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#noir and western are the same genre right
ceasarslegion · 7 months
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Ive made my stance on oppenheimer discourse very clear but one detail of it that really bothers me is the "movies about sad white men are always bad" attitude, and i didnt really know why until i was able to sit down and parse it out.
Here's the thing. I have a film degree, I've spent more time in movie theaters than I have sleeping and I've easily seen more films and shows than all of my peers combined. Which isn't a flex btw, I'm a little hermit who prefers the warm embrace of a cinema seat to human connection and is the most annoying mfer imaginable during family movie night; don't be like me.
But I know hollywood, I know cinema history, and I know the legitimate frustration this attitude comes from. Hollywood doesn't like to take risks, they have to historically be dragged kicking and screaming into any territory that isn't a guaranteed profit, which usually means that we get periods of stagnation where every film is the same goddamn formula over and over again until audiences get sick of it and stop buying tickets en masse. Hollywood also tends to reflect the dominant culture and the sociopolitical issues of the time, but not SOOO much that you'd rock the boat. As an exec, you wanna hit that sweet spot where audiences relate to your films without them being so blatant that they'd cause them to question things that weren't acceptable to question. Noir was a picture-perfect example of that.
And in the modern day, that DOES tend to translate into the weird genre of Sad White Man Who Regrets Killing Foreigners movies. Like American Sniper. But I've seen American Sniper, so I can speak on how lowkey disturbing I found it, and the history it's based in and the goals it had as an art piece were to make you sympathize with a system of corruption. And here's my unpopular opinion: if done RIGHT, those films still have a place within the cinematic sphere of influence, like if you made a film exploring the psyche and experiences of what leads a man to willingly participate in a system like that, but that's not really what it was.
Now let's move onto Oppenheimer and other films like it. I don't think these films are at ALL equivalent to films like American Sniper, even if they follow a sad white man who regrets killing foreigners. You are looking at the bare bones surface level of it and assuming its contents both real world and dramatized and judging it based on that instead of the, well, actual film.
One of the biggest differences here is that Oppenheimer WAS an important historical figure just, objectively. Even removing all western racial influence from the equation, you can not look me in the eyes and tell me that the man who invented the atomic bomb in the middle of the largest world war of modern history was not an important historical figure. If you try to make THAT argument just based on the sad white man-ness of him, I'm sorry but your point is already moot, because it's not based in historical fact anymore but your own personal subjective feelings. He IS an important historical figure, he's not soldier number 648 in the middle of a massive battlefield who followed other peoples orders.
And also to be completely honest, you are a huge fucking liar if you try to claim that people like Dr. Oppenheimer are not interesting. Flawed people who make flawed decisions with complicated variables are what make for good fiction, so when one exists in the historical record, of course they are going to interest people. They are going to be studied and interviewed if they're still alive and have their entire lives and every word they said picked apart and analyzed because they are interesting. You are straight up lying if you try to act like these people arent interesting enough on their own to have media made about them, regardless of what identity they had that fits into the opposing side of the 21st centure culture wars. This attitude reminds me a lot of the people who claim that the only reason anybody could find true crime interesting is because they MUST want to fuck jeffrey dahmer or whatever. The argument just doesnt hold up because all it takes is one person going "thats not what i find interesting about them" to collapse that entire absolutist argument.
So yes, hollywood absolutely has a racism and war glorification issue. But I take issue when these accusations are just made blindly against any historical dramatization based on nothing but the poster. If you're going to talk about hollywoods sad white men issue, at least make sure the films youre citing actually fit that bill AND that you actually understand whats WRONG with those sad white men movies, because its not just the presence of a sad white male protagonist, its a conglomerate of various sociopolitical issues that must be present within those characters and what they represent.
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espanolbot2 · 4 months
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I mean, yeah, the western genre is like noir is that the basic templates and characters can be placed in nearly any era or setting and it would potentially work well. The difference being that westerns have a lot of cultural baggage that noir generally lacks, in that when used "traditionally" it tends to present an ahistorical idea of the past that appeals to the kinds of folk with a surface level knowledge of history that tend to get really mad when, say, people point out that the majority of cowboys weren't white.
It's kind of what comes with the whole thing of how the imagery of westerns has been used to promote a certain view of America and America's past that the Right have a tendency to glom onto in an attempt to get the same kinds of vibes by osmosis.
Not to say that there aren't stories that use the toolkit of westerns to tell stories that don't have that vibe, but like I said, the genre comes with a variety of baggage for a number of reasons.
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kenobihater · 1 year
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so we all know how disco elysium pays homage to the noir genre through its premise and tone, right? but have you thought about how it also hits a lot of the same plot beats as a spaghetti western? there's a lot of overlap between de and spaghetti westerns, so just stick with me babe, okay? firstly, the morality of the game is anything but clean cut. you can have harry do some fucked up shit because you're playing a cop and the game wants to hit home that legality and morality are not synonymous. harry just needs to do his job for the plot to progress. he doesn't have to be a good person to finish the game. next, alcoholism features heavily as a plot point. alcohol was everywhere in spaghetti westerns, and characters often struggle with alcohol addiction, though it's rare for the protagonist to be an alcoholic. a relatively surface level similarity is the fact that guns are present in both spaghetti westerns and de. then there's the fact that harry is a lawman. spaghettis feature lawman main characters often, if not in title then in spirit. even if a spaghetti doesn't explicitly name the progonist as a sheriff, he often fills the role of a peacekeeper or lawman through his persecution of the villains. also, martinaise is a great stand in for the common spagetti setting of a run down railroad town. practically all of the industry has left or been quashed out, leaving a town that's filled with the past and well on its way to becoming a ghost town (the fishing village especially). and another thing, babe - the townsfolk are (rightfully) hostile towards harry and kim, which is another common trope in spaghettis, a trope that's exacerbated not only by their status as lawmen, but by their status as outsiders (harry could even be called a drifter, if you play him as a hobocop). but one of the biggest similarities between de and the spaghetti western genre is the climatic shootout, right? you see, it's the culmination of the mounting tension weaved throughout the entire game. it takes place in the town square, and features most of the main players in the game. no matter what you say, it always ends in bullets and blood because that's the genre standard. you can't talk your way out of a standoff, in de or in a spaghetti western. the bad guys die, but so do some good guys, and you learn to live with it. then here's the big thing, so listen up: the number one similarity between spaghettis and de in my mind is the sense of time they both give you in their setting. spaghettis often deconstruct the concept of 'the wild west' by taking place in the twilight years of the west and showing the metaphorical death of the cowboy, or by showing a wild west that is bloody and cruel rather than whitewashed and hays-code friendly like the hollywood westerns were. de does both of these things - it's set after the revolution fails during a time of decline and failure, and it also doesn't shy away from the violence and death that comes with such a setting. so, even though it isn't a deliberate homage, i think de is a great example of a- oh shit, they're selling peanuts over there, babe, i'm gonna go get some, brb
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cabezadeperro · 1 year
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oh no what please talk about star wars and westerns that sounds fascinating ngl
oh boy. okay
this got really fucking long, sorry.
so. first of all. what is a western? what does make a western, a western? is it the cowboys? does it ahve to take place in the west/southwest of the us during the late 19th century? is it just a film thing? if so, what kind of movies are actually westerns? the ones made in hollywood during the 40s and 50s? do spaghetti westerns count? and the american movies made in the us during the 70s? what about the so-called neowesterns, like hell or high water?
at this point i think you could argue that the western is not actually a genre but a mood, kind of like the gothic or film noir. it implies a number of tropes, a certain atmosphere, a kind of conflict, but the details are very--diffuse. And not that relevant, let's be real. a fistful of dollars is a western; so is the searchers or most of the first season of the mandalorian or justified or prospect or blood meridian or whiskey when we're dry.
today i heard someone in a podcast describe the western as a kind of story where the main conflict is the struggle between law and lawlessness, and you know what. at first i didn't like it much but the more i think about it, the more i think they’re right.
so, we've defined what is a western (kind of. have we? moving on--). now let's talk about the western and star wars, or star wars as a western, whatever you want to call it.
if a western is a story about the conflict between law and lawlessness, what does it mean that star wars can be/sometimes is/always is a western? not just from like. a narrative perspective. but also, what does it mean that the conflict between law and lawlessness informs star wars narratives, and what does it mean for us, the fandom, a bunch of queers obsessed with star wars and clones and cowboys?
the first thing you should think about (maybe!) when you read the words "law vs lawlessness" is: whose law, and what does law even mean in this specific situation. In the case of the western, and without getting into the particulars of the very bloody history of the american west, the elements of this dichotomy are extremely charged. In (classic, hollywood, 40s-50s) westerns, law means civilisation; that is, it means capitalism and imperialism, it means western expansion, it means white settlers, it means systematically murdering native americans. meanwhile, Lawlessness includes everything (and everyone) else. 
However! You can problematise this, and most of the best westerns did (and do). And once adapted to other contexts (other times, other countries, other genres) the particulars of this conflict change, too.
And this brings us to the star war. Let’s be real: the original trilogy mostly borrowed spaghetti western aesthetics, it’s less a western and more the weirdo lovechild of samurai films, classic scifi and war movies, even if its manichean approach to narrative (good vs evil, dark vs light) could be said to be very friendly to the western.
However! X2: what about the tuskens, you’ll say
And this is where it gets ugly. Or uglier. Narratively speaking, the tuskens play in both the original trilogy and in the prequels the exact same role that native americans played in classic westerns. Someone (not me) should write something about the way this has and/or hasn’t changed in the past few years, with shows like the book of boba fett.
But this is getting long enough, and what i want to write about is the relationship between the lawlessness part of the cowboy movie conflict and star wars racism problem, because while it doesn’t mean that the western is an inherently racist genre, or that western vibes plus star wars equals racism or that every single western au you make will be racist, it does mean that it’s kind of like a loaded gun. (<- hasn’t touched a firearm in her life)
And the reason it’s kind of like a loaded gun is that it’s a trope. It’s very ingrained it’s very mechanical and it’s very easy (especially if, like me, you’re white and also not american) to follow genre conventions and thoughtlessly reproduce the same shitty stories. You can subvert this trope (and i believe you Should, honestly, john wayne is well where he is (dead and buried)), but it’s a trap and it’s a hard to see one.
And like. One thing’s Star Wars the IP, and a different thing is fandom, and i’m not putting fan creators and disney on the same level, and i’m just some guy with a keyboard. However: i do think that thinking yourself through tropes and clichés makes for better, more fun stories, so there’s that.
Finally: why i did i start thinking about this?
The main reason is because i started listening to why theory?’s episode about western  the other day, and it made me think about how much i love westerns and how i’d like to write more fic that’s kind of like a western and the issues that surround this.
Star wars characters i think are/could be western characters (™): jango, because of his everything, obviously (watch django 1966). Obi-wan. Fox, maybe. Leia (where’s my leia + obi-wan true grit au). And rex.
And the thing about rex is that he is the only one who could maybe fit the western hero trope, because he’s the only one there who’s purely moral and like. Unequivocally good (but maría, you’ll say, what about leia? What about obi-wan? Leia’s too angry, among other things, and obi-wan’s a huge bitch bastard man who goes around chopping off limbs, sorry) but he also is a brown man. In star wars canon he’s a clone, which means he’s not actually a person in the eyes of the law; in real life, temuera morrison is maori. 
But again: let’s say you make him the hero, because he IS the hero. But that means he’s on the side of the law, right? 
Or is he?
And what does that mean?
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ccthewriter · 8 months
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CC's New Watch Ranking - June 2023
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Every month on Letterboxd, I make a list of the 10 best films I’ve seen for the first time. It’s a fun way to compare movies separated in time, genre, and country of origin, and helps me keep track of what I’m watching! This is a breakdown of those films.
June! An exhausting month. We wrapped on the movie after a number of 12+ hour days. That, on top of two new jobs that picked up this month, turned June into a stressed mess for me. I spent a lot of time in bed and in the garden, trying to quiet an overstrained brain. For the first time in three years, I have seen only the 10 films on this list this month! That’s why Zaslav felt safe firing all the TCM folks, he knew I was away. But this gives me a chance to discuss some movies I wasn’t crazy about and explore why. There’s something to be learned from every film, even those that don’t please. (I am going to yadda-yadda through some entries, though.)
Click below to read the breakdown! Click HERE to view the list on Letterboxd!
10. Night Moves 
1975- Arthur Penn
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Was kind of disappointed that this didn’t move for me as it does for others! It reminded me too much of this schlocky film I watched earlier this year Stick. Stick had Burt Reynolds going to Miami to be a double-agent chauffeur for the mob. Or something. Night Moves had the exact same thing happen? Or something? Maybe that’s on me for not paying better attention. 
I promised myself I would explore why this didn’t capture me. The best I got is that it’s a slow moving mystery centered on a rather boring figure. Next!
9. Bringing Up Baby 
1938 - Howard Hawks
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See, I heard about this movie a long time ago. Never in my life did I think the ‘Baby’ in the title was a leopard! This is a fun slapstick comedy about a man who fumbles his hot paleontologist wife for a pathologically lying Katherine Hepburn. I get it, who wouldn’t do the same in that situation, but I was surprised there wasn’t more back and forth between Hepburn and Grant’s fiance. Not quite as charming as another slapstick comedy on this list, but still immensely satisfying. 
Cary Grant in a fluffy nightie? 👀 Reeks of gender.
8. Bend of the River 
1952 - Anthony Mann
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The river! It bends! I find myself watching a lot of pre-1955 movies while I’m doing other tasks. Cowboy flicks and noirs make great background noise. Their rhythms and plots can be so predictable that you can fall right back in if you lose attention for a few minutes. This one gripped me, though. My cinematic nemesis James Stewart plays a black hatted cowboy trying to reinvent himself, escorting a group of settlers to their new home in Oregon. The supplies they ordered don’t arrive in time, so before winter sets in he rides to find what happened to them, visiting the den of villainy and sin known as… Portland. It’s very funny to see the city depicted as a town full of drunken gold miners and thieves, when in a century it will be home to queer witches and their burlesques. (Hi Caity <3) Fun plot, a few interesting reversals, and more colonial assumptions than I can typically stand. It’s no McCabe and Mrs. Miller, but if you’re in the mood for a PNW Western, look no further. 
7. Step Brothers 
2008 -  Adam McKay
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A movie so culturally dominant that I knew a huge amount of lines without ever having to see it. It was fun! Will Ferrell and John C. Riley have perfect comedic chemistry, and embody this strange energy of 15 year olds trapped in 40 year old bodies perfectly. The entire film works off of their performance. Just like last month’s Face/Off, two actors giving singular, unique performances is all you need to make a memorable picture. 
6. Battling Butler 
1926 - Buster Keaton
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It’s Buster Keaton! It was fine. I don’t have any more interesting thoughts on him in this movie than I would have in the next one.
5. The Cameraman
 1928 - Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick
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Extremely fun. Buster doing a bit of metacommentary on how artists are valued, and the systems they have to engage with in order to find work. Extra satisfying to view amidst the writer’s strike. These studio heads would have nothing without the footage that the people on the ground capture. The Tong War battle at the end is particularly engaging. It’s the sort of Looney Tunes/Roger Rabbit comic energy that I adore, able to float through a conflict without any worry or care. Satisfying, destiny-bound ending. 
4. Once Upon a Time in America 
1984 - Sergio Leone
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Now we get to the good stuff. Sergio Leone is synonymous with the Wild West - why is it so surprising that he would take on another classic tale of Americana? A gangster drama, an immigrant story, a distinctly East Coast experience of the twentieth century and the superpower that defined it. Where his cowboy movies focus on the mythic qualities of its protagonists - framed among giant landscapes, attention drawn to their weapons and horses - the protagonists of this film are framed within a series of relationships. It is their association with the people around them, the space between their bodies, that Leone captures so well. It is a promise of genius from a filmmaker whose career ended too early. This is a freewheeling biopic of a Lower East Side urchin who rises up towards the top, intersecting with high levels of power and upheavals in his closest bonds. Framed by an opium dream, not afraid to break free from logic, this is a masterful exploration of a cinematic space from one of our best directors.  
3. Asteroid City
 2023 - Wes Anderson
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I feel so lucky to be alive at a time when I can see Wes Anderson movies in theaters. The sheer thrill of this opening sequence…. A black and white TV format exploding into a wide frame, desert-chic phantasmagoria, a MINIATURE TRAIN MODEL title sequence… god. Irreplaceable cinematic moments. It needs a gigantic screen to be really understood. 
I think a lot of the theatre-going experience, of the crowd itself, as I remember this film. It was a great sample audience. A group of teen boys who must have just started their summer break. Several pairs of old women enjoying long-scheduled friend dates. A nuclear family. Me, alone, having made use of the Value Tuesday discounts. ($1 off hot dogs!) The whole crowd laughed throughout the thing - has Anderson ever been this funny? It made me feel a lot of hope, that an audience would take such pleasure in little background beats and quiet humor. Much of movie rhetoric paints The Audience writ-large as a bunch of mindless Marvel fans who need jokes telegraphed from a mile away. How hard the subtle humor hit really made me happy. 
The story itself is something I’m going to have to meditate on. Anderson is working some meta-commentary that can be hard to grasp with only one viewing. I get the sense he’s looking at his own work and his style of directing. He’s famous for his ensembles - it’s a movie about a cast making a play. He’s famous for his invented worlds - we walk backstage and meet a writer-director who literally lives in a set after the performances are done. He’s a director beset by nostalgia for times he never lived - Jeffrey Wright says to a bunch of young geniuses, “Should have picked a better time to be born.” This is why I feel such a thrill, such satisfaction, in being alive while his movies are airing. I get to witness the years, hopefully decades, of discussion that this movie inspires. I think this is already ripe for a “Underappreciated in its time despite being his masterpiece” sort of thing.
2. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse 
2023 - Joaquim Dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers
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God, what a lovely film to watch. My gushing excitement for this is cut by the recent revelations about its production. I spit on the names of Lord and the names of Miller, I wish them to suffer as they have made others suffer. I think of how beautiful this film is - how every frame is a gorgeous vortex, how you could hit pause at any moment and drink in one billion details that all add up to an incredible whole. I think of the well-crafted story, the nail-biting cliff hanger, the desire I had walking out of the theatre for simply MORE. And I think of how much better this could be if the artists making it were paid more fairly and given more breaks. Look at how beautiful this movie is - IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL IF THE WORKPLACE WAS LESS TOXIC. I reject any narrative about this film that says that, somehow, all the blood sweat and tears made it what it is. No. Absolutely not. This move is what it is because of hundreds of people toiling *despite* the invented hardships. It is so symptomatic of what is wrong in Hollywood, why so many people are striking now. They are being hampered from making their work excel because of these greedy people at the top who project their insecurity  and petty rage all the way down. 
Anyway. I love Miles. I love Gwen. I love all my Spiderfriends. Hope to see them again some day under less toxic circumstances. 
1. What’s Up, Doc? 
1972 - Peter Bogdanovich
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I’ve been studying the screwball comedy this year. It’s an oft-used term without a great definition. It’s got romance and laugh, it has some odd personalities… but what else? Does it need an aggressive woman? A reluctant man? Do they need to be thrust together by fate? Do you *have* to have an outstanding ensemble, or does that just happen by coincidence? As I try to pick apart these elements I watch this on a whim one day and see that Peter Bogdanovich has already done all that research and found his answer. Screwball comedy? It looks like this. It’s What’s Up, Doc? 
From the old-Hollywood opening credits that’s a hand turning a book, to the delightful absurdity that is its central premise - what if a spy, a jewel thief, and some dude all had the same luggage? - everything about this is finely tuned to make you laugh. Barbara Streisand is more or less literally playing Bugs Bunny. How amazing is that? There are so many things that will make you well up laughter that I hesitate to try and explain them more. Just watch this incredibly funny, charming movie. I have a private litmus test for how good a movie is. Often I’ll watch stuff with my wife sitting next to me as she plays video games. If a movie drags her attention away from the game and keeps her locked in the whole time, that is a great film. It was that way with this. Highly recommended. 
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Thank you for reading! If you liked any of these thoughts feel free to follow me on Letterboxd, where I post reviews and keep meticulous track of every movie I watch. Look forward to more posts like these next month! 
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How advancing technology and time periods caused Hollywood to lose its authenticity. (Franco Morgante)
Hollywood has gone through many changes over the years. Styles like film noir, westerns, or torture porn once saw great success only to become incredibly niche or forgotten by many film goers. However some things that will never go away are the bedrock genres of the industry like horror and comedy. But even those genres have gone through massive changes and modern films in those genres feel very different from the films of the past. Two examples of this phenomenon are Nosferatu and The Great Dictator.
Nosferatu is a German expressionist film, one of the first horror films. It follows a man named Thomas Hutter who travels to Transylvania to meet a man named Count Orlok who looks to buy the house across from him. But Hutter finds out that Orlok is a vampire who wants to drink the blood of his wife, and the film turns into a mad chase to see if Hutter can save his wife from the fangs of Count Orlok. With this film being very low budget and the technology being very primitive, the film crew had to get very creative for the scares in this film. The film relies heavily on its creepy set design and shadows to make Nosferatu as unsettling as he is. Probably the best example is the iconic shot where Nosferatu is walking up the stairs, but only his shadow is visible on screen causing to appear much larger than he is. It's a testament to this creativity that even amongst all of the other vampire stories out there, Nosferatu is one of the few that is considered on the same level as Count Dracula. A quote from the film society of lincoln center summarizes this film perfectly by saying “ I am going to argue that in nosferatu we have one of the cinema's finest and most powerfully suggestive embodiments of what I call the "Descent myth" - one of those universal myths that seem fundamental to human experience” (Film Society of Lincoln Center). So, while Nosferatu might seem basic by today's standards, its clever camera tricks, good set design, and memorable main villain has made it amongst one of the most respected films in the horror genre.
In contrast, a modern example of what has been lost in horror films can be seen with the new It remakes. While they are enjoyable in their own right, most of the scares in the film felt like they all had the same structure. A character would slowly approach a dark area, the music would go silent, and then Pennywise or some form of him would jump out and chase the characters. While they are good at creating some quick jump scares, I feel like they didn’t stick with me like some of the scenes in Nosferatu. I feel like this is because modern filmmakers have the luxury of CGI, so they could show exactly what they imagined, and they don’t have to rely on clever camera tricks or use of shadows to make their monster feel scary. Granted this can mostly be attributed to the technology of films getting more advanced, but I feel like with the continued use of digital monsters instead of practical monsters, it causes modern horror films to feel less authentic than some of the older ones.
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Moving to a different genre, The Great Dictator is a comedy film starring Charlie Chaplin who plays both a parody version of Hitler as well as a Jewish barber in a ghetto. The main goal of the film is meant to satirize the Nazis by portraying them as over the top bad guys that have way too much power. This is because this film was made as a propaganda film meant to make people hate the Nazis. A quote from the Hollywood Quarterly shows how films like this were integral to gain support of the war effort, they write “The motion picture can help the people of the world to share and understand one another's viewpoints, customs, and ways of living; it can in- terpret the common needs and hopes of all peoples everywhere” (Jones). Since this is a satire, much of the film's comedy comes from making the nazi’s look like buffoons, there is a scene where the dictator Adenoid Hynkel is giving a speech to his followers, and at one point he is yelling into the microphone so much that it bends backwards away from him, as if it couldn’t take Hynkel yelling anymore. In fact much of the film’s humor comes from slapstick comedy, as the scenes where the jewish barber is trying to get away from the Nazi soldiers feature physical gags that wouldn’t be out of place in a looney tunes cartoon. It shows the creativity of Charlie Chaplin as he was able to make a group as terrible as the Nazi’s into a complete joke in this film.
Nowadays modern parody films don’t have the same level of creativity as say Chaplin’s films. A lot of them mainly focus on parodying film genres, and much of the humor comes from making raunchy jokes or pointing out how dumb the cliches of a certain genre is. A modern example would be with the Scary Movie franchise, as much of the humor is built around references to other slasher movies. It causes the film’s humor to feel more dated as the humor is centered around multiple franchises that had new installments in over a decade. To me it shows how modern parody films are more about trying to write jokes that are funny in the current time period, rather than humor that can be enjoyed by people of any time period. Chaplin’s humor is timeless because a lot of it centers around clever physical gags and you don’t need to be a history major in order to get the jokes. Leading it to be a timeless comedy that is still praised to this day.
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Overall, I’d say that two major things that are lost in Hollywood are creative horror and parody films. Due to the advancements in technology, filmmakers aren’t as incentivised to try and use different camera tricks or unique lighting to make their films scary like in Nosferatu. And with the heavy emphasis on reference humor in modern parody films, it leads them feeling more dated unlike The Great Dictator. While this doesn’t mean that there aren’t good examples of modern horror or parody films, when looking back at some of the older films from these two genres, it's clear that they aren’t the same as they once were.
Sources:
Hollywood Quarterly, Oct. 1945, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Oct. 1945), pp. 1-19
Film Comment, MAY-JUNE 1976, Vol. 12, No. 3 (MAY-JUNE 1976), pp. 5-9
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matt00794 · 2 years
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Ok so I’m late to the party on these and normally would say something just into the void on twitter but I have more to say so I’m going to say it into the void on here instead.
A lot of other people have mentioned how different westerns and noir are as genres than superhero movies and more specifically marvel films. So I don’t think I fully need to get into that but seeing as I thought similarly in the past I want to kind of update my take on this on the internet. Some genres are big but usually the movies or books that stay in the public consciousness are the really good ones. Looking at film noir it was a super popular genre because you could make them cheap and a lot of them made good money but for the most part a lot are lost to history and top 20 to 30 of the 100+ films are what are remembered. Looking at super hero films I think we are around 50 or so made right now and the majority that I think will live on through out time aren’t even the mcu ones. Now at this point I have to say I’m a hater but it’s safe to say that a lot of these are rather forgettable but will keep a level of notoriety for years to come because of the success of the series. Think of the alien back to the future and terminator series, despite having one of two good if not great films in them the whole series is lifted to cultural importance and will be viewed with the others. No one has ever said alien 3 is a good movie but a lot of people own it to have the whole series. I got a little sidetracked but on to the original point again. I think what makes other genres big is the cultural appreciation for them that comes from this every man ability to make them. We will never see the Sergio Leone of superhero’s because they are inherently adapted and no one can just make their own story and change the whole genre forever. Noirs similarly started as just darker crime films and slowly through their popularity of subject matter became a genre of film. Superhero films though I think are kind of trapped in this pre existing state of comics and because of that they function more like blockbusters than your typical genre.
The mcu is popular Batman movies are popular X-men movies are popular. These separate little series are what people are excited for not individual movies that catch peoples eyes. People can’t just watch a couple of marvel films and have the go to ones because they are all connected. Similarly to the X-men movies despite different characters or Batman movies having multiple actors you find fun in how different they all are. There’s slight changes it’s like a Shakespeare play you can watch 10 different performances of the same play because each time they are going to do it slightly differently. This is not to say these movies are bad just different than a genre. To understand something like westerns or noirs you can get a list of the greats and watch those and understand the genre. Where as I can’t just hand you my top 5 mcu films with out giving you some context to each one. Similarly people thought after the popularity of the lord of the rings fantasy would be a big genre again instead nothing came of it because people loved that series and weren’t interested in seeing others like it. While people can make their own super heros i don’t think it will ever reach the same level of popularity because it’s not part of these series and have that cultural importance from the comics.
For example on the noir idea last year for the first time I watched double indemnity and it was absolutely amazing and still holds up as a masterpiece. It arguable was the first film noir and established some of the core themes and ideas of the genre but had some missing. I didn’t need context for why this was great because it just worked. Now look at iron man while I loved it when it came out the movie has aged super poorly and while I think it still is a solid movie and probably still the best straight up origin stories and the back bone of the mcu I fail to see how you can show this to a kid now and expect them to fall in love with superhero films as a whole. You need to tell them about the mcu first abs then show the movie and build that excitement for the other movies. To a similar degree while I love it the original mission impossible it is nit representative of what the series will become.
I hope this is understandable If I’ fund myself thinking about this more I might to try and write a more formal and logical version of this, but the tldr is more complicated book films are more of a series that’s popular than a genre with some greats.
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starlocked01 · 3 years
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Why?
Why crack ship story idea at 2am?
"It was the kind of kiss where your mind wandered to another man's arms, but to be fair I was pretty sure the marshal had his thoughts on another dame. Didn't make for that bad of a kiss anyways."
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scope-dogg · 3 years
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I'm like a mecha noobie, only watched things like Code Geass and Gurren Lagann, but I've wanted to try getting into more mecha anime, do you have any recommendations for toe-dipping into the genre?
If you’re looking for good series that A) aren’t massive time investments and are B) high quality, here are some of my favourites. You didn’t specify specifically what kind of stuff you’re looking for, so here’s a bunch of series that cover a wide variety of subgenres, tones etc.
The Mobile Suit Gundam movie trilogy (Mobile Suit Gundam 1, Mobile Suit Gundam 2: Soldiers of Sorrow, Mobile Suit Gundam 3, Encounters in Space. Trio of movies compiling the original Gundam TV series, space opera, late 70s / early 80s. The first entry of the largest and most popular mecha series, still one of the best ones despite its dated presentation.)
Macross: Do You Remember Love (Movie version of the original Macross series, space opera, mid 80s. Extremely beautiful animation, good character drama, high-stakes story.)
Expelled from Paradise (Movie, post-human sci-fi, 2014. Plays with interesting concepts, very good looking production despite being animated entirely in 3D.)
Aim for the top: Gunbuster (late 80s space opera OVA, 6 episodes. First work produced chiefly by Hideaki Anno of Evangelion fame. Excellent animation, incredibly emotional and dramatic plot arc.)
Armor Hunter Mellowlink (late 80s war drama OVA, 12 episodes. Spin-off of Armored Trooper Votoms that doesn’t need you to watch the main series first. Unique in that it mostly features the protagonist fighting enemy mecha on foot.)
Getter Robo Armageddon (Dark and violent post-apocalyptic late 80s OVA, 12 episodes, probably the best animated work featuring one of the genre’s founding franchises.)
Patlabor: The Mobile Police (Late 80s near-future setting OVA, 7 episodes. Also there’s a full length TV series by the same name that’s also excellent. All about law enforcement in a post-mecha world, mostly comedic.)
SSSS.Gridman (2018 giant hero TV series, 12 episodes. Technically a giant hero series like Ultraman but hits all the right spots for mecha fans. Good all round production by Studio Trigger, has a sequel series currently airing.)
Planet With (2019 space opera / absurdist TV series, 12 episodes. Extremely bizarre but ultimately well-made and emotionally touching story.)
Bokurano (2007 psychological thriller / cosmic horror TV series, 26 episodes. Features titanic robots, equal parts nightmare fuel and emotional roller coaster, probably the saddest mecha series.)
Overman King Gainer (2002 post-post apocalypse TV series, 26 episodes. Fairly light-hearted production by the creator of the original Gundam featuring excellent hand-drawn animation and exotic mecha designs.)
Terrestrial Defence Corp. Dai-Guard (Late 90s near-future comedy TV series, 26 episodes. Classic super robot setup featuring a giant robot against extradimensional invaders, but with the “realistic” elements played up for laughs.)
Tetsujin 28 (2004 retro sci-fi TV series, 26 episodes. Reboot of the original series featuring the very first giant robot in Japanese media. Highly melancholy series with heavy themes.)
Gun X Sword (2007 sci-fi Western series, 26 episodes. Great characters and humour centred around a story themed around the concept of revenge in a wild-West esque sci-fi setting. Earlier creation of the director of Code Geass.)
Martian Successor Nadesico (Late 90s TV series, space opera, 26 episodes. Tongue-in-cheek story that lampoons the genre with a great cast of characters, highly recommended.)
The Big O (Late 90s retro sci-fi series with noir trappings, 26 episodes. Strange but very compelling setting and story with an ending that remains hotly debated to this day. Visual style very similar to the animated batman TV series from around the same timeframe.)
The Vision of Escaflowne (Late 90s fantasy series, 26 episodes. Isekai series featuring giant robots, and a romance-heavy shoujou-esque storyline. Very high quality production values and soundtrack.)
Note that this isn’t an exhaustive list, there are still several other series that could probably fit this bill that I haven’t seen yet and thus can’t recommend with any confidence. I tried to keep all my suggestions under 30 episodes long, but there’s a bunch more I could recommend over that limit.
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theradioghost · 4 years
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I don't know if you're still doing podcast recs, but if you are, I really like dramas, horror, sci-fi, honestly anything that gives you the feels (especially if it has lgbtq+ rep). I am not much of a comedy person though unfortunately. The only podcast I finished was tma and I really loved it.
The recommendations are always on tap here, whenever my askbox is open! You might wanna check out:
Archive 81, for a found-footage horror about mysterious archives of tapes full of encounters with otherworldly horror, dark rituals, cults, and a long-suffering archivist with the same name as the show creator who plays him, which despite all that could not possibly be more different from TMA and yet easily matches it as one of the best horror stories I have ever enjoyed. The sound design on this show is basically unparalleled – where TMA has fairly minimalist sound design, A81 goes all out. Quite a few lgbtqa+ folk also.
I Am In Eskew, for a surreal, Lynchian horror about the city of Eskew, where it’s always raining and the streets are never the same twice, as narrated by a man who is trapped there and the woman hired to find him. Take the most viscerally disturbing episodes of TMA as a baseline for how intense this show is, then imagine the Spiral built a city and invited all the other fears over for a party. Also right up there as one of my favorite horror things ever, and recently ended, so you can listen to the whole thing right now.
Within The Wires, for a found-footage scifi dystopia, telling stories from an alternate-history world. Three of the four seasons focus on lgbtqa+ leads, and the first season, a set of instructional meditation tapes provided to a prisoner in a shadowy government institution, is still some of my absolute favorite creative use of medium and framing device ever.
Kane and Feels, for a surreal noir-flavored urban fantasy/horror hybrid, about a magically-inclined academic (and sarcastic little bastard man) named Lucifer Kane and his demon-punching partner with a heart of gold, Brutus Feels. They share a flat in London, they bicker like an old married couple, and they fight supernatural evil. This show WILL confuse the hell out of you and you will enjoy every second of it.
Alice Isn’t Dead, for a weird Americana horror story about a long-distance truck driver, criss-crossing the US in search of her missing wife. Along the way she discovers that both of them have been drawn into a dangerous secret war that seethes in the empty and abandoned expanses of America, and that inhuman hunters have begun to follow her. Also finished! And as the title kind of gives away, the lesbians do not die!
Janus Descending, for a sci-fi horror miniseries about two scientists sent to survey the remains of a dead alien civilization on a distant planet, only to learn all too well why the original inhabitants have disappeared. You hear one character’s story in chronological order and the other in reverse, with their perspectives alternating, which is done in an incredibly clever way so that even technically knowing what will happen it still holds you in suspense right to the end. Also, it made me cry, a lot.
SAYER, for a sci-fi horror with a touch of dark comedy, and probably the single best use of the “evil AI” trope I have ever seen. Tells the story of employees of tech corporation Aerolith Dynamics living on Earth’s artificial second moon, Typhon, in the form of messages from their AI overseer SAYER. The first season is great, the second season is okay, and the third and fourth seasons are fucking amazing.
Tides, for a really interesting sci-fi about a lone biologist trapped on an alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces. It’s different from just about any other sci-fi I know, focusing more on the main character’s interactions with and observations of this strange new world, where she’s very aware that she is the alien invader. (Also I don’t think any of the characters are straight.)
Station to Station, for a thrilling sci-fi mystery where a group of scientists and spies on a research ship (the ocean kind) discover that the time-warping anomaly they’re studying might be causing people to vanish from existence. Corporate espionage and high-stakes heartbreak abound. (And once again I’m not sure anyone is straight.)
The Strange Case of Starship Iris, for Being Gay And Doing Crime IN SPACE! Or, decades after a war with an alien species leaves humanity decimated and under the control of totalitarian leaders, the lone survivor of a research mission joins up with a ragtag crew of rebels and smugglers to figure out why the very government she worked for tried to kill her, and to stop them from inciting a second war. 100% lgbtqa+ found family in space heist action and it’s glorious in every way.
Unwell, for the horror-ish Midwestern gothic story of a young woman who returns to her hometown to help her estranged mother after an injury, and discovers that there is something just a little bit wrong, not just with her mother, but with her mother’s house, and with the whole town. Subtle and creepy. The protagonist is a biracial lesbian, one of the other major characters is nonbinary, the cast in general is super diverse.
The Blood Crow Stories, for an lgbtqa+ focused horror anthology! The four seasons so far have been the stories of an ancient evil stalking the passengers of a WWI-era utopian cruise ship, a dark Western mystery about a group of allies trying to stop the mysterious killer known only as the Savior, a 911 operator in a cyberpunk dystopia who starts getting terrifying phone calls from demons, and strange and deadly goings-on at a film studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Everyone is Very Gay and anyone can die, especially in season 1.
The Tower, for a melancholy experimental miniseries about a young woman who decides she’s going to climb the mysterious Tower, from which no one has ever returned. Quite short and very, very good.
Palimpsest, for a creepy, heartbreakingly sad and yet incredibly beautiful anthology series. Season one is the story of a woman who suspects her new home is haunted, season two is a turn-of-the-century urban fantasy about a girl who falls in love with the imprisoned fae princess she’s been hired to care for, and season three is about a WWII codebreaker who begins seeing ghosts on the streets of London during the Blitz.
Mabel, for a part-horror, part-love story, the kind of faerie tale where you feel obliged to spell it with an E because these are the kind of faeries that are utterly inhuman, and beautiful, and dangerous. Anna, the new caretaker for an elderly woman, leaves messages for her client’s mysteriously absent granddaughter Mabel. An old house in Ireland has a life and desires of its own, few of them friendly. Two women fall in love and set out for vengeance against the King Under The Hill. Creepy, strange, and gorgeously poetic.
Ars Paradoxica, for a sci-fi time travel Cold War espionage thriller. Physicist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally invents time travel, landing herself – and her invention – in the middle of a classified government experiment during WWII. As the course of history utterly changes around them, she and what friends she can find in this new time must struggle with the ethics of what they’ve done, and the choices they’ll have to make. An aroace protagonist, Black secret agents, time-traveling Latina assassins, Jewish lesbian mathematicians, two men of color whose love changes the course of time itself, this show says a big fuck you to the idea that there’s anything hard about having a diverse cast in a period piece and it will break your heart, multiple times. Also finished!
The Far Meridian, for a genre-bending, poetic, at-times-heartwarming-at-times-heartbreaking story about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who decides to begin a search for her long-missing brother Ace after the lighthouse in which she lives begins mysteriously transporting to different places every day. I can never forget an early review that described this show as “the audio equivalent of a Van Gogh painting.” Suffice to say it is beautiful, and fantastically written and put together.
What’s the Frequency?, for a Surrealist noir horror mystery set in mid-20th-century LA. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can really explain what goes on in this show, but it features a detective named Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney searching for a missing writer. Meanwhile, the only thing that seems to be playing on the radio is that writer’s show Love, Honor, and Decay, which also seems to be driving people to murder. Fantastically weird, deliciously creepy.
Directive, for a short sci-fi miniseries about a man hired to spend a very, very long trip through space alone, which doesn’t seem all that sad until suddenly it hits you with Every Feel You’ve Ever Had, seriously I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say anything more but listen to this and then never feel the same way about Tuesdays again.
Wolf 359, for honestly one of the best podcasts out there, containing all of the drama and feels, seriously this show ended over two years ago and I still cry literal tears thinking about it sometimes. It has definite comedic leanings, especially in the first season which reads a bit more like a wacky office comedy set in space, but it takes a sharp turn towards high stakes, action, and feelings and that roller coaster never stops. Take four clashing personalities alone on a constantly-malfunctioning space station eight light years from earth, add some mysterious transmissions from the depths of space, toss in some seriously Jonah-Magnus-level manipulative evil bosses, and get ready to cry.
or, may I suggest Midnight Radio? It’s a lesbian-romance-slash-ghost-story completed miniseries about a late-night 1950s radio host in a small town who begins receiving mysterious letters from one of her listeners, and I have been assured by many people and occasionally their all-caps tweets that it provides ample Feelings! (also I wrote it.)
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consilium-games · 3 years
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Setting, Genre, and Principles
I talked recently with a friend about Apocalypse World, genre, and Principles. For those unfamiliar, Principles are a design and game-running technique that Apocalypse World did not invent, but did refine and explicate, a bit like how the Greeks knew of static electricity, but it was Galvani who made a battery on purpose, that others could study. Since I haven't died yet, I have a project in mind, in this case one that really explicitly relies on Principles in its basic design, so in this essay I want to work out a basic edge of 'what Principles can cover'. Namely, the edge of 'genre'.
I'll define a couple technical terms here because I intend to use them pretty narrowly:
Diagetic means the usual, "bound within the world of a given story".
Commentative means "outside of any story, things we say about stories-generally".
So a setting counts as diagetic, bound within its own logic and the logic of the single work it appears in. Diagetically we'd ask "why does the author choose to write dragons in this way?"
A genre counts as commentative, not bound within any story. It may or may not codify some stories, an author might consciously bend to or defy a genre as they understand it, but most importantly on the genre level, we don't ask "why did the author write dragons like this?" Instead we ask "why do people-generally like to see dragons?"
In talking with that friend, she said she had difficulty reading AW, which I can't really fault anyone for: I'd consider AW almost as much a polemic manifesto as a procedural manual. And the former undermines the latter. Part of her issue came from her looking for a setting, not realizing that properly speaking, AW doesn't have one. I said as much, and as we talked, I then said a lot more than I should:
After confirming that "Baker does not give AW a setting", in a bit of enthusiasm on the idea of 'genre emulation', I went on to say that "Baker gives his apocalypse". This prompted confusion, for the reasonable question arises, "how can Baker provide his own, particular, post-apocalypse story without giving a setting?" So I should have spoken more carefully, and I wrote most of this essay to over-answer that question for my friend. I've massaged it into its current form, for you non-her readers, in hopes that it helps someone, or if nothing else I can refer back to it as I clarify my own cranky lit-game-dev ideas.
To me, 'a setting' goes like this:
DnD has a kind of proto-setting, it has dragons like-so, it has elves who look pretty and live in the woods, it has dwarves who look TV-ugly and live in the mountains, it has orcs who look ugly-ugly and live in the wastes, it has humans it treats as default and live wherever. It has vague gestures of settler-colonial race-relations but not enough anything to explore, unless you the reader put it there. DnD doesn't really have much of a genre more specific than "uh, generally sword-and-sorcery fantasy".
Shadowrun has basically the same things, and a specific setting: neoliberal dystopia and collapse of the state, but otherwise 'basically our world'.
But more than that, Shadowrun also--for its many faults--has a commentative-sense genre: in Shadowrun, might makes right (or at least right-now); money rules everything, except maybe loyalty; it treats magic as innately cool and natural but technology as evil and you maybe would better die than get an artificial heart. These story-contours don't care at all about where things happen or what institutions exist.
To take another example, Cowboy Bebop tells a solid noir western story set in space. The fact that it takes place in space ultimately matters very little to the 'western' or 'noir', though. Spike knows he lives in space, and he'd agree that--to someone alive in our world today--he lives in a sci-fi story. He doesn't know that he got cast as a western-revenge-fable protagonist (though he might agree if someone asked). He definitely doesn't know that he has a corner of the story that goes more-western, while Jet lives in a corner of the story that goes more-noir.
If you wanted, you could tell Cowboy Bebop beat for beat, almost unedited, as a straight-faced noir western. Instead of Jet's main ship they have a wagon, the individual bounty-hunters have their own horses, Ed does something weird with telegraphs and adding-machines. Instead of vacuum between planets of our solar system, they weather the desert waste between far-flung towns. It would remain a story about revenge, losing oneself, finding oneself, remaking oneself, and the things we have to do for the people we love, and what happens when we don't.
You could not do this and also remove the noir, or the western, those define the kind-of-story. If you left it in space but took out the noir, entire episodes of moral ambiguity would disappear (like Ganymede Elegy). Likewise taking out the western, the premise of bounty-hunters wouldn't fit and couldn't stay. I would even go further, and say that while I don't mind Cowboy Bebop sitting on the 'sci-fi' shelf so that consumers can find it, I wouldn't class Cowboy Bebop as sci-fi. A masterpiece, but not sci-fi. Because I think that as a genre, the core of sci-fi asks "where are we going, and what will we do when we get there?" Cowboy Bebop does not care to ask this question, it cares about the human condition right now, and what people right now will do. It takes place in space because space is cool.
Second hot take: Kafka's The Castle counts as sci-fi, by the above conception. Extremely, disturbingly prescient sci-fi, precisely predicting things from call-centers to Big Data and the professional managerial class, and warning of the ease with which a competent, level-headed, and well-meaning person can confront The Machine, and The Machine will completely hollow out and dehumanize them, rob them of every competence and agency, until The Machine no longer notices them as a foreign object.
No one would put The Castle on the sci-fi shelf, because it has no shiny labcoat SCIENCE![tm], telephones and typewriters show up as cutting-edge in the setting. But just look at the concept of tracking, monitoring, filing, and refiling, and bureaucratic shuffle and managerial maladaption and "not my department" and "oh you have to fill out a form 204B -> well file a form AV-8 to requisition a 204B -> look do I have to do everything for you, I'm a busy cog you know". Look at that concept as a technology, like Kafka did.
The story explicitly refers to this as innovation, as a deliberate thing that the Count and his bureaucrats did, on purpose, with intent and expected effect. The Castle explores social science, political technology. And Kafka rigorously explores its psychic effects on the subjects, more thoroughly than Gibson waxing poetic about VR headsets and the Matrix. The Castle qualifies as fiction about science, where we're going and what we'll (have to) do when we get there. It takes place in a quaint provincial village that might lie somewhere in Bohemia in the very early 20th century.
So I allege that while setting matters for writing a given story, it doesn't matter a lot for kind-of story. And in my conversation with my friend, I should have sensed the kernel I could have dug out, but instead, I wrote the rest of this essay, particular to post-apocalyptic genre fiction, and germane to Apocalypse World.
Bringing this back to apocalypsii:
In the Australian outback in the late-70s, the gas supply all but disappears, causing societal collapse and civil breakdown.
In the American midwest, an unspecified disaster wipes out communications and supply-lines, causing survivors to turn feral and cannibalistic.
In New York in the late 60s, food shortages and overpopulation cause the government to criminalize almost everything so that they can grind people up into food.
These are settings in the sense that I mean: a place, a time, implicit societal structures and institutions, "where is this, what world is this, what is here?" DnD's setting doesn't have much of a 'where' but it more or less assumes "uh, Earth kinda, sorta"; Shadowrun says "literally Earth but N years after magic becomes real and also DnD races". But the above three post-apoc settings have very different everything-else: if you were making a post-apoc section of a library and wanted to break down into sub-genre, you'd want to put the three works above on different aisles.
Mad Max tells a story where holding on to old power structures is complicated, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and it emphatically matters how we go about doing it: when marauding punks kill your family, you may justifiably go and kill them back; but when a power-mad warlord inflicts his brutal regime, you owe him no allegiance.
The Road tells a story where everything we care about can just blow away in the wind, and at best we can only cling to what we cherish, while we can. Power comes and goes, structures don't last, but cruelty and misery endure eternal and will always win--but we try anyway.
Soylent Green tells a story where societal structures can technically endure, but themselves have no moral compass and can inflict as much cruelty as uncaring nature. You may live in an illusion in which civilization appears to function, but in fact you have no more safety than the wilderness, and indeed you didn't realize it, but you're the cannibals, and perhaps soon the meal.
Those considerations all sit at the genre-type, commentative level, and I class them as wholly unconcerned with setting. Each of these stories would tell just as well in space, or an underground complex, or even Bronze-Age Fertile Crescent if you twist a few narrative arms. The where and when and what doesn't define or determine the kind of story, the genre, even if setting can help or hinder genre goals.
Bringing this back to Baker: he doesn't give a place where things happen; he doesn't give an inciting event that brought the apocalypse; he doesn't even describe what happened during the apocalypse, or how long ago it happened, or give a date for "today". I'll list three AW settings I've run or played in or heard about:
Sunlight vanished altogether, though somehow it hasn't gotten any colder. Darkness and shadow can become animate and even sapient, and can claim people, though it doesn't seem exactly malevolent or 'evil'. Rule of law has mostly fallen apart, but out of fear and prudence people mostly avoid wanton violence, because if you see someone you don't like, you could roll up on them and take their stuff--but just as easily they could kill you, and just as easily as either, the Dark might just take both of you; you're safer keeping the Dark at bay and not hassling someone else, unless you've got good reason.
A few years(?) ago, survivors woke up from total amnesia and some kind of fugue: it seems like this fugue lasted at least some years, there's some decay of modern-to-us structures, but the ruins look fully recognizable and often quite well-preserved. But signs abound, literally painted twenty-feet-high on buildings and structures, that something unfathomable happened. The giant wordless pictograms seem to warn to protect tools and structures, to stay together and not go off alone, indicate places that once had lots of food or other important resources, and most alarmingly they show gigantic hands reaching down from above onto some of the pictogram figures. No one can remember anything from before the wakeup though, so the meaning is lost.
Something like twenty years ago, the world broke in some fundamental way: it always rains or at least fog abounds, long-distance communication inexplicably but insurmountably fails to work, and cityscape has sprawled on its own to incorporate seemingly the entire world. As far as anyone knows, the city spans infinitely in every direction, it has no edge, only more city. The city-cancer seems waterlogged and rotting everywhere, some few places fit for use and occupancy, but if you go down any given street and step inside an empty house or shop, it probably won't suit human habitation. People still habitually carry on the forms and outlines of societal norms, mostly, because what else can they do? You can't burn it all down as long as it keeps raining.
I brought these up because Baker's conception of 'post-apoc' does not cover the whole of "all post-apocalyptic literature"--it couldn't, shouldn't, and if it did it would have little or no use to anyone. Baker's narrower conception, the Principles that AW's rules expect a setting to follow, narrow things down and keep the rules crisp, tight, and tractable.
Each of the AW campaigns above has a totally different setting, aiming in totally different directions for different things--but, they all live inside Baker's Principles for a post-apoc that fits within AW: scarcity, weak but present society and norms, a Before, an After, and no going back, and each has a 'Psychic Maelstrom' that excuses a lot of narrative fiat and deus ex machina and having characters just do weirdness not otherwise specified.
That 'Psychic Maelstrom' comes closest to giving what I'd call "a setting" as in "place, time, institutions", because it sits at the diagetic level. A distinct thing bound within a given story--except it only barely counts as 'diagetic'. Because Baker only gives loose guidelines for what a Psychic Maelstrom should be or do. Baker's own at-his-table Psychic Maelstrom will look nothing like mine, or my girlfriend's, or her erstwhile friend's, because in those three AW settings up there, each of us had totally different ideas for what to do with a Psychic Maelstrom in a post-apocalyptic setting.
But: all three of us used our Psychic Maelstroms for the things Baker says to use them for: unleash weirdness, justify unrealistic but narratively satisfying twists, allow and excuse extra awesomeness, maybe use as a metaphor or allegory for "how it got this way", as well as "where it could go", in literary terms. And . . . Baker doesn't really get closer than this, to giving "place, time, institutions, history and people and events". So in the sense I understand 'setting', a diagetic construct within a given story, AW doesn't have one.
But in the commentative genre sense, AW very definitely gives Baker's apocalypse, in that it gives a recipe for the things that Baker considers essential to the post-apoc genre (or at least, the aisle of the post-apoc library he wants to confine his game to). He doesn't try to tell a Soylent Green apocalypse so much--you'd need to twist some arms and ignore some Principles to tell Soylent Green. Nor does he try to tell Children of Men so much--you'd have to leave a lot out to rein AW in to just Children of Men. He instead aims* for something closer to Mad Max, but heavy on Weird West, and a lot less somber and desolate, so more like Fury Road. And he says, "here's how:".
(*) But, of course, he doesn't actually tell these stories. Instead he has the project of telling the reader how to tell this kind-of story. So, while he gives some sample poetic images of skylines on fire and the world torn asunder, he doesn't care to talk about the virus, or the metorite, or the gas-shortage or the food-shortage. He doesn't care about the where or when or what, and even with the Psychic Maelstrom, the one concrete diagetic thing he gives--it sits there as a meta-thing, explicitly unstated whether it resulted from The Apocalypse or its inciting event, or caused it as the inciting event, or something else.
All of which boils down to: commentative, about-stories, genre-level stuff owns bones, and I weigh it heavier than diagetic, in-stories, setting-level stuff. Baker gives excellent tools, within his purple polemic prose, for that first stuff and gives little or nothing for the second.
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lucaskuanlu · 3 years
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Assignment 1 Brief: Module Journal and Book Review: Blog
Entry 1: Film Genre
Grant, B.K., 2007. Film genre: From iconography to ideology (Vol. 33). Wallflower Press.
Barry Keith Grant’s Film genre: From iconography to ideology is a book that seeks to elaborate on concept of genre and why it is important in contemporary cinema. Precisely, has delved into the definition of what film genre is and has done this by drawing examples and case studies from different parts of the world. The particular attention that he has placed emphasis on is western films and in particular Hollywood. Barry, as seen in the introductory chapter of his book has explained that film genre refers to a thematic categorization of film. Using the example of film noir, the author has explained that the films that are considered under this genre have the same general themes that include but not limited to cynicism and cynical heroes, elaborate lighting effects and the idea that crime is an idea that the society today benefits from –as it is a way through which peace and justice are secured.
Chapter 3 of the book is about genre and authorship wherein the author invites the idea that the film author, mostly producer, imbues the film with their ideas and belief. Perhaps, this explains why films that are authored by the same person happen to fall within the same genre.  This book has delved into key issues on film genre and underpin the ideas that have been discussed in the module. Specifically, the issues discussed by Barry align with the discussions on film genre as a whole and adds value to what has been learned.
Ekinci, B.T. 2020, ""Youtuber Movies" From New Media to the Cinema", CINEJ Cinema Journal, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 94-118.
The author of this article has made three main arguments which are all aligned towards the concept of film genre. The author has firstly indicated that as a result of the emergence of new media, old tropes of film and film genres as a whole are being replaced or rearranged. Technology has presented platforms such as YouTube where any user can be able to produce their own film clips and content. The second has also written that the emergence of the internet and computer technology has led to an almost complete overhaul of culture as people are influenced by and influence each other through the internet. Thirdly, with digitalization, the control that the media and film industry had on the audience has diminished. However, the film industry can benefit from these developments as new genres can be developed out of these social cultural shifts.
In the details of the article that author has written that there is a close relationship that is being formed between the traditional media and the new media and the these has created mutual benefits between the film producers and audiences. What this article has highlighted is that in order for a full reconciliation of the traditional and new media to be realised, film genre criticisms are unavoidable. After all, these two media place the old school film industry against an energized and empowered young generation. The common feature that this article has with the Barry Keith Grant book is that they both address the concept of film genre. Further to this, both resources acknowledge that there are changes that are taking place fat in the film industry and this is contesting the status quo of the existing genres. From the lens of film noir, each of the two authors admit that with the changes that have emerged especially in the latter part of the 20th century and the 21st, a new age film nor is inevitable.
References
Grant, B.K., 2007. Film genre: From iconography to ideology (Vol. 33). Wallflower Press.
Ekinci, B.T. 2020, ""Youtuber Movies" From New Media to the Cinema", CINEJ Cinema Journal, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 94-118.
 Entry II: Classic Film Noir
The details of the book by Kaplan Women in film noir is testament of the changes that swept across the film industry after the advent of film noir. The author has emphasized that there was an evident role change for women in film when this style/ genre emerged. There is an evident conflict in the role that women should play in an evidently patriarchal society. In film noir, the family and its relationship are the focal point of representations in film. Kaplan has written that film noir illuminated the struggles that existed between men and women in a patriarchal society of the early to mid-20th century. Another issue that is brought out in the Kaplan book is the ordering of sexuality and the patriarchal right especially for men. While men in society are drawn to the sexuality of their female counterparts in society and outside of the family, they are at the same time endevour to emphasize that their masculinity accords them their patriarchal rights. Kaplan notes that there is an evident contradiction in society as depicted in film noir. This contradiction is evidenced in the film Piccadilly (1929) where there is an attempt to resign the female characters Shosho and Mabel to their patriarchal defined roles yet the society, as depicted in film, desires the new found social position where they act and play roles in the public. The latter is in reference to the fact that these two worked in a local restaurant as dancers and performers. Although there are romantic conflicts that emerge between the women characters in the film; Shosho and Mabel, as they fight for the attention of the male protagonist figures, there is an evidently complex depiction of women and their roles. In this case in particular, these women endevour to keep their relationships and families in order yet they are embroiled in their public role in society.
The arguments that are presented by Kaplan highlight important issues in the history of film noir. They especially emphasize how the role of women as subordinate to their male counterparts changed and how this films elevated their roles as objects of the male gaze and desire on the one hand the position in introducing the themes of sexuality and romance. In truth, while film noir caused major shifts in the way patriarchy and role of women were represented and perceived, it was especially important that at this point, women were elevated and could take leading roles in films. Biesen and Chinen (2005) have written a full book on the history of film noir. While the reference of this style cum genre of fil is analyzed retrospectively, the two authors have stated that it is/ was characterized by features such as pessimism, cynicism and death and this often took place in the streets where crime was rife. The origin of film noir is traced in the 1940s and 50s after the second world war and a decade after the Great Depression.  Majorly, the classical film noir films were centered on c rime, detective themes and thriller.
References
Biesen, S.C. and Chinen, S., 2005. Blackout: World War II and the origins of film noir. JHU Press.
Kaplan, E.A. ed., 2019. Women in film noir. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Entry III: Women in Film Noir
The film Laura (1944) has all the hallmarks of a film noir. This is especially so considering that there are numerous female characters who have taken central roles in the film. In fact, the title of the film is indicative of this fact as it is a detective film investigating the death of Laura Hunt, an advertising executive. The detective assigned the task to unmask who Laura’s killer is transported into a web of lies with key suspects being Shelby Carpenter, Laura’s boyfriend and Lydecker, a columnist who mentored Laura. Laura (1944) was told in an interesting narrative way with the plot being the key. Given that the film is styled around film noir, the adventures and thrill of the investigations and the events following the discovery that Lydecker was the killer is what was emphasized on. The narrative, to put it in a few words, is rather complex and twisted making the audience unsure who the eventual antagonist will end up being and, equally important, who will end up being Laura’s lover.
Falling in line with the typologies of female characters in film noir, the characters of Laura and Diane Redfern are accorded the feme fatal characters. On face value, they appear innocent and devoid of any possible harm to anyone. However, as the detective discloses later into the film, they are conniving characters who use their mind, wit and bodies to achieve their cynical objectives. Naremore (2008) has noted that women in film noir play an important yet interesting role that, arguably, was absent in the classical films of other genres. The idea of a feme fatale and good girl next door as the formations of female characters changed the way the male protagonist act and are represented. For the most part and as is depicted in Laura (1944), the two types of women are completely different with the feme fatal seeking to serve her cynical goals while her good girl next door counterpart seeks to do that which is right at all time. For the most part, Naremore (2008), the male protagonist is drawn to the feme fatale owing to her extra ordinary beauty, courage and independence of mind.
On her part, Kaplan holds the view that while film noir has shifted focus away from male characters towards women, there is a conflict that emerged and has to do with the representation of a women as either a family maker or one set out to serve the interest of the society. To this end, Kaplan is fast to clarify that film noir did not always depict women as an object of the male gaze or desire but often added to the complexity of having a female protagonist and characters in crime and thriller films.
References
Kaplan, E.A. ed., 2019. Women in film noir. Bloomsbury Publishing
Naremore, J., 2008. More than night: Film noir in its contexts. Univ of California Press.
   Entry IV: E-Book Review of a book on Film Noir
The book that has been selected for review in this section is one that looks at the concept of film genre alongside another related aspect especially in contemporary film, science fiction. Titled Tech-noir: The fusion of science fiction and film noir this book seeks to draw a relationship between film noir and science fiction. This resource is an edited collection wit the first publication dating back in 2008 and has since had a couple of editions. There are two broad ways in which this book relates to the module. Firstly, the book has detailed an analysis of the history of film noir placing its origin to German Expressionist film which has already been discussed in class. A parallel has then been drawn between the developments and changes that have taken place in film noir and science fiction. In the introductory chapters of the book the author has argued using facts that film noir is not a style but rather a genre as it has all the hallmarks of a film genre including style, themes and unique narrative elements.  
The primary argument that this book has presented is that there is a close relationship that has always existed between film noir and science fiction. In elaborating this claim, the author has written that each of these two elements cannot exist independent of each other. For one, the author claims, film noir was in part influenced by the social changes that were taking place in society such as war, the Great Depression and scientific developments. Arguably, n a majority of the film noirs in Hollywood and beyond, and where the hallmark elements of cynicism, mystery, crime and surrealism are present, aspects of high tech and science fiction are ever present. In chapters four and six for instance, it has been demonstrated that through the global occurrences such as the atomic bomb development and detonation, the World War II, cinema has been influenced in quite a handful of ways.
The approach of the book and the details that it has offered has shed a few important highlights on the areas of film noir and film genre. For instance, the book has insisted that film noir is classified as a genre because it comprises films that have comparable themes, films that have comparable narrative elements such as the style of narration and aesthetic approaches that are unique. The fact that makes the book original is that it is the first of its kind to delve into the research of a particular genre of film, film noir in this case, and to make a one on one relationship assessment with science fiction. Another aspect that has been highlighted by the film is that there is no one film genre or feature of cinema for that matter that operates independently in a closed circle. There are factors that are beyond film that impact the way these genres develop and advance. Suffice to say, the fact that the author has widely consulted from other books makes this work even more valuable. What is more, there are a handful of case studies of film noir films that are based on science fiction that have been dissected in great details. These include The Matrix, Blade Runner and The Terminator. This, to say the least, adds credibility to the contents of the book.
Although the author chose a unique area of study making the work contained in the book original, there are other research studies that have been done that tried to make connections and links between a genre of film and an aspect of technology. Therefore, this in itself in a way validates the approach that has been taken by the Meehan. The strong point of this book is that it is the crystallization of an ongoing debate on the influence of film noir on other aspects other than film. These influences include culture and fashion. Meeehan (2015) has noted that the intersection of science fiction and film noir has had noticeable influences on contemporary fashion and sub-cultures. One area of weakness identified in the book is that the author has chosen to work with a very wide theme. Science fiction and film noir are by their own rights very broad areas of study and the author could have narrowed down the focus further down. Arguably, the audience that is targeted by this book are researchers and scholars in the fields of cinema and technology. The book is also resourceful to people seeking to understand the history of film especially on genres that are not broadly covered such as horror, romance and teen films.
Reference
Meehan, P., 2015. Tech-noir: The fusion of science fiction and film noir. McFarland.
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jasonfry · 3 years
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More classic movies everyone’s seen but me!
They Live By Night (1948)
Bowie and Keechie are doomed young lovers in Nicholas Ray’s debut as a director. A lot of the tropes will be familiar to film noir fans -- you know Bowie and Keechie will never achieve the normal lives they want, and the movie’s ending feels as fixed and inevitable as Shakespearean tragedy, with avenues of escape closing off one by one. But a few elements set it apart. For one thing, there’s the Depression setting, which offers shabby cabins and dusty plains instead of L.A. clubs and streetscapes, and makes “economic anxiety” a real thing -- Bowie and Keechie’s wedding in particular is a tragicomic masterpiece, with the crooked justice of the peace subtracting elements based on the couple’s budget. The movies also draws power from the chemistry between Farley Granger and Cathy O’Donnell, which feels natural in a very stylized film, sometimes to the point of feeling intimate bordering on uncomfortable. (Howard Da Silva is terrific in a supporting role as the terrifying hood Chicamaw.)
Ray was given free rein as director, and They Live By Night has an experimental air that would prove highly influential, from the tricky opening helicopter shot to an inside-the-car sequence whose legacy you can see in Gun Crazy. Then there’s its rather odd unveiling: The movie was shelved for two years after it was shot, but circulated through private showings in Hollywood and became a favorite, with Granger tapped by Alfred Hitchcock for Rope and Humphrey Bogart offering Ray a lifeline as a director. They Live By Night isn’t a great entry point for film noir newbies, but will be interesting for fans of the genre.
Robert Altman remade this movie as Thieves Like Us, returning to the title of the novel that Ray adapted; that version is also on my list. 
Under the Volcano (1984)
John Huston enjoyed tackling supposedly unfilmable projects late in life, following his adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood with this take on a 1947 novel by Malcolm Lowery. Albert Finney is wonderful as a drunken, self-destructive British diplomat, and there’s an undeniable pull to the movie -- I saw it a couple of weeks ago and can’t quite shake its suffocating mood of mild delirium. But it’s so, so bleak -- before you try it, make sure you’re up for two hours of unease and dread.
Silverado (1985)
I saw Silverado as a teenager, but came back to it recently because as a kid I’d barely seen any westerns and so had no idea what the movie was celebrating or looking to revisit. Seen through more experienced eyes, Silverado is most interesting because it isn’t revisionist at all -- with the exception of a couple of modern tweaks to racial attitudes, it could have been made in the same period as the movies writer/director Lawrence Kasdan is saluting.
Anyway, Kevin Kline and Linda Hunt are wonderful leads, as is Brian Dennehy as the sheriff who’s put his conscience aside, and virtually everybody you remember from mid-80s movies shows up at one point or another. It’s a lot of fun, at least until the movie runs out of steam in the second half and turns into a series of paint-by-numbers gunfights. The final running battle particularly annoyed me: Kasdan has had ample time to show us the layout of the town of Silverado, which would let us think alongside the heroes as they stalk and are stalked through its handful of streets, but his ending is random gags and shootouts, with no sense of place. Stuff just happens until we’re out of stuff.
Compare that with, say, Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers. Peter Jackson takes his time establishing everything from the geography of the fortress to the plan to defend it, and as a result we always know where we are during the battle and what each new development means for the heroes. That kind of planning might have made Silverado a modern classic instead of just a fun diversion. 
My Brilliant Career (1979)
Judy Davis stars (opposite an impossibly young Sam Neill) as Sybylla Melvyn, a young Australian woman determined to resist not just her family’s efforts to marry her off but also the inclinations of her own heart. Sybylla is a wonderful character, a luminous, frizzy-haired bull in a china shop of convention, and she’s riveting in every scene. (Neill’s job is to look alternately hapless and patient, which he does well enough -- a fate that’s perfectly fair given the generations upon generations of actresses who have been stuck with the same role.) Extra points for Gillian Armstrong’s direction, which consistently delivers establishing shots you want to linger on without being too showy about them, and for sticking with an ending that, Sybylla-style, bucks movie expectations.
(This is an adaptation of Miles Franklin’s 1901 autobiographical novel, which I now want to read. Franklin also wrote a book called All That Swagger, which is such a great title that I’m happy just thinking about it.)
Red River (1948)
A friend recommended this movie -- the first collaboration between Howard Hawks and John Wayne -- after reading my take on Rio Bravo. And I’m glad he did: Wayne is terrific as Tom Dunson, a hard-driving rancher whose cattle drive to Missouri becomes an obsession that leads him into madness, and he’s evenly matched with Montgomery Clift, who’s his son in all but name. 
Dunson begins as the movie’s hero and gradually morphs into its villain, with Wayne letting us see his doubts and regrets and also his inability to acknowledge them and so steer himself back to reality. Clift, making his debut as Matt Garth, is solid in a more conventional role (he looks eerily like Tom Cruise), and Walter Brennan happily chews scenery as Wayne’s sidekick and nagging conscience.
And there’s a lot of scenery to chew -- it’s wonderful to watch the herd in motion, particularly in a shot from over Brennan’s shoulder as the cattle cross a river -- and Hawks brings a palpable sense of dread to the nighttime scenes as things start to go wrong.
I would have liked Red River more if I hadn’t already seen Rio Bravo, though. Brennan plays the exact same role in that movie as he does here, Clift’s character is very similar to Ricky Nelson’s, and Hawks even nicked a melody from Red River to reuse 11 years later. (Hawks was a serial recycler -- he essentially remade Rio Bravo twice.)
A more fundamental problem is that Red River falls apart when Hawks jams Tess Millay into the story. We’re introduced to Tess, played by Joanne Dru, when Clift intervenes to save a wagon train besieged by Apaches, and her nattering at Clift during a gunfight is so annoying that I was hoping an arrow would find its mark and silence her. (She is hit by an arrow, but it only makes her talk more.)
Tess then falls for Clift, who seems mostly befuddled by her interest but blandly acquiesces. This is funny for a number of reasons: Beyond some really dopey staging, Clift’s love interest is pretty clearly a cowboy played by John Ireland and given the unlikely name of Cherry Valance. Their relationship is a bit of gay subtext that wouldn’t need much of a nudge to become text. Tess goes on to annoy Wayne in an endless scene that exists to forklift in a klutzy parallel with the movie’s beginning, and then shows up at the end to derail the climax in an eye-rolling fashion that leaves everyone involved looking mildly embarrassed. (Dru does the best she can; none of this is her fault.) 
I was left wondering what on earth had happened, so I read up and discovered that -- a la Suspicion -- the ending was changed, destroying a logical and satisfying outcome penned by Borden Chase. Tess is a hand-wave to bring about that different ending, a bad idea executed so poorly that it wrecks the movie. Give me a few weeks and I’ll happily remember all the things Red River does right, from those soaring vistas to Wayne’s seething march through Abilene. But I’ll also remember how the last reel took an ax to everything that had been built with such care.
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My favourite Indian films of 2018
Sorry for the wait this year. 2018 in the movies mirrored my own life a lot; the films on the list are films to love, make you feel something human, and they force you to take their characters and hold them close to your chest as if they were your own. While the most interesting mainstream movies from South Asia over previous years on this blog have excelled when they chose to experiment with the language of cinema itself, the 10 I’ve written about here have, similar to great literature, embraced pain, longing, love and everything else that comes with being alive.
10. Theevandi
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I’ve seen this film being described as an “anti-smoking movie.” I couldn’t disagree more. It’s a story about the nature of habit (rather than the disease of ‘addiction’), of locating the source of your personality, your soul, and trying to change it against the will of nature. During my time in India this year, nothing brought more joy than an ice burst and cutting tea at the side of the road, perching on the side of the pavement and watching life carry on around you. And while this is a film with a main character who wants to quit smoking, it isn’t about cancer. It isn’t about that horrible sooty smell at the end of your fingers, or yellowing teeth or a decreased sperm count. It’s about how something as innocuous as a tube of rolled up tobacco hanging out of your mouth can act as a fragile crutch for the entire weight of the world.
9. Laila Majnu
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Like many of my favourites this year (and every year), this re-telling of one of South Asia’s most important romances wants to know what love is. Here, we see love not as a generous, giving emotion, but as pure greed. With one of Bollywood’s most gorgeous soundtracks, that bleeds furiously out of every frame, and a constant sparkling gleam of glamour over these gorgeous young actors and the Kashmiri hills they prance around in, I enjoyed this enough just based on the commercial tropes it toys with for fun. But its real beauty lies in its brave and painful final declaration; that the most divine love may connect you to God and remove your soul from your body, but it will destroy you and your connections to the Earth, as the cruelest form of asceticism.
8. Cake
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I’m including a Pakistani movie (again) because our film industries were birthed under one national identity, and I don’t see the studios of Karachi as any more culturally distant from Mumbai’s Film City than Kodambakkam. Moving to Cake, this stunning portrait of a dysfunctional family surprised me against all my instincts that it was a Western-facing production clearly aimed at piercing its way into festivals and a patronising ‘World Cinema’ bracket. It is in fact, a study of shifting societal politics in an increasingly extreme and polarised World, of figuring out where your values stand in the midst of religion, feudalism and globalisation, and accepting that when these heavy, abstract concepts weigh down on your shoulders, it is the human beings around you who will feel the strain first.
7. Golak, Bugni, Bank Te Batua
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I really love Punjabi cinema. Seeing it come into its own and reclaim its cultural narratives and aesthetics from bastardizing Bollywood (where now even a film set in rural Gujarat will feature a Punjabi language song) has brought a lot of joy. Now here comes a  happy little film not set on preaching the glory of Sikkhi or telling an epic tale of brave warriors or earnest farmers, but on bringing us into the lives of a middle class Hindu Punjabi family in a small mohalla of a tier 2 city. And these aren’t the Hindu “Punjabis” of a Bollywood movie set in Chandni Chowk, who might throw in a “tussi” or “tuadi” here and there at the most. These are real people with a real culture, as intertwined with Punjab and their Sikh neighbours as they are separate. The film doesn’t patronise them by drawing humour from their novel identity; the situational character-based slapstick and witty back-and-forth theatrical dialogues exist in a warm parallel with the “World” of the movie. And then the lives of these people change in one instant as demonetisation hits, and we are hilariously reminded that whether you’re Hindu or Sikh, Northern or Southern, you are (unfortunately) still in India.
6. C/o Kancharapalem
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I won't say this film stood out as a "Telugu movie", as such slight, subtle films are an anomaly no matter what language they're made in or how brash those other films produced in the same mother tongue may be. These small and quiet tales, with their shy characters who live at the fringes of society, whether that mean they are Muslim prostitutes or simple middle class teachers carving out a living in a small village, are special because they manage to transmit such humanity without stirring from the dark alleyways or shaded courtyards where they take place. Not every film needs to stand tall like an intimdsting Tolstoy tome; some can be as unassuming as an RK Narayan novella and still make us feel like they're an epic.
5. Pyaar Prema Kaadhal
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Let's be honest. Casting two leads from a reality show, putting heart shaped balloons in your posters and deciding on the title "Love, Love, Love" pretty much screams "trash" doesn't it? But here was a humbling reminder that Indian popular culture can surprise you in the most pleasant of ways. These two good-looking young wannabe-stars and their social media followings represent so much about the "new India", a steadfastly singular culture (or cultures) whizzing through the fiery hoops of globalisation at breakneck speed, coming to terms with a mixed up value system, raging sexual frustration and an ever widening class gap, all of which have left a generation feeling more connected yet more alienated than ever before. This is 'Pyaar, Prema, Kaadhal', a flawed and horny love story, sweating with tension and all the repulsive angst of human emotion, yet with the glamorous musical heart of Indian cinema still beating loudly underneath.
4. Manmarziyaan
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There was as much to love about 'Manmarziyaan' as there was to hate. The age-old filmi love triangle rears its head again, only this time with characters who are more manipulative and frustrating than any you've seen in a "mainstream" movie before. But while the film never forces you to judge (at times leaving you confused about whether you're actually supposed to like any of these people) it demands that you engage. It's encouraged some of the finest writing on cinema I've seen in recent years, and such an unashamedly "Bollywood" film inspiring this thrilling thought and analysis from our finest critics (whether their judgement is kind or not) warrants its inclusion on this list alone. Then there's the way its incredible soundtrack weaves in and out of scenes like the characters own breaths, the way life changing moments are obscured from the script by deafening silences and acutely observed minutiae, and of course THAT lead performance. I'm not sure if I "liked" it or not, but I sure as hell can't wait to watch it again.
3. Pari
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The better the film, the harder it is to write about. 'Pari' is rich with metaphor. While being a ghost story (and a damn good one) merely on the surface, it has plenty to say about the way our society treats women, poses the question of if we can truly be born evil, and even critiques our savage treatment of "the other" in a global society where more of us are on the run than settled in our homes. But I think its biggest strength is that while it challenges you to reach into the very centre of your being and take a look at yourself and the World around you, its craft and screenwriting is so good that not at any moment does it give you a second to realise that's what you're doing.
2. Rangasthalam
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'Rangasthalam' is so great. Like really really great. Once an innocuous muscle man, Ram Charan has channelled his inner Dhanush and located his physicality, writhing and slanging his way into the mind and body of the quintessential South Indian rural hero, hoisting his lungi and flicking his beedi into one of the most visceral and truly cinematic masala movies in living memory. The thumping pace and kinetic choreography (both of the rousing song sequences and the busy, lived-in frames of the rest of the movie) evoke a dusty, violent world with the same panache of Ameer in 'Paruthiveeran' or Sasikumar in 'Subramaniyapuram', while the moustache twirling dialogues and meticulous emotional beats offer as much pure fun as a "Dabangg" or a "Khakee" or any classic Hindi masala movie. I've read pieces linking the cinema of 'Rangasthalam' to film noir traditions, but to me it simply proved that the masala genre still has as much excitement to offer as any other.
1. Mukkabaaz
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I'll remember 2018 as the year that Anurag Kashyap, previously India's frontrunner in the realm of "interesting" (but more often headscatching) cinema, stopped thinking with his very big brain and instead used his even bigger heart. His most straightforward film is undoubtedly his best, Hollywood-esque in its writing but firmly Indian in its sentiment. The scale is small - empty boxing arenas, bleak winding village paths and a cast plucked from the TV screen - but its emotions are pure opera. This is a timeless film, and though it laughs at the ridiculousness of modern India, poking a nasty smug finger at caste oppression, petty politics and the bureaucratic nightmare of simply trying to stay alive, it defies analysis. Much like the song at the centre of the story, the violently stunning 'Paintra', it only asks that you feel. And what more could we want from cinema?
I've had so much fun at the movies this year. From dancing to Dilbar in the cheap seats of G7 in Bandra to reciting Dhanush's Maari 2 dialogues at the bus stop outside Ilford Cineworld, Indian movies have continued to punctuate my life and bring me more joy than they have any right to. I can't wait to do this all again this year. What were the films that stirred you over the last 12 months? Let me know. Xx
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Waver 1 - 13 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 1 - 10 (FINAL) | Prisma Illya 2wei! 1 - 3
Another (and to be honest, the last) batch of impressions from the Fate/ project.
Waver 1
Well, this’ll be interesting. I’ve been hyping this show up for a while for myself, so let’s see how it goes.
Geez, this intro is like a dang movie! I’d love to see a proper Troyca movie! (<-Says the fan of Troyca.)
Wait, if it’s Kayneth Archibald, then is Archibald relatd to Archisorte? Or am I just making thing up here…? Also note Reines refers to Kayneth as “Kayneth El-Melloi Archibald”, possibly meaning Archibald is the middle name, since El-Melloi is a shared surname (or is that a title…?). That probably means Archibald =/= Archisorte and both are similar-sounding middle names. The fact Reines is Kayneth’s niece also explains things quite a bit.
Why is Waver upside down…? Won’t the blood rush to his head soon? (Sure, it allows me to ogle his hair more, but…logic rules more than my stupid whims, y’know?)
Interesting. You can see that although Waver grew out his hair, there’s two layers to it – the longer one in the front and the shorter one in the back. (I’m just curious because I like the hime cut – which is pretty similar - and long hair on dudes in general, in part because both are fairly rare.)
Okay, that explained my gripe with upside-down Waver. Thanks, Reines. (<-genuine)
Aw, Waver buddy, even at this stage, you’re plenty cute. Don’t ever change! (<- As you can see, I am an easily pleased person in most cases.)
Melvin who now???
Troyca’s comic animation rules! It’s too bad Idolish7 Second Beat is using chibis instead of this…
Professor Kayneth. I forgot he had a formal title. I wonder, does Waver - I mean, El-Melloi II – have that title as well?
I guess I should’ve known Saber had the capability to look scary, but…I never knew Saber could look so scary…
*cut to eyecatch* - *points at eyecatch* Okay, someone tried to save budget here, didn’t they???
Aw, friendship between fiction boys is cute…until it involves the puking up on blood on one end.
Waver is the OG underdog here…don’tcha think?
“…with several demands.” – Uh-oh…this is gonna be bad, isn’t it?
You need a Tuner for Magic Crests? (…Like a tuning fork, but a person?) *brow raised in suspicion*
…is it appropriate for me to say “Oh, good lord!” now? (Okay, I did that rather deliberately, but normally in these notes I’d self-censor it to be “oh, goodness” or something like that.)
Seriously, the black-haired dude in the Ionian Hetairoi is my favourite, even if only because he looks like Waver (and he’s really easy to spot, to boot).
Why is this in first person??? I’ve dropped entire shows based on their usage of 1st person cam! Room Mate and Makura no Danshi basically scarred me for life on that front…and both of those are TV shorts!
Hey, wait a second. This “use a quote on the titlecard” thing is clearly an Ei Aoki sort of thing to do. I mean, it’s in ID: Invaded as well…
Waver 2
*new blonde girl appears* - So this is the rumoured Animusphere girl (Mary), huh?
Bounded field, huh? I’m glad I chose to watch F/Z before this, then. Now I actually understand the (rough) mechanics of how that works.
There’s assassins and then there’s Assassins…*thinks about the Holy Grail War*
As it turns out, astromancy is basically astrology.
The one thing that bugs me about “Modern Magecraft” (there’s a similar concept of New Magic in Mairimashita! Iruma-kun) is…how is the magic “modern”…? Especially in a work like this, where the magic is based in arcane rituals and bloodlines…you really need to establish how the “modern” bit works.
Gray is facing away from the Animusphere girl (Mary), I noticed.
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes – Basically, the fact I’ve memorised this quote is one of the lingering impacts of my time in the Detective Conan fandom, as it can be used on things like quizzes, not just mysteries.
Can we please use proper English, Waver??? (Says me to a character whose name I still find nonsensical enough to not be proper English.) As I said previously, “whydunit” is modus operandi or motive…the new bit is “howdunit”, which would be the method.
I do believe the geocentric model was overthrown by people like Kepler.
Gray kind of looks like Saber with that hairstyle, come to think of it.
With the way Gray hides herself under that hood, it’s no mystery as to why guys love her…at least, I know ThatRandomEditor does. Of course, I’m heavily neutral on the whole affair because I don’t swing that way, but…you know…
LEMPC seems to stand for “Lord El-Melloi Production Committee”, if I’m guessing right.
I seem to remember there was a quote somewhere that said the only constant in this world was change…hmm.
Waver 3
They seem to keep calling Japan “the Far East” (or at least, Japan is part of the Far East). That’s a pretty antiquated term for a supposedly “modern” magic anime. I get vaguely peeved by the term “the Far East” because it causes people to take an oriental viewpoint on things and thus it’s kind of like people from the Anglosphere looking down on Asians. (I also get vaguely peeved by the term “Westerners” for much the same reason and “Caucasians” because it implies all people of the Anglosphere come from the Caucasus, which is false…then again, these niggles are specific to international studies, so I have a vested interest in explaining them.)
…Wow, that star-eyepatch girl is…really something, to be thirsty specifically for Waver’s Iron Claw. (Then again, with my weird tastes in things, who am I to critique her?)
Flitz von Erich. I was surprised to learn this guy actually exists…on Wikipedia, at the very least.
“Any lady should know about wrestling.” – I disagree, Luvia.
Blue furry electrical creature…I dunno how the zoology in this show works, but the fantasy series I’m reading as of the time I was typing this comment has a blue creature called a Raiju (literally “thunder beast” in Japanese, so it would suit the “Thunder” in the episode title). If it’s anything like that, I’d laugh myself silly.
This girl on the poster seems to be called Flan Noir (or something similar).
“…yellow, round, fluffy-smelling…” – What? Svin, you have no right to call a girl those words!
When is this series set if people don’t have phones as a standard? *Googles* Okay, if F/SN is set in 2004, then F/Z is 1994. That would make sense, actually. The internet as we know it was first used in 1995 and didn’t become widespread for home use until a few years later, as I remember having computers in 2004 (albeit the blocky ones with the dial-up).
I was looking at images for the source material and I think I know why I like Waver (aside from the fact he has long hair). Normally I like the boys whose appearances are hard to get right, such as En…Waver in the novels and manga for this series sometimes looks grumpy, sometimes he looks constipated and worst of all, sometimes he looks like Snape with a hook nose.
Okay, so I googled Caules to figure out who his sister was…and I got Apocrypha spoilers. See, his sister is Fiore, who is apparently in that series.
The videos got encoded funny again…
There seems to be a mystery around why Svin and Gray can’t be together…well, one deeper than just “Svin is gaga for Gray [for reasons we don’t know at this point in time]”.
Ha, the El-Melloi Class is basically just the Misfit Class from Mairimashita! Iruma-kun.
“Only the flesh was bitten off.”  
This Jupiter gibberish, I assume, is drawing upon the mythology of Jupiter – that is, Zeus – as the god of thunder and king of the gods (thus presiding over living beings).
The English is good on the bill, bar a space between “Mystics of magecraft”.
Norwich is apparently a “faculty” which the Modern Magecraft Theories guys – i.e. Waver – rule over.
Can you imagine Waver swearing? Since I had the volume off, I basically made him say “…if Sir Gueldoa had resorted to brute force, we would’ve been f***ed” in my head…and that was hilarious.
Aw, thanks 7Mononoke. “A cowardly thief sneaks away in the night. If you stride away, bursting with song, you are a conquering king.” That’s a quote from Rider himself.
So the Association has set positions for Masters in the War? Geesh…that must be hard on Waver to find out they’re closed, considering how much Waver pines for Rider.
Waver 4
I finally got the chance to listen to the ED last ep and now it’s the OP I can hear properly. This OP isn’t particularly impressive, considering it’s an instrumental (instrumentals always seem to have less impact for me unless I’m looking for something to chill to), but it does capture the London-esque spirit of the setting very well.
What’s up with this metal (?) maid off to the side, anyway?
“Good thinking to leave the door open…” – For some reason, even though it’s a completely different and much more benign context, this made me think of KyoAni and my heart sunk.  
Atrum Galliasta…I hate that man. He may look hot, but he was nothing but a b*stard to Medea.
Bolo ties…nrgh…Basically, ever since Arima wore a bolo tie, I’ve become fairly bugged by them. That’s why Bram’s bugs me.
Aw, Waver, buddy, plase don’t sacrifice yourself again. I read on the wiki you become a Servant’s vessel (specifically for Zhu Ge Liang), so keep your hopes up.
I’m seriously feeling ID: Invaded vibes from this episode, what with the lightning.
I suspect a locked room murder is going to happen soon, knowing the genre. Either that or some other crime.
Considering Fate/ was an eroge-based thing initially, these sex jokes…there’s probably plenty of them out there.
Well, it seems this series only makes sense in that non-Detective Conan way, i.e. you want to know how it all comes together and can’t necessarily figure it out for yourself until you know how the magic works. I’m randomly going to guess this is more Jupiter-based stuff and call it a day on that front.
Seriously, I never got what was up with nightgowns (or just pyjamas in general) having hats. You don’t need protection for your head at night…that’s what pillows are for, yeah? (The only reason I see a hat-like thing working with nightwear is a onesie and that’s meant to be part of the inherent appeal of the thing.)
Waver 5
I feel like Adashino is meant to be an Irene Adler-type figure…
“Peaceful Fairys” (sic)
Where did Kairi’s scar come from…?
The Black Dog was in Mahoutsukai no Yome as well, but this one looks a lot less inviting, huh?
It seems, like the name Rail Zeppelin implies (as “Demon Eyes Collection Train”), most of the people involved in this case have Magic Eyes (or whatever they’re actually called). I wouldn’t be surprised if Kairi had them as well, considering he’s wearing dark glasses in the middle of a thunderstorm.
“King Arthur is a dude, right?” - *laughs madly* They finally managed to parody their own bulls***! (Well, I’m not counting Carnival Phantasm or whatever else because this is the first time they threw a meta joke in there in the whole of this project, as far as I can remember.)  
Trimmau seems to be the maid’s name…huh. They never mentioned that earlier, I don’t think.
So what’s the difference between Fairy Eyes and Mystic Eyes?
Wait, does that even work…? The entire house is the murder weapon? That’s basically breaking the “secret passageway” thing on a larger scale.
So what’s Trevor’s motive…?
The dogs running towards the Workshop reminded me of the Hunger Games for some reason…must be the climax.
That fairy isn’t emoting much…
Oh cra-Wills is going to sacrifice himself, like Adashino was going to do! That’s the second time I’ve seen that in 2 days (the first was in the Hypnosis Mic manga about the Dirty Dawg).
Uh…Waver’s not particularly fit or fast, is he…?
Can you be paid for your case if your client is essentially dead…?
Adra? I read around and Adra seems to be a way to spell the location (or whatever it is) in the first case…which got adapted into a stage play, but not an anime. That’s probably what he’s (Waver) referring to.
Notably, the title is translated to “lance” but yari means spear…
Waver 6
I seriously wanna slap that pink-haired girl…Update: Her name is Yvette.
This is basically Gray fanservice…
If Gray = Saber and Saber =King Arthur…hmm…does it count as a girl’s party?
Homeland? Since Britain is Saber’s (aka Gray’s) home country, I think they meant “hometown”…I’d hav to listen to the Japanese to make sure, though.
I still think Waver is a stupid, or at the very least false, name for a boy, especially if he did come from Britain. That’s basically my one limitation on him as a husbando.
The red bit of the eyecatch was shapd like an eye…it did catch eyes in a sense, after all.
So Trimmau is sustained by magic.
Locked-room…or rather, bounded field…mystery time!
Luvia did mention wrestling in another episode…
I had to google that, but the Separation Castle is from the Adra case mentioned in episode 5. No wonder I don’t remember it…
“Are you suggesting there were faults…” (from Luvia) - Ooh, I was thinking the perpetrator was caught inside their own bounded field or maybe it was an outsider, but that works too, Reines.
Add calld Luvia out for her extravagance, LOL.
Catch-as-catch-can appears to be “no-holds-barred fighting”, particularly wrestling.
That case was both informative and possibly solveable by the audience. Both good qualities for a mystery.
If you summon the spirit again, is it the same Rider with the same memories? Or can you summon a different version of the same Rider with amnesia, much like Rin did with Archer? Update: Oh yeah, I did read this on the wiki at one point but then forgot about it. The next episode (7) confirms that Rider wouldn’t remember Waver if he were summoned again.
Waver 7
…C’mon, admit it, show. The glasses are not only there for plot reasons but to up Waver’s status as megane boy for the rest of this case. Not that I mind – I actually really like megane boys, but I’m nowhere near the love of Meganebu – but in the case of plausibility, I wanna poke holes into it.
Auction for which Mystic Eyes now…?
There’s a guy…with an elephant head…I know I shouldn’t be bugged by it, but I need the MST3K mantra right now.
This is gonna be a Murder on the Orient Express thing, isn’t it? All cases set on trains seem to take cues or make homage to it. (I may not be that proficient on Christie in comparison to Holmes, since Holmes was Conan’s inspiration, but Murder on the Orient Express I have read and I did secure an anthology of 4 Christie novels at one point specifically so that I could improve in this area.)
The main series never explained the bad blood between the Church and the Tower, did they…?
*sweatdrop* Let me guess…when Yvette mentions “multiplay”, she means a threesome, right?
How do anime people see out of those blindfold thing, anyway??? (Or is it that Leandra has Mystic Eyes that were sold off or otherwise tampered with?)
I believe the word is “palate”, Kairi (or subbers).
Anime characters being bagworms with their blankets is always appealing, no matter the gender. It’s funny and/or relatable, after all.
Does Gray get motion sickness…? Update: Seems I spoke about a minute too soon. She does.
Waver 8
How does Waver know that Adashino got the documents about the train? Is it because she was in all those places at all those times and he connected the dots?
This lady has heterochromia. Specifically, one is brown and the other is blue or green.
Hmm? I thought the character design was familiar for this. As it turns out, Jun Nakai (who did the character design for this) also did Gate’s, which explains it.
Dionysus is the Greek god of wine, IIRC. Hephaestion is, as (s)he explained, the confidante of Alexander the Great (had to google this one).
It’s hard to see before the brightly-lit scene where Olga reappears, but as shown, Waver seems to have cut off part of his forelocks on the left side.
What’s an Odo???...ooh, fanservice…*ogles*
The summoning of Hephaestion and Trisha’s murder may or may not be related…we just don’t know how, yet.
I think a Detective Conan Murder on the Orient Express-style mystery would be a good video ga-*googles* There’s at least one of them out there already (albeit only in Japan)...namely, this one. Spoke too soon.
Oh yeah…this is Olga’s new room, isn’t it? I almost forgot about that.
Update: I think this look at the Adra Separation Castle case is interesting. It’s similar to posts I would write, but done by a professional – namely Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku and Anime News Network.
Waver 9
So if there’s a Servant…you have to find the Master.
Olga reminds me of Reines…kind of.
LOL, whoever thought of a zombie cooking show…?
This series really goes all-in on the zombies and the fake-outs thereof, huh? Dangit, Melvin, don’t scare us.
Melvin has a really odd relationship with Waver, huh? If you’re really insisting you’re “the only person to ever be able to hurt Waver”, I don’t quite see how you guys can be friends in the normal sense of the word.
Why would someone have a violin at a time like this…?
Interestingly, they don’t bother to do any fanservice of Caules. That scene with Gray and Yvette was fanservice for those who like them, but the only guy who’s getting to do any fanservice in this series is Waver himself…(what with him being naked and knocked out right now.)
“Sibyl” seems to be a synonym for “virgin”…(*whispers “Awkward…”*)
Update: After reading some of Marth’s posts on this series, I’m inclined to call this “Murders on a Train (with an Exploding Helicopter for Good Measure)”.
Waver 10
For some reason, there’s episode 0 – 9, then 11 – 13 on the service I’m using. Where’s 10?
I think Waver’s relationship with Rider is interesting because of the way I think of relationships myself. Waver has made it clear that he wants to see Rider again so he can basically prostrate at his feet all over again (and maybe win a wish and/or see Oceanus while they’re at it), but – hey, hear this! - I used to believe, when I was still an impressionable kid, all relationships, whether they be between friends, family or even lovers, lasted roughly in the same state basically forever (as in, friends stay friends forever, they’ll never be so far apart that they can’t kep their relationship alive etc. etc.)…Obviously, I was wrong and arguably, this change in thinking, plus the related changes in technology, are where my ability to fleetingly but passionate love both 2D boys and the series they come from comes from.
Wait, so the Child of Einasshe (sp?) is the forest, yeah? I don’t think I got that 100% straight.
I never thought the shield form of a Mystic Code could be used for snowboarding down a mountain/hill…whatever Gray just went down. I didn’t even know Add had a shield form, for that matter.
“[U]sual individual” – LOL. What a way to refer to Waver.
“Wait a minute!” – I’m just imagining Phoenix Wright all of a sudden. A Waver legal mystery series would be boring as all get out – I’m far less interested in the courtroom versions of mysteries and more interested in how the pieces fit together. (Update: Then again, I am a person who likes the action genre and courtroom mysteries don’t have much of that, which might also explain my choice.)
“…lacking the element of motive to begin with.” – Well, Waver’s not wrong…
I’m observing this apple and noticing someone skimped on the detail around the stem. Does anyone still remember Art Academy for the DS? After looking at some promo material for it, I basically learnt how to draw a proper apple (and nothing else, really). If an apple is just drawn as a circle, it doesn’t quite look like an apple up close. (Two of the main things I screw up on when drawing are perception and the colour of highlights, both of which are covered in something like an apple stem and the related indent.)
Oh goodness…I was hoping Karabo would keep his vision (or actual eyeballs)…but that’s gruesome.
I’m guessing, based on the wheelchair, that Waver’s still paralysed or otherwise not able to move around like normal. Update: Spoke too soon.
Someone encoded the video funny again…
Waver 11
What was that crossword thing…? A warding spell of some sort?
Is that an owl in the back?!
Stealth fighter…Rider wanted on, didn’t he?
Every time he appears on screen now, I basically curse Melvin. He’s entertaining to watch, sure, but he’s annoyingly prodigal (= wasteful). He’s basically Dice from HypMic at this stage (aka he’s the sort of person who’d bet away his own clothes, given the chance and incentive).
Look at the way Waver’s hair drags behind him as he walks…it’s gorgeous…
“Residual Image” (as translated in the title) is literally “the left-over image” (zanzou). Not surprising, but I find the exact combo of characters used interesting since it could be short for “nokoru eizou” (where the nokoru’s character is read as zan in the combo, as you can guess).    
Waver 12
Wow…this series really pulled something out of its butt this time, huh? “The guy without a heart”…no viewer would’ve known that actually referred to a character called Dr Heartless unless they knew of his existence somehow (the closest they would’ve been was having an inkling that this pointed to a name of the culprit).
There is an owl in the back of the auction room!
Ay? So what the heck is Pandemonium in this case?
“dotard” – Turns out this means “an old person, especially one who has become physically weak or whose mental faculties have declined.” You can’t say I don’t enrich my vocbulary through watching anime, huh?
I’m still wondering…why adapt case 7 of this series (Rail Zeppelin)? Why not case 1 (Adra)? Update: I don’t know where I pulled the number 7 from, since this is volume 4 – 5 of the series. Apparently some of the cases were anime-original though.
Waver 13 (FINAL)
Oh, Flat, you stupid…
Waver’s exasperated faces are great. No wonder Reines likes to toy with him…
I can assume Rail Zeppelin is a Ghost Liner, yes?
Can I guess that Adashino ~likes~ Waver…? Update: Turns out that’s not quite the case.
Ooh, Waver without his shirt is se-okay, I’m getting distracted. Seriously though, Waver never showed his Crest in F/Z. I never even knew what it looked like until now! The fact it’s such a simple design in comparison to his Command Seals is…kinda underwhelming, really.
I think there’s a bit of a pattern between Jakurai (from HypMic) and Waver…namely, they suck when it comes to drinking. (Also, of course, the long hair. Don’t forget it, never forget it.)
Shut up, Add!
For some reason, I felt like a lot of that last part, while getting closure for Waver, it almost had connotations of “I’ll meet you on the other side, Rider”…so it felt kind of sad, to be honest. That talk between Reines and Olga I don’t think I’d understand without Apocrypha and Grand Order, but I guess that’s to be expected in such a huge franchise. Anyways, moving right along!
Illya 1
I’ve been a bit worried about what I’ll have to subject myself to for the sake of Magical Girls…
Was that…Taiga?
Who’s Liz…?
Okusama, huh? (Okusama = someone’s wife, although it seems to be used in the plural here since I don’t think Kiritsugu and/or Iri are dead in this timeline.)
The subs I’ve got say Shiro is adopted here too (when it’s not in the Japanese), although I wonder exactly how much of UBW is going to be true in this anime…
Hmm…a bit of digging reveals Luvia’s not a Master. So throwing out Lancer is really just a joke on how Lancer gets roasted early on in Grail Wars, right?
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh…squick, much…(Thank goodness the source I was using edited out the loli fanservice, so I can tolerate this series a lot more…but still, suggesting you have a romance with your step-brother, even if it’s known you’re not related from the beginning, is…you already know my feelings on that, based on my reaction. Shiro is, what, 15? About twice Illya’s age!) Update: Okay, so he has no confirmed age in Prisma Illya, but he’s 17 in F/SN so I’d assum the same or similar, seeing as he attends the same school. It’s fine if it’s platonic, but this is clearly an Onii-chan, daisuki! thing the likes of which Oreimo throws down! Thank you for calling it out though, Ruby.
Oh my gosh, this looks like the Rhongomynaid (Detective Waver) and Excalibur (or whatever Saber’s Noble Phantasm is called) summoning beam! LOL!
Ruby, you lech! Don’t go praising the angles! *shakes fist* (Seriously, what if magical girl mascots were paedophiles…? *blank face* Welp, considering what’s out there on the internet, I wouldn’t be surprised if a hentai or something had such a concept.)
Hmm? Turns out the word for Servant means something like “celestial hero”. Makes sense.
Nice callback to Saber and Shiro!
Illya 2
I thought Illya would say that her parents are dead…turns out the show’s not that grimdark (to the point where it wouldn’t set the show after Kiritsugu and Iri’s deaths), huh?
Do the sticks have a gender? The subs said “she” for Ruby…
LOL, it’s Rider. I thought Lancer was gonna get his butt kicked all over again (thinking more along the lines of CCS).
It’s Gay Bul-I mean, Gae Bolg! (I’ve been reading TV Tropes again…can you tell?)
This episode was pretty pedestrian. I like it more than the first one.
What’s up with the CGI…?
Oh! Bunbun, who does Yuki Yuna! Update: They only did the illustrations for some of the series. They also did SAO illustrations, although that’s of less significance to me.
Illya 3
The sticks do have genders!!! That’s like claiming Jesus for kakera with Mudae! (Yes, that’s possible. I got him in one server.)
The power of fujoshi…is amazing! How did it get to a girl who’s so young?!
These angles are a bit disturbing…
“Casao”, LOL.
Magical girl nakama, huh?
Illya 4
MST3K mantra!
Whose quote is that again…? “Don’t think, imagine”? Update: It turns out to not be anyone’s quote at all, if Google results are to be believed.
Uh-oh! Saber Alter!
Illya 5
Padding the episode already…?
The mist is a quality of a Berserker, right?
Geez the angles piss me off…
These sticks have brains???
Can you call it teamwork if they’re always complaining about each other?
Illya 6
More padding…
Illya’s UBW!
Geesh, that last-minute shot of Rin and Luvia popping out of the ground scared me for a bit…
Illya 7
*sigh* It’s the sick episode…
I recognise the vacuum cleaner. I have the same one at home.
*sigh* Random fanservice of elementary school girls. This is what gives anime a bad name.
*Sapphire pulls out a USB port* - Ohhkay, is that stick fanservice, in a sense…? Because that’s awkward too.
Maids went out of fashion years ago…
“Lyrical Radical Genocide” - I think this Lyrical Radical things is parodying Nanoha.
Based on the cloak, it’s an Assassin.
“Listen, if you aren’t careful, you’ll die!” – Yep, because people die when they are killed. I almost missed that meme for a bit.
Illya 8
Illya’s still reeling from Miyu’s talk, huh?
I noticed it said tomoda(chi) in the background at one point.
Does Miyu exist in any of the alternate universes?
Ah, there’s yuujou (friendship) in the background as calligraphy.
I think the video got encoded funny again…
Geez, complaining about boobs? The series got worse…oh, I forgot Shiro was around in this series.
…who’s left? There’s been Saber, Archer, Lancer, Assassin, Rider, Caster and…who? Berserker, that’s who.
Illya 9
Ohhhhhhhh brother, not more bath scenes…
Iri looks almost exactly like she does in the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms! (I found those around and watched them today.)
Thank goodness the fanservice is censored…
I never realised Berseker had heterochromia until now…
One thing that I assume makes Saber’s outfit look nice to thos that like girls is the window in the top…but it goes to waste on Miyu, LOL.
I find it interesting Illya has all these concerns – the ones (or similar ones) Iri harbourd in F/Z.
Hey, the bridge! This is the bridge where Rider dies inn F/Z, yeah?
The ED looks different this time…  
Illya 10 (FINAL)
E-Eep…loli fanservice…
Now Miyu is basically what Waver is to Rider, no doubt about it.
Bulls***! Speak of the devil! I was wondering what Waver looked like in the Illya style, because I read on the wiki he makes a cameo in season 2, and…here he is. Didn’t expect him in season 1, though.
Another new ED animation. I find it interesting they’ve never once had to recast any VAs throughout the entire existence of Fate/ anime…not that I know of, anyway.
Hiroyama Hiroshi is the original Illya creator.
Okay, that’s the end of one season. I feel kind of fatigued since I finished the Eiznbern Consultation Rooms today as well, so I’m going to take a break from watching more Illya until it’s necessary to watch again in a few posts’ time.
Now that they’ve collected the cards, I’m wondering what the series intends to do next…
Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 1
They clearly skimped on the budget when Shiro was leaving the house…
I keep forgetting Illya is meant to be German…
That bad English…is actually there in the ep. title…
Oh great…schoolgirls talking about erotic swimsuits…
This s*** is what you call “Class-S”! I have no interest in it, because I don’t swing that way! (Sorry, yuri fans…)
The problem with series that aren’t 100% made with you in mind is that your favourite characters might look ugly…that’s especially the case with En, Jakurai and Waver.
Ryudou Temple, eh? Let’s hope Assassin still looks good.
I don’t think I’ve seen that before…namely, being able to hear what’s going on outside the transformation while it’s happening.
Now this 2 Illyas thing…this is new, alright.
Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 2
LOL, what a horoscope.
Truck-kun! I don’t think Illya would make a good isekai protag, come to think of it.
Who is this nurse? I feel like she’s from some other part of the Nasuverse… Update: My guess was right. That’s Caren Hortensia, protagonist of Fate/hollow ataraxia and Kirei’s…uh, daughter. I know he had a wife. We never met said wife, but seeing the daughter really drove that fact home.  
Uhhhhhhhh…okay, now the lesbian loli scene just made things go off a cliff for me. I’m not against lesbians or yuri – to each their own – but that scene was clearly meant to be pleasing to a certain audience.
How does anyone kill anything gently…?
Ohhhhhhkay, strike 2 for loli fanservice.
I seem to remember…that’s right, Alice from the [something] no Kuni no Alice series was evaluated on her coffee-making skills (by Julius, I think it was). That’s why I’m thinking of Alice when I see Luvia praising Miyu on something similar.
Wa-hey! It’s Rin’s Azoth dagger!
Well, the mechanics of the transformation are also something you have to think about. I’ll give the show kudos for that.  
Illya s2 Pt 1 Ep 3
Can we not with the whole “Onii-chan, daisuki!” thing?! That’s it! That’s the last straw! I’m finishing this episode and aborting early so that I can preserve my dignity…and get some proper sleep for once.
The fact Miyu thinks Shiro resembles her brother must not be a coincidence…(I’ve become far too Fate/ savvy, haven’t I?) Update: It seems I was right. Apparently, Miyu was taken in by Kiritsugu in a certain universe, but apparently this is a bunch of spoilers.
Genki na aisatsu was in the back.
This is just getting worse and worse…
So now Kuro’s name is Kuroe (Chloe), huh? Anyways, good riddance, loli fanservice! So long! I won’t miss you one bit!
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mittensmorgul · 5 years
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So I’m still out ahead of the TNT loop, but I think 13.08 aired today for everyone still chained to the broadcast schedule. But I want everyone to pay attention to it, and then continue thinking about it while watching 13.15.
Remember back in s13, when people were like... why do we need TWO episodes about heists like this in one season? Well, I’m gonna venture to say that these were two thematically similar episodes that escalated the concept in a very specific way. And post 14.20, they are rather instructive of the largest narrative arc-- the overarching spiral of the entire story.
I’d first venture to say that these episodes are two similar yet distinctly different genres: the Heist and the Noir. 13.08 is Oceans 11, and 14.15 is The Maltese Falcon. And we wrote loads of meta on this back during s13.
But post 14.20, both of these episodes look like the Big Picture Narrative Spiral in microcosm, at two different levels. And therein lies their fundamental similarity.
1. Sam and Dean are baited into the scenario with something they want and need:
-in 13.08 it’s the spell to locate a nephilim -in 13.15 it’s the blood of a most holy man
2. The thing they want is dangled in front of them by someone who recruits them to do a different job for them in exchange for the thing they want/need:
-in 13.08 it’s to steal a chest from a vault protected by a lock that only Dean can open because he was resurrected after serving time in Hell after making a demon deal in exchange for Sam’s life (as Shrike had done in exchange for his son) -in 13.15 it’s a larger series of machinations all going back to a stolen holy relic
3. The motives of the person sending them on this quest are hidden from them at first:
-in 13.08 they’re of course suspicious of the entire deal because Crowley-cosplaying demon wants something from them, and of course they’re wary -in 13.15, they initially have no reason to doubt Greenstreet’s offer for a trade for a specific relic that he sends them off on a wild goose chase for
4. Their quest for The MacGuffin in each of these episodes leads them to uncover layer upon layer of machinations and deceptions, and in the end the motives of the people they’re theoretically working for are finally uncovered to be personal greed:
-in 13.08, the motive was Barthamus retrieving his bones, which Shrike held hostage in exchange for the cancellation of the demon deal he’d made-- because Barthamus had failed to live up to the spirit of the bargain (i.e. Shrikes son he sold his soul for died anyway, even before the expiration of his 10 year contract, cheating him out of what he paid for, effectively) -in 13.15, it’s a bit more complicated, because Sam and Dean are drawn through this intricate web of setups needed to gather ALL of these people so their original “in” on the case could maliciously essentially have all of them murdered to secure sole claim to this holy relic-- just to be able to be the one who owns it.
5. During the course of the episode, Sam and Dean discover something about one of the people they’re working alongside has been motivated to be there against their will, or not by their own free choice:
-in 13.08 it’s Alice “Snatch”, who feels compelled to continue working for Barthamus so he won’t cash in on her demon deal that she now wishes she could take back... what’s become of her life because of that bad choice turns out not to have been worth it in the present -in 13.15 it’s Father Camilleri, who had been the entrusted keeper of the relic that Greenstreet greedily wanted for himself, which was stolen from its place of veneration by his congregation, his people who had put their faith in their sacred duty to preserve it for their entire community.
6. In the end, it comes down to a heroic act by said person, made of their own free will:
-in 13.08, it’s Alice choosing to free herself from barthamus by burning his bones -in 13.15 it’s Father Camilleri literally taking a bullet for them
7. One turns out to be a huge loss, while the other a surprising gain:
-in 13.08, Alice freeing herself from the demon inadvertently burns up the other half of the spell he’d promised to Sam and Dean, rendering their entire mission effectively pointless-- except Alice does free herself and another demon is removed from the playing field... but Sam and Dean are still left without hope on their specific mission to find Jack -in 13.15, All the Bad Guys plotting and scheming to buy/steal the relic end up either dead or likely to be imprisoned, and the relic is returned to its rightful place with Father Camilleri. It looks like Sam and Dean are at another dead end for their personal quest, but because they chose to give up their quest in order to do the right thing by Camilleri and his congregation, they learn that the man himself has been accorded the title “A Most Holy Man” by the pope himself, and readily gives them the blood they’d been seeking the entire time. Twist and Win.
One is a deal with hell, the other a deal with heaven. One ends up a loss, the other appears to be a win. But what does this win actually mean at the end of the day? What does this piece in the puzzle that will help them unlock the doorway to another world provide them?
(I was about to watch 13.16 when I stopped to type this, and it’s a beautiful little detour through Cas’s mission to secure the Fruit of the Tree of Life and his “marriage” to the queen of the djinn, and there’s our “false reality” connection as plain as they can make it, while they’re trapped in a literal cartoon for most of the episode... but I’m gonna skip the rest of these “tricks,” even including Gabriel having tricked everyone and Asmodeus having tricked them all, because that entire circle of plot burns itself down in a matter of episodes, too... although I realize I could also include 13.20 in this comparison of 13.08 and 13.15, because it also fits all of these themes aptly, from a third narrative genre-- the Revenge Quest of Kill Bill, based on spaghetti westerns and martial arts films, wherein they agree to help Gabriel get his revenge in exchange for his help opening the rift-- this is the same story over and over again, told through three different narrative lenses, each with a slightly different outcome bringing them all ever closer to what they think, what they hope is finally the outcome they wanted all along... and yet... just as they secure their ultimate win, another wrench is thrown into their plans, which brings me to...)
13.23: Everyone is saved, life begins to seem like it’s returning to normal. TFW 2.0 is happily hunting together, and even talking about being able to take time off and finally get that beach vacation. I think this is the magical phrase that summons Cosmic Wrenches. Those wrenches come flying through the rift to screw them over in the form of Lucifer and Michael. And the Narrative Loop loops again.
But after 14.20, this is exactly what Chuck has been doing to them since the start. All of it. It’s all clearly encapsulated in these episodes. Even when they believe they’re acting of their own free will, their choices and actions have very little bearing on the effectiveness of their own plans. There could never be a true win for them as long as the Cosmic Wrenches continued flying, and we learned in 14.20 that Chuck never intended to stop throwing them.
Because he’s entertained watching them scramble to catch wrenches.
So here, have the takeaway from 13.15 to sum up this futility:
Dean: What? Come on. I know that look. What's on your mind? Sam: I don't know. Nothing. I mean -- I mean, you know... You ever feel like we're -- we're doing nothing but playing defense? You know, bouncing from one apocalypse to the next? Dean: Well, it's not exactly our call. Sam: I know that, and I'm not saying we don't do good. But -- but no matter how many people we save, there will always be more people that need saving. No matter how many monsters we kill-- Dean: There's always gonna be another one around the corner. Sam: Exactly. Dean: Mm-hmm. Sam: You think we could ever change things? I mean, really change things? You know, stop all the monsters, all the bad? Dean: That would be nice. Sam: Yeah. So what are you thinkin'? Think that'll work? Dean: I have faith.
Turns out they don’t need to stop “all the monsters.” They just need to stop the one wielding all the wrenches aimed directly at them.
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