#full disclosure i've never seen the movies
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Middle Earth Asks
🥔 po-tay-toes: one of the hobbits invited you for a meal; who are dining with? Which of the seven meals are you enjoying?
🍞 lembas bread: what's the best road trip snack?
🌾farmer maggot's field: what is your favourite plant? Do you enjoying gardening?
🌼 simbelmynë: You've got the opportunity to bring one character back to life, who is it?
🍃 leaves of lórien: what gift would you most like to receive?
📽 action!: rank all six of the films (or three if you're a hater)
🚲 bicycle basket: what is your favourite middle earth meme?
🌟starlight: you're allowed to live in one of the Elf Kingdoms of Middle Earth, which one are you picking?
💀 Hey, did you know-: What is your favourite piece of behind the scenes trivia?
🌙 moon runes: which of Tolkien's languages would you most like to speak?
🧂 best salt in all the shire: which small joys do you most look forward to? (particular tea, using a perfume, rereading a book, etc.)
✂ cutting room floor: of all of the things that didn't quite make it into the movies, what would you have most liked to see?
☕ may I tempt you with a cup of chamomile?: What is your favourite hot beverage?
🐎 bill the pony: who is the best mount in all of middle earth?
🌳 fangorn forest: Which of Tolkien's creechurs is your favourite?
🔮 palantír: you've found a palantir! Who are you hitting up in middle earth? What are you telling them?
⏳ time and age: which poorly aged scene from LOTR is your favourite?
✨ evenstar: Who is your favourite middle earth couple?
🎆 fireworks: you're invited to Bilbo's 111th, what present do you think you'd receive?
🕷 creepy crawlies: which of tolkien's creatures do you think is the most frightening?
💍 my precious: what role do you think you'd play in the fate of the ring?
📜the company of Throin II Oakenshield: who is your favourite dwarf from the company?
🕶 i care not: what common complaint about the movies or novels doesn't bother you?
📢 motivational speech: which film speech do you find most invigorating?
🔥 barbecue: who is the worst antagonist?
🍿 popcorn: list your top 5 supporting characters
🎇 firefly: which (known) deleted scene would you most like to see?
⛏ expedition to Moria: which side character's adventures would you watch a spin-off movie about?
🎞 extra film: is there an extended scene that should have absolutely made it into the theatrical cut? which one and why?
🎵 can you sing, master hobbit?: Which song (from books or movies) is your favourite?
🖋 quill and ink: which of tolkien's themes resonates most strongly with you?
🗝 lost heirloom: which heirloom/object in the films or novels would you like to learn more about?
💿 leitmotifs and orchestras: which of the films songs (Howard Shore or singer) is your favourite?
🍲eowyn's home cooking: which other way could the ring be destroyed? (funny answers only)
🧙♂️precisely when he means to: what is your favourite gandalf moment?
⚔ you have my sword: what is your favourite aragorn moment?
🏹 and my bow: what is your favourite legolas moment?
🪓and my axe: what is your favourite gimli moment?
🍄 MUSHROOMS!: what is your favourite moment from the hobbits?
💎 the arkenstone: favourite Thorin and/or company moment?
🧵 spool: list your top five favourite costumes from any of the films.
📕 the red book of westmarch : what is your favourite quote(s)?
💛 family: what is your favourite family moment throughout the novels/films?
👀 the eye of sauron: who are you looking at disrespectfully?
🗺 arda: if you could travel anywhere in middle earth, where would you go?
👑the silver crown: the war is won, the world is saved, the king has been crowned. Who are you partying with at the coronation?
✏ rewrites: here's a pencil, which ONE thing in the novels/films are you changing?
🐺 GROND GROND GROND: which of the battles is your favourite to watch? is there a combat scene in particular that you enjoy?
⚠ fucking buckleberry ferry: from the clip of Dom and Billy discussing the one swear word they could theoretically get by censors, which line would you change?
📚 boxset: how were you first introduced to Middle Earth?
🏔 the misty mountains: the pass is treacherous, which two characters are you taking with you to make it over the mountains?
🌄 the rolling hills of the shire: what is your favourite outdoor activity?
🌋 mount doom: what middle earth take are you throwing into the fire?
⚙ technology: everything is exactly the same but you can give one character a modern invention. Who is it and what are you giving them?
⛵valinor: we're approaching the end of this game, is there a take/opinion you absolutely want to share?
🦅 the eagles: What thing or thought saves the day when it's not going so well?
🦗 weta: you're allowed to take one prop (or the canon useful version) home with you from the set, what are you taking?
☀ when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer: either share a piece of good news or something you're looking forward to.
📖 final chapter: what unanswered questions do you have middle earth?
#lotr#middle earth#the hobbit#tolkien#lord of the rings#ask games#asks#lotr asks#full disclosure i've read the hobbit 5 times and the trilogy once#I haven't started the salmon riot yet#never seen RoP#and i've seen all of the movies (lotr and hobbit) about 1000000 times now :)#chaos mix of MidEarth questions and personal qs#i didn't spell check whoops (its too hot for editing)#i also did the emojis on my laptop so if they don't match well just ignore that#rao's games#rao's asks#this was a fever dream (i wrote the word strongelist a one point)#the worst part about making stuff is walking away from your device afterwards bc I want to constantly refresh my notes 😭
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#do you know this drag artist#drag#april fools#full disclosure I've never actually seen any of her movies before but I've had my share of jokesters requesting madea#here you go. you're welcome
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No hardcore fandom has ever died so quickly and so completely as Veronica Mars. This is the story of its murder.
They should study Veronica Mars in Hollywood. I'm serious.
It's an incredible story of how to go from "loud, passionate fanbase with its own fandom name that campaigns and advocates constantly for it" to "absolutely zero fucking interest" damn near OVERNIGHT with just ONE epically terri-bad decision.
If you weren't there, you don't understand: From 2007 to 2014, the fandom — the "Marshmallows," as they called themselves — were everywhere in the Internet's geek spaces, my friends. They routinely beat the drum about the series' three seasons and its excellence, lamented its cancellation, pushed others to give the show a try, and always - ALWAYS - proudly and loudly called for the series to be revived.
FULL DISCLOSURE/CONFESSION: I've not even watched that much Veronica Mars, frankly... ? Yeah, I'm sorry! it does seem pretty good from like the four-or-five hours I've experienced firsthand. I just never took the time to sit down with it. Regardless, I find fandoms and their dynamics — both how they operate internally and how they display to others externally — deeply fascinating. And I honestly find them easier to study from the outside than the inside. Like, if I'm IN a fandom, I'm more likely to stay in my corner and ignore places that seem negative. But being on the outside lets me just... absorb what's out there, looking into every forum without judgment. It's like studying pop-culture sociology or something? And it helps that I'm very close to some serious(-ly burnt) Marshmallows. It makes it so much easier to find and absorb the gamut of the fandom.
Besides: There is NO fandom story I've ever seen that's anything like what happened to Veronica Mars and the Marshmallows.
(Time to insert a brief explainer for the uninitiated: Veronica Mars was a TV series that aired from 2004-2007 on the now-deceased UPN network wherein Kristen Bell played the titular character, a high school girl whose single dad was a private detective in the fictional community of Neptune, California. She grew up working "unofficially" as his assistant, which meant that she herself was effectively a teenage private detective.
The three core elements of the series were: 1) Veronica investigating each week's big mystery with plenty of quips and snark, 2) Watching Veronica's various relationships develop and shift, with most of the focus given to a) her relationship to her father and b) Her romantic pursuits (which began as the Veronica/Duncan/Logan triangle before eventually becoming focused on the slow-burn, off-on Veronica/Logan love story), and 3) The gradual development of that season's "mytharc" — the overarching BIG MYSTERY that doesn't get resolved or wrapped until the season finale. So it went over the course of two seasons that took place in high school and the third, shorter season that was at the start of Veronica's collegiate career.)
Just how big and how passionate were the Marshmallows? WELL! When series creator Rob Thomas (not the Matchbox 20 guy) and star Kristen Bell announced the Kickstarter campaign for the Veronica Mars movie in March 2013, it achieved its heretofore-unprecedented goal of TWO MILLION GODDAMN DOLLARS within less than 12 hours. At that time, it was the biggest Kickstarter goal to ever succeed — and certainly the fastest to reach that kind of height. Fans fell OVER themselves to pay out for it. Hell, my own significant other was DEEP in the tank for VM at the time and invested enough to get multiple t-shirts as backer rewards as well as a disk copy of the movie when it eventually came home.
And AFTER the movie hit in 2014? It was thankfully beloved and embraced! The once-teenage characters were adults who were actually out living on their own and working for a living, but the fandom had grown up with them, so it wasn't like they were begging for them to stay young students. They embraced Adult Veronica and her new adventure. The fandom rejoiced loudly and continued to be all over the geek side of the Internet... where they, of course, still wanted more. Sure, there were new novels in the aftermath (which were written by the creator of the series), but most of the Marshmallows were calling for more movies or a streaming revival.
And then, at long last... season four was actually announced. And there was much (premature) rejoicing yet again.
Yes, Veronica Mars returned for a fourth season on Hulu in 2019. It was just eight episodes, and it was heavily centered on one season-long mystery instead of sprinkling that amongst a bunch of smaller ones, but it would still feature the same ol' Veronica. They promised a new, more "adult" mystery/investigation plus a strong focus on Veronica and Logan's love story.
New Hulu purchased the rights to the first three seasons and hyped up its presence on the platform while marketing the return for the new run. The marketing team played up the most popular quips from the show's history plus put out TONS of stuff centered on the Logan/Veronica ship to pump up the fans.
The season was dropped all at once using the classic Netflix "binge" model in July 2019. And then... afterwards?
There was a brief explosion of LOUD RAGE from the Marshmallows at what series creator Rob Thomas had to done to burn and spite the fandom and ruin his own goodwill.
SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4: See, at the end of the movie, Veronica and Logan finally entered into a long-term relationship. In season four, they've been dating for years, and Logan proposes marriage. But of course there has to be drama/obstacles: In this case, Veronica isn't sure she's ready to marry... or capable of being in a marriage. Ah, but of course she eventually realizes how much Logan means to her. The two are married, and, in the season finale... Logan is killed by a car bomb in the penultimate scene. The final scene is a flashfoward to a year later, where Veronica leaves Neptune alone.
For most fandoms, that'd be a memorable point of pain. A big ol' speed bump that ultimately throws some people off the bus, leaving only the die-hards. But the fact that fans had been invested in this relationship for literally 15 years and that Hulu (and creator Rob Thomas) had heavily marketed the new season as being a big romantic event for the ship... it was too much. Unlike the aftermath of the Star Wars sequels, there was no lingering group of die-hard fans who were open to whatever was next — at least no significant one. I did some Googling and could only find TWO people who still wanted another season.
Funnily enough? Critics LOVED this. Hell, Vanity Fair infamously penned an editorial about how Veronica Mars had "finally grown up" with this finale. I suppose all the other murders and deaths and drug overdoses and r*pe weren't "mature" enough before now for... some... reason. (The same editorial also featured the author openly hating on Veronica ever being in a relationship because it causes "arrested development" and declaring that the movie -- which was acclaimed by both critics AND fans alike, I remind you -- was a lame dud. So. The writer must be a reeeaaaal fun person.)
But a series doesn't live based on critical acclaim, as it turns out. The fandom was murdered overnight. "Marshmallows" stopped appearing in geek spaces online entirely. No one expressed interest in seeing the next season or the next movie. The constant flow of fan AMVs on YouTube and fanfics on AO3 dried up to nothing or damn nearly so.
Since 2019 ? Nothing. Chirping crickets. An intensely dedicated fandom of 12 years was just... vaporized.
I've never seen anything like it before OR since.
That's why it's so fucking fascinating.
So what went wrong?
Creator Rob Thomas was adamant about two things: ONE, the series was intended to be a noir show, which meant there couldn't be any happiness for its protagonist. And TWO, the death of Logan was necessary to evolve and grow the series.
Thomas thought that having Veronica in a relationship would be holding her back, and that a marriage would absolutely kill the series and leave her stagnant. It never even occurred to him that marriage isn't the end of a character's life and growth. It never occurred to him that plenty of drama can be had AFTER someone is married, or that development/growth could be that the characters mature enough to be capable of maintaining a committed relationship. Thomas' view of his own universe was so myopic that he couldn't conceive of any possible way that Veronica could still be a private detective involved in life-threatening investigations AND be married at the same time. Futhermore, he felt that fans just wanted Veronica to become a pregnant housewife, which is about as far from what Marshmallows were after as you can get without straight-up killing Veronica and/or Logan. He managed to do the only thing wronger than what he wrongly thought was their insistence.
On top of the above, Rob Thomas only viewed "noir" as a vehicle for total fatalism... despite the fact that many of the most famous noir stories are cynical and full of moral ambiguity, but they still feature a positive outcome. The Big Sleep still has the protagonist get the girl. The Set-Up arguably ends with the happiest possible ending in spite of the beating the hero receives.
Perhaps most importantly? Despite Thomas own insistence that Veronica Mars was always "noir," the majority of both TV critics and fans did not think that designation ever truly applied. I suspect that's the reason why Thomas decided to go as dark and fatalistic as possible: He wanted to be noir, and he was being told that he wasn't. So he went so far into noir that he killed his own most popular property.
He was adamant that it was the only way for the series to grow. But as it turns out, it was instead the only way for the series to permanently end. Without that season four finale, a passionate group of fans would still be begging for more. With it? It's over. Nobody fucking cares now.
That's kind of amazing.
#veronica mars#rob thomas#fandom#dead fandom#marshmallows#burnt marshmallows#fandom histories#the death of veronica mars#the day veronica mars died#gifs#television gifs#tv gifs#veronica mars gifs#vmars
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When you said even old man and sexy bird I thought the movie UP…but that’s not a fairytale lol
full disclosure I've never even seen more than the first five minutes of up. as far as I'm concerned that movie is an animated short film about grief and loss and that's it
#i should say they're not necessarily from the SAME fairy tale#though there is an adapted version where they meet#asks#anon
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1961's The WORLD of ICE and FIRE
I'm going to do it. I'm going to self-indulge!
The Roger Corman ASOIAF production post is mostly just a novelty, but since I'm me, I have a lot of FEELINGS and OPINIONS about this cast. Naturally.
Anyway. Here's how well I think the actors in my post would play their roles, from worst to best.
#19, Worst: John Ashley as Robb Stark
You know how Ben Affleck has a face that knows about emails? John Ashley has a face that knows about sock hops. Woefully miscast.
#18: Tor Johnson as Gregor Clegane
God love the big guy, but I've only ever seen him make this face. Also, despite his repertoire of roles suggesting otherwise on paper, he just doesn't seem like a mean guy.
#17: John Agar as Jaime Lannister
Another terrible choice. The only reason he's not ranked as worst is because his soulless performance would make viewers interpret Jaime as an absolutely irredeemable sociopath, which at least would be... uh, interesting, I guess.
#16 Robert Reed as Renly Baratheon
Renly, but only if he was the most boring Baratheon. Go ahead, try to picture Reed eating a peach. You can't.
#15 Dawn Bender as Arya Stark
Aw, she'd try. But I feel like her attempts at Arya's fire would mostly come off as petulance.
#14 Richard Carlson as Ned Stark
Sorry, what? I fell asleep for a minute there.
#13 June Kenney as Daenerys Targaryen
Kenney would try her level best, but you know Corman would do a terrible job incorporating her storyline with the main plot, so she wouldn't have much to do except lounge around on mildly offensive orientalist sets and talk to her force-perspective dragon puppets. (Stop-motion you say? What, you think American International is made of money?)
#12 Dolores Faith as Sansa Stark
Again, no knock to Faith, but as with Daenerys, I think a 1961 production would flatten Sansa's character away to nothing. She'd get to pine and wear some nice dresses.
#11 Anthony Dexter as Petyr Baelish
This guy can play oily like nobody's business (check him out in 1962's Married Too Young), but 5D-chess-level deviousness might be beyond him.
#10 Michael Dunn as Tyrion Lannister
Full disclosure: I'm plopping him in the middle because I've never seen him in anything! The only little person I've personally seen in Corman's movies is Billy Barty (playing an actual, literal imp), and Dunn was someone I found who was said to play much meatier roles. In general, I think the depth of Tyrion's character would seriously challenge 1960s casting directors who were used to casting little people in jokey roles or as something less than human. One of many problems they'd have with the source material, no doubt.
#9 Lon Cheney Jr. as Sandor Clegane
Here's another actor who would do the best with what he was given - which would be an essentially empty role. This Sandor would be a beast used only for jump scares, with too much rubber over his face to ever show an emotion.
#8 Glen Langan as Stannis Baratheon
Langan would be serious, but dull, with lots of droning sermonizing. In other words, perfect. Still boring though.
#7 Basil Rathbone as Tywin Lannister
Who better to play a role totally owned by Charles Dance than an actor who's even Charles Dancier? The only reason I'm not ranking this legend higher is because I do think he'd kind of sleepwalk through this role, especially at this stage in his career.
#6 Raymond Burr as Robert Baratheon
The future Mr. Perry Mason was damn good at playing hard-drinking, prowly, "beastly" men. See him in this fabulous trailer for 1951's Bride of the Gorilla (spoiler: Burr is the gorilla). Of course, for this production, he'd be about 10 years on from that virile role, but that's perfectly on brand for Bobby B.
#5 Michael Landon as Jon Snow
Landon's tortured James Dean era would be a great fit for angsty goth teen Jon, though he might have trouble keeping his feelings as hidden as Jon does.
#4 Allison Hayes as Melisandre
Should she be ranked this high? Eh, maybe not, but this woman is a goddamn B-movie bombshell goddess. Her Red Woman would be a little less mysterious, sure, but her perfectly arched eyebrows and bullet bra would do R'hllor proud all the same.
#3 Marie Windsor as Catelyn Stark
They didn't call her Queen of the B's for nothing. Windsor always did great with roles that call for strength and verve. She'd be a fantastic Cat, and - dare I dream it - an even better Lady Stoneheart.
#2 Jack Nicholson as Theon Greyjoy
Now this would be fun. If baby Jack Nicholson had half the presence and charisma he would show in later movies, his Theon would be legendary.
#1 Coleen Gray as Cersei Lannister
If I can get Tumblr to understand one thing, it's how much Coleen Gray would absolutely eat in the role of Cersei. She's beautiful. She's a schemer. She's a helpless victim. She's back for revenge. I challenge anyone to watch her insane, murderous, fierce, gorgeous, duplicitous performance in 1960's otherwise pretty terrible The Leech Woman and not come to the same conclusion. I'm serious. There would be no survivors. 👑
#asoiaf fan cast#old movies#mst3k#mystery science theater 3000#rifftrax#asoiaf shitpost#asoiaf meme#b movies#roger corman#cersei lannister#jaime lannister#tyrion lannister#tywin lannister#sansa stark#robert baratheon#stannis baratheon#renly baratheon#asoiaf
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What do you think Selkie!soap would think of the movie song of the sea?
Full disclosure, I've never seen the movie and don't have a way to watch it so I'm going off the wikipedia plot
Guesses the mom is a selkie immediately. As soon as she disappears, he knows.
He's super confused when he finds out she's mute but assumes it's just representation.
Immediately starts raging when her coat is thrown in a chest. Is distraught when he tosses it into the sea
Ghost asks him if that's what those creatures look like and it always results in a paused movie and Soap finding a sketch, or making one, to show him how they'd actually look. They've done this for every creature. Gaz is almost in tears because he just wants to watch the movie
Cries when they find her coat again and give it back to her. He quickly get over it and focuses back on the movie until her mom appears. He cries even harder when she decides to stay with her human family.
I think he'd just relate a little too hard to a couple of things and it would upset him.
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Conversations with a Movie Star Reference Guide
Photos and some background for places mentioned in chapter three for anyone who may be curious. And some random trivia that didn't make it in there. 😊
Peaches Corner
Ava might be a big fan of their hot dogs, but full disclosure, I've never actually eaten here. But they've been there since 1937 so they must be doing something right, lol!
The Bowery
Not actually mentioned in the story but since we're in the neighborhood and it is kinda a landmark, right around the corner from Peaches is The Bowery. For any old school country music fans, Alabama got their start here playing as the house band for most of the 1970s. This is not the kind of bar Ava and Dieter would ever frequent and that's probably enough said about that.
Gay Dolphin
Ava's favorite place!! And one of mine too, lol! I've never seen any other place like it and I've been fascinated for as long as I can remember. There's a fountain at the bottom of the tower you can see from the streetside entrance and the spiral staircase in the tower leads up to an observation deck that has been closed as long as I can remember as well, lol.
Besides Dieter's shark tooth necklace, other treasures they left the store with include a couple puka shell necklaces for Ava (she insists they'll be back in style any day now, Dieter doesn't care about style he just likes the way they look sitting in the hollow of her throat but that's a different story lol), tie-dyed tees and koozies with the store's logo, and two hermit crabs Ava named Elwood & Harvey who hang out in their tank on the reservation desk and help welcome guests to the motel.
The Pavilion
Depending on how you got there, the amusement park was the first sight that greeted you as you came into town. The building across the street had beach and street entrances and housed an arcade downstairs and a teen night club called The Magic Attic upstairs. (Ava's parents never let her and Drew go, but I feel like Dieter was probably a regular- trying out his moves on unsuspecting tourists 😆) They were demolished in 2007. Last time I was there, both locations were very sad vacant lots.
The carousel and the organ Dieter mentions were both moved to nearby Broadway at the Beach. But it's not the same, it'll never be the same.
#cwams#reference guide#dieter bravo#dieter bravo x ofc#dieter bravo fanfiction#dieter & ava vibes#addendum to chapter three
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Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Kung Fu Panda 2
Full disclosure, I haven't seen this movie or Kung Fu Panda 3 in years so I was excited to revisit the entire franchise again! And with good reason, because Kung Fu Panda 2 is fantastic! But... is it as legendary as the first movie? Well... let's get into it.
We pick up with Po, now fully settled into his role as the Dragon Warrior, when he and the Furious Five set off to Gongmen City to stop the evil Lord Shen from using a deadly new weapon to take over all of China. Along the way, Po discovers the secrets of his forgotten past and must find inner peace despite the pain that past may bring.
The story here is even more simple than the first, very much carrying the vibe of an adventure movie more than establishing this world and characters like the first film did. And I do like that about it, I like that we get Po and the Furious Five being together as a team for most of the movie, getting to see how they all play off each other now that they're an established team. But... I think this movie is a touch more... spectacle than its predecessor was. More fight scenes, more slapstick, more... things happening instead of getting to know, say any of the other Five (besides Tigress, who is still the most in focus among them) better. It's all done very well, but it still feels like the movie is padding itsself out with that just a touch.
The characters are all still great though. We get some really great development for Po here, along with his genuinely tragic backstory and how he learns to overcome the anguish losing his family at such a young age may bring. The Furious Five are also all still very fun, with some really great friendship moments between Po and Tigress in particular. As for our new characters, we have the Soothsayer, who is a really well-done wise elder type character who also lays the sass down on our villain. Speaking of which...
I'm just gonna say it. I think Lord Shen may be one of the greatest Dreamworks villains ever. Holy shit ya'll, this goddamn peacock is just... insane. He has a tragic backstory too, but it's of his own damn doing, he's utter unhinged and bloodthirsty, hilarious in his own haughty way, and his design is so fucking great, like how Dreamworks made a peacock of all things so sinster, I'll never know, but they sure as hell did.
Once again, the animation here is top notch, with even more beautiful stylization than the first. The colors pop so vibrantly and the kung fu scenes are an absolute feast to the eyes, as are the set pieces. The score is also utterly beautiful, a returning trend in this franchise, I've noticed, with both strong, punchy action tunes and stirring emotional melodies alike.
The humor here is still pretty strong, but I think it takes something of a back seat to the emotions. And golly, this story does have them, it's probably one of the heaviest movies Dreamworks has made yet (it opens on recounting a literal panda genocide, I mean). But it's message, about not dwelling in the past and that what matters is who you choose to be now is absolutely on par with the simple, beautiful wisdom of the first. And at the end of the day, it's a message I think Po and the audience learn in a perfectly poetic way.
So yeah, Kung Fu Panda 2 is absolutely wonderful. I still think I like the first Kung Fu Panda just a little more, mostly because I think its message (beliving something is special is what makes it special) strikes a cord with me just a little bit more. Even so, this was a great second step in what's one of Dreamworks' best franchises. I'm very excited to see what the third (and the upcoming fourth) have to offer.
Overall Rating: 9/10
Verdict: Killed by a gay peacock and his big boom boom canon
Previous Review (Megamind)
Next Review (Puss in Boots)
#jen watches#dreamworks watch#jen tortures herself with every dreamworks animated movie ever#kung fu panda#kung fu panda 2#dreamworks
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Memory reach: Comrades: Almost A Love Story
OK, flying by the seat of my pants here, working on pure memory. I am one of those lucky people who knew what Jim was talking about when, in Moonlight Chicken, he told Wen about the movie Comrades: Almost a Love Story. I saw that movie many years ago here in San Francisco, either at a film festival or at one of the three theaters, alas, long gone, which used to show movies from Hong Kong. It's a great movie. I remember it in particular as the movie that showed me that Lai Ming (namesake of Li Ming in Moonlight Chicken) could act; before that, I had not been impressed by his acting abilities (although I'm not sure where I might have gotten that impression, as I can't seem to be able to figure out which of his earlier films I might have seen, so it may have been a false memory even at that time). But it really is a great movie and worth hunting down. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available on any of my current streaming services.
(Edit: Worldcat lists Comrades' availability in various editions.)
So yes, having to go on a memory of a movie I probably saw about 25 years ago as well as the description on MDL. I've reconstructed my memory about it from two important real world events which happened during the course of the movie: the 1987 closure of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for four days and the 1995 death of Teresa Teng. Please forgive me for errors of fact in describing the movie.
I also suggest reading @telomeke's post on the connection between Comrades: Almost A Love Story and Moonlight Chicken and @waitmyturtles' post on the same subject, as they will likely be much more coherent than my post which follows. Nevertheless, I am thinking about that movie, want to discuss it here, and will plunge forward with my two Hong Kong cents.
Basically, it's about a long time flirtation between two people who meet after emigrating from mainland China to Hong Kong around 1985 or 1986. Qiao, played by Maggie Cheung - who does a great job as well, and always has yes - knows Cantonese, the language of Hong Kong, and is a bit of a schemer. Jun, played by Lai Ming, is a bit simpler and speaks Mandarin. After Qiao's attempt to cheat Jun, they somehow wind up attracted to each other. However, Jun has a fiancé back in China and Qiao falls in with a mob boss, so although – if I recall correctly – they do have an affair, they never fully connect or wind up with each other. Not sure the exact sequence, but at some point in the film the 1987 stock exchange debacle happens and Qiao is wiped out financially. Possibly that is the trigger for her winding up with the mob boss. And Jun marries his fiancé. I think. Again, my memory of the film is hazy.
Full disclosure: Although I have long known and like the song which opens every Moonlight Chicken episode, I am not a Teresa Teng fan and don't recall that aspect of Comrades beyond: the one scene that I will mention in the forthcoming spoilers, and that the Cantonese title of the film is a title of one of her songs.
The theme of the film seems to be that even that if people might be right for each other, the time may not be right for them to be together. Jim echoes this explicitly in his dialogue with Wen in Moonlight Chicken.
Although the focus of this post is the movie and not the series, I do want to give a side prop to Khaotung for being willing to be caught on screen singing that song badly. This goes hand-in-hand with Ohm's destruction of If You Don't Love Her You're Crazy in that bar scene in He's Coming to Me, another Khun Aof series.
Before we get to the spoilers, another Maggie Cheung film I can recommend is Alan and Eric: Between Hello and Goodbye. Warning: it's a weepie. I've also seen her in Days of Being Wild and Behind the Yellow Line but I don't find it either of those films particularly memorable.
Spoilers follow
Back to the movie:
Flash forward 10 years. Both of them wind up in New York City, both now single, still separate and unaware that the other is not far away. Qiao is picked up by immigration authories but escapes. She winds up in front of an appliance store with a window full of televisions. A news story is playing about the death of Teresa Teng. She turns, and also watching the story is Jun. They recognize each other and smile. End of scene.
The film then flashes back to one of them arriving in Hong Kong on the train from China. They get off the train in one direction. The camera pulls back and we see the other one get off the train in the other direction.
So the film is kind of a variation on the idea of people who are destined to meet. In this case they meet very quickly, but just can't manage to be together because the timing is wrong. We don't even know whether they get together this time because the film has cut away. We hope they'll succeed this time, but technically it's an open ending.
It is truly a beautiful film and I recommend tracking it down and watching it if you can.
While there are some parallels between Comrades and Moonlight Chicken, an open ending is not one of them. Please don't let the potentially ambiguous ending stop you from watching Comrades.
#Moonlight Chicken#Comrades: Almost a Love Story#Hong Kong films#ql series#ql drama#thai ql#cantonese film
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I just watched National Treasure with a kid I was babysitting and it made me wonder...
How successful would LoGraKimDie be in a heist like that to steal something as significant and well guarded as the Declaration of Independence? Like, would Lola even care? 🤣
okay full disclosure, I've never actually seen that movie
I think LoGraKimDie would be like 99% successful. they'd make some complex plan and they'd execute it to a TEE but then they'd be caught at the very last step and everything would come crumbling down
like... their bus would break down and they'd call roadside assistance but instead, the police show up to find all of them drunk on whipped cream shots, taking selfies with the Decleration of Independence
as for Lola I do think she'd care. but it wouldn't be for the same reason as the other girls. she'd be sticking it to the old white men in government (as she should)
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My informal review of Beauty and the Beast at Olney Theatre in Maryland!
I had to write a casual, rambling review of Beauty and the Beast at Olney Theatre Center for you because that was a fun and memorable theatre experience if there ever was one, and certainly the most maximalist show I've seen since the world shut down in 2020! The production runs through January 1, so there are still plenty of chances to catch it! This production is best known for its inclusive casting of the title characters, and it's so enjoyable in every other possible way, too.
Full disclosure: I love Beauty and the Beast. I've also seen at least 8 different live productions of it, half of them professional. I can be equally overly critical and overly effusive when it comes to this show. It's one of those movies that feels like it's made for theatre (that score!), but translating living household objects, an enchanted castle, and a monstrous but strangely appealing Beast from cartoon format to live action is much easier said than done. Because of that, I've never NOT enjoyed a production of Beauty and the Beast before, but I've also never seen one that felt like they got it perfectly right. (And there's always at least one super distractingly janky costume!) This production was not totally perfect, but it was certainly my favorite mounting of Beauty and the Beast I've seen so far!
I think a lot of girls in my demographic grew up seeing themselves in Belle, but I actually always related more to the Beast. I guess I felt like Belle was always a little too perfect to be especially interesting-- beautiful, kind, elegant, graceful, brave, AND smart?-- and the Beast was the character with the real arc. Despite Belle's big solo in the second act, "A Change in Me," I never felt like Belle changes very much as a character at all, nor does she have anywhere to grow. Jade Jones and director Marcia Milgrom Dodge gave Belle more of a complete journey than I've previously seen. I also appreciated that this production proved there’s no one way a beautiful Princess has to look. Jade Jones is a plus-size, Black, LGBTQ+ performer and she killed it as Belle.
Why do the villagers see Belle as 'odd?' The script implies that it's simply because she... READS. (Gasp!) But in this production, I felt like Belle had a charming, refreshing awkwardness to her in the first half. When she rambles about how much she loves her books, she starts obliviously gushing. When she tries to turn down the ridiculous Gaston, she looks uncomfortable and frozen, unable to clearly communicate with him. And when she's with her eccentric father, Maurice, we see her goofy inner child come out. Oh yes-- and unlike the other women in the village, she wears PANTS!
This slight unconventionality turns out to serve her well in the unfamiliar milieu of the Beast's castle. The Beast, too, does not navigate social norms well. But where Belle's slight awkwardness is adorable, the Beast's lack of social skills is dangerous. But Belle's not afraid of him, and she doesn't even mind when he's rude-- putting his leg up on the table and slurping his soup (heck, she slurps her soup alongside him!)-- as long as he's being respectful to her. When he's not, she calls him out. And when he gushes over the story they're reading together just as much as she does, her eyes light up. That felt very familiar to me. I think some versions of this story feel like, “Belle teaches the Beast how to act normal,” dwelling on finer points of etiquette, but this one felt like, “Two people find someone they can be a little weird with.”
Jade Jones approaches Belle with a commendable playfulness and a groundedness and has the most raw, powerful voice I’ve heard in this role. The song "A Change in Me" has never hit me so hard before. I did feel like some of the impressive vocal gymnastics she displayed detracted a tiny bit from the character's sincerity, but really enjoyed them nonetheless. I'd previously enjoyed Jones as Little Red in Into the Woods at Ford's Theatre, but was even more impressed by her nuanced work here.
Evan Ruggiero made a wonderfully versatile Beast and a fantastic match for Jade Jones' Belle. Their dynamic was a joy to behold-- 'joy' really is the word, because watching the depressed and self-destructive Beast discover a new sense of joy in life was beautiful. I knew he is an acclaimed dancer, but Ruggiero's vocal work shocked me. I don't know how he sustained the Beast's incredibly deep, growly, harsh voice (I wonder if he was speaking through a voice modulator?) when his own natural voice, heard in interviews, has a much lighter timbre.
His singing voice is beautiful, both rich and delicate. I saw a mixed review disparage that he sounds scary when he speaks but sings "like someone from Les Miserables," but that cracked me up-- the role of the Beast on Broadway was originally played by Terrence Mann, indeed "someone from Les Miserables" (the original Broadway Javert). I personally think a Beast with a lovely singing voice isn't incongruous; the songs express his inner feelings with an elegance he cannot convey out loud.
If there's one slight downside to his performance, it's that his animalistic portrayal of the Beast meant he was always hiding his face with his hunched posture in the first act. While his body language ably communicated his character's growth, it meant that those of us in the mezzanine could hardly see his face before his big act one finale song. Then again, this was probably intentional-- we don't really get to know the Beast until Belle does.
I've discovered from the MANY performances of Beauty and the Beast I've seen that I like the Beast's costumes best when they're not attempting to replicate the character's look in the movie or going for extremely elaborate muscle suits and facial prostheses but are more impressionistic. Ruggiero's Beast simply wears a super shabby outfit, a long greasy wig, impressive curling ram's horns on his head, a bit of dark eye makeup, and furry gloves and matching boot. The rest is all his body language and voice.
Ruggiero lost a leg to cancer 10 years ago and now performs with a prosthesis-- in this production, a cool-looking, time-period-appropriate peg leg. (A post on his instagram applauds the skill of the makers of the peg leg: the fit and suction is so good that at one point, Gaston drags him across the stage by it, a gasp-inducing moment and certainly one that shows the extent of his villainy). He uses his prosthesis to creative effect in several scenes, especially when fighting off wolves. He also climbs up and down a super long curvy staircase while belting out high notes with ease, which surprised and impressed me while also making me confront my own ignorant assumption about his ability.
The actor's disability also helps put a different spin on the character's backstory. When we see the young prince at the beginning of the show, he's portrayed as a child and pushed around in a wheelchair by Cogsworth. His servants physically push him anywhere he wants them to, and when they offer him food, drinks, or the enchantress' rose, he brattily throws them to the ground. There's a Colin Craven vibe to the young prince. By portraying the prince as an actual child, we get the sense that he's both spoiled and neglected. The script bears hints of this, telling us the curse has been in effect for 'ten years' (but isn't he almost 21?) and the Beast mentions that he only learned to read "a little" and long ago. Did an illness or accident mean the young prince's formal education or etiquette training was interrupted? Is he babied because of this? Was he shut away from the world because of his disability before he was shut away due to the curse? Where are his royal parents anyway?
This sense of arrested development comes through very well in Ruggiero's portrayal. There is an innocent boyishness to the Beast that comes out in the second act, and his rages seem more like tantrums than genuinely scary. He even wears the tattered remains of his childhood velvet suit. No wonder this poor guy's messed up-- he went through puberty in a Beast's body. When he transforms into a handsome prince at the end, it's a version of himself he's never gotten to see before. While the physical transformation itself isn't anything major visually, he sells it with his character's utter delight. (And yes, he still has a peg leg as the Prince. He spins around on it. It’s neat!) I was so charmed by this version of the Beast/ Prince.
Beauty and the Beast has a third lead role that is not a title character... or, perhaps, is a little of both. That's Gaston, who has a MUCH larger role than almost any other villain I can think of, sharing fairly equal stage time with the Beast and with more to sing. Michael Burrell was an absolute delight to watch as Gaston and was both my husband’s and my favorite part of the show-- which is saying something, because all of the leads were great. He's portrayed less, er, 'rapey?' than many other Gastons I've seen, instead an utterly self-absorbed jock who does hilarious nonstop calisthenics to try to impress Belle in his solo number, "Me." His physical comedy skills are top-notch, his powerful voice rumbles through the score with agility, and he has impeccable timing and chemistry with John Sygar's funny and energetic LeFou.
He doesn't have the looming physical presence you might expect of Gaston, but I liked that for this particular production. Gaston solely defines himself by his peak physical ability. No wonder he is so appallingly ableist toward the Beast (and, in a different sense, Maurice). LeFou plays a sort of coach for him, and the big production number "Gaston" turns into a series of athletic drills that Gaston and LeFou lead. This takes on a more menacing vibe in "The Mob Song" when it seems he was unknowingly training his own personal militia all along.
Despite being extremely funny in the first half of the show, we see the clear moment when Gaston goes fully to the dark side-- it's when Belle slaps him in the face in front of all of the villagers after he offers to release her father if she marries him. We saw him earlier ranting about how being "dismissed, rejected, and publicly humiliated" is more than he can bear, meltdown averted only by LeFou and company cheering him up with a song about how great he is. Now there's no cheerful song to stop him and we see him go past a point of no return into sheer ice-cold villainy. When he's dragged off the stage by wolves after a dirty fight with the Beast-- a new death for the character-- it feels fitting.
It's worth noting that Burrell not only plays Gaston, he also understudies the Beast. He's played both roles before. Now that's duality! Before watching this show, I mentioned that I've seen some disappointing Gastons in past productions. They almost never strike the right balance of humor and villainy. He did it better than any I've ever seen!
The other lead actors in this show were quite enjoyable, too. Bobby Smith (a longtime favorite actor of mine) and Dylan Arredondo were side-splittingly funny and played off each other super well as Lumiere and Cogsworth. Despite their bickering, the two seemed like the best of chums and seemed to be having the time of their lives together. (I wished we could hear both of them sing more-- both have very pleasant voices and Bobby Smith is a talented dancer!)
Their scenes were always highlights, while they drag in some other productions. Like this production's Gaston, Smith didn't come across as inappropriately sexual or gross like Lumiere sometimes does, mostly just goofy. Not all of the silly comic bits blocked into these scenes worked, but enough did to make the audience laugh uproariously. And they gave a lightness to the potentially existential scenes in which the household objects contemplate their fates-- this version of the show felt more warm and light than those I've seen in the past.
Kelli Blackwell had a warm maternal presence as Mrs. Potts (and also played the ghostly figure of Belle's mother in the beginning of the show, too?) and sounded wonderful on the title song. Some of the other numbers seemed a little outside her alto range, though, and I wondered if she may have been losing her voice and had an off-night or if she usually struggled with those parts. I had an understudy for the role of Madame de la Grande Bouche, a bit disappointing at first because she's normally played by another one of my favorite local actors (Tracy Lynn Olivera), but understudy Erica Leigh Hansen sounded absolutely gorgeous on those operatic high notes!
The whole ensemble seemed to be having a blast, interacting with each other in fun and creative ways. One highlight of the show was when the baker was chased offstage during the castle fight by cutlery wielding a giant baguette (a set piece previously used in "Be Our Guest") and screamed, "MARIE! THE BAGUETTE!" The cast had a LOT to do. It's a much smaller ensemble than I'm used to for this show, and many not only doubled as townspeople and household objects, they actually played multiple different household objects in one song.
Ensemble member Connor James Reilly stood out as the Enchantress, dancing gracefully on pointe. I do not know what pronouns Reilly uses, but I have never seen such a tall dancer on pointe before and the effect was cool. As a villager, Reilly appears to be selling puppets of the Beast. That raises an intriguing question: is the Beast a local urban legend? Is he the village's own version of the Bunnyman?
Unfortunately, the choreography in the show seemed a little simplistic and uneven, which is a shame because many of the cast members can DANCE! I would have liked a little more 'oomph!' from the long dance breaks built into this score. Another uneven theatrical element was the costumes. Some of them, like Belle's ballgown (which looks much better in person than in pictures) and the main household objects' baroque costumes, look fantastic. Some work in a simple but effective way, like Gaston and the villager's warm-toned color coding and the Beast's minimalist get-up. But the more minor household objects, which require very quick changes as they switch from costume to costume, have an amateurish and unfinished look to them.
I wrote another long, obsessive review of Creative Cauldron's Beauty and the Beast back in 2019, an even lower-budget production, and noted that despite awesome creative elements, they just had too many people and costumes for the very small performance space. I almost felt the opposite with this one: they sometimes didn't seem to have enough people to fill the stage. In some scenes, the emptiness seems to reinforce the loneliness that the Beast and sometimes Belle feel. In others, it just feels... unfinished. In both productions, the low budget sometimes showed, but so did the heart.
I did very much enjoy the simple set here, though. We're surrounded by the cavernous walls that represent the Beast's castle. In the castle scenes, a big staircase pops out of the wall and cobweb-covered chandeliers fall from the ceiling. (I guess Babette's not a very good feather duster.) In the village scenes, they retreat back into the set. The real crowning glory of the show was their imaginative take on the rose: a stained glass rose WINDOW. This worked beautifully-- because after all, how the heck is an audience going to be able to see a single rose petal fall from the mezzanine? The rose window lost panes as the show went on, like an ominously ticking countdown.
Although it didn't feel as big as a Broadway production, this show is imbued with the pure magic of theatre. Audiences young and old were clearly enjoying every minute while I was there. You will leave it feeling enchanted, invigorated, and maybe even empowered.
I mentioned before that I've always related more to the Beast than Belle. Heck, I even dressed up as a woman version of the Beast for AwesomeCon several years ago and posed for photos with every Belle I found. This was the first time I found myself putting myself in Belle's shoes, too. In this production, I felt like anyone can walk away feeling like they can be Belle, they can be the Beast, they can be anyone. Just don't be Gaston. That guy's a doofus. This tale as old as time has taken on new life and feels more universal and more magical than ever!
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Hi Issy, How are you? Did you watch the Furiosa trailer? If so, what do you think about it?
Oooooh... So I've actually been avoiding the trailer...
I just have mixed feelings about whether the movie should have been made at all? I know George Miller had mentioned wanting a Furiosa prequel, sequel, backstory, something several many years ago, but here's the thing: does it need to exist? Like, as a full-on movie, does it need to exist?
I know I'm in the minority here, but I really prefer it if there aren't answers to every question in a piece of media. Yes, answer the important ones, tie up the loose ends (maybe), but let at least some of the answers stay secret.
Like, I know George Miller got all the actors, even the extras, to create backstories for why their costumes/makeup/hair/whatever are the way they are. But we don't need to know all those details. It's texture. We've learned bits and pieces (like the giant mall under the desert) and I feel like that's enough. I like the uncertainty. I like the room for speculation or imagination. I don't want all the answers.
I feel the same way about all the (cash grab) prequels and sequels for Star Wars. I like 4, 5, and 6 without anything around them. There are all these references to things (spice traders? Kessel run? Clone wars?) that you'll probably never know about but it's texture. It's jargon. It adds to the worldbuilding--and it doesn't need explanation. Let it just exist as a thing that can be or would be understood by the characters but that doesn't need full explanations to the audience. We can adapt.
So re: Furiosa: do we really need a canon backstory with all the details in four-part harmony with feeling? I don't feel like we do.
MMFR attaches the audience to Max (more or less). We have to sort out the rules of the Citadel along with him, what the relationships between the characters are, where the hell we're going, and how the fuck to survive. And I liked that. I like getting dropped in head first, in medias res, and having to sort it out. (I was watching it in the theater for the nth time and right when Angharad is crawling up into the cab of the War Rig, the guy in front of me goes "Now who the hell is this???" and I loved that for him. (You also don't see her face clearly in that entire scene, which I also love.)
I don't know. It just feels like it's going to establish a lot of stuff as Officially Canon and I don't want official answers to things. Miller said Furiosa lost her arm "in a battle." So now I can imagine 27 different scenarios, and they can all be possible. I don't want an official answer because I know I'll be disappointed.
I also need to say that, by way of full disclosure, I did see a teaser trailer (which I watched out of the corner of my eye, through my fingers) and it looked like all the "story beats" were basically the same as MMFR, just "this time, Max is a girl!!!!" Come up with something original, damn.
And this may also sound bitchy, idk, but I don't feel like Anya Taylor-Joy is quite right as Furiosa. She's an very fine actress, don't get my wrong. But she doesn't seem like Furiosa? She's too...delicate, I guess? She's beloved of the Girl Bloggers, so maybe I've got a distorted view.
I'm also feeling weird about the chariot-car? Like, that seems a bit de trop? Even for a Mad Max movie? It's sliding into Marvel territory and I Do Not Like That.
tl;dr: I got some mixed feelings on this. And I haven't even seen the trailer. But I just feel like...we don't need this many answers. I don't want this much backstory. I want to stay in the nebulous realm of possibility.
Anyway, I'm also avoiding the trailer for the reboot of The Crow. It just feels like sacrilege. I can't do it. It's like they saw Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise in a black and white photo and were like "Oh, that makeup looks kind of like Eric Draven ha ha" and the rest is cinema history.
On the other hand, at least it's not Timmy Chardonnay playing Eric. That would have literally killed me, resurrected me, and then sent me on a Crow-style revenge quest on behalf of Brandon Lee.
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image description: an ask from @netisinfin8ty reading "hey, I know you haven't talked about Spider-Man much, but how do you feel about Across the Spider-Verse coming out soon?" end description.
this took me literal months and for that i am so sorry but i wanted to wait until i'd seen it to give thoughts beyond "looks pretty and miguel is there" so!!! we're doing it now
also before i get into it: in the interest of full disclosure, spiderman 2099 is the only spiderman comics i actually read. my brother hates him so i started reading his comics out of spite at like 14 and then never looked back. so i can't really talk about the changes made to other characters beyond visual choices, because i simply do not know enough!
overall, my feelings are overwhelmingly positive! it's a gorgeous movie, the character design changes are all absolutely wonderful. my two main qualms with the movie are regarding miguel's characterization, and the extended sequences of flashing lights.
extended sequences of flashing lights for obvious reasons. i have photosensitive migraines and although i have mostly managed to keep from triggering one (watching in a brightly lit room with low brightness and a saturation filter on my screen) but like. it's not ideal. and i feel like the movie could still be gorgeous without being dangerously inaccessible.
as for miguel. i have been making stream of consciousness posts about this for the last day but im going to try to get this like. readable. and also all in one place.
justin thompson hates miguel and it shows. i was not expecting a 1:1 adaptation, that's just not realistic, but the way he turned out... is not good. making him both darker skinned and angrier and more violent is just racist. miguel is a victim of abuse and i just cannot believe that he would send gwen back to her dad without a second thought. that + the insistence that miguel isn't a "real" spiderman, with the injection of spider... Something, and the technological webs instead of bio ones is just a lesson in character assassination.
if i don't stop now i will literally never shut up, so i'm stopping now. like i said! mostly good. i've watched it three times i will definitely watch it again. but i'm not happy with the way miguel was treated.
#screenshotted the ask to keep your deadname out of it if that wasn't clear <3!#do i have an ask tag.
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hey (re: your pinned post) could i get a link to your michael mannzine? to my knowledge i've never watched a michael mann movie (wait fact check. i did watch public enemies when it came out but that's it). but your mannposting has me curious plus i know heat is supposed to be one of the movies of all time so, would love to read some thoughts on it !
You bet! I'll message you a copy! Full disclosure that it is unlikely to make very much sense to you unless you're familiar with Heat, but if it inspires you to watch the film, then I've done my job. P.S. incredibly amusing to me that Public Enemies is the sole Mann film you've seen, since for me it is by far his least interesting. But I'm overdue for a revisitation and perhaps I'll change my mind!
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if you hate the boys but like the concept, what are your opinions on Watchmen?
I LIKE WATCHMEN QUITE A BIT... ended up writing a kind of long post so I'll put my thots on the different adaptations under the cut
I've read the graphic novel which is like. undeniably dated in many ways but I think does generally hold up well. it's extremely dense but I enjoyed it a lot, I think the characters are all rather compelling and it works very well thematically imo. felt prescient how relevant rorschach is as a character to modern alt right shit for sth that was written in the 80s but I guess some things never change
full disclosure I have not seen the zack snyder movie version in full since I was like. literally eleven years old so I can't really give a comprehensive take on that but given just how long and dense the book I'd be interested in a rewatch to see how competent an adaption it is. the only take I can really provide on it is that I don't love how they adapted ozymandias from the novel he's fine but he has the wrong vibe
I REALLY enjoyed the hbo miniseries... at the time I watched it I was already so crazy burnt out on superhero shit that I was kind of uninterested but my parents enjoyed it a Lot so I ended up watching it with my sister and WOW jesus christ it was incredible. best editing I've ever seen and the way it handled dr. manhattan's perception of time was even better than the book (and that was one of my favorite parts of the book!) just a great show all round. the entire time I was watching the boys I just couldn't stop thinking abt how hbo watchmen had done literally everything it was trying to do far better
I am gonna put out a warning here to anyone who might be interested in watching the hbo series, it deals largely with the topic of institutional racist violence (main plot centers around investigating a white supremacist terrorist cell) and it shows racist violence in ways that are extremely explicit and upsetting so please do be aware of that going in. this is not a warning I give lightly it's intense
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When the Angels Left the Old Country review
Full disclosure: I won this book in a giveaway, so I feel like I'm morally obligated to write a public review instead of just talking to people in real life about it. You are free to view me as an unpaid shill, or a shill who has been paid with one (1) book.
A little background on my perspective: I am Jewish, but not very good at it and I have extremely strong feelings on Good Omens going back more than 20 years. I have cosplayed Aziraphale more than once like 10 years ago. I looked up a whole lot of Yiddish words before I realized there's a glossary in the back, so learn from my mistakes.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and was sad when it started wrapping up! If the idea of a Good Omens / Fievel: An American Tail crossover sounds like a good time to you, you will probably enjoy this book.
It's a very quick and engaging read, but I happened to start reading it right before the latest round of internet discourse on antisemitism, which made for a fairly distressing combination and a solid day of Jewish navel-gazing in the middle.
It starts a little slow, both plot-wise and genre-wise, but picks up in the second half. By genre-wise, I mean that there were long sections of the book where I could practically forget that two-thirds of the main cast were supernatural creatures. Yes, they talked about it, but after a short burst in the beginning, they basically don't do anything with it until the second half of the book. Even with more going on in the latter half, this is a very low magic book, so don't expect a Good Omens level of miracles and major supernatural characters outside of the main pair. Yes, they do exist, but this is a much smaller scale story. This isn't a bad thing, it's just different and I want to set the correct expectations.
Also speaking of expectations, this is much more a Jewish story than it is a queer one. Yes, there are baby lesbians and what is technically a non-binary character (though I feel that a being that doesn't have a sex to begin with is a very different, less queer thing than someone who is born into the presumption of having a sex and gender). Now I am wholeheartedly in favor of stories where the focus is not being queer, the characters just happen to be queer people and the plot does not revolve around their identities, so this was fine. But if you're expecting a romance focus, this doesn't really have one beyond the bog standard "at the end of the narrative, the people who seem compatible get together". Yes, the angel and demon are devoted to each other and the story treats that as very important, but I've seen a thousand stories where the same level of devotion could be played completely platonically as well.
To quibble, there are some inconsistences, where the author forgot something they'd said earlier or else made changes during writing and didn't go back and bring some other things in line, as well as some things that aren't adequately explained in my opinion, but they didn't detract much beyond occasionally breaking me out of immersion to scratch my head and go right back to reading. It could perhaps have used another editing pass, but it's far from a major problem.
Very mild spoilers with my opinions on the main characters below:
Little Ash: I'm going to be frank here and say I didn't hugely like Little Ash because he's the kind of character that seems designed to appeal to a certain demographic of YA reader, e.g. the nonthreatening Bad Boy, who is a Rebel with a reputation for Doing Bad Things but who never actually does any of those bad things except when they're morally justified. If you like Loki in the Thor movies and complain about him being too mean in the Avengers, or TV show!Crowley, or any of the various YA novel love interests of the leather-pants-Draco variety, you'll probably like him much more than I did. Of the two divine beings, he's the more fleshed out and the one who feels more like a POV character the reader is supposed to identify with, which I of course was a little irritated by.
The angel: The angel's relationship with identity is the most compelling thing in the book to me, but it is unlikely to be a popular character with people who don't view strong senses of Duty, Purpose and general lawfulness as positive, which is frankly most of tumblr. I would have liked more emotional responses to the changes in its identity, but I guess it was also learning emotions so maybe I shouldn't expect that of it yet. While becoming more yourself is a good thing, not all parts of the experience are positive at the time, and when it encounters some of these parts, the angel mostly shrugs about it and moves on instead of mourning the loss of what it used to be. It's a very sanitized transition.
Rose: I like her, as the sort of too-sensible girl you find in middle grade fiction, which I have utmost respect for. She felt realistically like a young person who did not know what she was about but was convinced she definitely knew what she was about, which is just how being a teenager is.
I wanted there to be more Grandmother Rivke. This is my biggest complaint. She was great.
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