#obviously there are lots of other factors but a loyal fanbase and seeing how many people love it can definitely help

[blackleopardgirl]

  Out of all the Italians who make rap music specifically, Rondo is the only one that I see that has a very consistent and loyal fanbase. I think much of this is due to MANY factors, number 1, Mattia has a FACE! Without the small face tattoos, and body tattoos and braids and twists that he gets, he is VERY ATTRACTIVE, and this doesn’t just help with women it helps with men as well, whether they want to admit that or not. I'm sure if every rapper was attractive and physically fit they’d Stan them too. 

  Number 2, Rondo at his core is into original drill music from Chicago, and has spent a lot of time listening to American rappers and people in Europe obviously are trying to adopt to the American rap aesthetic or look, but often fail to do so because they are living in Europe, not America. Influences can only go so far. Rondo sets himself apart a lot from the other European artists who make rap because he is able to embody a lot of the American style while in his music and through his clothes. 

  Number 3, call me crazy, but yes Rondo is a white Italian man, but 90 percent of the people he’s friends with, the people in the industry he works with are either African Italians (from either Nigeria or Senegal) or they’re Middle Eastern from Morocco. This helps because I notice not only a lot of Italians and white Italians liking him, but middle eastern and African fans like him a lot as well. So his fan base has grown in that regard. He also seems to really embrace other cultures very well, and again, people on the internet see that and want to like him. I think its natural to want to like someone that we also see is so open and accepting, if you will. 

  Number 4, he is controversial, but not in a disrespectful way. He is only controversial in the fighting other men way, and in his lyrics when he’s talking about how he’s better than other artists and then you look at their numbers, and it does seem like he’s better than them. 

Number 5, Rondo out of all the ITALIAN rappers, seems to be the most down to earth. He’s the only one that works to open programs for less fortunate kids, he visits terminally ill children in hospitals, he creates and donates baskets for families in poverty during the winter, and he gives back during Ramadan at a mosque near him. 

[krenbotvt]

What The Fans Of (Almost) Every Scarecrow Design Are Like Just by Surveying Rogue Tumblr for Approx: 5 Months. (Not in any particular order. Also this is a meme.)

Year One: You probably needed a childhood to relate to/needed a justifiable reason to stan one of Gotham’s biggest criminals. (but if your childhood involves being half-eaten by crows i am VERY concerned)  BTAS: The gateway drug Scarecrow. You’re probably a gremlin, and also really like the Dork Squad(tm)  TNBA: He’s under-appreciated, and you know this very well, but you’re also thankful that you get some of the coolest artwork of your favorite spooky boy. (Also the voice. 11/10 you want him to read sleepy hollow to you.) TAOB: You are one of the only 3 living fans of Adventures Of Batman Scarecrow, but you give absolutely no shit. You love that uncanny valley, near on clown-like scarecrow, and i feel bad for you, because you’ll probably never get art of them. Super Friends: I...Wow. Y’all really do exist... Galactic Guardians: YOU GUYS ACTUALLY EXIST TOO??? BATB: JAZZY. You like his hat, and his voice. You also probably enjoy a lot of older scarecrow designs as well. You get sad because you wish there were more content.  The Batman (TV series): PFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (But seriously though, you poor, poor things...There, There...) Assault On Arkham: AA Scarecrow in an otherwise good movie. Basically, you’re sad he didn’t get more screen-time. At this point, just stan: Arkham Asylum: ABSOLUTE GOBLIN OF A HUMAN. One of the gateway drug Scarecrows that lead you to The Rogues fanbase in the first place. You either love the serious artwork of him, love him drawn/written as a gremlin, or are STILL offended by his lack of footwear. Either way, you adore him and will remind everyone of it. Arkham Knight: OH FUCKING BOY. This can go one of two ways. 1.You love his writing (or don’t, but still stan), his poetic dialogue and his voice, and you also love how much he hams up the fear factor. You probably adore every artwork of him you see, and you REALLY love reading any fan-written material of him. You have many headcanons, and probably have googled A LOT of stuff to make them more genuine.  Or 2. You are very, VERY horny... (But as a good friend once said, “these are not mutually exclusive.”) Nightwing And Robin: Aw, y’all are so cute! Here, have some tea with the SF AND GG Fans, I think they have Earl Grey over in the CORNER OF IRRELEVANCY. (But I feel bad for y’all too.) Unlimited: BEEF BOY. You’re either in the group of people that love Scarecrow designs that use scythes, or you like how strange, yet fun his appearance is. Most art of him is super colorful too. There aren’t very many of you, but the amount of you that I’ve seen seem like super cool people. You all probably also enjoy the next one: Batman/TMNT: You knew the movie was a wild ride from start to finish, but you love it. You probably also like birds (I know, really obvious.) There aren’t many of you, but you like the idea of a corvid-like Scarecrow, and you wish for more. Or...You may be a furry that also likes DC stuff, and that’s ok too! We too also oddly love that weird ass cobra joker anyways.  Salecrow: You love his rhyming (which is arguably the best thing about him), but are also annoyed by the fact that most content of him use the same 3 images every time. You’re probably in the same boat as all the other scarecrow fans that genuinely want a proper medieval themed version of him. If you write/draw him, you’ve googled endless nursery rhymes. Its like Dr.Seuss up in this bitch. Also, them hands. Blackest Night: Chances are you’re still amazed that your favorite bag-headed master of fear even HAS that thing. You REALLY want him to wear that damn ring again, and will probably pay an arm and a leg to see it happen in a form of animated media. You also have very interesting artwork/writings of him. And your head canons are outlandish, but in the most fun way. (Seriously though, Hatter with a ring, huh...) Injustice: You either love the concept of The ScareBeast, or you’re here for the fact that hes voice by FREAKING ROBERT ENGLUND. Admittedly, you probably aren’t all too good at fighting games, but you still insta-lock him despite that.  The Dark Knight: Cillian Murphy portrays the character rather well, but you either are unnerved by his strangely dreamboyish face, or would wish for a slightly older actor. But!!! Despite all that!!! You love him, and probably still quote “WaNnA sEe My MaSK???” (Although I see some of you get absolutely tired of that lol) I don’t see any loyal fans of him, but everyone seems to agree that he’s not too shabby (heheh... shabby...) Gotham (Tv Series): ...Hello? Where are you guys? I KNOW you exist! Show yourselves! Jokes aside, you either love him or hate him. Live action scarecrows seem to be a hit or miss for some.  Harley Quinn (Tv Series): Softies. You adore everything about him. His dialogue, his humor, his very surprising accent, and his, albeit a stretch, questionable sexuality implications. Most art of him is very wholesome and good, probably because you’re STILL not over...Well... Maybe its better if I not mention it (all fans of him are the “If I see anything happen to them I’ll kill everyone in this room and then myself” meme.). Detective Comics: Hroo Hraa, my friends. Hroo Hraa. Whether it’s his “Queer grasshopper leaps” or his strange laughter onomatopoeia, you can’t get enough of his antics. Nothing beats a classic, and the fact that there are still many of you that are fans of him makes me smile. New 52/Prime Earth: One of the few scarecrows that greatly changes his childhood, but you welcome the idea of it. He’s a very unsettling looking guy, but you’ll remind everyone that his writing makes up for it. He’s mostly treated like a semi-C tier villain in the continuity, but every time you see him you’re like “!!!!!!!”.You most likely have a list of every issue he appears in so you don’t have to suffer, and your heart still breaks when you read the scene with him and that one girl. (He said he was sorry, guys.) Batman:Hush: 2 and a half sweet and savory minutes of this guy, only for him to get kicked in the face? Nay, Nay, you say! A crime, you holler! You go to your keyboard to tell your friend about how good his character design is, and how well animated he was, but alas they say “that’s nice, bud.” Blast it all... The Lego Batman Movie/Lego in general: Our boy at his most gremlin. Sure, you know this is a 99% children’s medium, but that doesn’t stop you from smiling like a dummy every time you see him. He’s funny, he’s delightful, and he has... a weird obsession with planes? What is it with them and putting him in planes? Maybe he got a pilot’s license before he attended university? What a smart little block person!  Obviously, I left out quite a few here, but these seem to be the most popular. There are SO many comic renditions of him, so It’d take my forever. (My poor fingies already hurt!) But please enjoy this silly little thing :’] 

#tube says something #scarecrow #jonathan crane #gotham rogues

[hlupdate]

Louis’ Interview with 1883 Magazine

Everybody knows One Direction - the band which was formed through The X-Factor in 2010 and went on to become the world’s biggest and most acclaimed boy band. Sold out tours, millions of international fans, and high-charting albums - Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson created history.

However, in 2016 it was announced that One Direction will be on hiatus until further notice, which then led to each member launching their solo careers. Yet, they maintained strong from their loyal fanbase throughout the break-up and their individual journeys. 1883 Magazine sat down with Louis Tomlinson, the member who always saw himself as the outcast of the band - even though his fanbase is growing as strong as ever! 

Having released collaborative singles with the likes of Steve Aoki and Bebe Rexha to being on the judging panel of The X-Factor - ever single laughing his solo career, Louis has been actively working on being the greatest version of himself to date. The past three years he has spent a lot of time in the studio working on his debut album, and recently released a taste of what we can expect from it sound-wise - his brand new single ‘Two of Us’ is a beautiful yet heartbreaking ode to his late mother and represents Louis’s unique, raw style of songwriting. During our interview at Beach Blanket Babylon in London’s Notting Hill, he spoke more about the meaning behind the single, a One Direction reunion tour and being robbed in LA.

Interviewer: I’ve had a listen to your brand new single ‘Two of Us’. What a heartfelt song about your mum! It must have been so emotional to write it.

Louis: I’ll be honest, I kinda needed to get this song off my chest really and I knew going into these sessions and writing about different things I knew I wouldn’t feel complete. So I got it off my chest. But I wasn’t ready to write that song because in my head I wanted to be four, five years into my songwriting because it is such an important song to me. Then a few writers got in touch and I went to a session with them and told them my idea, and straight away it felt perfect. I haven’t felt the confidence to write this song by myself from scratch but they gave me the confidence I needed. And then the next hours we delved into it, changed things and now the end result is something I am really proud of. 

I: So you were only able to do it alongside the other songwriters? 

L: Yeah, they heard the song and asked what had happened. It just made so much sense with them. It evolved and I told them the background story. And then it just kind of came together and I managed to deliver the message that I wanted to deliver. I don’t want people to be exhausted after listening to it, I don’t want people to feel weighed down. I want them to be hopeful, just like the collaborative song I did with Steve Aoki. Just getting that message across felt really liberating.

I: I really like the song; I think you delivered the message very well. Generally, do you prefer writing alone or with other songwriters? 

L: Both, really. Obviously, sometimes on my own but I think where I’m at, in terms of my songwriting stage, I don’t consider myself as a proper professional yet. When I’m in these circles, it helps to be around that experience. 

I: Why don’t you see yourself as a professional?

L: Because as a songwriter I am quite unique, some of these pop sessions have more structure and I am less precise in my writing. I like to not have too many limitations of what a song should be, do you know what I mean? Especially a song like ‘Two of Us’, which is biographical.

I: Do you ever have to deal with any overly obsessive fans, as in groupies?

L: I mean, there are fans everywhere I go. But you kind of start recognizing faces. In London, for example ,there are about 20 individuals who are always somehow there when I’m doing something. And they don’t know how much confidence that gives me. Like, when I do a TV show - and I’m scared of that - and the minute I see a familiar face of my fans, I feel like what I do is important. My side stuff felt like a leap of faith to me and it’s all driven by the belief of the fans who keep me going.

I: So without fans, you wouldn’t have done a solo career?

L: Oh, no! When I was in the band, everything went so amazingly. It’s very hard to have a relative way of an example of where you stand in the industry. So the fans constantly gave me reinforcement. 

I: If there hadn’t been that incredible support, where would you have seen yourself after the band’s hiatus decision?

L: In my head, I would have just gotten better at songwriting, and write for other people. I hadn’t given it too much thought because us as a band didn’t have too much time to think about what we were going to do. But honestly, it sounds so generic, I wouldn't have had confidence without my fans. Now I feel empowered and it’s giving me strength. You find yourself in these do-or-die situations, and it’s been amazing so far.

I: do you think there’ll be an end to One Direction’s hiatus? Like a reunion tour or something else?

L: There’s gotta be! One hundred perfect. As far as I’m concerned, we are all good at doing our individual stuff right now and it’s great for yourself as an individual but the day we do get back together will be a magical day for all of us. I think everyone is in the same boat when it comes to this; it’s inevitable and the question is just when are we going to do it. Now that we are on this break, I can look back and say it was massive but looking from the other side you can see the influence and important. That’s really cool, just seeing our positive influence. we were such a powerhouse. It’s a no-brainer, I’m the first to sign the sheets to get back together. 

I: Let’s hope so! Do you still keep in touch with the others?

L: Yeah, we’ve been through so much. Obviously some speak more than others but that’s normal. Without it sounding condescending, I was always the oldest and still feel like a duty of care. I constantly check in with all of them. We always had each other when there was stress in the band, and we don’t have that anymore because we are doing solo careers.

I: On another note, how was your X-Factor experience, and why did you decide to be on the panel?

L: Well, obviously we came from the show and it kind of feels like home. Although I didn’t have experience on that side of TV. I felt confidence because I knew what it was like. What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was how emotionally invested I would be. I felt a bit of guilt as well because there were contestants who’d participated the same year we did, and I remembered them from boot camp. So that was a weird dynamic. It was humbling, definitely.

I: What were the biggest challenges?

L: The first day of audition I was terrified, to be honest.I was proper nervous but once I had done a couple I knew I didn’t have to become this character, this TV version of myself. I realized I could just go on and look after the contestants. It’s given me great experience that I wouldn’t have had elsewhere.

I: What was it like being part of the winning team?

L: The winner stood out clearly, from the first live show he had everyone say that he is going to be a winner, and there was a lot of pressure. 

I: Would you ever do it again?

L: Maybe, I loved the experience. I never say never! I’m so determined to prove a point with my music so if it interrupted that process it would be a very hard decision, to be honest. Music comes first every time for me. Maybe one day!

I: You said you are all about developing new artists, would you ever mentor one?

L: I have an imprint at Syco and I think I’ve got good music taste. I’ve always been interested in finding new bands because that seems kinda cool to me, and I had a list of a couple of bands I really liked. And since then I had that imprint deal, I’m constantly on the lookout.

I: Where do you usually lookout for these new bands? 

L: BBC Introducing is great. Other than that, it’s just these tedious ways of using Soundcloud and YouTube. I think in terms of what I’m looking for is a little bit of rock, defiance, and everything instead of this clean-cut we’ve got a lot of. 

I: Nothing wrong with Rock, which are your favorite Rock acts? 

L: I love Oasis, I love Liam Gallagher to be honest! He’s unique and different, love him or hate him. He is a breath of fresh air. As I was growing up, and that is the reason I struggled to place myself on the radio, it was the time where guitar-driven pop really got big on the airwaves. You know, bands like The Kooks, Oasis, Two Door Cinema Club. Now, Hip Hop and R&B are taking that spot and it’s hard to relate to that. I don’t want to be too pretentious, I’m [well] aware of where I come from but I have a mission where I want to be. 

I: So how would you classify your genre?

L: Oh, that’s a big question. Wow, that’s hard. In terms of what I’m looking for from a production point of view I want things to sound organic and live. Not too many programmed instruments. I want it to feel authentic. From a lyric perspective, almost like indie-pop, very conversational. All these sexy metaphors people put in their music? I ain’t got time for that. I like it straight to the point. It’s hard to classify it as a particular genre. 

I: After your album release, would you go on tour again?

L: Definitely! Hopefully, I will get some dates locked in before the end of the year because I haven’t been on the road for a good three years. I miss the routine, it’s the Rock ‘n’ Roll lifestyle. You wake up at 3pm, do the show on a high, go to bed and do it all over again. It’s definitely super fun. 

I: Would you ever consider performing at a festival?

L: Yeah! I did Ultra Festival with Steve Aoki in Miami. It was so good. It was a proper performance and hoped for the the best but I loved it. EDM fans are proper fanatical, they party hard! I don’t remember too much, but I came off buzzing. Those moments, going out on your one which is a different experience, just move you.

So one day, being on a festival bill would be really amazing, but I have to make that transition music-wise before approaching festivals.

I: You are also constantly jetting between Los Angeles and London, do you have plans to settle down in one of those cities one day?

L: I’m kind of used to traveling, a lot of sesions make me travel between those countries anyway...I’m just used to it now. I actually got robbed in LA, though. 

I: What, how did you find out?

L: I saw it on CCTV, these f*ckers. They didn’t take anything sentimental. I haven’t actually been robbed since I was 10 years old.

I: Wow. But do you refer LA or London? I suppose LA due to the better weather?

L: I much prefer London. I feel like I’m a very British character so when I’m in LA for too long I feel too different. There are a lo tof people there who are f*ke as fuck, and they’re cold. But the locals are the cool ones, it’s the ones from the outside who try to snake you.

I: One a different note, what are you watching on Netflix right now?

L: This may sound creepy but I’m proper into Psychology so I watch sinister, dark stuff. Lots of murder mystery on Netflix, and I watch many documentaries, such as David Attenborough’s stuff. What I don’t like is Stranger Things. I can’t get into it. 

I: How did you deal with the additional grief over the past few months? 

L: I’m so grateful for all of my fans worldwide for their love and support, but especially over the last few months. They are always there for me and I appreciate every single one of them.

I: Are you still planning to release your album this year or have you got an other projects coming up?

L: I’m really looking forward to releasing more music in the next few months with my album coming early next year. I’m really excited to get this record out and getting back on the road too. It’s been a long process, but I’ve finally got everything into a place which I’m really happy with. I’m going to feel so relieved and proud when the fans get to hear the album! 

I: Are there going to be any features on the album? I don’t think so. I think it’s important that people can see and hear a body of work and try to see who I am as an artist.

Single ‘Two of Us’ is out now.

#louis tomlinson #1883 mag #080819 #we removed a stunt mention #where the ... is

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Louis Tomlinson 1883 interview

Source

Everybody knows One Direction— the band which was formed through The X-Factor in 2010 and went on to become the world’s biggest and most acclaimed boy band. Sold out tours, millions of international fans and high-charting albums— Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik and Louis Tomlinson made history.

However, in 2016 it was announced that One Direction will be on hiatus until further notice, which then led to each member launching their solo careers. Yet, they maintained strong support from their loyal fanbase throughout the break-up and their individual journeys. 1883 Magazine sat down with Louis Tomlinson, the member who always saw himself as the outcast of the band— even though his fanbase is growing as strong as ever!

Having released collaborative singles with the likes of Steve Aoki and Bebe Rexha to being on the judging panel of The X-Factor— ever since launching his solo career, Louis has been actively working on being the greatest version of himself to date. The past three years he has spent a lot of time in the studio working on his debut album, and recently released a taste of what we can expect from it sound-wise— his brand new single ‘Two of Us’ is a beautiful yet heartbreaking ode to his late mother and represents Louis’s unique, raw style of songwriting. During our interview at Beach Blanket Babylon in London’s Notting Hill, he spoke more about the meaning behind the single, a One Direction reunion tour and being robbed in LA.

[[MORE]]

I’ve had a listen to your brand new single 'Two Of Us.’ What a heartfelt song about your mum! It must have been so emotional to write it.

I’ll be honest, I kinda needed to get this song off my chest really and I knew going into these sessions and writing about different things I knew I wouldn’t feel complete. So I got it off my chest. But I wasn't ready to write that song because in my head I wanted to be four, five years into my songwriting because it is such an important song to me. Then a few writers got in touch and I went to a session with them and told them my idea, and straight away it felt perfect. I haven’t felt the confidence to write this song by myself from scratch but they gave me the confidence I needed. And then the next hours we delved into it, changed things and now the end result is something I am really proud of.

So you were only able to do it alongside the other songwriters?

Yeah, they heard the song and asked what had happened. It just made so much sense with them. It evolved and I told them the background story. And then it just kind of came together and I managed to deliver the message that I wanted to deliver. I don’t want people to be exhausted after listening to it, I don’t want people to feel weighed down. I want them to be hopeful, just like the collaborative song I did with Steve Aoki. Just getting that message across felt really liberating.

I really like the song; I think you delivered the message very well. Generally, do you prefer writing alone or with other songwriters?

Both, really. Obviously, sometimes on my own but I think where I’m at, in terms of my songwriting stage, I don’t consider myself as a proper professional yet. When I’m in these circles, it helps to be around that experience.

Why don’t you see yourself as a professional?

Because as a songwriter I am quite unique, some of these pop sessions have more structure and I am less precise in my writing. I like not to have too many limitations of what a song should be, do you know what I mean?

Do you ever have to deal with any overly obsessive fans, as in groupies?

I mean, there are fans everywhere I go. But you kind of start recognising faces. In London, for example, there are about 20 individuals who are always somehow there when I’m doing something. And they don’t know how much confidence that gives me. Like, when I do a TV show— and I'm scared of that— and the minute I see a familiar face of my fans, I feel like what I do is important. My solo stuff felt like a leap of faith to me and it’s all driven by the belief of the fans who keep me going.

So without fans, you wouldn’t have done a solo career?

Oh no! When I was in the band, everything went so amazingly. It’s very hard to have a relative way of an example of where you stand in the industry. So the fans constantly gave me reinforcement.

If there hadn’t been that incredible support, where would you have seen yourself after the band’s hiatus decision?

In my head, I would have just gotten better at songwriting, and write for other people. I hadn’t given it too much thought because us as a band didn’t have too much time to think about what we were gonna do. But honestly, it sounds so generic, I wouldn’t have had confidence without my fans. Now I feel empowered and it’s giving me strength. You find yourself in these do-or-die situations, and it’s been amazing so far.

Do you think there’ll be an end to One Direction’s hiatus? Like a reunion tour or something else?

There’s gotta be! One hundred percent. As far as I’m concerned, we are all good at doing our individual stuff right now and it’s great for yourself as an individual but the day we do get back together will be a magical day for all of us. I think everyone is in the same boat when it comes to this; it’s inevitable and the question is just when are we going to do it. Now that we are on this break, I can look back and say it was massive but looking from the other side you can see the influence and the importance. That’s really cool, just seeing our positive influence. We were such a powerhouse. It’s a no-brainer, I’m the first to sign the sheets to get back together.

Let’s hope so! Do you still keep in touch with the others?

Yeah, we’ve been through so much. Obviously, some speak more than others but that’s normal. Without it sounding condescending, I was always the oldest and still feel like a duty of care. I constantly check in with all of them. We always had each other when there was stress in the band, and we don’t have that now anymore because we are doing solo careers.

On another note, how was your X-Factor experience, and why did you decide to be on the panel?

Well, obviously we came from the show and it kind of feels like home. Although I didn’t have experience on that side of TV, I felt confident because I knew what it was like. What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was how emotionally invested I would be. I felt a bit of guilt as well because there were contestants who’d participated the same year we did, and I remembered them from boot camp. So that was a weird dynamic. It was humbling, definitely.

What were the biggest challenges?

The first day of auditions I was terrified, to be honest. I was proper nervous but once I had done a couple I knew I didn’t have to become this character, this TV version of myself, I realised that I could just go on and look after the contestants. It’s given me great experience that I wouldn’t have had elsewhere.

What was it like being part of the winning team?

The winner stood out clearly, from the first live show he had everyone say that he is going to be a winner, and there was a lot of pressure.

Would you ever do it again?

Maybe, I loved the experience. I never say never! I’m so determined to prove a point with my music so if it interrupted that process it would be a very hard decision, to be honest. Music comes first every time for me. Maybe one day!

You said you are all about developing artists, would you ever mentor one?

I have an imprint at Syco and I think I’ve got good music taste. I’ve always been interested in finding new bands because that seems kinda cool to me, and I had a list of a couple of bands I really liked. And since then I had that imprint deal, I’m constantly on the lookout.

Where do you usually lookout for these new bands?

BBC Introducing is great. Other than that, it’s just these tedious ways of using Soundcloud and YouTube. I think in terms of what I’m looking for is a little bit of rock, defiance, and everything instead of this clean-cut we’ve got a lot.

Nothing wrong with Rock, which are your favourite Rock acts?

I love Oasis, I love Liam Gallagher to be honest! He’s unique and different, love him or hate him. He is a breath of fresh air. As I was growing up, and that is the reason I struggled to place myself on the radio, it was the time where guitar-driven pop really got big on the airwaves. You know, bands like The Kooks, Oasis, Two Door Cinema Club. Now, Hip Hop and R&B are taking that spot and it’s hard to relate to that. I don't want to be too pretentious, I’m well aware of where l come from but I have a mission where I want to be.

So how would you classify your genre?

Oh, that’s a big question. Wow, that’s hard. In terms of what I’m looking for from a production point of view, I want things to sound organic and live. Not too many programmed instruments. I want it to feel authentic. From a lyric perspective, almost like indie-pop, very conversational. All these sexy metaphors people put in their music? I ain’t got time for that. I Iike it straight to the point. It’s hard to classify it as a particular genre.

After your album release, would you go on tour again?

Definitely! Hopefully, I will get some dates locked in before the end of the year because I haven’t been on the road for a good three years. I miss the routine, it’s the Rock 'n’ Roll lifestyle. You wake up at 3pm, do the show on a high, go to bed and do it all over again. It’s definitely super fun.

Would you ever consider performing at a festival?

Yeah! I did Ultra Festival with Steve Aoki in Miami. It was so good. It was a proper performance and hoped for the best but I loved it. EDM fans are proper fanatical, they party hard! I don't remember too much, but I came off buzzing. Those moments, going out on your own which is a different experience, just move you. So one day being on a festival bill would be really amazing, but I have to make that transition music-wise before approaching festivals.

You are also constantly jetting between Los Angeles and London, do you have plans to settle down in one of these cities one day?

I’m kind of used to travelling, a lot of sessions make me travel between these countries anyway. My baby boy lives in LA as well, I’m just used to it now. I actually got robbed in LA, though.

What, how did you find out?

I saw it on CCTV, these f*ckers. They didn’t take anything sentimental. I haven’t actually been robbed since I was 10 years old.

Wow. But do you prefer LA or London?

I suppose LA due to the better weather? I much prefer London. I feel like I’m a very British character so when I’m in LA for too long I feel too different. There are a lot of people there who are fake as f*ck, and they’re cold. But the locals are the cool ones, it’s the ones from the outside who try to shake you.

On a different note, what are you watching on Netflix right now?

This may sound creepy but I’m proper into Psychology so I watch sinister, dark stuff. Lots of murder mystery on Netflix, and I watch many documentaries, such as David Attenborough’s stuff. What I don’t like is Stranger Things, I can’t get into it.

How did you deal with the additional grief over the past months?

I’m so grateful for all of my fans worldwide and for their love and support, but especially over the last few months. They are always there for me and I appreciate every single one of them.

Are you still planning to release your album this year or have you got any other projects coming up?

I’m really looking forward to releasing more music in the next few months with my album coming early next year. I’m really excited to get this record out and getting back on the road too. It’s been a long process, but I’ve finally got everything into place which I’m really happy with. I’m going to feel so relieved and proud when the fans get to hear the album!

Are there going to be any features on the album?

I don’t think so. I think it’s important that people can see and hear a body of work and try to see who I am as an artist.

#1883 magazine #louis tomlinson #8 august 2019 #freddie mention

[gobbochune]

Over the Garden Wall is a fall miniseries special made by cartoon network in the early years of the latest animation boom that has unfortunately been placed in the same club as Rick and Morty, Portal, and Undertale as a legitimately good though not flawless piece of media no one can talk about for fear of being associated with an infamously horrible fanbase. Cursed to obscurity because the mere mention of its name will call upon antis and fans alike who will take a mile from any inch of analysis given.

Introduction: 

I think the fact that we’ve come to a place where fandom is a deciding factor in whether or not to watch something is depressing in its own right, but more so with Over the Garden Wall specifically because it’s themes are becoming more and more relevant in western animation trends lately. Specifically with the increased demands for darker more mature themes in stories made for children.

Fans of animation from a technical standpoint want stories in their medium of choice that reflect their mature sensibilities while people with an interest in children’s media demand for lighthearted family fare they can either watch with their kids or appreciate from the standpoint of someone with an interest in child development.

And both sides have a point. Cartoons weren’t always considered to be just for children. Pretty much anything can be told through an animated story, the medium’s flexibility allows for a wide range of tone and performance that is under-utilised as children’s programming. There are some truly brilliant stories that are told though animation that not only push the boundaries of how a story can be told but also what an animated film can look like. People who happen to be writers tend to pretend that writing is the only thing that matters and that a piece of animation is only as good as the writers behind it. I can see why they feel that way but I don’t think they realise how closely interwoven visuals, audio, and text can be. Ideally, writing, visuals, and audio are all different languages that weave together to tell a story and all three mediums need to be given the same amount of care to sell a setting. I’ve seen no shortage of brilliant pieces of writing lost to the annals of time because they look like shit and I’ve seen beautiful animation that stays popular even though its written like shit. Film as a whole really negates the need to have dialog or characters at all, so long as the choice to do so is deliberate and carries a specific intent. Indie darling Don Hertzfeldt for example uses simplistic and bizarre cuts of animation alongside a monotone narration to represent a man with degenerative brain cancer in ‘It’s Such a Beautiful Day”. The narration could have easily been set to more traditional visuals or even negated entirely in place of standard dialog between characters but only Hertzfeldt’s signature style could depict what it’s like to feel your mind slowly imploding in on itself to such a chilling effect. The story was more about the visuals than the narration, and more reliable context could be drawn from the way the visuals are presented than anything the narrator says throughout the film. This is a really cool and interesting way to explore the potential animation and things like these are sorely under-utilised in mainstream studios. 

But at the same time there is legitimate genius to be found in children’s shows themselves that has absolutely zero interest in appealing to adults or even carrying themes at all. There is an art to speaking to people who haven’t developed an understanding of themselves yet that takes a lot of effort and care. Fables are devoted to this concept, designed so that the listener can understand the world through a proxy. It comes from a place of narcissism to think that just because you personally aren’t engaged by simplistic stories it means there wasn’t a level of mastery in creating it. In the Night Garden is a spiritual successor to Teletubbies with an emphasis on fostering a better relationship with bedtime. There is absolutely no entertainment to be gained from this show unless you’re high or have a boner for costume design, and yet kids love it. Toddlers love The Night Garden more than actual kids like Steven Universe. It is an incredibly successful show despite not having anything significant to say because its goal is to entertain children as they’re lulled to sleep and it works. The most beautifully designed and animated show I’ve seen all year is an irish production about baby puffins made for toddlers to learn animal facts. While there is significant scenery porn for parents to appreciate, the goal of the show is to play with all the cute animals and learn how they live in the wild. Mrs. Frisby is much the same in both versions of the show and its major goal is to act as an entry point for complex scientific concepts. Peppa Pig is legitimately fucking hilarious and requires no defense whatsoever. I’ve said before that the phrase “Just for kids” doesn’t mean that something doesn’t appeal to adults but that adults shouldn’t feel entitled to it. You can watch if you want but only with the understanding that this does not cater to you and you shouldn’t expect it to. Viewers outside a show’s demographic are only tourists, they shouldn’t demand to be stimulated with more complex narratives that could confuse or even frighten the intended audience. If it’s too simple and juvenile then watch something else. Practically everything is made for adults, you can handle the pony show not caring about your sophisticated intellectual sensibilities every now and then.

Animation studios want to find a happy medium between these two approaches to animation. On the one hand, they want to push the boundaries to appease critics and make headlines. Most of the markets surrounding these things value new ideas over well executed ideas, and studios need those clicks just as much as youtube analytics do. But on the other they know that their show can only be seen by people who can afford to see it. As much studios want to mix it up things like merchandise and advertising keep the lights on so they’ll need to stay on brand to feed their staff.

Animation is fucking expensive and a lot of studios need to keep up a reliable flow of money in order to satisfy their investors whilst affording their passion products on the side. Sony Animation for example seems to follow this pattern of making legitimately good films between lukewarm branding deals, usually sequels to their previous successes. Pixar and Dreamworks have adapted this pattern as well, and unlike so many animation critics I can’t fault them for that. It’s like every time Pixar announces a sequel or a toyetic franchise fans act like this is the last film they’re going to make, despite many of these losers using the same damn tactics on their own channels. I know a hustle when I see it, and unless they’ve obviously given up I don’t really see the cause for concern.

But TV animation works differently…I think. 

Let this be a disclaimer that most of what I know about production comes from film studies and the indie scene so it’s entirely possible that my explanation of things like statistics and scheduling is either absurdly simplified or outright false. I am entirely open to correction, and in fact actively encourage it from someone who has done more reading on the subject.

From what I understand the way it used to work was that a schedule would be designed under the assumption that once a show caught the viewer’s attention they’d stay on the channel until they got bored. Emphasis was put on stuffing as many different programs as they could into one day so a higher percentage of tastes would be attracted to it. Things become more complicated with the advent of the internet, because unlike the benevolent tv channel feeding you shows it thinks you want audiences can pick and choose for themselves.

Often times fans will show loyalty to a single program instead of the whole channel, hopping between networks to take their pick from the cream of the crop. This is why Crewniverse all but begs fans of Steven Universe to watch the show on tv even if the alternative is legal. It doesn’t matter how many people buy episodes in itunes if the stats show more eyes on Cartoon Network when Teen Titans Go is playing. The kind audience who likes Teen Titans Go is more likely to watch it on TV and will watch anything else on the channel like commercials and other shows. Teen Titans Go does in fact have an audience that audience is more loyal to the network than fans of Steven Universe are, so it gets priority on the schedule. And, despite what small-minded cynics like to say about media at large, its not like the only things these studios want is to make money. They are made up of individuals who entered a less than lucrative industry because they like what they make and want to make things they can be proud of when they can afford it. But money will always need to be a factor and respect for a project feeds artists only slightly less than exposure dollars do.  

Shows that have the memetic writing of TTG but with the fakedeep shock value of Steven Universe are becoming more and more popular because the jokes and reusable formula to attract views so the themes and representation can be explored once the show has paid back its cost for existing. But often what we’re left with are shows that are annoying or embarrassing for adults and are boring or upsetting for children. We’re brought right back to the initial debate of mature themes vs. consistent tone.

But what does any of this have to do with Over the Garden Wall? It’s not avant-garde experimental animation or childish educational animation. It doesn’t really swap between methods but attempts to be both at the same time. Like Gravity Falls it makes sure to let the audience know what it is early on and stays that way throughout. Cartoon Network even resisted making it an ongoing story, it had a pre-determined ending that it stubbornly refuses to expand no matter how much money the fans are willing to throw at a second season. It has more in common with a film than a tv show, it had a specific story it wanted to tell and knew that enjoyment of that story was limited. There was very little in Over the Garden Wall’s synopsis that could be recycled, every decision in story and design had a deliberate reason for being there and if any of the aspects that made the show enjoyable were reused they would lose their effect.

But, like so many modern cartoons, it still fell into edgy trappings that made it too scary for children and too cutesy for adult swim. When thinking of the core demographic I can only assume it was made for animation buffs either in highschool or their first year of college who happen to have a preference for nostalgia over intrigue. Homage is the best way to describe its artistic intent; constantly referencing movements in American animation through technique and shot composition. Its subtle enough that the design is cohesive but blatant enough for anyone who’s taken a class on storyboarding to recognise.

So yeah, it’s a pretty good show if you’re into that sort of thing but why is it such a tragedy that it’s been blacklisted? Well, I believe that Over the Garden Wall not only balances its desire to appeal to goth adults with being appealing for children but actually manages to have something significant to say about excessive darkness at the same time. To prove this I have to dive into the more subtle themes of the show that might not have been made so apparent on the first viewing which means I have to dissect some very uncomfortable implications.

And I’m gonna spoil the ever living fuck out of it so that was my warning.

Summary

On the surface Over the Garden Wall is a story about a pair of brother’s shared death dream as they slowly succumb to hypothermia at the bottom of a pond. The dream itself is the Unknown, a place that can be read either metaphorically as an allegory for depression or literally as the suicide forest of Dante’s inferno. The Unknown attracts the hopeless and lost and there the boys meet others who have been ensnared by anxiety and doubt.The boys are stalked by The Beast (an entity that functions as a satanic male version of Dante’s harpies) while the bluebird Beatrice (named for the muse of Dante) tries to help them find their way home. This eventually leads to a confrontation between the brothers and the Beast where the older brother Wirt must overcome his own anxiety and escape the Unknown to rescue them both from drowning.

Of course that’s a pretty rigid recap of what happens and there are a lot of hints that the Unknown is actually a real place or that the happy ending is a lie or other shit but after several viewings of the show in a relatively short amount of time I notice those hints were only added at the very end whereas every other big plot twist is referenced in each episode leading up to the reveal. Generally, it seems like they wanted to leave a door open for the comics. From what I understand the Unknown is real the same way purgatory would be real. Its less a place than a black hole of negative emotions people are sucked into at difficult points in their lives that is haunted by a poltergeist made of their combined despair.  The fact that the beast feeds on the souls of suicide victims and its true form is just a bunch of Edelwood trees confirms this in my mind.

But here’s the thing about the Unknown- it’s a fucking sham.

Why The Unknown is a Fucking Sham

The Beast isn’t some great and terrible truth that all must fear and respect, he’s a con artist who tricks people into doing his work for him by playing on their anxieties.

The Woodsman states in the first episode that everyone has a burden to bear and his is the dark lantern containing his daughter’s soul. But it’s not his burden and that’s not his daughter’s soul. His daughter is still alive, patiently waiting for him to come home, and it was only his fear of learning the truth behind her demise that keeps them apart. The comics confirm that she was almost captured by the beast but narrowly escaped, which can be an allegory for a near death experience or terminal illness. The Woodsman is overwhelmed by the idea that he couldn’t protect his child, and becomes obsessed with delaying the inevitable. In his frantic refusal to accept Anna’s mortality the Woodsman unknowingly abandoned her. This carries some pretty disturbing implications if Wirt hadn’t intervened, he would have stayed in the unknown while his daughter wasted away completely alone.

Beatrice, who has been estranged by her family because of a mistake she’s trying to atone, doesn’t realise that no one in her family blames her and they’d be perfectly happy to live as bluebirds so long as she comes home. They love her unconditionally, and are so okay with the bluebird thing that they lightly tease her for it over the dinner table. It’s treated as a stupid kid mistake that the family looks back on fondly, and Beatrice being lost in the unknown was the product of her guilt and pride. 

Greg’s reason for being lost is subtle and well hidden but prominent if you’re paying attention. His naïvety and good nature has caused him to believe that he is a bad person because he did exactly one thing wrong: He stole a rock. This is so tiny and insignificant and so real to children that age that it stings. One of my earliest memories is that of accidentally breaking the seal on a bag of candy and waiting in terror for the cashier to notice and send me to jail. Greg is only five years old, and that secret was burning inside of him the whole time its no wonder he crumbled under the guilt the minute Wirt cast any shadow of blame onto him. When Wirt finds out why the Beast was able to capture Greg he’s utterly flabbergasted, and says as much as Greg feebly insists that he deserves to die because he picked up a rock without a permission.

There’s a reason why all but the main cast’s problems can be solved in quick episodic succession. Its because the answers are so blatantly and obviously simple but couldn’t be seen through the self-hatred and doubt. The beast is ultimately defeated not through self-confidence, sacrifice, or true love but through admitting that, well.

(this is actually the big badass moment where Wirt defeats the beast not a one off joke)

The moral of Over the Garden Wall is that excessive angst, especially that which is found in its own narrative, is dumb and shouldn’t be indulged in.

Nothing that is presented about the Unknown is as bad as the characters initially believe and the solution becomes clear once they stop feeling sorry for themselves. The show presents attempts to atone for one’s sins or dwell on one’s flaws as actively damaging and unpleasant for the people around you. 

This can be a bitter pill to swallow for a lot of reasons. Ignoring the obvious things like societal or monetary restrictions there are a lot of ways people can be trapped in this mindset. From the outside it looks as though people are hung up by such simple problems by a lack of self-autonomy, not realising that a personal crisis can be exhausting to address at the best of times, let alone whilst suffering from depression. 

Over the Garden Wall is sympathetic to those who are lost but warns its audience that despair must never outweigh the actual severity of the problem. Many of the more unsettling inhabitants of the Unknown are perfectly good people who are trapped in a bad situation, from the souls of those abandoned in unmarked graves to a loving aunt forced to manipulate her niece in order to save her from herself. 

Nowhere else is this made more apparent than with the two protagonists. No matter the severity of each resident of the Unknown introduced, Greg’s childish optimism always wins out over Wirt’s cautious pessimism. Almost every solution is found either by Greg doggedly hoping for a good outcome or Wirt lapsing into hopefulness, and it’s only when Wirt’s despair causes him to lash out at Greg that the Beast is finally able to find them. 

And this leads us to Wirt. 

Lets talk about Wirt

Wirt is the older brother and thus made responsible for his and his brother’s actions. But Wirt doesn’t really want to do that because Wirt kinda doesn’t like himself all too much. Wirt is just as quick to push responsibility onto his five year old sibling as he is to lament his own inability to preform, despite successfully preforming various tasks mere moments after insisting he can’t. 

*Proceeds to ride expertly through dark unstable terrain one handed without reigns*

Every moment of Wirt’s badassary save for his final gambit against the Beast is proceeded by a declaration of incompetence and excuses as to why he’ll under preform. All character flaws are the product of Wirt’s self-depreciation and any strengths he’ll admit to having he perceives as worthless or abnormal. All of his relationships are incredibly positive or supportive and yet he believes himself to be a tragic outcast who is upstaged by his rival Jason who is superior to him in every regard. Often times Wirt will wax into dramatic purple prose lamenting a lost love that turns out to just be a botched confession and his deepest darkest secret is the fact he writes poetry and plays clarinet. 

All of this serves to make Wirt a pretty pathetic little edgelord, and he would be completely unbearable if not for the aforementioned theme.

Wirt’s angst exists entirely between his very large ears, is very obviously a temporary product of being a teenager. Wirt looks like he could be anywhere from 10 to 13 years old until we realise that his childish appearance is a costume and he’s actually in his mid teens. An excursion into the real world shows the audience that not only Sara, the subject of Wirt’s affections, is totally into him but that he is generally embraced by his peers and his ‘rival’ Jason is a loser everyone tolerates out of pity. Even the Police, who he initially entered the Unknown trying to escape, were merely putting on a facade of chasing them as apart of some misguided Halloween fun. Even as the brothers run in fear from authority, that authority calls out to them that he’s kidding and he only wants them to stop running because he’s afraid they’ll trip and hurt themselves. Absolutely nothing in Wirt’s life is out to get him.

Every time we learn more about Wirt the characters openly mock or chastise him for being so down on himself, and its through realising the ridiculousness of his angst that he is able to defeat the Beast. Even his killing-blow one liner is robbed of its badass appeal because his voice cracks on the first try, only for Wirt to clear his throat and try again. It’s not even him who kills the beast at all, realising that defeating the Beast isn’t necessary to find his way home. All he has to do is stop letting the Beast get to him and he’s able to escape the Unknown without a second thought. The Beast’s fate is left in the hands of the Woodsman, a fitting punishment for manipulating him into doing its dirty work all these years. 

And its not as if Wirt is unlikable either. Certain points in the series we see him open up a bit more and show the genuinely kind and insightful young man who endears himself to the people around him. Though he often mistreats his younger brother Greg, Wirt tries to take care of him where he can and will even indulge in Greg’s silliness when he’s comfortable enough to express himself. 

The cruelest thing Wirt ever does to Greg is tell him to bug off while he takes a nap, and even this he regrets within minutes of waking up to find his brother gone. For all Wirt insists towards the end that he doesn’t care about either of their survival anymore, the mere suggestion of Greg falling victim to the Beast is enough to sent the exhausted and suicidal Wirt into an overprotective frenzy.

Most of Wirt’s problems can be solved not by believing he is good but abandoning the idea that he is bad. Happiness is treated not as a depleting life force but everyone’s natural state. After all, being lost is temporary by definition. To have a home is to have a sense of normalcy you wish to return to, and to be away from that home is to be lost. 

The Beast tries to trick you into forgetting you’re capable of ever finding your way back, or that you aren’t strong enough to escape the Unknown. But giving up is never the answer, for so long as you refuse to give up the Beast can’t touch you. The Beast is a lair and a sham. He grows twisting and winding paths designed to confuse and disorient you. He’s such a weak piece of shit that he needs to tire you out for days until he can even show his pathetic face. 

Conclusion

While media can provide an escape, it also can be a cage all its own. 

In these trying times its so easy to feel as if the only way to keep yourself from going batshit crazy is to accept mediocrity and succumb to apathy. From horror stories on the news to harassment online or even something as petty as your favourite cartoon not living up to your expectations, the relative insignificance of these things is what causes us to leave them unchecked. We let our problems fester because it is our instinct to press on despite the pain before stopping everything to take apart our lives and look for a problem. We hide the things that bother us behind prickled branches that we drag through the dirt until they’re too heavy to proceed. We make up reasons as to why even thinking of a solution is more exhausting than happiness is worth. We pretend our feelings come from an impossible source in order to justify their existence. 

That is the Beast’s lie. 

You DON’T have to choose between wandering forever or surrender to the forest, you can make a better option. Escape the Unknown. Fight for your happy ending. Don’t give Beast what it wants. Unlike everything else, the Beast is the only thing that can’t hurt you. It’s not fucking easy even though it should be and that sucks but you still need to go home. You deserve to go home. 

And odds are its closer than you think.

#over the garden wall #otgw #wirt #greg #the beast #beatrice #woodsman #jesus i spent a lotta time on this #hopefully its not nonsense lmao #its the product of ranting in the shower for the past three days

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 7/23/21 - SNAKE EYES, OLD, VAL, JOE BELL, SETTLERS, JOLT, MANDIBLES, and More!

So I definitely underestimated Space Jam: A New Legacy last week and way overestimated Escape Room: Tournament of Champions, maybe because I liked the latter way more than the former and probably underestimated the nostalgia factor for Space Jam… oh, yeah, and the fact that it was also on HBO Max, which didn’t really matter since it grossed more than $30 million anyway. Meanwhile, Escape Room, a rare theatrical-only movie, failed to bring people into theaters to see it as it ended up making about half what I expected. Oh, well. It happens. Live and learn.

Hey, guess what? We don’t have any sequels this week! Okay, to be fair, we do have a spin-off/prequel sort of thing, so I guess that counts.

The latter is SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS (Paramount Pictures/MGM/Skydance), the latest attempt by Hasbro Films to reboot its G.I. Joe franchise with Henry Golding from Crazy Rich Asians playing the popular anti-hero from the oh-so-popular Hasbro toys, comics and cartoons. As you can surmise from the subtitle, Snake Eyes, directed by Robert Schwentke (Red, R.I.P.D.), is an origin story for the most enigmatic member of the Joe team. Much of the rest of the cast are Asian actors or martial arts specialists like Iko Uwais from The Raid and its sequel. The movie does introduce Samara Weaving from Ready or Not as Scarlet, another popular G.I. Joe character, as well as her counterpart, the Baronness, so it’s definitely a G.I. Joe movie still.

It’s been quite some time since the previous Joe movie, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which was released in March 2013 where it opened with $40.5 million, which is less than the previous movie, 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, which opened with $54.7 million. The two movies made $150.2 million and $122.5 million respectively, although “Retaliation” did slightly better overseas to gross $375.7 million to Rise of Cobra’s $302 million. Those aren’t huge numbers compared to Hasbro’s other big toy-related franchise, the “Transformers” movies by Michael Bay, which were doing almost $300 million in the U.S. alone. Retaliation may have been hurt by being delayed a number of times putting more time between the original movie and sequel, but it introduced a few great new ideas and characters played by Dwayne “Franchise Viagra” Johnson and Bruce “You Have My Direct Deposit Info, Right?” Willis.

There is an odd connection between “Retaliation” and Snake Eyes, because the former was directed by Jon Chu, who directed Golding in Crazy Rich Asians, the movie that broke him out. Chu had talked forever about doing another G.I. Joe movie but it seems like he’s moved on and has a lot on his plate now, so who knows if we’ll ever get another direct sequel? It’s hard to say if and how Snake Eyes might integrate with previous or future Joe movies.

Either way, the G.I. Joe franchise obviously has a number of dedicated fans who might want to see more of where Snake Eyes came from, and the trailers make it look like it’s in a similar vein as John Wick Chapter 3. Unfortunately, I won’t be seeing this until Tuesday night and reviews won’t hit until Thursday, so I’m going to have to gauge interest in this without knowing whether critics liked this any more than the previous movies. (Okay, reviews went live at 3 this morning, but I was already asleep, having already finished writing this column, as always.)

I can see Snake Eyes pushing for an opening somewhere in the mid-$20 millions, and maybe it will over-perform like last week’s Space Jam: A New Legacy or Mortal Kombat and bring in closer to $30 million, since one presumes that the Joe fanbase hasn’t gone anywhere and would go with this over Old.

Mini-Review: While I’m not really much of a G.I. Joe fan, I am a fan of martial arts, swordplay, and Japanese culture like Yakuza and samurai and such. Not really knowing that much about the title character of Snake Eyes, I was kind of interested in knowing more about him, especially the fact that they cast a real actor to play him for this movie in Henry Golding. (Sorry, not sorry, Ray Park.)

We meet him as a boy with no name, having gotten his nickname from the man who killed his father when he was a boy, urging his dad to roll dice in order to live. He rolls (what else?) snake eyes. Decades later, the boy is a man working for the Yakuza and a particularly nasty guy named Kenta (Takehiro Hira) who nearly kills Snake Eyes before he’s paired with Tommy (Andrew Koji), the prodigal son of the Arashikage clan who also happen to be Kenta’s sworn enemies. Having saved Tommy’s life, Snake Eyes is urged to stay at the family castle and train to join the clan as an assassin. His training involves a series of tests conducted by Blind Master (Peter Mensah) and Hard Master (Iko Uwais), but we soon learn that Snake Eyes is still loyal to Kenta and used his friendship with Tommy as a ruse to infiltrate the castle and steal their greatest weapon. Oh, yeah there’s also giant snakes, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Having seen Robert Schwentke’s The Captain, I know the director can make great movies, and Snake Eyes is probably one of his better American films, at least that I’ve seen. The reason this movie work at all is the casting for most of the may Asian roles are fantastic. I particularly enjoyed seeing Haruke Abe as Akiko, one of the truly kick-ass women in the movie, but the same can be said for Eri Ishida, who plays Tommy’s grandmother and the head of Tommy’s clan, and she too has some great action moments. The point is that Snake Eyes doesn’t suffer from the decision to cast talented Asian actors in the same way that Mortal Kombat did.

The movie’s biggest issues arrive when they try to fit G.I. Joe and Cobra into the mix (about an hour into the movie), because it definitely feels shoehorned into what is becoming a decent movie about honor and loyalty. I have never heard of Spanish actress Ursula Corbero, but she’s absolutely garbage as Baronness, vamping and trying to make the role more comicky apparently. By comparison, I’m generally a fan of Samara Weaving, but she isn’t much better as Scarlett. Since these are both popular G.I. Joe characters, I can’t imagine the fans will be too happy.

A lot of what happens at the end is telegraphed from a mile away, especially if you already figured out where the relationship between Snake Eyes and Tommy is going. (Maybe it isn’t a secret, but in case it isn’t obvious…)

Snake Eyes works fine as the G.I. Joe origin it’s meant to be, but I would have been perfectly fine without any G.I. Joe references at all, and if this was just a cool Asian action flick like The Villainess or some of Takashi Miike’s yakuza films.

Rating: 7/10

M. Night Shyamalan returns to theaters after a brief sojourn into TV with Apple TV+’s Servant (which is great) with his latest high-concept thriller, OLD (Universal Pictures), which involves a family who goes to visit a remote tropical beach where they learn that something on the beach is making them age extraordinarily fast. The movie stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Vicky Krieps from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, Alex Wolff from Hereditary (and last week’s Pig), and Thomasin McKenzie from Jojo Rabbit. It’s a pretty great ensemble cast for sure, but how many of those actors have a proven track record to bring people into theaters? Not many, but will that matter?

Shyamalan has had an amazing career as a filmmaker in terms of box office with six movies that grossed over $100 million (and a seventh that came close), one movie (Signs) that grossed over $200 million, and then his early film, The Sixth Sense, which came close to $300 million domestically. (This is all domestic, if you didn’t figure it out.) Shyamalan’s movies have done very well overseas, often matching the amount the movies made in the States. Shyamalan’s last two movies, 2017’s Split and 2019’s Glass, took the director back to his earlier movie, 2000’s Unbreakable, starring Bruce Willis, and both those movies grossed more. (To be fair, ticket prices have increased a lot since 2000.) Glass opened with $40 million in January 2019, roughly the same as Split’s opening, and that’s a fairly standard opening for the filmmaker.

Old doesn’t have that connection to a popular past movie, nor does it really have the starpower of some of Shyamalan’s movies, so it’s definitely at a disadvantage and possibly more in line with his 2015 “comeback” thriller, The Visit, which grossed $65.2 million from an opening of $25.2 million.

Horror movies and thrillers don’t necessarily need to have big name stars but it doesn’t hurt -- look at Ethan Hawke’s forays into genre with Sinister and The Purge for Blumhouse -- and though any of the cast could appear on talk shows to promote the film, I’m not sure if any of them could be considered a draw at this point. (Maybe Alex Wolff, since he’s quite popular among young women for his horror movies and music career.)

Any way you look at it, Shyamalan has become a filmmaker whose name on a film helps drive people to see the movies in theaters, and that will be the case here, as well. You combine the Shyamalan name with an easy-to-sell concept like a beach that ages people (vs. the relaxation beaches normally provide)

My review for this one will be over at Below the Line later on Thursday, but I’m presuming that critics will be mixed on this one at best. If they go negative, which I could see happening, that might theoretically hurt the movie’s chances, although it should still be good for opening weekend.

Because of this, and because Old might lose some of its male audiences to the above Snake Eyes -- oddly, neither of these movies will be available on streaming day and date, mind you -- Shyamalan’s latest will probably end up in the mid-to-high-teens, although it might be able to make $20 million in a push.

1. Snake Eyes (Paramount/MGM/Skydance) - $24.1 million N/A

2. Old (Universal) - $17 million N/A

3. Space Jam: A New Legacy (Warner Bros.) - $15 million -51%

4. Black Widow (Marvel/Disney) - $13.5 million -48%

5. Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (Sony) - $4.5 million -49%

6. F9 (Universal) - $4.4 million -43%

7. The Boss Baby: Family Business (Universal/DreamWorks Animation) - $2.6 million -45%

8. The Forever Purge (Universal) - $2.1 million -49%

8. A Quiet Place Part II (Paramount) - $1.6 million -25%

10. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (Focus) - $1 million -47%

There are a few more theatrical releases, but let’s start by getting into this week’s “Chosen One”, which is…

Leo Scott and Ting Poo’s doc VAL (Amazon) refers to actor Val Kilmer, who goes through his entire career in this fascinating portrait in which we see him in the present day dealing with the debilitating throat cancer that’s nearly taken his voice. Culled from almost four decades of archival footage, most of it shot by Kilmer himself, the film puts together an amazing story of Kilmer’s life as a working actor, but also captures his family life, his tough relationship with his father and how his marriage and career deteriorated over time.

It really surprised me how much I loved this movie, because honestly, I’ve never been a particularly big Kilmer fan, other than a few favorites like Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and probably a few others. In fact, I finally saw Top Gun for the first time a few months ago, and I wasn’t even that big a fan, as I don’t think it aged well. But what’s great about Val, the movie, is that you get to see some of Kilmer’s own footage from on set and off for movies like Top Gun and even The Island of Doctor Moreau, which he admits was a complete disaster, a shame since it was the only chance to work with his idol, Marlon Brando (who barely shows up to set).

What’s particularly eerie is hearing a younger Val narrating the film, clearly recorded from before he was hit with the debilitating throat cancer, but the filmmakers did a great job editing all of Kilmer’s footage and words into a surprisingly cohesive (and still very linear) story.

Besides seeing the footage and how it meshed with Kilmer’s narration, I also greatly appreciated the score by Garth Stevenson, as well as the song choices, which includes some familiar tunes but always in a different way than what we’re used to. I’m really curious if Val picked some of the tunes himself, but whoever the music supervisor was on this film, really did an amazing job getting songs that meshed well with Stevenson’s music.

Val is a terrific portrait of an actor who probably never got the level of respect he deserved , but it’s also a film that will make you think of your own life and mortality.

Mark Wahlberg stars in and as JOE BELL (Roadside Attractions/Vertical) in this drama directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green, who helmed the excellent and underrated Monsters and Men. Green didn’t write this one, but it was written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, the Oscar-winning writers of Brokeback Mountain. With that in mind, you’d expect something more interesting, but as I watched Joe Bell, I actually wasn’t aware that it was based on a real person/story.

The long and short of it is that Wahlberg’s Joe Bell is a father who has decided to walk across the country from Oregon to New York City to talk to anyone who will listen about bullying, and why it’s bad. Yup, that’s it. That’s the movie. To be fair, we do get to see Joe spending time with his gay son Jadin (Reed Miller), and those are generally the best parts of the film, but one thing that really didn’t work for me was the structure, especially the time spent (SPOILER!) pretending that Jadin was already dead before Joe went on his cross-country walk. It’s something that’s casually revealed when Joe stops in a gay bar for a drink and mentions it to a drag queen.

Otherwise, Joe Bell is a movie that leans so heavily on the screenplay and Wahlberg’s performance, which is better than others we’ve seen from him but isn’t that great. Overall, the film is just so dour, glum and frankly, quite dull, that there’s very little that can make it more interesting, especially since the narrative and structure makes the whole thing kind of obvious.

Maybe there’s a better version of this movie but when you get to what is quite a grim ending and then you realize that it’s a true story, you kind of wish that thing called “artistic license” was used more liberally to make a better movie. All Joe Bell does is state the obvious: that bullying is bad, especially towards people different and possibly more fragile than you.

Rating: 6/10

I'm not sure how wide Roadside plans on releasing Joe Bell, but I'd expect 400 to 500 theaters, but I'm not sure that's enough to get it into the Top 10.

Wyatt Rockefeller’s feature film directorial debut, SETTLERS (IFC Midnight) takes place on Mars, and at first, it deals with a couple (played by Johnny Lee Miller and Sofia Boutella) living on a remote base there with their young daughter Remmy (Brooklynn Prince), but it’s soon attacked by a stranger who wants them to leave. The movie premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last month and will get a release into select theaters on Friday as well as be released in various digital formats.

Settlers starts off as if it might be a home invasion movie with a sci-fi twist, but that aspect of it is fleeting, as it soon becomes a drama where the stranger Jerry (Ismael Cruz Cordova) moves in with Remmy and her mother, and then other stuff happens. Oh, yeah, there’s also an adorable robot named Steve.

Don’t get me wrong, because I genuinely liked Settlers, although I think I was expecting something more genre-y since it’s being released by IFC Midnight. Because of the setting, I was expecting something more science fiction or home invasion, and I guess comparing it to a Western would be fair due to the wilderness setting, but really, it’s a character drama about how three people need to coexist together, especially when one of them is a stranger in their midst. Seeing how Boutella’s character slowly warms up to Jerry while Remmy is still suspicious and even angry at her mother accepting the stranger.

In many ways, this is Prince’s movie, because she’s so good in this role that she almost supports the adult actors by leading. Prince is so compelling that she’s even able to keep you interested when Remmy is just wandering around, exploring various aspects of the environment around their home base. That is, at least until the last act when the film jumps forward a number of years and Nell Tiger Free (from Servant) takes over the role of Remmy (quite fluidly, in fact).

This creates a very different dynamic between Jerry and Remmy that might feel a bit pervy to some women (okay, most women). Cordova is also quite good in a role that’s tough to sell, because he isn’t the typical bad man.

Settlers is a quiet and subdued film with not a lot of action or dialogue for that matter, but it reminds me quite a bit of Moon, and it’s a similarly solid debut by Rockefeller, showing him to be a strong storyteller able to get strong performances out of his relatively small cast. (Oh, and hey, I should have an interview with Rockefeller next week over at Below the Line.)

Rating: 7/10

Kate Beckinsale stars in the action-thriller JOLT (Amazon), which hits Amazon Prime Video this Friday. It's directed by Tanya Wexler (Buffaloed), and in the movie, Beckinsale plays Lindy, a woman with a debilitating condition that gives her insane strength when she gets angry, and she gets angry a LOT. But no, this is not like the upcoming She-Hulk series, though it’s an incredible action movie for sure.

Beckingsale’s Lindy has something called “intermittent explosive disorder” which I’m not sure if that’s a real thing (probably not), but it gives her incredible strength when she gets mad, and it forces her to wear a vest that gives a huge electrical charge when she pushes a button. So yeah, the movie feels a lot like Crank if it had a woman lead instead of Jason Statham. Honestly, if that alone doesn’t sell you on Jolt, then this movie probably isn’t gonna be for you.

It actually starts out as a pseudo-rom-com as Lindy meets a nice guy, played by Jai Courtney, but after a few dates and some great sex, he’s killed, and Lindy is upset but even more furious than normal, swearing to find the man responsible for killing her kinda-boyfriend. So yeah, Jolt quickly turns into a revenge thriller, but it’s one with lots of Beckinsale kicking ass, some great car chases, and lots of funny doofuses getting their asses handed to them, both figuratively and literally.

Surprisingly, Wexler didn’t write this one -- the screenplay’s Scott Wascha -- but her reputation and previous films helped her put together a great cast around Beckinsale, including Stanley Tucci as her therapist who set her up with the shock vest, and Bobby Cannavale and Laverne Cox as the detectives investigating the death of Lindy’s beau, all three of them offering some great humorous dynamics to the mix.

That’s probably why Jolt is quite satisfying, not only in terms of being a female empowerment movie, but also not taking itself too seriously and always keeping the comedy on the darker side. For instance, there’s a scene where Lindy throws live babies at Cox to distract her, but what do you expect from a movie that enjoys giving its main character literal electroshock therapy?

So yeah, I definitely liked Jolt as an action-comedy. Maybe it was a bit too violent for my tastes, at times, but it definitely is everything I hoped to get out of Gunpowder Milkshake last week, and honestly, I had no idea Wexler had this kind of movie in her.

Rating: 7/10

Quirky French filmmaker Quentin Dupieux (Rubber) returns with MANDIBLES (Magnet), a comedy of sorts about a pair of dumbass friends -- Manu (Grégoire Ludig from Keep Your Eye Out) and David Marsais’ Jean-Gab, who steal a car for a job only to find a giant fly inside its trunk, so they decide to train it to rob banks for them.

Yup, it’s another weird one from Dupieux, and honestly, it took me a long time to really get into it, as these two doofuses get into all sorts of predicaments (and who have an amusing “secret” handshake). Where it really takes off is when they meet a group of vacationers, including the one and only Adèle Exarchopoulos as Agnes, a woman who mistakes one of the guys as a high-school lover. Things just get zanier from there as the guys try to sneak in their giant trained fly -- now named Dominique -- into the vacation home where they’re staying with a bunch of Agnes suspicious friends and her brother. (There’s also one woman who literally shouts everything due to a condition, and at first, it was more aggravating than funny, but like everything else in this, she gets funnier over time.)

In fact, after I got to the end of the movie, I ended up going back to rewatch the first half again to see if I missed anything, and surprise, surprise, the two guys and their antics had definitely grown on me by the end, making it easier to enjoy a second view. I certainly wouldn’t recommend any of Dupieux’s movies to just anyone, and that goes for Mandibles, but if you enjoyed the quirky humor of Rubber or last year’s Deerskin, then you might not hate this one, but it’s also not a movie I’d recommend you rush out to see in theaters.

Rating: 6.5/10

A few more words about a few other docs… (As usual, I didn’t get to watch nearly as much as I hoped to get to this week.)

I did get to watch Garret Price’s WOODSTOCK '99: PEACE, LOVE AND RAGE (HBO), which will hit the cable network on Friday. Honestly, I barely remember it, and I’m not even sure I watched it PPV or at all, because there weren’t really that many acts at this year’s festival that interested me. I mean, Limp Bizkit? Korn? Rage Against the Machine? I wasn’t really into any of those in the late ‘90s, and certainly not my sworn-enemy Jewel or Sheryl Crow or Alannis Morrissette, the festival’s token women who were slotted into separate days. Even so, Price is a pretty decent documentation of all the awfulness at that particular festival from portapotties mixing shit in with all the mud or the many cases of sexual harassment, assault and flat-out rape that took place on the campgrounds. I’m sure I heard most of it but seeing it put together like this in the film’s two-hour running time just makes it harder to watch without tearing up. A pretty solid doc that I’m not sure I could fully recommend, but hey, I’ve never been to one of these festivals and after watching this movie, I probably never will. (It is interesting how Price contrasts the disaster of Woodstock ‘99 with the hugely-successful Coachella, which started not long afterwards.)

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to Jamila Wignot’s doc AILEY (NEON) about choreographer Alvin Ailey, making this the second movie about dance or choreography in a row. It opens in New York this weekend, in L.A. theaters next Friday July 30 and then everywhere on August 6.

Then there’s ALL THE STREETS ARE SILENT (Greenwich), Jeremy Elkin’s doc that covers the crossroads between skateboard and hip-hop in downtown Manhattan during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. For whatever reason, I wasn’t able to get around to this, although it features Rosario Dawson, Bobbito Garcia, Stretch Armstrong, Moby (him again?!), Fab 5 Freddy, and a lot of other rappers I’ve never heard of.

Also hitting HBO Max on Thursday is THROUGH OUR EYES (HBO Max/Sesame Workshop docuseries), a series of four 30-minute films designed for adults to watch with their kids age 9 and up, dealing with things like homelessness, parental incarceration, military caregiving, and climate displacement. Sounds fun.

Hitting Netflix on Wednesday is TROLLHUNTERS: RISE OF THE TITANS (Netflix), a movie based on the popular series produced by Guillermo del Toro, which I’ve also never see, so I guess I don’t have a lot to say about this.

Lastly, premiering this week is the second season of Apple TV+’s Emmy-nominated TED LASSO which is probably gonna win a bunch of those Emmys going by previous awards shows. It’s a very popular show. I’m still on Season 1, myself.

Other films I didn’t get to… (sorry, respective publicists!)

HERE AFTER (Vertical)

FEAR AND LOATHING IN ASPEN (Shout Studios!)

Next week, it’s a doozy! Disney finally releases Jungle Cruise, starring Dwayen Johnson and Emily Blunt, while there are two smaller movies looking to make some money, Thomas McCarthy’s Stillwater (Focus Features), starring Matt Damon, and David Lowery’s The Green Knight (A24), starring Dev Patel. Should be an interesting one.

#The Weekend Warrior #Movies #Reviews #Old #Snake Eyes #Mandibles #Settlers #Val #Joe Bell #Jolt #Streaming #VOD #Box Office