the box office stuff. I don’t expect that to be any time soon since movie theaters are still shut in NYC and any major release is either getting shuffled to next year or onto streaming.

Because Halloween is this Saturday, we can expect a lot of horror movies but a few other things as well. Thankfully, this is also a relatively quieter week as is next week before things absolutely EXLODE once again. Who knows? Maybe movie theaters will be reopened in New York City by then, too.

The highest profile movie of the week (and the one getting the widest theatrical release) might be Jacob Chase’s COME PLAY (Focus), a horror movie that he expanded from his earlier short film “Larry.” The feature stars young Azhy Robertson as Oliver, an autistic boy who discovers a book called “The Misunderstood Monster” on his phone, which awakens a monster called “Larry.” As Oliver’s parents (John Gallagher, Jr and Gillian Jacobs) try to understand what is going on with the boy, Larry continues to wreak havoc on everyone around the boy.

I was generally mixed on this highly high-concept horror movie, maybe because it seemed like a fairly cheesy concept that completely over-utilizes the concept of a monster that inhabits technology to the point where you immediately think of Lights Out. That was also based on a short film expanded into feature, but that was also directed by David F. Sandberg. Chase is a perfectly capable filmmaker, and he has two great actors in Gallagher and Jacobs, the latter playing a far more dramatic role than we’ve seen from her in quite some time.

The problem is that the first hour or so isn’t particularly scary, it actually feels kind of dull and derivative. It’s not really until the last half hour when we get to see Larry in a far scarier physical form than just inhabiting and controlling technology, where things pick up and that last act of the movie does sort of make up for the earlier part of the film.  Come Play isn’t terrible, and I’ve definitely seen far worse, but it’s also no Babadook in terms of doing something original or innovative within the horror realm.

As if we didn’t have enough remakes going on right now, Sony and Blumhouse decided to dump their THE CRAFT: LEGACY, declared as a “continuation” of the beloved 1997 movie, to PVOD this week. I never was a huge fan of the original Craft, but it’s as much a beloved cult movie as any other out there. I truly believe that for any Millennial woman who was in her teens in 1997, this is probably her favorite movie, or maybe it’s just the women I tend to meet.  Anyway, this one is written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones, who made that wonderful Sundance movie Band-Aid, and it stars Cailee Spaeny as teenager Lilly, who arrives in town with her mother (the wonderful Michelle Monaghan) to live with her mother’s new boyfriend (David Duchovny) and his three sons. Lilly is immediately picked on at school until she falls in with a trio of fellow girls (Gideon Adlon, Lovie Simone, Zoey Luna) who notices Lilly’s ability and wants her to become the fourth in their mini-coven they’ve created to explore their witchy powers.

Even though I know plenty of women who absolutely love the original 1997 movie, and there’s nothing wrong with that, The Craft never really connected with me, so I went into this without any real emotion about the movie being remade… I mean… continued. Oh, let’s cut the crap. There’s almost nothing that connects this movie to the earlier movie other than it’s another group of teenage girls getting into witchcraft. Maybe there’s some easter eggs in there that didn’t jump out at me, but any actual connection with the first movie seems so tacked-on to a movie that just isn’t very good otherwise. (Lister-Jones leans so heavily on her movie’s soundtrack to keep any sort of momentum going.)

As much as I love the cast Lister-Jones put together, particularly Spaeny and Monaghan, her movie is so disjointed starting with all the silly giggly girly stuff at the beginning, to all the Y.A. lovey-dovey Twilight crap (mostly dealing with Lilly’s hunky love interest of sorts played by Nichoas Galitzine) to about an hour into the movie when things finally get darker but then immediately starts falling apart.

I won’t go into further details to avoid spoilers, but it takes almost an hour to get to anything even remotely resembling an actual plot.  If you’ve seen the original movie, you’ll already know the basic arc except that like last year’s Black Christmas remake -- also by Blumhouse – the movie transforms into a big female empowerment fight against the evil man, who you can figure out quite easily who that might be. I generally felt that Spaeny was really misused and the visual effects to show the girls’ powers are so lame I’m wondering how they got past the Blumhouse quality control standards.

This is a silly and mostly obnoxious girls’ movie that made me feel old AF as it chose to deal more with feelings than anything even remotely resembling scares. After watching it, I was far less surprised The Craft: Legacy was being dumped to VOD rather than getting a theatrical release.

Streaming on Netflix this week is Remi Weeke’s feature debut HIS HOUSE about a refugee couple (played by Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku) who escape from war-torn South Sudan to try to create a new life for themselves in a small English town when they start experiencing all sorts of weird and nefarious occurrences in their new home.

His House is a bonafide horror movie, but one that’s so entirely unique to the genre by adding the fish-out-of-water experience of two immigrants into the mix. It also seemingly uses authentic African mythology and lore to make the supernatural aspect of the story feel much more relevant to the couple at the movie’s core, while at the same time showing the xenophobia experienced by immigrants in the UK.  That last part is something we doesn’t have many opportunities to experience so much in the U.S., but between this and Steve McQueen’s upcoming “Small Axe Anthology” we get to see how racism in the UK shows its ugly face in a different way than it does here.

Weekes’ clearly has a solid handle on the material for his feature debut, which even includes a small role for former Doctor Who Matt Smith, but I was more impressed with the strong performances by the two leads combined with how Weekes worked with his team to create actual scares in new and intriguing ways.

More importantly, Weekes’ film shows how important it is to establish strong core characters before throwing them into any sort of supernatural horrors, which is why this ultimately works better than some of the other horror films of the week including Spell (see below).

Significantly creepy but tying that into a strong narrative about the immigration situation in the UK, His House delivers on both aspects to create a strong and impressive debut from Weekes. This is a genuinely scary movie that thrives on offering original ideas vs. retread.

Premiering on Premium VOD and Digital (and maybe in a drive-in or two? Who knows?) is Mark Tonderai’s supernatural thriller SPELL (Paramount Home Entertainment), starring Omari Hardwick and Loretta Devine. Hardwick plays Marquis T. Woods, a successful lawyer on his way to his father’s funeral in Appalachia with his family when the plane he’s flying gets hit by a storm. Marquis wakes up trapped in an attic by a Ms. Eloise (Devine) who claims she has complete control over him using a Hoodoo talisman known as a “Boogity.”  Marquis urgently has to escape her dark magic and save his family.

I tried hard to avoid going into this semi-cynically since “horror noir” is now a huge thing thanks to the success of Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us. Every single horror film with a black lead has tried to combine the same amount of Peele’s socially-aware relevance with typical horror scares. Spell definitely has that despite being written and produced by Kurt Wimmer, best known for the 2002 sci-fi film Equilibrium.

Spell doesn’t take too long getting Hardwick’s family man Marquis out of his comfort zone and back to his Appalachian home where, as a kid, he was abused by his religiously-devout father who believed in the area’s Hoodoo customs. Like classic horror movies like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and even Hills Have Eyes, Spell is fashioned as people from a different background coming upon strange and deadly Southerners, here represented mainly by Devine’s character but also by almost everyone Marquis and his family meet once they get down to the Appalachia area.

The movie only really gets going once Marquis is trapped by Devine’s Ms. Eloise, and that’s where it turns into a supernatural-tinged version of Misery as he repeatedly tries to escape. I generally love Devine and glad she was able to get more of a lead role that may have normally gone to Octavia Spencer, but Devine has an even harder time getting past her likeable nature, and honestly? By the third or fourth time she has used the term “Boogity” – it’s used a lot – it become even harder to take the movie very seriously.  In general, the movie feels like the filmmakers were trying to throw in too many ideas and only some of them work.

What Tonderai has going for this movie is that he has made a sharp and stylish movie that ably builds the tension as it goes along. It even throws in some deeply disturbing gory movies as it builds to a bit of a revenge action-thriller by its crazy last act. Because of that, Spell finds a way to get past its derivate roots to deliver a thriller that’s likely to keep the audience’s rapt attention despite its issues.

Just in time for Halloween, Netflix releases HOLIDATE, starring Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey as Sloane and Jackson, two people who hate being single on holidays and facing judgment from their families. When they meet, they pledge to be each other’s “holidate” for any festival occasion for the next year.

High-concept R-rated Rom-Com warning!  Not that I’m NOT a fan of this genre when done right, and actually, director John Whitesell (of the “Big Momma” sequels) does a pretty good job getting a lot of laughs out of his amazing cast that includes Kristin Chenoweth (two weeks in a row!), Jessica Capshaw and more.

It’s a little weird seeing Emma Roberts, who I’ve met and interviewed since she was a teenager, in such a racy R-rated role that includes a lot of humor that would not seem out of place in Bridesmaids or an Amy Schumer movie. I’m sure she hates being compared to her famous rom-com star aunt, but Roberts really has mastered the comedy aspect of the genre that’s just as any meet-cute romance. It reminds me a little of two of my favorite rom-coms of 2019, Last Christmas and Plus One, and even if it doesn’t try to be particularly deep or thought provoking, it sure as hell is entertaining.

Despite there being quite a bit of silliness and even some low-brow humor in Holidate, it’s definitely going to be a lot of people’s guilty pleasure, because Roberts and Bracey are so absolutely adorable together. (This movie was so obviously made before COVID because there’s so much partying and Christmas merriment unlike anything we’re likely to see this year.)

Martin Krejci’s THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF WOLF BOY (Vertical) stars Jaden Martell from the “IT” movies as hairy-faced soon-to-be-13-year-old Paul Harker, who lives an isolated life with his garbageman father (Chris Messina). Frustrated by his secluded life, Paul runs away in an effort to find the mother he never met, making a few similarly odd friends along the way.

This is another movie that could have gone either way depending very much on the tone, but its tone is so all over the place that I never quite figured out if this was supposed to be a kids’ movie, something for young adults or just some sort of tax write-off that managed to convince a number of serious players like John Turturro (who has an exec. producer credit) and Chloë Sevigny to get involved.

Martell is generally no slouch himself, having had a number of starring roles, but it seems like this might have been filmed years ago because he looks and sounds like a 10-year-old. You don’t have to get too far into the movie before you see Martell with his hairy make-up, clearly inspired by The Wolfman, as he’s picked on by other kids and eventually decides to run away from home. First, he returns to the carnival where Turturro’s Mr. Silk puts Paul to work as a sideshow freak. That doesn’t work out so Paul runs off and encounters two wild outcast girls, played by Sophie Giannamore and Eve Hewson. That whole time, Paul is being pursued by a detective who wants to bring him home to his worried father.

Sadly, Chris Messina, who has been taking on so many more interesting roles recently, just doesn’t have a ton to do here, and others like Turturro, are so badly overacting it takes you completely out of the movie. The movie does get a little better once Giannamore and Hewson’s characters are introduced into the mix, but Paul’s story never does much to win over the viewer’s interest, so the movie never finds its footing. Even the sentimental final act that introduces characters played by Sevigny and the always great Stephen McKinley Henderson barely makes up for all the earlier silliness. It will be available On Demand and Digitally this Friday.

The movie above has absolutely nothing to do with Andre Gower’s doc Wolfman’s Got Nards (Gravitas Ventures), which is available via VOD right now. It’s a look at the 1987 movie The Monster Squad, which I never really was that into but there’s no denying that it’s the definition of a cult film, because I know so many people who are obsessed with this movie. (Some of are actually in this doc! Germain Lussier and Jen Yamato, I miss you guys!) Gower’s doc covers how the movie got made with Shane Black co-writing it with director Fred Dekker, who basically went on to make…um… Robocop 3. This isn’t quite as fun as the recent You Don’t Nomi in terms of a doc about one specific movie, although there’s a lot of great behind-the-scenes footage, and horror fans will love all the nerdy talk about making the creatures and physical effects for the movie. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen Monster Squad in so long that I just couldn’t get quite as excited about this doc as others might. I think if you love The Monster Squad, this movie will make you plotz!

Another, possibly higher-profile doc is Frederick Wiseman’s CITY HALL , which will debut exclusively at venerable New York arthouse Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema today. It’s a four and a half-hour documentary that follows the day-to-day of Boston’s City Hall and Mayor Marty Walsh as they deal with situations both mundane and extraordinary (like the Red Sox’s 2018 World Series win) over the course of a few months. At 90 years young, Wiseman is a veritable documentary legend who has been working in that medium since the mid-60s with something like 45 or 50 films under his belt. (Some of those films have been and will continue to be streaming as part of Film Forum’s “Wednesdays with Wiseman,” many of them including Q&As with Wiseman and other Oscar-winning documentaries.) Surprisingly, I only first heard of Wiseman when he won two awards from the New York Film Critics Circle a few years back for In Jackson Heights (just over three hours long), and there’s no question he’s a master of what he does, which is cinema verité documentary that does exactly that… documents. I honestly couldn’t get past two hours of watching this stuff, but maybe that’s just me.

Also streaming at Film Forum beginning Friday is King (A Touch of Zen) Hu’s 1979 martial arts drama Raining in the Mountain, starring Hsu Feng, which should be worth a view.

Another interesting doc out this week is Julie Sokolow’s Barefoot: The Mark Baumer Story (1091) about a writer and activist from Providence, Rhode Island named… well, you can figure that out… who decided to walk across the country barefoot over 100 days in order to protest people (including a certain POTUS) ignoring climate change.  It’s a pretty amusing and quirky movie, and if you didn’t know better, you might think it’s a spoof ala the amazing IFC series Documentary Now, but no, it’s real, and Sokolow does a great job keeping this quirky average joe interesting through the film’s 85-minute runtime, although he does get a little annoying, because he’s one of those friends who will just not shut up while complaining about Trump… and this is during a walk that took place before Trump’s inauguration! It’s definitely a very unique and different political doc from others we’ve seen this year maybe because Baumer does seem so down-to-earth despite his kookiness. I liked this doc almost but not quite as much as My Name is Pedro from earlier in the year because it does show that weirdos CAN make a difference! It’s available pretty extensively right now on VOD and digital on most platforms including iTunes, Amazon, and more. You can watch the trailer below and find out viewing options HERE:

After a few months of offering Digital Live Screenings, Metrograph is adding “Ticketed Screenings” for those who don’t want to commit the insanely reasonable $5 a month for a membership. First up this Friday is Olivier Laxe’s doc Fire Will Come (KimStim) which follows Amador Coro, a man accused of starting a fire who returns home from prison to live with his mother in Galicia (the director’s ancestral home), an area for having a high number of wildfires. The film, which won the Un Certain regard Jury Prize at Cannes last year, will have a weeklong run, and it includes a conversation between Laxe and cinematographer Ed Lachman, and a collection of Laxe’s short films will also be available.

A few of the movies still available this week (at least through Wednesday) as part of Metrograph’s Live Screenings include Red Squad, The Werewolf of Washington: Director’s Cut, The Edge (as part of the Robert Kramer retrospective), and Roni Moore and James Blagden’s Midnight in Paris. You can learn more about all of these and joining the Metrograph with a digital membership at the Official Site.

Other movies out this week that I wasn’t able to get to:

US KIDS As an Act of Protest (Speller Street Films) Attack of the Demons (Dark Star Pictures) Madre (Strand Releasing)

Probably the most exciting news for those planning to keep Disney+ past the first free year they got through Verizon, is that The Mandalorian Season 2 debuts on Friday! Also, Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder is now available On Demand, so if you haven’t seen it yet… do it now! (Also, The Hostis on Hulu, so no excuse not to watch some of Director Bong’s pre-Parasite films.)

#TheWeekendWarrior #Movies #TheCraftLegacy #ComePlay #Holidate #Spell #REviews #voduntransmissions #streaming