#thinking about the way anthony may delivered “when will you learn you HAVE no future?”

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

god help me i'm going insane about dickson xenoblade again

#this is what i get for thinking about lord of the rings too hard this week (specifically denethor / gríma / saruman and the like) #thinking about the way anthony may delivered “when will you learn you HAVE no future?” #he thinks shulk is fully DEAD at that point. he thinks HE killed him. which he very much meant to. but now that the kid is no longer there #now that the terrible future he's been preparing for and actively working to bring about has in fact come about #i don't know that dickson really cared anymore. he played his part he did the deed expected and he did it unquestioningly. So What Now? #well. now nothing. now the world that he spent so long biding his time in; so long getting enmeshed in (even for nefarious purposes) #is about to end; is about to be gone forever. #sure zanza will probably just create another world and maybe he (dickson) will have Even More Power in the new one #(though that's not a given! he doesn't know for SURE his lord and god will keep his promise!) #but like. what the hell does he care at this point #dickson SAYS he wants power but i suspect that long long ago what the giant dickson really wanted was SURVIVAL. #we never get to know just how he became a disciple or what the giant civilization looked like in its heyday or how it ended #but in MY headcanon dickson saw that some kind of destruction coming and he wanted Out #and maybe he hated his peers and figured any power and prestige that came from this bargain was just a bonus #i think he thought of himself as a saruman type: powerful; remote; far above the petty troubles of mortals (even the long-lived high entia) #but i have always headcanoned that by his later days (i.e. when he started engaging w/colony 9; machina village; etc. in earnest) #he committed too hard to the bit and started “going native” as it were; started to give a shit in ways that he would never dare admit #maybe not as much of a shit as; you know; a regular guy would. but more than an immortal disciple and horseman of the apocalypse should. #and all the time knowing that all the world he'd seen would soon be gone #maybe everyone else can get fucked. but shulk had to die too. and that's what their god MADE them to do. #he can't allow himself to care or to hope for another option bc in his mind it's already over; decided; that's it #what else can you do in the face of ultimate power but bow to it and take whatever scraps may fall to an obedient servant? #“you have no future” nor does he except that shulk came back. except that the peoples of bionis/mechonis just wouldn't accept Fate. #and in some final rebellious corner of his mind he starts putting eggs in shulk's basket. “if they can't even defeat telethia they won't #stand a chance against me (or zanza)” so let's see if they CAN. oh they did? how about a dragon? oh fuck they defeated the dragon too? #well fuck. maybe there WAS another option all along. but will/can they stand against me; the final disciple? oh they can?? #guess i'll die then bc i'm not looking THAT in the face. i am NOT unpacking my cowardice/failure/lack of vision after all these years. #good luck with that tho <3 you're welcome for the training btw. where i'm going i don't have to see your trauma assuming you live that long. #dickson #xenoblade

[adevotedappraisal]

Magdalene by FKA Twigs, a review.

I’ve been learning some shit from women from as long as I’ve been alive. Always some other shit that I never asked for but I got told it.  I used to treat them things they said as laws as a child, but I never saw them in a book, so then I stopped believing them.  They were always hushed laws though, laws told with squinted eyes and italicized whispers, laws told when no one else was around.

I mean, now of course men make the real laws that we know and live by.  Well come on now, we write them on parchment, and display them on lights, we code them into computers, inscribe them on coins and stone. But these women…man women tell you some other shit, like glue shit, in low, muttered tones in the quiet part of the house.  Like advice on… well not how the world works, but how to deal with the world when it works against you, and how to make it work for you. But you see, I’ve come to believe that the fairer sex tells you different laws than the vaunted laws and advice of our fathers because they all around see the world differently than men do.  They may, in fact, have been harbouring different goals than us all along.  

I mean for christssakes us men have our hero’s journey as clear as day, writ large and indelible across history books and entertainment.  You could take that Joseph Campbell mono-myth theory and see it expressed in Arthurian swash-buckle, the middle earth ring-slaying of Tolkien, or in the recently concluded tri-trilogy of Star Wars galactic clashes.  We’re in the empire business, as Breaking Bad’s Walter White infamously said.  But still, the question always lingered to me: what is the heroine’s journey? Is it really just a lady in a knight’s armour? Or some tough-as-nails spy for some interloping government’s intelligence agency, delivering kidney kicks in a designer pencil skirt?

Well, I’ve come to believe that the heroine’s journey is navigating the waves of history we imperial and trans-national men make from our railroads and pipelines, our satellites and wars, them at once preserving a culture and sparking a path and creating a bond between cultures in order for them and their (il)legitimate brood to survive.  That old chestnut about how behind every successful man is a woman always unnerved me by its easy adoption. I kept thinking ‘bout that woman.  I kept thinking, what the fuck was she thinking?

You see women’s heroes, they ain’t as clear as day to me.  They don’t kill the dragon, they don’t save the townspeople, they don’t shoot the Sherriff, or the deputy, or anyone most times. When I ask people in public at my job what super power they would like, most men go for strength, flight, and regenerative abilities (my pick).  Most women went with mind reading and flight. In late night conversations though, with the moonlight coming through the white blinds and resting soft on us like so, I sometimes manage to hear that women’s heroes heal and clean the sick of the nation, in sneakers with heels as round as a childhood eraser; they feed a family with one fish and five slices of wonder bread; they would run gambling spots in the back of their house, putting the needle back on the Commodores record and patrolling the perimeter of the smoked-out room with a black .45 nested by their love handles; they climb up flag poles and speak out loud in public for the disposed and teach children those unwritten, floating laws while cloistered in the quiet part of the house.  

Although their heroines are sometimes from the top strata of society –a Pharaoh here, an Eleanor Roosevelt there, an Oprah over there—they also name a healthy mix of radicals and weirdos with modest music success, people like Susan B. Anthony, Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, or Nikki Giovanni, I mean did Nina Simone or Janis Joplin even crack the Billboard top ten? Yet there they are, up on the walls of a thousand college dorms across the country.  So even though I couldn’t’ve foreseen it, it makes sense that of all the ultra-natural creatures, of all the great conquering kings and divining prophets of the Holy Bible, Mary Magdalene ends up the spirit animal for the album of the year for 2019.

Mary Magdalene was a follower of Jewish Rabbi Jesus during the first century, according to the four Gospels of the New Testament of the Bible, a figure who was present for his miracles, his crucifixion and was the first to witness him after his resurrection.  From Pope Gregory I in the sixth century to Pope Paul VI in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church portrayed her as a prostitute, a sinful woman who had seven demons exorcised from her.  Medieval legends of the thirteenth century describe her as a wealthy woman who went to France and performed miracles, while in the apocryphal text The Gospel of Mary, translated in the mid-twentieth century, she is Jesus’ most trusted disciple who teaches the other apostles of the savior’s private philosophies.

Due to this range of description from varying figures in society, she gets portrayed in differing ways, by all types of women, each finding a part of Magdalene to explain themselves through.  Barbra Hershey, in the first half of Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) plays her as a firm and mysterious guide, a rebellious older cousin almost, while Yvonne Elliman, in Norman Jewison’s 1973 film adaptation of Lloyd Weber’s Jesus Christ Superstar is lovelorn and tender throughout, a proud witness of the Word being written for the first time.  In “Mary Magdalene,” FKA Twigs, the Birmingham UK alt-soul singer, describes the woman as a “creature of desire”, and she talks about possessing a “sacred geometry,” and later on in the song she tells us of “a nurturing breath that could stroke you/ divine confidence, a woman’s war, unoccupied history.” Her vocals that sound glassy and spectral in the solemn echoes of the acapella first third, co-produced by Benny Blanco, turn sensual and emotive when the blocky groove kicks in.  That groove comes into its own on the Nicolas Jaar produced back third, and when this all is adorned with plucked arpeggios it sounds like an autumnal sister to the wintry prowl of Bjork’s “Hidden Place” from her still excellent Vespertine (2001). 

This blending of the affairs of the body and of Christian theology is found in the moody “Holy Terrain” as well.  While it is too hermetic and subdued to have been an effective single, it still works really well as an album track.  In this arena, Future is not the hopped up king of the club, but a vulnerable star, with shaded eyes and a heart wrapped up in love and chemicals, sending his girl to church with drug money to pay tithes.  Over a domesticated trap beat he shows a vulnerable bond that can exist, wailing his sins and his devotion like a tipsy boyfriend does in the middle of a party, or perhaps like John the Baptist did, during one of his frenzied sermons, possessed and wailing “if you pray for me I know you play for keeps, calling my name, calling my name/ taking the feeling of promethazine away.”

Magdalene, the singer’s sophomore release, takes the mysterious power and resonance of this biblical anti-heroine, and involves its songs with her, these emotional, multi-textured songs about fame, pain and the break up with movie star boyfriend Robert Pattinson.  With “Sad Day,” Twigs sings with a delicate yet emotional yearning, imbued with a Kate Bush domesticity. The synth pads are a pulsing murmur, and the vocal samples are chopped and rendered into lonely, twisting figures.  The drums crash in only every once in a while, just enough to reset the tension and carve out an electronic groove, while the rest of the thing is an exercise in mood and restraint, the production by twigs, Jaar and Blanco, along with Cashmere Cat and Skrillex, leaves her laments cosseted in a floating sound, distant yet dense and tumultuous, the way approaching storm clouds can feel.   Meanwhile “Thousand Eyes” is a choir of Twigs, some voices cluttered and glittering, some others echoed and filled with dolour. “If you walk away it starts a thousand eyes,” she sings, the line starting off as pleading advice and by the close of the song ending up a warning in reverb, the vintage synths and updated DAWs used to create these sparse, aural haunts where the choral of shes and the digital ghosts of memory can echo around her whispered confessional.

In many of these divorce albums, the other party’s role in the conflict is laid bare in scathing terms: the wife that “didn’t have to use the son of mine, to keep me in line” from Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear from 1979; the players who “only love you when they’re playin’” as Stevie Nicks sang on Fleetwood Macs Rumours (1977); or as Beyonce’s Lemonade (2017) charges, the husband that needs “to call Becky with the good hair.”   At first though, Twigs is diplomatic, like in “Home with me,” where she lays the conflict on both sides here, expressing the rigours of fame, the miscommunication –accidental or intentional –that fracture relationships, and the violent, tenuous silence of a house where one of the members is in some another country doing god knows what, physically or mentally. “I didn’t know you were lonely, if you’d just told me I’d be home with you,” she sings in the chorus over a lonely piano, while the verse sections have the piano chords flanked by blocks of glitch, and littered with flitched-off synths. Then, the last chorus swirls the words again, along with the strings and horns and everything into a rising crescendo of regret.

Later in the album however, her anger once smoldering is set alight, in the dramatic highlight “Fallen Alien.” Twigs sings with an increasing tension, as her agile voice morphs from confused, pouting girlfriend to towering lady of the manor, launching imprecations towards a past lover and perhaps fame itself. “I was waiting for you, on the outside, don’t tell me what you want ‘cuz I know you lie,” she sings, and, after the tension ratchets up becomes “when the lights are on, I know you, see you’re grey from all the lies you tell,” and then later on we have her sneering out loud “now hold me close, so tender, when you fall asleep I’ll kick you down.”  All while pondering pianos drop like rain from an awning, tick-tocking mini-snares and skittering noises flit across the beat like summer insects, the kicks of which are like an insistent, inquisitive knocking at the door, and then there’s that sample, filtered into an incandescent flame, crackling an  I FEEL THE LIGHTNING BLAST! all over the song like the arc of a Tesla coil. The song is a shocking rebuke, and it becomes apparent upon replays that the songs are sequenced to lead up to and away from it, the gravitational weight giving a shape and pace to the whole album.  Because of this, the other songs on Magdalene have more tempered, subtle electronic hues and tones, as if the seductive future soul of 2013s “Water Me” from EP2, and the inventive, booming experimentation of “Glass & Patron” from 2015s M3LL1SSX, were pursed back and restrained until it was needed most, and this results in an album more accomplished, nuanced and focused than her impressive but inconsistent debut LP1 (reviewed here).  

This technique of electronic restraint has shown up in the most recent albums by experimental pioneers, with the sparse, mournful tension of Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool (2017), it’s cold, analog synths and digital embellishments cresting on the periphery of the song, and with Wilco’s Ode to Joy from last year, an album bereft of their lauded static and electric scrawl, mostly embossed in acoustic solitude and brittle, wintery guitar licks.  Twigs and her co-producers take the same knack for the most part throughout the album, like with closer “Cellophane,” where the dramatic voice and piano are in the forefront, while effects crunch lightly in the background like static electricity in a stretched sweater, and elsewhere, as the synths of “Daybed” slowly intensify into a sparkling soundscape, as if manufacturing an awakening sunrise through a bedroom window.  And it is this seamless melding of organic and electronic instruments, to express these wretched and fleeting emotions of heartbreak that makes this the album of the year.

It makes sense that an artist like FKA Twigs would be drawn to a figure like Mary Magdalene.  Of the many Marys in the New Testament, she stuck out as palpably different, or rather, she depicted a differing part of womanhood than the other two.  She wasn’t the chaste, life-giving mother of Jesus, or the dutiful Mary of Clopas. Instead, Magdalene was this mixture of sexuality and spirituality, one of those figures that managed to know men and women in equal measure, wrapped up with the blood as well as the flesh.  Twigs also played with this enrapturing sexuality in her work, writhing around in bed begging some papi to pacify her and fuck her while she stared at the sun, then making you identify with the lamentations of video girls, and then telling you in two weeks you won’t even recognize who you were seeing before.  There was something mysterious and layered to her millennial art-chick sexpot act though, layers that have begun to be revealed with this album.  

We realise now, that what she was depicting all along was more like the sexual heat that lays underneath devotion, as opposed to fleeting, mayfly lust, and that she now understands the weight and half-life of love.  That is, that beyond the sex and patron and fame there is a near sacred love we build between each other for a while in time, lasting as long as both hands can bear to hold it, and also that the death of a relationship still has the memory of the love created warm within it that then radiates off slow into the air.  A love that then falls into our minds for safekeeping dark and unobstructed now, the way Jesus’ blood fell from his wound into Joseph of Arimathea’s grail held aloft.  

“I never met a hero like me in a sci-fi,” FKA Twigs sings, an evocative line less so for the hegemonic patriarchy of the worldwide movie and comic book industry suggested by ‘the sci-fi’ here, and more for the ‘hero like me’ part, which suggests she had to make her hero origin story all up, without the scaffolding of centuries of relatable mythologies, presenting us with an avatar of millennial love, in all of its tortured luster.  And you hear this type of love in her voice, no longer changed up and ran through a filter for Future Soul sophistication most times, but out in the open now, to express particular emotions, whether it’s in that swooping, falling ‘I’ in the heart-break closer “Cellophane,” or her assured realisation, later on “Home With Me” where she says “But I’d save a life if I thought it belonged to you/ Mary Magdalene would never let her loved ones down.”  

It’s never about how to conquer with these women you see.  In the end of all relationships it’s how they find their way out after us temporarily embarrassed conquerors are about to leave, jacket slung over shoulder, standing by the door. You squint your eyes back at her this time, and you listen this time, while she tells you, or tells the ground in front of you, what parts of love to let go of, and what parts are worth holding on to in this age of Satan, the parts that will help you become yourself. “I wonder if you think that I could never help you fly,” the song tells you then, one of those stinging admissions that only women come up with, and you wisely stay silent, and then the piano chords part, the synths subside. And for a while there as she looks at you, as the breathy sortilege in the song keeps going, it all sounds like something worth believing in again.  And then, the words she says to you start to come across like laws.

#music #music review #rnb #rnb music #r&b #soul #future soul #future pop #alt soul #electronica #fka twigs #magdalene #mary magdalene #cellophane #Long Reads #sad day #hiro murai #new music

[popwasabi]

“Westworld III” takes several steps forward...and several steps back (REVIEW)

Created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul, Ed Harris, Vincent Cassel, Tessa Thompson, Thandie Newton

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Season three of HBO’s “Westworld” cleans up many of the issues season two had but ultimately falls short of season one’s loftier thematic ideas.

It’s cinematically sharper, it’s about as well paced and fun as the show has ever been and that on it’s own makes it worth watching and certainly worth continuing the series going forward but for fans hoping it might have something new to say in the vein of its hyper meta-textual and thematic commentary of the first season it may leave you disappointed.

Season three may have raised the stakes of the series with its pending (and frankly, all too timely) apocalyptic vibes going on in the story but it lowers the bar on its cerebral nature opting more for fast paced thrills over anything more profound or hadn’t said already.

That said, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it anyways for better…and worse.

“Westworld” season three picks up not too long after the events of season two as Dolores has infiltrated human society and begun working on her master plan to bring it all down. She has spared Bernard, who now spends his life as butcher outside the major cities but he often wonders where she is and when this apocalypse will begin. Meanwhile a veteran named Caleb spends his life doing the same mundane tasks and mercenary work everyday to make ends meet pondering his existence as he deals with his PTSD. He decides to break the cycle however when one day he finds Dolores shot in an alleyway and joins her on her quest to start a revolution.

“Westworld” is one of the few series that hooked me immediately with its first episode.

Where some series take their time to gain momentum before going into overdrive in their season finale, season one’s “The Original” grabbed my attention from the start with a combination of mystery, action, stellar acting, and the kind of cerebral humanist story-telling I expect and want from the cyberpunk genre.

As someone with a father who talked extensively about myth, theme, and got me to listen to old Joseph Campbell essays on CD  growing up, a series that explored story-telling on a meta level with a high octane LARP concept setting was everything someone like me could ask for in a science fiction series.

(Seriously, there was some compelling analytical story-telling dialogue in this series.)

So invested I was in this tale of synthetics gaining agency and humans exploring their own personal myth-making and what it said about themselves made me a huge fan early on, proudly proclaiming it to be the best show on HBO several years ago.

I was so certain this series was creatively the best thing on television at the time that I strongly considered getting a maze tattoo like that in the show to proclaim my brand-new fandom.

But knowing there was still more seasons on the horizon, I held off thinking I should probably see this through before doing anything that brash.

Well, a few years later I feel pretty good about that decision…

(Imagine how fans who named their newborns Daenerys or Khalessi feel right now...)

I remember thinking at the end of season one “Where can they possibly go from here still? Other LARP destinations in this cyberpunk world? A robot vs human war? How can the world expand?”

The problem is these thoughts did not really ask the most important question following that first season; “What more does it actually have to say?”

The first season is, in my opinion, a perfect season of television. It’s a brilliant take on the stories we tell ourselves, the choices we make that define us in our personal myths, and the exploration of our nature and how that relates to choice all while playing out this synthetic mystery plot. The entire first season pulls all these arcs and ideas together through characters like Bernard/Arnold, William/The Man in Black, and of course Dolores. They all, more or less, complete their arcs in that first season and there’s not really much needed to be said beyond that when you really think about it. If the series ended on Dolores murdering Ford and the Delos guests in the season finale that honestly would have been a perfect ambiguous ending to send the story off on.

(Kind of itss own meta commentary on the journey of a fan and an ever-increasingly cynical series...)

But because this is HBO, and “Game of Thrones” is no longer the driving force of premium TV, Westworld MUST continue because it’s the new cash cow for the channel. Whether or not writer/producers Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan really knew what they wanted to do following that first season is anybody’s guess but it’s hard not to see that they have struggled a bit since that point.

Season two is a mixed bag, where the characters literally feel like they’re going in circles. Plotlines get muddled, characters become hyper versions of themselves, and while certain ideas and episodes reached similar levels of brilliance that the first season had it still lacked the narrative sharpness of the first season and that has a lot to do with the characters having mostly no other driving force besides survival and simply getting to the next physical plot point.

It just didn’t have much more to say and frankly in a story about stories that’s pretty damn important.

(This episode from season 2 is still one of its best.)

To their credit, Joy and Nolan appear to rectify quite a few issues season two had with season three. Again, it’s faster, better paced, there’s a clearer destination at the end for its characters and not to mention a pretty compelling villain for this season’s plot in Serac played by the brilliant Vincent Cassell.

But it suffers ultimately the same problem; it has nothing truly new to say.

This is not to say the season is without any meaningful messages or metaphors. It’s quite critical of our hyper surveillance and information gathering state, might even be the best depiction to date on the broader implications and consequences of a world where we all have our personal information readily online to mined and plundered by big businesses and government. Caleb, played by the always great Aaron Paul, is a good avatar for the everyman who has grown jaded and disenfranchised by this system. Though he spends most of the season looking overly shocked and gape-jawed at just about everything, it’s hard not to feel empathy and a connection to this character as we are quite literally living in a bit of a cyberpunk hell as it is these days and treated just as much as expendable commodities right now.

(You fucking jackasses are arguing for the wrong things! You’re all being swindled and cheated for nothing! *photo ���unrelated”*)

The season is generally best when the focus is on him, as the first episode delivers a strong start in the same way season one did.

Where the season begins to fall apart though is when quite literally the world “Westworld” inhabits begins to do so itself. Serac’s Rehobaum, which reminded me just a little too much of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s” Deep Thought, releasing all its data to the world and everyone discovering they’re basically all dangerous assholes is almost hilarious to me. 

Though the idea of hyper data controlling our every move is a good cyberpunk metaphor to jump off of, the way this bit is executed is a little over exaggerated and clumsy.

(Though it does deliver a pretty powerful scene regardless.)

This isn’t actually a tremendous problem with season three, but it doesn’t do much to add to what we already understand about the story; which is how narrative controls us and how important choices and free will is to that. All this is already told and expanded on in the first season through Dolores, all season three does it bring it to a macro level and put that onus on the humans instead of the hosts. The hosts were already a metaphor for humanity anyways so again the story in some ways hasn’t changed much since season one.

It's interesting to have the narrative of the hosts turned on the humans but thematically it feels redundant.

I’ll add that this isn’t the worst idea they could’ve gone with, it works in moving the physical aspect of the story forward for sure, and I wouldn’t even classify it as a bad one, but again the problem is the story has largely run out of new things to tell us.

We like stories because we want to learn some truth about ourselves, whether we want it to or not, and Anthony Hopkins’ Ford makes a great point of this in season one. This has been the purpose of myths and legends since the dawn of time and it’ll be no different even when the 37th Fast & Furious comes out in 40 years. You could argue that the message of Westworld deserves repeating or that it’s not important to the entertainment value it still provides, and you might be right. But for a series like this, that is so invested in what stories mean I don’t think it’s wrong to think there should be more to it than this.

(Maybe, I should’ve...)

Of course, there’s still plenty more to see out of “Westworld” for the foreseeable future as HBO won’t be canceling it anytime soon and certainly it’ll have its chance to still tackle more ideas and themes in the future but, at this point at least, it’s been less meaningful that its first season.

There are other problems too, namely Dolores constantly changing and unclear revolution plans and arcs resolved offscreen, certain side plots with other characters ultimately going nowhere, and a fairly predictable twist with Caleb, but this is the crux of the problem with the series as it stands now and the one worth mentioning the most.

(And Maeve, *sigh* oh Maeve...)

That said, season three really is a lot of fun despite my issues with the narrative. The pacing, as mentioned, is great from start to finish. I was never bored or disinterested during this season, despite its flaws, and the action bits are frankly better than they’ve ever been as the series goes full cyberpunk in parts with great robot on human and robot on robot action.

The cinematography is sharp and striking too as Jonathan Nolan shows he’s definitely Christopher’s brother with some beautiful, haunting shots of the future Los Angeles city Gotham-esque skyline set to Ramin Djawadi’s excellent cyberpunk score that gives the new season a more noire-ish feel that would make Vangelis and Hans Zimmer proud.

(In the future Los Angeles will be Singapore!)

The acting is still stellar of course. Though Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard is largely wasted in this season and his plot goes nowhere, his scene with Gina Torres in the finale is touching. Luke Hemsworth is dry as hell in a good way as Chief of Security turned personal buddy bodyguard to Bernard as Ashley Stubbs. Ed Harris is wicked and dastardly as always as William and of course Evan Rachel Wood is solid as the driving force of the series as Dolores.

(Out of context season 3 spoiler.)

The finale doesn’t leave much to say beyond a pending machine vs human war though which has been building up since the first season anyways. While I can see some possibilities for an interesting direction here, I can’t say I’m as intrigued as even the finale to season two left me.

In some ways, season one left me not too much unlike William going into season’s two and three; looking for additional meaning in something that wasn’t looking to tell me anything deeper, at least right now. Perhaps the maze just isn’t for me anymore but moving forward I’ll be lowering my expectations.

(Oh my God! Meta commentary on meta commentary! It’s meta-ception! I’m beginning to question the nature of my reality!!!)

“Westworld” remains a fun cyberpunk action series that can hold your attention span for an hour, and I think it’ll maintain that energy consistently going forward, but it might’ve been best left where it was when Dolores put a bullet in Ford’s brain.

I do hope it can regain some of its original spark at some point but until then…it doesn’t look like anything (deep) to me.

VERDICT:

3.5 out of 5

You said it, Marshawn...

#Westworld #West world #Westworld III #Westworld season 3 #Westworld season 2 #evan rachel wood #Ed Harris #Jeffrey Wright #aaron paul #Breaking bad #movie #film #TV #review #Westworld review #Christopher Nolan #Lisa Joy #Jonathan Nolan #michael crichton #HBO #Game of Thrones #daenerys #Marshawn Lynch #jimmi simpson #narrative #story #myth #legend #joseph campbell #Tessa Thompson

[snorinlauren]

The Best Horror Movies Streaming On Netflix Right Now

The number of digital platforms on which fans of horror movies can find a good scare is just as frightening as the films they have available to stream. In fact, there is even one that specializes in bringing the best the genre has to offer (and then some). Of course, for those who only have so much time and money at their disposal, settling on Netflix to help deliver the spooks would not be a mistake.

There are enough horror movies available on the popular platform to keep you streaming into the wee hours of the night, mainly because you will not be able to sleep. Among the many fears you would be facing during this binge with iconically creepy classics, modern masterpieces of the macabre, and even some of Netflix’s own ominous originals, one you should not have to worry about is the fear of disappointment.

That being said, we understand that some phobias are more challenging to get over than others, so allow us to be a beacon of despair and point you in the right direction of what the best horror movies currently available to stream on Netflix. We figured that 13 would be an appropriate number, starting with an influential cult favorite that arguably pioneered the “cabin in the woods” thriller.

The Evil Dead (1981)

A weekend getaway and an old cabin becomes an unrelenting nightmare for one man (Bruce Campbell) after his four friends are possessed by an ancient spirit that turns them into grotesque and cruel creatures.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Writer and director Sam Raimi became the patron saint of low budget indie horror with The Evil Dead, that remains a timeless classic of astonishing influence that spawned two campy sequels, a brilliantly brutal remake, and a hilarious TV series that serves as a perfect send-off for Bruce Campbell's chainsaw-handed hero, Ash Williams.

Stream The Evil Dead on Netflix here.

Poltergeist (1982)

A family seeks help when their youngest daughter is kidnapped by malevolent spirits that have invaded their suburban home.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: From producer Steven Spielberg and directed by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre creator Tobe Hooper (well, depending on who you talk to), Poltergeist is an essential haunted house picture for how it expertly taps into traumas that people of all ages an relate to and may lead you to develop new fears as well, such as television static, perhaps.

Stream Poltergeist on Netflix here.

Child’s Play (1988)

A single mother (Catherine Hicks) enlists the aid of a homicide detective (Chris Sarandon) after discovering that the doll she bought for her young son (Alex Vincent) is possessed by the soul of a dead serial killer (Brad Dourif).

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Before there was Annabelle, there was Chucky, who may not have been the first toy responsible for giving children nightmares, but certainly became every horror fan's favorite of that kind upon the release of Child's Play, a classic slasher but pokes great fun at modern commercialism.

Stream Child's Play on Netflix here.

The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

To catch a deranged murderer who skins his victims, ambitious FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Academy Award winner Jodie Foster) enlists Hannibal Lecter (Academy Award winner Anthony Hopkins), a former psychiatrist and notorious cannibal, to help get into the mind of a criminal.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may prefer their choice for the Best Picture Oscar in 1992 not be called "horror," with Anthony Hopkins' chilling performance and breathlessly suspenseful direction by Jonathan Demme, it is hard to imagine The Silence of the Lambs in any other category.

Stream The Silence of the Lambs on Netflix here.

Candyman (1992)

A graduate student (Virginia Madsen) investigating Chicago myths for her college thesis becomes especially interested on the story of a supernatural entity with a hook for a hand whom locals believe can be summoned by saying his name five times.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Tony Todd created quite a "buzz" in black horror history as the title character of Candyman, a creation from legendary writer Clive Barker based on the deliciously creepy concept of an urban legend whose existence depends on those who believe in him.

Stream Candyman on Netflix here.

Insidious (2011)

After their eldest son (Ty Simpkins) inexplicably falls into something even doctors hesitate to call a coma, a family (led by Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne) begins to fall prey to a relentless evil that seems to follow them whenever they try to escape.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell, the dynamic duo behind Saw who have since gone onto great successes on their own, created an indelibly frightening new classic to the haunted house sub-genre with Insidious, particularly for a nearly unprecedented twist that might actually have you thankful when it keeps you up at night.

Stream Insidious on Netflix here.

Sinister (2012)

Desperate for another bestseller, a true crime writer (Ethan Hawke) moves his family into a house where a disturbing murder took place, which he plans to research for his latest masterpiece, only to learn that the truth behind the incident is much worse than he could have imagined.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Oscar-nominee Ethan Hawke became an unexpected "scream king" after playing the tragic hero of Sinister, from Doctor Strange and The Exorcism of Emily Rose director Scott Derrickson, which is, arguably, the most ferociously unsettling supernatural crime thriller ever made.

Stream Sinister on Netflix here.

Creep (2014)

An amateur filmmaker accepts a request over Craigslist to film a terminally ill man's final message to his son, but quickly comes to regret the decision when his host's progressively concerning actions lead him to question if he is the one about to expire.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Conceived by its own stars Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice (the latter of which also directs), Creep is an underrated found footage gem that mostly lives up to its name (with a almost equally haunting 2017 follow-up that is supposedly the second of a planned trilogy), but the biggest shocker is how mumblecore pioneers Duplass and Brice essentially improvised the entire story from scratch.

Stream Creep on Netflix here.

The Invitation (2015)

A man brings his girlfriend to a dinner party hosted by his ex-wife and her new lover, but is immediately, and unshakably, convinced that something sinister is afoot.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: As this tenuous, high-wire act from director Karen Kusama progresses, you may not be sure who among these party guests, even Logan Marshall Green's protagonist, is worth your trust, but one thing I can confidently guarantee is is that the final moment of The Invitation will rupture your brain.

Stream The Invitation on Netflix here.

Train To Busan (2016)

An emotionally distant businessman's commute for his young daughter to visit her mother turns out to be a one-way trip into hell when someone carrying a virus turning people into mindless cannibals invites herself on board.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Not only is the live-action debut of Korean filmmaker Sang-ho Yeon’s one of the most exciting and clever zombie films in recent memory, but Train to Busan, which has spawned a highly anticipated sequel, also succeeds as a moving thriller about the sacrifices we make for ones we love.

Stream Train to Busan on Netflix here.

Terrifier (2017)

Two beautiful late night partygoers (Jenna Kanell and Catherine Corcoran) are in for the worst Halloween of their lives when they fall prey to an unfriendly clown who has plenty of sadistic trick and treats in store for them.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: If you ask me, Pennywise has nothing on Art the Clown (David Howard Thornton), the future slasher icon whom the title of Terrifier appropriately refers to for his whimsically morbid imagination and tenacious blood thirst that makes director Damien Leone’s third feature a masterpiece of unapologetic shock and "ugh."

Stream Terrifier on Netflix here.

In The Tall Grass (2019)

A pregnant woman (Laysla De Oliveira) and her brother (Avery Whitted) follow a young boy's cry for help into a large field of high-growing grass, but it soon it becomes apparent that there is no way out.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: Based on a novella by father/son writing duo Stephen King and Joe Hill, In the Tall Grass is a survivalist thriller with startling fantasy, engrossing mystery, and a menacing performance by "scream king" and The Conjuring star Patrick Wilson that makes this Netflix original one of the coolest surprises in horror of its year.

Stream In the Tall Grass on Netflix here.

Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil (2010)

An idyllic vacation in newly purchased cabin turns into "a real doozy of a day" for a pair of well-meaning hillbillies (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) after an awkward misunderstanding with some young campers leads to a bloodbath.

Why It's A Good Option for Horror Fans: The old slasher trope of shady country folk is turned on its head in a most brilliantly hilarious, yet uncompromisingly graphic, way in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, which may prove to be perfect way to end your Netflix horror binge: with a morbid laugh.

Stream Tucker And Dale Vs. Evil on Netflix here.

What do you think? Have we captured all the best haunts on Netflix, or is the absence of your own favorite horror flick the scariest thing you saw on our list? Let us know in the comments and be sure to check back for additional information and updates on the freakiest genre in cinema, as well as even more rattling recommendations of movies and TV shows you can stream, here on CinemaBlend.

What is you favorite horror film currently available to stream on Netflix?

[princess-of-france]

Also- since Love's Labour's Lost has been on the brain, and you are such a cool theatre person: dreamcast for LLL? Thank you so much!

OMFG MY FAVORITE COMEDY YES YES YES 

*blows kazoo*

(Also, I’m cracking up at you thinking I’m a “cool theater person,” because I promise that’s a wonderfully accidental illusion; in reality, I’m just a cryptid who’s entire genetic makeup consists of triple-espresso lattes, Gmail push notifications, Shakespeare plays, and tears. But you’re very kind!)

Before I answer this amazing Ask, I think I should clarify that my dreamcast for LLL already exists — or, at least, it existed in 2018 — and I had the dazzling, life-affirming pleasure of seeing them perform my beloved plotless comedy at my favorite theater festival on the planet: the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

So here’s to Amanda Dennart and her IMPECCABLE Love’s Labour’s Lost:

^^^ Yes, that is King Ferdinand of Navarre, played by the once and future Daniel José Molina, meeting the Princess of France — the fabulous Alejandra Escalante — with a paper bag over his motherfucking head so that he doesn’t break his kingly oath of Not Looking At Female For 3 Years. (Fun fact: these two are now married!)

[Photo credit: Jenny Graham.]

BUT NOW TO THE MAIN EVENT:

Critically, I think LLL is a play about eight young people experiencing love for the first time and struggling to reconcile that love with their desire to be the Cleverest Person in the Room. Like so many whip-smart young people, the Crazy Eight equate cavalier carelessness with power, but the problem is: true love requires radical, wholehearted, unbearable vulnerability. It demands chaos and madness and mess and mistakes. True love asks us to be willing to look like an idiot. And most young people just aren’t ready for that, the first time it happens. It’s why the ending of this play is so goddam devastating.

And it’s why it’s so important to me that my cast list for the Crazy Eight reflects the youth, innocence, and inexperience I see baked into every one of their lines. Love has to seem like a first-time visitor to all of them. Love has to shake up their worldview like a snow globe, bowl them over, and then leave them impermeably altered. Love has to be the thing that makes them grow up. 

So, with that, I am proud to present...

~THE NAVARRE NERDS~

1. KING FERDINAND OF NAVARRE — Paapa Essiedu

Love of my complete life. I don’t know if there’s a better actor with a bigger heart anywhere on earth. His Henry VI was utterly inspired, so I know he can be Kingly. Plus, he’s a passionate advocate for decolonizing Shakespeare and making classical theater accessible to all and...yeah. I adore him. 

2. BEROWNE — Anthony Boyle

THIS IDIOT. I had to find a picture of him laughing, because he’s played a lot of Moody Broody Types, but OMG when he cracks a grin... Anthony is just a jewel of an actor: versatile, intense, thoughtful, emotionally articulate. He’ll keep Paapa’s Ferdie laughing, but also bring out the big guns for Berowne’s gorgeous character arc from horny cynic to lovesick wooer to chastened fool.

3. DUMAINE — Alfred Enoch

Perfect angel darling. There’s no doubt in my mind that Alfie can do Smug, Suave, Would-Be-James Bond Dumaine as well as Dorky, Clumsy, Foot-Constantly-in-Mouth Dumaine with equal flair. Also, I love him. <3

4. LONGAVILLE — George MacKay

Apparently, this sweetheart is playing Hamlet soon in the new Ophelia movie, which is HILARIOUS, because he looks like the most Innocent Innocent to ever Innocent. I suppose this is what makes him a good actor. And he is very good.

~LES FILLES~

5. PRINCESS OF FRANCE — Lily James

This goddess is always getting cast as ingenues who fall in love with their eyes and hearts wide open, which is all fine and good. But I wanna see her fall in love against her will, against her better judgment, and with stubborn denial attending her every step of the way...partly because Lily is up to the challenge, and partly because it would be precious af.

6. ROSALINE — Karla Crome

BAMF. Berowne won’t know what hit him. Karla is talented in a way most of us can only dream about, but even more importantly, she is whip-smart, self-possessed, and in love with herself. Get it, girl.

7. KATHARINE — Shay Mitchell

It’s hard to beat Shay for Sleek, Feline Intelligence. I like to imagine Katharine as the ultimate duchess: rich, spoiled, overeducated, overprivileged, dressed to the nines every minute of every day. But she carries so much pain behind the mask. Being fabulous is no substitute for losing your big sister. And I think Shay can do justice to all those layers.

8. MARIA — Francesca Mills

I had the honor of seeing Francesca in Rachel Chavkin’s epic production of American Clock at the Old Vic this past winter. In a cast of over 20 brilliant actors, she emerged as the brightest star. I have never fallen in love with an actress so quickly. Sweet, inquisitive, sassy, and smart, with a crystalline voice, Francesca is the ultimate heroine. Her Maria will be the most adorable in human history, I think.

9. BOYET — Tamsin Greig

Imho, no one does Blustery Spinster Energy better than Tamsin. (See her performance as Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC miniseries, Emma.) My favorite version of Boyet is the adult female chaperone that the Princess and her ladies gleefully dress up as a man to stymie Ferdinand’s guards. It makes 5.2 all the more giddy and revelatory, and also it just makes narrative sense. Tamsin will play the beleaguered and increasingly exasperated Wine Mom to perfection.

~THE PSEUDO-SCHOLARS~

10. DON ADRIANO DE ARMADO — Riz Ahmed

I just can’t even express how much I love Riz. He dissolves completely into every single role he plays, no matter how absurd the character may seem on paper. And that is a very pertinent qualification for playing Armado, because he has the hard-fought distinction of being the most Abjectly Batshit Character in this bonkers play. Also I just really wanna get his autograph help

11. MOTE — Kiernan Shipka

THIS GIRL. Oh man, I don’t even know where to begin. She’s so flipping good at her craft, and at such a young age!! Honestly, I’d hate her if she weren’t so damn precious. All she needs to do is learn how to do a Scottish accent and then she’ll be 100% ready to play the wee snickering Watson to Armado’s pirate-Holmes. I’ve always read Mote as Armado’s platonic life partner slash surrogate daughter. She’s probably the only person in the world who knows Armado’s social security number. (Plus, Riz is a sweetheart, so you just know they’ll become great friends!)

12. DR. HOLOFERNES — Olivia Colman

What can I say? She’ll play the broad, slapstick comic relief stock character of Il Dottore to perfection...right up until the moment she doesn’t. Then she’ll make us all sob. “This is not generous, not gentle, not humble!” (V.ii.2570)

13. NATHANIEL — Cyril Nri

Can’t you just see this angel loving the crap out of Olivia’s Holofernes?? Like, he probably built an extension onto his rectory home JUST to give the famous visiting Italian academic a place to stay during her time in Navarre. Great actor, great human, great smile. 11/10

~BELOW-STAIRS~

14. COSTARD — Andy Samberg

My only Costard. I mean, he’s the only white boy I know who could play such a cowardly fuckboi of a character without turning him into a 2-D caricature. Not to mention the fact that Andy is a spectacular improv actor, so he can invent a lot of new lines and jokes for the hallboy! Win-win!

15. JAQUENETTA — Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Because I want the oft-disregarded Jaquenetta to be the Narrator of this whole wild shebang, I need an actor who can foster a deliciously familiar, non-4th-wall relationship with the audience and/or camera. Phoebe is the undisputed Queen of this. She’ll be STELLAR. And she and Andy will make people cry from laughing so hard.

16. CONSTABLE ANTHONY DULL — Andre Braugher

I love the idea of this Juilliard-trained classical actor sitting quietly with his crossword puzzle in the back of the polished oak Navarre library, watching a group of the Dumbest Smart People in human history talking themselves into a tizzy over false Latin and prickets and excrement and bad, mis-delivered iambic hexametric sonnets and just chuckling to himself. (Also: BB99 reunion!)

17. MERCADÉ — Randall Park

Tbh, I feel bad giving such a small part to such a phenomenal actor, but the thing about Mercadé is that he is like the BIGGEST small part in all of Shakespeare. He’s right up there with the First Servant in Lear in terms of the sheer narrative punch he packs into just a few short lines. And I think the best Mercadé is the one who has a personal relationship to the Princess. Maybe he was a personal aide to her father, the King? Maybe he helped raise her? Regardless, I think their conversation at the end of 5.2 is more than just the delivery of a sad message. It’s a communion between two grieving patriots of France. I want an actor whose warm heart will shine through that brief interchange. Randall can obviously do that, tenfold.

Aaaaaaand I think that’s it! Thanks again for the Ask, Lauren!! This was an absolute treat. xx Claire

[onestowatch]

Marco McKinnis Illustrates Love, Growth, and the Beginning of an Artistic Evolution in ‘E’Merse’ [Q&A]

The resurgence of R&B over the past few years is undeniable. Fusing traditional elements of the genre with new textures, artists operating in this surging space have brought life back into a sound that was arguably dormant. Compiling a list of the heavy-hitters emerging in the genre would be incomplete without the talents of Marco McKinnis. The Virginia-based artist may be relatively new but has already generated a cult-like following that heralds his music as the genre’s best-kept secret. Apologies to the McKinnis fandom, we’re about to spill the beans.

Marco McKinnis first gained traction on SoundCloud in 2016 after uploading several original records that highlighted his natural talents. One of his songs, “Beautiful Demo,” generated over 400 thousand plays and ten thousand likes on the streaming platform–safe to say listeners swooned. Partnering with Republic Records a year after the song’s release, McKinnis began showing up on major streaming platforms, effectively delivering two singles, “How I Feel” and “Middle Of The Party.” Both records continued building the mysteriously-sultry persona of the then fairly unknown vocalist.

A year after his signing with Republic, McKinnis delivered a moving body of work in the form of his six-track EP, Underground. The 18-minute exhibition resonated an energy that is lightyears ahead of its time. Despite this being his first official multi-track debut, McKinnis brandished a self-awareness that transcended his “newcomer” status. Standout tracks like, “CPR” and “Stillness” solidified his ability to not only cater to the bedroom but to the brokenhearted as well.

With consistency in mind, McKinnis wasted no time in sharing his next body of work, a six-track EP titled E’Merse. The 20-minute offering, released on June 14, floods your senses with varying themes of intimacy and romanticism. Built atop a combination of live instrumentation and trap-soul production, E’Merse makes a compelling case for McKinnis’ untapped musicality. Still in the process of discovering his own abilities as an artist leaves us excited to witness his artistic evolution.

E’Merse wastes no times on pleasantries, throwing you into the thick of things with its bass-driven, saxophone-assisted introduction “Energy.” The consoling opener is a shining example of the content and production to be expected on later tracks. Whether pleading to his former love on “Give It Up,” questioning commitment on “Deep” or confidently departing an unhealthy relationship in “On The Market,” McKinnis spotlights his growing self-awareness and natural ability to occupy multiple spaces while remaining concise.

We had the privilege of catching up with Marco McKinnis about his love for live instrumentation, opening up more, future plans, and dance moves that would make Omarion’s character in You Got Served quake.

OTW: First off thank you for taking the time, how are you doing?

McKinnis: I’m doing good man, just had my hair braided up, making me a grilled cheese right now. I got a performance tonight, I’m feeling good!

OTW: It sounds like you are living the life. What does this moment feel like? Your second EP?

McKinnis: It feels good man! I feel like I’m moving along, I’m getting the ball rolling. People are starting to really recognize me for my talent and my gift. It just feels good to just get expressions off–getting it out there in the open–it’s like I got those things off my chest so now I can keep going, keep expressing and keep showing what I’m made of.

OTW: It’s been about three years since you first released music on SoundCloud, when did you make the decision to pursue music full time?  

McKinnis: It was around 2015 when I dropped this song called “Clouds” on SoundCloud. Once people started really rockin’ with that joint, I was like, ‘alright, I’m finna keep doing this’ because I was getting looks from certain people and they’re people that wouldn’t say my music is just good for the fun of it. So, I saw people checking for me, people listening to the music and people started hitting me up telling me how my music made them feel and knew I had to keep going.

OTW: Who were your first introductions into music?

McKinnis: I listened to a lot of Gospel, a lot of Chris Brown, I was listening to a lot of Anthony Hamilton without even me really knowing I was listening to him (laughter). He was doing a lot of synchs, so a lot of his songs were in movies and stuff like that, so I would watch the movies just to hear the songs he was singing. Other than that it was a lot of Gospel though, but then I started getting hip to the music that was taking off, so like Ne-Yo, Lloyd, Lil Wayne–that early 2000’s era of music. I was kind of late to it though ‘cause I was raised on gospel. My parents would play it throughout the crib. I had to find my own way, there’s still a lot of music out that I don’t know about that people think I know about, which is kind of funny, but I was rockin’ with all of them but rockin’ with Chris Brown heavy.

OTW: What was your move from Virginia to Los Angeles like? Does location play a factor in your creative process?

McKinnis: It was cool, it wasn’t anything crazy for me honestly. I see LA as a place to give me space, you know? I’m a guy who loves his space, just like everybody else, but it [moving] did give me the platform to think about things, have my own time, to not be rushed to do certain things. As time went on, I’m like ‘man I need to go back to New York, I need to get back on the East Coast.’ The East Coast is very stimulating for me and it’s just different. Both coasts are definitely needed for me, I love both coasts, but each coast has its purpose.

OTW: You released your first EP, Underground, not even a year ago, is there a connection between that project and this one?

McKinnis: The connection between the projects is really just me showing my musicality. I was very, very involved in the musicality of the second project. Trying to get a little bit more personal, in terms of my love life and stuff like that. My second project isn’t too specific, but it updated people on what is going on in my life right now as opposed to the first project where I felt I was a little vague on certain details. Like on “Deep,” I mention a gap in age and little details that I didn’t mention on the first project, but it was definitely a growth musically; lyric wise, writing wise and I think it just serves as my process and my expression and everything I am going through at the moment.

OTW: I think that is definitely apparent when comparing the projects side by side. There is also a maturity to your music and not just content-wise, but sonically it sounds polished, what’s your work ethic like when approaching a new project?

McKinnis: Honestly, I just love music man. I want to hear music the way I want to hear it and I’m getting hip to my gift and my ear for music. So, when I hear certain things, it has to be a certain level – I don’t know how to explain it – I’m just learning more about my gift so going forward it has to be very strategic with the music. I can have an open mind about things, but I have to be very specific with what I want. It’s all about how I feel, if it doesn’t resonate with my spirit, I don’t like to partake in it.

OTW: That’s a great place to be working from. What were you listening to while working on E’Merse?

McKinnis: I was listening to Omarion, jamming to Toni Braxton, a little bit of Carl Thomas. A lot of R&B that was out in the early 2000’s. I just wanted to tap into that and get that off my chest because I feel like a lot of people think that is what I’m going to sound like for the rest of my life, but really I won’t. I’m going to always have those elements of R&B and those old school elements or whatever you want to call them nowadays, but that’s just something I had to tap into so I can move forward and get to that next level of my artistry.

OTW: You’ve spoken about learning new instruments and your connection to live instrumentation, did you play anything on the EP?

McKinnis: I didn’t play any instruments on this album, but I was very vocal about a lot of things. I haven’t made my instrument-playing debut just yet but very, very soon I will.

OTW: Staying on the production side of things, there is a nice balance sonically, like the solo saxophone on “Energy,” was the goal to show a combination of live instrumentation and more trap-soul style of beats?

McKinnis: It was definitely a priority, like when we were making “Energy,” I had it as a demo, and I could hear a saxophone on the joint and I love live instruments. I’ve been playing around with instruments almost my whole life, I haven’t mastered one just yet but I’m in the process of doing that now. I just wanted to stamp that I’m very in love with live instrumentation, so I had to get that sax in there. I had to do a little A&R work (laughter) and find that right one. His name is Kailin Joshua, my homie introduced me to him, and he did that joint in one take, I sent him a little reference of a couple tracks that have sax on it and he sent it back to me, I chopped it up a little bit, did my thing and there it was. I am so glad I put it in there. I love the sax bro when I start playing the sax, when I get a hold of a sax bro, it’s over, it's over!

OTW: Do you have a favorite song off the EP?

McKinnis: It fluctuates honestly, so it goes off the vibe, so right now, I don’t know, I’d say “Energy” because that saxophone hits, it may change tomorrow though or the day after, it fluctuates.

OTW: What do you envision for a live performance?

McKinnis: We’ve been putting together my band and stuff like that for the shows and touring. That is going to be a big, big part of my show. That’s the thing a lot of people have been wanting to see from me, the chemistry I have with live instruments and a band, that’s something that I’m definitely going to be taking with me on stage.  

OTW: You showed off some moves on your Instagram leading up to the release of the EP, is that something we can see carried over into your shows?

McKinnis: Definitely! I’m just finding that pocket haha I’ve always danced, I’ve always been a dancer, I was a dancer before everything so that’s second nature to me. I’m just finding that pocket to infuse it with what I have going on. Just trying to introduce people, upload it, show people what I can do.

View this post on Instagram

Me when E’Merse drops tonight. 🕺🏾

A post shared by Marco McKinnis (@marcomckinnis) on Jun 13, 2019 at 5:41pm PDT

OTW: There’s no denying a resurgence in R&B over the past few years, how does it feel to be making this kind of music right now?

McKinnis: It feels great to be honest. I’ve been getting a lot of feedback like, “oh he’s bringing back the R&B, blah blah blah,” which is dope, it’s fire, it’s amazing to see it going down like that because I’m just doing me. I haven’t told myself, “oh I’m going to bring back real R&B” or anything like that, I’m just expressing myself, so the feedback is amazing. I’m just excited to see the feedback as my career progresses because like I said earlier there are going to be more elements that I infuse. As the days go by, I just get more and more expressive, more and more creative.

OTW: What’s next for you?

McKinnis: Shoot, I’m going to drop more music, got to stay consistent, more performances and just getting more in the public eye. Showing my face some more because it’s about that time to be out there and we got tour ideas and all that stuff getting situated too. Visuals as well!

#marco mckinnis #interview #R&B #soul #e'merse

[douxreviews]

Gotham - ‘Ruin’ Review

Zsasz: "I did not make that building go boom Jim!"

After two sufficient episodes, and one jerry-built episode, 'Ruin' delivers easily the best chapter so far of Season 5's no man's land arc, jam-packing all of Gotham's best qualities on the front lines.

Last week, an unknown assailant bombed Haven, the refuge taken over by the GCPD to protect the civilians still trapped within the city. Gordon has no suspect at the moment, but an act as broad as this means it could really be anybody. And very understandably, Gordon's redundant speeches are not enough this time to quell the survivors' fear and rage. But at long last, Season 5 continues to give me glimpses of a more valiant and sympathetic side to Gordon as he struggles to keep the morale of his fellow officers intact, and works urgently to protect as many individuals as he can in the immediate wake of Haven's bombing.

Though 'Ruin' is still split into two separate subplots like previous episodes, the narrative of 'Ruin' has a more orderly flow to it, simply because Gotham is taking advantage of one of its most prominent gifts - its cast. Rather than having each character more allocated to their individual stories (or even worse a crime, just not having them show up at all), they are all in some way or another either involved in the search for the Haven bomber, or they're involved in the continuing pursuit of Jeremiah Valeska. Characters that have felt neglected lately, such as Nygma, Lucius, Alfred and Jeremiah, now all get at least one opportunity to be dubbed 'scene-stealer' in 'Ruin'.

Because he lost men in the bombing too, Oswald proposes a truce with Gordon so that they may combine resources and bring the bomber to justice. Since the premiere of Season 5, I've felt that Oswald should have started off this year from the get-go working alongside the GCPD. And the reason for that is because Season 4 made it a point to establish that Oswald, by comparison to other rouges, possesses a more sane and logical approach to his criminal activity. Oswald simply needs order and structure to run a prosperous criminal empire. The chaotic antics orchestrated by the Valeska brothers in Season 4 that upset the established order of Gotham's municipal formation goes very much against Oswald's rule of thumb, which was why he was so quick to turn on Jerome too. But since this alliance was likely an inevitably anyway, it's a mere nitpick for me. (That being said, it was a really dumb move for Oswald to give away his and the GCPD's position through a bullhorn when they were pursuing their suspect. Even Tony Stark, the guy who gave his home address out in a video threat to a terrorist, would see that and shake his head in stupefaction.)

Oswald and the GCPD follow up on a tip given by Barbara which leads them to none other than Victor Zsasz. Of all the characters that could flourish in no man's land, I've been especially curious this season to see the shenanigans of the gunslinger Zsasz. Anthony Carrigan's comedic take on Zsasz, reinterpreting the character more as a fusion between Deadpool and the Man with No Name, has made him one of the series' best guest-appearance characters. That being said, after Season 3 and his consistent failures to assassinate Gordon per Carmine Falcone's decree despite talking up a storm about how no one ever sees him coming, I can't say I buy Zsasz's gloating in the precinct when he assures Gordon and Bullock he didn't bomb Haven; Zsasz's reasoning is that if it was him, there'd be no survivors. I'm sure a shopping cart with one bad wheel is more fruitful than Zsasz with a firearm.

Oswald remains vengeful towards Zsasz for selling him out to Sofia Falcone last year and believes that Zsasz's denial means nothing, and that the blatherskite should be executed, a decision that is met with unanimous approval from Haven's survivors in the style of a kangaroo court (one reminiscent of Scarecrow's own hearings from The Dark Knight Rises). I always appreciate these tiny callbacks like Oswald still bitter towards Zsasz, or a desecrated 'Make Gotham Safe Again' campaign poster from Season 3 appearing in the streets, because it keeps each season from feeling disjointed from the others, and given how many writers Gotham has had staffed over the years, that feature comes up time and again. But because one does not simply kill Victor Zsasz, Gordon decides the 'innocent until proven guilty' doctrine still needs to be upheld, and frees Zsasz. Whether it's to repay the favor, or maybe because he realizes Gordon is essential to Gotham's rebuilding, Zsasz chooses afterwards to not kill off Gordon either. Because Zsasz routinely comes and goes throughout the series, this may be the very last we see of him, and so I felt it was a nice way for him and Gordon to part there - both have come quite a ways since the days of Season 1 where Zsasz was always aiming something lethal at Gordon's head.

Meanwhile, Ed Nygma continues meager efforts to understand the nature of his blackouts. For weeks, I had given up wondering if Gotham was going to give us any hints at all about Nygma's arc this season, and instead decided that maybe his story was appropriately meant to be a riddle itself. We finally get some answers to Nygma in 'Ruin' that completely revolutionize the way we'll look at all of Season 5. In his quest to follow up on a clue he had left himself, Nygma is bargained with by Lucius Fox to help him and the GCPD understand the nature of Haven's bombing. Nygma agrees, and before long, the two concur that the assailant used a rocket launcher from the outside to ignite the initial explosion within Haven. We haven't seen Fox and Nygma interact with each other since Season 3's 'How The Riddler Got His Name', and I very much enjoy their energy and possibly even dormant affinity for each other. I suspect that in another timeline where Nygma never went down a path of crime and corruption, he and Fox would have probably worked well alongside each other within the GCPD.

Also contrary to what I thought might have been Nygma's shtick this season, he actually doesn't play up the 'I've-lost-my-marbles' mindset at all this episode, instead returning to the traits of egoism and lacing riddles throughout his speech, a pleasant blend almost between the old Ed and Riddler. Following his and Fox's teamup, Nygma examines the rooftop Haven's bomber must have fired from, and notices an old lady watching him from her apartment across the street. From her, Nygma is horrified to learn that he himself is Haven's bomber (and most likely the one who also fired upon the Wayne Enterprises chopper back in the season premiere). Why Nygma is routinely shifting between alternate consciousnesses we don't know yet, but I would definitely chalk this twist up to one of Gotham's best. If not for Season 5 preparing to introduce Bane, as well as keeping Jeremiah Valeska in the spotlight, I would raise my hopes much higher for the possibility that Riddler in fact is Season 5's main antagonist. It would keep in line with the showrunners' claim that the 'Zero Year' comic inspires much of Season 5, and I personally feel we haven't really seen Riddler yet as a force to be reckoned with, at least not since the end of Season 3.

The other subplot of 'Ruin' is Bruce and Alfred pursuing Selina, simply because Bruce believes if she kills Jeremiah, it may change her for the worse. It's another amusing detail for me that this is where Bruce draws the line in regards to Selina's internal metamorphoses, yet had no problem giving her a plant with atrocious side effects Ivy advertised quite clearly. Though Bruce and Alfred both get past goons working for Jeremiah, in a manner much like how Batman will ambush his foes in the future, they are too late to stop Selina from fatally stabbing Jeremiah. Or so it would seem.

This was the most irking feature of 'Ruin' for me, and it's not even a fault of the episode - it's a fault of the marketing. Early trailers and promos for Season 5 have clearly shown additional footage of Jeremiah that we haven't gotten to yet in this season, so I don't know why Gotham suddenly thinks they can pull the wool over our eyes, and try to convince us Jeremiah is as deceased as a girlfriend of Spider-Man's who took too hard a fall off the George Washington Bridge. Personally, my money is on Clayface actually being the one Selina made quick work of. He's been absent from the series since Season 3 as well, and would also be a welcome character to see return to the final season.

Right now, I'm still skeptical if the series can follow-up with an episode that lives up to the momentum that was 'Ruin', but I don't say that as if it's a difficult thing for Gotham to accomplish. You have an incredibly talented cast and array of characters that you understand in and out Gotham - savor that while you still can, because it's a fortunate feature for any show to have.

Other Thoughts:

• Gordon tackling Zsasz head-on is a pretty amusing visual, but also another quick and snappy showcase of his increasingly appealing valor.

• Will we ever get to hear Jeremiah laugh? We all know Cameron Monaghan is very capable of the deed, it's a talent that needs to be made the most out of. It'd be like a movie casting James Spader for a role that doesn't require him to talk - indefensible!

• 'Ruin' ends with a sudden cliffhanger showing renewed romantic interest between Gordon and Barbara. Not sure why these two suddenly have the hots for each other again, but with the revelation that Barbara will have some major news for Gordon in one of the oncoming episodes, I guess it's fair that the show needed to pave the road to Barbara Gordon/Batgirl somehow. I don't quite think showing a stork deliver her to Gordon's doorstep in a basket is going to cut it for viewers.

Aaron Studer loves spending his time reading, writing and defending the existence of cryptids because they can’t do it themselves.

#Gotham #Bruce Wayne #James Gordon #Oswald Cobblepot #Selina Kyle #Harvey Bullock #Edward Nygma #DC Comics #Batman #Gotham Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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Redrafting 2020 NBA lottery: Tyrese Haliburton rises

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/sports/redrafting-2020-nba-lottery-tyrese-haliburton-rises/

Redrafting 2020 NBA lottery: Tyrese Haliburton rises

The 2020 draft class was labeled a weak draft class by many experts and surprisingly, 80% of players drafted in the first round saw solid playing time and were productive on NBA rosters this past season. 

Each year, we see a few players break out and play above their draft stock, causing some teams to regret who they drafted. If we could redraft the 2020 class, would Anthony Edwards still go No. 1? Where would James Wiseman fall, and would the 30th pick, Desmond Bane, sneak into the lottery?

After a few players outplayed their draft stock in their rookie seasons, here’s a look at Yahoo Sports’ redraft of the 2020 draft lottery. The 2021 draft lottery is 8:30 p.m. ET Tuesday on ESPN.

Actual pick: Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves

Edwards’ draft slot: No. 1, Minnesota Timberwolves

2020-21 stats: 19.3 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 2.9 apg

Some think Edwards was robbed of Rookie of the Year honors since he played the full season and LaMelo Ball was out 21 games with a wrist injury. Despite not winning the top rookie honor, Edwards completely backed his No. 1-pick status this season. Edwards avoided the “rookie wall” and actually played better in the second half of the season, averaging 27 points per game in the month of May (including a 42-point performance May 5). He had one of the best dunks of the year on Toronto Raptors forward Yuta Watanabe and provided endless entertainment in postgame Zooms and media interviews. Edwards’ future is bright on this Timberwolves team as they try to rebuild. He told Yahoo Sports on draft night, “I just want to be the best player to ever play basketball.”

Anthony Edwards dunks over the Blazers’ Robert Covington on March 14, 2021. (Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)

Actual pick: James Wiseman, Golden State Warriors

Ball’s draft slot: No. 3, Charlotte Hornets

2020-21 stats: 15.7 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 6.1 apg

The news of Klay Thompson’s season-ending Achilles injury came one hour before the NBA draft on Nov. 18. That’s not a lot of time to make changes to your draft board, especially if the front office feels confident taking Wiseman at No. 2. After seeing what Ball did this season in Charlotte, Warriors fans can’t help but wonder, “what if?”

Story continues

Ball led the entire rookie class in assists (313) and was named the Rookie of the Year, despite missing six weeks with a wrist injury. He delivered amazing highlights night after night and made his teammates better with his phenomenal passing. Ball is the type of player you can’t help but wonder what he would have done as a stand-in Splash Brother playing alongside Steph Curry in Thompson’s absence. No one knows how many more years the big three of Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green have left in them and Ball could have been the future to build around for the Warriors.

Actual pick: LaMelo Ball, Charlotte Hornets

Haliburton’s draft slot: No. 12, Sacramento Kings

2020-21 stats: 13 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 5.3 apg

Haliburton was the steal of the draft at No. 12 to the Kings, and it’s still baffling to see how many teams passed on the 6-foot-5 facilitator out of Iowa State.

“It all worked out perfectly, I’m in the perfect spot. Coach [Luke] Walton called me and just talked to me about playing fast and that he loves my game,” Haliburton said.

He was second in assists out of all the rookies with 309 for the season and second in 3-point field goals made with 121. Haliburton has been a seamless addition in the backcourt to De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield. If the Hornets couldn’t have Ball, Haliburton would have been the second-best option. We might not have seen the full-court, underhand passes like we saw from Ball, but Haliburton can be just as deadly in transition and would have been excellent alongside Miles Bridges.

What if Tyrese Haliburton played alongside Miles Bridges? (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)

Actual pick: Patrick Williams, Chicago Bulls

Williams’ draft slot: No. 4, Chicago Bulls

2020-21 stats: 9.2 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 1.4 apg

Williams was the biggest surprise of the draft and the Bulls front office must have known what they were doing when they took the one-and-done talent out of Florida State as a top-five pick. 

He had one of the most daunting tasks early on in his NBA career when he was assigned to guard LeBron James. Williams left an impression on James who said afterward, “I think he is going to be an exceptional talent. [He has] long arms. He has Kawhi-type of hands that I noticed out on the floor, so I knew I couldn’t play with the ball much. You can tell he is just laser-sharp on just trying to get better and better. I think Chicago has a good one.”

Williams was named to the the 2020-21 NBA All-Rookie second team alongside Isaac Okoro, Immanuel Quickley, Isaiah Stewart and Desmond Bane.

Actual pick: Isaac Okoro, Cleveland Cavaliers

Okoro’s draft slot: No. 5, Cleveland Cavaliers

2020-21 stats: 9.6 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 1.9 apg

Just like the Bulls’ pick at No. 4, the Cavaliers got their pick right in the 2020 draft, too. Okoro might not have been the flashiest player in this draft class but defensively, he got the job done. His only double-double came late in the season in a loss to the Indiana Pacers where he put up 22 points (including three 3-pointers) and grabbed 10 rebounds. If Okoro can get more consistent from 3-point range, the Cavaliers will have a deadly backcourt with Darius Garland, Collin Sexton and Okoro.

Actual pick: Onyeka Okongwu, Atlanta Hawks

Stewart’s draft slot: No. 16, Detroit Pistons

2020-21 stats: 7.9 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 0.9 apg

Stewart led the rookie class in rebounds with 453 and was 31st overall out of the entire NBA. He was one of the most physically ready rookies coming in this season listed at 6-foot-9, 250 pounds and it paid off in a big way when he started to see consistent minutes on a struggling Pistons team.

“For me, I just want to continue to work and build on my game,” Stewart said after an April 16 win over the Thunder where he grabbed 21 rebounds. “That’s the most important thing for me. I watch a lot of film and am just trying to learn from all my mistakes this year and get better.”

Atlanta is in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since the 2014-15 season. Okongwu has been out for the majority of the season with a foot injury. Everything has worked out so far for the Hawks, but having a healthy player who could contribute right away like Stewart could have helped win some games early on when they went 4-11 in February.

Actual pick: Killian Hayes, Detroit Pistons

Bey’s draft slot: No. 19, Detroit Pistons

2020-21 stats: 12.2 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 1.4 apg

What a season for the 3-and-D guard out of Villanova. Bey was, by far, the best rookie on the Pistons this season. He set the record for most 3-pointers by a rookie in franchise history with 175 made threes, passing Brandon Knight, who made 106. Bey was named to the 2020-21 NBA All-Rookie first team along with Ball, Edwards, Haliburton and Jae’Sean Tate.

Point guard Killian Hayes missed half of the season with a torn hip labrum, and it will forever be a mystery as to why the Pistons took Hayes at No. 7 and passed on Haliburton.

Actual pick: Obi Toppin, New York Knicks

Tate’s draft slot: Undrafted, Houston Rockets

2020-21 stats: 11.3 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 2.5 apg

The 6-foot-4 wing has been one of the biggest surprises of the rookie class after going undrafted and playing for the Sydney Kings in Australia’s NBL last season. Yes, he’s 25 years old and significantly older than the other players in his rookie class, but he’s settling in comfortably in the NBA and proving to have a bright future on this struggling Rockets team.

The Knicks had a bounce-back season in the backcourt with RJ Barrett, Derrick Rose and Immanuel Quickley. Tate would have been just as productive off the bench after proving to be the best rebounding guard in this rookie class, grabbing 374 boards and shooting better than 50% from the field. He was named to the 2020-21 NBA All-Rookie first team and will continue to be a key player as the Rockets start to rebuild in the post-James Harden era.

Jae’Sean Tate was named to the 2020-21 All-Rookie first team. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

Actual pick: Deni Avdija, Washington Wizards

Wiseman’s draft slot: No. 2, Golden State Warriors

2020-21 stats: 11.5 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 0.7 apg

There were small glimpses of what Wiseman could be in a couple seasons with the Warriors. Unfortunately, Golden State is in a win-now mode and Wiseman looked a little lost on the court at times. He only played three collegiate games at Memphis and struggled to adjust to the pace at the NBA level.

His upside is still worth investing in with his 7-foot-1 frame and excellent shot-blocking mechanics on defense. There would be room for growth over time with the Wizards. The two stars of the team, Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook, are both ball-heavy guards and not a lot would be expected of Wiseman offensively. 

Wiseman is rehabbing a meniscus injury and will hopefully bring some presence in the lane with the return of Klay Thompson next season.

Actual pick: Jalen Smith, Phoenix Suns

Pokusevski’s draft slot: No. 17, Oklahoma City Thunder

2020-21 stats: 8.2 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 2.2 apg

The Suns are in the Western Conference finals for the first time since the 2009-10 season and their actual No. 10 pick, Smith, hasn’t been a factor in any of the postseason games. Pokusevski, originally from Serbia, had a slow start to his rookie season, but quickly picked things up for the Thunder toward the end of the season. 

The 7-foot forward can extend his game past the 3-point line, hitting six 3-pointers in his final game against the Los Angeles Clippers. At only 19 years old, Pokusevski could have given solid bench minutes for Deandre Ayton and has a sold pick-and-pop game that would have complemented veteran point guard Chris Paul.

Actual pick: Devin Vassell, San Antonio Spurs

Quickley’s draft slot: No. 25, New York Knicks

2020-21 stats: 11.4 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 2.0 apg

Quickley entered his rookie season and showed off exactly what he had been working on in the eight-month extended time leading up to the draft. His floater in the lane is definitely the best in the rookie class and one of the best shots for a small guard in the league. He exuded confidence early in the season, letting shots fly from all over the court and impacted the game no matter how many minutes he played each night.

Three years ago, he was coming off the bench at Kentucky and averaged only 5.2 points per game. Fast forward to his sophomore season in Lexington where he was the leading scorer in the SEC and then was a first-round draft pick. Quickley is a phenomenal shooter with a high release and would have been an excellent option on the wing alongside Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker.

Immanuel Quickley showed off how his floater in the lane is definitely the best in the 2020 rookie class. (Vincent Carchietta/USA TODAY Sports)

Actual pick: Tyrese Haliburton, Sacramento Kings

Bane’s draft slot: No. 30, Memphis Grizzlies

2020-21 stats: 9.2 ppg, 3.1 rpg, 1.7 apg

Bane’s biggest criticisms coming into the 2020 draft were his size and length at the guard position. He’s listed at 6-foot-6, but has a 6-foot-4 wingspan. A lot of teams were worried about how he would defend the perimeter. Well, he did just fine in his first season in Memphis. Bane stole the ball 50 times and was a key rotational player for the Grizzlies during the postseason.

Bane complements Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks well, and he could have had the same impact in Sacramento playing alongside De’Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield. He finished the season shooting 43.2% from 3-point range and averaged less than one turnover per game for the season.

Actual pick: Kira Lewis Jr., New Orleans Pelicans

Anthony’s draft slot: No. 15, Orlando Magic

2020-21 stats: 12.9 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 4.1 apg

Anthony’s role in Orlando expanded immensely once Markelle Fultz went down with a season-ending torn ACL. Anthony rose to the occasion and hit two game-winners in his rookie season and had a season-high 37 points in his last game against the 76ers. 

Anthony is an extremely competitive guard who will have a long career in the NBA. He could have provided support to Lonzo Ball in the backcourt this season, and we would have undoubtedly seen some lobs to Zion Williamson in transition, where Anthony is most dangerous. With reports surfacing that Williamson’s family is unhappy in New Orleans, it’s up to the front office to make some changes and bring in some players who will turn around the franchise and keep their star player happy.

Actual pick: Aaron Nesmith, Boston Celtics

Maxey’s draft slot: No. 21, Philadelphia 76ers

2020-21 stats: 8.0 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 2.0 apg

Maxey was instrumental in the Game 6 win over the Atlanta Hawks that forced the Eastern Conference semifinals series to go the distance. He finished with 16 points and was a +12 coming off the bench. 

The former Kentucky guard was a little up-and-down at times this season, but he finished shooting 46.2% from the field and has a bright future as a shooting guard in the NBA. 

The Celtics took the Vanderbilt sharpshooter, Nesmith, at No. 14, but he struggled in his rookie season, averaging only 4.7 points per game. Maxey’s playmaking ability complements Jayson Tatum, and he might not have the shooting range of Payton Pritchard, but he could end up being a better long-term prospect down the road.

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Despite a build-up of promise, the finale episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier failed overall. The finale found Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) squaring off in a final battle against the anarchist terrorist group the Flag-Smashers, led by Karli Morgenthau (Erin Kellyman), who were intent on assassinating the Global Repatriation Council on the eve of an important vote. As is usual with Marvel movies and TV shows, some plot lines were resolved, other stories were set up, and hints at brand-new superheroes from the comics entering the MCU were dropped.

The six-episode miniseries (or season, if it gets an order for season 2) tackled a number of complex topics along the way, some poignantly and others seemingly just check a box off on a list. Along with the central problem of the Flag-Smashers, Sam's individual struggle was learning to come to terms with being the first Black man to be Captain America while Bucky was dealing with laying the ghosts of his past as the Winter Soldier to rest. Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl) also featured in the series as Bucky and Sam's temporary ally – at least before Ayo and some of the Dora Milaje showed up for a subplot involving tracking him down and returning him to prison. Meanwhile, the Flag-Smashers and their cause were also given screen time, if not exactly clear focus.

Related: Captain America 4: Sam's MCU Future After Falcon & Winter Soldier Explained

It's a lot of plot to wrap up in a single finale episode, and while some of the lesser storylines were resolved earlier (or largely forgotten entirely), the finale had quite a few major stories and loose ends to juggle. Unfortunately, it failed in that aim. It's telling that overall, the first season of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is at a solid 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, but the finale is currently sitting at a dismal 59%. The general consensus is that the final episode was a letdown for a few reasons.

It's hard to overstate how little happened for an episode of 52 minutes. The attempted GRC takeover and battle is a whopping 25 minutes of the episode. Sam's speech is another four. And the credits, minus the brief mid-credits scene, eat up nine minutes of those 51 minutes. In essence, one single battle and follow-up speech takes up two-thirds of the entire episode. That's just poor pacing. For a series that dealt with a number of weighty issues, the finale being reduced to one big punch-'em-up fight was an enormous letdown and a regression in terms of storytelling.

In fairness, it's worth noting that Covid-19 forced delays in production, but more, it also forced a number of considerable changes to the story itself. There was reportedly a virus storyline that had to be cut in light of the current pandemic and it's been confirmed that Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine was supposed to make her first appearance in Black Widow but it ended up being introduced in Falcon & Winter Soldier after release date delays forced the Marvel film to be bumped back by more than a year and release after the Disney+ show. The Covid seams were clear throughout the series: some plotlines were dropped completely and characters disappeared for episodes at a time, other storylines were rushed or lacked clarity, and the editing was at times jumpy. There was enough great chemistry between the two lead stars, gravitas provided by Carl Lumbly as Isaiah Bradley, and thought-provoking moments to mostly carry the series through the first five episodes. But in the finale, the wheels finally fell completely off. With so many stories that needed to be given time to bring them to a close in a satisfying manner, the finale felt like an episode centered on one fight and then cobbled together with the scraps of whatever footage was left.

One of the most surprising and disappointing elements of the finale was how painfully hamfisted and on the nose much of the dialogue was. Sam Wilson's speech at the end sounded less like an organic moment and more as if Anthony Mackie would turn to the camera at any minute and say, "In case you didn't notice, I'm laying out my manifesto as the Black Captain America" before winking and turning back to the other characters. Likewise, the callback dialogue between two Black male characters of, "Hey, it's Black Falcon!" "No. That's Captain America." was so absurdly unnecessary and cheesy that more than a few people on social media commented on how it made them laugh aloud – not the reaction one would want from the audience during what's supposed to be an inspiring and serious moment.

Related: How Did Marvel Get The Falcon & The Winter Soldier So Wrong?

Before the finale, Falcon and the Winter Soldier tackled complex issues like being Black in America and what it means to be a hero or a villain with a morally gray touch and often an ambiguous stance. That approach allowed audiences to debate scenes, think about the messages they sent, and draw their own conclusions. The entire point of the series through the first five episodes was to underscore that in a post-Blip MCU, the line between good guys and bad guys is thin, and the world is no longer so black and white. Thus, the finale delivering Sam's big moment as nothing more than a heavy-handed morality play was jarring. It felt like an episode written for the audience Marvel was worried hadn't quite gotten the first five episodes and the issues they explored. Unfortunately, in doing so, it undermined what the series had done to that point. One good thing did come out of Sam's pointed speech, however: It finally explained what exactly the Flag-Smashers were trying to stop the GRC from doing, a point that hadn't exactly been made clear in the series.

Both Karli and Sharon Carter (Emily Van Camp) got the short end of the stick in the finale. Karli Morgenthau's arc felt like a regression to Phase 1 of the MCU, when villains were little more than 2D constructs serving as walking plot catalysts and then killed off as soon as their function was served. Karli's character being underwritten and her motivations unclear were major issues throughout the series, but her being casually killed at the hands of Sharon Carter and dying quickly only served to underscore how little audiences ever truly learned about her character. Viewers were given a surface explanation of what she and the Flag-Smashers wanted, but not exactly why, what Karli's own personal motivations were, or what happened in her past to turn her into such a zealot. What could and should have been a poignant moment with her death turned into merely a plot point resolution to tick off the list.

As for Sharon Carter, her character has suffered in a similar way over a longer period of time. The MCU has never quite known what to do with Sharon, giving her moments of showing her bravery and heroism only to waste her potential or turn her into a will-they/won't-they potential love interest of Steve Rogers. In theory, she went on the run for a few years, disappeared in the Blip, then returned with everyone else a few months ago. In the interim, it was established she'd made a nice life for herself as an art thief and forger in Madripoor. However, it was later revealed Sharon Carter was the Power Broker and, in the mid-credits scene, that she'd gone full-on villain. While it's exciting to know that her character may finally get the interesting writing and screentime she's deserved, Sharon's heel-turn never felt fully earned, especially for a woman who well knew that she'd be a rogue agent and exiled for doing what she did during the events of Captain America: Civil War. In the unseen interim, there was an enormous change in Sharon's personality, evidenced by her unceremoniously killing Karli, who was still just a kid, a line Sharon never would have crossed before. If there was a story that justified Sharon's new ruthless coldness, it's not one the audience was privy to and so her turn to villainy doesn't sit right. Not yet, anyway.

Throughout the series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier tackled fraught topics from dealing with PTSD and trauma to racism. Some of those topics it did great justice to, others, not as much. The series should be commended for swinging for the fences with some of the issues it explored; the show was timely, with many of the conversations it evoked necessary and long-overdue. It's well past time for Marvel to start exploring difficult issues with thoughtfulness and depth.

Related: Falcon And The Winter Soldier: Why Bucky Said He Failed Twice

However, the speed and ease with which a number of these issues were resolved in the finale did them a disservice. After a single, unseen conversation with Yori (Ken Takemoto) in which Bucky finally came clean about having killed Yori's son when he was the Winter Soldier, Bucky decides he no longer needs therapy, apparently magically cured. In just a few days, 90 years of trauma were seemingly resolved and put to bed, which isn't how it works. Likewise, after brutally murdering a man in an uncontrolled rage and then trying to also kill Bucky and Sam, John Walker, too, is suddenly restored to being of sound mind after one moment in which he sacrificed vengeance for heroism. While Walker making the decision not to punish the bad guys but to save the innocent (or as innocent as the GRC can be), is a big step toward redemption, the fact of his sometimes considerably unstable mental state remains. Neither that nor his very recent transgressions were so much as once mentioned in the finale, however.

But the finale failed Isaiah Bradley perhaps most of all. His story was tragic, horrific, and heartbreaking; the decades of torture and suffering and neglect he'd endured at the hands of the U.S. government shaping him into understandable bitterness and fear. Isaiah's life for decades had been a matter of trying to lay low and not attract any attention in order to protect himself and his grandson. Sam putting Isaiah's story out there for the world to see in the form of a statue and an exhibit without his permission was shockingly insensitive and disrespectful considering the last time they'd talked, the old Super Soldier reiterated that he'd be killed if his story were told. Regardless of whether or not that's any longer true now that Sam carries weight as the new Captain America, blindsiding Isaiah with the reveal did not come across as the heartwarming moment it was meant to be, but a complete lack of consent and out-of-character for both men.

It, like a number of choices in the last episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, might have made sense given more time to develop. The entire season could have used about two more episodes to flesh out some of the stories and characters instead of cutting contextual corners. While the series was a lot of fun overall and should be commended for its ambition, it was wildly uneven, no episode more than the finale. Hopefully, if there is a season 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it will sort out the issues of the first season and its finale with more time and no Covid to work around.

Next: 7 Biggest Questions After The Falcon & The Winter Soldier Finale

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You Can't Buy An Audience If Your Podcast Sucks

Today we talk about the 1.7 billion dollar mistake that was Quibi and how we can learn from their mistake. We also take a look at the power of follow up questions, and the best place to buy gear. 

Table of Contents

01:22 Your Favorite Podcast - Send in Your Answer 02:56 Now That's A Good Question: Howard Stern and Wolfgang Van Halen 06:35 Join the School of Podcasting 07:33 Lessons From Quibi 13:24 They Blew Their Launch 16:12 Big Name Celebrities 19:02 Make It Easy To Share Your Content 21:05 It's Not the Tech 23:28 Clueless About the Competition 29:49 Who is the Audience? 33:29 The Best Place to Buy Gear: Sweetwater 36:07 Your Audience Awaits Exercise

How to Avoid the 1.7 Billion Dollar Mistake that Was Quibi

Quibi is an over-the-top American short-form streaming platform that generates content for viewing on mobile devices. It was founded in Los Angeles in August 2018 as NewTV by Jeffrey Katzenberg (chairman of Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994) and is led by Meg Whitman ( She is a board member of Procter & Gamble and Dropbox. Whitman was previously president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise), its CEO.

In 2019 Variety reported that Quibi had secured 100 million dollars in advertising before the service had even launched.

On February 2, 2020, they spent $5.6 million for 30 seconds on an ad in the Super Bowl that was seen by a reported 99.9 million viewers.  That is $18 per person if you round up. This for a service where subscribers can get the service for $5 per month with ads, or $8 per month without them.  That $5.6 million was a drop in the bucket.

The commercial was really stupid and didn't really answer or explain what the heck it was. You just knew it was less than 10 minutes. They explained what is was, but not so much why it was or how you would benefit.

It raised $1.75 billion from investors. It had a variety of shows featuring originals with Jennifer Lopez, Chrissy Teigen, Chance the Rapper, Liam Hemsworth, Sophie Turner, Lena Waithe, Nicole Richie, Reese Witherspoon. Quibi offered a 90-day free trial to those who sign up on its website before April 6. Overall, it plans to release 175 original shows and 8,500 episodes in the first year.

Their lineup has a ton of stars, celebrities, etc

It launched on April 6, 2020. It is set to shut down "on or about" December 1, 2020. December 1 is 239 days. That is $7,322,175.73 a day. Here is my thoughts on why this was such an epic fail.

They Blew Their Launch

When you spend $5.6 million dollars on a Super Bowl ad, they should have an idea what you do and what is in it for them. In the event, the ad inspired people to check out the service (it didn't), you should be able to go check it out and not have to wait four months. Yes, you can build buzz, but for me, I never heard from quibi again.

Putting All Their Faith in Celebrities

Here are some of the names that appear on shows: Jennifer Lopez, Kristen Bell, Nick Jonas, Tracy Morgan, Aaron Rodgers, Yara Shahidi, Gabriel Iglesias, Anthony Davis, Kevin Hart and Karlie Kloss. Cardi B, Chance the Rapper, Dapper Dan, Jay Leno, and Wolfgang Puck (and that's just some).

The people involved had experience Phil Abraham has directed the Sopranos, Madmen, Daredevil, Ozark.

No Compelling Content

Yet, there was no breakout show that inspired the people who had found Quibi to tell a friend about Quibi. Nobody was compelled to tell a friend. They did recaps of the previous days news or sports updates. WOW what revolutionary content!

They Made it Hard To Share

According to Media Analyst Josh Consine there was no sharing capability (no screenshots) which limited your ability to go viral. When it first launched you could only watch it on your phone. There were no apps, not Fire TV, Chromecast. They made it "hard" to consume. They took away choices from the consumer.

They Put Their Faith in the Tech

One thing that set them apart was a feature called Turnstyle. This meant that if you rotate the phone horizontal to verticle, you would get a different camera angle. Neat? Sure. Something so cool I had to tell my friends? Apparently not as I had never heard of it until I started researching how you blow 1.7 billion and lose. In a nutshell, Turnstyle served you two video streams simultaneously and “stitches them together” with a single audio track.

Since we're talking about the Tech, a company sued Quibi shortly after their launch company called Eko alleged that Quibi stole the technology after Eko demoed it to employees of the company, including founder and chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg. Even when you have billions in funding, lawsuits are expensive.

Clueless About the Competition

They were charging $5/$8 a month for new content. Look at Disney, Netflix, Hul. While they have original content, they all have old favorites as well. They also have a way to add more than one person under your account (so when your kids login under your account your recommendations don't all turn into cartoons). This was not the case to Quibi. It figured each person was watching on their phone. One person per account. This gets expensive and now anyone who wants to see what you're talking about has to use your phone.

It is reported that CEO Whitman repeatedly said "We're not competing with Netflix." Think about that one for a minute. That's like a radio station saying, "All of our songs are under four minutes long. We don't compete with other stations."

Lack Of Focus Group?

In one article that was published right after they launched it stated, "Quibi’s executives have hinted that the company will deliver on a TV experience if customer feedback and data warrant it. " Well they did add support for Apple's airplay and Chromecast, but at the expense of the Turnstyle technology. They did release an app for Roku and Fire TV - the day before they announced were closing down.

It seemed like they didn't understand how people used their phones or consumed content.

Did they think that because the average length of a YouTube video is 11 minutes that making "short" videos would be the key? Meanwhile, TikTok was taking off with all sorts of celebrities making their own channels. TikTok is free. Did Quibi follow the Facebook strategy and buy them or "borrow features" and add them to their platform? No. They were doing something different and nobody cared.

They Didn't Answer the Number Question: WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE

The idea was people could watch these short clips while waiting in line, or on the bus. When you think of people consuming content on their phone you might think it would be younger people. Yet you're trying to attract those people with Steven Spielberg and Jay Leno? Sure Cardi B appeared in an episode, but they needed to define. If the content is for busy people, who are the busy people and what do they want to watch?

According to an article in Forbes, Katzenberg and Whitman said, "We created a new form of mobile-first premium storytelling."

They did. But the stories weren't any good.

Now That's a Good Question

02:56  Today we listen to Howard Stern ask a great follow-up question to Wolfgang Van Halen. While he started off with a yes/no question, but then asked a few follow-up questions lead to the information you can't get anyplace else, and listen to how Howard shuts up and lets Wolfgang wrestle with a potentially uncomfortable topic. 

Sweetwater is My New Favorite Place to Order Gear

33:29 My co-host for Ask the Podcast Coach Jim Collison ordered something from Sweetwater and told me about their INSANE customer service. I recently saw where they were one of the few people to have the new Zoom Podtrak P4 IN STOCK and I see what he means. I was called to let me know my order had shipped, and to let me know if I had any issues I could call them. So here is why I think they are the best:

Prices are just as good (and in some cases better) than Amazon

Free shipping (even on small stuff)

Built-in two-year warranty 

Free tech support 

Payment plans available if needed.

My goal is to build more of a relationship with Sweetwater (as I have a dedicated rep) which should keep me in touch with podcasting technology going forward. In full disclosure, I earn a referral reward (but that's why I ordered something as I wanted to see for myself) 

Your Audience Awaits Exercise

I'm listening to the book Unhackable: The 30-Day Elixir for Creating Flawless Ideas, Leveraging Superhuman Focus, and Achieving Optimal Performance Through Flow its a very interesting book that you can listen/read to one chapter per day. The one exercise was to write yourself an email from your future audience as is these people who are waiting for you to start your show. SO MANY TIMES I hear people worried about having trolls or people say negative things. I say, What about ALL THE POSITIVE that could happen?

Think of going to your inbox and see an email with the title, "Just wanted to say Thank you." You open it and it starts, "Hello, I just wanted to reach out. You may not believe this but due to your podcast.... 

and the listener explains how you made them feel. How they no longer felt alone. How they were taken to a place where the stress of work, life, and more melted away. 

This could happen. But your podcast can't help people if you don't start your podcast. You can't update a show that doesn't exist. Please let me help you, as your audience is waiting. 

Check out this episode!

#podcasting #podcast #coaching #new media

[thisdaynews]

Anthony Crolla: Sparring, fighting, persevering and retiring

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/anthony-crolla-sparring-fighting-persevering-and-retiring/

Anthony Crolla: Sparring, fighting, persevering and retiring

Anthony Crolla is set to call time on his career after 13 years as a professional

The bell sounds and there are three minutes on the clock. This is the final round Anthony Crolla will ever spar as a professional boxer. One more time around.

There have been thousands of these three-minute segments since he put gloves on roughly 23 years ago. Each segment and its consequent sweat-soaked learning added up to deliver a world title, sold-out arenas and an adoring fan base. There were also a few lows thrown in to boot.

“I am in love with the sport and that’s why it’s so hard to let go,” he tells BBC Sport.

This Saturday, when he faces Spain’s Frank Urquiaga for the WBA continental lightweight title at the same Manchester Arena he frequented for fights as a kid, he will have to let go.

Fight number 45 will be his last for the 32-year-old.

Crolla loses titles to Lomachenko

‘This is it, the final one’

Love, the end and no emotion

Crolla worked for 12 rounds with three opponents in his final sparring session as a professional

“Catch the right hand, come back with the uppercut. Good Anthony, good, good feet, be smart when you’re coming in,” bellows Crolla’s trainer Joe Gallagher.

Crolla spars 12 rounds against three men on rotation. He pumps sweat, his shirt stuck to his sodden torso.

Some might find an environment in which men and women stand arms folded to watch punches fly a little odd. Crolla has been part of such setups since the age of eight. Others in the gym – including world super-middleweight champion Callum Smith – look similarly at home.

“I remember my dad taking me to the gym,” adds Crolla. “I can remember my first spar, my first fight, I’ve been in love with boxing since.

“I’ve thought about this being the last fight but also thought that I can’t think about it being the last. I’d get emotional and nine times out of 10 in boxing you can’t fight on emotion. I will get as emotional as I want afterwards.

“I think I will struggle a bit [afterwards] and I have to prepare as best as I possibly can. It’s not a fear, it’s more a realisation and acceptance.

“There will probably be times where I will be in the gym and think ‘should I go again?'”

Risk, raucous and a rollercoaster ride

Crolla embraced trainer Joe Gallagher after stopping Darleys Perez to win a world title in 2015

“He keeps running, Anthony, he thinks he’s got it on points,” says Gallagher, who wants his fighter to chase in this final sparring round to mimic trying to close any deficit on fight night.

Peering through his head guard Crolla is wide eyed and barely blinks, such is his focus. He is, right now, a man lost in his craft. Few things in his life after boxing will occupy a moment in such an intense way.

It will leave a void countless boxers have struggled to ever fill. Crolla’s wife Francesca has asked him if he wants to fight on, while some of those closest to him feel he is exiting at the right time.

The man himself knows the risks all too well. His 2012 points win over Kieran Farrell led to the then 22-year-old collapsing in the ring and having to retire from the sport with life-changing injuries.

Fast forward to tragic deaths in the ring this year and the necessity of a well-timed exit plan is clear.

“It certainly hits home,” he says. “I have been in fights where careers have ended. That plays very hard on me. When something happens now it comes flashing back. We all know the risk we take.”

Crolla’s own brush with near-tragedy occurred outside the ring when he was hit with a concrete slab while confronting burglars at his neighbours’ home in 2014. He was said to be “lucky to be alive”.

He had spent two years rebuilding from back-to-back defeats to finally secure a world title shot, only for his good neighbourly act to prompt a postponement.

Some seven months later he returned to draw his title shot, before winning a rematch with Darleys Perez. Footage shows the contorted faces of young men bellowing encouragement during his ring walk on a raucous November night.

“A rollercoaster, a rollercoaster,” is his summation of two decades in the sport. “A lot more highs than lows thankfully. I think it’s a bit of a one off. Not many people have had the career I have had.

“I don’t mean what I have achieved but the ups, downs and ups again. It’s something I am going to find hard to let go, but I’ve got to.

“There are things I would change but everything happens for a reason and I am so thankful to have had the career I have had.”

‘The fighting pride of Manchester’

After 12 rounds of sparring Crolla did a shake-out round on the bag before skipping and stretching

Crolla rolls under the bottom rope and perches himself on the ring’s edge, his sparring days are over. Former world champion Liam Smith – nicknamed ‘Beefy’ – taps his shoulder respectfully. “Cheers Beef,” he replies.

He is understandably drained, a stark contrast to the bouncing, screaming figure seen moments after toppling Perez when he jumped up on the ring ropes and simply screamed: “Manchester!”

“I owe them absolutely everything,” he says.

“l will forever be in debt to those people. Winning the world title is my biggest achievement but my proudest achievement is the support of the people of Manchester.

“I am humbled and blessed by it, with people coming up to me in the streets telling me they were there when I won the world title.”

No corners are cut as Crolla’s workout ends with a round of tapping out against a heavy bag, skipping, stretching and some light massage. When his ankle was broken in the burglar attack, Crolla switched road runs for swimming.

When others may have taken a backward step, he moved forward, committing to yoga in a bid to further boost his athleticism.

Self-improvement is time consuming and attending more Manchester United away games is on his ‘to do’ list when the gloves are finally hung up.

Asked about taking up any new daredevil hobbies, he responds: “I’ve already done a bungee jump and was set on fire for it. Probably not the smartest thing to do as a professional boxer.”

He adds: “I think I am going to hook up with a mate and launch some kind of clothing brand. I’d like to try that. I have my gym, so I’ll spend more time there.

“Now my task is to train champions of the future. It’s satisfactory when you see a kid in the gym who may have confidence issues and after months of work he is out there having a fight.

“It will never do it fully but I hope staying in the sport plays a huge part in filling that emptiness of not fighting.”

And so Crolla will finish up at Manchester Arena, where he made his professional debut on a Joe Calzaghe undercard in 2006.

He is the epitome of perseverance. A dozen fights in he scrapped at a Liverpool leisure centre, his 20th contest was in a hotel and his 25th took place at a Motherwell leisure centre.

His path to the top was bumpy. Three draws, seven defeats – including losses against star names like Jorge Linares and Vasyl Lomachenko – and 34 wins point to the mix of emotions he has faced.

“Perseverance has paid off,” he says. “It has been a mad career. As much as the lows felt like rock bottom, I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s been a hell of a path. If I could do it all again I would.”

To Manchester Arena, again. One more time around.

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#persevering #retiring