#vague spoilers for some shows and movies under the cut

[infidelady]

why is there so much fucking animal cruelty in so many movies nowadays.. like so many of the last movies/shows I tried watching killed animals in some fashion. Like fuck, i just want to watch some fucking movie/show as a distraction without having my fucking heart crushed. Genre doesn't really matter? Like all my love to whomever created doesthedogdie.com I'll be off reading some fucking fanfiction with no fucking animal cruelty whatsoever.

for anyone interested I was trying to watch: bad sisters (kills a dog), dual (kills a dog), sandman (kills kittens.. and a gargoyle which is very dog like), stranger things (kills a cat, deer, squirrel.. and so on), ted lasso (dog is killed by a fucking football), yellowjackets.. and so on and so on.. like I am fucking done.

I wanted to watch chaos walking and everything everywhere all at once but i am at maximum capacity, anymore dying animals on my screen and i'm gonna fucking choke on my tears.

#cw animal cruelty #vague spoilers for some shows and movies under the cut #personal #fictional animal cruelty #mini-rant

[kaythetrashcan]

Five nights at Freddy's movie review

Spoiler free version:

I finally saw the FNaF movie (since it premiered here like a week later) and I really wanna talk about it.

It was fun. It's its own story that has some similarities to the games but it works well on its own which is a good thing imo.

It has a good pacing and I didn't get bored.

There are bunch of hints and easter eggs in reference to the games, like a guy is wearing a Midnight Motorist sweater or a dinner is named after Sparky the Dog, a hoax in early fnaf days.

It has violence but it's not too gory, most stuff happens off screen or in shadows.

I also liked the final solution, it was well established.

I do have 2 complains

1. I think most relationships needed more establishment.

2. One character kinda confuses me on their motive.

Overall I'd give it 4/5, though you'll get more of it if you're a fnaf fan.

And some tips. Watch it at home if you can or pick a later date. The movie theater was crowded and I think it hindered my enjoyment.

When you see Sparky's diner, pay attention to the waiter. You won't regret it.

And wait till the end of all credits.

Spoiler review under the cut

I think Mike and Abby needed a bit more time together or thinking of each other to make the scene where Mike realizes how much she means to him more impactful.

I feel like we were told rather shown she likes her brother.

Same goes for relationship between her and aunt Jane. We're told once she doesn't like her but it isn't enough to make her turn on Mike believable to me.

And finally Vanessa and William. The ending implies she's scared of him but we never are shown why.

This segways nicely into my other complain. Vanessa feels inconsistent. She starts out as a friendly police officer who knows tad too much about Freddy's and is revealed to be William's daughter.

What I got is that she vaguely warns the guards of the danger but doesn't tell them what it is. When the animatronics are friendly, she just let's Mike and Abby vibe there but when she learns Mike used Abby to get info on Garrett's kidnapper (her dad) she forbids him from taking Abby there ever again. I'm guessing this is to protect her dad.

But I think we should have had a flashback to her childhood and maybe a scene where she's terrified of going to the pizzeria but the she sees a drawing of Mike and Abby a decides to help.

But enough about stuff I didn't like and more about stuff I loved, in no particular order.

Actors are all really great and they did a fantastic job.

The opening credits are in style of old arcade games, just like in fnaf 2. It genuinely made me so happy to see it.

The cupcake mauling a man was both hilarious and terrifying. You go Carl!

The animatronics are all really expressive, especially Chica, when she smuggly sends Carl the Cupcake to murder a man or when she winks at Mike. Or when Freddy was looking for Mike and tilting his head as if he were listening.

I almost missed MatPat's cameo. I was like: "I know that voice! But from where?" And then he said: "It's just a theory!" and I almost screamed.

I love that the kids have some significance. Even if they dont have names, they still have more to do than they ever did in the games.

Also, it's exactly 5 nights at Freddy's.

1 - Mike arrives and sees the Missing kids for the first time.

2 - Mike gets scratched by Foxy and Vannesa shows up to info dump.

3 - since Max is dead, Mike takes Abby there for the first time. He cleans up the place and Abby meets her friends.

4 - Mike takes Abby there a second time, Vannesa shows up, they build a Fort and Vannessa gets mad.

5 - Mike goes there alone and the movie finale happens.

I noticed the trailer was insanely misleading. Vanessa ends up in the hospital at the end of the movie, but the trailer made it seem it happens somewhere in the middle.

CoryXKenshin cameo was awesome.

The ending credits song is Five Nights at Freddy's by TLT. Woho!!!

And after all the credits roll, we get a few letters spelling out "FIND ME" like in SAVE HIM minigame from fnaf 2.

Theories:

I wonder what happened to Garrett. Is he fully dead? Or is he possessing something, like the puppet?

I hope the next movie is a prequel, maybe told retrospectively by Vanessa while some stuff happens in the present. And the third movie can be a sequel, maybe with older Abby being a guard herself.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #fnaf movie #fnaf movie review #michael schmidt #abby schmidt #william afton #vanessa shelly

[aragarna]

Please rant about the new musketeer movie, I need to know how bad it is on a scale from Michael York to Mathew McFaydden, so I know if it's worth trying to hunt down a cinema or wait till it's out on dvd

Well.... The good news is, there's no flying ship in that one. Not sure where to put it though. It's not atrocious, but it's lacking something. I'm always happy to see my boys, and the cast is good. It is rather entertaining at times, and I'm sure people not as attached to the characters as I am might not be as harsh as me but... I guess I was hoping for more? For better? Why is it that there can't be a single decent modern adaptation?!

The rest under the cut because spoilers for The Three Musketeers: d'Artagnan

First, it's visually ugly. It's all in brown and dark tones. Apparently the weather in France is always bad, ranging from pouring rain to clouds and fog. Even the red robe of the cardinal doesn't pop up! And don't get me started on the musketeer's uniforms. Why is it that every single recent movie wants to make them something that they're not. We *know* what they looked like. Blue casaques with a big white cross. Would it look out of fashion today? Of course! Even slightly ridiculous? Maybe. But Mordious, that's a 17th century uniform! Just play along! So, in this one, it becomes a very dark navy blue long coat with a black cross on the arm. It's actually so indisguishable that you can never tell when they're wearing it or not.

But okay, fine, if it was the only issue, I would have waved it off. The rest of the costumes, though probably not historically accurate, look pretty cool over all. If only they had more colors. Can you believe that there's a costumed ball, with one character wearing an arlequin costume and ... it doesn't even look like rainbow-y!

(can you tell I'm slightly mad at the movie's terrible coloring?)

And overall, I felt it wasn't very well filmed. Like, this isn't just a swashbluckler, it's The Swashbuckler story, so gotta work on those sword fights! Give me some fancy fighting! Work a real choregraphy! I understand that this is not the Errol Flynn era anymore but come on. So their idea to make it more "modern" was to use sequence-shots for the fight scenes. That is not a bad idea, but when there's no real choregraphy to follow, that just makes everything messy and pointless. So yeah, disappointed with the action scenes.

My other major source of annoyment was the lack of character development, or just character moments. D'Artagnan flirting with Constance was fine, but it's *not* the main story. It should have been the friendship between our four heroes. Instead of adding a whole new plot, I wish they'd taken the time with the canon scenes. Show me more why they went from being this close to kill each other, to instant friends ready to die for each other. Making Porthos bisexual is fine. I don't mind modernization of characters, but did you have to tell and show me this very clearly 3 times, but then give him virtually no other line of dialogue the rest of the movie? Romain Duris as Aramis is particularly awesome, but the poor guy is just as useless. The film is such a waste of a good casting. D'Artagnan, the main character, barely gets more time. Where is my ever-resourceful, cunning, smart and quick thinking hero? Young and idealistic but also natural leader d'Artagnan? His scenes with Constance are cute enough (and I don't mind that they got rid of Mr. Bonacieux) but I wanted more bonding with the boys! It's called The Three Musketeers, not My Cute Landlady. François Civil does a decent job but he isn't given the most subtle text...

Athos is the only one that is allowed a bit more development, but he's reduced to be a sappy old man. AAARGH ATHOS IS NOT AN OLD MAN. I do like Vincent Cassel, but the movie comes out 20 years too late for him to be a musketeer. Athos is not old, he is just the only vaguely grown-up one of the group. And come on "I don't have enough will to live to lie." ?! What the Hell?

All the characters feel reduced to a single dimension.

And yes, I do realize that you can't fit hundreds of pages in two 2-hour movies, but still, I feel like there were ways to make the movie better if it had been more character-oriented. The only real good character is the King. He has all the best lines and Louis Garrell is perfect.

Finally, while I don't mind when they take liberties from the original story, I'm not sure that the whole side plot actually adds anything. If you're worried about lack of plots, just develop the exisiting ones instead of rushing them in and out of England, maybe? It's Alexandre Dumas you're adapting, don't tell me there aren't enough twists in that plot!

And what annoys me about that side plot is that it starts with Athos being arrested. Which means that, from the start, they're never all four of them together. Which also means that that one supposedly emotional letter from Athos sounds a bit phony. Why would he care for that young idiot that he met only once?

Let my musketeers be all together, Morbleu!

Anyway, to try and end on a more positive note: it does remain entertaining enough that you're not bored. They filmed in real places - Le Louvre looks actually like Le Louvre - which is always a bonus. Louis XIII is awesome, and all the court intrigues are probably the best parts. And they do have a second movie coming out this December to try and make up for that one. We can expect War! Love! Tragedy! Vengeance! (and hopefully more character development?)

Sorry, that was long. All this to say: meh.

#the three musketeers #the three musketeers d'artagnan #the three musketeers spoilers #movie rant

[utilitycaster]

This is fully just a rant about some prevalent fandom ideas about love and relationships that I have lost patience with. I have put it under a cut, wholly untagged and unrebloggable, so if you clicked it and don't like it...you clicked it. Also this does have fairly vague and oblique spoilers, but still spoilers, for CR episode 3x34.

I will say: I find that the fanon depiction of Imogen and Laudna includes pretty much this whole list (vs other ships that have bits and pieces in the fanon but not the entirety thereof), which is why I absolutely cannot engage with it even as I enjoy many aspects of the canon. I will leave it at that.

Lifespan angst. I think it can be explored well in-game (Keyleth, notably, prior to getting together with Vax, as a woman in her early 20s with the knowledge that she is likely to live nearly two millennia) but I am just left ice-cold by out-of-story lifespan angst. People outlive their partners by decades in real life. It is a reality. It is not angst, it is simply a thing that happens to many, many couples.

And relatedly, the idea that life ends when someone you love dies: I spoke about this already re: Orym and have nothing further to add.

The whole love means never having to say you're sorry/no conflict thing; you do not want to be having screaming fights every day obviously but if you are two separate people with separate personalities there will be disagreements. In a healthy relationship, those disagreements are respectful; but they are still disagreements and there may be apologies involved. Also, sometimes people just get on each others' nerves and that does not mean they don't love each other.

The whole idea that love means understanding a person fully with no need for communication. It does not, and this is one of those things people use to claim their ship is justified because the characters Get Each Other even when the opposite is true, since it by default implies that characters who communicate more are less connected, and means that any single misunderstanding is fatal to a relationship.

The us-against-the-world mentality in which no one else understands in the same way. This one is like...I enjoy a depiction of a toxic relationship in media from time to time - usually not in actual play, but like, I have been known to watch HBO dramas, and also Gossip Girl (2007). But like, in general? This doesn't really have any staying power. It's so isolating and boring to have two characters with no connections to anyone but themselves. It's Tallahassee by The Mountain Goats. It works for a movie or a television season but it wears thin within like 3 episodes of a show like CR. There is a reason the Briarwoods are NPCs and not viewpoint characters, is all I'm saying, and also why they both die like 7 times each.

(The above is also prevalent in bad fanon of platonic relationships; people are so weird about the Mighty Nein parting ways and having their own lives and other connections, even though they are still close friends. Like, a lot of people seem to think found family means you threw the rest of your family out.)

Honestly I think I just hate the concept of there being One Single Soulmate Of All Time which is sort of the secret guiding thread behind most of these anyway. It's dumb and I hate it, which isn't really eloquent but like, what more is there to say. The idea that there is only one person in the world who can ever make you happy sounds grim and horrible to me, and yet it seems to be the driving force underlying so many ships in this fandom, and probably other fandoms, and idk I'm just too old and too pragmatic and have touched too much grass to find this anything but nauseating and stupid.

[harper-dearest]

I had this very strange dream last night, but, being honest, it was one of my best dreams ever.

(Slight spoilers for Nope under the cut)

I was watching Nope for the first time, but this time it was in a movie theater, not at home. It played out normally, still terrifying, perhaps some details and scenes were fucked up because dreams do that, but then the credits roll.

I remember I was crying because of the last scene when they finally kill Jean Jacket and OJ is in the distance, looking back at Em. The screen goes black and it's silent, and then a microphone is tapped and Jupe of all people speaks, short and single name credits start rolling, the screen still black.

Now, I don't remember exactly what he said, so I'm gonna have to romanticize and fill in a few gaps, but he said something along the lines of this:

"Hello? Okay, uh.. Well, welcome to the Star Lasso Experience! Now, the original plan for this show was to show you all a discovery I made, but it kinda disappeared, heh. So, instead of that, I suppose it's about time I try singing again!"

"I assume some of you remember this one scene in Kid Sheriff, where Jupiter sings to distract [typical villain in a western kids show], yeah? Well, that was actually the first time I ever sang in front of a large crowd, even after training for months. I was really scared, but the people loved it, so I thought I should try singing again today. So, without further ado, I dedicate this cover to my gorgeous wife, Amber. I'd dedicate this to my kids and lovely staff, but it's a love song, so.."

Jupe and the crowd chuckle. I started thinking "Weird way to roll credits, but okay, I guess."

The black screen becomes an animation of the view of a sunset from atop a hill, with a view of the Haywoods' house and Jupiter's Claim, the credits are less vague and more specific. Jupe exhales shakily, and starts singing Cannonball by Kiesza throughout the credits.

Such a weird fever dream, I want Steven Yeun to cover Cannonball now, I'd listen to that on loop for YEARS if it existed lmao

This is the song in case anyone's curious:

#nope movie #nope jordan peele #nope 2022 #ricky jupe park #steven yeun #literally what was this dream #I want this damn dream burned into a CD or made a VHS tape so I can replay it whenever tf I want #STEVEN YEUN PLEASE CONSIDER COVERING THE SONG PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE #i told my mom abt this shit and she called me obsessed #Spotify

[maxtothemax]

okay i finally finished miraculous ladybug (minus the movie; i'm about to watch that tonight) but i have some Thoughts on the season 5 finale (putting it under the cut bc spoilers)

so adrien's whole deal is that he's always been sheltered and coddled and controlled by other people, specifically his father. it felt extremely unfair that cat noir, our secondary protagonist, had to miss out on the final battle with monarch because adrien's father had him locked up in some padded room (?????), AND it felt even worse that the narrative reason for him not being present was so that he would never find out that monarch was his father.

like, yes, finding out that his dad was the villain he was fighting this whole time would have crushed him, but he deserved to know!!! he deserved to have context for why his father acted the way he did, not just vague parallels (i.e., cat noir fighting... whatever the fuck akumatized gabriel agreste called himself) that didn't give him the full story.

oh my god. the fact that marinette knows everything and she won't tell adrien??? how fucked up is that?? how is she not riddled with guilt lying to him about that???? and the fact that she's doing it because gabriel asked her to, because he didn't want to break adrien's heart even though everything ELSE he ever did broke adrien's heart???? why would marinette ever agree to that???

and that brings me to my second point, which is that gabriel finally making his wish was so... anticlimactic. see, i was kind of under the impression that there would be world-ending consequences for the wish, not just ... an equivalent exchange. it feels like if you're bending reality like that, there should be more consequences than just an equivalent exchange. the only thing that happened was gabriel dying, and that doesn't even feel fair bc he was literally about to die anyway!! he had hours left!! taking the life of someone who was about to die anyway isn't really an equal trade.

it kind of doesn't feel fair that after all that fighting, and after all the atrocities he committed to get there, gabriel just got what he wanted. true, he's not around to see it, but he did get his wish, and the whole conceit of the show was, like, stopping him from doing that, because there would be catastrophic consequences. it's so frustrating that he made his wish and now everything is perfect (as if adrien isn't gonna have to adjust to a new family structure all over again, deal with the trauma of his father's death, etc). and he even got marinette to protect his fucking secret from adrien, too!!!! he didn't deserve that!! he didn't deserve to be remembered by his son as a savior when all he ever did was control him!!

it's safe to say that the writers genuinely lost the fucking plot here. it was a happy ending, but it ignored the main points of the show in order to make itself happy.

#they speak #miraculous ladybug #miraculous spoilers #it was frustrating to watch lmao #the action sequences were still pretty cool tho

[linklethehistorian]

Total Eclipse (1995) — A Movie Review by linklethehistorian (Post 4/4)

(Continuation of review placed under the cut for length and spoilers; proceed at your own risk.)

The Takeaway

Having watched this film somewhere upwards of about forty times upon reaching this section of the review (and still likely about to watch it just one time more afterward, in order to gather the clip compilations mentioned earlier and check for any possible errors in my writings here), the one thing that I can say with absolute confidence is that Total Eclipse (1995) is a pretty mixed bag of both good and bad elements.

On the one hand, the cast, the vast majority of the acting, the sets and filming locations, the wardrobes, the music, the chosen color palette, and at times even the quality of the dialogue for the film are all extremely excellent, but on the other, the pacing suffers greatly, the types and timings of the scene transitions are often extremely disorienting or just plain appear unpolished, the timeline of events is often vague at best, and the writing, when it’s not showing off its high points, is otherwise extremely awkward and unnatural, absurdly edgy merely for the sake of it, or just plain unbearably bad.

Most notable and important of all, though — at least, to me — and what makes me personally label it as a “bad movie” despite that I have admittedly enjoyed some other films and different story-driven media much less, is its conscious decision to go far above and beyond the standard “based on a true story” statement to tell us that everything within it is, in fact, 100% real and accurate to the life stories of those portrayed within and taken directly from their letters and poetry, only to then get so much of it so abysmally wrong that at times it is deeply difficult and disorienting to follow even for someone who has dedicated years of their life to studying Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine’s history in multiple languages.

There were numerous times while watching and writing about this film that I had to turn back to several of my many different notes and sources just to make doubly sure that I wasn’t going crazy for thinking, “hey, that’s not how [event] happened, right?” because the movie doubled down so much on that particular wrong narrative that it bordered on gaslighting — if such a thing was possible for a film to achieve.

…And I have to be honest: I don’t get it. Outside of the theory I have already posited before about wanting to move heaven and Earth to give the film what it deems a happier and more romantic end, I truly don’t understand why it was even necessary to go to such lengths when, in reality, the original, genuine version of the events they are claiming to portray were actually much more interesting than whatever the movie’s interpretation had going on with it.

The most tragic thing about this film being so awful is that it had every opportunity not to be; not only did it have everything going for it in terms of talents, but the premise itself was genuinely great. The true life stories of Verlaine and Rimbaud and their affair are extremely fascinating, dark, intense, and dramatic subjects that would lend themselves more than extraordinarily well to a movie on the big screen — at least if done correctly, with great care taken towards accurately representing those it involves, but the writers here instead decided that it was more important to rewrite and ‘dramatize’ those events and the causes behind them than to care if it was a fair and respectful portrayal.

If this was a completely fictional story about fictional people, then it would be different; I would still personally find it vomit-inducing and creepy, and thus very much not for me as an individual, if it romanticized abuse and demonized a victim while painting the main offender in a pitiful light, but as long as none of it was real, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal — just one of the many fucked up pieces of media that exist out there in the world for those who look for and want it.

But this isn’t fiction; this is supposedly meant to tell a real life story about real life people who actually genuinely lived on this planet at one point just like you or I, and despite this particular movie having become practically impossible to find through any safe and reputable source in very recent years, I have unfortunately legitimately encountered many people whose formative opinions on Paul and Arthur were largely based in one way or another on this film and the very untrustworthy things it alleges — which is honestly the main reason I decided to write this review in the first place: to use my acquired knowledge to clear the air of continued misinformation as much as possible.

…Then again, you do get to see Leonardo DiCaprio pretending to be a dead poet who is pretending to be a dog or a goat at least a few times within this movie, so maybe it all evens out in the end. …I’m kidding, of course — about it evening out, anyway; you do actually get to see that, and David Thewlis pretends to be a goat too, briefly.

In all seriousness, if you don’t care about any of the above historical inaccuracies, and you’re just here to see your favorite actors, or you’re looking for a movie that’s really good at making you feel uncomfortable, then you’ll probably actually get a good amount of enjoyment out of Total Eclipse. …Or if you’re looking for a good second-hand embarrassment simulator — you’d get a lot of that out of this film, too.

Even in spite of everything I’ve said in this section — and the fact that every time I watch it I feel my soul slowly draining out of my body while I sit like a deer in the headlights — it’s not like I can stay away from this film for whatever reason, either; it feels like I make the very inadvisable decision to make the journey over to my preferred website of choice and try to watch it at least every other month even when I’m not writing a review, so…yeah, I’m not really one to talk badly about its watchability.

Anyway, that’s my review of Total Eclipse (1995). If you made it to the end of this, congratulations!!! — …Or…my sympathies; whichever may be most fitting. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day that is hopefully not haunted by the mental image of Arthur Rimbaud barking and panting in a mirror or crawling around in a field bleating.

[Click here for Part 0: Preamble]

[Click here for Part 1: The Good]

[Click here for Part 2: The Bad]

#linklethehistorian #thoughts #my thoughts #meta #movie review #Total Eclipse 1995 movie review #total eclipse 1995 #arthur rimbaud #paul verlaine #leonardo dicaprio #david thewlis

[battlestar-royco]

hey I was wondering if you've seen House of the Dragon and what you thought of it? Lots of people were pretty pissed about certain things in episode 2, so I wondered what you thought (I haven't seen the show yet but I've seen spoilers)

I have! A few things, with spoilers under the cut:

I still hate the Targs. I don't think anything will change that. But I do think they're setting up complex, grounded characters, which is a classic draw of ASOIAF/early GOT.

The first episode felt more dense with set-up, the second felt more like an actual story.

I'm disappointed in the theme song 😭! I was expecting something new or a Targ-themed infusion. But it's not the worst thing.

The production value is good! CGI is slightly painful (like pls sirs I am begging you to build miniatures of KL) but overall not horrible? The wigs are sooo much worse. I just want them to all pull an Anya Taylor Joy and go bottle blonde because... Rhaenyra? Laena? ... RHAENYS?! Sweeties I'm so sorry. But the set builds are so pretty, and I'm loving some of the costume design. Dragonstone almost had me in tears, I'm not joking.

The time jumps between episodes are slightly wonky at first but easy to get used to.

Despite some truly distasteful elements of the first 2 episodes, it is said that all you need is three good scenes to make a good movie (episode in this case), and I think they're accomplishing that so far.

On to spoilers:

I think everyone knows I'm not the biggest Targ fan. They're incestuous, pedophilic, colonizing, manifest destiny blood supremacists. And though the show is clearly setting them up for a downfall, the writing is still biased toward Targ characters so far (especially Rhaenyra and Daemon) to please their fandom after what happened to Dany. So that's been hard to take.

Fwiw all the nasty parts are included to make a certain point, but there are more important and more interesting things they could focus on.

For example, you could tell they wanted to show off their production value with the tourney, but I just don't think a sporting event (especially between characters we don't know and with vague stakes) has the same tension as someone dying in childbirth. So that part didn't work for me.

The child bride plot also got lots of airtime that could have gone to, say, developing Alicent. So far a lot of the writing efforts have gone toward making Rhaenyra a bAdAsS dragon princess while leaving all the other women to be objectified, commodified pawns, or have fake girl power dialogue about the patriarchy like on a Shonda show. And I despise that they're setting up Dae////nyra when they could have been the best relationship of the show as just a deranged uncle protecting his headstrong dragonrider niece. So, hoping for improvement in that realm.

That said, Rhaenyra is, to my surprise, my highlight so far. I loved her angry tears at the funeral, her and Alicent mourning their mothers at the sept, and her threatening but peaceful intervention at Dragonstone. Very strong performances and good dialogue. And I have high hopes for Alicent in the coming episodes.

#hotd spoilers

[stormethecat]

I saw the Mario movie yesterday and honestly it was really good! I give it like an 8/10.

Unfortunately I missed the first couple minutes or so of the movie because the theater was lined up with people, so it took a bit to actually get in haha. My friends and I all went dressed as Mario/Luigi too, which was awesome.

(spoilers under the cut)

tl;dr the Mario is very good and I want to see more

I was kind of expecting Chris Pratt's Mario to be not great, but surprisingly Fred Armisen's Cranky Kong was even worse. The only voice in the movie where I was like "wow this really doesn't fit." Now that I've seen the full movie rather than just the trailers I can tell that Chris Pratt at least tried. I still think that someone else probably would have fit better, but he wasn't horrible. Like even Charlie Day as Luigi and Seth Rogen as DK were pretty much just their regular voices, they still kinda fit somehow. Keagan-Michael Key's Toad and Kevin Michael Richardson's Kamek were spot on. Anya Taylor-Joy's Peach was serviceable—she sounds like a girl. And Jack Black's Bowser was freaking amazing. If I could tweak it a little bit to be pitched down slightly and maybe more growly then I think it would've been absolutely perfect, but as is I think he did a fantastic job. Charles Martinet as Giuseppe (basically Mario's design as Jump Man from the original Donkey Kong arcade game) was so great, and casting him as the Mario Bros' dad was a great choice.

The score was brilliantly done, the direction of having Koji Kondo as a composing consultant was an excellent choice, wouldn't have had it any other way. While I figured at least one pop song to show up, I think five has more than I was more than I was expecting. I'm not exactly bothered by it, but it was very noticeable haha. Also I wasn't expecting (yet not surprised) by the full on musical number that Bowser did performed by Jack Black. It was great lol, well done and got me to laugh. Also the DK rap was a welcome surprise, although Grant Kirkhope went uncredited which kinda sucks. Plus all the sound effects were great too.

The story wasn't intricate, and I keep hearing this as a complaint, but it's a Super Mario Bros. movie so idk what people were expecting on that front. It was a really fun ride from start to finish and I actually already want to watch it again. It's a great kid's movie and all the details, references, and easter eggs they put in for the fans of the series are greatly appreciated too. I wasn't expecting them to show so much of the Mario Bros' family or Peach's origins (which is to say not much, but I wasn't expecting any at all. And I also wasn't expecting them to show where the blue shells come from, so that's neat. I'm mildly disappointed at how large a chunk of the movie Luigi was captured. I understand they wanted someone to get captured because that's kind of Bowser's thing and they probably wanted Peach to shine on her own and do girl boss things, but I'm just disappointed that he was in a cage for like most of the movie.

The animation was also really well done if you were worried about that. I've seen some critics complain about that, but it almost feels like they watched a different movie as far as that point goes. The lighting was spectacular, the screen was almost always packed with detail, and the characters were expressive.

One last tiny gripe: Hearing the koopas being referred to as turtles more than once felt off to me. I know this complaint is such a nerdy one, but Nintendo has always gone out of their way to specifically call them koopas and not turtles. I usually only ever hear people call them turtles when it's someone who only vaguely knows about Mario. Having Mario call them turtles kinda makes sense since he's from Brooklyn transported to the Mushroom Kingdom, but Peach and even Bowser himself referred to them as turtles which was weird to me.

#blue cat blogging #mario #mario movie #mario movie spoilers #super mario bros #super mario bros movie #review #movie review

[superpixie42]

Pixelicious, 🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works? and 🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants? for the moji ask game, please and thank you 💓💓💓

! @anisaanisa ! Oooh you picked two of my favorite from this list and answering the second one includes major spoilers sooooo the full answer is under the cut :)

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

So my most common non-setting based tag (au/canon/etc) is "tumblr/based on a tumblr prompt" which makes me weirdly happy? I love answering prompts and I love feeling inspired by this community. I also love the idea of a fic being made specifically to make someone happy. Yes, it's public and it's for everyone, but sometimes in the big wide world it's just really fuckn nice to know someone thought about you and cared for a minute, right? So yay prompts and yay gift fics.

I also enjoy "you can't prove it's not canon" because those little in between fics are some of the most satisfying (in my not so humble opinion).

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

I vaguely outline, but not with any kind of structure like gets taught in creative writing courses. For "longer" fics aka more than 500 words, I usually make a "guidepost" for myself at the top of a fic document to remind myself of why I'm in this fic.

For example this was the top of the doc for Snoring:

Prompt: And A snored all night while B went slowly insane

Immediately after Sango gives birth to the twins, Miroku can't come with for an exorcism but an overly emotional Sango refuses to let Inuyasha go alone. So he brings shippo, who does surprisingly well in the fight. Rain forces them to stay in the village overnight (empty hut at the edge of the village). There Shippo’s snoring and snuggling makes Inuyasha realize just how attached the kit is to him and how much they both miss Kagome (who used to snuggle him every night).  

Funny. Then grumpy. Then not really sad, but more a chance to overcome the sad with some acknowledgments. Fuck me this is gonna take some brain power.

Rounding it out: 

Inuyasha has been avoiding Shippo because Shippo represents too many icky feelings aka his mixed feels on Kagome being gone. Yes MirSan are allowed to move on, but is Shippo? Is he?

Shippo is going to go to the fox academy thing but Inuyasha decides he’s going to talk him out of it because he doesnt want the kit to leave (will shippo be awake for this revelation? Who knows, certainly not me, the author.)

All the dad and found family feels. 

and this was What's Eating You--which is even less formal..

The Plan: Kagome and Inuyasha bunker together at work. They only know each other passively through work, and are not friends but instead find the other annoying. When she has a breakdown thinking she’s gonna die and she has only ever had sex with one person, he jokingly shows her his dick to calm her down. But as the time ticks away and panic rises, they decide the best way to go out is with a bang. 

all the oral sex because yes finally they are getting jiggy with it all clear sounds door opens Miroku - aka Inuyasha's friend and a member of the Cleaning Crew (they make the zombies go byebye) is like "oh, well, dont stop on my account. but ps its all clear so if you didnt use a condom now is the time to fix that because you're not gonna die. have fun kids"

"As he shut the door behind him, Kagome realized maybe being eaten by zombies wouldn't have been so bad after all" 

Epilogue: maybe a mini scene that opens like a horror movie. there's screaming and shes disoriented and theres a useless body next to her and then she turns on the lamp and lets Inu Jr chow down on her breast while Inu snores like a bastard XD

😘 

[daydreamerdrew]

I don't know if anyone else here watched Beau is Afraid (2023), but I did yesterday and it didn't really work for me, spoilers for it under the cut:

It was a weird mix of the movie being too literal/direct at times to the point of meaning initially going over my head, being too random-seeming for me to figure out what it meant even upon reflection, and not being vague enough for my personal tastes.

The most compelling part of the movie for me was most definitely the flashback scenes with the younger Beau and his mother. I think it's useful to see a story in full and see what does and what doesn't work you, but it was also worth it for me to have seen the movie just for those scenes alone. My favorite part of the movie was when teenage Beau and his mother were lying in bed together and she was giving him weighted relationship advice that had with it the implication that she had a dehumanized view of men, and was also telling him that she was proud of the man that he was becoming, and then the really striking scene where she finds out that he's actually been forming a relationship with a girl his own age behind her back and completely freaks out.

I was really intrigued by the implications of her telling Beau that he had a curse/generational health issue that would cause him to die if he ever climaxed, which is revealed to be a lie when he does finally have sex and doesn't die, and that she was capable of framing Beau becoming a man as a positive thing in the abstract but then freaked out when it looked like he was and had been working to ensure through this curse story that he wouldn't become a functional adult independent of her.

And I think that I would have personally preferred a movie that was more based on this dynamic but that as it is all the fantastical surrealistic elements of the movie ultimately really obscured it.

Firstly, I'll just say that it took so long to get to the point where we got enough concrete information about the flashback-era so that the randomness could start being thematically tied together that I wasn't sure if the movie was ever going to start doing that. But I did not and still do not see the thematic connection between Beau's issues and the issues of the family that Beau gets trapped with that was trying to adopt him as a surrogate replacement for their veteran son that died, and I don't think we even really learned that much about Beau is that whole section, so as it is I would rather that not have been there and been replaced with some other obstacle to getting to his mother's funeral that took less time. It just felt like part of a similarly-styled but ultimately disconnected other movie. The only purpose it really served to me was that it established that the strangeness in the hectic impoverished space around Beau's apartment building also existed in the calm domestic space of their fancy home, but that not something I think was really necessary to show before Beau made it to his mother's house, if anything I think it would have been stronger to leave that a little unclear.

And I did not and still do not understand what the implication was of the fact that the women Beau had sex with died instead of him. They show stuff on the ceiling above the bed after that that I couldn't make out but assumed in the moment depicted that it was a curse that whoever was on top would die instead, since that woman was on top and in the flashback where Beau is told about the generational health issue his mother really emphasizes the trauma of it being that her husband died on top of her, but then it's revealed that his father was alive the whole time so I just do not know what was going on with that.

And, regarding that father reveal, I did not get what was meant by that he was actually a giant dick monster kept contained in the attic while I was watching the movie. I think that the randomness of the earlier sections made me lose a little faith that it was anything more than more randomness. It obviously connected to Beau's own fears around what would happen to him if he had sex and ergo then his fears around his penis, but I didn't get what the implication was of what was actually passed down onto him, what it meant for Beau to be messed up about beyond that, while his mother is a terrible person, his father is a literal monster.

And I understood that it contrasted with how the mother had talked about how she had wanted to have sex on their wedding night and pushed for them to do so despite the curse and that it was a positive experience for her up until he died on top of her, and that her getting pregnant was presumably then a really traumatic experience all around. But I was thinking, was there then never a version of her husband that the mother loved and wanted to have a married life with and was unable to? Why would she have ever wanted to get married to and pregnant from that thing in the first place? What's the public story with all this since the mother is a prominent public figure?

Now I'm thinking that it's a metaphor for a child being conceived from rape. It doesn't really need to make logistical sense beyond that because this story is taking place in a fantastical nonsense world. It's making literal that, in finally getting the truth about his father, there isn't a person for Beau to learn about, there's just a giant horrifying penis.

I can see how the trauma of that is what motivated the mother to tell Beau if he ever climaxed he'd die, as well as her dehumanized view of men in general, which I think also connects to how she was able to understand how her own mother acted out her traumatic childhood onto her, but then wasn't able to understand how she did that to her own son, and why she could in the abstract speak positively about her son becoming a man but then lost her shit when she saw that he was actually becoming a man when she learned that he'd been secretly hanging out with a girl his own age and was possibly having sex. I'd say there's also the element to that where her hold on Beau would have loosened if he'd had sex with that girl and realized that the curse/generational health issue was a lie as a teenager but that's literally the exact opposite of what did actually happen when he finally did have sex.

But the problem is that I don't actually really like that story. I'm not really convinced that the story we got with the penis monster is more interesting than the story we were originally presented with with the focus on the generational curse, which was ambiguous in whether or not is was true and then why would the mother lie about that. The penis monster thing just feels like a very plain approach. And with that, I also didn't like that it was directly revealed that the dream Beau was having where another version of himself as a child that was brave enough to ask his mother about his father and then was locked up in the attic for it and never talked about again was actually literally what happened and Beau had a twin brother that's been in the attic with the penis monster all these years. We the audience understand that the dream isn't unrealistic to have actually happened because we've seen how weird this world is. It's also sufficiently given credibility that he had a sibling when the funeral speaker referred to Beau as the mother's "only surviving son." I personally think it would have stronger to leave both of these things up to implication.

Removing that reveal sort of complicates how it's suggested, but not conclusively established, earlier in the movie during the play section that Beau's dad was alive after Beau was born, and ergo that he did not die during Beau's conception, though not necessarily that he was still alive, when Beau is approached by a guy who says that he was Beau's father's caretaker when Beau was young. Without the context of what's depicted later, this was more suggestive to me that Beau's dad possibly had some sort of health issue and was being hidden for reputation's sake and not that he was a monster. This also wasn't really suggestive to me that Beau's mother had had reason to hate Beau’s father, which was notable for me because it made the monster reveal come more out of left field. I suppose in my imaginary better-for-me-personally version of this movie this interaction doesn't happen at all and instead at about that point in the movie there's something else that does give the suggestion that Beau's mother hated his father.

I also initially didn't really like that interaction because we see that guy lurking and following Beau around before he finally talks to Beau directly, which I thought would be more fitting for something where he ends up revealing something that Beau knew but was repressing or just not acknowledging, and not information that Beau had no way of knowing. But it's relevant in that this guy referring to taking care of Beau's father as unpleasant work but that his parents were in debt to Beau's mother supports how later in the movie Beau is able to figure out before his mother revealed it to him that his mother's housekeeper voluntarily committed suicide to produce a body for his mother's scheme to fake her death in exchange for money for her family. And while I had thought that that that guy following Beau around was just to create a spooky vibe and add to the randomness feeling of the movie, I now think that it represents the specter of how his mother has used people in precarious financial situations is also following Beau around despite his own precarious financial situation.

Actually on that note, I think it was pretty weak to have the therapist character be essentially a non-person with his perpetually neutral smiling demeanor after the reveal that he had been working for Beau’s mother rather than portray him as a real person like the caretaker of Beau’s father and the housekeeper had been. I think that this did just create a spooky vibe and add to the randomness feeling of the movie while also detracting from the portrayal of the harm Beau’s mother is able to cause and get away with because of her wealth.

I'm not a big fan of the ending but I think it works for the movie as it is. I think that the way he goes out onto the water to be away from people but then ends up in a trial in a stadium filled with people is meant as a visual manifestation of his own internal thought process. But this was obscured for me while I was watching because, even though the mother is at the trial and she had just died, it had already been established that she was intensely monitoring Beau so the fact that the trial went through such intimate things didn't give the impression that it had to come from himself and the world of the movie is so strange that her just coming back to life to put him on trial isn't unbelievable.

Earlier in the movie, during the play section, when Beau is going through his own play himself, the fantasy version of him is asked about his sins and he instead talks about the troubles of his life before relenting and confessing his sins, though what these sins are isn't audible to us. For this fantasy Beau is rewarded with reuniting with his fantasy sons, who inevitably break his heart on account of not being real. I think that this shows that a part of Beau did believe that he was a bad person and was receptive to his mother's perception of him, even though the therapy excerpts demonstrated that he was capable of criticizing her behavior and he tried pathetically at the trial to defend himself, he ultimately dies because he cannot fully commit to that defense of himself and so has all this guilt he cannot cope with.

Something more to my personal tastes would have been to end the movie right before that section, either as Beau is walking away from his mother's house in horror or as he's peacefully floating away on the boat, and leaving it ambiguous as to how Beau would cope or not cope with all this horrible information he's learned but as he's also now no longer under his mother's monitoring.

Because I enjoyed the flashback scenes between young Beau and his mother the best I would have liked more of them, but I would not have wanted an entire movie that takes place at that time because them being limited is part of what makes them intriguing. And part of why large parts of this movie fell flat for me was that it used the fantastical world to be very blunt about things in a way that wasn't really intriguing.

Also in the hypothetical version of this movie that woman would not have died when Beau had sex with her because I still do not get what was intended to be implied by that.

#this is terrible as a review because it's less about taking the movie as it is #and instead about why it didn't appeal to me personally and imagining reshaping it into something that does #but fortunately it's not a review it's just my thoughts on my blog #and I find that sort of thing to be a useful creative exercise #my posts #read more posting #rape tw

[lauralot89]

I saw Evil Dead Rise and I really enjoyed it

so many movies get called gory and it's just like, a shot of a compound fracture once or twice, well not here, this is gory and bloody and I love it

forgot to stay through the credits to see if there were any cameos

some vague spoilers under the cut

the movie heavily implied that the cat did not survive but since they never actually showed it I'm going to go ahead and decide otherwise

that kitchen scene with Bridget was pretty sick, even I started to feel grossed out and I'm a gorehound. Loved it though.

okay the only other movie in this franchise I've seen is the 2013 Evil Dead and all I really remember from that, other than the chainsaw hand, is the brother figuring out how to depossess his Deadite sister, so I was thinking at the end of this one that everyone would be saved because I guess I forgot all the dead characters from the 2013 film

is pregnancy supposed to cause brief bouts of debilitating abdominal pain in your first trimester? like, is that normal

#Laura watches Evil Dead Rise

[twopoppies]

A friend of mine saw one of the DWD screenings last year and gave some of their thoughts at the time. They’re back to talk more specifically about the film now that the trailer that dropped today. These comments are based on a screening, so please be aware some of this may have changed in the final cut.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT (I mean it, the trailer basically showed you the entire movie, so that’s what we’re discussing below). 

Don’t Worry Darling Trailer/Screening Thoughts & Spoilers

Hey, Gina! Went through the trailer and, for the most part, the film is laid out in its entirety from start to finish. I took some screenshots to give context for you but just stick with me here. It’s been months, as I saw one of the earlier screenings, so I’m doing my best going from memory and my initial thoughts that I sent you last year.

This is exactly how the film opens. The music started immediately once the movie began. They’re already in the middle of their small party, this is where we get introduced to the main group that Jack and Alice interact with throughout. I recall Olivia’s character entering in with the tray of drinks and being one of the first characters to have lines. Everyone is drunk and happy so it’s a fun opening with period music. And everyone is obviously dressed for the era.

Jack and Alice are extremely affectionate with each other right away. He really just has eyes for her in this scene so you immediately get the impression that they’re very in love. Rewatching the trailer, it hit me again how young they look in comparison to everyone else.

While at the party, Jack asks Alice if she’d like to go for a drive. I vaguely remember they’re teased for leaving but it’s expected since they can’t keep their hands off each other. Harry and Florence had a very easy chemistry that made their scenes believable and I think you can see that in the trailer, especially in the opening when they’re laughing and holding each other. There was a quick cut from the part to the two in the desert in their car. Jack is spinning the car in circles while Alice is laughing and screaming.

The next scenes showing Alice in a Jack’s white buttoned down shirt are right after. We get a quick montage to establish this is the routine the wives and their husbands go through everyday. You see Olivia’s character Betty also waving to her husband in their driveway as he leaves. They’re the neighbors of Alice and Jack. Alice is the only one dressed so scandalously, again continuing on with the theme of young lovebirds without a care in the world. I also remember Betty commenting on this. She comes across more sarcastic and teasing than the other women in their friend group, she’s always smoking or she has a drink.

When the men go off to their mysterious jobs, the women go into town via this shuttle that takes them back and forth through the desert into the shops where they have lunch, gossip, go to their ballet class, etc. You get the impression this is what they do every day. They don’t work just socialize.

That night when Jack gets home from work, Alice greets him in the doorway with a drink and tells him she made dinner. I don’t remember the dialogue exactly but it doesn’t take too long before he begins to kiss her and push her back until she’s laying back on their dining table. His head goes under her skirt and there’s a shot of Alice’s face while he goes down on her.

There is no nudity in the movie and this is probably as explicit as it gets.

There was a weird cut here that I hope they fixed because the party happens the next day maybe but I wasn’t sure about the passage of time. Right before we get into this backyard party scene with the majority of the cast, there is a scene with Alice and Betty where they’re gossiping and I remember Betty having another line about Alice and Jack always being all over each other. She asks about kids but Alice says they don’t want that right now. Again, I unfortunately don’t remember the exact dialogue anymore but the gist of the conversation is Betty agreeing with Alice about not having children because they’re annoying. Betty has a son and daughter of her own. 

During the actual gathering, you see it’s meant to be a sort of company party being held by Frank and Shelley who are married (played by Chris Pine and Gemma Chan). The voiceover in the trailer during these scenes is the speech Frank is giving to all the people in attendance. Betty responds easily to Frank which led me to think she’s been there for awhile or her and her husband’s loyalty is very strong, in any case.

Margaret is introduced, played by Kiki Layne. She has an outburst while Frank is speaking that startles everyone so her husband takes her aside and apologizes for her interruption. Betty makes another comment here, I don’t think she’s meant to be very likeable. Alice begins to take notice that something seems off.

We find out Margaret’s son has gone missing and there’s a rumor she took him out into the desert and did something to him herself.

This scene is meant to be Margaret, her son and his toy airplane.

It’s a flashback that happens so we get a little more understanding about why Margaret is acting so strangely.

Once Margaret’s husband takes her aside and away from the gathering, Jack once again asks Alice if she wants to be alone.

Almost forgot to mention. This man is seen there but we don’t find out who he is until a little bit later. It turns out he’s a “doctor” that’s called upon to treat the wives when they start acting hysterical.

This is the scene in the trailer where they go into the house and find a room where they once again begin to kiss and Jack gets his hand under her skirt. Frank enters and watches them for a bit, Alice sees him but doesn’t stop Jack.

Back to this. New day, same routine. Except now we have the weirdness with Margaret and Frank so the cracks are starting to show.

While on her way on the shuttle, Alice sees a red plane that resembles the toy plane we saw in the flashback with Margaret and her son. As Alice watches the plane, it crashes and she of course freaks out. She demands the driver take her out to the crash site to see if there are any survivors but the driver declines by telling her he only goes into town and to their neighborhood. Alice is completely distraught and won’t take no for an answer so she gets off and starts walking in the desert by herself to hopefully get to anyone at the crash.

I don’t remember the significance of the plane being revealed at all. I do remember that the disappearance of Margaret’s son is brushed off in a really strange way. It felt like a plot point that was shoehorned in last minute to give Margaret a reason to do what she does later but no one shows any real concern that a child has gone missing in their small town.

Alice doesn’t find the plane but she does see this dome-like structure at the top of a hill that seems completely out of place. she makes her way up to investigate. You can see in the first pic from the trailer, she’s sweaty and exhausted from walking all that way in the heat.She puts her face against the glass and loses consciousness.

She has visions of being underwater, being groped by people in black rubber suits, a dilating pupil, and these burlesque dancers.They cut in and out throughout the movie so you see each vision more than once, especially when she really starts to unravel what’s going on.

I didn’t see the next scene in the trailer but when Alice wakes up, she’s back at home and Jack is cooking dinner for her in the kitchen (the photo above is from set, but it’s what he’s wearing in the scene). He’s messing everything up and tells her he’s completely useless but he just wanted her to rest while he took care of her. Alice tries to tell him what she saw but he dismisses it.

He brushes off Alice’s worries and tells her it wasn’t possible she saw a plane go down. The gaslighting is intense from here on out and her breaks with reality are more frequent.

There are a couple scenes in the ballet studio. Shelley (Gemma Chan) seems to be in charge here as she leads the class of women. In the very last still I posted, the woman with the pixie cut is Violet (I think she’s listed as Bunny on IMDB) played by Sydney Chandler. Her and her husband are new to the town so she joins the women here. There is really no development of her character apart from using her as a plot device to show how new members of the community are introduced. She has a look that’s very reminiscent of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby so her character seems interesting but it goes nowhere.

When Alice begins to have visions, one of them includes seeing Kiki Layne’s character smashing her head against the glass on the other side of the mirror in the ballet studio. Of course Alice reacts but no one else sees what she sees. Alice rushes home and this is where she sees Margaret on the roof.

Alice calls out to her, Margaret turns to face her then immediately takes a knife out and cuts her own throat and falls off the roof. Alice is grabbed by the men in red overalls to be taken away. I think they just take her back home. Okay, here’s where my memory is fuzzy. I don’t recall if Margaret’s death happens first or if these scenes where Alice is cleaning and having weird visions happens.

I think the egg scene happens the morning after the plane crash. And then she goes to ballet class and then Margaret’s death happensI remember Margaret dying early in the film and Kiki doesn’t have much screen time anyway.

The scene with Alice being pushed up against glass must happen after. There’s really not much more to it than she’s cleaning the window and the wall starts closing in behind her.

Jack calls for the doctor we saw at the company party to come see Alice. He tells her he’s worried about her, especially after what she saw and thinks it would be for the best. So the doctor does a house call and again, both he and Jack dismiss Alice’s concerns about Margaret and what she saw in the desert.

While Jack and the doctor step aside to further discuss Alice’s condition, Alice sees a folder in the doctor’s bag that has Margaret’s name on it. Why the doctor is just walking around with another patient’s file? I’m not sure, they just once again needed something to further the plot along.

The still above is the folder Alice sneaks out of the doctor’s bag. I don’t think she finds out anything interesting, at least nothing that was memorable.

The women continue to through their routine but Alice is becoming more unsettled. While they’re sitting in a shop, they hear a boom and Betty has the line in the trailer about the men getting work done. The woman in the still above is Kate Berlant who I recall being Bunny in the film. I went back to my initial messages I sent you when I got out of the film and you shared another friend that went and also said her name is Bunny so I’m thinking we got that one right. She’s pregnant throughout the movie so her character is meant to show the purpose of the wives.

There’s a big gathering coming up, I really don’t remember the purpose of it. It looks like a New Years Eve party but it ends up being a formal company party with a quick champagne glass strip tease from Dita Von Teese. Right before, Alice and Jack are getting ready for the event with Alice in the tub and Jack getting dressed in their bedroom. They’re talking and suddenly Jack pops his head in and says they should have a baby.

Alice is completely taken by surprise since she’s told the women already that they don’t have plans for that now. She is left speechless, Jack completely clueless while he goes back to getting dressed. She sinks down into the water because this is yet another weird thing that’s come up. And from the trailer you can see her reflection doesn’t move even though she does.

This is something I didn’t understand. The film wants the audience to feel as unhinged and disturbed as Alice feels but the whole premise of the movie is that they’re in a simulation. So why are these moments allowed to happen? Is the program that flawed? It obviously happens often, we have to assume Margaret is not the first to do something drastic.

This wasn’t clear because the Victory program itself doesn’t get a backstory. I had this frustration through the end of the movie even after the twist is revealed. I didn’t get a lot of substance.

At the party, Alice tells Jack she wants to go home but he tells her they have to stay for Frank. It’s a very glamorous event, but again it seems to just be a company party again?

This is where we get the quick strip from Dita Von Teese. If you’re familiar with her champagne glass routine, it was the same one. Nothing too exciting there. Alice starts to have a panic attack so she goes to the restroom and Betty is there. Alice starts telling her something is wrong, that she’s being lied to, that she saw a plane crash in the desert and Jack isn’t listening to her.

Meanwhile, Frank is leading everyone is a ‘Victory’ chant and he invites Jack up on stage. I really don’t understand the purpose of this except to humiliate him, but Frank orders Jack to dance for everyone.It’s a really uncomfortable moment that was edited to cut back and forth between Alice in hysterics and Jack dancing like he’s about to pass out.

I get that Frank is the manipulator of the program so he’s very literally making a puppet out of Jack. What I didn’t agree with is it confused my understanding of their intention for Jack. Does he regret doing this? Are they trying to make him sympathetic despite how he’s trapped his wife in a fake world with him?Should I be feeling sorry for him despite his actions?

My feedback at the screening was I felt Jack’s motivation for his actions was incredibly weak. And thinking back on it now, I still feel that.

When Frank first arrives, he makes mention of seeing Alice and Jack in his house at the previous gathering. This gets her extremely angry and she doesn’t hold back either. They then have a very awkward dinner scene where Alice tries to expose Frank. When they sit down for dinner, Frank sits at one end and Jack goes to sit at the other head of the table but Alice cuts him off to sit there so she can square off with Frank. Jack then has to sit at one side which is why he looks upset in the trailer. And of course once Alice starts being very vocal about her concerns, he becomes humiliated.

This is where it goes into the montage of Jack signing up for the Victory program. There’s another voiceover from Frank explaining the purpose of the program. You get a really upsetting image of Alice chained to their bed while Jack goes back and forth between reality and the virtual world.

This isn’t explained either but the assumption is that when the men go to “work”, they’re still functioning in the real world. When Jack joins the simulation again, he lays down next to Alice who is covered in bruised and unresponsive.

We get back to the simulation and this is after Alice has been brainwashed of reprogrammed. She looks like she did before in her period dress and hairstyle.

Betty greets her and says everyone missed her. Alice says she’s feeling much better and then the cycle begins again with the Jack going to work and Alice remaining at home as the perfect wife. Maybe this was fixed in editing but this was my biggest issue with the film. I didn’t understand how much time was meant to pass from the time Alice returns and when she starts having her breaks again.

When I watched, it felt like she just got home. Jack gets home from work in the afternoon and then Alice starts remembering everything again. It was very rushed with no explanation as to why she has the ability to break through the simulations controls. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Alice and Jack argue and she rightfully accuses him of trapping her against her will. He grabs onto her and tells her he doesn’t want to lose her and he’s sorry but he starts squeezing too hard causing Alice to panic. She tries to get away but he won’t let go so she grabs a heavy glass nearby and slams it over his head until he lets go.

Betty comes in from next door. The assumption is she must’ve heard everything but that isn’t properly explained either, she kind of just bursts in. She sees Jack and this is where she reveals everything to Alice. She tells Alice that she needs to get away now that she’s killed Jack. She says that Jack is dead both in the simulation and in the real world. Though, again, that’s not explained. Why would someone dying in a virtual world kill them? She tells Alice she chose this life for herself and she apologizes for lying to her. Oh, I forgot to mention that at the dinner before she was taken away, Frank told Alice that Betty told him everything Alice told her at the party.

Alice runs out of her home and the neighbors start coming out and circling her. If you remember, there was a leaked video from this exact moment when Alice is attempting to escape. The street lights burst around her, the color and sky around her start to glitch. It’s not explained why she has the power to affect everything. Or maybe it’s not her at all and the system is just reacting to a user being killed? More questions.

Alice gets into a car and races away into the desert.

I’m not sure why she understands she has to go back to the dome at the top of the hill. It’s mysterious and seems to have some sort of tie to the workings of the simulation but that is never explained either.

Shelley is at home when Frank gets the call about what’s happened. He starts to order people to capture Alice before she can escape but Shelley stabs and kills him. Maybe to help Alice get away? So she must know what’s actually going on. But again, I had to connect a lot of dots myself. I don’t remember if Gemma had dialogue there but she was present at the dinner so she knows how Alice feels. That’s my best guess, she must know. Maybe she created the simulation with Frank? That would’ve been interesting to explore or reveal.

My question was: escape where?

Alice crashes the car halfway up the hill so she has to run up the rest of the way.

And she’s being pursued very closely. But she does make it up the hill and to the dome, just like she did the day she saw the plane crash. She has another vision of Jack who hugs her from behind. And he says the “always me and you” line while wearing that sweater I told you I don’t understand. 😂

But she steps forward right before the men get to her. You get a shot straight on of Alice’s face (which you can see on Olivia’a IG) and then it goes to black and you hear Alice take a deep breath.So the assumption is she woke up in the real world, I think. [of course, she’s meant to be in a coma in the real world, but who cares about closing lot holes or major details like that?].

This is why people, myself included, found the ending confusing. It’s rushed, as I said, and there’s no explanation as to why or how she escapes the virtual world.

I really didn’t like that they added that strange image of Jack hugging her at the end. Unless that was the simulation trying to stop her? [Were you supposed to feel sorry for him? Think he really loved her?] That’s what didn’t sit well with me. There were moments, like Jack looking uncomfortable while dancing or crying in the car, where I had that same thought. Are we supposed to sympathize with this person? Why??

Also keep in mind the version I saw was about 2hrs long. But it sounds like it may be about 90mins from the more recent screening since the person mentioned it was shorter than they thought it would be. That’s probably for the best. I didn’t see anything in the trailer that was new from what I saw. The coloring was improved, but that was the only notable difference.

DWD does not have a strong script, it benefits from Libatique’s cinematography. So the trailer looks very pretty. The song you hear is what Alice sings throughout the movie. She hums it in the teaser too. But it just looks pretty. Maybe cutting it down made it feel more coherent. We’ll know when it leaks.

#don't worry darling spoilers #don't worry darling #don't worry darling screening #don't worry darling trailer #abuse tw #murder tw

[akirameta84]

Saiki K. - A list of Never-Adapted Chapters

As stated, a list and brief kinda long summery of the chapters never adapted into the anime. Only a few have good reasons aside from time though. (Also a list of reasons for anime only viewers to give the manga a read *cough*)

Warning: I spoil every single one of these chapters. So if you’re lazy and only want to read the non adapted chapters, go ahead and just read the chapter number/name, and avoid the summery. You will be missing a HUGE amount of unadapted scenes if you don’t read the whole manga though, which are present in nearly every chapter, adapted or not. They were likely cut for time like a lot of the chapters, but many add depth and important character development, and actually explain certain dynamics between characters present that were glossed over in the anime.

Reblogs appreciated...this took me so long qwq

Under the cut for sheer length

Chapter 0.1 “Telepathy”: A chapter mainly detailing info about Saiki’s telepathic abilities, and the plot revolves around him stopping his class from believing Nendo stole everybody's wallets.

Chapter 0.2 “Telekinesis”:  A chapter mainly detailing info about Saiki’s telekinetic abilities, and the plot revolves around Nendo “saving” him from being bullied, and him realizing that Nendo actually isn’t a delinquent, and is a good friend. Interestingly, Saiki is able to hear Nendo’s thoughts during this chapter, in which he is internally telling Saiki to run away while he takes the attack from the bullies.

Chapter 0.4 “Precognition”:  A chapter mainly detailing info about Saiki’s precognitive abilities (are you noticing a theme among the volume zero chapters?), and the plot revolves around him receiving a precognition about Nendo’s supposed funeral. Saiki follows Nendo around all day as they hang out in preparation of his date, and it’s (obviously) revealed the girl did it as a dare. Saiki uses his teleportation to apport a bowling ball Nendo had bought with the girl’s phone, and sends a message telling Nendo that she was simply busy and had to miss the date. The two go to Nendo’s house and it’s revealed the memorial was for Nendo’s already deceased dad, not him.

Chapter 0.5 “Teleportation”: A chapter mainly detailing info about Saiki’s ability to teleport/apport, and the plot revolves around Chouno attempting a magic show with a new assistant, after firing Ike-san (still homeless at the time) for making mistakes. His assistant, however, is purposely sabotaging him. Part way through, Ike-san shows up and thinks about how he should’ve been a better assistant, and his makeover is revealed. Near the end of the show a trick is attempted to where Chouno’s assistant is meant to teleport out of a box, but of course she does nothing. It is noticed that her and Ike-san have swapped places, due to Saiki apporting the two of them, and Chouno and Ike-san reunite.

Chapter 0.6 “Clairvoyance”:  A chapter mainly detailing info about Saiki’s clairvoyant abilities, and the plot revolves around Kaido accidently spotting Saiki teleporting from a distance, and trying to find out who it was. Unfortunately, the drawing he is using to ask around for the “Trickster” looks nothing like Saiki. At the end of the chapter, Saiki appears before Kaido with the face of his crude drawing, and teleports out, to appease him. (Interesting tidbit about this chapter is that the mysterious stranger from the birthday arc appears in the class while Saiki uses his clairvoyance to watch Kaido. He also appears in the background of chapter 41 (the telepathy silencer movie chapter), but not in the anime equivalent.) 

Chapter 0.7 “Astral Projection”:  A chapter mainly detailing info about Saiki’s ability to astral project, and the plot revolves around Saiki using telekinesis to deflect a stray baseball from hitting him, but it instead hits Nendo, subsequently knocking him out right before he was due to play in a baseball game. Thus, Saiki uses astral projection to take over Nendo’s body and play in the baseball game for him.

Chapter 8 “ Fighting for a RePSIval!”: Saiki and Nendo end up stopping a failing musician from jumping off a roof due to his enormous debt. Nendo gets the idea to help the man gain money by selling the CDS of his music he had ordered in bulk, which were the result of the debt, due to them not selling. He performs live in the park, and Saiki accidently uses his telepathy to project the song to everyone in the are, causing them to believe it became stuck in their heads due to how good it was. 

Chapter 00 “Special One-Shot: The DiPSIster of Psychic Saiki Kusuo”: This chapter falls in-between 8 and 9. It is a collection of oneshots set in a slightly different universe (likely a pilot or a very early storyline) in which it details information over several of Saiki’s powers, much like Volume 0.

Chapter 32 “ExPSIbition! Jump Festa”: Saiki goes out to Jump Festa to purchase merchandise due to an errand from his mom. There he meets Kaido, and the whole chapter’s gag is subtle advertisement for Jump Festa. The pair run into a crying child, who had lost his mom. He smartly refuses to go with Kaido to a help desk due to stranger danger, but Kaido comes back in his cosplay and since the kid vaguely recognizes him after he “proves” he really is that character (with Saiki’s help), the kid is returned to his mom.

Chapter 73 “PubliPSIzing the Popularity Contest Results!“: Saiki ends up in an alternate universe to where people’s popularity is shifted. (The chapter is based on the popularity poll that was held, hence that being the joke). Saiki is the most popular in this world, and he is bombarded with people until he hides away in the bathroom and transforms into Kuriko. This allows the original world’s Saiki to return, and he briefly explains why the world is this way, before sending Saiki, as Kuriko, back.

Chapter 88 “Press Play! A "Making Of" PSItory”: Saiki finishes watching a movie, and he remarks about how he loved it due to the quality of the acting and would like to visit the place it was filmed. Shortly after, he teleports to the location while returning the movie. He then decides to use his psychometry to see how the movie was filmed, and slowly it is revealed that the actors themselves were quite bad, especially the child star who Saiki believed to be a very good actor. The reason the movie was so good is revealed to be because the scenes in the movie were filmed as a supposed to be “behind the scenes”, and those were put in place instead of the actual filmed scenes.

Chapter 95 “The PSInnacle of the Golden Age of Heroes! A Fun Party Game”: Kaidou, Nendo, and Kuboyasu visit Saiki’s house the same day the game “J-Stars Victory Vs” was supposed to be arriving for him. A package arrives at the door, but instead of J-Stars, it is “C-Heroes Vale Tudo Battle”, a ripoff game by Saiki’s dad’s manga company. Kaido, Nendo, and Kuboyasu are all enamored by the game and reveal that they love Cognac, the magazine the game is for, and they all play the game. At the end of the chapter, the actual wanted game arrives, and the trio are just as excited and want to play that instead.

Chapter 102 “The Achromatic InviPSIble Boy”: (My personal favorite chapter) Saiki turns himself invisible to avoid running into his friends on the way to school, and winds up inside an empty storage room in order to wait for his invisibility to wear off. Unfortunately, a group of girls decided to use this room to change due to the peeping tom that’s been rumored around the campus. He hides by gripping onto the ceiling and waiting for them to leave, but when his invisibility is about to wear off the girls have still not left. After some time spent dodging and hiding, the door is opened by Saiki, revealing the actual peeping tom. The girls chase after him and Saiki uses the opportunity to escape.

Chapter 118 “The DiPSIster of the Rental Video Store”: Saiki, due to being bored, decides to go to a rental movie store to rent a movie to watch. Unfortunately, the current cashier is one that Saiki doesn’t favor very much, because she is high on his list for potential spoilers, but he remarks that at least the manager, a man who has seen nearly every movie, isn’t there. But (lmao), the manager switches positions with the cashier shortly after. Saiki then runs into Takahashi, who is purchasing pornography. In exchange for not telling the school about this, Saiki asks Takahashi to check out his movies for him. Takahashi gets caught like the dumbass he is and the plan is ruined.

Chapter 133 “An ExPSIlent Wife and Mother!? Mom's Class Reunion”: Saiki starts the chapter off by explaining how his mother is scatterbrained, and showing examples of it. Kurumi than remarks that she is going to her class reunion, which is being held in the city near her this year instead of way out in the country, meaning she can attend. When she arrives she starts getting reintroduced to her classmates who she hasn’t seen in 20 years, and talking about how different they are. Only one of the attendees, however, is actually from her class, and he reveals that the whole event is a plan to get closer to Kurumi, in order to use her for her eldest son’s wealth. Saiki, who had come to watch after having a bad feeling about the event, follows him into the bathroom and threatens him to stay away from his mom. Before he can finish, Kurumi accidently stumbles into the men’s bathroom, and her former classmate claims that her youngest son had attacked him unprovoked. Kurumi attacks the man, claiming her son would never do such a thing.

Chapter 134 “Kaidou and Kuboyasu's PSIpicions”: (The BEST Chapter) Kaidou and Kuboyasu are talking near their lockers about how neither of them got any chocolate for valentines day, and the conversation strays off to talking about Hairo. The two remark that they never see him talking to or dating girls, despite his popularity, and joke that he must be gay. The two are later found following Hairo, and bring up incidents that add to their growing suspicion. They soon find Hairo talking to Nendo, and begging the latter to join his club, stating that it has to be him. The conversation is normal, but Kaidou and Kuboyasu keep mistaking parts of it as being dirty. They watch Nendo and Hairo have a sumo match, and confront him after it, stating that it’s fine if he his gay, they were just curious. Hairo laughs it off and says he isn’t, but after another risque seeming scene (including an omake where Hairo and Nendo remark about keeping their relationship secret and how Hairo is willing to come out for him 🤔 ) the duo agree to stop thinking about it.

Chapter 165 “Train DiPSIster”: Saiki decides to take the train to a coffee shop 30 minutes away from his house instead of teleporting, claiming coffee jelly tastes much more satisfying if there is effort put into travelling there...though he does plan to teleport home. He explains how annoying train rides are for him, due to his telepathy, and how if someone playing music loudly is annoying for you, how much worse it is to listen everyone complain about said music. Over the course of the trip, Saiki begins to get anxious due to the crowds and his telepathy, and is relieved when several people get off. Unfortunately, he receives a precognition about the train stopping, and ends up saving a man from jumping in front of the train. Saiki winds up teleporting to the coffee shop. 

Chapters 176 & 177 “PSIolving the Biggest Riddle!”: Saiki shrinks himself to retrieve his mother’s wedding band that had fallen down a drain, and when he jumps down, he remarks that the sink had become essentially 80 meters tall due to his height. He lays down in his bed afterwards, deciding to take a nap while he returns to normal size. When he wakes up however, he is much taller than normal. Due to the fact his body keeps growing, to avoid destroying the house anymore, Saiki teleports away to an island to hide, but he realizes that he teleported to an island closer to land due to his height throwing off his teleport. He hides under the water to avoid being caught, but ends up having to teleport away to avoid being seen. He accidently ends up on land, and nearby is a tribe of people, who are speaking a strange language. Before they approach him, Saiki ducks into his shirt, remarking that he feels embarrassed and is at a loss. He ends up floating and crashes to the ground once he reaches a certain height. It eventually clicks and he returns home, normal size. He had realized that his growing and shrinking powers were the same, but growing happened slowly, and shrinking happened quickly, hence why he would return to normal size slowly. The cause of this issue? The off comment he made about the sink “Becoming 80 meters tall.”

Chapter 201 “A Miraculous InvenPSIon”: Saiki notices his dad using a tablet and asks him what it his, to which Kunihara explains. Once he remembers he has work, Kunihara runs off, but not before offering his old tablet to Saiki, saying he can use it to read books and buy things. A little while later, Saiki is amazed by the tablet. He remarks about the shopping sites he an use to buy not only physical copies of books on, but digital ones as well. He keeps thinking about how amazing the online shopping sites and recommendations are, meanwhile he performs basically the same exact thing to his mom, when she requests he go out and buy groceries, as he instantly apports them for her, and also added foil because he had a precognition about her running out. While searching for appliances, he stumbles on the coffee jelly maker he owns, and finds out it has shitty reviews, but everyone recommends a newer model. He looks for the cheapest price of it, and finds an ad claiming to sell it for 100 yen. However, he falls for the trick of a ridiculous shipping fee, and his father laughs and remarks how just like his mother, he got scammed. Angry, Saiki teleports to the factory and threatens them into giving him the model for 100 yen, claiming that he doesn’t have to pay the shipping fee if he picks it up himself.

Chapter 229 “No Need for Bath Salts! Taking a Dip in the PSIcret Hot Spring”: Saiki decides to take a visit to a secluded hot springs in the mountains to relax himself, but unfortunately two strangers decided to hike there at the very same time. He cannot just teleport or walk away, since he didn’t bring his clothes with him, having teleported there to begin with. To make them leave, he decides to heat the hot spring up, so that the two men get overheated and decic to leave. One of the men, however, decides to try and stay in the water that is slowly gaining heat, in order to outlast Saiki. The man eventually gets out and faints, and to avoid having to help them, Saiki feigns having fainted from the heat as well, causing the two men to leave on their own.

Chapter 243 ″Welcome to PSIberspace”: Saiki’s dad has a new VR headset, and while he has to leave for work he offers it to Saiki to play with. Saiki is enamored by the horror game his dad was playing, being that it’s able to surprise him. The jump scares, however, cause him to accidently use his telekinesis, which is actually blowing stuff up at his dad’s workplace, instead of his house. 

Chapter 245 “Trending on a Streaming PSIte”: Kaidou, Nendo, Kuboyasu, and Saiki are all hanging out, and Kaidou mentions he has a camera and wants to become a youtuber (Yotubo-er is what it’s called). At a café, the group suggests video ideas, such as Teruhashi. In order to prevent this plan, however, Saiki uses telekinesis to stab french fries into their eyes when Teruhashi ends up walking by the café. On the walk home, however, Saiki receives a premonition  about all the video ideas they suggested becoming popular, including one of him using his abilities on the french fries. He obtains the camera from Kaidou and deletes the footage, which had been recording due to the camera being on the entire time.

Chapter 255 “APSIsting In Mediating A Long-Term Marriage!”: Saiki and his parents go to visit his grandparent’s, only to learn the pair is fighting, and his grandmother would like a divorce. The start of the entire fight is revealed to be because Kumagoro left the toilet seat up, and Kumi explains how she’s had to put the seat down for 40 years. The reason she was so adamant to divorce as well was because Kuusuke had pushed her to it. Kumi gets ready to leave the house, especially after Kumagoro purposely leaves the lid up one last time. Saiki stops her and tells her to put down the lid one more time, only for the words ‘I’m Sorry’ to be written on it. The fight is resolved.

Chapter 264 “Please Go Watch the Live ActPSIon Movie!”: A manga Saiki reads is getting a live action movie, and he is particularly upset about it. His dad happens to be the editor for the manga, and takes him to the filming set to change his mind. (By the way, this is the best chapter for showcasing Kunihara’s shittiness as a father. He physically attacks his son several times. Missing, of course, but he still actively attacks him. Kunihara is a horrible person, let alone father.) Saiki views the set and is perturbed by the actor choices, specifically Makoto as the lead character. He is even more upset to learn that the movie features an original character (like a badly written wattpad fanfiction), and that the end of the movie even features the death of the main character, and Kunihara explains that it differs from the manga greatly. He explains to his son that the changes make the movie better, and Saiki ends up agreeing after he winds up viewing the actual live-action movie.

#saiki k #the disastrous life of saiki k. #saiki kusuo no psi nan #saiki kusuo #manga #long post

[wilmakins]

The One MCU Rumour That Bothers Me - And Why

Self indulgent and introspective rant about *that* MoM casting rumour under the cut - be aware of potential 'spoilers' and unnecessary length.

So, those of you that follow me probably know that I’m pretty laid back.

Okay, granted, I can still get angry over CACW 5 years on (it’s my hyper fixation, what can I tell you?) but even my rants on that topic are, I think, pretty balanced – and certainly free from any ‘I hate Marvel/this is a crime against cinema/they’re never getting any of my money again’ hyperbole.

I don’t comment casting rumours. I don’t have a defined way that I want to see the MCU play out, I don’t get involved in fandom drama or comment on other peoples’ HCs, I don’t go on angry twitter rants about every choice I disagree with – I even kept my mouth shut about Steve’s ending, FFS.

I have always felt that being a fan of the MCU should be a light-hearted thing, an enjoyable thing, and – although it’s meant a lot to me, and helped me make some long lasting and genuine friendships – to be honest, I’ve never thought of it as being that deep…

And yet, the rumour that Tom Cruise is going to be playing a Tony Stark Variant in MoM has… bugged me. Like, actually nagged at me – to the point that I’ve actually left comments on some of the news stories about it. Which I never do…

And, of course, the response to these comments has been predictable. Amongst the many people who share my anxiety, there are also plenty of people to tell me ‘It’s not recasting Tony Stark, it’s just a variant’, that ‘It’s not all about RDJ, and you fangirls need to be less obsessive’, that ‘Iconic roles are recast all the time – look at the Joker and Batman’.

And, you know, I might feel better if any of that was the source of my discomfort… But it really isn’t.

For one, I’m not actually a Robert Downey Jr Fangirl. I’m a Tony Stark fangirl. And although I fell in love with RDJs portrayal of him, to me, he’s just an avatar for the fictional creation I love. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about RDJ. I don’t know his kids names. I couldn’t name more than 2 other movies he’s been in (only one of which I’ve actually seen). I couldn’t tell you anything about his past, beyond the vague ‘comeback of the century’ story that everyone knows… I’ve never felt any ‘protective’ instinct towards the actor before – to be honest, if I ever see a news story about him personally, I’m as uninvested as I would be in a story about any Hollywood A Lister.

Secondly, I know this isn’t Marvel ‘Recasting Tony Stark’, any more than Richard E Grant was them ‘recasting Loki’ or Tobey and Andrew were them ‘Recasting Spiderman’. I understand the concepts of variants.

…I mean, I’ll be honest, I was never enamoured with the concepts of variants, or the multiverse. For a while, I wondered if that was the issue here – the fact that I’m somewhat sceptical of an ever sprawling multiverse, and the way it potentially destroys the all important internal logic of the MCU, and possibly reduces the stakes… But that didn’t quite feel right, as an explanation. After all, NWH and the Loki Series proved that this concept could be done in an engaging, internally consistent way – my distrust of the Multiverse concept didn’t affect my excitement about or enjoyment of either of those projects. And I didn’t have the same reaction to rumours that Patrick Stewart might be appearing as Professor X, or that Hugh Jackman may show up as Wolverine. I may not much like those rumours either, but none of them made me think I was ‘done with Marvel’

It wasn’t even a reaction against Tom Cruise per se – although I’ll admit, I’m not a fan, and I don’t think he’d be a good fit for Tony Stark. But, like I say, I’ve always been able to separate the actor from the character playing them, and it’s not like I’m a huge fan of all the other actors in the MCU…

But still, this one rumour that just kept bugging me… Even leading me to fear that I could be turned off of the movie franchise I loved so much…

And then, tonight, it hit me – whilst watching The Simpsons.

It was one of those low-quality, mid-noughties episodes from long after the show’s heyday. And, like the cliché millennial I am, I made a trite comment about the show having gone past it’s prime long ago…

Because it moved away from the relatable storylines that made it so popular in the first place…

Because they kept breaking the ‘reality’ of the show and contradicting past storylines for the sake of a cheap joke or a shock…

Because they kept cashing in on celebrity voice overs that didn’t fit the show or mean anything…

Because they became naval gazing, and self-referential, breaking the fourth wall once an episode to smugly elbow the viewer in the ribs…

Ah. This was it then.

The Tom Cruise Rumour had made me anxious that this was Marvels ‘Simpsons Season 10’ moment.

When that clicked, I realised what made the ‘Tom Cruise’ rumour different to previous cameos, or the other ‘spoilers’ on reddit.

Because, for one, it so clearly seemed like ‘cashing in’ for its own sake. That’s why the ‘calm down, he’s only going to be in it for like ten minutes’ comments did not actually calm me down – because that was kind of the problem.

Andrew and Tobey weren’t in NWH for a single scene gag – they were written in as a fundamental part of the story, making the cameo more than just a marketing gimmick or a cheap attempt at ‘fan service’. Richard E. Grant was chosen because he fit a role that was already being written as part of the Loki series arc – they didn’t bung that reference in simply because they wanted to include that actor. If Patrick Stewarts Professor X turns up, he will at least be building on a multi-movie legacy, and bringing an already well loved character into the universe…

But a ten-minute cameo from Tom Cruise is nothing more than an in-joke with the fans – and a pretty cynical one at that. Which means a ten-minute cameo from him will be nothing more than a smug reminder that we’re all watching a movie, and a way to make us feel like part of the clique.

Maybe other people will like that sort of meta humour that makes them feel smart and special… But I personally liked watching and immersing myself in these stories, without constantly being reminded that they aren’t real.

And, to be honest, it felt like cynically ‘cashing in’ on the character of Tony Stark – and, before you say that I only think this because I’m a Tony Stark fan-

Really, this Tony Stark fan would rather you just left him dead. At least for a couple of years.

And I say that not to protect Tony’s legacy – but to protect the future of the MCU.

Richard E Grant didn’t feel like a cheap attempt to appeal to Loki fans – because Loki was standing right there. Andrew and Tobey weren’t in NWH to bring in the Spiderman fans – it was a Spiderman movie. I could at least believe that Professor X or Wolverine might be used in a way that added something to the story – at the very least, they both have established characters and histories to do something with…

But referencing Tony Stark yet again (through a brand-new iteration, only known because of an IRL casting drama that has become urban legend with the fans) when his death was used as the emotional end point of the whole first phase just a few years ago, feels very much like an attempt to… keep milking the golden goose? Okay, you can’t milk a goose, but you know what I mean – it feels like the studio is already slipping into cheap appeals to previously popular characters rather than taking the time to develop new ones. Almost like they’re scared of the risk they’re taking – like they want the safe, familiar crowd pleasers in there…

All in all, this one rumour renews all my previous worries about the multiverse concept – that it isn’t going to be used as an internally consistent mechanism to explore new stories (as always seemed a very big ask) but rather a magic wand to be used whenever they want a hashtaggable moment in there.

And it makes me worry that, in a bid to hold onto their momentum, Marvel are going to move away from the carefully developed, character driven stories that built that momentum in the first place. As so many popular properties have done when they ‘jumped the shark’.

It makes me worry that they’re going to keep writing ‘safe’ characters into the movies that could be used to introduce new ones – or, worse still, that they’re going to start cramming those references into places that they don’t fit.

It makes me worry that they’re going to write scripts based on whichever masturbatory fancasts are popular on twitter, rather than building a long term, interwoven story.

It makes me worry that they’re going to turn the MCU into a parody of itself, where the jokes are always between the fanboys and the director, at the expense of the characters themselves.

It makes me worry that the producers are going to go for the cheapest shots, building bigger and bigger ramps over larger and larger sharks, until the whole thing becomes meaningless

It makes me worry that I’m going to see a Marvel Movie in a few years time, and make the same comments we all make about the Simpsons now – and that makes me sad.

And, okay, I know I haven’t seen the movie yet – so, maybe Tom Cruise will surprise me. Maybe he’ll be a revelation in the role, bringing something so important and meaningful to the story that it’ll become clear why they didn’t give an up and coming actor a chance, or explore the idea of a female Tony Stark variant, or frame Tony as a person of colour, or any of the other ideas that might, on the face of it, have seemed more interesting…

But, in any case, I at least feel better that I’ve worked it out – and I feel better now that I’ve sat here and written it out. So. That’s something, I guess?

#Multiverse of Madness spoilers #Multiverse of Madness Rumours #Wilma Rants

[rredboard]

i know we’ve all seen the nightwing movie intro post and i want to propose an intro to a tim drake (as robin) movie. also this is long so its under the cut

first of all i think that in this movie jack should still be alive and married to dana at the town house, after he gets out of his rich person depression. so if i’m remembering correctly, that would also mean to include steph, bernard, and darla as his friends. i think that one of the best aspects of tim’s run as robin is the fact that he’s hiding being robin from his dad, and the way that forced the robin run to focus on more than just being robin. i think that of tim’s generation of heroes at the time he was the only one who had to actively hide his hero status from his parent. (actually no that’s wrong there was anita fite, but i’m going to maintain this bc her dad was already entrenched in weird shit working for the deo, so a superhero daughter was not an insane jump i would say, esp with her family situation, by which i mean the guy that killed her parents) so anyways all this to say that i want the tension btwn his civilian life and his robin life to play a large role in the story, bc i love that shit.

so in that vein, i would want the movie to start out in his civilian life, and in a similar way to the nightwing movie idea where it doesn’t show his face until the title screen. like, we’re in the theater, we know what we’re seeing, so all we have to introduce is his civie life, bc we know who batman is and how he works.

so anyways to get to the actual intro…

we start out in literally the messiest teenage boy’s room you’ve ever seen. stacks of cds, messy notebooks with papers half ripped out, a half deconstructed computer tower, a picture of steph in a purple frame on the desk. there’s a photo booth strip of photos peeking out from behind with the core four, one of them wearing large oversized sunglasses so you can’t see his face. you hear a rustling sound off screen and a hand reaches onscreen and grabs a skateboard as a female voice (dana) yells for tim vaguely from a room away/downstairs.

we see tim’s legs/board as he jogs downstairs, then scan over like, family photos? to show the circus photo, show that janets died, jacks remarried, and like maybe some school awards? that taper off over time to show the effect of robin on his grades? like he’s focusing even more on being a hero, adding to the tension btwn civilian/hero life. maybe on the fridge there’s a report card with a c or d grade circled with the words “we will talk about this” or smth on it in red pen. tim opens the fridge, grabs a snack, and continues out the building, calling out a goodbye to dana/his dad on his way out.

outside, we see tim throw down his board and start skating (this part i see being soundtracked with i wanna be sedated by the ramones. major 90s teen movie vibes is what i want from this in general). he starts skating and we see the people he skates by wave at him, maybe with birds of prey-style notes pointing to each person saying what robin saved them from? idk maybe too derivative lol. anyways he keeps skating, doing a few tricks as he goes. the board obviously has like robin, nightwing, wonder girl, superboy, and impulse symbol stickers on it. maybe there’s like a handmade purple “s” design too for spoiler. anyways he keeps skating until he gets to a skatepark, where he meets steph, who says smth like “you ready to go?” and has either roller skates or in-line skates, obviously purple bc i want to really commit to stephs love affair with purple. we hear like a yes or smth from tim, who then skates into the park and we do a freeze frame on tim in the middle of a trick mid air, where we actually see his face for the first time, and get the big robin title over it. i want this to be disgustingly nineties.

i don’t know which robin arc i would want this to follow, or like a different plot, but i would like jack to find out he’s robin and make him quit. i’d rather have steph just get closer to bruce than become robin. i lovelovelove steph as robin but i’d want the movie to start and finish with tim as robin and i 1.) don’t want steph to die and 2.) just think that war games is too much to tackle to get him back as robin. i also don’t want a war games movie bc despite the fact that tim’s part of wg at his school is my favorite part of the arc, i really don’t want thay in a movie. like i would hate that in a way i can’t describe.

but also, i do want steph to be in a lot of this movie. she’s a really important character in tim’s run as robin, and at this point in the run, a lot of the issues were like half steph stories. also, as much as i love the core four, i’d like to focus on just gotham. i’d also like to maybe do tim’s 16th birthday arc, but i’d want him to already be 16 so…🤷‍♀️

soundtrack: lots of 70s/80s/90s rock and pop. the ramones, the clash (obvi), some led zeppelin, deceptacon by le tigre, blondie or maybe some spice girls? teenage dirtbag by wheatus is kind of a must. so is the cure. also when bernard hangs out with tim i want stacys mom to play when he sees dana. i have a brand and i stick with it. also maybe some rooney. during a steph part i’d really like chick habit by april march to play. also kids in america playing during a spoiler and robin fight montage.

so anyways yeah. that’s all i have. a lot of words for a little substance. and skater boy tim. i want tim’s vibes to be like a mix of both ferris and cameron from ferris bueller’s day off

#i just miss the redboard (obvi) and i want tim to be a 90s movie Teen. #tim drake #stephanie brown #dana winters #bernard dowd #jack drake #robin #robin movie #spoiler #rredboard