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ofstarsandfireflies · 3 years

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@just-inside-her requested this and I’m so sorry it took me so long to get around to it!

Only you.

Having been told twice now who she would marry, Faith finally meets him.

Stephen was curious.

I mean, how could he not be? He had an infinity stone that showed him the future!

So, one day, when the curiosity becomes too much for him, he uses it to see what lies in his future.

And he thinks there must be some mistake.

Why would he and Thor be together?

How would they even meet? Stephen was in Kamar-Taj and Thor only came to Earth when there was an Avengers emergency, and even then he only stayed in New York.

There couldn’t be any truth to it.

He doesn’t look again for some time after that.

Maybe it was a fluke, or a mistake or some kind of magical interference, whatever the case, so Stephen looks again, just to make sure it wasn’t.

And he sees himself.

And he sees Thor.

It can’t be real.

But what if it was?

What if he and Thor were meant to be together?

And pretty soon it’s all he can think about.

So when he hears Thor is back on Earth, he decides to go and meet him.

He needs to be with Thor right now or he’ll go insane.

Many voices tell him it’s a bad idea, Wong’s the loudest, all telling him to calm down and think, but he can’t.

This is his destiny and he won’t be kept from it.

So he goes to New York and Wong decides to follow purely for the entertainment.

They go to the Avengers compound and Stephen asks the first person he comes across if Thor is here.

And Rhodey is very confused because no one ever asks for Thor.

Cap, maybe, Tony definitely, but never Thor.

So he says no, Thor isn’t here.

He’s with the Iron Legion testing out the new armour Stark has made for him.

There are about one hundred suits flying about out there and Thor is in one of them.

Stephen knows he should leave and try again another time.

Maybe if he signed up for the Avengers he’d have more a chance to meet him.

But he can’t with all the Sorcerer duties he has.

Ok.

New plan.

He flies around and asks every single one of those suits if Thor is inside it.

Yeah. That could work.

He’d be able to tell with that accent of his.

It shouldn’t take too long.

And then he sees some suits walking around, having just flown in from their patrol.

And then all the others walking around him.

What if he just came in? There’s got to be a thousand bloody suits walking around the joint!

Stephen is going out of his mind.

Where the hell is he?!

As Stephen is having his breakdown, Wong is asked by one of the suits what’s wrong with him.

If only it truly knew.

Wong decides to leave Stephen be, not noticing the suit of armour making its way to his friend.

And Stephen knows he’s making a scene, and probably scaring everyone, but when he hears that Asgardian accent coming from the suit, he turns.

The face plate doesn’t lift, but he’s finally found Thor.

Something about Stark tech he doesn’t understand, but they can still walk and talk, as he would very much like to get to know Stephen.

And it feels just like it was meant to be.

The hours slip by and Stephen never knew how smart Thor was going to be.

They can converse so easily, matching the other’s wit even the other’s sense of humour.

They are perfectly perfect for one another.

Thor holds his hand, buys him a single rose from a small flower stand and as the night slips into a new day, the two are crazy about one another.

That is until Stephen leans in to kiss him and the faceplate finally lifts and his lips touch lips for the first time, eyes fluttering open to see not Thor, but Tony Stark.

Yeah he’d kinda programmed Thor’s vocals into all the suits, partly as a joke but mostly as a cloaking mechanism.

And Stephen had just kissed him.

Tony’s trying to apologise for the mix up while also trying to dodge all his attacks and stop him from leaving, managing to tell Stephen he can get him to meet Thor just as one of Stephen’s hits lands.

Stephen stops immediately.

Ok. New plan.

Tony introduces them when Stephen finds something far better to wear.

Tony has a better idea.

Why don’t they go get a suit for him later today, Tony’s treat.

So, Stephen agrees.

He supposes that would be the best way for Tony to truly apologise.

Stephen is fitted for a rather nice Tom Ford three-piece two button, Tony’s idea.

And it looks absolutely amazing on him, even Wong has to agree.

Tony feels all the air leave his lungs at the sight, Stephen’s cheeks blushing at the wide eyed stare Tony is giving him.

Tony moves in first before anyone else can and tells Stephen he loves him, taking his cuff links off his own suit and gently lifting Stephen’s hands to clip them on for him.

But Stephen’s not meant to be with Tony.

He’s meant to be Thor.

So why can’t he just tell him that?

Why won’t the words just come out?

With Stephen dressed, they go off to meet Thor, who’s in the swimming pool at the Avengers compound with at least a dozen women.

And Stephen knew he shouldn’t have come, that it was a bad idea.

Thor is right there, shirtless, showing off his chest to anyone who will look, surrounded by gorgeous women.

Why would he give Stephen the time of day?

So he turns around to leave again when a voice calls out to him.

And Stephen freezes.

Thor is walking up to him.

Thor is talking to him.

And he’s acting so casual about it while Stephen is feeling like he’s about to burst into flames.

Finally, somehow, managing to ask the Asgardian if he’d like to have dinner before he makes a complete fool of himself, he almost faints with relief when he agrees.

And when Thor agrees, Tony’s heart sinks.

As Thor and Stephen enjoy their night out, Wong is enjoying a bag of chips next to Tony, who is listening in on the conversation thanks to the ‘cufflinks’ on Stephen’s suit.

He can’t believe half of the answers Thor is actually giving to this perfect man.

The nerve of him, having Stephen all to himself and not being able to keep him entertained.

He’d march right in there and save Stephen the embarrassment of talking with him further if he hadn’t promised to let them have the night together.

Just dinner, nothing more.

Tony sighs, leaning back against the bench he’s sitting on beside Wong.

Wong wonders how far ahead Stephen saw.

It couldn’t have been very far if Stark was never part of it.

He wonders if what Stephen was shown was truly his destiny or just something that was going to happen.

But when he tries to bring this up to Tony, Tony’s not really interested.

Stephen and Thor are having a great time apparently, and if Thor was who Stephen wanted to be with, he wasn’t going to ruin that.

His feelings didn’t matter. Stephen’s did.

And Thor was a lucky man to have the heart Tony knew would never belong to him, no matter how compatible they were.

So Tony leaves them to enjoy the night, just as Thor mentions to Stephen how he should thank Stark for talking him into this and paying for their meal at such a fine establishment.

Stephen is shocked.

He hadn’t expected Tony to pay for...wait...Tony had to talk Thor into going out with him tonight?

Well, yeah, only after Stark had promised to tape his favourite show of course.

And as Thor continues to shove food into his mouth, Stephen has to excuse himself.

He rushes out of the restaurant to where Wong is sitting, who just points him in the direction Tony sulked off in.

Thor might have been part of his future, but Tony was who he wanted to spend it with.

Thor doesn’t mind, of course.

He got a free meal out of helping Tony.

And his shows were taped, of course.

Quotes -

“Life’s not like it is in the movies, right?”

“No, it’s not. Although from day one everyone conspires to tell you it is. Your mother, your father, teachers, priests, everybody. Dreams come true, the good guy wins, people live happily ever after, all that crap. Then one day you wake up and realise that life should be...different.”

Stephen and Wong discussing life

“What’s up with your friend is she ok?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know, she’s looking for the man of her dreams, he’s around here some place, she’s never even met him, never even laid eyes on him if you can consider that alright.”

“Huh. Well it’s none of my business but if she’s never met him, how does she know he’s perfect for her?”

“I don’t know. Don’t know.”

“He’s some kind of celebrity?”

“No, no.”

“What is he like a hero? Mentor type thing?”

Tony asking about Stephen to Wong

“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“Faith. My name is Faith.”

“Smooth. Very smooth.”

Thor agrees to dinner with Stephen while Tony miserably watches.

“So...you’re probably wondering why I asked you to dinner.”

“No, not really, it happens all the time.”

“...right...”

Honestly if the man of my dreams said this to me I’d punch him in the face.

Destiny

Stephen’s seen the future. His future.

But it’s not with who he thought.

Missed a Day? Catch up here!

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5

Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10

Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15

Day 16 Day 17 Day 18 Day 19 Day 20

Day 21

#ironstrange #OSAF’s Movie Night #strangeiron

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ianenjoyer · 3 years

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worst shameless storylines ranked? personally despise the whole who’s gonna top thing with trevor and ian. like, if it’s that important?? just fuck other people? but also fiona being a landlord and cop carl takes the cake

*rubs my evil little hands together* finally more opportunities to talk about my opinions

this is non-comprehensive bc i don’t remember every single awful thing that’s happened on this show (and i blocked out so many) but here’s the ones that stick in my brain

under the cut bc i kinda went off

1. gay jesus

i just ??? hate it so much??? listen, i think this storyline started off relatively okay, if you ignore the cringey dialogue. like ian trying to help kids like him (and mickey) and save them from conversion therapy and other terrible things? okay sounds good, sounds consistent to ian’s character i’m fine with it. but the execution??? 🤢 i hate it so much. it comes off much more like they’re mocking the cause instead of promoting it. and on top of that, apparently ian was supposed to be manic the whole time but, again, the exposition was just terrible and they didn’t really indicate that this was supposed to be ian spiraling as opposed to him just going a little too far. honestly the whole thing is a disservice to ian’s character and everything that he’d been through in the previous 7 seasons

2. fionas landlord stuff

fionas switch from a kind, hardworking person trying to provide for her family to a bloodsucking parasite (also known as a landlord) is appalling. not the fact that she tried to better herself and her situation, but the fact that she constantly put down families like her own and the fact that it was framed like a good thing. like it’s fine to seek out a better life for yourself obviously but i wish she found a way to do it without becoming a capitalist who leeches off other people

3. the weird voting storyline + anytime they try to do political commentary

😐 i’m just repeating myself at this point but shameless’ switch from a gritty family drama that shows the realities of living in poverty and dealing with problems such as alcoholism, mental illness, and inter-generational trauma to a satirical ‘comedy’ that pokes fun at anything and everything is the worst turn i’ve ever seen a show take. honestly i don’t remember much about this except that frank got some creep in office and recruited a bunch of nazis to help him, and that fiona was gonna vote for some pro-capitalism weirdo bc she didn’t want rent-control on her apartment bc she hates poor people apparently

4. carl becoming a cop

i mean we haven’t even seen this yet but skdhdijsj it’s going on here anyways. honestly carl’s whole coming-of-age storyline is just bad. i’m not gonna just repeat myself but i talked about that here. basically it boils down to the show being tone-deaf and trying to do political commentary on things they know nothing about. honestly the last thing we need right now is rich white people in hollywood acting like they understand what it’s like to live in poverty, or live as a person of color, or an lgbt person, in america right now

5. mickeys send off + ian’s other love interests

so what we’ve learned is that shameless doesn’t know how to write off characters without butchering them and then expecting us to instantly forget about them. i understand that noel left the show, so i know they had to write him off, but they didn’t have to be as brutal to his character as they were.

i’m in the minority with this opinion (i think) but the first time i watched the show i wasn’t fully against ian dating somebody else, mostly bc i knew they ended up together. i mean, it is realistic that ian wouldn’t date the same person from the time he was 15, and especially after mickey went to jail it objectively makes sense that he would try to move on. but god the execution of this was terrible. they were just so obviously trying to butcher mickeys character (with caleb) , or replace him (with trevor) instead of, you know, providing us with a believable love interest for an otherwise well-liked, interesting character. i won’t talk too much about s6 but feel free to anon me if you want to hear more of my thoughts bc i have a few

6. anything with frank

i just don’t care about him. i skip every single one of his scenes when i rewatch the show unless he’s interacting with the rest of the family. he’s boring, and i think he’s overstayed his welcome. and yes i know he’s the main character but consider this: i hate him. he exists purely to engage in stupid storylines and say awful things and i want him gone. the fact that he’s still on the show and fiona isn’t is a hate crime towards me specifically smxhdjs. no hate to the actor but :/ there’s literally no use for frank on the show anymore, and there hasn’t been since they moved away from having a central-family storyline with him acting like a thorn in his children’s sides instead of whatever he is now

7. fionas love interests

i think that, kinda similar to ian, they didn’t really know what to do with with fiona’s love life after jimmysteve left. her love interests ranged from okay (mike cup supremacy!) to just boring and awful (ford, gus, sean). it’s just such a disservice to such an amazing character to reduce her to stories with boring love interests over and over again.

8. most of v and kev’s storylines in later seasons

this one makes me sad bc i love v and kev so much but... their storylines just aren’t it anymore. they’re dumb and comic-reliefy and a disservice (i’m using that word a lot wow) to two really amazing characters. they often reduce kev to ‘big, lumbering dumb-dumb’ and v to ‘sexy, sassy black girl’ and it’s just very Not Good, especially considering how interesting and multi-dimensional their characters were in early seasons.

9. karen’s send off

this is so fucking infuriating to me, especially knowing why the actress left the show. trust me i’m not saying karen is perfect or that she didn’t do terrible (sometimes unforgivable) things, but the fact that the send off for a character who was super important to the show for a good amount of seasons amounted to “she has permanent brain damage and lives with a 40 year old man and a baby she didn’t want” is such a huge disservice, both to the character and the actress

10. sammi

i don’t even want to talk about her or how obnoxious she is but i want it to be known that i hate her and that she sucks. she brought basically nothing to the show and i feel like she existed purely just to make me mad.

11. anything debbie did past like. season 3

she’s just so annoying. like with this show i usually don’t hate characters for doing morally gray things bc that’s very much the nature of the show but debbie just consistently used people over and over again while showing no remorse about it. derek (i still can’t believe what she did to him), neil, dereks wife etc. she’s just not a good person, and on top of that she’s not even entertaining to watch so like??? go away. also the fact that’s she’s dating sandy and i’m not is so rude :/

12. that one time sheila said the r-slur like 47 times

i just remembered this so i’m putting it on here. also this is the only one from an earlier season, which just proves that the shows been tone-deaf about a lot of things the whole time, and that it’s only gotten worse as years went on. i just want to make it clear that when i say i like this show that comes with many many caveats and that this definitely isn’t a show anybody should be watching un-critically

#let me know if i forgot something bc i feel like im forgetting something really bad #i don't really like to be negative on here but damn this show is awful sometimes #also this is so long ksdjfksl im sorry theres just so much material to criticize #i probably didn't even cover anything but YIKES #this show is so fucking exhausting to watch :/#somebody ask me something positive next slfjksd i need a reminder as to why im still watching it #shameless #anon #t talks

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rptv-starwars · 4 years

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Star Wars: Mark Hamill explains why a deleted scene from A New Hope is so important to Luke's character

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/star-wars-mark-hamill-explains-095051825.html

Jack Shepherd Total Film Magazine | June 30, 2020

[slightly edited for brevity and to exclude unnecessary commentary by the author]

The original Star Wars is a masterpiece of filmmaking – one that sparked a million children's imaginations as they saw themselves in the young moisture farmer Luke Skywalker.

However, Mark Hamill believes a deleted scene concerning his character would have added to the nuances of Skywalker's beliefs. He recently discussed the deleted scene (which still irks him to this day) with Avengers: Endgame directors The Russo Brothers on their new podcast (which can be watched on Disney Plus).

The scene sees Luke Skywalker watching a battle going on above Tatooine. He rushes to share the news with some friends at a nearby hangout, then ends up talking with his friend Biggs outside. Biggs is to be enlisted by the Empire but is looking to abandon the Empire and join the Rebel Alliance.

"There a couple of things that are good for the character," Hamill says. "Number one, he is ridiculed roundly by his peers. So he's not particularly cool or popular. Koo Stark is the only other female actor in the movie and she calls me 'Wormie'. So I am not popular.

"And then I bump into Biggs Darklighter, played by Garrick Hagon, and I go 'Wow!' You can see we're good friends. He's dressed in an Imperial uniform and I'm going, 'Wow! That's so great! I can't wait until I can get off the dump of a planet and join with you.' And he takes me outside and says, 'Luke, as soon as I get the chance, I am going to jump ship and join the Rebels.'

"The only reason that is interesting to me is that Luke has no political persuasion. He thinks it's great he is in the Empire! Luke wants to be in the Empire if it will get him off the farm! So he is completely pure in that he is not politically motivated in any way, shape or form."

The idea that Luke would have considered joining the Empire just to escape being on a farm is certainly an interesting one (even possibly denting his character a little).

The scene was set to be intercut with Princess Leia's ship being taken over by Darth Vader.

When the initial cut of the movie was screened to George Lucas's fellow filmmakers (including Francis Ford Coppola), they complained about the pacing. Watching the scene back now – which slowly unravels – it's easy to understand why Luke's character development was snipped in favor of a faster, more urgent opening.

__________________

RPTV comment: I do like that deleted scene [you can see it in it’s entirely in the 12-Disc Blu-Ray set, “Star Wars - The Complete Saga”, (which contains episodes I-VI)].

However, I agree that it should not have been interspersed with Princess Leia’s ship. It would have been better to include that scene just before Luke returns and finds R2-D2 missing. At the very least, George Lucas should have included that scene in the Special Edition version of A New Hope (since he added extra scenes anyway).

#star wars #a new hope #original trilogy #lucasfilm #george lucas #luke skywalker #mark hamill #biggs darklighter #deleted scene #yahoo news #total film magazine

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brentwatchesmovies · 3 years

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Brent’s Top 10 Movies of 2019

Scorsese is probably my favorite living filmmaker, but I’ll be honest, when I heard that Scorsese was making this movie, and *how* he was making it (heavily digital de-aged actors) I was a bit skeptical. De Niro and Pacino haven’t been turning in interesting performances in quite awhile, and Pesci came out of a decades-long retirement for the movie as well. On top of that, the first trailer released did little for me. All that to say I was an idiot to doubt the master.

Scorsese returns to the crime genre that he re-invented many times over the years, this time with the eyes of a man in his 70’s, looking back on his life and career. The movie is very long, but in my opinion, it needs the length. The viewer needs to *feel* the totality of a life, and as is his intent with The Irishman, the *consequences* of this specific life. The final hour or so of this movie feels like a culmination of Scorsese’s career in many ways. The energy and entertainment of a crime/mob epic, with the fatalism and philosophical leanings of a movie like ‘Silence’. It’s a 3.5 hour movie that I’ve already rewatched, and actively want to again, so that alone ought to speak volumes.

Harmony Korine made one of my favorite movies of the 2010’s, the neon-soaked and often misunderstood ‘Spring Breakers’, so I was already in the bag for whatever he did next. When I heard it was a freewheeling stoner comedy where Matthew Mcconaughey plays a guy named ‘Moondog’ costarring Snoop Dogg, I reserved its location on my top 10 list.

This movie doesn’t have the empty heart at its core that defines Spring Breakers, opting instead for a character study about a ‘Florida man’ poet after his life pretty much falls apart. It’s basically plotless, stumbling from one insane, borderline hallucinatory sequence to the next, but I just loved living in the world of this movie. Beach Bum almost feels like a deliriously fun VR simulation of hanging out with Matt McConaughey and his weirdo friends down in the Florida keys. This is one that probably won’t pop up on many top 10 lists but I really adore, and will surely rewatch it a dozen times in the years to come.

Let the record show, I’ve been a huge fan of Bong Joon-ho since I first saw his monster movie/family drama ‘The Host’. Some time later, he went on to make ‘Snowpiercer’, one of my favorite movies of the last decade. All that to say, I think Parasite is probably his best movie, and a true masterwork of thriller direction. It also has his usual brand of social commentary and a script filled with darkness and humor, following a South Korean tendency to juggle multiple tones throughout, sometimes all in one moment or scene.

Parasite also follows a big 2019 trend of commenting on class and social dynamics between the rich and the poor. I think that’s part of why it’s done incredibly well at the box office (especially for a Korean language film), the fact that people can relate in a huge way, regardless of which country your from. Parasite is one of the most entertaining movie viewing experiences I’ve had this year and I’d recommend everyone check it out.

If you were to ask me what the funnest movie-going experience I had in 2019 was, I’d have to pick Rian Johnson’s ‘Knives Out’. Hot off making one of the best Star Wars movies ever made (don’t @ me) Johnson decided to make a passion project in the vein of classic Agatha Christie style murder mysteries, and the results are a total blast. Filled with clever twists and turns, weaponizing the structure of murder-mysteries against the audiences expectations, it stays one step ahead of you the entire time.

Aside from the clever mystery of it all, it’s the actors performances and chemistry that really sell this thing. Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Collette are expectedly great per usual, and Daniel Craig is having the time of his life as Mississippi private-eye Benoit Blanc, but the heart of the movie is relative newcomer Ana de Armas. She brings an emotional weight and anchor to the movie that always keeps you emotionally invested amidst the terrible, money hungry backstabbing by the other heightened characters. I hope everyone sees this movie and Johnson is able to give us another Benoit Blanc adventure somewhere down the line, I’ll be there opening day.

Nobody makes an upbeat, feel-good movie like Ari Aster does! After last years light and breezy ‘Hereditary’ (which I liked a lot but didn’t totally love) he’s back with a completely riveting and emotionally draining (not to mention horrific) masterpiece. What I connected to most in Midsommar is the journey of Dani, played incredibly by Florence Pugh. The way the film portrays the relationship between her and her dog shit boyfriend played by the (usually) charming Jack Reynor keeps you invested in every twist, perfectly paced out over the movies admittedly long runtime.

I won’t get into spoiler territory, but where this movie goes in the end is what makes this a fully 5-star movie for me. After putting you through hell, like Aster loves to do with bells on, Midsommar ends in a euphoric, psychedelic orgy of music and violence that I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Midsommar rules so hard and I can’t wait for whatever twisted thing Aster cooks up next.

One of my increasingly favorite brands of movies is a finely crafted, primo slice of dad-movie cinema, and James Mangold has made one with Ford v Ferrari. The story chronicles the partnership of ex-racer and designer Carroll Shelby and racer Ken Miles as they work to make a Ford that can compete in the 24 hour race of Le Mans. Bale and Damon are a blast to watch bounce off each other and the race sequences are pretty damn thrilling, combining (what I expect is) a solid amount of great VFX with practical racing to great effect.

I also didn’t expect it to have as much to say about the struggle to create something special by passionate people and not committees while also inside the very machine that churns out products on an assembly line. Just a random note, this original movie was just put out by 20th Century Fox, now owned by Disney but that’s completely unrelated and I’m not sure why I’d even bring that up??? Anyway, I love this movie and dads, moms and everybody else should check it out.

If you saw my list last year, then it must appear like I’m some diehard Mr. Rogers fan. I don’t really have many memories watching his show as a child, but what the documentary ‘Won’t You be my Neighbor’ and this film by Marielle Heller have in common is a shared fascination of his immense empathy and character. It’s only right that America’s dad Tom Hanks should play him, and I was surprised at the end that I was able to get over his stardom and accept him as Rogers. He’s not doing a direct impersonation, and I think it’s all the better for it, instead opting for matching his soft tone and laid back movements.

On a pure emotional level, this movie was a freight train. It didn’t help that the movie covers a lot of father stuff, from losing your own to becoming one yourself (2 big boxes on the Brent bingo card). Heller’s direction is clever in its weaponizing of meta/post-modern techniques, such as one incredible fourth wall break in a diner scene. It literally breaks down the barrier between Mr. Rogers, we the audience, and the films intent to make us feel something.

I cry a lot at movies, that much is well known, but it’s rare that a movie makes me weep, and this one did. Even thinking about scenes right now, days later, my eyes are welling up with tears thinking about the messages of the movie. Mr. Rogers and his lessons of empathy and emotional understanding have rarely been as vital and important as they are right now in our world.

Robert Eggers first film ‘The Witch’ from 2015 is one of my favorite movies of this decade, possibly of all time, so my hype for his black and white, period piece two-hander ‘The Lighthouse’ was through the roof. Even with sky-high expectations, it still blew me away. With dialogue reminiscent of The Witch in its specific authenticity to its era, to the two lead actors giving all-time great performances, It was one of the most entertaining film viewing experiences I had this year.

There’s something about both of Egger’s movies that I really keyed into watching this one: his fascination with shame and the liberation from it. Where Witch was from the female perspective, Lighthouse literally has two farting, drunk men in a giant phallic symbol fighting for dominance. It’s less a horror film than his first, but still utterly engrossing, demented and specific to his singular vision. I can’t wait to see 20 more movies from this guy.

This is another big movie of 2019, like The Irishman, where you can see the director looking inward, at what his films mean and represent. It initially caught me so off guard that I really didn’t know how to feel about it, but after seeing it again, it’s one of my favorites of the year, and probably Tarantino’s filmography overall. More akin to something like Boogie Nights or Dazed and Confused, letting us live with and follow a small group of characters, it mostly doesn’t feel like a Tarantino movie (until the inevitable and shocking explosion of violence in the third act, of course).

‘Hollywood’ is the most sincere and loving movie Tarantino has made, interested in giving us a send off to an era of Hollywood and artists that have been lost or forgotten (Some more tragically than others). In the end, the movie functions similarly to ‘Inglorious Basterds’ in it’s rewriting of history to give us catharsis. “If only things could have worked out this way.” Luckily in movies, removed from the restrictions of reality, they can. And once upon a time in Hollywood, they did.

Uncut Gems probably tripled my blood pressure by the time the credits rolled. A slice-of-life story about a gambler/dealer in New York’s diamond district, the movie follows Howard Ratner, played by Adam Sandler in easily the best performance of his career. Ratner is basically addicted to living at the edge of a cliff, being chased by violent debt collectors, juggling a home life and a relationship with an employee, and fully relying on risky sports bets to stay afloat. It makes for a consistently tense and unique viewing experience, expertly directed by the Safdie brothers.

Something that might not work for everyone but that I personally loved, is the chaotic way in which the movie is shot. What feels like loosely directed scenes, with characters talking over each other and multiple conversations happening at once, adds an authenticity and reality lacking from most other movies. It’s more adjacent to Linklater (thanks to Adam for the comparison) or Scorsese’s earlier films (also fitting, that he’s a producer on this). Following Howard Ratner as his life descends into chaotic hell was one of the best times I’ve had watching a movie this year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

AVENGERS ENDGAME

DOLEMITE IS MY NAME

BOOKSMART

JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3

THE FAREWELL

AD ASTRA

#top 10 #movies #2019 #top 10 movies #midsommar #uncut gems #the irishman #martin scorsese

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sweetsmellosuccess · 3 years

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Sundance 2021: Day 5

Films: 4 Best Film of the Day(s): Judas and the Black Messiah

Prisoners of the Ghostland: For years now, Nicolas Cage has found projects that allow him — at this point, encourage him — to indulge his innermost acting Id. Never particularly one for thespian discipline before (with a few notable exceptions), he’s been freed of these petty restraints in favor of further and further unhinged “performances” that consist of his hyperbolic, twisted up line-readings and little more. For this film, he’s teamed up with Japanese gonzo auteur Sion Sono in a bizarre, cultural mash-up that includes western, samurai, comic book noir, and sci-fi all colliding together in a tedious heap. Playing largely without rules does allow for an exploration of creative impulses, but without narrative drive, or stakes of any real kind (beyond Cage’s character’s testicles — don’t ask), the film drowns itself in nonsensical, self-conscious oddities, with everyone seemingly taking the direction to “act weird!” until it all bleeds together. Even Cage’s various Cagisms (“Tes-ti-CAAAAL!”) get lost to the cacophony. Be careful what you wish for, Nic.

Cusp: The specific physical details change and evolve a bit, but much of the thrust of the American coming-of-age doc remains as fixed as a mountain range. Parker Hill and Isabel Bethencourt’s film, about a trio of teen friends growing up in small-town Texas over the course of a long summer, hits many of the usual sorts of points: With not much else to do, the kids amuse themselves with endless smoking, boozing, and drugging (and, this being Texas, an alarming amount of playing with firearms), get into and out of relationships they think might be love before they aren’t, and disagree vehemently with their parents, and the choices they’ve made in their lives. Still, Autumn, Brittney, and Aaloni each have their own burdens to carry — Autumn and Brittney are both abuse survivors, Aaloni’s father seems callous and harsh to all of his children to the point that they all hate him — and the intimacy with which Hill and Bethencourt’s camera captures their struggles and experiences is refreshingly candid, especially in the day of the endless social media montage. The young women are caught somewhere between child and adult, but unavoidably hurtling forward, an understanding we are all forced into accepting, but hasn’t yet hit them. “I’m sixteen,” one of them says near the end, “I have forever to go.”

Night of the Kings: On the evening of a blood-red moon at the MACA prison deep in the heart of the jungle in the Ivory Coast, a new, young inmate (Bakary Koné), having just been named “Roman” by the reigning Dangoro, Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu), is forced to tell a story to the rest of the inmates as an entertainment. As soon as he has finished, he’s been warned, he will be put to death. Ivory Coast director Philippe Lacote, who grew up in the city of Abidjan, where Roman’s story takes place, has created a sort of recrafting of Arabian Nights, with Roman as its Scheherazade. The thing is, as Roman begins to stammer out his story, attempting to elongate it as much as possible in order to stay alive, the inmates make it a fully interactive affair, jumping in to demonstrate the action Roman describes, breaking into songs glorifying the characters he creates, and responding favorably or unfavorably to every detail as he lays it out to them. In this way, Roman’s halting, confusing story — which changes time frames, and details as Roman rethinks them — becomes a collective experience of the entire prison, even as Lass (Abdoul Karim Konaté), a rival to the ailing Blackbeard, plans his overthrow. Ironically, Roman’s story might not rise up to the mythic elements he keeps trying to interject, but the film’s story — with its colorful cast of descriptive-name characters (Half-Mad, Razor Blade, Sexy, Petrol), magic realism components, and multilayered intrigue, plays like its own sort of myth.

Judas and the Black Messiah: It’s maybe one person out of 100 who would actually act in the best interest of everybody else instead of themselves. Which means there are about 99 who would look out for themselves, if push came to shove. Shaka King’s shattering film about Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the charismatic chairman of the Chicago sect of the Black Panther party in the late ‘60s, and William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), the man who would betray him to the FBI, is a testament to this most egregious human principle — memorialized, as the film’s title strongly asserts, in the Bible — and one of the confounding bedrocks of human civilization. Hampton was a young man when he became the chairman of his chapter, and his successes immediately grabbed the attention of J. Edgar Hoover (here played by Martin Sheen), who was obsessed with the idea that the Civil Rights movement had inlaid ties with the communists. Putting pressure on his Chicago office to diffuse Hampton, agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) brings in O’Neal, recently busted for impersonating a Fed, and offers him a chance at his freedom, but at the cost of playing snitch on “Chairman Fred.” King, who co-wrote the screenplay, boils to story down to its essence without getting needlessly choked in the details. We see Hampton’s savvy, and his ability to connect with people of any creed or color — easily, the most frightening element of his program to the FBI was the so-called “Rainbow Coalition” that banded together the Panthers with black street gangs, but also Puerto Rican groups, and, shockingly, all-white coalitions, all untied under the rubric of being poor and abused by Chicago’s notoriously corrupt and racist police department — but also, his absolute belief in keeping political power in the hands of the people, not the government. King’s film features absolutely blazing performances from its two male leads, in addition to a strong turn by Dominique Fishback, as Hampton’s wife, Deborah Johnson, and a strong, driving narrative focus that keeps the line taut, even if you know exactly what’s coming. King manages to portray Hampton in purely human terms, grounded in the reality of the struggle, and avoids needlessly deifying him in the process. It’s true, O’Neal, though the primary protagonist, remains more unexplored — this isn’t The Killing of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, exactly — but Stanfield gives enough breadth to the performance to keep the film properly balanced. It’s shatteringly good.

Sundance goes mostly virtual for this year’s edition, sparing filmgoers the altitude, long waits, standing lines, and panicked eating binges — but also, these things and more that make the festival so damn endearing. In any event, Sundance via living room is still a hell of a lot better than no Sundance. A daily report.

#sweet smell of success #ssos #piers marchant #films #movies #sundance 2021 #film festival #virtual #judas and the black messiah #prisoners of the ghostland #cusp #night of the kings

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bastillewolf · 4 years

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The Grand Tranquility Hotel (VIII)

Pairing: Alex Turner/Reader

Summary: An eccentric hotel owner and an inquisitive writer find solace in each other when they both seemed to be at the edge of rock bottom.

Notes: I hope I gave this chapter enough build-up. Bit of a different perspective, too. Hope you enjoy!

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the tag list.

Chapter VIII - Golden Trunks

Alex threw his coat over his shoulders tiredly. He had to deal with the aftermath of the unravelled fraud committed in his own hotel, and it wasn’t something he was looking particularly forward to. Though he had good connections with the city’s chief policeman James Ford, the strenuous investigation and the stack of paperwork it would entail was something they both dreaded.

He’d asked Matt to taxi him, because he simply hadn’t slept well enough to trust himself to drive properly. It had been this way for months on end now, and he knew it was as a result of the stress he’d been dealing with. Whatever the doctor had given him didn’t work, so he’d always end up spending the nights on his balcony with a smoke and a glass of his favourite whiskey. What he wouldn’t do for one of those right now.

“Heading off again?”

She was leaning against the doorway, looking charming as ever. “We missed you during breakfast.”

“Considering Jamie’s blood pressure, I don’t think I was missed all that much, love,” he replied with a small smile. “I’m headed off to the city. I still have some business with the police to handle.”

“Have fun with that.”

He hummed, “If I’m at the brink of being bored to death, I’ll just remember I still have a guest I need to keep my eye on before she ruins my good reputation.”

“Did you just admit to fantasizing about me, mister Turner?”

He laughed, before hearing the honk of the Cadillac echoing through the lobby. “I hope to see you at lunch, writer.” He closed the final button of his coat before stepping out the front doors.

“You didn’t answer my question!” he heard her call after him. He left with a feeling of boyish giddiness, and he wasn’t quite sure what to think of it.

His trip to and from the police office had left him more tired than he wanted to admit, and it had taken up more time of his day than expected. It wasn’t until dinner that he was able to join his guest and staff for his first proper meal of the day. He scolded himself, knowing what his mother would’ve said to him if she saw him like this.

The dining hall appeared to be more dimly lit than usual and he wanted to ask Nick about it, but when he saw him carelessly conversing with Jamie at the table, his conscience decided against it. He knew how hard Nick had been working the past few weeks.

They all greeted him with cautionary smiles and hellos, which he’d gotten used to over the past few years. Previous events had led him to be stricter about certain things and he knew very well that it had put a strain on their friendship. Part of him missed the old days, but he realized it was better this way. If the hotel did ever go bankrupt, they’d blame him, and they would be right to do so. For if they didn’t blame him, they’d blame themselves, and he wanted to prevent that at all costs.

She was sitting next to him, and as the predominant conversation the guys were having was able to drown out anything else, she muttered, “I thought we’d be seeing you at lunch, mister Turner?”

“My apologies, love. Business took me longer than expected,” he disclosed softly, “I hope my staff kept you entertained?”

“I’m very capable of keeping myself entertained, mister Turner. I don’t need your staff to manage.” She had a devious twinkle in her eyes, which made him smirk. “Luckily you don’t,” he replied, “all they’re good at is getting you into trouble.”

“Speaking of trouble-“ She pulled a newspaper from her bag and slid it over to him, which quieted down everyone at the table. Alex’ eyes sleekly scanned over the headline.

‘The Grand Tranquility Hotel: A blissful sanctuary with the most charming personnel - and owner.”

The other men at the table seemed to be waiting warily for his response, clearly already having been informed of the whole ordeal. When Alex blankly kept rereading it a dozen times over, feeling a numbness settle over him, Nick decided to speak up; “The article was very well-received, Alex. I’ve had more bookings for the next holiday than we’ve had all summer.”

“I think this might have saved us, Al,” Matt added, his hand grasping his shoulder supportively.

He finally managed to look up at her. “How did you do it?” He asked, his brow set in a deep furrow.

“Do what?”

“How did you manage to make it to the front paper?”

“I pulled some connections,” she replied with a small smile.

He blinked. It didn’t make any sense to him. Connections? How did she get it in the paper so soon? When had she been planning this?

“But, why?” When she gave him a look of confusion, he elaborated, “You owe nothing to this hotel. Your mother had a history here, sure. But your stay here hasn’t been relaxing for you in the slightest. Why help us?”

“Unlike your previous presumptions, mister Turner, I don’t have any ulterior motives. I simply want to see good people succeed in life, like my mother used to.”

Dinner was continued with the tension having been relieved completely. He stole long looks at her as they ate, and it was everything about her that suddenly seemed to intrigue him beyond words. How someone could be so utterly pure with their intentions, he didn’t know. It bewildered him to an immense extent and he suddenly felt very unworthy of all the things she’d done for them over the small amount of time she’d known them.

When they were done, he asked if he could walk her back to her room. She said yes.

“You never answered my question,” she commented, having arrived before the pristine white door of room 521. He gave her a look that told her he wasn’t sure what she was talking about, and she gave him a knowing smile. She stepped closer to him and he felt a warmth filling his chest in a pleasant way. Her gentle breath sent a tingling sensation along his spine when it reached his ear. “I’ll be upfront, mister Turner. Sometimes I fantasize about you, too.”

He awoke with a start, and Matt gave him a look through the rear-view mirror. He’d fallen asleep in the car after visiting the police station. He’d dreamt it all and wanted nothing more than to hit his head against the door of the car repeatedly.

Because finally, he realized what this incessant gut feeling had been at the hands of some laughable dream. This writer, who he was ever so cautious with, who gave him stress to no relief and made him beyond distracted of everything around him, had managed to sulk into his deeply barricaded heart when he’d done so much to prevent it from happening.

It wasn’t just the day she’d arrived, where he had told Matt to take care of everything because it was just one guest. Because all hotel owners know that having just one guest can have more impact on a hotel than a fully booked one ever could. It wasn’t just the fact that he’d pushed her away every time she tried to bring up her idea for her book because no one should ever know what really happened.

It had all started with her mother’s visit. The time it was off-season, and she was the only visitor.

She had called him a charming young man. “You should meet my girl,” she’d said, “She would fall in love with you in a heartbeat.” He’d gracefully declined the offer, of course. But now, suddenly knowing who this beautiful and intriguing woman turned out to be, he felt as if he’d made the biggest mistake not having accepted her mother’s good-humoured invite.

He thanked Matt as he stepped out of the car, before hurriedly making his way inside in search of the writer he was so giddy to see. He found her in the library, curled up with the same romance novel they’d bantered over not days before. “Welcome back,” she smiled, “Would you care to go on a walk with me?” And he was glad to finally be able to accompany her.

The drowning noise of the fountain seemed to derive him of some of his anxiousness and he deeply breathed in the fresh evening air. It was a poor attempt at finding his courage, which he was so deeply in search of these days.

“Who was the architect of the building, if I may ask?” she wondered, stopping for a brief moment with him to look up at the structure. He huffed, “A substantial question. But not the one you’ve evidently been meaning to ask for a long time.”

She looked back at him, and he inspected her face. He had almost second guessed his current decision, if it hadn’t been for the way her eyes lit up with an intimate intrigue. He held out his arm to her in a silent invite, which she took gracefully. Leading her down the illuminated driveway towards the treeline as the gravel cracked beneath their feet, he started by finally telling the truth.

“I think you remember that picture I showed you with your mother in it.” She nodded expectantly. “You recall the staff member in between Jamie and Matt? He used to be one of my best mates in high school, too. His name was Andy Nicholson. And he was probably the base of everything I worked on that had to do with the hotel.

He was the one to introduce me to this girl. She was as pretty as she was smart, and it was as if she had fallen from the sky because it so happened to be that she’d always wanted to work in a hotel. During her first interview, she told me how much she’d always been in awe of The Grand Tranquility and how it would give her a lifetime of happiness if she could get employment here. I didn’t think much of her at the time, but Andy had put in a good word for her, so I hired her in a whim. We had lots of staff at the time, so it wasn’t uncommon to hire someone new on a trial period.”

“Was she good at her job?” she asked in interest.

“She was, which is why I never saw a fault in her. She was a hard worker and never seemed to have any ill intent, towards guests nor other staff members. Everyone loved her, and I quickly became infatuated.”

He swallowed and she could tell he was struggling to continue. She slid her hand down his arm to cautiously interlock her fingers with his, which he responded to agreeably.

“It lasted for a long time,” he admitted, “And I would have done anything for her. It wasn’t until Andy suddenly started asking questions that I became suspicious. And not towards her, either. I was wondering what my best friend, who had introduced the two of us, was doing asking ridiculous questions and making assumptions about her that I was certain weren’t true. We argued about it, more than once, until he finally told me that I should fire her because he knew something was up with her. And I fucking sacked him instead. Because I didn’t want anyone talking about someone I truly loved like that.”

“Oh, Alex…” she sighed, halting him to a stop and squeezing his hand in comfort.

“He turned out to be right in the end. She’d been committing fraud the entire time we were together, and stole practically all of our funds. We had no evidence since she was smart enough to leave no traces and had fled the country by the time we found out.”

“It’s not your fault. Whatever drove you so far to put your friendship on the line, that’s all on her. I’m sure Andy understands that?”

He huffed, “I haven’t had the guts to contact him.”

“Then maybe that would be a step in the right direction?” she implied carefully.

His lip managed to form into an amused grin, despite the situation. “You don’t cease to amaze me, writer. I’ve just told you my biggest secret and you’re still sympathizing with me.”

“Well, let’s just say I like you better when you open up to me than when you’re shouting at me.”

His gaze softened. “I’m sorry, truly. I’d take everything back if I could.”

“Don’t be. You had your reasons to be cautious and now I see them more clearly.”

Her eyes flickered in the shimmering light of the yellowish bulbs hanging from the trees, and it made the colour in them so much more vibrant to him. He felt himself leaning closer to her, his arm sliding around the low of her back to diminish the space between them until finally, their lips touched, and electricity sparked. She closed her eyes and caressed a hand over his cheek, melting into his warm embrace like chocolate in a cup of steaming milk.

He moaned softly against her and it lit up everything inside her while he deepened their kiss, wanting to taste and feel every part of her until they ran out of breath. They held each other close, as if either letting the other know they felt comfortable with whatever it was between them.

“I’m putting my trust in you, writer,” he murmured against her lips, his glazy eyes not once breaking contact with hers, “Something I don’t do very often anymore.”

She nodded breathlessly, running her fingers through his soft hair. “I would never do anything to hurt you, Alex. I promise.”

#Arctic Monkeys #Alex Turner #Alex Turner x Reader #Miles Kane #Matt Helders #Jamie Cook #Nick O'Malley #TLSP #The Last Shadow Puppets #AM #Humbug #TBHC #Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino #Reader Insert #Romance #Fanfiction #Suck It And See

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Robert Rodriguez on We Can Be Heroes and How Pedro Pascal Reminds Him of Harrison Ford

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Robert Rodriguez is a man of many hats – in every sense of the word.

While he has been known to rock a fedora or two down the years, the idiom is more a reflection of his “one-man film crew” approach to movie-making, with Rodriguez known for not only writing, and directing but also doing everything from editing to operating the camera.

It’s also a reflection of his ability to turn his hand to disparate genres and movies aimed and markedly different audiences.

Having made his name with movies like El Mariachi and From Dusk till Dawn, the new millennium saw Rodriguez’s career take a surprising turn into the world of family-orientated action with Spy Kids.

A major success with critics and audiences alike, the film spawned three further sequels, with Rodriguez even roping in Sylvester Stallone for the third and fourth efforts.

Since then, he has happily flipped back and forth between the two worlds, with 2005’s The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl sandwiched in between work on Sin City and Planet Terror.

It’s a pretty stark contrast in cinematic terms but one Rodriguez happily explains while speaking to Den of Geek about his latest movie, We Can Be Heroes, a superhero movie about a group of kids forced to do battle with alien invaders who have kidnapped their superhero parents.

“You are using the same skills. You just have a different mindset as far as tone. It’s just like if you’re at work or out with your buddies, you’ve got one way of talking and then when you go home and you’re with your kids it’s dad time. You have your dad hat on.

“When I make these movies, I have the dad hat on and then when I am out with my buddies that’s Sin City mode, that’s Machete mode. That’s when that other side of me comes out.”

While the kids take centre stage in We Can Be Heroes, they are ably supported by an impressive adult cast that includes Boyd Holbrook, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Christian Slater and Pedro Pascal.

It was the first time Pascal and Rodriguez had worked together, but it wouldn’t be the last. While working post-production on We Can Be Heroes, Rodriguez was recruited by Jon Favreau to direct an episode of The Mandalorian.

As such, he knows more than most about what makes Pascal such an engaging and intriguing presence on the screen.

“He reminds me of Harrison Ford in a way, he’s like this everyman type guy. He can be funny, he can be really intense, he can be very heroic but in We Can Be Heroes he kind of has to be a dweebish dad where it’s just all about him and his daughter [YaYa Gosselin].”

“He played that really well and was then also able to become this superhero. He can be very human and warm. In The Mandalorian he does a similar type of thing but with that heart. But he can play intense too. He’s got a wide range.”

“He reminds me of some of my favourite actors that I have worked with before like George Clooney. That’s why he’s got such a big career right now. People can see that he’s very much able to do 180 degrees in any direction.”

Working on The Mandalorian served as a stark contrast to his efforts on We Can Be Heroes but Rodriguez believes it definitely informed the making of this film.

“The Mandalorian is wonderful because you’ve got such a great big crew and they all know what they are doing and it’s a well-oiled machine. Jon Favreau is there, Dave Filoni is there, so I can just go in and direct.

“It was great to take a little break, go play with all the Star Wars toys and then come back and apply what I learned there to We Can Be Heroes, because they have a lot of cutting-edge technologies and techniques. I think this movie really benefited from side projects like that and Alita.”

We Can Be Heroes has been billed by some as a sequel to The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl but Rodriguez is keen to stress that this film doesn’t take place in the same universe.

“I wrote this as an original story for Netflix because they found movies like Sky Kids and Shark Boy and Lava Girl played really well on their service. Also, it is so rare to have live-action kids adventures for the whole family.”

“I love the genre so I came up with the idea for We Can Be Heroes where you have this adult Avengers-style team and then have little kids with superior powers but they don’t know how to use them.”

“I was surprised that there had never been superheroes that were kids, except for Shark Boy and Lava Girl back in the day, even after all these superhero movies and TV shows and spin-offs and reboots. I thought it was ripe for the taking.”

“The first script I turned in didn’t have Shark Boy or Lava Girl in it. But then I just thought let’s borrow their characters and bring them in as parents because it will help legitimise the adult team to have someone recognisable. It was more like we borrowed them. It’s not set in that universe.”

Working on the film has certainly given Rodriguez an appreciation for the superhero genre, which he would be keen to explore in future movies though he does note that it’s a genre that could benefit from more diversity.

“I think superhero films are just like westerns. It’s really about the story being told through that genre.”

“That’s why people live in there. It’s not because they’re superheroes it’s because the stories are relatable.”

“The superhero genre is still really vital. There’s a lot of room to grow. I think it could use more diversity and I know I could bring that. So yeah, I would be interested in continuing with it.”

Rodriguez has always been a strong advocate for representation on the screen and once cited his biggest creative victory as having the kids in Spy Kids be part of a Latino family.

In that sense, We Can Be Heroes is another big win with the film’s cast of 11 child superheroes notable for featuring a female lead, several black and Asian characters and a boy with special abilities who uses a wheelchair.

“I’m always looking to do that in my films since the beginning and that was what I liked about this early,” Rodriguez explains.

“It’s just something that was very organic to the story because the adult superhero team would have been assembled from the best of the best all over the world. That works well with this audience too with Netflix movies going out all at once all over the world.”

Still, having such a large ensemble cast created something of a logistical nightmare when it came time to shoot the film.

“You ask any director what is the most difficult scene to do and they will say a dinner scene. A dinner scene where there are like 10 people around a table because you have got to shoot a wide shot and then you have got to shoot everybody in there talking to each other. Close ups of everybody. “

“It’s very tedious because you have got 10 or 11 people and that’s what this whole movie was because there are 11 kids in every scene because they are all together, they’re not split up.

“I had to wrangle them for every shot and make sure they all had a very specific thing to do. We only had six hours a day, that’s like half a work day. So that was a challenge.”

While Rodriguez insists he makes kids films “purely for the innocence of children” with no adult jokes that go over their heads, We Can Be Heroes does feature a US President, played by Happy Gilmore’s Christopher McDonald, who audiences are initially told sleeps in until 12 and struggles to put a sentence together. Could this be a reference to anyone in particular?

Rodriguez laughs at this suggestion.

“It’s funny because I really did think maybe the adults would laugh at that but when we tested it to an audience in one of the earliest versions before the pandemic hit, kids laughed the most. So, they all thought they knew what we were talking about.”

Ultimately, he insists that was simply “misdirection” as part of the film’s wider message about the importance of parents being role models to their kids in order to ensure they make the world a better place because, as Rodriguez puts it, “obviously we’ve screwed this place up.”

“It’s designed to be something to inspire the next generation. It’s supposed to show that the world is kind of falling apart. That adults are not working together – just like the adult superhero team shows.

“There are constant battles within the group and this only underlines the problems in not being able to see eye to eye, to make a compromise, to make concessions, to make things work.”

Rodriguez hopes that while We Can Be Heroes entertains it also encourages better communication among parents and children to ensure the same mistakes found in society today, which have been drawn into sharp focus over the past 12 months, are not repeated.

“The kids need mentors; they need role models. Parents have to step up and be better examples and kids have to know that they are the future. They have to do things a better way and they are going to have better ideas.”

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

We Can Be Heroes is available on Netflix from 25th December.

The post Robert Rodriguez on We Can Be Heroes and How Pedro Pascal Reminds Him of Harrison Ford appeared first on Den of Geek.

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fasterthanmydemons · 4 years

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@littlelonewolfgirl

{out of breath} Well, it would depend on whether you are just looking for an entertaining watch in a movie, or you want to see his best performances as far as actual acting... because those are definitely not the same thing, heh. Some of his best performances are in movies that I would not call entertaining because of their subject matter. But anyway, here we go with some recommendations.

Godzilla (2014)

This is really great movie in my opinion. It takes an overdone and somewhat silly premise and puts a new twist on it that actually works. It’s exciting, it’s touching, it’s got really interesting creatures in it... the full package, heh. But besides that, ATJ is really good in it. He does an American accent and honestly, I never hear a mistake. That’s always impressive to me, haha. But he’s also very good as Ford, someone who is a soldier and has this great sense of duty and who is very brave and unafraid to go charging into danger, but who also has a family and worries about them too. So he brings a lot of emotion to what would otherwise be a simple, one-dimensional character. His character in this is also very likable, if that matters. Some of the same aspects people might like about Pietro (being brave, protecting children, being family-oriented) are seen in Ford as well. So if you’re looking for a decent acting performance, a character of his you can really root for, and a fun, entertaining movie, Godzilla is for you. I would rate this one as slightly more toward the entertainment aspect than a movie I would watch just for his acting alone, but yeah, I definitely recommend it. An added bonus is that Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Wanda Maximoff, is also in this movie in a supporting role as Ford’s wife, Elle.

Anna Karenina (2012)

If you are a theater fan, you love period pieces, or you are an artistic sort, you will love this movie. It is a very stylized version of the story based on the classic novel, done as a movie but as if the entire movie is done on theater stages and sets. It’s hard to describe, but it’s almost like watching a play the way the movie is shot and structured. Some people really didn’t like that and that’s part of the reason why it didn’t do that well with critics and reviews, but I personally found it to be an interesting way to do it and it was visually very beautiful. ATJ plays Alexei Vronsky, a count who becomes infatuated with and begins an affair with Keira Knightley’s Anna, married to Jude Law’s Karenin. The two really play wonderfully off of each other and that’s what makes the story work, because it is a very character-centric and emotionally driven story. It’s not a very happy story, though, so be warned. The ending especially is rather tragic. But ATJ is really on his game in this movie. He has his natural accent here, which is nice to hear. He emotes so much in a number of scenes and there were at least two or three points when he made me tear up. A very different character from Pietro or Ford, but still basically a good guy. You may not always agree with his choices in the film or like everything about him, but I don’t think you’ll hate his character. He’s a very sympathetic character, especially as the story progresses. So I would put this movie somewhere in the middle as far as... it’s entertaining at times but maybe hard to watch at others, but ATJ’s acting game is definitely bumped up in this one considerably.

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Alright... let me start this off by saying that I really hesitate to recommend this movie to anyone because I don’t want to be responsible for truly upsetting someone... or worse, triggering them. So please, please, please, anyone who might want to watch this movie, read a detailed summary of it first to make sure you know what you’re in for. It’s a very adult movie with incredibly heavy and disturbing themes. Some of the potential triggers include gun violence, blood/gore, child abuse/murder, rape, and abortion just to let you know. So really not what I would call an entertaining film at all. However... it is a very well done film and the most impressive performance by ATJ I’ve seen thus far. He won a Golden Globe award for it, and I believe it’s his most significant win to date. He has a Texas accent in the movie and again, I don’t hear a single mistake, so that’s really noteworthy that he appears to be very adept at accents. But... you will not like his character at all. He plays Ray Marcus, a psychopath with a penchant for random, senseless, and violent murder. His character is crass, obscene, vicious, unkempt, sexist, lewd.... I mean the list goes on. But you really believe it coming from ATJ, and that’s saying a lot after watching heroic characters like Ford or Pietro or soft romantic ones like Vronsky... to then see him as a psychopath like Ray and fully believe the performance. You really end up hating his character and wanting justice to be done, and feeling like you need a shower after watching him, heh. ATJ’s acting is really incredible in this, though. I gained so much respect for him after watching this movie as far as pure acting ability is concerned. There were a couple scenes where I was just mesmerized by his facial expressions and subtleties in his voice and body language. Ray is a scary, insidious, and evil dude, and ATJ really knocks it out of the park with his portrayal. Also, the movie is a great psychological thriller with deep meaning and many layers to peel back, if that’s up your alley. I’m actually currently reading the book it’s based off of because I really enjoyed the overall story and the way it’s structure as a story-within-a-story type of setup. There are a lot of other really good actors in it as well, such as Jake Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Isla Fisher, and Ellie Bamber. But I have been watching horror/thriller movies since age four and really not much ever shocks/upsets me... and the first time I watched this movie, I almost lost my cookies at one part because it was so sad. So let that be a warning before anyone embarks on this particular journey, but if you’re up for it, it’s a very good film.

Nowhere Boy (2009) / Kick-Ass (2010)

I know you said top three recommendations, and those are my top three up there, but if Nocturnal Animals is not your cup of tea, I’ll throw in a couple more. I have not actually seen either of these movies yet, but multiple people have recommended them to me and said ATJ was very good in them. Kick-Ass is a teen superhero type crime fighting movie I believe? So expect something light and entertaining, I’m guessing. And in Nowhere Boy, ATJ portrays a young John Lennon. I would like the see these movies myself, so if I can get my hands on them I shall, but maybe they could be substitutes for Nocturnal Animals if that’s a bit too much muchness for you.

#littlelonewolfgirl #{ out of breath } ᵒᵒᶜ

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rickrakontoys · 5 years

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"Godzilla: King of the Monsters" review/ramble

*minor spoilers*

As a big fan of ol Gojira, this movie tickled me in all the right ways despite there being innumerable issues.

While it had a great deal more monster madness, and gave us plenty of fun easter eggs, references to the Godzilla legacy, and entertaining characterization of each of the big 4 Titans, the movie's nonsensical plot and overabundance of one-note human characters brought the whole thing down substantially.

The movie's great strengths lie in its monster designs and monster performances. Ghidorah looks absolutely amazing here, and giving each head a distinct personality is a brilliant move. Rodan is menacing while exuding a Starscream-like conniving cowardly nature. Mothra is angelic and etherial, and ends up being quite an MVP of the movie (I feel there wasn't quite enough of her though). Godzilla is mighty and badass, but somehow is the least interesting of the 4... He always shows up at the precise moment he needs to to save the humans. This movie strangely feels like a half-remake of "Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster", which also had the same monsters. If only this movie had a scene of Godzilla and Rodan bickering and fighting like two big goofs... (playing volleyball with a rock).

The humans themselves got so much critical hate... but I thought they served their purpose well enough. The big problem was that there were simply too many human characters spread out too thinly. At least Godzilla 2014 only really focused on Ford Brody and his struggle to get home, with some Serizawa on the side.

The musical score incorporating new arrangements of Godzilla and Mothra's classic Toho themes was a delight. Bear MacCreary really outdid himself here and his renditions of the classic themes and even his new compositions are outstanding. I need to buy this score to listen to it! The sound design was bombastic to nearly an excessive degree. But that is certainly appropriate for such a large scale monster mash. Hearing the classic Godzilla roar though... pure awesome.

A big gripe I have is the cinematography. Despite being more numerous, the fights here are not as visually strong as the 2014 film's. The previous entry made everything feel weighty and gargantuan due to the clever use of framing. Here, the monsters are shot rather plainly, and the sense of scale is often lost amongst the scuffles. Also, too many of the fights are again obscured by night and rain... LET US SEE THE MONSTERS CLEARLY AT LEAST ONCE geez ... There are a few breathtaking wide shots here though. They will make terrific posters or desktop wallpapers! And the first shot of Godzilla stomping through San Francisco at the beginning as the family looks up at him in terror and awe was great.

While this movie is certainly more "fun" than Godzilla 2014, I don't think it is the better made movie. While Gareth Edwards had issues with the plotting and overreliance on restraint, at least it led to a major payoff with 2014's climax. King of the Monsters blows its load early and frequently with less buildup. This ends up making the movie more action packed but less impactful. Additionally KotM crams in a TON of easter eggs and nods to older films, even if these references were not earned in any way. The Oxygen Destroyer from the original Godzilla is shown, used, and rather quickly forgotten. Burning Godzilla suddenly becomes a thing at the end, but leads to very little. Even the Hollow Earth concept from KONG: Skull Island returns, and amounts to little more than a plot convenience.

Overall, this was a good entertainment. The flaws are noticeable but don't kill it, and there is enough good that even non-Godzilla fans can enjoy it (my girlfriend who has zero interest in Godzilla actually ended up liking it a lot!).

Godzilla - King of the Monsters gets a 7.5/10

(Godzilla 2014: I probably would rate the same 7.5... but for wholly different strengths and weaknesses)

#godzilla #godzilla king of the monsters #godzilla kotm #rickrakon movie reviews #movie review #gojira #mothra #rodan #king ghidorah #ghidorah #monster zero #legendary godzilla #monsterverse

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Legends of Tomorrow - ‘Terms of Service’ Review

"The power is in the Palm(er) of your hands."

Is it rude to point out that the Emperor has no clothes, if you point out at the same time that the Emperor is super ripped and has been clearly doing a lot of cardio?

Because.... Damn, Emperor. You got it going on.

Which is, of course, my frivolous and subtextually homoerotic way of saying that there's an embarrassment of riches in this episode when it comes to things to like, but they all kind of rely on some serious glossing over of problem spots.

The problem in a nutshell can be boiled down to one thing. The basic opening foundation for this episode doesn't match at all with where things were left at the end of the previous one. I'm tempted to assume that I'd missed an entire episode worth of plot development, except that I know perfectly well that I didn't. It's almost as if the writers room broke a 17 episode series of stories and then just completely excised one of them when they found out they were only getting 16 to air.

For the love of God, CW, please start giving Legends a full boat of 22 episodes. It's getting embarrassing.

OK, so here's what I mean. A not insignificant portion of the plot development tonight entirely relies on the fairy godmother currently being under Gary's control. That's actually an inspired plot development, and his relationship both with Tabitha and with the next inheritor of the fairy godmother mantle were pure gold as far as both comedy and plot development goes.

The problem is, when exactly did Fairy Godmother bond herself to Gary? He calls to her at the end of the previous episode and she saves him from Mona as if their relationship was an established thing, but unless I missed something significant completely, that was not a thing they'd ever set up.

I'll be fair. I drink a lot of wine. If I missed something that explains this, please do let me know in the comments.

Additionally, at the end of 'Nip/Stuck,' Mona ate off Gary's evil nipple – not a sentence you get to type every day – and Gary was rushed out of the Time Bureau with unconscious Mona, Tabitha, and Neron in Ray's body. The implication strongly was that Gary's nipple was behind the mass hypnosis of the Bureau, and now that it had been destroyed the bureau was saved. Left behind to witness the bad guys escape was Nora, Ava, and Sara.

This week we open with the bad guys still in possession of the Bureau, only now it's due to Gary's influence over the fairy godmother rather than his fancy hypnotic nipple. Not only do we see no evidence of the bad guys leaving the bureau together, they aren't even all in a group anymore. Mona is imprisoned in the Bureau cells, which makes no sense if they were fleeing with her body ten minutes earlier. Neron and Tabitha aren't even there anymore as they're busy setting up 'PalmerX 2019,' a low key tech con with only one panel and one guest. Ava and Sara are back on the Waverider as if they'd never liberated the Bureau in the first place, and Nora is Die Harding her way to rescue Mona with no mention of how she got separated from them.

I'm sorry, show, but I have to ask. Did you smoke a gigantic bag of crack between these two episodes, or what?

It's all very frustrating, because I said earlier, where they take all of those plot threads is fantastic. Neron's plan to create fear using the monsters so that people will download an app in order to locate the monsters and in doing so sell their immortal souls through a lengthy terms of service agreement is both goat-shit crazy and completely brilliant. What's more, it would absolutely work. If you doubt it, just consider how much none of us noticed when the guests of PalmerX were shown agreeing to a terms of service agreement that they didn't read. Seriously, go back and look. The camera shots practically luxuriate on people swiping through the TOS as fast as they can, but nothing about that reads as unusual or sinister to us anymore and so we just blanked it out.

Similarly, Tabitha's plan to trick Nora into taking on her fairy godmother mantle was inspired, despite being lifted pretty completely from genie-lore, particularly Disney's Live Action Aladdin Soon in Theaters Near You. And God bless the show for keeping Jane Carr around as Tabitha. I absolutely expected that they'd find an excuse to recast Tabitha into the body of someone younger and sexier as soon as they possibly could, because that's the kind of gross thing that network execs tend to insist on. I love, love, love that they're keeping her around as Neron's love interest. And while we're talking about it, it's such a good choice for them to show that Neron and Tabitha do genuinely love each other. It would have been so easy to tumble into the cliché of a villain team eager to backstab one another.

But the best choice this episode made was in the nature of Gary Green himself. Wonderful reveal that Gary was perfectly aware the entire time that the fairy godmother was trying to get him to wish hurt on the Legends and so he was deliberately just focusing on wishing to hang out with them as a way of defying her. Even when 'Dark Gary' finally gets called forth, his glorious flow of vengeance never goes further than acne and tap dancing. Gary is a good man, fundamentally. And he's absolutely right, he does not deserve to be laughed at. I've been saying since the beginning of the season that the Legends need to face a consequence for the way they're played Gary as convenient bait that can be had for a little flattery. I think they finally learned that lesson here.

Which brings lastly to John Constantine, in a plotline I like to call, 'This should absolutely have been an entire episode all on its own.'

When they mentioned Hell's Triumvirate I briefly entertained the thought that they might be about to do the good parts of 'Dangerous Habits' that everybody always leaves out when they try to adapt it, but alas, no. It felt right that he chose Astra over Ray, as much as it broke my heart, and it felt equally right that Astra betrayed him. Can't wait to see what will happen there when Nora gets to Hell to rescue John. I do, however, which that they'd gone with the imagery from the comics and had Astra only have one arm.

Everybody remember where we parked:

There was actually shockingly little travel this week. The Waverider just hung around Washington D.C. in 2019, and a couple of our heroes went to Hell, which may or may not equate to the same time zone, it's hard to tell.

What is interesting is the reveal that Zari grew up a little outside of D.C. Did we know that already, or was that a reveal of convenience this week? Zari appeared to me to be in the 8-10 range, although I am a notoriously bad judge of age so she might be a bit older. That actually answers a couple of longstanding questions I was pondering last year about what baby Zari might be up to in our time period.

Zari mentions that it's only a few years away from when ARGUS takes over everything and creates an anti-Meta, anti-Muslim Dystopia. We're all kind of assuming they're just never going to deal with that, aren't we?

Quotes:

Sara: "Mick, Nate, do you think you can handle Tabitha?" Mick: "Granny’s dead."

Sara: "OK, can you guys stop being dragon baby crazy right now?"

Gary: "And now I have three nipples, because a spare never hurts." Having a third nipple was historically a sign of witchcraft. There is a zero percent chance the writers don't know that.

Calibraxis: "You’re dead, demon hunter!" Constantine: "I was gonna be a demon proctologist, but the pay wasn’t as good."

Calibraxis: "I’m a demon, not a pirate, John."

Zari: "It’s a demon app. I’m gonna read the fine print."

Charlie: "If I die, I’m gonna come back and haunt you." Zari: "I would love a ghost friend."

Nora: "Gary, you dick!"

Bits and Pieces:

-- This season has for some reason brought up a lot of embarrassing confessions from me. Adding to the list that already contains my love of semiotics and the assembly of flatpack furniture, this week I have to tell you how much I love logo design. Honestly. I bring this up because the PalmerX logo is a masterwork. The solid 3-D cube implied by the background framing device conveys an unspoken implication of solidity and dependability with the third implied square breaking the frame and shooting 'toward' the viewer implying a daring willingness to work outside conventional rules and by implication 'think outside the box.' The coloring, meanwhile, subtly underscores the 'Palmer' portion of the name, thus reinforcing the higher brand. Honestly, and with no ironic joking involved, the PalmerX logo is a f*cking masterpiece of work.

-- I actually have a startling number of opinions on the quality of logo design. Feel free to ask, but I warn you that the answers get lengthy.

-- I get that they were underscoring the connection between Tala Ashe and Zari's younger self, but that hairstyle just fundamentally did not work for her. That's actually kind of rare and notable for her. Just about every hairstyle they've ever given her has looked gorgeous.

-- Looks like Wixtable the dragon is hatching in time for the season finale.

-- I went back and forth on whether or not it was smart or stupid for Zari to have brought the egg with her on the mission. Ultimately, I think there was no guaranteed safe place for the egg, given how often messed up stuff happens on the Waverider when they aren't there.

-- I hope Nate is understanding about Zari leaving the egg behind.

-- So many questions about why Nate has a 'Kid Steel' costume hanging around. And why Gary picked it.

-- This week's fabulous dress watch. Jane Carr looked stunning in that evil black number she adopted once she'd ditched her godmother duties. Also, the designer of that asymmetrical sheath number that Nora wore to PalmerX is underpaid. Regardless of how much he or she is paid, they are underpaid. That dress was amazing. Please, please, Courtney Ford, tell me that you stole that dress and have it in your personal collection. Also, call me. We'll brunch.

-- They're really getting their money out of the Stein puppet. Bless.

-- Hell's triumvirate included Satan, not Lucifer. Which means a crossover with Lucifer is still possible. Fun fact, in the comics the triumvirate in Hell stepped in to rule when Lucifer left to go open up his nightclub in LA. Which means it all totally works together if they can get Tom Ellis to make a stop in the Waverider. And then possibly he and Matt Ryan could share a torrid embrace and... I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

-- That's like the third episode in a row where they've mentioned Damien Darhk. Dare we hope to see him again next season?

If you squint at it and assume that we missed an episode of plot development, this would easily be a four. Sadly, we can't, and so I can't in good conscience give it more than three out of four fantastic logos.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

#Legends of Tomorrow #Sara Lance #Ray Palmer #John Constantine #DC Comics #Arrowverse #Legends of Tomorrow Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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crashdevlin · 6 years

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Zed Word: Ch. 4 Favorite

Zed Word Masterlist

Author’s Note: Originally posted to ao3. This was inspired by a series of tweets between Jeffery Dean Morgan and Jensen Ackles…. Sam and Dean never found John, but everything went the same way anyway until Season 5. Adam never said ‘yes’ to Michael. The fight at Stull Cemetery never happened but Lucifer (jumping from vessel to vessel ‘cause Sam wouldn’t say ‘yes’) and Pestilence managed to infect everyone with Croatoan, turning everyone into zombies when they die. The boys have traveled the apocalyptic landscape killing zombies and saving people ever since.

Summary: Reader has been living in Alexandria since Daryl saved her life. When she ventures out of town for the first time in months, Sam and Dean save her life and she takes them back to Alexandria, a town on edge since Negan showed up. Dean takes an instant interest in the woman, and when Negan shows up again, he does, too.

Pairing: Dean x Reader, Negan x Reader

Story Warnings: Kidnapping, torture, Non-con/dub-con, unprotected sex of a forced nature, pregnancy, mentions of abortion, PTSD, *THIS IS A DARK FIC*

Chapter Warnings: Non-con/dub-con sex, coercion, NSFW, 18 and over

Sam watched from the stairs as Dean and Maggie went over maps. It had ceased to be about tracking their father down and quickly become about finding the girl. Dean hadn't mentioned John since they started plotting locations and changed the topic as soon as anyone else brought him up. Sam was certain that it wasn't John. He remembered him, what an asshole he'd been. Pushy, demanding, obsessive, but not insane. He couldn't even imagine that monster the Alexandrians had described was actually the man who'd taught him how to shoot, how to hunt, how to help people. How to save people. No way in Hell does John Winchester murder people with a baseball bat and kidnap women to rape them.

A demon would. A shifter would. Almost any sort of monster. But not John. Sam stood and grabbed his brother's attention. Dean followed him into the front yard. "Dean... What if they're dead? We have to consider what we'll do in that situation."

"Y/n's not dead." Dean dismissed.

"Dean... that demon is obviously not taking any shit. If she fought him-"

"She didn't." Dean was certain.

"How can you know that?"

"Because that's why Dad took her! She's soft." He spat out, angrily. He sighed, heavily, looking around the green yards which matched poorly with the horrible reality of the situation. "She's sweet, innocent. Southern Bella in there said it, Sammy, she's a hider. She's never hurt another human being, never even put down a zombie. She doesn't have it in her. She won't fight Negan. She'll go along with whatever he says because that's how she'll survive. I just hope we can get to her before he does something that scars her for life."

Sam nodded. "You guys getting anywhere? The maps?"

Dean nodded. "We won't know anything 'til we check it out, but... Maybe getting somewhere."

Sam nodded. It wasn't hard to see why Dean was so obsessed with getting y/n back. They'd come across quite a few women as attractive as her since Lucifer unleashed the apocalypse, (admittedly fewer and fewer as the years passed) but none who'd survived purely on their wits and determination. Sam was impressed that she'd never taken out a zombie and it bolstered his faith in her survival skills, but... demons were vastly different from zombies. Zombies were slow and predictable, only really a problem in large groups. A single demon, however...

Sam sighed and patted his brother's shoulder. "I'm hungry. See if I can't run down some food."

"Ask Eric if there's any spaghetti sauce left. I'll eat it straight if there's no pasta." Dean said, before hopping up the porch stairs to reenter the house.

*********************

You stayed in your 'room', watching peoples' movements and analyzing the building for hours before you left, new shoes insulating your feet from the cold concrete. You moved around the main building to the outside, checking every exit, committing every face to memory, making special note of which men were Negan's special guys. Which men were Negan. You spoke to a few people, quiet ones who seemed like they were just trying to survive. On the third day of your 'freedom', the fat man approached you. "Show dog, Negan wants you. Said to hit a shower, then come see him."

You fought to not show the cringe that went through you. "Only Negan calls me that, fat-ass." You said, clinging to a false bravado.

"It's 'Fat Joey', and I am Negan."

"Yeah, well, I apparently belong to Negan... but I don't belong to you, Fat Joey. So obviously, you're not Negan enough." You said, grabbing a pair of clean jeans and a clean white v-neck shirt and pushing past the man to go shower. The water was cold; hot water being a luxury for those who didn't work for points. You could've gone to the other showers but you heeded Dwight's advice about Negan's other women.

Your mind poured over the information you'd gained from your fellow meek Sanctuary dwellers. Negan wasn't as bad as he seemed. He saved them. The people who were originally here, they were dying and Negan and Lucille saved them. That's why he and his men were Saviors. Negan was a veteran, a Marine. Everything he did, it was for the good of his people. He had to keep his people alive first and, like it or not, you were one of his now. Just do what you're told, keep your head down, kneel when you see the man... become his favorite...

As you pulled a two blade, disposable razor up your leg, you imagined how you would've have reacted to this situation before everything went to shit. You were hit on by a lot of older men, mostly doctors who were old enough to need those little blue pills themselves, when you were a pharma rep, but none like Negan. Physically, the man was attractive in much the same way Dean was. Nice muscles, pretty eyes, a beautiful (if not completely psychotic) smile and his cock wasn't bad, not that you had a lot of reference. If you hadn't known he was insane, you were certain you wouldn't have any trouble with the man.

And that's what you clung to as you dried yourself off with your one allotted towel and put on your simple clothing choice, not bothering with a bra or panties. 'Every villain is a hero in his own mind'. Negan is a savior and not an evil man. He's just a man trying to do right by his people. A man, maybe driven a little mad by the power of ruling a group. It's one of the reasons why you traveled alone for so long.

You found yourself in front of one of Negan's rooms, your damp hair clinging to the back of your shirt. It wasn't where he slept, but it was where he entertained himself, where you would entertain him. You took a deep breath. You knew what was coming but you weren't sure exactly how. You knocked at the door, lightly, then dropped to one knee as you heard him approach the door. He chuckled when he opened it. "You learn fast, don't'cha? Stand up. Get in here."

Your eyes fell on the bed first, a mattress with pillows and a comforter, jacked up by several stacks of blond pallets. Your eyes then searched the room for Lucille. As Negan closed the door, you found her, tucked behind a television set playing a VHS of 'Cheers'. You breathed a sigh of relief. He was never without her, but at least the weapon was away from arms reach. "Want something to drink? A little Hunter's Helper?" He offered, picking up a bottle of whiskey from the counter. You nodded, hopefully not too eagerly, excited to have something to dull your senses. Even if it was Wild Turkey 101.

You gave a tight smile as he handed you a glass half-full and you took a gulp as you looked at the TV. "I used to watch this on 'Nick at Night' when I was a kid."

Negan sat in the recliner, but didn't look at the show. He focused on you, even as he took his own mouthful of liquor. "How do you like my Sanctuary?"

You bit the inside of your lip, taking a moment before answering. "It's not bad. I've lived worse places. My dorm at college was chaos, like an all-girl 'Lord of the Flies' without the pigs to hunt." You took another drink of whiskey, which burned the inside of your lip, where you'd apparently broken the skin. "You run a tight ship, which makes sense, I guess, since you used to be a Marine. That where you got the skills to keep people safe from walkers?"

"Not even close." He sat forward in his seat. "But it's not the zombies that are the problem. Zombies are useful. They guard our gates. It's people. People are the problem. I run a tight ship because I can tell which problems are fixable... and which problems get to guard the gate."

A copper taste brought your attention to your lip, which you'd taken to biting again. You took another drink, then continued on your 'military' line of questioning. "You know I, uh, I grew up in an Air Force town."

"Pussies." He interjected, somehow leaning forward more.

You forced a chuckle. "Yeah. You're right. But small town... Service was pretty much the only way out. Most of my friends went Army. Hoo-ah."

"This where you tell me you've decided to give me the benefit of the doubt due to my service to a now-nonexistent country about 20 years before you were born?"

"No, sir." You replied, squaring your shoulders. "It's where I tell you that Abraham Ford was Army and he'd be cursin' up a storm if he knew a fuckin' jarhead put him down."

He laughed, rather than make an angry move for Lucille as you'd feared he might. He stood, slowly, taking his glass over to the counter to pour more Wild Turkey. Then, he returned to his line of questioning. "You ever killed anybody?"

"No." You answered, simply, your tongue darting out to mess with the bite inside your mouth.

"You must've made it inside the walls of Alexandria fucking quick if you never saw any truly desperate people."

"I saw plenty of desperate people. They just never saw me." You set your glass next to the TV and leaned against the TV stand. "Daryl brought me into Alexandria just a couple months before any of us heard your name."

"You survived by hiding? What, from everyone? How'd Daryl get his hands on ya?" He leaned against the counter, mimicking your stance.

"Took a wrong turn in Albuquerque, wound up trapped in some warehouse in West Virginia. Ghouls were chasing me, I fell through a rotted staircase into this basement electrical closet. Broke my leg, cracked my skull. I laid in that basement for two days, completely certain I was dead. I mean, the barricade I put at the door was sure to fail before I dehydrated to death. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. I was pretty gone when Daryl busted through my barricade and came to find me. He said he knew I was there 'cause the walkers were acting like hound dogs or coon dogs or... something 'had a raccoon treed'. He put me on the front of his bike, tied me to his waist and hauled ass back to Alexandria. Denise set my leg, let the pressure out of my head and I was fine to meet new people for the first time in years."

"And then I showed up and started killin' 'em."

You shook your head. "We killed your men first." You shrugged. "They deserved it. Had to know folks would fight back when you try to take their shit."

"Not their shit, anymore. It's mine."

"Yeah, now, 'cause you broke Rick, but when Daryl blew up your men with a rocket launcher, that rocket launcher was Abraham's."

He laughed. "Rocket launcher! Fucking crazy as fuck."

You chuckled, relaxing a bit. Now that the liquor had started to warm you, he didn't seem so menacing, anymore. "Yeah... That was pretty fucking crazy."

"So, where were you heading in West Virginia?" He picked his glass up and began to drink again.

"Nowhere. Back then, I kinda just wanted to keep moving. Staying in one place just seemed like a bad idea. My parents died last time I tried to make a home someplace. What made you stay here?"

"Seemed as good a place as any. And these people needed my help. That's what I did back then, I helped people."

"And now?"

"Now, I help me." He pushed away from the counter, sliding his glass next to the bottle as he moved toward you. "I take what I want, when I want because that's how the world works now. The guy who can put down a herd of zombies with a baseball bat and some big cajones, he gets everything he's ever desired."

"Except his dead wife back." You whispered as he stopped in front of you.

"Yeah. Except for that."

"What was her name?" You asked, shaking a bit as he reached over and grabbed a piece of your hair, still damp from your shower.

"Mary."

"Were you together long? You said she died in '83?"

"I don't wanna talk about my wife. The dead one or the new one."

"Okay. I just... with Sherry, I know who I'm up against. I was just trying to get a feel for... what kind of competition I've got from the memory of a ghost." You reasoned. You lied. In fact, you were hoping that thinking of his first wife would turn him off from his plans for you.

"You vying to be Wife #3?" He ran his hand down the front of your v-neck, pulling the front hem up to expose your breasts.

"I have no delusions about my reason for being here, Negan. I-I'm here for just one thing and I can be the one you like most or... or I can look forward to wa-watching the gate." You covered.

"You're cute when you lie." He pulled the shirt over your head, twisting the fabric when it got to your wrists and holding your arms, tangled in white cotton, above your head. "You were trying to use Mary against me. Smart move. You know, I'm impressed by the manipulation..." You tried to look down, away from him, but his left hand grabbed your chin and forced you to look at his face. "...and how you picked up on the importance of Mary from, what, two mentions of her. I toss her memory around so people think I don't give a fuck. How'd you know?"

"It was a guess." You whispered.

"Lie." His left hand dropped to your hip, the thumb digging into your muscle, putting pressure on a sensitive point just above where your jeans sat. It caused your knee to buckle but he held you up by your wrists.

"Your eyes!" You squealed, shifting as much weight to your good leg as you could. "When you first mentioned her, the 'Doe-eyes' thing, you smiled, but not with your eyes. Your eyes were sad." You responded, quickly.

He ceased the pressure, but kept his hand in place, thumb tapping the spot which was sure to be bruised in a couple hours. "Damn. Would've been great at the investigation side, if the world hadn't ended." He mumbled to himself before untangling the shirt from your wrists and pulling it completely away from you. "She was beautiful, had a tough attitude, but motherhood softened her like butter. She was too good for me, even back when I was a good man." He dropped the shirt to the floor at your feet and let your arms drop to your sides.

"You... you could be good..." You whispered as he unbuttoned your jeans.

"You're not here to preach at me. I'm fine with the man I am, now. I have fun, so... you just need to get on board."

"I am. I'm on board with whatever you want of me. I, I want to be."

"I want you on the bed." He dropped your jeans to your feet and you reflexively stepped out of them as he pulled you toward the mattress. He lifted you, tossing you a short distance to the middle of the bed, your head somehow landing right below the pillows. He grabbed your ankle and rubbed a rough thumb across your shin. "You shaved for me. Even trimmed that pretty bush. Oh, and that gorgeous pink blush all the way down to your tits. Hard bitches don't blush." You closed your eyes, feeling the heat of that blush in your cheeks. His hand continued its journey up your right leg stopping at an inch-long, thick white scar on the outside of your calf. "Looks like a stab wound." He looked up at you as he ran his thumb up and down the small patch of discoloration.

"Um, there was a, uh, trap somebody set up in the woods in Alabama, where they sharpened all the thick twigs on a low-hanging branch and bend it back, tie it off. Mom walked into it, I pushed her out of the way, got a pointy twig in my leg for the trouble."

His hand moved up to your abs, where a thin, jagged scar ran from your belly button to just below the pressure point Negan had jammed his thumb into. "And this one?"

You chuckled, tightly. "Barbed wire fence got me. I wasn't willing to sacrifice my jacket to hold the wire down, so I tried to just vault over it... I'm lucky I was up on my tetanus booster. It could've been bad."

"No bullet wounds, no knife scars. Look at you. Hell, the only bruises on you are the ones I put there. You are near mint condition." He scoffed, but not derisively. He seemed almost awed by you. "Even nearly a virgin. There's that blush again." He slid his hand up, between the valley of your breasts, to lay across your collarbone. "You are not to move. This will be far less fun for you if I have to tie you down. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." You whispered, making sure not to move your head.

"Those manners..." He mumbled, before bracing his left arm on the mattress and vaulting his fully clothed and booted body onto the bed, straddling your nude form. He looked you over, before grabbing your hands and pulling them above your head. He didn't have to tell you not to move them from the pillow. You entwined your fingers together as he leaned over you and brought your earlobe between his lips, scraping his teeth across the soft skin. It wasn't until he'd kissed, licked and nipped from your ear to the crook of your neck, his beard rubbing against your skin as his hands dragged up and down your arms, that it dawned on you that it felt good. Why would he want you to feel good?

The question disintegrated in your head as he moved down your body to catch your left nipple between his lips. Your right breast came under attack from his left hand, grabbing it lightly and rolling it under his palm. You wiggled under the weight of his body, unable to prevent your body's search for friction. His ministrations stopped immediately, as he pulled back and looked down at you. "What'd I say?"

"I'm sorry. I, I couldn't help it. I'm sorry. I'll try harder." You were breathless.

"Aw. Am I neglecting something?" He asked, bringing his right knee between your legs and rubbing his jean-clad knee against your mound. You moaned, your hands clenched together while you tried to remind yourself not to move, not to rub yourself against the man. "What do you want me to do to you?"

You swallowed, unable to think clearly. "Whatever you want."

"Good answer." He dipped his head down to lick at your neck, his knee rubbing persistent pressure in between your thighs. He pulled it away, moving down your body, trailing kisses across your skin. He ran his tongue across the barbed wire scar, then dipped it into the juncture where your leg and hip meet. You jumped, his tongue suddenly drawing circles around your clit, but he didn't stop to reprimand you this time, instead putting his right hand on your abs to hold you down as he began to lick deliberate, rough stripes from your opening to your clit.

"Oh, god." You whined, squirming under his strong grip as the middle finger of his left hand sunk easily into you. As he added his first finger, you brought your hands down to cover your eyes, in an mad attempt to control something. With his fingers fucking you with expert precision and his mouth making obscene slurping noises against your womanhood, it was easy to forget yourself. Forget what brought you to the Sanctuary, forget the demeaning way he'd treated you since you got here, forget anything and everything except the man between your thighs, worshipping you with his mouth. As your orgasm built inside of you, it just didn't seem to matter.

It crashed over you, tendrils of pleasure snaking across your body as you tried to not hyperventilate. He slid away again, dropping off the bed and toeing his boots off as you nervously moved your hands back to the pillow. He dropped his jacket to the ground, followed by his shirt and pants, then crawled onto the bed, his erection dragging along the comforter beneath you. He looked down at you, before pressing a bruising, possessive kiss on your lips. "You don't have to worry. I already like you better than the others."

The noise you made as his cock found your entrance and quickly sunk into you, sliding in easily amongst the lubrication your body provided and his own saliva, was somewhere between a moan and a squeal. There was pain, of course. He was bigger than anything you'd had, even your old toys, definitely bigger than those two fingers he'd just had in you. He'd given you no time to adjust before slamming balls deep, so there was definitely pain.

But pain is fleeting and it was quickly dominated by the wholy unique feeling of fullness. "Shit!" He groaned. "Do that again."

"What?" You hadn't realized you'd done anything.

"That clenching, kegel thing you just did."

"Oh." You breathed out, before repeating the action.

"Ooh. Goddamn, if more women did that, we'd have no problem getting the population back." He reached down and hooked your legs behind his back, then took each of your hands in his, rubbing a thumb over each palm. "Now, you put these hands wherever you need to. You move however you want. Participation is not only encouraged, I'd say it's damn near required, at this point."

You nodded, tightening your legs around him and putting your hands on his shoulders. He put his left hand on your hip and put the other on mattress, next to your head for support. He gave you another moment to get ready, then, he began to move.

It was unlike anything you'd ever felt. His girth rubbed against the sensitive walls inside you, his cock head reaching your cervix with every motion. You moaned, your hands clutching at his neck and back. "Oh, my God!"

"You're a fuckin' dream, y/n." He grunted into your ear as he fucked you into the mattress. "So hot. So wet. So fucking pretty and pure." He pulled out, unhitching your legs and flipping you onto your stomach with ease. He grabbed your hips and pulled you up onto your hands and knees. "And you're mine."

You whimpered as he grabbed your hair and slammed back into you. "Yes." You whispered, your neck craning as he used your hair as leverage.

"What?" He demanded, pounding into you, his balls slapping against you in a quick rhythm.

"Yes! I'm yours. Negan, God... Yours."

"Damn straight." He grunted as he reached around to move his fingers, roughly across your clit. Your arms gave out as another orgasm slammed into your nerves, your head meeting the mattress. Negan continued to fuck you, picking up speed and pounding your face into the comforter. His hand tightened in your hair as he gave several more pumps, then stilled as his cock spilled inside of you, twitching happily within your walls.

He pulled out and collapsed to the bed next to you, both of you breathing heavily. "So..." He started, sliding his arm around you and turning you to lay your head on his chest. "Best you ever had?"

"Definitely." You whispered.

"Aren't you glad you got my attention?"

"Yes, sir." You weren't. Definitely rather be home in Alexandria, but... It could be worse. He could be more horrid. And that was a fairly amazing... workout session.

"I like that respect, y/n, but..." He sighed, deeply, satisfaction emanating from him. "As long as we're alone and I'm in a good fuckin' mood, I won't call you 'bitch' or a show dog name... and you can call me 'John'."

"Thank you." You relaxed against his chest.

"That was a workout. We're gonna need a nap before we get to work."

"Work?"

"Oh, sweetheart. Can't have my favorite girl walking around unable to defend herself. Hiding only gets you so far, y/n."

You sat up a little and looked down at him. "You're going to, what, teach me to fight? Aren't... Aren't you concerned I might-"

"Fight back against me? No. I'm not gonna teach you enough to kill me. And I'm certain that you don't hate me near as much as you did when you walked in here. Right?"

"Right." You responded, lying your head on his chest again and sighed. "You seem to be right a lot of the time, John." You experimented with his first name. It definitely didn't have the same fear factor as 'Negan', but neither did the man you were lying with.

"I try." He wrapped his arm around you tighter and adjusted the pillow under his head with the other hand. "Get some rest, gorgeous."

#fanfic #reader-insert #spn fanfic #the walking dead fanfiction #crossover #dean/reader #negan/reader #non-con #kidnapping #darkfic

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unexpectedreylo · 6 years

Text

Spoilerific Thoughts On “Solo”

Rosé All Day In The GFFA!

As of writing, I’ve seen the movie twice and I really enjoyed it both times. Forget those tales of a troubled production; Ron Howard made a solidly entertaining, fun film with lots of goodies and surprises for fans of most stripes.

“Solo” is basically a heist movie and a Marvel-esque origin story at the same time. When we meet Everyone’s Favorite Smuggler, he’s a runaway living in Corellia’s dark and filthy underworld hoping for the big score to get him and his girlfriend Qi’ra away from their Fagin-like “master.” We march through Han’s escape from Corellia, how he ended up with his last name, his abrupt and necessary decision to go to the Imperial Academy, his time as an Imperial officer, his first meeting with Chewbacca, and his re-entry into the galaxy’s underworld with his mentor, Tobias Beckett. We witness his first meeting with Lando Calrissian and finding the love of his life, at least the one that isn’t a breathing person, the Millennium Falcon. The famous sabacc game? It’s there. So’s the legendary Kessel Run. All of the while, Han’s penchant for trouble and not listening to anyone but himself puts him in danger over and over. It’s all great character development and enjoyable to watch. But there’s more! In “Solo,” we see the gray and topsy-turvy world of the galaxy’s criminal class. Sometimes it appears glamorous and beautiful, sometimes it looks just like what it is: dirty and awful. The good turns out to be bad and the bad turns out to be good. All of the while, Beckett reminds Han never to trust anyone.

So, you might ask, what did you think of Alden Ehrenreich? Alden was in the same crappy position that Chris Pine was in while playing Captain Kirk in the more recent Star Trek films; it’s very difficult to step into a very famous role played by a very famous actor. Ewan McGregor had a similar problem but because he played Obi-Wan decades younger, it gave him a lot more wiggle room to define the character himself while making it credible he and Alec Guinness were playing the same guy. Ehrenreich and Pine were playing their respective roles less than 20 years younger than their more legendary incarnations. That’s tough. I’m certain some people are blowing off this film simply because they can’t accept someone else playing Han Solo. The other side of that coin is it’s precarious in HOW you play the character. Take on too much of Ford’s affectations, it looks like an impersonation, one that could descend into parody fast. Completely ignore them and people won’t connect that it’s Han Solo at all. Now, Ehrenreich doesn’t really look much like Ford. He’s shorter, his nose is smaller, the whole shape of his face is different. There’s only a bit of resemblance around the eyes and the makeup people thoughtfully added Ford’s chin scar. It’s a little jarring when you realize that eventual son Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) really does look related to Ford while Ehrenreich looks like neither one of them. My mom the movie critic, who saw the movie with me and my brother the first time, thought Ehrenreich is actually better-looking than Ford. But (and there’s always a but) attitude can make up for a lack of resemblance. More on that in a second. For what it’s worth, Ehrenreich does have the right attitude. It’s like seeing a more boyish Han, one who gets by on b.s. and bluster, who’s a tiny bit full of himself, and who hasn’t experienced a decade’s worth of betrayals yet to come and other things that made him far more world-weary in ANH. This Han is charming and self-assured, a cinnamon roll whose circumstances define him but won’t defeat him and turn him into well, Qi’ra. From this movie, it’s easy to see why he was drawn to Rey in TFA. He saw a lot of himself in her.

Everyone does a pretty bang up job in the film performance-wise. I have to say Donald Glover absolutely kills it as Lando. Glover doesn’t really look like Billy Dee Williams but he’s got the Lando-ness down perfectly: the smoothness, the vague sleaziness, the flair for fashion, and all around cool. He even nailed Williams’s way of speaking without making it an impersonation. Glover has so much charisma in the part, I really wouldn’t mind seeing him again in his own adventure. Woody Harrelson was an excellent fit as Beckett. Harrelson brings his own charisma and worldliness as the father figure who initiates Han into the life that as prophesized, he never got out of. Casting him was a great idea. Also worthy of mention is Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37, or simply “L3.” Funny and sassy, you’ll be touched by her short time onscreen. And the mysterious Enfys Nest (Erin Kellyman) who turns out to be not quite what we thought.

The surprise in this turned out to be Emilia Clarke as Qi’ra. Of all the new characters, she’s easily the most fascinating. She’s beautiful, smart, resourceful, and tough but also a bit of a femme fatale. She has a heart but she’s also hungry and hell bent on not ending up a Corellian street rat again. She is what Han could have been with a few degrees of difference in his personality or more time spent a virtual slave on Corellia, what Rey could have been had she decided to trade on her looks and feminine wiles for material security from crime bosses. The interesting thing about her is she clearly cares about Han. I don’t know if she loves him per se but she does care about him enough to know she has to protect him from her. She’s sort of like that old Amy Winehouse song, “You Know I’m No Good.” Paul Bettany’s character and Beckett both warn Han that he doesn’t know her as well as he thinks he does and that she’s done some pretty bad things. We know for sure she allied herself with a crime syndicate that has committed atrocities and well, we find out toward the end how far her darkness extends. She accepts Han’s affections but to a point. Why? She knows they can’t get attached. At the end, when she splits in the mobile Crimson Dawn HQ, it seems to parallel the last Force bond seen in TLJ. In TLJ, Rey has to do it for her own sake as well as Kylo’s. In this movie, Qi’ra does it for Han’s own good. The more he’s kept away from this stuff the better, not so much IMO she fears that lifestyle would destroy him as she realizes at some point her knife has to go between Han’s shoulder blades if he keeps hanging around.

Poor Han. Not only can the guy never escape trouble, he’s constantly faced with betrayal throughout his life, which it is easy to see why he leans so much on Chewie. Say what you will about Chewbacca, but he’s the one of the very few beings who never lets Han down. Sadder yet are the implications of Han’s upbringing and his relationships with authority/father figures. In one conversation with Lando, Han mentions his blue collar dad that he wasn’t close to. Who knows what THAT relationship was like? Han tells his Imperial recruitment officer that he “has no people,” so the officer christens him Solo. (For all we know, Han’s real last name is Wallbanger or Horowitz or Seymour-Butts.) Why Han was on the streets is still a mystery. Did Han simply run away from home? Was it disagreement and butting heads or was there severe dysfunction, i.e. addiction, abuse, neglect? Did Han do something to the old man? We don’t know and it’s not like Han to tell. Han takes to Beckett as a surrogate father figure who of course betrays him. Another fascinating and tragic parallel takes place near the end of the movie. Most people pay attention more to the “Han shot first” aspect of it rather than how this scene predicts Han’s eventual fate in TFA. Han kills his father figure just as his own son will eventually kill him. Han of course was acting in self-defense but it’s tragic all the same. Han’s family situation also predicts the struggles he has in his relationship with Ben Solo. In this context it makes sense that a man who had no idea what a dad is like would struggle to be one himself, especially since he’s almost or at middle age when it finally happens.

Another thing to love about “Solo” is its careful attention to the mythos. The film has the style and feel of Brian Daley’s novels from back in the day, while much of Han’s backstory, known to Star Wars lore fans for decades, is in here. Moreover, elements from the expanded universe, video games, The Clone Wars, and the prequels are brought in to great effect. Teras Kasi? Glee Anselm? The Maw? Carrida? Aurra Sing’s fate? Colo claw fish roe as an appetizer? It’s all in here!

I will say this: DARTH MAUL’S SHOCK CAMEO GIVES ME LIFE!!!

I blurted out, “What the hell?!” when he turned up at the end of the film. (I also had to explain to my brother, who had never seen The Clone Wars or Rebels, why Maul was still alive.) A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. That Qi’ra is working for him has a whole host of implications for her and possibilities for Maul to return in other Star Wars canon. And yes, that’s Ray Park reprising his role and Sam Witwer voicing him.

“Solo”’s score is pretty good, a mix of original and unique music and John Williams’s classic scores. Listen for some fun callbacks like “Asteroid Chase” from TESB.

Like “Rogue One,” “Solo” is a smaller movie than the bigger, sweeping main saga flicks. It doesn’t have TLJ’s artistic ambitions or haunting quality. But there’s room for a movie that’s pure fun with a few more layers than expected.

#solo han solo ben solo star wars solo: a star wars story

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