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overthinkingkdrama · 5 years ago

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Jona’s 5 Worst Dramas of 2019

A couple words about this list. I’m making this for fun. If a drama you love ended up on this list, it doesn’t mean that I hate you or I think you’re stupid or have terrible taste. But these are dramas that inspired strong negative reactions in me for one reason or another, whether that be disappointment, rage or disgust.

I’ve only included dramas that finished airing in 2019 in my selection process. If you have some dramas that hated, feel free to share them in the replies or send me an ask. It’s fun to complain about things for some reason.

Also, I have included major SPOILERS in a couple of these. So read at your own peril.

Dishonorable Mention: Melting Me Softly

I sincerely tried to limit myself to only dramas that I--for whatever misguided reasons--finished in their entirety for this list. Mainly because I don’t think it’s fair to brand something as the “worst” of anything without actually giving the thing a fair shake. That’s the only reason Melting Me Softly isn’t higher on this list. But I felt that it wasn’t right to leave it off entirely, if for no other reason then out of respect for the fallen Ji Chang Wook stans out there who lost their lives trying to make it through this trash fire. Somebody needs to stand up for those brave soldiers, out their gifing trash dramas while people like me are safe and sound on our couches, watching the tag like it’s a train wreck.

I made it through only two episodes of this drama, and despite my goodwill toward the majority of the cast, they were two of the most bafflingly bad hours of television that I forced myself to sit through this year. From what I could tell while side-eyeing the drama on tumblr and twitter it didn’t improve much over the course of the run. There were a couple steamy kisses that I enjoyed in clip form, but I don’t think it would have been worth the brain cells lost to sit through any more than that.

Bottom Line: Painfully unfunny, overwhelmingly expositional with no character development, confusing pacing and sloppy editing. Two episodes was two too many.

5. When the Devil Calls Your Name

It pains me to put this on the list because it was just last year that a Jung Kyung Ho, Park Sung Woong collaboration (Life on Mars) ended up in my top 5. And giving credit where it’s due, the two male leads seem to have a great deal of fun working together and I believe that all the actors gave this drama everything they could and sincerely tried to make it work. That’s one of the things I like about Jung Kyung Ho, he picks unique, risky projects that either pay off in a big way or fall flat on their faces (like the amateurishly written and edited Missing 9) Unfortunately, this script just too messy and too bizarre to work. Ha Rip as has a deeply frustrating character arc. He’s such a self-centered jerk for the vast majority of the drama, which is fine for a Faust type story if it’s written with conviction, but every time you think he’s started to turn a corner or grown as a person he reverts back to his old ways. The writing and tone are whiplash inducing. Plus the vague “soul mates” relationship between Ha Rip and Kim Yi Kyung seemed to want to have it both ways, flipping between implied romantic potential and a father/daughter dynamic, which made me quite uncomfortable.

Bottom Line: This drama’s bizarre mythology and world building barely makes any sense at all, but at least they’re easier to follow than the character development. Attempted something unique, but couldn’t pull it off. The OST is super dope though.

4. Love in Sadness

When I watched the first teasers I got the distinct impression that this wasn’t going to be a good drama, or at best it was going to be a guilty pleasure, but at the time when I started it I was hungry for a melo and there wasn’t much airing to hold my attention so I started it on impulse. I think in this case I got what I deserved for continuing to watch something I didn’t think was very good.

The first few episodes were actually pretty gripping and intriguingly dark, but that petered of quickly and the drama became and infuriating wheel spinning exercise with barely any perceptible plot development from episode to episode. The protagonists in this are all so stupid that in the final few episodes the female lead gets kidnapped not once, but multiple times because she keeps meeting her unstable husband alone. Plus nobody in this drama seems to know how to call the police when a madman is waving around a gun. It probably wouldn’t have made me so very mad except that in the last few episodes the writer became unaccountably preoccupied with how sad the psychotic, wife-beating husband’s family life was and how lonely and pathetic his life was when he wasn’t allowed to stalk, assault, and psychologically terrorize his wife. Seriously, in the last leg of the drama the villain is the only character who gets any character development at all. The drama pulls out all the stops to try to make use feel sorry for him. It’s disgusting.

Bottom Line: When a drama about a woman trying to escape domestic violence becomes completely preoccupied with painting the abuser as tragically misunderstood, you’ve got some serious problems.

3. The Lies Within

If it wasn't for the last two episodes this drama would not be on this list, but that isn't because it was in any way an exceptional drama, or that it otherwise would have ended up on my best list. Without the last two episodes The Lies Within is a merely adequate thriller, somewhat heightened by the brutal nature of the premise. I picked this show up largely to fill the void that was left by WATCHER and it was more or less successful, plus it helped that I liked the cast. However even at the beginning this drama I felt like it had some pretty glaring tone problems. There were parts of the drama that were standard OCN dark and gritty thriller, and there were other parts that felt like a campy police sitcom. The humor, when it does crop up in this drama always feels super out of place. But then that last big twist happened and man...I can't remember the last time a drama made me that angry or cratered quite so hard with a twist.

[And this is where I spoil the HELL out of this drama...]

Before this drama decided to go all M. Night Shyamalan in it’s last two episodes, there seemed to be at least one, if not two really reasonable candidates for the kidnapper. Actually all the ground work they’d done up to that point would seem to have pointed to Young Min and if he had turned out to be the perpetrator, I would have completely bought it. Instead they decided to blow everyone’s mind by making the kidnapped husband complicit in his own kidnapping and dismemberment. Which might seem like a shocking twist until you think about it for even half a second.

What it winds up doing on a narrative level it makes everything the characters have done to investigate this series of crimes up to this point feel pointless, resulting in a huge anticlimax. It makes the ambiguous figure of Seo Hui’s husband not only hopelessly stupid, but also cruel and unsympathetic. Because he thought somehow simply sharing the information with her would put her in more danger than threatening and psychologically terrorizing her into investigating the very people he was theoretically trying to protect her from. The explanation that he was already terminally ill doesn’t to anything to mitigate the stupidity of his plan for me. Seriously, you couldn’t think of any solution aside from cutting bits off yourself and sending them to your wife in the mail? I could rant about this ending at length, but I’m going to try to stop here.

Bottom Line: As far as I’m concerned, if you choose to sacrifice the emotional and narrative coherence of your story for a cheap and dirty twist to surprise the audience, you deserve every ranty review you get.

2. Love Affairs in the Afternoon

I’m really not sure what possessed me to watch this drama to begin with. That I continued to watch it is on me. The fact that I watched it despite hating the shallow characters, the thin story and the abortive message at the core of the drama is simply a lapse of judgement for which I shouldn’t be forgiven. Why did I do it despite not having a single nice thing to say about this show? Well, there are two reasons. I was curious to see if they would do anything compelling with one or two of the characters, (specifically the serial adulteress housewife an the broody artist) and I was surreptitiously watching this drama at work and it was really easy to follow the plot while only actually keeping my eyes on the screen about half the time. I watched the last episode before the subs were available and had no trouble understanding what was going. Which could be a sign that my Korean is improving, but is more likely a sign that the writing was so predictable and simplistic that you could follow it if you didn’t speak the language at all.

[Spoilers beyond this point.]

It’s my understanding that in the Jdrama that this is based on all of the characters basically wreck their lives and end up miserable, pointing toward the emptiness of the lives of these people who try to find fulfillment through extra-marital affairs. If that’s how this drama had ended, I still wouldn’t have enjoyed the execution but I could have respected the intent. But in this watered down Kdrama-fied version all the couples’ issues are resolved in the whitewash of a last episode time skip that makes the suffering and bullshit that led up to it feel completely pointless.

Bottom Line: Maybe this level of trashy, uninspired tripe would be somewhat justified if the chemistry between the leads had been better, but somehow they even managed to screw that up. The leads are just bad, vacuous people, a fact which is rendered all the more unforgivable by them being utterly bland. Everybody needed to divorce, nobody deserved to end up happy. Please be wiser than me and avoid this one.

1. Memories of the Alhambra

Initially, I was on the fence about even producing a “Worst List” this year, because in the past few years I’ve tried to be better about dropping dramas the moment they start to disappoint me, rather than hanging on to them and winding up burning myself out. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough material to write this list, or at least not enough material to make it worth reading. Then I remembered that Memories of the Alhambra finished airing in January of this year (2019 was impossibly long, wasn’t it?) and I thought, “Aha, I can make this work.” I knew at once this drama was going to be the shitty tinfoil star atop my Christmas tree of suck.

I’ve already written a full review of this drama, where I got about as mean as I felt I could reasonably be. You can go read that if you like, I’m not going to retread all my many complaints here. What I will say is that Memories of the Alhambra took my mixed-to-favorable opinion of the writer, Song Jae Jung, and turned it to a negative one. She’s someone who clearly has a lot of interesting high concept ideas, but the execution is just not there. You can hook an audience with a concept, but you have to keep them with craft and structure.

Maybe the industry can be blamed for that. Maybe she just has a hard time ending her stories, or maybe writing on a deadline doesn’t agree with her. Whatever the reason, I can no longer trust her to deliver a satisfying story. And that’s deeply saddening to me, because Queen In Hyun’s Man is in my top 10 favorite dramas.

To be front-to-back terrible is one thing. The joke’s at least half on me for bothering. But to have potential, to have an interesting hook, a budget, a cast, but then to be either unwilling or unable to live up to that potential feels like a con. That’s how I felt about his drama, like I had been willfully deceived by special effects and flashy editing, all orchestrated to disguise a narratively bankrupt, unsatisfying drama.

Bottom Line: Is Memories of the Alhambra objectively the worst drama on this list? No, it’s not. Is it the most disappointing? Absolutely, it is. And that’s the more heinous crime, in my opinion. And that’s why it’s my worst drama of 2019.

#kdrama reviews #worst list #kdramas 2019 #jona spoils #exit review

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veroticker · 5 years ago

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Single dad’s club - JP Oliver

Summary (from JP Oliver’s Goodreads page)

A single dad’s get together.

A spark in their eyes.

Two men must find common ground.

Jonas is a single father of a hard-working kid. Yet, when his son and another boy get into a fight, he never expects to find himself attracted to the other father.

Can love grow between men with such different views on fatherhood?

Arthur is the father of a heavily troubled teenager, always trying to stay one step ahead. Despite his son’s behavior, he can’t get the other single dad in his life out of his head.

Blurb

“I stepped through the office doors, ignoring the too-loud music and smiling at my coworker Dave as I pushed my way past the requisite black-and-orange streamers, the obligatory cobwebs and rubber spiders, that declared this was a Halloween party. Groaning inwardly, I checked my watch; but it was only seven, and the party was just getting started.

I sighed. I had to endure at least two hours of small talk and dodging obnoxious drunks before I could beg off and head home. It was going to be a long night.

“Hey, Jonas!” Dave called loudly, even though I was only a few feet away. He slung his arm over the shoulder of a well-dressed blonde with a plunging neckline who was already working on her second drink of the night. “Have you met my wife?”

I nodded and smiled. “I have,” I lied. “At the Christmas party.”

Dave took a moment to think back on that night, decided that I was right, then turned and pointed at my cubicle. “Do you like your decorations? I know that Halloween is technically over at midnight tonight, but I thought you would enjoy the festive feel. The kids are going to love it.”

At the sight of my cubicle, I nearly groaned aloud. Dave had decorated my it with a gaudy skeleton on the edge of the wall, pointed so it would be looking straight down at me. “You must’ve bought out the party store,” I said with a laugh. “That’s a lot of cobwebs for you to clean up tomorrow.”

Dave shook his head. “Not me, man. When you get sick of it, you just toss it, ’kay?”

“I’m already sick of it.”

Dave laughed. “Sarcasm. I like it. That’s why you get through to the kids. Because you’re funny, and you break down their walls. I wish I could be more like that.”

“I wasn’t being sarcastic, and the kids don’t like anyone, Dave. They’re troubled teens. It’s not personal.”

Dave’s wife laughed, and Dave joined in. “You’re a hoot,” he said, then looked over my shoulder and waved excitedly. “Hey! Erica is here, and she brought her wife.”

Before I could respond, he was gone, his wife stumbling on high heels trying to keep up. I shook my head and grabbed a tiny glass of sparkling cider from the table, perusing the goodies laid out on a tablecloth that was clearly meant for a child’s party.

“I’m glad you came,” a familiar voice said from behind me.

I turned and smiled at Cyrus. “It’s nice to see you, too,” I said, then stuck my hand out to greet the man beside him. “I’m Jonas. I used to be Cyrus’s mentor, before he got his big-shot promotion.”

“That’s not all he was,” Cyrus said, elbowing his companion in the ribs. “This is Steve. We’re just friends.” Cyrus leaned close to me, his voice low. “For now.”

I almost choked on my drink, but caught myself just in time.

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring a date,” Cyrus said. “Surely you’re over that last guy." He paused, waving his finger in the air in front of him as he tried to remember the man’s name.

“Holden,” I offered.

“That’s right. I knew it was a weird name. It’s been a couple of months; you should get back in the saddle.””

(review under the cut)

Review

(audiobook) This book was alright. There were several aspects that I really enjoyed. Unfortunately, I didn’t care much for the narrator--I didn’t like the way he talked, and he had only one voice for all the characters, quite confusing with so much dialogues.

The way Arthur and Jonas meet was cute. But I thought that their relationship developped way too fast. And the ending was really corny. It’s still refreshing to read about a gay relationship that doesn’t end in pain and death.

The way they both interact with their boy was fascinating. There were good parenting advices in there--and a few warning too. I loved that Jonas said that his way of parenting wasn’t perfect, it only worked with his son; that maybe it wouldn’t work with another kid. I suffered for Leo, Arthur’s troubled child, and the way he handled his pain and fears was so realistic.

Not a fantastic read, but interesting enough--and sexy enough--to keep me reading (or listening, in my case).

Quickie

Series: standalone

Hashtags: #MM romance #contemporary romance #single dad

Triggers: mention of homophobia, but nothing happens

Main couple: Jonas Beauchamp & Arthur Reed

Hotness: 3/5

Romance: 3/5

+ everything around the education of teenage boys by single dads was interesting

- a bit too cheesy imho

Stalker mode

You can follow JP Oliver on his Goodreads page.

You can also follow him on Facebook.

#JP Oliver #Single dad's club #contemporary romance #MM romance

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pass-the-bechdel · 6 years ago

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Stargate SG1 season seven full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

33.33% (seven of twenty-one).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

20.53%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Two (episode ten ‘Birthright’ (54.54%), and episode fourteen ‘Fallout’ (45.45%)).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Eleven, just over half the season. Again.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-two. Four who appeared in more than one episode, one who appeared in at least half the episodes, and zero who appeared in all of the episodes.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

EIGHTY-FIVE. Twenty-seven who appeared in more than one episode, five who appeared in at least half the episodes, and zero who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

There’s one bright mark (thanks to our Lord and saviour, Chris Judge), but there’s also a couple of nasties in there and a whole lot of other episodes that are dismal in a generalised-ignorance kind of way. The more commercial success the show enjoyed, it seems, the more of a sausage fest it became (average rating of 2.95).

General Season Quality:

Wonky. Though the back end of the season pulls out some of the highlight episodes of the series, almost the entire first half suffers through an extremely awkward readjustment period, and they throw out some embarrassing gimmicks to try and compensate. When it is good, it’s legitimately stellar, but most of the time it’s not good, it’s mediocre.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

So, the only reason this season hasn’t continued the downward trend in the show’s stats is because C-Judge gave us ‘Birthright’, beating out last season’s average female percentage by a whopping .3% as well as cancelling out one of the two positive content drops of the season. It really is a sad indictment when the actors themselves have to swoop in to rescue the content (if ‘rescue’ is really the word for it), but considering how the show started out before Amanda Tapping stepped in to tell the writers to stop serving rubbish to her character, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. On that note, though, perhaps the continuing success of the show has led to Tapping being able to hold a little less sway, based on the brand-new rubbish her character was served in this season, otherwise known as Pete Shanahan. If A-Taps had nothing to say about the *cough* ‘quality’ of Pete, THAT would be surprising.

But, we’re not here to get into BTS machinations, tempting as it is with regard to the not-so-illustrious return of Daniel Jackson. Frankly, it’s probably a good thing we’re not talking BTS, because I don’t need to go getting all righteously indignant again about how they shafted my starry-eyed Jonas Quinn in favour of that self-important over-acting prick...anyway. In both the individual posts and above the cut there, I mentioned how awkwardly the show readjusted to its own former status quo, and one particular manifestation of that which I’d like to elucidate upon is the use of two-part episodes. Some shows don’t do two-parters (or multi-parters) at all, but those that do usually only have one, maybe two in a single season, with the most common position for a two-parter being at mid-season on a traditional broadcast show (less common since the rise of alternate television platforms and the trend toward shorter seasons, but still definitely a thing). Sometimes the beginning and/or end of a season will also be a two-parter, but more commonly the two sides of a multi-part idea will be split into a single episode on either end of the season break, cliffhanger/resolution style, and therefore will not play as a two-parter within a single season itself. Season seven of SG1 had not one two-parter, not two, not even three: it had four. Eight episodes worth, almost half the season.

They two-partered the premiere of the season with ‘Fallen’/’Homecoming’ to facilitate that ditching/reinstating of which we are not speaking, and they two-partered at midseason with the bizarrely-structured ‘Evolution’. They two-partered again in the unusual position of just a few episodes before the finale, with the excellent ‘Heroes’, and then they rounded out the season with ‘Lost City’, technically a two-parter even though it plays as a single double-length episode (being why the season is listed as having twenty-one episodes instead of twenty-two, and to the benefit of its statistics on this blog, too: they would have done worse on their percentage after all if I had counted the pieces of ‘Lost City’ separately, and not even ‘Birthright’ could have saved them then). It’s not all bad - ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost City’ are both really strong narratives with plenty of heart, and well-deserved classics of the series - but as previously noted, the first half of the season is pretty damn awkward, and the two multi-part stories within that time are indicative of that. The common trait of two-parters tends to be raised stakes and an increased intensity of action, stretched over multiple episodes in order to increase narrative tension, and that’s exactly where ‘Fallen’/’Homecoming’ and ‘Evolution’ fall short; the former is contrived and lacking emotional investment, rendering the action a perfunctory means to an end, while the latter is disconnected and consequently fails to build tension around either one of its two completely disparate narratives, it’s just...stuff. Happening. It’s the bang and bluster of a two-parter, with none of the heart or storytelling strength which made ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost City’ work. Coming at the later end of the season when the readjustment period has finally concluded, both of those two-parters feel earned and like they exist for a purpose beyond trying to distract the audience from any narrative discomfort by blowing some shit up. It’s the difference between a story that is being written with confidence in its moving parts, and one which is...not.

Why they struggled so much to justify their own story to themselves in the first half of the season is a mystery, since they were returning to a status quo that had already worked for five seasons before taking that little sixth season off. As much as I adored Jonas Quinn and consider season six the best of the series, not everyone was as enamoured, but neither had the ratings tanked in Daniel’s absence; as such, you’d think the writers would have more confidence in the commodity. They were pretty much guaranteed solid ratings either way, and any fans who had wavered after losing Daniel would presumably be rallying to the show again now that he was back. I really don’t have an answer for why the first half of the season is so wonky, why it falls back on so much empty spectacle. Maybe it has something to do with the increase in narrative attention for Daniel Jackson: maybe what they were desperately trying to justify to themselves was that character and the extra weight they were giving him. None of the Daniel-heavy episodes of the season are very good, and episodes where Daniel is given significant sub-plot attention alongside the main plot have a tendency to be lop-sided and tonally dissonant (see ‘Evolution’, again, and also the undersold Teal’c episode ‘Orpheus’). Admittedly, my disdain for the character is no secret and it isn’t that surprising that I might blame him for the low points of this season. But honestly. It’s the most logical explanation I can think of.

None of the above has anything in particular to do with the dearth of female characters and narratives this season, but as I’ve said before, the fact that there is such a dearth means I’m often left high and dry with nothing much to discuss in lady-land. The loss of Janet Fraiser, the only other regular-recurring female character on the show besides series lead Sam Carter, suggests that season eight is going to be an all-new low for this series’ stats. I guess the only good news is, we don’t have to awkwardly adjust to Daniel Jackson being around again. Probably. I hate that guy.

#Stargate SG1 #Stargate SG1 season seven #Bechdel Test #female representation #full season review

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whatanerdgirlsays · 6 years ago

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The Sunday Post is a weekly post hosted by Kimberly at Caffeinated Reviewer. This is a chance to wrap up the week and share what has happened. Continue on to read about what I’ve read, blogged, watched, listened to, played, written and experienced in the last week. I share any current giveaways or recent interviews! You can also take a peek at what’s to come in the next week!

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Books

With the news that The Baby-Sitter’s Club series is coming for a ten episode series on Netflix, I felt like rereading one of the books and I remembered how much I adored the Super Specials when I was younger. I bought Baby-Sitters on Board on my Kindle and I truly enjoyed it. I’m definitely going to write a review but I was honestly super surprised at how well its held up over the years.

I also read Laura Sebastian’s novel, Ash Princess. I’d heard from a friend that she hadn’t been massively impressed by it but I don’t know, I wanted to give it a try and I’m super glad that I did because it was really enjoyable. I want to read the sequel but I’m afraid of forgetting everything before the finale book ha!

Right now, I have a nice stack of books waiting for me. I just had my birthday which means birthday money and I bought SIX books – Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte, The Afterward by EK Johnston, The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro, Last of Her Name by Jessica Khoury, Tell Me Everything by Sarah Enni and Onxy & Ivory by Mindee Arnett. I also have a ton of books on my Kindle so I literally have no idea what I’m going to be reading this week at all!

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Favorite Quotes of the Week

Sadly, because I only read two books this week and VERY quickly, I don’t have any favorite quotes. SAD FACE!

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Blog

Music Monday {5} – Somebody Loves You by Betty Who

Top Ten Tuesday – Places Mentioned in Books That I’d Like to Visit

Waiting on Wednesday feat. Dealing in Dreams by Lilliam Rivera

Ontario Teen Book Fest Blog Tour – Spotlight on Abdi Nazemian

Book Review: The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

Novel Share Saturday {6} – Plagiarism and Ghost Writing

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Sara’s Newsies Corner

Here I share the news in the nerd world that I got excited about this week! It may not contain every bit of news – that would be insane!

It was my birthday this week! I turned 31 and it was a great week. I enjoyed a day to myself on Monday, had some of my favorite food and watched The Hate U Give for the first time, finally, went to Trader Sams and had some drinks and spent an entire day at Disneyland. Truly a great way to bring in a new age.

The Umbrella Academy Season 2 was just announced! I just finished watching the first season last night and it was SUCH SUCH a cliffhanger and I truly am so so stoked to see more of this show for sure.

As I mentioned above, Netflix announced there is going to be a ten part reboot series of The Baby-Sitter’s Club and I cannot contain my excitement for this. I loved this series so much as a kid/young teen and it truly had an effect on me as a reader and writer. My first stories were totally BSC fan fiction, let’s be real. I cannot wait to see what they do with it. Its obviously going to have to be updated and that’ll be interesting. Is it wrong that I still want Claudia Kishi and Stacey McGill to wear their amazing outfits?

THE JONAS BROTHERS REUNITED THIS WEEK and I’m so here for it. My younger sister was the big fan and, of course, by extension, that meant I listened to them A LOT. I adore the boys, I thought they were/are genuinely talented and have enjoyed their solo careers too. I love love love their new song, Sucker, and I love even more that their ladies (Priyanka Chopra, Sophie Turner and Danielle Jonas) are all in the video. Just the cutest shit.

Also it reminds me of that time that I was THIS close to a selfie with Joe Jonas at one of the Hunger Games premiere, he was leaning in and some middle aged beotch pushed me out of the way and I’m still salty as hell about it!

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Watched

I watched The Hate U Give movie FINALLY, ended up just buying it so I could watch it. I truly enjoyed it and actually watched it twice this week, once by myself and once with my boyfriend. I have a full review coming soon so I’ll just leave it at that.

I also finished watching The Umbrella Academy, which I also plan on reviewing. I will say – it started out super weird haha but it got better and it got so so addicting. Super glad I decided to watch it. I felt like the inner emo kid in me could NOT turn down something created by Gerard Way haha.

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Listened To

I listen to music every single day but I haven’t really listened to anything new lately so not much to share in this section haha.

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Favorite Pictures of the Week

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The Sunday Post {6} The Sunday Post is a weekly post hosted by Kimberly at Caffeinated Reviewer. This is a chance to wrap up the week and share what has happened.

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burnouts3s3 · 7 years ago

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Let's Talk About: Carl Foutley and Hoodsey

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.

"Let's Talk About" is a series of articles focused on individual character or characters and their development and commentary throughout the work in question. THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE WORK, but rather what the character says about the world around them. If you wish to read a strict review, please click on the link to read it. My reviews focus more on the purely technical aspects of the work. There are bad characters with good messages. There are good characters with bad messages and so on and so forth. Thank you.

Author’s Note: Okay, this is going to be a weird one. Originally, I wanted to do a review of As Told By Ginger, one of my favorite childhood shows and cartoon I sincerely hope people get to watch. But, thanks to Paramount, the studio that owns Nickelodeon and, by proxy, ATBG, trying to buy the official releases of this show have been a nightmare! While Paramount ‘has’ released DVDs of the show, they are very sparse and leave out way too many episodes. Even attempts to upload episodes to Youtube have been shut down by Paramount. For some reason, Nickelodeon refuses to sell episodes of the show digitally through venues like Amazon or itunes. As such, I’m going to be skipping over my review of this show and focusing on a topic near and dear to my heart.)

Let's Talk About: Carl Foutley and Hoodsey

As Told By Ginger is probably one of my favorite childhood shows growing up. The characters felt real. The situations were relatable and the humor was on point.

For those who don’t know, As Told By Ginger was a Nickelodeon Cartoon that ran through the 2000’s that depicted the everyday life of Ginger Foutley, a middle school student who tries to get through her day to day by writing in her journal. It was a simple premise but executed spectacularly thanks to the animation studio of Klasky Csupo (who also did other shows such as Rugrats, the Wild Thornberrys and Rocket Power).

While Ginger would be dealing with her problem (such as a cute boy who’s using her to get a good grade in Chemistry class or helping her friends, Dodie Biship and Macie Lightfoot, with a problem), her younger brother who was in Elementary School, Carl Foutley, and Dodie’s younger brother, Robert Joseph “Hoodsey” Bishop, would be getting into trouble.

In his Doghouse (a memory Carl holds onto in hopes his runaway dog, Monster, will return), he and Hoodsey create ideas to swindle his classmates. Carl and Hoodsey would usually have their own subplot where in Carl hatches a scheme to get money, get revenge or attempt to get his petrified eyeball away from Blake Gripling.

See, producers and executives are a bit wary to catering to a single demographic. In ATBG’s case, catering to girls. (To be fair, even in the original pilot Carl and Hoodsey were there). As such, while Ginger and Dodie were doing “girly” or “feminine” things, Carl and Hoodsey were doing “boy” things and had the share of the gross out humor.

It’d be easy for Carl and Hoodsey just to be the comic relief. Their material is funny and they break up a lot of the dramatic moments with their antics. But as the series progressed, I began to realize that the show runners were doing a lot more with the two than I realized.

For example, I thought there was a strong sense of “children during the face of mortality”. When Hoodsey and Dodie’s grandmother dies in “Losing Nana Bishop”, Hoodsey has a different reaction from the rest of his family. See, while Dodie, his father and his mother are all grief stricken with the loss of his grandmother, Hoodsey isn’t. And he feels weird about it, saying “But I don’t feel sad, Carl.”. A child realizing their apathetic towards their own relation’s death is a strangely mature arc to go through. Hoodsey eventually comes around saying he will miss her but in his own way stating “I’ll never look at blue foam or a raisin and not remember how Nana used to laugh at me and pinch my cheek really hard."

This happens earlier in the series. Carl begins a sort of May-December Romance with Maude, an elderly lady he meets at a nursing home. (To be fair, it’s said that these feelings only come from Carl and Maude doesn’t return his feelings but finds him entertaining company). As Carl prepares to propose to her, Maude dies and Carl has to deal with it.

But the biggest impact was during No Hope for Courtney, when Carl realizes Ms. Gordon has retired because Carl pulled a prank too far and traumatized her. Because of that, Carl does everything he can to get her back. Eventually, he wins her over. However, the night before class, Carl wakes up and calls out her name. The next day, it’s revealed that Ms. Gordon died in her sleep. (This was done as a tribute to her voice actress Kathleen Freeman passing away). The final shot is Carl crying over her death.

Religion is also a big part of the show (which is surprising, given that this was a Nickelodeon show meant for children). Carl is an atheist, but it’s only really mentioned in passing when Ginger nearly dies from a burst appendix.

In contrast, Hoodsey is seen more as the more religious of the duo, if not necessarily the more moral. What I mean is that Hoodsey is as willing, if not more so, to get into much trouble as Carl is but Hoodsey does believe in a divine power. We get glimpses of this. When Carl and Hoodsey get Mrs. Gripling’s money so Hoodsey can pretend to be a homeless boy for her (Mrs. Gripling was trying to become the head of a social club and did so by faking to do actual charity work), Hoodsey argues they should give the money back, stating "when the big guy sends me a message, I try to pay attention." In “Losing Nana Bishop”, Hoodsey says that their grandmother is somewhere in “that great big bingo hall in the sky”.

Normally, Christianity vs Atheism debates are reserved for the internet Youtube videos or conservative propaganda pieces. In fact, there’s a scenario you could see how Carl would argue with Hoodsey about religion.Instead, the writers of the show establish this through a clever and subversive way.

Hoodsey believes in Santa Claus while Carl does not. The two get into an argument about how ‘real’ Santa is, with Hoodsey being so devoted to Santa he breaks his friendship with Carl.

Eventually the two bury the hatchet and decide they’re better off laughing at things such as neon signs of reindeer pissing.

"Sure you're cool hanging with a non-believer?" Carl asks Hoodsey.

"To each his own and all that," Hoodsey replies.

What led to Carl’s jadedness towards Santa Claus, Carl replies "Something stupid. I think I used to wish my dad would come home for the Holidays or something like that". This is a reference to the fact that his birth father left his family when he was young.

In the world of sitcoms and cartoons, the showrunners sometimes depict various family units and how they contrast with one another. Carl’s family had a Single mother, Lois Foutley, and Ginger. He was the only male character in the house and the youngest child.

Through the 90’s most shows had nuclear, if dysfunctional, families with a mother and father and multiple children. Even if the sons were often trouble makers, they had father figures to look up to. Bud Bundy had Al, Chris Griffin had Peter, Eric Forman had Red, Bobby Hill had Hank and Bart Simpson had Homer.

Hoodsey, whose parents are still together and haven’t separated, even makes a side comment to Carl "You see how complicated having two parents can be?"

To be fair, as time went on other cartoons and cartoon characters have commented on divorce. Sharon Spitz from Braceface, Pepper Ann Pearson from Pepper Ann, Sammy "Squid" Dullard from Rocket Power, Will Vandom from W.I.T.C.H. and Tino Tonitini from the Weekenders are all products of divorced/separated couples. But whereas their mothers they stay with are considered embarrassing, overprotective, smothering, or strict, the absent father figure is usually idolized and admired, even with their actual presences hidden or built up. For the first times we hear about them, we never actually "see" what Pepper Ann's father and Tino's father looked like until later in the series after they're mentioned.

It's also implied that the absent father figure is the better off or the richer of the two households with a "cool" profession. Pepper Ann's father is a pilot, Squid's father is an executive, Will's father is seen driving a sports car (implying he's wealthy) and Sharon Spitz's father is a rock star. As such, it's seen as an idolization of the absent father figure. "My dad's not here because he's busy being cool somewhere else".

Then, we finally get hints of who Ginger’s father is.

In "Hello Stranger", Ginger gets a congratulations letter for graduating Elementary School (an event, as her friend Darren mentions, that happened ages ago) from her father. Ginger invites her father to attend her poetry reading only for him not to show up. Lois decides to send flowers to Ginger and has them written to be from Ginger's Father (even though he had nothing to do with them). Ginger sees through the guise but thanks her mother anyway.

When we do finally meet Ginger's Father, Jonas, the truth is finally revealed: he is a mall Santa who can't be bothered to make it to her daughter's poetry reading. It's also implied he's not well off financially. "I'm sort of a Jack of all trades and Master of none" he says in a later episode.

When Carl and Jonas do meet on Christmas Day, Hoodsey inadvertently stages a meeting between them, Carl, meets him with scorn and hatred. He even says "My Mom always warned me about getting in a car with a total stranger." Jonas gives Carl a globe full of peanuts, not knowing that Carl is violently allergic to them.

The show doesn't mince words; Jonas Foutley is a deadbeat dad who doesn't know his own children and his attempts to be there fall flat. (To be fair, the show gave him redeeming values such as giving GInger good advice or having him wrestle rogue attacking turkeys).

Ginger and Carl have very different reactions to their birth father. Ginger attempts to get Jonas back into her life as much as possible while Carl wants nothing to do with him.

Consider how strange that is. Ginger, the older female child, idolizes her father while Carl despises him. Carl instead attempts to help Dr. Dave, a recurring character and co-worker of his mother, help woo Lois. Carl who’s the younger child instead feels more comfortable with his step father while Ginger, who would be older and would have more memories of her father leaving her, is dedicated to making her father a part of her life as much as possible.

It’s interesting to see how he, who is barely entering middle school not only wants to embrace his potential new father, but harbors resentment against his birth father. He even goes so far as to address him as Jonas while calling Dr. Dave Dad. Carl even accuses Jonas of conspiring to ruin Lois and Dave's wedding!

In one of the final episodes of the season, Carl helps Lois find a new house. Lois decides to indulge Carl's gross out side and shows off houses that she thinks Carl would like before settling on a real house. Except, throughout the episode, Carl dismisses each of the houses and commits himself to finding an actual home.

When Lois asks why Carl is acting out of character, Carl responds.

"It's my last duty as Man of the House before Dave steps into the role", he says.

Think about that. Carl, despite admitting he loved the creepy and gross houses Lois showed him, decides to take the responsibility of house hunting seriously because he considers it the last duty "as man of the house" before Dave comes in. He is deliberately choosing to step away from his own selfish desires and deciding to 'act like a man'. Not masculine as in gaining muscles or beating up people or acting as an authority figure, but doing something as simple as helping his mother and changing his attitude and behavior.

Consider the context: Carl favors Dr. Dave, a step-father, despite Dave not being his birth father and him acting squeamish and cowardly, more of a man than his actual parent. Why? Because Dave is there and helps his family while Jonas, Carl's birthfather, has been mainly absent from his childhood.

So naturally, Carl's viewpoint of masculinity and manhood are changed. Rather than being assertive of muscular, it's simply being there and supporting his family when he can.

That's strangely profound in a child.

It feels like Carl’s arc is that of maturity. But through the series, attempts into forcing Carl to mature all fail. Ms. Gordo and George (a strict boy scout who uses military training to straighten out Carl), all fail. Attempts to force Carl to destroy the dog house, his secret lair and his nostalgia into hoping his long lost pet, Monster, will come back fail. Even when a classmate tricks Carl into growing up fails. But instead, Carl chooses by his own accord when he's finally ready to destroy his dog house. He chooses to turn his back against pranking. He chooses to help his mother out with the wedding and move.

(It should also be mentioned that Carl was willing to let his dog house be destroyed when George blackmails Carl that by leaving he would cast the blame on Ginger whose program is failing). Then, on Lois’ wedding day, Monster, the dog Carl has been waiting to come back, returns to him.

In some ways, Carl’s story is a view of masculinity but through the lens of grade school boy. Through this sense of jadedness, we see a boy who’s grown weary of the world but works through it by being as gross and angry as possible. But instead of pursing masculinity as a form of power or revenge fantasy, he views it as an aiding tool and someone who genuinely wants to help (even if that help causes more trouble than aids).

Tress MacNille is a voice acting professional who’s shown her merit through shows such as the Simpsons, Futurama and other works. But it’s with Hoodsey that she embodies a character and gives said character real depth. But it’s Jeannie Elias who absolutely delivers as Carl (she also played Botley in Jumpstart 3rd grade adventures). It’s not uncommon for female voice performers to voice young boys (this is done for a variety of reasons as animated shows can go on for years and female actresses tend to ‘sound’ younger than male ones), but Elias performance while holding a scratchy voice manages to convey anger, sadness, humor and cunning at all the right times. Kudos to her.

The series ends, showing an Adult Ginger reading her book to a group of her adult friends as well as Darren with their child. Hoodsey and Carl are seen sitting next to each other.

Though, there is one detail I do find funny. In an episode, Carl says "I can see Me and Hoodsey being friends 30 Years from now".

I guess some friendships do last a lifetime after all.

https://amzn.to/2UHi4lk

#carl #hoodsey #carl and hoodsey #robert joseph bishop #as told by ginger #atbg #nick #nickelodeon #carl foutley #klasky csupo #rugrats #the wild thornberrys #rocket power #dodie #dodie bishop #macie lightfoot #macy lightfoot #lightfoot

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oneofthosecrazycatladies · 6 years ago

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Arrowverse Re-Watch: Arrow season 1, episode 3 “Lone Gunmen”

***Disclaimer: I recommend you read the tags before digging in to this review.

So I’m doing my annual Arrowverse re-watch (where I go back and watch all the Arrowverse shows in chronological order) and this year, I decided I would make these reviews/commentaries about each episode as I re-watch them.

So here goes… WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Request for season 7: Can we see Oliver doing this thing that he’s doing right now again? Standing shirtless and bathed in a single spotlight while he pulls a chain that lifts some pretty heavy-looking weights. God just look st those muscles ripple as he moves. (I don’t have a gif for it, just watch the episode and see for yourself.)

God and that ass!

Stephen, I’m so sorry for objectifying you. You’re a wonderful actor and you seem like an amazing person.

(Okay, hopefully that will ease some of my guilt.)

Okay but what the fuck even is this pool?

Look at how tiny it is!! Who has a pool that small?!

Okay and here’s the pool from a different angle.

I just cannot get over the pool guys. A pool that small is just impractical.

Okay I feel like I should talk about these voiceovers because there’s something really interesting about them.

So if you go back and watch the first three episodes, you’ll notice that Oliver does a lot of voiceover all throughout the episode. But after this episode, there are no more voiceovers except the “My name is Oliver Queen” thing at the beginning.

Now I could be (and probably am) way overthinking this and reading too much into it but...at the end of this episode is when John finds out Oliver’s secret and then he becomes Oliver’s partner in the next episode.

So it’s like the voiceovers are because Oliver is working all alone, but then once he has a partner he doesn’t need the voiceovers because he’s not alone anymore.

Does that make sense? Probably not...but it makes sense to me and that’s all that matters I guess.

Anyway, from a storytelling/character development point of view I find it really interesting.

How can he look so good in just a plain white t-shirt?

(Also, I miss seeing Willa Holland’s name in the credits.)

LL: I hate Oliver and I wish that he had died on the island!

Also LL: *trolls the internet for articles about him*

Me:

Also, does anyone else notice that she’s chewing on a blue pen while she’s trolling?

Now I know this couldn’t have been done on purpose since this episode was supposed to be Felicity’s one and only appearance but because the red pen has become such a big thing in the Olicity fandom...

...it’s just interesting that LL would be chewing on a blue pen.

Oh my god look at Oliver ninja his way up that wall. This man is remarkable.

I love Quentin in this episode so much! And the reason for that is because, even though he hates the Hood, he’s not so blinded by his hatred that he would just ignore contradictory evidence in order to catch the Hood. It shows how much he truly cares about justice and not just letting personal feelings get in the way. Of course, this will totally change in the next episode (as the Lances turn), but I’m just gonna ignore that for the time being and enjoy this version of Quentin.

This. Mother. Fucking. Pool.

Walter: So if I was taking out the competition, I’d have a lot of killing to do in a very short amount of time.

Walter Steele is honestly a legend. It sucks that we’ll probably never get to see him again. Ugh I miss him so much!

So Tommy and Olivear show up at Poison (the nightclub) and what are the odds that LL (and Joanna) and Thea are also at the same club at the same time? Only in TV land I guess.

Oliver: *finds out that LL (the supposed “love of his life”) is sleeping with his best friend*

Oliver: *literally no reaction whatsoever*

Later...

Oliver: *sees Felicity kissing Ray*

Oliver:

(I’m sorry I used this gif twice in one post [and so close together] but it was necessary.)

I’m just saying. If we are really supposed to believe that LL is Oliver’s once and future love, then maybe he should actually act like she is.

(On that note, though, I actually blame the writers for that because honestly I felt like Stephen was working his ass off to make the audience believe that Oliver was in love with LL while KC just gave him nothing in return. She played every scene between them so angry and bitchy even when it was totally unnecessary and didn’t fit with the tone of the scene [but more on that later].)

So LL is able to kick the crap out of Max Fuller in this episode and she did it just because his guys were beating up two people she doesn’t even really like? But literally one episode before this, when people broke into her home she just stood there not doing anything and then ran into the arms of her big, strong man.

Is LL a kickass, independent woman who can take care of herself or is she a helpless damsel in distress that needs Ollie to come and save her? I’m starting to get whiplash from all this character inconsistency.

Oliver Jonas Queen what the fuck do you think you’re doing? I know Yao Fei shot you but that was only to see if you were a threat or not. He saved your life and gave you food and water and shelter. How dare you run away from him.

Okay so I know a lot of people apparently do, but I have to admit, I actually don’t completely hate that frat boy hair Oliver has in these early flashbacks. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely prefer his present-day hair. But I don’t think the frat boy hair looks that bad.

(Then again, Stephen could probably make a mullet and a porn stache look good.)

When was the last time we saw the characters just hanging out at Big Belly Burger? That’s another request for season 7.

Argh! Oliver gets into a shootout with Lawton and Lawton destroys a perfectly good piece of technology!

Oliver Queen there is no Kevlar in that suit, you could’ve gotten seriously hurt or even killed or—

Oh hey, bb, what’s going on?

How’s your day?

I wonder how many times a day she has to ask “have you tried turning it off and then back on again”?

I wonder if she still owns this pink blouse and if it makes her smile whenever she wears it. Although, if you notice, in all 6 years of the show, she’s never worn the same outfit twice. It drives me crazy. I know that she has a lot of money from her days at Palmer Tech but it’s not unlimited. (Although apparently she and Ir*s clothes-swap now? For the record, I thought that sweater looked better on Felicity.)

And Felicity’s chewing on a red pen. Interestingly, it looks like it’s the same kind of pen as the one LL is chewing on, just a different color.

Also, I didn’t talk about this earlier when the scene actually happened, but I find it kinda great that this episode where Oliver finds out that Tommy and LL are sleeping together (and he has no reaction) is also the episode where Oliver meets Felicity. Honestly, if I didn’t know it was just a coincidence, I’d probably think the writers actually planned it all along because it’s just so damn perfect.

Okay so I know that Felicity mentions to William that she’s loved Oliver since this moment. However, since I don’t believe love at first sight is a real thing, I think that she wasn’t head over heels in love with him at this moment, but she could clearly see through all his bullshit and his Ollie Queen persona and she could see his heart. Which is why she helps him even though he’s lying out of his ass.

Because just think of where Felicity is in her life in this moment. Her father had abandoned her and never looked back and, at this point, she probably still believes that she’ll never see him again. She still has a pretty strained relationship with her mother. She still believes that Cooper is dead (I like to think that Cooper was the first guy Felicity was really in love with and that, after he died, she took a job in IT [despite being grossly overqualified] because she wanted something mundane and safe and she probably closed herself off to everyone; I can’t imagine she’s gone on many dates in the last 3 years). So I think Felicity’s pretty used to being lied to and yet, despite all that, she still decides to help Oliver anyway. Everyone always talks about this moment from Oliver’s perspective and how it’s the first time he genuinely smiles and all that, but I like to think about Felicity’s perspective. I mean, she hasn’t had the easiest life either and here comes yet another person with more lies and yet, deep down, she just has this gut feeling that he’s actually a good guy, so for the first time in probably a very long time, she takes a chance. She decides to open up her heart to this guy, whose practically a stranger, but she just knows. Because they’re kindred spirits really, and even though Oliver doesn’t know anything about her past yet, I think he can tell that too. Kindred spirits can always recognize each other.

Also, one more little note. Can we just talk about this for a second: So far, this show has been so dark—literally and metaphorically—and grim. And then...this beautiful bespeckled blonde bathed in bright daylight. Once again, if I didn’t know this was a coinincidence because this was supposed to be her only appearance, I would think the writers planned this all along. She’s the one that harnesses the light inside of him...and when they first meet its bathed in bright sunlight.

I just love this scene so much! In a way, it almost makes it better that all these things were basically accidents. Because it fits so well with the story. Oliver came back from the island with a very specific purpose and plan in mind. He never planned on meeting Felicity but now he can’t imagine his life without her. Emily was only supposed to be in one episode, but now she’s become such an integral part of the show.

This story Moira tells Thea about when she brought home a cat and Robert convinced her to let it go is so wonderful. But it also makes it that much more painful when Thea rejects Robert as her father and starts calling Malcolm “dad”. The whole time I kinda just wanted to scream at Thea and be like “BUT ROBERT LOVED YOU! He knew you weren’t his but he loved you and raised you as his own anyway!!!!!”

I was just so happy when that Malcolm/Thea storyline more or less came to an end and Thea started calling Robert “dad” again. I mean, I think Malcolm is a great character but I couldn’t stand it how he just got away with manipulating her. I don’t blame the characters, of course. I blame Guggenheim for his misogynistic writing. (And I’m pretty sure that MG is the reason Willa left which really sucks because not only did we lose a beloved character, but now MG is gone but we’ll never get to see Thea treated the way she deserves. It kinda makes me wonder if Willa decided to leave before she knew that MG was leaving too and if she would’ve stayed if she knew).

Okay I just gotta ask...with Felicity’s low ponytail and the way the hair totally covers her ears...did they do that on purpose to cover up Emily’s industrial piercing?

And if that’s so, why didn’t they just have her not wear the piercing for this scene? I may not have my ears pierced at all but I’m sure it wouldn’t be a big deal if she took the piercing out for, what, it maybe took an hour or so to film her scenes?

Ugh whatever. I’m just a very detail-oriented person so I always hyper-focus on these things.

Okay I’m sorry, but how did Quentin not recognize Oliver’s voice in this scene? It just doesn’t make any sense!

Tommy: By being better. By being someone that you deserve and that you wanna be with.

Oh Tommy, bb, you’re alreasy too good for LL, okay? She is the one that doesn’t deserve to be with you.

Yay John knows!!!

Okay that’s it for episode 3. To be continued with episode 4.

#arrow #arrow season 1 #arrow 1x03 #oliver queen #stephen amell #anti laurel lance #felicity smoak #olicity #quentin lance #walter steele #anti lauriver #anti katie cassidy #emily bett rickards #thea queen #willa holland #anti marc guggenheim

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thejoyofviolentmovement · 10 months ago

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New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Jonas Shares Sexy "Turn Down The Noise"

New Audio: JOVM Mainstay Jonas Shares Sexy "Turn Down The Noise" @jonasoul @heygroover @romainpalmieri @DorianPerron

Jonas Rendbo, best known as the mononym Jonas is singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and neo-soul artist, who has widely hailed by the international music press as the Godfather of Scandinavian soul. Throughout the course of his two-plus decade career, the acclaimed Danish artist has managed to be remarkably prolific, continuously releasing copious amounts of original material, which he has…

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#Copenhagen Denmark #Jonas #Jonas 4ward Fast To Future (Remixes) EP #Jonas 4ward Fast To Future EP #Jonas Pick Me Up #Jonas Too Much To Mention #Jonas Turn Down The Noise #Jonas W.A.I.T.T.#Jonas What&039;s Cooking #Jonas You Are Amazing #London UK #neo soul #New Audio #New Single #singer/songwriter \#Single Review #Single Review: Jonas Turn Down The Noise #Single Review: Turn Down The Noise #soul

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mugoki · 4 years ago

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[ 5 March — 14 March, 2021 ]

1K Pages Readathon wrap-up

Here are all the books i read for #1kpagesmarch challenge! 💗

Total pages read: 1104 / 1000 (if my math is correct)

Here are my book reviews:

The Old King in His Exile (2017) by Arno Geiger

Arno Geiger tell in great detail of his father's slow change into dementia, how his strange behavior and mannerism suddenly isn't made to fit in their everyday life, as if he'd been put in exile. But also of his father's childhood, in a way to explain the new ideas and needs the illness put in the old man's head. Beautiful story of a man struggling to chase his memories as the world around turn stranger. 180 pages 🌟 4/5 stars

- - - - -

Diary (1956) by Olof Lagercrantz

Went into this book blind, don't think i've read this author's books before. Idk, i couldn't get into it. The text doesn't feel 100% genuine, feels written specifically for an audience instead of personal journal and even if the language is poetic - is like uninteresting smalltalk. Olof lives near a graveyard, and when he isn't thinking deeply about death and life, he mention cute women he has seen during the day. I dropped this book at 55 pages read (out of 159 pages), giving it 1/5 stars 🌟

- - - - -

111 Ways to Save the Planet (2019) by Jonna Karvonen and Marie Schjulström

111 listed ways to save the environment as a single human being! First the book tell of the bigger picture, if each person change their old ways and educate, we are bound to make a difference. If not for everyone else, at least do it for the animals.

I haven't read much environmental books but after some severe signs of our dying earth lately, i felt i wanted to do something but had no idea what. Found myself incredibly inspired by this book! Many of the points speaks to different kind of people: like the regular joe or the broke student or the business owner or a parent. Like the book have something that everyone can do within their own restrictions and boundaries.

I used post-its to remember a few points that spoke to me. 92 pages and 5/5 stars 🌟

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Aniara (1956) by Harry Martinson

Tried reading this sci-fi novel after watching a super interesting youtube movie review, but the language of the book made me too impatient to continue. The concept sound insanely good though! The spaceship Aniara on its way to Mars suddenly end up off course and hover indefinitely waiting for an asteroid to help turn them back, but as the years go by, the passengers grow more desperate and crazier.

When reached chapter 15 (out of 200) i felt frustrated, like "i can't go on like this". Got myself through only 32 pages out 188 pages before calling it quits. 2/5 stars 🌟

- - - - -

Homework (1989) by various authors*

Anthology short stories about childhood school memories from early 1910s up to 1960s. Very interesting how school looked, worked and felt like during those days - more god praising and physical punishment than i far expected. But every story had something i enjoyed reading. 223 pages, 4/5 stars 🌟

*Bengt Anderberg, Mats Arvidsson, Sun Axelsson, Jonas Gardell, Lotten Gustafsson, Staffan Göthe, Cecilia Hagen, P. C. Jersild, Nina Lekander, Bodil Malmsten, Agneta Pleijel, Margareta Strömstedt, Maarja Talgre, Karl Vennberg, Claire Wikholm, Herta Wirén and Pia Zandelin. Editor: Lena Persson.

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Desperate Characters (1970) by Paula Fox

Sophie and Otto are a married couple in their 40s. She is a bit naive or at least timid while he is cynical and bad at showing emotions.

Sophie gets bitten pretty severely by a wild cat, and for some reason she doesn't want medical attention. I think it's because the bite is the most exciting thing happening to her life since forever, or maybe she just doesn't want to be a bother? So she let it become infected spreading up her arm, but with the pain, her personality changes from being someone passive - to being able to argue, angry and be loud.

Meanwhile Otto has a problem of his own. His longtime business partner and friend Charlie has decided to start his own lawyer company. Charlie manipulate their customers to turn their back on Otto and join his new company. At first Otto is very cold about this, as if he doesn't care but as the story progresses he slowly open up how betrayed and hurt he feels about the whole ordeal.

Other stuff happen in between, memories of when Sophie had a secret romance with someone else, their house get vandalized, they go to dinner parties.

All the other characters speak in this weird similiar manner btw - they hold monologues about something that leads to another topic that leads to another, then back to the first one. It reminds me of the theater somehow. 182 pages and 3/5 stars 🌟

- - - - -

It is Strange Nowadays (2009) by Karin Flygare

Birgitta cares for her mother who slowly succumbing to dementia. It's ugly and tragic and frustrating, but also beautiful. When suddenly becoming a mother for her own mother, Birgitta finds herself struggling to maintain her own identity and life to care for a woman who is rude, reluctant and downright bothersome towards her with constant need for attention. I quote "Even though i'm worried, i'm angry over the fact that she's ruining my day." and i can't help feeling frustrated with her. Every waking moment, always calling, taking care of everything and still get no recognition. But also a child's love for their parent, staying through everything despite getting hurt. I can relate so much with my own life situation.

I know this is fiction but it all sounds so realistic, and even the care-home process feel well researched. At one point, the agent of a low quality home tries to sign themselves as their legal guardian for her mother, but luckily she is quick to notice and makes herself present. Good job! Also, good book! 207 pages and 5/5 stars 🌟

- - - - -

The Sea-man (2012) by Carl-John Wallgren

A big sister witness how some guys at school drench a cat in gasoline and sets it on fire, killing it. This leads to the bullies to daily harass her little brother who has slight intellectual disability. One day they get jumped, the brother is forced to eat dirt and the big sister get a branch shoved up her rear (no joke, wtf). Then another classmate shows up and bargain to leave them alone in exchange for something. The bullies want $100. The big sister and classmate start stealing clothes from shops to resell them. I only read to page 106 out of 287, when the sea creature finally gave an appearance. But by then they had already payed the bullies and gotten rid of the conflict. I felt exhausted and unmotivated to continue. 1/5 stars

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In the Grip of the Lindworm (2014) by Hans Ohlsson

One of many horror stories from his novel collection called Stranger, Intruder. The story tells of a grandfather taking his granddaughter on a three day hike through mountains and forest, as a pick-me-up after a recent accident took both her parents. She is bitten by a snake during her pee break and start getting really sick. We feel stressed with grandfather as he tries to find help before it's too late. It's based on a Swedish mythological creature called Lindworm, which could bring both luck or misfourtune. Never heard of it causing illness but wish he would have filled in some info instead of relying on the reader to automatically know. I'm definitely going to continue reading this collection though! 4/5 stars and 27 pages 🌟

#personal #books #booklr #1kpagesmarch

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deadcactuswalking · 5 years ago

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“REVIEWING” THE CHARTS: 4th August 2019

Honestly I cannot write REVIEWING THE CHARTS this week properly because there are no new arrivals in the UK Top 40, so me and my Twitter followers have come up with ideas, but honestly I kind of want a break. I’ve been doing catch-up on catch-up with albums recently and I’m already really overwhelmed with that, so... will there be any new arrivals reviewed this week? No. Will this episode take literally 10 minutes to write? Yes. Is this pre-amble longer than the episode in word count? Maybe even that, but it feels refreshing to write one of these off in less than an hour like I used to be able to in 2018, and there are a lot of projects I’m working on related to both this series and the neglected YouTube channel that is intended to accompany the cactus brand, “Kanye Best”, including a Top 5 Best and Top 5 Worst Hit Songs of 1984 – or 2004 – list, so we’ll see that down the line, but for now, listen, let me just grind this out because nothing happened really, and I just want to have a chill-down week, I’ve done a Top 20 ranking on Twitter if you’re interested for more content this week.

Top 10

Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello are spending their third non-consecutive week at #1 with “Senorita”, and there doesn’t really seem to be much competition here.

Also in the top five, because it’s the British pop charts, we have two consecutive Ed Sheeran singles, with “Beautiful People” featuring Khalid standing still at number-two.

Running up to the runner-up is “I Don’t Care” featuring Justin Bieber, but I really think this one is gone after not moving this week, it’s been here too long at number-three for chart rules not to punish it.

What I am grateful for is number-four, as up three spaces is AJ Tracey’s “Ladbroke Grove”, a fantastic song.

Not moving at number-five is “bad guy” by Billie Eilish, which surprised me, I thought it would drop off pretty quickly after the Bieber remix.

Also staying steady at number-six is Lewis Capaldi with “Hold Me While You Wait”... why?

As I expected, “Cross Me” by Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper and PNB Rock is down three spots to number-seven, but I did expect it to drop a lot lower.

Another incredible song moving up in the top 10 this week is “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike, up six to number-eight, becoming Fike’s first top 10 here in the UK. I know we’re really late to this guy, if Australia’s reception to him is anything to consider.

MIST and Fredo’s “So High” is down a spot thanks to the climbers at number-nine.

Finally, we have a second new Top 10 entry, and it’s the first posthumous hit for Whitney Houston, remixed by Kygo, “Higher Love”, up five positions to #10, becoming Houston’s first UK Top 10 hit in more than a decade, and her 18th overall. It’s Kygo’s third, but don’t pretend you care about Kygo.

Climbers

Thanks to the video that went pretty viral, I’m having to my face my fondness for Chris Brown’s new single “No Guidance” featuring Drake once again and honestly I feel second-hand guilt for anyone who likes this song... in fact, that’s first-hand, I enjoy that track a fair bit and am not pleased to admit that. Last week’s Love Island soundtrack debut, and, yes, I’m not joking, is also a climber as “Sorry” by new DJ Joel Corry featuring Hayley May is up a pretty surprising 17 spaces to #21, barely missing the top 20, and I’m not really complaining, it’s a decent effort. Apparently it broke records for the most recognised song by Shazam ever, and that’s pretty hilarious considering that app is mostly irrelevant unless it leaks some info about some upcoming pop queen’s new era, in which case Shazam is a gift from the Gods. Also up 17 spaces is last week’s debut of “RAN$OM” by Lil Tecca... joy, yeah, apart from the coincidence that both our lowest debuts from last week have moved up 17 chart positions, there’s nothing fun about that song. Otherwise, “Ritual” by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora is up 12 spaces to #26 (although that doesn’t exactly match up, I’m trusting the BBC on this), and “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo is up five to #34.

Fallers

We have a few consecutive five-space-fallers here at #37 and #38, “I Spy” by Krept & Konan, Headie One and K-Trap, and “Summer Days” by Martin Garrix, Macklemore and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy respectively. I was thinking of how the Top 40 presentation on BBC Radio One and how it would flip from a pretty innocuous edited version of “Summer Days”, which is a nice, summery EDM tune no one could really get all too offended by unless they REALLY hate Macklemore (I don’t blame them if so), to a hard-hitting trap song that hits you several times in the CHORUS, with an intimidating voice commanding you to, “Suck your mother”. I’m sure that’ll appeal to all audiences. Apart from that, there’s nothing really worth talking about here. “Home” by D-Block Europe is down six spots to #31, “Crown” by Stormzy crashes down six positions to #19 (Not looking good for that upcoming album, but with how massive “Vossi Bop” was I’m sure nobody’s worried about this), and that’s all we have here that’s all that notable.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Looking at what’s outside the Top 40, I swear the Official Charts Company manipulated the data purely out of spite for me criticising their format, leaving me with no songs to review and Christmas hits to fall back on, because there are new songs by Taylor Swift at #43, Drake at #42 and Liam Gallagher at #49, yet none of them could have crossed over? Instead of any of those songs, which, you know, would be interesting to talk about, “Bounce Back” by Little Mix returns for another underwhelming performance week at #39? Sure! There’s not even more than one drop-out to talk about here, we’ve only got “Grace” by Lewis Capaldi out from #30 and that’s definitely the recurrent streaming cuts rule – and it’s not like this was a boring, slow week. If I only talked about #41-60, which is half as many songs as I usually talk about, I would have seven new songs to talk about, well, perhaps six since I’ve already discussed “Lalala” (charting at #50 this week) by bbno$ and Y2K as a Featured Single – man, maybe I should bring that back – but still, that’s more than what I’m left with this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#000 – “N/A” – Official Charts Company featuring the BBC

Produced by blasted buffoons and wacky wombats – Peaked at #1 in Abyssinia

Conclusion

Okay, so, I was debating on what to do for this section, but I think I’m just going to rate the new arrivals outside of the Top 40. Best of the Week would probably go to “Lalala” by bbno$ and Y2K to be honest, but Taylor Swift would be following closely with “The Archer” as an Honourable Mention. Worst of the Week would go to “Harder” by Jax Jones and Bebe Rexha for just being boring, and I might not have had a Dishonourable Mention in place of a tied Honourable Mention for the sake of memery, as I’d give that Sam Feldt song called “Post Malone” a joke placement here at least. It’s pretty sad I can predict my own jokes before I make them. Anyway, the fact, I’ve written an episode this long with no songs to review has honestly kind of impressed me, so follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week, where hopefully we’ll have any songs to talk about.

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erenblogs1 · 5 years ago

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Jonas Brother released their fifth studio album Happiness Begins on the 7th of June after six years of a break. Their reunion will be one of the highlights of this year for sure. They are back in the best way possible: new music, a world tour, new merch and even a documentary. As a 90s child I grew up with them especially with their Disney projects Camp Rock and JONAS. Then I became a fan of Nick Jonas when he started his solo career and I also enjoyed DNCE as a band. I was actually waiting for Nick’s third studio album to be announced for three years now. It looks like it could take much longer because I want them to release more music together as the Jonas Brothers and not only the comeback album Happiness Begins. I already got my golden circle ticket to see them live in Zurich in February 2020. But for now, let’s analyze these 14 new tracks.

On 1st of March, the Jonas Brothers released their comeback single Sucker and their reunion was official. I think we all love this song and the music video; they definitely deserved their #1 debut on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It’s also their first number one hit worldwide. It’s a great upbeat love song with some lyrics that can be stuck in your head all day long. I’m sure we will play this song at every party this summer. One month later on 5th April, they gave us another taste from their upcoming album with the 2nd single Cool. This time it’s not a love song but rather a self-empowering anthem. In the lyrics, Joe and Nick reference to some main events happened during their breakup. Just like Nick’s marriage and his solo career as an actor and singer. They reference Game of Thrones and they also mention Post Malone back in the 2nd verse. I must say that I wasn’t really impressed when I first heard this track, but after I have seen them perform it live, now I know this track is written for the crowd to sing along. It has an entirely different effect performed live than on audio.

I thought Sucker is going to be the summer hit from the Jonas Brothers but I already changed my mind after hearing Only Human and I think you’ll change yours too. Their 3rd single is a flirty song with a reggae beat and a lot of wind instruments. Reggae-pop songs got really popular in the last years, so the Jonas brothers didn’t miss to catch up with this trend. In the lyrics, they sing in a metaphoric way about the joy of making love. “You got all my love to spend. Let’s find a place where happiness begins. We gon’ dance in my living room, slave to the way you move, hurts when I’m leaving you.” These lines can definitely be interpreted in a sexual way. In the chorus, Nick tries to convince her to spend the night with him: “It’s only human, you know that it’s real. So why would you fight or try to deny the way that you feel? Babe, you can’t fool me, your body’s got other plans. So stop pretending you’re shy, just come on and dance.” They first have referenced the album title Happiness Begins in this song and used it as a metaphor for love/sex. Another reggae-pop track on the album is Every Single Time, it’s also quite sexual since they sing about having an affair. I love the song production but their vocals sound too electronic in some lines and I don’t really like it.

The first romantic slow love song on the album is I Believe, co-written by Nick Jonas and dedicated to his wife Priyanka Chopra. I love everything about this song it really has a calming effect. You can feel the love, the honesty and the authenticity in Nick’s vocals. The production and the lyrics are just perfect. Hesitate is a romantic love letter, this time co-written by Joe for his wife Sophie Turner. In the lyrics, he promises to heal her pain and to save her without hesitation whenever she will need him. Joe also tells how grateful he is to have her. I wish Nick and Joe the best for their marriages. There is one more love song on the album called Love Her. This one manages to be at the line of being another cheesy Lalala pop song and of being a romantic Ed Sheeran-like love anthem. The soft acoustic beat and their tender vocals make it sound perfect. The lyrics could be seen as instructions from the three brothers to all men out there, explaining how to have a successful relationship with your girlfriend.

With Used To Be we listen to the first break-up song on the album. Looking at the lyrics you can tell that there must have been a heavy argument and that she has broken up with him. “Baby, if it’s what you want I just wanna see you happy…We had love, now it don’t matter. You just thought you could do better. So do better.” I have so much sympathy and empathy for this song. I love their attitude in their vocals. Every young man who has been broken up with will be able to relate to this song. Other breakup-related songs are Don’t Throw it Away and Strangers they both represent the phase before you actually decide to break up with the other person, they remind you of the love you have and still feel for your partner. In Don’t Throw it Away they boys hopefully try to avoid a breakup; they just want her to take her time and to think of them again before she says the words she can’t take back and might regret. A break instead of a break-up this is the message of the song. I love the upbeat dance vibes during the chorus it perfectly matches the album title Happiness Begins. Strangers is in particular about realizing how much you love somebody even though you actually wanted to break up with this person.

Happy When I’m Sad is a funky pop track. The lyrics remind me of fake smile by Ariana Grande since the boys also sing about the fact that people can think you’re happy even though you’re sad. It’s the only mental health related track on the album. This song will definitely put you in a good mood even if you’re sad. Rollercoaster will also remind you of another artist, it’ll make you think you’re listening to an Avicii album since the chorus fits in perfectly to his music style. However, in this upbeat pop track, the brothers compare their life to a rollercoaster with highs and lows and say that they would take the same ride again. “It was fun when we were young and now we’re older. Those days when we were broke in California. We were up-and-down and barely made it over. But I’d go back and ride that roller coaster.” A fun fact is that none of the brothers co-wrote on this track, which ironically seems to be the most personal song on the album.

In Trust the boys sing about a toxic relationship. They sing about the situation when you know exactly that the person isn’t right and has actually a negative effect on you. But you still can’t let go of this person because of their attraction and impact on you. Therefore, you can’t even trust yourself when you’re around this person. “I don’t trust myself when I’m around you”. We all know how good Joe and especially Nick can sing falsetto but this time during the chorus it wasn’t enjoyable for me at all. The rock-pop ballad Come Back is a great way to end the album, it leaves a sensitive feeling of joy and happiness in you. In the lyrics, the brothers promise to come back if their beloved ones come back too. “Come back to me, baby, I’ll come back to you”. The track even feels too short with only two and a half minutes. It also reminds us how much we have missed Nick and Joe to sing the same melody with their stunning vocals.

Surprisingly there weren’t any collaborations on this album, not even with a rapper, which is totally fine. We’re sick of having these rappers on every pop track. But something I actually miss is a featuring with Demi Lovato. I hope there will be a remix for one of the songs with her. The boys co-wrote almost on every song except on Rollercoaster, therefore, we can assume that the album has a personal meaning for them. Otherwise, Ryan Tedder also known as the frontman of OneRepublic co-wrote and produced six songs including Sucker, Cool and Rollercoaster. Another successful producer they worked with is Greg Kurstin, who produced four of the tracks counting I Believe and Strangers. All in all, it’s an album with a diverse number of songs, some are sonically more pleasant than others but I think we’re all just glad to have new music by our favorite three brothers. Happiness Begins debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart with the biggest stream and sale week of 2019 so far.

Must Listen: Sucker, Only Human, I Believe, Don’t Throw it Away, Strangers, Rollercoaster, Comeback

Filler Alarm: Trust

Comment your favorite tracks and your opinion about the album in the comment section. Follow me on Instagram for daily music recommendations.

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Jonas Brothers: Happiness Begins – Album Review New blog post now online!#jonasbrothers #happinessbegins #music #musicblog #blogpost Jonas Brother released their fifth studio album Happiness Begins on the 7th of June after six years of a break.

#Album Review #Disney #Hapiness Begins #Joe Jonas #Jonas Brothers #Kevin Jonas #Music #music blog #Nick Jonas #pop music

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weekendwarriorblog · 6 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND Sept 7, 2018 – The Nun, Peppermint, God Bless the Broken Road

Hallelujah! We made it through another summer, one with a lot of really strong studio and independent films and only a few dogs (and even those were a lot more tolerable than in years past).

Normally, the first weekend of September after Labor Day would be a down weekend but with the blockbuster success of New Line’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It last year, all that has changed. Mind you, there have been other solid September openers like Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion and a couple Resident Evil movies, but this weekend, New Line is going to go whole hog with the latest Conjuring spin-off/prequel, and another studio is gonna try to give it some genre competition.

THE NUN (New Line/WB)

The Fall movie season kicks off with a movie that could have easily opened over the summer or waited until October to take advantage of the impending Halloween (the holiday, not the movie). With last year’s huge success for New Line’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It, the studio is hoping horror fans will pull a repeat and help kick off a strong fall movie season after some late summer hits.

If you don’t already know, The Nun is a spin-off prequel to June 2016’s The Conjuring 2 directed by James Wan which grossed $102 million from a $40.4 million openig. That’s just slightly less than the original The Conjuring made in July 2013, grossing $137 mill. domestic after a $41.9 million opening.

The first movie led to the hit Annabelle spin-off and its prequel Annabelle: Creation, but The Nun is both a spin-off and prequel directed by Corin Hardy, who helmed the indie horror The Hallows a few years back. This one stars Taissa Farmiga, sister of The Conjuring star Vera Farmiga who has appeared on a number of seasons of FX’s American Horror Story, plus it also stars Oscar nominee Demian Bichir, who has appeared in everything from Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight to Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant.

While there might already be some franchise fatigue for these horror movies tying into the “Conjuring Universe,” the marketing for the movie has been spot-on with some of the scariest TV spots and trailers of the year. With schools back in session, the teen and older kids will certainly be up for a scary movie to see with classmates, as will older adult horror fans who appreciate the finesse that Wan brings to his horror films. As we saw with Itlast year, horror is definitely bigger money than ever especially with a strong and scary horror premise like this one.

The Nun should be good for the same $36 to 40 million range as the Annabelle movies, although it won’t get the opening weekend bump of a summer or October pre-Halloween release nor will it have much chance for legs with next week’s The Predator aiming for the same audience. If it’s any good, it should be able to still make $100 million with the other September releases seeming fairly bland.

Oh, and there’s already a sixth “Conjuring Universe” film slated for next July, so we’ll see if that’s a prequel/sequel to The Nun or maybe it will be a family film with Lorraine and Ed Warren meeting as kids and getting into ghost-chasing ala Scooby Doo. (It’s actually a movie about the Crooked Man from Conjuring 2, not to be confused with the Slender Man from Slender Man.)

Mini-Review: You probably won’t have to have seen The Conjuring 2 to know all you need to know for this suitable prequel, which is intrinsically linked to one of the more interesting side-plots from that horror movie. In fact, there’s such a simplicity to the plot and small cast within The Nunthat you probably wouldn’t even have to know that any other movies in the series exist, although obviously, you might get more out of The Conjuring 2 knowing the history of that mysterious nun.

Taking place in 1952, a young nun at a Romanian abbey has committed suicide (as we see in the opening) and Father Burke (Demian Bichir) has been sent to investigate with a young Postulant named Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga). When they arrive, they’re greeted by the still shaken groundskeeper Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) who tells them that the abbey has been cursed, and over the course of the next few nights, Father Burke and Irene all about that curse which has the abbey’s nuns praying 24/7.

There probably isn’t too much more that needs to be said about the curse that has created the title adversary, except that producer James Wan has found another real deal in director Corin Hardy (The Hallows), sincethe Irish filmmaker knows how to create a horror movie for modern audiences that pays suitable homage to the likes of The Exorcist, as well as Italian giallo greats Bava and Argento.

The Nun might be a little slow for the younger horror fans who love jump scares and seeing stupid teens getting killed. With only three primary characters, there’s only so much killing that can be done, but there’s plenty of scares and many visuals that are quite horrific. As expected, the gore is on point with excellent creature performance by a villain that often looks like early Marilyn Manson.

Fans of The Conjuring movies will definitely like where The Nun ends up, and here’s hoping we’ll eventually see more of the Warrens, as they’re a hard act to top when it comes to supernatural investigators.

Rating: 7.5/10

PEPPERMINT (STXfilms)

The unfortunate attempt at counter-programming that will essentially be targeting the same young men and women into horror is this revenge thriller from Taken director Pierrre Morel that puts former Aliasstar Jennifer Garner back into the action realm.

Garner has been starring in a mixed bag of movies from the rom-com Love Simonearlier this year to the family film Nine Livesand faith-based hit Miracles from Heaven a few years back. She’s basically been bouncing between rom-coms and family films over the years with a couple Oscar-nominated hits (Dallas Buyers Club, Juno) in between, although she’s wisely stayed away from action since the terrible movie Elektra, itself a spin-off from the equally bad Daredevil.

She’s definitely had a few hits as a film actor as well as memorable classics like 13 Going on 30, but Peppermint will be a good test to see if she can attract men as well as women.

Revenge flicks have had a spotty history at the box office, generally doing better (and being done better) in the ‘70s, but there have been lots of attempts to revive it, everything from the Oscar-winning The Revenant to the Taken movies. Probably the best comparison for this one would be the Jan. release Proud Mary starring Taraji P. Henson, which opened with less than $10 million over the MLK weekend ($11.7 million four-day opening). A few weeks later, Bruce Will starred in MGM’s Death Wish remake, which did slightly better with $13 million, grossing $34 million domestically.

Unfortunately, Peppermint isn’t good, and I don’t expect reviews to be that favorable, which may put off anyone who might see this over The Nun (which also is getting mixed reviews).

Opening in over 2,900 theaters, STXfilms has done a decent job promoting this to be a solid second choice for those not wanting to be scared, and that should allow Peppermint to open somewhere between the two movies mentioned with between $11 and 12 million, maybe slightly more, presuming Garner doesn’t have quite the pull of a Mark Wahlberg or Amy Schumer (the stars of STX’s bigger openers this year.)

Mini-Review: Despite the wonky, strange title for this revenge flick, one goes into it hoping that Jennifer Garner’s presence and her return to action might be a way she can revitalize her career. Sorry, but it ain’t happening.

Garner plays Riley North, an L.A. soccer mom who watches her husband and daughter gunned down by the Mexican drug cartel just because they THINK he planned on robbing from kingpin Diego Garcia (Juan Pablo Raba). The three culprits are released due to a corrupt judge and crafty defense lawyer and Riley goes into hiding (after stealing thousands of dollars from the bank where she worked). When she returns, the three killers are found dead… and then others involved in the injustice following her husband and daughter’s murder also end up killed in brutal ways. (We see Riley doing most of the killing, so it’s no surprise.) Also in the mix are a couple detectives played by John Gallagher Jr. and John Ortiz.

I’m not quite sure exactly how or why we’re supposed to think that Riley’s actions are justified, especially with her vendetta against the Mexican mob, killing many hard-working soldiers just to get to Garcia. In fact, Peppermint is chock-full of every single awful Latino cliché to the point where it’s almost offensive, and with so many clichés in play, it’s not hard to figure out where things are going as every beat is easily predicted.

(The title is derived from the fact that Riley’s daughter orders peppermint ice cream on her birthday before being gunned down… the word is never said again after that. Talk about random movie titling!)

It might be deemed sexist to poo-poo the idea of Garner playing a relentless bad-ass, but it’s ridiculous enough that it had an audience in stitches with the ease it takes her to kill everyone who gets in her way. There’s just no sense to the drastic transition Riley goes through, and there’s very little sign of her earlier nature. The trailer hints at all the training Riley goes through to get to the point where she can take down a drug cartel single-handedly, but that’s nowhere to be found in the actual movie. Also nowhere to be found is Garner bringing any empathy to Riley, even when the story inserts a couple lovable homeless kids to bring a little misplaced heart to the movie’s second half.

Who knows? Maybe now that Ben Affleck isn’t playing Batman, Garner can step into the cowl, but either way, this should be a lesson to the critics who trashed Bruce Willis’ Death Wish remake, because that is an absolute masterpiece compared to this garbage. If you want to see a much better take on this sort of female-driven revenge flick, check out the movie called Revenge, which earns that title more than Peppermint earns its title.

Rating: 5/10

GOD BLESS THE BROKEN ROAD (Freestyle Releasing)

Everyone probably knows by now how poorly I do when trying to predict faith-based films, maybe because I just have no connection to the material, but in this case, I’ve actually seen frequent commercials for this one, which is rarely the case. It’s directed by Harold Cronk, the director of God’s Not Dead, God’s Not Dead 2 and next week’s Unbroken: Path to Redemption. Yes, Cronk not only has two movies this year but he has two movies being released in back-to-back weeks with similar names. Despite having a title similar to a Rascal Flatts song, the movie is about a woman whose husband is killed at war but instead of waging war on all of Iraq ala Peppermint’s heroine, she then meets and falls for a race car driver. The movie basically offers lots of things that might appeal to people in the Red States: country music, war heroes, racing and of course, faith. I don’t know if that will make this seem that appealing, but being self-distributed into 1,200 or more theaters, this should be able to bring in around $3 million as counter-programming to the weekend’s genre films with very few other wholesome PG options in theaters.

I’ll be curious to see how much shuffling around happens in the Top 10 especially with last week’s thriller Searching doing much better than expected and Screen Gems having a lot more room to expand it based on positive word-of-mouth. (I hear that it will expand into over 2,000 theaters Friday, which should allow it to bump up into the top 5.) Also, can the late summer hits like The Meg and Mission: Impossible hold up with new and somewhat genre fare like The Nun and Peppermint opening this week?

This week’s Top 10 should look something like this…

1. The Nun (New Line) - $38.2 million N/A 2. Crazy Rich Asians (New Line) - $14 million -37% 3. Peppermint (STXfilms) – $11 million N/A 4. The Meg (Warner Bros.) - $5.6 million -47% 5. Searching (Screen Gems) - $5.2 million -14% 6. Mission: Impossible – Fallout (Paramount) - $3.7 million -50% 7. Operation Finale (MGM) - $3.3 million -45% 8. God Bless the Broken Road (Freestyle Releasing) - $3 million N/A 9. Christopher Robin (Disney) - $3 million -43% 10. Alpha (Sony) - $2.5 million -40%

LIMITED RELEASES

Before we get to this week’s specialty releases, I want to give New Yorkers a reminder that Ethan Hawke’s musical biopic BLAZE (Sundance Selects) will open in New York at Lincoln Center and the IFC Center on Friday. You can read more about that here.

This week’s specialty releases are brought to you by the “name game” starting with the docs…

Heather Lenz’s Kusama - Infinity (Magnolia) is a portrait of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, the top-selling female artist in the world, who has alienated many of her peers even while overcoming obstacles like growing up in WWII-torn Japan. It will open at the Film Forum in New York and the Landmark Nuart in L.A. Friday, and you can find out when it will play elsewhere on the Official Site.

Anthony&Alex’s Susanne Bartsch: On Top (The Orchard) is a portrait of NYC nightlife and fashion icon Susanne Bartsch, who helped launch the career of RuPaul (the film’s Exec. Producer) while championing designers Marc Jacobs and Vivienne Westwood and raising millions to fight AIDS. It will be On Demand and Digital, but also will open in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica Film Center.

Amy Scott’s Hal (Oscilloscope) is obviously not about the computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but is instead about legendary filmmaker Hal Ashby, who is responsible for some of the greatest films of the ‘70s including Harold and Maude (a personal fave), The Last Detail, Coming Home and Being There. The doc includes interviews with Jane Fonda, Jon Voight, Jeff Bridges and contemporary filmmakers like Alexander Payne, Judd Apatow and more.It opens on Friday at the IFC Center, who is also doing a Hal Ashby: The Seventies retrospective starting Friday, including a couple double bills with the aforementioned doc. It will open in L.A. at the Landmark Nuart on Sept. 14. (Honestly, not being into art or fashion, this doc is probably more my speed.)

Now playing at the Film Forum and opening in L.A. on Sept. 27 is the historic doc Bisbee ’17 (4th Row Films), the new doc from Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine, Actress), which looks at the town of Bisbee, Arizona, and the events of 1917 when 2,000 striking immigrant miners were rounded up at gunpoint and herdered into cattle cars before being abandoned in the desert. As with his past docs, Green specializes in recreating the events which his films are covering.

Next up, a disparate group of genre films…

Clive Tonge’s Mara (Saban Films) stars Olga Kurylenko as Kate Fuller, a criminal psychologist interviewing the witness of a strangling who the man’s eight-year-old daughter Sophie only identifies with the word “Mara.” Apparently that’s a demon who kills her victims as they sleep… I somehow doubt this could be anywhere near as scary as The Nun but it’s another option on VOD and Digital HD if you can’t find a theater playing it.

Rungano Nyoni’s feature debut I Am Not a Witch (Film Movement) is set in a village in present-day Zambia, and it ALSO involves an 8-year-old girl, this one accused of being a witch and having a choice between punishments. It opens at the Quad Cinema Friday, BAM in Brooklyn as well as other theaters. You can find the full release schedule here.

The South African Western Five Fingers For Marseilles (Uncork’d Entertainment) from director Michael Matthews involves five black cowboys, known as the Five Fingers, who fight against the police oppression of the colonial town in Marseille. When two police are killed, the group breaks up and the one who killed the police becomes the outlaw known as the Lion of Marseilles once he’s released from prison twenty years later, after the battle to end Apartheid in South Africa has been won. This was a huge box office hit in South Africa that played Toronto and Fantastic Fest last year as well as Fantasia in July.

In Xavier Giannoli’s The Apparition (Music Box Films), opening in select theaters Friday, Vincent Lindon plays journalist Jacques, whose reputation as an investigator attracts the attention of the Vatican to investigate an apparition in a small French village where he meets a young girl who claims to have seen the spirit of the Virgin Mary. For those who want something a little more French than this week’s The Nun, this is the movie for you!

The new film from Frontier(s), Hitman and The Divide director Xavier Gens is Cold Skin (Samuel Goldwyn) about a steamship heading towards the Antarctic Circle with a young man on board who is meant to replace the island’s weather observer but who ends up in a lighthouse with a brute played by Ray Stevenson (Thor). It opens in select cities and On Demand.

Bil Kiely’s teen coming-of-age film Age of Summer (Freestyle Digital Media) is about a young boy (played by Percy Haynes White of Gifted) who is put to the test in the co-ed Junior Lifeguard Program in 1986. It’ll be in select theaters and on VOD Friday.

STREAMING

Premiering on PBS this Friday and streaming on Saturday is Glenn Holstan’s doc Wyeth (American Masters), which looks at artist Andrew Wyath through interviews with his sons and never-before-seen archival material from his family’s personal collection.

On Friday, Netflix offers the quirky teen rom-com Sierra Burgess is a Loser starring Shannon Purser, RJ Cyler and Noah Centineo, which is a modern retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, and Madeleine Gavin’s African doc City of Joy about a group of women who have been through unspeakable horros in war-torn Congo and the center that helps them regain a sense of self-powerment. (If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you can just click on the titles on Friday to watch.)

REPERTORY

Gonna try to make this a more regular feature with so much new interest in older movies, not just from me, but in general. Click on the theater name for more info about the films discussed. (I hope to add other regions like Chicago and Toronto shortly.)

METROGRAPH (NYC):

Continuing the “Anime-versaries,” Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (GKIDS/Fathom) will get a special 20thanniversary rerelease on Thursday and Saturday across the nation through Fathom while the Metrograph will be playing it for a week.

The Metrograph is also doing a Jack Smith series (sorry, not familiar with his work) and a series of films from 1968 (all celebrating their 50thanniversary!) called Everything Was Now: “1968” Circa 1968, which runs through the weekend and includes everything from George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Deadto The Battle of Algiers to Wild in the Streets and Godard’s La Chinoise.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Godard’s Rolling Stones doc Sympathy for the Devil will screen on Friday night with cinematographer Tony Richmond doing a QnA. Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon will screen on Sunday night with Kubrick right-hand man and Filmworker doc subject Leon Vitali doing a QnA. Lastly, John Landis’ The Blues Brothers will play on Saturday night as part of the theater’s Aretha Franklin tribute with Landis introducing the film.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (L.A.):

Wes Craven’s classic The Hills Have Eyes will screen at midnight Friday with actor Suze Lanier-Bramlett in person.

AERO (LA):

Continuing its 4th “The French Had a Name For It” series with double features of Fever Rises at El Pao / Such a Pretty Little Beach tonight, Poison Ivy / The Strange Mr. Steve tomorrow night, Maigret Sets a Trap / Symphony for a Massacre Saturday and The Last of the Six / The Assassin Lives at 21 on Sunday. I’ve seen exactly one of those. Any guesses?

MOMA (N.Y.) continues its Jacques Audiard retrospective through Sept. 20, just before the release of the French filmmaker’s first English language film The Sisters Brothers. As a huge Audiard fan, I recommend Read My Lips, The Beat My Heart Skipped and Dheepan, presuming you’ve already seen Une Propheteand Rust and Bone.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC) will play Wilson Yip’sParadox as part of its “Fist and Sword” series on Friday and Gary Marshall’s A League of Their Own Saturday morning as part of its Family Series. You’ll also have a chance to see PT Anderson’s The Master back in 70mm as part of its 70mm series on Friday.

That’s it for this week… next week, THE PREDATOR! Plus White Boy Rick and A Simple Favor

#TheNun Peppermint GodBlessTheBrokenRoad WeekendWarrior WhatToWatchThisWeekend Movies Reviews BoxOffice

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vivace-joyous · 7 years ago

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Sense8 1x10

OVERALL this was an amazing episode! Lots and Lots and LOTS of cool stuff has happened and I’m loving all of it. For those who had their storylines mainly featured, there was a lot of good progression on that part. Along with great addition to the mythos of the show with the Jonas/Will scene which by the way I still fucking hate how much Will and Riley get to be involved with the over-arching narrative yet fucking Lito just had his first fucking sharing scene of the whole goddamn season UGH!!! I mean yet again I need to give an expectation cause yes, Kala hasn’t had a sharing scene yet, but she fucking has a romantic subplot with someone in her damn cluster. MAKE LITO RELEVANT!

Speaking of my favorite character, I loved everything that happened with Lito’s storyline. I.... I just wish we got here differently. I’ve been thinking cause I truly feel the ONLY reason why Dani is heavily involved with his storyline is because they felt it would just be too gay without a woman around for the straight people watching. I mean, like, right when Hernando takes Lito back, Dani is still being dumb as fuck and taking fucking pictures of them! And her defense “he just said it was okay” LIKE OH MY GOD DID YOU NOT LEARN ANYTHING???? THIS GAY ASS NIGGA JUST GOT HIS ASS BEAT TO FUCKING SAVED YOUR ASS FOR YOUR DUMB ASS MISTAKES goddamnit I hate her character so much like I hate the writers for continually shitting all over Lito’s storyline. They give him the best scenes but the worst plot. Like OMG imagine if Lito had to had this epic fighting scene with Joaquin because he has to save Hernando from the clutches of evil with the help of Wolfgang! As in the damsel-in-distress be Hernando and not someone who fucking ruined his life. AND when Lito says “let’s go home” fucking Dani goes with them again like BITCH DON’T YOU PAY RENT SOMEWHERE ELSE??? WERE YOU JUST HOMELESS BEFORE LITO STARTED TAKING TO FUCKING MOVIE PREMIERES AS HIS BEARD???? Where did she even com from??? Honestly I’m just getting so annoyed because they don’t have this unnecessary third wheel in Nomi’s stroyline.

Honestly the queer storylines on this show are so.... not good. Like UGH both queer storylines started out with characters in committed long term relationships and like (please remember I’ve never actually been in a relationship before) but like they are always talking about how madly in love they are with each other and how they will go to the ends of the world for one another. Which like, I enjoy the show showing that passion between two people of the same gender. But it also feels fucking unrealistic. I honestly would hate if my boyfriend was talking about how much in love he was with me like nigga talk about your taxes or french fries or something I’m not that special, goddamn. But then the queer storylines bug me because most queer narratives tend to either be about coming out or a character is already in a fully committed relationship. They don’t show someone already out and just like single. Show a queer person wanting to find a mate and the struggles that come with it compared to straight people. Like what if one of the other male characters were secretly gay and Lito had to help him come to terms with his sexuality. (Or like shit why couldn’t they have Nomi help Lito more about being open and out with their queerness and yes they had a moment where she did that BUT IT WAS ONLY FUCKING ONE SCENE all the other characters got to help one another but Lito had to go about his whole storyline by himself till Wolfgang helped him in the fucking fight lakjdf adslkjfhasdkj). Like why can’t two girls or two guys fall in love with each other instead of TWO YES TWO HETEROSEXUAL ROMANCES FORMING WITHIN ONE CLUSTER FUCKING GODDAMNIT I HATE STRAIGHT PEOPLE! AND AND

AND A

AND AND

FUCKIGN WILL AND RILEY GET TO HAVE A ROMANTIC SUBPLOT ALONG WITH GETTING MOST OF THE VISIITING/SHARING SCENES AND LEARNIGN ABOUT THE MYTHOS OF THE PREMISE AND LEARN ABOUT THE ANTAGONISTS LIKE OH MY GOD I HATE THEM BOTH

Will is a cop and white and a straight man so obviously I don’t like him but with Riley.... her storyline is so uninteresting because her story is one of PTSD. So all of her scenes are just of her traumatize and thinking about how traumatized she is. But.... that’s not fun for an audience to watch. i’m not having fun watching Riley stare off into the distance IN EVERY FUCKING SCENE SHE IS IN Like girl Do something. Something. Something. Fucking Riley do something. SOMEThING. What can she provide to the cluster anyways besides initiating a cluster sharing scene where everyone imagines there first birth. SPEAKING OF THE LAST SCENE

I both really loved it and fucking hated it. I loved it cause we saw all the characters and they all where having a shared experience and it also related to expanding and extending the mythos. Since they are these psychic “not so” human beings, they can see shit like... being born! Which like yeah! Weird as all hell but that’s there connection. August 8th they all came to be from there first birth. And then they had their second birth when Angelica awakened them to their latent psychic abilities. It works with what the show is about. What I hated is that besides the first and last scene of this episode along with the first scene of this episode (them in the holocaust memorial in Berlin) The only time they had a scene where it showed their connection between all 8 (that stupid fucking orgy scene only had 4 of them *eye roll*) was in the first episode in the first 5 minutes!!! That’s not okay. They should have been having cool little, “oh shit I just gained 7 new best friends”, scenes way early on in the season unlike the HOURS UPON HOURS of exposition and backstory to these characters. omg I feel like I know every single one of these characters more than myself YET we still only just recently learned about the actual antagonist of the show. WHICH ONLY 3 OF THE 8 ARE AWARE OF SAID THREAT!!! OMG another reason why I hate Will and Riley

They BOTH have known about the goddamn cluster for a bunch of episodes now yet neither of them have every tried... Idunoo. Actually trying to bring the cluster together. Not at any point, after learning about the Whispers, did they think “maybe I should get my homies together and warn them that people are trying to hunt theb cause apparently I have 7 other people who can feel everything I can feel” Especially after that old ass lady tells Riley how much it hurt her when one of her cluster died. Honestly, WIll and Riley want everyone else in their cluster to get murdered so they can fuck ugh I hate these white people so much >.>

.... okay this review is like way too long. I’m just so annoyed by so many things. Yet, don’t get me wrong I STILL VERY MUCH ENJOY THE SHOW It’s just... the show can be better if they stopped focusing on the white people so much and made the queer people actual real people. Anyways, I’m wondering where Wolfgang got that rocket launcher from like white boi is so extra but ehhh they hurt his brother so he was not taking any prisoners. Also Joaquin was absolutely DELICIOS with his shrit off!!! Yummy yummy! I did not expect for that actor to have a boyd like that but with all that muscle and tattoos OH OH OH! So sexy so yummy. Too bad he is a gross human being who beats his girlfriend :/ But my future husband (with Wolfgang’s help) beat his ass so we all kosher at the end of the day

Also I would like to add I plan on doing a review of season 1 as a whole along with a review of each of the 8 main character’s storyline cause I hardly mentioned the straight characters unless they do something truly interesting or they do something stupid and I have to call them out about it. Like trust me, I know I talk a lot about Lito’s storyline from episode to episode but I actually hold back a lot more opinions than I share. So yeah, I plan on being super thorough on all elements of the show, in case you were wondering why these episode reviews don’t talk about every little thing that happened. I try to focus on major plot points and queer characters in these episode reviews.

#sense8 #season 1

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taperjeansgirl-blog · 8 years ago

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Album Review: Mind of Mine - Zayn

On 25th March 2015, Zayn Malik announced that he was leaving One Direction to be a “normal 22 year old”. Exactly a year later, he has released his debut solo album under ZAYN; a mammoth 18 track record that is a somewhat messy expulsion of everything ZAYN has ever wanted to sing, but couldn’t. Understandably, the expectation for this album was huge. After months of interviews explaining how he was never happy while in One Direction, critics and fans alike were eager to see whether leaving it all behind was worth it. In my opinion, it definitely was.

The main themes of Mind Of Mine are sex, drugs and R&B which is understandable seeing as they seem to be the main themes of Zayn’s own life. The title of this record, along with MiNd Of MiNdd (intro) are a not so subtle reminder to the listener that this is Zayn’s true self.

The tracks on the album all fit loosely into the bracket of R&B/pop, and in some cases Zayn treads this line beautifully. For example, sHe has a strong and regular beat that supports the simple but effective chorus: “she wants somebody to love, to hold her in the right way” making it incredibly catchy, so while the tone of voice and subject matter are typically R&B, it falls just on the side of pop. This track also features a high note at 2.25 that needs an honourable mention. Following song dRuNk takes the R&B themes a little further, slowing the pace and turning up the sex factor. Along with wRoNg which features R&B songstress Kehlani, this song fully embodies the jump Zayn has made in terms of style and writing subject. After years of perfect pop pieces about fancying the girl on the dancefloor, he finally gets to say it like it is: “I’ll get her wetter than ever, four letters is never the question, she likes when I’m messy and I like when she’s undressing”. These tracks along with TiO (which stands for take it off) are sexy and atmospheric with echoing beats and soft vocals. They have just the right amount of sexual tension and general angst to keep the listener wanting more, or at least wishing they were the person Zayn is singing about.

Contrasting with these, however, are the pure pop tracks like PILLOWTALK and LIKE I WOULD. Listening to the record as a whole, it seems as if these singles were the equivalent of clickbait for the record; they captured the attention of general pop lovers, easing them into the accessible R&B that comes with the rest of the record. In doing this, they also prove that Malik – or at least his management – knew that the success of Mind Of Mind relies on the pop loving girls who have followed him for years. Admittedly they’re not quite One Direction songs in that they are more explicit than anything the band have released, but they are definitely the safest – or at least most predictable- tracks on the record.

While these songs could be considered safe, there are points on this record where you’re reminded just how much freedom Zayn has now, and he seems to revel in it. For example, INTERMISSION: floWer is a genuinely lovely moment, which is completely different from the other 17 tracks, and yet seems to fit perfectly as just another part of the self expression this record represents. Over a backing track of simple plucked guitars like one of Alt J’s interludes, Zayn sings in his father’s native tongue Urdu. According to producer Malay, this track was “inspired by his father’s culture” and was recorded live in one take. Sandwiched between the highly produced songs about sex and drugs, this song is a beautiful insight into another part of Zayn’s mind. Having struggled with racism and Islamophobia while in One Direction, this track shows a pride in Malik’s heritage that translates into a very sweet sound, which is a highlight on the album, as short as it is. I admit that on the surface some of the allure of this may be because many won’t understand it, which makes it seem more different and mysterious. Deeper than that, though, this is a successful reappropriation of the “mysterious” label Malik was often given in the past, as he embraces a different style of music and even a different language to bring us something meditative, simple and very lovely.

Littered through the driven, forceful songs there are other instances of gentle tracks which are more romantic than sexy. iT’s YoU and BLUE have more subtle instrumentation which let Zayn show us just how good his voice is. In the former especially, he seems to revel in the chance to glide through the octaves to his strong and clear falsetto, which he does extremely well. In the latter, the lyrics aren’t the most inventive, but the barely there backing track which builds slowly throughout the song is the perfect backdrop for his falsetto exclamations: “I need somebody to love. Love me blue”. While these tracks – and the album in general – are a hit, there are misses on the record. The epitome of this is fOoL fOr YoU which sounds like an X Factor winner’s first ballad or something off a Bridget Jones soundtrack. This song serves to highlight that while this album is good, it’s not perfect. As a whole, it could stand to be cut down by about five tracks, which would tighten up the weaker spots and the songs which blend into each other, or into the background like SHE DON’T LOVE ME and BoRdErSz.

This is clearly an album that is trying to prove that the artist needs to be taken seriously, and on the most part it is convincing. Mostly, it is what lies outside the music that reminds us that Zayn is not as ground-breaking as he thinks he is. The tracklist, for example, reads like my old MSN username. Perhaps stardom at the tender age of 17 meant that Zayn missed out on formative phases like writing LiKe ThIs, so he’s making up for it with titles like BoRdErSz. He also came under fire for apparently copying Lil Wayne on his album artwork, which shows a childhood portrait of him with his current tattoos photoshopped on. These factors suggest that Zayn is trying a bit too hard on this record. Sometimes this is reflected in the music, with songs like fOoL fOr YoU being overpowered by his vocal runs.

If Mind Of Mind was released two years ago, it would have been more revolutionary than it is in the wake of The Weeknd and Nick Jonas’s majorly successful R&B-pop hybrids. However, while it is not, perhaps, as original as Malik would like it to be, this record is still a strong effort. Moreover, it seems to have achieved what he wanted to: did he break out of the pattern One Direction followed religiously? Yes. Did he create an album of catchy R&B/pop tracks? On the most part, yes. Did he prove that he has a voice, both literally and symbolically? Definitely. Has it changed the world? Maybe not, although he has been smashing records. All in all, Mind Of Mine is a great effort of an album, and seems to have gotten everything off Zayn’s chest. It is, therefore, a perfect starting point for what I hope is a long and successful career. In the last year, Zayn has taken us from X Factor to Sex Factor, and I for one can’t wait to see where he takes us next.

#album #zayn #mind of mine

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