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#if the movie is anything to go by
bogkeep · 2 years
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i feel like i've had the "kids can handle dark topics in stories" conversation on three separate occasions in the past month, what's up with that??? my impression of children's/young teen literature is that it's always been SURPRISINGLY DARK and that it FUCKING SLAPS.
like yeah, my trump card is that i can answer almost every "but what about [HEAVY TOPIC]" with "Animorphs did that actually," which makes animorphs sound super edgy, but the thing is... it didn't feel edgy? it felt like a substantial adventure with drama, tension, goofs, stakes, and a vibrant cast of characters. it was one of the first book series i ever read, so there was nothing that tipped me off that This Series Is So Dark And Gruesome - and i think it's because it wasn't, comparatively. one of my other early reads was Deltora Quest, and like, what school library didn't have Goosebumps? i never got my hands on warrior cats, but like, that series is just one installation in a WHOLE GENRE - the silverwing trilogy, wings of fire, guardians of ga'hoole... groups of animals dealing with war and exile and battle and grief and ridiculously tragic backstories and whatever was going on in these series, ripe for self-insert characters and scenarios for play pretend during lunch break. even the HTTYD books, which are completely different from the movies - they look childish, especially with the illustrated charcoal drawings - hiccup gets captured as a slave at some point, and there's a dragon rebellion that seeks to eradicate all of humanity. it has a lot of goofy moments and some incredibly over-the-top villains, but it doesn't flinch from how gruesome it gets, either.
i think kids genuinely love this stuff!!! not all kids, sure, but i definitely did!!! like!!! have you SEEN the edgy OCs kids and teens will make? the finely crafted horrific backstories? you know how small kids have traditionally played with barbies, right, with beheadings and torture and shakespearean plots? how a lot of kids and teens sought out creepypastas???
i absolutely think it's much easier for BOOKS to go into dark topics than visual media, and i think that's why a lot of people don't realize how much is happening below the surface. we live in a post gravity falls world now, so cartoons for teens are finally allowed to be a little more twisted and "wow i can't believe they went there," but ALSO... from what i can remember from being a Child, the most scarring and horrifying moments in stories for kids were not the existential concept of "oh no you're ten years old and bad guys want to kill you!" but stuff like, the groke from the moomins cartoon, old puppet shows, moments that were viscerally horrifying without being gory in any way...
maybe you don't understand all the Complexities of Heavy Topics when you're nine. but some things will stick with you, and as you grow older and gain more context and knowledge about the world around you, i think those moments can become very valuable. i haven't read animorphs for almost two decades and so much of it has stayed with me. maybe i saw princess mononoke a bit earlier than i "should have," but to this day it's still one of my favourite movies of all time, and my understanding of it grows every time i rewatch it. i don't think it's possible for every story to handle every topic perfectly or even well, but it might still be worthwhile to have engaged with it. i mean, that's the Discourse, isn't it, stories tell you stuff and we can't control what other people take from it.
anyway yeah kids crave blood and carnage and we should give it to them sometimes
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listen I expected literally Nothing from the D&D movie okay, like I can't make it clear enough that I expected the most soulless money grab with a good cgi budget imaginable, I went in having already gone through every stage of grief and landed on acceptance and LISTEN
I fucking CRIED during this dumb RPG movie. it wasn't just "not terrible" it was objectively good with a clever plot and compelling characters and sincere emotional beats. this movie loves D&D so fucking much and it NAILS the "a bunch of goobers try to be cool and accidentally discover The Power Of Friendship And Also Great Violence" classic D&D party vibe. their barbarian's last name is fucking Kilgore and my entire family cried in the theater.
I hope they make twelve of these motherfuckers.
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floralete · 9 months
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watched evangelion for the first time w some friends recently. good anime
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corruptimles · 2 years
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That makes my Miku Movie Marathon for this year’s #MikuAllWeeku! If anyone has a favourite from the set, I'd love to hear it. Until next time...  
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bold-embrace · 9 months
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We better get a much needed morales family hug at the end of the next movie OR ELSE (btw read this fic. bless)
Bonus messy doodle below but it’s got major spider verse spoilers!‼️‼️‼️
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Earth 42 miles better get a hug and a kiss from his mom too
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crows-home · 9 months
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hang on one more Nimona thing i realized. I'm so used to movies where the protagonist is inherently talented with no reason and is able to overpower the antagonists. Like, they're always unexplainably powerful and "oh wow, this person is stronger than these other people that have been training for years."
So, on my first watch, I thought that's what it was for Ballister. He fought a bunch of his fellow knights, overpowered them, disarmed the prodigy, Goldenloin.
THEN i rewatched, paid more attention, and holy shit. He's been like this since the beginning.
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And then i started to notice the little things that subtly supported this.
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He makes his own arm, that must take intellectual skill. He grabs a can that was about the fall off the shelf and make noise, without even looking at it.
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And during the fight scene at the institute!! At first, I was like ok, typical protagonist fight scene where they overpower tons of other people. Because Plot.
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But no!! the more i think about it, it's reasonable. It's established early on that Ballister is competent, he's skilled. He's very aware of things going on around him. He's able to knock out knights that around coming up behind him without looking, swiftly disable opponents.
Rewatching it always makes me go back and see these characters in a new light. So my view on Ballister went from "ah, mess of a man that's put in a tough situation. Able to do these crazy things because they're necessary to the plot." to "Oh he's competent!! That's the point!! He's still a mess but :0"
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pbnmj · 1 year
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fun fact: the reason that they did not take noir’s mask off for longer than 0.5 seconds in itsv is actually because sony pictures animation was trying to protect the general public from me becoming insufferable to be around
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Guys please do not break the boycott and subscribe to Disney plus to watch the eras tour movie. I know we all love Taylor and want to watch this movie but what’s happening in Palestine right now is so much more important and this movie is truly not worth breaking the boycott for. I’m pretty sure you can still rent the film elsewhere. Free Palestine.
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shugthedug · 6 months
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Insane to me that people, including other film makers, are so ready to throw down against Scorsese. If the trolley problem was the entirety of marvels output on one track and one more Scorsese film on the other, I’d ram that bitch through the mcu so hard it would obliterate every trace of iron man from time and space. God bless ‘em but I would 💖
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la-cocotte-de-paris · 10 months
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A lesson in the lustful female Gayze™: LA RELIGIEUSE / THE NUN (1966), dir. Jacques Rivette
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regina-del-cielo · 6 months
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Maybe it's a 'study finds water is wet' type of thought, but
considering it's an action movie whose overall plot is "immortal warriors Fuck Shit Up™️", I think it's significant that in The Old Guard the thing that makes Copley pull red strings through his Murder Conspiracy Board and say "[Merrick] doesn't care what [Andy]'s done with [her immortality]" is the people they save, not the ones they kill
Most of the Conspiracy Board is him circling random newspaper headlines and faces on old photographs to (more or less realistically) follow the immortals' treck through the world and big historical events. Which is, in-canon, not much different than putting portraits from different centuries next to a picture of Keanu Reeves and saying "they look the same, clearly Reeves is an immortal!"
But then there are the connections. A little girl holding Joe's hand in WW1 becoming the youngest (and first) woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Medicine (suck it, Kozak). Or the grandchild of a family that Andy saved from [something] helping people escape from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.
They are warriors. They have fought and been in the midst of countless wars, major or minor, throughout history. They must have killed as many people as they saved... and yet.
It's not them taking out a random warlord or dictator or rabidly hateful politician that has tangible repercussions in history. It's the children and families they get out of war zones, save from accidents, protect from natural disasters. People to whom they give a second chance at life, and grow to change the world (or even just their own world), like a mysterious stranger once changed theirs just by holding out a hand or patching a wound.
I don't know I just think it's particularly neat
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OKAY who wants to hear about why i think nimona challenges amatonormativity? you do! 🫵
one of the main ways this is accomplished is through ballister and ambrosius’s relationship. it’s arguable that it doesn’t necessarily fit the traditional model of romance - not only are they a queer interracial couple, and not only is their relationship ambiguous in the book, but there are certain instances, especially in the movie, that subvert traditional ideas of romance and friendship.
one instance that really stands out to me is when the director asks ambrosius what’s on his mind and he goes on his imagined rant about how arm-chopping isn’t a love language - you know the one. when he mentions ballister, he refers to him as “the man i love, my best friend.” and not just one or the other, but both! the man i love, and my best friend. he places equal emphasis on both the romantic and platonic aspects of the relationship, valuing ballister in both a romantic context and a platonic context without treating either one as more important than the other.
and even moments such as the first “i love you” and the kiss manage to subvert tradition. both of these things are generally seen as a pretty big deal, especially in fiction - if the characters are kissing or saying “i love you,” it’s usually a moment in which everything changes. a line is drawn, dividing the story into after and now. sometimes it’s dramatic and climactic, with fireworks and a swell of music, but even when it isn’t it’s still seen as a turning point of sorts. now it’s official, now it’s real. but this isn’t the case in nimona. both moments are certainly significant - they do a good job of showcasing the character development and where ballister and ambrosius are on their respective journeys, and are certainly important in terms of representation - but neither one follows the path that most fictional romance does.
another way in which nimona challenges amatonormativity would be the emphasis on friendship! in the tavern scene (in the movie) when ambrosius suggests killing nimona, ballister disagrees and says “she’s my friend.” ambrosius replies with “aren’t i more than that?”, implying he’s more important than a friend - thus upholding amatonormative ideas. ballister becomes angry at that and leaves - challenging this idea and prioritizing his platonic relationship with nimona over his romantic one with ambrosius, as nimona is the one he wants to defend.
additionally, a big part of this scene is the way ballister deliberately rejects institute values while ambrosius unintentionally upholds them. and because the story challenges homophobia and transphobia (and other forms of bigotry) through the lens of the institute, it would make sense for it to challenge amatonormativity too! it’s something that’s become incredibly normalized, to the point that lots of people don’t even know it exists, and this is reminiscent of the institute brainwashing, especially when it comes to ambrosius - he’s been manipulated his whole life and probably genuinely doesn’t understand the level to which he’s internalized institute beliefs.
ballister prioritizes nimona many times, actually. when he tells ambrosius she’s “smart, kind, and quite sophisticated,” when he’s overjoyed to see her again at the end, when he refuses to kill her and saves her instead. over and over, he proves how much he cares about her, even when this involves directly going against what ambrosius wants - which, of course, is really what the institute wants. a core tenant of amatonormativity is the false notion that romantic relationships are more important or valuable than other types of relationships, but ballister actively goes against this!
to conclude, as a story that at its core is about identity and challenging societal beliefs, nimona defies expectations and traditional ideas of what it should or shouldn’t be. it’s possible that amatonormativity wasn’t what the creators had in mind, but the story still manages to challenge it with grace and elegance. just like its main character, nimona refuses to conform to what others want it to be.
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jicklet · 6 months
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Elemental (2023)
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lilaccatholic · 3 months
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Complex feelings about copyright and Disney's appalling ethics aside, it does unsettle me how quickly people jump to make and monetize the most unnerving, depraved content imaginable about characters created for children the second it hits the public domain
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pumpkster · 11 months
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stuckinapril · 26 days
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Something so ineffable about exhaustion that comes not from a lack of sleep but from a lack of rest
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