#Michael in the Mainstream

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Late Night with the Devil

Horror has been clawing its way back into the limelight recently and frankly I couldn’t be happier. Between all the films where filmmakers have used the genre as a vehicle to deliver social commentary or explore deeper themes like the works of Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, the PG-13 horror films that give younger viewers an entry point like M3gan and the FNAF movie, and stylish horror dripping in symbolism like The Lighthouse and Mandy, horror fans are eating pretty good! We even got a good Lovecraft adaptation, starring Nicolas Cage no less! Sure, there’s still the cash grab legacy sequels and the hot garbage horror fans have come to expect, but it seems filmmakers are treating the genre as grounds to experiment again so that, even if the results aren’t perfect, we’re getting a constant stream of innovative creativity.

And Late Night with the Devil looked like it might be one of the best films in this new wave of innovative horror. The concept—the film being a found footage “lost episode” of a late night comedy show—is really unique, and it gives a lead role to David Dastmalchian, who has shown incredible acting chops playing weirdo supporting roles. Positive reactions to the initial announcement and the first looks really built this up to be the next big horror smash!

…And then came the controversy. It was revealed that AI generated images were used to create certain pictures in the movie (specifically the intermission cards), and as this came to light in the thick of arguments over the subject of AI, this killed a fair bit of hype and caused many to state they’d boycott the film. Using such lazy methods as opposed to, you know, hiring an actual fucking artist isn’t what you do to endear yourself to audiences. Still, the ethics of AI usage aside, I still wanted to give this film a chance, and thankfully the movie turned out to be every bit as fun, refreshing, and innovative as I’d hoped!

Until it isn’t.

For most of the film’s runtime, it delivers exactly what you could have hoped for. We get fantastic setup framing the film as sort of a documentary, with a Michael Ironside-narrated introduction giving us pertinent backstory before diving in to the actual episode. The presentation is fantastic; from the grainy VHS look of the actual show to the black and white backstage footage, they did a great job of capturing the look and feel of a show from that era, with everything making sense as something that would be filmed for the show. It keeps this up for most of the runtime.

But just as the film is about to bring home the gold, it does a mass hypnosis sequence where we see the illusion of worms bursting out of a guy… but this clip is played back almost immediately, without the illusion. While the worm effect is great practical gore, it is the first sign that they’re willing to betray the conceit of the film for spectacle. And it only gets worse from here, as this leads right into a big finale with all sorts of overtly supernatural elements as well as video footage of another person’s hallucination.

And while the supernatural horror stuff has some cool moments, including a couple of gnarly kills and some solid black comedy, it really sort of deflates the film. The setup they went with really only works if you keep the supernatural elements ambiguous. The initial demonic possession scene is where the cracks start to show, but there’s still at least a little wiggle room there, but when we have someone split their head open and levitate while blatantly using magic it is really impossible to ignore. It’s even worse because the effects in the finale are really not as good as the filmmakers think they are, meaning they essentially sacrificed the believability of the movie for pointless spectacle that it didn’t even need! Up until this point the movie was up there with the found footage heavy hitters in terms of realism and commitment, sitting alongside the likes of The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield. But it decided it was better to try and have it both ways, to be some spectacular supernatural extravaganza on top of the found footage realism, and it falls on its face flatter than your create lost episode creepypasta as a result. If only there were hyperrealistic blood to be seen.

Maybe it’s just me, but I hate when a film that builds such great atmosphere with subtle, ambiguous horror decides to go whole hog on the spectacle. It’s my biggest problem with Hereditary—Ari Aster had created such a fantastic, unsettling, oppressive tone for the film steeped in the ambiguity of the events, and then the final act has spontaneous combustion and levitating corpses. But, crucially, Aster pulls everything back for the final scene, leaving on an ambiguous yet deeply disturbing note. It’s why I wouldn’t hesitate to call Hereditary a great film. But I can’t do the same here. Sure, it tries to pull things back at the very end, but by its very nature it fails to do so. You’ve already betrayed the basic premise of your film for your Hollywood ghost movie tricks, you can’t win us back now. You were at the head of the race, about to bring home the gold, and you tripped at the finish line.

I know I’ve been super harsh on the movie, but that’s because I do love it. It’s a really good movie for the most part! Dastmalchian in particular is absolutely fantastic, showcasing great range as his character Jack Delroy alternates between the corny comedic charisma needed of a late night host and the sleazy, desperate hunger for fame you’d expect from a 70s TV personality, all while never coming off as a truly bad guy. It really showcases Dastmalchian’s leading man potential, and whatever else I wouldn’t hesitate to call this a career highlight. I genuinely hope this opens more doors for him because he is genuinely and consistently great throughout, even when other aspects dip in quality.

And aside from the obnoxious and intrusive AI images (which are mercifully few and far between), it spends a good 80% of the film being stylishly immersive and engaging. This is a genuinely good movie, and I do recommend watching it! I just unfortunately have to throw in the caveat that it trips over itself at the end and doesn’t quite achieve the greatness we were all hoping it would.

[edge-oftheworld]

real talk though how much of their success was facilitated by the fact liz hemmings sees 'child with adhd' and thinks 'future world renowned musician' and just invested so much love and time and money into nurturing not only her own child's ambitions but also these two kids he brought home from school and the table drummer from her year 9 math class of 2009

[ingravinoveritas]

So last night was the GLAAD Media Awards ceremony, and it has come to light that the winner of the award for Outstanding Comedy Series was...Ted Lasso.

Now, I know next to nothing about Ted Lasso, but from what I have heard about it, there is no part of me that would hear "Ted Lasso" and automatically think of it as a queer show...

And when I look at this list of nominees, I see at least three other shows that would have been excellent winners--especially Good Omens 2 and OFMD, both of which are arguably overtly, loudly queer (albeit in entirely different ways).

Both contained extraordinary performances from their lead actors. Both showed us relationships that we came to care so deeply about and feel represented by, which is particularly notable by the lack of representation that has traditionally existed for those relationships. And both have forever changed the lives of their cast members, who seem to have found themselves in ways they never expected as a result of being in these shows.

So I'm going to need someone to throw out some citations/references or just explain to me like I'm 5 why TL won this award over everything else, because the math is very not mathing here...

[bloominglegumes]

I love your art so much,, it makes me want to get into the transformers fandom!! ;-; ;-; where do I start though .. its intimidating

aw thank you so much!! and yeah,, i totally get how there's so much in transformers when you first look at it ;v;

the g1 cartoon from 1984 is a great place to get started if you want to get to know the original characters and setup, since pretty much everything after has taken some amount of inspiration from it! it's an incredibly 80s-feeling show, and i think it's good if you enjoy some lighthearted fun and a massive cast of silly characters !

or if you want something that has a more focused/serious tone, i think Transformers Prime from 2010 is probably one of the more beloved tf series to date, in terms of its writing, the depth of its characters and relationships, production quality and visuals,, and like.impact on fandom maybe,, definitely has huge rewatchability for me :)

personally, i was obsessed with the 2007 Transformers Animated cartoon when i was younger, so i've always had a soft spot for it ^-^ it took a very different direction from other tf stories and i think it's kept itself a nice little legacy for that, for its newer setting and design style especially, and i think it's a fun watch on its own if you've never seen anything else from transformers!

i hope if you do decide to check out transformers that you enjoy it!! these three are all family-friendly animated series that are relatively easy to find, i'm pretty sure they're all available in full somewhere under the official transformers youtube channel :)

though of course, if something else catches your eye, i say just go for it!! have fun :D

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

Calling it now: The Michael Sheen autism show “The Assembly” is going to be a bigger bomb than the outrageously mediocre Frost/Nixon and I for one am an autist excited to be fed with cringe ragebait the world has not seen since “The Other Sister”

[mariocki]

Don't Answer the Phone! (1980)

"Don't you give a shit about getting this strangler off the streets?"

"What would you prescribe for the man, a firing squad?"

"That's not a bad idea. Mainly I don't want him back on the streets in a few years - or sooner, if some misguided shrink discovers he can find his ass in the dark with both hands."

[ladysophiebeckett]

there's some internet debate about robbie williams and why he's not big in the us and ppl saying they've never heard of him. actually u have heard of him. the song 'millennium' was big on vh1, i think? bc i know the words to that. and i know 'rock dj' and i dont know why i know 'rock dj'. it's in a movie but i don't remember which one. definitely a big british movie but i cant remember which one. either way we have heard of him. uk didn't make him up. i thought we all watched derry girls and learned who Take That was. bc that was not a made up boyband.

[h0n3yk1tt3n]

ok I’m obsessed with the squip as Alastor

thinking about fallen angel michael…

Gods me too

Michael's eyes were not kind to me

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chloe Simon at MMFA:

After a week of right-wing media spreading baseless smears about Haitian migrants abducting and eating pets, conservative activist Christopher Rufo posted a video allegedly showing a cat on a barbecue grill in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton police have issued a statement saying “there is no evidence to even remotely suggest” that any community is eating pets — but some in right-wing media ran with the story, claiming that Rufo’s video falsely “confirmed” the rumors about migrants and animals. 

Last week, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, promoted baseless and racist rumors about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets. During the September 10 presidential debate, Trump claimed, “They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” Right-wing media also jumped on the narrative, calling Haitian migrants “locusts,” zombies,” and “weird Third World aliens.” [The Associated Press, 9/11/24; Media Matters, 9/10/24]

On September 14, Rufo posted a video purportedly showing a cat on a barbecue with the caption, “EXCLUSIVE: We have discovered that migrants are, in fact, eating cats in Ohio. We have verified, with multiple witnesses and visual cross-references, that African migrants in Dayton, the next city over from Springfield, barbecued these cats last summer.” Rufo did acknowledge in his Substack that “this single incident does not confirm every particularity of Trump’s statement. The town is Dayton, not Springfield; cats alone were on the grill, not cats and dogs.” However, he continued that the video “does break the general narrative peddled by the establishment media and its ‘fact checkers’” and that “independent journalists are already on the hunt and could reveal more.” Prior to releasing the video, Rufo claimed he would “provide a $5,000 bounty to anyone who can provide my team with hard, verifiable evidence that Haitian migrants are eating cats in Springfield, Ohio.” [Twitter/X, 9/14/24, 9/11/24; Substack, 9/14/24]

Rufo, a senior fellow at conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute, is a conservative activist known for his right-wing crusades against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and higher education. Media Matters has described his career as a long attempt to “inject bigotry and incorrect information into mainstream discourses about gay and trans people, drag queens, and the academic discipline known as critical race theory.” [Vox, 9/10/23; Media Matters, 1/6/23, 7/27/23; The Guardian, 2/21/24]

Dayton police have categorically denied that any group has “engaged in eating pets.” In a statement, the department wrote, “We stand by our immigrant community and there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets. Seeing politicians or other individuals use outlandish information to appeal to their constituents is disheartening.” Rufo’s video has also received a lot of backlash online, with open-source intelligence analyst Oliver Alexander writing that it was “clearly chicken you weirdo. Dude’s never seen chicken that wasn’t dino-nugget shaped.” In a further attempt to verify the video’s claims, CBS News reached out to veterinary experts who cited the image’s poor quality, while another “noted the legs looked ‘weirdly distended’ and in his opinion, did not look like cat legs.” [Twitter/X, 9/16/24, 9/14/24; The Independent, 9/15/24; CBS News, 9/16/24]

Right-wing disinformation purveyor Christopher Rufo posted a video purporting that cats were cooked on a barbecue grill in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton PD, however, shot down Rufo’s rumor-mongering by stating that there is no evidence of cats being grilled in Dayton.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Top 100 Movies #25 - #1

100 - 76

75 - 51

50 - 26

So this right here is what I really wanted to talk about. These are the 25 movies that I hold nearest and dearest to my heart, the ones that mean the most to me, the ones that have influenced my tastes and the sort of things I like to see more than any other. Some are older films, some are pretty recent, but all of them represent what I think is the very best of their kind.

And yes, I could have just talked about these in the first place without doing all those other movies... But I'm the movie guy around here, so I felt like it would be more fun to give you a window into my taste in film. Anyway, here are the final movies:

25. Hercules

What happens when you throw Greek mythology, gospel music, the animator from The Wall, and Superman into a blender? You have Disney’s most bizarre and ambitious musical. It was a bold move taking Greek myths and sanitizing them to a mild degree(there’s no incest, rape, and infidelity but there is death and attempted infanticide!), a move that pissed off Greece for disrespecting their mythology, but come on. Lighten the fuck up. The whole point of myths and legends is to allow storytellers to embellish and alter details as they see fit for their vision. This take is no more or less valid than any other, though considering it has James Woods portraying Hades like a sleazy used car salesman trying to screw you out of your life savings, I’d say it has the edge over everything save the game Hades.

24. Clash of the Titans

As a child, this is the movie that got me into Greek mythology. It’s also the movie that got me into stop motion animation, which to this day remains one of my favorite forms of animation. And then it’s also the movie that gave me horrible nightmares, because that Medusa sequence is fucking terrifying. Ray Harryhausen delivers some of the best animation of his entire career here, and he singlehandedly propelled Medusa into the limelight; she wasn’t a household name prior to this film, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who hasn’t at least heard her name now. It also helped greatly alter the public perception of what a kraken is, and may have convinced people it’s a Greek creation. For a cheesy cult classic of a film, the impact this has is impressive, but even if it was just me and five other people who knew this movie existed I’d still love it all the same.

23. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

This is essentially a Shakesperean play, but with apes. The sheer amount of drama is incredible, and the stunning work at bringing the apes to life shows that human ingenuity will achieve the best results when it comes to rendering monkeys. Caesar is a fantastic and compelling lead of course, played perfectly by Andy Serkis, the man who somehow doesn’t have an Oscar, but I think the real star of the show is the villainous Koba. Never has a chimp been so horrifically and unrepentantly evil while also being heartbreakingly tragic. He also rides a horse while dual wielding guns and then hijacks a tank. That is literally one of the most badass visuals ever put to film.

22. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

A lot of people view this movie as the weakest of the trilogy, and while I obviously don’t agree I can kind of see it. The first act has its moments, but I think it’s a bit too slow and repeats a few too many jokes from the first film. But as soon as Ego hits the scene, the film goes into maximum overdrive and delivers a far better and funnier experience than the first film. Ego is one of the most heinous and captivating villains in all of comic book cinema thanks to Kurt Russell, but frankly it’s former side characters turned major players Yondu and Nebula who steal the show, as both are given a lot more to do and thus a lot more depth. The latter’s relationship with Gamora is explored quite a bit more and they’re even given a reconciliation, while the former gets a strong emotional arc and redemption while also pushing the development of the trilogy’s true main character Rocket to the next level. He also gets to massacre an entire ship full of goons in one of the MCU’s most epic sequences. And as if all this isn’t enough, this movie has the single best soundtrack of the Guardians trilogy; hard not to when you have Fleetwood Mac and George Harrison on it. The only thing that’s missing is “Come and Get Your Love.”

21. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back

I like most of the other Star Wars films; there’s maybe only two I consider outright bad, and even then one of them is more “messy and mediocre” than “awful.” But there is no way in Hell I’d ever even consider an argument that Star Wars ever got better than this. It has the battle of Hoth, the Wampa, Han hiding in the asteroid, Lando, Yoda, Han being frozen in carbonite, Boba Fett… And then capping everything off is one of the single greatest plot twists in cinematic history and a pretty dark ending for this sort of series, though one tempered by hope that the day can be saved. This is what Star Wars is all about right here, and the series has yet to ever produce anything that quite matches this in terms of sheer quality.

20. Dune: Part Two

Ok, that’s enough about the sci-fi for kids; it’s a real man’s sci-fi movie now! The first film was good and all, but I felt like it was slowly paced and a bit too heavy on exposition and worldbuilding without much excitement. This film fixes that; it keeps all of the exposition and worldbuilding, but it intersperses a lot more exciting setpieces and brings in Feyd-Rautha, who steals every scene he’s in even if he isn’t wearing those crazy space panties like when Sting played him. Of course, the real draw of the film is watching the well-meaning but vengeful Paul buy into his own hype as a means of survival and slowly descend from a decent guy in a bad situation to a villainous terrorist messiah with a god complex. The fact this movie ends on a triumph that would be the end of any other series but paints the victory with the blackest brush really has me excited for where the third chapter will go. What can I say? I’m a sucker for movies with big worms.

19. The Incredibles

Pixar had made plenty of compelling narratives about things like toys, bugs, monsters, and fish before this one, so it was only a matter of time before they tackled humans. I think there was probably a worry there, considering the humans in the original Toy Story looked really ugly and while the second one showed improvement it wasn’t all the way there yet. But making the novel decision to stylize the characters a la Team Fortress 2 proved the way to go to tell this story that’s a blend between James Bond, Watchmen, and the Fantastic Four. The characters and their struggles are relatable and grounded in reality despite their superpowers, and the movie is absolutely not afraid to get dark in ways you wouldn’t expect from an early Pixar movie, mostly courtesy of one of cinema’s greatest villains, Syndrome. Throw on top of it a Michael Giacchino score that helped launch his composing career into the sky and a hilarious minor role for director Brad Bird as the super suit designer Edna Mode, and you have what is inarguably Pixar’s best movie.

18. Pulp Fiction

I go back and forth a lot over whether this or Kill Bill are my favorite of Tarantino’s work, but I inevitably always land back on this one. Sure, the latter film is fun, violent, and action-packed, but this movie here is more quintessentially Tarantino. It has non-linear storytelling, with chapters bouncing around time to deliver a fascinating tale of criminals trying to outwit each other. It has an all-star cast of actors giving it their all, with defining performances for Samuel L. Jackson, John Travolta, Bruce Willis, Uma Thurman, and Ving Rhames among many others (plus a demented Christopher Walken cameo). It has an awesome soundtrack, it has black comedy, it has meandering conversations that reveal a lot about the personality of the speaker, it has copious use of the N-word (sometimes even straight from Tarantino’s own mouth), and of course it has plenty of shots of women’s feet. This is Tarantino in his purest form, and it still holds up as one of the greatest masterpieces of the 90s.

17. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

I didn’t know if I’d be thrown into the same sort of blissful ecstasy that Hideo Kojima was while watching this, but let me tell you that this was such a fucking amazing movie I just had to rewatch Fury Road right after. As far as origin stories go, it is genuinely hard to get better than this, which not only showcases Furiosa’s backstory and her rise to her position as seen in Fury Road, it also showcases a younger Immortan Joe and the depths of his evil as we see he once had a son named Scrotus. Who the fuck names their kid that besides the most depraved villain imaginable? But quite frankly the real star of this show is Chris Hemsworth as Dementus, a villain who is as stupid and pitiful as he is depraved and cunning. It is absolutely astounding seeing him act his balls off after watching him sleepwalk through mediocre Thor and Ghostbuster movies. If you ever thought he might not actually be that good of an actor, you need to sit your ass down and watch this movie.

16. Deadpool & Wolverine

I think it is extremely easy to pick this apart when you take this film at face value, because on the surface the narrative is kind of flimsy and the emotional core just isn’t there. Like, why should we give a shit about this brand new Wolverine’s plight, moping over the deaths of a version of the X-Men we’ve never seen? But this isn’t a movie we should be taking literally; this movie is a metaphor for a lot of things, from the very nature of the Fox Marvel films and their messy and convoluted timelines to the literal idea of Wolverine as a cash cow box office draw. But most importantly, this is a superhero movie that is a love letter to unloved superhero films, a heartfelt sendoff telling them that even if they weren’t great, they had maximum effort put into them. Think of all the crossover characters and how they’re from failed franchises or unmade projects; no one was clamoring to see Elektra, and hardly anyone would know Channing Tatum was ever meant to play Gambit. But these characters are implemented in such a way where it’s clear that whatever audiences thought, Reynolds certainly saw some value in them. As someone who loves watching dogshit movies and seeing if they’re really that bad, this plot definitely speaks to me. As a straight Deadpool film this doesn’t work, but as a fond farewell to Fox’s time making Marvel movies and an entry point for Deadpool to join the MCU, this is one hell of a great film. You will come out of it wanting Cassandra Nova to stick her fingers in your brain, though. Fair warning.

15. Poor Things

If Barbie is the film equivalent of an “intro to feminism” course, this is the advanced placement course. This is an impressive allegory about the objectification of women and how they seek agency in a society that so desperately wants to force them to be something whether they like it or not. Emma Stone gives an absolutely insane performance, and it’s genuinely hard to deny she actually deserved the Oscar after seeing how mind-bogglingly demanding this role must have been. Mark Ruffalo, too, shows off his long-dormant acting chops, flexing his comedic muscles after being stuck as a supporting CGI giant in Avengers movies with zero hope of a solo film. The colors, the dialogue, the score, it all comes together to make one of the most striking films in recent memory.

14. The Thing

John Carpenter made one of the few movies I have ever had to look away from on my first viewing, sitting alongside Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Cannibal Holocaust in that illustrious category. The effects here are beautifully gruesome, with some of the most delightfully monstrous bits of body horror you could ever hope to see. The plot is fantastic, with the paranoia and fear that breaks down even these toughest of men being something that leads to a lot of applicability (it’s easy to read this movie as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, for instance). And best of all this film features amazing performances from Kurt Russell and Keith David, some of the best of careers that are stacked high with amazing roles. Carpenter had a pretty flawless run of films in the 80s, but this right here is his magnum opus.

13. A Clockwork Orange

I love films that are character studies of horribly repugnant individuals, and there are few better films of that sort than Kubrick’s crowning achievement. Malcolm McDowell makes Alex DeLarge into one of the most captivating monsters ever put to screen, a villain who at times exudes an almost human warmness before committing a depraved crime and slipping back into psychotic coldness, sometimes complete with a chilling Kubrick stare. I think my only real issue with this film is that it just sort of ends without any clear resolution, something the novel actually gave, but considering I found that book unreadable I can live with it.

12. American Psycho

A Clockwork Orange is fantastic, but Alex can be a bit too charismatic for his own good. I like a character study of an awful person who is just a complete void of personality, a wretched, miserable, evil person who is also utterly vapid and hollow by design… and boy howdy is Patrick Bateman the guy to scratch that itch! Christian Bale gives easily the best performance of his career, and keep in mind this is a guy who refuses to not act his pussy off in every film he stars in. His Bateman has that surface level sheen of charm and charisma that only barely masks the fact he is nothing but a soulless husk of a human being who revels in killing/fantasizing about killing to fill the empty void of his life since he’s an overly-privileged yuppie piece of shit, The fact that they even managed to take an astoundingly unfilmable novel and translate it so well to screen is astounding, and they even kept in all of Patrick’s rambling music monologues! And if nothing else, this film does do one of my absolute favorite things a movie can do: Show Jared Leto getting brutalized.

11. The Suicide Squad

DC’s movies generally sucked, and Suicide Squad is generally seen as a failure. With these two facts in mind, it was easy to be apprehensive about the at-the-time disgraced former Marvel director James Gunn’s try at taking a bunch of D-list villains and sending them on a suicide mission. But unlike Ayer, Gunn understood the assignment, and delivered his trademark superhero found family goodness with all the cathartic freedom an R-rating could give a Troma alumni. There’s blood, gore, and swearing, but there’s also a ton of heart (and not just the one Peacemaker stabs). John Cena gives the best performance of his career and one who would continue to improve upon in his spin-off, and for once Sylvester Stallone nails comedy as the dopey juggernaut King Shark. It’s a movie wholly unafraid to embrace the silliest aspects of comics (giant alien starfish, villains who control rats, Polka Dot Man) while also engaging with mature and serious themes while using said aspects. And after her previous ensemble outing with the Birds of Prey, it’s nice to see Harley truly back in her groove and getting to live out a Lollipop Chainsaw level.

10. Drive

Ryan Gosling cemented himself as a star in my mind with this movie. A pitch perfect neo-noir with a godly soundtrack, excellent atmosphere, and gripping plot, this might be my favorite movie that I just can’t bring myself to ramble about; like Ryan Gosling in the movie, I just have so little to say. I guess maybe he is literally me after all!

9. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

It’s kind of impressive how this movie pulls the rug out from under you and reveals this whole time, the trilogy has been about Rocket. It all makes sense in hindsight, of course; he has one of the clearest arcs of any of the Guardians and probably the most bombastic personality of the group after all. But the places this movie goes to show why he is the way he is… man. This one has some of the most crushingly sad scenes in any superhero movie even if you know they’re coming, and also one of the few cool action scenes in any Marvel movie. It also has the most nasty villain imaginable in the High Evolutionary, who despite being wholly evil with motives that aren’t too complex manages to be entertaining and engaging. The soundtrack is good (not as good as the last one, though) and the comedy is solid, and the way this movie ends leaves it so that even if we never see any of these characters again, we know they all got a satisfying sendoff. Isn’t it nice, when things end and we get some level of closure?

8. The Nightmare Before Christmas

Henry Selick worked miracles translating Tim Burton’s macabre holiday mashup fairy tale into glorious stop motion animation. It’s a film that really is greater than the sum of its parts; the story is relatively simple, the message is pretty heavy-handed, and the villain is in two or three scenes and barely effects the plot. But it’s all so visually interesting, all the performances are stellar, and all the songs are so damn good that it’s incredibly easy not to care and just get sucked into the weird and spooky world of Halloweentown. Every Halloween and every Christmas I would get my parents to rent this from Blockbuster, and I would watch it over and over… I loved it from the first time I watched it. And imagine my joy when, the first time I sat my daughter down to watch it so she’d quiet down and relax, she had her eyes glued to the screen in awe. Like father, like daughter. Love of this film is hereditary.

7. The Silence of the Lambs

This is the greatest thriller ever made in my eyes; as far as murder mystery stories go, nothing even comes close. The plot, the setup, the mystery, the killer are all so well done, and Jodie Foster really sells her role as a young woman struggling to be taken seriously in her field while also having a steely resolve that keeps her from coming off as a helpless damsel. But it is Sir Anthony Hopkins with his limited screentime as Hannibal Lecter who truly steals the show, portraying a villain who is cunning, classy, and creepy all at once. His nightmarish jail break is something else entirely. Of course, everyone heaps lavish praise on Hopkins, so I’m going to highlight Ted Levine as the deranged Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb. While his depiction may come across as a bit problematic in some areas due to omission of a lot of context from the novels, he still manages to be incredibly eerie and fascinating. Hard to hate the guy who introduced me to “Goodbye Horses.”

6. Evil Dead II

The first film was a straight-up horror movie, and Army of Darkness was a wacky fantasy action comedy. In between those two came this, a perfect blend of both horror and comedy and a true showcase of Sam Raimi’s directing skills. Impressively, it manages to outdo its predecessor in horror and its successor in terms of laughs, truly managing to be the best of both worlds with its surreal black comedy that hearkens back to movies like House. Bruce Campbell is truly at the top of his game here as well, with the iconic Ash we saw in Army of Darkness fully formed after his experience in this film. Truly a film that earns the right to call itself… Groovy.

5. The Princess Bride

This is my mom’s favorite movie, so I got to watch it a lot growing up; it should come as no surprise it also ended up as one of my favorites. It’s hard to think of a single film with a better script than this one; almost every line of dialogue is iconic, and all of them are delivered perfectly by one of the most impressive casts imaginable. Before we had Bautista and Cena, we had Andre the Giant in a wrestler-turned-actor role giving his all and making Fezzik one of the most lovable characters in fiction. But it’s hard to really single him out when literally everyone is great—there’s not a single weak link in the whole cast. Even the framing device, the easiest part to fuck up for a film like this, has motherfucking Peter Falk as the narrator. This is one of the few films I can honestly say is about as close to perfect as a film can get.

4. The Lighthouse

Robert Eggers is probably my favorite name in modern horror, and it’s almost entirely thanks to this film right here. It combines the surreal, black-and-white dreamy horror of stuff like Eraserhead with delightfully batshit performances from Robbert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe and brings us an intimate, claustrophobic picture of two men going mad from isolation… maybe. There’s so much beautiful ambiguity here, so much to ponder even after the film is over. Is the ending meant t be taken at face value? Which of these men is actually lying? Is everything happening just mundane sea issues or is it an oceanic curse? There’s a lot of ways to think about and interpret this movie, and that’s what I love about it. Each viewing gives me more to chew on, and more for me to consider when I try and make sense of some of the bewildering things shown.

3. Mad Max: Fury Road

I don’t think there are really any action movies that are quite as thrilling as this one. Like, okay, the movie right after this one is also a thrilling action movie, but I love it for different reasons than this one. This has some of the most insane stunts and pyrotechnics around. There’s a dude with a flamethrower guitar, for crying out loud! But even that aside, there’s a pretty solid plot with a feminist slant to it, featuring a villainous character turning good and redeeming himself through viewing women as human. Tom Hardy’s take on Max is a fierce reclamation of the character from the grubby hands of the vile Mel Gibson, and he is a deeply important character even if he doesn’t talk much. That’s another great thing about this—These characters don’t always need words to communicate their ideas, sometimes their looks, their actions, and their grunts are enough to tell us all we need to know. If I have any criticism at all it’s that this film only rarely slows down—but even when it does it’s still fantastic.

2. John Wick

The sequels got bigger and crazier with their action setpieces and choreography, veering into almost fantasy levels of gun-fu and violence. And I love the second and fourth films a lot (the third is okay, but it feels like spinning the wheels a bit too much), but I still think the first film is entirely unmatched. It has a much darker atmosphere, between the lower stakes plot and the more ambiguous and mysterious nature of the world. Keanu Reeves finally shook off decades of being called a wooden actor with this, channeling his talent into either simple yet effective replies or the most snarling affirmations of bloody vengeance; his “I’m thinking I’m back” speech is short, sweet, and effective at not only establishing Wick isn’t fucking around (something we know full well but it’s nice to hear) but at showing us that Reeves himself is back in the limelight as well. This is so close to being my favorite film of all time, but there’s one movie I like more… and when you see what it is I’m sure you’ll get why this only takes home the silver.

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

For the longest time, this was the installment in Peter Jackson’s fantasy epic that I was the least impressed with, preferring the more epic The Two Towers and especially The Return of the King. But upon rewatching them all after the birth of my daughter, I had the same sort of realization I did with the John Wick movies: The first movie just can’t be beat precisely because it isn’t so overbearingly epic in every regard. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, though—this movie is still epic when it needs to be. How can it not be when it has Gandalf fighting the Balrog? But it has moments where we get to see Middle Earth without constant wars and fighting. Hell, a big chunk of the first act is the hobbits chilling in the Shire before Gandalf drags them off on the mission. Literally my only issue with this movie is that there isn’t any Gollum in it aside from a cameo, but that is the most minor of nitpicks for what is easily the greatest fantasy film ever made and one that does Tolkien’s work justice.

[humanmorph]

I read chapters 1-7 of Magic's Pawn yesterday & was really struck by how much certain parts reminded me of popular fanfiction... Of course I think a lot of that is just as prevalent in the romance genre & YA space, but I guess both of those are less front of mind for me (even if I don't read a lot of fanfiction anymore and generally not the type this reminds me of either, I'm at least closer to those spaces).

It's like. The waking up from a nightmare hurt/comfort is such a classic in fanfics, the immediate love confession, the honestly rather young sounding voice of an adult/mentor character (this started bothering me. I guess I'm not actually sure of Savil's age, but I know she's not a peer to 17 year old Tylendel despite sounding like it sometimes!), and everyone being really emotionally mature & talking about their feelings clearly (even Vanyel very quickly knows just what to say & what he feels once he breaks down). Again, a lot of that probably is very YA-like too, and depending on fandom there's probably an overlap in demographics.

I'm enjoying it ok so far but I'm very glad there's finally some conflict getting introduced. Vanyel and Tylendel are a bit too saccharine for me as is (though it's obvious they're going somewhere with Savil being worried Vanyel is too co-dependent, Tylendel briefly going "wait is she right?" & then "no, actually I'm just as dependent on him, this is fine"). Michael at the end of the last SbG episode said something like "could a fantasy boy be more depressed" & I'm gonna be real? I'm ready for that boy to be miserable again. Maybe even both of the boys.

EDIT: I am learning she had her start as a fanfiction writer. This makes sense to me & kind of makes me wonder on fanfiction tropes then vs now... certain ones have clearly stood the test of time

---

*I actually wish I remembered some of the more romance focused YA I read as a teen better because I bet it'd be interesting to compare this (published 1989) to 2010s YA. Then again I don't think I did read a single YA novel with a gay protagonist back then, so maybe it wouldn't give a very good comparison...

[just-a-little-unionoid]

On one hand I can't really see all of our fav queer ships becoming canon at the same time because that would realistically be "too much" for a mainstream media, but on the other hand we had almost nothing before this last season and look at where we are already so idk it could feel on-brand for them to go "you know what fuck this everyone's canonically queer now"???

[themichiferqueen]

So most practioners who invokes Michael likely knows about the number of cults formed around him,

and at first brush it would seem the cults explode during apocalyptic times (see an example of St. Michael's Cults starting up in Istria) because they're calling for his protection and grace (which they are),

but what these specific examples I'm going to post have in common with the broader representation of Michael is 'oneness'. Combined with the fact that he is the primordial representation for assertive, Martian energy, I theorize his cults often worship men, masculinity, or expressions OF masculinity (like having a strong sex drive).

It's a niche thought, but here's a couple of examples I was able to find:

Example 1) Valentine Michael Smith, Stranger in a Strange Land

A cult famous sci-fi novel by Robert Heinlein, made in 1961. The main character, Michael, is the only surviving Martian that made his way to Earth and was held captive for study. Upon being broken out and discovering Free Will, he starts his own religion and creates a polyamorous commune in order to empahsize that 'Thou art God . . . and I am God. All are God, for God is in everything and every thought.'

Example 2) Mike Myers, Austin Powers

We can all admit this is an outdated parody from the late 90s and early aughts, but all absurdity aside, the odd consistency of Mike being a famous playboy with the Symbol of Mars on his necklace is a subtle nod to the above theme.

[wreckedhoney]

the sa/nrio x slashers collab when

[ehfemmeral]

Listening to Michael Sheen's Margins to Mainstream podcast because yanno the hyperfixation and I'm sobbing already during the first episode.

10/10 highly recommend