#Brock leaner

[writtingrose]

These are the hand cannons I have currently to work on throughout the week.

[dayone-ish]

I was actually so scared it was going to be brock leaner but I am allowed to live 🙏

[danwhobrowses]

My Highlights for AEW Wrestledream 2023

There was a dream, a dream of wrestling

And Antonio Inoki sought that dream when he founded NJPW

But now AEW has invited the dangling from its hinges Forbidden Door open again to celebrate Inoki on the anniversary of his death.

Let's see what was good about this show

Spoilers for the PPV

Zero Hour

"She's so sweet, but so dumb, god bless her" Richard of House Starks speaking of Lexy Nair, fiancée of one large William

Props for the Julia vignette, it aired on Collision and apparently someone on twitter helped film it so good for them

Stokely 'Urban Dictionary dot com' Hathaway

TK donning the Inoki scarf with Inoki's grandkids, Shibata and Rocky

Christian Cage Noooooo

Athena doing Billie's jump and Keith's Limitless pose, and then almost blindsided by Kojima XD

Meat chants always a win

Athena saved her minion!

Josh Barnett looks like a leaner Brock Lesnar don't he?

Moxley joining on commentary, showing he's well after the concussion too

I think that's an open invitation to Bloodsport for Claudio

Well, you can tell that Nick Wayne has trained with Darby, mans is bumping

Caster already going for the tentacle porn diss

Sounds like JR is open to scissoring

Main Card

MJF wearing as many belts as he has initials

Picking the right person to massage his shoulders

Alas no tag partner in the corner for Max

Dutch always has a great Bossman Slam

Some Guerrero tactics there, with some added pantomime by the audience

And he hits the bodyslam! The Seattle Stampede

MJF has put over a bodyslam, a double clothesline and a dropkick (Kangaroo Kick) which is proof that with enough charisma any move can be put over

Props to the dude in full Jeff Hardy cosplay

Shibata starting low like Inoki did vs Ali

Thesz drop early just like Inoki took it early vs him for his second ever NJPW match (first was vs Simon Gotch)

Uraken kicked out at 1!

Eddie again winning with the Powerbomb, he meant what he said to Kawada

Dang that crack as Statlander socked Julia

And Julia does have one hell of a moonsault

Brody having to carry his goth daughter back down the ramp

Reminder Julia Hart is 22 in November; younger than Hayes, Stratton, Dragunov, Dominik, Jade, Statlander, Anna, HOOK and more, she is a talent

Starting the 4 way with an International Title preview

and then OC tagging in??

Gunns doing the New Day 'both legal men' attempt

HOOK sold that superkick really well too

"It's always in their hometown huh?"

Nana gets his dance in

Serve remains that guy, so clean

Ooof, taking a trick out of Penta's book eh, Killshot?

Vicious discus lariat there from Hanger

The JML Driver is great too

Mox back on Commentary, he's one flirtation with Excalibur away from being Regal

Ricky's rope walk is just effortless

Ah poor Mox, he can't help but curse it's native to his vocabulary

Seahawks colours for Bryan

Moxley's passion for wrestling is shining through a lot in commentary, if he could control the cussing he could easily be an all timer play by play commentator

It also juxtaposes Nigel McGuinness' anti-Bryan vendetta

Bryan practically walked out of that Romero Special

Hitting the Itoh special with the rollover half crab

GOODNESS that Dragon Screw

I think his head was already fucking kicked in sheesh

That certainly was a technical masterclass, and it doesn't feel like we're done

I'm gonna say it too, give Bryan the IWGP World title. I mean it, he's beaten Okada and ZSJ, he could beat SANADA at like Sakura Genesis or New Year's Dash, have a little run with it, do the G1 and then drop it at Forbidden Door and then he's completed all his career goals

Mox's genuine surprise as he thought Demetrius Johnson was gonna wrestle Kenny Omega XD

I mean that Last Supper artwork is...definitely something

Geez starting with Omega/Ospreay?

People want Takeshita/Ibushi, that tells you how elevated Takeshita has been

Callis trying to contribute to increating the stretch

Ibushi now joining Suzuki in 'he does what he wants', joining the Sex Gods pose

'You still suck' chants because Sammy still pulled off a picture perfect Shooting Star Press

Jericho invoking Omega in the Not Even One kickout

Murder Ibushi activated!

That is the best Ibushi has looked in AEW so far, hopefully he gets 100% for Takeshita

Dang just let Dax and Davis slap each other for 10 minutes, Davis has wrestled WALTER I know he has it in him

I've seen enough, I don't just need 10 minutes I need a full tournament of big beefy men slapping man meat; Dax, Davis, Keith Lee, Shane Taylor, Wardlow, Luchasaurus, Butcher, Brody King, Joe, Hobbs, Miro, Brian Cage, Big Bill, etc. let them all fight, give us the whole Buffet

Darby and Christian have done so much work that'll go understated in restoring the TNT title, it's main eventing a PPV!

Also if anyone can will it into existence we need Christian to start calling himself the Turtle Neck Titan, you know because Turtlenecks but also TNT

Hoisted by his own petard, blinded by the turtle neck

I mean Nick Wayne's mom is hot you gotta shoot your shot

Well that is for sure a Darby Allin bump, right on the steps twice over

Frog Splash onto a stretcher!

And a Killswitch on the canvas boards!

Scorpion Death Drop and Coffin Drop on the boards only for two

Nick Wayne heel turn

You think you know him? Adam Copeland is All Elite! And he brought Metalingus with him

He was so excited he glided through the smoke!

Edge, Christian and Sting all in the same ring what year is it? what timeline is it? WHAT IS IT???

Conclusion

Well that was a lot of fun.

Compared to No Mercy it was perhaps marginally better for me, again this could be due to being more in the loop with the storylines but stuff like the trios match, the main event, Swerve vs Hangman, the ultimate tekkers match it just clicked. Not a bad match on the card too, though I was rooting for Aussie Open to win, but Bucks/FTR IV will still be great. Plus I still wanted to see Statlander body slam Brody.

I do hope Fénix is okay, he disappeared from the 4-Way and he's the International champion, don't want back to back injury-induced title changes after all. But it was good to see Moxley just out there enjoying himself on the side, probably won't ever get to do it again mind you given all the cussing but still, did elevate the matches.

We've got intriguing directions too; Swerve needs to get somewhere with that W over Hangman (world title? I mean I kinda like Jay White for it, International Title? Maybe too soon), Claudio and Bryan have extended rematch invitations and you know Ricky ain't done with the BCC (still though I wouldn't put him in the BCC, Garcia should have that spot), even the Zero Hour did some development with Billie and Athena's dynamic.

So yeah, probably not better than All In and All Out but still pretty damn good, Inoki would be proud.

Match of the Night: I mean it's the Ultimate Battle of Epic Tekkers right? Hard to really say any match was better than that wrestling-wise. The Main Event is a close second with the drama. Best Entrance: Julia Hart gets this one just ahead of Adam Copeland's worst kept secret, not many flashy entrances in this show, in fact I think OC/Hook and Jericho didn't even get entrances. Best Attire: Again, not many here, most of them were kinda subtle so I'm gonna give it to Swerve so I can give him props somewhere. Best Performance: Tie for Bryan and Zack, masters of their craft, not much else you can say. Spot of the Night: Because Christian dropping Darby on the steps was messy and scrappy, it's Bryan's Dragon Screw that just looked so vicious like I'm sure I saw his foot facing another direction.

[evansbby]

i used to have nightmares about brock leaner that man TERRIFIED me

hahaha me with big show and mark henry when i was a child 😭😭🥲

i was too old to be terrified of brock lesnar when he came back but ngl last night he looked scary af

[findroleplay]

Hi 22 F writer currently looking for an [18+] partner to write on tumblr [dm] with my side is going to be m/M WWE I can play as my oc but not as my character crush I’m mostly looking for these male wrestlers:

Dwayne Johnson

The undertaker

Vin Diesel

Seth Rollins

Randy Orton

Brock leaner

If you’re interested leave a like and I’ll message you 😁

_

[vulpinesaint]

ok and the venom suit design too. the way that the suit changes when it's eddie brock by himself creating something from an innate kind of mental image of venom that is Just Him. it's Notably leaner. looks Emaciated, even. ribs showing, hip bones showing. eddie brock is usually so solidly built and muscular that this looks like a different person and at this point he's been on the run and probably hasn't been eating well for a while but i think also it's the fact that there's Less of him... he's venom but there's something vital missing... he's venom but he's literally just the bones of it. even the symbols are skeletal. usually the venom suit has a design that's a derivative of spider-man's but without the symbiote he has no real connection to spider-man... no sentimental reason to hold on to that design that was originally for someone else... he dreams up a venom suit and the thing that it displays about itself is its connection to death. it's less hulking but now he has Claws... a suit that is less substantial but more obviously a Weapon. what are you without the symbiote, eddie brock. answer quickly

insane few pages. this is MY voice. MY bloodlust. anger and hate that is Mine... that i can't attribute to anyone or anything else anymore... i have willed something into existence for the purpose of protecting people but it is fueled by a want to Kill. i'm used to the presence of something else, used to voices in my head urging me to violence, but the scary thing is that the violence itself might have been mine all along...

[weasly65]

I WON THE MONEY IN THE BANK BRIEFCASE!

[galina1987blog]

ACKNOWLEDGE HIM All day , Every day , Every single time ☝🏻🔥♥️ , He’s the only one who can defeat Brock leaner 😌💪🏻, Yessir!

[raimispiderman]

From the booklet which comes with the Spider-Man Trilogy Limited Edition Collection blu-ray!

This talks about the making of Spider-Man 3, here’s the bit about the first Spider-Man movie and here’s the bit about Spider-Man 2.

Click for a transcript:

OLD FRIENDS… AND NEW FACES

“The heart of the Spider-Man films has always been the depth of the characters and their interconnected lives. Peter’s love of Mary Jane Watson and his friendship with Harry Osborn have always been the richest parts of our stories,” said director Sam Raimi.

In Spider-Man 3, Peter Parker faces his biggest challenge to date – and the greatest battle of all is the battle within himself.

“We wanted to explore the darker side of Peter’s character,” said producer Laura Ziskin. “When his suit turns black, it enhances and emphasizes characteristics that are already in the host. In this case, it makes him stronger and quicker, but also more prideful and aggressive.”

“When I read the script I was really excited about the different direction we were going with Peter Parker and the other characters and storylines,” said Tobey Maguire, who returned to the role of Peter Parker. “We are covering a lot of new ground here, with a fresh take on the story while maintaining the continuity of the characters from the previous two films.”

In Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man takes on two classic villains: Sandman, who first made his appearance in the fourth issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man” and Venom, one of the comic book’s most memorable villains.

“Marvel comic books – and especially the Spider-Man books – have always had a great bunch of villains to choose from,” noted Raimi. “So many great Marvel artists and writers developed these characters. It was a very easy task to pick up these wonderful tales and images and develop our story from them.”

Thomas Haden Church played Flint Marko, a man haunted by the mistakes of his past, who is caught in a physics experiment gone wrong. “I consider it an honor, really,” said Church, an Academy Award nominee for his role in Sideway, on joining the franchise. “The Spider-Man films stand tall in the pantheon of superhero movies. Many are called, few are chosen, and I’m proud to be one of the few.”

“Flint Marko becomes Sandman when he stumbles into a radioactive test site where they’re performing a molecular fusion experiment and he accidentally becomes fused with sand,” Church added. “As a result, he can change his shape and adapt to his environment. He can be 10, 30, 80 feet tall. He can form giant sand fists, hammers, a mace. He can shift into a sand tornado, or sift into sand. He is as malevolent and menacing as any villain can be.”

Church spent over a year preparing for the role, with a physical training and diet regimen which led to his gaining about 20 pounds of muscle before shooting began. “In the comic book, Sandman was a bulky-muscled guy – he looked like a guy out of the WWF,” said the actor, “For the movie, we decided on a leaner look – street hardened, like Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.”

Topher Grace joined the cast as Eddie Brock, a character in some ways similar to Peter Parker, who transforms into Venom – Spider-Man’s arch-nemesis. “When I was first talking about the movie, Sam asked me if I knew what ‘arch-nemesis’ meant. I thought it meant a huge villain, but Sam pointed out that it really means a villain who has the same powers and abilities as the hero, but uses them for evil,” said Grace. “Sam has gone to great lengths to make this character Spider-Man’s equal and opposite. You might say that Eddie is the guy that Peter would have been if he didn’t have the good fortune of having Aunt May and Uncle Ben to bring him up.”

Grace, a self-described “skinny guy,” put on about 15 to 20 pounds for the role, working out during the several months before shooting began. During pre-production, Grace was subjected to body scans and motion capture data analysis for use by the costume and visual effects departments.

“They were doing a scan of my body, and someone mentioned that the scan would be really helpful for making my action figure. My action figure!” recalled Grace. “It hadn’t even occurred to me that I would become an action figure! It was very exciting.”

“The Spider-Man books have probably the greatest rogues’ gallery of any superhero comic – there are so many memorable villains throughout the books,” said executive producer and Marvel’s president of production Kevin Feige. “With the villains in Spider-Man 3, we wanted to continue the tradition – following the Green Goblin and Doc Ock – of presenting villains that not only provide spectacle and a physical challenge to Spider-Man’s abilities, but characters that are multi-layered and conflicted.”

“At the beginning of Spider-Man 3, we find Peter Parker pretty much where we left him at the end of the second Spider-Man story,” said director Sam Raimi. “He is coming to terms with what it means to be a hero and the sacrifices he has to make to do the right thing. Peter has never had anyone look up to him as someone they admire. Certainly, he’s never had anyone cheer for him before. This has an unexpected effect on Peter: it stirs up his prideful self. This is the beginning of a movement toward his dark side in this film.”

That dark side is brought to the forefront when he comes into contact with a black substance that attaches itself to Peter’s Spider-Man suit. When the substance turns his suit black, he finds he has greater strength and agility than ever before… but also the substance brings out his pride and his vengefulness. “In the climax, Peter has to put aside his prideful self. He must put aside his desire for vengeance,” Raimi continues. “He has to learn that we are all sinners and that none of us can hold ourselves above another. In this story, he has to learn forgiveness.”

Another fan favorite, Gwen Stacy, made her film debut in Spider-Man 3. Well known to fans of the comic books, Gwen made her first appearance in December 1965 “The Amazing Spider-Man #31” and quickly became Peter Parker’s first love. Bryce Dallas Howard took on the role. Despite the differences between the comic book and screen versions of her character, Howard was able to use the comic book as inspiration in bringing Gwen Stacy to life. “There was a very deep relationship built into the comic books – that became my foundation,” said the actress. “This a person who, had things been different, could have been a good mate for him. Because her father is a police captain, she’s accustomed to someone leaving and putting his life in jeopardy every day and loving him unconditionally. I was able to build on that, to play the character that was written in the comic book.”

“It’s wonderful to bring new actors into the series because, although you have an existing set of rules and storylines you want to adhere to, at the same time you need to shake it up, bringing new voices and energies to the film that we haven’t experiences before, “noted Raimi. “It gives the audience a new experience, with the characters they love, but with a new energy dynamic, with those new faces on screen with them.”

“In terms of logistics and scope, Spider-Man 3 is by far the largest of the three films,” said Ziskin. “Sam has really upped the ante for this film, in terms of action sequences and visual effects involving Sandman and Venom, so it is a gigantic endeavor, with over 1,000 people working towards that goal.”

During production, Raimi relied on key members of his filmmaking team to bring to life before the cameras as much of Peter Parker’s story as possible. “Whenever it’s safe and practical, I like to capture the action in camera,” said Raimi. “Visual effects are an amazing tool for action that human beings can’t do – but if a human being can do it, let’s do it.”

The talented team of stuntmen was ready, but so was the cast. Bryce Dallas Howard, especially, surprised the filmmakers by being game for anything they could throw at her. At one point, the actress found herself hanging from a harness.

After performing several portions of the sequence on soundstages in Los Angeles, Howard was eager to get in the harness again to fly with Spider-Man over Sixth Avenue. “What’s so great about movies is you get to really experience these crazy, crazy stunts, things that you would never emerge from alive in real life,” says Howard. “I knew I would be 100% safe because Sam and the stunt team really protect the actors. So I tried to do as many things as possible, because it’s really fun and a great adrenaline rush!”

Thomas Haden Church was also up to the challenge – in fact, even more so. Whether it was being yanked five feet in the air so he could do a face-plant in the mud, or being chased (and caught) by dogs, or dangling off the side of a set, or falling onto train tracks, or having his face smashed into a pane of Plexiglas, the actor found himself bruised and battered repeatedly, but was ready for anything. According to producer Grant Curtis, “It wasn’t intentional, but it seemed sometimes like if any actor was required to get beat up in any way, Thomas was always drawing that short straw.”

Two members of the production team that played key roles in ensuring that these action sequences were both as safe and as spectacular as possible were special effects supervisor John R. Frazier (who previously served in the same capacity on the first two Spider-Man films) and second unit director Dan Bradley (a veteran of Spider-Man 2). “Working with Sam is like going back to school,” said Frazier. “You have that moment where you say, ‘Oh, this is going to be really, really hard, but a lot of fun.’ It’s  not unusual for me to be on a movie like Spider-Man 3 for nine months, from the beginning planning stages through production.”

One scene that highlights their work is the Subway Drain portion of an elaborate fight sequence between Spider-Man and Sandman. Raimi worked closely with Frazier, Bradley and visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk on the sequence, in which Sandman is blasted by the force of a burst water pipe and, quite literally, goes down the drain. Sam wanted Sandman to melt away, in essence, during this sequence.

“This is the largest water gag for one shot I’ve ever done for a film,” recalled Frazier, who had previously supervised the special effects for Poseidon. “We used 50,000 gallons of water, shooting out of a pipe which blasted the rear of the set fifty feet away. When you see this sequence, the water appears to be a six-foot-thick column of water; however, we made the center of the pipe hollow, and used a restrictor plate to control the size of the column of water. The water is recirculated using pumps, which are able to pump 3,000 gallons a minute. We can fill both tanks in about five minutes, so that we are ready for another take.”

The sequence was covered using eight cameras, according to Stokdyk. “This sequence is where Spider-Man discovers Sandman’s weakness – water. We had to put a CG Sandman in here because the velocity of the water is too great to have Thomas Haden Church or a stuntman perform portions of the sequence. Water is a huge challenge for visual effects, especially on a large scale, so our goal here was to seamlessly integrate the elements for the sequence between practical and CG.”

Bradley and Frazier’s work is also on display in an action sequence during a bank heist, in which a security guard (played by none other than producer Grant Curtis) falls victim to Sandman’s wreath. “As a producer, Grant is uniquely qualified for guarding money,” laughed Bradley, “so Sam typecast him and invited him to spend a lot of time on set being buried underneath tons of sand as one of the armored car guards.”

Apprehensive as he might have been about performing the stunt, Curtis says that it would have been pointless to argue. “I’ve worked with Sam for ten years, so I know that once a decision’s been made, he’s going to get his way,” he said.

The sequence begins spectacularly, when Sandman smashes into the top of the armored call with his fist – which, in reality, Frazier’s team made of polyurethane foam. It was eight feet tall, six feet wide, and weighed over 500 pounds. Then, debris – sand – came flying at Curtis. “On the first take, I anticipated the crash and reacted too early,” he remembered. After an adjustment, he nailed the second take.

At the end of the sequence, the guard is buried in sand. To film the scene, the armored car was lifted and tilted at a 50-degree angle so that the sand could be dumped in and fill the car but with a fraction of the pressure on Curtis. The producer soon found himself beneath 4,000 pounds of ground corncob – the filmmakers’ ingenious substitute for sand.

The idea of using ground corncob as a double for sand did not come immediately to the filmmakers. The first man charged with investigating what kind of sand would make Sandman or solving any number of other costuming challenges, Acheson’s motto was: when in doubt, go back to the original text. “We derive our inspiration, as always, from the comic,” he said. “Sandman is one of those remarkable characters who can change shape, dissolve, disappear, grow, or become mud or concrete. We designed various stages and different scales of Sandman’s evolution, working with wonderful sculptors to create maquettes, small statues of Sandman in his various appearances.”

As much as Sandman required each of the departments to step up their game, so, too, did Venom – Spider-Man’s equal and opposite. Acheson and his team created various stages of Venom’s look, working with Raimi to create a tension in the sculpting of the suit. “It was important to Sam and to James that we keep the suit really sharp and aggressive, as with the tendrils that crawl across Venom’s face at points,” said head specialty costumer Shownee Smith, whose company Frontline Design worked under Acheson’s direction to manufacture the specialty costumes for the film.

For scenes where Brock transitions into Venom, Grace spent an hour being placed into the suit, which added between 120 and 140 pounds to his weight. The actor then spent an additional four and a half hours in makeup for the addition of appliances, including special sets of teeth worn by Grace to give the character the illusion of a larger, more menacing mouth. The filmmakers also attached monofilament to the skin on Grace’s face so that they could pull and distort the character as he makes his transformation.

“At one point while shooting the transition scenes, I thought, ‘What have I signed up for?!’” Grace laughed. “I had black goo poured all over me, wires attached to my face that people with fishing poles were pulling up, and other people below me were pulling down… When you see my character in pain, well, there wasn’t a whole lot of acting required.”

Also interacting with each of the departments was production designer J. Michael Riva, the member of the team responsible for bringing Raimi’s stylish vision to life. Riva was especially proud of his work in cresting the construction site that serves as the arena for the film’s final battle. “Making a construction site doesn’t sound very difficult, but if you have only eight weeks to design and build, it’s practically impossible,” he said. “We used over 20 tons of steel, 100 welders, and 200 carpenters working around the clock, seven days a week to get it done! But we all did it.”

The set took six weeks to complete, using tons of steel from a cancelled building project. A construction elevator, complete with operator, transported cast and crew to the various levels of the elaborate set. For the extensive lighting and electrical needs required for the sequence, a labyrinth of connections was designed and installed 80 feet above the stage floor, using over four miles of electrical cable. By the time the set was ready for shooting, Stage 27 was outfitted with approximately 21,000 amps, enough power to service over 200 homes.

“The great thing about a construction site is that it’s a very dangerous place. First, besides the implied height of the set, you have a lot of steel and rebar lying around at such a site. You can always rely on Sam to see opportunities and come up with an effective way to use these set elements to enhance the danger in a scene,” said Riva. “Second, it was an open structure, pretending to be 50 stories high, open on all sides. It offered Sam a jungle gym of possibilities to web up and down, to do a chase all over the face of the steel structure. The higher they go fighting their way up the building, the more the danger and tensions increase. It’s a long way to fall if you’re not Spider-Man!”

For visual effects supervisor Scott Stokdyk – the man charged with bringing the visual effects to the screen – those words were the beginning of a two-year process to develop the technology that would make Spider-Man 3 the most visually stunning film in the series so far. “When we began the pre-production process, the computer programs had not yet been developed which could achieve the look of Sandman and his capabilities that Sam wanted to see,” recalled producer Grant Curtis. “However, Scott Stokdyk and his team created new technology to manipulate every piece of sand on our character. The existing technology allowed management of thousands of particles at once – but to animate Sandman the way Sam wanted to, we would have to be able to render billions of particles. In the end, the new software they wrote required ten man-years to code.”

Stokdyk says that he and his team prepared for the challenge by first observing how sand moves in the real world. “One of the first things we did was to organize a sand shoot with Sam and Bill Pope, the difrector ofg photographer,” Stokdyk continued. “We shot footage of sand every way we would need it – thrown up, thrown against blue screen, over black screen. John Frazier, the special effects supervisor, shot it out of an aero can at a stuntman. Anything we could imagine sand doing in the film, we shot.”

“There’s a character the, emoting, but it’s just a pile of sand,” said Stotdyk. “If we’ve pulled together enough grains of sand to make feel something, then we’ve pulled it off.”

In the end, the artists were all extremely proud of their creation. “Sony Pictures Imageworks delivered on Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, but for Spider-Man 3 it changed the industry standard,” said Curtis.

Sandman, of course, was not the only character that posed a considerable challenge for Spencer Cook; animating the black-suited Spider-Man required subtle changed to reflect the character’s more aggressive personality, “He’ll move a little quicker here and there, hunch his shoulders a little more, put his elbows up a little higher when he’s stuck to a wall. We tried to find poses that the classic Spider-Man would not do – where the red-suited Spider-Man was graceful and elegant in his motions, black-suited Spider-Man is more blunt, rough, and reckless.”

In creating Venom, Stokdyk notes that the character has at least three different stages. First, of course, is the initial transformation, in which Topher Grace’s skin is pulled away from his body and tendrils of goo cross his face until they completely envelop him. “As he gets angrier, he turns into more of a monster, more of a beast,” Stokdyk noted. First, he becomes a kind of double for Spider-Man, played by Grace. By the very end of the film, he becomes an entirely CG character – the classic Venom from the comic books, with a menacing, unhinged jaw and a full mouth of very sharp teeth. “Everything is alive on ‘comic-book Venom,’” Stokdyk continued. “The challenge was to make a character that was monsterous, very detailed, very kinetic – but not delicate. Despite all the detail, he’s still menacing.

Stokdyk was also determined to break new ground in terms of live-action integration with the visual effects. The supervisor was on hand during production so that he could be ready to take the ball as soon as the scenes were filmed. “It was important to Sam and me to incorporate as much live-action into the CG as possible,” he said. “The typical reason a shot is animated is because a person can’t do all of it. We wanted to find a way to have an actor or stunt person do part of the action, and synthesize the rest. The goal was to find a balance between keeping the shot real and making it exciting and cinematic.”

One dramatic example of this idea comes early in the film, as Peter Parker finds himself ambushed by the New Goblin – his friend, Harry Osborn. “It was Sam’s idea to show Peter fighting as Peter not as Spider-Man,” said producer Avi Arad. “It’s a terrific amount, because it brings home what a personal battle this is for Peter when you can see his face.”

Tobey Maguire and James Franco completed much of the aerial stunt sequence themselves, doing wire work suspended high above the stage floor. “Tobey is really handy with stunt situations, and he picks it up really quickly,” said stunt coordinator Scott Rogers. “James is also terrific – he’s got a great attitude. Both actors are used to the type of physicality required for their roles, and they excelled.”

For Stokdyk, achieving such great heights would not have been possible without the contribution from his team at Sony Pictures Imageworks, assembling, in the end, between 200 and 250 people to complete more than 900 effects shots. “You live and die by your team,” said Stokdyk. “They were always ready to respond, always on their toes. That’s bit of the process of working with Sam, you have to be flexible and ready to deliver.”

“When developing this third installment, we asked ourselves, ‘What does this young man still have to learn?’” said director Sam Raimi. “We placed him in situations where he’d be forced to confront his absences of character – obstacles that, in previous stories, he might not have been able to surmount. In this way, he would either be defeated or grow into the heroic person who might be capable of overcoming these obstacles. As the depth of our characters grow, they become richer human beings and can achieve more than in the previous films.”

[rejectory]

@heroiisms:  straddle.

brock is leaner than his redneck walk had him believe. and it’s not venom, it’s the worldliness of appearing as a simpleton to get the first punch in, which brock, being the bottom feeder he was, had. at the life foundation. that was carlton’s mistake.

maybe brock’s not all clean as a whistle upstairs. maybe there’d be resistance if carlton blew into one of his ears geeently to mind the draft, and now he strains his neck up to entertain his own joke.

the tendons holding his throat from collapsing grab against the pressure. his head snaps up BOO!-fast, nudging brock’s nose on its cartilage with his own before brock slams him back down.

the very fact of nature is that mothers are hosts; they’re the baby food. in better cases, it’s a tooth for a child, a defanging tit for tat. the more children you have, the more compounded the risk of getting loose in the mouth. but you take it.

you take it, of course, for the future. you give up your hair and the calcium in your now-geriatric’s bones if it goes on for too long without a moment of respite.

riot has been feeding on him continuously. is that a surprise or an inevitability?

❛easy, brock, eeeasy. can’t take a joke, can you? you’re handling a couple billion dollars, give or take.❜

you fucking idiot.

he’s only met anne weying dolled up wrapper-tight like a christmas present once or twice. she was one of the corporate ants at a corporate fundraiser he never looked at, only past. he can still recite the last third of her social security number and how many hours of absence her sick leaves had amounted to. those were all hours someone else had to cover. money down the drain.

but he’s closer to venom now than he was to study. he can almost feel his thrum.

he’s been told his eyes are unnerving, like a lizard’s. must be the all-black, the nonnative threat of just existing in a status that allows him not to blink to appease social cues.

brock’s face has got a comical lot going on at all times. it pulls and betrays his feelings, and the stubble looks gritty and fittingly unprofessional.

that stubble scrapes like a carpet against a bristle brush when a paper-thin slice of mercury shaped like the devil’s tail rests under brock’s chin. if he pushes up or brock down, he’ll burst like a sack of blood.

that’s shiny new. he didn’t know he could do that.

eyes ticking in interest between brock’s, from his nose to his forehead to his mouth, carlton murmurs:

❛how are you doing this?❜

[rallamajoop]

Some musings on symbiote morphology (AKA when size does matter)

So, back when Venom was still in cinemas, I saw it with a friend who (like me) enjoyed it mightily -- though said friend did roll her eyes pretty hard at the She-Venom scene, because of course the female!Venom has to be skinny and sexy. Of course she does.

I mean, the sexual dimorphism on display here is, uh... pretty extreme.

Usually, this would’ve gotten to me too. Few issues in genre film stick in my craw like the double standards applied to male and female bodies (ask me my thoughts on the likes of Wonder Woman or Gamora at your peril). So it was a little surprising to find that this was one I was mostly willing to shrug off.

Why? Well, that requires a bit of backing up and some more context. But mostly, it’s the perfect jumping-off point for a whole lot of rambling about visual shorthands and how symbiote morphology has been handled in the comics over the years, which apparently I had a whole essay’s worth of thoughts on. So here we go.

Now, Comic!Venom =/= Movie!Venom. They aren’t the same character, don’t have the same history, and their biology doesn’t follow the same rules.  But one is still the basis for the other, so we’re going to start waayyy back at the beginning.

Since the symbiote's introduction back in '84, precious little about the species has remained consistent through the many writers and retcons, but one detail that Marvel was -- mostly -- consistent on back in the early days is that the shape a symbiote takes depends a lot on the body of its host. So when Spider-man was wearing the symbiote the result was (by design) literally just Spider-man-but-in-black:

But Venom's next host did not have the muscularly-lean body of Peter Parker, he had the jacked-up muscle-mountain that was Eddie Brock’s -- and the result is the Venom we all know and love.

Whereas when completely-normal-human-woman Anne Weying first bonds with the Venom symbiote in Sinner Takes All, we get a much slimmer She-Venom.

You can see the same trends at work with the Life Foundation Five and various other examples. So, in the comics at least, there’s some internal consistency explaining why He-Venom and She-Venom should look so very different. (Why Eddie and Anne should be such wildly different sized humans is a whoooole other topic, but best left in the Don’t Get Me Started pile for now.)

Of course, when the guy you've cast as Eddie has the physique of Tom Hardy rather than, say, He-Man, the logic of why Venom looks so huge falls apart. 

  ⬥ Venom and She-Venom, actual size comparison.

While comic book writers of the 80's may have been able to convince a generation of fans not to question why a professional journalist would be jacked enough to dwarf Captain America, film adds a layer of realism and audience expectations that would make that a much harder sell (not to mention limiting your casting options to a much smaller pool). Casting Tom Hardy was inarguably the right call. 

If Eddie no longer looked like Venom, the other solution would have been to make Venom look more like Tom Hardy--but good luck getting that past the existing fanbase. When it comes to pleasing the longtime fans, it's safe to say that Venom, not Eddie, is the character who has to look the part. Plus, Venom is entirely CG, so casting and realism no longer have to matter. Fanboys can have their giant Venom and tiny She-Venom, and the fangirls can have Tom Hardy getting all prettily roughed up. There are worse solutions.

Don't get me wrong: they could and absolutely should have evened up the difference on screen by giving She-Venom some extra body mass (she is on screen for like ten seconds, the fanboys can effing deal). But when the key decision that fucked up those ratios is making Eddie so much slimmer and sexier than he was originally supposed to be, I am unusually willing to give them a tentative pass. I mean, I love comics!Eddie too, but I can’t see him working on screen.

While I’m talking symbiote-bodies, it’s worth going into some of the other reasons to make Eddie+symbiote so huge, the obvious ones being to a) make him more threatening, and b) emphasise that Eddie's bonded with the symbiote in a way Peter never did. As a shape-shifter, Venom can make his host look bigger but not smaller (which is presumably why Rad Eddie may look younger than regular!Eddie, but is still suspiciously large for a skateboarder hanging with teens).

But size isn't the only way to make a character like Venom threatening. Compare Carnage, who is much more dangerous than Venom -- but (along with his host) fairly consistently drawn as smaller and leaner than the original.

He's still plenty threatening, though -- not because he's huge, but because he's completely bugfuck nuts and into murder for recreation. His design gets this across with a texture less like skin than a mass of veins and tentacles. Size is a good visual shorthand for danger, but it's not the only shorthand that works for symbiotes of the 90′s heyday.

You can see the same logic at work in Toxin too (a lesser-known and sadly mistreated Carnage-spawn from the early 00's). Precious little about Toxin's look remained consistent from one creative team to the next, but the impact of the host body is still there. His first host, Pat Mulligan, was a pretty average-sized dude, which is reflected in his bonded form (left), but when Eddie gets the Toxin symbiote later on, we get a much bigger Toxin (right). And Eddie's Toxin has more tentacles and rougher skin, so we know he's not going to be friendly (Eddie was really not in a good place at this point in his history).

Perhaps the most interesting example is Agent Venom, who turns up when the military bonds the Venom symbiote to Flash Thompson: disabled vet and card-carrying Spidey fan. His Venom-look is a brilliant bit of storytelling-through-design: the face and overall build hearkens back to Spider-man's time in the symbiote, the equipment signposts his military connections (past and present), and black will always be the signifier of a guy working black ops.

Perhaps most important, there's no mouth (compare both Spidey and Toxin #1), which is our sign that the symbiote's under control -- drugged into submission by the military, in fact.

But key to Flash's time in the role is that the Venom symbiote doesn't always stay drugged and docile, and whenever it starts to break free, Agent Venom morphs into Venom's traditional look -- gaping mouth, no belts or shoulder pads, and lots of bulky muscles a la the original flavour Eddie Brock (you can see him mid-transformation on the left below).

Does that make sense, when Flash is the host? Probably not, but comic book logic, as usual, is suspended for the sake of visual shorthand: fans know what Venom is "supposed" to look like, so that's what he looks like when the comic wants to telegraph that Flash is losing control. And that, I suspect, is why Lee Price's Venom (above right) looks more like Eddie's, even though Lee Price looks more like Flash. Price may be the one in charge, but he’s also a madman, so his Venom has to look out of control. The comics have officially hit Tom Hardy territory: Venom is huge now because people have come to expect Venom to look like the original Eddie-Brock!Venom, regardless of who’s inside.

There are bigger exceptions to the rule, however -- two of the more interesting turned up almost simultaneously in 2015, when both Venom!Flash and Toxin!Eddie got significant redesigns in the pages of Venom: Space Knight and Carnage (2015). Now Flash's Venom is the bulky muscular one, while Eddie's Toxin looks slimmer than Eddie has ever been before or since. What's going on here? Did the artists just screw up?

Well, not entirely -- the characters haven't just flipped looks, they've flipped roles. Now Toxin's the one being drugged into submission by a US agency (and we can only assume those drugs somehow prompt a symbiote to produce pouches, because we're two-for-two on that front). Meanwhile, Venom's been "purged of corruption" and has finally bonded with Flash as a full partner, which may be why they opted for something closer to his original look. Note that Venom has no mouth, and Toxin's is positively restrained by symbiote standards, which tells you a lot about the temperament we can expect from both of them.

That said, I don't think either design really works. Venom's new look is a real step back in creativity from his Agent Venom days, and the helmet-face would be better suited to a mech design than a symbiote who's being treated as a real character for the first time. Meanwhile, Toxin’s look doesn't really work for Eddie, for all the same reasons it did work for Flash: Eddie isn't a trusted agent in this scenario, he's more like an intelligent animal on a short leash. It isn't just the builds that are wrong -- none of the story comes across well in these designs.

All in all, the longer Venom’s been around, the less the standard host=symbiote rules seem to apply. Venom is huge because his look is sufficiently iconic that that’s what the fans expect, regardless of who’s on the inside, or whether we’ve just rewritten his entire backstory and made the jump to film.

Speaking of which, it’s worth pointing out that there is actually precedent in the comics for female symbiotes who aren't drawn like a bikini model in a layer of black body paint. One is Patricia Robertson, who bonds with the "Venom" symbiote (read: not actually the Venom symbiote) in the 2003 Venom series.

Though Trish is a woman of fairly average build, her "Venom" is virtually indistinguishable from Eddie's (too much so, if anything -- it's very hard to tell which is which when they clash). Unfortunately, the 2003 series is otherwise an ugly, incomprehensible mess of a comic, containing almost nothing that has ever been referenced again. I can really only recommend it to absolute completists.

Somewhat better handled is Tarna, a skrull Agent of the Cosmos who appears in Venom: Space Knight. Tarna's symbiotic look is not remotely feminine, and one suspects that's the point: it's ugly, threatening, and gives no clue as to who's inside. (Her symbiote can also separate from her while maintaining form, making the comparison pic unusually easy for me).

But as a shapeshifting alien bonded to a shapeshifting symbiote, Tarna perhaps doesn't make the best example for general principles. It’s worth keeping in mind that every design has a storytelling function too: Patricia’s Venom needs to be mistakable for the original Venom for plot reasons, and the reveal that Tarna is a humanoid woman under her symbiote is set up as a surprise. But the creators of the film wanted us to know that was Anne under the symbiote from the moment she appeared, so sexy!She-Venom it is.

All that said, at the very end of the day, I’d much rather not have to make these excuses for the film. I’d much rather see more Tarnas and fewer She-Venom’s, and both film and comics have a long way to go before we get there yet.

[thecandywrites]

Of Heaven and Fire Part 5

Am I evil? Yes, yes I am. Will this backfire? Spectacularly. Like a bad car accident you can’t help but watch as everything collides and then explodes. Is it sweet juicy smut with a heaping pile of angst? HELL YES. Come, suffer with me. Enjoy. @probablyclever​ @funmadnessandbadassvikings​ and @imherefortheforthefanart​ 

You started to struggle as you could feel your body quickly adjust to the increasing pressure as you looked at what had taken ahold of you before you froze, your jaw hanging open. It was the biggest mermaid you had ever seen in your life, it was bigger than the damn ship! 

“Oh shit.” You breathed before she looked at you and you felt like you were looking at a giant...female version of...your dad?

“Wait, grandma?” You asked before she smiled at you. “Hey sweetie, hang tight, we’re almost home.” She said before she swam to a massive cave where sunken ships were lined up on the walls like toy boats before she let you go before she got comfy in a spot she clearly sat in a lot before a blind deep sea shark swam over to her and parked in her lap before she started to pet it like a cat. 

“Why are you so big?” You asked as you looked up at her in awe. 

“Oh the older us sirens get and the deeper we live, the bigger we get.” She waived off. 

“Were you always this big?” You asked as you swam up to a sunken ship and sat on the mast to be closer to her and more or less eye level with her. 

“Oh no, I was no bigger than you were at your age.” She smiled sweetly. 

“How...did you find me?” You asked. 

“Oh that light you gave off was unmistakable. Only a moura gives off that kind of light and then when you awoke as a siren and you healed that monster, I just knew it had to be my Rhen’s offspring, tell me, how is he? Last I heard from him he moved up to the mountains.” She invited. 

“He did, they settled in Suchi, a moura halfling colony. He and my mother are very happy. I am the sixth of their 12 children.” You answered proudly. 

“Only 12? I thought he would have had at least 2 dozen by now.” She mused with a proud smile.  

“Well she’s still young, she could give him a dozen more if she tried but things are cramped in the house as it is, even with four of my big siblings moving out to start families of their own.” You answered. 

“So, tell me all about it.” She invited before you very happily told her all about your home, your family, the colony, the traditions and festivals and culture as she listened attentively before another little shark swam up to you and you pet it like she pet hers before it settled in your lap before the conversation shifted to your current situation and your predicament as you stroked the belt at your waist with one hand as the other pet the shark as you noticed the chain hang down just past your tail fin. 

“Well, come on, there’s beings down here I want you to meet, they’ll have an answer.” She invited before she reached out and you readily got in her palm before she closed her hand around you gently but firmly enough to keep ahold of you before she swam further down to the vents where you found the mated pair of oriental water dragons, guarding a clutch of eggs as various schools of fish swam around them in the rich waters. 

“Meet Pantaou and his mate Yingshen.” She introduced. 

“Hi, I’m Benyana,” you greeted as they both turned to look at you as you tried not to shit yourself. They were HUGE and between them and your grandmother you felt incredibly small. 

“This is my granddaughter, she’s the daughter of Rhen, one of my sons who chose to live on land with his father, she’s a moura siren. I think one of the first.” She answered as the dragons looked at you with eager eyes. 

“Actually I have a request to make of you, there’s a fleet of boats that like to fish near here are they fishing too close to you?” You asked them. 

“Yes, their nets get way too close to the nest.” They confirmed. 

“If their nets will stop getting so close would you stop icing the ships?” You inquired hopefully. 

“Why do you care?” They asked. 

“Because the fleet’s captain’s cousin, who’s a prince and this is how he keeps me captured, if you would stop icing the ships, he agreed to free me so I can go home.” You explained as you lifted the chain and held it out to them as your grandmother grew hot with anger as they both came forward and looked at it. 

“No, even if you were to succeed, and even if he were to say you’re free, this would not come off.” They told you. 

“What? Why?” You asked. 

“It has a special kind of magicked spell like curse, here, can I taste it?” Yingshen asked before you swam forward and placed the chain into her mouth and hooked the belt onto the smallest of her front teeth as she carefully closed her mouth and tasted the silver on her tongue and the tip of her tongue tasted the belt itself before she carefully opened her mouth and let it fall from her jaws before you swam a distance away so you could view all of her face. 

“So what’s the curse?” You asked. 

“It’s both good and bad,” she scrunched up her face as she rubbed her tongue onto the top of her mouth and against the tooth itself, as if savoring the flavor. 

“The spell cast onto it- it’s a love spell, a very strong one, only when you love your captor, will it come off, but by then, you’ll feel bound to him forever.” She revealed and your iridescent glowed red as you felt anger start to consume you as you just floated there, if he was in front of you right now, you’d drown him and rip him to shreds! How dare he!

“Is there any way to break it other than falling love with him?” You asked, trying to keep your head and your wits about you. 

“Yes, being reborn as a siren has already weakened it, turn back into your moura form and it will weaken still, be reborn in the ashes and it’ll come off, the spell itself was cast with you in particular. It’s a fated love spell. Very hard to break. Only love or death will break it, but you are lucky, you can be reborn. It will get weaker still when you change from a siren back to your moura form, it may even come off if you were to truly even like him. Normally that in itself would be enough but because it’s you and because it’s him- you have to go to this extreme degree.” She said. “The other way however would be just to kill him. I can sense he’s on one of the ships, it wouldn’t be difficult to topple the ship and drown him.” She offered. 

“No, the captain and crews of the ships are friends of mine, the captain, Cugas has been trying to fight for my freedom, it is because of him that I am asking this favor. Cugas is a good man and his crew are innocent. I don’t want all of them to die because of the sins of one.” You answered as you folded your arms over your chest as you reconsidered your true circumstances. 

“Well since you feel that way, we will grant your request. We will no longer ice the ships.” They swore. 

“Thank you- your excellencies.” You thanked them graciously which got them to smile before your grandmother got a wicked idea and she lit up her own iridescent markings, so bright you ventured they could be seen for miles around. 

“It’s time to introduce you to the rest of your family dearest.” She insisted before more sirens, merfolk and selkies came down to the depths before your grandmother gave her introductions to your aunts and uncles and cousins before she whispered something to an aunt who nodded before the family took you by the hand and led you home with them, to much shallower waters where there were all kinds of cave and coral homes as you looked up and noticed that the hurricane was now in full swing and hoped that Cugas and his fleet were ok before their friends and neighbors were brought to meet you. You were so happy to be so welcomed by them so warmly and especially happy to meet your younger cousins who took to you like one of their own as they celebrated by taking a giant clam and cutting it up for you as you readily took it and ate it the hunks of it since you hadn’t eaten since breakfast and you felt it was closer to dinner time by now as they all fawned over your fins and moura marks on them as they were eager to hear all about your life in Suchi and your family which you were so happy to talk about as you noticed a lot of your cousin’s friends started looking at you quite longingly before they started to leave, one by one and then all at once before they returned, more gifts with them, mostly gold and treasure from sunken ships and when they came back, they pulled you to a ship wreck that had quite a bit of treasure in it. 

“Oh, thank you,” you thanked them graciously as they put necklaces and crowns and bracelets and rings galore on you and on your waist until you felt you had some trouble swimming because it was weighing you down so much as they were particularly handsy putting it on you, their touches stroking and lingering as you felt your blush bloom on your face and travel down your neck to your chest and noticed it literally glowed underwater as they all smiled victoriously at you before one of them even got so bold as to kiss you. You couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty but you were still so angry at Brock that your vindictive and spiteful nature won out and you gave in and kissed them back which they took as a clear invitation and before you knew it, all the jewelry they put on you they quickly took off to free up as much skin as they could before you were practically swarmed by them, all of them kissing and licking and playfully nipping at you all over and it felt so good, to be the center of attention and feel like a queen or even a goddess, being fawned over by a gang of mermen and male selkies and male sirens, all of them handsome in their own way. 

The male sirens were the most similar to the male moura, very very pretty and a bit leaner but still quite a bit of muscle, their claws and spikes sheathed in the spines of their fins could be the sharpest and most deadly while the mermen had the classic good looks and amazing muscles with a thin layer of fat for insulation while the selkies were rounder and bigger and had a huge layer of fat over their hulking muscles to insulate them and they were the warmest since they were warm blooded while mermen and selkies were cold blooded by nature and before you knew it, your own cloaka had opened and started to produce a thick mucus to cover the opening so that the seawater wouldn’t get into your canal and you happily laid on a selkie like a bed since he was so warm and squishy as the others then began to take turns making love to you, all of their members spearing your entrance, their own mucus mixing with yours so that your reproductive parts were protected and filling you with their various seed until you felt your lower belly bulged from it all but you were insatiable, the more they gave, the more you greedily took from them without giving much because even the smallest of affections were rewarded with praise of you, praise of your strength, your beauty, your awesomeness and how you were the sexiest being they had ever seen let alone touched and you were gloriously overwhelmed by the euphoria of it all and with as much as you had “suffered” the last couple of weeks, this more than made up for it, reaching your orgasm so many times you lost count, but every time you did, your moura marks would light up and pulse which was extremely entertaining for them and the bigger the orgasm, the brighter you lit up and the more intense the pulsing and they grew obsessed with watching you reach it over and over and over again and your cries of ecstasy like music to their ears as their own sounds were music to yours, even though you felt the notes were perhaps just a note off, never quite right. The lighting up part you were used to as a moura, but under the water- it was particularly beautiful before they tried to double up and triple up so that you had multiple members in your canal at once as they moved in a rhythm as you were stretched to the max and it went on like this for hours until you were so exhausted you passed out, all of you forming one big sleeping pile in the ship as you were in the middle, delightfully warm despite the cool currents around the ship itself, happy and finally sated, your canal still practically buzzing and a little sore from being stretched so much as every inch of you was drenched in euphoria. It was enough to keep the nagging guilt at bay. Besides, you deserved to be loved, worshiped, adored and fawned over didn’t you? After the hell Brock had put you through, this was your reward, besides, now you knew you had family in the sea and the invitation that if you ever wanted to leave, you’d have a home and family here and more potential mates than you knew what to do with. 

Meanwhile your grandmother had gone back to her lair and filled the most put together ship with as much treasure as it would hold before she went to the harbor of the Hurricane Crusher Clan, her presence stopping the storm from hitting the harbor altogether, like the whole area was now enclosed in a cocoon of peace while the storm raged all around it, the clan being the bigger, stronger, fiercer clan Rhoslan had warned you about. 

“Warchief.” She demanded when she got there, the orcs nearly pissing themselves to see a siren so big in the water, so much so that only her head and upper body fit into their massive harbor before the others pulled the warchief to the docks. 

“Mermaid, please tell me what we have done to offend you.” He pleaded. 

“How well do you know the Stormbreaker Clan?” She asked thoughtfully. 

“They are our neighbors, have they offended you? We will gladly kill them for you if you wish.” He immediately offered as she smiled evilly. 

“Oh no, the clan itself I have no problem with, I understand they fish the black waters over the dragons though.” She noted. 

“They’re very stupid, granted that’s where all the best fish are but after they iced our boats, we stopped fishing there.” He answered. 

“Good, right now they’re fleet are in the eye of the hurricane, when the hurricane ceases in a few days, they will come back and their boats will not be iced. You see, the prince of that clan…” before the warchief frowned. 

“You mean the warchief’s son?” He questioned. 

“Yes, Brock.” She said, the name dripping from her lips like venom.

“Oh yes,” he nodded in understanding. 

“He has captured my granddaughter.” She said. 

“Oh, I see, a grave mistake indeed.” The warchief nodded in understanding. 

“Yes. My granddaughter is very special and one of a kind. Her mother is a heavenly moura, the very beings causing the hurricane because they are having a festival- without a care to the rest of the world, but to wage war with them is futile, because there are more of them than in the stars in the heavens, impossible to number but her mother is also unique, she has a good heart and feeling and is an amazing woman who left the heavens to be with my son because she truly loves him, she is kind and good and honest and loves my son wholeheartedly which I couldn’t be happier about and has given my son more heirs than he has fingers and toes.” She smiled proudly before her face grew stony again. 

“However, my granddaughter has inherited her mother’s gifts and abilities and nature along with her father’s gifts as well, she’s very intelligent tempered with a good and honest heart and it’s because of her innocence, that she was captured and in a futile effort to free herself of this slavery that Brock has imposed on my beloved granddaughter Benyana, because my son, who is a siren halfling himself, she is a siren moura halfling, the first of her kind that I know of and the most beautiful creature to ever grace the planet, everyone who sees her loves her and she has power and abilities most could never concieve of but she needs to be protected at all costs, if her siblings have the siren in them- I know not but I wish to find out. But Brock- he drowned her to turn her into a siren so that she could swim to the dragons and request that they not- ice the boats, risking being eaten herself, which they have very graciously agreed to. So that means that your own boats may now fish there without threat of icing if you keep your nets shallow enough so as not to disturb them and I will personally make sure your nets are overflowing with the fish, all you need to do is point out which ones you want and you’ll have them. And if you will grant me my request- I shall make your clan the richest among the other orcs, with this.” She offered as she pulled the ship wreck out and put it onto the base of the dock, the gold spilling out of it before the ship itself came apart- leaving a mound of gold there. 

“Name it, it will be done.” The warchief vowed as he knelt down reverently. 

“Brock has enslaved my granddaughter by a spell, one of the ways to break the spell is to kill him. But I want the pleasure of his spilled blood, after he returns Benyana to her home, safe and sound. I will see to it that Benyana makes it back on the fleet of ships, when they return, I want you to form a peace treaty with the Storm Breaker clan and I want all of you to be one clan and I want you to mend the rivers so that all these ships can go straight to the bottom of the mountains with ease because I want Benyana and her family to freely meet their relatives in the oceans, because the river that that clan sits on goes straight to the feet of the very mountain she lives on, make it wide enough and deep enough that sirens, merpeople and selkies can swim in it all the way to the mountains and do not ever disturb them, merchants travel through both ports bringing their goods there and come out with more gold than they could ever spend in a lifetime, for passage through the rivers you may ask for a small percentage of their gold, this alone will keep you wealthy so that war and raiding are no longer necessary, build up their port so that it will become great, because this will make my granddaughter happy, she is especially fond of the warchief's family especially their younger daughter Kari- see to it that she is treated like a pampered princess and the rest of her family are treated with love, care and respect because despite Brock, the rest of them have treated her very well and I wish for them to be repaid in kind, one of your edicts will be to free all slaves, both in your clan and in thiers. And then I want Brock to free her and take her home to her family and I want a new home built for Benyana and her family, I want it to be the grandest home in Suchi, whatever you spend in doing this- I will repay tenfold, then you will escort Brock down the mountain by whatever means necessary, bring him here, and leave him to me.” She demanded. 

“Consider it done.” He agreed.                                                                                                                       “Great, I’ll see you soon then, I will keep my protection on this harbor so that it and your ships will not have any harm come to them and once you give me Brock, I will give you two more ships, all practically bursting with treasures which should be enough to repay you for your efforts and services. Do we have a deal?” She offered her pinky for him to shake which took both of his hands to barely reach around it as he shook it. 

“Deal.” He readily agreed before she carefully backed out of the harbor and stayed at the mouth, her body like a break for the waves so that the harbor and the clan surrounding it was protected from the hurricane. 

[letswritefanfiction]

Lost in Halloweenia! Ch7

Crosspost from ffnet and AO3.

Summary: It’s Halloween! Ash and the gang are living it up trick or treating when they stumble upon a strange house with some strange artifacts. What mysteries do they hold and…wait, who are those three lurking behind them?

Word Count: 3,932/27,343

Previous chapter here

Next chapter here

Chapter 7: Double Double Toil and Trouble

Well, folks, we were left with quite the cliffhanger last time, weren’t we? Last we knew, Misty was nothing short of hopping mad and Ash had just discovered the nefarious Team Rocket in the home of a still-mysterious Umbreon named Kitsume. And poor Brock was left as the sane one. Hey, wait! If Brock is the sane one, then what am I?

“I’m getting that crown back!”

“Hold on!”

Ash stopped in midair as Jessie and James suddenly shifted to standing, before they realized that they were standing square on top of their Pokémon. They then took a single step off and cleared their throats before sinister music began in the background as if from nowhere.

“Prepare yourself, twerp, for double, double, toil and trouble!” Jessie began.

“And make it double as fire burn and cauldron bubble!” James continued.

“To protect Halloweenia from devastation!”

“To find our way out of this mysterious nation!”

“To denounce the evils of ghosts and goblins!”

“To extend our reach up out of a coffin!”

“Jessie!”

“James!”

“Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!”

“Surrender now, or prepare to fight!”

“Meowth, dat’s right!”

“Wobbuffett!”

After pleasantly sitting through the motto, Ash steeled himself for Battle. “Then let’s fight! Pikachu, Thunderbolt!”

“Victreebel, use Vine Whip!”

“Arbok, Poison Sting Attack!”

“Oh, yeah? Two can play at that game! Cyndaquil, go!”

An all-out Battle began in Kitsume’s house, but against all odds, Kitsume couldn’t have been more thrilled. She strapped on her vacuum and sucked up every Attack as quickly as it was called, leaving the Battle at a complete standstill.

“Razor Leaf!”

“Ember!”

“Acid!”

“Agility!”

Sweat began dripping down Ash’s brow as not a single Attack made contact. He was hoping that Pikachu’s speed would get him to land an Attack before it was sucked up, but somehow even a blast of electricity was able to be bottled up and contained for posterity.

He quickly was growing frustrated. “Try a Quick Attack!”

But, as Pikachu ran into the fray, even he began to feel the effects of the strong vacuum and had to scramble back to the sidelines just to avoid being sucked up.

Ash grunted. This was going nowhere. “Pikachu.” Ash’s expression hardened as Pikachu turned back to look at him. “Thunderbolt on that Umbreon!”

Kitsume, for her part, hardly looked disturbed. She simply smirked and before Pikachu’s cheeks could let off so much as a crackle of electricity, she said, “I don’t think so.”

And the whole world changed.

“Whoa!” Team Rocket intoned, their voices wavering like they were struggling to keep their balance atop a surf board.

Suddenly, the cabin as a whole disappeared, and Ash, Pikachu, and Team Rocket found themselves standing in a swirling world of black, purple, red and pink, with no floor or ceiling to ground them. They were floating in space as all of the objects of the room swirled around them, like gravity had simply given up.

Kitsume, however, was the biggest surprise of all. Her body was now leaner and bipedal, her snout had lengthened and sharpened and she had grown a long mane of pointed red hair. Ash looked at her, completely taken aback.

“What’s that?”

Ash couldn’t help but—even in the confusion—pull out his Pokédex and aim it towards the…whatever it was that had just manifested before them.

“Zoroark, the illusion fox Pokémon and the evolved form of Zorua. Each has the ability to fool a large group of people simultaneously through the use of illusion.”

“Oops, there goes my secret,” Kitsume said, though her smile was anything but rueful.

In her new form, Kitsume quickly scurried about the strange space and gathered all of her now-floating objects into her arms. Then, with nothing more than a blink, Kitsume created a break in the illusion, a window where the one in the house had been. She made as if to take off out of it before, in a split second, darting across the room and grabbing Jessie’s sack as well.

“Bring more Pokémon if you want the bag back! If you can find me! Haha!”

Not a moment later, she was out the window, leaving Ash and everyone else with nothing but a gust of wind and the echoes of Kitsume’s cackling laughter.

But Ash wasn’t about to stand for that. “Not so fast!” he shouted.

In a moment, Ash leapt out of the window, Pikachu and Cyndaquil on his heels as they chased Kitsume outside.

Team Rocket, wary of being left behind, ran to follow Ash, but just as they made it to the window, it winked out of existence altogether. Then, to their horror, they were trapped in the swirling illusion, now with no way out.

“Team Rocket’s left behind again!”

“Okay, the king doesn’t have the crown. The king has never not had the crown! Not since I’ve been alive. So I don’t know how long he can be without it. And how long can a Fairy help him? And a baby? Not long, I guess…but then how long has the crown been missing? Oh my GOSH how much time do we have left? I can feel my life slipping away from me. This is the end, I know it! Goodbye, cruel world! So should I help these kids with my final minutes or…”

After Misty’s outburst, Brock had managed to pull her back from running around a mysterious castle with the threat of attacking a reigning king still on her tongue. Since then, Misty had calmed somewhat, but Litty…

“But I was supposed to just have fun by following these kids, and now my life is in danger? UGH!”

…had gone around the bend.

Litty, while monologuing, was pacing in a very small circle, around which Broomba was sweeping. Not that Litty left much of a mess, but it seemed to…soothe Broomba? Brock and Misty didn’t know—it didn’t have a face!

It was even worse than having to identify Staryu’s emotions.

“Litty!” Misty cried out, her desperation finally coming to a head. “Help us find Togepi!”

Suddenly, Litty snapped out of it and turned to face Misty. “Right. You’re right. The king will be fine. We should just help the Fairy.”

Brock and Misty nodded, smiles finally gracing their faces in resounding relief.

“But we will not be fine if we go challenge the King, just the three of us. This problem is bigger than either of you can imagine.”

Misty’s eyes widened in worry. “Then what should we do?”

Litty looked resolved. “We go to the library.”

“Is that where Blair and Lassie are?” Brock asked.

“No. But backup is.”

Litty seemed to know the castle surprisingly well, and they made it to the library in no time once Litty requested Brock carry him the rest of the way. Apparently, no matter how well you know a castle, it’s all for naught if your legs are the size of a seeded grape.

The library was a large room, dimly lit with racks upon racks of books. And there were books heaped everywhere. Open on the floor, scattered to the wind, every which way. This perked Broomba up immediately, who then went after every book on the floor, despite not having hands with which to pick them up. Broomba just kinda of…scooted them around. But it seemed to be enjoying it!

…Once again, that would be if one could tell if Broomba enjoyed anything.

As for the rest of the figures in the room, there were some Zubat hanging from the open beams on the ceiling, a skeleton sleeping—at least, Brock and Misty hoped it was sleeping—on a settee, and a Litten all curled up by a fireplace in what was clearly a reading nook.

And there were dozens of Chandelure floating about, providing most if not all of the light in the room.

“Uh, shouldn’t that be a fire hazard?” Brock asked, pointing to some of the closer Chandelure, floating about autonomously.

“Nope,” Litty chirped, hopping out of Brock’s hands. “This is our residence! Besides, our natural fire doesn’t tend to burn paper so much as it burns souls.”

Brock and Misty took an enthusiastic step back away as Litty glanced about.

“Okay, fam!” he called, putting a hand to his little mouth. “We’ve got a real problem on our hands!”

Suddenly, Brock and Misty found themselves surrounded by all the Chandelure in the room. They gulped nervously at their expressionless faces. Their eyes were just so wide…and…soulless.

“Let’s go see the king!”

At those words, Misty, at least, finally got her fire back. “And save Togepi!”

The going was dark. And Kitsume was dark; her body fading entirely into the shrouds of the forest that she had led them into. A break in the trees led to the moonlight casting enough light to occasionally catch sight of her red hair, but aside from that, it was hope more than knowledge that fueled his footsteps.

Eventually, Cyndaquil got in front, setting its back ablaze to add a little extra light to the night. “Thanks, Cyndaquil,” Ash huffed as they continued zigzagging through the trees.

Pikachu too ran in front of Ash, as Pokémon tended to have better vision in the dark than humans did. Hence why Kitsume seemed to so effortlessly weave between the trees without having to worry about tripping over a root or, let’s face it, running straight into one of the trees, like Ash did.

Then, suddenly, there was a clearing in the woods. It was still dark with the cover of trees, and eerily silent, but it was a whole circle of open space. And Kitsume entered it, only to completely disappear from sight a moment later. Ash, Pikachu, and Cyndaquil ran into the center and looked around, but to no avail. All that was near was darkness.

“Kitsume?” Ash called out in frustration. “Come out here!”

“Pika!”

“Quil!”

Softly, they began to hear a whisper from the trees. It grew into a laugh before evolving into an all out cackling, sounding like it was coming from all directions—from the very trees themselves.

Then, Kitsume appeared from out of the woodwork, her head lowered and her eyes sinister. “So you really want to show me some moves, huh?”

“No, we want to get that bag back!” Ash declared.

The bag, however, was nowhere in sight. Kitsume must have stashed it somewhere in the woods.

Kitsume was undeterred. “I think you’ll change your mind.”

Suddenly, all around in the woods, red eyes began to glow, one by one until nearly twenty sets of eyes were staring at them. Slowly, they came closer until bodies came to form in the darkness. It was a whole pack of Zoroark.

Kitsume smiled, eyeing her family members. “I think you’ll want to release all of your Pokémon to battle us.”

Ash grit his teeth. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

He reached for his ‘Belt and grabbed his remaining four PokéBalls, enlarging them all at once. In a blinding burst of light, out came Totodile, Phanpy, Noctowl, and Bayleef, who promptly ran over to Ash to nuzzle him, pushing Pikachu out of the way as she did so.

“Hi, Bayleef,” Ash said awkwardly. “Sorry, but we kind of have big problems right now.”

Bayleef turned back to the pack of Zoroark, and immediately cowered, like all of the rest of the Pokémon were doing. The Zoroark wore mirrored menacing smiles, each like a perfect shadow of the one next to it and made not a single sound. Like they weren’t even breathing.

Kitsume opened her arms, barring her chest to steal Ash’s focus back. “Battle us for it.”

Ash narrowed his eyes, turning his hat around and widening his stance. He could do this. He would do this.

“Fine, I will! Cyndaquil! Use Flamethrower!”

Cyndaquil let the flame on its back grow as it created a ball of fire in its mouth. Kitsume was nearly salivating in anticipation, her vacuum at the ready.

“Cynda…quil!”

The Flamethrower lit up the dark woods, blinding everyone for a moment. Nevertheless, Kitsume managed to suck up the Attack, leaving it flickering in a little glass bottle like a harmless candle.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

“Not even close!” Ash shouted. “Noctowl, use Confusion on that side and Bayleef, use Razor Leaf on the others!”

Noctowl and Bayleef stood back to back, each taking on half of the circle. However, Kitsume ran around swiftly, her footsteps light and soundless as she stole both Attacks from out of the air.

Ash wasn’t used to having to handle so many Pokémon in a Battle. Never had he even seen a Battle with so many moving parts. But it was clear he’d have to figure it out sooner rather than later. The problem was that darn vacuum! If only he could destroy it somehow…

“Okay, Totodile, Water Gun! And Bayleef, use another Razor Leaf!”

Totodile immediately began spraying in the direction of half of the Zoroark and Bayleef took on the other half. But Kitsume, as predicted, ran around as fast as she could with that vacuum. Ash looked to Pikachu who was as ready and determined as he.

“Pikachu, you aim a Thunderbolt right at that vacuum. Then we’ll be able to fight this Battle fair and square!”

“Pika!”

Pikachu charged his cheeks, readying to attack while Kitsume was distracted. It was hard to aim while Kitsume darted around, but as fast as she was, Pikachu knew he was faster. With a battle cry, Pikachu unleashed a Thunderbolt into the air and watched it jut out in jagged angles on its way to Kitsume’s back. But, to everyone’s horror, it only made it about half way across the clearing before fizzling out. Everyone gasped.

“What’s wrong, Pikachu?” Ash asked worriedly.

Pikachu looked confused, if not a little scared. “Pika pi!”

“No!” Kitsume bemoaned. “It’s already losing its Electric Typing. It won’t be long now before it can’t use its Attacks at all.”

Ash and Pikachu looked to each other in terror. It was almost too late.

“It’s okay, buddy,” Ash said, trying to be encouraging as that worry settled on both their chests. “We’ll just have to try something else.

Luckily, at just that moment, a spark of inspiration hit Ash. He turned back to Pikachu with fresh hope. They weren’t out of the game yet!

“Pikachu, Quick Attack!”

Kitsume faltered as Pikachu came charging at her. “What? No! I can’t do anything with that!”

Ash laughed hardily. “I know! Now, Bayleef, hold her back with Vine Whip!”

Kitsume was busy trying to dodge Pikachu, who was flashing in and out of visibility as he kept up his Quick Attack. She didn’t even notice when Bayleef’s Vine Whip came out of the darkness and grabbed at her legs. They continued pulling backwards and before she knew it, she was face down on the ground.

“Great! Now, Phanpy, use a Take Down Attack on that vacuum!”

Phanpy, eager to be used, cried out happily and began barreling towards Kitsume, or rather, her vacuum. She smashed right into it, but it held strong.

Still, Kitsume was scared. So she let out a scream, and that was enough for the world to morph around her.

The other Zoroark began shifting, moving around so quickly and so stealthily that Ash couldn’t tell where one ended and one began anymore. But one thing was clear; they were fast approaching. “Phanpy, keep using Take Down. Everyone else, attack the other Zoroark!”

Suddenly, the clearing was flying with Pokémon, each trying to outrun and out-hit one another. But without any more Special Attacks lighting up the night, Ash couldn’t see much more than the dim light of the coals burning on Cyndaquil’s back. There were just too many Zoroark, and soon it looked like his Pokémon were lost in a cloud of them. All he could do was try his best to call out Attacks that could possibly help.

“Pikachu, confuse them with Agility! Noctowl, blow them back with Gust from above. No, don’t hit the others! Keep at it Phanpy!”

Eventually, it was all he could do to keep from getting hit himself. Pokémon were flying all over the clearing, and he was standing right in the middle. He didn’t even know if Bayleef had a hold on Kitsume anymore, or if Phanpy was having any luck with the vacuum. There were Pokémon cries and grunts and smashes of bodies impacting all around him, but he could hardly distinguish one from another. It was just a flurry of battle.

It knocked the wind out of him entirely when suddenly Pikachu’s body went flying limply through the air, colliding with his gut. Ash gasped and wheezed, but recovered as quickly as he could to see after his friend. Pikachu looked up at him with sleepy eyes, giving a dull, “Chaa.”

“I’m sorry, Pikachu. You’re too weak to battle right now.”

“Pi ka,” Pikachu said stubbornly, shaking his head.

“Leave it to everyone else. It’ll be fine.”

But it wasn’t fine.

Ash’s eyes were beginning to adjust better to the light, since there weren’t any more fiery or electrical Attacks to light up the night and ruin his corneas. And what he saw was unsettling.

His Pokémon were wearing thin. Noctowl was flying above to avoid getting hit, but hardly landing any Attacks. And it just got worse from there. Phanpy was reliably still going at Kitsume’s vacuum, but the Take Down Attacks were beginning to take their toll. Meanwhile, Kitsume wasn’t sitting motionless. She was firing various Special Attacks that Ash couldn’t recognize at Bayleef, who was standing there and taking them like a champion. But though she was still holding strong with her Vine Whip, she was looking battered and Ash didn’t know how much longer she could take it.

Ash grit his teeth as he looked at the scene. Pikachu crawled onto his shoulder and the two of them looked around helplessly. Their friends couldn’t hold on much longer. And it almost seemed like the Zoroark had doubled in numbers, far from slowing down.

In that moment, Ash realized that he had to admit defeat. He couldn’t do this to his Pokémon any longer. He reached for Totodile’s PokéBall, about to call him back when, suddenly, his savior arrived.

“Disable!”

All at once, a pink glow pierced the dark forest, shooting straight towards Kitsume, dodging all of Ash’s Pokémon. Ash looked to the source of the pink light and saw, in fanciful illumination, an old friend.

“Mantar!” Ash cried in relief.

As the Attack made contact with Kitsume, freezing her to the ground, suddenly the other Zoroark dissolved into little particles before vanishing into thin air.

“They were just an illusion,” Ash murmured.

“Finish the job, Ash,” Mantar said bluntly, his spoons pointed out towards Kitsume, whose face was stuck in an irritated frown.

“Right!” Ash looked to his Pokémon, who were scooping themselves off of the ground, brushing off their battered states. With a moment to catch their breaths, they all looked much better. “Cyndaquil, use Flamethrower on the vacuum, then, Totodile, cool it off with a Water Gun. Then you should be able to break it with one good Tackle Attack, Phanpy!”

The night lit up further when Cyndaquil readied itself for another Flamethrower Attack as Bayleef reined in her veins, to avoid them getting scorched in the process. As the tongue of flame ignited the vacuum on Kitsume’s back, Ash turned to Noctowl.

“Noctowl, scan the forest; find that sack!”

Noctowl gave off a soft coo and flew off into the trees, her night vision rendering her perfect for the job.

Then it was Totodile’s turn. The Water Gun Attack hit the vacuum with a sizzle, letting off some steam into the air. It also hardened the vacuum, leaving it solid, but brittle.

“Do your thing, Phanpy!”

With one last heave of energy, Phanpy ran for the vacuum and smashed into it. Upon impact, the vacuum shattered into a million pieces before being lost to the darkness.

Mantar took that moment to release his hold on Kitsume, putting his spoons down. The second she had her body back to herself, she let out an ear-splitting screech that echoed through the night.

“What did you do?!” she screamed to Ash, quickly running up to his face.

Pikachu quickly began sparking his cheeks and growling deep in the back of his throat. He was not about to let another Pokémon attack Ash.

“Oh, pipe down, pipsqueak. We both know you can’t do anything anymore.”

She reared back in an attempt to lunge towards the both of them, but before Ash could so much as shield his eyes, Mantar had her frozen again, holding a spoon out towards her as he walked over to Ash.

“Perhaps we should leave her here for a while,” he said.

Ash nodded, taking a deep breath. “Maybe.”

At just that moment, Noctowl came flapping back into the clearing, hooting victoriously. Hanging from her talons was Team Rocket’s sack, which she dropped right beside Ash. Ash quickly opened it up, and was relieved to see that the crown was indeed sitting in it, right on top of a pile of candy.

“Ooh, candy!” Ash exclaimed.

“Pi pikachu!” Pikachu concurred with eyes wide and glistening in excitement.

Mantar smacked himself on the forehead. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Ash somehow tore himself away from looking at the candy and turned to Mantar. “How are you even here? Aren’t you supposed to be guarding the gate?”

“I used Substitute and left a dummy there. So I’ll be summoned if I’m needed. But I could see that you needed help here.”

“See?”

Mantar pointed to his brain. “See.”

“Oh.” After understanding dawned, Ash went back to the bag and picked up the crown. It was even more beautiful than the projection that Mantar had created showed. Even in the nearly non-existent light of the forest, it gleamed, seemingly with its own inner light. It seemed that the jewels in it were not jewels at all, but rather just colored spires on the crown. They just appeared gem-like because of their incandescence.

It was so mesmerizing that Ash couldn’t help but just stare at it for a few moments. It was only after Mantar cleared his throat that Ash pulled out of his reverie.

“I guess we should take care of this,” Ash said, gesturing to the crown.

“Yes, we have to get it to the king right away,” Mantar urgently reminded him. “It’s already getting to be too late.”

“How are we gonna get there?”

“Teleportation,” Mantar stated. “Return your companions.”

Ash returned his Pokémon one by one to their ‘Balls, promising to reward them all later for their hard work. Perhaps with candy.

“What now?”

“Stand away from the Zoroark and prepare yourself.”

Confused, Ash followed Mantar’s instructions, circling around behind Kitsume. In a moment, Mantar released his hold on her and she continued her lunge, but only reached air. And by the time she turned around, Ash, Mantar, and Pikachu were gone.

Kitsume growled. “The good guys always win.”

Mantar to the rescue! More than that, Ash finally found the crown. Now he just needs to deliver it to the king so that they can get Togepi back and still find a portal so that they can all make it home…Oh, no. How are they supposed to do all that in only one more installment? Find out next time in the Lost in Halloweenia finale!

[ohtheclevernessof]

Blame Brock Leaner....

[grigori77]

2018 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30.  MANDY – easily the weirdest shit I saw in 2018, this 2-hour-plus fever dream fantasy horror is essentially an extended prog-rock video with added “plot” from Beyond the Black Rainbow director Panos Cosmatos. Saying that by the end of it I was left feeling exhausted, brain-fried and more than a little weirded-out might not seem like much of a recommendation, but this is, in fact, a truly transformative viewing experience, a film destined for MASSIVE future cult status. Playing like the twisted love-child of David Lynch and Don Coscarelli, it (sort of) tells the story of lumberjack Red Miller (Nicolas Cage) and his illustrator girlfriend Mandy Bloom (Andrea Riseborough), who have an idyllic life in the fantastically fictional Shadow Mountains circa 1983 … at least until Mandy catches the eye of Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), the thoroughly insane leader of twisted doomsday cult the Children of the New Dawn, who employs nefarious, supernatural means to acquire her.  But Mandy spurns his advances, leading to a horrific retribution that spurs Red, a traumatised war veteran, to embark on a genuine roaring rampage of revenge.  Largely abandoning plot and motivation for mood, emotion and some seriously trippy visuals, this is an elemental, transcendental film, a series of deeply weird encounters and nightmarish set-pieces that fuel a harrowing descent into a particularly alien, Lovecraftian kind of hell, Cosmatos shepherding in one breathtaking sequence after another with the aid of skilled cinematographer Benjamin Loeb, a deeply inventive design team (clearly drawing inspiration from the artwork of late-70s/early 80s heavy metal albums) and a thoroughly tricked-out epic tone-poem of a score from the late Jôhan Jôhannsson (Sicario, Arrival, Mother!), as well as one seriously game cast.  Cage is definitely on crazy-mode here, initially playing things cool and internalised until the savage beast within is set loose by tragedy, chewing scenery to shreds like there’s no tomorrow, while Riseborough is sweet, gentle and inescapably DOOMED; Roach, meanwhile, is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, an entitled, delusional narcissist thoroughly convinced of his own massive cosmic importance, and there’s interesting support from a raft of talented character actors such as Richard Brake, Ned Dennehy and Bill Duke.  This is some brave, ambitious filmmaking, and a stunning breakthrough for one of the weirdest and most unique talents I’ve stumbled across a good while.  Cosmatos is definitely one to watch.

29.  THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S WEB – back in 2011, David Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s runaway bestseller The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became one of my very favourite screen thrillers EVER, a stone-cold masterpiece and, in my opinion, the superior version of the story even though a very impression Swedish version had broken out in a major way the year before. My love for the film was coloured, however, by frustration at its cinematic underperformance, which meant that Fincher’s planned continuation of the series with Millennium Trilogy sequels The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest would likely never see the light of day. Even so, the fan in me held out hope, however fragile, that we might just get lucky.  Seven years later, we have FINALLY been rewarded for our patience, but not exactly in the fashion we’ve been hoping for … Fincher’s out, Evil Dead-remake and Don’t Breathe writer-director Fede Alvarez is in, and instead of continuing the saga in the logical place the makers of this new film chose the baffling route of a “soft reboot” via adapting the FOURTH Millennium book, notable for being the one released AFTER Larsson’s death, penned by David Lagercrantz, which is set AFTER the original Trilogy. Thing is, the actually end result, contrary to many opinions, is actually pretty impressive – this is a leaner, more fast-paced affair than its predecessor, a breathless suspense thriller that rattles along at quite a clip as we’re drawn deeper into Larsson’s dark, dangerous and deeply duplicitous world and treating fans to some top-notch action sequences, from a knuckle-whitening tech-savvy car chase to a desperate, bone-crunching fight in a gas-filled room.  Frustratingly, the “original” Lisbeth Salander, Rooney Mara, is absent (despite remaining VERY enthusiastic about returning to the role), but The Crown’s Claire Foy is almost as good – the spiky, acerbic and FIERCELY independent prodigious super-hacker remains as brooding, socially-awkward, emotionally complex and undeniably compelling as ever, the same queen of screen badasses I fell in love with nearly a decade ago.  Her investigative journalist friend/occasional lover Mikael Blomkvist is, annoyingly, less well served – Borg Vs McEnroe star Sverrir Gudnasson is charismatic and certainly easy on the eyes, but he’s FAR too young for the role (seriously, he’s only a week older than I am) and at times winds up getting relegated to passive observer status when he’s not there simply to guide the plot forward; we’re better served by the supporting cast, from Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out, Sorry to Bother You) as a mysterious NSA security expert (I know!) to another surprisingly serious turn (after Logan) from The Office’s Stephen Merchant as the reclusive software designer who created the world-changing computer program that spearheads the film’s convoluted plot, and there’s a fantastically icy performance from Blade Runner 2049’s Sylvia Hoeks as Camilla Salander, Lisbeth’s estranged twin sister and psychopathic head of the Spiders, the powerful criminal network once controlled by their monstrous father (The Hobbit’s Mikael Persbrandt).  The film is far from perfect – the plot kind runs away with the story at times, while several supposedly key characters are given frustratingly little development or screen-time – but Alvarez keeps things moving along with typical skill and precision and maintains a tense, unsettling atmosphere throughout, while there are frequently moments of pure genius on display in the script by Alvarez, his regular collaborator Jay Basu and acclaimed screenwriter Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Locke) – the original novel wasn’t really all that great, but by just taking the bare bones of the plot and crafting something new and original they’ve improved things considerably.  The finished product thrills and rewards far more than it frustrates, and leaves the series in good shape for continuation.  With a bit of luck this time it might do well enough that we’ll finally get those other two movies to plug the gap between this and Fincher’s “original” …

28.  ISLE OF DOGS – I am a MASSIVE fan of the films of Wes Anderson.  Three share placement in my all-time favourite screen comedies list – Grand Budapest Hotel, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and, of course, The Royal Tenebaums (which perches high up in my TOP TEN) – and it’s always a pleasure when a new one comes out.  2009’s singular stop-motion gem Fantastic Mr Fox showed just how much fun his uniquely quirky sense of humour and pleasingly skewed world-view could be when transferred into an animated family film setting, so it’s interesting that it took him nearly a decade to repeat the exercise, but the labour of love is writ large upon this dark and delicious fable of dystopian future Japanese city Megasaki, where an epidemic of “dog flu” prompts totalitarian Mayor Kobayashi (voiced by Kunichi Nomura) to issue an edict banishing all of the city’s canine residents to nearby Trash Island. Six months later, Kobayashi’s nephew Atari (newcomer Koyu Rankin) steals a ridiculously tiny plane and crash-lands on Trash Island, intent on rescuing his exiled bodyguard-dog Spots (Liev Schreiber); needless to say this is easier said than done, unforeseen circumstances leading a wounded Atari to enlist the help of a pack of badass “alpha dogs” voiced by Anderson regulars – Rex (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray) and Duke (Jeff Goldblum) – and nominally led by crabby, unrepentantly bitey stray Chief (Bryan Cranston), to help him find his lost dog in the dangerous wilds of the island.  Needless to say this is as brilliantly odd as we’ve come to expect from Anderson, a perfectly pitched, richly flavoured concoction of razor sharp wit, meticulously crafted characters and immersive beauty.  The cast are, as always, excellent, from additional regulars such as Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel and F. Murray Abraham to new voices like Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Ken Watanabe and Courtney B. Vance, but the film’s true driving force is Cranston and Rankin, the reluctant but honest relationship that forms between Chief and Atari providing the story with a deep, resonant emotional core.  The first rate animation really helps – the exemplary stop-motion makes the already impressive art of Mr Fox seem clunky and rudimentary (think the first Wallace & Gromit short A Grand Day Out compared to their movie Curse of the Were-Rabbit), each character rendered with such skill they seem to be breathing on their own, and Anderson’s characteristic visual flair is on full display, the Japanese setting lending a rich, exotic tang to the compositions, especially in the deeply inventive environs of Trash Island.  Funny, evocative, heartfelt and fiendishly clever, this is one of those rare screen gems that deserves to be returned to again and again, and it’s definitely another masterpiece from one of the most unique filmmakers working today.

27.  VENOM – when Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man saga came to a rather clunky end back in 2007, it felt like a case of too many villains spoiling the rumble, and it was pretty clear that the inclusion of bad-boy reporter Eddie Brock and his dark alter ego was the straw that broke that particular camel’s back.  Venom didn’t even show up proper until almost three quarters of the way through the movie, by which time it was very much a case of too-little-too-late, and many fans (myself included) resented the decidedly Darth Maul-esque treatment of one of the most iconic members of Marvel’s rogues’ gallery.  It’s taken more than a decade for Marvel to redress the balance, even longer than with Deadpool, and, like with the Merc With a Mouth, they decided the only way was a no-holds-barred, R-rated take that could really let the beast loose. Has it worked?  Well … SORT OF.  In truth, the finished article feels like a bit of a throwback, recalling the pre-MCU days when superhero movies were more about pure entertainment without making us think too much, just good old-fashioned popcorn fodder, but in this case that’s not a bad thing.  It’s big, loud, dumb fun, hardly a masterpiece but it does its job admirably well, and it has one hell of a secret weapon at its disposal – Tom Hardy. PERFECTLY cast as morally ambiguous underdog investigative journalist Eddie Brock, he deploys the kind of endearingly sleazy, shit-eating charm that makes you root for him even when he acts like a monumental prick, while really letting rip with some seriously twitchy, sometimes downright FEROCIOUS unhinged craziness once he becomes the unwilling host for a sentient parasitic alien symbiote with a hunger for living flesh and a seriously bad attitude.  This is EASILY one of the best performances Hardy’s ever delivered, and he entrances us in every scene, whether understated or explosive, making even the most outlandish moments of Brock’s unconventional relationship with Venom seem, if not perfectly acceptable, then at least believable.  He’s ably supported by Michelle Williams as San Francisco district attorney Anne Weying, his increasingly exasperated ex-fiancée, Rogue One’s Riz Ahmed as Carlton Drake, the seemingly idealistic space-exploration-funding philanthropist whose darker ambitions have brought a lethal alien threat to Earth, and Parks & Recreation’s Jenny Slate as Drake’s conflicted head scientist Nora Skirth, while there’s a very fun cameo from a particularly famous face in the now ubiquitous mid-credits sting that promises great things in the future.  Director Ruben Fleischer brought us Zombieland and 30 Minutes Or Less, so he certainly knows how to deliver plenty of blackly comic belly laughs, and he brings plenty of seriously dark humour to the fore, the rating meaning the comedy can get particularly edgy once Venom starts to tear up the town; it also fulfils the Marvel prerequisite of taking its action quota seriously, delivering a series of robust set-pieces (the standout being a spectacular bike chase through the streets of San Fran, made even more memorable by the symbiote’s handy powers). Best of all, the film isn’t afraid to get genuinely scary with some seriously nasty alien-induced moments of icky body horror, captured by some strangely beautiful effects works that brings Venom and his ilk to vivid, terrifying life.  Flawed as it is, this is still HUGE fun, definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic guilty pleasures, and I for one can’t wait to see more from the character in the near future, which, given what a massive success the film has already proven at the box office, seems an ironclad certainty.

26.  SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY – the second of Disney’s new phase of Star Wars movies to feature in the non-trilogy-based spinoff series had a rough time after its release – despite easily recouping its production budget, it still lost the $100-million+ it spent on advertising, while it was met with extremely mixed reviews and shunned by many hardcore fans.  I’ll admit that I too was initially disappointed with this second quasi prequel to A New Hope (after the MUCH more impressive Rogue One), but a second, more open-minded viewing after a few months to ruminate mellowed my experience considerably, the film significantly growing on me.  An origin story for the Galaxy’s most lovable rogue was always going to be a hard sell – Han Solo is an enjoyable enigma in The Original Trilogy, someone who lives very much in the present, his origins best revealed in the little details we glean about him in passing – but while it’s a flawed creation, this interstellar heist adventure mostly pulls off what was intended.  Like many fans of The Lego Movie, I remain deeply curious about what original director duo Phil Lord and Chris Miller could have achieved with the material, but I wholeheartedly approved Disney’s replacement choice when he was announced – Ron Howard is one of my favourite “hit-and-miss” directors, someone who’s made some clunkers in his time (The Da Vinci Code, we’re looking at you) but can, on a good day, be relied on to deliver something truly special (Willow is one of my VERY FAVOURITE movies from my childhood, one that’s stood up well to the test of time, and a strong comparison point for this; Apollo 13 and Rush, meanwhile, are undeniable MASTERPIECES), and in spite of its shortcomings I’m ultimately willing to consider this one of his successes. Another big step in the right direction was casting Hail, Caesar! star Alden Ehrenreich in the title role – Harrison Ford’s are seriously huge shoes to fill, but this talented young man has largely succeeded.  He may not quite capture that wonderful growling drawl but he definitely got Han’s cocky go-getter swagger right, he’s particularly strong in the film’s more humorous moments, and he has charisma to burn, so he sure makes entertaining viewing.  It also helps that the film has such a strong supporting cast – with original Chewbacca Peter Mayhew getting too old for all this derring-do nonsense, former pro basketball-player Joonas Suotamo gets a little more comfortable in his second gig (after The Last Jedi) in the “walking carpet” suit, while Woody Harrelson adds major star power as Tobias Beckett, Han’s likeably slippery mentor in all things criminal in the Star Wars Universe, and Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke is typically excellent as Han’s first love Qi’ra, a fellow Corellian street orphan who’s grown up into a sophisticated thief of MUCH higher calibre than her compatriots.  The film is dominated, however, by two particularly potent scene-stealing turns which make you wonder if it’s really focused on the right rogue’s story – Community star Donald Glover exceeds all expectations as Han’s old “friend” Lando Calrissian, every bit the laconic smoothie he was when he was played by Billy Dee Williams back in the day, while his droid companion L3-37 (voiced with flawless comic skill by British stage and sitcom actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge) frequently walks away with the film entirely, a weirdly flirty and lovably militant campaigner for droid rights whose antics cause a whole heap of trouble.  The main thing the film REALLY lacks is a decent villain – Paul Bettany’s oily kingpin Dryden Voss is distinctive enough to linger in the memory, but has criminally short screen-time and adds little real impact or threat to the main story, only emphasising the film’s gaping, Empire-shaped hole.  Even so, it’s still a ripping yarn, a breathlessly exciting and frequently VERY funny space-hopping crime caper that relishes that wonderful gritty, battered old tech vibe we’ve come to love throughout the series as a whole and certainly delivers on the action stakes – the vertigo-inducing train heist sequence is easily the film’s standout set-piece, but the opening chase and the long-touted Kessel Run impress too – it only flags in the frustrating and surprisingly sombre final act.  The end result still has the MAKINGS of a classic, and there’s no denying it’s also more enjoyable and deep-down SATISFYING than the first two films in George Lucas’ far more clunky Prequel Trilogy.  Rogue One remains the best of the new Star Wars movies so far, but this is nothing like the disappointment it’s been made out to be.

25.  AQUAMAN – the fortunes of the DC Extended Universe cinematic franchise continue to fluctuate – these films may be consistently successful at the box office, but they’re a decidedly mixed bag when it comes to their quality and critical opinion, and the misses still outweigh the hits.  Still, you can’t deny that when they DO do things right, they do them VERY right – 2017’s acclaimed Wonder Woman was a long-overdue validation for the studio, and they’ve got another winner on their hands with this bold, brash, VERY ballsy solo vehicle for one of the things that genuinely WORKED in the so-so Justice League movie.  Jason Momoa isn’t just muscular in the physical sense, once again proving seriously ripped in the performance capacity as he delivers rough, grizzled charm and earthy charisma as half-Atlantean Arthur Curry, called upon to try and win back the royal birthright he once gave up when his half-brother Prince Orm (Watchmen’s Patrick Wilson), ruler of Atlantis, embarks on a brutal quest to unite the seven underwater kingdoms under his command in order to wage war on the surface world.  Aquaman has long been something of an embarrassment for DC Comics, an unintentional “gay joke” endlessly derided by geeks (particularly cuttingly in the likes of The Big Bang Theory), but in Momoa’s capable hands that opinion has already started to shift, and the transition should be complete after this – Arthur Curry is now a swarthy, hard-drinking alpha male tempered with a compellingly relatable edge of deep-seeded vulnerability derived from the inherent tragedy of his origins and separation from the source of his immense superhuman strength, and he’s the perfect flawed action hero for this most epic of superhero blockbusters.  Amber Heard is frequently as domineering a presence as Atlantean princess Mera, a powerful warrior in her own right and fully capable of heading her own standalone adventure someday, and Wilson makes for a very solid and decidedly sympathetic villain whose own motivations can frequently be surprisingly seductive, even if his methods are a good deal more nefarious, while The Get Down’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is more down-and-dirty BAD as David Kane, aka the Black Manta, a lethally tech-savvy pirate who has a major score to settle with the Aquaman; there’s also strong support from the likes of Willem Dafoe as Curry’s sage-like mentor Vulko, Dolph Lundgren as Mera’s father, King Nereus, the ever-reliable Temuera Morrison as Arthur’s father Thomas, and Nicole Kidman as his ill-fated mother Atlanna.  Director James Wan is best known for establishing horror franchises (Saw, Insidious, The Conjuring), but he showed he could do blockbuster action cinema with Fast & Furious 7, and he’s improved significantly with this, delivering one gigantic action sequence after another with consummate skill and flair as well as performing some magnificent and extremely elegant world-building, unveiling dazzling, opulent and exotic undersea civilizations that are the equal to the forests of Pandora in Avatar, but he also gets to let some of his darker impulses show here and there, particularly in a genuinely scary visit to the hellish world of the Trench and its monstrous denizens.  It may not be QUITE as impressive as Wonder Woman, and it still suffers (albeit only a little bit) from the seemingly inherent flaws of the DCEU franchise as a whole (particularly in yet another overblown CGI-cluttered climax), but this is still another big step back in the right direction, one which, once again, we can only hope they’ll continue to repeat.  I’ll admit that the next offering, Shazam, doesn’t fill me with much confidence, but you never know, it could surprise us.  And there’s still Flashpoint, The Batman and Birds of Prey to come …

24.  THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI – filmmaker brothers Martin and John Michael McDonagh have carved an impressive niche in cinematic comedy this past decade, from decidedly Irish breakout early works (In Bruges from Martin and The Guard and Calvary from John) to enjoyable outsider-looking-in American crim-coms (Martin’s Seven Psychopaths and John’s War On Everyone), and so far they’ve all had one thing in common – they’re all BRILLIANT.  But Martin looks set to be the first brother to be truly accepted into Hollywood Proper, with his latest feature garnering universal acclaim, massive box office and heavyweight Awards recognition, snagging an impressive SEVEN Oscar nominations and taking home two, as well as landing a Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Picture.  It’s also the most thoroughly AMERICAN McDonagh film to date, and this is no bad thing, Martin shedding his decidedly Celtic flavours for an edgier Redneck charm that perfectly suits the material … but most important of all, from a purely critical point of view this could be the very BEST film either of the brothers has made to date.  It’s as blackly comic and dark-of-soul as we’d expect from the creator of In Bruges, but there’s real heart and tenderness hidden amongst the expletive-riddled, barbed razor wit and mercilessly observed, frequently lamentable character beats.  Frances McDormand thoroughly deserved her Oscar win for her magnificent performance as Mildred Hayes, a take-no-shit shopkeeper in the titular town whose unbridled grief over the brutal rape and murder of her daughter Angela (Kathryn Newton) has been exacerbated by the seeming inability of the local police force to solve the crime, leading her to hire the ongoing use of a trio of billboards laying the blame squarely at the feet of popular, long-standing local police Chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson). Needless to say this kicks up quite the shitstorm in the town, but Mildred stands resolute in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds, refusing to back down.  McDormand has never been better – Mildred is a foul-mouthed, opinionated harpy who tells it like it is, no matter who she’s talking to, but there’s understandable pain driving her actions, and a surprisingly tender heart beating under all that thorniness; Harrelson, meanwhile, is by turns a gruff shit-kicker and a gentle, doting family man, silently suffering over his own helplessness with the dead end the case seems to have turned into.  The film’s other Oscar-winner, Sam Rockwell, also delivers his finest performance to date as Officer Jason Dixon, a true disgrace of a cop whose permanent drunkenness has marred a career which, it turns out, began with some promise; he’s a thuggish force-of-nature, Mildred’s decidedly ineffectual nemesis whose own equally foul-mouthed honesty is set to dump him in trouble big time, but again there’s a deeply buried vein of well-meaning ambition under all the bigotry and pigheadedness we can’t help rooting for once it reveals itself.  There’s strong support from some serious heavyweights, particularly John Hawkes, Caleb Landry Jones, Peter Dinklage, Abbie Cornish and Manchester By the Sea’s breakout star Lucas Hedges, while McDonagh deserves every lick of acclaim and recognition he’s received for his precision-engineered screenplay, peerless direction and crisp, biting dialogue, crafting a jet black comedy nonetheless packed with so much emotional heft that it’ll have you laughing your arse off but crying your eyes out just as hard.  An honest, unapologetic winner, then.

23.  RED SPARROW – just when you thought we’d seen the last of the powerhouse blockbuster team of director Francis Lawrence and star Jennifer Lawrence with the end of The Hunger Games, they reunite for this far more adult literary feature, bringing Jason Matthews’ labyrinthine spy novel to bloody life.  Adapted by Revolutionary Road screenwriter Justin Haythe, it follows the journey of Russian star ballerina Dominika Egorova (Lawrence) into the shadowy world of post-Glasnost Russian Intelligence after an on-stage accident ruins her career.  Trained to use her body and mind to seduce her targets, Dominika becomes a “Sparrow”, dispatched to Budapest to entrap disgraced CIA operative Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton) and discover the identity of the deep cover double agent in Moscow he was forced to burn his own cover to protect.  But Dominika never wanted any of this, and she begins to plot her escape, no matter the risks … as we’ve come to expect, Jennifer Lawrence is magnificent, her glacial beauty concealing a fierce intelligence and deeply guarded desperation to get out, her innate sensuality rendered clinical by the raw, unflinching gratuity of her training and seduction scenes – this is a woman who uses ALL the weapons at her disposal to get what she needs, and it’s an icy professionalism that informs and somewhat forgives Lawrence’s relative lack of chemistry with Edgerton.  Not that it’s his fault – Nate is nearly as compelling a protagonist as Dominika, a roguish chancer whose impulsiveness could prove his undoing, but also makes him likeable and charming enough for us to root for him too.  Bullhead’s Matthias Schoenarts is on top form as the film’s nominal villain, Dominika’s uncle Ivan, the man who trapped her in this hell in the first place, Charlotte Rampling is beyond cold as the “Matron”, the cruel headmistress of the Sparrow School, Joely Richardson is probably the gentlest, purest ray of light in the film as Dominika’s ailing mother Nina, and Jeremy Irons radiates stately gravitas as high-ranking intelligence officer General Vladimir Andreievich Korchnoi.  This is a tightly-paced, piano wire-taut thriller with a suitably twisty plot that constantly wrong-foots the viewer, Lawrence the director again showing consummate skill at weaving flawlessly effective narrative with scenes of such unbearable tension you’ll find yourself perched on the edge of your seat throughout.  It’s a much less explosive film than we’re used to from him – most of the fireworks are of the acting variety – but there are moments when the tension snaps, always with bloody consequences, especially in the film’s standout sequence featuring a garrotte-driven interrogation that turns particularly messy.  The end result is a dark thriller of almost unbearable potency that you can’t take your eyes off.  Here’s hoping this isn’t the last time Lawrence & Lawrence work together …

22.  WIDOWS – Steve McQueen is one of the most challenging writer-directors working in Hollywood today, having exploded onto the scene with hard-hitting IRA-prison-biopic Hunger and subsequently adding to his solid cache of acclaimed works with Shame and 12 Years a Slave, but there’s a strong argument to be made that THIS is his best film to date. Co-adapted from a cult TV-series from British thriller queen Lynda La Plante by Gone Girl and Sharp Objects-author Gillian Flynn, it follows a group of women forced to band together to plan and execute a robbery in order to pay off the perceived debt incurred by their late husbands, who died trying to steal $2 million from Jamal Manning (If Beale Street Could Talk’s Brian Tyree Henry), a Chicago crime boss with ambitions to go legit as alderman of the city’s South Side Precinct.  Viola Davis dominates the film as Veronica Rawlings, the educated and fiercely independent wife of accomplished professional thief Harry (a small but potent turn from Liam Neeson), setting the screen alight with a barely restrained and searing portrayal of devastating grief and righteous anger, and is ably supported by a trio of equally overwhelming performances from Michelle Rodriguez as hard-pressed mother and small-businesswoman Linda Perelli, The Man From UNCLE’s Elizabeth Debicki as Alice Gunner, an abused widow struggling to find her place in the world now she’s been cut off from her only support-mechanism, and Bad Times At the El Royale’s Cynthia Eriyo as Belle, the tough, gutsy beautician/babysitter the trio enlist to help them once they realise they need a fourth member.  Henry is a deceptively subtle, thoroughly threatening presence throughout the film as Manning, as is Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya as his thuggish brother/lieutenant Jatemme, and Colin Farrell is seemingly decent but ultimately fatally flawed as his direct political rival, reigning alderman Jack Mulligan, while there are uniformly excellent supporting turns from the likes of Robert Duvall, Carrie Coon, Lukas Haas, Jon Bernthal and Kevin J. O’Connor.  McQueen once again delivers an emotionally exhausting and effortlessly powerful tour-de-force, wringing out the maximum amount of feels from the loaded and deeply personal human interactions on display throughout, and once again proves just as effective at delivering on the emotional fireworks as he is in stirring our blood in some brutal set-pieces, while Flynn help to deliver another perfectly pitched, intricately crafted script packed with exquisite dialogue and shrewdly observed character work which is sure to net her some major wins come Awards season.  Unflinching and devastating but thoroughly exhilarating, this is an extraordinary film (and if this was a purely critical list it would surely have placed A LOT higher), thoroughly deserving of every bit of praise, attention and success it has and will go on to garner.  An absolute must-see.

21.  JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM – Colin Trevorrow’s long-awaited 2015 Jurassic Park sequel was a major shot in the arm for a killer blockbuster franchise that had been somewhat flagging since Steven Spielberg brought dinosaurs back to life for the second time, but (edgier tone aside) it was not quite the full-on game-changer some thought it would be.  The fifth film, directed by J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, A Monster Calls) and written by Trevorrow and his regular script-partner Derek Connolly (Safety Not Guaranteed and JW, as well as Warner Bros’ recent “Monsterverse” landmark Kong: Skull Island), redresses the balance – while the first act of the film once again returns to the Costa Rican island of Isla Nublar, it’s become a very different environment from the one we’ve so far experienced, and a fiendish plot-twist means the film then takes a major swerve into MUCH darker territory than we’ve seen so far.  Giving away anything more does a disservice to the series’ most interesting story to date, needless to say this is EASILY the franchise’s strongest feature since the first, and definitely the scariest.  Hollywood’s most unusual everyman action hero, Chris Pratt, returns as raptor wrangler Owen Brady, enlisted to help rescue as many dinosaurs as possible from an impending, cataclysmic volcanic eruption, but in particular his deeply impressive trained raptor Blue, now the last of her kind; Bryce Dallas Howard is also back as former Jurassic World operations manager turned eco-campaigner Claire Dearing, and her His Girl Friday-style dynamic with Pratt’s Brady is brought to life with far greater success here, their chemistry far more convincing because Claire has become a much more well-rounded and believably tough lady, now pretty much his respective equal.  There are also strong supporting turns from the likes of Rafe Spall, The Get Down’s Justice Smith, The Vampire Diaries/The Originals’ breakout star Daniella Pineda, the incomparable Ted Levine (particularly memorable as scummy mercenary Ken Wheatley) and genuine screen legend James Cromwell, but as usual the film’s true stars are the dinosaurs themselves – it’s a real pleasure seeing Blue return because the last velociraptor was an absolute treat in Jurassic World, but she’s clearly met her match in this film’s new Big Bad, the Indoraptor, a lethally monstrous hybrid cooked up in Ingen’s labs as a living weapon.  Bayona cut his teeth on breakout feature The Orphanage, so he’s got major cred as an accomplished horror director, and he uses that impressive talent to great effect here, weaving an increasingly potent atmosphere of wire-taut dread and delivering some nerve-shredding set-pieces, particularly the intense and moody extended stalk-and-kill stretch that brings the final act to its knuckle-whitening climax.  It’s not just scary, though – there’s still plenty of that good old fashioned wonder and savage beauty we’ve come to expect from the series, and another hefty dose of that characteristic Spielbergian humour (Pratt in particular shines in another goofy, self-deprecating turn, while Smith steals many of the film’s biggest laughs as twitchy, out-of-his-comfort-zone tech wizard Franklin).  Throw in another stirring and epic John Williams-channelling score from Michael Giacchino and this is an all-round treat for the franchise faithful and blockbuster fans in general – EASILY the best shape the series has been in for some time, it shows HUGE promise for the future.

[nicolexgarcia]

looking back through my videos from nxtuk and i realised i basically just videoed toni storm and pete dunne and that’s IT 😂

honestly tho when toni storm didn’t win the title the crowd was legit a brock leaner beating taker moment and the guy in front of me looked like his world had just ended - i feel ya buddy.

but the quality isn’t great (f you apple) but i’ll maybe gif the videos and upload them?😉