anarchic-miscellany

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They had literally one job with the upcoming "He-Man" movie, and that was to give us a glorious, up to the standards of Frank Langella portrayal of Skeletor. They have literally chosen the worst possible option. Here are, off the top of my head, some options: 1. Nic Cage

2. Frank Langella again

3. Vincent D'Onofrio

4. Patrick Wilson

5. Christopher Eccleston

6. David Tennant

7. Michael Sheen

8. Jose Pablo Cantillo

9. Dan Stevens

10. Hugh Quarshie

11. Frank Langella again

12. Jessica Rothe

13. Billiam Skarsgard

14. Jessica Rothe with a skull drawn on her face

15. Frank Langella again

Given enough time and drugs, I could come up with a comprehensive list, but this is literally the worst fucking choice they could make. It's EXACTLY who you think it is. It's been a while since I have so swiftly avoided a movie or series, not since the remake of "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" had Max Landis' name plastered all over it, to be honest

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Hi! Are you reading One Piece online? And, if you are... would you mind sharing the link? 👀

Well I'm not going to have the space or the money for the manga, so here ya go! https://w33.onepiece-manga-online.net/manga/one-piece-chapter-155/

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Reading "One Piece" for the first time: Part 15

It's been a while so I was worried that my dodgy bootleg site keeping this thing going was going to be offline, but here we are.

I hope that the art gets better soon, it's a very... distinct style.

Anyway!

Our Idiot and Giga Chad are doing... something? The king/villain of this arc is kind of weak and kind of lame, but I enjoy the snow and the magical fun times Winter Wonderland Castle! The little old lady crone doctor (Deny. Defend. Depose) is revealing some depths, I guess? And the reindeer seems to be the next big character of this arc/crew: honestly guys, not too sold. I mean, I didn't see it coming, in the same way that I wouldn't have seen a sentient cube made of bees coming, but from what I gather this guy's a main character. So... first thoughts aren't great? I mean, he's more likable than the Idiot (massive fucking overpowered dullard with the IQ of a bucket that he is), but I was unmoved by his sad backstory about a doctor on a mountain? I don't know, I'm just a cynical bastard like that and the hype has never lived up to it. That's it? The Blue Nosed Reindeer ate a human fruit (fucking Axe Cop had better writing than this) and wants to cure disease, but then his mentor the crone sold him to (Deny. Defend. Depose) ate a mushroom and exploded? And now the Idiot heard that story and defends his flag because nobody forms immediate life or death attachments to inanimate objects and strangers he just met QUITE like Doofus Q. Dullard.

But then the villain turned into a fucking gingerbread house, and that was fucking amazing? Every time I think I build a tolerance to this author's bullshit, he pulls more out of the bag.

Whilst the crowd are gathering their torches and sharpening their forks (I gather that Blue Nose Reindeer is a popular character in the fandom. I prefer Chopper Reed or Barry the Chopper thus far, but we shall see) I will say I liked Cartographer With a Brain Cell being nice as she recovered in the castle, and appreciated very much that our companion of the week was Giga Chad: that guy is excellent, and I am happy to finally have them bench the Himbo and his Seventeen Fucking Swords, or whatever. I am forever grateful, also, that we don't cut back to the ship much, because we would probably see him arranging them in a circle for a tea party or something. Sad we didn't get more of Meme in Progress, but I liked his efforts to carry a dude (even if they were immediately shot down by The Himbo... Cut this guy a break, Shonen Edgelord Himbo Shitbag) and that the whole thing ended on a Christmas joke.

Mixed thoughts on the series so far: meh on the Blue Nosed Reindeer (I'll come up with a better nickname for him in time) and that whole shebang, but I liked the Christmas island, if not the mixed messages and perfunctory "guess we have to fight a house now" fight, but appreciate that it's par for the course in Shonen stuff, even if I was just counting the pages until The Idiot let off yet more super attacks. Seven Phases of Reindeer, however, sounds like a great L'Arc-en-Ciel album title, as well as something they should tell the Giga Chad about more: can you imagine the succulent, delicious phases of reindeer meat he could cook from 7 phases?!

Appreciate the shadowy "Baroque" villain head revealing the existance of 7 "Pirate Lords". Nice to have some actual villains hinted at, and talked about for the future, even if I am going to be underwhelmed if these are the fights on display and nothing will stop this bimbling fuckhead of a protagonist, who is starting to grate upon me. I hope that Giga Chad gets to eat a crocodile though, that would be amazing. As for who the next in the crew could be? I'm still holding out hope for a Merman or a Vampire. Also, can we have some women in the crew? It's a bit of a sausage fest. Honestly I was more interested in the grouchy old crone lady (Deny. Defend. Depose) and hoping she would join. But it's early days for Blue Nosed Reindeer, he could grow on me.

(Side note: I just spilt a cup of tea all over my desk, so maybe the universe is already damning me for not gnoshing on the Reindeer's Cock upon meeting him and his backstory)

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say what you want about Utopia but it did address something nobody talks about: the 'conspiracy theorist to head of subject of conspiracy theory' pipeline

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Wanting more lower budget bottle movies feels like a fucking monley's paw when I get "Flight Risk" directed by that piece of shit Mel Gibson (though hilariously the trailers keep taking his name off of it) and starring Marky Mark Wahlberg. And because I have no faith in you fucking people, I expect it to make all of the fucking money.

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"Bathrooms for your biological gender" Alright, man. Who's going to check?

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Farewell, David Lynch, and sweet dreams. For that's all life is.

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Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse.  It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms 

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable.  As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

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Terrible Screenplay Ideas: "Heavy is the Crown: A Benoit Blanc Mystery" Partly through their road trip to purchase a rare 1st edition book from a seller across the country, Benoit Blanc and his husband Philip are cursed with a breakdown in their car. As they wait for it to be repaired (and Blanc tells the seller what happened) they find themselves in the normally quaint and small town of Aquinas: now home to its annual enormous LARP "Knights and Knaves", where players from across the world come to live as kings, queens, nobles, peasants and knights in a game of deceit and merriment! Every hotel is booked out, but Benoit and Philip manage to get a room with local boy Warren (Adam Scott), who is actually one of the Games Masters for the LARP, in what will be his final year running this. Philip finds the whole affair delightful, Blanc is more perplexed, and Warren invites them to come along to see the game in action. Blanc plays the court jester "Jingle Bottom" and annoys Warren by figuring out all of his plots when he reads the notebook and simply not understanding "it's MAGIC!", forcing him to concoct better ones, whilst Philip finds himself swept up in the entire affair, Lords and Ladies alike swooning over him. Warren turns up dead in the woods, slain by an errant blade to the chest. Local Sheriff Coburn (Margot Martindale) is quick to write it off as an accident: a case of why one should never play with fake blades. But Blanc is obsessed: he knows that Warren was careful with his blades in the short time he met him, having preferred "magic" in combat, besides which as a Gamesmaster he would never be allowed to participate in combat. Besides, Philip really wants to see how the court would deal with the encroaching threat of the Lord of Darkness... So a murder investigation ensues!

They must navigate both the politics of the fantasy court (all in upheaval after King Winterbloom spurned the alliance with Lady Davenport, before a war with the Lord of Darkness no less!) and the private real lives of the players involved, to find out who killed Warren and why... Plus he really wants to get his car finished so he and Philip can collect that book... Suspects include! 1. King Darius Winterbloom, A.K.A "Clive Bennett" (Sean Bean), by day a labourer who came here to support his step daughter years ago until she passed away from leukemia and he kept going. In game he is the pragmatic and harsh ruler of these kingdoms, holding them together by any means necessary, and feeling his rule slipping... He actually would rather just chill out with a beer and go fishing, but Warren had warped the game and made it a shadow of what it was, defiling his step daughter's memory and why he played to begin...

2. Lady Davenport, A.K.A Claudia Perriwinkle (Jenny Slate) is the leader of the elves, and recently found herself humiliated in front of the court. Warren had been uncercutting her in game and is also her ex, having humiliated her in front of everybody, but she insists she had moved on from him. Outside of the game she is a supposed "tough alt girl" who hides it from her friends and crew.

3. Jeremy Mallard (John Magaro) is formerly a great and noble knight in the game, brought low by Warren's games and trickery, and who used to be best friends when he played D&D with him. The guy's having a terrible life in and out of game: his girlfriend left him and his character has become a joke, a bum and a drunk, and with Benoit here he can't even be the jester anymore.

4. Estella the Dark Elf (Stephanie Hsu) is one of Warren's exes, and they broke up in an exceedingly ugly manner. A popular player, she has now gone rogue and seeks to prove that she is great and charismatic even without a games master as a boyfriend, and she holds sway over many new and younger players, making her own fun.

5. Lord and Lady Sebastian and Sylvia Diamondfern (Randall Park and Ali Wong) are the loyal, diplomatic heads of the court and those who are the trusted council of King Winterbloom despite differing views, and the stable political forces who keep this place going. Unfortunately in real life, Duncan and Janet are having marital problems and bickering all of the time, having to keep up this act, and are thinking of getting out of the game altogether, but for the players who rely on them. Their bickering is starting to slide into the game too... They were (in character) among the last to see him alive, and Warren had been pestering them a lot in their normal jobs about the game, and knew them both from university. He was starting to get annoying, and they did both share secrets with him...

6. Melinda the Dreaded (Myha'la) is a fellow Games Master named Denise, who idolised Warren and was happy to be here, but all of her ideas were stolen by the man, who was soon to publish his new book based on all of her work. She was also the real brains behind the game.

Other suspects come into the fray, but Blanc must not only solve the mystery but keep the whole thing from bubbling over into the real world as the game tries to limp on to its epic conclusion...

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Also, my actual film of the year is "Zone of Interest", but it felt glib putting it on that list as it's too effective at what it does (I felt physically sick and my partner walked out) and I never want to see it again.

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Shoutout to one of the more underrated badasses, and a fun and underappreciated game in general, with Mark Corbeau from "Dead State". Surviving a zombie apocalypse, trying to keep your shelter and people together one day at a time! You meet the guy when you're scavenging for food and supplies at a truck stop, it's early game and you don't have many people or supplies yet. You meet him behind the counter, where he casually and sardonically greets you by asking what your order will be: he has about $5 in loose change and a jar of Jalapenos, but he does not recommend them for what they do to your body. He'll happily come along with you, safety in numbers after all, and asks what the catch is (the correct answer among the dialogue options is "Because you didn't try to kill me for my shoes", to which he just goes "Fair enough!") then, when he's sure you're not a maniac, tells the others to "come out now". It's a teenage boy and a old Asian woman.

Naturally you can be like, "what the hell?" and he tells you they're a package deal: he's not leaving without them.

Turns out he was on the evacuation bus when this all kicked off, the bus driver died of a heart attack and everybody fled. Mark was left here with a teenager called Ryan and Dr Michiru, who doesn't speak a word of English and, without any form of training or survival skills, had them come with him. He kept these strangers alive with him on the road, despite the fact he did not know a thing about them and honestly would have been better off ditching them and looking after himself. You ask him about it back at the shelter (he's a chef, making it even more extraordinary) and he just asks what else he was supposed to do? He never even thought about it.

You have a selection of "Sub Leaders" in the game who people flock around and you have to appease, and Mark is not one of them. Some Grade-A bullshit right there

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Top 5 of the Year

The main event, the 5 films I rank as my favourite this year. There were some brutal cuts to this list.

5. "The Substance"

A wild, snarling, vicious cry of righteous fury: an excellent slice of body horror with the performance of a life time from Demi Moore as it eviscerates our views on women, sex and beauty standards, particularly in the entertainment meat factory. That ending is one of the best.

4. "The Wild Robot"

A fable about how kindness should be a survival instinct. I cried 3 times.

3. "Longlegs"

Exactly as striking, harrowing, bleak, fascinating and gripping as I needed and desired it to be. I always adore Maika Monro, and Nicolas Cage remains our greatest living actor. The imagery of this film seared itself into my brain. Fuck yes.

2. "Abigail"

If anyone ever wants to know what a movie "made for me" looks like, a lot of people will (based on my recommendations) pick this, and, well they're not wrong: a genre mash up, turning both of them on their heads, with witty, hilarious characters, pure B-movie mayhem at full throttle and relished by the cast and crew involved. I miss fun bloodbaths not afraid to embrace their B-movie status. The only thing it was missing was Frank Grillo.

"Anora"

If anyone ever wants to know what a movie "made for me" looks like, and they ask me? It's this. It was never not going to be "Anora" at the number 1 spot. A raw, human, timeless, funny, sad, angry fable about sex work and the class war: people's bodies used and discarded with no care for the humanity beneath. But also a character study about the periphery, and a fairy tale shattering like our hearts made of glass. It remains funny, electrifying, a true (even though the term is overused) emotional rollercoaster pinbaling across the emotional spectrum, and cinematic dynamite from Mikey Madison in another banger from the filmography of the thus far flawless Sean Baker. It's the sort of movie I'll give a free pass to anyone involved in. This got announced and I celebrated. The trailer came out and I got chills. I watched the film and was spellbound (my cinema was silent. That never happens). I rewatched the trailer and cried. This was never a contest.

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2024 Film Retrospective: Part 1 - The Honourable Mentions

Honourable Mentions of 2024: There were actually a lot more good movies this year than bad, so I was delighted at that, and a fair few pleasant surprises too. However, the bad things I saw this year were absolutely atrocious. Honourable mentions: "Kneecap"

Anarchic, debauched and utterly hilarious, whilst having the absolute gall to be a glorious call to arms for culture and language preservation. It's the fresh shot in the arm we need in cinema more often. Funniest ketamine and "dirty taboo" sex scenes I've seen in film too. "Dunc 2"

Spellbinding and a visual banquet which far surpasses the first. How it stuck the landing of the book is nothing short of a miracle. "Hit Man"

A delightfully low key little slice of quirk, with a lovable leading performance(s) from the rising Star of Texas Glen Powell. Great to see Adria Arjona in good movies too for a change. Man I love Linklater. "Blink Twice"

Speaking of Adrija Arjona! Okay, this was more a showcase for Naomi Ackie in a much needed leading role, and a damn solid debut for Zoe Kravitz. It's a good movie, well edited and stylish, about men doing exactly what you think they're doing when they have any modicum of power, and those who enable them. Plus it's ALWAYS welcome to have Christian Slater and Simon Rex in movies.

"Cuckoo"

Absolute fucking lunacy. I love it.

"Out of Darkness"

Audacious, yet back to basics (hah!) Stone Age horror film about mankind tearing itself apart, the outsider and that primal fear of the dark... It still manages to end on a hopeful note, is INCREDIBLE with its use of language, and has a star making turn from Safia Oakley-Green.

"Civil War"

A gripping, gorgeously shot tale about the loss of journalistic impartiality and humanity in the face of war: it doesn't matter who started it, who has the right side, it tears all of us apart... Fantastic stuff.

"Monkey Man"

My most popular post on this shitshow of a website was about this movie.

"A Different Man"

An incredibly clever, Kafka-esque (used correctly) black comedy about how we view disability, letting Sebastian Stan stretch his wings, and also allowing Adam Pierson to steal the show. I always read his character as the most British joke ever: there's nothing more annoying than being befriended by a better, confident, vibrant, nicer, friendlier, dynamic, perfect version of you.

"Boy Kills World"

Pitch perfect blood-drenched cartoony insanity. I get to see Jessica Rothe in a crop-top biker jacket. Incredible.

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I love David Cronenberg and want an asexual reading of "Crash" so badly, as it's a genuinely gorgeous piece of film making in service of examining what makes things look and feel erotic, then taking that to a natural extreme. David: *shoots sex scenes erotically with picturesque cinematography* "Is sexy?" Audience: "Yes David, is sexy." David: *does the same with characters in normal scenarios.* "Is sexy?" Audience: "Yes, these are attractive people shown in a flattering manner." David: "Okay, so therefore..." *shoots a car and leg braces the same way.* Audience: "I mean, logicaly I can see how you... what are you doing David?" David: *adds a leering element when looking at car crashes.* "Therefore, is sexy?" Audience: "David, David stop, please..." David: "You enthrall and obsess over the erotic yet are bound by cowardice. Break free of these organic chains." Audience: "Are you getting off on this?!" David: "No, for then I would lose objectivity. You are the ones who must question your brewing erotic passions." Also I just love "Crash" and Cronenberg.

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I heard it announced and was excited. I watched the trailer and got chills. I saw it in the cinema and couldn't get over it. I watched the trailer again, and fucking cried. "Anora" is still brilliant.