#REVISITING DVD COLLECTION
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WELCOME TO L.A: BURBANK Director: EVIL JEFF
Featuring: Austin Wolf Justin Owen
©️ RANDY BLUE
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SELF REBLOG FROM Vol 1
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The Passionate Kiss:
LUKAS & ION GET PASSIONATE while watching...
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handlemehyuck · 1 month ago
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LEAVE A MESSAGE AFTER THE BEEP for boyfriend dreamies
♡a voicemail for mark˚ ⋆。
“i keep listening to songs i haven’t heard in forever, not since i was a kid or teenager, and they transport me back to that time. suddenly, i’m wearing pink converse and jean shorts and the t-shirt from my summer play. it’s saturday, and i’m sitting on the stairs waiting for my friend to arrive, sunlight all over the walls. we wanted to have a sleepover, but there’s church in the morning, so she’ll stay as late as she can, probably until we’re dozing off on the couch watching one of the dvds she brought. naturally, i have to think about you because music wraps around your life in a way it never will for me. we’ve probably talked about this. maybe the conversation took a different shape before, but what’s a song that takes you back? what’s a time you miss and revisit through music? do you have time to think about those things? your life is go go go, and i’ve made silly wishes on eyelashes about peering into your head. i’m a reminiscer, and i know not everyone is, but you’re a creative. you’re a writer—music wraps around your life in a special way, so the idea of nostalgia visiting rarely seems unrealistic? but i guess i can’t know until you tell me. i see it often. i see it when i’m out without my glasses. the distant view is blurry, and suddenly, there i am, riding a bike, pink converse on. what shows up in your blurry nostalgia view?”
♡a voicemail for renjun˚ ⋆。
“babyyyy, i had the best time tonight. i feel like i’m covered in stars. areum’s parents have this sprawling backyard, so we collected a bunch of blankets, packed a picnic basket, and stayed out for hours beneath the most beautiful willow tree i’ve ever seen. i wore linen pants and a bikini top—your favorite one. i had a cardigan too, just in case, but the weather was perfect. i really needed to get out of the city. i know you know that, and i wanted to call you because… hmm sometimes i feel like my life is strung together by reminders. reminders of you and other people and things i love. reminders of our beginnings and all the sweet milestones along the way. i think my love could light up all the stars, more stars than i could ever see with my own eyes, enough stars to make a path between your hometown and my own. i’ll bring you back a jar of stardust. it’ll be empty… you’ll think it’s empty. sometimes magical things are invisible, or they just glow in the dark. anyway, it’s late, like 3 am, and i’m honestly glad you didn’t answer. as badly as i want to hear your voice, you should be asleep. i hope this voicemail makes you smile in the morning. i’ll send you some pictures too. see you on sunday. MWAH kisses *giggles*.”
♡a voicemail for jeno˚ ⋆。
“i’m going to my mom’s tomorrow, and i keep thinking about the drive. i rented a car… you know all of this already, but i guess it’s just present in my mind again. i’m staring at my luggage right now, and the entire thing feels wrong. i’m sorry if this sounds horrible, but i’m so used to you leaving. i’ve gotten really good at that. i’m good at being alone. i made sure i love my apartment and feel at home in it when you’re away because i’d fully unravel or find myself at your place more often than i already am if didn’t love it… stopping by to water all of those plants you don’t actually have. anyway, yeah… it just feels weird. i feel like you should be coming. i keep thinking about driving together: which one of us would pump the gas? who would run inside for snacks? what would we talk about in the car? would you drive halfway or drive all the way because you know i’d rather not if the option’s available to me? i know i’ll be fine. i’ve driven long ways on my own before, but it’ll be weird. i’ll be in a guest room. i don’t know what color the comforter is. i don’t know if i’ll like the sheets. my mom knows i’m weird and particular, but will she remember that when she’s fluffing up the pillows? what will i do when i can’t sleep? i love my mom. i haven’t seen her in months, but i close my eyes and daydream about being with you. i yearn for you in the stickiest of ways. it probably falls off of me too and hangs thickly in the air, gets stuck to the bottom of people’s shoes. i’d apologize if i knew, but i’m all caught up on you you you... i’m saying all of this, but i know this trip will be good for me. i know i’m not dependent on you, but last year was one of your busiest yet. and pride isn’t a question—i’ll spend my entire life being proud of you, but i can’t pretend there weren’t nights when the missing was so palpable i couldn’t sleep, so i read or baked bread or watched my toes wrinkle in the bath. it would be good for me to sleep at my mom’s, wake up to a new view, share breakfast, and simple conversation. i know i need the rest. i know everything will be fine.”
♡a voicemail for haechan˚ ⋆。
“if you told me the grass and the trees and the streets are all white, i would believe you. it’s like a blizzard out there. i’ve never seen so much white in my entire life. honestly, it’s kind of freaking me out, making me feel claustrophobic. i look up at the sky, back down again, and nothing changes, apart from the shapes and the saving grace of traffic lights—at least their colors are still clear. could we get by with just green, red and yellow for the rest of our lives?… some food for thought. anyway, it’s snowing *laughs*. i’m on my… third? tea after a few hot chocolates as well. no food so far today, just warm drinks. last time it snowed, you made kimchi jjigae and we ate in front of the window. do you remember that? we brought over my coffee table and the pot, bowls, and rice… i stopped listening to your story, all zeroed in on a snowflake. i didn’t look away until you kissed my neck. that’s quite a dangerous superpower: you have me at will with kisses, but i trust you with my weakest point... it wouldn’t be the same if i make kimchi jjigae and eat in front of the window without you. i should sit at the dining room table or maybe even the kitchen island—give myself a break from all the white. hopefully, i can still see you tomorrow. maybe you can kiss my neck again and tend to a few of my other weaker points… i love you.”
♡a voicemail for jaemin˚ ⋆。
“i want you to come over right now, and i know that you can’t. i also know that i might not see you for a couple of days, but i want to do nothing with you. i wish it didn’t feel silly… or embarrassing to want. i don’t know why wanting is so uncomfortable for me to share, especially because i’ve wanted loudly with you already, over and over again… but i guess i just wanted you to know. i painted my nails and went to the grocery store and chopped bell peppers because if they’re already prepped i know i’ll be more likely to eat them. i hung up some pictures in my room, and i kept thinking about you when i’d step back to make sure each one was straight. you would’ve done that part for me. i want to do everything together, and i don’t want you to feel bad because we can’t. that’s not why i’m leaving you this. i just know how happy it makes me feel when you express your want for me, in small ways, in spontaneous ways, in sexy ways… in uncomfortable ways, when you just want to be held, when you just need me to listen… it never ends with you. it never ends with me. we’re these entities that constantly move together and around each other, and i know i can get where i need to go without you, but it’s so much more fun when you’re here, and we’re in motion together. i’m making tea, and i think i’m going to drink it on the balcony. i’ll have to put socks on and a coat, but i want to hear the traffic noise and look down at people by themselves or in groups walking around and existing. i was existing for a long time. i felt really disconnected from living, but i knew i wanted to—to feel like i was living again. i just wasn’t quite sure how to get back to that place, but i was starting to figure it out when we met. on our first date, i felt like i struck gold. it was in your smile and your laughter, and this feeling that embraced me because all of a sudden i wasn’t nervous. i had only said your name out loud three times, but it felt so comfortable in my mouth. i remember leaving and whispering it to myself over and over again, and i couldn’t help but hope it would become a name i’d say for the rest of my life. so i’m going to drink my tea and enjoy this beautiful city we live in. i’m going to fold laundry and plan dinner. i’m going to think of you and get excited about the next night we fall asleep together.”
♡a voicemail for chenle˚ ⋆。
“i made it through the list of movies you left me. that sticky note is cute by the way. i like the border of little bears wearing scarves. where’d you get it? i almost threw it out on accident yesterday when i was cleaning my kitchen. now it’s living on my fridge. i taped it down on every side so my cleaning, autopilot fingers can’t attempt a second disposal… when you get this, i’d love some more movies. i’d ask for a horror film, but the idea of watching anything scary without you sounds worse than unclogging the shower drain or some other unpleasant household chore. oh! i went out this morning with chaewon, and she’s dating someone new. i started talking about hosting a dinner before i could really think it through. would you host another one with me? no pressure. chaewon told me not to even mention it to you, something about bad luck… she needs to wait a couple months before bringing them around all of our friends—has to pass 60 days of dating. there’s something romantic about a dinner party to me, though. maybe it’s just the wholesome quality time with my favorite people and knowing you’re only a look away. i don’t know if you remember, but you would always trail your fingertip up and down the back of my arm and kiss my cheek every time you got up, never wanting to interrupt the conversation but noticing the glasses in need of more wine. *groan* everything you do turns me on… ridiculous. do you even have a clue? no, i know you do. *sigh* g’night sunshine.”
♡a voicemail for jisung˚ ⋆。
“that fight was gross. i had to shower as soon as i got home, and the clothes i was wearing are already in the washing machine. are you ok? i know we tried to make it pretty again, but it felt ugly even at the end, and your eyes were so red. i hate seeing you cry. i love it actually… seeing your emotions, but never when it’s like that. i was so close to going to your favorite restaurant and picking us up something, but i know you need some time. but, if you listen to this, you can text me if you’re hungry, and i will go to your favorite restaurant. i can leave the food outside or just in the entryway, unless you’re crying again when i get there. then, i will take off my shoes and hug you, and i won’t stop until you at least hug me back. i’m so sorry. i don’t… most of the time i don’t feel insecure, but sometimes it comes out, and it takes this ugly shape that looks alien to me. i hope it looks alien to you too. i don’t want to be that way often enough for it to become familiar. tell me if it ever does. the idea alone makes me feel sick to my stomach. please text me at least. ok. dammit, i don’t want to hang up. i keep thinking you’ll pick up—”
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renthony · 6 months ago
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Lost in the Remaster: Star Trek, Vintage Special Effects, and the Charm of Old Media
by Ren Basel renbasel.com
Originally created by Gene Roddenberry, Star Trek is a franchise that spans decades. From the original series of 1966 to current shows such as Lower Decks, it stands as a titan of television and pop culture. The real world has undergone incredible change since Star Trek’s first appearance, yet nerds everywhere still find entertainment, inspiration, and hope in its classic episodes. Recently, along with my husband and best friend, I decided I wanted to attempt the gauntlet of watching the entire franchise from beginning to end, revisiting favorites and finally checking out the ones I missed. Media and fandom studies are my passion, after all, and Star Trek is a foundational part of modern American nerd culture.
Starting with the original series proved more difficult than expected. Living in a tiny apartment, we don’t have much space for DVDs, so Star Trek wasn’t in our existing collection. The local public library didn’t have copies, either, and putting in a purchase request doesn’t guarantee it will be made available. My family doesn’t have the funds to pay for every single streaming service on the market, and Star Trek isn’t available on any we do have access to. Piracy was starting to look like the only option, but even that fell flat when we couldn’t find a version with subtitles. Finally we dug it up officially and with subtitles, for free via PlutoTV, but there were still limitations: PlutoTV only streams season one, and season one is only available in the remastered edition that replaced the original special effects with new visuals.
It wasn’t ideal, but, hey, it was Star Trek.
Watching just one episode a week gave us enough time to scrape together savings to get what we really wanted for seasons two and three: the official BluRay release, which includes both remastered and original-release versions of each episode. The remasters are fine, but as a lover of media history and practical effects, I’m always disappointed to lose a chance to appreciate the originals. It doesn’t matter how good it might look, remasters are never as much fun to me as matte paintings, camera tricks, and whatever the prop department could pull off with ten dollars and some glue.
Finally having the BluRays in hand for season two only affirmed my love of vintage practical effects. Seeing the Enterprise in her original glory, before she was ever rendered in digital form, felt like opening a time capsule. I love time capsules. My favorite pieces of media are always those which capture a moment in time, showcasing the aesthetics, concerns, and culture of the time and place they were created. Star Trek: the Original Series is rooted in the late sixties, when mainstream culture in the United States was experiencing immense upheaval and social change. That context is written all over the show. The vintage effects add to it, grounding it in a very specific time and place. Updating the show’s effects takes away some of that 60s aesthetic, and while some may see it as making the show more timeless, I don’t care for it. To me, seeing what they could pull off before modern technology is half the fun of watching old shows. The ingenuity and creativity of propmakers, makeup artists, and set designers working on shoestring budgets is unparalleled.
To be clear, digital effects are also done by skilled professionals who deserve much more respect and many more labor protections. There are some truly stunning works created with digital tools. That said, I hate when digital effects are used to cover up the practical effects that came before. It feels disrespectful to the original artists, as if telling them their work wasn’t good enough; as if their work was just a placeholder until something better could come along and fix it. Practical effects aren’t a placeholder, they’re an art form in their own right, and that art form is one for which I have deep appreciation.
It frustrates me that the original, non-remastered episodes were such a pain for us to access, but I’m very glad to have added them to my personal media collection. No matter what future tweaks Star Trek’s rights holders might make, I can always pop in our personal copies to enjoy the Enterprise and her crew in all their vintage, “outdated” glory. If you’re also too young to remember the show’s original airing, and you have the opportunity to watch the unedited version, I highly suggest you do. Watching the version that aired in 1966 gives the show a charm that no amount of remastering can ever match.
_
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loveliestpenguin · 8 months ago
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Today I went to go see the showing of Arrietty in the movie theater! It has always been my comfort film as it’s mine and many others introduction to g/t. I might be a little biased to say that the cozy atmosphere and music make it one of the best ghilbi movies as well!
Anyways, it was just my luck that when we got there the movie wasn’t even playing. Not even the credits played, just a blank screen. Strange, but the packed theater waited patiently as we continued to wonder why nothing was showing. 10 minutes passed by, then 20 and then 30. By then a lot of people got up to see what was going on and I was so sad as I realized I probably wouldn't be able to see it today.
The first time I saw this movie it was special, as it was my mom and I in an empty theater where we were able to completely immerse ourselves in the borrowers world. I don’t really remember all that much as I was pretty young, but from what my mom tells me, she says that she couldn’t take her eyes off me watching it for the first time, as I was completely enthralled through the entirety of the movie. She often fondly tells me that it is her favorite memory of me and how that film also shares a space in her heart.
Back in the present, I was quickly getting bored and realized that I could just pull up HBO Max on my phone to watch Arrietty from there. Needless to say my arms felt like jello from holding my phone up so long for the people in the back and myself to watch the movie. I had to switch arms a few times to keep it level, but I kept going to entertain the crowd and I. I didn’t turn on the volume but it was pretty funny to hear the people in the back actually watch it with me on my phone. (Subtitles and all)
“I feel bad for the people who can’t see this in the front”
“Hey, look it’s actually Arrietty!”
“This is better than nothing. Sitting here watching a blank screen for forty minutes.”
“The art in this movie just makes me want to rewatch it over and over. Shame we can’t see it on the big screen, but this will suffice.”
“I wish I was Arrietty fr :/“
“Wow the only thing missing is the stellar music”
“Thank you person in the front!”
Super disappointed that I couldn’t revisit seeing it on the big screen one more time, but luckily my friends and I got refunds because it wasn’t cheap. 😭🙏
Once I got home though, I rummaged through my dvd collection and rewatched Arrietty on the big 72 inch in the family room. If only I were a borrower, so that I could see it my tv like the real cinema.
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britt-kageryuu · 6 months ago
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Donnie is going around his lab, checking on works in progress, re-reading test results for past projects he put to the side, and adding some new pictures and notes onto his Multiverse Board.
They didn't feel like they wanted to revisit an old project, but their curiosity was really pushing to see what possible changes could happen if he just poked through to change even just a few variables. But he remembered why he shelved that particular project, and instead adjusted it.
He figured if he couldn't open a way to a different dimension, he could at least make it so that only other versions of their brothers and himself could find their broadcasts and VODs. They haven't found proof of this adjustment working just yet, but then again he was purposefully making sure they couldn't directly come to their dimension. So messages might also be getting caught in that filter.
They stop infront of a set of shelves that have multiple Comic Books, Novels, DVD/Blu-ray, games, and some toys of their alternate selves. They started collecting these because it was the "safer way" to have a form of contact from the different dimensions, plus it made it much easier to watch their whole story and not just see random glimpses that were vastly lacking in context.
Donnie pulls out his custom jailbroken Switch, specially modified to get games from other dimensions, to play through one of the games based on one of their variants. They still had trouble with getting some of the games, but they're sure it's just a 'timing issue' with release dates. Some of these games were purposefully chosen for their multiplayer functions.
They had opened a theoretical 'Multiverse Server' and would leave these online games as an open join, or random drop in, from this server. It was technically the safest way from them to have multiplayer games without some random crazy trying to drop in. But there wasn't any new activity or added members since Donnie had added his families accounts to it.
Donnie had shared the games with their brothers, and they agreed to play a few of them on stream for the hell of it. Maybe if only to cause some chaos and confusion for the audience. The only times they let the audience join a game is through the Patreon Servers, or Jack Box games, and even then it's with limited interactions.
Though Donnie kept this MVS open, just incase one of his counterparts wanted to have some form of contact to their dimension. Even if it's mostly through the chat systems of some random online games.
Donnie tried to keep their mind from wandering while trying to play through one of the games about one of their variants. They were enjoying the game despite the fact that they were slowly running out of possible upgrades without beating the big boss. He had gotten so close that one time, but alas he forgot the trope of there's a second stage that's harder than the first.
They still keep an ear out for any notifications that might come in while he tries to ignore the urge to potentially RIP apart reality, just to meet alternate versions of themselves.
Donnie totally didn't chose a very specific notification sound just incase someone did try to contact them.
These is definitely not a small pile of broken controllers from him, in an uncharacteristic moment, throwing a controller at the wall in rage, because he thought a notification was from a different dimension, and not his father asking for help fixing the projector again.
This is at least partially why he set himself up with multiple things to do, because if he didn't need to do so much, they'd be sitting here all day just waiting for the slight possibility of contact...
Maybe he should check in on whoever's streaming, and see if they wouldn't mind them joining the stream...
Yeah, that would be a much better distraction...
Once he finished this run through in the rouge like game, and double checked that everything was still running at max proficiently!
HE WAS NOT TRYING TO AVOID HIS PLANS TO AVOID MONITORING THE MVS!!!
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Masterpost
Technically speaking Donnie has breached the Multiverse, it's just they're not allowed to open a portal to them. Thus he's collecting merch, and sending copies of his drones into a void to monitor other Multiverse Merge Points.(AKA TMNT AU meetups)
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not-your-bro · 4 months ago
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hi there! idk if u still do hcs, but if u do, can u do some platonic climbing class hcs? thank you!
hiya!! i am always doing hcs! depending on what i've got front of brain and how busy i am, it may take a minute for me to answer, but i am p much always ready & willing to yap 🫡
a lot of these hcs have been mentioned in fics of mine over the years, so apologies if any are familiar, but here's what i've got:
made short horror films together when they were kids. josh was the driving creative force, chris was the cameraman & editor. hannah and beth always featured in them, and so did their other friends from time to time. (jess loved being in them but she's a terrible actress LOL.) in an old fic of mine, i had josh make a dvd collection of these films and give them to chris as a present. josh would also keep a copy in the washingtons' media collection, and he rewatches them more than he'd admit. chris gets too much secondhand embarrassment to revisit them super often.
because absolutely nothing can keep them from yapping, they were nonstop note passers in school. josh was good at getting away with it, but chris wasn't - not as quick with the sleight of hand, and he always just looked like he was doing something he wasn't supposed to. at some point, josh had the bright idea to write their notes with invisible ink pens, so getting caught wasn't a big deal. in middle and high school, when they didn't spend all day in the same classroom together, they left notes in each other's lockers a lot.
always do joint halloween costumes, and they've been doing it for so many years that it's just an unspoken, understood thing that they'll be dressing up together. some costumes i think they'd do: billy and stu from scream; adam and lawrence from saw; wayne and garth from wayne's world; lloyd and harry from dumb and dumber (the ugly suits specifically); ian malcolm and alan grant from jurassic park.
chris was deeply into the lord of the rings movies as a kid, and even though he didn't get far in the books (not a reader), he thought it was cool that tolkien made up an entire language. so...you can guess what he and josh tried to do... it wasn't deep/robust - more individual words/common phrases than a proper language - but they liked being able to communicate with each other in a way only they could understand. sometimes they did it for privacy, other times to be annoying. like it bothered beth to no end, so the boys definitely just made shit up in front of her to get a rise, even though they had no idea what the other was saying.
chris drinks mainly to keep up with josh, even though he doesn't particularly care for alcohol unless it's masked in a mixed drink. but chris likes to smoke weed, and so does josh, so they're always slipping outside together to smoke. when they were younger, they really tried to keep it secret - had a little hideout in the woods and everything. later, they realized that a) it was pretty obvious what they were doing and b) nobody gave a shit. so as they got older josh liked to make up increasingly ridiculous reasons for why they needed to step out.
chris is largely the driver and josh the passenger princess, and if other friends are riding with them, josh has to get shotgun or it's, like, a problem. he's such a baby about it - he just feels it's his seat. when josh drives it's because he had an idea of something they could do together, and he just sort of...showed up at chris's house. leading to lots of text exchanges like this
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in this vein, they hang out constantly but they don't often make set plans or decide what they're doing beforehand. it's really just a lot of hanging out, in the purest sense of the word, and they aren't opposed to parallel play - each doing their own thing in the same room, like chris playing a game while josh doodles and half-watches. lots of late nights turn into unplanned sleepovers, to the point that josh bought an extra toothbrush to keep in the bathroom for just such occasions. whenever friends or family are like "what'd you guys do?" they get shrugs and "nothing really." which sounds like a brush-off, but most of the time it is nothing really, and imo that's the best part of their friendship to me. they can do fuck-all for hours and still enjoy themselves together. no stress, no expectation. and i think this is crucial for both of them, for different reasons. chris has social anxiety and josh is always On. for chris, being with josh doesn't trigger that anxiety, and for josh, being around chris doesn't require the same level of performance. it's just comfortable.
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samasmith23 · 2 years ago
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Evangelion: You Can (Not) Marathon — (Prologue)
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I’ve made it no secret on this Tumblr blog that one of my personal favorite anime franchises of all-time is Hideaki Anno’s magnum opus, Neon Genesis Evangelion. Comprised of 26 TV Episodes, 2 follow-up movies, and a 4-part reboot/sequel film teatrology, Evangelion has certainly made a lasting impression among both Japanese and American anime audiences. What started out as a simple deconstruction of the mecha genre ended up rapidly evolving into one of the most psychologically complex and multi-layered stories I’ve ever encountered in any medium, reflecting Anno’s own personal experiences with depression while also exploring themes of personhood, loneliness, self-worth, self-destruction, relationships, sexuality, love, death, and psychoanalysis in an incredibly earnest and thoughtful manner. I was personally first introduced to EVA through my best friend at university, who told me it was one of her personal favorite anime series, and subsequently marathoned the entire original series plus the Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion movies. For the longest time I’ve avoided the Rebuild teatrology since I’ve heard incredibly divisive opinions from long-time EVA fans who have argued that the newer films are vastly inferior to the original and miss the point. But following the release of the final Rebuild film, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice Upon A Time, I’ve heard many former detractors of the Rebuilds come around on the new films and argue that they actually expand upon the themes of the original series + movies in a thematically rich manner, further reflecting Anno’s personal experiences and growth.
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And seeing that I own the original out-of-print ADV Films’ “Perfect Collection” DVDs for NGE and the Manga Entertainment DVDs for Death & Rebirth & The End of Evangelion, recently bought the GKids Limited “Collector’s Edition” Blu-Ray boxset collecting the both the original series + movies in high-definition (and includes both the original ADV/Manga Entertainment Dubs & the modern Netflix Dub), and Amazon Prime includes all 4 Rebuild movies for free, I’ve decided to do a complete marathon revisiting both the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series + movies, as well as watching all 4 Evangelion Rebuild movies for the first time ever!
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This marathon will serve as a reaction/watch-through thread, as well as an in-depth analysis of the various themes & nuances of each episode & film! Plus, I’ll also frequently inject some lighthearted humor & references in these posts since in the immortal words of my favorite internet reviewer, Lewis “Linkara” Lovhaug, “I’m a snarky bastard!”
A couple of ground rules for this marathon, however:
First, I’m going to be watching the original English dubs since they’re the versions that I’m personally most familiar with and am incredibly fond of the main cast (i.e. Spike Spencer as Shinji, Amanda Winn Lee as Rei, Tiffany Grant as Asuka, and Allison Keith as Misato). I personally have not watched all of Netflix’s new dub, from what little I’ve seen of it I feel that it’s vastly inferior to the original ADV & Manga Entertainment dubs. While the new dub does include a talented cast of voice actors (especially non-binary VA Casey Mongillo in the lead role of Shinji…), the new translation provided by Studio Khara suffers heavily from hyper-literal translations of the original Japanese script which sound incredibly awkward and unnatural when spoken in English, lacking the same level of emotional weight that the ADV and Manga translations allowed for. While the original dubs have their fair share of flaws did take some creative liberties, they were mostly faithful IMO and possessed a greater sense of energy and passion behind them.
Second, I’m going to be basing my analysis of each episode & movie based off the aforementioned DVD and Blu-Ray collections that I own, and will note key differences between the two versions. This will especially pertain to the ending credits theme song, a karaoke rendition of Bart Howard’s iconic “Fly Me To the Moon” which was completely removed from all international versions of NGE when Netflix acquired the licensing rights for the original series + movies in 2019, replacing the ending theme with an alternate version of Shiro Saigsu’s “Rei I.” So while my original DVD copies keep “Fly Me To the Moon” intact, the iconic song is sadly absent from my new Blu-Ray boxset.
Third, Episodes 21-24 of NGE are unique in that they later received “Director’s Cut” versions following the conclusion of the TV broadcasting of EVA, reanimating key frames and including entirely new scenes which were developed for the Death & Rebirth recap movie. My DVD copies included both the original “On-Air” and “Director’s Cut” versions of these episodes, whereas the Blu-Ray solely includes the Director’s Cuts. While I personally feel that the Director’s Cuts are the far superior versions of these episodes, I’m going to analyze both versions of these episodes back-to-back to highlight key-differences between them.
Lastly, I’ll be watching the infamous TV ending in the form of Episodes 25 & 26 before I watch the redone movie ending in the form of The End of Evangelion, which stands as not only one of my all-time favorite anime movies, but one of my Top 5 favorite movies period. Additionally, in-between the TV ending and The End of Evangelion film I’ll be watch the Death & Rebirth film which is simply a condensed recap of Episodes 1-24 of the TV series. It’s also worth noting that there are two different versions of the film, with the “Death” portion of the film covering the recap, while the “Rebirth” portion is the unfinished first 30-minutes of The End of Evangelion (it ends immediately before Asuka’s doomed fight against SEELE’s Mass-Production Evangelions). The version of the film on my Blu-Ray release is Death (True)², which completely omits the “Rebirth” portion of the film, while the original DVD includes the “Rebirth” portion. So I’ll be watching the “Death” portion on the Blu-Ray, and the “Rebirth” portion on the DVD.
And with all of that out of the way, let’s us officially begin the launch sequence for the "Evangelion: You Can (Not) Marathon” saga!
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where-the-flash · 9 months ago
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"The Golden Touch": Walt Disney's Actual Folly
Have you ever been tempted to own DVD sets, not strictly for their contents, but for the appeal of their packaging and presentation? Have you ever been tempted to own DVDs that were enclosed in a sturdy aluminum tin case, like they emerged from a cold vault buried thousands of feet beneath the earth's crust? Have you ever been tempted to fool your fellow schoolyard chums by placing these tin jalopies in a mini fridge and handling them with sterilized tongs like they were ancient jade necklaces that you sold on the black market? Have you ever been tempted to wave the DVD's 'certificate of authenticity' in some stupid nerd's face and tell them this is only one out of a limited 150,000 copies?
These hypothetical queries were directed toward myself and I answer all of them with an emphatic "Yes"!
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These DVDs that I am belaboring-ly alluding to are the Walt Disney Treasures. The brainchild of film critic/perpetually well-groomed beard-man Leonard Maltin, the Walt Disney Treasures were a collection of historic (and even rarely seen) Disney content. It covered pretty much all the bases: old Mickey Mouse cartoons, World War II propaganda, and TV shows like The Mickey Mouse Club, Walt Disney Presents, and Davy Crockett.
One of these Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets that I owned and (I suppose) cherished were the Silly Symphonies, the musical-oriented Disney shorts that were made between 1928 to 1939. Beside the fact that these shorts were delightfully frothy bon-bons made for quick consumption, they were a sort of experimental testing ground for future Disney productions (Disney's ground-breaking work with the multi-plane camera would prove useful in their first full-length animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarves). They also provided a refreshing diversity of form and style. Audiences in the 1930's probably wanted a change of pace from the Mickey Mouse content they were subjected to monthly at the local movie station house.
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(This is my copy of the Silly Symphonies DVD set, though I seem to have inexplicably lost the tin case, unfortunately exposing its contents to all manner of elements, including that red pepper flake lodged between the doubles L's in SILLY.)
I'd spent many hours watching Silly Symphonies as a young child and I've been revisiting them recently just to see if they still retain their, shall we say, symphonic silliness. And as I was watching old King Cole prattle on about how he was, indeed, a merry old soul and how a merry old soul he verily was, I reflected on how I use to frequently spin the Silly Symphony disk on the DVD turn-table and I suddenly remembered the first short I would watch as the needle dropped onto the disk, and that short was The Golden Touch. And, frankly, I'm not sure why. There were definitely better shorts than The Golden Touch, both visually and musically. But why did I gravitate toward this one, so much so that it was a first priority watch? Was it simply an aperitif before the main entrees of, say, a Music Land, or a Three Little Pigs, or a Who Killed Cock Robin? Or was it more than that?
The Golden Touch is an adaptation of the Greek myth of Phrygian monarch Midas (the son of Gordias, inventor of the most excessively over-tied rope knot in antiquity), who makes a wish, to the Greek deity Bacchus (also best known as Dionysus), that everything he touches transforms into a yellow-orange-colored soft metal with an atomic number of 79 (Midas is granted this request after he saves Dionysus' drunken satyr of an adviser, Silenus...actually, that's a lie....Midas found him passed out in his rose garden and politely drove him back to his Bacchic abode; no harm, no foul....at worst, a speck of vomit on the rose petals). Midas revels in his new gift, but later has the harrowing, if not unsurprising, revelation that comestibles of any kind can turn into gold as well. Unless his stomach doubles as a foundry furnace, he can't very well pass gold through his digestive tract and get any meaningful nutrients out of it. Fed up with this inconvenience, Midas decides to wash his hands of the whole thing...literally washes his hands in the Pactolus River and that's it.
That's the original version recounted by Ovid, author of the Metamorphoses (according to Edith Hamilton in her landmark 1942 text Mythology). It wasn't until Nathaniel Hawthorne came along that the fable developed a tragic angle by giving Midas a daughter that he accidentally turns to gold (from his 1852 children's book A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys). For the purposes of brevity and a desire to not be a harsh vibe-killer for ten minutes, Walt Disney chose to stick to the safer self-preservation angle of the original.
The myth is iconic in its own right. The name "Midas" is synonymous with irresponsible, unchecked greed and its consequences....wait, is it? "Having the Midas Touch", is a common phrase that, ironically, obfuscates the tale's cautionary moral with a more generic definition of easy success. There's even a company named after that greedy bastard that installs car mufflers and they tell us to "trust the Midas touch."
I guess we haven't learned anything from this myth, have we? My guess (I almost said "theory" but that would imply that I'm smart) as to why there's still so much greed in this world is that there haven't been any real substantial King Midas adaptations in popular culture. How can we learn when the masses have not been exposed to this important myth by way of a giant, money-making blockbuster? Timothée Chalamet in a fat suit laying waste to nature and his fellow humans with garish CGI effects, throw in a couple of songs, and pad out the running time with a giant battle at the end with a golden terraforming laser shooting out of the sky and you have yourself a flop...I mean, a hit!
As much as movies, television, and pop culture in general have confronted the myth's themes of greed and isolation, direct wholesale adaptations of the myth itself are few and far between. The only half-way substantial adaptations I could find on YouTube (ones that were not cheap educational kid videos) was an episode of Mythic Warriors, an aggressively mediocre late-nineties Saturday morning cartoon show that retold Greek myths, and a fairly impressive stop-motion short film from the fifties (produced by none other than stop-motion animation pioneer Ray Harryhausen). TVTropes.org lists some animated series that have dedicated episodes to the Midas concept (Hercules: The Animated Series had an episode that depicted Midas as a Bond villian and there's an episode of Yogi Bear that has Yogi blessed with "The Pik-a-Nik Basket Touch"). And if you've ever frequented a elementary school library (assuming you were, at one point, a child), you'll probably remember seeing that horrifying book cover for The Chocolate Touch, where a young boy pecks his mother on the cheek and her upper torso turns a shade of cocoa-brown. Let's also not forget the middle school play that I co-starred in called "King Midas and the Touch of Gold" (written by Vera Morris, published by Pioneer Drama Service, the leading name in easy-bake, royalty-free community theater/primary school theatrical productions since time immemorial) where I played the pivotal role (or at least that's how I delude myself into thinking it was) of Prince Ajax, Midas' future son-in-law.
Disney's The Golden Touch, as far as I can tell, is the most well-known adaptation of the Greek myth (or at least the only one with a Wikipedia article, which is its own form of legitimacy), despite it also being one of the lesser known Silly Symphonies, one that was willfully obscured by its creator and director, Walt Disney. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is often given the ironic moniker of "Disney's Folly" due to the fact it was a risky venture that was predicted to fail, but ended up being the highest grossing film of 1937. That's all fine and good and hopefully you get pats on the back for relating that anecdote at a future cocktail party, but if there is a project that could rightfully be deemed Disney's actual folly, it was The Golden Touch.
It was the first cartoon that Disney directed in five years (his last being 1930's The Cactus Kid, though he technically directed a couple of little things here and there, like Parade of the Award Nominees, a tiny short specifically made for the 1932 Academy Awards). There are varying interpretations as to why exactly Walt Disney returned to the director's chair. One of them was that he wasn't satisfied with his animators' work so he felt the need to show them a lesson on how it's really done. Another was that one of his head animators left and decided to take it upon himself to fill that space. Or he wanted to make important movies with strong social messages. I don't know. Who knows? So anyway, he utilized only two animators for his production (Norm Ferguson and Fred Moore) and it took about eight months to finish. And it flopped.
It was such a flop that Disney's animators would often use it as a riposte to any of Walt's nagging complaints. The animators could just say The Golden Touch and the sound of bellowing airhorns would pierce the air as a plum-faced Walt Disney left the room in silence.
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And that was the last time Walt Disney directed anything. Ever.
It is not a highly-regarded short, though I would argue it gets way too much of a bad rep, which is why I will defend it in my typically over-rigorous way. Let's take a look, shall we?
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(Keep in mind, this adaptation is set in a medieval setting, so don't expect Mount Olympus looming over the horizon.)
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We open on a wide shot of a dungeon that serves as King Midas' treasury/counting room. The floor is covered with bags and chests of gold coins. Midas is at his desk, counting each individual coin (with no aid of abacus or feathered quill to keep track of his slow progress) as a black cat, wearing an Elizabethan ruff around its neck, looks on, rhythmically curling and uncurling its tail. The location is dour, with grey stone walls and a barred window casting a solitary shaft of light on our lone protagonist (one of the bars on the window is suspiciously bent, giving the scene a more sinister cast than is necessary). There's a garish sign over the stairwell passage that proclaims, "IN GOLD I TRUST", the kind of vulgar display you'd see displayed unironically at Mar-A-Lago. The gloomy mise-en-scène is starkly contrasted with the merry counting ditty Midas sings as he stacks each coin into unorganized piles.
One billion, two million, twenty-five-thousand, nine-hundred-and-eight,
One billion, two million, twenty-five-thousand, nine-hundred-and-nine,
One billion, two million, twenty-five-thousand, nine-hundred-and-ten,
One billion, two million, twenty-five-thousand, nine-hundred-and....
Before he can say eleven (cheekily nodding that eleven would break the syllabic count of the meter), he mightily sneezes, knocking over all the piles. He notices the camera, tips his crown to the audience, and launches into an introductory song about himself.
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Before he starts singing, let's take a moment to describe King Midas' appearance (or at least Walt Disney's interpretation of him). Imagine the kind of fat, middle-aged slob you find haunting the dog track, or the local OTB, adorned in slovenly dress and a cheap stogie clamped in his teeth (narrow it down to a less lovable Uncle Buck). The kind of long shot loser that, if you even emerge within his eye-line, will chatter your ear off about how great a handicapper he is and how the so-called "experts" don't know jack-shit. A red drinker's nose, a bald dome with clownish tufts of black hair on the sides of his cranium, flabby arms, large hairy man-hands, and a stringy mustache that reminds one of a hairbrush if its bristles were made of insect-legs, all ensconced in a hourglass-shaped head. Top it off with a Jughead-like crown askance on his noggin and a ratty, oversized robe purchased from a thrift costume shoppe. It's a comically grotesque character design, like a lazy court jester posing as a king. It's like if the real king took the week off and handed off the reins to his shiftless, dead-beat brother-in-law.
The song goes as follows:
I'm known as rich King Midas,
And when you look at me,
You see a king who knows a thing
About his treasury.
I've never cared for women.
I've never cared for wine.
But when I count a large amount of money,
It's divine!
(giggle)
Gold, gold, gold!
I worship it! I love it!
Gold, gold, gold!
I wish I had more of it!
My love for shiny gold is such
That I could never have too much.
I wish that everything I touch
Would turn to gold, gold, gold!
(laughs uproariously)
It's not a good song and Midas is not a good vocalist, but it fits his boorish character and it's an efficient introduction. Being someone who is not musically inclined, it's the kind of song I would come up with in an unguarded moment.
Just then, a little man appears out of thin air. The stone walls turn golden, giving the room a warmer cast. The little man is a stereotypically androgynous elf character with bald head, big ears, pointy nose, green tights, and a feather in his cap. I'm reminded of those Santa's helper elf dolls my grandma used to stick in her Christmas tree.
A startled Midas cradles his gold doubloons and asks, "Who art thou, stranger?" The little man introduces himself as Goldie. Midas replies, "What do you want? My gold?" Goldie claims gold is "chickenfeed" to him. "Behold!" Goldie proclaims as he delicately places an index finger on the black cat's head. The cat, frozen in place, transforms into a golden statuette (an 18 K designation embossed on its torso). Midas' crown does a back flip. Seemingly unconcerned about the cat and its possible demise, Midas flicks the statuette for authenticity and it "dings" in reply. Midas begins to salivate. The Golden Touch!
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There's a lovely moment of acting from Midas here. Midas lasciviously grabs the statuette but Goldie stops him. Goldie wags his finger like an adult scolding a child. A look of petulance, followed by a cocked eyebrow of suspicion clouds Midas' features. Then, he reluctantly lets go and sits back with this helpless expression on his face as Goldie snaps his fingers and claps his hands, and voila, the cat is back to normal. When the cat runs away, Midas looks briefly disappointed. In a performance dominated by broad strokes of acting (his performance is mostly ham-and-cheese with a side of big hairy mitts wildly gesticulating), it's easily the most humanizing characterization of Midas we get throughout the whole short. He's a fat, stubborn child, but not so stubborn to where he won't listen or be guided by a little reason. Underscored by Frank Churchill's lilting string section, it's a moment that gently nudges towards Midas' redemption.
Midas offers his gold and his kingdom for the Golden Touch. He even takes off his robe (leading to a funny reveal that he's not wearing a regal gown so much as a regal undershirt, exposing hairy, liver-spotted shoulders). Goldie warns of the perils of the Golden Touch, but Midas won't hear of it ("Fiddlesticks! Give me gold! Not advice!"). Goldie relents and blesses Midas with the Golden Touch. He hoots a little "toodle-oo" and disappears into the invisible ether from whence he came, the room returning to its original gloomy state.
Midas twiddles his large sausage fingers, now containing a terrible power. What can he test it on? Why, the cat, of course! This rotund fool chases the kitty around the castle, with his index finger stupidly pointing out in front of him.
When the cat runs out into the courtyard, we finally get to see the extent of Midas' kingdom. It's completely devoid of humans. No servants, maids, courtiers, or jesters in sight. It's emptier than the Queen's kingdom in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. At least she had a burly huntsman and a creepy mirror to keep her company.
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The cat climbs up an apple tree, which Midas collides into headlong. The tree transforms into gold, as golden apples (due to the the sheer weight of this miraculous alchemy) fall on Midas' head (though some of the apples still retain their red hue, which never made sense to me. I presume Midas' initial collision with the tree shook some of the apples off the tree before the alchemy took effect). Unfortunately, the cat is transformed into gold as well. Midas, delighted, grabs the stiff tail of the golden cat and lifts it up like a scepter, proclaiming, "It works! It works! Whoopee!"
Midas launches into a giddy dance, holding up his robe like a maidens' skirt (why doesn't his robe turn to gold?), and sings a mindless ditty that seems, much like the first song, shot from the hip in a passionate moment:
The Golden Touch!
The Golden Touch!
The Golden Touch!
The Golden Touch!
La La La La!
La La La La!
La La La La La La La!
Midas touches the flowers, each flower (well, they're golden flowers now) sounding like a tinkly bell in rhythm with the song. He approaches a bird fountain and twirls his finger in the water. Somehow, he is able to twirl the water upward as it turns to gold, creating what looks like a pile of excrement with a curlicue pig tail on top. The birds appraise it like studious art history majors.
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He approaches a water fountain, places a hand atop the gushing water, and an avalanche of gold coins spurts out (the visual of this moment, coupled with the sound effect of the coins, reminds one of a big cash payout at a video slot machine). Then he turns the fountain into gold, mid-gush.
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Then he turns two pan-flute-playing satyr statues into gold (you begin to feel the creative vitality of this sequence winding down if two boring satyr statues is Walt's idea of a victory lap).
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Midas prances through a hallway before approaching a big mirror. Since he is a lonely monarch, he talks to himself. More specifically, he discusses the possibility of turning the whole world into gold. His reflection becomes a separate entity and applauds the king's lofty ambitions (a overused visual gag, but it's fine). The king smiles and gives himself a golden tooth.
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After a long morning of touching things, Midas treats himself to a full banquet of food. This scene is the revelatory moment when Midas discovers the foolhardiness of his wish. He attempts to eat grapefruit but as he dips his spoon into the pulp, a stream of coins shoots into his face. Midas takes it in stride at first, affecting an aristocratic manner, using a gold coin as a mock monocle. Peeling back a banana, he gets a pile of coins rather than a sweet fleshy treat. He grabs his goblet. Mouthful of coins,
Midas is starting to get worried. He forks a succulent roast chicken from across the table. Just as his teeth touch the skin, the chicken is now a golden chicken. In petulant frustration, Midas touches all the dishes before flipping the entire table.
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(The sound design is also quite interesting: throughout the short, when Midas turns things to gold, there's a tinkly, quavering bell sound that emanates. It's frothy and angelic, echoing Midas' glee at his newfound power. Now, when he's touching all the dishes in the throes of hunger, the sound is more hollow and cacophonous, evoking the gold's now chilly uselessness. When he's biting the gold-plated chicken, it sounds like someone hammering a slab of metal.)
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Midas is pulling his hair out and laughing maniacally. He approaches the mirror from earlier and asks his reflection, "Is the richest king in all the world to starve to death?"
His reflection, now a golden skeleton, nods in assent. Frightened, Midas tries to flee the castle. Unfortunately, his long shadow serves as the veil for a giant golden Grim Reaper blocking the door. The sound that comes out of Midas is.....is it possible to call one's frightened gasp 'blood-curdling'? It's a gasp that has 'fatal coronary' written all over it. The skeleton makes a slashing motion across his throat and the king runs away. Probably my favorite moment in any cartoon.
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A shaken Midas returns to his treasury and pleads for Goldie to return, all the while crying like a infant. Goldie, indeed, does return, mocking Midas' vanity. Midas begs Goldie to erase "this golden curse". He offers Goldie his entire kingdom for one "hamburger sandwich" (charmingly redundant phrase). A pretty drastic offer: a complete enunciation of all materialism and power, all for a sandwich whose existence would cease after three masticatory cycles of the lower jaw (it takes me three bites to finish a hamburger, a pleasant sight for anyone whose ever eaten in my presence). Being the maniacal sadist that he is, Goldie teasingly asks him, "With or without onions?" Midas says plain is fine. Goldie "toodle-oo's" back into the eighth dimension.
We get a wide shot of the dungeon treasury (if you notice, the desk is not centered in the shot like it was in the opening and the ceiling is way higher. Mainly because it's about to be used in an upcoming match cut where we see the massive dirt pit that was once the treasury, to show the overall scale of the castle's evaporation) as the castle begins to implode. Debris is falling and there's this putrid gold filter that flickers on screen (like a strobe effect) to simulate the implosion. It's not great.
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Midas is now standing in an open pit that was formerly the treasury. His kingly robes disappear, replaced by a Depression-era railroad bum outfit with polka-dotted undershirt, striped boxers, and a tin can as a replacement crown. Then, as promised, a hamburger sandwich appears out of thin air. Midas is ecstatic, but hesitant. He slowly and nervously touches the hamburger sandwich (covering his eyes in the hopes that...well, his hopes won't be dashed). It remains a hamburger sandwich. He looks under the bun and exclaims with a toothless smile (the gold tooth is gone...little details do not go unnoticed), "With onions! Whoopee!" Midas voraciously gnaws at his hamburger sandwich. La fin.
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So, why is The Golden Touch considered such an ugly duckling in Disney canon?
Backlash towards it, at least from the perspective of the animators, was either a case of expectations being raised too high (considering that Uncle Walt was behind it, you would think it would be the most amazing work of animation to have ever been farted out of that blessed studio), or just plain old schadenfreude (Walt was known to be a prickly pear, so animators rejoiced at this supposed "failure").
I don't have an opinion on what makes The Golden Touch strong or weak from an animation standpoint (I'm not an expert on the finer details of animation). You can't really go wrong with Disney in terms of technical craft, so all I can is say is that I like the animation. It's good....except for that palace destruction sequence.
A common criticism of The Golden Touch are that the characters are unlikable, with Midas being a loud man-child and Goldie being a snide rogue who harbors no sympathy for the king. It's also criticized for not being terribly effective as a fable either, with Midas' redemption hinging not so much on a moral realization of gold's inherent evil, but rather on the self-preservation instinct that starvation inspires in desperate, selfish people. Sure, Midas' hunger for gold is extinguished, but it just ends up being replaced by a different kind of hunger. And judging from his rotund physique, his whole existence is driven not by any sort of human compassion (since there's no one around for him to be compassionate towards), but rather by satiety. You could argue the ending has a Depression-era populist moral, relating to the common man and how to be content with little, but it doesn't seem to point in any hopeful direction in its otherwise hopeless protagonist.
And also, people didn't find it funny (well, Disney shorts were never that funny; they were just clever in a smirky way) and thought it was too long (The Golden Touch is ten minutes long, the longest of the Silly Symphonies). But that's subjective.
And if we want to be shamelessly nitpick-y about it, we could say it barely qualifies as a Silly Symphony. It only has two songs, and they're easily disposable. It leans more on the "silly" than the "symphony" and it falls short of the mark of being both at the same time and that's probably irritating for anyone who is that much of a literalist.
These are understandable criticisms, but they're also rather narrow readings. It's being judged too much through the lens of "meaningful fable" or "typically whole-hearted Disney fare".
The Golden Touch, at least to me, feels more like a farcical condemnation of privileged wealth. Its flippant tone and irreverent disregard for easy morality is more akin to a Warner Bros. cartoon. It doesn't have the same snide mean-spiritedness as Bugs Bunny torturing an opera singer, but there's a noticeable lack of sentimentality, especially compared to other Disney projects. This tonal flippancy can be seen as a failure of intent, but if it is, its unintended effect still works. It felt different from other Disney shorts and probably why I gravitated towards it the most. It had...edge. Well, about as much edge as a butter knife, but relative to other Disney shorts, it manages to draw a pink mark on the studio's lily-white skin.
I like King Midas. Midas is a larger-than-life clown whose childishness and slimy charisma are engaging in a mildly acidic way. This is all due to Norm Ferguson's amusing character design and Billy Bletcher's gargantuan baritone. It's a well-realized interpretation. I can't say the same for Goldie, who is basically a squeaky-voiced dime-store leprechaun with a mischievous countenance, but it's serviceable.
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It's enjoyability is also enhanced by its visuals, especially when Midas is turning everything into gold. The golden touch is, obviously, the short's creative weapon and I'm still entranced by its various visual gags. The sequence when Midas is prancing around in his garden has a playful tone that is acerbically contrasted with his casual destruction of nature. The sequence with Midas at his banquet table is funny while also being palpably tense (you cam feel Midas' panicky frustration at not being able to eat).
The ending itself is a pretty bold reimagining of the blandly happy ending that often bookends the Midas myth. It often just ends with Midas learning his lesson and retaining all his worldly goods. In Disney's The Golden Touch, Midas literally loses everything. Sure, it's based on Midas' impulsiveness (he doesn't even think twice about what he's saying when making that fatal deal with Goldie; he's just an mindless animal blurting things out in desperation), but that impulsiveness and recklessness is just punishment for a man who has no business ruling over anybody, or anything for that matter. Uncle Walt is a much harsher critic of Midas than Ovid or Hawthorne ever were.
I also like The Golden Touch simply because I like the dark, suggestive undercurrent of the tale. The myth itself is already bathed in frightening implications. The eerie uniformity of a kingdom glazed in a dull sheen. And not being able to do...anything, let alone eat. It's crippling and isolating and would send even the most stalwart soul into the fetal position.
Granted, The Golden Touch doesn't morosely dip its head into the widening gyre of its scenario. It is ultimately a silly, harmless cartoon at its core, but it's the suggestion of that darkness that matters. It's only a ten minute short and yet, its conveys its world with brisk efficiency and surprising creativity. And though it might not feel wholly satisfying in its brief running time, it managed to fire up my young imagination.
Even its inconsistencies are engaging. Like, when he touches his cloak, why doesn't it turn to gold? When he touches the apple tree, why are some of the apples still red? When he forks the big chicken, why doesn't the chicken turn to gold right there since the chicken is touching the fork that he's holding? Why does the chicken turn to gold when it touches his teeth? Is it implying that other parts of his body have the golden touch? If that's the case, then why don't his slippers turn to gold? This infinite regress of nitpicks, far from being frustrating, are actually tantalizing and fun. It gives the viewer license to wrap their head around the thorny practicalities of having such a curse. Like, I'm just imagining one of Midas' servants (if he has any) dangling from a rope and dropping pieces of chicken into Midas' mouth, in the vain hope that none of the meat turns to gold if it touches his uvula.
Also, I like the golden skeletal specters of death near the end. It's always nice when a cartoon aimed for children reminds me of the finite time I have left.
Would it be trite to compare King Midas to Walt Disney for the purpose of a sassy put-down? Yeah. I'm sure one can't help but make that comparison. Were they both somewhat controlling bastards who got a taste of their own medicine? Sure. But that's just symmetrical poetical thinking.
If anything, I could almost see the short as being self-deprecation on Walt's part, playfully imagining himself the way he thought other people saw him. He purposefully created a demon so others could slay it, and hopefully inspire confidence in his animators to outdo themselves. But that's symmetrical poetical thinking on my part.
The simple honest answer is that Walt Disney sincerely tried to direct a short, and nobody liked it, and he remained wounded about it ever since. But I think ol' Walt might have been a bit hard on himself. The man tried and I think it worked. It was a noble attempt at something different after multiple cartoons tackled such tried-and-true subjects like cats, birds, flowers, trees, mice, pigs, kittens, bunnies, insects, fish, and other assorted nursery rhyme miscellany. Walt tried to tackle the inner darkness of mens' souls, and he did it with the kind of palatable whimsy that we can expect from the man. It's good. I like it.
Now, I will end on my own sassy critic blurb: "The Golden Touch? More like The Silver Touch."
Thank you.
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Further Reading
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton (the classic, go-to source for Greek and Roman mythology, although her section on Midas is listed in the section entitled "The Less Important Myths", which frankly kind of undersells my rigorous, pain-staking scholarship on the subject; how am I to be taken seriously on Tumblr with that kind of attitude, Ms. Hamilton?!?)
The TVTropes page on the Midas Touch provided examples of the myth's impact on pop culture; not an exhaustive list, I imagine, but it definitely answered my persistent queries on whether there have been any substantial adaptations of the myth.
When Walt Laid a Golden Egg by Jim Korkis https://www.mouseplanet.com/10214/When_Walt_Laid_a_Golden_Egg
Lastly, an interesting little article about the history of the short in question.
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Title: GIVE AND TAKE 3
Subtitle: The Best of Bel Ami Flip Flops
Models: PHILLIPE GAUDIN ANDREI KARENIN
©️ BEL AMI STUDIOS
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890prodoctions · 10 months ago
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Hello all again!
Bet you weren’t expecting me to make two posts today huh?
While not exactly a “thing I own now”
I still have never posted about it here so...
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I figured it was time to introduce everyone to my absurd Matrix collection.
All of these are different releases of the matrix movies (and Enter The Matrix)
There is;
The Matrix - DVD
The Matrix Revisited - DVD
The Matrix - VHS, collector’s edition
Enter The Matrix - PlayStation 2
The Animatrix - DVD
The Matrix Reloaded - VHS
The Matrix Reloaded - DVD, Full-Screen Edition
The Matrix Reloaded - DVD, Wide-Screen Edition
The Matrix Revolutions - DVD, Full-Screen Edition
The Matrix Revolutions - DVD, Wide-Screen Edition
Yeah... that’s a lot of Matrix films. And I’m probably not even done at all. Nope, but that’s fine. The crazy thing is... I’ve gotten all of these from thrift stores.(Except Enter The Matrix) So I have gotten all of these for ridiculously cheap. Like 3$ each max.
So yeah, that’s my collection!
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mikesq10 · 11 months ago
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My Top 50 Favorite Movies
2
21 (2008)
I like to use a moniker here: I have probably seen this movie 21 times. Dating back to 2008 in theatres to owning it on DVD and even purchasing it on my phone, 21 is accessible through many different formats. What makes this movie so good to me? It all starts with Ben Campbell, a Massachusetts native who is trying to get into Harvard Med but does not have the $300,000 to do so. Enter Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey) who teaches Ben in one of his classes and sees a very smart young man and invites him to a secret card counting club. Reluctant at first, Ben is then convinced by an attractive sidekick Jill (Kate Bosworth) to join not only for the money though as well for the experience of a lifetime, going to Las Vegas every weekend to count cards for the table game Blackjack. It is up to Jim to stay focused, collect what he needs and get into Harvard Med. Easier said then done. A strong cast ensemble led by Spacey works wonders in this movie that is easily rewatchable and appealing to most crowds. There a few side plots also worth having your attention like Ben and his close friends in robotics, Jill and Ben's budding chemistry, and Micky's long history with the casinos in Vegas. 21 is such a good movie that it is over before you know it and I usually revisit this film once a year now and still pick up something new. Locked in at number two.
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the-rewatch-rewind · 2 years ago
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Back after a week off!
Script below the break.
Hello and welcome back to The Rewatch Rewind, the podcast where I count down my top 40 most rewatched movies. My name is Jane, and today I will be discussing number 31 on my list: RKO’s 1937 dramatic comedy, or comedic drama, Stage Door, directed by Gregory La Cava, written by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller, from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, starring Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, and Adolphe Menjou.
When heiress Terry Randall (Katharine Hepburn) decides to go into show business, she moves into a theatrical boarding house called the Footlights Club with other, significantly poorer, aspiring actresses. She keeps the details of her privileged background secret, but nevertheless struggles to fit in with the others, particularly her new roommate Jean Maitland (Ginger Rogers), who see her as a snob. The conflict heats up even more when Terry is cast in a role that another Footlights Club resident, Kay Hamilton (Andrea Leeds) had her heart set on.
I can’t remember exactly how I first discovered this movie, but I assume it was because I love both Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, and I was trying to watch as many of their films as I could get my hands on. They are two of the four actors to make it into at least 4 of the movies that will be on this podcast, so it makes sense that I would keep revisiting a movie that featured both of them, even though they apparently didn’t get along very well offscreen. I think I might have seen Stage Door for the first time in 2002, I’m not sure, but once I started keeping track, I watched it 17 times: twice in 2003, three times in 2005, once in 2006, twice in 2008, twice in 2009, twice in 2011, once in 2013, once in 2014, once in 2015, once in 2016, and once in 2022. Back in 2013, I blogged about the movies I had watched at least 10 times in 10 years, and at the time Stage Door was the only one of those I didn’t own a copy of, so I know that at least all the views prior to then were because I borrowed it from the library. When I finally got it on DVD, it was part of a Katharine Hepburn collection that included the 1933 version of Little Women, which won Best Adapted Screenplay. When I was going through adapted screenplay winners in 2017, after I watched that one, the collection somehow fell under my bed without me realizing it, so the next time I wanted to watch Stage Door, I couldn’t find it, and it wasn’t until 2022 that I finally cleaned out under my bed and uncovered it. So Stage Door would be even higher on this list if I cleaned my room more often.
In my last episode, I mentioned that what I really wanted out of Newsies was more of the ensemble just hanging out, and that is exactly what Stage Door provides. There are so many great scenes featuring Footlights Club residents exchanging witty banter, without in any way hindering the plot. While some of that comes from the stars, particularly Ginger Rogers, the supporting cast is absolute gold and features several relative unknowns at the time who became quite famous later, such as future television stars Eve Arden and Lucille Ball, in addition to then-14-year-old Ann Miller, who used a fake birth certificate to pretend to be 18, and somehow managed to hold her own dancing with Ginger Rogers. Gail Patrick was already somewhat established as a master of the cold, calculating secondary character, and she continues that here as Linda, Jean’s main rival before Terry shows up, but she later became even more noteworthy for executive producing the Perry Mason TV show in the 1950s and 1960s, when she was the only female executive producer of a prime-time show. It’s so fun to see these soon-to-be household names so early in their careers hanging out and swapping jokes. But I think I would still enjoy the ensemble scenes at least almost as much if I’d never heard of any of the performers. One of my favorite moments is when the oldest resident who is now an acting coach, played by Constance Collier, is going on yet again about “Back in my day” and somebody who’s holding a book interjects, “when knighthood was in flower” and Constance Collier is all offended until she says, “I’m sorry, I was just reading aloud” and her face and delivery are so perfect, and I have no idea who that character or actress is but I love her.
I’ve read several different stories of how this script came to be. While it’s ostensibly based on a play, apart from the title, the setting, and some of the characters’ names, it’s barely recognizable as the same story. Playwright George S. Kaufman reportedly quipped that the title should have been changed to Screen Door to further distance itself from his play. One story claims that director Gregory La Cava sent an assistant to pose as an aspiring actress in a boarding house and write down what the residents said to use as dialogue in the film. Another version says that La Cava had the actresses from the film hang out together on the set prior to shooting and incorporated their interactions into the script. And yet a third version is that much of the dialogue was improvised while filming. I’m not sure which is true, and I suppose it could be a combination of all three, or none of them, but regardless, the banter is excellent and feels entirely natural. While the slang is, of course, rather outdated, the way they insert snarky comments into their conversations feels exactly like how friend groups – particularly those who are discouraged and fed up but laughing to keep from screaming – interact in real life even now. It’s unusual to see a movie with a primarily female ensemble being so witty together, and I can’t even begin to explain how fun it is to watch. Granted, some of it does get a bit stereotypically catty, but even the least-developed unnamed extra in this movie feels like a real person. Beneath their jovial facades lurks a deep longing for success on the stage, as well as frustration at how difficult that is to achieve, and they all convey that so brilliantly. Mad props to the entire cast.
Like many of the movies I’ve talked about so far, Stage Door has a rather complicated relationship with sex and romance. Because production codes of the time prohibited most sexual content, they had to leave it kind of vague, but it’s implied that the character of theatrical producer Anthony Powell, played by Adolphe Menjou, is providing Gail Patrick’s character, Linda, with expensive clothes and jewelry in return for sexual favors – although why she’s still living at the Footlights Club is rather a mystery – until Ginger Rogers’s character Jean catches his eye and he gets her a job dancing at his nightclub. Jean initially despises him, and only starts dating him because of how much she hates Linda. It’s not entirely clear whether Jean actually sleeps with him – there’s a scene of her in his apartment getting very drunk, but then she starts talking about marriage and Powell has his butler send her home. But they apparently keep seeing each other after that, and Jean does seem to develop feelings for Powell, for completely unfathomable reasons, but Katharine Hepburn’s character Terry sees through him. There’s a great scene when Powell takes Terry to his apartment to discuss the role she’s just been given and she resists his advances, but then when Jean shows up Terry pretends they were in the middle of something so that Jean will see that Powell is no good. This doesn’t help Jean and Terry’s relationship, and most of the characters at the Footlights Club probably think that Terry got the role by sleeping with Powell – although the audience knows it’s because her father said he would help finance the new play if she was the star, hoping that she would fail and return home. Jean already thinks that Terry has previously had a similar arrangement to the one Linda had with Powell because Terry also has expensive clothes and a photograph of an old man she claims to be her grandfather – but again, the audience knows that Terry comes from a rich family and that the man probably is her actual grandfather. I guess showing characters inferring that other characters were having illicit sex was okay with the censors as long as it wasn’t confirmed? Also Powell tells Jean in the scene when she’s drunk that he has a wife and son, but later Terry exposes this as a lie, so even if he is sleeping with any or all of the people that characters think he might be, at least he’s not committing adultery because he’s not really married. Maybe this is just me, but I find it so fascinating what was and wasn’t allowed under these production codes. Anyway, in a similar but perhaps more innocent vein, Lucille Ball’s character is from Seattle, which apparently means she knows every lumberman who visits New York, so she’s often going out on dates with them. Jean clearly despises their uncouth ways, but the food at the Footlights Club is notoriously almost inedible, so she’s willing to let them dance on her feet and bore her in exchange for dinner. Incidentally, one of these double dates is what Eve Arden’s character is referring to in the line I quoted at the end of last episode about “a pleasant little foursome” and predicting a hatchet murder. It doesn’t seem like there’s sex involved in this arrangement, although Lucy’s character does end up marrying one of the lumbermen at the end, but it feels similar to the Powell situation in that it shows women willing to give men what they want in exchange for security, luxury, or both.
The idea that men always want sex and women either tolerate or use sex is certainly not unique to this film – it’s a prevalent stereotype even now that is harmful in so many ways, encouraging and normalizing incredibly toxic relationship dynamics between straight allosexuals. And a side effect is that it makes things very confusing for asexuals. Those who are socialized as girls may not recognize their own asexuality because women aren’t supposed to really want sex that much anyway. And those who are socialized as boys are pressured to ignore their asexuality because men are supposedly defined by their obsession with sex. It’s not great and we need to stop spreading this false narrative. But in terms of this movie, when you remember that it’s from 1937, the same year as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and “Someday My Prince Will Come,” it almost feels progressive to at least show women taking control of their own lives, even if they’re forced to do so within the confines of an oppressive, patriarchal society. There are a few times throughout the film when it’s suggested that these women would be better off getting married and raising children and giving up on their acting dreams, but this is presented as the view of society at large, particularly men like Powell, and not necessarily the truth. It’s rather empowering to see these women stubbornly taking the path that feels right to them even when they’re constantly being told to give up and conform. So from that perspective, the message feels less problematic and more encouraging, and that aspect speaks to me.
This movie also addresses mental health struggles in a very interesting way that I want to discuss a bit. Trigger Warning: I will be talking about depression and suicide in this section, so I’ll put time codes in the show notes if you need to skip through that [skip this and the next paragraph on the script]. For its time, I feel like this movie actually does a pretty good job of distinguishing between feeling a bit down and actually suffering from depression. Most of the residents of the Footlights Club are struggling to find work, but they’re managing. Kay Hamilton, however, is clearly not. She’s behind on her rent and skipping meals but refuses to ask for or accept help. It’s established that she gave a highly acclaimed performance in Anthony Powell’s previous play but hasn’t been able to find work since. Kay desperately wants the leading role in his new play, both because she needs the work and because she relates to the part. When Terry is cast instead, Kay is devastated, but insists that none of the others inform Terry how much she wanted it. To add insult to injury, Terry is awful in rehearsals, refusing to take direction and reading the lines as emotionlessly as possible, so we can all see that Kay would have been a much better choice. On opening night, Kay gives Terry her good luck charm, and then jumps out the window, killing herself. Jean confronts Terry and blames her for Kay’s death. Terry is beside herself – Kay was basically the only one who was nice to Terry – and at first doesn’t want to perform at all, but her grief puts her in the perfect mindset to play the character whose feelings she’s never understood before. She’s clearly performing to honor Kay’s memory, and all of the Footlights Club residents in attendance recognize that, and afterwards Jean and Terry finally become friends.
The main thing I remember from the first time I watched this was how shocked I was by Kay’s suicide. It felt like such an abrupt and upsetting change of tone from what had been mostly a lighthearted comedy. But upon rewatch there are so many signs. When all the other residents of the boarding house are laughing off their troubles, Kay never joins in, only occasionally managing a weak smile to try to reassure her concerned friends that she’s fine. Nobody knows how to help her, and she doesn’t know how to accept the help that’s offered. It’s an upsetting but realistic portrayal of depression, and Andrea Leeds plays it so perfectly that she was even nominated for an Oscar. Considering that, even with all the recent advances made in mental health research and treatment, many people still consider depression just a period of sadness when you’re not trying hard enough to cheer yourself up, it’s astounding that a movie made 86 years ago does such an excellent job of conveying what it actually feels like. It’s not really sadness; it’s more of a void. A hopeless void that you feel like you’ll be stuck in forever. And that’s what Kay shows us. I don’t think I consciously realized this when I was watching Stage Door as a teenager suffering from depression, but I do think in a weird way it helped, to see what I was feeling from the outside. To see that Kay was surrounded by people who cared about and wanted to help her, that the void was lying when it told her there was no other way out except through the window. I wish there had been a way to save her, and I don’t love the implication that her death was necessary to make Terry a good actress, although I don’t think that was the message they were going for. I think the film is trying to say that art and storytelling can be used to channel pain into something beautiful, and while there are certainly better ways to convey this that don’t involve suicide, I still feel like this movie is surprisingly respectful of mental health struggles, particularly for its time, and I appreciate that.
I know I’ve been emphasizing some of the darker aspects, but it’s mostly an uplifting movie. It’s just also trying to be realistic about the hardships faced by women pursuing artistic careers, particularly during the Great Depression – not that things are much better now. I kind of think having this movie in the back of my mind has contributed to at least some of my decisions to support female actors and producers on Patreon. If only the residents of the Footlights Club had had access to the internet. Anyway, there are lots of fascinating behind-the-scenes Stage Door stories, and I’m not sure if any or all of them are actually true, but I want to mention some of them nonetheless. There was apparently a random cat on the RKO lot that took a liking to Eve Arden, so Gregory La Cava decided to make it part of the movie that her character was almost always holding or playing with the cat. Perhaps the most famous line in Stage Door is Terry’s speech in the play, which starts with “The calla lilies are in bloom again…” This was taken from a play called “The Lake” in which Katharine Hepburn had appeared on Broadway, and, in the words of critic Dorothy Parker, “ran the gamut of emotions – from A to B.” So Hepburn used this performance to redeem herself a bit. She certainly shows more emotional range than A to B, although I feel like she still had more to learn before becoming the truly excellent performer she’s remembered as. According to several accounts, Katharine Hepburn was extremely envious of Ginger Rogers, whose career at the time was going much better than her own. Rogers had a much easier time taking direction and getting along with people, and just seemed to generally have more natural talent for performing. So Hepburn resented her, and insisted on sharing top billing instead of taking second billing under her. Rogers was disappointed when Margaret Sullavan, who had played Terry Randall on Broadway and was originally cast in the film version, became pregnant and had to drop out. So neither of them were thrilled to be working together. Since I love both Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers, it makes me a little sad that they didn’t actually like each other, but that was kind of perfect for their characters’ dynamic in this movie. A nicer story is that Ginger Rogers helped launch Ann Miller’s career by insisting she get the role of her dance partner even though the director thought she was too tall, and apparently Rogers and Miller became life-long friends. And one last fun piece of trivia that I recently stumbled upon is that the woman in the photograph of Anthony Powell’s pretend wife was Verree Teasdale, who was married to Adolphe Menjou – so the character’s fake wife was the actor’s actual wife.
Thank you for listening to me talk through another of my most frequently re-watched movies. We’re a quarter of the way through the list already! Remember to subscribe or follow on your podcast platform of choice for more, and rate or leave a review to let me know how you’re enjoying it so far. This episode is coming out on International Asexuality Day, so I hope my fellow aces out there are feeling particularly supported and celebrated today. As always, I will leave you with a quote from the next movie: “You promised me a zillion dollars! And a nickel!”
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josephthesnailshow · 1 year ago
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Sammy's Secret (Sequel to Sammy the Cat)
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~~~
Days turned into weeks after the discovery of the disturbing "Sammy the Cat" DVDs. The unsettling events and nightmares continued to haunt my thoughts. I decided to go deeper into the mystery, determined to uncover the truth behind this haunting show.
I have contacted the local police department again to inquire about any updates on their investigation into the second DVD I've reported. They informed me afterward that the man responsible for the show's disturbing content had been identified as Richard Turner, an actor who had struggled with severe mental health issues.
Intrigued and horrified by this disclosure, I decided to visit Richard Turner in prison. I wanted answers. As I entered the cold, dimly lit prison visiting room, I was met with a crooked and untidy man in a prison uniform. It was Richard Turner, the man who had portrayed Sammy the Cat.
He looked up, his eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and madness. I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for him, despite the gruesome scenes I had witnessed in his show.
"Richard," I began cautiously, "I need to understand what happened with 'Sammy the Cat.' Why did you create such a disturbing show?"
Richard hesitated, his gaze fixed on the table. "It was my descent into madness," he mumbled, his voice trembling. "I was plagued by my demons, and I thought creating this show would somehow help me cope."
"But why the violence? The nightmares it caused?" I said.
Tears welled up in Richard's eyes as he recounted his troubled past. "I lost everything—my career, my family. I became consumed by my own darkness. I thought that by creating something so horrifying, I could share my pain with the world. It was my cry for help, albeit a twisted one."
I left the prison with a heavy heart, struggling to comprehend the depths of Richard's torment. It was a chilling reminder of the power of mental illness and the damaging impact it could have on a person's life.
Still, the mystery surrounding the second DVD remained. Why had it shown a seemingly different side of Richard, one that hinted at remorse and regret?
Determined to find answers, I revisited my great-aunt's estate, sifting through her belongings once more. Hidden among her possessions, she stumbled upon a diary that belonged to her. In it, she chronicled her experiences as a nurse at a psychiatric facility, including her interactions with a troubled patient named Richard Turner.
The diary entries revealed that my great-aunt had developed a deep connection with Richard, attempting to help him overcome his mental health struggles. She believed in his potential for recovery, even though others had given up on him.
As I pieced together the puzzle, it became clear that Richard had a complex history with my great-aunt. Her unwavering support and compassion had made a significant impact on his life, and he had dedicated the disturbing "Sammy the Cat" show to her memory.
The revelation left me with mixed emotions. While the show's horrors couldn't be excused, it was a stark reminder of the profound impact one person's kindness and understanding could have on another, even in the darkest of times.
I decided to preserve the story, not as a tale of terror but as a cautionary tale about the importance of mental health awareness and the potential for redemption, even in the most disturbing of circumstances.
After talking to Mr. Turner and sifting through my great-aunt's belongings, I realized that the police department was searching the house, and they found something unexplainable. It turns out he was living inside the walls the whole time before the police found him, and during that, they also found blood stains from the victims he killed. They already collected what he used in the show: his Sammy costume and the long-barreled shotgun. They decided to put the shotgun in a bag. They hired strong men to grab the costume and lock it away somewhere.
One of his friends was Jack Kennedy. How do I know him? I was searching more about Richard, and I found his name, so I clicked it to find more information; he was one of the people who knew Richard Turner at the facility where my great-aunt met Richard Turner, though the guy was less insane than he was. Jack Kennedy is a traumatized but intelligent man who suffered from child abuse. He later found the Sammy costume and saved it for family-friendly entertainment purposes, though he made it less low-budget in order to make it less creepy.
Now, before I end this, I have nothing else to say to anyone who reads this. Richard may not return to the public, but I assure you that I hope, and I'm being serious here, that despite him being a terrible person as seen in the previous tapes I watched, he does seem like he has remorse and regret for his actions, and I'm assuming that he's being truthful about it. Anyone can change if they put in the effort.
I'm glad I tried to end this on a little happier note, but I don't know yet, and luckily, I'm feeling a bit better after this situation.
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ren3gade · 2 years ago
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file Home 04x02 under "x-files episodes that made us lose our collective minds"
This episode is a permanent resident of top 10 lists. I recall it mashing some of the same buttons as Humbug, which I had the pleasure of revisiting last year. if you missed the premier, you missed it for a while as it was infamously banned from re-airing on FOX. I didn't see it again until I picked up the season 4 DVD set in the early aughts.
i probably haven't seen this episode in a decade (!). will it delight or disgust? I think I know the answer but let's gooo
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dragoninatrenchcoat · 1 year ago
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Since I've had this post pinned to my blog for the entirety of 2023, I feel like I need to review & thank this post for all it's done for me
COLLECT PHYSICAL MEDIA
My book collection died when I moved in 2021. I didn't make a conscious effort this year to rebuild it, but I did continue to collect more books and buy & use DVDs of shows I liked.
2. SAVE RECEIPTS AS ROOM DECOR
I never came through on my plan to print out all my short story rejections in the spirit of the way Stephen King famously tacked his rejections to his bedroom wall, but I've been continuing to collect them.
3. READ AND REREAD AND REREAD AND REREAD
I've been rebuilding my reading habit along with my book collection; both revisiting old favorites and discovering new ones.
4. LOSE YOUR PHONE
I can't say I used my phone less this year than previous years--but I've embraced the necessity to live screenless once in a while. I think I've only gone screenless one or two days this year, but I fell in love with it, and am always looking for ways to make my day more analog.
5. ORANGE
I HAVE eaten more fruits and veggies this year than in past years. This is related directly to being more financially stable.
6. LOSE AMBITION
My dreams had painted a rose-tinted view of my own future, and I bit off more than I could chew. I am still ambitious, but now my eyes are open.
7. KILL THE SHAME MAN
I've been tempted to feel ashamed because I quit my job and moved back in with my parents, but this list, among other things, helped me remember that I'm extremely lucky just to have the option.
8. DANCE IN THE KITCHEN
This is something I've done a lot in the past, in this year, and hopefully through the entirety of my life.
9. WINE AND ESSAYS
I don't drink alcohol, but I have indulged this year--both in momentary happiness, and in learning new things.
10. BUSES ARE ALIVE
This would have been apropos in 2022, when I lost my car and found out that even in big cities, American public transport is a farce. I was able to get a new car in Jan 2023, and have only been on a bus once since; but apart from the logistical nightmare, I miss public transit in a way that's difficult to explain. Buses are alive.
2023
COLLECT PHYSICAL MEDIA
SAVE RECEIPTS AS ROOM DECOR
READ AND REREAD AND REREAD AND REREAD
LOSE YOUR PHONE
ORANGE
LOSE AMBITION
KILL THE SHAME MAN
DANCE IN THE KITCHEN
WINE AND ESSAYS
BUSES ARE ALIVE
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