#shame. it seemed like decent quality when i ordered it. it had good reviews
Text
Star Vs Tom Luictor Retrospective Detour: Skooled!
Dedicated to Jessica Walter
1941- 2021
Welcome back all you still mourning people to Prince of Wishful Thinking, my Tom Lucitor Retrospective... or at least a detour from it as I need to cover the Meteora arc to cover Divide/Conquer properly. When we last left off with Star she and Tom were going closer, but both are taking a break this time. We’ll get back to them in April... oh will we get back to them in april. For now we’re back to Meteora who I forgot was ABSENT for a while. not forever, but while her parantege, the cover up related to her and all of that has been vitally important, Meteora herself vanished after Monster Party and hasn’t been seen till now. But i’ts a good storytelling engine.. it ratchets up tension for her inevitable return, and gives us time to find out what happened with her and let that sink in.. granted i’td also be the last time it sunk in but I can dunk on the series decline later... I still have season 4 episodes to cover after all. So join me under the cut as we get the welcomed Return of Henious, an unexpected hero.. and Ponyhead because this series clearly hasn’t hurt me enough. And as usual for my Star Vs Reviews, i’d like to thank one of my Best Friends @jess-the-vampire for her insight on this episode. It’s always welcome and she always manages to find something I didn’t think of .
So we open at Saint O’s with Ponyhead returning to the school, having previously run it post rebellion before leaving because.. I don’t know. She probably got tired of being a leader, and out of universe they needed her to be around star more. Look the series has far more important things it never explained and never will, not explaining why a recklessly irresponsible asshole left a position of authority and responsibility I can let slide.
She’s come for brunch but things have changed... the school is still a warm, free environment for princesses to better themselves and party hardy, no longer an oppressive brainwashing gulag run by someone who as it turned out was horribly brainwashed herself.. it’s just now it actually has rules and structure.
It now also has an actual leader, Princess Patty Arms who showed up in the school’s previous appearance this season here and.. that’s it. I think she showed up in the background of the original st o’s episode. And it’s a shame because she’s a really fascinating character. No really she’s calm, dosen’t take Pony’s shit, and while a brunch exam SEEMS like a waste of time... it really isn’t. A good meal can loosen up a dignitary and some rulers have sticks up their keisters about things like this, so being able to do it just right can win them over. It’s still a touch ridiculous but given the world of star is a touch ridiculous to start with, it works.
Pony naturally leaves in a rage over this especially when no one backs her up.. but soon the School has bigger issues and we get to why we’re actually here: Meteora is back. And while she has changed, now having grown larger and stronger, easily scaling the wall, she still wants payback and we get a damn fine battle sequence as the princesses all unite against their former tormentor. It’s also sad in hindsight.. because as Jess pointed out to me almost NONE of these characters show up again. And I only added the almost because Penelope is in there. They all seem interesting, the setting of ST O’s itself is interesting, and the idea of a school for princesses of various types is a cool idea. I’ts something the show could’ve come back to to see how they bounce back from this attack.. but like most cool background elements in the show they forget about it. It was intresting to see the schools slow evolution from horrible nightmare to princess ran utopia and like many things coming up it feels like a lost opportunity.
That being said the fight is awesome, with Meteora proving to be a juggernaut in strength and outplanning her enimies, having brought an overide switch for the robots (Patty reprogrammed them to work for the school) and having them throw their hearts/ power sources as bombs. It’s a damn fine sequence as she finds way after way to keep going, with a now restored rasticore helping them simply portal in.
Pony meanwhile.. is hiding , as Patty find sout when she finds her, and Pony assumes this is about her... though for once i’ts not JUST ego.. but because she was one of the two who started the uprising at the school in the first place and THE person who tossed her out. We also get a nice character moment as while Pony tells patti she still hates her.. she puts the princess behind her when Meteora approaches. She may be a selfish twit whose massively unlikeable.. but she has a good heart.. and not just the one she keeps in a jar she got from one of her boyfriends.
But Meteora has more important buisness and finds her way to the depths of St. O’s.. where we meet the Schools namesake and her adopted mother a robot played by tress macneile.. another thing the series never bothered to care about as where did these robots come from and why?
Turns out Meteora came to find out her own personal history, with the remote from before used to find the real dirt.. and what we find .. is heartbreaking as we slowly journey back through Meteora’s childhoods as Henious.. and it’s fucking heart breaking with Tress voicing her younger versions, hence why I didn’t use this as the jessica tribute as while walter’s good in the episode, she isn’t given much.
We see her as a teen, forced to hide her tail and insulted over it by her mother.. and it only gets worse as when her cheeks glow as a kid St. O tries to wash them off and we get the poor child desperately begging that “she can be better”
We do finally get the answers Meteora saught as we see Shastacan dropping off the baby meteora, calling her “Henious”.. which St. O took as her name. Proving the spiderbites minus penelope’s dickishness is indeed genetic and why I have no sympathy for the prick getting eaten later... and hopefully globgor will do an encor with penepople’s parents. Here’s hoping.
So Meteora now knows she’s the rightful queen, and decides to go take it back.. though Pony does try to stand up for her friends... and while we don’t see it hte next episode confirms she got her horn ripped the fuck off. And this horribly traumatic injury.. is magically fixed via 3d printing next time we see her after an episode grappling iwth it instead of having pony deal with not having a horn, or her prostetic not giving her magic powers again. Because this show again really likes to leave good ideas out to rot in the sun like that package of hamburger I left out in the sun yesterday. And I actually had a reason there: I need a lot of Racoons for an elaborate scheme involving a map to tex cruz’s house, a used apache helicopter and a bulk order of tiny parachutes.
We do get some payoff to things though, as Henious comes on to rasticore who not so politely rejects her for being nuts.. before it’s revealed Gemini, her loyal servant is also a robot and she uses his heart to blow up rasticore and take the arm with her... which is ALSO never brought up again. Seriously this episode is so full of loose ends i’m suprised it just dosen’t end with Zuko asking his dad about his mother. Gemini’s death is genuinely tragic as his last words are “If you wanted my heart.. all you had to do.. was assssskkkkk”. God damn. So with that Meteora heads out to reclaim her birthright.. no matter the cost.
Final Thoughts on Skooled!:
This one is decent.. but like the last episode I covered, the lack of payoff off for almost anything here, excluding the Meteora plotline and the Pony thing which instead got a BAD payoff, is really starting to rear it’s ugly head as the series greatest weakness. Yes bigger than the romance plot. And given that romance plot after this season can be best discribed as...
youtube
The show just.. forgets a good chunk of things happened to keeep things chugging along. It sets UP plots, what happens to st o’s from here, buff frog and a small caravan of monsters leaving forever, the message from shastacan, who built the st o’s robots, and on and on.. but it never PAYS them off. It dosen’t care to. It just does things so the plot can move but never bothers to think about the fucking consequences. It just gets more and more irrtating to think about as other shows throughly DO: Amphibia has the fact the characters get into shenanigans become a commented on running gag and something they grow past, and everything that happens matters. Every episode of Owl House builds on the foundation of the previous episodes. OK Ko dosen’t forget one episode had the characters not be able to turn back into humans and implies their wearing human costumes for the rest of the series. Which is fucking weird, but it was their memory. My point is other shows around the same time or right after didn’t magically forget things happened for convience sake. While it’s OKAY to loose some things in the shuffle, it happens to the best of us, it’s not okay to do it SO fucking often and with no clear care for the audiences desire for payoff. The show just ignores what plot points, like the huge cliffhanger of Star telling marco how she felt at the end of season 2, it dosen’t care about till it needs them and ignores the ones it never does. You can’t just.. bring shit up like it’s important and then try and forget it ever happened. People remember stuff, we are NOT stupid. KIDS are not stupid. When I was younger I REMEMBERED things that happened on KND, Danny Phantom, Xiaolin Showdown, TMNT 2003, because those shows, which are from decades ago, knew I would and trusted even if I missed something and was thrown off i’d tune in for the quality.
And in an age of streaming and more story based tv you can’t just.. ask kids to act like something they saw didn’t happen because your fucking lazy and frankly YOU never should have. Kids deserve better, my niblings deserve better and frankly the adults your clearly also writing for.. deserve better. This episode is eh, but the problems it represents are so fucking worse.
Next time on tom. If you thought I got angry towards the end of this one, just you wait. Next time i’ts Booth Buddies. Yeah.. yeah that one. Stay tuned.
#star vs the forces of evil#skooled#lilica ponyhead#meteora butterfly#gemini#rasticore#patty arms#rat princess#penelope spiderbite#saint olga#saint olgas#disney xd#disney plus#disney channel
27 notes
·
View notes
Text
The first comic: Maturity or rather the lack thereoff.
Something I commonly saw within the last decade was people arguing that animation has reached a new peak by the amount of quality in storywriting put into them and some even claiming cartoons have become more mature, particularly compared to shows of the 80s and 90s. Dobson too joined the trend and as such made this little comic in 2015 titled “Mature”, in which he argues that cartoons for children are more mature and handle serious subjects better than any media tagged with an r-rating or not following the format of animation.
While I admit that the comic is not the most offensive and insulting thing Dobson has ever created when soapboxing about nerd/american culture, I do think “Mature” actually in composes quite a good insight in how Dobson does not understand concepts of storytelling and overhypes the achievements and merits of children entertainment to a degree that is hurting the “cause”. Which greatly annoys me as a fan of storytelling and animation in general and paints Dobson as incompetent in the field of work (cartoonist, comic writer/artist) he tries to engage in.
And I can bring this lack of understanding by Dobson down by just one simple question:
What exactly counts as a mature subject here?
Dobson randomly accuses any form of fiction that is not a children’s cartoon or comic to have no idea how to approach a “mature” subject, but he can’t even give an example of what he defines by this term.
See, for me a mature subject is e.g. an social, emotional or political issue we as humans can correlate to in the real world. Either as a result of personal experience or a bigger picture in our history and culture (such as racism, poverty, existential dreed, personal/emotional growth, any form of oppression etc.) Something that does not only drive a story forward as a source of conflict or a character’s backstory/arc for the sake of entertainment, but may even make us think afterwards.
And as much as I like cartoons, I do not think this is something children cartoons do most of the time.
And before I get accused of thinking cartoons are only something for kids or that a thoughtful story can not be told via the medium of animation, let me put a few things into perspective.
Unlike Dobson, I do not have an educational background in animation. However, I grew up with a lot of cartoons, animated movies and comics from all over the world and thanks to the wonders of the internet read up here and there on the different ages of animation and certain tidbits in what went into the making of certain works of fiction and why they may have been a huge thing in the time periods they emerged in.
As such I know that the medium of animation can be used to not only create “child appropriate” content, but also movies like Barefoot Gen, Fritz the Cat, Felidae, Animal Farm and so on, which tackled themes of social issues, political worldviews and personal/historical tragedies.
Then there is the fact, that depending on the culture, there are very different interpretations in what can be considered “child appropriate” in certain parts of the world and therefore what themes a cartoon may tackle. Like how in European children cartoons such as Alfred J. Quack there was a story arc resembling the rise of Adolf Hitler in power, to tell about the heroes of the show working in the underground against an obvious fascist regime. Or how in certain Japanese children shows the subject of death can be rather common, while in American cartoons just mentioning the word “die” seems a red flag to some studio executives.
Lastly, a lot of early animation, (particularly western animation) did not even start off as something targeted primarily at children. Animation started off as a technique to tell a story through “moving pictures” and some of the first animated shorts ever had a huge fanbase of adults and children. “Snow White”, Disney’s first animated movie back in 1933 was a technical marvel at the time. A movie we nowadays mostly consider a children’s movie with a slightly dull story compared to other Disney outings, was back then a risk that earned Disney multiple Oscars and was appreciated more by adults than it was by children, despite being based on a fairy tale. A type of story mostly considered “appropriate” for kids.
What I am trying to say is, that I am aware of how not all children cartoons are the same and can vary in terms of “maturity”. Something I think Dobson can’t, because he also can’t see that there is a huge variety of “children” cartoons.
Despite his background and claims to consider animation an art, Dobson has shown a huge lack of knowledge or admiration for shows/movies that do not fit into the specific mold of “western animation primarily targeted for children and airing on american television”.
And that is not a claim I make half-heartedly. I have done research on the guy, I know how he likes to brag when he considers he found a great cartoon or something interesting. So I find it telling that aside of nostalgia for certain 80s and 90s cartoons we all know, Dobson’s recommendations and taste in shows seems to be primarily focused on just the most recent stuff everybody else likes/a very small pool of rather generic shows. I am not saying he should be contrarian on principal and e.g. dislike Gravity Falls, but he lacks initiative to look out for new and old stuff himself.
I in fact remember when he asked twitter first if he should give Wander over Yonder, one of the best cartoons of the last decade, a chance, cause it seemed he was too chicken to have an opinion on his own.
Then again, weirdly enough, Dobson actually tends to be contrarian for the sake of it, till someone he respects or sucks up to tends to have a different opinion on a show/movie. For example, while he acts like Frozen is a great movie franchise and defends the second movie to the point he becomes anti-feministic when a woman has a different opinion than him on it, he actually gave the first movie a terrible review on deviantart back in 2014. Accusing it of “same face syndrome” and a shame to the name of Disney. Obviously that was also before the hashtag #GiveElsaaGirlfriend became popular and he went so far as to hint he thinks an incest ship with Anna was great. And Legend of Korra? According to first deviantart posts by him garbage. Which was an opinion swiftly changed the moment Korrasami became popular in the fandom by season 3.
The point I want to make with this digression is, that there are a lot of past actions by him hinting on the fact that Dobson kinda despises animation, when it does not fit within a very narrow niche of things he likes. Further indicated by his disdain for “adult” animated shows or hostility towards foreign animation, except the occasional movie by Studio Ghibli for example.
Because of this lack of a bigger picture, I do not think Dobson is aware how in terms of story, cartoons can heavily vary. And when it comes to mature subjects, you can’t really engage with them if you lack a story carrying them in turn.
Let’s look again at the comic. What cartoon characters do you see in it, when Dobson talks about how he believes children cartoons “treat these (non-defined) mature subjects with FAR more respect than the hardest “dark, grim and gritty” stories”?
Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony, three main characters of Spongebob, Steven Universe, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Blossom from the Powerpuff Girls and Mickey Mouse.
You want my opinion on them? None of them are from any cartoons tackling mature subjects in a huge manner.
However, they are from great shows. (Well, everyone but Steven, but I explain that later.)
See, this is where putting cartoons into perspective within the vast history of animation, comes in handy. Cause looking at them it is undeniable that people put effort into these shows. Effort in the animation and the writing in order to create an entertaining product, decent enough that not only little kids can enjoy it as a mindless distraction, but even older people can find merit in it, thanks to characters with decent personality, good humor, world building and even an engaging story. But all of that doesn’t make these shows or any story necessarily tackle a “mature subject”. Sure, the latest incarnation of My little pony was not as saccharine as its predecessor but rather cartoony as a good 90s show, but that doesn’t mean the new version is the Schindler’s List of animation (excuse the hyperbole). Same for the other cartoons, with Dobson also not acknowledging the fact that Spongebob e.g. had quite some dips in quality over the years (and even made pretty awful jokes about serious subjects such as suicide) or that Steven Universe, while tending to tackle mature subjects for its story (like trauma, war, abuse, self esteem issues, racism, rape and homosexuality) has failed multiple times over its run (even back when this comic was made) to treat these subjects not just as plot and drama points, but also with enough respect within the narrative, to the point a lot of former fans of the show turned their back on it, cause they had enough of the issues they could relate to being simplified and resolved in a cookie cutter manner so Rebeca Sugar could tell a whimsical story about gay space rocks and forgiveness.
Let us not even forget the fact, that while there is a huge number of cartoons with decent writing and value to them (and that those were not only created within the last 10 years or so), there is also just a lot of garbage out there that counts as “kids animation”. Cartoons and movies that were written with not a care in the world and at times outright more mean spirited as some of the stuff Dobson likely hates in life action. Are you telling me those toilet humor driven garbage piles of creativity are mature?
The point I try to make is, Dobson’s GENERAL statement that kids cartoons tackle mature subjects better than other form of media, is factually wrong, because a lot of shows don’t even try to be mature in the first place. Which however does not mean, there aren’t attempts made at being mature or tackle a mature subject.
Growing up with cartoons since the 90s, I saw quite a few cartoons once in a while having episodes with themes to them that were surprisingly “dark”, dramatic or related to issues I and other kids could also see and relate to in the real world. Bullying going out of control, eating disorders, school violence (even school shootings), dealing with the passing of a loved one, to name a few basic ones. Gargoyles and Hey Arnold were two very important cartoons for me in that regard, with Gargoyles showing me how dramatic a good action cartoon could be when compared to other action cartoons at the time (like Ninja Turtles) and Hey Arnold episodes like “Helga on the Couch” giving me a rather somber look into what “therapy” looks like closer to reality, while normally being a show with the slice of life adventures of a kid in the big city.
And I do highly appreciate that nowadays there are more cartoons doing ongoing storyarcs and as a result of actually having more drama to them, adding tension and character development to their plots. Things we did not quite have to the degree we have nowadays back then in the average show. But it is debatable if those things are equal to “mature subjects” such as racism, abuse or trauma. Cause at the end of the day, a lot of kids cartoons tend to only scratch the surface of those things in order to flesh out a plot, instead of making the plot about those issues. Which at times is even for the best if you ask me. Cause we should not forget, these shows and movies are made for kids. And because of their age, a lot of kids lack at times the knowledge and experience in life to properly understand the themes and subjects some people may try to convey with their work. Particularly when you want to tackle subjects such as trauma, abuse and war which lets be honest, a lot of people can’t even comprehend in their complexity as adults. So how are kids supposed to comprehend them? One way, in my opinion, is by simplifying them and turning them into part of a narrative instead of the main focus of the narrative. But that in itself doesn’t always work and can have negative consequences in multiple ways. For example by making the story suddenly non engaging, delivering the subject in such a manner that people can get the wrong message of what you are trying to say or (at worst) simplifying it to such a degree, it becomes outright offensive to others.
A good example that comes to my mind for that would be how Captain Planet back in the 90s tried to tackle the subject of AIDS in one episode. On one hand, considering how the disease was a big deal back then but no one openly talked about it, you kinda have to give credit to Captain Planet to tackle it. On the other hand, is a subject such as a deadly disease that back then was barely researched and killed millions, really something you want to tackle on an overly preachy (but considering whose company produced it, also very hypocritical) kids show, where most of the time the solution to a problem was not even grounded in reality? And spoilers, the episode treated AIDS not even as the big deal it was, but as something the villain would exploit to spread a rumor on the ill kid, because that somehow equaled a chance to pollute the world more. Not really mature, if you ask me.
What all of this ranting is boiling down to, is that Dobson failed to make a case for how kids animation is able to tackle mature subjects, by not putting his opinion in the bigger context of what animation is/can be and what he means by the term “mature theme”. All he did was just indirectly soapbox that he thinks every other form of media is incapable of being about a serious issue, in doing so also insulting the art of storytelling in itself by disregarding anything not expressed in funny pictures specifically made for children or manchildren on tumblr who want to act they are the big boys, cause a cartoon horse made them feel sad.
He did so by making a very weak argument, not being able to present it in a manner that was hard to debunk and by drawing a comic in which everything looks surprisingly lifeless and like the least amount of quality and effort (things I argued can make a great cartoon) was put into it.
Which ironically, is the total opposite, of being mature.
And lastly, can’t believe I have to say that, but Dobson, the Pokemon’s name is Butterfree, not Butterfry. Butterfry is what you get when you make a statue of a Futurama character made out of something you put on your bread.
40 notes
·
View notes
Text
The Old Guard: A (Disappointed) Spoilertastic Review
I hate 2020.
For many reasons, of course, but there is this particular nastiness it seems to have, like it’s getting revenge on us for our past and current sins.
And the Old Guard feels like part of that revenge.
I haven’t read the graphic novel, so please understand the following review is based on the film alone. I was on board with getting to see my queen and girl crush Charlize Theron kick some ass and rock that bangin’ brunette pageboy haircut that only she can and yet what this movie gave me is a raging case of 2020. This concept isn’t anything new or original, but it should have been a walk in the park. It has solid actors and a simple premise.
So why was it total bullshit?
I’m so angry. I’ve said before how certain movies feel like someone had all the ingredients to make a hot, delicious pizza and yet when they combined them, they came up with Brussel sprouts somehow. This movie is a lazy mess. It has about a handful of decent moments, but overall, it’s negligent. It doesn’t care. It doesn’t care to show you its potential. It’s just a tired, by the numbers, dull action movie that’s wasting the talent that it managed to gather together. Maybe that’s why I’m so mad. It’s clear that this could have been fantastic, but the apathy in the writing turned into a grey, flavorless bore.
Sigh. Let’s swing the ax already and get this over with.
Overall Grade: C-/D+
Spoilers ahead.
Pros:
· I signed on for Charlize Theron and at least I got what I wanted, which was her kicking ass but still giving us a few soft moments of vulnerability. This is why I will follow this woman to the grave. Charlize Theron is one of my favorite actresses because she’s so good at showing what women are capable of as characters. She has such a wide range of acting skills, giving us a cold, bitter woman but at the same time showing hints of inner kindness and strength and love. This movie barely has many redeeming qualities, but she’s by far one of the best parts. The movie knows it, as she is the only one we really get to “know” over the course of the film.
· Joe and Nicky are the only other characters providing any warmth or emotion in the film. It’s badly needed. I was so let down that they didn’t show Nile’s introduction to the team because, to me, I got the sense that Joe and Nicky are the heart. They seem in touch with their emotions and not as cynical and hardened by their “immortality” as Andy. They seem to still care about helping people, even at the cost of themselves, and they could have been such a strong anchor if the movie invested more time in them. Both actors are solid and believable in the roles and it’s a pity they weren’t given more to do than to be the victims who needed rescuing.
· The action, for the most part, is solid. It’s pretty average, though. Nothing surprising. It’s the moves you’ve seen if you watched John Wick or Atomic Blonde, so keep that in mind.
· The effects are solid, particularly for their healing factor. It’s smooth and polished looking.
· What little bits and pieces we see between teammates is likable. They seem genuinely fond and protective of each other and it’s not in focus enough, but when it is, it’s nice.
· The soundtrack is pretty good.
Cons:
· Lack of explanation. Look, I get it. You don’t want to load your entire movie up with exposition, but it’s very simple and easy to pace it out. You don’t have to dump it all in one spot, or if you do, then you can simply be strategic about it. Most good movies also know how and where to integrate the exposition and story into sequences where the characters are performing an action so that you don’t notice the exposition as you have something visual to distract you and keep your attention while you’re watching the movie. The Old Guard doesn’t care about all your questions. It just thinks you should accept whatever it jams down your throat, no matter how goddamn unbelievable it is. They explain so little of what’s going on to Nile that after the halfway point, you might as well throw up your arms and forget everything you wanted to know about the group. They answer nothing at all, yet expect Nile to throw in her lot with them for however long she’ll be alive. What’s frustrating is that you have solid actors who could pull off the emotional angles of the hard decisions they chose to make as semi-immortal beings. It pisses me off that they don’t explain anything because the motivations are what make us all care about the characters. For instance, why become soldiers? No one said they had to fight for humanity, especially since they JUST heal wounds. They aren’t super fast or super strong. They could have very easily simply acquired wealth over the centuries and used that wealth to invest in things that help people. Why do they have to be fighters? Oh, right, because it’s cooler.
· Lazy writing. The number of plotholes in this thing, due in part to lack of explanation, is stunning. I mean, it’s just so goddamn fucking lazy. It doesn’t care about its own material. It just needs to get from Point A to Point B by taking the most shortcuts possible. I can’t handle how little the movie cares about its own content. I can go point by point for laziness. We can start with how no one wanted to ask Nile ANYTHING after she came back from the dead. They just got mad and scared, but they didn’t say anything when she was still on the military base. What the actual fuck is that? And they just left her alone afterward, expecting her to follow orders? Uh, that’s not how that works. Her friends would be asking her a billion questions and the medics would have asked her even more questions than that. She wouldn’t just be walking around of her own free will, especially not in this day and age where science is obsessed with figuring out the why of humanity. They’d have kept her locked up and started examining her the second she healed the neck wound. And that’s just right off the cuff. Don’t get me started on her five second “I don’t want to march in your parade” bullshit that is just so clearly the second act breakdown moment to have the hero come back and save them in the third act schtick. How is Nile somehow calling out Andy for killing those men in the church when she was LITERALLY a Marine, who is TRAINED TO KILL BAD PEOPLE???? That made NO sense. But again, this movie doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about fucking anything. Booker’s betrayal was painfully telegraphed and it was also another plothole, as Andy has been alive for thousands of years and would have felt that the weight of her gun would be off without its ammo. She also would’ve checked her rounds before going in hot. Then there’s even smaller details, like it being broad daylight when they’re brought into that lab and then they have a shootout but there’s NO ONE on the streets when they leave, but then they leave and THEN all the people magically reappear. Go fuck yourself. This movie is an insult to average intelligence. It just expects you to open up and swallow every bit of its bullshit over and over again, squandering its own potential. It’s so infuriating.
· Cliché placeholder dialogue. The dialogue is so unimaginative that I’m pretty sure a bot wrote it. You can tell beat for beat what’s going to happen fifteen minutes before it happens on-screen. The movie really does not think much of its audience. It doesn’t have a unique take on pretty much anything at all, which is a crying shame, really. There are plenty of juicy angles for character and action that they could have gone for and didn’t.
· Not enough time is spent getting to know anyone except for Andy, and even she is given drive-by characterization. Nile is a huge loss. As a black woman, I am always dying to see black women in science fiction/fantasy stories because there is a severe lack of representation. I was hoping Nile would get a bigger stake in everything, but she’s just a chess piece. The movie doesn’t delve into her life, her wants, her needs, basically anything at all. They mention her family repeatedly, but they don’t go into detail to make you care and understand what a loss it is to leave them behind. It’s especially shitty when her bonding with Booker could have been a great emotional moment. Their origins line up well. She could have had conversations with him, arguing that she should be allowed to tell her family or at least say goodbye, and Booker could share his own tragic backstory with her to explain why it’s better for them to remain solitary. Then his betrayal would have hit even harder. Then Nile would have felt personally betrayed. It’s so ridiculous that there is all this set up of pain and interesting backstories that the movie just flatout ignores. Especially Quynh. Quynh ’s story will haunt me for the rest of my days, personally, but even that was left as an untied thread. It’s clear from that pompous ending that there’s either already a sequel planned or in progress, but personally, this movie let me down so hard I hope it doesn’t happen. Not unless a much better filmmaker and writing team comes along. Quynh’s untied thread is a blatant show of how they still think they deserve your time after showing you how little they care about their own material. They introduced the idea and then abandoned it without fully exploring what it meant. It’s clear that her horrible fate is painful to them all, so not giving it the adequate time to be explored is just even more insulting to the audience.
· Lack of imagination. For instance, we have some Mark Zuckerberg-looking villain spouting the same tired dialogue from the idiot villain in the Venom movie. There also is no creativity in the action. We could have done some fun things utilizing their healing factors during fight sequences, but there’s not much to them. Just standard punches and kicks and headshots. Then there’s the boring dead wife betrayer guy who is inexplicably left alive after accusing said cartoony villain of murdering them. He has ALL the information to take to the CIA or FBI or just ANYONE IN GENERAL IN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES and they just bop him on the head and leave him there??? This movie doesn’t have a single original thought. It’s just regurgitating other clichés from much better movies.
I wanted this to be good. I wanted a break from 2020, but it’s clear that this year is unprecedented in how terrible it can get and how it doesn’t want us to enjoy anything. I wish I didn’t have to say these things about this movie, but I do. I honestly don’t think it’s worth a watch and that people should avoid it. It’ll inevitably do well because people don’t have anything better to do, but that’s still a shame. I’m so disappointed in all its wasted potential and I always will be.
Kyo out.
#The Old Guard#movie review#film review#spoilers#spoiler alert#Charlize Theron#new movie#new release#Netflix
2 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Eugene Botkin, 1916. Below is his last ever letter, written not long before he was murdered along with the Russian Imperial Family and three other servants on the 17th July 1918. Dr Botkin started this letter on 9th July 1918 but continued writing it on 17th July, when he heard the knock on his door, which was why letter ended abruptly. It was never finished or mailed. The letter was meant for his brother Alexander
“My dear, good friend Sasha, I am making the last attempt to write a real letter, - at least from here, - although this caveat is completely redundant; I do not think that it is in the cards for me to ever write from anywhere else again, - my voluntary imprisonment here is limited to my existence on this earth. In actuality, I have died – dead to my children, my friends, my work… I have died, but have not been buried yet, or rather was buried alive, - whichever you prefer: the consequences are almost identical, i.e. both one and the other have their negative and positive sides.
If I were literally dead, that is to say, anatomically dead, then according to my faith I would know what my children are doing, would be closer to them and undoubtedly more useful than now. I rest with the dead only civilly, my children may still have hope that we will see each other sometime in this life, while I, other than thinking that I can still be useful to them somehow, do not personally indulge myself with this hope, do not humour myself with illusions, but look directly into the face of unadorned reality.
Although for now, I am as healthy and fat as always, to a point where I feel disgusted every time I look in the mirror. I only console myself with the thought that if it would be easier for me to be anatomically dead, then this means that my children are better off, because when I am separated from them, it always seems to me that the worse off I am, the better off they are. And why do I feel that I would be better off dead, - I will explain this to you with small episodes, which illustrate my emotional being.
The other day, i.e. three days ago, when I was peacefully reading Saltykov-Schedrin, which I often read with pleasure, I suddenly saw the face of my son Yura in diminutive size, as if from far away, but [it was] dead, in a horizontal position, with closed eyes… The last letter from him was on 22 March o[ld] s[tyle], and since that time postal connection from the Caucasus, which even earlier faced great difficulties, probably stopped completely, as neither here nor in Tobolsk had we received anything else from Yura.
Do not think that I am hallucinating, I have had these types of visions before, but you can easily imagine, how it was for me to experience this particular thing in the current situation, which in general is quite comfortable, but to have no chance not only to go to Yura, but not even to be able to find out anything about him. Then, only yesterday, during the same reading, I suddenly heard some word, which to me sounded like ‘Papulya’, which was uttered in Tanyusha’s [his daughter Tatiana] voice, and I almost broke down in sobs.
Again, this was not a hallucination, because this word was uttered, the voice was similar, and not even for a second did I think that this was my daughter speaking, who was supposed to be in Tobolsk: her last postcard was from 23 May – 5 June, and of course these tears would have been purely egotistical, for myself, that I cannot hear and, most likely will never again hear that dear little voice and feel that affection that is so important to me, with which my little children spoiled me so. Again, the horror and sorrow which gripped me during the vision I described were purely egotistical too, since if my son had truly died, then he is happy, but if he is alive, then it is unknown what kind of trials he is going through or is fated to live through. So you see, my dear, that my spirit is cheerful, despite the torment I live through, which I bear, just described to you, and cheerful to a point where I am prepared to do this for many more years…
I am encouraged by the conviction that ‘one who bears all until the end is saved’, and the awareness that I remain loyal to the principles of the 1889 graduates. Before we graduated, while still students, but already close friends who preached and developed the same principals with which we started life, for the most part we did not view them from a religious point of view, I do not even know if too many of us were religious. But each codex of principals is a religion already, and for some it is most likely a conscious thing, while for others subconscious, - as it basically was for me, as this was the time of, not exactly uniform atheism, but of complete indifferentism, in the full sense of the word, - it came so close to Christianity that our full attitude toward it, or at least of many of us, was a completely natural transition. In general, if ‘faith is dead without work’, then ‘work’ cannot exist without faith, and if faith joins any of our work, then this is just due to special favour from God.
I turned out to be such a lucky one, through the path of heavy trials – the loss of my firstborn, the year-and-a-half-old little son Seryozha. Since that time, my codex has been widened and solidified significantly, and I took care that each task was not only about the ‘Academic’, but about the ‘Divine’. This justifies my last decision as well, when without any hesitation I left my children completely orphaned, in order to do my physician’s duty to the end, like Abraham did not hesitate to sacrifice his only son to God on His demand.
I strongly believe that the same way God saved Isaac, He will save my children too and be a father to them. But since I do not know how He will save them, and can only find out about it in the next world, my egotistic torment which I described to you, due to my human weakness, does not lose its torturous severity. But Job did bear more, and my late Misha always reminded me about him, when he was afraid that I, bereft of my dear little children, would not be able to bear it.
No, apparently I can bear it all, whatever God wills to burden me with. In your letter, for which I ardently thank you once more (the first time I tried to convey this in a few lines on a detachable coupon, hopefully you got it in time for the holiday, and also my physiognomy – for the other?), you were interested in my activities in Tobolsk, with a trust precious to me. And so? Putting hand on heart, I can confess to you that there, I tried in every way to take care of ‘the Divine, as the Lord wills’ and, consequently, ‘not to shame the graduates of year 1889′. And God blessed my efforts, and I will have until the end of my days this bright memory of my swan song.
I worked with my last strength, which suddenly grew over there thanks to the great happiness in the life [we had] together with Tanyusha and Glebushka [his son Gleb], thanks to the nice and cheerful climate and relative mildness of winter and thanks to the touching attitude towards me from the townspeople and villagers. As a matter of fact, in its center, albeit a large one, Tobolsk presents as a city that is very picturesquely located, rich with ancient churches, religious and academic institutions, [but] at the periphery it gradually and unnoticeably transitions into a real village. This circumstance, along with noble simplicity and the feeling of self-respect of Siberians, in my opinion gives the relationships among the residents and not visitors, the specific character of directness, naiveté and benevolence, which we always valued and which creates the atmosphere necessary to our souls.
In addition, various news spreads around the city very fast, the first lucky incidents for which God helped me be of use brought out such trust towards me, that the number of those wanting to get my advice grew with each day, up to my sudden and unexpected departure. Turning to me were mostly those with chronic illnesses, those who were already treated again and again, [and] sometimes, of course, those who were completely hopeless. This gave me the opportunity to make appointments for them, and my time was filled for a week or two ahead in each hour, as I was not able to visit more than six - seven, in extreme cases eight patients per day: since all these cases needed thorough review and much and much pondering.
Who was I called to besides those ill within my specialty?! To the insane, to those asking to be treated for drunkenness; [they] brought me to a prison to see a kleptomaniac, and with sincere joy I remember that the poor wretch of a lad, who was bailed out by his parents on my advice (they are peasants), behaved decently the rest of my stay… I never denied anyone, as long as the supplicants accepted that certain illnesses were completely beyond the limits of my knowledge. I only refused to go to those recently fallen ill if, of course, they needed emergency help, since, on the one hand I did not want to get in the way of regular physicians of Tobolsk, which is very lucky to have them in the capacity and most importantly, quality of relations.
They are all very knowledgeable and experienced people, excellent comrades and so responsive that the Tobolsk public is used to sending a horse or cabby to the doctor and receive him immediately. More valuable is their patience towards me, who did not have the ability to fulfill these types of requests, but on the contrary, was forced to make them wait a long time. It’s true that soon it became commonly known that I never refuse anyone and keep my word sacredly, a patient could wait for me with peace of mind.
But if their illness did not allow them to wait, then the patients went to local physicians, which always made me happy, or to Doctor Derevenko, who also possessed their vast trust, or they headed to the hospital, and this way it would happen that when I arrived at a time of prescheduled appointment, I did not find the patient there, but that was always convenient, since most of the time my schedule was so extensive that I wasn’t able to accomplish everything, at times debts formed, which I paid off when I did not find someone there.
To see [patients] at the house where I was staying was inconvenient, and anyway there was no room, nevertheless from 3 until 4 ½ - 5, I was always home for our soldiers, whom I saw in my room, the walk-through room, but since only our own [people] passed though there, it did not discomfort them. During the same hours, my town patients came to see me too, either for a refill of a prescription or to make an appointment. I was forced to make exceptions for peasants who came to see me from villages tens or even hundreds of versts away (in Siberia they don’t pay attention to distance), and who were in a hurry to get back. I had to see them in a small room before the bathroom, which was a bit out of the way, where a large chest served as an examining table.
Their trust was especially touching to me, and their confidence, which never betrayed them, that I will treat them with the same attention and affection as any other patient, not only as an equal but as a patient who has every right to my care and services, gave me joy. Those who were able to spend the night, I would visit at the inn early the next morning. They always tried to pay, but since I followed our old codex, of course I never accepted anything from them, so, while I was busy in an izba with a patient, they hurried to pay my cabby. This surprising courtesy, to which we are not used to at all in large cities, was occasionally highly pertinent, as at times I was not in a position to visit patients due to lack of funds and fast-growing cab costs.
Therefore, for our mutual benefit, I widely took advantage of another local tradition and asked those who had a horse, to send it for me. This way, the streets of Tobolsk saw me riding in wide bishop’s sleighs, as well as behind beautiful merchant trotters, but most often drowning in hay in most ordinary burlap. My friends were equally varied, which perhaps was not to everyone’s liking, but it was no concern of mine. To Tobolsk’s credit I must add that there was no direct evidence of this at all, and only one indirect, which in addition was not unquestionable.
One evening the husband of one of my female patients came to see me with a request to visit her right away, because she had strong pains (in the stomach). Luckily, I was able to fulfill his wish, albeit at a cost to another patient, for whom I did not schedule a visit, but rode with him to his house in a cab in which he came to get me. On the way he starts to grumble at the cabby, that he is not going the right way, to which the latter reasonably respon [letter ends abruptly].”
71 notes
·
View notes
Text
IAC Reviews #010: Blood Lake (1987) [Retrospective #2]
"...I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him...“
Over the years, I’ve been scowering the Internet trying to find the worst of the worst when it comes to horror movies. I guess you can call me a glutton for punishment in that regard since some movies need to be seen to be believed, rather than looked into as an example of what bad filmmaking looks like. Whether it’s a problem with the acting, the writing, the technical specs, or all of the above, you know you’re in for a good [or horrible] time if it checks one or more of those boxes. When it comes to bad horror movie lists, not just shot on video ones, one film in particular seems to rule them all as it’s hailed as one of the worst movies of all time, if not the worst horror film ever made. This time around, I’m making an ill-fated return to the Oklahoma to talk about Tim Boggs’ lone directorial credit, Blood Lake.
________________________________________
Blood Lake tells the story about a group of friends who are being stalked by a mad man while on a weekend getaway trip at the lake. It’s not the most original concept out there, but hey, what else is new? It’s interesting that this is Boggs’ only attempt at being a filmmaker and the rest of his credits are attributed to being part of the sound department for notable films and shows like Lost Highway, Tales From the Crypt, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and Legion. That’s a hell of a resume, but that’s not what we’re here to really discuss.
I heard about the notority of this for years, and I decided to take the plunge with it nearly five years ago where I live reviewed it for Under the Morgue. Needless to say, I didn’t have fun with it and I don’t think I ever ripped into a film that hard up until that point. With the anniversary date of that review coming up, I thought it would be fair to do a retrospect on this to see if it really lives up to how genuinely atrocious I thought it was all those years ago.
Blood Lake in One Gif:
I think I need to lay down for this one. Do you know that feeling of nostalgia you get when you see, hear, or smell something that really takes you back to a better time? Well, whatever the antithisis to that is would describe the seething rage and horror I felt re-watching this.
________________________________________
While it’s true that some movies need to be witnessed to truly understand how bad they are, it’s also fair to say that some things shouldn’t be known by mere mortals - and this absolutely applies to films like Ax’Em and Blood Lake. They’re as cut-and-dry and boring as they are in premise, and a train wreck of a travesty in execution at that.
The quality from a technical standpoint is pretty damn atrocious, particularly during some of the nighttime shots since it can be hard to tell what’s going on and it feels like you’re squinting the whole time trying to tell what you’re looking at. The sound is just as bad, though sometimes it fairs better than the visuals, even if a good chunk of the time you can’t tell what the hell anyone is saying because they’re either too far from the mic to be picked up or it’s a dialogue problem with everyone mumbling, talking over each other, or fumbling over their lines. IMDB says the sound was shot with a single shotgun microphone, and yeah...it kind of shows.
C’mon. Look at this and tell me you can figure out what the fuck all is going on.
The writing feels almost non-existent as Boggs encouraged the actors to paraphrase the dialogue in their own words to I guess make it feel more natural. However, with how clumsy things are, it’s hard to really tell how much was ad-libbed or done by the actors themselves. The total direction and set-up with the pacing is absolute garbage and some of the worst I’ve ever seen, as it’s padded out with gratuitously long shots of them doing things like “extreme” sports on the water or a scene of them drinking at a table that goes on for close to ten minutes. It feels like the director left the camera on a tripod and accidentally filmed their lunch break. People have said this feels like a glorified home movie, and I get why. I’ve ripped on Las Vegas Bloodbath for how bad the filler was during its third act; as well as the opening dance sequences and the yo mama jokes in the opening of Ax’Em for needlessly dragging things out, or even the flashback sequences in Nick Millard’s films - even if they don’t exist within the canon of the story. Hell, Sledgehammer does this too by slowing down scenes in order to pad it out to a 60 minute runtime after being told it was too short.
When it comes to the characters, they aren’t anything special and are mostly forgettable. With this camp, I designated them to one of two sides of the field; boring and awful. All of them I’ve mostly shoved over on the boring side, as they never really do anything noteworthy or special, so I wouldn’t be able to tell you their names off the top of my head for the most part. However, some of the guys do teeter on being awful and annoying as hell, but one character in particular stayed on the shit teir side of the spectrum from start to finish - which would be Tony.
Oh, god. Tony....
This guy right here. This motherfucker made watching this the first time around feel like a total chore. But the second time around, and willingly so, it was like pulling teeth to get me to finish.
I don’t mind weird, perverted, sleazy dickheads who show up now and again, but Tony is a special case because his entire shtick is being a weird creep to the point of giving off rapey vibes with the other guys over how his goal at the end of the weekend is to conquer some girl he goes to school with. Bro, you’re like twelve, shut the fuck up. It’s beyond cringe. It’s insufferable, and prior to this, I said over on Under the Morgue that Alan from Return to Sleepaway Camp was the most unsympathetic “protagonist” I had ever seen. But now, compared to him and the majority of the characters from Await Further Instructions, I don’t know who is the most grating to sit through - and I spent most of my time on that review talking about how the zero level of characterization makes it so hard to watch. In that review, I said I can appreciate a scummy character if they have any sort of secondary personality trait that makes you love to hate them, or at least makes them tolerable. With Tony, he’s just an annoying, pervy brat who I guess is about as comedic and charming as a trench foot infection.
It’s pretty damn rare that I see a movie where I root for the villain(s) from start to finish because I can’t stand the majority, if not all of the characters. So, having to recall how many times I wished Tony would have drowned within the first fifteen minutes or had a joint stubbed out in his damn eye has proved to be more enjoyable than the entirety of this shit show, since the only tail he should have been chasing was the tailpipe of the damn car he arrived in. I was honestly surprised we didn’t get any Summer Camp Nightmare moments given how much of a creep the twerp is, and I still am now.
The fact that this is called a slasher film feels like a cruel joke, since after the opening kill, the next murder doesn’t happen until close to the fifty minute mark in an 82 minute movie (78 minutes if you get rid of the credits). Plus, because of the abysmal quality, you can’t even see them clear enough to tell what’s happening. It’s so frustrating to feel like you’d get more out of the death scenes by closing your eyes the whole time. It’s up there with Ax’Em in terms of quality and how much it feels like they cheat you, which makes me wonder why bother at all if it’s possible you can’t even see what’s going on when you were editing the damn thing?
________________________________________
So, here we are at the dreaded moment where I close this off with how I’d rate this. Is it as bad as I remember it being? Yes, if not more so. I had to pause and walk away from it for a bit to cool off and do something else because it was so tedious sit through.
It just goes on, and on, and on, which was only made worse by obnoxious characters that were a total hassle to put up with who could have been reduced to Douchebag #1, Generic Girl #2, and Rattail Motherfucker #1 based on how little they actually did to make me want to remember their names - and the ones who did were the most insufferable of the lot that I couldn’t forget them even if I wanted to. There’s little to no actual blood and gore, and with the very little there was, it was completely wasted in scenes that you can’t see clearly which is a damn shame because one of the kills could have had a decent reveal if it was shot better.
If I had to say just one good thing about the film to be generous, not counting that it had some kind of a reachable end, it was the mediocre soundtrack supplied by the band Voyager. It’s not good at all, but hey, if you like cheesy 80s horror soundtracks, there’s that going for it...I guess. With all that being said, I never want to see this disaster ever again. I’m trying to wrap my head around how people genuinely like this, even in a so bad it’s good type of way, and I just don’t get it. This, for me, is arguably one of the worst horror movies I’ve ever seen, and probably ever will.
RATING: 0.5/10
youtube
#blood lake#sov#sov horror#shot on video#shot on video horror#80's horror#80s horror#horror movie#horror movies#horror film#slasher#film#horror#movie review#film review#iac reviews
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
DC Superhero Girls 2019 Bumble Bee Doll Review
Hi all! I thought I’d do a review of the new line of DCSG’s dolls. I per-ordered all 7 new dolls several months ago, and they were suppose to come out June 1st, but seeing how there were no new pictures of them anywhere online and the Amazon listing that I had used to order them in the first place kept saying they were unavailable I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to receive them or if the release date was pushed back and they just never updated their listing; but nope! Here’s Bumble Bee! Almost 2 weeks late, but at least she came. My account was charged for the other 6 dolls as well, and I’ll try to do a review on them when they finally show up. (That could be another week or two...)
But anyway, Let’s get to it:
Here we’ve got the back of her box, featuring a very short blurb about Bumble Bee/Karen Bleecher and the rest of the dolls in “wave 1″.
Here she is straight out of her box with everything she comes with; just the doll, which tbh I kind of figured she wouldn’t come with anything else.
Now we have her back side straight out of the box.
Both her wings can rotate 360 degrees and they have sparkles inside the plastic. They can’t be removed.
The googles on her mask can move up and down. Her helmet is kept in place with plastic ties and clear rubber bands which obviously weren’t put on straight as her mask is crooked. You could probably get it to fit better if you undid the ties, but I’m not going to.
In this closeup of her face you can see that her-right/our-left eye has some very noticeable paint smudges; there is a black mark coming out from the middle of her eye and some white paint off to the side of her eye as well as her-left/our-right eye having some green paint running down her face. With three decently sized defects on the face of the doll it’s a wonder how she made it through quality control. Seeing how this is the first doll to arrive and thus my first impression of the line this is not a great way to start. If you’re really picky about these types of things I’d recommend waiting to try and find them in stores and hopefully they’re not all this bad.
Otherwise, she does have a pretty face.
Her hair is a mix of brown, lighter brown and electric yellow streaks. It looks like it has a slight wave, but that’s probably just from being in the box. I doubt they attempted to actually give their only curly haired doll, curly hair.
Her boots can come off to reveal her super tiny feet. She can stand on her own while wearing the boots, but not without them. Her feet aren’t perfectly flat and to have a slight incline. (She could wear the world’s shortest heels.)
Her “gantlets” can be removed too, to show that she does have wrist articulation. I’m not sure if her hands are suppose to be removable or not, she doesn’t come with instructions and the box didn’t say you could remove them, so I’m not going to risk it. Her wrist joints are actually pretty good. It’s a shame that she didn’t have elbows or knees. She also has one molded “gripped” hand and one “free” hand. Gen 1 Bumble Bee had this hand set too and I’m not sure why because neither of them come with anything to hold.
Her outfit is made out of REALLY CHEAP feeling material. I’m not an expert on identifying fabric, so I have no idea what it’s called but it feels like the type of material you would find on a dollar store or bootleg doll.
Her outfit can be removed to show her skin colored torso. Unlike the Gen 1 dolls, the Gen 2 dolls (or at least Bumble Bee) don’t seem have molded on underwear.
Her outfit has two Velcros in the back with a hole for her wings.
Just for fun, here we have my Gen 1 Bumble Bee next to Gen 2 Bumble Bee. Gen 1 is quite a bit taller than Gen 2, as well as having painted accessories, a full outfit, full articulation, a student ID card........
Now here’s a side by side of their faces. You can tell that Gen 1 was going for a much more realistic look, while Gen 2 went for a more cartoonish style. I have to admit that I prefer Gen 2′s lip color.
I’m not quite sure if you can tell from these pictures, but Gen 1 is actually a few shades darker than Gen 2 which was something I was wondering about given how Gen 2 Bumble Bee is lighter in the show than Gen 1 is, so I was wondering if it transferred over to the dolls, which it did.
I was also wondering about the differences in their hair, they both have a mix of brown and lighter brown hair but as you can see Gen 1 Bumble Bee doesn’t have the additional electric yellow streaks. Also while her hair isn’t super curly, Gen 1′s doll at least put some effort into giving us the curl that the character has in all other forms of media, unlike Gen 2 which put in no effort what so ever to get her hair looking anywhere close to the way it looks in all other forms of media that she is in, including the box art of this very doll.
BFFs ♥
In the end, she was only 10$ and if she had a better face paint and actual curls, I’d be ok with it. As it stands however, I don’t know if I’d recommend her. It feels like Mattel just tried to do the bare minimum, and couldn’t even do that given the fact that they thought it was ok to send customers products with very visible paint defects; and if you add on the fact that Gen 1 Bumble Bee was retailing for only 3-5$ more and has curls, painted accessories, good quality fabric clothing, a removable wing backpack, full articulation (plus she has that “athletic” muscular body) and adding on the fact that I also bought my Gen 1 Bumble Bee online and she has no visible paint defects... I’d honestly recommend that you try to pick up one of her instead while you still can if you’re interested in a Bumble Bee doll. She’s going for under 15$ right now on Amazon.
#dc super hero girls#dc superhero girls#dcshg#bumblebee#dolls#dc superhero girls 2019#dc super hero girls 2019
23 notes
·
View notes
Text
Layers of Fear 2 Review (2019)
What am I going to do with you, Bloober Team? You’ve done it again. Your last two games, the first Layers of Fear and Observer, fell into the same trap. They each had interesting storylines. Layers of Fear was about an artist descending into madness following his wife’s tragic accident. Observer was a sci-fi story about a cop that could hack into people’s brains. Both great premises for stories that didn’t quite translate into the gameplay. Problem is, stories like that are creepy enough as a premise, but making them actually scary? That’s something else.
Same sort of story for Layers of Fear 2, really. Interesting premise but functionally? It’s a game about opening drawers and running away from weird, glitching men. It sounds like I’m doing the game a disservice, which I kind of am. In spite of the decent premise, which I’ll spend some time praising, I still don’t really like Layers of Fear 2. And it’s a damn shame, the same sort of shame I felt before this. Bloober Team’s imagination is what keeps me coming back time and again but they need to sit down and talk over their gameplay.
Moaning aside, for the moment, let’s talk about the best part of Layers of Fear 2, the premise. A famous actor is invited to take part in a film shoot aboard a cruise liner. The film is helmed by a notably eccentric director, who forces his crew to use method acting. For those that don’t know, method acting is where actors basically live out the lives of their characters off camera. They get into the minds of the character so they can better portray them. It’s a controversial method, not least because of how mad it makes you seem.
It does pose an interesting question, one that Layers of Fear 2 tries to explore. Is it possible for an actor to get so into a character that they lose themselves in the process? It’s a good question, that has a lot of horror potential. You’ve got the breaking down of the self and the replacement of this other, with both sides conflicting. Couple that with the cruise liner setting, which has the wonderful element of not really being able to escape, and you have a lot of potential. Unfortunately though, things start to get muddled as you go on.
Bloober Team love taking things out of order or showing you disjointed metaphors, while letting you put together the pieces. Usually this is a nice move, as it adds to the sense of disorientation, but here it just makes things hard to follow. There are times where it starts mixing in filming techniques with real life, which is great, but it soon starts to delve into out of place film references. I honestly don’t think a Wizard of Oz reference really fits in here and felt a bit like they were trying to flex their film knowledge at times. As a result of all this, things can be a little hard to follow.
For starters, I wasn’t sure, for a good while, who the protagonist was supposed to be playing. There are two possibilities: a boy and a girl who stowed away on the ship. We explore their tragic backstory and go through their relationship together. It’s fairly well pieced together but it doesn’t quite give enough information to really figure out, personally at least, just what had happened to whom. Also, the protagonist wasn’t given a personality at all, so it was hard to take the subtext of losing yourself seriously, even when the ending put a lot of emphasis on it. Much like the middle-of-the-road ending I received, due to the choices I made throughout, the whole thing feels rather muddled and indistinct.
What doesn’t help is that it’s a horror game. Entering your game into that genre comes with a few rules and, in general, the first rule is that it has to be scary. Layers of Fear 2 isn’t but labours so hard to be that it kind of gets in the way of everything else. It has a strange love of mannequins, for example, to the point where it quite literally throws them at you. Mannequins have the potential for a lot of symbolism but it overuses them to the point of annoyance. More interesting, horror wise, is the changing architecture - a staple of the series. It’s used a little more sparingly than the original, which makes it more effective.
It also changes your surroundings depending on where you are in the story. By the end, the cruise ship had sunk and had clearly been sunk for many years. Everything was underwater, grimy and covered in barnacles. It was great. It’s just a shame that exploring this ship is rather tedious. The bulk of it is just walking from place to place, opening drawers and getting keys, while the story talks to you. Broken up by some thoroughly out of place, and uninspired, chase sequences by a monster who has appropriate symbolism but is so (deliberately) glitchy and awkward that it’s difficult to be scared by it. I’m not really freaked out by big, gloopy, glitchy men.
As I said before, Bloober Team have done it again. The usual good qualities are here. It looks great (when it doesn’t push everything into black and white) and, for what little gameplay there is, it’s smooth to play. It’s about ninety percent a walking simulator, mind, and has all the usual problems that a game like that has. It does have a good setting and a nice premise and it sprinkles in some good lore here and there. The backstory of the two kids is suitably tragic and there are some passable metaphors about that. All of this ends in an intriguing ending, even I did end up with the most unsatisfying one.
Unfortunately, the problems with the gameplay mean I’m not too keen on replaying it. It began to feel like a slog; the bulk of the game being fodder between choice segments. These choices are great, as you either follow the director or rebel, and these film segments blend in with the madness. But the abundance of mannequins, used poorly, and the dull - and often frustrating due to the scenery all looking the same - chase sequences pull me out of the game too much. Like I said about Layers of Fear, and Observer, Layers of Fear 2 is an interesting and well thought out premise dragged down by poor execution. As a result, Layers of Fear 2 is like listening to an intelligent, yet rather dull, man give a lecture on film history, while he occasionally stops to slap you round the face.
Pros
-Nice premise, surrounding a method actor
-Some decent lore throughout
-Good setting
-Looks nice
Cons
-Overuses the monochrome
-Core gameplay is dull
-Gets very muddled around the middle
-Chase sequences are awful
Layers of Fear 2
Developer: Bloober Team
Publisher: Gun Media
Release Date: 28th May 2019
Play it on: PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4
Played on: PC
#Layers of Fear 2#Layers of Fear#Observer#Bloober Team#Games#Gaming#Video Games#Tea And Video Games#Review#2019#Horror#Survival Horror#Windows#Xbox One#PlayStation 4
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
Game Review : Space Raiders
Sinclair ZX81 / Sinclair Research/Psion/Mikro-Gen / 1982 / Originally £3.95
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the golden age of cover art.
Good artists borrow, great artists steal. A comment that is often associated with the late Steve Jobs about his appropriating the GUI concept from Xerox PARC in the 1980s. It’s not an unromantic ideal - the young upstart company taking a technology from another, bigger organisation that had gold on its hands but didn’t know it.
Except Steve Jobs didn’t come up with the quote. He said as much in Triumph of the Nerds when interviewed. He didn’t claim to be the father of the modern GUI either; he just happened to see the potential of putting a low(er)-cost computer in the hands of the public that had a GUI.
The early days of the computing revolution were a kleptomaniac’s dream; intellectual property was respected, however it was done very much in a homage sense, rather than a paying-a-licencing-fee-and-doing-an-official-conversion sense.
Bedroom coders everywhere were getting in on the action, developing home versions of popular arcade titles, safe in the knowledge that Atari, Taito or Namco would not send the lawyers after them. After all, this was the early 1980s. Most of the time these companies didn’t know the kids were making these clones in the first place.
So, enter Space Raiders published by Sinclair Research. No prizes for guessing which arcade machine is being ripped-off here. It seems rather pointless to go through the gameplay; it’s so famous after 40 years of public consciousness that going through the mechanics of the game would seem a waste of time.
Let battle commence!
This version does not deviate too far from the golden formula. Some features are missing, like the bonus saucer craft that you can shoot. That said, alien ships come down the screen, and you with your moving gun must defend. Clear the screen and it continues. Over and over and over until they finally manage to land or you lose all of your lives.
Or get bored and unplug the computer.
Or stand up, knock the desk causing the memory expansion on your ZX81 to wiggle and the machine to promptly crash.
So, with the game being so ubiquitous, it’s difficult to stand out without ‘ruining’ the pure Space Invaders experience. Also, at the time there was little need to; this game would come at a time when recreating the arcade was impossible on home machinery - the Atari 2600 might have been the reference hardware for the home in the US, but even that could not hope to live up to the experience you’d get shoving small change into arcade machines. Though you could get some distance to replicating the feel by turning the lights off, have your younger brother spit out his half-eaten sweets on the floor near the machine to make the carpet nice and sticky and get your Mum to shout at you “This is a cafe, not a change machine. If you want change for those bloody machines you’ll have to buy something you little prick. They should bring back conscription. You’d learn some proper respect!” each time you ventured from the gloom into the kitchen.
Your shot is the upper case I, the alien bomb is the *. Interestingly neither you nor your foe can fire again until the projectiles hit their mark or whizz off the screen.
While released by Sinclair in 1982, the game is actually the older Space Invaders coded by Mikro-Gen in 1981. That release had the usual (for the time) monochrome packaging and was not available on shop shelves as games would come to be. The Sinclair release sees the title packaged with another, Bomber, a Blitz variant on the B-side of the cassette. Sinclair seemed to have worked with Psion (later of Organiser fame), who developed the ZX Spectrum version of Space Raiders to bring a similar game to the ZX81 at the same time. Shame that Psion did little more than just recycle an old title.
Buying it today
There are two versions - the ZX81 and Spectrum. The covers are more or less identical, so it’d be easy to get the two mixed up if you were not too careful.
The Spectrum version seems to be the more prevalent on auction sites. The ZX81 version reviewed here was not produced in as great numbers and so commands a higher price. Prices do vary from £10 to £50 depending on condition and how gullible the seller thinks people are. Expect to be able to get it for the lower end of these two figures at the present time.
Note that there is a cartridge version for the Spectrum. These are quite rare and can cost around the £60 mark. If you end up with that, well done. Now you just need to find a ZX Interface 2 so you can play it.
Commentariat
Tim : I’m going to be straight with you. This was the first game that I ever played, so my opinion of the game is really tinted. Back when I first got my ZX81, I absolutely loved it and played it for hours and hours. One particularly epic game was played at the end of the day with the prospect of bed-time looming. I made it count, going further than ever before; my parents, failing to understand the seismic nature of what they had just seen, sent me to bed instead of cracking open the champagne.
Playing it again, I can’t pretend it’s not a disappointment; it certainly isn’t how I remember it, but in these situations, it never is...
Graphically it’s not impressive, even for the ZX81; the coders could really have got more out of the hardware especially as game requires a 16k expansion in order to play the game. That said, it certainly plays well enough. It is harder than other Space Invaders clones out there, but it kind of has to be to ensure you get your money’s worth, which probably says more about the higher quality of the opposition than anything else.
The hardness kept me coming back for more when I first had it, but given that it was this, Bomber or the ICL “Fun to Learn” educational series tape that my folks had bought me in the vain hope I’d learn geography from the computer, it was an easy market to please. Now, it can grip me enough to play it, but the longevity isn’t there.
So is there much to recommend it today? Sadly no. A trip down memory lane, but not a particularly good one.
Pop : Ah, gaming on the ZX81… a tricky proposition on the painful and unresponsive keyboard. If you’ve never experienced it, try to imagine using the buttons on your microwave to play your PS4. Luckily this game of space invaders can be enjoyed at a slow pace! I can’t honestly remember if it was this or another invaders clone I played back in the day, but it’s barely passable fodder for the ‘81. Space Invaders is already a simple game, so leaving out stuff like the saucer is and the invaders speeding up as they get fewer is criminal. At least the bunkers are all present and correct. Still, I’d have happily played this back in may games-starved youth. If you’re going to (re)visit the machine today, check out something like 3D Defender or even better 3D Monster Maze...
Meat : Really, have we reached the bottom of the barrel this quickly? In some ways I jest, but really you’d only want to play this for nostalgia’s sake. Given that it needs a 16k expansion to run, I’d want to have something far better than this. Even for the time. It’s not that the aliens don’t traverse the screen properly sometimes. It’s not the missing saucer bonus alien. It’s not the absence of sound (which I can forgive - you can’t magic up sound from a machine with no ability to generate it). It’s not the lack of bitmap graphics. It’s just that in 16k you’d expect them to do something half decent. Like redefine a character set. For heaven’s sake, they could squeeze a game of chess into 1k at the same time, so I expect better here.
There is so little recommend this today. A couple of goes and the fun is exhausted. Unless you are a collector, save your money and head for better titles on the machine. If you really must have a Space Invaders clone from the era, try Avenger for the Vic 20. Hell, even the dull Atari 2600 Space Invaders cart is better than this.
Score card
Presentation 6/10
At a time when a photocopied inlay with a dour pencil drawing was the norm, the cover was incredibly stylish and smart. Seriously, look at it!
Originality 2/10
Sadly it can’t score highly here. Even in 1982 Space Invaders clones were ‘me too’ products.
Graphics 2/10
Uses the inbuilt graphics character set - plenty of scope (and memory) to do something else, even without a bitmap display.
Hookability 7/10
Plays well and draws you in quickly and effectively.
Sound N/A
The ZX81 has no sound output so unsurprisingly, neither does the game.
Lastability 3/10
While it hooks you in, at the end of the day it’s still ‘just’ Space Invaders. While tough, the missing features means there isn’t the depth to bring you back too often.
Value for Money 5/10
Will give you a fair amount of fun, even with its’ drawbacks. Plus there is a second game - Bomber - on side B.
Overall 4/10
You will get some fun out of it on your ZX81 but if you’re emulating, it’s not really worth the effort, sadly. Nostalgia will only get you so far. If you must play Space Invaders on a ZX81, try QS Invaders.
#zx81#sinclair#sinclair zx81#afg#antiquesforgeeks#retrogaming#retrocomputing#retro#videogames#space invaders#space raiders#retro review#review
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 CF APO Review: So. Much. Bokeh.
Venus Optics’ Laowa lenses have been growing in both notoriety and popularity over the last few years thanks to their nearly constant stream of new and interesting optics for a wide variety of mounts. The company’s latest is backed by the high-quality promise of its new Argus line: the Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 CF APO for APS-C systems.
The incredibly fast $500 50mm equivalent manual lens boasts an Apochromatic (APO) design — which should prevent or correct any chromatic and spherical aberrations — and is targeted at video shooters using APS-C systems. APS-C sensors generally means smaller optics, but the Argus bucks that trend and is by no means small. Weighing in at 590 grams (~20.8 ounces), you’ll definitely notice it making your camera a tad front heavy when attached on pretty much all modern APS-C cameras.
As for using with it, since my own work focuses mostly on still images instead of video (and PetaPixel as a whole focuses on still photography first and foremost), this review will be mostly from the perspective of a still shooter.
Build Quality and Design
The 33mm Argus is a great feeling lens with a solid metal build and mount giving it a “high-end” feel. Even though this lens is meant for smaller APS-C systems, the lens looks and feels just like its bigger cinema counterparts. The lens itself is quite sturdy with a smooth “clickless” aperture and focus ring, a sleek blue ring at the end of the barrel, and is finished with a rectangular lens hood for a little cinematic flair. The focus ring has just enough tension to feel a little resistance when making adjustments, while the aperture ring is left feeling slightly looser by comparison. Overall though, it’s wonderfully machined and feels great.
The only thing that threw me off on the aesthetic was the lens hood. Maybe my review sample is an outlier, but for some reason, it just does not sit symmetrically on the lens. That is to say, it sat just ever so slightly skewed to the right, and while this had absolutely zero impact on the shots I took, this tilt just kicked my OCD into overdrive and drove me crazy every time I had it mounted on the lens. It bothered me to such a degree that I just did not end up using it.
Focus and Aperture
Like many of the Laowa lenses in Venus Optics’s lineup, the 33mm f/0.95 Argus is a manual focus lens only. After weeks of using and testing cameras that specifically tout the speed of their autofocus systems, using this manual lens was actually kind of refreshing. Enabling focus peaking is a must when shooting at such wide-open apertures as the f/0.95 offered here, but even then, simply breathing can make you miss the shot so, be prepared to fire a few extra frames in order to assure you’ve nailed that perfect focus.
youtube
A bit of a frustrating point with this lens is despite the large and smooth focusing ring, there is an excessive amount of throw in it.
I practically have to stop and take a break every time I’d adjust from near to far focusing. You effectively have to rotate the focus ring almost entirely around (270 degrees) to go from the close 0.35 meter to infinity focus. If this were in a cinema rig that takes advantage of a pulling unit, this wouldn’t be an issue, but most shooters will definitely have to take two twists when quickly adjusting focus distance and likely you’ll miss some key moments if you’re shooting anything that’s not sitting still.
youtube
The extra pull does have some usefulness when you’re focusing up close as it allows you to really fine tune things, but if you’re using it as more of a walkabout lens, get working on your forearm strength.
As I mentioned above, the aperture ring is clickless which is ideal for video and will work great if the lens is mounted in a focus pulling kit or gimbal, but as a photographer, it was incredibly easy to accidentally shift the f-stop without immediately noticing. There were countless times while using this lens that I would set it to f/0.95 and it would shift to f/1.4 or f/2.8 by accident and I wouldn’t see it until I reviewed the shots. While I can see that having a clickless aperture is hugely useful in some cases, I think Laowa would have been better served giving us a click and de-click switch to make the lens more versatile like Sony does with its lenses. When in permanent de-clicked mode, it just feels like a cinema lens and not one that is tailored for photographers, which is a shame given the quality of images (more on that below).
Image Quality
How does this lens perform, especially considering the APO designation they claim? While we have not directly compared it yet to Mitakon or 7artisans rivals, from what I did shoot with the lens I found it to be surprisingly good, especially wide open in hard lighting situations. It was rather windy when I did some of the floral shots so nailing the focus was a challenge wide open, but the images were still pretty sharp and clean in the corners stepped up to f/2.8 but beyond that things got a little soft.
Does it perform the best here? No, but let’s be real: people don’t buy f/0.95 lenses for sharp images edge to edge at all apertures. They buy them for that super dreamy bokeh to draw attention to a subject that is very likely more centrally located in the frame. If it’s decently sharp there, that’s a win when the quality of the defocused area is nearly as important as what is in focus. While you can stop down with a lens like this, it’s not why you get one.
And speaking of those defocused areas, the bokeh on this lens is the reason to get it: it’s so dang nice. I did not notice any glaring rings or harsh spotting and only appreciated a soft, buttery goodness that the bokeh-addicts will absolutely love. I can see the Argus being used to create some incredibly dreamy portraits and even more interesting texture-driven and printable works of art.
The Apochromatic design of the lens supposedly ensures less color fringing and a much better color performance overall when compared to other fast lenses of similar focal length and aperture. This does not mean it will be sharper, only that you can expect better color accuracy in those extra shallow depth of field moments. Will there be vignetting when shooting wide open? Absolutely, but nothing unfamiliar and unexpected from a lens this shallow. The difference from the center to the corner edge is maybe about a stop of light when shooting closer objects and about two stops when shooting wide open for “landscape” images, but in both scenarios, the loss is easily recoverable in post.
Sample Images
Things I Liked
Gorgeous bokeh
Solid metal body and lens hood
Smooth focus ring
Sharper than I expected
Chromatic abberation was minimal
Great when set in a focus/aperture pulling kit for video
Affordable price for a nifty fifty equivalent lens at f/0.95
Things I Didn’t Like
Heavier than I expected for an APS-C lens
Clickless Aperture ring seems like a cool idea, but is frustrating in practice
The amount of focus throw is almost obscene
Crooked Lens hood drove me crazy
Great for video, iffy for still work
Super Bokeh, But Is It Useful For Still Work?
The Laowa Argus 33mm f/0.95 CF APO is the company’s first entry in its series of “high quality” lenses under the Argus branding. It seems like a fantastic lens for videographers and is definitely a good sign of things to come from the company. While there are a few things I did not enjoy about this lens — the tilted lens hood, the amount of focus throw, and the “loose” aperture ring that would occasionally mess up my shots — I still think it can be a fantastic addition to have in your APS-C kit. This opinion leans even more positive if you’re a video shooter. For photographers specifically, its quirks can be annoying, but perhaps worth it for the bokeh it produces.
Are there Alternatives?
This lens is rather unique in its positioning with its only real rivals being similar lenses from Mitakon and 7artisans which have pretty good reputations for the most part. Venus Optics claims its control of aberrations is superior and has many samples to back that up, but it will be up to you to decide based on the images I show here and any samples the company has shared.
Should You Buy It?
Yes, for the most part. If you are a hybrid shooter that does both video and stills, then the Laowa Argus CF 33mm f/0.95 APO lens would definitely be a welcome addition to your kit for only $500. On the other hand, if you focus solely on stills, there are other options out there with autofocus that will treat you better for “in the moment” and action-based shooting situations. You’ll just have to settle for f/1.4 or f/1.8 and miss out on some of that extra bokeh found here.
from PetaPixel https://ift.tt/3nZHFnb
0 notes
Text
Armor Bird Reviews: Deadpool 2
If you'll excuse the cringeworthy wordplay to start us off, I've been dying harder than a mook at Wade Wilson's mercy to see the Deadpool sequel, and I finally got my wish last weekend. The first movie is as of now my favorite in the X-Men film canon, and this is coming from somebody who's seen most if not all of the movies over the years and really enjoyed both Days of Future Past and Apocalypse. However, Deadpool topped them both by quite a margin by not only rerailing the Merc with a Mouth, but also using quite a bit of self-deprecation among other humor to blow a mile-wide hole in the fourth wall. So, was Deadpool 2 able to outdo the first film in terms of quality and humor? The spoilerific answer is under the cut!
Deadpool 2 starts off... pretty badly, actually. There is definitely humor and a bit of a jab at the ending of Logan - the film literally opens with a music box shaped like the dead Wolverine, in fact - and we get to see the Merc turn himself to ludicrous gibs literally within minutes of the studio titles. Fine and dandy for an introductory sequence, right? But then we get to see why he blew himself up: someone shot Vanessa while he and his gang broke into Wade's apartment. That... that's not how I wanted to start us off. It was a disappointment to me especially since Vanessa actually gains powers in the comics and I'd have wanted to see that play out in a Deadpool sequel, rather than her getting fridged less than ten minutes in. For reasons I'll get to much later in this review, the impact actually wasn't as bad as Mako Mori getting fridged in Pacific Rim: Uprising - which was in its entirety a bitter disappointment for my taste; I seriously hope a third PR movie does get made after all that fixes what this one made such a huge mess of, but I digress. Having Vanessa's death solely be for the sake of Deadpool's development was an upset I worried would detract from the rest of the movie. I even saw it coming, actually - Wade's narration mentions that like other family movies, which he insists this film is an example of, it starts with "a vicious murder"... definitely not him, but with nobody else significant other than Vanessa and her bringing up an interest in having children early on, I just knew it would end badly for her. Again, I'll get back to her later, but her fate left a sour taste in my mouth and I seriously hoped what followed made up for it.
To my surprise - and to my surprise, to my pleasant surprise - Deadpool's quest to do something decent for once, while undermined a little by his love interest's demise, combined the standard dose of fourth-wall-breaking antics, that continent-wide streak of dark black comedy that only Deadpool could deliver, and an impressive degree of character development while still keeping Wade a demented, murderous flock-head who only endears us because of his deceptively sophisticated sense of humor. Even in-universe, a brief cameo by some of the other X-Men demonstrates that with the exception of Colossus, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and the newly introduced Yukio (who I would later find out also showed up in The Wolverine but in a different timeline and portrayed completely differently), nobody wants anything to do with him whenever he shows up at the mansion. And yet he still charmed us all in spite of all of that. I don't know how the heck he does it - perhaps it's his casual transition between talking with the characters and the audience, and vice versa, or maybe it's his self-deprecation and acknowledgement that he's a total a-hole, or maybe it's both at once. But he remains as quotable and memetic as ever in this movie while also learning valuable life lessons about caring for others, which makes him as strong a protagonist as the first time around while still making his character arc here more distinct and special.
By the same token, the film does a good job of making it seem like there's a main antagonist - the spotlight is put on Vanessa's murderer, Cable, that mutant-hating preacher who abused Russel/Firefist, Russel himself, and Juggernaut, in that order - but ultimately having the main conflict being Deadpool trying to do good for both the world and himself without vivisecting people the way he usually does. There's no major threat to Wade in this movie apart from his own inner struggles, including wanting to see Vanessa in the afterlife, wanting to protect Russel from Cable (who is himself slightly mistaken), and wanting to punish those who abused Russel while not inciting him to go down the dark path Cable was trying to prevent in the first place. Likewise, Russel himself wants vengeance against the preacher who tortured him, but if he kills him he'll start wanting to kill more people and cause the bad future that Cable didn't want, so it's down to Deadpool to get him to see sense. Deadpool's ever-present rival, Colossus, also comes to terms with the nobility of the Merc's intentions, and even gets to loosen up and try out his more vulgar approach to life for once. And even Cable himself, who seems like a villain in the second act of the movie, ultimately comes to understand that you don't have to kill people to prevent a dark future and acts accordingly to help Deadpool. The main theme of the movie is that reckless violence only begets reckless violence, and that breaking the cycle can be difficult - it takes a selfless act from Deadpool himself to do the trick in this case - but the act of caring for others, so complicated and yet so simple, is a more sustainable solution than selfishly acting on your own interests. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the world could learn from Wade's example if only it took the time to listen.
I've rambled long enough about this movie without getting into the supporting characters as well as the blatant (and bitingly subversive) attempt at making it an X-Force pilot. The marketing played up the characters recruited by Deadpool to rescue Russel to the point where some of the trailers even included scenes featuring them that weren't in the final film (and may have even been made specifically to throw off the public). With one exception, not one of them even survives long enough to participate in said rescue - Bedlam gets hit by a bus, Shatterstar is shredded by helicopter rotors, Zeitgeist goes feet-first into a woodchipper... Even Peter the memetic ordinary guy dies trying to help that last one, though he and the aforementioned exception are also the only members of the group to make it out in the long term. Only Domino, thanks to her luck power, manages to not only stick the landing but be an awesome character from that point forward. Now, I know that weaponized luck ability sounds Suvian, and if written badly it is. But if a line from Domino when the gang gets to the orphanage where Russel was kept is any indication, she used to live there as a kid - and who knows if she was tortured like Russel was. Exploring the problems of her ability, both in her troubled past and in the present day, could be an interesting avenue to explore in her future appearances. It also doesn't hurt that Deadpool actually throws shade at her luck ability for not being photogenic, even though the Disaster Dominoes she causes allow her to get to Russel with ease. Come to think of it, a further way of deconstructing her luck could be having her eventually become aware of the collateral damage it could cause to others, and try to rectify this oversight before she ends up getting lucky at the cost of someone else's life (Maybe she already has and hasn't realized it? I can't tell). Ultimately, Domino is my second favorite character in this movie aside from the Merc himself, and I hope to see more of her in future X-Men installments.
So, where will the third Deadpool movie go now that Vanessa is dead? Well... Towards the end of the movie, Cable used the one remaining charge of his time-travel device to retroactively save Deadpool, by using the same skee-ball token he'd taken from Wade earlier as a pocket protector for its owner (previously he'd taken a bullet shot by Cable himself to save Russel and demonstrate his hidden altruism). In a mid-credits stinger, Negasonic and Yukio fix the device... and give it to Wade by mistake. Whereupon the Merc proceeds to abuse its power to undo the deaths of Vanessa and Peter (along with two old shames of Ryan Reynolds' that I won't spoil even here), meaning that surprise, Vanessa escapes the fridge after all! I honestly should've seen this coming, but unlike with the Time Stone in Avengers: Infinity War, Cable's device never was played up as a means of setting right what had gone wrong in Deadpool's history, so the stinger was a bit of a curveball for me at least. Still, it was a massive relief in hindsight that Vanessa's death was undone, since that means she'll have more room for development in the third Deadpool movie. I'd still want to see her develop superpowers of her own (I think she had shapeshifting in the comics) and ultimately end up fighting alongside her fiancee, and in fact that could be the exact conflict of the third movie if I were to guess - his coaching her through her new life and the complications that both of them being superheroes (well, super-anti-hero in Wade's case) would bring to their relationship. Fridging her in this movie was a mistake, even if it was temporary, but unlike with poor Mako Mori, there is at least a very good chance that the upcoming third film could more than make up for it, and I really hope Vanessa gets a much bigger spotlight in said third film than in this one, because gosh darn it, she needs and deserves it. On a slightly unrelated note, I'm also hopeful that Yukio gets more screentime, especially considering her lovable personality and relationship with Negasonic (major props to the producers for the same-sex pairing representation!), and as with Vanessa, I hope she gets a bigger role and becomes more pivotal to whatever shenanigans Deadpool gets involved with next time he hits the big screen.
As a re-railing of Wade's character, and as the first R-rated X-Men installment, the first Deadpool already did set a pretty high bar, especially since its production was super troubled and it was only after several shake-ups in 20th Century Fox as well as Reynolds supposedly leaking footage of the movie himself that it managed to see the light of day. So was Deadpool 2 a worthy successor? There were a few bumps in the road, sure, but they weren't as consequential as I feared they would, and it was otherwise a hilarious and awesome romp that matched the first film in terms of quality and, yes, even exceeded it, thanks in part to solid supporting characters (Cable and Domino especially) and a slightly less cookie-cutter plotline. It's not perfect by any means - but then again, I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as cinematic perfection, and nobody isn't allowed to gut movies they enjoy nor are they forbidden from providing their feedback on what could be done to make these movies better. All the same, the Deadpool series has thus far been a winner in my book, and I rest my case in the wake of Deadpool 2. I look forward to the future cinematic fourth-wall-obliterating adventures of the Merc with a Mouth... even if the rest of the X-Men probably wouldn't.
Grading Scheme:
96 - 100: A+
93 - 96: A
90 - 92.9: A-
87 - 89.9: B+
83 - 86.9: B
80 - 82.9: B-
77 - 79.9: C+
73 - 76.9: C
70 - 72.9: C-
67 - 69.9: D+
60 - 66.9: D
Below 60: E
Grades:
Writing: 10
Characterization: 8
Pacing: 8
Creativity: 9
Consistency: 8
Cinematography: 10
World Building: 9
Music and Sound: 9
Effects: 8
Engagement: 10
Final Grade: 89 (B+)
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Into The Dalek - Doctor Who blog
(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)
Deep Breath couldn’t have been a more disappointing start if you tried. Into The Dalek on the other hand is pretty damn good for the most part. There are some problems, sure, but the quality is night and day compared to the previous episode. Maybe Phil Ford’s input had something to do with this improvement. I don’t know.
On the spaceship Aristotle (subtle), the Doctor discovers a Dalek that seems to have turned good. So he, Clara and some soldiers from the future get shrunk down and go for a little trek inside the Dalek to see what caused this. Now yes, this premise is similar to The Invisible Enemy just like the plot of Deep Breath was similar to The Talons Of Weng-Chiang, but unlike Deep Breath, Into The Daleks is actually entertaining and does just enough to make the premise its own. I mean come on. It’s the inside of a Dalek! How cool is that?! We finally get to see how it actually works, and there’s a lot of imaginative concepts here. I like the Dalek antibodies, the whole idea of a memory cortex that edits and suppresses memories to keep a Dalek ‘pure’ is intriguing, and we finally get an explanation for the sink plunger at last. So it’s used to absorb protein from victims? How positively revolting.
But let’s talk about the thing I love the most about Into The Dalek. The Doctor. Now we’ve gotten past all the post regeneration nonsense, we can finally see what kind of Doctor this one is going to be, and it’s very dark indeed. Warm and cuddly he most certainly ain’t. He’s very cold and methodical. The scene where he lets one of the soldiers die in order to use him to track the antibodies was a bit of a jaw dropper, but i liked it. It’s still very much in character and it’s a side of him we don’t often get to see in New Who. I’m also pleased to see that the humour has improved since Deep Breath. It’s no longer goofy whimsey. This Doctor’s humour is much more acerbic and dry, and he delivers a lot of darkly comedic lines.
Journey Blue: (referring to the protein vat) “Is Ross here?”
The Doctor: “Yeah. He’s the top layer if you want to say a few words.”
This kind of humour fits Peter Capaldi like a glove and he does a great job portraying that cold logic mixed with callousness. but what I especially love is how this episode explores this Doctor’s priorities. One of the many things that’s been bugging me about New Who, and about the Eleventh Doctor especially, is how the Doctor has been sliding closer and closer to being an all powerful saint who can do no wrong. Not only is that incredibly boring, it’s also not who the Doctor is at all. Sure the Doctor is a decent person who will always try to help those in need, but he’s not a god or a superhero. He’s just a guy. He can make mistakes, he’s capable of doing morally questionable things and sometimes he can let his own scientific curiosity and self interests get the better of him. Into The Dalek really seeks to highlight that. Throughout the episode, the Doctor is utterly convinced that there is no such thing as a good Dalek, and when he fixed the radiation leak, he knew full well there was a chance that the Dalek would revert back to its murderous self, but he did it anyway. The Doctor knew that fixing the radiation leak could make the Dalek evil again, and he didn’t care. All he cared about was being proven right. I love that because it adds a whole other layer to the character and makes him all the more interesting.
But as much as I enjoyed Twelve in this, there are some aspects of his character I don’t like. For example, the whole self doubt thing and his constant need to seek Clara’s approval. Considering he just retconned the whole Time War in order to save his own race and defended Trenzalore for centuries, I don’t see why the Doctor is furrowing his brow over whether he’s a good man or not. Especially when the answer is so painfully obviously yes. He may occasionally be selfish and self absorbed, and can sometimes make mistakes, but he always tries to do the right thing. And can I just take this opportunity to debunk the idea yet again of the Doctor being completely ineffectual without a companion. It seems as though the Doctor can’t do anything without needing Clara to hold his hand and guide him through everything, which just feels totally wrong.
But by far the thing I hate most about Twelve is his soldier prejudice. I’ve spoken at length in the past about how idiotic the whole pacifist thing is considering the Doctor has often resorted to using violence and guns in extreme circumstances during the classic series. Yes I suppose you could argue that Nine and Ten’s PTSD might have exacerbated the whole ‘no guns’ thing, but Twelve takes it to a whole new level. He hates soldiers to the point where he rejects Journey Blue’s request to travel with him at the end, but he doesn’t actually seem to have a good reason for his hatred. Journey doesn’t do anything wrong as far as I can see. He just hates soldiers because the script said so. You’d think, considering he recently met the War Doctor, that he would be slightly more sympathetic to soldiers, but nope. It just doesn’t make sense and the whole idea of all soldiers being bad is just too narrow minded.
It’s such a shame as well because I actually really liked Journey Blue. Zawe Ashton did a really good job in the role and I loved how she interacted with the Doctor. She clearly has a begrudging respect for him, but at the same time she’s not prepared to put up with any of his bullshit. I would much rather she was travelling with the Doctor than Clara because I feel Twelve really needs someone to pin him against a wall sometimes and challenge him. Clara seems to have more of a teacher/pupil role with him (with Clara playing the teacher role, which is wrong in and of itself), which just feels incredibly patronising. Journey’s relationship with the Doctor is more believable and thus more engaging in my opinion and I would kill to have her in the TARDIS with Peter Capaldi. I know some people didn’t like how aggressive and stroppy she was, but to be fair, she did just lose her brother. I think she’s got a right to be a little bit cranky. And the scenes with her uncle, played by Michael Smiley, do more than enough to humanise her in my eyes so she’s not just an angry, shouty woman. They have this really professional relationship, but you can detect a familial warmth underneath.
I really enjoyed Into The Dalek for the most part, but it’s when we get towards the end where the wheels start to wobble. The Doctor realising that all the Daleks could potentially be turned good isn’t a bad idea in and of itself. The problem is what this plotline focuses on. In the end, it’s the Doctor’s own hatred of the Daleks that turns Rusty into a Dalek killer rather than the reformed good guy the Doctor wanted, and we’re clearly supposed to be thinking about how much hate and prejudice the Doctor has towards the Daleks, but it doesn’t work. Not only have we basically explored this already in 2005′s Dalek (and done it better), I can’t help but feel Phil Ford and Steven Moffat have missed the point of their own story entirely. Honestly I think this tells us more about the Daleks than the Doctor. My main takeaway from this isn’t how hateful the Doctor is, but rather how utterly beyond help the Daleks are. Rusty was banging on about destroying the Daleks long before the Doctor mind melded with it. The way I see it, what turns Rusty isn’t the Doctor’s hatred, but rather its own desire for hatred. The Daleks don’t just want to hate. They need to hate. Whether it’s hating against humans, Time Lords or their own fellow Daleks, it seems that is a Dalek’s sole purpose of existence. Even in an attempt to expand its consciousness, Rusty ends up going for the one thing it recognises within the Doctor. Hatred. Why? Because that’s the only thing it knows how to do. It’s kind of tragic when you think about it and could have been used to great effect. This could have been an opportunity to shine a whole new light on the Daleks and present them in a way that’s never been done before, but instead Ford and Moffat sidestep what could have been a very interesting issue to explore in favour of retreading old ground. They’re focusing on entirely the wrong thing here, which is frustrating.
And then there’s the whole situation with Danny Pink. Samuel Anderson does the best he can with what he’s been given, but I’m not impressed with this character. Not only are we doing the whole cliched romcom shit again like we did in The Lodger, it’s also yet another stupid mystery for Moffat to drag out over the course of the series. What did Danny do while he was a soldier? And just to make sure all subtlety is thrown out of the window, we even get a prolonged shot of a single poetic tear trickling down Danny’s cheek. It’s really pathetic. Moffat is so bad at getting us to care about his characters that he has to resort to melodramatic bollocks like this to try and drag some kind of emotion out of us. Also, fuck you Clara. I don’t know what sort of emotional trauma Danny went through (and I don’t really care neither), but he’s clearly suffering from some form of PTSD, so to make dismissive jokes about it really is just beyond insulting. (And while I’m complaining about Clara, can we drop all the companion slapping Doctor jokes now please? Like I said in the past, it’s not cute and sexy. it’s assault and battery).
While there are a few flaws here and there, I still had a lot of fun watching this episode. I’d say this is definitely one of the better Dalek stories to come out of New Who.
#into the dalek#phil ford#steven moffat#doctor who#twelfth doctor#peter capaldi#clara oswald#jenna coleman#daleks#bbc#review#spoilers
13 notes
·
View notes
Text
Motorola Tech3 Review: Hybrid Earbuds For The Plug-in Crowd
Motorola Tech3 review: Wireless earbuds without range anxiety
“A clever hybrid design takes them from wired to true wireless in seconds if you’re OK with average sound.”
Clever hybrid design
Well-designed cable management
Clear and accurate sound
Good battery life
IPX5 water resistance
Not enough bass
No volume control
Poor call quality when it’s noisy
Massive charging case
True wireless earbuds and electric cars have a surprising amount in common. Both offer unprecedented freedom: Electric cars free us from our reliance on oil, and true wireless earbuds free us from our reliance on wires. But both inventions also have inherent limitations: Electric cars have a maximum range that’s dictated by their battery capacities and the same is true for how long true wireless earbuds can deliver the tunes without stopping.
In both cases, the fear of running out of juice can be called range anxiety, provided you’re willing to equate miles driven with hours of playback. It’s this range anxiety that makes the $100 Motorola Tech3 true wireless earbuds so interesting. With a literal plug-in hybrid design that lets you convert them into a wired set of earbuds, they’re the perfect antidote to wireless range anxiety.
But do the benefits of the Tech3’s 3-in-1 design outweigh its disadvantages? Let’s take a closer look.
Wrap your head around this design
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
You can tell the Tech3 aren’t like other true wireless earbuds the moment you set eyes on their charging case. It looks like a really big black yo-yo. That’s in part because of its squat, cylindrical shape, but the comparison becomes almost unavoidable due to the two sets of braided cords that wrap around its midsection.
The braided cords don’t stretch or deform at all, snapping into their slots the same way every time. It just works.
Flip open the makeup-compact-style lid and you’ll find the earbuds neatly stowed in their own charging nooks. Flipping up a second smaller lid within the main compartment reveals the ends of one of those braided cords. This is the one you’ll use to physically connect the earbuds in their “sport loop” configuration.
The second cord — the one that magnetically attaches to the sport loop for wired use — is accessed from the bottom of the case. The arrangement reminds me of decades of attempts to neatly store wired earbuds by wrapping them around all kinds of objects. Those were almost always a total mess, but the Tech3 manages to bring order to the chaos thanks to one important difference: The braided cords don’t stretch or deform at all, which means they wrap around their case and snap into their respective slots the same way every time. It just works.
The only problem with this design is its size. Unlike most of today’s true wireless earbuds, you will not be able to comfortably pocket the Tech3’s case. Some folks may also be annoyed by the micro-USB charging port, a format that has all but disappeared from newer phones (including Motorola’s latest models, ironically). There is a charging indicator light on the front, but it’s tiny and very difficult to see.
Comfortable buds
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
When I first saw the press images of the Tech3, I feared that the ability to plug in the sport loop cord would mean big, bulky earbuds. Amazingly, the buds aren’t any bigger or heavier than non-hybrid models, and they’re actually smaller than some — Amazon’s Echo Buds are chunkier.
The plastic plugs on the ends of the cord create a barrier to how deeply you can insert the earbuds into your ears.
They’re also quite comfortable. I tend to have good luck with the default medium-sized ear tips on most earbuds and the Tech3 were no exception. I was able to get them nestled firmly yet comfortably in my ear and they stayed comfortable for several hours.
Despite the fact that you can plug in the sport loop without sacrificing size or comfort, there is a pretty major flaw in the design. The hard plastic plugs on the ends of the cord create a physical barrier to how deeply you can insert the earbuds into your ears. For me, this meant that the natural drag exerted by the cord over time had a tendency to loosen the buds.
There’s a reason virtually all neck-loop-based earbuds use some kind of ear-hook or ear-fin — you need to stabilize the earbuds against this tugging. Unfortunately, the Tech3 do not come with either built-in or the optional slip-on kind of ear fins you find on some models. This seems like an odd oversight for earbuds that are meant to be used tethered and during vigorous exercise. On the bright side, with IPX5 water resistance, they’ll be able to deal with the kind of sweat that vigorous exercise tends to produce.
Decent sound
At $100, the Motorola Tech3 are at the high end of the affordable side of the true wireless earbud market. Given its fancy hybrid design, you might expect that some sacrifices were made in the audio department, and this is true: They do not deliver the same audio quality as the similarly-priced 1More Stylish.
That said, they deliver very good clarity and precision, with a surprisingly neutral EQ. In this price range, earbuds tend to overcompensate on bass, or they fail to deliver a satisfyingly full midrange. The Tech3 don’t suffer from any of these drawbacks, making them one of the better choices for those who like their music presented with a minimum of sonic alteration. Vocals are especially well represented and even though bass-heads will find themselves wishing for more low-end oomph, most genres actually benefit from the Tech3’s sound signature.
Light on features
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
Another area where the Tech3 cut a few corners is their features. You get the standard set of controls: Play/pause, track skip forward/back, and call answer/end. You can also access your phone’s personal assistant or talk to Alexa if you install the free Verve Life app by Hubble. This app will also let you track the last known whereabouts of the earbuds should you lose them.
But there’s no volume control, no hear-through mode (sometimes known as transparency mode) to let outside sounds in, and there is no ear sensor so when you remove one or both buds, the music keeps playing instead of pausing automatically. And considering there’s a companion app, it’s a shame it doesn’t give you an equalizer feature, too. The controls themselves are quite responsive to taps, though as we’ve seen on other touch-sensitive earbuds, there are times when you inadvertently tap (and stop playback) or tap twice and the bud fails to register the second tap.
Not built for noise
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
Call quality with the Tech3 is a bit hit or miss. Overall voice quality is very good, but your callers won’t appreciate it if you’re in a busy environment. There’s virtually no noise-canceling; a light breeze sounded like a wind storm, and a dog barking more than 50 feet away sounded like it was right next to me. It’s a subtle reminder that the Tech3 belongs to a portfolio of products that bear the Motorola brand but are not made by either Motorola Solutions (the original Motorola company) or by the Lenovo subsidiary that controls the mobile phone business. Instead, these earbuds are made under license from Lenovo by Binatone, a Hong Kong-based electronics manufacturer.
Good battery life
Rated for seven hours between charges, you might never need to use that plug-in cord.
Yes, the Tech3 have been designed to offer unlimited playtime via their hybrid design, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have decent battery life. Rated for seven hours between charges, I actually got more than 7.5 hours out of the right earbud, while the left gave up at just under seven hours.
Even their fast-charge feature is better than I’d expect, with three hours of playtime after 15 minutes. With only about 1.5 charges in the case (for a total of 18 hours) you might never need to use that plug-in cord.
Plug-in hybrid
Simon Cohen / Digital Trends
Using the two cords to go from fully wireless to fully wired only takes a few seconds. The trickiest part is lining up the triple-prong gold contacts on the ends of the sport loop with the corresponding ports on each earbud. There is a set of white markers to help, but it takes some precision, not to mention good eyesight.
An obvious issue with this arrangement is that those contacts could loosen over time, much like headphone jacks themselves tend to do. It’s a risk, for sure, but I can tell you that at least when new, the fit is tight and very secure. No amount of gentle tugging can budge them at all.
When connected via the magnetic headphone cable, the earbuds automatically power down, and they sound just as good if not better than when used in wireless mode.
Our take
The Motorola Tech3 concept provides a unique solution to a problem we’re not convinced a lot of people have: How to use your true wireless earbuds with a headphone jack. At $100, it’s not an expensive solution, but you’re forced to give up a lot to benefit from its flexibility.
Is there a better alternative?
If great sound matters to you and your budget can stretch a bit, you can actually get a very similar solution from the Shure Aonic 215. They aren’t as elegantly packaged as the Tech3 and have their own drawbacks, but they’re way more flexible.
If great sound matters to you but $100 is your limit, check out our list of the best cheap true wireless earbuds. None of them possess the Tech3’s clever hybrid trick, but many offer more features and better sound. Finally, if battery life is your biggest concern, for an additional $29, you can’t go wrong with Samsung’s amazing 11-hour $129 Galaxy Buds+.
How long will it last?
The construction of the Tech3 earbuds and their charging case is good, but not great. They’ll probably survive several years of use if you don’t abuse them. The two cables are very well made, but it’s impossible to tell how many times you’ll be able to plug them into the earbuds before that connection fails.
Should you buy it?
Unless you absolutely must have the ability to plug your true wireless earbuds into a phone or computer, or you live in constant fear of your battery dying, we think you should skip the Tech3. That said, if you do value their key feature, they’re not a bad set of true wireless earbuds.
Editors’ Recommendations
Source link
Tags: Crowd, Earbuds, Hybrid, Motorola, Plugin, Review, Tech3
from WordPress https://ift.tt/2VC7nla
via IFTTT
0 notes
Text
Valencia 2014 (8) 066 – The National Ceramic Museum in The Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas
We decided to go for a city break rather than sun in Tenerife again this September. Other than a few days in the North East we haven’t been away since last March and wanted a change and hopefully some sun. The problem is getting flights from the north of England to the places we want to go to. We chose Valencia as we could fly from East Midlands – which was still a pain to get to as it involved the most notorious stretch of the M1 at five in the morning. In the end we had a fairly good journey, the new Ryanair business class pre-booked scheme worked quite well and bang on time as usual. It was dull when we landed with storms forecast all week, the sky was bright grey – the kiss of death to the photography I had in mind. I was full of cold and wishing I was at work. It did rain but it was overnight on our first night and didn’t affect us. There has been a drought for eleven months apparently and it rained on our first day there! The forecast storms didn’t materialise in Valencia but they got it elsewhere.
You May notice discrepancies in the spelling of some Spanish words or names, this is because Valencian is used on signs, in some guide books and maps. There are two languages in common use with distinct differences. There may also be genuine mistakes – it has been known!
Over the course of a Monday to Sunday week we covered 75 miles on foot and saw most of the best of Valencia – The City of Bell Towers. The Old City covers a pretty large area in a very confusing layout. There was a lot of referring to maps – even compass readings! – a first in a city for us. The problem with photography in Valencia is that most of the famous and attractive building are closely built around, some have poor quality housing built on to them. Most photographs have to be taken from an extreme angle looking up. There are no high points as it is pan flat, there are a small number of buildings where you can pay to go up on to the roof for a better view and we went up them – more than once!
The modern buildings of The City of Arts and Sciences – ( Ciutat de Las Arts I de les Ciencies ) are what the city has more recently become famous for, with tourists arriving by the coachload all day until late at night. They must be photographed millions of times a month. We went during the day and stayed till dark one evening, I gave it my best shot but a first time visit is always a compromise between ambition and realism, time dictates that we have to move on to the next destination. I travelled with a full size tripod – another first – I forgot to take it with me to TCoAaS! so It was time to wind up the ISO, again! Needless to say I never used the tripod.
On a day when rain was forecast but it stayed fine, albeit a bit dull, we went to the Bioparc north west of the city, a zoo by another name. There are many claims made for this place, were you can appear to walk alongside some very large animals, including, elephants, lions, giraffe, rhino, gorillas and many types of monkey to name a few. It is laid out in different geographical regions and there is very little between you and the animals, in some cases there is nothing, you enter the enclosure through a double door arrangement and the monkeys are around you. It gets rave reviews and we stayed for most of the day. The animals it has to be said gave the appearance of extreme boredom and frustration and I felt quite sorry for them.
The course of The River Turia was altered after a major flood in the 50’s. The new river runs west of the city flanked by a motorway. The old river, which is massive, deep and very wide between ancient walls, I can’t imagine how it flooded, has been turned into a park that is five miles long. There is an athletics track, football pitches, cycle paths, restaurants, numerous kids parks, ponds, fountains, loads of bridges, historic and modern. At the western end closest to the sea sits The City of Arts and Sciences – in the river bed. Where it meets the sea there is Valencia’s urban Formula One racetrack finishing in the massive marina built for The Americas Cup. The race track is in use as roadways complete with fully removable street furniture, kerbs, bollards, lights, islands and crossings, everything is just sat on the surface ready to be moved.
We found the beach almost by accident, we were desperate for food after putting in a lot of miles and the afternoon was ticking by. What a beach, 100’s of metres wide and stretching as far as the eye could see with a massive promenade. The hard thing was choosing, out of the dozens of restaurants, all next door to each other, all serving traditional Paella – rabbit and chicken – as well as seafood, we don’t eat seafood and it constituted 90% of the menu in most places. Every restaurant does a fixed price dish of the day, with a few choices, three courses and a drink. Some times this was our only meal besides making the most of the continental breakfast at the hotel. We had a fair few bar stops with the local wine being cheap and pleasant it would have been a shame not to, there would have been a one woman riot – or strike!
On our final day, a Sunday, we were out of bed and down for breakfast at 7.45 as usual, the place was deserted barring a waiter. We walked out of the door at 8.30 – in to the middle of a mass road race with many thousands of runners, one of a series that take place in Valencia – apparently! We struggled to find out the distance, possibly 10km. The finish was just around the corner so off we went with the camera gear, taking photos of random runners and groups. There was a TV crew filming it and some local celebrity (I think) commentating. Next we came across some sort of wandering religious and musical event. Some sort of ritual was played out over the course of Sunday morning in various locations, it involved catholic priests and religious buildings and another film crew. The Catholic tourists and locals were filling the (many) churches for Sunday mass. Amongst all of this we had seen men walking around in Arab style dress – the ones in black looked like the ones from ISIS currently beheading people – all carrying guns. A bit disconcerting. We assumed that there had been some sort of battle enactment. We were wrong, it hadn’t happened yet. A while later, about 11.30 we could hear banging, fireworks? No it was our friends with the guns. We were caught up in total mayhem, around 60 men randomly firing muskets with some sort of blank rounds, the noise, smoke and flames from the muzzles were incredible. We were about to climb the Torres de Serranos which is where, unbeknown to us, the grand, and deafening, finale was going to be. We could feel the blast in our faces on top of the tower. Yet again there was a film camera in attendance. I couldn’t get close ups but I got a good overview and shot my first video with the 5D, my first in 5 years of owning a DLSR with the capability. I usually use my phone ( I used my phone as well). Later in the day there was a bullfight taking place, the ring was almost next to our hotel, in the end we had other things to do and gave it a miss, it was certainly a busy Sunday in the city centre, whether it’s the norm or not I don’t know.
There is a tram system in Valencia but it goes from the port area into the newer part of the city on the north side, it wouldn’t be feasible to serve the historic old city really. A quick internet search told me that there are 55,000 university students in the city, a pretty big number. I think a lot of the campus is on the north side and served by the tram although there is a massive fleet of buses as well. There is a massive, very impressive market building , with 100’s of stalls that would make a photo project on its own, beautiful on the inside and out but very difficult to get decent photos of the exterior other than detail shots owing to the closeness of other buildings and the sheer size of it. Across town, another market has been beautifully renovated and is full of bars and restaurants and a bit of a destination in its own right.
A downside was the all too typical shafting by the taxi drivers who use every trick in the book to side step the official tariffs and rob you. The taxi from the airport had a “broken” meter and on the way home we were driven 22 km instead of the nine that is the actual distance. Some of them seem to view tourists as cash cows to be robbed at all costs. I emailed the Marriot hotel as they ordered the taxi, needless to say no answer from Marriot – they’ve had their money. We didn’t get the rip off treatment in the bars etc. that we experienced in Rome, prices are very fair on most things, certainly considering the city location.
All in all we had a good trip and can highly recommend Valencia.
Posted by Mark Schofield @ JB Schofield on 2014-10-31 16:50:05
Tagged: , VALENCIA , SPAIN , MEDITERANEAN , OLD , CITY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES , PALACIO DE LAS ARTES , MUSEUM , CERAMIC , MUSEO , CREAMICO , NATIONAL , CERAMICA , DECOR , INTERIOR , PALACIODEL MARQUES DE DOS AGUAS
The post Valencia 2014 (8) 066 – The National Ceramic Museum in The Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas appeared first on Good Info.
0 notes
Text
I Tried Beautycounter for the First Time…Here Are My Thoughts
New Post has been published on https://healingawerness.com/news/i-tried-beautycounter-for-the-first-timehere-are-my-thoughts/
I Tried Beautycounter for the First Time…Here Are My Thoughts
I’ll be honest, a part of me thought that this post was going to be more of an exposé about the dark side of Beautycounter. I expected to lift up the rug during this Beautycounter review and find some dirty, shameful secrets about the natural beauty company everyone in the wellness space seems to be talking about. Spoiler alert: I didn’t discover anything horrible but I can’t say I’m drinking the kool aid either.
Maybe it’s because I’m pitched by a consultant at least once a week or because I’m just inherently skeptical about everything, but my first inclination was to think “this is too good to be true”. And in some ways it is (which I’ll get into) but I’m a firm believer that you can’t knock anything until you try it, so my 3o days of Beautycounter officially kicked off and it was time for my official Beautycounter Review.
Before you jump to any conclusions, this post is not a sales pitch. It’s an unbiased Beautycounter review from someone who has tried their fair share of natural beauty/skincare products. Most of the reviews I’ve read out there are from people who are brand new to this space and undoubtedly have found comfort in using beauty/skincare products that aren’t laden with hormone-disrupting chemicals…and then they become a consultant. But as someone who has two enormous cupboards stacked full of green beauty products, how does Beautycounter stack up? That’s what this post is all about.
What is Beautycounter?
But before I jump into that, let’s go back to basics and explain what Beautycounter is. Beautycounter was founded in 2013 by Gregg Renfrew as a natural, safer alternative to conventional beauty and skincare products. They’re different then most beauty companies because of the vast array of products they sell. From makeup, to skincare to hair care they sell everything and it’s all marketed as “clean”. Mainstream beauty products tend to be full of ingredients that you likely wouldn’t feel good about putting on your skin. The biggest culprits:
-Parabens: it mimics estrogen and disrupts your endocrine system
-Phthalates: a chemical used to make plastic more malleable, which also can affect your reproductive system
There are many others including talc, butylated compounds and petroleum, but let’s start slow. They’re used to both emulsify and extend the shelf-life of your beauty products, but they actually do more harm than good. So why are they included? Because they’re cheap and there’s very little regulation in the beauty industry. In fact no federal regulation regarding personal care products has been passed since 1938!
Now I also want to preface this by saying a lot of the research shows correlation rather than causation. You can’t say that eating a box of Oreos everyday will cause cancer, but it’s likely that eating a box of Oreos is associated with other unhealthy behaviors that add up to future health problems.
My philosophy on beauty products is similar to my philosophy on food. Focus on whole, quality ingredients but don’t be militant about it. I think where things differ with the beauty industry is that while I love a glass of red wine and dessert, it’s not something I do all day, everyday. With beauty and skincare products, it is something affecting you all day. You wake up, wash your face, moisturize, put on your makeup, wash your hands throughout the day, put on hand cream, take off your makeup, wash your face and repeat. Do I skip washing my hands in communal bathrooms because I don’t want to use the soap? No. But in my own home I make a conscious effort to avoid products that I know to be harmful to my body. One body wash (similar to one glass of wine) won’t have long-term impacts on your health, but persistent, daily use will. And that’s where companies like Beautycounter become important.
Where to Buy Beautycounter?
This is where things get interesting. Rather than heading to a clean beauty store or to somewhere like Sephora or Ulta Beauty, Beautycounter sells through Multilevel Marketing (MLM). Now I’ll be honest, this was and remains my biggest gripe with Beautycounter. Is Beautycounter a pyramid scheme? I still don’t really know…
When a company uses an MLM model, they sell their products through consultants and each consultant has a mentor so with each sale of a product, that consultant makes a commission and their mentor, and their mentor’s mentor etc… make a commission. This means you will buy your Beautycounter products through a consultant. So unlike the products I buy from Credo Beauty (my favorite clean beauty store), which normally specialize in a couple of products within either the skincare or beauty world, Beautycounter brands all of their products across categories and everything is purchased through a consultant. Truthfully it become hard to tell if the business is more about clean beauty or recruiting sales consultants to your team. More thoughts on MLMs below.
Why Did I Decide To Try Beautycounter?
Honestly, it comes down to pure and simple curiosity. I’ve just been hearing so much about it. Like I said, I hear from at least one consultant a week (in 2019 this number has since increased to once a day!) asking me to join their team. While I appreciate the thoughtfulness, it’s just never been something I was into. But then a lot of my friends started joining and it got me thinking, there must be more to this than meets the eye? Friends like Lexi and Beth who I trust so I decided to inquire more.
And as I mentioned, I’m a clean beauty addict. I have the Green Beauty Shop where I share the products I’m loving and my YouTube channel where I review clean beauty products. It’s safe to say I have some experience in this area. I wanted to see how Beautycounter would hold up to some of my favorite clean beauty brands. Put simply: I wanted an unbiased Beautycounter review from someone who isn’t a consultant and actually knows what they’re talking about.
My Full Beautycounter Review
Before I jumped in, I asked Lexi and you guys to tell me your favorite products. In full transparency, Lexi sent me some to try, but then after asking you guys on Instagram stories I ended up putting in another huge order of products.
I’m not going to individually go through each product I tried here on the blog, but for the full Beautycounter review of each product, I filmed a video capturing my honest thoughts. I’m holding nothing back so this is all the 100% honest truth.
[embedded content]
[embedded content]
Besides my thoughts on each individual product, I did appreciate the packaging and delivery of the products. I definitely don’t need beautiful packaging, and there’s nothing I hate more than excessive packaging, but I do want to receive products in tact and well organized. I’ve had products from other companies show up exploded or broken and especially for a beauty company, I do expect a step-up from Amazon Prime #justbeinghonest
But let’s chat some pros and cons and my initial thoughts after 30 days of Beautycounter.
Is Beautycounter Worth It?
The Pros of Beautycounter
Like I said, I wasn’t expecting to find any pros, but honestly was surprised by the things I discovered!
1) They are great for someone who is new to green beauty/skincare – As someone who is well versed in this space and also loves experimenting with new products, this isn’t a priority for me, but for someone who is brand new, it is nice that there is a single company you can get all of your beauty, skincare and hair care products from.
2) Their product selection is vast – It’s awesome that you can basically get all of your products at the click of the button and in the mail. They pretty much have everything so it’s a one-stop-shop for anyone who doesn’t enjoy shopping for beauty and skincare products.
3) Their products are pretty good quality – I definitely don’t love all of their products, but there were some that I really enjoyed. Overall I’d say they are decent quality albeit very expensive.
4) They actually care about cleaner products – They go beyond just offering more natural products to consumers. They’re actually lobbying in Washington to get certain ingredients banned from our conventional skincare/beauty products and are trying to increase regulation.
The Cons of Beautycounter
1) They are not the most natural – Some consultants discuss this, others do not. Beautycounter may be cleaner but they are not chemical-free. They use quite a few synthetics in their products, but ones that are shown to have little to no impact on the body. My biggest complaint is that I’ll find a comparable product to one that I already use and the ingredients are twice as long in the BC product. I believe they use more synthetics to increase the shelf-life, which I understand but personally prefer products that use fewer and less synthetic ingredients. This is really a personal preference thing but worth noting for this Beautycounter review.
2) Multilevel Marketing scares me – It’s the truth. Consultants are presented as “experts” but the reality is that they are just like me and don’t have all the answers. Experts in skincare usually spend years studying and understanding skin so I don’t love that people without credentials are giving out advice when they don’t always know what’s best. And then there’s the fact that MLMs generally aren’t built for people or “businesses” to succeed. In the end it’s a lot of consultants supposedly “investing” in their businesses but really it’s just Beautycounter’s gain…more on this below.
3) Not all of their products compare to alternatives out there – Based on my experience, only about a 1/4-1/3 of the products compared or were better than other alternatives. There are just simply companies out there that are making better products and sometimes for MUCH cheaper. Maybe it’s because they’re more focused on one or several products rather than a whole line of skincare and beyond, but I just wasn’t overwhelmed by how amazing everything was. Some were good, some were bad and I would hate for people to give up on green beauty just because a product they tried from Beautycounter didn’t work for them.
Why I Became a Consultant Read on…It Didn’t Last Long!
After my 30 days and completing this Beautycounter Review, I decided to become a consultant for two reasons:
1) I wanted to see what this process looked like – I was curious what it meant to become a consultant. Basically all you need is a mentor, so essentially someone who is already a consultant and can guide you (mine is Lexi) and $85 to sign-up. In the mail I got a HUGE stack of papers and books that I’m expected to read. Truth is, I haven’t opened them. Mainly because I’m a digital person and I prefer to read online, but also because it was so overwhelming. Which makes me wonder how many consultants have felt the same way. The do have modules available online for training, but again how many consultants actually complete these? Which brings me back to point #2 above about MLM. This is a huge generalization, but I do have my doubts.
2) I support their mission and some of their products -There were some products that I was really impressed by and would 100% purchase again. If I would repurchase something I always tell you about it, because I think it’s worthwhile. And because I make a living off of this, it’s always nice to get a kickback from recommending it. I also love that they are a company that isn’t just selling products but also trying to change legislation and that is something I can definitely get behind.
In the end these were the 3 products I actually liked: Nude Eyeshadow Palette | Cleansing Balm | Balancing Face Mask
NOTE: since the time of this publishing in 2017 I’ve decided to no longer remain a consultant. As I wasn’t a huge fan of most of the products, I wasn’t pushing and selling intentionally. To remain a Beautycounter consultant you must sell a certain amount or pay to be reinstituted. They are not transparent about this quota so after 6 months I was told to either meet my quota or pay to remain a consultant. None of this sat well with me so I left the program.
* * * * *
So there you have it! Don’t forget to watch my video review of all the products I tried. I really hope this post has been educational for you and I’m always here to answer questions if you have any. You know I try to keep this space 100% transparent and I love being a guinea pig and providing my feedback, but as always this is just my personal opinion. I’m all ears to hear your thoughts!
Like this post? Here are a few others you might enjoy:
5 Natural Skincare Alternatives to Beautycounter
The Best Skincare Products from Whole Foods
Natural Deodorants that Actually Work
LOVE THESE NATURAL BEAUTY TIPS? Join the THM Community!
Join 10,000+ members of the THM Community to get access to exclusive info about natural beauty, products I’m loving and how to transition to a more natural lifestyle.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHealthyMaven/~3/0YnmSQHUbjQ/
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
xxoceaniceyesxx
Just Trying To Keep My Head Above Water
kennewton4
Venta De ups En Bogota
jwb2012
J.W.B. the Uncanny
certainlynotseraph
You Can’t Win Uriel.
I Still Serve Cunt.
unaragazzaspecialedinverno
Sin título