#A Queer Movie Christmas review

[deramin2]

If we're going for the definition of Christmas being "Movies that happen around Christmas where that setting frames some of what's happening in the broader narrative," then I have 3 gay Holiday movies to check out.

Directly Holiday Movies:

Bros (2020):

Romcom, 115 minutes

Bobby Lieber is a successful New York City queer history podcaster, failed children's book writer, and rejected screenwriter, who's just won a community award for Best White Cis Gay Man. He announced he will be the first curator of a new national LGBTQ+ history museum in Manhattan.

His new coworkers are deeply passionate about the work but also squabble over everything, escalating it with intra-community discourse squabbling about who's the most oppressed and therefore should be the person that gets what they want. As someone in Very Online queer communities I can't emphasis enough how accurate and real this is and is very well-handled as an affectionate joke from within the community. The subtext is that they aren't wrong and what they're experiencing is real and needs to be factored in, but also they're stopping anything at all from actually happening that could materially help their community because they're too caught up trying to perfect the details.

He prefers Grindr hookups to romantic relationships. He regularly hate-watches Hallheart movies while secretly longing to be truly loved in more than just passing.

Bobby goes to the launch party for his friend's new queer dating app. There he meets Aaron Shepard, a hot but boring estate lawyer and they hit it off and kiss. They ultimately meet up again and the romcom unfolds in unconventional ways.

Bros both play into the romcom genre and resist it, especially how it erases what queer relationships are really like even when the characters are the same gender. It's a queer movie really made for the queer community and not the straight gaze. It's our jokes for us. It has some of the funniest sex scenes I've ever seen. The ending is absolute perfection. Overall extremely funny and intelligent movie.

Holiday connection: Bobby and Aaron celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas together at one point.

Spoiler Alert (2020)

Medical Death Memoir, 112 minutes

Based on the memoir 2017 Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies by Michael Ausiello about his partner Kit Cowan dying of cancer after being together 14 years. (The movie tells you this is the end at the beginning.) It's basically in 3 acts.

Act 1, is a romcom about how Michael and Kit met at a gay club, and instantly connect. It's about the comedy of trying to integrate into each other's lives, insecurities, and weirdness. Like Michael's secret all-consuming fandom. This is the first long-term relationship either of them have had.

Act 2, the relationship 12 years into it and where they are now.

Act 3, Kit is diagnosed with cancer and they reconcile with mortality and running out of time.

This is a very poignant film about love, lost, and how relationships are never as perfect as movies and TV make them seem. One way or another they all end, and you have to reconcile what all those feelings mean. It's about the string of platonic and familial relationships that come along with romantic ones and how important that love is, too. How our networks hold us together. It's about forgiveness and making sure you really talk to the people you care about while you can.

Respect if you can't handle another film about queer medical death. But it's nice to have one that's not about AIDS. It's also a really good study of the reality of cancer for anyone. I found it to be a really powerful film that made me come away wanting to actually live my life.

Holiday connection: Christmas is Michael's favorite holiday that fills him with magic and wonder and the passage of time is marked by Christmases.

Holiday Movie Adjacent:

Big Eden (2000)

Romcom, 117 minutes

One of the first gay romcoms ever, and hugely influential. This isn't a holiday movie, but it's directly engaging with most of the tropes of Hallmark movies, so I think it deserves to be here.

New York City gay artist Henry Hart suddenly leaves his home and career to go to the remote mountain town of Big Eden Montana to care for his ailing grandfather Sam after a stroke.

Through the church gossip he hears his high school crush Dean Stewart has moved back to town with his boys after getting a divorce, and Henry realizes he still has feelings about him.

The widow Thayer offers to help cook for Henry and Sam. The meals are delivered by shy Native American general store owner Pike Dexter, who's been harboring a crush on Henry since high school. He's been ordering Henry's fine paints for him. The general store has a flock of old men who spend the whole day gossiping there.

Widow Theyer's cooking is dreadful 1950s white bread Americana stuff. Pike decides he wants to make things nice for Henry, so he teaches himself gourmet cooking and makes increasingly elaborate meals. Then more romcom stuff happens.

One thing I love about it is that Henry, Dean, and Pike are closeted. Henry and Dean both express fear about coming out. But everyone in the town is friendly with the open hardware store lesbians. As their being queer becomes more obvious, it's shown that everyone around them would actually love and respect them and would appreciate being let into their inner lives. It's outside societal conditioning and outdated assumptions that's made them scared. In 2000 this message was a big deal. Everything else we had was tragedies about how society hates us. This resisted all of that.

This movie leans into a lot of tropes with so much love and sincerity, but also interrogates them and makes them queer and really has something very intelligent to say about how we deserve to be viewed in stories. Gay Hallmark films attempt to recreate stories like this on the surface, but lack any depth or real queerness and just end up being a warped straight parody. Seeing the real deal makes you really see what absolute garbage lesser films are.

[forlornmelody]

Queer Movie Review #25 Christmas At The Ranch

Looking for another movie to add to your queer Christmas marathon? Look no further! (Actually please do--I'm always on the hunt for more.) And if you haven't seen my reviews for Happiest Season, and The Christmas Setup, you can find them at the links provided.

Starring Amanda Rigetti and Laur Allen, Christmas At The Ranch runs like your typical Hallmark movie, but this time it's sapphic. Haleye (Allen) works at a startup in the Bay Area, but it summoned to help her family with their ranch's financial crisis. She meets a girl on a dating app, Kate (Amanda Righetti), who turns out to be her family's favorite farmhand. Haleye thinks her mother should sell the ranch; Kate doesn't want to lose her job.

This is definitely movie for the trope lover. Not only are there the aforementioned Hallmark tropes, but this movie also features enemies to lovers, and there was only one bed.

Again, this is a Hallmark movie. So it has the low budget you'd expect. The Christmas lights has maybe three sets--the film has about two locations, and there aren't any surprises in the script. But Christmas At The Ranch has a lot of heart.

Would I recommend this film? Of course! It's a great movie to cuddle to. Will Christmas At The Ranch win awards? Probably not. But I don't think it has to in order to be a good movie.

Queer Movie Review Masterpost

Recommend A Queer Movie

[abrahamstalker]

Hey I don't usually use my Tumblr for this and I might delete this later but I'm a younger gay dude and I'm interested in older queer media and I have a question for any like older queer people who might know the answer.

Is white Christmas popular with non-cis hets? Or was it? Or at least am I not the only one seeing something between the main 2 guys. There are also a lot of glittery dresses and fancy suits. The vibe is just there. But I don't know.

[the-kestrels-feather]

I know I'm SO late to the party, but In light of the hbomberguy video, I wanted to drop a list of some of my favorite video essayists on here who are all great. Some are well known, some of them not, but all deserve a lot of love thrown their way!

Any creators I know are Queer will have a * next to their names if that's what you're looking for! (Note some of them might not have a star that should, that's not me trying to invalidate anybody I just didn't know, please feel free to correct me!)

Dominic Noble- book content! Has a series called Lost in Adaptation that judges how faithful movie adaptations of books were to their original source material, but also does some reviews/summaries as well. Very publicly denounced JKR after she was revealed to be a TERF and stated he will no longer review anything by her on his channel. Also deleted ALL of his HP videos after finding out she was a TERF (which were his most popular videos), so I have a really deep respect for him tbh. Former Channel Awesome member who publicly denounced them on several occasions, and an all around swell guy.

*Overly Sarcastic Productions- channel run by 2 people who go by Red and Blue. History and Mythology/Literature content, as well as analysis of tropes and media! I've been told their History content can be a bit... Iffy, but I'm not a Historian so I don't know, however if they get something wrong they're good about correcting it for what that counts for. Very interesting to listen to, I've watched Red's Videos roughly 100 times each. Also has a podcast.

*Strange Aeons- fandom/Tumblr history mostly, as well as some history, and weird businesses too. Reads a LOT of cursed content for her channel.

*Lindsay Ellis- Media/film analysis. obviously not as unknown as some of the others on here, but I absolutely adore her content and will forever be sad that she isn't on YouTube anymore.

Cruel World Happy Mind- MLM/explanation of controversial figures. I'm not sure how best to explain her content, but she seems genuinely lovely and is interesting to listen to. Also a victim of Illuminaughtii's ire and deserves some love. The video she made on Blair is a bit outdated since she made it at the start of when this all came to light, but imo it's definitely worth a watch. Her talking about her interaction with Blair genuinely broke my heart.

*Night Mind- Analog horror/Unfiction/ARG content! Analyzes and explains various internet horror pieces, and also has a very nice voice to listen to.

*Lola Sebastian- Film/Media Analysis!

Li Speaks- Deep dives into various nostalgia, mainly flash games!

*Princess Weekes- Media/film/literary analysis!

abitfrank- summaries and analysis of various "darker" children's content such as Coraline (book and movie), Nightmare Before Christmas, and various dark fairy tales

Hello Future Me- writing advice and world building information!

Curious Archive- deep dives into the various bestiaries of video games and the animals in real life that they're similar to, I love his Subnautica video!

In Praise of Shadows- Horror media analysis! Will often focus on specific franchises, but also covers things like horror comics and tropes as well.

Wait in the Wings- theatre! Deep dives into the back stories behind the production of various musicals! His video on Rogers the Musical that he did for April Fool's last year is comedy fucking gold

Weird Reads With Emily Louise- conspiracy theory/cult/weird thing analysis! Looks at things from an objective and skeptical view, and is very in depth. Recently served as a consulting producer on an HBO Max documentary on the Love has Won cult.

Ask a Mortician- death content! Covers various historical events and darker stories of death from the view of a Mortician.

*Izzzyzz- deep dives into fandoms, as well as well as different video games and kids' virtual worlds.

Disney Dan- Disney content! Covers the history of different mascot costumes at Disney and Disney-like parks! Has collaborated with Definctland in the past too!

Yesterworld- theme park content! Discusses history behind rides and parks, as well as some Disney movies. I think has also collaborated with Defunctland and Disney Dan?

Legal Eagle- legal content! Breaks down news about ongoing legal cases in a way that feels approachable. I like him because both my parents are paralegals and his videos have helped me understand what they mean when they're talking about work a little bit

Super Eye patch Wolf- media video essays! Mostly about anime/manga and video games, but also covers things like influencer scams and pro wrestling. His "what the internet did to Garfield" video is SO GOOD

*Jessie Gender- Media Analysis, loves Star Trek

*Laura Crone- Media Analysis video essays, her videos on the Swan Princess are fucking great I highly recommend!

*Lady Emily- Media Analysis, did a whole video on Spuder-Man turn off the dark that is SO good. Co writer for Sarah Z

Tale Foundry- covers different forms of fiction, their xenofiction video is great, as is their Angelarium one!

Defunctland- Theme Park ride and Children's TV History channel!

Jenny Nicholson- one of the sort of "big three" commentary channels with Lindsay Ellis and Sarah Z imo, covers all sorts of stuff but her most recent one is a 3 hour video on the theme park Evermore Park!

*Sarah Z- Fandom history and Media analysis! I really enjoy their content, the Johnlock Conspiracy and DashCon videos are my favorites!

Li Speaks- Flash games/virtual world analysis mostly! She has a very soothing voice to listen to, if you played like. Any MMOs or virtual worlds growing up I Highly recommend. I've watched her video on Horseland SO many times.

*Codex Entry- Video game coverage! Her videos on Pathologic are great if you're like me and wanted more after the Hbomberguy video!

Wendigoon- ARG/Spooky content! One of the early proponents of the Mandela Catalog and best known for his conspiracy theory iceberg, but has also covered things like various weird/unsolved crimes, Assassination conspiracies, and other things. His videos on Faith, Blood Meridian, The Mandela Catalog, and his Religion/Cult iceberg are some of my favorites

Dino Diego- Dinosaur fiction, like movies, video games, books, short stories, etc. his 2 videos on West of Eden and Winter in Eden are two of my favorites!

Haley Whipjack- I don't know how to describe her content really? She does a lot of deep dives (her Shrek one is my favorite), currently doing a recap of Once Upon a Time by season that is very fun. She's an elementary school teacher by day (that's not me dozing her she talks about it on her channel), and so she has fun unhinged teacher energy!

Other channels that are a sort of collection of different people talking about different things rather than 1 or 2:

TEDx

PBS

The Exploring Series

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (December 3-9, 2023)

I made a frame from this shot Wikizilla's Image of the Week. No regrets. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, I love ya. When I was a teenager, explicit queerness was anathema to most big-name franchises. Those dominoes have been slowly falling, often in lower-profile tie-ins first, and to me this is a huge one: 69 years without a queer live-action Godzilla character are over. And Cate's the main protagonist of the show! I'm not under the delusion that media representation will cure all society's ills, but it sure doesn't hurt. Now, the non-Tumblr parts of the fandom are being completely normal about this, right? Right? Whatever, that's why you'll never get rid of me here. Cate had a couple more sweet moments with May in this episode, and Mariko Tamaki wrote episode 7, so don't expect her to stop kissing girls. Hopefully she's learned a valuable lesson about cheating though.

"The Way Out" is also another gift to those of us who have always wanted to see more of the ramifications of a world where Godzilla exists, from underground towns for the super-rich to ruined cities where federal troops shoot looters and harass people experiencing homelessness. And the show continues to find ways to use kaiju to talk about COVID, from Cate and Kentaro's exchange about San Francisco truthers ("It's easier than waking up every day and thinking, at any moment, the same could happen to you") to the blink-of-an-eye speed at which the threat went from on the news to her front door in the flashbacks.

As I foretold, we got a Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire trailer, an amusing contrast to the weighty Toho flick and Apple show already fore of mind. It's Adam Wingard unbound, that's for sure. The human cast seems pared back, a longstanding Monsterverse problem, and the kaiju fights were far and away the best part of Godzilla vs. Kong, so hopefully this approach will play to his strengths. But that movie also had excellent VFX, and some of the shots in here are rough. There's time to fix them, at least... which probably can't be said of Godzilla's design. I like that he's pink (did some Warner Bros. executive take the wrong message away from Barbie?) and sporting a thagomizer on his tail, but his proportions are uncanny. And I see Kong found the Infinity Gauntlet; good for him.

I am, of course, not done talking about Godzilla Minus One. It added over 200 screens and made $8.3 million in its second weekend in the U.S., a minuscule drop considering that its $11.4 million opening "weekend" spanned five days. Almost a third of all tickets sold this weekend were for Godzilla or Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, remarkable in a market so allergic to foreign imports. That brings its total to $25.3 million (more by the time you read this). With an avalanche of Christmas blockbusters on the way, its grip on premium-format screens is about to slip. Still, I see it hanging around theaters for a while. I have never seen the fandom so united in praise for a film before, and it's making plenty of new fans.

Some of those fans are in high places. Variety leaked that it's on the 20-film shortlist for Best Visual Effects at the Oscars (to be narrowed to five nominees), something I, again, never expected to read about a Toho Godzilla film. Alas, it's locked out of this year's Best International Film category due to the quirky nomination period.

Much has been made of how great the film looks on a $15 million budget. I have two caveats, one in each direction. No one is quite sure where the $15 million figure came from; Yamazaki said at a recent con appearance that he only wished he had that much to play with. (He has yet to divulge the actual budget, just that it was above ¥1 billion.) Now, unions in the Japanese film industry are much weaker than in Hollywood, so a given production budget goes a lot further in Japan. All the same, I doubt that alone explains Minus One looking better than most superhero movies made for twenty times the cost. I'll offer a couple more reasons: Yamazaki has extensive visual effects experience (he's been the VFX supervisor of all but one of the live-action films he's directed), and the film's big effects scenes aren't as busy or lengthy as many of the Hollywood counterparts. I don't know if Disney will ask Yamazaki to direct the next Star Wars movie (that would require there to be a next Star Wars movie), but the studios here should be taking notes.

the sphinx, a blog with a ton of American Godzilla rarities to share, has outdone itself—behold a continuity and dialogue script for the U.S. version of King Kong vs. Godzilla! Included in the download is a detailed comparison with the film. No huge differences, apart from the script giving the secretary added to the U.S. version a name, but a fascinating piece of history all the same.

The Minus One incarnation of Godzilla (MaiGoji?) has joined Godzilla Battle Line, accompanied by [SPOILER]. To be honest, my enthusiasm for this game has been flagging, and I'm not caught up on the strategies developing around these two, so I'll just refer you to Sir Melee's channel as usual. This Godzilla's also doing a collaboration with the Japanese mobile game Fleet of Blue Flame.

Tiffany Grant, Asuka's original voice actress, will narrate the audiobooks for the Neon Genesis Evangelion: ANIMA light novels which explore an Instrumentality-free path for the show. Seven Seas Entertainment published them in English from 2019 to 2021, which, to be honest, was also news to me.

This one's for my fellow library workers: the obscenely popular Who HQ nonfiction series for children is publishing a book about Godzilla next June. I don't know if this will have quite the same impact on today's young Godzilla fans as the Ian Thorne tome had on Gen Xers and Millennials, what with the Internet and all, but it's certain to be more factual. Expect illustrations instead of licensed photos, and not just because of Toho.

I can finally talk more about the Godzilla x Kong: Titan Chasers mobile game without fearing a DMCA. Not that there's much to talk about; it's freemium through and through and I'm not sure I know a single person who's excited for it. Interesting to see some critters from the comics break into another medium, at least. Here's the trailer.

[aflyingcontradiction]

13 books

Tagged by @nikita-not-nikola to answer 13 questions, and then tag 13 people. Thank you very much!

1) The last book I read:

Jasper Fforde's The Constant Rabbit - it's a very lampshadey sort of satire, quite witty, but by far not the best Jasper Fforde book I've read (that honour would go to the unfortunately named Shades of Grey)

2) A book I recommend:

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone - I've not seen a lot of chatter about the Craft Sequence around these parts, even though clever fantasy settings with unique worldbuilding and an ensemble cast of diverse characters (many of them queer) seem to be tumblr's jam. So I'll take this opportunity to go "That one! That's a good one!"

3) A book that I couldn’t put down:

In a literal "read it cover to cover sense", I genuinely don't remember the last time that happened. Did that all the time as a kid, but I read in smaller chunks these days. In a "this was extremely captivating" sense, though, Harrow the Ninth was pretty riveting!

4) A book I’ve read twice (or more):

Recently, a lot of them! I've been decluttering my bookshelf so almost everything that's on there is getting a re-read. One of the many that truly deserved it, though, is China Miéville's Railsea.

5) A book on my TBR:

I've got my TBR down to only about 15-ish books, of which "Infect your Friends and Loved Ones" has been on there longest, but it seems a bit hard to find so it'll probably stay on there for a while.

6) A book I’ve put down:

I don't tend to put down books lightly. I usually struggle through them, then end up giving them a bad review :P The last DNF I remember was Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul. But that wasn't the book's fault, I was expecting a historical overview of pain used deliberately in spirituality and it was more about the philosophy/psychology of pain (and extremely densely written at that)

7) A book on my wish list:

Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed

8) A favorite book from childhood:

Alright, let's try to NOT go for the obvious here... The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (if you've seen the movie you really, really ought to read the book. The movie ends before all the most interesting plotlines in the book even START).

9) A book you would give to a friend:

I mean, depends on the friend, doesn't it? So, semi-random pick from my recent re-reads: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty

10) A book of poetry or lyrics that you own

Oooh, I got this really neat book of German poetry for Christmas - Deutsche Gedichte - 1500 Gedichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (does what it says on the tin, really).

11) A nonfiction book you own:

How To Invent Everything by Ryan North

12) What are you currently reading:

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

13) What are you planning on reading next?

I let a random number generator decide which book on my tbr pile I read next so no idea.

Alright, let's get to the tagging (no pressure, of course!): @lovethatcoat, @toasthaste, @autogeneity, @ante--meridiem, @soryualeksi, @bakomglaset, @deliciousghosts-unofficial, @shabbytigers, @octopuscato, @titaniumelemental and whoever else feels like doing this

[lgbt-cishet-movie-tournament]

lol the main lead actors for each movie are father and son irl. well you know the drill

The loser is either too queer to be a cishet movie or too cishet to be queer…

How is it cishet media?

LB: evil gay vampires getting in the way of a cishet lovestory

The Exorcist: A movie (sort-of) beloved by the Catholic Church that promotes traditional family values. Has a lot of homophobic language, and it was released around Christmas. Only one gay character and they only tell you through a flamboyant gesture. Screen writer and book author was homophobic enough to make petitions to “un-catholic” the catholic school featured in this film (they were reaching out to gay students and having pride so he wrote an angry letter to the bishop) and it shows. The Vatican once invited the director to come over specifically because of the exorcist :(((

How is it lgbt?

LB: those vampires were gay and trans why else did they wear leather when it was so hot out. they got a single ear piercing which was the way back then to signal other gay people you were gay (they did it on the other ear not the gay ear but I know what was happening)

Exorcist: Regan is sooo off-putting and a bad daughter. This is just what being queer and having several diseases is like minus the exorcism. Her voice gets deep while she acts rebellious and her mom rejects her. Damien Karras (the younger priest) also reads as so repressedly gay and in the closet in the original book, but the movie squeezes in a bit of that with a scene where Fr. Dyer lays Karras to bed, and they hold hands until Karras eventually recoils with so much pathetic pain. I KNOW what you are. (https://afieldinengland.tumblr.com/post/657429236105248768/they-were-in-love-here) Karras and Dyer are even closer in the book, and Dyer is his stereotypically effeminate “ride or die” gay best friend. He told him to leave the priesthood with him since the gays are doing it, meanwhile all the other local priests were panicking about gay priests. The movie is extremely quotable too and I find that camp. Also found “Mother what’s wrong with me?” and “That thing upstairs is not my daughter” to be sooo personal. I know it’s homophobic but it helped me come out more somehow because I don’t want to DIE like that. Saw some fun Regan MacNeil dragqueens, trans posts and non-binary comics (with regan and karras) awhile ago as well. In the 90s, a reviewer said that the movie was actually a priest’s homoerotic wet dream (and that’s why they wanted to kill pazuzu the “female element”) and it so threw off the director to the point that his biography, an analytical book on the exorcist by kermode, AND some articles will bring it up as a bizarre theory or serious analysis. Well I say the reviewer had a point, but with the wrong priest. Dyer is the only confirmed gay character who gets censored a lot, but I know what those two had. Big closeted catholic energy. That’s why Regan was so homophobic. She read Karras’ mind.

[themousefromfantasyland]

Journey Through the Disneyverse: Halloween Edition 🎃

I practically had to do one more after watching Disney's most iconic Halloween property. Yes, I'm speaking of Hocus Pocus. And no, I won't review Nightmare Before Christmas. You can fight me later, but I consider that more a Christmas film than a Halloween film.

Hocus Pocus (1993)

I never watched this as a kid, so I am not blinded by Nostalgia when I say this is one of the best Halloween movies of all time.

I was having problems getting into the Halloween mood this year. College stress and the depressing headlines were huge factors. But this movie put me in the mood immediately.

It's extremely funny, campy, colorful. It represents the fun, mischief, and magic that I always associated with the Halloween season.

The Sanderson Sisters are Queer icons. I Put A Spell on You It's such a contagious scene. They are the closest thing straight cis women will ever come to drag queens.

The film also has a huge heart to it, something that fans don't talk too much about. From the colonial teenage boy who watched his young sister be MURDERED by the Sanderson Sisters and was cursed to be an immortal cat, to the oldest son having to assume a protective role over his young sister. As an older brother who loves to death his annoying young sister, this hit me in the feels.

And to my last point, the film has a strange mature humor that doesn't quite fit Disney. Sometimes it makes me chuckle, and sometimes it makes me cringe. What's it with all the cast shaming a 14-year-old for not having sex?

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022)

I struggled to get through this one.

This reminded me a little of Disenchanted, being both unnecessary sequels that aren't as good as the originals. But while Disenchanted is campy and has enough original ideas to justify its existence, this film is completely transfixed with the original to do anything original.

Even the few original ideas this have, like showing the Sandersons as kids, or they wanting revenge on the town's mayor because he is a descendant of the Reverend that tried to take them apart, or the protagonists being semi young witches, are very underutilized and not very well executed all together.

It's sad, because I feel like there are elements to make a decent, or at least, watchable sequel here.

Heck, the main trio is back, and they are giving their best, but they are so tired, and the script isn't helping.

@ariel-seagull-wings @thealmightyemprex @tamisdava2 @princesssarisa @angelixgutz @the-blue-fairie @natache

[inkmage13]

A comprehensive list of every single Frankenstein adaptation i have ever read/watched and my reviews of them

Universal Frankenstein 1931

I hate this movie with my whole being. It's like they read the book upside down and backwards. Hate the creature's design. 1/10

Young Frankenstein

A hilarious spoof of the Universal film. Gene Wilder kills it as Frederick von Frankenstein. Creature design is much better than Universal, I love the non functional zipper on his neck. So silly and goofy. 9/10 (minus one point for Creech fucking being an important joke/plot point bc it makes me uncomfortable)

Junji Ito's Frankenstein

A mostly faithful comic adaptation of the original novel. Creature design is fantastic but he has short hair for some reason. Very cool art. 8/10

Frankenstein Alive, Alive!

Literally my favorite graphic novel. Bernie Wrightson cared about the Creature so much and it really shows. Incredible adaptation exploring the rest of Creech's life. 11/10 cannot recommend enough

Frankenweenie

Great Tim Burton movie. I love Sparky. Another successful spoof of the Universal film. 7/10 (minus points for being lowkey racist/xenophobic)

The Rocky Horror Show / Picture Show

I'm lumping in the musical and movie together. I love RHPS with my whole being. And it's a weirdly good adaptation. Dr. Frank N Furter's desire to create the perfect artificial man is explicitly queer. Rocky is born and immediately starts singing about how he's confused and miserable. 8/10

I, Frankenstein

Not a great movie but I did kind of enjoy it. Adam Frankenstein is caught in the celestial war of good and evil because he is neither human nor demon. His design sucks because he's just a guy, not nearly fucked up enough. Also he's not an incel which is very out of character unfortunately. 5/10

The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein

What the fuck is this book. Reading it was a roller coaster ride of "ok i dig this" and "what the actual fuck am I reading". All you need to know is the author sucks the human soul out of Victor and makes Creech a furry. 2/10

Frankenstein: A New Musical

I love this musical!! It's mostly book accurate with great portrayals of every single character. The original production's Creature design sucks though, it's literally just the actor with no prosthetics or makeup or anything. The music ranges from average musical stuff to absolute bangers. 9/10

Edward Scissorhands

I love this movie so I'm counting it because the Inventor makes an artificial human which is basically Frankensteining. Edward is adorable I love him so much. I think the movie is a great metaphor for the treatment of disabled/neurodivergent people in society. 8/10

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Specifically Sally and Dr. Finkelstein. Dr. Finkelstein is a super shitty dad to his creation, and Sally just wants to go out in the world and be a normal monster girl. As a Frankenstein adaptation 9/10 also 10/10 movie

X Files: The Post-Modern Prometheus

Incredible retelling with fantastic references to the original text. Mulder and Scully get justice for a monster in a crazy small town. And the episode is in black and white for no reason other than drama. But for some reason the Creature, who is called El Mutato, r**es people so for that unfortunately 7/10

[kitchfit]

Year in Review: TV Shows

¡Feliz Dia de los Reyes! And Happy New Year! And also happy belated Hanukkah, Christmas, Yule, Bodhi, Kwanzaa and Diso, probably some other holidays. BOXING DAY. You all get a gift! And it's the same thing you ask for every year that I know you love so so much: Unwarranted opinions about tv shows from a stranger on the internet! I am truly generous.

Shadow and Bone s1-2

Confession: I grew up with these books. It’s one of the only book series I snatched up as soon as they were released, and to this day I will read anything Leigh Bardugo slaps my face with, so I was ecstatic to discover they were making a Netflix adaptation. And damn one thing I cannot critique is the casting for this series. Jessie Mei Li pulls off the classic orphan chosen one YA protagonist so well without being cliche, which is also something Bardugo was able to do in the books. And Freddy Carter and Kit Young have just become Kaz and Jesper in my head, replacing whatever image I had of those characters originally. Also evil Prince Caspian is hot!

Season one is genuinely a fantastic adaptation. They seamlessly combine the storylines of Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows. The gaps in pacing from the first book have had their slack picked up by these lovable criminals playing out a similar storyline to their first book, with Alina taking the place of the Grisha scientist as their object of kidnapping. Everything plays out so fluidly that I was enamored with my first and second watch through.

Season two on the other hand is messy as all hell. They try to adapt multiple books into one storyline like season one, but none of them blend in well together. The bastardized Crooked Kingdom plot (which was my favorite in the series) is completely disconnected from Alina’s story to the point it felt confusing and exhausting each time they went back to it, while the Siege and Storm and the Rise and Ruin plotlines are so rushed I could barely follow what was supposed to be happening. Plus they added their own ending, which is fine conceptually, I get them wanting to do their own thing, but I wish they either just adapted the books, or committed to making something original, instead of this clustered amalgamation.

The Owl House s3

Everyone knows this is a show that deserves MINIMUM six seasons and a movie. The world is incredibly fun and versatile, and the characters are fascinating and enjoyable to watch. But Disney is homophobic and lame and Oh My Shit is that Steamboat Willy making out with Oswald the Rabbit?? Holy Shit. I can’t believe that’s canon now! Thank you Bob Igor. 

That being said the writers and animators did a fantastic job on tight storytelling in these last two seasons. A lot of shows that aren’t given enough space to tell their story will cut out “filler” content to shove all the dramatic moments they want in your face (looking at you Voltron), but Owl House strikes a nice balance between slice of life character episodes and the more plot focused episodes in the short time they have. There’s so many background details and one off lines that create an intricate backstory that adds both to the lore and the motivations of our deadly Puritan villain. It also delivers on a fantastic ending that works both as a definitive end to the series or the jumpstart to a sequel if it ever gets graced with a renewal.

Merlin s1-5

Back in the day this show was grouped in among the other popular BBC shows at the time + Supernatural, and thus it gets a similar reputation nowadays as a queer-baity overrated show that goes on for too long. I don’t think that’s wholly undeserved, but Merlin is leagues better than either Supernatural or Sherlock and is much more consistent in delivering quality episodes than even New Who, though that last one is higher quality overall imo.

The cast all give a fantastic performance as their characters go through some genuinely well written character arcs, especially Anthony Head as Uther who blends goofy freak with hateable bigot so well that his antagonism commands the flow of the entire first three seasons. Like what’s his fucking problem? After he gets out of the picture however the pacing does tank as the plot forces out about three near identical Morgana takes over Camelot conflicts.

This show is also campy as all hell, and blends together lighthearted comedic episodes alongside extremely well written dramatic plots pretty well, though it occasionally stoops to some tonally dissonant melodrama. Uther falls in love with a farting witch like two episodes before Morgause nearly kills Arthur. I do think the will-they-won’t-they between Merlin and Arthur was written intentionally, and while their friendship is enjoyable to watch develop, the answer is obviously Won’t, because gay people don’t exist in Camelot times. Also Guinevere’s characterization fucking tanks in the last season for no reason at all, but it does have a good ending overall.

Dragon Ball Z Kai s1-4

Every year I make my dad watch a shonen anime all the way through. In 2020 it was Jojo’s, 2021 it was Hunter X Hunter, last year it was Naruto (Ocean Cut), and this year it was Dragon Ball Z Kai. So far there’s been no losers, he’s loved all of them (though he got burnt out on Part 5 of Jojo’s). It took a bit for him to get into Dragon Ball; the Saiyan saga did not hold his interest until the Vegeta fight, but he was thoroughly engaged through the Frieza saga and ESPECIALLY the Cell saga. He told me Cell is the most evil villain in all of the anime I forced this 49 year old to watch. I myself had never watched all of Dragon Ball Z in order before this year, and I’m happy to say most of it holds up, at least in Kai.

Season one is overall hard to rewatch from the beginning, since after Goku’s death we get several episodes of mindless training and running on Snake Way that we already know won’t pay off, but damn the cinematography and choreography in that first Vegeta fight is genuinely stunning and I can probably rewatch that anytime. Season two on Namek pulls off writing without Goku much better. There’s a strong sense of tension as all of these different conflicts barely miss each other: Frieza’s army killing off the already small population of Namekians as Vegeta, Gohan, and Krillin are searching for the Dragon Balls. Writing Vegeta as a secondary protagonist in this arc despite still being a violent jackass is genius and this whole section is thoroughly engaging. Pacing grinds to a crawl when the Ginyu Force show up, and I’m sad to say this continues into the Frieza fight. It’s a good fight, but after the Supper Saying shows up they could have ended things pretty quickly, but the fight draws on and on until even Goku gets bored. 

The Cell saga is easily peak Dragon Ball. This is the season Saturday morning cartoons would replay over and over again, so it's the one I’m most familiar with, and damn it I see why they did that. It’s a fun, messy time travel story that focuses on the development of our two biggest protagonists. Goku and Krillin? Nah fuck them I mean Gohan and Vegeta. We get conclusions to their character arcs that are so bombastically enjoyable that Toriyama NEARLY approaches good writing.

Season 4 on the other hand can’t decide whether it wants to be a continuation or its own thing and it shows in the pacing. The Buu saga is way too fucking long for no reason, the stakes rise to an absurd extreme and towards the end none of the characters seem to take any real notice. Goku lets his own son die to save a dog and an old man and then laughs it off as a brain fart. I like Majin Vegeta and regular Buu but everything afterwards overstays its welcome.

Castlevania s1-2

It’s kind of insane to me how good this show is. It takes the plot of an NES game with minimal dialogue and cool set pieces and transforms it into an epic ensemble story where every character has a fascinating arc to explore, not to mention animated BEAUTIFULLY. The show does NOT hold back on gore, but at the same time pulls it off with elegance so the blood and guts don’t feel gratuitous. Castlevania 3 was also my favorite as a kid despite never having finished it so it was personally very satisfying to see this one adapted. 

The relationship between Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha is also adorable and one of my mainstays when I think of fictional Polyamorous couples. Their dynamics are further developed in the latter seasons, but the Dracula fight is so stellar that I was satisfied with ending it there for now, I still need to watch the Rondo of Blood anime.

My Adventures With Superman s1

This show was so cute! And also very vindicating after Snyder’s Superman changed every depiction of the character into a deconstruction on whether helping people is good or evil. Or maybe those were the only ones I saw after that. I was introduced to Superman through the Justice League cartoon and that will always be my primary understanding of the guy, so it’s nice to see Clark written in a similar light. 

However, it’s Lois Lane that really takes center stage in this show. I mean it’s her adventures after all. She is NOTHING like any previous Lois Lane and is an essential brand new character, and she plays off of Clark’s personality SUPER well and their romance is adorable to see develop. I saw a lot of comparisons of her character to Luz and honestly I see the resemblance, not only in design but in dialogue. Which is fine I like Luz, but it forces me to compare it to the Owl House. 

While this show also has very little time to tell its story, unlike TOH it’s paced like shit. Every episode that they put out is fantastic, but all of them feel like the conclusion to a grand story arc, rather than 10 episodes in succession of each other. They introduced multiverse shit in episode SEVEN. And while I love the new design of Mr. Mxldsjdnsk (especially considering I had just finished Dragon Ball Z), they did not earn that shit. This is obviously a production problem I can’t blame on the writers, but this is a show clearly designed as a slice of life with action thrown in, it needs cute fillery episodes, dammit. STOP RUSHING EVERYTHING.

King of the Hill s1

I don’t know if it's a controversial take to say King of the Hill is easily the best adult-oriented American cartoon, right? I think everyone should be on the same page on this. Like the Simpsons is way too long to be objectively good anymore. Maybe Futurama outclasses it but like. Family Guy? American Dad? BIG MOutH? None of those even have jokes. King of the Hill manages to not only be hilarious as all hell, but also tell a meaningful story.

As someone who has grown up in the relative south (Not Texas) I see it as both a satire, celebration, and deconstruction of the culture of rural America. Most episodes focus on Hank trying to give Bobby a meaningful childhood and teach him valuable lessons, but in the process realizing that the culture he grew up in kind of fucked him up a bit, and instead of digging his heels in and refusing to change, he alters his behavior and views for the sake of his son. Bobby himself is a lovable goofball who shows off the fun of growing up as some country hick. Watch this clip of Bobby playing spin the bottle right fucking now.

Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake s1

ANOTHER PIECE OF MEDIA CAPITALIZING ON THE MULTIVERSE TREND LETS GO. I spoke before about the inherent metafiction in Multiverse narratives. I think Fionna and Cake understands that aspect well, which makes sense as in Adventure Time the Multiverse had already been an established fact. This sequel is more of an elaboration on previous world-building from the original, rather than following the trends of Marvel or whoever. It also makes me care about two characters I couldn’t give a shit about in the original, that being the title protagonists. They were cute in Adventure Time, but in my first watch through I really couldn’t be bothered with the watered down, gender-swapped variants of our main dudes, and in this show they basically discard all those episodes anyways! Cool!

Their arcs follow the existential nightmare of being people from a “noncanon, illegitimate” universe, and their quest to bring magic back to their world. It’s a compelling narrative and their differences and similarities with Finn and Jake are genuinely fun to compare and contrast while also being fun characters in their own right. I like the realization Fionna has midway through the series that the violent adventures she craved are actually kind of horrifying, and the simple quiet life she used to have was nice. I’m excited to see what the writers have in store for the both of them in the future.

But the real meat of this season comes in the deconstruction of the fan favorite character, Simon Ice King. Fionna and Cake was his fanfiction, after all, though that gets somewhat retconned. He was already a tragic figure in the original, and the final season gave him a bittersweet ending: his sanity returned but now eternally separated from his wife by her Eldritch transformation. This show gives his character the space and time to process exactly what the hell he’s supposed to do with his life now as well as understand the problems he and Betty had when they were in a relationship. I’m glad to see Simon finally get something far more resembling a happy ending than he ever got in the original.

Adventure Time s1-7

This is a show that I would describe as “high patience, high reward.” It’s not something I truly got into until college, as I was put off by what I saw as Lolz Random humor I was trying to distance myself from as a Cool Mature Teenager™. I still had a hard time getting through the first couple seasons in my first watch-through, but it was an easy show to put on in the background while doing research for papers. Eventually I was hooked and sped through all of it at blinding speeds. 

Fionna and Cake inspired me to revisit the show, and I’m happy to say I have a higher tolerance for the aspects of the show I found obnoxious the first time around. The wacky mathy-math lingo of the characters generally fades into the background and builds a distinct vocabulary of this goofy sci-fi fantasy world. It was also fun to see how aspects of the earlier episodes inspired later developments of the world, like the Zombie Businessmen establishing a possible dystopian setting for our goofball protagonists.

Unlike my first viewing, the pace breaker actually started around season five. Their are some fantastic episodes in this period of the show, but overall the world stops developing as fast and each episode acts more as an exploration of the characters. It’s nice to spend more time with all of these weirdos, but it’s made it tough to binge. That’s actually a positive now that I think about it. 

I like Finn a lot. I like that he’s flawed and he fails all the time, it makes it more enjoyable to see him mature as a person. If any episode encapsulates his personality the most, I think it’s the Hall of Egress, where Finn is trapped in a dungeon that resets every time he opens his eyes. It’s probably my favorite episode in the entire show, and plays to all of AT’s strengths: a great mix of comedy and introspection without ever being melodramatic

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

I was initially disappointed with this show when I realized it wasn’t a direct adaptation of the original comic. It plays this fact as a twist, playing out the first volume in its entirety until the very end, where SPOILERS Scott Fucking Dies. The “Takes Off” part was literal: that dude is Gone. The second episode even plays this for laughs as Envy Adams has a spontaneous concert over his funeral and no one besides Ramona seems to care that their friend exploded. It felt like a cruel joke making fun of fans of the original. 

I’m glad I pushed through, though, as all of this was a ploy to put Ramona in the center stage, changing the goalpost of Beat Up the Seven Evil Exes to Investigate the Seven Evil Exes for possible murder/kidnapping motives Columbo-style. In most of the adaptations, Ramona is always playing off of Scott’s dumbass behavior, and it takes a while to truly dig into her personality. Putting her center-stage gives the audience an immediate view into her character and she may be the most likable she’s ever been. 

This show works as a sequel to the original through some time-travel shenanigans, and brings back series creator Brian Lee O’Malley, as well as the cast from the movie. This whole deal, if the rumor is true, apparently came out of Michael Cera responding to a group email meme with the og cast a decade late with “That’s funny,” and got everyone talking again. With that in mind it changes my view on the show as a whole, it's not a cruel joke, it’s a love letter to everything that came before it. 

I do still have a couple complaints, mostly that a few characters are heavily flanderized, namely Wallace and Scott himself, but like. That’s fine. How many times have we seen these characters explored? Like what 5 times now? I’m fine with them taking a comedic back seat to explore the dynamics of the rest of the cast. It’s also really satisfying to see all the exes get meaningful character arcs, which they never really got in the other versions of SP including the original. It makes me want to see what else they might have in store, but there are no plans for a continuation. Probably because that cast listing was expensive as hell. Do you know how much Chris Evans voice acting costs??? $7.50/hour AT LEAST.

Bee and Puppycat s2

Damn this show is so comfy. Everything from the characters, the music, the voice acting, the animation style, the COLORS! Even when the show hits the dramatic button it never stops being such a delight. It’s also longer than I remember, and gives a lot of time for every plotline to unfold. There’s intrigue and mystery surrounding every inch of this Mario Galaxy-ass setting, and it never fully reveals its hand, but that never takes away from the simple, slice-of-life story about two roommates taking part time jobs to make ends meet.

There’s a heavy theme of responsibility and young adulthood with all of the characters, which is also super relatable to me rn. The most responsible character in this show is the six-year old landlord with WAY too much on his shoulders. I like the dynamics with the Wizard family, I feel they present very realistic sibling relationships overall.

I tried checking out season 1 on youtube. I’ve heard people call it a continuation, but season 2 really is just a reimagining of this short youtube series. It’s only an hour long but for some reason it failed to grasp me. It’s somewhat tonally different, and the romantic tension between Bee and Deckard is weird to me after watching season 2. I’m glad they abandoned that as a plotline.

And those are all the shows I watched this year. LAST YEAR. I did not finish this when I wanted to, so to speed things up I’m gonna skip over the final movie list. Long story short Coraline rules, Home Alone 2 is violent and funny, Love Actually Hugh Grant is hot, and Christmas Vacation SUCKS. Fuck National Lampoon all my homies Hate national lampoon. Next time I will be doing the final games list. Wahoo!

[denimbex1986]

'How is the world different for queer people? Ask any gay man about their relationship with their parents and there will no easy way out. The wobbly, transient space for queer relationships out in the open, to be accepted by our dear ones, is still inaccessible to many. There's coming out and there's no going back from there. A gay man might just be different because he wasn't heard long enough, and so he has forgot what it feels like to be heard, or even seen for what they are. These are some questions that breath life into the new drama All Of Us Strangers.

A tricky tightrope of balance threatens to disrupt the beauty of Andrew Haigh's fifth feature: a film that refuses to be slotted into the frenzy of a genre. It is a ghost story embedded in a love story. In the hands of a lesser director, the thrill of the former would have overshadowed the vitality of the latter, but the British writer-director is somehow able to bring these two elements together with feather-weight skill and intensity. The more you think about it, the more All Of Us Strangers expands. You know immediately that this is a story that comes from someplace deep and personal.

A masterful adaptation

Haigh loosely adapts the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, which was earlier made into a Japanese film called The Discarnates. Here, the focus rests on Adam (Andrew Scott), a lonely gay man in his forties, who never got to come out to his parents. They had died in a car crash when he was just 11. Yet, one fine evening, Adam finds himself tracing back to the familiar corners of the suburbs, where he finds them again (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell). Both mum and dad are living in the small house as it is. Time has stopped for them, they still reside somewhere in the 1980s.

The premise

Back in his solitary London building, a surprising connection blossoms up with the only person living there- the much younger and handsome Harry (Paul Mescal). At first, Adam doesn't want any sort of connection with him, but Harry charms his way into his apartment, and the two men share the softest of kisses, guiding each other along the way. Adam finds out that Harry is lonely too, having cut off connection with his family and living mostly by himself.

Adam is drawn repeatedly back to his parents house, even as his relationship with Harry takes shape along the way. In this journey that extends between the past and the present, Andrew Scott's presence acts as an anchor, grounding the circles around dreams and memories, reality and fantasy. Adam's trauma cuts deep, almost debilitating him to care less about himself. Haigh's deeply compassionate and tender direction in the scenes with Harry and his parents provide him space to finally come out to them and talk about his feelings. Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch's lovely score undercuts many of these expressions of love and longing.

A superb cast

It all works largely because of the quartet of actors. Haigh assembles a triumphant cast to bring this wrenching story alive. Jamie Bell and Claire Foy are terrific together: a late scene by the Christmas tree is unforgettable in the way Foy masks complicated feelings through the humming of 'Always on my Mind'. As Harry, Paul Mescal is in scene-stealing form, rising to the occasion whenever Jamie Ramsay's tender camerawork inches towards his face. Yet so much of All Of Us Strangers works because of Andrew Scott- and the actor outdoes himself in a fiercely intelligent and receptive performance. How is he not locked in for a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars is beyond me.

The impossible begins to feel miraculously unique and necessary in the way All of Us Strangers weaves reality with the ghost story. Yes, there's predicament, but there's great skill with which Haigh asks the tough questions, eager to bridge the generational gap between parents and children. To love; to give in to all its questions and joys and agonies is perhaps the most vital sort of life force. Haigh's brave and beautiful ghost story rests on that question, and says that every inch of that emotion is worth the effort and pain.'

[nysocboy]

Gemstones Episode 2.8, Continued: Macaulay Culkin grows up, the Cycle Ninjas break out, and Jussie Smollett shows his stuff

Previous: Episode 2.8: Baby Billy sees a ghost, Judy becomes a mom, and Kelvin gets *** up. With nude dwarf athletes

Baby Billy's Baby Boy: Harmon the special-needs son who Baby Billy abandoned at Christmas 1993. has grown into a special-needs adult (Macaulay Culkin), But nevertheless he has achieved the heterosexual nuclear family trajectory of job, house, wife, and kids.Actually, his wife has the job (a lawyer, "an educated breadwinner") but close enough. 

Suddenly the doorbell rings: it's a card with a photo of Harmon on Santa's lap the day his Daddy abandoned him.  Then his Daddy!  

Baby Billy wants to fix things between them, so he can move forward with his new son.  So it's not about Harmon, it's about you?  Harmon says just don't make the same mistake again, and "Can I hit you with a closed fist as hard as I can in the face?"  That's rather precise, but Baby Billy agrees, and gets walloped.

Jesse Smollett and K-Fed: Back stage before Eli's  "welcome back" service, the siblings are in makeup and practicing their enunciation. They agree to make Daddy proud by showing how much they love each other. Judy says that she loves "Jesse Smollett" and "K-Fed," whereupon Kelvin makes a strange feminine gesture. 

K-Fed is Kevin Federline, an actor, musician, and dj, known for his brief marriage to Britney Spears. 

Jesse Smollett is Jussie Smollett (top photo and left), an actor who came out as gay in 2015.  On the Fox drama Empire (2014), he played a gay musician trying to gain the approval of father, a hiphop mogul.  Sounds more like Kelvin.  

At least Jussie's character managed to kiss a dude. Kelvin won't get around to that for another umpteen episodes.

Back to the siblings: They're going to take a photo with the Millins, an impoverished family that the church is gifting $50,000.  Judy wonders why they are bothering with such a small amount, "barely any money at all." It doesn't seem worthwhile.  "Poor people love money," Kelvin explains.  

Geez, just when you think these people have redeemed themselves...are they so lacking in empathy, or are they so out of touch that they don't realize that $50,000 is almost a full year's household income in South Carolina?

Wait -- where is Eli? 

Eli and Junior reconcile: Eli skipped his welcome-back service to make a surprise visit to Junior's wrestling studio in Memphis.  He couldn't have waited until after church?

Suspicious of his motives (naturally, after the run-in with Jesse), Junior comes armed with his own God Squad of four musclemen. But Eli has had enough: he doesn't want to fight. 

"But you ignored and disrespected me," Junior says, forgetting for a moment that Eli also broke his heart, "And sent your asshole son to threaten me with violence, to rape me.  What's up with that?"

Eli denies that he sent Jesse, and comes clean about his father murdering Junior's father. Junior is ok with it: "He was asshole, anyway." 

They stand so close together that one expects them to kiss.  But then Junior drops one last bombshell: he didn't send the Cycle Ninjas.  Someone else is trying to kill Eli.  But who?

Cut to the police station.  Sheriff Brenda is on the toilet, when she hears an explosion.  The lights go out, and the fire alarm goes on.  Out in the hallway, cops are lying dead.  The Cycle Ninjas have escaped!  The end.

One episode left, and a lot of questions to answer.

The full version of this review is on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews Brief Thoughts- Home for the Holidays

Welcome to the ninth official Cadybear's Reviews Brief Thoughts post! Today I'll be talking about Home for the Holidays, which I have ranked on the "Silver Tier" at 7 stars out of a possible 10. My last and only playthrough of this series was back in December 2021.

I… really don’t get why this one is so disliked among the Choices community. 

I mean, maybe during the time period it was released, it’d have seemed like a more lower-quality story, especially coming right after ILITW, which came right after OG HSS. I imagine the standards are pretty high when you’re following up two back-to-back high-effort books. But even considering just the books that had been released prior to this one… it’s really not awful at all. 

The way I see it, it’s meant to be just a cute, wholesome, Hallmark movie style story (but without the misogynistic conservative propaganda undertones, thankfully), and I think it was fine as that. It’s not brilliant or anything, but it’s not terrible either. Nick was admittedly pretty annoying at first, but that does start to tone down later on in the book. 

Also, I absolutely love that MC’s mom was basically all like “we celebrate all holidays to pay homage to all my adopted kids’ heritage, whatever it may be” and so you could choose which winter holiday (Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or just friends and family) your MC celebrated. I don’t remember if it carries over into further dialogue but still, we should have more options like that and the queer experience discussion options in MAH! Little details like that that allow us to personalize MC always score major points with me, especially when they’re being inclusive to different cultures and religions. 

One thing that really annoyed me, however, is in the last chapters when everyone is suddenly really unfair and harsh to Nick when he gets called back to work. Like, I’m sorry, but he can’t exactly help that. But that was really the only major problem I had with the book, and it only lasted a few chapters.

So overall, I found it a pretty decent story.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

What is “bravery?” Is it dying for one’s cause without hesitation, even if the sacrifice is ultimately fruitless? Or is it surviving by any means necessary, using wit and cunning to carry on the fight another day? This is the central theme of Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, a World War II drama that explores the conflict between the Imperial Japanese officers occupying the island of Java and the Allied POWs under their supervision.

As far as the tyrannical Captain Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto, pulling double duty as the movie’s star and composer) is concerned, the foreign soldiers in his charge are subhuman wretches, inherently unworthy of respect—that they allowed themselves to be captured is irrefutable evidence of their dishonor. Yet these “cowards” consistently refuse to be intimidated, enduring starvation, solitary confinement, grueling interrogation, and unimaginable torture in order to protect their comrades from accusations of espionage and subterfuge.

Major Jack Celliers (a positively angelic David Bowie)—who surrendered to enemy forces only after they threatened to slaughter innocent natives—is particularly vexing in this regard. His arrival throws the camp into utter disarray, his audacious insubordination and stoic defiance inspiring small acts of disobedience and rebellion among the ranks. When the men are denied food for some minor infraction, for example, he smuggles rations into the barracks; when the guards retaliate by raiding the medical tent, he encourages the patients to sing as loudly as possible, their voices drowning out the barked orders to submit to inspection.

Perhaps this selflessness is what attracts the deeply closeted Yonoi to Celliers. The major’s unwavering loyalty appeals to the captain, who secretly sees himself as a disgrace to the Bushido code for his failure to die alongside his fellow radicals during the thwarted 1936 uprising; this irresistible admiration, which directly contradicts his prejudices, consequently manifests as infatuation, obsession, and insatiable carnal desire—with tragic repercussions.

Beyond the obvious and frequently discussed queer reading of its narrative (which is, to be clear, a totally valid/inevitable interpretation of the material), Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is ultimately about challenging the characters’ inflexible preconceptions. To quote the eponymous Colonel Lawrence, who serves as a mediator between the two opposing sides (albeit with limited success):

You are the victim of men who think they are right. Just as one day you and Captain Yonoi believed absolutely that you were right. And the truth is of course that nobody is right.

Indeed, both the Japanese and Westerners seem to consider “guilt” to be a relative and irrelevant term. Yonoi, for instance, is quite forthright about his policy of punishing arbitrarily-selected scapegoats as a warning to future saboteurs; the victorious Allies, meanwhile, are likewise perfectly content to incarcerate and execute only the lowest ranking military personnel for atrocities committed on the battlefield, all but pardoning their equally culpable superiors.

Such is the senseless nature of war, violence, and power.

[vital-information]

A Review of Bros (2022)

‘Whom’ refers to the object of a sentence, while ‘who’ refers to the subject, the person initiating the action. Nowhere is this differentiation more important than the romance genre: Who falls in love with whom? Bros, had all the elements in place to hit a (excuse the sports metaphor, gays) homerun, had they not made this grammatical mistake.

The movie chooses the LGBTQ museum director and podcast-host, Bobby (Billy Eichner playing a version of himself) as the protagonist with the str8 lawyer Aaron (Luke Macfarlane) as the object of his affection. When they initially both meet in the gay club, they flirt haltingly through jabs at one another—“you look mad,” “my friends say you’re boring”—a particularly queer bitchiness that reveals, if they’re outright statements of it were unclear enough, a simultaneous emotional distance and desire which both actors pull off. It’s that oppositional dynamic in their romance that fuels the film’s most honest and endearing moments, and why film queers like me, who might bitch and moan about the saccharine score, the very basic editing, the self-righteous speeches and stretches toward representation, and whatever else they feel is wrong, might still find themselves coming back to the movie for rewatches, like going back on Grindr despite your dissatisfaction with the intimate but ultimately shallow hook ups you keep having. There’s truth and connection we find in gay relationships we can’t find elsewhere even when they’re bad.

Jane Austen and Nora Ephron understood that the Romantic Comedy Plot at its best hid philosophical propositions beneath its sexy exterior. This is why the desiring subject versus the object of desire matter. Why does it matter that it’s Harry who meets Sally? Because it’s Harry not Sally who needs to learn that friendship is a necessary ingredient to love, and Sally will be the one who he learns this from. Austen famously invented a whole new narrative voice of free indirect speech in Pride and Prejudice to emphasize Elizabeth’s subjective experience of facing her own pride and prejudices.

The proposition in Bros is that appreciating a history that’s not only LGBT but specifically gay and, further, effeminate changes lives because of the way it challenges masculine power structures. But it’s not Bobby, our protagonist, whose life we watch change. The most moving moments and the major plot points occur with Aaron experiencing and confronting his ignorance of gay history and culture. His first visit to the museum peaks with a photographic montage of historic queer figures that results in him bailing on Bobby. Similarly, while his family is visiting, Aaron blows up at Bobby after he espouses the transformative joy of seeing seven flaccid penises and a gay sex scene in a live theater performance with his parents when he was 12. He cuts Bobby off with a joke laced with honesty, “I’m going to kill you,” the ultimate conclusion of the homophobia he’s holding onto.

There’s much made of subjectivity within discussions of representation. Perhaps that’s why they thought Bobby could make a more important statement about gay subjectivity. But it’s Aaron’s discomfort and change that drives the film and a lot of the jokes, too, and MacFarlane gives a sympathetic and earnest performance that makes us even more aware of it. His swelling attraction and love for Bobby and all of the outspoken transparent gayness Bobby signifies displays a growing appreciation for the flamboyance, the authenticity, the passion, the love that gayness can embody.

The object has power in a story: what we care about; what we add to the ends of our sentences; what we add into our lives, despite the fact that we could just be independent souls—lonely subjects. Bobby meets Aaron and that’s fine, it’s easy to fall for the hot Hallmark Christmas prince. We could have had, though, a wise-cracking queen with a concave chest and a special interest in American history as the one worthy of a muscle bro’s attraction, and, subsequently, the audience’s. We could’ve fallen in love with the complicated, strange, problematic and revolutionary history of gay culture. In that sense, for Aaron to meet Bobby, and not the other way around, we would get to see the revolution romance can bring about in someone’s heart and mind.

[kryptoniteheadcanons]

Thoughts on Black Christmas (2019)

Uhh....brief mentions of sexual assault. Spoilers I guess ...it’s Black Christmas 2019 I don’t think anyone cares.

- I don’t know if I'm going to make a separate post comparing the three of the movies, I might end up saying everything I need to say  in this review. 

- Once again, stop making remakes and sequels that have nothing to do with the original. 

- That snow angle shot was actually pretty cool, I like it. 

- This movie being set at christmas is just as arbitrary as the first one. 

- Yeah, that diva cup thing was pretty awkward. Why did there have to be complete silence while she was putting it in? You couldn’t have used that time for dialogue?

- Oh hi Cary Elwes ….didn’t expect to see you here. 

- God I fucking hate it when professors call on you even though you didn’t raise your hand.

- Also they make Cary’s character so fucking creepy that the first time I saw this I he  assaulted Riley.

- “He totally went off on me because I asked why there were no women, or people of color, or queer people on the syllabus.” Yeah that is weird, most classics lists i’ve seen for colleges, even in 2019, at least have like Frankenstein or a book by one of the Bronte sisters. You have to be trying to not have a woman on the list. (Also: I don’t think they ever mentioned any of their majors? I feel like that would have been a good thing for character building, at least for Riley) 

- Yes, Riley does need to take back her agency and learn how to live her life again, but I don’t think getting up on stage to sing and dance about what is probably one of the most traumatic experiences her life, in front of the person who assualted her, is really the healthiest or safest way to do that. 

- Also, am I the only one that thinks Kris petitioning to get the bust removed from the main hall and that actually happening sounds weird? Maybe it’s just because I went to community college so I don’t know how larger, more established colleges work but that sounds like she was probably petitioning to get the name of the school changed and they just did the bust thing as a ‘compromise’. 

- What did they steal for Kris for the pledges to know that she had to be killed too? 

- Nate, dude, I know you have a migraine or whatever but just leave the room or something. 

- I feel like a lot of real world discussions about feminism and equal rights end up like the one that happened in the kitchen so I think maybe this needs to be said: We do need men in the world, however what we don’t need is bigots and abusers. Misogyny negatively effects all of us, you can talk about the issues men face without having to put down women. 

- I find it really odd that this movie claims to be a more ‘feminist’ version of Black Christmas (I have no idea if the director or writer intended that, maybe it was just a studio or marketing team thing) but they cut out the women’s reproductive rights subplot? How do you even do that? 

- I kind of wish this movie was a full on psychological thriller of Riley having to actually process her trauma instead of being a qausi-slasher movie. 

- Referencing the point above, I feel like the ending is in this weird limbo where it’s not weird enough to clearly be an allegory but it’s also not normal enough to be like, believable. 

- Was Riley’s smile fading at the end because one (or some of them) got out alive or because she realizes that she just destroyed half of the evidence that proves she and Kris didn’t kill all those people?

- Do I think this movie is misandrist propaganda? No. Do I think this movie is great and everyone should see  it? also No. I think its a movie that tried to do something good but fumbled and wound up in a no woman’s land of cringe dialogue and ham fisted morals. 

- also in case anyone was wondering, my favourite character was Jessie, she reminds me of one of my cousins.