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auranovabloggers · 10 months

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Aura's Darkstalkers Tier List

A tier list based on my personal feelings of each character. Looking at their designs and my thoughts on them with a combination of the canon games and OVA and discussions I have had with friends over the years. Note I only hate the character in F tier. With that said, I'd like to give my reasons for each in descending order:

The Shao Siaster, Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling: Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling are my favorite characters of all time. They are the reason I even care about this franchise to begin with. When I first did my curious search on the Darkstalkers Wiki about Hsien-Ko in January of 2020, I was hooked on both of them. Their lore, their characteristics, their designs: something just clicked. But not just clicked, something connected to a soul like level. No other fictional characters have I ever obsessed over, made so much art of, thought about straight for years, or spent literally hundreds if not close to thousands on art commissions and merchandise. Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling mean literally everything to me. They are why I learned about this series, why I met some of the amazing friends I have now, and the inspiration for my drive with art. Hsien-Ko and Mei-Ling are truly the greatest. Equal in my eyes and in my heart.

Felicia: In general, I feel Felicia is a great character. The idea of her backstory, who she is, her goals, and personality are generally winners in my book. Despite likely being hated for purely being what she is, she still preservers and believes that peaceful coexistence can occur with Darkstalkers and humans. Noble are her goals and kind is her soul. Her design is kind of a mixed bag as it definitely has some horn to it, I feel, but I like the overall color scheme to her. Plus, who she is, and her lore heavily carries her.

Lilith: Honestly, she is carried by what I think of in my head. She has a hell of a lot of potential as a character. Design wise, nice juxtaposition from Morrigan. I dunno... I think she is cool the more as time has gone on and the more, I have talked with friends.

Jedah: He is a fascinating individual to think about when you think about the world he grew up in. Makai is a fucked-up realm, and the dude showed some semblance of actually giving a damn about the future of his home. But then he got fucked over by his confidant. All that stuff twisted his mindset and set him on the path for what he believed was the right path for all once he came back from death. Interesting individual indeed and a much more compelling antagonist compared to Pyron.

Jon Talbain: His backstory is fine. His personality is alright. I just really love the idea of a martial artist werewolf. And honestly, the idea of an individual trying to conquer his 'inner demons' is a cool set up. It has potential to be really cool in my head. I do like some of his sprite animations do show a bit of snark to him despite his generally stoic if not angry demeanor. Also the idea he looks after some kids and potentially teaches them martial arts is cute.

Victor: His family dynamic with his big sister Emily is so bloody precious. And Victor himself is a generally nice dude. He just wants to make his creator proud and have a good life with his big sister. Lovable dude.

Zabel: My friends have tainted me, the bastards. But yeah, Zabel has a lot of class and style for being the zany, metalhead that he is. Great animations, lots of energy, and honest to god I love his tongue. Just how he swings it around in a lot of official art. He is a cool dude. Also, his general design has a great unique flair to zombies/ghouls.

Morrigan: Looking into her personality and backstory, she is interesting. Just too bad people only focus on the surface and porn. But for what she is, a hedonistic thrill seeker who is confident in herself, she is neat.

Donovan: The idea behind is backstory is compelling: due to having no control over his vampiric nature, he killed everyone he knew and loved, including his own mother. Traumatized and with a dash of self-hatred, he wants to find a way to right the wrong he did. Cool idea. And then he watches over this child with incredible potential in supernatural powers and has this wacky sword at his disposal. Nice, nice. One thing about his design is that I bloody hate how his top clothing is skintight compared to his clothing down below. It is honestly bad. But he is carried by his backstory.

Huitzil: Robots are cool. He can do cool stuff and one of them looks after this child. I think he is neat.

Anita: The mystery of her backstory and powers are cool and worth thinking about an exploring. But beyond that, not much else her. Sucks what Capcom did to her and ole Donny boi with VSAV.

Sasquatch: Lovable dude. I wanna give him a hug and take him out to get some smoothies and food.

Q-Bee: I have some personal gripes with the character: all petty things. Design wise... why is she the way she is? Considering that Soul Bees reside in Makai, I doubt their disguise would work well when there are not a lot in the way of humans. I mean...unless there are Makains who see them as weak cause they have human like looks to them. I dunno. The 'breasts' on their bodies kinda look dumb. If they really went in with the whole insectoid look, I think they would be cool looking. As is, they have some neat ideas: the fake eyes and face being able to open to a real mouth.

Pyron: He reads to me as a Saiyan. Prideful warrior who wants to be riled up in the heat of battle. Will start slow as he tests his foes. That is neat. But honestly, not much else.

Rikuo, Anakaris, Bishamon: Honestly, they all fall into the category of having some cool things, but not being interesting enough for me. But I like them more than those below them. Rikuo is a goddamn handsome merman with a wife and son, Anakaris has commandments and kingdom, and Bishamon has his dog and wife. Cool dudes.

Bulletta: I mean the idea of her looking innocent but deep down being this psychotic monster is good. But that is it. Not much else going for her. But it is good, just not enough compared to everyone above her.

Demitri: He is a general sore loser and pathetic individual who thinks he is hot shit but has picked fights with people far stronger than him. Dude lost to the literal strongest individual in Makai and held a grudge long enough that when it turns out the dude passed away, he directed his rage at Belial's daughter and heir. And she did nothing to Demitri other than exist and be the heir to the Aensland house. Sure, he gave Pyron a good suck, but he potentially still lost to Jedah if we take into a possible account that one recording where it implies, he was killed by Jedah. Also, I feel his clothing design, while fine, looks fucking stupid with being skintight. Dude is trying to have this sense of class and high society, but he looks ridiculous. He is dumb and terrible and in all that, it makes him fun to absolutely shit on. He is funny and that makes him likeable.

Marionette: The idea of her mirror match thing is interesting and the design if fine. But not much else to go with

Shadow: A tad less than Marionette, but same general premise. Except dude is a body snatcher.

Dee: The concept is sound. The idea of Donovan losing to his inner demons and becoming nothing more but a shell of what he was. Brilliant idea considering the other side of Darkstalkers: Darkstalkers is silly, but it is also grim. But this idea is all completely ruined by an absolutely godawful design. If this guy is a barely functioning shell of an individual, only continuing due to the idea of finding something, why does he try even dress up in the attire he wears? He should be in tatters, his hair unkempt, just overall look like someone who has not taken the time to look after themselves. But no, just take make him look like Demitri, but even worse.

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ecargmura · 8 months

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Paradox Live The Animation Episode 1 Review - Anime Rapping Show

To be honest, I was never a big fan of hip-hop and I’m still not. However, Paradox Live seems different. Also, the reason why I got know this franchise is that I remembered listening to BAE’s song in the past and was surprised with the sudden usage of Korean. However, what got me hooked into ParaLive was the song “Jumping In To My World” which I’ll link below.

youtube

Other than that, I’m not too familiar with ParaLive in general, so this anime might be a good opportunity to see if I’ll get into it or not. Right now, I’m a bit interested. I love the character designs and the choice of voice actors!

So, from what I’ve seen, Paradox Live is about underground rappers who are invited to partake in a tournament in the mysterious Club Paradox, said to have disappeared ten years ago and then reappeared recently with the location and building being the same. Four groups are invited and the anime shows their lives in and out of rapping. Also, what makes this rap show unique is that they use the power of Phantometals. Not sure if they have them right now, but with the way they are described, it sounds like crack but metal.

The main group is called BAE, consisting of Allen Sugasano, Hajun Yeon and Anne Faulkner. They’re all roommates and go to school together. Allen seems to be the leader of the three as he’s the one making music and keeping the team together; he seems to be a music making geek in a way as he’s the one most excited to meet Buraikun. Hajun is the perfect prince—he’s rich, caring towards his friends, a model and tall. I think what makes Hajun super unique is that he’s Korean. Korean characters are rarely featured in anime, so for them to go out of their way to make him Korean and not a bad stereotypical caricature makes me happy. I love that he uses his rich boy privileges to do crazy things like riding in a limo and entering Club Paradox from helicopter. From the research I did on ParaLive before the anime premiere, I am aware that Anne is non-binary, but I’m still gonna call them a queen. I love their design out of the main three. I love that they’re not used as a joke either. I’m surprised Japan is becoming progressive with how they write Hajun and Anne.

There are other rap groups: The Cat’s Whiskers, cozmez, and AKYR. There are so many characters, so for now, I’ll just say my first impression of them. Regarding The Cat’s Whiskers, I was surprised to see a character like Saimon. Usually, I really like ikemen characters, so to see such a refined and elegant gentleman like Saimon made me feel something. Right now, he and Hajun are my favorites but that might change in the future. Other TCW rappers are Yohei, Ryu and Shiki. Right now, I think Ryu stands out the most after Saimon from the sheer fact that he’s a weirdo and voiced by Natsuki Hanae. For AKYR, they’re a big group. I know that the pink haired boy is Reo and he’s voiced by Shougo Yano, who voices Mafuyu from Given. I’m interested to learn more about this group. cozmez is a twin duo group consisting of older brother Kanata and younger brother Nayuta. They both live in the slums and want to compete so that they can live a better life and for Nayuta to get treatment; the younger brother seems to be ill? Anyways, I think their character designs are the best because they’re so unique! This is how you should design twins! Give them two different hair styles instead of having the same hairstyle but in different directions.

What I like best about this show is that everyone is connected and knows each other’s identities in real life, so it’s not a hush-hush secret life kind of show. BAE are students who attend Saimon’s classes and know that they rap. Shiki seems to know Nayuta. This gives the story opportunities to give each character some spotlight since they’re all interconnected! I just hope that the anime will give me characterization and not just singing/rapping for the next 11-12 episodes.

The voice acting is splendid! They use a plethora of talented voice actors and utaites to make this show work! BAE’s voice actors are Gakuto Kajiwara (Allen), Ayumu Murase (Hajun) and 96Neko (Anne). The fact that they even got utaites for this project really makes it stand out! I can’t wait to hear more from the other characters. Once again, the stand out performance is from Ryu (Natsuki Hanae)’s five second screen time like I mentioned earlier.

The music’s great so far and I can’t wait to hear more! Will they ever perform Jumping In To My World? I want to hear that! The CG’s actually really good! It’s not too stiff and it does feel like the characters are moving flawlessly.

Overall, I’m excited for more! I’m also worried about what Allen’s doing at the end because that does not look pretty at all. I hope he’s alright. What are your thoughts on this anime’s premiere?

#paradox live the animation #paradox live #allen sugasano #hajun yeon #anne faulkner #akan yatsura #cozmez #the cat's whiskers #review #anime #anime review #ecargmura #arum journal #Youtube

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sodiumlamp · 5 months

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Picard

All right, let me tell you about my dad.

My dad got me into Star Trek, because he liked the original show and he used to watch TNG and the movies whenever they came on in the late 80s, and I started to get hooked on TNG when the "Best of Both Worlds" cliffhanger happened, about 33 years ago.

I remember being really excited about Star Trek: First Contact, because that was the first TNG-only movie, and I assumed that it would kick ass. Also, the early trailers showed that it was about the return of the Borg, which-- believe it or not-- was an unusual thing back in those days. That was in 1996, about 27 years ago. My dad wasn't too impressed with it, though. I think he sort of moved on from Star Trek not long after, which wasn't too difficult since the franchise began to peter out anyway. He still watched the old shows, but he wasn't looking for Voyager or Enterprise or anything like that.

I watched the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek in 2009. That was 14 years ago. At some point it was available on-demand, so we watched it at my parents' house, and my dad saw the beginning of the movie, where a spatial anomaly opens up and the Narada emerges with his indistinct black metal and green highlights, and he groaned "Not the Borg again!" I mean, it wasn't the Borg, it was a Romulan mining ship from the future, but I couldn't blame him for mistaking it for a new Borg gimmick, since they use the exact same aesthetics for the Borg in 1996. And in 1997. And the rest of the Borg appearances in Voyager through 2001. And the Romulan ships in Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002. And... that shitty Borg episode of Enterprise from 2003. At some point, someone decided the Romulans and Borg hired the same interior decorator, and just never looked back. Anyway, my dad was fed up with the cliche, and that was 14 years ago.

So I had the same reaction when they kept showing the "Artifact" Borg Cube that was in Picard Season 1. They treated it like a big reveal at the end of the first episode, which is stupid because everyone already saw it in the trailers, and then everyone who hadn't seen the trailers got to see it in the opening credits. The Star Trek franchise is lousy with Borg, and it has been for so long that it's almost reflexive to use them, but what galls me is how they still treat it like some shocking, blood curdling twist. They literally just did a bunch of Borg stuff in Picard Season 1, and yet Season 2 opens with a spatial anomaly opening up, and a bunch of Borg shit coming out. It's just like Star Trek (2009) except my dad's right this time, it really is the Borg again, and the showrunners honestly think this is still a surprise, 27 years after it stopped being cool.

I mean, this is how low the bar is: When those machine god tentacles came out of the portal in Picard episode 10, I was relieved to see their home dimension was red instead of Borg/Romulan green. They had no choice, really. If they had gone with green, fans would wondered if the machine gods were somehow connected with the Borg and/or Romulans, which would have confused the story.

Anyway. Season 2 opens with a long, loooong setup to a mysterious message broadcast from a spatial anomaly, but I already knew it was the Borg because the anomaly was fucking green. Then a Borg ship comes out of it, because of course it does. But this show can't do anything quick, so everyone stares slack-jawed at the thing and Picard and Seven exchange knowing glances before she confirms that it's a Borg ship.

But no, it's totally fresh and different this time! Honest! These Borg want to negotiate! They even address Picard by his actual name instead of calling him "Locutus". Their queen wears a mask! Oh, and when she tries to assimilate the ship, she uses big chunky cables instead of those creepy tubule things. And Picard can't stop it, so he orders the ship to self-destruct... Wait, that's not different at all! That's the exact same thing he did in 1996!

Then Q zaps him out of it and apparently we're doing a whole other story instead. So let's take this as a cue (get it?) to talk about wasting time. Picard gave a speech for Starfleet Academy about time, and how precious it is, and how rare second chances are, which is filthy rich for a show like this.

Last time, I complained about how they got Raffi and Seven together without really giving the characters any on-screen time together. They literally have two scenes, and the second is where their holding hands. This episode adds a little more, but it also acknowledges that Rios and Jurati used to be an item, which I never mentioned before because I totally forgot it happened. Jurati and Rios were such hot messes in Season 1 that I had no idea if they were making out to distract themselves or if it was something more serious. So my complaints about the Seven/Raffi romance goes double for Jurati/Rios, because they broke up off-screen. Hell, for all I know, Raffi and Seven broke up too? This isn't insignificant. These are four of the main characters on this show! The showrunners paired them all off and it's like they don't even care!

But the cherry on top of all of this is Zhaban, one of the Romulans living with Picard in his French vinyard. Early in this episode, Piacard and the other Romulan, Laris, drink a toast to his memory, since he died 18 months prior. This bothered me, because I thought they meant he died in Season 1, and I couldn't remember that happening. So I looked him up and no. He just died sometime between seasons 1 and 2. Why would they write him off the show like this? Did the actor die? No, Jamie McShane's still alive today. Maybe he just didn't want to come back, or they couldn't afford him.

But more likely, they needed him out of the way to set up this romantic tension between Picard and Laris. Actually, I'm not sure that explains anything, since they never revealed Laris and Zhaban were married. Laris tells Picard that and he had no idea at all, so I assume this was meant to be a revelation. I sort of assumed they were a couple the whole time, but apparently the show felt the need to establish Zhaban was her husband just to make it clear that his death means she's single and she's ready to do the Picard Maneuver, if you get my drift.

And that right there is what's broken about this show. The Borg nonsense is a problem. The way they recycled the auto-destruct scene for the teaser and a late episode climax just to fill time? That is also a problem. Picard continuing to struggle with his fear of commitment well into his 90's? Kind of a problem. But the real problem is the slapdash way this show keeps approaching the characters. Why was Zhaban even in the show in the first place? He and Laris did everything together, and now he's gone and it hardly matters, since Laris can just handle the role herself. So why did they write him in?

That wouldn't be such a big deal to me if it was just Zhaban. He's a minor enough character that it wouldn't matter, like all those chief engineers on TNG Season 1. The showrunners were still figuring it out, I guess. But Picard pretends to be this thoughtful, highbrow experience, where all the callbacks are important and everything happens for a reason, and you're expected to find clues in all the easter eggs and prophetic dreams. Zhaban's unimportance proves that it's all a house of cards. The writers are just winging it.

I mean, I would expect the romances in the show to have some emotional weight, but they don't. Jurati's relationship with Bruce Maddox was only introduced right before she murdered him, and that was probably only done to add context to the murder. Jurati and Rios' relationship was so ephemeral that I didn't realize it was there. Raffi and Seven's romance reminds me of this little subplot they did with Nurse Ogawa near the end of TNG, where she and Dr. Crusher would gab about her off-screen love life. But Raffi and Seven are a big part of the main cast of Picard. Why set something like this up and then ignore it?

I keep going on about this, but the point I'm trying to make is that when I say the show wastes time, I don't mean that it's too long, or that not enough things happen to fill the runtime, or that the show is boring. Those statements are sometimes true, but the true issue here is that this show has its priorities mixed up. It spends too much time on things that don't matter and not nearly enough time on things that do. That's what makes it so incredibly frustrating to watch.

#mike watches picard #sheer fucking hubris

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measuringbliss · 2 years

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pretend I'm Jesus and I just woke up after three days in a tomb. did I miss anything funny online. and/or how is the glee rewatch progressing?

Were you in those hurricanes or something? How are you doing?

I don't think you missed anything funny... Sorry I think it's the first time in almost a year I slept for more than 7 hours so I feel a bit groggy hahaha

You missed the Try Guys situation I think! Famous wife guy who made his love for his wife his entire personality was found to have cheated on her with a member of the production. Hijinks ensued (they both got fired).

I finished the first season of my Glee Rewatch yesterday! I don't know when I'll start posting nor at which rate, because there's gonna be a podcast made by two cast members and it's gonna start end of October and I don't know if it's gonna be two episodes a week or whatnot. I thought about posting the ramblings on the same days as the podcast but the more I think about it, the less I think it's a good idea. I'm pretty busy. One post per week? I can do it given that I have 22 posts ready. Two posts per week? It's too risky. Three posts? Nah.

So I think I'll schedule the first post for soon... or maybe today, who knows?

The battle against my university department for our right to use laptops and phones during classes has unfortunately resulted in failure. I broke up with my bf about a week ago and the latest episode of She-Hulk made me tear up and also, dating apps suck.

I'm still not over the sudden temperature change when it happened about three weeks ago! You wake up and suddenly you're just... cold. Oh you want to leave your room and it's not noon? Yeah you'd better wear a hoodie and socks to go to the kitchen.

Oh, I streamed for about an hour where I just did ASMR (mostly whispered) and translated stuff for the class, and was very curious about what answers our teachers would give. Well, one was absent. The other praised me but also questioned my choices which is definitely fair in my book (the validation is always nice!). Had a few moments in class where I wondered what I was even doing there given some... weak answers from a few classmates... but the teacher is good. Mostly.

That was it for the Bliss recap of Bliss Productions! We don't have many funny things to share, unfortunately, but we quite appreciated watching season 3 of Le Visiteur du Futur (The Visitor from the Future) , a French webseries that just released a movie (that was my introduction to the franchise). Every episode has English subtitles and I think they're good! Don't know how a non-French audience would receive that style of humor, but it's very bingeable (there's 4 seasons + a book, each season can be binged in about 2-3 hours I think?). Started as short comedy scenes at first but around ep 4-5 it introduces plot elements and then I was HOOKED (because the show starts in a very different place from the movie). I'm pretty impressed by how they started filming on an old iPhone for 480p quality, and then in S3 you've got full HD 1080p, and then years after S4... a movie sequel was released at the theaters!

Anyway, I hope you're well and I'm hugging you into oblivion. Hmm. Maybe not oblivion. Bliss? Bliss is good.

Wait. Hmm.

I'm sending you a big bar of chocolate! Chocolate is good for our mental health.

#The VOD for the ASMR stream is available both on twitch and on YouTube if you're interested #Asks

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andswarwrites · 1 year

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Day 18

While I have nothing against Star Trek and Star Wars, I feel like they're so "mainstream" as far as science fiction goes that you are expected to hand in your sci-fi nerd card if you don't love either or both. So when I tell people I like science fiction, I'm expected to be a fan of either franchise. I grew up watching Voyager, so my first captain was Janeway. I also knew the crew of the original series thanks to the movies which I watched with my family. After I married S-, he and I watched a few seasons of The Next Generation. Ah yes, and more recently we watched Picard, but only the first season. That about sums up my experience with the Trekking of Stars.

As for Star Wars, I watched Episodes 4, 5 and 6 as a teenager when my parents rented them for me from the library. I had expressed an interest in seeing them. I enjoyed them, but I didn't get completely absorbed into the universe as I later would with Stargate, and I didn't watch the story unfold with amazement as I would when I watched Babylon 5. I was not impressed with Episodes 1 to 3, especially not 3; I preferred Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars mini series (2003). I've played Star Wars as a tabletop game, I've read some of the fiction, and I am such a fan of The Mandalorian that the theme song is my ring tone.

I also enjoyed the quirky randomness of Doctor Who from Doctors 9 to 11. BBC made a movie called An Adventure in Space and Time (2013) which tells the story of how this incredible show came about. On my to-do list is to watch all of the 26 seasons of the original run from 1964 to 1989. If you think that is an overwhelming objective, I also want to watch every single episode of One Piece. A girl can dream.

I'll make the argument that I became a science fiction lover thanks to books, more than anything. When I first read the Foundation series, and then the robot-themed short stories by Isaac Asimov, I was hooked. Cities in Flight by James Blish, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, more recently The Martian by Andy Weir: these are books that make me forget what planet I'm on. I know technically science fiction is a genre that is supposed to be speculative in its nature, positing how society would be affected if a certain technology existed. As far as I'm concerned, whether it's set in the future or in space, if it takes me on a fantastic voyage (see what I did there?) I call it sci fi.

When S- bought the boxed set of Firefly and had me watch it while we were dating, he did not know how those fourteen episodes were going to affect me. For a while, I watched the whole series over with every new season, so that was four times a year. It got that I could recite entire scenes, playing each character in turn, with the proper inflection in the dialogue and even matching facial expressions. It's been a while since I watched Firefly, but I'm planning to watch it this summer with N-. I can't wait to see her reaction.

What I loved about Lost in Space is that it was about a family, and how each one of them was equipped with a separate set of skills, but when they combine those skills they can overcome so much together. I don't really enjoy boiler plate stories. In fact, one of the reasons I had terrible writer's block in my twenties is the concept that "there is nothing new under the sun". Yet. Every individual is unique, right? So every storyteller, even if they are telling the same story, has the ability to make it their own and share their own unique perspective.

I could go on about all the science fiction books, shows and movies I enjoy, but I think the point has been made. I don't consider myself an "expert" by any means. I just know what I like, and I am not embarrassed or intimidated. I like a story that doesn't take itself too seriously. I like well-rounded characters with a little angst. I like a setting that can absorb me completely into another time and/or place. I especially love a mind-blowing twist, or a heartwarming denouement or a thought-provoking conclusion.

So I've made my case. As far as I'm concerned, I'm a science fiction fan. I may be a tepid fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, but I still get to proclaim my love of sci fi. In French there is a saying "les gouts ne sont pas a discuter" - tastes are not to be discussed. Even so I like to discuss them. I always have. If I meet someone who hates or loves certain media as much as I do, I have the nerdiest response: I gesture emphatically, my voice goes up a pitch, I express my enthusiasm at having found a kindred spirit.

I'm not limited to science fiction. I like historical fiction, fantasy, coming of age stories. I'm a major fan of comedies, though a lot of the shows I like can actually be classified as dramedies. And I simply love animated movies. I have since I was a kid, and the love has never faded, in fact it has only deepened. I wonder if I'll always be this intense fangirl, with passion and fire for what she likes? I recently went to the movies and I saw a group of guys standing around, discussing easter eggs and certain scenes, and making predictions about sequels. I remember doing that. I still do, in the car on the ride home with S-. I guess he's my favorite person to talk to about this topic, because he knows me so well and it's always safe to share my point of view.

It's interesting, I feel more self conscious about sharing on this topic than I did about anything else this month. I think I've got something very backward here.

#tastes #science fiction #personal preferences

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dumbfuck-mojave · 2 years

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35 with Billy, ily Sid >:)

*Kisses you on the head*

TITLE: NUMBER 35

Franchise: Scream

Pairing: Billy Loomis x Reader

Also Featured: Mentions of Stu and Randy ;).

Warnings: Mostly fluff, mentions of therapy, food, Billy being awkward.

A/N: This will be the last piece of writing until after I graduate May 14th. If you keep up with me, you could probably tell I was slowing down a bit, but I’m just trying to drag myself through this last month lmao. If you would like to reblog this as well as some of my other newer pieces, ESPECIALLY THIS OTHER KISS PROMPT, you should totally do it~. Prompt list used here. This is set in the Scream 2 timeline but Billy is alive yk.

Word Count: 911

@goodguydxll @f1nalboys @bambitheghostfaceapologist @horrorstolemyheart

“So, what did you think of the movie?”

The October sun hung low in the sky, a bright orb surrounded by yellow and orange peeking over the horizon. The rough asphalt crackled under your boots as you made your way back to your car, your fingers hooked loosely with Billy’s. You were a bit surprised he was letting you hold his hand, to be honest, and you glanced at him while waiting for a response.

“What did you think of the movie?” He questioned back, taking a sip of his drink he had brought out with him. It was massive, but you could tell it was getting low by sloshing of the half-melted ice at the bottom of the cup.

You rolled your eyes in a playful manner, “Is this going to change what you say about it?”

“Maybe.” Billy had a small smirk on his face as he looked at you mischievously, bottom lip slightly tucked under his teeth. Fuck, he was cute.

“I liked it a lot! I thought the humor was well executed and the plot was enjoyable. I also really liked Tiffany, she was a great addition and I hope for more movies in the future just to see what they do with her. Plus, you know, exploring that ending.”

You held your head high as you answered, eyes closed and speaking matter-of-factly. Billy laughed as you finished, peaking one eye open at him and grinning. He let go of your hand in favor of wrapping a thin arm around your shoulders, and you felt heat creep up your neck as he leaned into you. Your car was barely 20 feet away, but you didn’t want this to end.

“Well I thought it was the ~greatest movie in existence~” Billy joked in a squeaky voice, an imitation of Tiffany, as you elbowed him in the ribs,”Ow, hey! But seriously, I liked it. It was…different, but a good type of different, I liked it better than the last one, at least.”

“Alright Loomis, now I really know you’re lying. C’mon, where are all those scalding movie opinions I hear so much about?”

You and Billy had been friends for a year or so, meeting on the first day of the film class you shared. He had always come off as standoffish, a bit cocky, but he had intrigued you and you had gotten to know him better than the others in that class did, getting to see the real, or perhaps just more private, side of him. The one he saved for when he was with friends, which you knew was also a more recent attitude. He had been open with you about his mental health struggles in the past, the anger and trust issues and how he was going to therapy and how it was helping. In turn, you had divulged some deeper things about yourself to him. You trusted one another.

You had reached your car now, parting from Billy’s side reluctantly and stepping around the back of the car to reach the driver’s door. You struggled with the keys for a moment, Billy chuckling at you again as you shushed him and got inside.

“Randy’s going to lose his mind when he sees her.” Billy said.

“Yeah, just like every person ever. Tiffany’s cool, whether you’re physically attracted to her or not. Which don’t get me wrong, Randy will definitely be. But hey, he can lust over that postcard he has.”

You both laughed at that, a sonorous mixture as you pulled out of the lot and headed towards Billy and Stu’s apartment. The rest of the drive was quiet, but a serene feeling set over you as Billy’s hair caught the fading light. There was always a looming feeling of worry when friends turned to lovers, but you didn’t think it would be that way between you two.

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The beige colored apartment door stood out in bright contrast against the dark red hallways of Billy’s apartment building, shining gold numbers inlaid as you stood with him in front of it. He reached down to grab your hands and looked as if he were about to say something when a loud symphony of yelling and whooping omitted from behind the door.

“He’s going to get us in trouble again, I swear.” Billy mumbled before turning back to you, looking even more nervous than before.

“You know… tonight was really nice. Really. I hope we can do this again soon.” You smiled at him, rubbing your thumbs over the backs of his hands in the hope of calming his nerves. He tried to match your energy, but you could tell you were doing nothing to help his sudden, unexplained nervousness. Unexplained to you at least, Billy knew exactly what was making him nervous and he was about to take his chance with it.

“Same. I’ll talk to you soon about it, schedules and all that…and, um… one more thing..”

He leaned in to kiss you then, so quick you could barely feel it, despite your teeth clacking together a little. He pulled away just as quick, accidentally shouldering the door as his hand slipped off the handle. You could see an embarrassed look on his face as he shoved his way in, closing the door with force.

You smiled softly, putting your fingertips to your lips. Billy never fumbled, never was embarrassed around anyone. You were excited to see how much you could change that.

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If you enjoy my writing, consider buying me a Kofi :)

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localhypnofruit · 2 years

Text

Making a list of how I personally rate/feel about the 2021 Ovenbreak Cookies for the fun of it!! I'm prolly gonna make a 2020 and 2019 list since I was around during those years, too!! But for now, 2021 Cookies (and Pets I guess because some pets got their own trailer)!!

Chess Choco Cookie: 7/10 - They're adorable and I love their plotline!! Spooky twins trope my beloved. I still think about the line here they "lost their rook" and Earl Grey Cookie stands as the opposing rook in the story.

Earl Grey Cookie: 10/10 - He's a lovable caretaker who adopted two kids and technically is a Cookie of Darkness! He's a perfectionist that's haunted by his pet/past mistakes and I think about him WAYYYY too much.

Cookiemals: 5/10 - They're decent? Nice to see the opportunity of actual animals being sentient cookies and they give a little more information about what Wind Archer does in the Dessert Paradise... But other than that and the fact that there are three of them, I don't think they're very remarkable.

Windcatcher: 4/10 - Made for a good plot point and looks nice. Not much else to say about them.

Churro Cookie: 8/10 - I have a bias for forest cookies, and Churro fits well into the headcanons that I already had for Millennial Tree. Churro's misunderstanding of the Tree 'abandoning them' could be used in so many ways and the fact that this fella stood up to a LEGENDARY? And WON? Banger moment. The only reason there's no 10/10 here is that I'm still bitter over Fig Cookie not getting any attention in this update.

Ice Juggler Cookie: 1/10 - The only point here is from the fact that the color palette and food choice is nice and clever respectively. Terrible personality, terrible plotline, decent ability. I would trade this cookie in for someone like Muscle Cookie but that'd be an insult to Muscle.

Banana Cookie: 4/10 - A bit too oblivious, but her colors are nice. It's disappointing how she and Ice Juggler Cookie were a part of one of the most forgettable updates of the year.

Starfruit Cookie: 6/10 - I love her design and her ability to see into the future seeing the stars. It may be an overdone trope, and they missed out on giving her a connection/way to give Moonlight a possible personality... But the design and story of this update really makes up for that missed opportunity!!

Eternal Eye of Darkness: 3/10 - Looks cool. Had no plot relevance and just exists now.

Licorice Cookie: 8/10 - Silly necromancer twig that reminds me of Team Rocket go BRRRR. In all seriousness, I think the Devs did a great job manifesting his Kingdom personality into Ovenbreak.

Bell Pepper Cookie: 5/10 - Genius kid that can't get along with other kids that easily. He would be higher if he didn't bring down the AI Run 2/Field Trip Event so much. I like the relationship he has with Aloe, but it would have been much better if these two shared separate updates. Also, he's just... Hero Cookie but Revamped.

Aloe Cookie: 10/10 - Despite the drama they caused me (and still do), they're one of the best cookies to exist within the Cookie Run Franchise. The mystery surrounding the future (much like Roguefort Cookie's mystery surrounding the past) has me hooked, as well as the entire plotline of the original AI Run. I could not ask for a better cookie.

Butter Pretzel Cookie: 6/10 - I love her shtick of painting with butter, though her personality is a bit of a meh for me. Maybe it's just because I dipped out of interest for this update, but I can't really find myself enjoying her past how she looks.

Almond Cookie: 2/10 - Stop being weird about him I STG. His personality and connection with Walnut is nice, but he really needs to believe in his kid more. Not very appealing aside from the 'not wearing his coat properly' part of his design.

Lilac Cookie: 7/10 - Drama aside, Lilac has been growing on me as of late. I was jealous that he was the one to receive masculine pronouns instead of Aloe (since they were both NPCs that had the chance of appearing), but past that he's honestly very intriguing. The fact that he's supposed to assassinate royalty but doesn't do so due to the connection he has with Yogurt Cream Cookie is a trope that I find compelling.

Scorpion Cookie: 8/10 - A mysterious creature that's very deadly and teases a lot... Matched with a clever design and one of my favorite design quirks of 'barely opens her eyes, but when she does it MEANS SOMETHING IMPORTANT'... I wish she had more development.

Bellflower Cookie: 10/10 - Despite how the plotlines took a downturn due to having to follow Gingerbrave at the time (and being a weird mix of main plot and Guild Adventures), Bellflower is so interesting and beloved to me. Can we talk about how she has to now spread the truth about Lotus Dragon Cookie while living close to them and those that are loyal to them? And has to have some sort of undercover rebellion against a DRAGON? I think we should talk about that more.

Ginseng Cookie: 4/10 - Decent cookie. Not very interesting in terms of ability or plot relevance, but would make for a good father/grandfather figure. Also spawned a funny meme from the official Twitter.

Hydrangea Cookie: 7/10 - Gorgeous design and a wicked personality. As a Pomegranate Cookie Apologist (half-joking), having another priestess that follows an evil higher power but puts up a slow-going and relaxed front is SO GOOD.

Lotus Dragon Cookie: 9/10 - Same as Hydrangea Cookie, but with even more points on the design scale. Their lore and ability to steal life force to 'grant wishes' is SO GOOD.

Sour Belt Cookie: 6/10 - Beloved personality and fitting addition to Dinosour Cookie's family. I'm not that big of a fan of her looks or what she makes in terms of fashion, but she certainly stands out in a good way.

Chocolate BonBon Cookie: 5/10 - Not my style whatsoever, and her obsession with the past should come back to bite her in some way. I don't mean this in a mean way, I mean this as in 'she deserves her own plot outside of the one she was mixed in where the past literally haunts her'.

Amber Sugar Cookie: 9/10 - The only reason why a point is docked is that he caused a small stir due to a mistranslation and also was a part of one of the most grind-y updates to date. I wanna know more about this stunning little bee boy!!

Sugar Glass Cookie: 5/10 - Great design and pretty location (and interesting concept with the shadow selves in the Hard Mode trial), but the personality and relationship with Amber Sugar Cookie just doesn't sit right with me.

Eggnog Cookie: 10/10 - Absolute father figure. Just a warm man with a big heart. He's a goofy lad that I would absolutely accept as the canonical Santa of any universe. There is no weird/mature reason for me liking him as much as I do (like some people), I just genuinely think he's a really good character and want him to hold me.

Tiramisu Cookie: 10/10 - He's a determined lad that wants things done on time and takes things a bit too seriously! His plotline with Eggnog was incredibly engaging, and I can't help but to root for this little guy when he's going along his business on the train!! Also, his relationship with Millennial Tree got a good chuckle out of me

Overall Cookie Rating: 6.5/10

Summary: The beginning of the year was very pleasant until there was a hard drop at the Pudding Cup Circus. The updates made me lose interest until the AI Run 2/Field Trip event came out and it still barely held me there. I only stayed because of Aloe, and even then the drama surrounding them really brought me out of the game, and I kept myself on the sidelines for the updates afterward (I still haven't seen the entirety of Butter Pretzel Cookie and Almond's Plotline despite Roguefort Cookie's involvement it was that strenuous). Surprisingly, Bellflower and the rest of the Lotus-Related update really brought me back and helped me enjoy Ovenbreak again. This year's anniversary was the weakest it had ever been, and I honestly feel like swapping the anniversary update for the Holiday Update would have been so much better.

#cookie run #cookie run ovenbreak #text post #cookie run reviews #// for those that are curious about the aloe drama I'm not gonna state it here but know that it was BAD and messed up my sense of self

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portsidewonderland · 3 years

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Okay, I’ve been wanting to write this for the last three weeks, but I’m finally - finally - sitting down to do just that.

First, I’m a Rogan shipper. I’ve been a Rogan shipper for the last 20 years, but in that time, I’ve grown, I’ve experienced my own sense of love, and I’m a writer so I’d like to think I’m familiar with structure, characterization, and the like.

Second, I’m focused on the film franchise, strictly speaking. Just wanted to make sure that is clear.

Having said that, when I discuss how utterly wrong the X-Men franchise is, I’m talking about from a story standpoint. When I speak of Logan and Rogue, if that ship isn’t your jam, fine, but the points I make still stand.

Finally, spoiler alert for all of the movies.

Okay, I think we’re ready to jump in.

1. After the first movie, everyone forgot the heart of what made the first movie so special: Wolverine & Rogue

I don’t necessarily mean together. I mean, the movie focused primarily on Logan’s story and Rogue’s story. It was told through THEIR POV. This is important because, essentially, we’re asked to connect with these two characters AND WE DO.

The dialogue, the acting, and their stories (which reflect each other’s as well as stand on their own) draw us in and we are hooked.

Even the critics thought some of the best scenes are the ones Logan and Marie share together. Multiple critics discuss chemistry, how they add to the scene, etc.

Regardless of whether you ship them or not, there’s a compelling story between the two. This vulnerable, slip of a girl is the most powerful X-men out there (or one of) and this growly, fierce angry, broken man who’s been alone for so long that out of everyone he’s met and seen, THIS girl brings him to his knees.

And it’s because she isn’t scared of him.

Even after watching him beat the shit out of his opponent, even after seeing the claws threaten humans and slice through a barrel of a gun, she still thinks, I can trust him.

And when he catches her in his trailer, she STILL isn’t afraid of him. She gives him lip. She calls him out on his shit.

That’s how she manages to slide through the cracks.

And that is BEAUTIFUL.

I’m not here to talk about the performances, but Jesus Christ, I love this scene so damn much. The chemistry RADIATES. The glances, the confusion, the curiosity, and the attraction. (Sorry not sorry, it’s there on both parts, I’ll die on this hill.)

Anyway, the first movie is about how this girl brings the savage, feral Wolverine to his knees. How she gets him to STAY. How she gets him to open up.

Yes, Logan wants info on his past, but he’s staying for Marie. We all know it.

When he threatens Jean after first waking up, Jean is scared. And for good reason, obviously.

But Logan STABS Marie with his claws, and guess what? She’s still not scared of him. She’s worried about him.

This is THEIR story.

Do you really think Wolverine is going to go running around in leather for anyone but Marie? Yeah, I don’t think so. I mean, he literally STABS HIMSELF IN THE CHEST to free himself and get to her.

He PROMISES her that he’d take care of her. Do you think Wolverine bullshits? Hell no, he doesn’t.

And that’s why....

2. The whole Jean thing was just not great.

Okay, can I tell you something?

I don’t see Jean as a sympathetic character. She’s engaged to Scott and suddenly, Wolverine comes strolling in and she can’t get her shit together?

I mean, okay, I get it, let’s be real.

But Scott isn’t a bad guy. He nay be a dick, but he treats Jean well. Because we’re not in Cyclops’ or Jean’s head, we as the audience don’t see any marital/romantic issues between them. Hence, when Jean gets flustered by Wolverine to the point where she lets him goad her into reading his mind, she knows what she’s doing. She likes it. She likes Logan’s attention.

Not because she likes Logan.

(I read this fic where basically Jean tells Logan he could have been anybody, and I thought that was so perfect)

But because he’s giving her attention. He makes her feel desired.

And she leads him on.

Right there, I don’t like her, and I think that’s why a lot of Rogan shippers don’t like her is that she has no problem toying not only with Logan’s feelings, but with Scott’s.

But that’s not even the worst part of this.

At the end, when Logan asks for Marie and Jean makes her comment, she adds, “I think she’s taken with you.”

Like - why would Jean say that? Why mention it?

That’s petty ass shit right there.

To me, what she’s trying to do is align herself with Logan as adults and belittle Marie for having a little crush on him. Like it’s so juvenile.

And the worst line of this whole movie is when he says, “Tell her my heart belongs to another.”

Want to know why?

Because the writers/director haven’t SHOWN this. This line is forced here to TELL the audience that we should be shipping Jean and Wolverine. It’s sloppy writing. It tells me they think the audience are idiots.

Really, Logan?

Jean has your heart even though you completely go against Tall Dark and Feral to pick up a girl, then stay at the school with her, leave a fucking mansion to bring her back, make a promise to her, go after her after she’s kidnapped, stab yourself in the chest, fling yourself on the Statue of Liberty AND RISK YOUR FUCKING LIFE TO SAVE ROGUE’S JUST BY TOUCHING HER and you want me to believe your heart belongs to Jean????

Please, tell me, why the FUCK should I buy that?

Oh, because they’re the same age?

LOL no.

Anyway, I didn’t like Jean’s characterization because of that. Because she’s leading people on, because she needs to put down Marie’s feelings after her ordeal because of her insecurity, because of it all.

Which is why I’ll never ship them together.

Logan is at his worst when he’s around Jean.

Anyway.

And Jean is just the worst.

3. They took something meaningful and they fucked it

Logan promises to take care of Rogue. Do you know important that is for both of them as individuals and their relationship?

Rogue only goes back because of Logan. Not for anyone else. Not even Bobby. She comes back, she stays, for Logan.

Where do we see that after the second movie?

He’s so goddamned focused on Jean, on everything about her, that he barely notices that Rogue is ready to get the cure.

I’m GLAD they got a scene together. Because of their looks.

I am.

But shit.

It’s like Logan has completely forgotten all about Rogue, and I’m sorry, but after that first movie, I just can’t buy that.

I can buy that he leaves to check out his past. The dog tag scene is one of my absolute favorites. That’s perfect. Makes sense.

(Also, side note: Fic is so beautiful about this but he isn’t afraid to touch her. Like, he doesn’t HAVE to play with her hair but he does. It’s playful and flirty. It IS. He could have just said he liked her hair BUT HE HAD TO TOUCH IT. And this is HUGE for Rogue because honestly SHE’S afraid to touch and of herself but if Logan isn’t afraid, she stops being afraid - if that makes sense.)

But seriously? He’s not calling the mansion, not writing to Rogue?

I don’t believe that for one second.

This is why I will never watch The Wolverine after that first time (I refuse especially after the director said he was contemplating adding Rogue at the end and didn’t and FUCK EVERYTHING.) because he just leaves because he’s upset about fucking JEAN

I’m sorry but the Wolverine isn’t ABOUT Jean.

If that was the case, we should have had point of views between Logan and Jean in the first movie, not Rogue.

We should have SEEN their development, but we didn’t.

We’re TOLD it.

I’m sorry, but how do you want me to believe that the big bad Wolverine runs off to Japan because he’s sad about Jean? Like, so he’s just going to leave Rogue alone with all of those threats? Are you fucking kidding me?

Show them keeping in touch or SOMETHING. You can’t expect me to see such a huge transformation arc in Logan in the first movie that just gets shit on in every other movie (besides the second). Because that makes Wolverine look like a big, gigantic ASSHOLE and I get that he’s supposed to be that way, but NOT with Rogue.

Which is why Days of Future Past pisses me off as much of the rest them (I’m only discussing the Rogue Cut because I refuse to acknowledge that Bryan Singer - who gave us the first movies - regulated Rogue to such a fucking small cameo.) because Rogue was treated as garbage.

Now, I’m going to assume Logan doesn’t know about what really happened to Rogue because no one told him. But honestly? If he cares about Rogue the way I know he does, he should be asking about her every single time he and Xavier talk.

I love that Logan can sense Rogue when she steps in to help. I love that Rogue refuses to let go of Logan’s mind even in the heart of danger (@bigfrogbestfrogs has an awesome breakdown of these scenes). But I’m appalled at how Kitty is chosen before Rogue? Like, even when coming up with the idea for this movie, why not involve Rogue more?

I refuse to discuss Bobby and her together at the end.

Fuck that.

4. The timelines

Look, I’m not even going to go into the shit that is the timelines.

But honestly?

Fuck everything about that.

I get Singer wanted to retcon X3, but I don’t care.

Based on Apocalypse, the future still sucks so everything failed and then the movie LOGAN takes that shit and amplifies it.

5. LOGAN (the movie)

I’m sorry, but this movie is amazing in some ways and sucks in others.

Want to know why?

Because it takes everything about what made the first movie great and emphasized it.

Laura is too young to be a love interest, so clearly, it’s paternal, and I’m here for it.

But there are so many parallels between logan and Laura and Logan and Rogue that for Logan not to say anything or feel anything in a way tgat tells the audience he’s feeling something just boggles my mind.

Even if he carried HER picture or played with the dog tags and thought of her, something that shows the audience he remembers her, dammit, and she MEANT something to him.

But FUCK how could he NOT?

And that’s why the scene where he’s reading that comic book and he sees himself saving Rogue is so poignant.

Because his gaze lingers.

I mean, obviously I’m assuming she’s dead (which is bullshit but whatever). But still.

And then when he’s dying and Laura is holding his hands and you get that prophecy of him dying with his heart in his hand and I loved how they paired it with the Logan and Rogue song. I loved that callback.

And if the films in between them weren’t such shit, it would be enough.

But it’s not enough for me.

There was so much potential and everything got shit on and it angers me soooo much.

Anyway.

That’s me venting.

Luckily we have so many talented Rogan fic writers and that our ship has survived 20 years.

But still.

What could have been...

Shit.

#logan x marie #wolverine x rogue #Logan x rogue #Wolverine x Marie #Anna Marie #wolverine

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lilydalexf · 3 years

Photo

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with bugs

bugs has 40 stories at Gossamer. They mostly focus on Mulder and Scully, but there are also some goodies featuring Reyes and Doggett. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her fics here before, including The Link. She also co-ran WhyIncision, a fun, smart X-Files mailing list that dissected fics like a book club. Big thanks to bugs for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Not really. While I was still in high school, I started watching the then 20 year old OG Star Trek and became a Trekkie of a sort. Starlog magazine, James Blish novels and the other novelizations, and while I was working as a library page, I found fanfiction one day among the periodicals. Who knows how fanfiction ended up as part of a library's materials, but there it was, this tattered mimeographed collection. The fic that had the most impact on me was one where Nurse Chapel wrestled a giant alien snake to save Spock's life.

So when I got into XF, one of the first things I did was look for fanfic, knowing somewhere out there, Scully was wrestling a big snake for Mulder.

That experience showed me the power of fandom, that even without the internet, how the second generation of Trekkies joined the original group to advocate for the franchise to be revived. I remember sitting in the theater for that first awful Star Trek movie, choked up with what we'd done.

Tragic backstory way to say, no I'm not surprised that a well-produced show like XF would beget future generations of fans, and that they'd be chewing their way through the fanfic archives still being maintained.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I'm so grateful to the fandom. Literally formed the life I have today through the confidence it gave me. Many of my friends to this day are 'pocket friends' from the various fandoms I've been in, and the longest friendships were formed in XF. I learned how to write, both technically and finding my voice. I learned how to think analytically, more than any college courses.

The two most important things I took away were, write for yourself first and always, and shit ain't that damn important. In the end, it's a TV show.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

YIKES. I came in at the Fight the Future summer hiatus, so the waning days of ATXC, then we moved to mailing lists, right? Yahoo Groups was in there somewhere. Finally message boards. Live Journal rose up at the end of the run which began to fragment the fandom even before the show ended, along with the migration off our individual websites to Archive of Our Own, fanfiction.net and such. We went from group discussion platforms to 'come look at my blog for my thoughts'. It was different and I didn't particularly like it, but in the end, when I came back to fandom for a new show....I had to get a Live Journal. That's the most interesting part of fandom, that a platform doesn't mold a fandom; we use the platform and when it's no longer useful to us, we abandon it en mass.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

I've touched on that a bit, but to elaborate, I'm glad I started in the XF fandom. It had such high standards and I hope that I maintain those standards for myself to this day. These days, I don't usually have a beta reader, but that took a couple hundred posted fics to get to that point.

Having seen the same exact flamewars and divides and squabbles over and over, seen how the taste of 'fame' can drive someone to be rather unpleasant, has given me a much more 'whatever' attitude. It's sort of comforting when joining a new fandom to know what's going to happen next in its natural progression.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

There's a meme "I have a type," and XF definitely had that type, but it just took me a while to get there. I was away at college then working on the road when the show started, and wasn't home on Friday nights most of the year. My mother has always been a big sci-fi fan, so she actually was watching before me. I don't like scary things, and would leave the room if it was on when I'd visit her. I was home for Christmas when Christmas Carol/Emily aired and I remember standing tentatively just inside the room so I could flee if necessary, and watched Scully go through the wringer, and ranting, "What the hell is this? Why are they putting that poor woman through this!?" I also saw how the show was doing the big ship tease, and I was like, uh, I don't have time for this. Even by my 20's, I'd been done wrong by so many shows that I'd become bitter. But the first film trailers suggested they were actually going from UST to RST, so I figured I could give 2 hours of my time for that. And yeah...but I was hooked, and WENT TO BLOCKBUSTER AND RENTED THE VHS TAPES TO CATCH UP....this interview is making me feel very old.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I've always been a shipper and have no shame in that, as I think forming and maintaining a relationship is the most conflict-ridden enterprise humans can attempt, and thus is the most challenging thing to write about. Like many fanfic writers, I'd 'told stories in my head' ever since I can remember about the characters from books, shows and movies. It was just a matter of then writing it down for the first time.

After I was sucked into the show and it was still the summer hiatus, I got on my first computer, dialed up that screeching modem, and went on Netscape to search for that fanfic I knew had to be out there from my Trek experience a decade ago. Like many people, after inhaling much of the delicious fics out there, I decided I can do that. I'm someone who's very methodical on my approach to something new, so I studied what worked/what didn't, the expected formatting, got a sense of the culture I was entering, acquired a critical beta reader, so when I actually submitted the first chapter to AXTC, I was calm and confident.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

I watch from the sidelines, with a vague little smile on my lips.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Yes, I have. Battlestar Galactica had a lot of Philes, but it was still a big step away from the very organized fandom in X-Files. Plus, with so many characters, there could be lots of little groups focused on their favorites. Same in the Downton Abbey fandom. Just a different dynamic.

On the other end of the spectrum, one of my most popular fics is in the Silence of the Lambs fandom which I've never been involved with any other fans or their fandom, if it exists. It just sits out there on fanfiction.net and chugs along with the reads. My current fandom is The Doctor Blake Mysteries which is tiny but mighty--the saying is, we're six people and a shoelace. It's shown me that it's not the size, not the 'fame' possible, but the passion that makes a fandom.

Sadly, at least at this time, I don't think there will ever be an experience like The X-Files heyday. It was such a golden moment of the rise of internet and home computer use by the general public, a large generation of educated women having the time to participate in fandom, and there wasn't the amount of 'noise' that is distracting us all now. I'm so glad that you're doing this exercise to record our thoughts. We've already lost so many of the OG folks. My first beta, Janet Caires-Lesgold; Trixie, way too young; Shari, also too young; Brandon D Ray, leaving his family too soon; and many more.

(Posted by Lilydale on March 9, 2021)

#old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #bugs

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catboycafe · 3 years

Text

I Will Now Express Every Thought I Have About Pacific Rim: The Black

⚠️ spoilers for the whole thing baby

I actually forgot Pacific Rim: The Black was premiering today until I saw it in an article this morning! When I first heard about it months ago, I was decidedly not sold on a Pacific Rim anime. Uprising burnt me the fuck out and I don’t have a lot of trust left in me for new entries to the franchise. But I had heard rumblings of Raleigh and Herc being referenced after going into #pacificrim and I decided I may as well check out to see what was up! I binged it in 4 hours and it sure was a whirlwind, I’ll tell ya

The Plot

I really enjoy the setting and initial concept! We’re so use to seeing Kaiju/Jaegar shenanigans play out within these major cities with helpless civilians everywhere that spending so much time in a lonesome desert and these destroyed civilizations was really cool and indicative of the changes Pacific Rim has undergone in the last few years. I also looooved the Desert Settlement from the beginning!! It seemed really homey and picturesque; I wish we’d spent more time with the other survivors and got to see more of their day to day aside from farming and sitting.

I also found the first episode set up to be really tight and well written! I was hooked during the initial flashback, Hayley and Taylor’s fight was really poignant and well acted, and the reveal of Atlas Destroyer felt really huge and epic!!

But once we left the Desert Settlement and the plot started actually moving along, the pacing becomes suuuper rough. We spent way too long in Bogan with Shane and Mei; there’s only 7 episodes and we spent, like, 3? 4? within the confines of that camp and I felt it weighed the plot down. Boy is introduced in the 2nd episode and, because the narrative spends so much time on Shane’s evil machinations and Mei’s back story, we still don’t know anything concrete about his origins or purpose 3 episodes later! That felt frustrating to me

The story beats overall were very predictable. I was able to pick up on Mei’s backstory via her dynamic with Shane in their introductions, so her memories felt too built up and too hollow once they were revealed. The same with the reveal of Boy’s Kaiju form; he was in a big green test tube in a PPDC base - I assumed immediately he was a part-kaiju experiment and again his reveal felt hollow, especially after the glacial pace of it’s development.

Even when events weren’t predictable, they lacked weight. The appearance of several Kaiju Breaches in “Boneyard” felt very cheap for some reason; I wasn’t scared and I didn’t feel tense about these odds mounting against the protagonists. This was just happening and I was just watching.

The Art Direction and Animation

I’m very obsessed with all the new Kaiju we got from this; I love how Copperhead is rendered, they’re a joy to see on screen!! The Rippers are also very cute and deserve little plushies...i love these neat little dogs. Boy’s Kaiju Form is very intimidating with an interesting color palette and I loved seeing him next to Copperhead’s highly saturated design!

That’s unfortunately all that I liked however; All the human character design is unmemorable to me. Every character looks exactly like another easily identifiable anime character from a different property (Hayley looks exactly like Zero Suit Samus to me, for example. And Mei kept reminding me of both Bernadetta Fire Emblem and Motoko Kusanagi from GitS. The list goes on).

I can sort of understand why they’re so bland? A franchise going from Live Action to something as heavily stylized as anime is probably a really difficult transition and these designs are probably meant to be more lowkey than more unique anime designs in order to help that transition. But realistically stylized designs can still be recognizable and unique! These feel uninspired and bare bones.

I have no problem with the switch to CGI animation that modern anime is doing because I know it’s a lot cheaper to produce and it can still be really unique and striking! But The Black’s model animation felt very stilted and inconsistent. I don’t have a lot of knowledge about animating so I don’t think I can accurately describe what I disliked? Wooden is probably the best term. Character movements felt wooden and things like hair and clothes felt plastic.

Impacts also had very little weight. The fight between Tayler/Mei and Copperhead reminded me of when you’re in a dream and trying to punch something, but you can’t punch hard. It was simply too floaty and too soft. The final showdown in “Showdown” was better, but not by much. It was very immersion breaking seeing these Giant Robots and Giant Monsters unable to throw a real solid hit!

Characters

My favorite character was unequivocally Joel Wyrick. We love Joel Wyrick in this house! Joel’s character has real charisma and charm. I love his flirtations with Loa, how his cocky disposition is juxtaposed with his drinking problem and later insecurities over his lost memories, and his genuine kindness shown to Mei, Taylor, and Boy. No one ever plays with Boy, they just run after him and drag him around...but Joel has this moment in “Escape from Bogan” where he kneels down to Boy and helps him collect rocks. It was sweet!

So of course, when Joel dies for absolutely no reason 5 minutes later - pissed! I was pissed! I yelled “COME ON” aloud in my studio apartment! I was genuinely so excited to see him interact more with the rest of cast then, poof. No More Joel.

His death felt like it was for shock value to me rather than actual narrative development. Why kill him when we still don’t fully understand his and Mei’s relationship? Why were they so close? Were they childhood friends, or just coworkers that happen to become friends? Why did he specifically know all the details of Shane’s abuse towards Mei before she did?

What did his death accomplish? It made Mei sad...ok? She was already...very sad. Her running away from Shane already had consequences - the consequences of Shane coming after them for revenge in the future. Why did Joel have to become a causality?

His death is ultimately tied to Mei’s character arc which is, unfortunately, my least favorite :c I find Mei to be a really one dimensional character with a personality, backstory, outlook, and motivation that I’ve seen done a million times before with a million other characters. She feels very out of place in the franchise as a whole - Pacific Rim is, at it’s core, a story about connecting with others. Her self-centric arc and lack of desire to connect outside of drifting really alienates her from the story at large and it frustrates me how long The Black’s narrative spends on her.

Hayley and Taylor were otherwise very interesting in the pilot episode, but become similarly one dimensional at the story chugs on. Taylor’s unflinching (bordering on unhealthy) faith in their parents was really interesting next to Hayley’s complete acceptance of their parents’ death. But once the two of them make up their differences, they lack an interesting dynamic and become very passive protagonists.

Taylor especially has no personality - how would you describe Taylor? He’s...brave. He’s the older brother. He’s a leader? He’s nice? There is nothing noteworthy about him at all, which is sad considering I think he has the potential to be a really interesting way to explore the original movie’s influence on The Black’s story.

Hayley’s grief and self-blame are more interesting than Taylor’s...nothingness, but she still falls into this one-note trope of being the naive, excitable little sister. I guess I feel abnormally frustrated about this flat character writing because Pacific Rim’s incredibly unique cast has always been an inspiration to me! It feels sad that this new iteration into the series is full of what feel like stock characters.

Then we get to Boy. How come Boy can’t have a person name? It’s specifically written in a dialogue between Taylor and Hayley: “I’m not going to call him Chad or Barnaby or one of those names for a baby brother you wanted as a kid,”

Why?

He’s by all accounts a human child when they find him. Yes, he was found in a big green test tube - but he walks and acts just like a human child. The only difference, seemingly, is that he is non-verbal and engages in strange/annoying behavior (running off, eating bugs, etc). So he isn’t deserving of a name?? I don’t know why that makes me so mad, it just does. it’s like they refuse to treat him as a human even before they find out he’s a Kaiju - it’s super weird! How can the story sell me on the three of them becoming found family (like they’re seemingly trying to do) if the protagonists won’t even treat this kid like a kid??

Misc. Thoughts

The callbacks to Stacker, Herc, and Raleigh were cool! I also like that Herc is a major plot point! We love Herc Hanson and it’s what he deserves. I also find Loa’s connection to Horizon Bravo very interesting...and the fact we’re getting Kaiju cultist lore! Love that! Love that!

Fucked up that the only two dark skinned characters were: 1) removed from the story 10 minutes in with no call back yet, 2) Killed after having 1 line of dialogue and fridged for the character development of the blonde white girl. I really need to know what the deal with those 4 characters leaving in the beginning was about - I absolutely thought we’d see them again by now, but no dice

I don’t know how to feel about Ajax and have no clue what their purpose in the story is. They’re cool, but whats the point?

If Mei and Taylor are paired up together romantically, I’m putting Craig Kyle and Greg Johnson in the time out box. Very tired of seeing random hetero romance B plots in stories that can’t even get their A plots together

Overall, it’s kind of subpar! It has the foundations of a really interesting story, but the pacing and characters really took me out of it. I’m interested in Season 2! I know season 2 is already ordered and I’d love to see how things continue to develop, see if the character writing gets any better - but I’m not too hopeful unfortunately. I really really love Pacific Rim after all these years and I’m happy to still be getting content and world building! There’s just sooo much I would change about this however. At least fanfiction’s free!

Thanks for reading all this, I have ADHD and just go on and on if u let me. hmu if You Too have thoughts about Pacific Rim: The Black and have no one to talk abt them with

#pacific rim #pacific rim: the black #pacific rim the black #taylor travis #hayley travis #long post #sorry this is thousands of words. i contain multitudes

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dearingbooks · 3 years

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The Difference one Woman can make.

Late Friday night in June, we had stopped for a burger on the way to the cinema, we used to do family movie nights at the cinema when a new film came out that the majority of us wanted to watch, this time I was the one who was reluctant to go, sadly we do this significantly less now. So, stubborn 2015 me, rolling her eyes and dragging her feet up the cinema steps to find our seats to watch the new Jurassic World movie. Pathetic! I thought, why pay money to watch a movie about a dinosaur theme park! My parents had completely lost it! Huffing and puffing I took my seat on the aisle and sipped my blue raspberry slushie and looked up at the big screen. Ugh! I wanted it to be over, quickly. I sat down and shut my mouth, despite not wanting to watch it, I wasn’t going to spoil it for the others; but I didn’t get why they would want to watch it, I watched the trailer before going, was not impressed, it looked dumb!

However, as much as my pre-Jurassic self would not like, I found who I was during that movie, I discovered a whole new admiration for actors and movies. I found that I related to the main female protagonist, Claire Dearing. She did not need a man, or children, she was so focused on her career and let no one boss her around. She was top dog, and I completely fell for this fictional character. I evolved through that movie with her character, I felt content with being a strong female who put career over family. I wanted to embody this fictional woman; I wanted to be her.

On the journey home I typed ‘Claire Dearing actress’ into google and saw this stunning redhead- Bryce Dallas Howard. I immediately recognised her from movies I had watched prior, and I was completely astounded at her range of characters she can portray and portray them well. After scrolling through her Wiki page and reading news articles about her, I learned that she is the daughter of Ron Howard, one of my parents’ favourite people in film.

“Dad, that woman in the movie is Ron Howard's daughter”, I needed to inform my family that my now favourite woman in film is the daughter of my parents’ favourite people in film. My parents were shocked that I enjoyed the movie despite my loud vocalisation of not wanting to watch it.

Googling ‘Bryce Dallas Howard’ became my new after school routine, learning that she applied to acting school as Bryce Dallas to avoid people knowing she is the daughter of an already famous actor and director, and she had met her true love at nineteen and is still happily married to him. Yet what most stuck out to the self-conscious, body hating 2015 me, was that Bryce wasn’t a skinny twig of a woman that you see in most movies, she had classy curves and promoted body positivity despite some backlash the media gave her. I made a connection with this woman I had never met because I too received negative comments about my figure, yet Bryce took that on the shoulder and learned to love herself. I wanted to feel that self-love about myself that she acquired.

After watching Jurassic World, I explored many more fandoms, and from there I became obsessed with movie franchises and TV shows, actors and directors. I could not give you a full list of all of the fandoms I am in, there are too many to count, and they have all played a role in helping me evolve to who I am today. All because I latched onto one character from one movie I did not even want to watch, one film got me hooked on this life: it’s like a drug. I cannot stop. I also went back and forth with my hairstyle due to this woman; in the movie Bryce has a stunning ginger graduated bob with a fringe, however I never had the guts to go ginger until now; shame the hairdressers are all shut.

Now, almost six years later Bryce Dallas Howard has had great success in directing two episodes of The Mandalorian. Over the Christmas break I watched the show with my dad, sat on the sofa, fire lit, the chocolate Labrador curled up between us, peach vodka and diet lemonade in my hand, hot cup of tea in my dad’s. We binge watched both seasons in a week (it’s amazing) and he was shocked to see ‘Directed by Bryce Dallas Howard’ at the end of one, let alone two episodes. “Shit, she’s come far in the past few years” he said putting another episode on.

Bryce allowed me to find my best friend, Iz, through Instagram; Bryce has brought so many people together it is so surreal. And when I found out that Iz was going to Southampton University in 2019, a 20-minute drive from my house, I was finally able to meet her, because of one woman we both adore. I was friends with Iz for three years before I was able to meet her, I asked my school friend to come along with me so she could film the moment Iz, and I met! We got pancakes and watched the second Maleficent movie at the cinema, it was one of the best days of my life. I was so thankful that I met a truly hilarious and loving girl through this one actress! Because of Bryce Dallas Howard, I have made so many other friends from all over the globe as they too idolise Bryce and together we have created the ‘BDH online family’. A small group of us do regular zoom calls to catch up and chat about the recent photos and updates that Bryce has posted on Instagram, talk about Covid-19 and the types of restrictions and lockdown rules each of our countries has. During one of our calls, we had the craziest idea- Invite Bryce to one of our zoom calls. Bryce said yes! And after a few months of organisation, we had the date. The date was-

My.

Birthday.

The day came around and I was so nervous, it was 11pm exactly. The Wi-Fi had cut out fifteen minutes before the call. I was in tears. Mascara down my face, puffy eyes, I joined the call with a few minutes to spare before Bryce joined it. My mum hung around off camera for the first 5 minutes to double check the Wi-Fi was stable, luckily it stabilised. The other girls had never been so glad to see me, everyone was panicked for me; I could not miss it for the world (despite telling my parents, in floods of tears, that I cannot join and that it’s the end of that).

“Kat! You’re here!” “Happy birthday!” “Are you okay? The Wi-Fi sorted?”

They all chimed, happy to see my little face in the bottom right corner of their computer screens. Luckily Iz was there, otherwise it would have been extremely awkward with only one of us since we are known as a duo in the online family, we have to do everything together, we come in a pair and there can’t just be one of us.

“Shit girls, that was stressful”

I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath until I exhaled the large breath when my Wi-Fi settled, and I was on the call, I fixed my makeup and was ready to meet Bryce.

The few minutes we had before Bryce joined were intense, two of the girls left to get a drink and we weren’t sure if they would be back in time, luckily they did return.

“No way!” One of them, Anna who was hosting the call, gasped “Bryce is in the waiting room!”

We all freak for no more than 10 seconds, we compose ourselves then our faces are reshuffled, and we see this stunning glowing face that we all admire smiling at us. Omg, it's her.

“Hi girls!”

I have never smiled for so long in my entire life, my cheeks hurt afterwards. Don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining at all, it just hurt as I thought I would only be smiling for half an hour, since that is how long we were told Bryce had. However, we were speaking to Bryce for nearly an hour and a half, she just kept talking and asked us questions! She was so lovely to talk to, so relaxed; it was if I was talking to a friend that I had known for years!

“Before we go I want to all sing Kat a happy birthday!”

My idol wanted to sing me a happy birthday! The other girls were really ecstatic for me, I still can’t believe to this day that The Bryce Dallas Howard wanted to sing to me!

It was both the best and the worst happy birthday song that has be sung to me. It was the best because, well my idol was singing to me! And proposed the singing! It was the worst in terms of the actual song as they were all out of sync and lagging, it was bloody hilarious!

At 10:27pm the next evening, watching a rerun of Game of Thrones on Sky, I got a notification ‘Brycedhoward just posted’, I clicked the notification then see our smiling faces on her page, she posted a screenshot of our call on her social media! The call was supposed to be a secret so other fans weren’t upset. There’s a few snotty comments on the post, but they’re just jealous and to be frank, I don’t care! My smiley face is on her page forever! All ten of us have printed the screenshot of Bryce’s post off and put it in a frame, one day all ten of us hope to congregate somewhere, most likely in America, and sign the backs of all of our photos. I’m still in utter awe and shock- How many celebrities have you seen that would do a free zoom call with some fans? Not a lot, and that amount is even slimmer when they talk for an extra hour than scheduled. Bryce truly is one of a kind and the best idol anyone could ever hope to have.

Compared to a zoom call with Bryce herself, the few times she has liked my comments on her posts feel like nothing in comparison! I remember being so excited, running downstairs to my parents.

“Mum! Dad! Bryce liked my comment! She knows I exist!”

“Was it actually her? Remember when you got a Facebook request from Robert Downey Jr and it turned out it was a fake account?”

I rolled my eyes at her, it was Bryce, it was her verified account. The comment was a book recommendation I had for her, she posted on her hashtag BDHbookshelf and I thought I’d take a chance and comment a book recommendation I had for her, and the chance paid off.

I cannot wait to see what the future holds with Bryce, she has been such an inspiration to me for the past few years, and she promotes such wonderful causes and body positivity! I hope to one day meet her and thank her in person for changing my life for the better, and I think I’ve come up with the perfect opportunity to meet her- Iz and I have decided to travel up to London for the Jurassic World Dominion premiere in 2022 (if Covid lets us!), we’d get a hotel and actually meet Bryce in person, as well as meeting other members of the online family!

Words cannot fully contain the admiration that I possess for Bryce, her soul is utterly and truly exquisite, she has been such a visionary while I’ve been transitioning from a girl who had no idea who she was with no dreams or aspirations, to a woman who has now found so many new friends and now knows who she wants to be.

#bryce dallas howard #claire dearing #jurassic park #jurassic world #jurassic #blog #owen grady #chris pratt #marvel #Claire Dearing fanfic #bdh #bdh online family #writing #celeb #Jurassic fanfic #june 2015 #film review #favourite films

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: “Morpholomew” (American Dragon Long): Stop Trying to Make Am Drag a Thing (Commisson Done For WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a brand new retrospective/story arc/thing from yours truly, comissoned directly by WeirdKev27. If you’d like to comission your own review or set of reviews like this one, it’s 5 bucks. Just contact me via my ask box or direct messages on this very blog or my discord technicolormuk#6550.

With Shadow Into Light in the books, Kev decided he wanted to comission something not duck related and a bit smaller as a buffer before the next big arc, ALL of three arcs from season 2 of Ducktales, and decided to go with something he suggested to be a while back as a possible future retrospective: The Lilo and Stitch Crossover episodes!

That’s right for the next three weeks, with TWO reviews this week since I had a spot open up and Kev paid for this one in full and way in advance, we’ll be taking a trip to Hawaii to visit everyone’s faviorte little girl, her best friend/pet/killing machine as they try to find homes for his 625 cousins.

I loved Lilo and Stitch when I was a kid: Disney admitely got their hooks in me on that one with their cool prequel comics in disney adventures. These comics set up the movie, showing Jumba creating Stitch and the events leading up to both getting captured. The movie did not disapoint with cool character designs, a drop dead gorgeous recreation of Hawaii, and a really heartfelt, heartbreaking and heartpumping story of loss, family, and ving rahmes voicing one of the few heroic child services workers i’ve seen in a medium, a refreshing change of pace. The film is a masterpiece and I really do need to watch it again sometime.

Given the series was a huge hit and that thsi was before the big lull in the late 2000′s and early 2010′s where Disney refused to make any tv shows based on their movies, a series followed, given a lead in by the direct to video movie Stitch.

The movie set up the basic premise; 624 capsules containing Jumba’s previous experiments, cousins as Stitch calls them, ended up raining over Kauai, awakening when dropped into water or any other liquid. Lilo and Stitch, with help from Jumba, his live in boyfriend Pleakley, her tought but fair sister Nani, and her boyfriend David, who dosen’t show up as much as i’d like but is my boy so he gets a mention here. But anyways our heroes try to reform the various engines of distructoin who all have unique powers and find them their one place they truly belong.

So yes the show was a Mons-type show clearly captalizing off pokemon.. but the slice of life setting as opposed to the shonen style of most shows following in pokemon’s wake, gave it it’s own unique feel: while our heroes did fight, it was more about shenanigans, adventures and what not with these unique creatures and the purpose is very heartflet: Lilo simply wants to give these guys the same kind of love and support she’s given Stitch and a chance to do good.

Opposing them is Gantu, the shark bounty hunter from the first film who, now out of a job, is working for Dr. Hamstervile, an imprisoned sceintest and a character I really don’t like that much as he’s not funny or a genuine threat or both and feels like a waste of time. Thankfully he’s not the focus and Gantu is instead partnered with 625, my faviorite Lilo and Stitch character. 625, as the name suggests, is stitch’s immediate prototype.. but unlike Stitch is too lazy and peaceful to be a real threat and isn’t even really a villian despite being on Gantu’s side. He’s busy making samwitches, his calling to the point when he gets a name in the finale movie it’s naturally Ruben, and snarking at gantu. He’s sadly not in this one but hopefully it’s JUST this one.

As you can tell I liked this show a LOT at the time. I haven’t watched it since, mostly because disney scarely replayed it after it’s run, but it was vibrant, fun and intresting and a nicely laidback and creative take. The fact I came into the franchise with the comics and thus 625, who was introduced there in fact, and had a hunger to know more about the other experiments certainly helped. It was great fun.

But while I grew up with the show and the four shows it teamed up with, i’ve never seen these episodes before these reviews. I wondered why for years as I caught the tail end of the kim possible one and saw images ocasionally, but never saw them.

Turns out it’s because in general Season 2 got screwed over. While Season 1 was pushed out the door fast and aired at a rapid pace Season 2.. was portioned out over several years, and the Recess crossover one, the last one aired and the last one i’ll be covering never even got to Disney channel, only airing on ABC kids, DIsney’s saturday morning block at the time I rarely watched. I did watch it’s predecessor one saturday morning though. Good stuff.

Since I couldn’t find any making of stuff for why these episodes happened, my best guess is DIsney wanted some cross promotion, and the shows used were chosen because they were the most popular at the time and honestly all 4 represent some of disney’s best, with Recess being in heavy reruns at the time, hence i’ts conclusion despite the show being finished before Lilo And Stitch the movie came out, let alone the series.

So yeah i’m taking this ride for the first time.. but I was happy to. While Kev pays for a lot of my work, I still have to accept the idea.. and this was a great one. It allows me to cover 5 amazing series and gage how much people would want to see reviews of said series on this blog in one fell swoop.

So to kick us off we have American Dragon: Jake Long, a series I waited forever to come to Disney + as I loved it at the time, badly need to rewatch it (Been busy ), and find it genuinely great: It’s a great teen superhero story about the magical protector of new york, with a charming lead, a great setting and horrifcally great villians in the violently racist magic creature hunting huntsclan.. and their top agent who happens to be jake’s love intrest Rose. It’s really excellent and i’m glad it’s now widely avaliable for all to see. I will say ahead that all four shows in this crossover arc are excellent, and were fine choices for this.

So what happens when an action comedy about a hip hop teenage dragon meets a slice of life show about aliens? Find out under the cut.

So we open at a fancy hotel where Lilo’s bringing lunch to her sister Nani when she runs into.. Keoni Jameson.

The second I remembered this kid all the hate just came flooding back, coursing through my veigns. Just pure liquid hatred for this little perosnalitiless little punk. Keoni is Lilo’s crush and local “stupid white audience stand in”. He has no real personality other than “generic cool kid” and “likes skating”, and just sucks the air out of the room anytime he’s in an episode. Keoni is part of a recurring problem in cartoons across the ages, one that’s slowly going away: the bland love intrest. Intorducing a character whose only traits are being cool for the lead to fawn over with usually no intent of either getting the two togehter or just ending it. IT’s annoying, it was in a good chunk of my childhood, I wish it’d stop. I cannot tell you how many shows used this trope. There were exceptions, American Dragon Jake Long actually used it well by not only making Rose a fleshed out character.. but making her jake’s nemisis in their other lives, and thus making things increidbly difficult on both once the truth comes out, with Jake grappling with if he can trust her or not and Rose grappling with the slow relization eveyrthing she was taught her whole life was wrong.

And again I have seen GOOD storylines using this as a tool: Dipper and Wendy ended with her having been aware teh whole time, but simply not knowing how to let him down given the age gap, and Regular Show rebounded the best from it: it turned the stop and start relatoinshpi of Mordecai and Margret’s relationship into a character flaw for him, openly explored it.. and ended up having him work past it and actually date her for a bit. Before she moved away, he got an even better love interest, then they destoryed the relationship in the worst way posisble and I wil lbe getting to that at some point. Some point.

So yeah even at the time it was done better, hindsight haas only made it worse and it made watching the first few minutes tough because I had to keep pasuing because I hate him so damn much. He just adds NOTHING to the show and is a blank yanwing void from which no good came out of and I was terrified he’d be in the rest of the episode. Thankfully while he drives the plot he’s only in this scene.. but it’s still one more scene than both 625 and Pleakly got. yeah both are missing, as is nani.

I did uncover one fun fact that made things a bit easier though: The crew ALSO hated Keoni. No really. Disney forced the character on them as they wanted an audience surrogate, and this abomination is what popped out. They DID NOT want him here and likely only used him as mcuh as they did because Disney forced it on them. And Disney would NOT learn from this as Star Vs got saddled with Alphonso and Ferguson soley because of network mandate. The two aren’t TERRIBLE characters but they aren’t great and feel as tacked on as they were. And part of this does fall on the crew: you CAN twist a stupid mandate like this to work well: Joe Murray was asked to add “A female character with a hook”, as in some sort of dumb gimmick to Rocko. He used those words, meant to create a superfical girl power cardboard cutout.. and created the wonderful Dr. Hutchenson, a bright cheery doctor, the series best sidecharacter.. and someone with a hook hand. But I won’t go too hard on them: they probably didn’t have as much room to manuver and the fact Keoni was sitll being shoved into episodes in season 2 tells me they likely had a set number of episodes he had to show up. I’m suprised they didn’t demand they have characters ask “Where’s Keonie?” any time he wasn’t in an episode. He was unecessary and it comes across with a massive chunk of unforutnate implications: that they didn’t think a series with a mostly hawaiann cast would work, that they wanted at least one other “nice” white character to offset myrtle instead of having the only major white character be a bully and antagonist, and that they thought tehir mostly white audience coudln’t enjoy a series without a white character, which as someone who was in the target demo at the time, I call bullshit on. As I said I hated him then, I hate him now and his involvement is the worst aspect of this episode.

So after Lilo fawns over him for a bit we find out this chonk of wood’s purpose in the episode: to set up the plot. There’s a massive Skate Competition coming to town with the prize being a really cool skateboard. This plot point itself.. I don’t mind. Jake is a skater, it’s part of his character and one of the things he loves doing in what minsicule spare time he has. And while it was a common trope at the time having a character skateboard really dosen’t harm most works. We’ve gotten great characters like Jake, Jackie Lynn Thomas, Branwen and Ronnie Anne Santiago out of it, and it feels like natural parts of the character, and frankly An Extremley Goofy Movie wouldn’t be NEARLY as awesome without having skateboarding bizzarley attached to the plot via the college x-games. Granted somtimes you get Rocket Power out of the deal but that’s the price you pay for the good stuff. I only regret it’s involved because Keoni has to be there and I had to pause multiple times to get through his scene. He’s just a sampler platter of terrible decisions made in 2000′s cartoons and he irritates me more than this guy.

And anyone whose read my Loud House reviews can tell you that is a high bar to clear.

So naturally Lilo wants to enter the Hawiann X-Games to get the board for Keoni. Though I will give the writers credit for having Stitch voice their thoughts and the audiences thoughts by having him take Keoni’s picture and throw it in the garbage. Where he belongs.

Lilo’s not great at it as they practice.. and said practice naturally ends up waking up a new experiment, 316.. who i’m just going to go ahead and call Morpholomew. Stitch eventually catches him though like many of the experiments he’s not actively malevelolent and is easy enough to get home.

Jumba gets to his schitck of breaking down what the experiment of the week does: In this case Morpholomew is a shapeshifter though he has a VERY intresting twist on those powers: while he can naturally morph himself into anything he’s seen or has a picture of, he can do the same to anyone he touches. It dosen’t effect their voices, but otherwise it’s a perfect recreation.

So Lilo instead of finding him a home right away.. decides to wait until after the compettition because we need him for the plot.

So at the Skateboard Competittion Lilo tries to enter, but finds she’s too young.. but since she has a picture of Keoni, which is a nice way to use her photo hobby from the movie for plot reasons and thus dosen’t feel like an ass pull. Why Keoni’s not in town to skate is as his dad left because it’d be too crowded.. even though the event is at the resort he owns.

So while Lilo commits identtity theft, our guest star appears. He’s cool, he’s hot like a frozen son, he’s young and fast he’s the chosen one, people i’m not braggin, i’ts the American Dragon. Jake is here for two reasons: the first is that Grandpa Long got reports of magical creatures out in the open, so naturally they need to look into that. It’s a clever way to get him, along with Grandpa, Fu, Trixie and Spud, over to Hawaii. The Dragon Council would defintely be suspcious hearing about this, and my guess to why they hadn’t sent another dragon over is they simply dont’ have one on the islands. As for why the Huntsclan didn’t get involved in any way, it’s simply too public for them. With the magical community in new york, they don’t have to worry about exposure because neither side wants it, so neither side can out the other. Here with a bunch of creatures out in the open it runs the risk of the Hunstclan being dragged into the light.. and given the populace dosne’t care about the “magical creatures” alongside them, it would make them look like the monsters they are.

Spud and Trixie tagging along also makes sense besides “they needed them for the plot”: While they’d obviously want to come to Hawaii, the skate competition is likely Jake’s cover for why he’s there, as well as one for why it’s just him and grandpa going with a couple of his friends so they don’t have to deal with manuvering around jake’s dad. That sad them never TELLING jake’s Dad is it’s own can of worms as it feels cruel, made things harder for jake and there was no real reason not to. At worst he’d want Jake to stop for his own saftey but given ther’es an active threat in the huntsclan for the first season and a half, NOT helping people would be the right thing and I feel he’s a sensible enough man to understand eventually.

And it’s stuff like this that already makes this crossover really work for me: they don’t really have to strain to get Jake over there or tell the audience heavily, the blanks fill in themslves. Or I am but that’s because it’s my job and I love doin it.

So everyone goes off to their corners; Jake to do a few practice runs, Foo Dog to bet on his friend because of course, Trixie and Spud to go to the beach (even though Spud’s terrified of sharks so I question why Trixie needs him for this), and in a delightfully adorable subplot, finds a lady to woo: local fruit stand vendoer and crankly old lady Mrs. Hasagawa.

I am here for this subplot: While Grandpa not focusing on the mission is weird for him that’s the entire point.. and their just really cute together. He’s smitten with her entirely because he sees her chewing out one of the people running the contest for making her sign too small. And he performs one hell of a romantic gesture by, while everyone’s back is turned, using his dragon fire to make an add for her on the skate ramp itself, and they have a lovely montage of their time together.. which also weirdly includes grandpa using his dragon fire on stage inf ront of everyone which makes no sense for his charcter but is so cute and does feature david I really don’t care. The writers of Lilo and Stitch probably weren’t deeply familiar with the show and likely just wanted a fun gag. Could be wrong there but it’s cute. He continues to act grossly out of character by trying to avoid going home at the end.. but again I find it simply because he’s in love, they have genuine chemstiry and I like to think they stayed in touch and he retired out there at some point once Jake was old enough to handle things himself. This may not be a ship I expected to support going in but I will die for it going out.

So back to the main plot, Lilo uses Keoni’s body to imitate him which... she’s only loosely called out on and realizes is bad by the end only because she gets stuck in another body. And that’s not even getting into the fact she BREAKS UP WITH KEONI’S GIRLFRIEND. Yes really.. she just does that to get her out of the way. She comes around and realizes she was wrong and tries to fix it which would be fine.. if hte episode didn’t try to cop it out by revealing “Oh she’s not his girlfriend, she’s just someone who keeps telling people that”. It just feels lazy and dumb and a way to keep Lilo’s crush on Keoni for reasons I DO. NOT. GET. But the identity theft is just brushed aside by everyone: Keoni never finds out, and Jake just brushes it off. The real issue is more her trying to bribe keoni into likng her which while something kids need to learn is not the only thing she did wrong here. It feels like they didn’t think all the implications out here and it hampers the episode

Speaking of which as Gantu captures Jake, he sees him transform into dragon mode and assumes he’s the experiment, Jake’s charactization is pretty shallow. And why yes it DOES feel weird writing sentences about a character with the same name thank you for asking. I wasn’t expecting a deep character piece or anything: This is a guest spot, the writers here are not the same normal ones for American Dragon. That’s fine. The problem.. is that they clearly did not get Jake. Grandpa being partly out of character is half the joke, Trixie actually gets a really nice moment towards the end, and Spud.. is eh. But out of them Jake just feels like a basic character description: He likes hip hop, he likes skateboards, he calls himself Am Drag despite that sounding like a good name for a drag act but a terrible name to shorten your title, he fights.. that’s it.

While jake is all of that in the main series, he’s also a kind young man who while sometimes irresponsible does the right thing when the chips are down. He’s someone weighed down by a responsiblity he didn’t ask for, often makes his life more difficult and often finds himself in trouble because his mother and grandfather won’t bother to tell his dad he’s a dragon. Yes that part still bothers me, and I don’t see why we couldn’t just have a superhero show where both parents know. But regardless this just dosen’t feel like Jake , like they just watched the intro and that was it. Jake feels more like a plot device in his own crossover.

That being said there is some good stuff: The minute Jake realizes some Sci Fi stuff is going on instead of hte normal magic stuff he tells him “The am drag’s show isn’t about sci fi” a nice meta bit and then breaks out. Meanwhile Lilo takes on his form.. and ends up stuck after badly botching her run again, as Gantu finds the real shapeshifter.

We get the best stretch of the episode from here though: Lilo awkardly tries to play jake and like jake we get a nice meta nod to how diffrent their show is as she’s worried about his belief in magical creatures.. and is startled out of her charade when Foo Dog talks, a really nice bit especially since it’s tame compared to the weirdness he deals with. Spud and Trixie have questions... only for Jake to show up and his agressive behavior leads to the best bit of the episode: Jake Vs Stitch. The catlyst is understandable: jake has no idea why Lilo’s taken his identity and Sttich is just protecting his best friend from harm. The animation is fluid, the fight is fun and quick and uses both’s powers stellarl. Whle “two heroes get into a misunderstanding and then fight” is a well worn cliche at this point, it’s moments like this that show why: you get to see two heroes who in this case never have interacted before or sense, duke it out, why each is special and it’s fun to watch.

Lilo breaks it up, and admits to the whole thing.. including the whole give Keani the board stuff. While Jake and Spud, being awkard with girls and a loveable moron don’t see the problem with that Trixie gets a moment to shine. As far as I can remember she really didn’t get much on the show proper so it was a nice suprise to see her mentor lilo her, telling her trying to give someone gifts to love you is not okay, she should just be herself all that good stuff. It’s a nice character stuff and tha’ts the kind of character interaction this episode needed more of.

With the misunderstandings washed away our heroes team up and storm gantu’s ship leading to another great sequence as Stitch rides on Jake’s back while the two keep him busy and Lilo gets turned back, Trixie complimenting her dress “Thanks I have 10 just like it at home”. It’s such a sweet and genuine moment” They head back out and gantu semeingly grabs morpholmew from where they hide.. only to find out when he gets back it’s spud, our adorable little blob monster transforming Gantu into a bunny and our heroes leaving. How does Gantu get out of being a bunny?

But it’s a nice enough gag. So we end the episode. We get another nice gag as grandpa had himself and his lady transformed to try and avoid going home, and Jake is fine with having lost out on the board what matters is he made a friend. Sadly we did not get a followup in ADJL., but spud does name our experiment, Morpholomew.

We end on Morph getting his home: a costume shop where he gets paid in fried chicken, he was shown to enjoy it throughtout the episode and changes people into things. It’s a nice little button to the episode and one of the funnest parts of the show was figuring out where the experiment would end up at the end.

Final Thoughts:

This episode is a really mixed bag. There is some good character interactions, two tremendous fight scens and Trixie gets a chance to shine for once if only for a scene or two, and the clashing genres end up making for some great jokes> The shows do go well together as while Lilo and Stitch is more laid back both have slice of life elements. And hasgawa X Grandpa is just oto cute for words.

The episode is held back by Jake and Lilo’s lackluster characterizatons: Jake is simply the theme song as a character, which in theory is awesome because that theme song slaps but in practice is pretty lame, and Lilo is selfish and irresponsible even for her in a way that dosen’t feel at all convincing. It drags down what’s otherwise a fun crossover and Morpholomew is truly a unique and wonderful experiment. Still if you like either show it’s worth a watch even if you have to suffer through Keoni for it. It’s worth it.. I just wish it was better and hopefully the next 3 will keep the good parts but take out the bad. Granted this was produced last so I could be wrong, but here’s hoping. Oh this episode also featured Miranda Cosgrove as the girl who claims to be Keoni’s girlfriend. This is also Keoni’s last episode meaning I do NOT have to worry about accidently running into him. Thank fucking christ.

Next Time On American Dragon Jake Long: Jake’s dad drags him and his friends on a camping trip and Jake ends up encountering the Jersey Devil. Now all they need is a sexy lady devil cake to lure it out... what it worked for the Cake Boss. And yes that happened, Allison Pregler did an episode on that episode. Check it out.

Next Time On Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: It’s the family, the family, proud familllyyy as the Prouds take a vacation at Peakly and Jumbas bed but not breakfast and we get some kind of squirrel demon for our experiment of the week. We also get Wizard Kelly appearing...

See you at the next rainbow.

#lilo and stitch #american dragon jake long #Lilo Pelekai #Stitch #experment 626 #jake long #luong lao shi #fu dog #trixie carter #arthur p spudinkski #gantu #crossovers #reviews #disney channel #morpholomew

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moomingitz · 3 years

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I just finished Jak II last night, so I'll give my random thoughts and opinions both it and the first game(I played both back to back) while they're still fresh in my mind. Most of them concerns the second game in the trilogy. Also, I played the original PS2 releases on a CRT television set, because not only did I not want to deal with the potential problems with hooking up an old system on a modern smart TV, but I wanted to play them as they were intended to be played:

- These games look gorgeous on a CRT screen and they aesthetically still hold up very well to this day. I really do mean it when I say that these games, style and story wise, are tailor made for an animated series adaptation.

- While I really do like the more dark and dystopian direction the series took after the first game, and that it's an example of doing that sort of thing right is a hill I will die on, I still wish we could have seen more of the timeline in the TPL before they made the shift. I wanted to see more about the sages, the cast's lives and backgrounds in Sandover Village, and learn more about Gol and Maia, before the switch. I think we can all agree the transition could have been smoother. And again, I liked the direction they went with after the first game, so it’s not like I hated the change. But, I really do think the series would benefit from a remake, reboot, or being adapted into an animated series, as it would allow for a good opportunity to better ease people into the eventual tone and setting change later on. Like retcon certain things, add several hints and foreshadowing to Jak's real origin like maybe his explorer uncle being well aware that Jak is his descendant from the future, have the knowledge and research of the sages have an effect on what happens in the future(like in the fan fic, "Captive Voice", where surviving documents of Gol and Maia's experiments with dark eco became the blueprint for the Dark Warrior Program), and so on. Maybe even have something of an epilogue of the first game's story that serves a segway into the second game's story. Little changes and details like that would make a difference in helping the overall trilogy feel more cohesive, and even help make the tonal and setting shift hit harder.

- Playing through the first game feels bittersweet. What I mean by that is now having hindsight knowing that Jak will eventually go through some pretty traumatic shit, and seeing this as a happier period in his life where being a hero and adventuring was this romanticized thing to look forward to, when in reality it's something that would eventually take a very real emotional and mental tole on someone especially that young. Kind of like going back and watching the earlier episodes of Steven Universe. You know what’s coming.

- I don't think people understand just how much of a difference good voice acting, voice direction, and cinematography can make in a video game, especially story driven ones. I think the voice acting alone is one of the crucial reasons why Naughty Doge was able to pull off taking the series into a more mature direction and making Jak no longer a silent protagonist to project yourself onto. There are dark gritty serious games even today where it's hard for me to take seriously because the voice acting in it completely fucks it all up. Gonna keep saying it, but these games would translate very well into an animated adaption.

- Despite the whole darker and mature shift they took after the first game, Jak II is actually very tame by today's standards. Remove the occasional cursing and raunchy humor and the game, tone and story wise, feels just like an action cartoon that would have aired on Toonami(in a good way).

- Jak II has a reputation for being really difficult, but in all honesty I actually didn't really have a hard time getting through it. Don't get me wrong there are difficulty spikes in the game, and how the check points work in some of the missions is bull, but I think people tend to exaggerate the game's difficulty(unless you're playing hero mode). I pretty much breezed right through the first act of the game, and it was only until I got to the second act where the difficulty spikes began for me, but I still managed to get through them with some practice. While I did used to play and beat this game a lot during my edgy teen years, this was still my very first time playing in over 15 years, yet I had no where as much of a hard time as I used to back then. Hell, I only died twice during the final boss fight; the first time was on purpose so I could get full health back, and the second time was due to trial and error. I actually died more during the final boss in the first game! Playing the original PS2 release on an older CRT TV probably also helped, since it controls the best for obvious reasons.

Yes, the game can be difficult and unfair in some places(fuck that ring race with Erol and the ambush in the water slums), but it's no where near the level of a typical NES game. As long as you take your time, strategize, memorize the hub areas, and utilize the combat and weapon system that doesn't just involve spamming the jump spin and shoot move(like I used to), you'll get through the game just fine. Or just don't be DarksydePhil.

- I'm gonna have to agree with people that Haven City is just a bit too freaking big to traverse around. It's not as egregious compared to other sandbox like games, and I had the place pretty much memorized, but a warp gate or two could have made a pretty big difference in cutting down the time going from mission to mission.

- There's not really much of an incentive to further explore Jak II after you beat the main story campaign, unfortunately. So unless you're into the lore or world building of the game you won't really get much else out from it after you beat the game.

- Dark Jak is, unfortunately, very underutilized. The only time I really used that form was during the final boss fight and that was about it. Guess that's another thing this series shares with the Sonic franchise back in the mid 2000s when it comes to dark edgy forms...

****

Despite some minor gripes, I still enjoyed Jak II. Going to start Jak 3 later today or after I get home from work tomorrow. Thinking of playing Jak X and Daxter afterwards. I might try out The Lost Frontier... might.

#Jak and Daxter #Jak II #video games #opinions #personal

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vanilla-blessing · 3 years

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qb’s 2020 Anime List

[Representation of making my brain recall anything from last year]

As usual, these are ordered by whatever arbitrary mood I was in when I constructed the list. Do not cross reference this ordering with any other evaluations I may have done.

0. kiratto prichan but only after it lost all pretense of being grounded in reality

I don't want to explain why I watch this anime, but I will do it for the fans. It's the franchise people, by all rights, should make fun of me for watching instead of Precure, which is harmless; the Pretty Rhythm series is ill-advised subculture shitpost brainrot which has at least halved my IQ. PriChan had been very boring for at least a year since its premiere, but during 2020 went off the deep end in way that rekindled the unique flavor the decade-long series has traditionally had of doing the most dumbass thing every week and not letting any sort of television authority or good ideas stop it. I had fun every week once it got in the groove and remembered its roots as a dumbass crossover franchise with nothing to prove and nothing holding its stupid, fantastic ideas back. It’s always the most insane thing on TV and it never even has to try.

Also following the twitter cult that formed around a rare plushie from this show with a wide face. That was the most entertaining thing of 2020 for me.

1. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Creatively inspiring in a year without many sources of creative inspiration, the airing of this anime mirrored my unwilling dive into learning too much about anime production than I ever meant to. Eizouken takes the sketchbook ideas of the manga and fully realizes its world into animation in a way that only Masaki Yuasa and Science Saru could pull off, while simultaneously giving rising stars in the industry their first chance at directing episodes. It's a very satisfying show to watch and if there's anything on this list that inspired me to finally just slam words on paper and get this out it was thanks to watching Eizouken at some point in my life.

The season is split into three distinct “projects” and each of these end in a such a strong climax that I have to recommend watching it 4 episodes at a time, if you are able to. Here’s an endcard by tkmiz

2. Magia Record: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Gaiden

3. DECA-DENCE

I like a nice contained science fiction and this one's episode 2 hook was so shocking that I was glued to my screen until the very end. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as perfect as you could reasonably expect to get from the year 2020. The less you know going in the better so I’ll shut up but it’s a much more ambitious sci-fi than you think it is at first. It might have been a had-to-be-there serial experience, so it could be impossible to really get the hype that was around this show at the time, but I think there’s enough there to stand on its own, and just having a definitive, satisfying ending in one season is an anime rarity worth recommending by itself.

4. Toilet-bound Hanako-kun

I love looking at pictures of cryptids and Lerche paneling and this gave me both in abundance. It rides the line between telling Shonen and Shoujo stories, like many Seinen that defy easy categorization do, and I’ve always been a sucker for that. Along with the anime being drop dead gorgeous on a weekly basis, I enjoyed the lovable cast of various SUPERNATURAL DANGER BOYS and also Yashiro who provides the funniest faces and widest ankles of the whole show, despite stiff competition.

5. Talentless Nana

Came outta nowhere and exceeded expectations for a frankly kind of mediocre thriller manga by absolutely nailing the strong first episode/chapter hook, then continuing to nail it every week with smart directing. I’m obligated to pay attention to this team in the future if they're capable of making something this compelling on a limited drawing budget. (the core staff were all Heybot regulars, which either means something or doesn’t)

6. Extra Olympia Kyklos

The one-person studio that made this did not have a high bar to clear to be the best Olympic tie-in anime (the only other one I can recall is the rare media Eagle Sam which sucks complete ass) but despite the Olympics not even happening in 2020, it soldiered on, and was easily the most I laughed at anime in that year. Kyklos takes serious source material and just spices it up beyond recognition with bizarre jokes, perfect timing, and hilariously cheap original music videos at the end of every episode that wouldn’t be out of place on adult swim bumpers. Overall it’s very surprising that this was funded at all once anyone saw what it was, but I’m so glad the creator got away with it. In a way, it’s the perfect monument to this psychotic year.

7. Kakushigoto

I just think the author is funny and this is a good anime adaptation that outpaces the original, by the author's own admission/intention. 61-sensei is the best girl

All Hail The Daia Bread All Hail The Daia Bread

these were all enjoyable too:

Gal and dino

Hit in the right spot at the time, when we all needed a roommate who couldn’t catch covid

Star twinkle precure movie

I'd show this to people to introduce them to precure if not for the song and dance number at the end being kinda lame

Mewkledreamy

it’s not going to end precure but it has incredible faces

BOFURI: I don’t want to get hurt so I maxed out my defense

gamer has logged on

- qb kiranichiwa

#daiapan

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grigori77 · 3 years

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2020 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 2)

20. ONWARD – Disney and Pixar’s best digitally animated family feature of 2020 (beating the admittedly impressive Soul to the punch) clearly has a love of fantasy roleplay games like Dungeons & Dragons, its quirky modern-day AU take populated by fantastical races and creatures seemingly tailor-made for the geek crowd … needless to say, me and many of my friends absolutely loved it. That doesn’t mean that the classic Disney ideals of love, family and believing in yourself have been side-lined in favour of fan-service – this is as heartfelt, affecting and tearful as their previous standouts, albeit with plenty of literal magic added to the metaphorical kind. The central premise is a clever one – once upon a time, magic was commonplace, but over the years technology came along to make life easier, so that in the present day the various races (elves, centaurs, fauns, pixies, goblins and trolls among others) get along fine without it. Then timid elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) receives a wizard’s staff for his sixteenth birthday, a bequeathed gift from his father, who died before he was born, with instructions for a spell that could bring him back to life for one whole day. Encouraged by his brash, over-confident wannabe adventurer elder brother Barley (Chris Pratt), Ian tries it out, only for the spell to backfire, leaving them with the animated bottom half of their father and just 24 hours to find a means to restore the rest of him before time runs out. Cue an “epic quest” … needless to say, this is another top-notch offering from the original masters of the craft, a fun, affecting and thoroughly infectious family-friendly romp with a winning sense of humour and inspired, flawless world-building. Holland and Pratt are both fantastic, their instantly believable, ill-at-ease little/big brother chemistry effortlessly driving the story through its ingenious paces, and the ensuing emotional fireworks are hilarious and heart-breaking in equal measure, while there’s typically excellent support from Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Elaine from Seinfeld) as Ian and Barley’s put-upon but supportive mum, Laurel, Octavia Spencer as once-mighty adventurer-turned-restaurateur “Corey” the Manticore and Mel Rodriguez (Getting On, The Last Man On Earth) as overbearing centaur cop (and Laurel’s new boyfriend) Colt Bronco. The film marks the sophomore feature gig for Dan Scanlon, who debuted with 2013’s sequel Monsters University, and while that was enjoyable enough I ultimately found it non-essential – no such verdict can be levelled against THIS film, the writer-director delivering magnificently in all categories, while the animation team have outdone themselves in every scene, from the exquisite environments and character/creature designs to some fantastic (and frequently delightfully bonkers) set-pieces, while there’s a veritable riot of brilliant RPG in-jokes to delight geekier viewers (gelatinous cube! XD). Massive, unadulterated fun, frequently hilarious and absolutely BURSTING with Disney’s trademark heart, this was ALMOST my animated feature of the year. More on that later …

19. THE GENTLEMEN – Guy Ritchie’s been having a rough time with his last few movies (The Man From UNCLE didn’t do too bad but it wasn’t exactly a hit and was largely overlooked or simply ignored, while intended franchise-starter King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was largely derided and suffered badly on release, dying a quick death financially – it’s a shame on both counts, because I really liked them), so it’s nice to see him having some proper success with his latest, even if he has basically reverted to type to do it. Still, when his newest London gangster flick is THIS GOOD it seems churlish to quibble – this really is what he does best, bringing together a collection of colourful geezers and shaking up their status quo, then standing back and letting us enjoy the bloody, expletive-riddled results. This particularly motley crew is another winning selection, led by Matthew McConaughey as ruthlessly successful cannabis baron Mickey Pearson, who’s looking to retire from the game by selling off his massive and highly lucrative enterprise for a most tidy sum (some $400,000,000 to be precise) to up-and-coming fellow American ex-pat Matthew Berger (Succession’s Jeremy Strong, oozing sleazy charm), only for local Chinese triad Dry Eye (Crazy Rich Asians’ Henry Golding, chewing the scenery with enthusiasm) to start throwing spanners into the works with the intention of nabbing the deal for himself for a significant discount. Needless to say Mickey’s not about to let that happen … McConaughey is ON FIRE here, the best he’s been since Dallas Buyers Club in my opinion, clearly having great fun sinking his teeth into this rich character and Ritchie’s typically sparkling, razor-witted dialogue, and he’s ably supported by a quality ensemble cast, particularly co-star Charlie Hunnam as Mickey’s ice-cold, steel-nerved right-hand-man Raymond Smith, Downton Abbey’s Michelle Dockery as his classy, strong-willed wife Rosalind, Colin Farrell as a wise-cracking, quietly exasperated MMA trainer and small-time hood simply known as the Coach (who gets many of the film’s best lines), and, most notably, Hugh Grant as the film’s nominal narrator, thoroughly morally bankrupt private investigator Fletcher, who consistently steals the film. This is Guy Ritchie at his very best – a twisty rug-puller of a plot that constantly leaves you guessing, brilliantly observed and richly drawn characters you can’t help loving in spite of the fact there’s not a single hero among them, a deliciously unapologetic, politically incorrect sense of humour and a killer soundtrack. Getting the cinematic year off to a phenomenal start, it’s EASILY Ritchie’s best film since Sherlock Holmes, and a strong call-back to the heady days of Snatch (STILL my favourite) and Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels. Here’s hoping he’s on a roll again, eh?

18. SPONTANEOUS – one of the year’s biggest under-the-radar surprise hits for me was one which I actually might not have caught if things had been a little more normal and ordered. Thankfully with all the lockdown and cinematic shutdown bollocks going on, this fantastically subversive and deeply satirical indie teen comedy horror came along at the perfect time, and I completely flipped out over it. Now those who know me know I don’t tend to gravitate towards teen cinema, but like all those other exceptions I’ve loved over the years, this one had a brilliantly compulsive hook I just couldn’t turn down – small-town high-schooler Mara (Knives Out and Netflix’ Cursed’s Katherine Langford) is your typical cool outsider kid, smart, snarky and just putting up with the scene until she can graduate and get as far away as possible … until one day in her senior year one of her classmates just inexplicably explodes. Like her peers, she’s shocked and she mourns, then starts to move on … until it happens again. As the death toll among the senior class begins to mount, it becomes clear something weird is going on, but Mara has other things on her mind because the crisis has, for her, had an unexpected benefit – without it she wouldn’t have fallen in love with like-minded oddball new kid Dylan (Lean On Pete and Words On Bathroom Walls’ Charlie Plummer). The future’s looking bright, but only if they can both live to see it … this is a wickedly intelligent film, powered by a skilfully executed script and a wonderfully likeable young cast who consistently steer their characters around the potential cliched pitfalls of this kind of cinema, while debuting writer-director Brian Duffield (already a rising star thanks to scripts for Underwater, The Babysitter and blacklist darling Jane Got a Gun among others) show he’s got as much talent and flair for crafting truly inspired cinema as he has for thinking it up in the first place, delivering some impressively offbeat set-pieces and several neat twists you frequently don’t see coming ahead of time. Langford and Plummer as a sassy, spicy pair who are easy to root for without ever getting cloying or sweet, while there’s glowing support from the likes of Hayley Law (Rioverdale, Altered Carbon, The New Romantic) as Mara’s best friend Tess, Piper Perabo and Transparent’s Rob Huebel as her increasingly concerned parents, and Insecure’s Yvonne Orji as Agent Rosetti, the beleaguered government employee sent to spearhead the investigation into exactly what’s happening to these kids. Quirky, offbeat and endlessly inventive, this is one of those interesting instances where I’m glad they pushed the horror elements into the background so we could concentrate on the comedy, but more importantly these wonderfully well-realised and vital characters – there are some skilfully executed shocks, but far more deep belly laughs, and there’s bucketloads of heart to eclipse the gore. Another winning debut from a talent I intend to watch with great interest in the future.

17. HAMILTON – arriving just as Black Lives Matter reached fever-pitch levels, this feature presentation of the runaway Broadway musical smash-hit could not have been better timed. Shot over three nights during the show’s 2016 run with the original cast and cut together with specially created “setup shots”, it’s an immersive experience that at once puts you right in amongst the audience (at times almost a character themselves, never seen but DEFINITELY heard) but also lets you experience the action up close. And what action – it’s an incredible show, a thoroughly fascinating piece of work that reads like something very staid and proper on paper (an all-encompassing biographical account of the life and times of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton) but, in execution, becomes something very different and EXTREMELY vital. The execution certainly couldn’t be further from the usual period biopic fare this kind of historical subject matter usually gets (although in the face of recent high quality revisionist takes like Marie Antoinette, The Great and Tesla it’s not SO surprising), while the cast is not at all what you’d expect – with very few notable exceptions the cast is almost entirely people of colour, despite the fact that the real life individuals they’re playing were all very white indeed. Every single one of them is also an absolute revelation – the show’s writer-composer Lin-Manuel Miranda (already riding high on the success of In the Heights) carries the central role of Hamilton with effortless charm and raw star power, Leslie Odom Jr. (Smash, Murder On the Orient Express) is duplicitously complex as his constant nemesis Aaron Burr, Christopher Jackson (In the Heights, Moana, Bull) oozes integrity and nobility as his mentor and friend George Washington, Phillipa Soo is sweet and classy as his wife Eliza while Renée Elise Goldsberry (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Jacks, Altered Carbon) is fiery and statuesque as her sister Angelica Schuyler (the one who got away), and Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) consistently steals every scene he’s in as fiendish yet childish fan favourite King George III, but the show (and the film) ultimately belongs to veritable powerhouse Daveed Diggs (Blindspotting, The Good Lord Bird) in a spectacular duel role, starting subtly but gaining scene-stealing momentum as French Revolutionary Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, before EXPLODING onto the stage in the second half as indomitable third American President Thomas Jefferson. Not having seen the stage show, I was taken completely by surprise by this, revelling in its revisionist genius and offbeat, quirky hip-hop charm, spellbound by the skilful ease with which is takes the sometimes quite dull historical fact and skews it into something consistently entertaining and absorbing, transported by the catchy earworm musical numbers and thoroughly tickled by the delightfully cheeky sense of humour strung throughout (at least when I wasn’t having my heart broken by moments of raw dramatic power). Altogether it’s a pretty unique cinematic experience I wish I could have actually gotten to see on the big screen, and one I’ve consistently recommended to all my friends, even the ones who don’t usually like musicals. As far as I’m concerned it doesn’t need a proper Les Misérables style screen adaptation – this is about as perfect a presentation as the show could possibly hope for.

16. SPUTNIK – summer’s horror highlight (despite SERIOUSLY tough competition) was a guaranteed sleeper hit that I almost missed entirely, stumbling across the trailer one day on YouTube and getting bowled over by its potential, prompting me to hunt it down by any means necessary. The feature debut of Russian director Egor Abramenko, this first contact sci-fi chiller is about as far from E.T. as it’s possible to get, sharing some of the same DNA as Carpenter’s The Thing but proudly carving its own path with consummate skill and definitely signalling great things to come from its brand new helmer and relative unknown screenwriters Oleg Malovichko and Andrei Zolotarev. Oksana Akinshina (probably best known in the West for her powerful climactic cameo in The Bourne Supremacy) is the beating heart of the film as neurophysiologist Tatyana Yuryevna Klimova, brought in to aid in the investigation in the Russian wilderness circa 1983 after an orbital research mission goes horribly wrong. One of the cosmonauts dies horribly, while the other, Konstantin (The Duelist’s Pyotr Fyodorov) seems unharmed, but it quickly becomes clear that he’s now the host for something decidedly extraterrestrial and potentially terrifying, and as Tatyana becomes more deeply embroiled in her assignment she comes to realise that her superiors, particularly mysterious Red Army project leader Colonel Semiradov (The PyraMMMid’s Fyodor Bondarchuk), have far more insidious plans for Konstantin and his new “friend” than she could ever imagine. This is about as dark, intense and nightmarish as this particular sub-genre gets, a magnificently icky body horror that slowly builds its tension as we’re gradually exposed to the various truths and the awful gravity of the situation slowly reveals itself, punctuated by skilfully executed shocks and some particularly horrifying moments when the evils inflicted by the humans in charge prove far worse than anything the alien can do, while the ridiculously talented writers have a field day pulling the rug out from under us again and again, never going for the obvious twist and keeping us guessing right to the devastating ending, while the beautifully crafted digital creature effects are nothing short of astonishing and thoroughly creepy. Akinshina dominates the film with her unbridled grace, vulnerability and integrity, the relationship that develops between Tatyana and Konstantin (Fyodorov delivering a beautifully understated turn belying deep inner turmoil) feeling realistically earned as it goes from tentatively wary to tragically bittersweet, while Bondarchuk invests the Colonel with a nuanced air of tarnished authority and restrained brutality that made him one of my top screen villains for the year. One of 2020’s great sleeper hits, I can’t speak of this film highly enough – it’s a genuine revelation, an instant classic for whom I’ll sing its praises for years to come, and I wish enormous future success to all the creative talents involved.

15. THE INVISIBLE MAN – looks like third time’s a charm for Leigh Whannell, writer-director of my ALMOST horror movie of the year (more on that later) – while he’s had immense success as a horror writer over the years (co-creator of both the Saw and Insidious franchises), as a director his first two features haven’t exactly set the world alight, with debut Insidious: Chapter III garnering similar takes to the rest of the series but ultimately turning out to be a bit of a damp squib quality-wise, while his second feature Upgrade was a stone-cold masterpiece that was (rightly) EXTREMELY well received critically, but ultimately snuck in under the radar and has remained a stubbornly hidden gem since. No such problems with his third feature, though – his latest collaboration with producer Jason Blum and the insanely lucrative Blumhouse Pictures has proven a massive hit both financially AND with reviewers, and deservedly so. Having given up on trying to create a shared cinematic universe inhabited by their classic monsters, Universal resolved to concentrate on standalones to showcase their elite properties, and their first try is a rousing success, Whannell bringing HG Wells’ dark and devious human monster smack into the 21st Century as only he can. The result is a surprisingly subtle piece of work, much more a lethally precise exercise in cinematic sleight of hand and extraordinary acting than flashy visual effects, strictly adhering to the Blumhouse credo of maximum returns for minimum bucks as the story is stripped down to its bare essentials and allowed to play out without any unnecessary weight. The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elizabeth Moss once again confirms what a masterful actress she is as she brings all her performing weapons to bear in the role of Cecelia “Cee” Kass, the cloistered wife of affluent but monstrously abusive optics pioneer Aidan Griffin (Netflix’ The Haunting of Hill House’s Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who escapes his clutches in the furiously tense opening sequence and goes to ground with the help of her closest childhood friend, San Francisco cop James Lanier (Leverage’s Aldis Hodge) and his teenage daughter Sydney (A Wrinkle in Time’s Storm Reid). Two weeks later, Aidan commits suicide, leaving Cee with a fortune to start her life over (with the proviso that she’s never ruled mentally incompetent), but as she tries to find her way in the world again little things start going wrong for her, and she begins to question if there might be something insidious going on. As her nerves start to unravel, she begins to suspect that Aidan is still alive, still very much in her life, fiendishly toying with her and her friends, but no-one can see him. Whannell plays her paranoia up for all it’s worth, skilfully teasing out the scares so that, just like her friends, we begin to wonder if it might all be in her head after all, before a spectacular mid-movie reveal throws the switch into high gear and the true threat becomes clear. The lion’s share of the film’s immense success must of course go to Moss – her performance is BEYOND a revelation, a blistering career best that totally powers the whole enterprise, and it goes without saying that she’s the best thing in this. Even so, she has sterling support from Hodge and Reid, as well as Love Child’s Harriet Dyer as Cee’s estranged big sister Emily and Wonderland’s Michael Dorman as Adrian’s slimy, spineless lawyer brother Tom, and, while he doesn’t have much actual (ahem) “screen time”, Jackson-Cohen delivers a fantastically icy, subtly malevolent turn which casts a large “shadow” over the film. This is one of my very favourite Blumhouse films, a pitch-perfect psychological chiller that keeps the tension cranked up unbearably tight and never lets go, Whannell once again displaying uncanny skill with expert jump-scares, knuckle-whitening chills and a truly astounding standout set-piece that easily goes down as one of the top action sequences of 2020. Undoubtedly the best version of Wells’ story to date, this goes a long way in repairing the damage of Universal’s abortive “Dark Universe” efforts, as well as showcasing a filmmaking master at the very height of his talents.

14. EXTRACTION – the Coronavirus certainly has threw a massive spanner in the works of the year’s cinematic calendar – among many other casualties to the blockbuster shunt, the latest (and most long-awaited) MCU movie, Black Widow, should have opened to further record-breaking box office success at the end of spring, but instead the theatres were all closed and virtually all the heavyweights were pushed back or shelved indefinitely. Thank God, then, for the streaming services, particularly Hulu, Amazon and Netflix, the latter of which provided a perfect movie for us to see through the key transition into the summer blockbuster season, an explosively flashy big budget action thriller ushered in by MCU alumni the Russo Brothers (who produced and co-wrote this adaptation of Ciudad, a graphic novel that Joe Russo co-created with Ande Parks and Fernando Leon Gonzalez) and barely able to contain the sheer star-power wattage of its lead, Thor himself. Chris Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, a former Australian SAS operative who hires out his services to an extraction operation under the command of mercenary Nik Khan (The Patience Stone’s Golshifteh Farahani), brought in to liberate Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal in his first major role), the pre-teen son of incarcerated Indian crime lord Ovi Sr. (Pankaj Tripathi), who has been abducted by Bangladeshi rival Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli). The rescue itself goes perfectly, but when the time comes for the hand-off the team is double-crossed and Tyler is left stranded in the middle of Dhaka with no choice but to keep Ovi alive as every corrupt cop and street gang in the city closes in around them. This is the feature debut of Sam Hargrave, the latest stuntman to try his hand at directing, so he certainly knows his way around an action set-piece, and the result is a thoroughly breathless adrenaline rush of a film, bursting at the seams with spectacular fights, gun battles and car chases, dominated by a stunning sustained sequence that plays out in one long shot, guaranteed to leave jaws lying on the floor. Not that there should be any surprise – Hargrave cut his teeth as a stunt coordinator for the Russos on Captain America: Civil War and their Avengers films. That said, he displays strong talent for the quieter disciplines of filmmaking too, delivering quality character development and drawing out consistently noteworthy performances from his cast. Of course, Hemsworth can do the action stuff in his sleep, but there’s a lot more to Tyler than just his muscle, the MCU veteran investing him with real wounded vulnerability and a tragic fatalism which colours every scene, while Jaiswal is exceptional throughout, showing plenty of promise for the future, and there’s strong support from Farahani and Painyuli, as well as Stranger Things’ David Harbour as world-weary retired merc Gaspard, and a particularly impressive, muscular turn from Randeep Hooda (Once Upon a Time in Mumbai) as Saju, a former Para and Ovi’s bodyguard, who’s determined to take possession of the boy himself, even if he has to go through Tyler to get him. This is action cinema that really deserves to be seen on the big screen – I watched it twice in a week and would happily have paid for two trips to the cinema for it if I could have. As we looked down the barrel of a summer season largely devoid of blockbuster fare, I couldn’t recommend this enough. Thank the gods for Netflix …

13. THE TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO 7 – although it’s definitely a film that really benefitted enormously from releasing on Netflix during the various lockdowns, this was one of the blessed few I actually got to see during one of the UK’s frustratingly rare lulls when cinemas were actually OPEN. Rather perversely it therefore became one of my favourite cinematic experiences of 2020, but then I’m just as much a fan of well-made cerebral films as I am of the big, immersive blockbuster EXPERIENCES, so this probably still would have been a standout in a normal year. Certainly if this was a purely CRITICAL list for the year this probably would have placed high in the Top Ten … Aaron Sorkin is a writer whose work I have ardently admired ever since he went from esteemed playwright to in-demand talent for both the big screen AND the small with A Few Good Men, and TTOTC7 is just another in a long line of consistently impressive, flawlessly written works rife with addictive quickfire dialogue, beautifully observed characters and rewardingly propulsive narrative storytelling (therefore resting comfortably amongst the well-respected likes of The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War, Moneyball and The Social Network). It also marks his second feature as a director (after fascinating and incendiary debut Molly’s Game), and once again he’s gone for true story over fiction, tackling the still controversial subject of the infamous 1968 trial of the “ringleaders” of the infamous riots which marred Chicago’s Diplomatic National Convention five months earlier, in which thousands of hippies and college students protesting the Vietnam War clashed with police. Spurred on by the newly-instated Presidential Administration of Richard Nixon to make some examples, hungry up-and-coming prosecutor Richard Schultz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is confident in his case, while the Seven – who include respected and astute student activist Tom Hayden (Eddie Redmayne) and confrontational counterculture firebrands Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Succession’s Jeremy Strong) – are the clear underdogs. They’re a divided bunch (particularly Hayden and Hoffman, who never mince their words about what little regard they hold for each other), and they’re up against the combined might of the U.S. Government, while all they have on their side is pro-bono lawyer and civil rights activist William Kunstler (Mark Rylance), who’s sharp, driven and thoroughly committed to the cause but clearly massively outmatched … not to mention the fact that the judge presiding over the case is Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella), a fierce and uncompromising conservative who’s clearly 100% on the Administration’s side, and who might in fact be stark raving mad (he also frequently goes to great lengths to make it clear to all concerned that he is NOT related to Abbie). Much as we’ve come to expect from Sorkin, this is cinema of grand ideals and strong characters, not big spectacle and hard action, and all the better for it – he’s proved time and again that he’s one of the very best creative minds in Hollywood when it comes to intelligent, thought-provoking and engrossing thinking-man’s entertainment, and this is pure par for the course, keeping us glued to the screen from the skilfully-executed whirlwind introductory montage to the powerfully cathartic climax, and every varied and brilliant scene in-between. This is heady stuff, focusing on what’s still an extremely thorny issue made all the more urgently relevant and timely given what was (and still is) going on in American politics at the time, and everyone involved here was clearly fully committed to making the film as palpable, powerful and resonant as possible for the viewer, no matter their nationality or political inclination. Also typical for a Sorkin film, the cast are exceptional, everyone clearly having the wildest time getting their teeth into their finely-drawn characters and that magnificent dialogue – Redmayne and Baron Cohen are compellingly complimentary intellectual antagonists given their radically different approaches and their roles’ polar opposite energies, while Rylance delivers another pitch-perfect, simply ASTOUNDING performance that once again marks him as one of the very best actors of his generation, and there are particularly meaty turns from Strong, Langella, Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (as besieged Black Panther Bobby Seale) and a potent late appearance from Michael Keaton that sear themselves into the memory long after viewing. Altogether then, this is a phenomenal film which deserves to be seen no matter the format, a thought-provoking and undeniably IMPORTANT masterwork from a master cinematic storyteller that says as much about the world we live in now as the decidedly turbulent times it portrays …

12. GREYHOUND – when the cinemas closed back in March, the fate of many of the major summer blockbusters we’d been looking forward to was thrown into terrible doubt. Some were pushed back to more amenable dates in the autumn or winter (which even then ultimately proved frustratingly ambitious), others knocked back a whole year to fill summer slots for 2021, but more than a few simply dropped off the radar entirely with the terrible words “postponed until further notice” stamped on them, and I lamented them all, this one in particular. It hung in there longer than some, stubbornly holding onto its June release slot for as long as possible, but eventually it gave up the ghost too … but thanks to Apple TV+, not for long, ultimately releasing less than a month later than intended. Thankfully the film itself was worth the fuss, a taut World War II suspense thriller that’s all killer, no filler – set during the infamous Battle of the Atlantic, it portrays the constant life-or-death struggle faced by the Allied warships assigned to escort the transport convoys as they crossed the ocean, defending their charges from German U-boats. Adapted from C.S. Forester’s famous 1955 novel The Good Shepherd by Tom Hanks and directed by Aaron Schneider (Get Low), the narrative focuses on the crew of the escort leader, American destroyer USS Fletcher, codenamed “Greyhound”, and in particular its captain, Commander Ernest Krause (Hanks), a career sailor serving his first command. As they cross “the Pit”, the most dangerous middle stretch of the journey where they spend days without air-cover, they find themselves shadowed by “the Wolf Pack”, a particularly cunning group of German submarines that begin to pick away at the convoy’s stragglers. Faced with daunting odds, a dwindling supply of vital depth-charges and a ruthless, persistent enemy, Krause must make hard choices to bring his ships home safe … jumping into the thick of the action within the first ten minutes and maintaining its tension for the remainder of the trim 90-minute run, this is screen suspense par excellence, a sleek textbook example of how to craft a compelling big screen knuckle-whitener with zero fat and maximum reward, delivering a series of desperate naval scraps packed with hide-and-seek intensity, heart-in-mouth near-misses and fist-in-air cathartic payoffs by the bucket-load. Hanks is subtly magnificent, the calm centre of the narrative storm as a supposed newcomer to this battle arena who could have been BORN for it, bringing to mind his similarly unflappable in Captain Phillips and certainly not suffering by comparison; by and large he’s the focus point, but other crew members make strong (if sometimes quite brief) impressions, particularly Stephen Graham as Krause’s reliably seasoned XO, Lt. Commander Charlie Cole, The Magnificent Seven’s Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Just Mercy’s Rob Morgan, while Elisabeth Shue does a lot with a very small part in brief flashbacks as Krause’s fiancée Evelyn. Relentless, exhilarating and thoroughly unforgettable, this was one of the true action highlights of the summer, and one hell of a war flick. I’m so glad it made the cut for the summer …

11. PROJECT POWER – with Marvel and DC pushing their tent-pole titles back in the face of COVID, the usual superhero antics we’ve come to expect for the summer were pretty thin on the ground in 2020, leading us to find our geeky fan thrills elsewhere. Unfortunately, pickings were frustratingly slim – Korean comic book actioner Gundala was entertaining but workmanlike, while Thor AU Mortal was underwhelming despite strong direction from Troll Hunter’s André Øvredal, and The New Mutants just got shat on by the studio and its distributors and no mistake – thank the Gods, then, for Netflix, once again riding to the rescue with this enjoyably offbeat super-thriller, which takes an intriguing central premise and really runs with it. New designer drug Power has hit the streets of New Orleans, able to give anyone who takes it a superpower for five minutes … the only problem is, until you try it, you don’t know what your own unique talent is – for some, it could mean five minutes of invisibility, or insane levels of super-strength, but other powers can be potentially lethal, the really unlucky buggers just blowing up on the spot. Robin (The Hate U Give’s Dominique Fishback) is a teenage Power-pusher with dreams of becoming a rap star, dealing the pills so she can help her diabetic mum; Frank Shaver (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one of her customers, a police detective who uses his power of near invulnerability to even the playing field when supercharged crims cause a disturbance. Their lives are turned upside down when Art (Jamie Foxx) arrives in town – he’s a seriously badass ex-soldier determined to hunt down the source of Power by any means necessary, and he’s not above tearing the Big Easy apart to do it. This is a fun, gleefully infectious rollercoaster that doesn’t take itself too seriously, revelling in the anarchic potential of its premise and crafting some suitably OTT effects-driven chaos brought to pleasingly visceral fruition by its skilfully inventive director, Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Nerve, Viral), while Mattson Tomlin (the screenwriter of the DCEU’s oft-delayed, incendiary headline act The Batman) takes the story in some very interesting directions and poses fascinating questions about what Power’s TRULY capable of. Gordon-Levitt and Fishback are both brilliant, the latter particularly impressing in what’s sure to be a major breakthrough role for her, and the friendship their characters share is pretty adorable, while Foxx really is a force to be reckoned with, pretty chill even when he’s in deep shit but fully capable of turning into a bona fide killing machine at the flip of a switch, and there’s strong support from Westworld’s Rodrigo Santoro as Biggie, Power’s delightfully oily kingpin, Courtney B. Vance as Frank’s by-the-book superior, Captain Crane, Amy Landecker as Gardner, the morally bankrupt CIA spook responsible for the drug’s production, and Machine Gun Kelly as Newt, a Power dealer whose pyrotechnic “gift” really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Exciting, inventive, frequently amusing and infectiously likeable, this was some of the most uncomplicated cinematic fun I had all summer. Not bad for something which I’m sure was originally destined to become one of the season’s B-list features …

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