HEY. as a matter of fact. why are we all sleeping on vrisjohn!! johnvris!! as <> to be specific!! they're straight up excellent!!!

FLIX FROM THE NET

Bird Box, 2018 (dir. Susanne Bier)

SPOILER WARNING THERE WILL BE SPOILERS DONT READ IF U HAVENT SEEN IT YET AND WANT TO

[TW: SUICIDE, MURDER, VIOLENCE, BLOOD, GORE]

well fuck its been a while!!  happy new year y’all hope u had a Fun and Safe time!!!  i for one was at a party where we started playing Shrek at exactly 10:39 PM to see if Smash Mouth’s hit song I’m a Believer started playing right at midnight and to my utter disbelief and elation it did!!!  move over times square ball drop a new arbitrary way of celebrating the start of a new calendar year is here and it involves a large green monster with a scottish accent who really loves his onions (#me am i right ladies)

WELL ANYWAY heres a fun new series ive been thinking of starting cause ya girl watches a lot of netflix movies and has many opinions about them.  i think i’ll do a separate post about the whole Netflix Original Film trend in general and how its changed the film industry at a later date but since i just watched the above movie not too long ago i wanted to get all my thoughts out there right fuckin now!!

netflix is without a doubt the OG king of streaming services, they were really the first to get the ball rolling and then dozens of other companies scrambled to latch onto this money train while it was rolling on the tracks full steam (or should i say.... stream EL;KGHS;EKFSH; please end me) ahead.  it started out as a rental subscription service where u could pick out three movies at a time to rent and then they were sent to u in the mail (like blockbuster but now you never have to leave your house ever again to get that sweet sweet rental content).  and then the decision was made to actually start online streaming, no physical DVD’s required!  ISNT TECHNOLOGY GREAT

well whoooo boy this shit swept the nation, people couldnt get enough of such a convenient and relatively affordable service and netflix started really raking in the dough.  and at some point they got rich enough to say “hey fuck it!!!  lets make our own movies baby!!!!”  and here we are now with Netflix Original Movies and TV Shows, which means a new player has entered the movie game in a very novel and innovative way.  why pay money for a movie ticket and leave your house to go to a theater when cool new movies are being released on a subscription service u already own to watch movies you already know and enjoy?  and then u can sit butt-ass naked in ur bedroom alone stuffing ur face with cheese puffs like an insatiable cheddar beast and see something new and fun and interesting

ok so.  Bird Box.  here we have a movie based off of a book (so i guess this also counts as a Book Movies review but I DIGRESS) starring hollywood powerhouse sandra bullock, featuring Supreme Lesbian Overlord Sarah Paulson and Resident Crazy Old Man John Malkovich, directed by a relatively unknown but competent female filmmaker Susanne Bier (who also directed Things We Lost in the Fire in 2007, a moving drama starring Halle Berry).  this one definitely has a lot of proimse compared to what netflix has offered so far in terms of their original movies (im gonna get into Dumplin’ at a later date cause jesus christ what a mess) and i went in with pretty high expectations

did it deliver???  well uuhhhh yeah sort of i guess!!  we got some pretty strong performances from our leading lady bullock who really does deliver it every time, a few strong supporting roles like newcomer Trevante Rhodes of Moonlight fame (his energy on screen is just so compelling and soothing), not overly obnoxious child actors which is really all u can ask for, and overall a solid story. 

now heres where i gotta say that i couldnt help comparing this film to another movie of its kind, directed by the notorious M. Night Shyamalan.  y’all remember The Happening?  cause i remember The Happening.  i remember that it was total shit and that the twist was that it was the fucking plants making everyone kill themselves.  the PLANTS.  and i also remember mark wahlbergs dumb-ass confused face that he used in every single shot no matter the context, im AMAZED i remember zoe deschanel in this movie cause she may as well have been one of the killer plants with how little she emoted, and i remember mark wahlberg yelling at a fake office ficus and apparently i was supposed to be scared while watching this clusterfuck. 

the way that this movie was described to me by friends who had seen it before me was basically that Bird Box is a slightly better The Happening, and no truer words have ever been spoken.  we basically have the same premise going on here:  unknown force is causing people to off themselves, our lead(s) have to try and find a way to escape this unknown force without even knowing what it really is, and theres some sort of “sanctuary” they gotta try and get to (which is a common plot point in really all apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic films).  now whereas The Happening’s rules for this scenario make entirely no fucking sense (how in the fuck are u supposed to be able to out-run WIND???), Bird Box has some rules for dealing with this Unknown Thing that make slightly more sense.  when u open ur eyes while outside, the chance of the Thing making u kill urself in some horrific way is extremely high, so wear a blindfold when ur outside and keep all windows covered when ur inside.  makes sense!  thats something i can believe and get behind which makes me more immersed in the story!

unfortunately like The Happening there are still some little things that kinda dont make much sense and take u out of it.  apparently some people when they see this unknown entity dont wanna die, but instead find it absolutely beautiful, which makes them want to make everyone else look at it to see how beautiful it is.  and its insinuated that these people are mentally ill or have some sort of psychiatric issue.  i get that this adds more stakes to the situation and ups the ante, but it doesnt really sit well with me that once again, mentally ill people are the villains in a horror-type story.  and i also dont really understand why theyd then wanna go around and make other people see the thing??  unless the thing has them in a mind-control state or something and is making them do its bidding but that seems kind of a weird thing for an all-powerful evil formless entity to do. 

and that leads me to the next issue i have with Bird Box.  if ur gonna have an apocalyptic scenario where people do something as serious as kill themselves due to an unknown cause, it almost seems a little cliche and cheesy to have it be some sort of mythical celestial god-like or demon-like entity thats doing the damage.  i actually really liked where The Happening was going with its source of all the chaos being something naturally made, like the Earth deploying some sort of self-preservation mechanism or something.  the idea of that to me is actually loads more frightening than some invisible boogeyman that u cant look at.  and then Shamalamadingdong had to go and make it stupid by saying that it was fucking plants trying to kill people by releasing pheromones or some shit.  like why cant we have the best of both of these??  something naturally-occuring that maybe has even happened before in the planets history (maybe it wasnt a meteor that killed off the dinosaurs after all??), that isnt FUCKING PLANTS, and that doesnt do cheesy shit like make ur eyes turn grey and bloodshot and like whisper to u telling u to take ur blindfold off (i swear that happens multiple times it was pretty silly)

thats another thing, this movie’s tone is all over the place.  there are some moments where a more light-hearted tone is needed to break up the tension, for sure, but it almost as if the writing and dialogue werent really taking this serious of a story as seriously as they should have.  weirdly placed jokes are all over the place, there were some moments where the dialogue made me cringe cause it was so awkward.  bullock’s character gets to have some good breakdown moments which help bring the tone to the level of somberness and despair it should be at, but all the other supporting characters dont really get the same space to process whats happening to them, so it kinda comes off like they arent really affected by, say, their wife throwing herself into a burning car right in front of their very eyes. 

overall i’d still say this is a worthwhile watch, especially considering its a netflix movie.  if you’ve ever wanted to see a not-as-horrible version of The Happening that has some deeper metaphorical stuff going on about motherhood and family and shit than this is for you.  the production value is overall pretty solid (though when it comes to cinematography i actually prefer The Happening from an artistic standpoint) and sandra bullock knocks it out of the park.  go check it out if this seems like something thats up ur alley!!

ok bye for now hopefully it doesnt take me six months to write another review but we’ll see!!  my brain is a mystery and time is an illusion HAPPY 20-BI-TEEN Y’ALL

yoo can u tell us who your ocs are and their story??

YES I WOULD LOVE THIS SO MUCH THIS IS THE BEST ASK I HAVE EVER RECEIVED !!!! im only gonna talk about like 4 of them bc im v attached to these 4 okokokokokokok here we go this answer bouta be long as hell 

april - ok this girl is my first oc. i made her in the middle of english class in 6th grade and shes been around ever since!!! tbh at this point idk if i want her to still be a straw hat or not but like??? anyways shes a rogue princess. she grew up just fine, but then one day her asshat dad killed her mom bc her mom was an “embarrassment of a ruler” and made their kingdom “look bad” anyways that happened when april was like 11. then once her dad took TOTAL control of the island he locked her tf away so she wouldnt be able to visit the citizens like she used to. so from 11 to 18 she was cooped up in the damn castle. when she was 16 she got her hands on a devil fruit that was locked away in some hidden room in her mother’s library (cliche i know im sorry) so then she ATE IT. THE AURA-AURA FRUIT. a v basic summary of that fruit is that she can manipulate her own aura and shit. imagine lucario from pokemon as a human honestly. idk. so when she ate the fruit she decided to fight her dad but of course she lost horribly and then she had to sit around in even more of a cooped up state for two more years until the STRAW HAT TEAM CAME ALONG ON ACCIDENT BAM SHE WAS ABLE TO LEAVE THE ISLAND BC OF THEM ok ok??? her whole story is complicated i tried to give the best watered down version im sorry. anyways shes v sweet and can be goofy but can be defensive as hell. she knows what she wants and will do anything to get that. yeehaw. shes an average height for a woman, she’s got shoulder-length brown hair and sky blue eyes. if u ever wanna know more bout her hmu

jack - OK MY 2ND OC EVER HE WAS MADE RIGHT AFTER APRIL AND HONESTLY HES MY FUCKING BABY. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!! anyways. he grew up on the same island april did. his dad was like the right hand man to april’s dad so like he had connections and shit. he had a v happy family. a sweet mom celest and a dope dad cain and a wonderful lil sis sho. when aprils mom was still alive, they would always visit the town so jack and april always hung out and went on adventures throughout the town together. when april’s mom died and her dad started locking her up more, they werent able to see each other much anymore. of course, jack being the rebellious son of a gun he was, he would always sneak around and find ways to still hang with her. jack’s 3 years older than her btw. anyways. one day out of NOWHERE jack’s dad just VANISHED from the island and it rly fucked him up. he was 14 when that happened. so then he had to take a step up and watch over his mom and sister. then april’s dad became even more of an asshat and more people started leaving the island, so jack’s mom and sis decided to leave. HOWEVER jack decided to stay so april wouldn’t be completely alone. that happened when he was 16. then he stayed on the down low and visited april as much as possible until he finally decided to leave and make a life for himself and also search for his family. he left when he was 18 and he promised april that shed be set free one day and theyd be able to meet up once again and have more adventures :’) anyways then he went on a search for his dad. turns out his dad left bc he was the leader of the LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS and had to tend to the duties over there. after YEARS jack finally found the LOA but his dad literally left AGAIN 3 months before he got there. that frustrated him. but then he decided to start a life in the league ((bc his dad lowkey taught him a whole lotta shit about that as a child but u kno)) and met CHAZ AND JO…anyways pause on the story. jack’s an uncooked piece of spaghetti. hes v tall and lanky. hes got messy black hair and red eyes. he deserves so much love ok. he needs a hug. covers up his problems with dumb humor. a little shit. v snarky. his weakness is overthinking. v good with daggers. his epithet after he becomes a wanted man is (lame) jack “the slicer” solo ok. hes 23 after the timeskip. yes. i could talk about him forever. pls lemme know if u wanna know more about him AHHHHHHHH ps april and jack are my favorite brotp and i wish someone was the jack to my april 

chaz - oh charles. dont call him charles he’ll kill a bitch. idk what it is about me and having my oc’s be of higher class but like chaz came from a family of nobles and Fucking Hated It (big shocker huh) so long story short he RAN away and started a life as a pirate but he was betrayed Too Many Times and ended up hating pirates. nerd. anyways. one day he ran into this guy named cain. jack’s dad. cain was like “yo u got somewhere to stay?” and chaz was like “lol no”. so then cain took chaz in and introduced him to the LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS and basically trained chaz for years and then VANISHED. chaz was SO FUCKING HURT!!!! but cain left him as the leader of the organization so chaz was also v shook. he got RLY defensive when jack stumbled along. he felt threatened that jack was gonna snatch his leader spot all bc he was cain’s son. tbh chaz was a dick to jack for a good bit of time. cain was the best kind of father figure chaz ever had and he just??? ah chaz also needs a hug. anyways eventually he and jack became nerd bros. they argue all the damn time. think of zoro and sanji but dumber. thats these two. chaz fights with whips (kinky) ((jk)) and hes a fuckin BEAST with them. run. they call him the dawn menace bc he mostly makes his move at that time of day. CHAZ THE DAWN MENACE. ok lame. but yea. hes 26 after the timeskip. hes a nerd. takes things seriously. easily stressed. chaz had a horrible event happen to him in the past so he lost one of his green eyes and (theres a whole other story about that where cain does a Good Thing but im tryna save time and space rn) his weakness is his right side bc he literally cannot see. hes a hothead sometimes. also a redhead. makes sense. hes got some good biceps tbh. strong dude. love him

jo - AYYY JOSEPHINE!!! her story isnt entirely developed tbh. she’s part of the league of assassins. literally the smartest damn person in the entire world. SO SMART. literally shes the reason why the league is still thriving. she knows everything about everyone. ALSO SHES SUCH AN INCREDIBLE SHARPSHOOTER. USOPP WHO? v v v v v good with guns. honestly. shes 25 after the time skip but honestly shes a mom to chaz and jack. always breaking up their dumb arguments. so kind. can be snarky. purple eyes and long blue hair that she wears in low pigtails all the time. she was around when chaz first joined the league so they’ve been good buds for a hot minute. she’s 2nd in command now!!!!! she needs a break so bad. oh my god. works so damn hard. i honestly feel like im forgetting a lot of things about her im sorry im rushing rn but!!!!! honestly jack chaz and jo are my fave dream team. they’re all fucking nerds. i love them. tbh on the sims 4 i made a household with the three of them in it and it was wild. 

codie - lil cordelia. redhead. amber eyes. V STUBBORN. serious as shit. will kill someone. she has a zoan fruit and the model is an albatross so since shes a redhead she just fuckin. turns into a red albatross. they call her the red feather bc 1) literally red and 2) the blood of her enemies sometimes stain her feathers. ooooo spooky. her story is fuckin insane. all im gonna tell u is that she’s just with the whitebeard pirates. 20 after the timeskip. sassiest gal i know. fuckin constantly flamed ace even though ace was the flame guy. bird bros with marco!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!! anyways. thats all i got rn im sorry!!!! thank u for asking and please feel free to ask me more questions if u ever wanna know about some of these kids o mine!!!!!