#character was to go out there and give that audience the best fucking performance i'd ever done
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Forgot I had my Annie script in my backpack and teared up when I saw it
It's been almost two weeks since the end of my high school drama career and I thought I had gotten all the tears out after sobbing my eyes out during closing night but apparently just the sight of my old script was enough to do it-
"Good afternoon, Ms. Hannigan?" And suddenly my eyes are glossy help-
#panda posts#i don't think it helps that like- i got a callback for both hannigan and grace and so before i even knew what role i'd have in the play i'd#done both sides of the initial dialogue for the scene where grace first enters#my first rehearsal for the year and those were the first words i ever said#and they were the first words i said as grace during callbacks too#idk i just remember very clearly on closing night standing behind the curtains and straightening out my costume and taking a deep breath as#i prepared to walk on stage to perform that first scene one final time and the only way to stop myself from crying on stage and breaking#character was to go out there and give that audience the best fucking performance i'd ever done#because if it was going to be my last i wanted to go out on a high note#and so walking out there and saying that line for the last time... it meant a lot to me that i was able to do it without crying and#breaking character which is what's making me so emotional now as it's hitting me that it's actually over now that i've had time to recover#physically from the burnout that comes with being up at the school every day for 3-7 hours doing musical ALONE
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IF I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO RANK THEM: The Academy Award nominees for Best Picture
10. Maestro - With its dialogue gaudily written in a style reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood--keeping all of the cadence and none of the wit--kudos must be given to co-writer, co-producer, director and star Bradley Cooper for making a movie about the first great American conductor of classical music that's utterly fucking excruciating to listen to. And as an actor, he doesn't find a character here, getting lost in an impression and hiding behind prosthesis. He did give one of the best performances of 2023, but it wasn't as Leonard Bernstein, it was as Rocket Raccoon. Though I will say this film is impeccably made, and even though he can't make a connection himself, he did a great job in setting up Carey Mulligan to succeed. She gives one of her best performances as Bernstein's long-suffering wife. Bradley Cooper is a wonderful director, and he's a pretty good actor once he gets out of his own way. But could someone who loves him please tell him to step away from the typewriter?
9. The Holdovers - Da Vine Joy Randolph is the front-runner for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. And she deserves it, as the rest of The Holdovers can't keep up with her. Alexander Payne's early-seventies boarding school pastiche is all artifice and cliche (most of the time agreeably so, I'll admit), but when Randolph's school cook starts emotionally cratering in a very real, visceral, uncomfortable way, the movie seems to wake up... only to lull itself back to sleep once the camera is off of her. I have often said that one can only review the movie one is given, but, well, I'd have paid the premium price to go see the movie about Da Vine Joy Randolph's Mary. As it stands, I'm glad I caught The Holdovers on Peacock.
8. Poor Things - If Tim Burton suffered from a permanent hard-on, this is the movie he would make. Yorgos Lanthimos' feminist, socialist riff on the Frankenstein story has a lot of ideas and a ton of jokes that land, only for him to vanish up the prolapsed asshole of his own technique. It feels as though we're assaulted on the quarter-hour with iris shots and fish-eye lenses that seem to serve no other purpose than to inform the audience that this film is capital D Directed. I recommend this movie, don't get me wrong. It's smart, it's hilarious, the sets and costumes are impeccable, and Emma Stone gives an all-time belter of a performance. But it's really frustrating to have all this in the hands of a director that's the equivalent of an eight-year-old who wants us to watch him do cannonballs in the pool.
7. American Fiction - Cord Jefferson's American Fiction was sold as a biting satire of the inherent racial prejudices of the American literary industrial complex, from publishers looking for authenticity to the heaps of plaudits delivered by guilty white readers who want to bear witness to black misery without being told how much they suck for that. But I gotta tell ya, I think Jefferson could have gone farther. He could have been a little bit more vicious, went for blood, because what we're left with a satire that doesn't really seem to be mad at anyone. But the human drama and comedy that exists apart from that? That works wonderfully. Jefferson populated his film with real, loveable people that any audience would want to spend more time with. It's only surprising that Sterling K. Brown got nominated for an Oscar if you haven't seen the movie yet. And Jeffrey Wright's transformation into America's brainy, slightly depressed uncle continues apace.
6. Barbie - It was a cultural juggernaut that made all the money in the world, and spawned enough thinkpieces to choke a team of Clydesdales. Did its admittedly lofty ambitions jibe with its tone and approach? Not always. But did its jokes land? Yes, Barbie was the funniest movie of 2023. But I don't think I can say what hasn't already been said... Except America Ferrera was really good. I'm serious, I saw people get all butthurt about her Best Supporting Actress nomination, but these people couldn't reason their way out of a wet paper bag that was open already. And this isn't even about that monologue, either. Ferrera provided an oasis of plausibility in the middle of all this neon pink madness. Never once does she wink at the camera, or dive in and join the scenery chewing. She's funny, but funny in a real way that provides much needed counterweight to the musical numbers and jokes about Skipper dolls with expanding boobs. If it weren't for America Ferrera's work, Barbie would have been caricatures bouncing off of one another, and any weight this movie has is a testament to her skill. She was given a truly thankless task... Or it would have been, if she didn't get that nomination. Good for her.
5. The Zone of Interest - One does not explain Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, one can only experience it. A man and his family settle down into their new house, only the man is the commandant at Auschwitz, and the twentieth century's greatest evil is happening just beyond the garden wall. We never venture into the camp itself, we never see what goes on, but for one-hundred-and-five minutes, we hear it. This family idyll is constantly underscored by gunshots, screaming, barking dogs, and the ever-present drone of the crematorium. This is one of the most unsettling experiences I've ever had watching a movie... the first time around. I don't think it would work dramatically for a second viewing. For as much mileage as Glazer gets out of his approach, it's still a gimmick. Not a cheap gimmick, mind you. It's a free-range gourmet gimmick from a place that's hard to pronounce, but a gimmick nonetheless.
4. Anatomy of a Fall - I don't know whether to ding Justine Triet's plug for the website didshedoit.com before even the studio's logo at the beginning, or to commend her for it. It tells us what kind of movie we're in for. A man falls from the balcony of his French chalet, and it's determined that it was either suicide, or he was pushed by his wife, and we spend the next two-and-a-half hours going through interrogations, investigations, re-enactments, and a full-blown trial trying to get to the bottom of a question that we were told at the beginning, through the mention of that website, that we weren't getting an answer to. It's only arrogance if Triet can't pull it off, and she very much does, presenting us with information in a way that leads us to question how we got to our conclusions. I'm usually resistant to movies that try to get us into a dialogue with ourselves, but the answers I got from... uh... me, were quite enlightening. I think it's odd that the Palme D'Or went to a simple courtroom movie, but as far as simple courtroom movies go, it's the best I've seen in decades.
3. Oppenheimer - Those who claim that Oppenheimer glorifies the life of the father of the atomic bomb quite frankly haven't seen it. I have never seen a biopic that holds its subject in such lively, blistering contempt as this one does. Cillian Murphy's J. Robert Oppenheimer is a man blundering towards a scientific breakthrough that will irrevocably worsen the world, and the only one who can't see it is him. Christopher Nolan's usual icy disregard for the people at the center of his narrative mazes comes off, in this case, as a kind of deadpan disapproval of a man who, brilliant though he may be, just can't see the train coming. Geniuses are still just men, only their mistakes are an entire magnitude larger, and virtually unfixable.
2. Past Lives - What a wonderful movie this is. A boy and a girl in Korea separate after her parents emigrate to America, only for them to reconnect decades later in New York, after she's married someone else. But the held breaths and things left unsaid aren't just romantic, but encompass the entirety of both their lives. It's not just about lost love, but lost opportunity, and being a stranger to themselves had one other thing gone different. Boy loses girl, and the realm of possibility winnows down to one for both of them. More than what these people say to each other in Celeste Song's marvelous debut, but what they don't say. What they can't admit to themselves. What they think the other can't take. Past Lives is quiet and delicate, but boy is it powerful.
And the Best Picture of the Best Pictures is...
Killers of the Flower Moon - This is a master working at the height of his powers. This is a top-shelf effort from the greatest filmmaker the United States has ever produced, depicting in minute detail the slow-motion genocide of the Osage people for oil money in the 1920s. At the center of this is Leonardo DiCaprio's Ernest Burkhart; a dimwit roped into this evil by his charismatic uncle, played by Robert DeNiro. It is through the lens of Burkhart that most of this story unfolds; a man whose grief and good intentions and convictions melt away once someone stronger and wealthier than he is tells him to do something that violates them. Now, there are some who recoil at this approach, preferring instead to center more on Ernest's Osage wife Mollie (played in a performance for the ages by Lily Gladstone). And I want it known that I'm sympathetic to this view. The movie they want may very well have been a great one, and it may very well have been better than this one (Hey, anything's possible), but it wouldn't have been this movie, which I wouldn't trade for anything. Mollie Burkart is the kind of character that would be the hero in another film, but Martin Scorsese doesn't make movies about heroes. He makes movies about weakness and failure. Hell, his movie about Jesus centered on a hypothetical moment of temptation. If Ernest Burkart hadn't existed, Scorsese would have had to invent him.
#oscars 2024#maestro#the holdovers#poor things#american fiction#barbie#the zone of interest#anatomy of a fall#oppenheimer#past lives#killers of the flower moon
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Hey there! Did you know that the Finding Nemo musical reopened? It's under a new subtitle, The Big Blue and Beyond! The show had a soft opening for the press, and a recording has been uploaded to YouTube if you want to see the updated version and what they've changed. I'd love to hear your thoughts, this musical has a special place in my heart too!
I will preface this by saying I have the og musical fuckin memorized so my first thoughts will probably be biased. With that in mind, I. DONT LIKE IT.
The biggest problem is the shortening. You can tell they sped up a lot of it and I get that! It’s a theme park! But it makes the story feel rushed as hell, + it still skips a LOT of early Marlin characterization which makes him seem more overbearing than anxious. IF WE DO NOT HAVE CONTEXT FOR WHY HE IS OVERBEARING WE LOSE EVERYTHING. It also makes “Go with the Flow” lose a lot of impact which sucks cause that’s the best song in the show. Cutting Nemo’s first solo is stupid as shit and I HATE IT. It also cuts HIS character which is important because if we don’t care about him why do we care if he’s rescued.
The new intro is cute and I don’t hate the tie-in but I really do think you NEED the intro with Nemo's mom dying. I also miss the "out and then back in", they skip a lot of early Marlin characterization now which is a shame. It makes Marlin seem like less of a character throughout the rest of the show which is BAD because HE IS THE MAIN CHARACTER.
The screen is nice I guess but they did fine with practical effects before this it’s very unnecessary.
The narration is also VERY unnecessary. We can see what’s happening idiots let the live show be a live show and not an audiobook. It also serves to undermine a lot of the emotional beats.
I also have to wonder if this is a covid-protocol-specific version, there’s less going into the audience and fewer performers, I have to wonder if it’s only for social distancing. Another point for my theory is the cutting of Marlin and Dory in the boat, that is the closest any performers get and it seems that cut was very intentional.
The shortening of the shark scene is baaaaad we need the mask earlier you fucking idiots.
I don’t like that they cut ALL THE WIREWORK that shit was impressive as HELL.
THE FUCKIN JELLYFISH ARE GONE WHAT HTE FUCK?????? BRO WHAT THE FUCK. THAT’S LIKE THE MOST EMOTIONAL MOMENT OF THE SHOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU
I like the screen effects in the turtle scene i’ll be honest
Cutting the gossip chain was shitty that was the most fun part
WHERE. IS. THE PELICAN. PUPPET. WHERE THE FUCK IS IT. WHERE IS IT. WHERE IS IT. WHERE IS IT. WHERE THE FUCK IS IT. WHERE IS HE. GIVE HIM BACK. WHAT THE FUCK
HOW FUCKING DARE THEY CUT THE NET ENDING. THAT’S THE EMOTIONAL CLIMAX???? THAT’S THE ENTIRE CLIMAX/??? IT SHOWS THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. JESUS CHRIST. I HATE YOU
music still good. really liked the nemo performer in the recording i saw specifically, the one from DIS
tl;dr bad. bad. do not like it. fuck this
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so anyway i just watched the cat blanc episode bc i was curious and hey i guess we're doing this now i guess i'm getting back into ml even tho i had a terrible terrible experienced with it and swore to never return to it i guess this is happening
and the writing is just as bad as i remember, and also somehow worse than i remember it
i think the issue is that ml is too big for itself and the writers have no idea what they're doing.
bc you can do an episodic show with an overarching plot that's more akin to a serialized show. elementary did this. person of interest did this. burn notice did this. scrubs did this. leverage kinda does this. (there are a lot of other shows that do this too but these are the ones that immediately come to mind lol)
but what i mean by too big, is that its plot and characters are too big for a 30 minute show. when i watched cat blanc i felt like it was running at 2x the speed except i hadn't hit the option, i was stuck with it. everything was too fast. we weren't allowed to sit in the character's reactions and emotions.
adrien's anger over finding out what his father is doing. his grief. his turmoil and confusion and anguish over everything going on when he gets thrown into the eiffel tower. his "please, stop." falls flat bc he only has so much time to say it and then we're whooshing past everything and suddenly he's blowing up the moon???
not to mention ladybug's reaction to all of this. her finding out that chat noir is adrien. finding out that hawkmoth is adrien's father!! trying to calm chat noir down as he's having a mental breakdown and then gets akumatized. like we don't get to sit with any of it!
and these poor voice actors are doing their goddamned best to infuse some kind of emotional weight into their performances but when you've only got like 30 seconds to say a heartbreaking line, things are gonna get left behind. that emotional weight is not going to be there bc the audience doesn't have time to breathe! and neither do the fucking characters!
now i can hear the non-existent audience bc the fandom is dead arguing that it's like that bc it's time travel and it's not like anything that we see happen is going to matter anyway except for when they're on the right timeline again.
and to that i say, what a weak-sauce argument lmao. just bc the characters don't know anything about what happened (except for ladybug to a certain and very limited extent) doesn't mean you have to give the audience the fucking shaft and not put effort into it. like i want a little effort. i want to know the writers enjoy writing for the show. i'd also like to believe they're competent enough to write plots like this, but when you give me what cat blanc was giving, i don't believe any of that.
just bc it's not going to matter to the characters as we move forward doesn't mean it's not important to the audience. doesn't mean that you shouldn't hit those emotional beats. i mean really think about it--how good and emotionally devastating and cathartic would it have been if we could have sat through an alternate universe and watched all this happen, but actually sat with the character's reactions and emotions?
wait i just remembered that thomas basically wrote that episode to show why they can't reveal their identities and be with each other at that point in time didn't he
they wrote a bad episode on purpose why
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Malignant, 2021
dir. James Wan
Paralyzed by fear from shocking visions, a woman's torment worsens as she discovers her waking dreams are terrifying realities.
CINEMATOGRAPHY: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
MUSIC: ⭐️⭐️
PERFORMANCES: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
EFFECTS: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
WRITING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Honorable mention: LIGHTING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Let's get this out of the way: Malignant is not a great movie, but it's also not supposed to be.
I'm going to try to be light on details in this review, since director James Wan has stated he'd prefer if early viewers kept the twists to ourselves. But I will say this: the ends justify the means. The first half of this film felt a little slow to me, but once the pieces start piling up, it all comes together.
Malignant is just about the James Wanniest James Wan movie that James Wan has ever made. The official trailer has a little piece of press from Wan (giving the trailer a real William Castle or Alfred Hitchcock vibe) in which he states two things that I carried with me into this film: he wanted to get back to his roots, while giving horror audiences something new. In both of these, he succeeds. Malignant is an original story couched in a tonal and stylistic throwback to early-to-mid 2000s horror shlock. For those of us familiar with Wan, it's a welcome return to our era. Wan's directorial debut, 2004's Saw, while generally more bleak than the majority of theatrical horror of the time, is probably the film that best exemplifies horror of that era - in visuals, sound design, acting style, camera movement, and structure. Those of us that grew up around this time and/or fans of 2000s horror know exactly what I mean - these stories are generally original (though the 2000s did see their fair share of sequels, it was before the remake craze really took off) and executed to extremity, with a sort of 1980s shlock comedy flair, quick 'n dirty cinematography, and obscene amounts of gore. And Malignant delivers on all of it. There's a lot more of Saw in this film than Wan's other, more recent works, and for me that's a strength. It's a wild ride, unlike anything that we've seen in about twenty years, and I'd be absolutely fucking ecstatic if it ushered in a resurgence of new-millennium-flavored filmmaking. But I have no idea if it will. Wan's status as one of the most successful horror directors of our time is solid, but I have a feeling that for most of the younger generation - and modern audiences in general who weren't very interested in horror at that time - this is gonna go right over their heads. This flick has more in common with something like The Midnight Meat Train than The Conjuring.
I don't want to review the technical aspects of the movie too closely and color anyone else's experience, since this is just released. I'll only say a few things: To me, a good actor isn't necessarily someone who feels "real", but someone who plays a character the way they need to be played and really gives it their all. The actors, especially our lead, Annabelle Wallis, do just that. I was particularly impressed by the camerawork and lighting in this movie, though the sound design bothered me in the same way it does for all of Wan's films - he loves to dampen the visual impact of his scares through the addition of loud noises, a common tactic in modern horror which I hate. The gore is great, the transformation sequences are wonderful, and it's like a breath of fresh air to see the vibes of my formative years have not been forgotten.
I have nothing but respect for James Wan. He has a clear vision, and it's radically different than any other of the more serious horror greats of our time. I only hope that Malignant will be a hit, and allow more of his projects to be made, because the landscape of 2020s horror is stronger with him in it.
#malignant#malignant 2021#film review#malignant review#movie review#film#james wan#2021#popcornflickstalks
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Hey, feel free to ignore this, but I'd love to hear your grievances against Bridgerton? I saw some of the fashion posts you rbed, but I'm especially intrigued by the "fails on all aspects" parts? Thanks!
Hi there,
There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.
Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.
But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.
Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.
Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.
(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).
I guess in the end Bridgerton’s biggest transgression is it sits for me in the uncomfortable middle where it is neither trashy or campy fun nor is it an interesting work of fiction. Differently put, it is simply neither good nor fun.
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Viddying the Nasties #37 | Possession (Zulawski, 1981)
This review contains spoilers.
Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is a movie I'd somewhat been dreading revisiting. When I'd seen it all those years back (on YouTube, split into two parts if I recall correctly, as the DVD had been hard to come by in those days), despite being greatly moved by the experience, I'd also found it an extremely exhausting film to sit through. It's a tortured divorce melodrama (among other things) that starts at 11 and only goes up from there. Lots of shouting and screaming, physical abuse, kicking around chairs and tables. The movie is not what I'd call an overtly pleasant experience. Watching it now (on a Blu-ray from Mondo Vision, a substantial upgrade from my original format), while I won't characterize my previous impressions as inaccurate, I was able to better appreciate how the movie modulates this tone, acclimatizing us to its fraught emotional space. The movie starts off in the realm of a normal, bitter breakup, with the husband having returned from a work trip only to learn that his wife is leaving him and struggling to make sense of it, his frustration and anger stemming as much from the fact of her dissolving their relationship as his inability to comprehend her motivations. It isn't really until the half hour mark that it asks us to dive off the deep end with it. The husband hits his wife in the middle of a fight, follows her onto the street as she tries to halfheartedly throw herself onto the path of a truck, which then drops its baggage in an almost comical bit of stuntwork, their squabble ended when the husband becomes surrounded by children playing soccer and joins in. Any one of these by itself is nothing out of the ordinary, but Zulawski assembles them into an off-kilter crescendo, and does away with any sense of normalcy for the rest of the runtime.
That this approach works as well as it does is largely thanks to Isabelle Adjani as Anna, the wife, who spends the aforementioned scene looking like a vampire in cat eye sunglasses and blood streaming down her grimacing mouth. She delivers perhaps the most bracingly physical performance I've seen in a movie, but again this is something I'd maybe underappreciated initially in terms of how finely tuned her choices are. An early scene where she fights with her husband has her manically cutting raw meat and shoving it into a grinder, as if to channel her frustrations into acceptable form of violence for women. When she takes an electric knife to her throat, she begins to spasm about like a farm animal during a botched slaughter, providing a further comment on her domestic situation. The film's most famous scene has her freak out in a subway tunnel, thrashing her limbs about chaotically but almost rhythmically, maybe like the contractions when goes into labour. Her character later describes this as a miscarriage, ejecting the side of her which is neat and orderly and "good". Adjani plays this other half as well, with a much more old fashioned hairdo (braided conservatively like a stereotypical schoolmarm), one which provides a much more tender maternal figure to the couple's son. Adjani is also well cast because of her emotive, saucer-like eyes, which she isn't afraid to point at the camera repeatedly, providing a genuine emotional grounding during both the quieter and more hysterical sections of the movie.
Her husband, Mark, is played by Sam Neill, who had been cast after the filmmakers had seen him in Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career. To understand why Neill works so well, it helps to know that Sam Waterston had previously expressed interest in the role. Waterston, while a good actor, would have come off too fogeyish as the husband. Neill brings the appropriate edge and even sex appeal necessary for the material. And like in Jurassic Park, his best known role, he brings an inquisitive quality that keeps him close enough to our vantage point to give the narrative arc some grounding. The other major human character here is Heinz Bennent as Heinrich, a new age guru who happens to be having an affair with the wife. One on hand, this character represents the counterculture from Zulawski's homeland, which he had left after trouble from the authorities when making his last movie. On the other hand, Zulawski was drawing heavily from the bitter divorce he had just gone through, and directs a sizable fraction of the movie's contempt at this character, leading me to believe that his wife in fact left him for some new age buffoon. In one of the movie's funnier scenes, he has Heinrich confront Mark over Anna's disappearance and then go into a dumbassed trance while spouting new age nonsense and basically calling Mark a Nazi. This is the guy his wife left him for? This jackass? Mark sets him up by sending him to Anna, knowing full well he could be killed, but the potency of Mark's rage (and Zulawski's, by extension), as well as the ludicrousness of the Heinrich character, keep us from sympathizing with the latter too much. Zulawski has Heinrich die with his head in a toilet, a final flush by Mark serving as one last hilariously mean-spirited gesture of contempt.
Zulawski originally conceived the movie as having another major character, Anna's ex-husband, to be played by veteran actor and director Bernard Wicki, but after the first day of shooting with Wicki, he decided to drop the character entirely. (I suppose it depends on the personalities, but I wonder how actors react to being let go early from a project. Is it worse if it's on the first day? How about if you lead the filmmakers to realize they should do away with the character altogether? I only hope Wicki got paid.) It's not hard to see what purpose this character would have served, particularly in the way that Anna "upgrades" her lovers, having traded a much older man for the younger, sexier Mark, and then trying to replace him with an evolving monstrous fuck-squid (more on this later) that she was trying to nurture and reshape into the ideal partner. The only remnants of this character in the finished film is his young wife, who appears in the climax and his goaded by the "new" Mark (the final form of the fuck-squid) to shoot into the corpses of the real Mark and Anna. The character's proposed thematic purpose might have spelled out this moment's significance more clearly, but I'm not always convinced thematic clarity is preferable to how things move and feel, and the end product does not feel incomplete or incoherent, or at least not detrimentally so. The emotions make sense, even if the events onscreen are outside the norm. (My condolences to those of you who've been dumped for a monstrous fuck-squid.)
Having been conceived after his last project was quashed by authorities in Poland, there's undeniably a political element here, enhanced by the noticeable presence of the Berlin Wall, near which much of the film is situated. (At one point the camera looks out the window and sees the police from East Berlin staring back.) The realities of the Cold War figure heavily in the characters' lives, as it's suggested that Helen (the other Adjani) is from behind the Iron Curtain (she speak of readily identifiable evil, which could be interpreted as the visible presence of an authoritarian regime) and that Mark's work is in the field of intelligence, maybe even espionage. But the movie is less interested in pointing out political specifics than in the accompanying sense of repression and division, which plays heavily into the visual style. The movie often divides its frames to separate the characters, but rarely with any sense of symmetry, suggesting a sense of emotional chaos enhanced by the bruising mixture of wide angle lenses and handheld camerawork. When we're with Mark, the movie looks overcast, bluish grey, appropriately repressed at first, although Anna's presence throws his neat, fluorescently-lit apartment into disarray. Anna's love nest, situated in the Turkish district right beside the Wall is dilapidated and unkempt, which may have reflected the squalid realities of a hastily rented apartment in what I assume is a poorer part of town, but after having excised the orderly part of herself, it seems like an accurately messy reflection of her headspace.
Now back to the fuck-squid. It's hard to go into Possession this day and age completely blind, and even back when I first saw it, it came on my radar as the movie where "Isabelle Adjani fucks a squid". I have a lot of respect for Zulawski for delivering the goods on this front and for Adjani for throwing herself into this material, not because I'm some kind of sexual deviant who gets off on this stuff (although if you are, I'm not here to judge, it's a free country, just clear your browsing history after), but because modern arthouse cinema often defaults to a mode of cold, downplayed and too afraid to raise the audience's pulse (because apparently it's undignified to force a reaction out of the audience) and it's nice to see a movie serve what it says on the tin (this is one I'd have loved to see with an unsuspecting audience back in the day). Producer Marie Laure-Reyre notes that Zulawski was very hands on with the conception of the monster, drawing inspiration from gargoyles in Polish architecture, as if to further imbue political context into the proceedings. When seeing the end product, I can only assume Zulawski broke up with his wife at a seafood restaurant (I would hope he didn't react like Mark and throw around all the tables and chairs). Of course, the design of the monster means that the movie leans heavily into body horror, and its inclusion on the Video Nasty list in the UK and its release in the US in a heavily-trimmed 81-minute version emphasizing these elements likely contributed to its psychotronic reputation early on. (I am still interested in seeking out this cut, as I can't imagine the loss of 40 whole minutes wouldn't substantially alter the film's character.) It flirts with other genres as well. Certain scenes have a clear slapstick quality. Some of these involve Heinrich, the ever-reliable target of the film's ridicule, but there is also Margit Cartensen, playing Anna's friend and Mark-hater Marge, falling on her ass like a Three Stooges bit. And there's the climax, parodying action movies with its woozy cocktail of car chase, shootout and explosions, which leads a headlong rush into the film's apocalyptic final moments.
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The Man With Two Souls, Pt. 2
Okay, so this ended up being a fucking long part 2 to my previous meta post. There was a lot I wanted to get down, and if it doesn't make sense or you don't agree with it, that's fine, I'd just be happy if you read it. Now I can rest until the finale comes and beats me up.
So, there's a few more Salem and Adam parallels to start off with like
(8) Having the same reaction to hearing someone mention Blake and Oz and the possibility of them getting the upper hand against them
(9) Chronologically after this happens (we see Adam destroy the throne room in Volume 6 episode 2, but we see him lose his mask at the end of the Adam trailer) deciding to go after Blake on his own while Salem creates the winged Beringel grimm and plans to go to Atlas herself, presumably to go after Oscar/Ozpin so he doesn't get in the way of her plans (as well as Ruby since she clearly needs her as well)
"If you want something done right, you do it yourself" - Volume 6 Chapter 13
(10) Adam and Salem telling Blake and Oz about how they're going to destroy them and those around them
"The ability to derive strength from hope is undoubtedly mankind's greatest attribute. Which is why I will focus all of my effort to snuff it out. How does it feel? Knowing that all your time and effort has been for nothing. That your guardians have failed you. That everything you've built will be torn down before your very eyes."
"So you send your guardians, your huntsman and huntresses. And when they fail and you turn to your smaller soul, know that you send her to the same pitiful demise. This is the beginning of the end, Ozpin. And I can't wait to watch you burn." - Salem, Volume 3 Chapter 12
"What you want is impossible! But I understand. Because all I want is you, Blake. And as I set out and deliver the justice mankind so greatly deserves, I will make it my mission to destroy everything you love. Starting with her." - Adam, Volume 3 Chapter 11
(11) Salem and Adam's perception of Oz and Blake affecting their perspective of themselves... and the audience.
Okay, this one's honestly kind of weird. For so, so long there were a lot of people who bought into the idea that Ozpin was secretly evil or somehow worse than Salem, or that he'd done something terrible and unforgivable to Salem. I fully admit, I was one of those people. I mean, I didn't think he was evil, but the way Salem talked to him at the end of volume 3, listening to the song Divide, I thought, he must have done something bad to Salem, right? How could she hate him so much otherwise?
And the worst thing he did... was leave her. When he couldn't go along with being a genocidal dictator of the whole world alongside Salem, and didn't want their children to be a part of that either.
And as for Adam, he tells Blake that she hurt him more than anybody because she left him.
"All sorts of people hurt me in all sorts of different ways. But no one hurt me quite like you, Blake. You didn't leave scars. You just left me alone." - Adam, Volume 6 Chapter 12
And Salem would also have been hurt from Ozma trying to leave her. Especially when you think about her backstory, how she was kept isolated in a tower, and instead of finding freedom in the outside world, found it in Ozma. And then he died, and she was alone again. And then the Gods destroyed humanity, and Salem is left alone one again for god knows how long.
"Once again, Salem was alone." - Volume 6 Chapter 3
And weirdly, similar to Ozpin there were people who bought into Adam's false perception of Blake too. That Blake is somehow the one who hurt Adam more than he hurt her (which is, completely insane).
And Salem and Adam want Oz and Blake to feel that way. To be paralyzed with self hatred and doubt, to be stuck in the past, and feel as if everything is their fault. That Salem and Adam are their responsibility, at first to save them, and then to stop them.
You see it with Adam's gaslighting, trying to paint her as an unfaithful coward. And I mean, just listen to the song Divide. The whole song is Salem trying to make out Ozpin to be the villain, that she's killing people but the real murderer is him for trying to give people hope, even if it was hope based on a desperate lie.
"It was you who ended their lives! Made them to dig their own graves! With your dark, sick, cruel design, convinced them their world could be saved." - Divide
And there were a lot of people convinced by Salem's song Divide that Ozpin was far worse than he really was, to the point it was surprising that he hadn't wronged Salem in some way like most people were expecting.
And Adam tries to make Blake believe that she's a coward, that she's selfish and weak, that running away from her problems is all she knows how to do.
And for a long while, Blake believed he was right. That she was toxic to the people around her, that she made things worse for them. And there were some people in the fandom who thought that she really was this toxic person.
It's actually kind of scary, but Salem and Adam managed to manipulate not only Blake and Oz's perception of themselves, but also the audience as well in how they saw them.
I don't doubt for a moment this is going to extend to Oscar as well if she meets him, that she'll likely try to convince him that he's just Ozpin and that he, Oscar, doesn't matter, and he'll fail and make the same mistakes as their past lives. Which undoubtedly parts of the fandom are going to take Salem's false perception of Oscar to heart as well and believe her.
Which brings me to move on from Blake's parallels with her first "soul" and Ozpin, to her second "soul" and Oscar.
Now Blake alluding to the Man with Two Souls is metaphorical, while in Oscar's case it's very literal, and it's no coincidence she's the one who first introduces us to the concept to us with the book she's reading during the Shining Beacon.
"...It's about a man with two souls. Each fighting for control over his body"
(It's important to note that the conflict between the two souls is not one of Good vs Evil)
Blake's conflict of her two metaphorical souls fighting for control, is the false perception Adam had of Blake and who she used to be with him, her past that she can't escape, and the struggle for her smaller, more honest soul, trying to define herself and decide who she wants to be. And for Oscar, he's struggling to define himself and decide who he wants to be, because of the merge with Ozpin, and that his past will become Oscar's too.
Both of them want to do the right thing and rise to their challenges, but it seems like such an impossible task to them that they're afraid to meet it.
"I'm... scared. I'm more scared than I've ever been. Than I ever thought was possible. I always knew I wanted to be more than a farmhand. But this? Who would ask for this?" - Oscar, Volume 5 Chapter 5
"I joined the Academy because I knew that Huntsman and Huntresses were regarded as the most noble warriors in the world. Always fighting for good. But I never really thought past that. When I leave the Academy what will I... How can I undo so many years of hate?" - Blake, Volume 2, Chapter 10
But the person who sees Blake's "other soul" the person she's truly capable of being, who she really is, even when she can't herself, is Yang.
"I'm sure you'll figure something out. You're not one to back down from a challenge Blake." - Yang, Volume 2 Chapter 10
And the one who sees Oscar and who he's capable of being even when he can't himself, is Ruby.
"Hey Oscar? I know this isn't going to be easy. But the fact that you're trying says a lot about you. You're braver than you think." - Ruby, Volume 5 Chapter 5
Blake and Oscar are also the first people we see Yang and Ruby open up to about their past trauma. The difference between the two being that in the Burning the Candle scene Yang is more willing to be vulnerable around Blake, to let her guard down and open up to her about her abandonment issues and how they've affected her.
Because as a more emotionally mature character she understands she needs to do that in order to properly relate to Blake so she can offer her support. She gets frustrated however when Blake still refuses her support, and so she has to give her a push to accept it.
Ruby, however, isn't as emotionally mature as Yang, and doesn't find it easy to let down her guard and talk about her emotions. Her mentality being described as "I don't have time for my emotions, I've got to make sure everybody else is okay" - RWBY Rewind: Ruby Rose Rewinds With Us
She feels like she constantly needs to be a pillar of strength and support for everyone around her as a leader. She has a hard time opening up about her own feelings and being vulnerable around others. For her, it seems much more natural to internalize those feelings rather than face them head on. As a leader, she feels she isn't supposed to show fear or doubt. If she admits how she's hurting or how scared she is, she'd be afraid of those around her losing faith.
Ironically, it's Ozpin's words of advice to her that enforce this mentality
"But if you aren't constantly performing at your best, what reason do you give others to follow you?"
So even though only a minute ago Oscar saw that Ruby was clearly upset over something (being reminded of Penny's death)
Ruby then goes on to act like nothing's wrong when she then attempts to reassure Oscar. And it feels like a performance, and though Ruby genuinely does want to reassure him, it comes across as insincere to him. He's frustrated because Ruby isn't being honest about how she's feeling, and is only concerned with his feelings.
So in the Dojo scene we have Oscar start to push Ruby past that flawed mentality that Ozpin enforced, to be more honest about how she's feeling, to talk about how the Fall of Beacon and the loss of Phyrra and Penny affected her, how she's afraid of Salem killing people she cares about, and that she'd kill anyone regardless.
And with both Ruby and Yang opening up about their past experiences they can relate to Blake and Oscar's own fears, doubts and insecurities. Blake's need for answers and Oscar's fear of the fight with Salem, and Yang's need for answers and Ruby's fear of the fight with Salem.
"I told you! I'm not telling you to stop! I haven't. To this day I still want to know what happened to my mother and why she left me. But I will never let that search control me. We're going to find the answers we're looking for Blake. But if we destroy ourselves in the process what good are we?" - Yang, Volume 2 Chapter 6
"I am scared! But not just for me. What happened at Beacon shows that Salem doesn't care if you're standing against her or not. She'll kill anybody. And that, scares me most of all. Phyrra... Penny... I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. That I didn't think about them every day since I lost them. That I didn't wish I had spent more time with them. If it had been me instead, I know they would have kept fighting too. No matter how dangerous it was. So that's what I choose to do. To keep moving forward." - Ruby, Volume 5 Chapter 5
And by demonstrating their own resolve, as well as their belief in the kind of people Blake and Oscar are capable of being that inspires them to be that person.
"I'm. Not. Running."
"You. Will." - Blake and Adam, Volume 3 Chapter 11
"She made a choice. To put others before herself. And so do I."
"Then you've chosen death." - Oscar and Hazel, Volume 5 Chapter 12
There's also Blake expressing her doubt in Yang during volume 3 after she attacked Mecury, causing Yang to question her own judgement.
She compares it to how Adam used to attack people, and of course she knows Yang wouldn't do something like that without good reason, but she can't but feel like the situation is very familiar. And Blake knows Yang isn't Adam, and makes it clear that she's decided to trust Yang.
"I want to trust you. I will trust you." - Volume 3 Chapter 8
But despite that, Blake's words do still weigh on her mind even when she's alone, where Qrow comes to talk to her about what happened and reassure her, and then they end up talking about her mum.
And then with Ruby in volume 7, Oscar expresses his doubt in Ruby in her decision to lie and hide the truth from Ironwood, comparing it to how Ozpin did the same to them, which, similar to Yang, causes Ruby to question her own judgement. And obviously he knows Ruby isn't Ozpin, that she probably had a good reason for lying. But again, the situation just feels so familiar.
But ultimately he decides to put his trust in Ruby, even before Ironwood.
"I do believe in you. But not only you." - Volume 7 Chapter 7
And by episode 9 they're both on the same page in deciding to choose the truth over fear. (if only James could have stayed on that page too)
Similarly to Yang, we see Ruby alone in episode 4 of volume 7, and you can tell Oscar's words are still weighing on her mind, as Qrow comes over to talk to her and she asks him if she is like Ozpin, and he reassures her that she's not, and then they end up talking about her mother.
Okay, so I'm going to go out on a limb here, and you can call me out on my bullshit if you like, but I'm making a prediction (like, 12 hours from the finale, but hey, it might happen later in the series for all I know)
If we're going full in on the parallels here, remember how Yang lost an arm trying to protect Blake from Adam, and afterwards Blake ends up leaving Yang like Raven, believing she'd be better off without her?
And how Salem is on her way to Atlas after hearing Ozpin had reincarnated, the foreshadowing for Ruby losing an eye and them bringing up her trauma around Summer in Chapter 11?
On top of her wanting Ruby alive?
I'm gonna guess Ruby loses an eye trying to protect Oscar, and then afterwards either Oscar or Ruby tries to sacrifice and give themselves up to Salem, except it ends up being a hollow sacrifice like Summer's
"I didn't have a choice I did what I had to do I made a sacrifice but forced a bigger sacrifice on you!" - Red like Roses Part 2
Because Salem would end up taking both of them either way. I actually can't imagine a scenario where she doesn't, because she needs both of them. But one of them has a worse fate, a "bigger sacrifice" in store for them when they reach Evernight (which I'm still thinking is Ruby)
#rwby#ozpin#oscar pine#yang xiao long#ruby rose#salem#blake belladona#adam taurus#trash meta#thank FUCK I can finally sleep#thanks to anyone who read this to the end#I don't think I'm any good at this but it feels good to just waffle sometimes
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Since I rant enough about the wizening Ma and Pa received in Sinnoh it's only right to wreak bloody rhetorical vengeance elsewhere:
However harsh it may be, I'm glad Takeshi Shudo isn't alive to witness the hateful desecration of his legacy.
...
In a universe where no one's allowed to age, why are the modern Jessie and James so withered and decrepit?
Dragon Ball has been on for more than three decades. Its stars were permitted to grow up, because the head can cope with the opportunities this offers.
Yet Goku, Krillin, Bulma et al bear a greater similarity to their younger selves than these gurning invertebrates do to Team Rocket, wearing a papery approximation of their skin.
Akira Toriyama is actually concerned about his life's work, still coming up with interesting concepts, brand-new characters, and most importantly, values his audience by keeping to the established canon.
If a Dragon Ball fan reads this, I am so jealous of you.
Consider yourselves fortunate not to have seen the thing you loved the most pulverised and the resulting glutinous mass moulded back into makeshift sloppy cadavers.
Look at the state of that man! That's a good picture these days!
Why have the eyelid lines turned into upside down bags?
And why has she collected her lashes for this particular screen shot?
On eyes with a strangely feline slant...
Has she had a face lift?
Get yer money back on that one, love.
And why has he marks under his eyes and round his flapping gob to add the hint of exhaustion?
And why don't her lips reach the edge of her mouth anymore?
And why must he display Beaver Toof, as if he's only got six pegs left?
Giving it to him but not her implies she's lost the lot, needing to gum objects for a result.
And why do her low-slung ears consist only of lobe?
And why can you see his featureless lugs? Why does his barnet stand outwards in tentacles like he's taken to wearing a floppy Starmie?
What's that's meant to be, purple dreadlocks?
And why is her hairline curved and absolutely straight, like a bad wig, apart from the perfunctory bits to the side, which I guarantee won't alter their position throughout the run?
Hair used to move about, now by law there's a set pattern which cannot change. Stamp that life out immediately.
And what's that flaccid growth between his weary peepers? Is that meant to be fringe?
PFFFT!!!
And why are her digits just as thick and oblong as his?
It ain't fingers. It's trotters.
And why's he got a back to his throat, but she hasn't?
And why are we forced to witness it? You can see all the way to his dangler!
The great gaping pink cave looks like the end of Looney Tunes when Porky Pig pops up and stammers: "That's all folks!"
Remember a lack of Beaver Toof? And triangular mouths?
Remember when Meowth was a cheeky, spirited little cat, not a middle-aged human midget, an emaciated wreck bored of it all?
Remember when it wasn't deemed necessary to expose us to internal organs?
And when James was a handsome, hysterically camp dandy, not a creepy, snot-ridden science dweeb?
And when Jessie was a beautiful, stylish young girl, hot-tempered but loyal, not a sullen, cold, reptilian, Botoxed-to-the-gills gorgon?
Remember when Team Rocket were fun? And attractive?
Remember when they had joy in their hearts in spite of their poverty? And vim? And hope?
Remember them acting with flair and imagination?
Remember when their schemes had variety?
Remember when they had more than a single disguise per era?
Remember when they had many occupations? And were good at them?
Remember when they'd have a go at everything and weren't reduced to flipping condemned meat in a grotty burger van FOR THREE YEARS?!
Remember when those in charge didn't despise them, when they got happy endings?
Remember split screens? And face faults? And background tones? And purple streaks down your cheeks?
Remember big, bright open eyes, not shrunken, sagging and empty holes afflicted by glaucoma?
Remember when Jessie had eyelashes?
Remember when Pokémon was an anime?
And when James had a fringe, not a bent swelling like a balloon animal?
And when the artist could be arsed to draw Meowth's Charm properly?
Remember when the voices weren't nails down a blackboard?
When Meowth didn't sound like a wedge of coal grinding beneath an oil-deprived door?
When Jessie's dulcet tones had a wider range that just screechy, and weren't reminiscent of a cacophonous banshee clawing her way from a bog, using her own mug as a shovel?
When James speaking didn't suggest he was at best, suffering sinus difficulties, and at worst, constantly battling to swallow his own sick from looking at her?
Mind you, I'm grateful the 4Kids cast are no longer here. They deserve better, and their presence would only validate the crude bastardisations.
Every time the guttural howls reach my poor ears a chill runs through my system, and reminds me of The Pokémon Company sacking the real dub crew in preference for a job done on the cheap.
Remember speed lines? And Pokéball-throwing animation?
Remember a new motto performance in each installment, not the same stock footage reused again and again?
Remember when it rhymed?
It shows.
Remember remembering it?
Remember when Team Rocket would walk down the street in their uniforms and no one took a blind bit of notice despite the organisation operating there?
And they didn't fanny about in one scabby polyester costume every minute they were travelling, even when NO ONE KNOWS WHO THEY ARE?
Since Unova, whilst confronting Ash and this era's soon-to-be-forgotten companions, you get this exchange:
Moron-Of-The-Week: "Who are Team Rocket?"
Ash: "They're bad guys who steal other people's Pokémon."
EVERY SINGLE BLOODY TIME!!!
WORD-FOR-WORD IDENTICAL!!!
The writers have such deep appreciation for their work they're sending in cut-and-paste scripts.
Remember blasting off when something blew up, not an explosion from nowhere, or giving it the slip with a jet pack, or abduction by a Care Bear?
Remember when the eyebrows matched the hair?
Remember when he wore it long?
Remember blue shock? And sweat drop? And hammerspace? And comedy violence?
Remember her jagged hairline? And it being RED!!!
Remember proper highlights to it, rather than the odd white lump now and again, as if sweating like a pig, or their heads are infested with giant space ticks?
Remember when they were in all the episodes? And were main characters? And on the introduction sequence?
Remember when Jessie and James used to hug? And hold hands?
And bicker as only a couple can, but you knew they'd never cope alone?
Remember when they'd fly into each other's arms under the flimsiest pretext?
Remember when they meant more to one another than just being a pair of unconnected and disembodied wraiths coincidentally walking down the same road?
And they had more than civil interactions?
Remember when she loved him as much as he loved her?
And no one else could ever take his place?
And canon wasn't infected with the ruinous depiction of her as a hard, heartless bitch barely tolerating him until someone 'better' came along, at which point she'd fuck off without a backwards glance?
'Better', as in a scabby, satchel-mouthed, gormless cretin, just to add surly insult to merciless injury.
Never has such a life-long and hardcore defender of the faith flipped into an ardent Rumishipper as I did after that episode, once I'd swept up the fragments of my soul.
Remember when they were sympathetic?
Remember when they showed human warmth?
Remember when they cared about each other?
Remember when they weren't just a jangling, distorted mess of half-recollected traits?
Remember when they weren't really evil?
Remember Rocketshipping? That was a thing once, believe it or not.
Remember when they had a conscience?
Remember when actually wicked characters turned up, and Team Rocket ALWAYS sided with Ash, rather than the nauseating spectacle of suddenly being best buds with the Boss?
Remember when they had contact with the Twerps?
Remember when Team Rocket and the Twerps loved each other in secret and would endanger themselves to save their 'enemies'?
Everything that was once good and winning about them was sucked out, degree by degree, to leave the corpse, hollow and dead, strung up on wires as a grim marionette.
I'm sure most who see this will vehemently disagree, that I'm completely wrong, that THEY like them.
Yes, you like this three, but you don't like Team Rocket. This is not them. You have yours, and I have mine, but let's not pretend they are the same.
Why, if there is no difference, would I be so hostile, when they meant so much too me?
Did you ever wonder where the original fans went, why they all departed en masse? It's not because they 'moved on' or 'matured'.
They didn't leave Pokémon. Pokémon left them.
As the makers rely so heavily on repetition (sorry, nostalgia) they arrogantly expect us to still be here, having blithely welcomed our memories minced and our canon ripped up or ripped off, apparently.
We're intended to put up with watching them lay waste to ťhe series's body, clinging on for when a rotting bone is pulled up now and again and waved at us, before they chuck it aside to continue the dismemberment.
It's been eaten from the inside out, explaining the facial collapse. Behold the beauty on show:
You see what I mean, don't you?
Don't you? No, because otherwise you'd say the same.
How anyone feels able to describe three deformed freaks as 'hot' or 'cute' I will never comprehend.
The uniform collar protrudes like a solid pipe, emphasising the pencil necks.
It gives the impression of wrinkled, leathery tortoises peering out of their shells to secure a tasty lettuce treat.
Is that pretty? No.
Is it so surprising I don't care for my favourites to resemble melted waxwork skeletons of their own dæmonic counterparts?
S&M is a most fitting name, for this is torture.
In the film Death Becomes Her, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn vie for the attention of Bruce Willis, both taking a serum giving everlasting youth and slimness.
The catch is it confers immortality, but not invulnerability, so when pushed down the stairs Meryl survives but is dead, her neck broken, thus she's zipped up in the morgue fridge.
When Goldie is shot with a canon she too rises, internal organs blown out.
The rest of the adventure involves the pair losing the war against time, patching up and painting over peeling grey skin, holding onto loose limbs as their bodies fall apart.
This obviously is the case here. The trio lapped the potion up at the close of Sinnoh, experienced a fatal accident and are now steadily crumbling to mush before us.
According to grave-diggers the head always goes first, so there you are then.
I have a suspicion that Giovanni lured all three to his crypt, experimenting on them to engineer his ultimate super soldier, which explains their flat, plastic appearance. Those since Unova began are the cyborgs, the real ones locked in his cellar.
You may notice I have about the lowest opinion possible of the current writing team, as they deserve.
Why should I have any respect for vindictive halfwits like this, who hate Team Rocket so much they're going out of their way to distort and uglify them, expressing the resentment in celluloid?
Jessie, James and Meowth lost their only defender in Takeshi Shudo. From that point they descended from loveable, hapless tragic figures to self-parodies (Hoenn) whiney, irritating divs dumping one another at every interval (Sinnoh), robotic, amoral scum (Unova and Kalos) and now physically repulsive minor additions (Alola and Galar). Is that trajectory all accidental?
It not that it's a new 'style' (for want of a better word), as were that the case, this hideousness would apply to the entire cast, but it's only done to Team Rocket. How could that be unless motivated by malice?
Given the sub thesps are obliged to prostrate themselves in the dust, begging fans to make their appreciation known, it smacks of desperation.
They wouldn't need to ask that were the trio treated as an integral component. They must sense the objections and are thus drumming up support to avoid the dole queue.
Are those in charge so resentful of their presence it manifests in mutilating them, keen to do anything that may alienate the fanbase, so at the first sign of a dip in popularity they can leap upon it as the perfect excuse to write Team Rocket out?
Why be surprised? These are imbeciles who reject their own canon at the close of every generation, so why care about someone else's?
If people have to harangue the writers with grovelling praise of their retcons, rehashes and all-round twatting about, butter 'em up sufficiently, with the implied threat of deserting the franchise should Team Rocket be ejected, taking their purses too, all so the smug, avaricious berks deign to put the trio in the next generation, that proves they don't want them, so how can what they write for their characters be objectively of any worth?
Team Rocket would've departed by now, were there not a palpable worry their absence might ring the death knell of the whole thing, turning off the financial tap, which is what matters.
Therefore they are retained, grudgingly, and only so long as the clamour continues at its current decibel level. If that drops it's over, and don't expect a romantic resolution. Why should pleasing you be a concern when you're to leave with them?
Ask yourself: how much of your devotion is based on what they are right now, and how much is from who they used to be?
How long can they live off past glories?
The offences done in Unova and Kalos were bad enough, but remarkably Game Freak found further depths to plumb, therefore it can only get worse.
I have of course retained the loveliest for last:
Be still, my beating heart.
No, really, be still. Stop infact.
Planet of the Apes.
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