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itallbecameablr · 3 years

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Kingsman: The Secret Service's Timeline Doesn't Make Sense- Part 1

Alright, yes. I know this movie is almost or just over 6 years old at this point (depending on which release date you go from) but I spent 3 hours last night pulling my hair out over this, and I've got to rant at someone. This is going to be long as hell too, fair warning. Posting it here is preventing me from spamming Matthew Vaughn on Twitter about it.

Fair warning, Kingsman has no actual "timeline" that I could find, so this is all a bit of conjecture, but it's all backed up and I've got receipts baby. Also I may have spent a lot of time considering this. Why? Reasons. Fanfic reasons.

This is all about the latter half of the movie by the way, since the first half is more amorphous and can get away with more (though I estimated it took place over 4-6 months from the relative growth of JB and Roxy's poodle). I'm talking from the "honeypot" loyalty test to V-Day, and how it somehow took place over 3 days.

I'll have to split this over 2 posts, since apparently tumblr posts have a word limit.

Day 1- Friday June 20th 2014

Eggsy, Roxy, and Charlie are sent to a club to "seduce" the red herring, Lady Sophie Montague-Herring. I suspected it was either a Friday or Saturday since the club is fairly busy, and from later context clues Friday is the only one that makes any sort of sense.

They're knocked out, wake up tied to the train tracks, and the loyalty test takes place.

Merlin then tells them they get to spend 24 hours with their mentors and sends them on their way. From my rigorous calculations they actually spend far less than that, but I think they chose to say "24 hours" instead of "the night" because that carries implications.

(But we all know Harry and Eggsy banged anyway, there was just waaaay too much UST in that office for them not to.)

Day 2- Saturday June 21st 2014

Several things happen on Saturday. I honestly thought they took place at least a bit further apart, but evidence said otherwise.

We see the end of the "24 hours", where Harry shows Eggsy the weapons in the fitting room and they stumble upon Valentine, who says he's come to Kingsman Tailors for proper attire for the Royal Ascot. Finally, finally we have some sort of date confirmation! The Royal Ascot in 2014 took place from Tuesday, June 17th to Saturday, June 21st. Obviously Valentine is there for the final day of the event, since we know it's Saturday now.

The clothes Valentine is wearing come as a big context clue for later, by the way. And the bug that Harry has Locke & Co put into Valentine's "dope ass" top hat. Since The Royal Ascot started at 2:30 and we know this all happens before that, we'll say it's... 11? Maybe noon?

The scene shifts to the "shoot the dog" scene, which I had originally assumed took place at least a few days later since both Roxy and Eggsy are back from their "24 hours" even though it's clearly too early to have been 24 hours since the loyalty test. Since I've already decided that Merlin's calling it 24 hours was arbitrary, we'll move on.

Eggsy doesn't shoot JB, steals Arthur's car, goes home and changes, and the taxi gets remotely driven by Harry to his house while Eggsy is in the middle of threatening his stepfather. Since it's still very light outside, we'll estimate the time at around 7 at this point since sunset is about 9pm in England in the summer. That should give Eggsy just enough time to do all of that stuff.

Harry and Eggsy argue.

And here's the point where I know that this all happens on the same day as the Royal Ascot and the "24 hours" after the loyalty test.

They're interrupted when Harry's bug picks up on Valentine and Gazelle talking about testing the SIM's signal at the Church. And while Harry can't see them, the audience can, and they're still wearing their Royal Ascot attire! So unless Richmond Valentine and his assistant just so happened to be wearing the exact same clothes for that particular conversation as they had at the Royal Ascot, it's the same day. Since he's a billionaire, I highly doubt he'd wear the same suit twice in such a short time.

Harry leaves Eggsy at his house and jets off to Kentucky. An 11 hour flight from London. Even if Kingsman has a super fast jet Harry can take, that doesn't actually matter here because he would still have to wait for the start of: (Continued in Part 2)

#Kingsman #kingsman the secret service #eggsy unwin #harry hart #i'm going insane #hartwin #if any fic writers need the whole timeline for their records let me know #i did this all for hartwin

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kansascityhappenings · 5 years

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Missouri executes convicted killer Russell Bucklew despite concern about painful death

ST. LOUIS — A Missouri man was executed Tuesday for killing a man during a violent 1996 crime spree, despite concerns that the inmate’s rare medical condition would cause a gruesome lethal injection.

Russell Bucklew was executed at the state prison in Bonne Terre. It was Missouri’s first execution since January 2017.

Bucklew had twice previously been within hours of execution, only to have the U.S. Supreme Court grant last-minute reprieves over concerns that he might suffer during the execution process. He had a condition called cavernous hemangioma and had blood-filled tumors in his head, neck and throat. He breathed with help from a tracheostomy tube.

Bucklew’s attorneys said in a clemency request to Gov. Mike Parson that a throat tumor could burst, causing Bucklew to choke and die painfully and in violation of the constitutional guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment.

Bucklew looked around and twitched his feet beneath the sheet as he lay on the gurney just before the lethal injection. He suddenly took a deep breath and all movement stopped.

There were no outward signs of distress.

Adding to the concern was Missouri’s secretive execution drug. The state uses a single dose of pentobarbital but refuses to say where it gets it. The source is believed to be a compound pharmacy since large pharmaceutical companies prohibit the use of their drugs in executions.

The Supreme Court stepped in to halt Bucklew’s execution in 2014 and again in 2018. But in April, the high court gave the go-ahead for Bucklew to be executed.

Human rights groups and death penalty opponents, including all four Roman Catholic bishops in Missouri and the American Civil Liberties Union, urged Parson to grant clemency and remand Bucklew to life in prison without parole. The ACLU and Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty presented the governor’s office on Thursday with petitions that they said included more than 57,000 signatures.

But Parson, a Republican who worked in law enforcement for more than 20 years and a staunch death penalty supporter, decided early Tuesday that the execution could proceed.

Inmates’ medical conditions have affected other recent execution attempts.

In 2017, the execution of twice-convicted killer Alva Campbell, who suffered from smoking-related breathing problems, had to be halted in Ohio when a usable vein couldn’t be found to administer execution drugs. He died in 2018 at age 69.

In 2018, Alabama halted the lethal injection of Doyle Lee Hamm when the execution team had trouble getting the intravenous line connected. Hamm had damaged veins because of lymphoma, hepatitis and drug use. A doctor hired by Hamm’s lawyers wrote in a report that Hamm had at least 11 puncture sites and bled heavily from his groin during the attempts to connect the line.

Bucklew’s girlfriend, Stephanie Ray, left him on Valentine’s Day 1996. Over the next few weeks, according to court records, he harassed her, cut her with a knife and punched her in the face.

Ray feared for her life and the lives of her children, so she moved into the Cape Girardeau County mobile home that her new boyfriend, Michael Sanders, shared with his children.

On March 21, after stealing his nephew’s car and taking two pistols, handcuffs and duct tape from his brother, Bucklew followed Ray to Sanders’ home. Sanders confronted Bucklew with a shotgun inside the home. Bucklew fired two shots, one piercing Sanders’ lung. He bled to death.

Bucklew then shot at Sanders’ 6-year-old son and missed. Court records say he struck Ray in the face with the pistol, handcuffed her and dragged her to his car. He later raped Ray before heading north on Interstate 55.

A trooper spotted Bucklew’s car and eventually became engaged in a gunfight near St. Louis. Both men were wounded. Bucklew later escaped from the Cape Girardeau County Jail. He attacked Ray’s mother and her boyfriend with a hammer before being recaptured.

Bucklew’s attorneys, Cheryl Pilate and Jeremy Weis, said in a statement that Bucklew was remorseful for his crimes.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/10/01/missouri-executes-convicted-killer-russell-bucklew-despite-concern-about-painful-death/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/10/02/missouri-executes-convicted-killer-russell-bucklew-despite-concern-about-painful-death/

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ramialkarmi · 7 years

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The Hallmark Channel is defying every trend in media by owning Christmas

Starting this weekend, the Hallmark Channel is rolling out 33 original Christmas movies. These movies have helped it defy industry trends that are hurting rival networks.

The company's formula allows it to crank out movies in three weeks for roughly $2 million each.

Most of the films are shot in the summer: "I’ve gotten used to being really hot and sweating in my boots," says Lacy Chabert, a recurring star.

Advertisers and viewers are drawn in because they know exactly what they're going to get.

Roger left his big New York City newspaper job to head back to his Vermont hometown to take over the family newspaper right smack in the middle of the Christmas season.

Once there, he and his high-school rival, Samantha, now the anchor for the local news station, wound up chasing the biggest story of the year: What will happen to the town's Christmas-tree farm, which is set to be razed by developers? Will they save the farm, get the big story, and keep from falling for each other? Find out on "Christmas Scoop," starring Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Jennie Garth.

OK, this isn't a real movie. But if you've ever heard of the Hallmark Channel, you can picture the whole thing.

The cable network is set to release the first of 33 original Christmas movies — most featuring a pair of recognizable TV stars meeting cute near the mistletoe — this weekend — before we're even done with Halloween.

Hallmark, it seems, has never stopped saying Merry Christmas, and it's how the network, owned by Crown Media, is defying every trend in the media business. It has milked the Christmas stories to consistently deliver strong live ratings (meaning people watch when the movies are broadcast, not later, say, over the internet), while its rivals grapple with cable cord-cutting and competition from streaming services. If you aren't familiar, here are two examples of the kinds of films we're talking about:

2015's "A Crown for Christmas" starring Danica McKellar ("The Wonder Years") as a recently fired New York exec who ends up working for, and falling for, a prince during Christmas.

2016's "A Wish for Christmas" starring Lacey Chabert ("Mean Girls") as a woman granted a wish by Santa Claus, a wish that expires in 48 hours.

"Their movies are as comforting as programming can be. You can grab a blanket, enjoy a glass of wine, and know the movie will have a happy ending," said Brad Krevoy, a producer who has worked on theatrical movies such as "Dumb and Dumber" and "Threesome."

Very traditional media

People are canceling cable subscriptions and ditching live TV for Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming apps.

Cable networks are striving to produce original prestige series at a time when there are upwards of 500 on the air. At the same time, mid-tier cable networks are struggling, and some, like Esquire, have disappeared. Everyone in media is trying to figure out where they fit on Facebook and Snapchat.

Not Hallmark.

"It's weird," said director Ron Oliver, who's worked on numerous Hallmark projects and logged time on Nickelodeon's "Goosebumps" in the 1990s. "With Hallmark, you actually turn on the TV at 8 p.m. and watch collectively. It speaks to a real need."

In 2016, Hallmark movies attracted over 2 million live viewers, though by November and December those numbers spiked to 4 million, according to Nielsen. The rating record was set by Candace Cameron Bure’s "Christmas Under Wraps," in 2014, and it actually just added a third cable network, Hallmark Drama, on top of its core network and Hallmark Movies and Mysteries – all part of the Crown Media Family Networks division of Hallmark Cards. Crown Media president and CEO Bill Abbot chalks the success up to a commitment to the formula.

"The business has been so driven by trying to hit the home run, trying to replicate the success of 'The Walking Dead,'" he said. "Hits are very hard to find. That's a very risky strategy. And it's detrimental to the cable industry.

"People don’t know what they are going to get from original channels," Abbot added. "That’s what’s driving a lot of the decline in audience."

Taking back Christmas

The original cable Christmas movie wasn't Hallmark's baby. Rather in the mid-1990s, ABC Family kicked off the craze with its "25 Days of Christmas" franchise. That led to classics such as 2007's "Holiday in Handcuffs" featuring Melissa Joan Hart taking Mario Lopez hostage while he steals her heart— of course at Christmas time.

Though the Hallmark channel launched in 2001, Crown Media had made TV movies for decades for networks like CBS. But around 2011, as ABC Family (now called Freeform) leaned into targeting teens, Crown went after Christmas in a bigger way.

"We did look at what '25 Days of Christmas' had become in people's minds and said, 'Wait a minute. We have a brand and a hundred-year legacy,'" Michelle Vicary, EVP of programming & network program publicity, Crown Media Family Networks, said. "We should lean into that as much as we can and do more of it."

It started paying off immediately. Now Hallmark produces movies tied to Valentine's Day, fall harvest season, June weddings, and summer holidays. But starting October 27, it's pretty much all Christmas movies for the rest of the year.

"People started to say things to us, like, 'I turn in on right after Halloween and don’t turn it off until New Year's," Vicary said.

“In this day and age, with the multitude of programs, the notion of a strict adherence to one’s brand – that's friendly, inviting, and welcoming — is a huge plus," said Bruce Vinokour, a television agent at the Creative Artists Agency.

A feel-good Blumhouse

How exactly will Hallmark make 87 original movies this year, including 33 Christmas movies?

The company is known for being disciplined and deliberate. Hallmark typically shoots movies over about three weeks for $2 million — the price of some individual TV episodes or, as Oliver put it, "the catering budget for Transformers." The network is almost like the Yuletide version of the much-admired low-budget horror studio Blumhouse.

Most movies are shot in Canada, where Hallmark gets tax breaks and other benefits from using local production crews. Vancouver is the biggest outlet, given its wintry milieu, though Hallmark has made movies in Toronto, Montreal, and, in some cases, Romania.

The timing is often tight. Actress Lacey Chabert said she shot a movie last summer that aired four weeks later.

When Business Insider talked to director Ron Oliver in mid-October, he was in postproduction on "The Christmas Train" (Danny Glover, Dermot Mulroney), which is scheduled to run in late November. Oliver was still writing "Reindeer Games," which he's shooting in November for a December airdate.

"It's literally down to the wire," he said. "But I always remind people: They shot 'Casablanca' in 18 days."

Christmas is good business

Kagan, a media-research group within S&P Global Market Intelligence, estimated that Hallmark reeled in $431.3 million in revenue between advertising and affiliate fees from cable distributors. That's up from less than $300 million in 2012.

To put that in context, Lifetime's revenue is roughly double that of Hallmark's, but net operating revenue from 2012 to 2016 has remained relatively flat, $876.4 million to $875.4 million, Kagan estimates.

Advertisers have noticed Hallmark's ascendancy.

"If you look at cable in general, there are ratings declines all over the place. And every fourth quarter they are growing. It's kind of incredible," said Keri Feeley, SVP and group partner of integrated investment at the ad-buying firm UM.

Marketers are particularly drawn to Hallmark because the content is considered safe. And for viewers, "They always find actors that remind you of your childhood," said Feeley.

Familiar faces

There's something of a debate over who is the record holder for most Hallmark Christmas movie appearances — between Candace Cameron Bure (who became a star on "Full House"), Lori Loughlin (also from "Full House"), and Lacey Chabert ("Party of Five" and "Mean Girls"). Though Danica McKellar (Winnie Cooper from "The Wonder Years") is coming on strong, said Vicary.

"It's tough to say," Vicary said. "Lori Loughlin owned August."

Chabert did her first Hallmark movie in 2010: "Elevator Girl" (a guy and a girl get stuck in an elevator). Her first Christmas movie was "Matchmaker Santa," and she estimates she's done eight or nine since.

"The way their company works is a family and it mirrors their product," she told Business Insider. "They really care about what they’re putting out."

Still, Chabert said that the shooting schedule is like "boot camp" in that you "eat, breath, and sleep the movie."

"It's intense — it’s hard to make a movie in 15 days. They know what they are doing," she told Business Insider.

Chabert said that for whatever reason, most of her Christmas movies have been shot in the summer. "That's fine by me," she said. "I’ve gotten used to being really hot and sweating in my boots."

Make it snow

One thing that can't be different: "You have to have snow," Vicary said. That's nonnegotiable.

Visual-effects expert Luc Benning has worked on several Hallmark projects. There are a few ways to make snow happen, even in August. Options include using:

snow blankets (which look like car-seat cushions, Benning says)

fire-retardant foam (increasingly popular)

a papier-mâché-like product called a Krendl (tough to clean up)

crushed limestone (increasingly popular out West)

ice shavings from ice blocks

snow from the machines that ski slopes use (extremely heavy)

"The past couple of years Hallmark’s really liked the look of the foam," said Benning, who often works on four and five Hallmark movies back to back. A snow budget might run a Christmas production about $50,000, he said.

Then there's the snow needed for actor close-ups. Sometimes, that means soapy bubbles.

Oliver said he was shooting a scene with Candace Cameron Bure that was supposed to be during a blizzard. So he used a machine that blew soapy bubbles into the air that looked like snow during close-up shots. "He hair was literally concrete," said Oliver. "And she had soap in her mouth."

Plus, because of the noise that the machine made, the actress had to reshoot her dialogue later "with the same emotion and cadence," he said. Oliver has a way of helping his actors deal: stops at the Shameful Tiki Room bar in Vancouver.

Christmas future

As Hallmark pushes its original output to the limit, the question will become, how do you not run out of ideas?

One way to keep things moving is by doing sequels: "Finding Father Christmas" in 2016 has led to this year's "Engaging Father Christmas" (and eventually "Marrying Father Christmas").

"My biggest challenge is finding good scripts and good writers," Abbot added. To help, the company has launched a book division that will serve as something of a farm team for future movies.

Meanwhile, programming chief Vicary said she's already talking to her team about projects for Christmas 2018.

For his part, Oliver said he's often wondered if he'll ever end up Christmas'd out. But then he gets together with his family and gets right back into the spirit. "I always have this huge meltdown on Christmas Eve," he said. "But I love it. It's really about the core idea of people getting together. Underneath it all, we do know the importance of it."

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tortuga-aak · 7 years

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The Hallmark Channel is defying every trend in media by owning Christmas

Hallmark Channel