#I’d watch an entire documentary on this one crew

[thatsrightice]

Rosie’s Riveters was the only aircraft to return from the mission to Münster on October 10, 1943 and it was no easy task getting home.

Blakely’s crew in 42-3393 Just-a-Snappin’ had to go through something similar on their return from the mission to Bremen as they had to drop out of formation and make the trek home by themselves. I think Blakely and the rest of his crew deserve a little bit of recognition too;

Bremen had the worst flak they’d ever seen. "There was so much solid flak, you could almost slice it like cake” said pilot Ev Blakely

Flak destroys the number four engine, left elevator, and stabilizer as well as cracks the nose sending shrapnel into the Bombardier and Navigator

They catch on fire, but their electrics are gone so they can’t use the fire extinguisher. The only way to put it out is to drop out of formation and head straight into a steep dive in hopes it blows it out, which Ev Blakely is miraculously able to do

Have to limp back well over 200 miles to get to base with a max speed of 120 mph (at 100 mph the aircraft would stall and drop out of the sky) and immediately watch the only other Fort near them explode in a ball of flames thanks to enemy fighters

Smashed shortwave radio forced Forky, the radio operator, to send out an SOS by touching two wires together and praying

They were a sitting duck for the enemy fighters as they limped back to base at a mere 120 mph (at 100 mph the aircraft would stall and drop out of the sky)

Compass was stuck so Crosby had to navigate using the position of the sun with near-constant course corrections

They are credited with taking out at least 11 enemy fighters on their way home but not without their own injuries. Three of their crew are seriously wounded, one has a three-inch hole in their stomach, half of one’s face was scalped, and the other had the entire lower half of their body crushed and bleeding

You know engine number four? Yeah, it’s on fire again so time for another dive and it’s a miracle it went out again

But now they’ve got to salvo literally everything out into the channel from the spent cartridges laying on the floor to their woolen flying clothes, including their boots

Their dinghies were shot to pieces by the German fighters (and Crosby accidentally pulled the emergency handle on the hatch in the nose) so landing in the water ain’t an option

Everyone who’s not flying goes to help the wounded, packing their wounds with their open parachutes and warming up the frozen morphine applicators (?) in their mouths

Now they’re coming in for a crash landing at a dummy UK base with literally zero control surfaces so Blakely and Kidd were piloting using pure strength. The rest of the crew go back to the waist and hold onto the injured men, like hold them to their chests, so that they aren’t further injured in the landing

Their brakes go out as they land and they’re sent careening into the only tree in the entire airfield, crushing the nose of the aircraft and sending tree branches and leaves through all of the windows and compartments (click for pics)

They just kind of sat there? Until someone came and was like “hey you need help?”

They want nothing more than something to eat but instead are stuck watching some officer count 1200 holes (no, not 800) before giving up because there’s too many

So now they had a hour long drive back to base, those who didn’t get sent to the hospital that is, only for the mess halls to be closed, all their stuff locked up in storage, and everyone looking at them like they were ghosts. But on the bright side, every man in the o-club tried to hand their drinks to them

Add-on:

In the end, 7 of her crew were injured and one fatally so. Most of the men would never fly another mission.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Nightmare ships  

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

“Most terrifying ship I ever seen?”

Mordray repeated the question as he took a thoughtful bite of his xala and pondered the question.

“I’d have to say a Hive Node ship.”

Lithinio scoffed. “When the seven hells have you ever seen a Node ship?”

“I watched a documentary on it just last rotation.” Mordray countered rather defensively. “And having watched it I have to say I’m glad I never saw one in person since they eat entire ships whole.”

Ninten sighed and rubbed the ridges of his face. “Let me change the question then to “What is the most terrifying ship you have ever seen IN PERSON.””

Mordary took another bite as he took in the updated question while Lithinio stepped in with their own answer.

“I once saw a Dru Hunter Class while part of a convoy escort mission.” He took a sip of his drink and ran his hands through the air as if tracing the vessel.

“From bow to stern it was covered in spikes and upon each spike was a corpse. It was like a ship of the dead come to collect its toll of the living.”

“I heard the stories about those.” Ninten nodded. “Doesn’t matter if you were a victim, an enemy, or just some bad luck bastard in the wrong place at the wrong time; they’d spike you just the same. Where’d you see it?”

“The Dinar Campaign,” Lithinio replied, “they couldn’t beat our warriors on the ground so they’d send out small raiding space parties to hammer the transports and supply ships before ever reaching their worlds.”

“Lost a lot of good lads that war.”

The trio of crewmen turned to see the speaker at the table opposite them had turned around. They wore the uniform of an engineer but had several markings of honorary navy marine, honorary gunner, and even one for honorary helmsman. This could be none other than the legendary Midar Nus, the most famous crewman on the ship.

“Apologies for intruding,” Midar said sheepishly, “I was overhearing your conversation and it drew up some memories.”

‘You are more than welcome to join us sir.” Ninten said as his two comrades nodded and made room at their table for Midar to join. He smiled and took the offer, changing tables and nestling himself down in the now free space.

“No need for that protocol with me lad,” Midar spoke with a wintery grin as he eyed Ninten, “especially since you technically outrank me.”

“Experience counts for more than bars, sir.” Ninten replied without thinking.

Midar was taken aback by the boldness and for a moment Ninten thought he had overstepped himself. Instead, Midar let out a deep booming laugh and patted him on the back as Lithinio and Mordray let out a sigh of relief.

“We could have used a dozen more of you during that scuffle with the Dru; would have saved a lot of my friends.”

Ninten took the compliment and tried to redirect the conversation before he said something to ruin his now good standing with a living legend.

“What about you then? What’s the scariest ship you’ve ever seen?”

The trio listened in half expecting him to say something heroic like “I’ve never seen a ship worth being afraid of” or “I once thought I saw one, but it was really my mate’s in-law”. Instead, the old sailor replied without even pausing to think.

“The ones who piloted them don’t have a name for it officially; only a name they had given to them by a creature of their dark past.”

“Whose they?” Mordray asked as Lithinio smacked him for interrupting the answer.

“Humans crewed the things, though it’s been a thankful many years since I last encountered one of those damnable vessels.”

He leaned in close and slowly cast a frightful gaze across the three of his listeners.

“They called them “Frankenstein” ships.”

None of the three said a thing, partly because none of the three had any idea what that word meant. Midar saw this and further explained.

“There’s a story amongst humans about a human named “Dr. Victor Frankenstein”, and they were so focused on circumventing death itself that they began performing horrific experiments on the living and the dead.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ninten asked “How can you perform horrific experiments if the subject is dead?”

Midar shrugged. “Story goes the mad doctor took the chopped up pieces of several dead humans, sewed them together, and then brought the creature to life.” 

“Putting aside the continued depraved and discouraging nature of humanity,” Lithinio chimed in, “what does this have to do with their ship design?”

“Because,” Midar continued, “like their mad doctor humans have an infuriating habit carving up the parts from other ships and adding those parts to their own.”

He leaned back into his chair as he recounted his first experience. “The first time I found myself up against one of those ships was in the Delta Cluster. We just fought of a border incursion and were tasked with protecting the wreckage while we sifted for survivors.”

“We just finish a patrol when we got a strange energy signature return near the edge of the wreckage. So we went to investigate it and there we found a human ship the size of a frigate slowly drifting through the debris field using a variety of arms to grab bits and pieces of ships.”

“The captain ordered a scan of the ship and the returns were a confusing mishmash of technological parts.”

“A Thorian engine block, a Juriet power core, a Nexium stabilizer…” he said listing out a surprisingly long list of ship parts from different species.

“None of those parts are designed to work with other tech.” Mordray commented. He would know as he was part of the engineering crew and well trained in ship maintenance. “The Juriet power core alone would generate far too much power for a ship that size; dangerously so much that using it could trigger a system overload.”

Midar nodded at the crewman’s insight. “Indeed, were it not for the majority of that power also going towards a Feren Gel class shield system. We found that out when we tried to disable their engines and our volley bounced off the thing like oil on water.”

Lithinio let out a whistle in awe while Midar continued.

“After that the thing began to slowly turn to make a run out of system so we drove in hard ready to grab it with our tractor beams. We were just about to make it when a panel at the rear of the ship opened up and a turret protruded out of it.”

“One shot.” Midar remarked as he held up a single taloned finger. “It took one shot at us and shattered our shield, blew out our engines, and triggered a cascading system overload that left us dead in space as they plowed out of system and made a jump.”

Ninten grumbled as he pondered Midar’s words. “Must’ve been a Telkar railgun. It’d run the entire length of a frigate ship, but it’d pack enough of a punch to deal that kinda damage; but the recoil alone would’ve split a ship that size in half.”

“Which we later found out was counter acted by a Wu’l gravity displacement field. They jacked it to max just as the railgun would fire and the counter action would cancel out the recoil.”

“I’m still confused why these things are so scary to you?” Mordray asked with a hint of a mocking tone. “They sound like garbage barges held together with scraps.”

Midar took on an offended expression and straightened up. “They’re terrifying because you never know what you are going up against. Frigate size packing battleship class weaponry, a patrol craft that can launch mini black holes, a cruiser that interwove nanomachine and organic materials that could repair any damage; every and anything was on the table!”

The ships seemed beyond reason and logic but the enthusiasm with which he spoke there was some truth to each description.

Ninten took a sip from his drink and nodded in appreciation. “Only fitting for the species that defies existence to have ships that actively defy the laws of technology.”  

[bunnytalksf1]

bunny! love you and thanks for your work and talent ;)

could you please clarify for me why Drive to Survive is unreliable thing about F1? i get that it's speculated a lot but still want to understand more, thank you

<3

Hi, thank you <3

Writing this on my phone so please excuse any mistakes!

The unreliability of documentary as a media form is inherent, because in order to produce documentary, the director must construct a narrative. This narrative is taken from reality, but it is also inherently biased to what the director sees, what editors see, etc. Even if I was a fan of DtS, I would have this criticism of it. Documentary CANNOT BE RELIABLE. It’s in the nature of the format.

But specifically for Drive To Survive:

The most glaring issue with this series is that it is commissioned by Liberty Media, who are responsible for the sport’s promotion. It was taken to Netflix in 2017 and has continued since. This means that they can’t really show anything unsavoury, or things that might disillusion people from watching the sport. That’s an extra level of bias.

Additionally:

In the first season, the producers had VERY limited access to the top teams. Both Mercedes and Ferrari wanted nothing to do with the camera crews, given they had a lot more to lose. RBR was the only top team willing to be in the show, and at the time they were kind of averaging third-fastest over the course of a season. The lack of insight into the top teams’ mechanics is frustrating to me in those episodes.

It also requires some sort of foresight, which is impossible. The way DtS is produced means that they have to guess who will have a Big Weekend, since they are embedded into teams from Wednesday to Sunday. And some race weeks, they aren’t there at all. If they have no footage of something, they can’t weave it into the narrative they’re constructing, so it gets left out. In the 2023 season, towards the back-end, one of the biggest narratives amongst fans was the emerging rivalry between Norris and Piastri, phenom rookie, who won a race before him in Qatar, and the emergence, too, of a very fast McLaren in the back end of the season. These were almost entirely left out of DtS because Netflix was not at Qatar.

Qatar was a big weekend for Mercedes too, because Russell and Hamilton crashed into each other, and there was a lot of noise over the public apology Hamilton gave etc. It got left out, though.

The main issue that the drivers and teams have is that its largely sensationalised and designed to create tension that simply isn’t there during the season. Verstappen was particularly vocal about this, and he suffers a fair bit: he was villainised in 2018 vs. Ricciardo, and then again in 2021 vs. Hamilton.

DtS also has its “main characters” in Ricciardo, Sainz, Alpine, and Haas (Geunter Steiner) etc, who let the DtS crews have more access than the average driver, like perhaps Verstappen or Leclerc (and Ferrari). Relying on personal footage means that DtS picks its main characters before we know who the main characters of the Actual Season are, which limits their ability to roll with the punches and represent the sport accurately.

It tips the balance of footage towards personal lives, with a lot of footage being taken from off the track / outside race weekends, which I personally don’t think is necessary, and also opens up drivers to parasocial relationships from fans (some drivers suffer a lot more than others, i.e. Norris, Leclerc, Sainz).

I think my main criticisms of DtS come from a) the format (its completely non-chronological, and hops from team to team which means that inter-team conflicts are minimised in favour for intra-team ones) and b) it is a behind-the-scenes of the drivers, not the sport. I’d prefer to see most of, if not all of, the footage taken from race weekends, and for the series to be a peek behind the curtain at the sport itself, but Netflix is (or was, at the time) not allowed access because there is A LOT that these teams want to keep secret from camera crews, and this doesn’t just go for DtS: it also goes for the actual media present in the day-to-day of the sport.

A lot of this is My Opinion, but I share a lot of these sentiments with F1 fans. I watch DtS as a fun little bingo thing at the end of the year, rather than a replacement for the season.

That being said, the positive about DtS is that it gives an overview from 2018 onwards and allows new fans to learn enough quite quickly to interact with other fans, who have their own takes and thoughts and can even out the bias DtS presents us with. It gives a decent baseline understanding of the sport, even if Will Buxton has become somewhat of a meme because of it.

Hope that helps:) DtS is also NOT the only docuseries on f1 - theres the Brawn GP doc (v good) and Leclerc and Verstappen each have stuff produced about them by Canal+ and Viaplay respectively.

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (702): Sat 17th Feb 2024

Is there a KISS Navy? There should be. It’s all well and good that KISS are defending the country on land but what about threats from the sea? 

Another taxi ride to work this morning because of my fucking useless motorbike. Actually it’s not totally useless, I suppose you could use it as an obstacle to jump over on a proper motorbike. I discussed with driver that I was thinking about getting a car and he suggested I become a taxi driver as you meet lots of weird and wonderful people in his line of work. I asked him which I was and he said “Nah you’re just normal”. On the surface that sounds like a compliment but not compared to being told that you’re wonderful which he could have said but definitively did not. A bit like being by told that you have a great sense of humour by a date who then says “but I think we should see other people” and then she starts banging a bodybuilder with nonsense of humour (if you’re wondering what the fuck I’m blathering on about today then don’t worry you’re not the only one).  I was hoping that the mechanic would be out tonight to fix the bike but I didn’t hear from him so looks like I’m going to be spending at least another £15 on a taxi to work AGAIN. When I got in I went for a run possibly for the first time this year (I can’t be bothered to check the archive) and thankfully managed to get through the whole thing without tearing something in my calf muscle. I’m hoping that with my upcoming holiday I can use it to make a start on getting into shape, since I’ll have more access to healthy foods at home than I would at work if I feel hungry. Plus I can go for a run twice a day when I’m off which I can’t do on work days (well I could but I’d have to get up at about four in the morning and fuck that). Before bed I watched a documentary about Hayao Miyazaki’s creative process as he brainstorms ideas for the then-upcoming Ponyo. I have to say I didn’t expect Miyazaki would be the kind of artist who would allow a documentary crew to film him while he works, I always thought he’d be the kind of guy who values his privacy too much. Though in the documentary he does very little work, we mostly see him doing his daily routine in order to free up his mind for creative thinking. At one point after an entire day where he hasn’t come up with a single idea for the film he starts to tear up. Even though he’s the kind of artist who believes you can’t force ideas to come he is still a creative type who gets his thrills from coming up with ideas so when he hasn’t had one for a while it must be like a junkie going through the withdrawal symptoms. If I’d have been the documentarian filming this I could have helped him out by pitching my idea about the band KISS setting up their own navy. 

[raesnovelsblog]

Synopsis according to IMDB:

Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened.

I adore this movie. Love a found footage film. Especially one that can use their low budget to their advantage. I don't think enough people know or talk about this movie.

8 stars.

How does it treat…

Women? Pretty decent, especially for a horror movie. Out of the 6 major cast, 2 are women.

Does it pass the Bechdel test? Yes. The women don’t talk about any relationships.

How long till a woman speaks?  30 seconds. First line of the movie.

Relationships? No toxic relationships, so yeah.

Sex? No sex scenes, two scenes with a woman in her underwear, one quasi-horn dog character, but he’s only slightly offensive.

LGBTQIA+? Not against, but also non-existent

Minorities? Not against, but also non-existent

Older People? N/A

Mental Health? Hauntings blamed on mental issues, but the movie doesn’t demonize mental health.

Kids? N/A

Animals? N/A

Tone

Was it fun? Yes

Was it worth it? Yes

Rewatchability? Yes

Gore level? Very Mild. Overall tone not too dark nor not too light. Very middle of the road.

Cliches

Tired? Maybe to some, but not to me.

Appropriate? Yes - filming everything, haunted house

Subverted? No, but not every movie needs to do that.

Spoilery thoughts below I had while watching the movie. You have been warned.

- Love how it starts with the ending and then shows it to you again at the end with the additional footage and point of view.

- That guy's mustache is impressive.

- The rules about when the ghost will or won’t attack you are not-consistent.

- Location creepy enough for a haunted house.  

- Don’t know if I’d drive out to the middle of nowhere for a  haunted house.  Especially for such a mid haunt.

- Would not stay the night there.  You could not pay me enough.

- Do not appreciate the term “a little rapey”.

- The glimpses of things just out of the main frame are effective.

- The woman walking into Paul’s room is creepy.

- The clown mannequins are truly creepy.

- Hearing a strange noise in the middle of the night and going to investigate is so white people behavior.  

- That clown’s head moving, nope.  My ass would be gone.

- If I saw that thing randomly appear in the hallway, I’d freak out too.

- That clown mannequin is by far their creepiest and most effective low stakes scare. You don’t have to spend big bucks on CGI to have effective scares.

- The clown has moved several times. Do they leave, nope.  They run upstairs. They work under the ‘if I’m under the covers, nothing can get me’ mentality. 

- The creepy woman just sitting on the floor without being noticed, freaked me out.  And more under the covers action.  Him peeking out to see if she notices is by far the scariest thing in the entire movie so far.  And I’m terrified of clowns.

- Clowns moving on their own is one thing.  Hearing a piano play randomly in the middle of the night is another.

-  So they aren’t going to question how Paul is there now, but wasn’t there before.  Dude’s not right, he needs a doctor. But guys in their twenties not thinking of that is absolutely plausible. 

- Finally some rage and storming out… lasts all of two seconds.  

- Real restraints for the damsel in distress in the basement?  Who thought that was a good idea?

- Continuity error that I never picked up on.  They make a point of showing Joey running out of the basement and when it shows the rest of the footage from in the basement, Joey is choosing at that moment to leave.  

- Curious if the demon/ghosts strung Alex up or if he legitimately tried to hang himself.

- The slight nod is the only time she lies.  Although you could argue it’s not even a nod.

- What accent is that by the lady at the front desk?  And I don’t know if they’d tell you what room a guest was in even in 2016.

- Death by camera.

- Slitting his own throat was cool, but why the crotch shot?

-The door was locked from the outside.  She was asking to be killed.

- That piano music is effectively creepy.

[space-cat-in-a-teacup]

TMNT ideas that I’d love to write, though I don’t know how or when:

-Crossover between Rise and 2012 (and maybe 2003) where they all are stuck in Rise’s New York... and there’s a musical curse on the entire city. Cue shenanigans, incredibly unusual bonding activities, and of course, musical numbers. (All stolen from other musicals because I can only write lyrics once in a blue moon, and definitely not on call. Yet.)

-A classic ‘next generation travels back in time to the canon of the show’.. except the 12 and Rise nextgens both travel back in time and they swap dimensions while they’re at it, so the 12 Turtles interact with the Rise kids and vice versa. Also the Leo’s swap too because why not have even More chaos.

-The Mothman Festival/Competition, a Rise fic taking place about a year after the movie, where the boys accidentally strand themselves in West Virginia and then discover a hidden society of moth yokai and become bodyguards for the Annual(actual amount of times it happens unknown) Mothman Competition. Also Mikey gets a boyfriend by the end of it.

-Self-indulgent 2012 fic where I give Leo an enemies-to-lovers arc without raising the weirdness of his love interest also being Splinter’s daughter. And it’s gay. Also other things happen, because introducing a batch of OCs right smack dab in the first half of S2 is bound to change the timeline and course of history, but it’s mostly Leo Gay.

-A sequel (or several, if we consider the possible oneshots) to the fic I’m currently writing that I can’t talk about because oops, ~spoilers~.

-A series of oneshots for Rise, each focused on a different turtle (+ April, I’m sure) that’s essentially a summary of what happens to them over the years after the show and movie’s end, showing snippets of the trials and tribulations, covering both of the things I’m thinking out fics for (The Mothman Competition for example) and the ones I’m not/am not sure I’d know how to write (which of course could change), all of the fics ending on the same day.

-The Rise, 2012, and 2003 (maybe even the 87 crew) all gets stuck in a room and forced to watch stuff. What it is could be anything- AUs angsty and crack alike, each of their respective shows, or even a Lair Games-esque documentary by the nextgen kids. But shenanigans are abound.

[mostlymovieswithmax]

Movies I watched in May

Sadly, I kind of skipped writing a post for April. It was a mad month with so much going on: lots of emails sent and lots of stress. I started a new job so I’m getting to grips with that... and even then, I still watched a bunch of movies. But this is about what I watched in May and, yeah… still a bunch. So if you’re looking to get into some other movies - possibly some you’ve thought about watching but didn’t know what they were like, or maybe like the look of something you’ve never heard of - then this may help! So here’s every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of May 2021 Tenet (2020) - 8/10 This was my third time watching Christopher Nolan’s most Christopher Nolan movie ever and it makes no sense but I still love it. The spectacle of it all is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had also watched it four days prior to this watch also, only this time I had enabled audio description for the visually impaired, thinking it would make it funny… It didn’t.

Nomadland (2020) - 6/10 Chloé Zhao’s new movie got a lot of awards attention. Everyone was hyped for this and when it got put out on Disney+ I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. Seeing these real nomads certainly gave the film an authenticity, along with McDormand’s ever-praisable acting. But generally I found it quite underwhelming and lacking a lot in its pacing. Nomadland surely has its moments of captivating cinematography and enticing commentary on the culture of these people, but it felt like it went on forever without any kind of forward direction or goal. The Prince of Egypt (1998) - 6/10 I reviewed this on my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. For what it is, it’s pretty fun but nowhere near as good as some of the best DreamWorks movies.

Chinatown (1974) - 8/10 What a fantastic and wonderfully unpredictable mystery crime film! I regret to say I’ve not seen many Jack Nicholson performances but he steals the show. Despite Polanski’s infamy, it’d be a lie to claim this wasn’t truly masterful. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Admittedly I was half asleep as I curled up on the sofa to watch this again on a whim. I watched this with someone who demanded the dubbed version over the subtitled version and while I objected heavily, I knew I’d seen the movie before so it didn’t matter too much. That person also fell asleep about 20 minutes in, so how pointless an argument it was. Howl’s Moving Castle boasts superb animation, the likes of which I’ve only come to expect of Miyazaki. The story is so unique and the colours are absolutely gorgeous. This may not be my favourite from the legendary director but there’s no denying its splendour.

Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015) - 3/10 The next morning I watched some absolute trash. This crazy, over the top Indian movie is hilarious and I could perhaps recommend it if it weren’t so long. That being said, Bāhubali was not a dumpster fire; it has a lot of good-looking visual effects and it’s easy to see the ambition for this epic story, it just doesn’t come together. There’s fun to be had with how the main character is basically the strongest man in the world and yet still comes across as just a lucky dumbass, along with all the dancing that makes no sense but is still entertaining to watch. Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 If it wasn’t obvious already, Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, so more thoughts can be found there. Red Road (2006) - 6/10 Another recommendation on episode 30 of the podcast. Red Road really captures the authentic British working class experience. Before Sunrise (1995) - 10/10 One of the best romances put to film. The first in Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is undoubtedly my favourite, despite its counterparts being almost equally as good. It tells the story of a young couple travelling through Europe, who happen to meet on a train and spend the day together. It is gloriously shot on location in Vienna and features some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve ever seen put to film. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10 This Japanese classic - along with being visually and sonically masterful - is a lot about appreciating the people in your life and taking the time to show them that you love them. It’s about knowing it’s never too late to rekindle old relationships if you truly want to, which is something I’ve been able to relate to in recent years. It broke my heart in two. Tokyo Story will make you want to call your mother. Before Sunset (2004) - 10/10 Almost a decade after Sunrise, Sunset carries a sombre yet relieving feeling. Again, the performances from Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke take me away, evoking nostalgic feelings as they stroll through the contemporary Parisian streets. There is no regret in me for buying the Criterion blu-ray boxset for this trilogy. Before Midnight (2013) - 10/10 Here, Linklater cements this trilogy as one of the best in film history. It’s certainly not the ending I expected, yet it’s an ending I appreciate endlessly. Because it doesn’t really end. Midnight shows the troubling times of a strained relationship; one that has endured so long and despite initially feeling almost dreamlike in how idealistically that first encounter was portrayed, the cracks appear as the film forces you to come to terms with the fact that fairy-tale romances just don’t exist. Relationships require effort and sacrifice and sometimes the ones that truly work are those that endure through all the rough patches to emerge stronger. The Holy Mountain (1973) - 10/10 Jodorowsky’s masterpiece is absolute insanity. I talked more about it on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10 Another watch for Grand Budapest because I bought the Criterion blu-ray. As unalterably perfect as ever. Blue Jay (2016) - 6/10 Rather good up to a point. My co-hosts and I did not agree on how good this movie was, which is a discussion you can listen to on my podcast. Shadow and Bone: The Afterparty (2021) - 3/10 For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, which is why I wanted to see what ‘The Afterparty’ was about. This could have been a lot better and much less annoying if all those terrible comedians weren’t hosting and telling bad jokes. I don’t want to see Fortune Feimster attempt to tell a joke about oiling her body as the cast of the show sit awkwardly in their homes over Zoom. If it had simply been a half hour, 45 minute chat with the cast and crew about how they made the show and their thoughts on it, a lot of embarrassment and time-wasting could have been spared. Wadjda (2012) - 6/10 Another recommendation discussed at length on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Wadjda was pretty interesting from a cultural perspective but largely familiar in terms of story structure.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 2/10 A truly terrible movie with maybe one or two scenes that stop it from being a complete catastrophe. Tom Green tried to create something that almost holds a middle finger to everyone who watches it and to some that could be a fun experience, but to me it just came across as utterly irritating. It’s simply a bunch of scenes threaded together with an incredibly loose plot. He wears the skin of a dead deer, smacks a disabled woman over and over again on the legs to turn her on, and he swings a newborn baby around a hospital room by its umbilical cord (that part was actually pretty funny). I cannot believe I watched this again, although I think I repressed a lot of it since having seen it for the first time around five years ago. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 - (2011) I have to say, these movies seem to get better with each instalment. They’re still not very good though. That being said, I’m amazed at how many times I’ve watched each of the Twilight movies at this point. This time around, I watched Breaking Dawn - Part 1 with a YMS commentary track on YouTube and that made the experience a lot more entertaining. Otherwise, this film is super dumb but pretty entertaining. I would recommend watching these movies with friends. Solaris (1972) - 8/10 Andrei Tarkovsky’s grand sci-fi epic about the emotional crises of a crew on the space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris is much as strange and creepy as you might expect from the master Russian auter. I had wanted to watch this for a while so I bought the Criterion blu-ray and it’s just stunning. It’s clear to see the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration but Solaris is quite a different beast entirely. Jaws (1975) - 4/10 I really tried to get into this classic movie, but Jaws exhibits basically everything I don’t like about Steven Spielberg’s directing. For sure, the effects are crazily good but the story itself is poorly handled and largely uninteresting. It was just a massive slog to get through.

Darkman (1990) - 6/10 Sam Raimi’s superhero movie is so much fun, albeit massively stupid. Further discussion on Darkman can be found on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) - 1/10 Abysmal. I forgot the movie as I watched it. This was part of a marathon my friends and I did for episode 32 of our podcast. Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) - 1/10 Perhaps this trilogy is not so great after all. Only marginally better than Darkman II but still pretty terrible. More thoughts on episode 32 of my podcast. F For Fake (1973) - 8/10 Rewatching this proved to be a worthwhile decision. Albeit slightly boring, there’s no denying how crazy the story of this documentary about art forgers is. The standout however, is the director himself. Orson Welles makes a lot of this film about himself and how hot his girlfriend is and it is hilarious.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) - 4/10 More style over substance, Sony’s new animated adventure wants so much to be in trend with the current internet culture but it simply doesn’t understand what it’s emulating. There’s a nyan cat reference, for crying out loud. For every joke that works, there are about ten more that do not and were it not for the wonderful animation, it simply wouldn’t be getting so much praise. Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10 The first movie I’ve seen in a cinema since 2020 and damn it was good to be back! I’ve already reviewed Taxi Driver in my March wrap-up but seeing it in the cinema was a real treat. Irreversible (2002) - 8/10 One of the most viscerally horrendous experiences I’ve ever had while watching a movie. I cannot believe a friend of mine gave me the DVD to watch. More thoughts on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Don’t watch it with the family. The Golden Compass (2007) - 1/10 I had no recollection of this being as bad as it is. The Golden Compass is the definition of a factory mandated movie. Nothing it does on its own is worth any kind of merit. I would say, if you wanted an experience like what this tries to communicate, a better option by far is the BBC series, His Dark Materials. More of my thoughts can be found in the review I wrote on Letterboxd.

Antichrist (2009) - 8/10 Lars von Trier is nothing if not provocative and I can understand why someone would not like Antichrist, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. After watching it, I wrote a slightly disjointed summary of my interpretations of this highly metaphorical movie in the group chat, so fair warning for a bit of spoilers and graphic descriptions: It's like, the patriarchy, man! Oppression! Men are the rational thinkers with big brains and the women just cry and be emotional. So she's seen as crazy when she's smashing his cock and driving a drill through his leg to keep him weighted down. Like, how does he like it, ya know? So then she mutilates herself like she did with him and now they're both wounded, but the animals crowd around her (and the crow that he couldn't kill because it's Mother nature, not Father nature, duh). Then he kills her, even though she could've killed him loads of times but didn't. So it's like "haha big win for the man who was subjected to such horrific torture. Victory!" And then all the women with no faces come out of the woods because it's like a constant cycle. Manchester By The Sea (2016) - 6/10 Great performances in this super sad movie. I can’t say I got too much out of it though. Roar (1981) - 9/10 Watching Roar again was still as terrifying an experience as the first time. If you want to watch something that’s loose on plot with poor acting but with real big cats getting in the way of production and physically attacking people, look no further. This is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen because it’s all basically real. Cannot recommend it enough. Eyes Without A Face (1960) - 8/10 I’m glad I checked this old French movie out again. There’s a lot to marvel at in so many aspects, what with the premise itself - a mad surgeon taking the faces from unsuspecting women and transplanting them onto another - being incredibly unique for the time. Short, sweet and entertaining!

Se7en (1995) - 10/10 The first in a David Fincher marathon we did for The Sunday Movie Marathon, episode 33. Zodiac (2007) - 10/10 Second in the marathon, as it was getting late, we decided to watch half that evening and the last half on the following evening. Zodiac is a brilliant movie and you can hear more of my thoughts on the podcast (though I apologise; my audio is not the best in this episode). Gone Girl (2014) - 10/10 My favourite Fincher movie. More insights into this masterpiece in episode 33 of the podcast. Friends: The Reunion (2021) - 6/10 It was heartwarming to see the old actors for this great show together again. I talked about the Friends reunion film at length in episode 33 of my podcast.

Wolfwalkers (2020) - 10/10 I reviewed this in an earlier post but would like to reiterate just how wonderful Wolfwalkers is. If you get the chance, please see it in the cinema. I couldn’t stop crying from how beautiful it was. Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) - 6/10 After watching Wolfwalkers, I decided I didn’t want to go home. So I had lunch in town and booked a ticket for Disney’s Raya and The Last Dragon. A child was coughing directly behind me the entire time. Again, I reviewed this in an earlier post but generally it was decent but I have so many problems with the execution. The Princess Bride (1987) - 9/10 Clearly I underrated this the last time I watched it. The Princess Bride is warm and hilarious with some delightfully memorable characters. A real classic!

The Invisible Kid (1988) - 1/10 About as good as you’d expect a movie with that name to be, The Invisible Kid was a pick for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 34. Babel (2006) - 9/10 The same night that I watched The Invisible Kid, I watched a masterful and dour drama from the director of Birdman and The Revenant. Babel calls back to an earlier movie of Iñárritu’s, called Amores Perros and as I was informed while we watched this for the podcast, it turns out Babel is part of a trilogy alongside the aforementioned film. More thoughts in episode 34 of the podcast. Snake Eyes (1998) - 1/10 After feeling thoroughly emotionally wiped out after Babel, we immediately watched another recommendation for the podcast: Snake Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage. This was a truly underwhelming experience and for more of a breakdown into what makes this movie so bad, you can listen to us talk about it on the podcast.

[theparanormalperiodical]

Top 10 Controversial Horror Films That Are Famous For All The Wrong Reasons *gags* *cries*

At the beating heart of horror is offence.

From that undeniable sense of something not being quite right, to the CGI-blood-spurtin’-adrenaline-fuelled scenes that leave us shaking in our boots, horror pivots on the knife edge of controversy.

It’s used to drive plots. It’s used to drive hype. And at the end of the month, it drives studio executives to the bank.

Horror films can be traumatic enough. But there are some films that bear the cross of controversy more than others. There are some films that have been branded as so damaging to their potential viewers that merely circulating copies of the film is illegal.

And yet their infamy has forged cult viewership. What was once shielded from us has now become ‘must see’.

Today we are going to be counting down horror’s most controversial films and what made them quite so topical.

*I’m going to star the ones that you can actually watch without getting traumatised. Some are controversial not because of their content but because some religious or political groups disagreed with them*

#10 - The Blair Witch Project (1999)*

Let’s ease in with a classic - a classic you can watch without sleeping with the light on.

In this found-footage flick we see a team of film students as they explore a local urban legend. But what they find leads them to unknown and ungodly territory.

The problem with this film is that it was marketed as a true story. No, not based on a true story, a true story. Yep, they claimed what we were seeing was real, found footage of some teens going mad as they forage deeper into mysterious woods.

IMBd went so far as to report that the actors were dead. Then, the movie studio super-charged their efforts to confirm to the public that not only was this film 100% real, the three main actors were still missing. The parents of the actors then started receiving sympathy cards.

There’s even a mocked up website that perpetuates these claims. 

#9 - Night Of The Living Dead (1968)*

Time for another not-too-disturbing film.

This is the original zombie apocalypse film saw a group of Americans attempt to survive an incoming attack of the undead while trapped in a rural farmhouse.

But the Motion Picture Association of America wasn’t too happy about it. The film rating system was yet to be in place, allowing children to also show up for an afternoon screening and be greeted by a 97 minute montage of extreme violence.

“The kids in the audience were stunned. There was almost complete silence. The movie had stopped being delightfully scary about halfway through, and had become unexpectedly terrifying. There was a little girl across the aisle from me, maybe nine years old, who was sitting very still in her seat and crying”

#8 - Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)

In this psychological film, we watch a random crime spree take place at the hands of a couple serial killers. Loosely based on real murderers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole, its controversial reputation was founded on the gore ‘n’ guts screened in the movie.

Whilst it didn’t receive much attention from the public, various classification boards across the world ensured new versions edited with certain scenes - often involving sexual assault and necrophilia - removed for viewers.

In 2003, the BBFC (the UK classification board) finally allowed the uncut version to be released and Australia followed suit in 2005.

#7 - I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

It’s the original rape-revenge flick. And it managed to piss everyone off.

Originally titled Day of the Woman, it tells the story of a fiction writer who exacts revenge on a group of four men who gang rape her.

Despite its pro-women claim-to-fame, the 30 minute rape scene begs to differ. Furious debate surrounds its feminist label as a film that forces the audience to endure rape from a female perspective and long-winded violence against men (something which is often reserved for women in horror). Regardless, the graphic violence earned it a steady ban in Ireland, Norway, Iceland, and West Germany.

#6 - Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)*

You don’t get many controversial Christmas films. They typically stick to a cookie-cutter plot ‘n’ purpose every holiday season. But there are no strong women who need to rediscover the meaning of Christmas here.

Instead, we see a child traumatised by seeing his parents murdered on Christmas Eve go on a seasonal rampage as an adult.

A week after its release in the early 80s, it was pulled from theatres due to backlash. Marketing was focused on a Santa Claus killer with adverts often airing during family-friendly TV programmes and meant numerous children developed a phobia of Father Christmas. Large crowds protested cinemas with one notable protest involving angry families singing carols at the Interboro Quad Theater in The Bronx.

It was only in 2009 - 25 years after its original release - that a DVD of the film was first made available for purchase in the UK.

#5 - Psycho (1960)*

This legendary film follows the disappearance of a young woman after her encounter with a strange man called Norman Bates, one of horror’s most iconic figures. The controversy that would engulf this fim lay not in the violent attack on an innocent woman or even the disturbing content of the film.

Oh, no. It was because of what the leading lady was wearing.

In the opening scene of the film, we see Janet Leigh wearing nothing but a bra.

*gasp*

This racy attire was emblazoned across promotional material, meeting Hitchcock’s high standards of creating controversy around the movie. There was a no late admission policy for movie theaters, and the posters told viewers “Do not reveal the surprises!” to maintain a mysterious aura around the plot twist.

#4 - The Human Centipede (2009) (all of ‘em)

I’ve watched a lot of horror films, in case you couldn’t tell.

I’m used to watching a scary movie, shaking off the anxiety, and moving on with my life. But there are some that stayed with me. I only watched the trailer for the first movie, and it legitimately traumatised me. It gave me quite a severe, sudden bout of a depression for a solid month when I was 13.

Throughout horror’s goriest franchise, we see an evil doctor and amateur mad scientist attempt to sow several people together into a centipede-like chain from mouth to anus.

*retches*

At the heart of promoting the franchise was controversy. Tom Six, the director, forced a narrative that claimed from the first film that this was "100% medically accurate". He even alleged a Dutch doctor helped inspire the film, confirming that with an IV drip, this was entirely possible.

Although it didn’t receive furore that amounted to serious censorship or long-term banning, it was infamous for having its viewers vomiting in the cinema aisles.

The second film, however, was subject to much more severe controversy and could not legally be supplied in the UK until 2011 due to its heavy focus on sexual abuse, more graphic violence than the original film, and it’s pretty vile depiction of a murderer that was intellectually disabled.

Audiences were used to the graphic nature of the franchise by the third and final release. As the least-controversial and least-enjoyable film according to critics, it barely made a dent in the horror community.

Good riddance, I guess?

#3 - Faces Of Death (1978)

I’m not sure I’d recommend this one per se - but I will give it credit for being an interesting project.

This documentary-style film is a montage of footage of people dying in different ways. As a result of its very graphic and very real content, it was banned and censored in many countries. Only in 2003 was it released on DVD in the UK after a scene was cut featuring dogs fighting and a monkey being beaten to death.

Germany, Australia, and New Zealand followed suit, reversing their bans and releasing edited versions.

However, 7 years after its release, the media revamped its interest in the film after a maths teacher showed it to his class at a Californian high school. Two of his students claimed they were so traumatised they received a costly settlement to reimburse their emotional distress. Things took a darker turn a year later, when a 14 year old bludgeoned a classmate to death with a baseball bat; he claimed he wanted to see what it would be like to actually kill someone after watching Faces of Death.

#2 - Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

This Italian film’s title alone hints towards two frightening things: flesh-eating humans and genocide. In this found-footage movie we see an anthropologist lead a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to find a group of filmmakers that went missing.

The rampant graphic content including sexual assault and animal cruelty showcased in the film (7 animals were killed during filming in some pretty horrific ways) led to it being banned in 50 countries.

Some also alleged that a handful of deaths seen in the film were real, as were the missing film crew. In fact, the actors portraying the documentarians signed contracts that stopped them appearing in motion pictures for an entire year to maintain the illusion of reality.

And only 10 days after its premiere, the director was charged with obscenity and the film confiscated. All copies were to be turned over to the authorities. There are currently a range of versions that have been edited to varying degrees and are allowed for circulation.

#1 - A Serbian Film (2010)

No.

Nope.

Don’t do it. Don’t watch this film.

A Serbian Film follows a retired porn star who agrees to feature in an “art film” for some cash. Little does he know this film will include rape, incest, pedophilia, necrophilia…

Just don’t watch it.

It is still banned in South Korea, New Zealand, Australia. It is supposedly a parody of politically correct films made in Serbia that are funded by foreign groups and allegedly speaks openly about post-war society and the struggle for survival.

*shakes head*

Off to have a 3 hour shower, brb.

If you, uhhh, liked this post please like and reblog.

And if you want to hear more about horror and the supernatural every week hit follow!

[borom1r]

@a-wayfairing-stranger ok I literally just posted this but I saw your tags and hi do you know about the Other time Viggo almost died on set?

the scene were Aragorn floats down the river, Viggo was like “hey I’d love to be the one who does this stunt” so a couple of the safety guys put on wet suits and float down the river to test it out and come back to him like “great, if you do this you should wind up roughly at [insert spot in the river]”

except Aragorn’s costume is famously Not A Wetsuit and so Viggo, loaded down with things like An Entire Sword and A Wool Cloak is 1) struggling to keep his head above water to begin with and 2) not floating to the area they told him he would float to, had he been wearing just a wetsuit. the area he DOES float to happens to be an area with a very strong downward current. so as the crew is watching Viggo just fucking gets sucked underwater. straight disappears. mild panic ensues, he gets hauled out of the river, Viggo Mortensen did NOT tragically die during the filming of the lord of the rings trilogy.

Viggo’s only real comment after telling this story in the bts documentary was “yeah it was interesting to do it” !!!!????!??!???!!!?????

deranged.

ik we all love the “Sean Bean climbing a mountain to avoid riding in a helicopter” bit but equally important I think is “Sean Bean never getting the hang of the canoes and needing to be towed back to the right area multiple times bc he just kept fucking getting lost on the river”

[sixth-light]

further snippet from this of Nicky getting snarky:

The western gallery was where all the royal portraits were hung; well, not all of them, it was a curated and changing selection, but people tended to assume. Nicolò deliberately got al-Kaysani far enough ahead of the crew and their equipment that they weren’t quite in earshot, and was surprised when the first thing al-Kaysani said was “Where’s Godfrey II? That one’s my favourite.”

“We change them out,” Nicolò said, startled into speech. “By we, of course, I mean that the curator does. You did some research, it sounds like.”

Al-Kaysani shrugged, but his face said he was flattered. “This isn’t just someone’s portrait out of context; it’s in a tradition, there’s a history. I couldn’t do it at all if I didn’t know that.”

“What did make you want to do this?” Nicolò asked, engaged by the sincerity in his voice.

“My sister kept messaging me asking if I’d applied yet.” His eyes sparkled. “And this is a lovely city, and why not? And then once I got through the auditions I thought – actually, I am good enough to do this. Did you watch the show? Wait, no, silly question.”

“I would rather jump off that balcony right out there than watch reality television,” Nicolò said, which was almost true and more importantly, timed precisely for Ms Freeman, her producer, and the PR people to hear it.

This whole circus, the documentary of the portrait and the painter having won a contest, hadn’t been Nicolò’s idea. It had been his father’s, a way to get over the awkward questions being asked about the succession and indeed the entire concept of the monarchy, now the role of Crown Prince had suddenly fallen on the current Prince’s youngest son. An introduction for the twenty-first century.

Also, Nicolò was sure somewhere deep down, as a punishment for Nicolò nearly managing to leave. He would have managed it, he was certain, if he’d had a family of his own to leave for. But there hadn’t been, and Marco had married against their father’s wishes and his sisters had been born women and – well, here they were.

[fritae]

The Missing Piece:

Chapter 2 - Frustration

Gang leader! AU / Corporate! AU

Characters: Dabi x F/OC

Status: Ongoing

a/n: hey guys! so I'm playing with this idea and I'm not sure if I'm conveying it properly, but I hope you enjoy regardless! this story's really fun to write and I'm excited for what's to come! I'd really appreciate any feedback 🖤 thanks!

---

"Call Mr. Tobiro, tell him we're airing a new program next month" Mr. Lane tells me as we hurry through the halls.

I get confused. Didn't we resolve all this new program talk last week? I know the ratings still bother Mr. Lane, but enough to go against the board?"

"Sir, is this-"

"No. I'm not replacing any of the current shows. It'll be during the special programming slot on Saturday," He scowls. "A 2 hour special documentary about the Todoroki corp's amazing work these past few years. You know how popular the company is."

Something about this makes me uneasy. Why would he decide this out of nowhere?

His commands jolt me back to reality. "Make sure he adjusts the schedule and starts airing commercials. I want huge ratings, Ms. Aiko. We don't spend all this money to have another company show us up."

An intern quickly hands me Mr. Lane's morning coffee. I mouth a thank you and follow him to his office.

I place the coffee on his desk as he shouts on. I spot another employee carrying files for Mr. Lane. Her hands shake, as if she's trying to decide whether or not to drop them off now. We lock eyes through the glass and I decide for her.

Not now, I shake my head from behind Mr. Lane. Her eyes widen and she nods before quickly hurrying off.

"Are you listening to me, Ms. Aoki?

"Yes sir. I'll call Mr. Tobiro right away."

I keep a straight face as he shouts for the delay. As soon as I find an opening, I go out to call our corporate lawyer.

---

During lunch break, I head down to the cafeteria. I smile when I spot Aliyah and the crew. We tried to sync our lunch breaks to ensure we had some time together during the day (though we at times have to work through our breaks). It makes work feel less lonely.

"Rina!" She exclaims when I grab the seat beside her.

"We finally have some time together," I laugh before hugging her.

"Those bastards work you like a dog," She grumbles.

"You too," I pick at my salad. "Your hours are worse than mine."

"Yeah but I don't have the boss barking orders at me every second of the day. Rina's the real champ here, guys." She tells the table. The others clap at that, and we all share a laugh through mouths full of food.

As a couple executives make their way past our table, we stand up and smile at them in respect. But watching our smiles fall as soon as they walked away made me feel bitter.

"I hate how they treat us like trash and we still have to smile and kiss up to them." I whisper.

Al nods immediately. "But it's whatever. The more you kiss up, the better they'll pay you."

I don't respond to that.

Instead, I think back to the stranger I met last night.

Then what you want isn't money. You want more. He told me.

But the amount they pay us should be enough that we take whatever they throw at us.

Right? I mean, this is why everyone dreams of working here.

"Oh, by the way did you guys hear?" Aliyah suddenly whispers. "You know that multibillion dollar company uptown? Todoroki Inc.?"

"The one with all those charity projects?"

Todoroki Inc. was a big name in the industry. Their extreme success is known worldwide - but they're really known for their philanthropic branch: including building orphanages for the poor, handing out 6 figure donations, and the famous Boku no Hero Academia - where they train leaders in every industry to become tomorrow's changemakers, or as they call it "heroes."

Aliyah voice gets lower, a mischievous smile on her face.

"Except turns out Mr. Todoroki has been caught up in major lawsuits these past few months."

I frown. "For what?"

"Apparently there's been several child abuse cases at the orphanages he sponsors."

All around the table, our mouths drops. Usually lunchtime gossip involves the newest couples or breakups of the day. But this...

This has severe implications.

I'm not surprised that Al knows this. She interacts most directly with our guests and stars meaning she's in on a lot of industry gossip. But still...a major lawsuit like this?

"Is this real or is it one of your rumors?" Someone asks her suspiciously.

"It's as real as you or me! I saw videos . Trust me. There's plenty of people with beef against the company. Big boss Todoroki spent heavy money to keep it all hush-hush. But word travels quickly." She leans back in her seat with a smug look on her face. "We'll see how much power Enji really has by how quietly this unfolds."

"That's disgusting." I push my salad away, my appetite gone. "He can't get away with something like that. Where's the accountability?"

"There is no accountability, sweetheart. That's the way it works. You got money and power, you can get yourself out of anything. Besides, Enji has a reputation. He's got supporters everywhere, people see him as a hero because of all these charity projects."

"But they don't know what's happening in those projects!"

Suddenly, I remember something.

The special program!

I have to tell Mr. Lane. If this is really what's happening, we can't air something like this. It'll give people a false image of what the company stands for. Charity projects that have no proper supervision and that serve as places of abuse should never be celebrated.

"I- I have to go. I'll see you later Al, good luck with your schedule today!"

"But-"

"Sorry, I just remembered something I have to do."

I can't let her know about the program just yet. If I'm lucky, it hasn't been formalized into our official programming. I need to get to Mr. Lane before it does...

---

"Mr. Lane!" I barge into his office.

My boss looks up from his desk, slightly concerned at the look on my face. I slow down to catch my breath.

"Sir, about the Todoroki programming you want to set up. We need to cancel it sir, there's- there's a huge lawsuit going on. The orphanages - the kids are being mistreated sir, please-"

Mr. Lane leans back in his seat.

"Ms. Aoki, relax. That's not your concern. The deal is done."

"Sir...this will give a false image of Mr. Todoroki and his company."

"It's not a false image, it's an alternate image. That's what this whole industry is about. Mr. Todoroki is not responsible for what his managers do. And unless you're speaking with legal authority, I suggest you end this conversation now, Ms. Aoki."

"But sir! A program like this will give people cause to celebrate Todoroki Inc., rather than properly probe into these issues. What about the kids? The victims? Sir, please- this is about more than just-"

"This conversation is over, Ms. Aoki."

I try to think of another argument quickly. What else, what else. What could this nimrod possibly care about.

"But sir!" I say quickly. "If this blows up and becomes public knowledge, what will the people say about our company? It'll be bad for our name, we'll lose the respect we have in the industry, don't you think?"

Mr. Lane lets out a deep sigh. "Ms. Aoki, I know you're smarter than this. If the lawsuits go public..." I get worried by the excitement thrumming behind his eyes. "More people will tune in to watch the program. Everyone will be eager to see the other side. If we play our cards right the ratings will be-"

I scoff.

Mr. Lane stops speaking. The sudden ice in his eyes makes my bones go cold, but for once, I can't back down.

"The ratings?" I almost laugh. "Sir, I'm telling you there's kids being abused due to this man's lack of accountability, and you want to use that for profit? What about the truth? What about justice!"

"To hell with truth and to hell with justice!" He slams his fist. Mr. Lane gets up to tower over me. "I make the decisions here, Ms. Aoki. Your job isn't to advise me or to babble on about bullshit like the truth. This is a broadcasting company, and your job is to maximize profits - that's it! Got it?"

I feel my face grow hot.

"You've been running on thin ice for a while now, Ms. Aoki," His voice gets dangerously low.

I bite my tongue.

"I can assure you that no other company would give you the benefits package we've given you. It seems we've spoiled you, haven't we? That's why you're comfortable running your mouth like this."

"Sir, I-"

"I'll see to it that your salary is adjusted appropriately until you learn your lesson. And I warn you," He says through clenched teeth. "I see any of this behavior again, you'll be asking for much more than a salary reduction, Ms. Aoki. Got it?"

-----

Emotions I didn't know I could feel bubble within me. Hatred and rage boil deep in my core. But what can I do? What can I do.

I look from left to right. Trying to find something, anything to throw. Anything to take my anger out on. But when I find nothing, I hurry to the edge of Du Monde's roof. My chest heaves with the weight of my anger.

And as I overlook all of Midtown, and the entire city seems to be under me, I scream.

I scream and then I scream again.

I let out every trapped word that's been aching to escape.

All the swear words stuck to the back of my throat for years.

I release it all into the sky, knowing the wind will carry it for miles.

"Fuck you Mr. Lane!" I screech. "You no good fucking bald-headed, stout faced little piece of-"

"Woah!" I hear someone say.

Suddenly, a pair of arms pulls me back by the waist, as if to restrain me.

Of course, this does nothing but infuriate me more.

"Who the fuck- let me go! Let me go before I fucking rip every single finger off your hands and shove them-"

"Easy!" The voice says again, before releasing me on the ground. "Don't stand so close to the edge, idiot. You could fall."

"If I fucking fall, I want everyone to know it's Mr. Lane's fault! Fucking sue NNTV and put the Court verdict over my fucking grave so I know-"

"Hey! Look at me." The headless voice says. "No one's fucking fall-" He lets out an exasperated sigh. "Listen. I need you to calm down."

I scoff. Calm down? Is he telling me to calm down? With clenched teeth, I turn around. Ready to throw all my fury at this intruder. "Who the hell do you think you are? Don't you dare tell me to calm-"

My mouth drops when I lock eyes with the slightly concerned stranger.

With those electrifying blue orbs.

No.

This isn't a stranger.

Not a total stranger at least.

The man I bought coffee for last week at Du Monde stares back at me.

"...down."

A smile plays on his lips. "Hey. So you remember me."

"What..." I let out an annoyed breath, though it's not as angry as it was a moment ago. "...are you doing here?"

A toothpick sticks out of the corner of his mouth. He pulls it out as he ponders over my question. "Well, I was doing business. And then you decided to let all of New York know you were crazy."

I scoff. "You haven't seen crazy." I mumble.

"You got quite the mouth on ya," He smirks. "A little loud..." He tilts his head, as if considering again. "But you're honest."

I cross my arms and look toward the skyline, ignoring the people cautiously watching us from the other side of the glass. They can whisper to themselves about how crazy I am. This is New York. No one will remember this by tomorrow.

"Thanks. Now if you don't mind, I have other crazy things to do. And don't you have a business to run? People to be an ass to?"

The man tilts his head, as though slightly disappointed. But his lips remain curled. "Now come on. I've been hoping to run into you and you want to leave so soon?"

I frown. "Why would you want to run into me? You aren't a creep, are you?" I ask suspiciously.

"Creep?" He shoots me a pointed look. "There you go making a guy regret being nice," He tsks. "I was hoping to pay you back for the coffee."

He still remembers that?

"You know what," I sigh, running a hand through my hair. "Normally I'd say no need. But considering I'm probably gonna be jobless soon, I might just take you up on that."

"Well then," He stands up and offers me a hand. "I don't know how much crazy you still got left in ya so let's go somewhere a little closer to the ground."

[jadelotusflower]

Roundup: August 2021

This month: Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Don’t Call it a Cult, The Secret Garden, Showbiz Kids, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Lucifer.

Reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - I’ve been meaning to read the Wide Sargasso Sea for a long, long time, but first I thought I’d revisit the source material. I find my opinion hasn’t much changed - I still love the prose, still love Jane as a character, and still find Rochester extremely unappealing. The section with Jane at school is the most engaging for me, and her early time as a governess at Thornfield, but as soon as Rochester shows up I just find him so irritating I have no idea why Jane loves him so much (other than he was the first man to ever show her a scrap of attention). I mean, I know to an extent - I've read the Takes, and part of fiction is accepting what you want for the character as a reader and what they want for themselves can be two different things, and that's not the fault of the text. I can be satisfied by the ending because Jane gets what she wants, I just can’t help but wonder about a Jane who was found by John Eyre before she went to Thornfield, or who took her inheritance and made her own way after Moor House. Byronic heroes just aren't my thing I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys) - The first Mrs Rochester of Jane Eyre strikes an uneasy tone to a modern reader; she does not utter a word in the novel, is depicted as animalistic and almost demonic, her story only told in a self-serving manner by Rochester, and conveniently disposed of so Jane can return to claim him. Rhys reimagines Bertha as Antoinette, a “white Creole” of Jamaica in a postcolonial take on the racial/social prejudices and hierarchy only hinted at in Eyre, where Bertha being Creole primarily an aspect of her Otherness, and in which Rochester describes himself as being desired as a husband because he was "of good race" . In Sea, although Antoinette is white (passing, perhaps), he sees her "not English or European either" and this contributes to his rejection of her (and perhaps his willingness to believe she is mad). The novel is surprisingly short - it skips over the meeting and courtship of Antoinette and Rochester (tellingly unnamed in the novel) entirely, jumping directly from her childhood/coming of age to the couple already married, and over much of Bertha's (renamed by Rochester) sad life in the attic. Still, there's a density to the writing, much is implied beyond the sparse use of words and recurring imagery - subjugation, reflection, and of course, fire - when freed slaves (Rhys changes the timeframe to after the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1833) set fire to Antoinette's family plantation, a pet parrot whose wings have been clipped by her English step-father Mason, cannot flee and falls to a fiery doom, in a grim omen of Bertha's fate. It did, however, leave me wanting more - I understand Rhys' stylistic choices and restraint, but in her effort to give voice to the voiceless, Antoinette/Bertha remains somewhat an enigma. Don’t Call it a Cult: Keith Raniere and the women of NXIVM (Sarah Berman) - I continue to be disturbed but intrigued by the NXIVM case, not only because of my abhorrence of MLMs/pyramid schemes, but my bafflement as to how this thoroughly unremarkable man was able to hold sway over so many women. My mild criticism of the two documentaries on this subject was that they tended to jump around in time so you never really got a good idea of what happened when. This book provides a well researched, detailed summary of events and linear chronology of Raniere’s perverse pathology reaching all the way back to childhood, and so is both an excellent supplement to the already informed, and broad overview to those new to the case. Berman is a Vancouver-based journalist who was present at Raniere’s trial and gives insight into witness testimony, supported by her own interviews and extensive research. There's less of a focus on the sensationalised celebrity members, with greater emphasis on the lesser known victims - including the three Mexican sisters who were all abused by Raniere, one of whom was kept confined to a room for years. It's difficult reading, consolation being the

knowledge that Raniere is rotting in prison and that his crimes finally caught up with him. Watching The Secret Garden (dir. Marc Munden) - Spoilers, if one needs a spoiler warning for a 110 year old novel. One of those stories that is adapted every generation, and generally I have no problem with this, since new adaptations can often bring something new or be a different take on old material (see Little Women 2019). But a part of me can’t help feel why bother with this when the perfect 1993 version exists. There is an Attempt at something new with this film, moving the setting forward to 1947 (Mary’s parents having died during the Partition), and turning the garden from a small walled secret to a mystical, huge wonderland full of ferns and flowers and endless sun. But in doing so, the central metaphor is lost - rather than Mary discovering something abandoned and run wild, gently bringing it back to life with love and care, she merely discovers a magical place that requires no effort on her part. There’s also less of a character arc for Mary, remaining unpleasant far into the proceedings, forcing Colin to visit the garden instead of it being his true wish, and generally succeeding by imposing her will on everyone else. In many ways she’s more like Burnett's other child heroine Sarah Crewe - the film opens I’m with her telling stories to her doll including Ramayana, which is eerily reminiscent of Alfonso Cuaron's (also perfect) 1995 adaptation of A Little Princess. But I suppose a sliver of credit where it's due - Julie Walters' Mrs Medlock is less of an antagonist, with Colin Firth's Lord Craven being Mary's primary obstacle. There's also a subplot with Mary's mother's depression following the death of her sister being the reason for her neglect (and Merlin alum Rupert Young shows up briefly as Mary's father) but like shifting the time period, there just doesn't seem to be a point to it. The climax of the film involves the Manor burning down (writer Jack Thorne stealing from Rebecca too, lol), with Mary and Craven have a very calm conversation as fire and smoke surrounds them. It’s all very bizarre, but also…rather dull? Don't bother with this, just watch the 1993 film again. Showbiz Kids (dir. Alex Winter) - a really interesting documentary on the titular subject - Winter was himself a child actor on Broadway before his film career kicked off in The Lost Boys and Bill and Ted, and has been able to assemble a broad range of interview subjects - Mara Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Wil Wheaton, Jada Pinkett Smith among others - former child actors, those still in the business, and some up and comers like Disney star Cameron Boyce (who I was sad to see in the coda has passed away). We also follow two young hopefuls - Marc, attending acting classes and auditioning in pilot season, yet to book a job but his parents are invested in "his" dream, and Demi, already established on Broadway but having to start to make choices between a career and a childhood. There's no voiceover, no expert opinions in this, letting the actors speak for themselves, but there is a telling juxtaposition of Marc returning home, jobless but having fun in the pool with his friends, while Demi has to cancel the summer camp she had been so looking forward to because she has booked a new role. The film is fairly even handed, but ultimately I took away that there just seems to be more harm than not in this industry, and abuses of many kinds. It does make you wonder about the ethics of child acting, at least in the current system where the cautionary tales are plentiful. Masters of the Universe: Revelation (episodes 1-5) - Mild spoilers I guess? I was never really into He-Man as a kid, other than the Secret of the Sword movie, so most of the in jokes and references in this went over my head. I have to admit, it was actually seeing all the outrage that made me want to check this out and see what all the complaining was about. I actually…really enjoyed it?!? I’m sympathetic to the complaints of a bait and switch (creators really need to learn to say

“just wait and see”), but other than that in my view the rest seemed completely unfounded. Adam/He-Man being killed in the first episode and the impact that has on Eternia and those left behind is actually a really interesting premise. This isn’t a TLJ situation; in contrast everyone (except Evil-Lyn) is always going on about how much they miss Adam, and the whole point of the first arc is him coming back. There’s also a nice little detail of Adam in Preternia (heroes heaven) choosing to remain as he is rather than as He-Man where all his predecessors have chosen their “ultimate” forms. I love him and his Magical Girl transformation. As for Teela - female characters can’t win, it seems. If they are perfect, they’re Mary Sues, if they have flaws, they’re unlikeable. Teela is Going Through things and is on a journey, but I often feel (and it seems the case here) that people confuse a character arc with author intent. No! Just because a character says/does something it doesn't mean you're supposed to agree with them! Some of Teela's actions may be petty and her demeanor less than sweet, but people make bad choices as a response to grief, and I actually thought her anger over Adam never telling her his secret and how that manifested was a pretty interesting take. I'll be interested to see the next half of the season, and ignore the ragebait youtube commentary. One more thing - Evil-Lyn (perfectly voiced by Lena Headey) was an absolute delight. Lucifer (season 5 part 2): They’ve basically given up on the procedural side of things by now and are leaning heavily into the mythology, which works for me since the case of the week is always the least interesting part of any show. It also struck me this season that there’s gender parity in the main cast (Lucifer, Amenadiel, Dan and then Chloe, Maze, Ella, Linda) - and actually, that’s more women than men. How often does that happen?!? I can’t say I’m particularly engaged with the Lucifer/Chloe pairing, but am happy to go along with it since that’s where the whole plot revolves. The best scenes for me this season were with God’s Dysfunctional Family, even if the lead up to the finale felt rushed (I understand the need to wrap things up in case of cancellation but still). I would have liked to see more of the sibling dynamics between the angels and less romantic drama, but hey. The character death got me, as well. I didn't see it coming and I didn't realise how much I had enjoyed that character until they were gone and well...it got me. I see the last season is coming soon, I'm not exactly sure where they can go from here, but looking forward to it nonetheless. Writing I was actually quite sick this month with a throat infection, so wasn't in the best frame of mind to get anything finished like I had planned to. I'm going to hold off posting the word count this month and roll it over to September when hopefully I've actually posted things.

[voltrontranscript]

VLD S8E7: Day Forty-Seven

Season 8 Episode 7: Day Forty-Seven

Transcript by @dragonofyang

Summary: Kinkade and Rizavi film a vlog that follows a relatively normal day on the IGF-Atlas with its humorous moments and the stress of battle.

[Google Doc]

Kinkade: Hello. This is Lieutenant Ryan Kinkade, MFE pilot. The time is 0600 hours. It’s day forty-seven. And this is a glimpse at day-to-day life aboard the IGF-Atlas.

[Cut to Kinkade brushing his teeth as the camera floats over his shoulder.]

Kinkade: Last night, I unpacked my video gear and decided to document the crew. I know it seems strange, but before Earth was attacked, I didn’t go anywhere without my camera.

[Cut to Kinkade running on a treadmill.]

Kinkade: Back home, people asked me why I liked recording things. They also asked me why I didn’t talk that much. To both of those things, I’d always say… [grunts]

[Cut to Kinkade doing pull-ups.]

Kinkade: Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.

Romelle: You’re recording? Why?

Griffin: Kinkade has always been, uh… an individual who’s most comfortable observing and reflecting on life. Being a fighter pilot was actually his backup plan.

[Cut to Kinkade wearing a blindfold as he works on his blaster rifle.]

Kinkade: It’s true. I learned how to shoot with a camera before I learned how to shoot with a rifle. I guess filming is just a small piece of the larger puzzle that makes up the picture of who I am. Hm.

[Cut to Kinkade turning the camera on once more and walking to a fighter jet.]

Rizavi: So you’re really shooting another documentary? Please tell me this is going to be more exciting than that project you did for Mr. Pollard’s biology class about yeast.

Kinkade: That was actually about the process of fermentation. Yeast converts carbohydrates into carbon diox--

Rizavi: Boring! Okay, look, if this little documentary is how history will remember us, I’m gonna help you spruce it up! How many cameras do you have? What’s your visual effects budget? Do you have any smoke bombs?

[Cut to Keith and Pidge facing the camera as it focuses on Pidge directly.]

Kinkade: Okay. We’re set.

Rizavi: So, uh, catch us up on what’s going on.

Pidge: Right. Well, the Atlas is headed to the Grei-Aye system where we’ve identified the remains of a disabled robeast.

Rizavi: Oh! Those things are pretty dangerous, right?

Pidge: Do I need to explain that the robeast was one of the ones used in Honerva’s intergalactic ritual?

Rizavi: No, it’s fine.

Pidge: Okay. Um, so, once the Atlas arrives in orbit around the planet, the other Paladins and I will head down to the surface to secure the robeast and hopefully find its Altean pilot.

Rizavi: Ugh, okay. Keith! Why don’t you tell us about the dangers of this mission?

Keith: Well, every mission has some inherent dangers. For this one, we have to be especially diligent about the robeast. Even if it’s not fully functional, it can still pose an extreme threat. Combine that with the hostile Altean that’s probably still in the vicinity, and you’ve potentially got threats on multiple fronts.

Hunk: Hey, guys. What’s up? You making a movie? Cool. Can I be in it? Now, wait, if this is an action movie… is it? I don’t wanna be in it.

Rizavi: Hunk, we’re trying to do an interview here.

Hunk: Oh, sorry. Yeah, my bad. I just came by to see if you wanted to try this new recipe I’ve been experimenting with. This is just the first pass. The final version of it will be coming soon. No, Bae Bae! Not for you! I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ll make you some doggy treats later.

Kinkade: What’s the recipe? Can we watch you work?

Hunk: Well, yeah! Yeah, this’ll be great! I’ve secretly always wanted my own cooking show.

Rizavi: What? No! Keith was just telling us about the mission and all the dangers! We’re not losing that to document cooking.

Kinkade: But, I like cooking.

Rizavi: It’s like you’re trying to make this boring.

Hunk: Whoa, first of all, cooking is not boring, okay? And it can bring people together. Some of the best times of my life were spent breaking bread with loved ones.

Keith: So, is this interview over?

Rizavi: No! Great, now the talent’s getting restless!

Iverson: Everyone, report to your battle stations immediately! I repeat… battle stations immediately! This is not a drill!

Rizavi: The camera!

Kinkade: Leave it! We need to go!

Rizavi: But this is gold!

Kinkade: Come o--

Iverson: MFE pilots, report to hangars alpha-bravo! Scrambling fighters in five! Paladins, stand by for launch.

[Scene change as Bae Bae finds the fallen camera and carries it around.]

Shiro: Where did it come from? Veronica, get me eyes on it!

Coran: That thing just appeared out of nowhere!

Shiro: Iverson, fire when ready!

Iverson: Target acquired! We’ve got lock! Wait. No… we lost it! Target has gone dark!

Veronica: Electromagnetic radiation from that planet is overloading our radars.

Shiro: Voltron, do you have a visual? I repeat, Voltron, do you have a visual?

Keith: Not yet. We’re going in now! Stand by! We can’t see a thing in here!

Griffin: Copy that. We have zero visibility as well. We need a visual.

Curtis: Roger. Trying another avenue. Scanning for biometrics. Visual acquired!

Coran: Incoming!

Iverson: Recharging all starboard cannons!

Curtis: Sensors are offline!

Iverson: What is that thing?

Coran: It’s massive!

Shiro: Iverson, open fire!

Coran: Direct hit! It’s coming back around for another shot!

Shiro: Veronica, prep shields!

[Scene change as the camera falls down a vent into Sam and Slav’s workstation.]

Sam: Whatever hit us just knocked loose the gravity generator! Grab the flaxum assembly!

Slav: I can’t do that! It’s red!

Sam: Is this one of your crazy probability, reality things?

[Scene change to a hallway as soldiers float through to their stations.]

Shiro: All crew, report to stations and prepare for Atlas transformation--

Atlas Crewmember: Go, go, go!

Shiro: --in T-minus thirty seconds!

[Scene change as Bae Bae finds the camera again and carries it.]

Colleen: Bae Bae, what are you doing out here? And what’s this in your mouth? A camera? Come on, girl.

Shiro: All crew, prepare for Atlas transformation sequence in five… four… three… two… one!

[Scene change as the camera dies, then powers on again facing Kinkade once more.]

Kinkade: Camera’s fully charged. We’re good to go. The time is now 0900 hours. We just experienced a minor mishap aboard the IGF-Atlas, but we’re back on track. In the future, we’ll hopefully be avoiding creature-occupied gas planets.

[Cut to Kinkade floating through a hallway.]

Kinkade: Hey, Seok Jin, where you headed?

Seok Jin: I’m transporting these samples back to Earth. Commander Holt thinks it can help with the recovery efforts there.

Kinkade: Well, they couldn’t have picked a better man for the job. Take care, man. Hey, Seok Jin… we’ll miss you, buddy.

[Scene change to the camera looking into the mess hall, where Vrepit Sal is cleaning tables and then rotates to face the hallway.]

Rizavi: There you are! Tell me this thing was recording during the attack! That was so intense! Oh, this documentary’s gonna be awesome!

[Cut to Kolivan sitting in a small office facing the camera.]

Kolivan: I believe our heading readout en route was 92254739.275. Wait, no. It was 9.265. Yes. That was our heading per our readout just prior to our deployment.

Rizavi: [mock snoring]

Kolivan: Our teams vary in size. Often we use the three-person unit, but it’s not unusual to have a four- or a five- or perhaps even a six-person unit. Seven seems rare, but... it could happen.

Rizavi: Okay, I like everything you’re telling me, but let’s just try it a little less like you’re reporting the facts to your commanding officer and a little more like you’re telling your friend an exciting story in the gym. You understand?

Kolivan: Yes, understood.

Rizavi: Okay, good. Why don’t you tell us about your last mission?

Kolivan: Our last mission took place on planet K-V Exus. The Blades divided into three four-person teams and we escorted approximately twelve rescue crafts to the surface. I believe our heading readout was 359.222--

Rizavi: Thank! Thank you! Okay, I think we got it!

Kolivan: But I wasn’t done.

Rizavi: Yeah, you nailed it. Yeah. We need to get someone more exciting in here.

[Cut to Coran leaning into the camera as it slowly attempts to focus on him.]

Coran: Then the Atlas started firing with everything it had! And don’t forget the white hole is swirling right next to us the entire time! Oh, no, it’s about to close! Meanwhile, not one, but two, yes, two, robeasts are attacking! Shiro’s shouting out orders. “Coran, get closer! Iverson, open fire!” Beams of quintessence energy are converging from all over the galaxy! Ah! You know, you could just imagine it.

[Scene change to Rizavi turning the camera on in Slav and Sam’s workspace.]

Sam: Welcome to the engine room. What you see here is just a tiny part of what keeps the ship functioning.

Rizavi: Slav, you’ve created some incredible technology. What do you think of the Atlas?

Slav: I can respect any engineering that extrapolates for transmutation, but I wish the writing was in Altean.

Sam: He’s mentioned that a few times.

Rizavi: So what are you doing now?

Slav: Right now we’re about to adjust the gravity generator, which was fractionally increased during our last battle.

Sam: Yes, our gravity generator is actually a fluid system, ever-changing depending on the specific needs of the location, so it requires recalibrating from time to time. Okay, adjust gravity generator back down to .12.

Slav: Copy. Adjusting now.

Sam: What did you press?

Slav: I don’t know! Which one is the two again? I can’t read these weird symbols you call numbers! Hey, big guy, toss me over! Oh, no. Directly on a crack!

Kinkade: Weird.

[Cut to the camera focusing on some juniberry shoots in a pot.]

Colleen: Beautiful, isn’t it? It’s an Altean juniberry. The first one to bloom in nearly ten thousand years. I managed to get it to grow by resequencing the genetic code of a similar plant. I wanna give it to Allura. These are our fertilizers. We have fish emulsion, worm castings, Kaltenecker manure. Just so much great recycled poop! And this is our lighting station. I like to say our lighting array is literally out of this world! You know, because we’re, you know, on a space ship.

Rizavi: Can I take a shot at this?

[Cut to the camera panning across the crops in the grow room.]

Rizavi: Welcome to extreme space harvesting! Where we have plants and crops and super fertilizers all under one roof! Meet Colleen Holt, the botanical genius behind it all.

[Cut to Colleen sitting in a chair in the grow room.]

Colleen: I guess I just liked plants all my life. I’ve done a lot of research, but I know I have much to learn. I guess… I like… the challenge. I’m sorry, where am I supposed to be looking?

Rizavi: Without Colleen, all life aboard the ship could perish. One bad crop, the introduction of one foreign pest, and it’s all over.

Colleen: I just like plants.

Hunk: Oh, sorry. Am I interrupting something again? I just--I just came in to see if Colleen had a very specific type of yeast.

Kinkade: Yeast? What for?

Rizavi: Oh, no.

Hunk: It’s that recipe I’ve been working on. I think I got the topping down, but I’m still trying to figure out the sweet bread.

Colleen: Well, I have so many strains of yeast, it’ll make your head spin. I got AB972, S288C. I even have O unilateralis. Don’t mess with that one.

Kinkade: Are you getting this?

Rizavi: Unfortunately, yes.

[Camera cuts to Kinkade and Rizavi floating through a hallway.]

Rizavi: The time is 1200 hours. We just got word that we are in the Grei-Aye star system. The Paladins will be heading down to the surface of the planet any second now.

[Cut to the camera facing Allura, Lance, and Keith in the hangar for Black Lion.]

Rizavi: Lance, how are you feeling about the mission you’re about to go on?

Lance: Oh, hey. I’m feeling good, I guess. Maybe a little tense. Maybe a lot tense. I don’t know. Why’d you have to ask me that question?

Allura: I think what Lance is trying to say is he’ll be fine. We all will.

Keith: Let’s move out.

[Camera cuts to Kinkade and Rizavi standing a ways away from Blue Lion as it launches.]

Rizavi: Right now, we’re headed to the situation room where we’ll be monitoring the Paladins in real-time.

Kinkade: By the way, you know we’re not gonna be able to bring our camera into that meeting, right?

Rizavi: Says who?

[Scene change to the situation room where Veronica, Coran, Sam, and Shiro are all facing a screen showing a no-signal symbol.]

Sam: Come in, Pidge. Are you reading us?

Pidge: Okay, we’ve just touched down on the surface.

Keith: We’re at the crash site now.

Pidge: That’s the robeast. It looks disabled, just like our intel reported. The Altean should be nearby.

Shiro: Paladins, brace for incoming!

Hunk: I didn’t know it could do that!

Keith: Take cover!

Shiro: Paladins, report! We’ve lost visual. Bridge, lock onto that ship now!

Curtis: Yes, Captain. Adjusting to long-range parameters. Locked on!

Shiro: Light it up!

Curtis: Direct hit!

Lance: Nice shot, Atlas!

Hunk: Yeah, thanks for the cover!

Shiro: Bridge, stay on alert.

[Cut to the Altean viewscreen of Pidge’s point of view through her helmet.]

Allura: Stand by, Atlas. We’re approaching the ship.

Hunk: Guys, there doesn’t seem to be a pilot inside.

Keith: Hey, guys. Over here.

Pidge: Keith’s found something. Let’s go! Give me a second. Just reconfiguring to this barrier’s isometric frequency. There! That should do it.

Keith: Atlas, our target is acquired.

Overlapping voices: Yippee! Alright! Yeah!

Shiro: Great job, everyone!

[Cut to Kinkade and Rizavi floating through another hallway.]

Rizavi: We just got word that the Paladins have returned from their mission. Maybe we can catch a glimpse of this new Altean.

Kinkade: This’ll be the sixth Altean pilot we’ve recovered from the powered-down robeasts left behind after Honerva escaped Oriande. Allura keeps trying, but she hasn’t been able to get any information from them as of yet.

[Camera cuts to Rizavi standing outside a room marked “Authorized Personnel Only”.]

Rizavi: Commander Shirogane said you two were needed on the bridge. We’ll cover your station.

Woman: Yes, Lieutenant.

Rizavi: There! Oh, man, I think we missed the beginning.

Romelle: Tavo, please. You and I grew up alongside one another. You must trust me. We’re here to help.

Tavo: We were told you are a traitor, and I can see now that it is true.

Allura: I’m done talking with him. I’m done with all of them.

Kinkade: Uh, what are you doing?

Rizavi: Sh! I got an idea.

Lance: Anything?

Allura: No. He was just like the others. A true believer in Honerva, and there’s nothing I can say that would make him think otherwise.

Lance: I’m sorry.

Allura: No, I am. These Alteans are the key to unlocking Honerva’s plan. They’re my people, but they won’t speak with me. You have no idea what it’s like to find out after ten thousand years that you’re not the last of your kind… only to be rejected by them.

Lance: I don’t. But I wish every day there were something I could do to change it all for you. You’ve suffered more than anyone should in a thousand lifetimes. But still you persist. Through the pain, you inspire. It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with you.

Kinkade: No, that’s private.

Rizavi: Kinkade, what are you doing? That was our love angle!

[Camera cuts out, then focuses in on Romelle’s face.]

Kinkade: Please don’t touch that.

Romelle: Oh, sorry.

Rizavi: So, Romelle, you know these Alteans from your time on the colony?

Romelle: Yes, I lived alongside them for many decaphoebs. They are good people.

Kinkade: What do you think would make them join forces with Honerva?

Romelle: I don’t know. But you must understand, my people were hunted nearly to extinction. They’re afraid. And this Honerva… she’s turned that fear to aggression. If there was just some way to get through to them.

[Cut to the mess hall.]

Griffin: I’ve never seen anything like it. All those tentacles… so nasty.

[Cut to the kitchen where Hunk is stirring something purple in a pan.]

Hunk: Oh, hey. You’re just in time. I was just about to add the yeast Colleen gave me. No, Bae Bae! Bad dog!

[Cut to Kinkade and Rizavi sitting at a table with Allura.]

Kinkade: First off, thanks for doing this, Allura.

Allura: You’re welcome.

Rizavi: Maybe we can start with the Alteans we have aboard.

Allura: What about them? They’re on the wrong side of this war and they refuse to speak with me. There’s nothing else to say.

Rizavi: So, you’re frustrated?

Allura: Yes, I am. Oriande was destroyed, Lotor is back, and we aren’t any closer to tracking down Honerva. She’s out there, right now, planning something, preparing, and growing stronger. And we’re here flying around in circles, searching for Fraunhofer lines that don’t appear and scanning for wormhole signatures that don’t exist!

Rizavi: Do you think we’ll ever find Honerva?

Allura: No. I think she’ll find us.

[Camera cuts back to Hunk in the kitchen, this time wearing oven mitts.]

Hunk: Okay, it’s been a long day, but I’m finally done.

Kinkade: What is it?

Hunk: It’s an authentic Altean dessert! I’m gonna give it to the Alteans. Coran helped me with the recipe, but I think his memory was, like, a little bit fuzzy, so, you know, I did some improvising. No big whoop.

Kinkade: You did this for them? Why?

Hunk: Well, I don’t know. Because food has a way of reminding people of moments in time. That’s why I made a dessert. Usually, when you eat dessert, you’re pretty happy, right? Who knows? Maybe this’ll help those Alteans remember some moment that made them smile. Something before all this madness. That could go a long way in building a relationship. Well, that’s just what I think.

[Cut to the Alteans in a holding cell as the camera zooms out and pans to face Hunk.]

Hunk: Please, eat. Look, it’s good! Mm, really!

Tavo: You made this? It reminds me of home.

Hunk: Well, I had a little help from someone born and raised on Altea. A-and I know you don’t wanna talk with them, but Allura and Coran know more about your homeland than anyone alive. They were on Altea until its final day. They both would’ve stayed and died to protect it if Alfor hadn’t sent them away. That’s how much they loved it.

Tavo: I heard Altea was one of the most beautiful places in the universe. Did your Alteans ever tell you about the zyo crystal springs outside of the capital? The stories say those cliffs were more beautiful than all of the stars combined.

Hunk: They never told me about them. But I’m sure they’d love to tell you themselves.

[Scene change to Kinkade sitting in casual clothes facing the camera.]

Kinkade: This is Lieutenant Ryan Kinkade, MFE pilot. The time is 2300 hours. Day forty-seven aboard the IGF-Atlas is officially done.

End.

[grigori77]

Movies of 2021 - My Pre-Summer Favourites (Part 1)

The Runners-up:

20.  THE MAURITANIAN – acclaimed filmmaker Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) presents his best film in years with this stirring, troubling dramatization of the harrowing fourteen-year detention at Guantanamo Bay of Mohamedou Ould Slahi (A Prophet’s Tahar Rahim in a deeply affecting turn) between 2002 and 2016.  Jodie Foster is also impressive as Nancy Hollander, the crusading attorney fighting for his release, as is Benedict Cumberbatch as Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, her opposing counsel, who comes to realise Slahi’s confinement has been built on a tissue of lies.

19.  RIDERS OF JUSTICE – Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen (Men & Chicken) brings his biting sense of humour and anarchic style to bear in this excellent black comedy starring Mads Mikkelsen as Markus, an emotionally distant soldier called home after his wife is killed in a tragic train wreck.  As he attempts to reconnect with his troubled daughter (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), Markus becomes convinced by the theory of a trio of intellectually gifted outsiders who believe that the accident was in fact an elaborately staged assassination by the eponymous criminal biker gang.

18.  STOWAWAY – Netflix dropped another sneaky sci-fi hit on us in the form of this deceptively understated space thriller about three astronauts on a mission to Mars who discover they no longer have enough life-support resources left to survive their journey after finding a member of the launch crew accidentally trapped on their spaceship.  Writer-director Joe Penna is in comfortably familiar territory after acclaimed survival thriller Arctic, while the compact cast – Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson (Wynonna Earp) and, in particular, Anna Kendrick – are all excellent.

17.  OUTSIDE THE WIRE – in the near future, civil war has broken out in the Ukraine and US forces fight to keep the peace with the aid of newly-minted robotic soldiers called GUMPs. Drone pilot Thomas Harp (Snowfall’s Damson Idris) is reassigned to the warzone as punishment for insubordination, finding himself teamed with Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie), an advanced hyper-intelligent android tasked with hunting down insurgents bent on unleashing nuclear holocaust on the West.  Mikael Håfström (director of 1408 and Escape Plan) ably delivers some impressively weighty action sequences, while asking interesting questions about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

16.  THE EMPTY MAN – I was a little late stumbling across this spectacularly twisted cosmic horror based on a graphic novel by Cullen Bunn (The Damned, The Sixth Gun) and Vanesa Del Ray, but it grabbed me in the first ten minutes and wouldn’t let go.  The ever-excellent James Badge Dale delivers one of the best performances of his career as James Lasombra, an ex-cop who gets mixed up with a nightmarish conspiracy involving a doomsday cult built around the terrifying eponymous otherworldly entity in an head-fucking horror gem that entirely deserves its growing cult status.

15.  SOUND OF METAL – had to wait until Amazon Prime released this in the UK last month, but this challenging and emotionally-charged drama was worth holding out, Riz Ahmed delivering his finest ever performance as Ruben Stone, a heavy metal drummer whose life is thrown into turmoil when he goes deaf.  Ready Player One’s Olivia Cooke also impresses as his girlfriend Lou, a massively talented singer whose own personal demons are set loose as Ruben’s condition drives a wedge between them, while writer-director Darius Marder (who co-penned overlooked masterpiece The Place Beyond the Pines) shows he’s definitely gonna be a talent to watch in the future.

14.  CHERRY – Tom Holland reteams with his regular MCU directors Joe and Anthony Russo for this harrowing but achingly beautiful adaptation of author Nico Walker’s sort-of-but-not-exactly semiautobiographical novel about a former US army medic who returns from the horrors of Iraq with crippling PTSD at the height of America’s opioid epidemic, forced to embark on a spree of bank robberies to feed his drug habit.  Holland has never been better, while the Russos prove they’re capable of delivering more than just bombastic superhero action and big effects.

13.  SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD – writer-director Stephen Kijak may be known for making documentaries about musicians (Scott Walker: 30th Century Man, Stones in Exile), but he proves he’s got a flair for fiction too with this cannily subversive comedy drama about a Middle American town that goes a little crazy one night in the 80s when a teenage boy hijacks the local heavy metal radio station and makes them play wall-to-wall tacks from The Smiths following the band’s sudden breakup.  There’s escapist fun to be had from the irreverent quirkiness of the premise, and the youthful cast are all excellent, while Joe Manganiello delivers a brilliantly nuanced supporting turn as the besieged DJ.

12.  BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD’S A LITTLE BLURRY – I’ll admit to being a bit late to the party when it comes to Billie Eilish – I’d heard snippets of her music (most notably Bad Guy and her admittedly impressive theme for the new Bond movie), but until I watched this deep dive into her life and career, following the creation and promotion of her debut album, I didn’t yet know what all the fuss was about.  Well I’m now thoroughly converted – not only is she an incredibly talented young musical artist but also a fascinating and intriguingly down-to-earth person too, and I look forward to following her career in the future.

11.  SHADOW IN THE CLOUD – Chloë Grace Moretz gets a role to really sink her teeth into as Maude Garrett, a take-no-shit WAAF flight officer on a classified mission aboard Allied bomber Fool’s Errand in the Pacific in 1943, in this enjoyably unconventional action horror from My Wedding & Other Secrets director Roseanna Liang.  The film is largely a one-woman show, with the cameras clinging stubbornly to Moretz while the genuinely terrifying story unfolds around her, and she invests Maude with a ferocious stubbornness and intensity that’s crafted one of the cinematic year’s most impressive action heroines.

[doomonfilm]

Ranking : Spike Lee (1957 - present)

There have been countless directors whose careers have spanned my lifetime, but out of these countless masses, the one whom I can find the most in common ground with (as well as endless inspiration from) is Spike Lee.  A New Yorker through and through, Lee went from a series of films that seamlessly blended hip-hop and old school Hollywood aesthetics, to personal films, to his take on the blockbuster, and currently, to the point where his canon has earned him artistic freedom and expression that many of his peers have not been able to achieve.  He is the perfect bridge between the director-driven mindset of the 1970s and the cultural boundary-pushing films of the 1990s-forward.  Not everything that he directed was a hit or a masterpiece, but this man has more iconic films under his belt that some directors have films to their name.  That being said, it’s time to stir the pot and make an attempt at the monumental task that is ranking the films of Spike Lee.

I will only be including theatrically released feature films of Spike Lee that I have seen.  His documentary work will be excluded, as well as his films I have missed or have yet to see.  Here is a list of these films : Da 5 Bloods, Chi-Raq, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, 4 Little Girls, The Original Kings of Comedy, When the Levees Broke, A Huey P. Newton Story. 

20. Oldboy (2013) Every film that you make can’t be a winner.  In the case of Lee’s attempt at remaking Oldboy, there were already two major strikes against it : a superior version of the film already existed, and that version was the middle film of a trilogy.  I doubt that even a team of the most talented directors could have made a superior version of Oldboy that surpassed the original, but after 30 years of making films, it’s admirable that Lee would even attempt something so bold and seemingly insurmountable.  

19. Red Hook Summer (2012) When your film catalog covers three decades, there’s bound to be some overlap, be it stylistically or narratively.  I’ve only seen Red Hook Summer once, but it was impossible for me to look at it subjectively, as it seemed to be a modern day mirror to another one of Lee’s explorations of New York adolescence.  While this story is not a direct copy of a Spike Lee film that I will go into more detail on later, it does feel like the update equivalent that focuses on himself rather than the childhood of his sister.  While an entertaining film from what I can remember, it sits behind a list of previous impressive achievements.

18. She Hate Me (2004) Humor has been an element present in a number of Spike Lee films, but for my money’s worth, this film is the closest thing to an outright comedy that he ever made.  Like a number of films on the back half of his career, he is touching upon important topics (sexuality and toxic masculinity, in this case), but these are topics that he has hit with more nuance and creativity in earlier films.  This film did help transition Anthony Mackie into a leading man role, and he certainly took that opportunity and ran with it, so She Hate Me could be heralded for that alone.  That being said, it was a great idea that slightly missed the mark, therefore placing it on the backend of the memorable films list for Lee.

17. Miracle at St. Anna (2008) This film had the potential to be a breakout resurgence for Spike Lee.  He was coming hot off the heels of Inside Man, a perfect blend of Lee’s style and modern Hollywood fare, so having a period-piece war film seemed like a slam dunk.  His cast was strong, while also being filled of relatively unknown young actors on the verge of becoming stars in their own right, but for whatever reason, this film failed to make a connection with the masses.  While I do remember mostly enjoying my watch, I also remember feeling a bit underwhelmed by the ending, which in turn left me lacking a reason to revisit it.  Maybe it’s a hidden gem that I haven’t seen enough times yet, but at this moment in time, its home is near the bottom of Lee’s impressive list of films.

16. Get on the Bus (1996) Many people’s eyes were opened to racial injustices during the COVID-19 pandemic, as several African-American men and women found themselves on the wrong end of violent acts from the police and other citizens in the midst of a ‘shelter-in-place’ era.  Not only have these injustices been going on for my entire lifetime, but they’ve been a generational trauma for many African-Americans in the United States.  When the Million Man March was announced in 1996, it was not surprising that Spike Lee took it as an opportunity to both document the march and build a narrative around it in which he could showcase a collection of actors he’d either featured in past films or would work with in future films.  To my knowledge, this is one of maybe two or three films about the event, and it was certainly the film released in the closest proximity to it.  For an independent, quick shoot, it definitely stands up, but in comparison to Lee’s other works that benefited from full crews and production schedules, it finds itself paling in comparison.

15.  BlacKkKlansman (2018) Despite the fact that this is the film that finally got Lee some sort of recognition at the Oscars, BlacKkKlansman was not quite the true return to form that many fans of Spike Lee expected.  The film had moments of humor, compelling moments that directly focused on racial injustice and systematic oppression, and it pulled no punches while doing so.  Like a handful of Lee’s other films, however, this one falls when compared to his other films that deal with similar subject matter.  Adam Driver continued to show fans his expansive range, and  Jasper Paakonen deserved INFINITELY more recognition than he got, but ultimately, this film checks all the ‘good’ boxes where it was expected to check the ‘great’ ones.

14. 25th Hour (2002) As the year 2000 approached, Lee seemed to attempt and make a shift from films that specifically spoke on aspects of the African-American experience in favor of occasional films that reached a wider audience.  While Summer of Sam would be considered the first foray into that realm, the true mark of this elevated sense of creative duty came in the form of 25th Hour.  With the actors in tow, in tandem with the cinematography and skilled directing ability displayed in the film, one would expect a powerhouse movie, but ultimately, the expectations exceeded the narrative of this film.  This one is entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but I personally did not find a connection with the story, meaning that the film was, at best, fun to watch.

13. Summer of Sam (1999)  I’ve been a true-crime junkie since my early teenage years, and even the most casual of true-crime fans is more than likely familiar with David Berkowitz, also known to many as the Son of Sam.  While Red Hook Summer did come out after Summer of Sam, it’d be hard to deny the fact that Summer of Sam is the last of Lee’s love letters to New York City.  This was the film where Spike Lee stepped out of his comfort zone of the African-American experience, choosing instead to focus on more colloquial aspects of the American experience, and for my money’s worth, it was the start of an important shift for him.  Despite being light on the Son of Sam action, the actors this film does focus on (and the story it chooses to tell) is a fresh look at a familiar era, and a crowning achievement that signaled new things for Spike Lee.

12.  He Got Game (1998) If you made a Venn diagram of people familiar with Spike Lee, the two biggest circles would be film fans and people who have seen at least one New York Knicks game since the 1990s.  Therefore, the only thing that was really and truly surprising about He Got Game was the fact that it took Spike Lee 15 years and 11 films to make a film about basketball.  On the outset, that’s exactly what it is : a film about basketball.  Viewed with a wider lens, however, this story is a love letter to one of the most popular American inventions, and a story about how it can serve as a common-ground bridge for those from wholly different walks of life.  The juxtaposition of Aaron Copland and Public Enemy made the soundtrack provocative, and Ray Allen stood out in his lead role, holding his own against the living legend that is Denzel Washington, who is always good for a stellar performance in a Spike Lee joint.  Don’t mistake this film’s place on the list for my feelings about it... this is a stellar film, in my opinion, and one of my favorites to revisit.

11. Crooklyn (1994) After making what many would argue to be the most important film of his career (which we will eventually get to), it’s no surprise that Spike Lee circled his creative wagons and made the focus of his next film inward.  Crooklyn covers what seem like many personal bases for Spike Lee : he portrays the New York of the past vividly and beautifully, while spinning a true-to-life tale based on his personal experience, but opting to focus on his sister Joie Lee and his father Bill Lee.  Of Lee’s many, many films, this was the one that I felt the most compelled to see at the time of release, it is one of the two I have the most vivid memories and recollections of, and it has a number of stylistic choices that keep me wonderfully perplexed to this day.  Despite not cracking the top ten Spike Lee films, this one ranks high on the list of Spike Lee films that hit the bullseye of my heart.

10. Jungle Fever (1991) Interracial romance is one of those things that seemingly will always be a sensitive subject.  I’ve heard many people say that Jungle Fever has a dated look on the subject, but I’d argue that the film was very forward thinking, especially in showing that an interracial romance is not the answer to the cultural and societal problems that life presents us.  The movie also touches deeply on drug addiction without crossing over into the realm of being preachy or talking down to the viewer.  It didn’t hurt that Stevie Wonder also managed to create a soundtrack’s worth of new material that instantly brought the seemingly controversial film directly into the public eye.  Maybe it is dated... maybe it is uncomfortable... but what it is, undoubtedly, is an early masterpiece that fell near the end of one of the most stellar introductory runs that any filmmaker has presented us.

9. Clockers (1995) Ever wonder what would happen if a Martin Scorsese film found its way into the hands of Spike Lee?  Well, wonder no longer, because Clockers is out there waiting for you to discover it.  The amount that this movie gets slept on is an outright tragedy and travesty.  The soundtrack is KILLER, the color-timing puts the viewer in an immediate ‘cold-world’ environment, the order of operations presented in this film is brutal and unforgiving, and yet, it manages to be one of the most heartfelt films in the Spike Lee canon.  EVERYONE presented in this movie brought their A-game to the table, from the Spike Lee regulars like Isaiah Washington, John Turturro and Harvey Keitel, to the glorified cameos and supporting roles, like Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Sticky Fingaz and Fredro of Onyx, and relative newcomer but promising leading man Makhi Phifer.  This film is intense, but it is more than worth your time and attention.

8. Bamboozled (2000) Bamboozled was shocking when it was released, to say the least.  The true revelation, however, has been the way that relevance has seemingly caught up to the film... fake wokeness, modern day minstrel shows, low budget/high yield television and behind the scenes scandals have all come to light many years after this film had its initial run.  While this film did not transition Savion Glover into the world of superstardom and crossover success, it certainly crystalized his immense talent and charisma in a way that his recordings of stage shows had previously been unable to capture.  The imagery of America’s strange fascination with the dehumanization of African-Americans for generation after generation is rich, and every performance is compelling.  This was definitely Spike Lee’s first masterpiece of the new millennium, and at the risk of being bittersweet, probably one of his last truly stunning achievements.

7. Girl 6 (1996) Every ranking list has to have the controversial placement, so here’s mine... Girl 6 started as a lingering interest for me.  The internet was just about to change the world, but we were still locked into landlines at the time, with cellular being a luxury, so the world of phone sex still had relevance.  Upon seeing the film, however, I quickly realized that the phone sex exploration was playing counter to a Hollywood hopeful narrative that was brave enough to explore new ground (per the changing times) while being mindful enough to pay homage to the countless stories of Hollywood hopefuls that came before it.  Many of the shifting cinematography looks that made Clockers so gritty were used to make Girl 6 feel dangerously euphoric.  The list of cameos and brief supporting roles were not only a who’s who of cultural movers and shakers at the time, but it ran about as long as my arm.  I recently revisited the film and expected it to be a bit more on the side of kitsch, but surprisingly, the times had not been as hard on the film as I anticipated.  The film shifts quite well between light and dark, and even the ending that initially slightly annoyed me has found a strange sort of charm in my older, more life-experienced years.  Add to this the hilarious running joke of Isaiah Washington being a kleptomaniac in nearly every scene he appears in, and there’s a realization that there are sublayers going on right in front of our eyes.  This collaboration with Suzan-Lori Parks gives me hope that maybe one day, we’ll get a Spike Lee film adaptation of Topdog/Underdog, but we will see.

6. Inside Man (2006) If you had to pick the most ‘Hollywood’ of the Spike Lee films, my money would be on this film ending up as the chosen one.  By this rationale, it makes the film that much more impressive, as it also stands out as one of the most compelling, well-directed and well-acted Spike Lee films.  At the time of its release, it was not only a return to form, but it seemed to signal an evolution.  Spike Lee was able to use his signature, iconic shots that he was known for, like his camera-turned-to-dolly float, or the push-pull zooms, but he was also able to incorporate familiar Hollywood tropes, including the twist ending, and give them a breath of fresh air via an newly infused sense of style.  Lee also stayed true to himself by educating as well as entertaining, bringing to light how atrocities from the past have more than historical connections to modern day benefactors.  While I do think there are a handful of better ‘pure’ Spike Lee films, if I had to pick one movie for a curious party that my be skeptical, this would easily be my pick.

5. She's Gotta Have It (1986) Oh, the joy of having your first film be a breakout success, but not to the point of pigeon-holing your career.  She’s Gotta Have It was an important introductory step to the masses for Spike Lee : it showed his dedication to putting African-American performers into familiar narratives, it showed an appreciation for the voice of women on film that many first-time directors would likely not want to be the initial association to their style, it introduced the world to Mars Blackmon (who became a cultural icon), and it presented sense of style that switched on the viewer the moment before they could label it pretentious.  Having characters address the camera made it feel like a play or a novel, but when the film shifted into movie mode, the camera moved with the energy and grace of a performance artist or dancer, which in turn fed into the character development and narrative it presented.  As a bonus, the property found new life nearly 40 years later as a Netflix original series, introducing new generations to a modern day classic statement of feminism, and how it does not excuse bad behavior.

4. Mo' Better Blues (1990) Those familiar with Spike Lee’s family know that he was raised by jazz bassist Bill Lee, who scored some of Spike’s early films.  By this rationale, it comes as no surprise that Lee could make such a rich, nuanced and heartfelt film about jazz music that serves as an allegory for the hurdles that beset those driven purely by passion.  The conversations about race, musical integrity and commercialism also work on both direct and symbolic levels, giving Mo’ Better Blues some of the highest repeat viewing value of any film in the Spike Lee canon.  The film also marked the first collaboration of Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, a combination that yielded artistic, career, creative, commercial and critical success, led to a multitude of classic performances, and ultimately led to a generational collaborative changing of the guard in the form of John David Washington.  The only negative I can give this film is that it did not lead to future films that explored genres of music like hip-hop and soul.  While She’s Gotta Have It did focus heavily on relationships and intimacy, it could be argued that Mo’ Better Blues was Spike Lee’s first adult contemporary film, and his first look at modern romance in the more ‘traditional’ sense.

3. School Daze (1988) The African-American college experience, specifically that of HBCUs (Historically Black College and Universitys), is one that has often been neglected in the annals of film history.  As a graduate of Clark Atlanta University, it makes total sense that Spike Lee’s second commercial film would focus on that specifically overlooked culture, as it became a fitting vehicle for establishing Lee’s sense of duty and responsibility for education, sharing the African-American experience to the masses, and exposing systematic injustices and hypocrisies that kep the disadvantaged in a disadvantaged position.  The real genius of this film, however, comes in the juxtaposition of presentations it jumps between... for the majority of the film, it is an unflinching look at the coming of age process that teenagers must traverse on their way to adulthood, including the hurdles of romance, forming your identity and expanding your view of the world around you.  At key moments, however, the film switches into musical numbers, song performances and school dances that not only expand on the inner feelings, emotions and desires of characters, but heighten the reality of the story to a dizzying pace.  In all the ways that She’s Gotta Have It put the world on notice that a unique voice was present in the industry, School Daze signaled the continuation of a run that would last another handful of films, and it firmly established Spike Lee as a generational talent. 

2. Do the Right Thing (1989) I would guess that over the course of a career, a director secretly hopes that at least one of their works comes close to making an impact culturally.  In the case of Spike Lee, however, we have a man who released two cultural-shifting films, and did so in a span of less than 5 years.  They say the third time is a charm, and that’s exactly what Do the Right Thing was for Spike Lee.  The vivid colors, stylistic earmarks, historical and cultural sense of urgency and focus on telling minority stories all expanded greatly with this film, which acted as both a parable of how past injustices can come back to haunt you, and a harbinger of how the reactions to these continued injustices would only amplify if not addressed.  The fact that Spike Lee not only directed this film, but played the lead actor as well, is a monumental achievement, especially considering how few flaws the film has, if any.  Several established actors played some of their most iconic roles in this film, and a breadth of newer, younger faces exploded onto the scene, almost all of whom either continued to work with Lee or found themselves evolving their careers in the wake of Do the Right Thing.  The film is also directly responsible for perhaps the most iconic hip-hop song of all time, Public Enemy’s classic protest anthem Fight The Power.  Any fan of film would be foolish to skip the Spike Lee catalog, but regardless of whether you’re interested in his work or not, this film is one of two he made that should flatly be considered required viewing across the board.  The other one, being...

1. Malcolm X (1992) For everything that Do the Right Thing did for Spike Lee and those involved in the production, the monumentally powerful biopic Malcolm X did all of that while also managing to humanize, canonize and create and icon out of a man that America tried its best to demonize.  The masterful hand that Lee used to direct this film shows, as this film is the most ‘every frame a painting’ in his canon.  Everything from the period costuming to the locations to the dance numbers to the cinematography absolutely leaps off of the screen.  The editing is kinetic, the performances are full of life and depth, and the narrative does just enough going forwards and backwards to make proper connections without beating it over the head of the viewer.  The respect shown to Malcolm X is massive, so much so that almost seemingly overnight, Malcolm X went from being a feared and often heavily criticized sign of aggressive blackness to a commercial commodity and household name, with the famous X suddenly adorning t-shirts, baseball caps and necklaces of all American youth, not just minorities.  The impact of this film was so immediate that many schools held field trips for viewings, which further cemented the immediate and historical value of the film.  Often, the connotation of saying someone ‘peaked’ for a film so early in their career would be negative, but the heights to which Malcolm X achieved on all fronts meant that even if the rest of Lee’s career was a steady decline (which it certainly wasn’t), he more than likely still would have ended up in a pantheon far above that of the average director.

With projects reportedly in the early stages of development, it doesn’t look like Spike Lee has any plans on stopping anytime soon.  I certainly owe it to myself to see the handful of his films and documentaries that I’ve not seen yet... who knows, perhaps I may even go back one day and add the documentaries into the list, or find a surprise gem in one of his more recent movies I’ve yet to see.  

[fuckyeahjola]

Let’s do this. Trailer analysis and compiled s3 information time.

(Please forgive the black bars, the only way I could get the frames were full-screen screenshots.)

So Michael and Book are looking good, looking casual. I dig it. I mean, clearly they’re gonna fall in love, and I support them. Also, obligatory Grudge. Sonequa’s hair is a helpful marker, because it looks like she’s got a few more scenes in the next eps before she gets the braids. More on that later.

Also, Frakes leaked that the crew gets reunited with Michael in e3, so I guess that means the next ep will split between catch up with the crew and Michael’s adventures with Book?

Pretty sure this is Disco’s arrival in the future, doing ye old trek lean.

Short-hair Michael is buying dilithium or other Federation antiques. We’ve seen that black fringe on Sarek’s costumes in the past, but that doesn’t really mean anything.

Real talk, I have no goddamn clue what this is. Maybe an explosion on Book’s ship?

A shuttle. Would bet good money this is Keyla, the Andorian, and Grudge.

Saru and Tilly on a walk. I think Saru’s outfit is the same as the one he wears while making a speech next to Michael, but I’m not sure.

THEEEEEEEM

This trailer really gave Joann so many good lines and stuff. That’s what I like to see.

Jo says “there she is,” which I’m guessing is in reference to either meeting up with Michael and Book or Earth/Terralysium? The trailer clearly wants us to think it’s the latter.

Oh, I just know Adira is gonna be a standout character for me already. Paul, that’s your kid now.

When I first saw this, I thought that this might be Pike, against all odds? But it’s clearly not, just a Trill in yellow. Michael in command gold and with braids.

A planet entirely covered in shields? This aint star wars.

Jola at their stations, Nilsson on the right, and an unknown woman to the left who I will henceforth refer to as “Discount Nilsson” or “Discount Discount Airiam.”

Go Book Go!

That’s Michael and the Emperor near the blast. Also, what appears to be Nhan fully in the fucking air on the far right. Ya think Georgiou is going to get better extensions this season? Me neither.

A battle on some sort of industrial planet, probably after a starship that I found too boring to add to this but appears in the trailer crashes into a building.

I don’t know the Andorian at all, but I’m gonna go ahead and declare this Gays And Theys Solidarity. Also, is that my queen Detmer piloting a shuttle like I said she would earlier? FUCK NO THAT’S BOOK’S SHIP LOOK AT THE BACKGROUND YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE

We saw this scene in the trailer, but guess who we didn’t see! Hello Tilly! Nice to see the costume department remains doing you dirty and putting you in the weirdest tunic-oufits. Is this gonna be a repeat of the season 1 finale?

Maybe Saru just has the one Scrubby Away Mission Outfit. For what it’s worth, this is the same outfit Michael wears in the “time passes” segment of the first trailer from way back when.

Looks like Adira convinced their dad to break out of the museum lifestyle and try out some new minimally-invasive tech. Weren’t you just in a coma, Paul? Anyways cool stuff. Probably important that Discovery is able to instantly travel without dilithium. Almost like they planned it or something.

I support them.

Pretty sure this takes place in a turbolift, judging by the background. Also, Michael remains in Command Gold.

Adira fulfilling their destiny to be the One True Space Gay with Michael. Also, nice to see they dipped into Tilly’s tunic collection. When are we gonna see Grey? Is that Grey on the right? Or just Adira tripping balls, per Discovery tradition?

Rhys is eating popcorn. Crew movie night? I mean, in my dreams they found like some documentary on Pike’s life and are watching it but that seems unlikely.

From left to right, Detmer, Tilly, Jowo, Nhan, Rhys, and Nilsson. We also know from the earlier trailers that Stamets is around there somewhere.

Book and Michael absolutely getting their shit wrecked.

A Diverse Fistbump. Dare I say it, Bryce/Rhys? Or Rhys and Jowo. I’d take either, man.

Oh, I’d forgotten about this plotline from last season. What a treat.

Tilly being proud of Michael? Perfect. Michael back to science silver (I say “back to” because they’ve got the new badges, implying this is later in the show. Remember when Wilson Cruz leaked the new badge design on insta like, last year and had to take it down? I do.)? Not ideal but I’ll take it.

HUGH AND NHANNNNNN

Nice to see that Rachel Ancheril might not have to suffer through aging makeup for the rest of Nhan’s life. Dunno where they’re at. Where’s Pollard? At least we know she lives through getting the new badges, courtesy of Wilson Cruz’s instagram.

Adira fucking, drowning. Paul, stop letting your child go into (glowing) pools unsupervised.

Hold the fucking phone. I am so confused by this frame. I spent minutes pouring over it. That badge in the middle, that’s got to be Tilly’s from s1, right? And maybe the others are hers and she’s gotten promoted? Fucking wrong! They belong to someone named Murphy! Who the fuck is Murphy!?!?!

Convenient that the name and serial number of this ship got blown up. Anyways, I think that’s the old Starfleet headquarters from 3x01?

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww  ^-^

Oh wait, I did find it to be important enough! Spoiler alert, the ship crashes.

And finally, what I can only imagine to be a classic and sappy toast in the cafeteria. Probably “to science” or something like that. New badges. I spy... (from left to right) Stamets in a corner, Rhys, Saru, Owosekun, Bryce, Sonequa Martin-Green’s body double in silver, Book, Tilly, Detmer, Reno, Nilsson.

Hold on.

TILLY WHY ARE YOU WEARING COMMAND GOOOOOLLLLLLLLD