#Lost Utopia Films

[geminiagentgreen]

If you love Godzilla, giant monsters, horror, found footage, and got 20 minutes to spare, PLEASE look at this!

[call-me-schmidt]

This goes so hard. Like, kaiju stuff seen from the ground level is a thing I find really cool and I like the way this one has all the different perspectives being shown through multiple different cameras.

Love that '98 Zilla is there, too.

[rivetgoth]

The fact that I’ve seen a few people try to analyze I Saw the TV Glow through a lens of it being about like, fandom and obsession with media and nostalgia being bad ?? is genuinely blowing my mind. Obviously there’s the fact that this movie is as unambiguously about being trans as it can possibly be without just saying outright “this is a movie about being trans” but I also think this is crazy because I would say it actually has one of the most unambiguously positive relationships with concepts like “media consumption” and “nostalgia” that I’ve seen in a movie.

Like, to say it’s a shallow interpretation of the film to call it “about media/fandom” (and especially a negative depiction of such things!) is putting it quite kindly because I kind of feel that anyone who utters such sentiments didn’t actually understand the core element of the entire movie: “The Pink Opaque” is not a show. Commentary the film makes about watching “The Pink Opaque” cannot translate to commentary on watching shows broadly because the movie spends half its runtime making it explicitly clear that “The Pink Opaque” may be a show that exists in a literal sense but is not one in a figurative sense. “The Pink Opaque” represents the possibilities of childhood and innocence. Innocence that still is not free from judgment—Owen gets told the show is for girls, Maddy’s friend accuses her of sexual harassment on account of her sexuality while they were watching it together—but it’s the moment in your youth (or any time! it doesn’t have to go away!) when the possibility of queerness and more explicitly queer utopia feels real to you. The external pressures to conform are still there but you can tune them out if just for a moment to envision a future and a life for yourself free of it and living authentically. I think this is an experience all LGBT people can relate to, but in the case of ISTTVG it’s very explicitly primarily focusing on queer femininity, predominantly transfemininity, but in Maddy’s case as well she is a queer woman (I’ve seen some interpretations of her as transmasculine but I disagree personally). Hence the on-the-nose nature of it being PINK.

What feels very genius about Schoenbrun making it about a show though is that it’s so generational, right? For all of us LGBT people who grew up in the age of screens that WAS where a lot of that early imagination going wild resided. The first time you explore a new name is on anonymous forums. The first time you explore your masculinity or femininity is with which character you relate to in a show, or which gender you select in Pokémon. Movies and shows with “queer subtext” or even without give young LGBT people the chance to envision relationships and futures for themselves, what many grow up and call “shipping.” You have your first gay crush while watching your favorite movies. You envy those of your true gender while watching your favorite movies. Amongst many other things when Maddy watches “The Pink Opaque” she’s given access to a world where two women share this intimate connection and overcome obstacles together. When Owen watches “The Pink Opaque” they’re given access to a world where femininity is a real option for their future.

The relationship these characters have to “The Pink Opaque” is a net positive and the movie makes that so incredibly obvious when Owen goes back to rewatch it later and finds that it’s nothing like how they remembered, it feels childish and immature and dumb. That is a bad thing. This is a bad thing. The movie wants you to see this as a bad thing. This is the result of repression, of conversion therapy, of violent coercion into normative lifestyle—That sense of limitless possibility is destroyed and the idea of accessing one’s transness, of imagining this utopia where you CAN be yourself and live as a woman, strong and beautiful on the other side of the screen as said in the film, is lost. Now you tell yourself it feels silly, it feels childish to imagine such things, it’s not nearly as deep and meaningful as you believed it was when you were younger and less inhibited, or it’s at the very least easier to tell yourself that. Owen’s feeling embarrassed is of note here. If it weren’t for these external pressures that have been internalized they very well may have been able to still enjoy the show, even as they’ve aged and grown and matured, even if their perspective has changed a little. But they can’t. Not yet, at least.

I feel kind of out of my mind seeing people try to approach it through a lens of commentating on media consumption because it’s so deeply missing the layers of what’s actually being said… and not even in a wildly obfuscated way. The movie is ABOUT the relationship these characters have to “The Pink Opaque” and how the loss of that is a bad thing. How you can possibly watch it and see it being about some kind of growth from obsessive media consumption is mind boggling to me. Seeing multiple reviews and posts in tags about it is crazy. One thing I really like about this movie is that it so confidently argues for a more positive interpretation of being obsessed with “fantasy” and the childlike wonder of the limitless possibilities of fiction. I think that’s a very very trans narrative, as I mentioned it feels tied deeply into Queer Utopia, and I find it much more bold of a stance to take. In a world where people tell trans individuals (and especially trans women) that their identities are works of fiction or products of the imagination or even caused by excessive media consumption, to embrace these things and turn them over and use them as a symbol of the whimsy and innocence and excitement that first ignites that spark as a positive, thrilling, beautiful thing is very cool.

[begonthounegativevibes]

⚠️‼️ARCANE ACT SPOILERS⚠️‼️

i just finished act 2 & while yes I'm sobbing I KNOW OUR FIRST REACTION WILL BE TO COME FOR JAYCE BUT LET'S PUT ON OUR THINKING CAPS THIS WAS ALL AN act OF PURE MERCY ,JAYCE IS COMPLETING VICTORS FINAL WISHES FROM SEASON 1, AND EMBRACING THE ONE THING THAT TIES ALL OF HUMANITY TOGETHER DEATH

BECAUSE FRIENDLY REMINDER THIS SEASON STARTS WITH JAYCE GOING AGAINST VICTORS WISHES & RESURRECTING HIM WITH THE HEXTEC HE PROMISED VICTOR HE WOULD DESTROY & CAIT GOING AGAINST HER MOTHERS WISHES & USING HER TECHNOLOGY TO TAKE AWAY THE AIR OF ZAUN AFTER HER DEATH .

HELL EVEN SEASON 1 WAS VICTOR & JAYCE GOING AGAINST NATURE TO DENY VICTOR'S DEATH REMEMBER HOW HORRIFIED HEMINDINGER WAS . IN THIS SEASON THE CHEMIST DUDES WHOLE THING IS TRYING TOO FIND GLORIOUS EVOLUTION SO THE GIRL DOESN'T DIE & the same thing as last season WITH THE CREATURE HIM & VICTOR WERE KEEPING ALIVE EVEN IF IT WAS SUFFERING BECAUSE “THE SPECIMEN MUST SURVIVE” DO YOU REMBER HOW HORRIFIED VICTOR WAS OF THAT SHELL OF CREATURE

THATS VICTOR & ALL OF HIS FOLLOWERS . HE IS THAT SPECIMEN !THAT SHELL THAT MUST SURVIVE FOR THE BETTER OF HUMANITY! DO YOU NOT SEE HOW TERRIBLE THAT IS(for victor) !

JUST LOOK AT ALL THE HARM NOT ACCEPTING DEATH THEREFORE NOT ACCEPTING OUR HUMANITY DOES ,BECAUSE THE CHEMIST WON'T LET THE GIRL DIE , VANDER IS NOT ALOUD TO DIE & MUST SUFFER IN THE SHELL OF A BEAST THAT IS NO LONGER HUMAN & THE GIRL IS VEGGITABLE , CAITS MOM DIES & SINCE SHE CANT LET GO OF AVENGING HER MOMS DEATH THE PEOPLE OF ZAUN SUFFER, AMBESSA & MELS CONSCIOUS WON'T LET HER BROTHER DIE

SO LITERALLY EVREYONE SUFFERS & SKY DIES BECAUSE VICTOR WOULDN'T ACCEPT HIS OWN DEATH . VICTOR HAS BECOME A SHELL ! JUST A VESSEL FOR HEXTEC . HES " NOT COLD" HES LOST WHAT MAKES HIM HUMAN ! JAYCE ASKED SALO IF WAS IN THERE(ALSO ASKING IF VICTOR WAS IN THERE) THEN IMMEDIATELY OFFED HIM OUT OF MERCY CAUSE SALO WASN'T IN THERE

HE HAD LOST ALL HIS PERSONHOOD , A WHITE POLISHED SLATE OBVI THATS BAD ! ALL THAT MADE HIM !HIM! OF HIS PAST! OF HIS HUMANITY!JUST LIKE VICTOR AND EVERYONE IN THE CULT LIKE ITS FILM 1.0.1 THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PURELY GOOD SOCIETY ESPECIALLY IN ARCANE THAT TELLS US TO EMBRACE THE BEAUTIFUL CHAOS OF HUMANITY ! LIKE ZAUNS ,AND VICTORS DEATHS SPEECH WHOLE THING !

THERE IS NO GLORIOUS EVOLUTION ! VIKTOR ISN'T A GOD !VICTOR ISN'T JESUS !HE'S HUMAN ! AND HUMANS DIE! JAYCE WHO LOVED VICTOR AND WANTED NOTHING MORE THAN THAN TO SAVE HIM HAD TO LET GO OF HIS OWN DESIRES & LOVE HE HAD TO SET BOTH HIM & VICTOR FREE .TO TRULY SAVE VICTOR AND THE WORLD CAUSE LETS BE HONEST HEXTECH & HIS "UTOPIA" ARE SO SKETCHY . HE HAD TO EMBRACE THEIR HUMANITY THAT INCLUDES DEATH . AND OF COURSE HIS THICKHEAD WOULD FINALLY UNDERSTAND THAT AFTER BEING STUCK WITH HEMENDINGER WHO KNOWS THE PAIN OF NEVER DYING & EKKO THE TIME MANIPULATOR LIKE I GUARANTEE YOU ALL OF THEM WERE IN ON THIS PLAN THIS WAS A RANT BUT PLEEEEASE JUST WAIT TILL NEXT WEEK BEFORE YOU JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS

OK BYEEEEEEEE

[jotadoul]

rubbing my forehead to cope with reading an article where the author claims Zaibach is like the USSR. unnngggghhhhhh only if the USSR resembled ridley scott's 1984 apple ad, lol.

well, aside from the deutschy name and being inspired by industrial revolution era england— a colonial power— headed by a protestant english symbol of western thought creating the world as he wants/understands it straight from the 1700s to 1996, i see the show as using his belief that god must necessarily have a hand in driving the natural world (Newton insisted that divine intervention would eventually be required to reform the [planetary] system, due to the slow growth of instabilities) extrapolated to him eventually viewing himself as such a god. but forgetting all of that,

Zaibach

i think the name is mostly nonsense, but fwiw the hebrew verb "zabach" primarily means to sacrifice or to slaughter, particularly in the context of offering an animal to God as an act of worship.

Metropolis (1927) concept art by erich kettelhut

Zaibach

Metropolis was made during the era of the weimar republic (the german reich.) things were really shit because of WWI, then oh! prosperity! while the resentment and hatred from the right boiled, then the great depression ended that prosperity, then the nazis came into official power. Metropolis is known for having been greatly edited (endlessly recut and with versions lost) such attempts in part were to remove the communist-sympathising subtext in a film about a false and fairly explicitly german utopia— inspired too by the tower of babel and 1920s new york skyline— for the wealthy elite... wherein those same elite plot and scheme to construct clever events to keep themselves in power and remove the need for workers at all by destroying them and relying instead on machines (see: the great worker riot of 2026.) don't get me wrong though— there's plenty to criticise about Metropolis, much of it coming from Lang himself.

there are 3 major, interconnected machines which run the city. this one is called The Heart Machine.

the "Heart Machine", which is the central dynamo that generates most of the power to the entire city. Every day it produces an average of 1000 megawatts of power that is transferred through various power nodes throughout the machine room complex. The machine has run non-stop for 25 years with the exception of pausing for preventive maintenance. Unlike most equipment build in the late 1900s to the 2020s, these machines were built not to be replaced. The heart of the city system was built by Fellar, Inc. and came with a price tag of 78.7 million M.

The Heart Machine is under the charge of one man, Grot, a worker who has maneuvered his way up through the ranks by "helping" uncover covert information about the workers. 

(from here)

Metropolis, osamu tezuka

also, if you're interested in the approach to design—

The film's use of art deco architecture was highly influential, and has been reported to have contributed to the style's subsequent popularity in Europe and America.

art deco had no goal or philosophy of restructuring society/lifestyle. it glamourised the industrial revolution, moreover the opulence that everyone but the workers enjoyed, seeking to symbolise wealth and sophistication and rejection of tradition. Art Deco design exemplified opulent consumption, crass commercialism, and the acceleration of contemporary life summed up in the Futurist credo "Speed is beauty." (here. also would like to add that most? all? in the futurist movement were italian fascists who went and died in the war, effectively killing the futurist movement too.) however, in america, whose infrastructure was impacted far less by the war than europe, the style continued almost seamlessly into the new international movement— such is the case with any decade and its trappings; there's no actual definitive beginning or end to an era, especially for poorer people (whose customs and ideas are upcycled by the wealthy.) all of this art was continued or discontinued more randomly than that. ftr though i'm using generalities as opposed to finer details here only for the purpose of discussing what/how things appear in Escaflowne.

the exterior of Zaibach is more art deco while the interior, as well as that of Escaflowne itself, are from the movement of the pre-WWI art nouveau— since they're both related to Atlantis/draconians, who within the series have the strongest association with art nouveau as if a symbol of their elegant idealism, that makes sense. art nouveau sought to establish a "synthesis of the arts" (Gesamtkunstwerk) breaking down the previously firm distinction between fine art and applied art— incorporating the lushness and assymetry of nature into architecture, stained glass, metalwork, etc. etc., allowing rooms and practical/functional objects to "become" art as well, with the same approach as illustrations. it also should be said that art nouveau pulled heavily from japanese prints, as seen previously in the orientalist """japonisme.'"""

hôtel tassel, the peacock room, myst III exile

Decorative artists experienced a rise in status following the turn of the century; similarly, a rise in wealth and social as well as technological progress gave birth to the widespread luxury industry. This golden combination solidified the Art Deco movement.

William Morris, the founder of the art nouveau arts & crafts movement in england, was a staunch revolutionary socialist/anti-imperialist. he believed one should "have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." according to him, the main goals of the movement were "to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce use, that is one great office of decoration; to give people pleasure in the things they must perforce make, that is the other use of it." during a time which saw the beginnings of mass-production, the intended effect of this was to restructure a person's relationship to even the mundane items in their possession (see: commodity fetishism) and in that process, exposure to and relationship to art.

art deco suffered heavily during the aforementioned great depression because the materials to make it were no longer affordable and the labour classes exploited for other means. so i view it as... dornkirk claims he did all the shit himself but we know he's building on these ancient ideas and amassing/hoarding resources to achieve this, and he's keeping these organic forms— as representative of the natural world and part of that world being humanity— for himself exclusively as he burns the world down. however, we're not moralising art here, just as fritz lang regretted focusing on the moral over the social. escaflowne is also a weapon of war and must be put to rest as part of van's own break from punitive tradition.

ultimately, what we see in Escaflowne is people— while retaining any surface-level, or even essential and difficult differences, made even more clear by the sheer amount of different cultures/customs to which we're exposed— changing the calamitous course of fate when committed to a common goal, quintessentially represented by communal, mutual love and respect. i would say that's much more communist than what Zaibach represents.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

Happy Science Fiction Day: Black Women in Sci Fi

January 2 is Science Fiction Day... Here is the blackfemmecharacterdependency masterlist for the sci fi content that can be found featured on this blog

Starting with the Basics:

Afrofuturism | Black Women in Sci Fi | Black Women in Star Trek | Black Women in Star Wars (Shows & Movies Masterlist) | Black Women in Doctor Who | Black Women in Sci Fi | Sci Fi | Science Fiction Day (Many of these might just be the same stuff. Idk right now.) Black Women in Sci Fi Playing Women I will be expanding on this person's work someday. Black Women in Sci Fi Playing an Alien (Alien Characters Masterlist)

Franchises

The Alien Series | Doctor Who | Star Trek: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Discovery, Lower Decks, Picard, Strange New Worlds, | Star Wars |

Shows I've Reblogged

3% | 4400 | The 4400 | Altered Carbon | Battlestar Galactica | Black Mirror | Blake's 7 | Brave New World | Dark Angel | Dark Matter | Dark/Web | Defiance | Electric Dreams | Eureka | The Expanse | The Fantastic Journey | Final Space | Firefly | For All Mankind | Foundation | Fringe | Gen V | The Gifted | Heroes | Humans | Intergalactic | Invincible | Jason of Star Command | Jupiter's Legacy | Killjoys | Kissing Game | Krypton | Lost in Space | Lovecraft Country | Minority Report | Misfits | Quantum Leap | Raised by Wolves | Sliders | Space: Above and Beyond | Stargate SG 1 | Supernatural | The Tomorrow People | Torchwood | The Twilight Zone | The Umbrella Academy | Utopia | Vagrant Queen | Warehouse 13 | Westworld | Y: The Last Man

Movies I've Reblogged

Alien VS Predator | Alita Battle Angel | Avatar | Children of Men | The Chronicles of Riddick | Class of 1999 | Cloverfield | Dune | Fast Color | Ghosts of Mars | Guns Akimbo | Jupiter Ascending | Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome | Men in Black International | The Old Guard | Repo Man | Robot Jox | Strange Days | Supernova | Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets

Short Film

I Am

Definitely likely changing the way that this is set to have it be a character list like the other BFCD Masterlists, but for today, this all I got for the girlies. To be fair, it might need to be like the Monsters ones. Or, I might do a separate one that's characters later. Idk.

[onboardsorasora]

50. Disney Princess Film AU from this prompt list

No one prompted me for this– BUT I’d been talking about this with @purplesallthewaydown and then it was there as a prompt. So El, clearly I need to unleash this into the world.

Enchanted AU lets go– please….suspend EVERY disbelief you have. This will not make sense lmao

Daniel is Giselle, he’s in Monaco from the fairy tail land of Perth. He got here because he was driving around in his truck, singing a happy song and following a horse that just wanted to run and they ended up at the airport. The birds told him that the planes make humans fly like them and he thought that was as good an idea as any.

So he’s in Monaco, he’d been walking around, bumping into things because he’s doing tourist thing where you look up instead of in front of you. He comes to the pier and he’s tired, the birds in Monaco aren’t as helpful as the birds back home and he wants to go home. He’s singing an almost sad song and bumps into Max who is doing his normal daily run. They fall to the ground, Max atop Daniel naturally.

They’re both stunned, surprised, speechless. Max scrambles up and helps Daniel to his feet.

“Are you ok? Did I hurt you?” Max is checking Daniel over, making sure his oversized sweatshirt maybe didn’t get ripped or his knees didn’t get skinned since he’s wearing tiny shorts. He clocks the bright tattoos on Daniel’s thigh, maybe they glow a little with Daniel’s inner Disney Princess happiness?

“I’m ok. I just don’t know where I am.” Daniel smiles sheepishly, embarrassed. He hadn’t been able to find many other wild animals and the birds really weren’t helpful here.

“Oh? Where are you from?” Max is now concerned, because who truly gets lost nowadays with technology where it was.

“I’m from Perth!” Daniel says proudly, a wide smile on his face. “The birds guided me.”

Did his tattoos glow a little brighter?

“That’s in Australia right?”

Daniel shrugs in a very uncaring way. What did he know about geography when he enjoyed his days basking in the sun by his family’s ranch or hiking in the mountains or by the beach swimming with the mermaids?

Max presses his tongue behind his teeth as he thinks of what to do. Daniel gets distracted by a butterfly and starts following behind it dreamily, maybe she will guide him back home. He almost bumps into another jogger when Max grabs his arm and pulls him back into his space. They both blush.

“I’m Max.”

“Daniel!”

Max takes Daniel home, because it's the only logical next step. He can maybe book him a flight back to Perth if Daniel has no family around. It's a lot in terms of being a good samaritan, but Max is loaded and single and lives alone in the city and a race car driver on time off.

So they're in Max’s flat and he pulls out a laptop to check flights maybe, and gets distracted by Daniel literally curled around Jimmy and Sassy. He was talking to them softly and they were purring up a storm. Max has never seen this happen in his life. Sassy hates people and Jimmy takes 5 business days to allow pets.

He’s floored, flabbergasted, flummoxed. Just who was this guy?

Daniel is supremely happy, Jimmy and Sassy are wonderful hosts. They’ve told him that the birds here are in fact unfriendly, and mean. They told him that Max is wonderful but he’s often not home so they sometimes get lonely, but they’re happy together. So he starts singing to them, a lovely little ditty about nutsacks and ball hair and they cuddle closer to him. His tattoos glow brighter and the ship sails move a little because that's what they do when Daniel is happy.

Max is just staring at this all happening on the floor by his patio doors– what the actual fuck is going on?

So since Daniel is distracted with the cats, Max googles about any magic in Australia. And apparently…there's a lot. It's a utopia for magical creatures and some humans that live there are gifted, it's usually a good way to tell if someone is a good person or not– how strong their aura and aptitude. Considering Daniel was glowing and talking to his fucking cats, Max thinks that an ok sign.

“Uhm, Daniel?”

“Yes Maxy?” Daniel sung back, looking up from the cats.

“How did you get here?”

“Oh! It was like the most amazing thing!” Daniel clambers up and breaks out into song about how he had been gossiping with the horses and alpacas and then they went for a ride and the birds told him about the ‘airport’ which was a very weird place with birds for people. And he got on a big bird plane and fell asleep and got snacks and slept some more.

And while this is happening, Max is sat in his couch wide eyed as this man dances around his apartment, singing. And birds started hovering on his patio, unable to do more because it's screened in. Daniel flutters to a stop on the couch beside him and hugs Max close because he’s so happy and Max has been so nice to him. And his mom said that sometimes people want to try to take advantage of him but Sassy and Jimmy promised that Max is good, and he believes them.

And Max is….poor thing. Max is completely out of his depth. He’s thunderstruck. But there's a part of his brain that wants to keep Daniel, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Part 2

[flnderseekers]

heyyy! i'm bird (s/th) and i'm joining you guys with top actor turned public enemy, do jihan, who is filling the role of genesis in the rising star subplot. aka... he's the guy who played the role of terra's founder in the blockbuster biographical film! and then lost his fucking mind! without further ado...

born oct 1 2993 (30 yrs old)

libra sun / aries moon / capricorn rising... interpret this as you wish

an extreme attention-seeker from birth. the boy who cried wolf x1000. would fake injuries (and consequently fake glitches), would lose shit and spin elaborate stories of being robbed, would throw insane fits when he didn't get his way like... something was (and is) fs wrong with him but his parents kind of brushed it off under the guise of him just being a bad ass kid, being brushed off by his parents fueled his behavioral issues, you know how it goes

he was (and is) a bored, lonely kid with a tendency to latch on to anything that made him feel something. in early teens, the “anything” became acting - he had a natural talent for it (as proved by the outrageous shows he put on earlier in life) and having an outlet to express big emotions in a way that didn’t result in him being reprimanded or eye-rolled was cool!

so it goes, time passes and by age 18 he was playing supporting roles in daytime dramas; a few years pass, he’s proved his worth, and he was a top star appearing in emotionally loaded films. his name was known. he got a 5.0 star rating, the public counted days on their fingers - he broke a record, a record that he still holds, for the most days spent consecutively at the top.

throughout it all, his pr team held a firm grip on him. he had aged out of the worst of his attention-seeking behavior, but he had never really learned to bite his tongue and smile; his excessive, hungry existence was a threat to his reputation. because of this, he very rarely did interviews or any type of fan meetings—if you asked his pr team, this was because he was a method actor, always preparing for the next role, and a loud public appearance would disrupt his character immersion. like... pretentious as all get out but, well, he was a damn good actor, so his loyal fans begrudgingly dealt with his minimal public appearances

ten years being relatively liked came to a crescendo in 3022, when the biographical film where he stars as the creator of terra was released - it was a hit, his performance was praised, but for the FIRIIIRIST TIME!!! he opened his big ass mouth. tldr is that he did extensive research on kang suho / terra, deep-diving, days without sleep, head in the books type shit and sleep deprivation + the discovery of information he'd have been better off not knowing resulted in extreme paranoia and a sense of obligation to "wake society up". what i mean is, he no longer saw terra as a utopia and he became extremely fearful for his own life......... and he convinced his pr team to let him do a talk show...... promised he'd behave himself...... and dude started ranting and raving about "the evil nature of terra", "kang suho's dark intentions", "life or a lack thereof?" and YEAAA the hosts were thrilled to have a top star losing his fucking mind on live tv (now THAT'S entertainment!) but his reputation tanked. fast.

here we are now... dude's still regarded as being mentally unwell. he's no longer a top star, HASN'T been for two years now. it doesn't matter that he's a good actor, what matters is that he's trying to disturb the peace / spreading slander, what matters is that he shit on the name of the man who enabled him to play his biggest role to date. so now no one wants to cast him... boohoo... good news is, he's always been incredibly frugal so he's still living on money from the good ol' days.

as far as his personality goes, he talks an awful lot now that he doesn't have a bitch in his ear telling him to be quiet (re: his former team has turned their backs on him). plays devil's advocate as often as he feels he can get away with... and then some. no outright malicious motives, but he likes seeing what gets people worked up. will piss people off and then (attempt to) be the one to calm them back down. spends a lot of time at home, but has been spotted getting drunk and going on long tangents at bars in the city on occasion. well-mannered at his best, volatile at his worst. as mentioned before, he clings to anything that makes him feel something, and in recent times, that "anything" has been the idea that terra isn't what the people are being told it is. want to get existential? he's your guy.

[oh-contraire]

Coming back to fandom

Okay so it's been like 15 years since I've been properly excited about a fandom, so I didn't expect to be sitting here in my 40s, supposedly a serious adult with a real job and a real life (such as it is), having fallen even more deeply in love with Good Omens, a show based on a book that I've loved for over 20 years, a story that's always been there for me, this lovely little comfort read with a life-affirming message, and that has now eaten my entire brain and made it abundantly clear that I'll be stuck right here at least until season 3 comes out and gives me that beautiful everything-is-as-it-should-be cathartic resolution and I can finally rest and go back to real life (ha!)

I certainly didn't expect for this silly show about angels and demons to help me figure out this late in my life that I'm non-binary, to have all those parts of myself that I didn't quite understand suddenly start to make sense. I didn't expect to actually start to really own my queerness - which as a perpetually single person at my age, who's straight-enough-passing to not have to hang it all out there, while simultaneously being lucky enough to exist in a group of friends where queerness is basically the default and you'd almost have to come out as straight (old goths are the best) - is such a powerful experience, and is helping me figure out what the next part of my life will be and what the hell I'm doing around here.

The last time I was in a fandom, I was young (well, compared to now). I had parents who were still alive, who I was close to, and who I could share my excitement with. I've got beautiful memories of travelling from Australia to Europe with my mum in 2008, the last time we'd ever do that, of spending a couple of days of our precious holiday at Cardiff Bay watching the post-hub explosion scene in Torchwood Children of Earth being filmed, of her sneaking away and getting GDL's autograph for me on a random piece of paper, when I was too mortified to even consider it. I'll never watch Family of Blood or Utopia without remembering how I saw it for the first time with my dad, randomly flicking through channels and not really knowing what we were in for, and both of us experiencing that incredible, literally jaw dropping moment when Derek Jacobi was revealed as the Master, how I teasingly called him Father of Mine for years after that because it was such a wonderful shared moment for both of us (and because I was a totally cool and normal grown adult even then).

I never expected to fall straight back in love with Doctor Who after that, 15 years later, having lost both of my parents to awful illnesses, having tried to pretend that life, however fine it all was for the most part, hadn't had this constant undercurrent of existential dread, a horrible sense that from now on it would just be a series of losses, that all the things I loved would just fall away until there was nothing important left, that I could scramble for those little crumbs that felt like renewal or purpose but that ultimately felt hollow in the face of what seemed like an increasingly bleak and relentless world of serious things like work and mortgage payments and obligations and the whole thing of pretending to be a real adult doing Important Things.

I never expected just how healing, how utterly cathartic it would be to see 14 come back after all these years, older, tireder, after experiencing all that loss and grief, and to see them love so deeply, to see them find a new home, a new family, and to finally find a way to be actually, truly happy. I cried so much during that episode, and it felt like actual hope for the first time in years, like it helped to heal some part of myself that thought it would never be properly healed.

I'll never stop being in awe of how stories can do that. These silly little TV shows about angels and demons or time travel and the universe, which are really about humans and life and death and love and everything that's actually important, and which bring to the surface those deep truths that are hard to see among the minutiae of everyday life.

Stories are so powerful, and I'm so happy to feel excited about them again, and to have them weave their way back into the fabric of my life. So, thanks to RTD and @neil-gaiman for helping me find this feeling again, and thanks to fandom for continuing to exist while I figured out that this was one of the big parts that was missing from my life! <3

[xtruss]

The Real Ancient Roman Plot That Inspired 'Megalopolis'

Historians characterize the Catilinarian conspiracy as the beginning of the end of the Roman Empire—which director Francis Ford Coppola compares to modern-day America.

— By Gregory Wakeman | September 26, 2024

The Roman Forum was a hub for ever day ancient Roman life. It was here that Cicero delivered a famous speech denouncing Catiline in 63 B.C. Photograph By Andrea Frazzetta, National Geographic Image Collection

Francis Ford Coppola has been working on his epic sci-fi fantasy drama Megalopolis since the early 1980s.

Fresh off the success of Apocalypse Now, Coppola became fascinated by the story of Lucius Sergius Catiline, who in 63 B.C. sought to forcibly overthrow the consuls of the Roman Republic, co-led by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This attempted coup d’etat is known as the Catilinarian conspiracy.

Coppola wanted to set the conflict of two ambitious men with very different ideals in modern New York, so that he could draw parallels between the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic and the contemporary United States.

At a Q&A in New York before the premiere of Megalopolis on September 23, Coppola remarked, “Today, America is Rome, and they’re about to go through the same experience, for the same reasons that Rome lost its republic and ended up with an emperor”

Coppola was so adamant about highlighting the similarities between the Roman Empire and U.S. that he named the film’s leading characters after Catiline and Cicero.

In Megalopolis, Giancarlo Esposito plays Mayor Franklyn Cicero, who runs the decaying city “New Rome” and clashes with idealistic architect Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver). When Catilina is given permission to rebuild the city using Megalon, a material that allows him to control space and time, he recruits Cicero’s daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) to make a sustainable utopia.

A painting by Italian painter Cesare Maccari portrays Cicero denouncing Catiline in the senate. The conspiracy to overthrow Cicero inspired Francis Ford Coppola's film Megalopolis. Photograph By ICOM Images/Alamy Stock Photo

Why Cicero And Catiline Were At Odds

The Roman version of Cicero was “a new man, meaning, he was the first in his family to enter Roman politics,” explains Josiah Osgood, professor of classics at Georgetown University and a specialist in Roman history.

Catiline was a patrician from a distinguished family. He had fought alongside Roman general Sulla, helping him win Rome’s first major Civil War, before then rising through the political ranks.

In 64 B.C., Catiline stood to become one of Rome’s two consuls. The highest elected public positions in the Roman Republic, the consuls served one-year terms and were elected each year by the Centuriate Assembly. Accused of corruption, Catiline was defeated by Cicero.

“Normally, a new man wouldn't win the consulship,” adds Osgood.

An embarrassed and desperate Catiline ran for consulship again in 63 B.C. “By now he and Cicero were sworn enemies and Cicero did everything he could to stop Catiline,” says Osgood.

Catiline’s campaigns had also left him in debt.

“Roman elections were extremely expensive because they were extremely corrupt,” says Edward Watts, professor of history at the University of California, San Diego. “They required you to borrow a lot of money and outlay a lot of cash to try to buy support from people. The idea being you win the consulship, you can then get a command somewhere or govern a province, then make that money back. But if you lose, you're screwed.”

What made these defeats even worse for Catiline is that, in that period, “some older families with a deep history had fallen on hard times,” says Richard Saller, an American classicist and former president of Stanford. “Catiline resented new upstarts like Cicero, who he was having a hard time keeping up with financially.”

How Was Catiline Defeated?

With Cicero backed by wealthier Romans that lent out money to make their own income, Catiline adopted a more populist and radical message, insisting that he would cancel debts and relieve the debt crisis. When Catiline lost another election, he retreated to northern Italy, formed an army of veterans from the first Civil War and farmers in debt, and planned to march on Rome so that he could become consul by force.

But in January 62, B.C., he was defeated by the Roman Republic in the Battle of Pistoria. Roman historian Sallust would write that “Catiline was despicable, a real menace to the Republic, who represented all that was wrong with Rome” because of his pursuit of demagoguery, says Osgood.

With Megalopolis, Coppola focused on Catiline’s ambition to release the lower classes from debt in order to make him a sympathetic figure. In his director’s statement for the film, Coppola explains, “I wondered whether the traditional portrayal of Catiline as ‘evil’ and Cicero as ‘good’ was necessarily true … Since the survivor tells the story, I wondered, what if what Catiline had in mind for his new society was a realignment of those in power and could have even in fact been ‘visionary’ and ‘good’, while Cicero perhaps could have been 'reactionary' and ‘bad’.”

Saller acknowledges that accounts of the Catilinarian conspiracy are “Cicero centric” and “from a historian’s point of view there are reasons to think there are biases.”

In 1969, Robin Seager argued that “Cicero really manufactured the conspiracy and drove Catiline to violence, but his view is not broadly accepted,” adds Saller.

Coppola’s Message For A Modern Era

After the Catilinarian conspiracy, Cicero was briefly driven into exile because of how he administered justice to members of the coup, in particular killing associates of Catiline without a trial. The conspiracy exposed how extensive poverty and debt was in Roman society, created a climate of paranoia in the Senate, and is ultimately regarded as the first step to the Civil Wars that ended the Roman Republic and built the Roman Empire.

Both Watts and Osgood can see some similarities between the late Roman Republic and the current political rhetoric of the U.. ] “I think there’s been a significant loss of trust in the integrity of systems,” says Watts.

But Saller remains skeptical about such parallels. “The constitutional situation in the U.S. and Rome are very, very different. One of the things that Rome did not have was anything like our Supreme Court. Whatever problems we may think we have with our current Supreme Court, the Roman Republic had no institutional way of resolving differences between leading senatorial generals in their contest for power.”

Ultimately, Esposito believes that Megalopolis is a cautionary tale: “There's a line in the movie, ‘Don't let the now destroy the forever.’ That’s such a powerful thought to have right now. The film is a call for hope, for us to think larger than just ourselves.”

[swordatsunset]

haha sickos voice yes

[ID: Indeed, all genuine artworks involve fantasy, the labor of the brain and/or imagination, and how to incorporate fantastic components into a work of art that negates what is externally expected of art in form and content. Every artwork must have some fantastic component, but not every artwork is artistic. In fact, much of what we call fantasy is predictable schlock and tritely conventional because it lacks critical reflection and self-reflection and appeals to market conditions and audience delusions. Those works are only significant because they reveal to what extent fantasy, the imagination, has become instrumentalized and how the fantastic is being used to impose views, as impositions (1) to profit from other people's needs and desires for spiritual regeneration and critical reflection; (2) to reconcile social, political, and aesthetic contradictions that are irreconcilable; and (3) to project images that can be readily consumed and only promote the replication of the same images. Fantasy artworks of all kinds have become depleted of cultural substance because fantasy matters too much. Fantasy has too much potential to subvert and explore the differential of freedom. It must be subdued, controlled, channeled, and sublimated so that it cannot serve to negate the spectacles that blind us to social forces that determine our lives. The culture industry realizes the potential of the fantastic by commodifying it: fantastic elements are produced and reproduced to become important ingredients in the constitution of constant spectacles that impede cognition of the operative principles of the social-economic system in which we live. Delusion has become the goal of fantasy, not illumination. Fantasy has become so common that it has become banal.

Nevertheless, there is a quality of hope and faith in serious fantasy literature and films that off-sets the mindless violence and banality and contrived exploitation that we encounter in the spectacles of everyday life. If fantasy can be subversive and resistant to existing social conditions, then it wants to undermine what passes for normality, to expose the contradictions of civil society, and to right the world out-of-joint in the name of humanity.

The fantastic is not only a projection of fantasy /imagination but also of rational critical consciousness. As Adorno remarked, there can be no separation of the intellect and the sensual when we talk about the fantastic, for fantasy negates what is corporeally experienced and sublimates what must be carried on as a necessary ingredient in the formation of a transformed condition with Utopian potential. Ernst Bloch, the great German philosopher of hope, and a good friend of Adorno, maintained that the best of artworks and even the worst often contained traces of anticipatory illumination that shed light on a way forward toward a Utopian society. Utopia cannot be defined, but it is constituted by fantastic elements in life and art that embody the daydreams of a better life, that is, a different life. A better life can only distinguish itself from what it negates in its differential freedom that is provided by the fantastic. It is through difference that the fantastic provides resistance and illuminates a way forward. It shows what is missing in our lives and refuses to compensate for the lack by proposing solutions and providing categories through which we can define people and situations. The fantastic offers glimpses and markers that recall the original meaning of fantasy, the capacity of the brain to show and make anything visible, for without penetrating the spectacle that blinds us, we are lost and lose the power to create our own social relations.]

[oxyfilmidentity-fa23]

Race in the Imaginary: Nowhere (1997) dir. Gregg Araki

"L.A. is like... nowhere. Everybody who lives here is lost. " -The opening quote of Nowhere

"In general, these films worry that the most violent and degraded acts are possible to those who do not inhabit a home or homeland." -Helen Addison Smith, "E.T. Go Home: Indigeneity, Multiculturalism and ‘Homeland’ in Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema"

Gregg Araki describes his film Nowhere as "Beverly Hills 90210" on acid. Nowhere follows a number of uniquely-named, all somewhat inter-connected teenagers (Lucifer, Dingbat, Egg, Jujyfruit...) in Los Angeles over the course of one day as they engage in an aimless cocktail of drugs, sex, polyamory, BDSM, and parties. The world of the film is in constant flux between reality and fantasy (and it is very, very, very queer). Everything is extremely heightened: there are lengthy, gratuitous sex scenes, a seemingly unlimited access to space, an abundance of drugs, and vast, artistic bedrooms that real teens would only dream of.

In my interpretation, the film's world is an external representation of the teens' imaginations and their feelings of an endless, indestructible youth. While this world is a step above reality for the viewer, it is real to the characters. However, this overindulgence is not without it's consequences. The first half of the film is a sort of queer, sex-positive utopia seemingly free of prejudice in which the teens can have sex with whoever they want, go wherever they want, and so on. This all seems to crumble in the second half of the film, as the teens' endless consumption unravels into overdose, sexual assault, suicide, violent fights, and broken hearts. Araki does not seem to be prudish or critical of this queer nomadic lifestyle, though. He seems to posit that this imaginative world is sadly incompatible with the "real world" of capitalist society at the turn of the century.

Now for the sci-fi. Unbeknownst to every character except Dark, the day on which this film takes place is sort of Judgement Day; the last "normal" day before aliens come to take over the planet.

Dark is the main character of the film, and offers some narration through diary entries and videos he takes of himself and his friends. He is played by James Duvall, a multiracial actor. Dark becomes increasingly unhappier as his girlfriend Mel spends more and more time with her girlfriend Lucifer, who he hates. He grows weary of their indulgence sexually-open arrangement, simply wanting to fall in love and be committed to one person that will anchor him in a world he feels lost in. As he gets more disconnected from Mel, he finds himself infatuated with Mongomery, a boy who goes to school with the teens but who Dark knows little about.

At the same time as Dark's discontent with his lifestyle grows and he finds himself falling in love with Montgomery, he sees a bunch of giant alien creatures roaming around the city, abducting people. Dark is the only character able to see these aliens, which seems to be no coincidence alongside the fact that he is the only character verbalizing any anxiety about the future and the teens' lifestyle. In one diary entry, he says: "I feel like I’m sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand, watching everyone around me die a slow, agonizing death. It’s like we all know, way down in our souls, that our generation is gonna witness the end of everything. You can see it in our eyes."

In the final scene of the film, Dark returns home after an empty night of partying and a fight with Mel. Montgomery appears at his window and tells Dark that he was abducted and tested on by the aliens. The two boys lie together on Dark's bed and confess their love, promising to never leave each other. Just when it seems like Dark has found what he has been longing for, Montgomery goes into a violent coughing fit and explodes, leaving a bug-like alien in his place that crawls out of Dark's room, and the movie ends.

While the aliens in Nowhere are not necessarily representative of a racialized Other according Addison Smith's analysis of Sci-Fi films, the impending doom of an alien invasion and Dark's isolating anxiety is quite in line with Addison-Smith's reading of home and homeland. Araki's identity as Japanese-American director and Duvall's as a multiracial American actor are factors in this reading of the film. Since this film is thus told from a mixed/multiracial perspective, the its anxiety is not surrounding the (white/Western) fear of "losing" a home to outsiders, but the fear of not belonging to any one home in the first place.

Addison-Smith writes:

"For many people in self-avowedly multicultural nations such as the United States, their status as migrants, be it forced or economic, recent or later generational, means that 'home’ has become a complex, multiple and sometimes fraught notion. That such multiple belongings to place is not confined to recent migrants can most immediately be seen in the labelling of many ethnic groups through the joining of two place names (African—AmericanJapanese-American)" (28).

Araki uses Los Angeles as an unstable home in this film (note the opening quote at the top of this post). He plays upon the notions of transplants to the city, and the stereotypes that the city and its inhabitants are vain and superficial. The characters move throughout the city at will, with no connection to any particular space. Actual homes are places of confinement and depression (both the suicides in the film occur in character's bedrooms).

I read that Dark's ability to see the aliens is a representation of his sense of displacement and anxiety for the future. When Montgomery enters his room and the two share an extremely intimate, tender moment, his room finally begins to feel like home, rather than its previous role as a space for his lonesome brooding and masturbation. But when Montgomery explodes as is replaced by an alien, Dark's vision of home and someone to share it with also figuratively blows up in his face; home feels impossible.

Finally, Montgomery's objectification by Dark's infatuation and his identity as a white queer man seem to be an inversion of both romance and Sci-Fi tropes. Montgomery seems to occupy both the role of the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" in Dark's desire to be saved by him, and the racialized alien Other in his mysteriousness and his constant affiliation with the aliens. Addison-Smith writes, "An alien is easy to identify, and particular judgements about them are thus easily drawn from their appearance alone, so rooting their ‘racial nature' in their biology" (27). Montgomery definitely stands out in this world. He has different colored eyes, is always dressed in white, appears to Dark miraculously by a sign that reads "God help me," and, unlike very other character, is quiet and keeps to himself. He is alien and even an angelic figure to Dark, a unique representation against Addison-Smith's notions of the racialized alien as either invader or teacher.

The entire movie Nowhere is on Youtube! I think it's really great, but there's a ton of trigger warnings (sexual assault, drug abuse, suicide, eating disorders, physical assault, gore). The quality is also very bad. Proceed with caution.

[paladin-of-nerd-fandom65]

Living With Monsters by Lost Utopia Films

Basically how would the world be like if King Kong, Godzilla, Angurius and other kaiju like them existed ever since the 1940s up to the present day explored in this old school faux documentary

[cleromancy]

i am mostly glad this isnt canon anymore (im pretty sure at least) and got lost to the ages, for a variety of reasons (mostly because i think the implications of earth-51 were not thought through on uh. any serious level) but the thing where jason went to the utopia earth where after his death batman killed a bunch of supervillains and it made the world *significantly better*. like to the point that most of the justice league wasnt doing superhero shit anymore bc of it. and like i said i dont like the implications, it wasnt handled well on top of that, or delved into. & *i* dont think that if you just like killed all the bad people there would just not be crime anymore and furthermore while *jason* textually believes some people have to die to be stopped, i also don't believe he believes that crime Can be stopped (which like. is a line from the film and i dont believe he says it in his book but 1. script written by the same guy, bite me 2. its backed up by his lil monologue to tim in robin 177 which is his first post-countdown appearance, its just not as quotable bc fabnics dialogue sucks).

so like yk. this is not something id ever write bc i cant take it seriously and I dont believe in it but like. oh my god. you know?

like ... it is *strong* evidence he was right and bruce was wrong. (...... which is also........ why i dont want it.......... not bc i want bruce to be *right* but bc like. utrh is the way it is because it's about the tragedy significantly more than the morality, and while i do think jason thinks about morality like a lot, utrh/lost days hes not doing it bc he wants to be a better batman, hes not doing it bc of his values, hes doing it because [insert "say the line bart simpsons.jpg" here]. and i do want jason to grapple with morality and my ideal for the non-existent growth arc from villain to anti-hero would have involved him grappling with what his moral code actually *is* and the fact that hes absolutely broken it at least a couple times. but yk. not like this wjere the most important thing still boils down to Whether Bruce Is Right Or Wrong.) like you could absolutely imagine that leading to him becoming Evil Gun Batman in bftc if bftc had been good but. alas

my point is just. whew. emotionally speaking that would have to be a doozy

[grigori77]

2022 in Movies, My Autumn/Winter Top Ten Runners-Up Rundown

Basically because I just got sick of all the movies the past few years that I haven’t praised in the Autumn Winter period, especially during the Pandemic years, because they didn’t make the Top Ten and so didn’t qualify for the Top 30, I decided to start doing these, so ... hope you enjoy, these are all great, and the Top 30 itself is on the way by the weekend, I promise!

20.  THE MENU – A true underdog curiosity which emerged to a surprising amount of interest due to its sheer quality and hot-button genius, this deeply odd jet black social satire genuinely came out of left-field.  Director Mark Mylod’s previous form (mainly directing TV such as Succession and Shameless) certainly didn’t indicate he had THIS in him – a razor-sharp psychological horror comedy about a ultra-exclusive avant-garde restaurant run by a legendary chef (Ralph Fiennes) serving mind-boggling symbolic food to unappreciative snobbish clientele that include Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult and John Leguizamo.

19.  BLACK ADAM – Amidst all the sheer chaos of cancelations, shake-ups and post-COVID delays, a DCEU movie DID manage to sneak out from Warner Bros. … although given the lack of fanfare, underwhelming box office and lacklustre reviews have to wonder why they bothered.  Thing is, taken on face value as an actual MOVIE, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson’s star vehicle franchise break-in is actually pretty good, an enjoyably bombastic and visually impressive action adventure with some surprisingly well-thought-out characters and a cheeky sense of humour.  It falls down somewhat in the final act and is frustratingly lacking in an actual proper VILLAIN … although given the titular character’s unapologetic antihero status that might ultimately have been the point …

18.  THE AMAZING MAURICE – in the final days of the year, something really special came out VERY MUCH under the radar that I was damn lucky to stumble across – a bona fide Terry Pratchett Discworld adaptation the actually WORKED. After 2021’s ABYSSMAL attempt to bring the Ankh Morpork City Watch to the small screen imploded horrifically, it’s a relief to see somebody finally get the late great Pterry’s voice RIGHT in film form … the end result, wisely adapted from his lovable novel about a talking cat who has a complex “pied piper” scam going with a bunch of equally impressive supersmart rats, is pure gold, the animation likeably cartoonish but still beautifully capturing the mastery of Paul Kidby’s winning artistic takes on Discworld’s characters.  It’s a must-watch for the kids, but as you’d expect it’s also sophisticated enough to please the grown-ups too.  Somebody get the geniuses who put this together to do more Pratchett, this is DEFINITELY the way to go.

17.  STRANGE WORLD – Disney’s other big 2022 animated release was a somewhat unwieldy beast coming out of the gate, but surprisingly it’s turned out to be a charmingly offbeat and original piece of work which clearly had a lot of fun breaking fresh ground for the studio in the fine tradition of the explorers the story showcases. From a visual standpoint alone this is one of the most impressive movies I’ve seen from the studio in some time, brilliantly inventive and vibrantly colourful, while the characters are rewardingly multi-dimensional.  It’s a perfect film for those of us who loved the underrated likes of Treasure Planet and Atlantis: the Lost Empire, which almost makes you wonder why they were so bafflingly quiet about it when it came time for the marketing …

16.  DON’T WORRY DARLING – following on from her impressive feature debut as a director, Booksmart, Olivia Wilde set her sights on something a whole lot more ambitious with this deeply unsettling Lynchian cinematic fever dream. Florence Pugh is ON FIRE as the seemingly perfect housewife in the not-quite-right idyllic 1950s town of Victory, California, who discovers that something is DEEPLY WRONG with her charming little domestic utopia.  Wilde crafts a perfect oppressive sense of impending doom throughout, while Chris Pine gives us GENUINE CHILLS as the company head/puppet-master at the centre of this disturbing small town nightmare.

15.  GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO – My favourite filmmaking geek of all time scored a triple hitter this past year, and his final offering is a gleefully odd little joy of stop-motion animation which uses the bare bones of the original children’s story, del Toro letting his freak-flag fly with enthusiasm as he viewed the nightmare of Fascist Italy under the control of Mussolini through the prism of Pinocchio’s pure free spirited chaos gremlin of a living wooden puppet.  As a result it’s a wonderfully weird film, welcoming in younger audiences by somewhat softening the edges of some of the director’s similarly-themed previous woks like The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, but not sacrificing any of his distinctive creative voice.

14.  VIOENT NIGHT – the festive season got a cinematic boost in fine style as Dead Snow and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters creator Tommy Wirkola brought more of his enjoyably idiosyncratic black comedy action movie style to bear on Christmas itself with this unapologetically BRUTAL story of a deeply disillusioned Santa Claus (a thoroughly on-point David Harbour) who’s forced to resurrect his old self (namely a badass Viking warrior) in order to save a genuinely good little girl from a gang of dastardly Grinch-like thugs who’ve taken her rich family hostage on Christmas Eve.  This is totally one of my new fave Xmas movies …

13.  DIO: DREAMERS NEVER DIE – it’s always nice when I can squeeze a documentary or two into these, and this is a very welcome addition, a beautifully engrossing and deeply inspiring recounting of the larger-than-life tale of the truest gentleman in the history of heavy metal, Ronny James Dio.  A fascinating array of friends, colleagues and fans come together to tell the tale of just what an incredibly huge shadow this surprisingly diminutive man cast, and the incredible legacy he left behind when he died in 2010.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you will DEFINITELY want to rock …

12.  FALL – After serving his time making clunky but fun low budget action fare like The Tournament and Final Score, writer-direct Scott Mann looks to have finally come of age with this stunning white knuckle survival thriller about two young free climbers who scale a defunct 2,000 foot TV tower in the middle of the Mojave desert, only for a horrifying accident to leave them both stranded at the top with no means of getting down again safely.  I swear I spent THE ENTIRE RUNNING TIME of this movie on the edge of my seat, gripping the armrests of the seat for dear life, this is one of the most magnificently terrifying movies I have EVER SEEN …

11.  SEE HOW THEY RUN – Deceptively small and seemingly quaint, this gentle mystery comedy from debuting director Tom George and writer Mark Chappell (My Life In Film, Cold Feet) is actually completely fiendish and MASSIVELY entertaining.  A louche drunkard detective (Sam Rockwell) and a plucky rookie WPC (Saoirse Ronan) in early 50s London investigate the murder of a universally disliked loudmouth American producer looking to turn Agatha Christie’s long-running whodunnit stage play The Mousetrap into a potentially godawful American style melodramatic movie.  Thoroughly ingenious chaos ensues …