#It's tense. It's well-paced. It's got a lot going on. Tiger is a great character and there's all these little unique dynamics

[bonefall]

I'm not in 100 years reading wind, so what's the nightstar stuff as well as the harelight execution scene?

The Nightstar Stuff is that they're constantly making it clear they KNOW that cats can lie about getting the 9 lives, they KNOW that a murderer can receive the lives, and they KNOW that StarClan has never rejected an evil cat before... but then they handwave it away because they don't wanna do anything.

Nightstar/Nightpelt gets namedropped six times and vaguely alluded to a dozen more, but it means nothing to the story. You could have just forgotten him entirely and the plot would happen the same way.

Most of this book is the leaders finding excuses to sit on their butts, but I really only need to share one exchange to demonstrate just HOW stupid this is,

"I'd like to think that the ancestors would speak up." A+ logic Squirrelflight. Just believe that reality won't happen. If you cover your eyes it makes the maneating lion bowling towards your face go away. Soblem prolved.

[fyrapartnersearch]

1x1 M// Fantasy Romance OC search

Hey! Y'all can call me Eyo or Eyofin, I’m a queer female, 27 years old, full time job and yada yada. Looking for some new fun to keep me going during these great awesome amazing wonderful times. I tend to be long-winded so I’m trying to keep this as brief as I can.

About me & my writing:

 CST Timezone

13+ years of writing experience

Looking to write OC’s, although I’m happy to take inspiration from established universes

Huge Overwatch dweeb, into anime, fantasy, art…the whole nerd package. I like making friends and OOC chat a lot, and I typically get on with people who have similar interests!

I tend to write 500+ words per post, 3rd person, past-tense. I have no length requirements so long as you give me something to bounce off. I’d like coherent grammar and spelling, but I’m not crazy picky.

Chill atmosphere. RP'ing is a hobby and isn’t worth it unless it’s fun for everyone involved. That being said, I can comfortably respond once a day, but I usually match my partner’s pace. I expect you to understand if I need to go a few days without replying, take a break, or go on hiatus. Also, ditching happens. I get it. I don’t sweat the details. If we’ve crossed paths before and it didn’t work out, but you’d be inclined to try again, I’m totally down.

Looking mostly for M/M, tho I’d be open to F/F too. That being said, nothing turns me away more than someone who only plays the submissive role, so if this is you, we’re not going to mesh. I’d rather not distinguish what position characters take in bed and let it flow naturally.

 21+ just because I find it much easier to relate to people closer to my age.

I really enjoy writing smut. I think I’m one of the few people that can pretty much just write it forever (although whether I write GOOD smut is...eh...debatable). That being said, I do still expect a story, and the level of smut can vary depending on what you’re comfortable with. I don’t have many limits at all, but my big, non-negotiable No’s are mpreg, A/B/O, scat, and vomit. I’m always happy to fade to black or accommodate your limits, no questions asked. We can discuss this more in private.

Email or discord are my preferred methods of writing

My characters tend to be very quirky. I like giving them extremes: making them particularly amazing in a few areas, at the detriment of being severely lacking in others. Flawed geniuses. I enjoy giving them pretty radical personality types and don’t do well playing mild, average characters. I tend to break the molds of realism pretty often.

What I’m looking for:

Genres: high fantasy, superheroes, supernatural, adventure, modern fantasy, monsters, apocalypse, etc. 

Character-driven. Come at me if you have OC’s you’re craving to play and we'll smush him with one of mine and see what happens! I’ve got mostly humanoid characters with a monster or two thrown into the mix. I like human x creature pairings quite a bit, but am fine with human x human and all other sorts ;)

I like both fluff and dark themes. Sickeningly sweet romance and then a dose of violence. Relationships that are sunshine and relationships that are twisted and messed up. I think it’s fun when a roleplay has tons of up’s and down’s across the board

I’m cool doubling as necessary to carry the plot along

My plot ideas:

I’m actually pretty dry on plots at the moment, so if you have something you’re craving let me know! I’m open to most things. Here’s a few vague possibilities off the top of my head: 

Kingdoms at war: Can be various types of kingdoms, but two individuals on opposite sides of a war end up in a situation where they have to depend on one another to survive: getting stranded, a huge monster attack, unexpected bigger enemy appearing, etc. They could be the leaders of each kingdom, the children of those leaders, or random soldiers.

Knights and monsters: A famous knight or bounty hunter ends up in an unlikely scenario where he’s paired up with the kind of monster he’s usually fighting. 

Rebellion: Characters live in an oppressive regime. One character is gathering up a rebellion. The other, who could be anyone ranging from a poor nobody to a rich noble, decides to follow along with their cause.

Assassins/Bounty Guild/Mercenaries: Through a wild series of circumstances, one character ends up joining an elite group of assassins/mercenaries, and it’s up to the other character to train him. (I would love to play the experienced guy  in this situation!)

Superheroes: BNHA or Tiger & Bunny inspired. Characters join an organization to be superheroes. They could be classmates, assigned as partners, or, similar to the assassins plot, take on more of a mentor/student role.

Adventure: Characters are explorers tasked with reaching a specific location, chasing after some kind of legendary treasure in an incredibly hostile environment. They can be rivals or partners, or from various different walks of life all trying to reach the same goal.

Gladiators: Boys in an arena, either a fighter and his owner, or two fighters who have to duke it out for the crowds. 

I also have a few pre-made OC’s, and I’d love to write any of them! Since this post is getting rather long, you can find them at https://toyhou.se/Eyofin. 

Thanks for reading through! If you’re still interested you can email me at eyofin1@gmail.com or Discord @Eyofin#2223.

[mejomonster]

saw the first episodes of the lost tomb reboot, and wow yes it is absolutely my jam

YES the sets look so much better. so much. they look more like actual movies or the outlast games or the tomb raider games, there’s dust and contours and rock formations and a lot of different regular house/building/location sets that look like they might be actual places and not just stock-house or stock trailer-apartment. aghhhh soooo much better then the lost tomb 1 sets. so much. Costumes, same - also so much better. all the characters feel lived in like maybe a movie people thought about these details, even though you know this baby is gonna be what - 50/70 episodes?

whereas of course there’s a heaping plenty of cdramas where their costumes and sets look whipped up to some degree (Romance of Tiger and Rose tried, but had this look, Granting You A Dreamlike Life to a degree, Go Princess Go, Men with Sword season 1 especially, Romance of Rua Hong, The Untamed to some degree). this one looks pretty like... idk like they had a stars or hbo kind of budget or effort put into it. As a side note: I also checked out The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty yesterday, and I do think that show looked pretty solid as well in this regard (also I felt Goodbye Princess looked pretty solid in this regard). 

and it just. wow it just looked good. it looked so good. the tomb settings looked like good hollywood movies (the scene in the beginning with Third Uncle reminded me a bit of The Mummy but at night and modern and getting creepy fast lol). It looked good AND THE SCARES AND TENSION WERE BUILT UP WELL. It was paced great, Wu Xie and Pangzi have great chemistry and feel like old best friends. They’re funny and relaxed, or tense and tired and lived in with each other. Their intimacy as far as being long time friends/practically family since they live together, is clear in every scene they get. They easily can joke or insult or be concerned, they touch easy and move like they consider each other family (some great acting agh). Also their dynamic feeling so like... mundane and grounded and familiar really contrasts well against the creepy/tense scenes they’re thrown against. It helps balance the tension so that the moments are either their easy familiarity or else building outside threats.

I am so overjoyed the pacing and the tense scenes are well done (so far). I think its an area this kind of genre show really relies on, and the 1st old drama i thought did not as strongly here as it could have (the old 1st drama i happen to like, and i think it does a good job character/acting/plot wise, the biggest fault i’ve really had with it was pacing since its genre is a lot weaker when its struggling to be action-paced and tense/scary).

anyway WOW this show is my jam rn.

i went in because hello Zhu Yilong. i know he can act well, i am overjoyed it looks like so far everyone else can act great too (Pangzi is doing a fantastic job in his performance so far, at least to me). also i get.. maybe why zyl got picked. way back when i heard this show was coming out, i looked into dmbj just hopeful zyl would be in another action show. i saw wu xie in the first drama and... i was like how is this bright bushy tailed young tomb raider going to be zyl? not that he couldn’t do it but like? he’s maybe not what i’d have pictured, compared to the previous actors that got picked (but i haven’t seen wu xie 2nd drama’s acting, so maybe its more worn-out/grounded). I also had no idea what Reboot wu xie was supposed to be like, except for 10 years+ older - which this part, yeah I get zyl being picked. 

So in the actual show, (pretty early spoiler) Wu Xie is dying and doing one last thing he wants to find out before he does, so he won’t regret. OF COURSE Zhu Yilong was the choice. Of course. He’s really good at carrying some heavy weight stuff, of course he can do a character Going Through It and just bullheadedly stubbornly pushing forward possibly obsessively. It was also really fun to see him in the first episodes, playing Wu Xie before he realized this - unkept hair, no interest in life, sarcastic and a bit of a chill mess. And then when he goes to his 2nd Uncles and its Wu Xie trying to appeal to family, with the clothes they expect and the aqcueising neutral behavior hoping it’ll work, which reminded me a lot of the more fresh bushy tailed naive Wu Xie from the 1st drama as far as the impression this Wu Xie was trying to give his second uncle. And the scene! Where Wu Xie insists he’s still young and business comes first, almost like his character ‘insisting’ he’s still like he early-days Wu Xie character... then his uncle goes ‘you’re not young anymore you’re almost 40!’ And Wu Xie’s face changes, realizing this front he’s putting up isn’t going to fool anyone anymore anyway, and its like a clear sign THIS Wu Xie is no longer that young one. He is older, he IS different, he’s grounded and rougher and broken into something new by life, he can’t be who he used to be even if he steps back into his ‘old role’ of adventurous explorer. WOW I loved that so much. 

It really dug in that this new story is about a NEW Wu Xie who’s gone through enough life he really has changed as a person, and on almost a meta level its like the show really slamming home this is ZYL’s Wu Xie, this is not a person filling a role of the same Wu Xie you remember when the novels began. Its such a good way to establish the character, and to establish how Reboot in some ways is solidly distinct from the previous several novels. That scene just... of course zyl is Wu Xie, this Wu Xie... this older different Reboot Wu Xie who is in a different part of his life, who’s changed and grown, who’s not interswitchable with the young curious adventurer who hadn’t been shaped by all of this yet. It really feels like time has passed, like the character we’re being introduced to is someone grown and changed and new to us now. A lot of the scenes really hammer this home - obviously Wu Xie with his messy hair and robe and disinterest in tomb exploring do in the beginning. But just... this show’s really hammering home that even if he cleans up, looks like Wu Xie ‘ought’ to and does what Wu Xie always ‘does’ like explore and chase mysteries, he is very much not the same person that he used to be - he can’t just undo these changes life caused him. (And if he does, I imagine it’ll be a developing process we can watch). You know - in contrast to those shows/games where the character ‘retired’ but once they’re brought back in some montage, they for all intents feel mostly or fully like their old selves like no life experiences changed their personalities significantly? Whereas when Wu Xie does that ‘quick revamp back to shiny tomb raider’ its abundantly clear its him putting on an ‘act’ that he’s ‘cleaned up.’ That act was for Pangzi, to get them to go on the search for his uncle. Just like Wu Xie putting on the white sweater and going to 2nd Uncle’s was an attempt at putting on an act for uncle - an act he Failed, toward the end, when he realized no one was buying it anymore. And he keeps losing the act with Pangzi too... the difference I think is that Pangzi wants to keep believing his Wu Xie is still that old Wu Xie, because its something he’s insisted on even as Wu Xie outright refused to be it for years. The act is more to seem stable enough in front of Pangzi to be not interferred with, since Pangzi in the end sees him as family and would rather stop him/help take care of him than let him get obsessively into something that looks like its straining him.

And wowwwwww I just love that I’ve got so much thought out character stuff going on AND acted well, in my genre show... I love exciting adventure suspense stuff so damn much, I love great character stuff. I love that this show is nailing both. All the actors, probably in part because of their age just feeling grown and lived in so idk i can relate to what they’re going through, and in part because they’re just all putting 110% into these characters they could easily get away with lazy moments instead. Like... we’ve all seen action movies where this stuff happens, where the characters just don’t like, have as much depth going on. But I can tell Pangzi both wants money and adventure and also just his best friend and to take care of him and genuinely cares for him a LOT, and i like that there’s depth in his acting instead of just being this flat ‘one thing’ defining some of his moments. Even when he’s acting greedy, or insisting, you just KNOW if Wu Xie looked out of it he’d immediately drop those lesser interests of his and prioritize - which we see in the Weather Station. Wu Xie’s obviously been great. 

Even 2nd Uncle’s got some cool character establishing stuff going on with him... he’s this anal cold suburb-uncle acting rich guy but he’s also brutal with criminal money dealings with only-implication, he’s ‘mundane’ like some dad playing video games not worrying about crime dealings but also a selfish dad/uncle clearly just based on that scene alone, he’s got no wife but deeply concerned with family-looks as far as ‘expectations’, he pushes money issues onto Wu Xie again mundanely, looks at the suggested future-gf options for Wu Xie all mundane parent trying to push then slides into mundane gross older man who checks them out, then when Wu Xie leaves that cold blooded ruthlessness comes back and its clear he knows a TON and was putting on his own act in front of Wu Xie by just avoiding the topic/noting what Wu Xie was asking about. Like... wow a ton of character establishing in a few minutes on screen... and again a character that could have been flatter, but wasn’t and was instead very developed and well thought out (and still repulsive, which it always impresses me when an actor gets a bad-person character and can make them feel like a bad person you’d meet in real life instead of a caricature pure evil cartoon villain or trying to portray something sympathetic - this character was repulsive, unlikable, not trying to insist he’s ‘good’ to the audience, but he also felt lived in and like a real person you might deal with instead of some tomb raiding murder gun hiring boss).

I’m not sure how much of it is source material good writing, the drama’s good writing, or the actor’s great performances so far. But like... in a way I’m happy I can’t even tell yet, which to me feels like that means they’re all pretty strong areas.

anyway wow this show is good...

if you like action stuff/creepy stuff, and also good writing/show looks/characterization, so far this show is hitting every point really damn well. i went in just hoping for the bare minimum of some great acting from zhu yilong, and maybeee some cool genre stuff from the show since i like this kinda genre. i’m happy i’m seeing a lot more beyond that. this show’s settings and writing and pacing so far are so gooddddddd 

[kapanbenernya]

Horizon: Zero Dawn -- There’s Only One or Two Giant Dinosaurs

Did you know that I own a PS4? Of course you don’t, why the fuck should you care? I’m literally a stranger on the internet that communicates to you via an internet post floating on the information superhighway like a piece of turd lost in the everflowing sea of turds in a septic tank. But enough rambling on the subject of human feces and back to the topic at hand, I own a PS4.

I used to own the PS2 and I remember having a CD holder shaped like a thick book that holds all my PS2 DVDs, and I remember it being filled to the brim until I have to double-stack the DVDs or else it won’t fit. So why did I bring this up? Because I want to compare that to my PS4 library which consists of 4 blu-rays. No I’m not fucking kidding, I only got 4 games, two of which are a copy of Bloodborne that I had to buy twice because I bought the wrong fucking region and the DLC won’t connect. 

Maybe right now you’re asking yourself, “What’s with the rambling man?” and well... Here’s the thing, I’m gonna be honest from the start: I wasn’t that into Horizon: Zero Dawn (HZD). I bought it just as a filler, to bulk up my library of PS4 exclusives. So yes, I just wasted two paragraphs explaining that I didn’t buy HZD because I think I’ll enjoy it, I bought HZD just to own it and maybe get a kick out of it or two.

Oh well, let’s talk about the game anyway

In this game, you play as Aloy, a woman without a mother in a tribe that places value on matriarchy, which is why she is branded an outcast by her tribe. Wait what? Doesn’t matriarchal society puts more privilege and power on women? So why was she shunned? She’s a woman! Shouldn’t she be given power instead of you know, kicked out?

Something tells me this tribe doesn’t respecc whamen as much as they think they do

But Aloy isn’t all alone in this cold cruel robotic world, she’s got a foster dad whose name I already forgot. I mean it’s not my fault, he’s not that important anyway. All he does is teach Aloy everything she ever knew so that she can go to the yearly outcast acceptance tryouts, nothing important there. Sarcasm aside, it’s still kinda true that his only purpose in the game is to be the plot advancing sacrificial lamb. No spoiler alert needed! His death flag has been raised ever since he become the parental figure of the protagonist, kinda like Batman’s parents or Uncle Ben. 

But no worries, his sacrifice wasn’t in vain because Aloy finally gets accepted into the tribe! By virtue of being the sole survivor of the test because some tribe of edgy fuckboys killed everybody else. And not long after, some killer robots showed up at the door, late to party and and thrashed the place up some more. With the tribe left in tatters, Aloy is appointed as a scout and sent into the world to figure out the threat that looms over the world. Also, Aloy may or may not have been born from a mountain and now have a personal quest of finding out about her origin. And if she had extra time, probably find out whatever it is the old Shaman smoked until she came to the flawless logic that mountains can give birth to humans.

The threat is, as usual: robots gone apeshit

Have I mentioned that the setting of the world is a post-apocalyptic world where people formed tribes and most animal have been replaced by robots? So yeah, two very important aspect of the HZD world. Anyway, the robots and the humans live happily among each other, and by that I mean they kill each other every time their gaze meet. But so far, things have been manageable as long as the humans stay the fuck away from the robot’s territory and vice versa. 

Let me explain about the robots a bit. The robots are various versions of wild animal replacements: stags, bulls, leopards, hawks, saber-toothed tigers, giant fire-breathing chickens, and 30-foot tyrannosaurus rex with frickin’ laser beams.

We all know the mastermind behind the fucking dino, don’t we?

As you can see from my incomplete list alone, the robot variety is rather robust. And the variety is supported by the uniqueness of each robot species. Every robot has different weaknesses based on elements and since the design of each robots is largely varied, the locations of the weak points can be very different. I can see the love and care that went into designing each species, and it shows. Although I gotta admit the herbivores are kind of boring when compared to the carnivores. The herbivores are kinda samey and lame, all you get to do is maybe ride it to town and turn some primitive heads. Meanwhile, the carnivore’s got all the nice toys. The kind of toys that shoots laser and kills people. And guess what? You can shoot the turret off with an arrow then you can pick it up and fire it up their tail pipes.

Now I gotta say, the first time I see the robots, I was like “fuckin’ sold, this shit is G U C C I”. But then after I actually play the game and have come face to face with a lot of them, I wasn’t into them anymore. I don’t know why, but I find the enemies boring after a while. Perhaps its because somehow I find fighting the animal bots has become a chore and not a fun activity to do. I mean the animal bots tend to flock together, so you’re almost always outnumbered, and the bots usually can kill you in a few smacks. This results in a lot of untimely deaths during what I thought would be a sunny stroll in the meadows. Also I think the big machines have too much health. As you can see, I don’t think this is a good thing, the same way a rubber tire isn’t an excellent snack just because you can chew it longer. However, you can actually make all of these problems go away if you choose to stealth it up and crouch like the little bitch that YOU ARE. Hey, dev-person-man-guy-thing, nobody in their right mind looks at a robot T-Rex and say, “Boy, I can’t wait to stealth crouch around this bad boy”. You know what we wanna do? We wanna ride it, or kill it, or ride it AND THEN kill it. Maybe take down a few rival tribes in the process.

And that’s just the fuckin animal bots, there’s also the war bots that looks like a cereal box that grew spider legs. Not only is it visually boring, it’s also plays like shit. Either you have to go play hide and seek with it or it’ll blast you with piss like you’re a really tough shit-stain on the toilet bowl. But the worst of the worst has got to be the human enemies. Fucking hell, in a world filled with creative animal robots, adding human enemies will just bring the standard down. They’re boring to look at, boring to fight against, and just plain stupid. I hate how the so-called “stealth kill” alerts every motherfucker in the area. I hate how you can’t stealth kill the “elite enemies” until you unlock a certain skill. In short, I just hate humans in general.

Not in real life, mind you, I’m a God-fearing peace loving man of the people, man.

Great, since I’ve run out of places to spank HZD, I’m just gonna randomly list all of its best parts.

I like how we can grab some healing items that can be used on-the-go in an instant, and I like how it can be easily found in the wilds like some drive-through salad. What I don’t think I like is how the plants aren’t that easy to differentiate from one another. I mean if I’m gonna make a jump, roll, tumble, and scoot myself down a goddamn hill while dodging lasers fired from a turret mounted on a 20-foot robot tyrannosaurus, that plant better be the healing plant instead of that useless resist fire plant. 

Another thing I like about the game is the weapons. There are quite a variety of weapons at your disposal, and it’s the good kind of variety. The kind of variety that makes each weapon had a distinct feel and different purpose, and I like them all. My favorite is the the tripwire weapon that’s the greatest thing since the invention of fire. The sleeper hit was the sling that I thought was shit but it’s actually great because it can fire ice projectiles that immobilizes the big enemies and freeze their armor. 

This very very tight weapon system is also supported by your ability to craft ammo on the fly. This might seem like a trivial thing, but hear me out now: by enabling you to craft ammo mid-fight, the game makes sure that the pace isn’t halted by the fucking menu screen and you get to keep your focus and maintain the flow of the battle. Because you know what kills my combat boner when I’m in a middle of a tense fight against robot dinosaurs? Having to pause the game and open up the crafting tab because my arrows ran out.

That’s it, that’s about everything I can say about my experience playing the game. There are some things that I actually left out of my review like the world design, the characters, etc. It’s because I think that it’s not that important to mention or it’s just mildly mediocre and not worth reviewing.

In Brief

What’s wrong with me? Do I not like video games anymore? 10 years ago, all I had to do was fire up my PS2, boot up GTA: San Andreas and just grab a bike and cycle from Los Santos to Las Venturas and I was having fun. 5 years ago I finished Dark Souls after 2 years of git gud, and I didn’t let the difficulty break me. Now I’ve got a game filled with creative and challenging enemies, a big open world to explore, and a fuckin robot dinosaur for God’s sake. Why didn't I have fun with it? I don’t think I have an immediate answer for it, but at least I know there’s two possibilities. One, is that I AM actually losing my touch and I’m not that into video games anymore. Probably all this adult thing and living my life that’s gotten in the way. The other one is that my tastes has actually gotten better with time, and now I notice the intricacies and can distinguish whether a game is good or bad, and I simply did not want to waste my limited time with games that I didn’t really like that much, including HZD.

I guess we can learn something from the animal robot designs. No matter how well you design an element of a game; visually or audibly, it won’t be appreciated as much if it does not add much to the gameplay --or worse-- plays like shit. Because you ARE making a game, and all the elements that you design will ultimately be judged from how it feels as a game. You can paint the robots with naked titties, but if they’re boring to fight, people will still think of them as badly designed. As for the case of the war bots and the human enemies? Dogshit.

9/10/2018

[pod7]

Fall Anime* 2016 Lightning Review

*Just the shows I watched of course

Shows Included: 3-gatsu no Lion, All Out!!, Bernard-jou Iwaku, Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy, Cheating Craft, DAYS, Drifters, Fune wo Amu, Getsuyoubi no Tawawa, Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku, Keijo!!!!!!!!, Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki, Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku, Nanbaka, Nazotokine, Nobunaga no Shinobi, Occultic;Nine, Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+!, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan, Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume, Sousei no Onmyouji, Soushin Shoujo Matoi, Stella no Mahou, Teekyuu 8, Tiger Mask W, To Be Hero, Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari, Watashi ga Motete Dousunda, WWW. Working!!

A really mixed bag this season, though a much better season than the summer!

3-gatsu no Lion As expected of SHAFT, a great character driven coming-of-age story that is practically flawless. I really enjoy any time the three sisters are on screen, but I also appreciate the appearances that his step-sister has made. She’s just sympathetic enough that you feel bad for feeling bad for her, but she’s also cruel enough to make you tense up the moment she comes on screen. The one thing I don’t like about this show is the thing it seems to get the most hype for, which is it’s intro song. I just don’t feel like it fits the attitude of the show. Otherwise though, yet another home run from SHAFT. Series continues! Highest recommendation

All Out!! This isn’t the best show, I wouldn’t even say it’s better than DAYS, but it was enjoyable enough. If the retired pro player turned coach hadn’t of shown up, I might have dropped it, truth be told. Once he shows up the, the season really picked up. The show is continuing, so hopefully that upward trend is here to stay. Series continues!

Bernard-jou Iwaku I’m not much of a book nerd, so a lot of this was lost on me, but there were still some great laughs to be had. If you’re into science fiction and novels in general they have a lot of interesting factoids about books and you could probably pick up some good recommendations from it. 7/10

Bishoujo Yuugi Unit Crane Game Girls Galaxy The series got a budget this time around, so it was actually pretty well animated (for flash), and they were able to have a lot more detail as well. I loved the inclusion of Dark Cherry, they were great foils to CRANE GAMU. It was more of a nonsense comedy this season, as opposed to “crane game tips as brought to you by an idol anime” that the first season had. Ended on a pretty wild note with Kyouko and Rei seemingly becoming a couple out of nowhere, though in hindsight they make a great pair. 8/10

Cheating Craft A really weird show, like, it would be hard to even explain what it is without being incredibly vague. The characters were great, especially the home room teacher. One of several shows this season that had some surprise GL in it. 6/10

DAYS I still think that the coach from this team would have been fired already, for letting someone that inexperienced play in such important matches. I also feel like the show contradicted itself quite a bit; they said that all the starters are starters because they are out for themselves, but they were willing to play with a no-experience player AS A STARTER. Maybe it’s just a sports thing I don’t understand, but every time someone said “it’s not your fault” I was audibly saying “no, it really was!” Ubukata was great, but I feel bad for Tsukushi’s childhood friend basically getting zero screen time after the first episode. I would have liked for Tsukushi’s mom to have been more of a factor in the show as well. For a sports anime, it was good, but there were a lot of things I had problems with. 7/10

Drifters It’s a cool concept, of course, but I worry about the execution of it all. This great nation of Orte that some of the characters wish to protect was founded by Adolf Hitler, who is supposedly a Drifter, which makes him a good guy by default, since that’s what the protagonists are. If I need to spell out why that’s fishy at best, then you need to go back to school or at least watch the History channel once in a while. I also would have liked to have seen at some point in this season some kind of selection process for why someone ends up a Drifter and why someone ends up as an End. If the Black King isn’t Merlin, I will be incredibly shocked, because he’s the only historical figure I can think of that would also be excusable as such an all powerful deity type figure that can give other people powers, as well as using alchemy. I love the harsh art style, it fits the attitude of the show quite well. As a history nerd, I think it would be really funny if Teddy Roosevelt showed up with the Rough RIders to go ham on the Ends, but will just have to see what the next season holds. 8/10

Fune wo Amu I had originally thought this would be a much different series. After the first episode I actually looked it up to see if it was going to be something I’d actually be able to watch three episodes of without falling asleep. The synopsis I read was pretty misleading, though it may have been for the live action adaptation that came out before; it basically said that the protagonist would be tasked with defining “love”, and through that he would complete this dictionary and learn to live life to the fullest and so on. Unfortunately, for the animated adaptation at least, that’s pretty much a lie. He realizes he has feelings for his landlord’s grand-daughter, and then four episodes later they’ve been married for over a decade, her as a successful chef, and he on the cusp of completing the dictionary. It felt like they cut out an entire third (or even half) of the story just to fit it into 12 episodes, which was really disappointing to me. It wasn’t bad, but I felt like it could have made it’s point about seeing things through and the importance of words a lot clearer with just a few more episodes. 7/10

Getsuyoubi no Tawawa I’m kind of surprised that this show didn’t get a lot of shit, to be frank. It’s everything people love to guffaw about when it comes to anime; a large-chested girl who is too young for the guy she is talking to in most cases and is doing everything but dragging him to a love hotel. I’m not even sure what this would be categorized as; I wouldn’t call it a romcom, because there weren’t really any gags or jokes to it, and if you just call it a romance then people expect drama when there wasn’t any of that either. So... if you want to see a well-endowed girl flirt with nameless, faceless men for 12 episodes, this is the one for you. 6/10

Kaijuu Girls: Ultra Kaijuu Gijinka Keikaku There isn’t really much to say about this show other than if you like kaijuu and chibi/SD characters, you’ll probably like this show. If it had been more than a five minute show, I think it would have become boring, because they don’t really end up doing that much over the course of the season. Just a short, silly comedy about girls learning to use powers, basically. 7/10

Keijo!!!!!!!! I really want to compare this to Valkyrie Drive, because it was good, but... it was just a little too much. If they had dialed back the ecchi during the times they weren’t in a match, I think it would have had a greater comedic impact when it came to the action. Instead towards the end it was like “wow they are laying it on thick this episode.” Still, I salute them for just going all out with it. I usually complain about “boring sports” anime needing to rely on silly gimmicks for their characters to make the show more interesting, but Keijo already had it’s silly gimmick in place, so the super moves/abilities weren’t far as far fetched as say, a mahjong player that does better because there is a full moon out that night. The foley artists should be commended specifically for this show, they did an incredible job. 8/10

Kiitarou Shounen no Youkai Enikki This show came and went by in a flash. I didn’t even realize it had ended until I started writing this; it didn’t have a very definitive finale I guess. if you’re into Japanese folklore/yokai/bakemono/etc, but also are okay with those characters used in a comedic setting, you should give this show a shot. 7/10

Mahou Shoujo Ikusei Keikaku I don’t really know how to feel about this at this point. The character design bothered me a lot in the beginning, and by the time I got used to it, other problems sprang forth. It was another one of those “subversion of the genre” mahou shoujo series, which has become a genre on it’s own at this point because so many people are doing it. Out of all the girls, Swim Swim’s arc was the best, though I wish they had explained why she had her super OP power (since most of the others depended on what they wanted to do or their personality, seemingly.) It was also interesting that in the end they kept their powers, even though they broke their communicators from Fav, which was a nice change of pace. 7/10

Nanbaka This was a very strange show. At first I thought it was going to be like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure because of the aesthetic, but instead it was just a fun gag show about a larger than life prison. Of course the highlight of the show for me was once again, Yuu Kobayashi as the warden, stealing the spotlight in a fairly minor role. I think I enjoyed it more as a comedy, because towards the end it gets pretty serious with some action mixed in too, and it just felt kind of like “Okay let’s get back to the gags now.” Overall though a pretty entertaining show. 8/10

Nazotokine An OL who works as secretary to the CEO of a major company finds excitement in her every day life, but suddenly gets sucked into a weird dimension where she is tasked with solving puzzles in order to go back to her normal life. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles involved Japanese words I didn’t know, so I was basically just watching for the performances (thought the two or three that didn’t I was able to solve.) A good premise, I think it could have been fleshed out a lot more. It seems like the kind of thing that was based off of a mobile game or even just a series of puzzle books. I just thought it was funny that this and Tiger Mask W aired in the same season because in TMW they show New Japan Pro Wrestling all the time, and in Nazotokine during one episode they go to an All Japan Pro Wrestling show. Would like to see more but I doubt it will happen. 8/10

Nobunaga no Shinobi A nice, short gag comedy about a little ninja girl who is super effective with her work but kind of a ditz otherwise. A cute show that can be surprisingly bloody, but most of the time it’s just goofball type humor. Series continues!

Occultic;Nine The first third and last third of this season were okay, but the middle part was really boring and a lot of the side stuff going on felt unnecessary. Spending so much time on the little girl practicing black magic and the guy using astral projection just to have a way to explain how time passes for you as a scandium ghost was a little much. The cast wasn’t particularly relatable either. I did like the reveal of the person who was going around “deleting” the ghosts, though, and the FBI with psychometry was really great (would have preferred to see the story from her perspective honestly.) It felt like someone who wrote a Persona teamed up with a studio that wants to be SHAFT. 5/10

Okusama ga Seitokaichou!+! Wasn’t a fan of this season as much as the last one. It felt like they had a meeting and said “Okay, the framing is established with season one, so now we can just go all out with erotica!” The problem was is that, they can only go so far, so showing what is basically the same thing over and over with just different characters makes it lose any ecchi power it may have had originally. 6/10

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan An absolute joy of a show. I would not mind if I was still writing about this show in these season wrap-up reviews this time next year, it’s that good. Nendou-kun has grown on me a lot as the show has gone on, and Teruhashi has become my favorite character I think. 10/10

Shakunetsu no Takkyuu Musume I started to have the same problem with this show that I did with Saki (the mahjong anime), wherein they feel like the characters or action aren’t strong enough, so they have to give the players these goofy gimmicks that are beyond ridiculous. I really could not stand the green-haired yandere chick in this show, and was incredibly happened when that mini-arc ended. The beginning third of the show, I can understand people being perturbed at the lack of sport in this sport anime in favor of so much ~moe, but I think the episodes after the practice match arc are a great example of the show at it’s best, with a great balance of moe and sport. It’s not for everyone, but it has a fun, memorable cast. Reminded me quite a lot of KanaMemo, actually. 8/10

Sousei no Onmyouji Well, I would say the ride was fun, but it really wasn’t for the most part. The first arc of the show was pretty good, then they had a lovebirds arc which was horrendously stupid, and then it got into more action again and it was fine for a while but then you could tell the original writer started stalling at a certain point and it was really obnoxious how so little of what was going on week to week felt like it mattered in the grand scheme of things. It was like the series couldn’t decided to be a supernatural action show or a romcom, and you can’t really half-ass doing both when you have a masterpiece like Katanagatari out there. It had promise, but just took way too long to deliver, if it ever will. Dropped

Soushin Shoujo Matoi I don’t know if I’ve just watched too much anime by now or what, but I felt like I had seen this show a hundred times already. Nothing felt new or refreshing. It’s a very pretty show, at least, so I watched it all the way through, but I don’t think I’ll remember the name of this show next week, let alone next year. 7/10

Stella no Mahou I was a little worried about this show at the beginning because of how babyish the protagonist was, but she matures pretty quickly, and the remnants of her babyness become part of her charm. This felt like if you mixed Yuru Yuri and Wakaba Girl together, which is a pretty good combo. It also reminded me a bit of Saekano, even down to the girl in charge of music getting the least screen time. I would like to see another season of this but I think it would need to move about more into a more serious mood, like maybe they decide to debut at Comiket for real this time and put everything they have into a new game. 9/10

Teekyuu 8 I always love Teekyuu content, if you’ve followed me for a while then you know that quite well. 10/10

Tiger Mask W What knowledge I DON’T have from never having seen the previous Tiger Mask anime, the knowledge I have of him as an IRL pro wrestler and the current Japanese wrestling scene and attitude has made up for anything I would have otherwise missed. If nobody noticed, Monopoly is meant to be the WWE, and New Japan’s partnership with this series is a pretty clear showing on how they feel about WWE’s current move to basically create pro-wrestling colonies on other continents. There’s a lot of other BTS politics involved, but it’s interesting to see it as fodder for what amounts to a kids’ show. The main problem I have with the series so far is the inconsistency in violence and how much is tolerated. One of Tiger’s early foes causes him to bleed profusely and beats the piss out of him, but he says his match with Tiger the Dark was his hardest yet and he was barely even scratched. Also, a guy with a sword shows up in one episode, which is just bad, since he can never realistically use it (even in a cartoon setting.) Series continues!

To Be Hero I haven’t read anything about the behind-the-scenes of this series, but it would not surprise me in the least if it was a jab at One Punch Man. The dialogue is the star of the show here, with every character getting at least one really great monologue. The ending was actually pretty touching for a show about a guy that got superpowers from taking a dump. 8/10

Udon no Kuni no Kiniro Kemari This show was great, but towards the end, it felt kind of forced. It had a great thing going, and then it was like they thought, “Wait, Poco is still a tanuki?! Crap, what are we going to do?” I think this would have been better served about a guy reconciling with his decision to go to Tokyo, and having a son he didn’t know about to deal with in the process. Maybe Souta left for Tokyo for the same reason, but while he was there, he dated a foreigner, and they broke up, which lead to him getting into a rut at his job, and then finally moving back home to take care of his father’s effects post-mortem, where he finds his dad had taken in the child his girlfriend never told him about. SOMETHING like that. There was also a great missed opportunity I think with Nakaji and Rinko. One of Nakaji’s problems in the season is that his parents are hounding him about getting married, so what if he hadn’t been even looking because he was having an affair with Rinko? It honestly felt like that’s where they were going with it to me. She tells him he should stop smoking, and he eats her cooking despite knowing it’s bad, and then when she tells him she’s pregnant, it just honestly felt like that scene was written out as her telling him it’s his, and he’s the first to know she’s pregnant. It was also kind of disappointing that Udon didn’t really have all that much to do with the show, despite being in the title. Kana Hanazawa’s character is about as big of a red herring as you can get in this kind of show, as well. It’s cute and genuinely funny, but could have been much better and poignant in another world. 8/10

Watashi ga Motete Dousunda I imagine the manga won’t end the same way the show did (assuming the manga continues from there), but I think the writers of the show ended it the best way they could. Say what you will about the comedy based around liking gay fiction (admittedly exploitative fiction) making you a weirdo, but I feel like when it came to Nishina, they treated her respectfully, even showing her as a true rival, an equal, amongst the other suitors that Kae genuinely considered. That in itself should be celebrated. Yuu Kobayashi is easily top 3 seiyuu for me, so any show that she is the focal point is always one that I will enjoy all the way through. 9/10

WWW. Working!! I had a pretty big falling out with the main Working!! series, but there were several things that I did enjoy about it. I’m happy to say that those things are present in this spinoff as well, not only that, but I feel like WWW does it even better. In the main series, several of the characters were a pain in the ass with no payoff, but in WWW, they wrap up everything nicely in one season, without any characters feeling annoying or worthless. My favorite, as per usual, was one of the characters with the least amount of screen time, Kisaki. Of course, the manager was my fav character from the main series, and since they share many traits, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. It almost felt like this was a reboot in retrospect, considering how similar some of the characters are to the main series cast; they were just written better this time around. 9/10

[newmayhem]

Demon In My View Reread Review

Check out my other Den of Shadows reviews HERE.

Pre-read

I haven’t read this in over a decade, guys! I remembered really looking forward to reading this after I had first finished ITFOTN. At the time, I was just dipping my toes into my middle school goth phase, I really wanted to be a writer, and I was also hard core thirsting for Aubrey, so this book was all the way up my alley. I also remember really liking Jessica because she was very different from other YA heroines that I had been reading about at the time. I liked that like Risika, she was not a ‘nice girl’. She was confident and beautiful and had a bit of a mean streak. And, of course, I swooned at the romance. Also, it had a cool cover.

Specific scenes/images I remember:

Jessica being really hot and having black hair, pale skin, and green eyes

Jessica noting that the kid who made fun of her is reading her book

Jessica seeing Alex/Aubrey for the first time and he's wearing his upside down cross

Caryn offering Aubrey her blood

Jessica coming across a black rose bush

Pregnant Jazlyn at her husband's grave

Fala's in this, too

The ending scene where Jessica's says that she can't write without her laptop

Post-read Thoughts

I liked it. It has its problems and I’m definitely well beyond the target age range that this is intended for, but it was a fun time.

In terms of its formal qualities, I think that it was a good call to write this in 3rd person pov in the past tense (as opposed to 1st person pov in the present tense in ITFOTN). I think the 1st person narration was fine in ITFOTN because it added an extra layer to the story in having the reader question Risika’s reliability as a narrator, but DIMV would’ve been kind of insufferable if told from Jessica’s pov just by virtue of her being an abrasive teenager.

Even though, like ITFOTN, a lot of the relationships and characters needed more time to be fully fleshed out, and I noticed that the storyline did feel more complete than ITFOTN’s. I think this is mostly because it was all told sequentially (as opposed to being told in flashbacks), so it was necessary for the plot to have a clear arc.

There are a lot of digressions that explain more about vampires and witches and the histories of certain characters, and while I appreciated that as a fan of the series and as someone who’s doing research on it, it did distract from the story and I wish it had been folded in more seamlessly. There’s a lot of telling when there should be showing.

As with ITFOTN, I liked how fast-paced it was, but I also wished that it was maybe a hundred pages longer so everything could be better developed and there would be more room to show rather than tell. Like, I wished we could’ve had more time with Caryn and Hasana so that we could learn more about the witch world through their experiences rather than through all these digressions. I also feel like Fala (notably, the only unambiguously nonwhite character in the book) got shafted. I’m all for letting villains be villains, I don’t think we needed to give her some sort of sympathetic background or anything, but it felt like her motives were too petty to take seriously. She only popped up in the book to give some quick over the top threats or taunts a few times before the big showdown to remind us that there was a villain, and that made her feel very cartoonish and less like a real threat.

I also didn’t really buy the whole Jessica/Aubrey relationship. I mean, I could definitely buy it as a really strong attraction/infatuation, but once it was labelled as ‘love’, I got confused. Maybe vampires/immortals have a different definition of love? Like, maybe they take love less seriously (and use it as a catchall term) because they’ve been around for so long and they know that relationships don’t last forever? I might do a post on that actually.

I think both my favorite and least favorite part of this book was Jessica. She’s an asshole and a half, I hate her as a person but I kind of love her as a character. I love a good mean girl and for me, it made sense that she would be really abrasive as a reaction to the chronic rejection she felt from the community she grew up in. I normally hate reckless/impulsive characters, but I liked that Jessica was able to back up her impulsiveness with being smart and having some sort of survival instinct. On a side note, I also appreciate that all of ahar’s heroines so far are confident, unapologetically hot, and know that they’re hot.

That said, I really wished the narrative called Jessica out on being a menace rather than constantly give her what she wanted without having it cost her anything. I think it would’ve been better if the story showed that Jessica’s whole abrasiveness-rejection thing became its own self-fulfilling prophecy rather than blaming everything on the vampire blood and always justifying Jessica being an asshole to everyone. I also think that it actually doesn’t make sense for her to reject her adoptive mother and treat her so terribly. This was the one person who ever made an effort to get close to her, after all. I think that developing this relationship further would’ve made Anne’s death much more impactful. And generally, while I liked that she was this cool, snarky badass...she lacked nuance and complexity, which ultimately made her less interesting.

I’m not going to call Jessica a Mary Sue, but I do think that she’s overpowered (which, I guess is fine because boys get to have their ridiculously overpowered characters). I don’t like how Jessica never had to give anything up in order to get what she wants. I mean, she loses her adoptive mom, but they weren’t even that close. She had no other ties to the human world, no human friends or anything, so she didn’t really have to give that up, either. There's even a loophole for her to get around the big caveat of needing to fight the change/be changed unwillingly in order to be a strong vampire. Generally, she didn’t have to go through any real character development to become the person she needed to be in order to get her happy ending. It makes for a less satisfying/compelling story. Like, the reason why the ending of ITFOTN was satisfying was because (even though it wasn’t perfectly executed) Risika had to finally give up the last vestiges of humanity that she had been holding onto (the only thing she had left of her brother) in order to win against Aubrey and get her revenge and it actually hurt her to do that.

You know, this gives me a fic idea. I’ll do a separate post on it.

My other favorite part of this book were the references to how it’s been a few years since Aubrey lost against Risika but he’s still not entirely over it. Like, all it took was seeing a somewhat accurate artistic rendering of Risika on the cover of Tiger, Tiger to get him so angry that he had to leave the room. Just one quick taunt about it from Fala and he’s ready to kill her over it.

Speaking of Risika, this book also gave some insight into Aubrey’s involvement with Risika’s story, revealing that Aubrey had been drawn to Risika before Ather had even taken notice of her.

Additionally, I noticed some interesting parallels between Jessica and Risika:

They both have mysteries surrounding their birth mothers

They, as natural-born supernatural beings, grew up in an all-human community

Aubrey was drawn to both of them because they exuded a great strength that mirrored his own and because of that, he played a big role in their respective vampire origin stories

Most importantly, they both slapped Aubrey and lived to tell the tale

I’m not sure if this was intentional on ahar’s part or what I might do with this information, but it feels significant. And I think that it’s pretty significant, too, that Aubrey used Alex as his alias, even though I (and apparently ahar, according to the Nyeusigrube discord) don’t know exactly what that is.

Also, I just thought of this- has Risika read any of Jessica’s books? If she’s read Tiger, Tiger, does this mean she now knows about what happened to her mom?

And to close this out, I spotted a bunch of continuity and factual/logical errors:

In ITFOTN, Risika walked by Jessica’s house and called her ‘Concord’s young writer’ and saying that everything she writes is true. How would Risika know this if Tiger, Tiger was Jessica’s debut novel and was just published at the beginning of DIMV, which takes place a few years after ITFOTN? Also, Jessica doesn’t start writing until after she moved to Ramsa.

Kala’s death via vampire hunter was noted in ITFOTN, which doesn’t make sense because DIMV made it clear that it happened recently and as a result of Jessica’s writing, which hadn’t been published until the beginning of DIMV, which takes place a few years after ITFOTN.

If Ramsa is so full of vampire energy, as Caryn states, then why are the humans not used to it? Why do they reject Jessica because of her vampire energy?

Moira is stated to be ~500 years older than Aubrey, who, according to Word of God was from Sparta (which stopped being a thing around 192 BCE)...only the text says that shortly after she was changed, she ripped out the heart of an Aztec priest. The Aztec empire didn’t exist until the 1400s CE.

But that aside, this was all in all a fun read and it gave me a lot of valuable info that I can use in the fanfic.

[rob-blog1234]

BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND TV HOT FILM PICKS!

Check out my guide to the top films on TV this extended weekend, Friday through to Monday, and the best of the rest. Enjoy!

LATE FRIDAY 25th AUGUST

HOT PICKS!

TCM @ 2100       Poltergeist (1982) *****

What a fantastic and scary haunting film. One thing is for certain, hauntings are definitely more horrifying than mass murderers, serial killers and monsters. This is one of the very best horror films and a must see for fans of the genre.

Tobe Hooper really gives Spielberg’s film great merit. Even from the opening scenes as we pan round the house, following the dog, introducing us to the fateful family, we can see his great eye for film.  It is definitely more restrained than modern haunting films with lots more discussion and focus on the family than the paranormal events themselves, it’s only towards the end of the film that we get a more focused barrage of  ghostly activity. This is one of the reasons why it works so well. The main cast of the family are fantastic, a suitably hot mom, a great performance from Craig T. Nelson as the Dad, and the kids are absolutely spot on. I was always impressed with how very real Oliver Robin’s fear was portrayed, considering he was 8 years old, when he was screaming for his mom to come to the TV, it all felt heightened and heart-poundingly real indeed. The family are the core of this film, they are its success and give it a real tender edge that other films have just not been able to recreate.

Maybe it was because I originally watched this film when I was far too young but it is directly responsible for the following: - My irrational fear of clown dolls. - My dread of white noise on TV (Thank god for 24 hour TV!) - Cold sweats around old gnarly trees in storms. - My skin crawling at the high pitched shrieking cries of children.

Poltergeist is an adventure, a horror classic and always impresses. A perfect leader in the haunted house genre. It’s been quite influential and has some nifty effects for 1982. It always makes me wish that Spielberg had been involved more in the way of horror.

Film4 @ 2100     Predator (1987) *****

With the sad news that Sonny Landham has left this mortal plain get Predator on your watch list to see him in all his glory as the mysterious and intense Billy. R.I.P.

According to Letterboxd I’ve seen this outstanding film 17 times in the last 4 years. That’s not even taking into account the early days on VHS and the many wonderful times on TV where it was dubbed and cut to oblivion. It is one of my all-time favourite films and... I think I have a problem. I can’t stop buying it! I have 5 copies now: VHS, DVD, DVD double set with Predator 2, Blu Ray, and now 3D Blu Ray Steelbook. I am an addict. Why? Well - It's goddam awesome. That's why. Everything in this film works so wonderfully together. All I need now is the 3D Blu Ray in a life size Predator head box set to fulfil my crazy addiction. So, the film…

I last watched it in 3D for the fifth time. The 3D doesn't really bring anything new to the film, as a conversion it still looked a little flat, I was hoping the jungle would really come alive and take me. But it did not detract from my enjoyment one little bit and I will admittedly always grab the glasses for a slice of 3D action if there is ever a choice.

This classic Arnie Sci-Fi Action-er is ultimately re-watchable. You’ve seen it hundreds of times, you quote each line seconds before they happen, you even know the sound of each and every gun shot and explosion as they are about to occur. This is my most quoted film, at least once a week I shoe horn a Predator quote into my everyday life: from “I’m gonna have me some fun” to “I wouldn’t wish that on a broke dick dawg” … Amazing.

The music is completely iconic. Alan Silvestri’s score is right up there with the greatest scores in film. Coupled with some fabulous sound effects. It’s quite simply perfect. It’s so apt and effective, driving the film forward with an urgency like no other. It gets your blood pumping and puts you right in the jungle maze with them. It’s as if the Jungle just came alive and took him… Sorry.

This is Arnie’s finest hour. Yes he’s fantastic in Total Recall but here he is doing what he does best. Big, bold, mumbling muscle. Wielding a gun as large as a child in one hand and with a list of one liners at the ready, he storms this performance. He is together with a crack team of commandos - an eclectic mix of characters played by an equally eclectic mix of actors. Carl Weathers has either been airbrushed within an inch of reality or is wearing so much make up at the start of this film. His face is just too smooth, almost like he’s made of putty or like the jungle came alive and paint shopped him. Jesse Ventura’s larger than life character just fits right in here. And of course the late and great Sonny Landham as the ju-ju bag fondling tracker whose lines are just amazing, such a mix of muscle must have been hell for McTiernan to direct, but boy did he do well! In such a difficult terrain he pulled it out of the bag in momentous style.

This crack team go on a rescue mission in the Central American jungle. The mission goes from bad to worse as they soon realise a dangerous alien predator is hunting them down one by one. It’s tense, fast paced and full to the brim with enough action and bullets to take down a small country. It has got some great shocks and splattered with some well-placed gore as the team gets picked off in an array of bloody violent ways. It’s ultimately thrilling and will always stand tall as one of the great Action Sci-Fi Thrillers of all time!

“GET TO DER CHARRPARR!” (Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

And step away from the remote! It's a Film4 double Bill! Predator 2 is on next. Grab a beer and get ready for some more Predator action.

Best of the rest:

Film4 @ 1635     Rango (2011) ****

5* @ 1900           Labyrinth (1986) ****

Horror @ 2245   We Are Still Here (2015) ****

Film4 @ 2305     Predator 2 (1990) ****

BBC1 @ 2350     Up in the Air (2009) ****

Film4 @ 0115      Serpico (1973) ****

SATURDAY 26th AUGUST

HOT PICKS!

Horror @ 2100    Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (2010) ****

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is a stand out comedy from 2010. Although less effective after a few re-watches it still pulls enough laughs to stay up in 4 star territory. For those who have not seen this film please do! It was one of my favourite comedies of 2010 with its great storytelling and the way it tips all expectations on their head. This film had a remarkably fresh feel. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine work well together and are a great comedy duo. This is comedy horror done well. Just what the genre needed. Get this on record.

TCM @ 2100     Looper (2012) *****

A thoroughly enjoyable Sci-Fi feast from the director who brought us the outstanding Brick, the little-too-overblown-but-still-decent The Brothers Bloom and is at the helm for Star Wars Episode VIII. In his third outing Rian Johnson has bigger names, a bigger budget and way bigger ambition. Looper really is a good contender to be up there in the list of best films of 2012 with strengths, qualities and conviction that play out this paradox filled plot with style. I accepted the bizarre and very limited use of Time Travel by the future mob, as with all time travel films there is always a certain amount of assumptions and as the film progressed I realised the audience has to dismiss a lot of the why’s, what if’s and but’s, but Johnson makes it easy to simply “go with the flow” with a detailed and immersive story.

My second, third and fourth viewing have been even more enjoyable than the first I fail to see any real problems with this film. Emily Blunt did a sterling job as Sara. The young Pierce Gagnon who played Cid was also a great find.

Overall, this is a fantastic film and immediately cries out for another viewing. Complicated, complex and unpredictable, Johnson has really pulled out all the stops here.

ITV1 @ 2215      Captain Phillips (2013) ****

Hanks steels the show in this emotionally charged slice of reality. Tense. Gripping and feels very human. It doesn’t showboat (sorry) as a good-guys and bad-guy’s story - this is a film that shows the awful truth behind the motivations and outcomes of the events as they pan out. Desperation, victimisation, the circumstances of the Somali pirates that puts them in this altogether desperate situation is touched upon and handled well. This is another Greengrass success. The final scenes caught me a little by surprise and heavy with emotion and with full buy-in to the amazing characters - it’s a tear jerker. A great film.

Film4 @ 2240     The Guest (2014) ****

Adam Wingard dished out a very entertaining romp with 2014’s The Guest. It leans on my love of the 80’s and combined with a cool synth-filled-soundtrack and some nice visuals this hits all my spots.

A soldier arrives at the home of the Peterson family and claims to be a friend of their son who died in action. He is welcomed into their home but soon suspicion arises in the household and some seemingly accidental deaths are coincide with his arrival. Its twists may not be the subtlest but it all gels rather nicely with some good quality action and tension. Watch this.

Best of the rest:

Film4 @ 1100      The Dark Crystal (1982) ***

TCM @ 1205        The Dirty Dozen (1967) ****

ITV3 @ 1450        Casablanca (1942) *****

ITV3 @ 1655        The Queen (2006) ****

Sony @ 1825       Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) ****

Sky1 @ 2100        A Few Good Men (1992) ****

Dave @ 2300       Heat (1995) *****

5* @ 2315             The Green Hornet (2011) ***

Sony @ 2315         Inside Man (2006) ***

Film4 @ 0040       Taxi Driver (1976) *****

SUNDAY 27th AUGUST

HOT PICKS!

ITV1 @ 1540     Superman (1978) *****

No Bank Holiday weekend is complete without the original Superman gracing our TV schedules. This film is a classic. Everyone has seen it - it’s been a staple TV weekend and Bank Holiday film for many, many years and with all the sequels and re-imaginings, TV series, spin offs and remakes this 1979 super hero movie still remains the very best of the bunch. Even though the effects are a little old they simply add to the charm of the film. Whereas today bad CGI almost always ruins a film, in 1978 they had to rely on strength of story and this certainly has just that - it’s a consuming adventure with a lot of heart and a great vein of comedy. There’s no better way to kick off your afternoon with the iconic Superman. This is feel good film making at its very best.

C4 @ 2315     The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) *****

Check out Scorsese’s balls-out look at some horrible people doing repugnant things with so much swearing if it was edited it would end before it started. This is a film of excess in every way.

DiCaprio is Jordan Belfort and the film follows his rise and fall in Wall Street. It’s hilarious and repulsive in equal merit, but where this film worked for me is it didn’t seem to be telling me something clever, having an opinion or educating us on what is right or wrong - it simply shows us the American dream encapsulated in one man’s story to power and money. It’s crass, crude and unabashed about what it is. But no matter how much I dissect it I was addicted to this story and could help but follow along wide eyed and mouthed. It’s worth it just for the Lamborghini scene alone. Don’t miss this.

Film4 @ 2310    An American Werewolf in London (1981) *****

It’s only in the last 6 years that I saw this film for the first time and I was concerned that I had missed the boat and it would be horrendously outdated, but I was pleasantly surprised. It barely shows its age at all!

The story begins with two American back packers on the remote moors of England that lose their way as they turn to a local village for help they find a rather unaccommodating group of villagers and they soon realize they are well and truly on their own. As they cross the moors they are attacked by a huge wolf like creature! The villagers appear to be covering up the true horrors of their encounter.

It has a real interesting mix of horror and comedy that is really quite subtle. The lighter moments offset the horror in a real complimentary way and the 80’s “moon” related soundtrack seemed rather odd to start with but adds yet another layer to the overall experience. Unlike today’s heavy reliance on CGI, director John Landis had to rely on physical effects and make up when putting together the transformation scene. It is an absolutely amazing job - every elongation of limbs and warping of body parts is done with amazing skill that looks very realistic and quite horrifying even to today’s standards.

Overall, the film is based on a very simple idea but is executed in a very accomplished way. If you haven’t seen this film, push it to the top of your to do list.

Best of the rest:

TCM @ 0715       What's Up, Doc? (1972) ****

Film4 @ 1525      Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) ****

W @ 1610            The Neverending Story (1984) ***

BBC1 @ 1635      Toy Story 2 (1999) *****

ITV2 @ 1800        Despicable Me (2010) ***

Universal @ 2100 Sleepers (1996) ****

BBC2 @ 2300      The Ides of March (2011) ****

Film4 @ 0105       The Warriors (1979) ****

BANK HOLIDAY MONDAY 28th AUGUST

HOT PICKS!

Dave @ 1405      Kelly's Heroes (1970) *****

Another Bank Holiday staple. Kelly’s Heroes is one of my most watched war films. Well, it’s more of a heist film that just so happens to be set slap bang in the middle of a war zone in WW2. It’s very funny and from the very start Telly Savalas’s rants put a smile on your face and you know exactly what you are in for. The cast are the main driver for this film’s success with a host of interesting and outrageous characters from Telly Savalas’s larger than life Big Joe to Donald Sutherland’s stoner hippy tank driver, Oddball. It certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action either and there are enough bullets and explosions to take down a small country. It’s not all fun and frolics and it still has a few satirical barbs thrown in for good measure. Kelly’s Heroes is a fantastically fun film. Watch this.

Horror @ 2100    Triangle (2009) ****

I’ve always been surprised this film didn’t get more attention. Written and Directed by Christopher Smith we see him really pull out all the stops with this far superior and more complicated story compared to his previous outing Severance. It really shows how he has grown as a film maker. This is a film very difficult to describe without giving too much away. What I can say is it’s a story of a group of 6 passengers on a yacht which capsizes when caught in a freak storm. They come across a large ocean liner and get on board. The Liner is deserted apart from a lone masked gunman… Here the story takes some very interesting turns.

What I will say is Triangle is full to the brim with twists and turns and an excellent performance from Melissa George, Triangle is really fascinating to watch and watch again. It pulls on good qualities from films like “Time Crimes” & “Memento” also with a couple of nods to “The Shining”. Overall this is a very satisfying film you will want to watch over and over and over again.

Film4 @ 0135     Under the Skin (2013) *****

Check out the thoroughly mesmerising film - Jonathan Glazer’s impressive Under the Skin. After my fourth viewing it was as haunting as it was on my first jaunt into the unknown. It always stays lingering in my mind for some time. After my first viewing it was all I could think about for days. This film is so well put together. Completely mysterious, haunting and fascinating. The editing and sound are just simply perfect. The music is chilling and I am always still in awe of this creation long after the credits role. The use of sound is so important here, each extended silence as important as the music itself.

Scarlett Johansson does for this film what Arnie did for The Terminator. Her success seems to lie in what she can hold back and remove, Scarlett strips everything right back and gives a refined and subtle performance. Scaling back seems to be her key, with similar success in her voice-only performance in “Her” - by removing her physical presence, just being an A.I. voice, she came into her own. Less seems to be more. In Under the Skin we see her as a visitor from another world - watching, testing, trying, and learning all new things. Without these experiences and without the initial emotional attachment it just seems to work for Scarlett. She nailed it.

All of the imagery used throughout the film was simply stunning. I will be watching this wonder of a film again very soon.

Best of the rest:

BBC2 @ 1020       Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014) ***

C5 @ 1435            The Searchers (1956) ****

Film4 @ 1450       The Book of Life (2014) ***

ITV4 @ 1605         Superman (1978) *****

E4 @ 1700            Rio (2011) ***

5* @ 1900             Footloose (1984) ***

ITV1 @ 2100        The Theory of Everything (2014) ****

Film4 @ 2100       Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) *****