#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...

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

[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”

[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

[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

[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.

[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...

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Michael in the Mainstream: Top 100 Movies #100 - #76

For the longest time I've wanted to do something like this, but I never could find the right time to do it. It just seemed so daunting, and the website's image limit was a hindrance, and then my computer died and my wife's computer was all I could use... and then I went on my hiatus from doing major reviews. But I found some time, so here we go.

These are my hundred favorite films ever made, divided into fourths so each one can get an image and I can devote more time to gushing about them if I want to without feeling like I'm dragging things out.

Speaking if dragging things out, let us waste no more time! We have a hundred movies to go, so let's knock out the botom quarter!

100. Us

Jordan Peele’s sophomore effort gets a lot of shit that I feel is mostly undeserved. Sure, some of the over explaining at the climax is a bit clunky when taken at face value, but it almost feels like it’s by design, as if the movie is daring you to nitpick the premise so that you can ignore the message it’s trying to convey. For me, I find that the stellar themes, fantastic acting, and godly soundtrack manage to make up for any of this movie’s flaws.

99. Crimson Peak

Murder! Mystery! Ghosts! Incest! Leave it to Guillermo del Toro to craft a Gothic horror film this stylish and impressive! This might just be my favorite of his films, and I definitely think it is severely overlooked compared to the rest of his output.

98. Mandy

Nicolas Cage is one of my favorite actors of all time, because when he goes crazy it’s always fun, and when he’s dramatic he genuinely kills it. This film lets him do both,with the first half being a slow burn dramatic romance that ends in horrific tragedy, and the back half having him do demon drugs and get into a chainsaw duel while he murders an entire cult. Truly a beautifully insane film.

97. Scream

The film that both revitalized and ruined the slasher genre, with winking nods to the tropes that made those films what they are while also playing things just straight enough to be appealing. Only a genre master like Wes Craven could pull off a pitch-perfect satire like this, though none of it would be near as good if it didn’t have a great cast who were firing on all cylinders. Young Neve Campbell before she became a sellout, Matthew Lillard cementing his place in horror history, David Arquette and Courtney Cox in their prime, and Roger “Mojo Jojo” Jackson playing the iconic voice of Ghostface… They’re as crucial to this movie’s success as the meta winks and impressive kills are.

96. Jojo Rabbit

Taika Waititi made one bad superhero movie and then everyone turned on him as if he didn’t make the film that proves you absolutely could make Blazing Saddles in this day and age. While it’s neither as gut-bustingly funny nor as profane as Mel Brooks’ magnum opus, it’s still a very fun, funny, and heartbreaking satirization of Nazism. I think he’s allowed to make one Love and Thunder when he made something this good.

95. Akira

The movie with the coolest bike slide in cinematic history, and this is indisputable because every single movie and show with motorcycles in it borrowed that cool bike slide. This film does show its age a bit, but it’s still an awesome sci-fi showcase of animated action and body horror. Plus it’s just a lot of fun seeing Tetsuo and Kaneda spend at least half of their dialogue dramatically screaming each other’s names.

94. 300

I make fun of Zack Snyder a lot, but I do it out of love; the dude who made 300 has gotta be capable of doing better than his recent output, after all. Stylish, slick action and slow-mo put to good use showing an army of nearly naked macho men cutting down hordes of nasty bad guys… The fact I watched this movie so much as a teenager should’ve been the first hint I was bisexual.

93. Spider-Man: No Way Home

People are really fucking hard on the MCU Spidey, and not without reason, but sometimes it really comes off as disingenuous. Look at this film, for instance; it has gotten some flak for just being a cheap nostalgia circlejerk that uses cameos so you can clap and cheer and ignore the ‘plot holes.’ I cannot imagine being that miserable of a movie watcher. To me, this film is a tribute to the cinematic Spideys that came before while giving them some degree of closure that I never thought I’d see, while simultaneously bringing Holland’s take on the character closer to where he should be. It’s also really hard to hate a movie where Willem Dafoe gets to go Goblin Mode again and power bomb Tom Holland through several floors of an apartment, cementing him as comic book movie villain royalty once and for all. Are there cheesy moments, moments where things don’t make the most sense? Sure. But to focus on those bits instead of the core themes and how the characters are used is an awful way t do film criticism. The returning heroes and most of the returning villains are used very effectively to tell the story they wanted to tell, and most importantly they don’t overshadow Tom and his friends. The fact he stands toe-to-toe with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield is nothing short of amazing, spectacular even.

92. The Lost Boys

Joel Schumacher died with one of the most unfairly earned infamous reputations around. Man made one campy superhero movie where you can see George Clooney’s nips and hear Arnold Schwarzenegger make ice puns and suddenly everyone forgets he made one of the greatest and most homoerotic vampire films ever made. While the stuff with the kids is very hit or miss, the stuff with David and his vampire biker gang is awesome, and the climax is one hell of a good time.

91. Barbie

Want to introduce your kids to feminist concepts but really don’t think they’re ready for Poor Things? Greta Gerwig has got you covered, with this pink-hued intro to feminism that uses the world’s most popular doll in a meta-narrative about her impact as well as what it means to be a woman and how the patriarchy is detrimental to both men and women. Margot Robbie gives a great performance as the titular heroine, but it is Ryan Gosling as the well-meaning idiot turned antagonist Ken that steals the show. It helps that he sings one of the most incredible, sincere power ballads ever written.

90. Street Fighter

As a connoisseur of cheesy, “so bad it’s good” films, quite a few of them have made my top 100. Here’s the first of those, this goofy Saturday morning cartoon of a film where the most American character ever (Guile) is played by the least American guy imaginable (Jean-Claude Van Damme). While it undeniably fumbles a lot of the cast of the game it’s adapting, Chun-Li and especially M. Bison are done so well it’s hard to be too mad. It’s a fun, stupid, silly 90s action film and sometimes that’s all I need.

89. Knives Out

After polarizing sci-fi audiences with his Star Wars film, Rian Johnson subverted our expectations by delivering a whodunnit for the ages. After seeing them restrained by blockbuster franchises for the better part of a decade, seeing Daniel Craig and Chris Evans really let loose again is a real treat.

88. Everything Everywhere All at Once

Twitter tries to convince me every other week that this movie is dogshit, but I ain’t buying it. This is one of the best uses of the multiverse in recent memory, using it to tell a stylish, silly, and heartfelt story about family and trauma. The entire cast is amazing, but it’s Ke Huy Quan in his big return to the silver screen that really steals the show.

87. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

My favorite thing about this movie, this proto-slasher, is just how fucking unclean it makes me feel. It’s not overly violent or gory, but it is genuinely grimy and unsettling in a way few other horror films can match. The dinner scene near the end in particular is just so fucking unnerving. Just truly unmatched atmosphere with this movie.

86. Spaceballs

While I’m not going to argue that this is a better film than Blazing Saddles, I still enjoy it a lot more since I’m a bigger fan of Star Wars and sci-fi than I am of Westerns. It’s just a damn funny parody, and hoe can it not when it has some of the funniest people to ever live (Mel Brooks, Joan Rivers, Rick Moranis, John Candy) and a great heroic lead performance from Bill Pullman all delivering some of the silliest lines ever written?

85. RRR

This is basically live action historical fiction anime. These characters pull off some of the most insane feats of action I have ever seen, action that makes the average American action film look like Peppa Pig. But I would not give a shit if there wasn’t a strong emotional core; the two leads have a brotherly bond unlike anything I’ve ever, and it makes the action that much sweeter. Frankly, this movie would make the list just for the final battle alone, since it might be my favorite action scene of all time.

84. Strange Magic

This movie holds a very special place in my heart. I went to see this with my wife back when we first started dating, and at the time I was filled with anxiety and insecurity, worried that I wasn’t good enough and didn’t deserve a relationship among other things. I sat down to watch this, and when it got to the titular song, something clicked, and I felt secure. I felt like our relationship was the right thing, and all these years later it’s hard to deny I was right. So thank you to this cheesy jukebox musical inspired by Shakespeare and George Lucas’ desire to make a film for little girls. They will never convince me you’re a bad movie.

83. Princess Mononoke

Maybe Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is objectively better, but this is my favorite. I think it’s because this one is a lot more excitin and action-packed, with all sorts of thrilling setpieces interspersed with the quieter dramatic moments Miyazaki excels at.

82. Jurassic Park

One of Spielberg’s greatest achievements is bringing dinosaurs to life on the big screen. No matter how many times I sit down to watch this, I still feel the same awe the characters do when they lay their eyes on the dinosaurs—which really highlights how good the cast is, because they’re amazingly convincing even when they’re looking at dated 90s CGI.

81. Labyrinth

It’s David Bowie starring as the villain in a musical filled with puppets that’s directed by Jim Henson. How the fuck is it possible to not love this movie?

80. V for Vendetta

Yes, this does dumb down the politics of Alan Moore’s comic significantly and turns the story into a much more straightforward plot. But what it lacks in depth, it makes up for with Hugo Weaving and pyrotechnics. And it’s not like there’s no depth here; crucially, this film keeps the entirety of the prisoner’s letter sequence. If that was left out, I would not have liked this movie at all.

79. Wreck-It Ralph

It’s amazing how much Disney got right here that it would go on to get wrong over the next decade. We have a hidden twist villain, something that hampered later films… but he’s shown to be a dick, with the villain reveal being how evil he is. It’s a big crossover of nostalgic properties… but they’re more used as seasoning for a story about original characters. It’s just astonishing how Disney would end up dropping the ball, even in this film’s sequel, when they got everything right the first time.

78. Sin City

What’s black and white and red all over? This bloody brilliant adaptation of Frank Miller’s sleazy comics (and one of the last genuinely good things with his name attached to it). The visual style here is the real big selling point; it genuinely looks like the pages of a comic come to life. While the movie as a whole is fantastic and “The Big Fat Kill” segment is still really, “The Hard Goodbye” and “That Yellow Bastard” are the real highlights, the former because of a career highlight performance from Mickey Rourke and a terrifying villain turn from Elijah Wood of all people, the latter because of one of Bruce Willis’ finest performances of the 2000s and excellent use of slight splashes of color (yellow for the titular bastard).

77. Batman & Robin

As long as I live, this movie will have at least one defender. Joel Schumacher created a silly, campy comic book movie for the ages, and maybe back in the day people weren’t read for it… but I was. I love the ice puns, the nipples, the bat credit card, all of it! All of its silly, stupid corniness makes this as memorable as it is! It’s like the West show with a gigantic budget.

76. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

And speaking of camp, here is the cult classic. We can argue all day and all night whether this film has aged badly, but this was a huge step forward for queer cinema on top of being a damn good musical. If nothing else, this movie helped rocket Tim Curry into the stratosphere and made him the star we know him as.

[jobey-wan-kenobi]

i want a 'you're wrong about' podcast but most of the stories are vintage ambiguously queer/transparent closet celebrities instead of vintage maligned women

[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"???

[aliveafterparadise]

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.

[azeutreciathewicked]

You know why else Michael Sheen is amazing? He does things like this -- helping people who are marginalized to get opportunities to pursue their dreams. This is a podcast from a couple years ago, but so totally worth listening to. The program is still active! Listen to more Michael Sheen and learn about awesome people he's helped. Win-win, no?

[aziraphemeral]

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