#THIS >>> they are killed by film placement rate.

[accio-victuuri]

sharing this article from today about HB. 🤍

Nominated for "Best Feature Film" at the Golden Rooster Award: "Hidden Blade": a hidden arrow that breaks the unspoken rules of box office for literary and artistic films

A classic is a kind of work,

It continues to give rise to clouds of criticism of it,

And keep getting rid of it,

It never completes what it has to say.

Hidden Blade, whose global box office is still rising, is the box office ceiling for domestic literary and artistic films. The background of this performance is that serious films have encountered an era of shallow reading, the industry and the public have been torn apart, and box office has become an undercurrent sweeping everything. However, because literary films do not conform to the shallow entertainment psychology, their niche nature is predicted by bloodthirsty and crude evaluations, and they are ahead of schedule. They are killed by film placement rate.

The true mission of film︱Making culture visible

The turbulent clouds and red color in the broad field of vision are somewhat incompatible with the festive atmosphere of the Lunar New Year. Released on the first day of the Lunar New Year, it is a kind of performance art in itself... It is very cliché, and it is exactly the same as the self-deprecation of super commercial films. As a spy war literary film, "Hidden Blade" has achieved a breakthrough in innovative expression of Chinese films, and its heterogeneity is unique among domestic films.

The dramatic tension of too many movies relies entirely on scenes and special effects, which disappear once they leave the theater. "Hidden Blade" creates a huge psychological magnetic field, which is still exciting even if it is separated from the audio-visual environment. The tone threshold of "Hidden Blade" is not some kind of contempt for the audience, but the ultimate respect for the audience, history, and movies.

Literary films are a type of film relative to the concept of commercial films. They focus on artistic expression and cultural connotation, and try to pursue higher aesthetic values ​​and cultural significance. Their production is also different from commercial films: commercial films pursue commercial interests or mass entertainment, and take the movie box office as the main goal, while literary films focus on the artistry and cultural connotation of the film.

Transgressing norms and offending common sense, art films are pioneers of film. They often fail but expand the boundaries of film. There are two literary classics in the history of world cinema, "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Westward Journey". They failed miserably at the box office when they were first released. However, they accumulated a large number of die-hard fans through the later dissemination of images. After years of accumulation, they became indelible classics.

The core of the value counterattack between the two works is still that gold will always shine.The former's exploration of human nature and social systems has created a milestone in modern cinema, while the latter's postmodern deconstructive stream of consciousness has won resonance in an era of subversion of tradition.

As a cultural carrier, movies are the most intuitive and transparent value expression of the thoughts of the times. Although most of the classics handed down from ancient times are not the true understanding of the thinkers' era, they have been accepted by the public after years of precipitation. As a result, classics continue to increase in value over the course of history. This is the power of classics and the reason why we respect classics.

As early as in "The Death of Romance", Cheng Er used lines to express his feelings, "Movies are made for the audience of the next century." Look, for artists who break through the context of their times, the feedback they receive from the times is often lagging or misaligned, although this misalignment itself is precisely the connotation of the avant-garde. Yes, art films have always been a disadvantaged group in the industry that suffers at the box office.

In contrast to the tragic box office situation, the ambition and strength of literary films in film art awards. This is also the reason why "Hidden Blade" recently swept the 36th Golden Rooster Awards, with 8 major nominations and caused controversy among public opinion.

The existence of "Hidden Blade" is indeed an isolated example of a domestic literary film. With a box office of 931 million, it is not only the highest-grossing film in director Cheng Er's career, it is even several times the total box office of all his previous works! It's so stunning that "Hidden Blade" has always been criticized by the public, expelled from the art film camp by default in the name of "removing the highest score"!

"No one knows your name, but your achievements are immortal." The grand proposition of the unknown hero in "Hidden Blade" is more sentimental about family and country than any of Cheng Er's previous works. And does this main theme of "greatness, light, and justice" fit in with the art film's original understanding of "the world, society, and life" for individuals and the authorial expression of film language?

"Hidden Blade" is not the first of its kind to draw on commercial marketing for a literary film. At that time, "Fireworks in the Day" was announced as a romantic suspense film, and it received similar reviews and received double box office revenue. It can be seen that only true literature and art dare to joke about "super commercial films".

Cheng Er responded to this joke in an interview with "China News Weekly", "I was editing the film that day, and then they came in with their mobile phones to show me, and said that everyone still thought it was too literary, and I said let's just type a line. Come out - a super commercial film. This is a joke, and indeed no one put such a slogan in the trailer."

He said that he just found it interesting and that there was nothing to rebel about and it was not worth rebelling against. Confidence and relaxation are often qualities of an artist. These qualities make people stand out like fireflies in the dark, allowing the public to quickly pick them up from the crowd. And Cheng Er slowly titled a serious film "super commercial film" because of his humor.

Movies are not just an art of light and shadow | they are also an art that can cultivate people

Low box office is not the standard for art films. “When art is dressed in shabby clothes, it is easiest for people to recognize it as art.” However, this is not an essential representation of art, but the quality of the audience that needs to be improved. The complaints faced by "Hidden Blade" are the same as those faced by literary films as a whole, which is the contradiction between the film's authorial expression and public acceptance.

But does literature and art have to be a niche? Does it deserve to be obscure and slow-paced? Come to think of it, no one is more qualified to answer than "Hidden Blade", who has boiled the black water into a world of wealth and led the public's aesthetic appreciation with niche art!

The most representative narrative style of Cheng Er's films is "flashback narrative", which established his unique creative and imaging style. It invites the audience to participate, rely on brain supplements to build together, and gain the pleasure of decoding. It is a true "understanding", and it is easy to be confused if you don't understand. Such films pursue aesthetics and reflection, and are usually aimed at more mature and artistic audiences.

Movies are products of the cultural industry and are essentially consumed cultural products. In the context of the influx of capital and hot money into the film market and the industrialized mass production of film culture, commercial films are certainly high-return cultural snacks tailored for audiences. Even the creators of literary and artistic films are hard-pressed to avoid being judged by box office success . "The concept of influence or even kidnapping.

It is common for literary films to sell less than 5 million yuan. From Chen Zheyi softly asking the sky, "Why are elegant and gentle people scolded?" to Huang Xufeng angrily choking netizens, "I have no merit but hard work." There is no antidote in the world. The reason why literary and artistic films are criticized is often because in the fast-food era of shallow reading, literary and artistic films have to embrace the sinking market and attract non-target audiences in order to pursue box office.

But movies are just products? No, it is still a cultural expression and a carrier of social values. Comparing movies to products, then literary and artistic films are obviously not fast-moving consumer goods. When facing capital and the market, how can they be in line with the public while not losing their authorial nature? Cheng Er said, "Good-looking art films are also good commodities, and excellent commercial films are also a kind of art."

When it comes to art, most people may think that art is highbrow, aloof, and far away from daily life. And this is not the case. Yu Hua said in the roadshow of "The Mistake by the River", what does it mean to understand? In fact, it is whether it can overlap with our own life experience. If there is overlap, you can understand it. If there is no overlap, you can't understand it. That's normal.

In this explanation, understanding or not understanding is not profound. And Cheng Er has always said that the audience should not be underestimated. People who watch movies are influenced by their own likes and dislikes. Whatever they feel is what they have. Whether they understand or not is not that important.

The audience should not be too demanding to understand, and the artist should also be down-to-earth. Art for the sake of art is not true art. "Hidden Blade" is not only a literary film, but also a literary footnote to Chinese films, because it truly expresses the cruelty of history but is still full of artistic beauty. Cheng Er is very familiar with the history of the Republic of China and knows the intricate relationships between characters.

"Hidden Blade" is composed of real historical details as fine as twists and turns. When I say I can’t understand it, I’m not expressing disdain, but living in China, it’s difficult to understand the history of 5,000 years of civilization, but there is absolutely no threshold for mastering the history of the Anti-Japanese War! It is understandable that one cannot appreciate the narrative technique due to aesthetic differences, but the Internet atrocities of selling one’s soul for five cents and tainting the theme of the film are unforgivable.

There is no universal set of aesthetic rules in the world, but artists try to legislate aesthetics. Every era has its own branded dogma, until the next generation of artists establishes their own profession. Therefore, Gombrich exorcized art and said, "There is no art, only artists." He hoped that the world would stop enshrining art in shrines and use mystery and sacredness to Feeling separates oneself from the work.

There is also a similar "death of the author theory" in the literary field, which means that the author is as if dead when the work is born, and the interpretation and evaluation of the work are left to the readers. That is, there are a thousand Hamlets for a thousand readers, and there is no standard answer.

Just like we cannot require every movie to go straight to the international film festival awards, but also to hit the hearts of the audience and be a classic that will be passed down forever. We cannot require every movie viewer to have high film literacy from the beginning, and to be able to get the spiritual resonance of the creative intention. The growth of movies, filmmakers, and movie audiences requires more tolerant soil and space.

Of course, there is really little space left for literary and artistic films in theaters now! No matter at home or abroad, when the public unanimously agrees that "artistic films deserve low box office", please understand that the industry should leave some room for exploration for artistic films. Allow them to be ignorant of the customs, and only on the soil of tolerance can viable artistic flowers bloom.

Social aesthetic value orientation︱The purpose and driving force of movies

"A lame dog walks through the bombed street scene." One day, Cheng Er took a pen filled with ink and wrote this sentence on the paper. At that time, no one, including himself, knew it, but it was becoming the starting point for a movie called "Hidden Blade," and this moment of brutal aesthetics became the famous scene of the movie.

Personal aesthetics are free, but social aesthetics has a paradigm. Education and social culture will influence and standardize aesthetics and shape aesthetic orientation. Different eras and different environments have different aesthetic orientations, and different aesthetic orientations make people make different value choices. That is to say, no matter how free the aesthetics and how diverse the values ​​are, as long as the rice is sown, it will never grow into tares.

Art and commerce are the two legs of movies. Art movies are full of vitality, and commercial movies are lively. When the leg of literature and art is lame, it is not unfair that Chinese films have been reduced from regulars on the awards podium at international film festivals to regulars on the red carpet.

Yes, there is indeed a "silver-like pewter tip" in the name of art. When artistic conscience is marginalized by desire, the so-called art becomes only a barren and pale flower shelf that cannot withstand scrutiny and argumentation. But "Hidden Blade" allows us to see how an exquisite literary film is polished and shaped, and even simple film layouts contain shooting skills.

Generally, it is the director's habit to record the scene first, then the actors perform, and the cameraman follows the camera movement, but this is not the case on Cheng Er's set. Wang Yibo once mentioned that the crew respects the actors very much. The filming scene is very quiet. Once the mood enters the state, the photographer shoots directly. After the scene is finished, the filming will be finished. The filming will never interrupt the actors' brewing emotions.

In the later stage, Cheng Er slept directly in the studio and only did one thing every day, cut, cut, cut! Thanks to his almost fanatical work status, Cheng Er didn't even get exposed to the sun last year! It took seven years to sharpen a sword, just for a different Chinese movie. Incorporate the main melody into genre movies, and use the language and audio-visual rhythm of genre movies to achieve innovative expression of the main melody theme.

"A truly good movie must be more commercial than commercial and more artistic than art. For me, what I have always wanted to do is to be more commercial than commercial and more artistic than artistic." Cheng Er said this and did the same.

Cheng Er's images are full of subtle metaphors. Puppet Manchukuo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, the spiritual narrative about the city in "Hidden Blade" permeates the architectural language of Rongzhai, No. 76, No. 567 Xiafei Road, Central Market, and Man Mo Temple; it is hidden in Japanese, Shanghai dialect, The mixture of pidgin and Cantonese arouses emotional resonance and deep thinking in the audience.

The Puppet Manchukuo, which only exists in the dialogue between Watanabe and Mr. Ye, is like a ghost with the chill of a daydream; the isolated island in Shanghai, which occupies the main part of the film, exudes luxury and inconsistency in its exquisiteness; and Hong Kong, as the hub of the international anti-Japanese united front, is full of human fireworks, revealing a simple and soothing world.

Dark clouds are pressing down, devastation is everywhere, and at the end of the tunnel, the historical information in the image of the current situation is compressed into a minimalist narrative, waiting to be decompressed. Until the dark wormhole of the theater, the historical words in the spy war narrative rushed towards us...

The anti-Japanese drama consumes misery, the anti-war themes are reproduced in large numbers, and the massacres cause psychological discomfort... In the past, expressions of the history of national suffering often followed the rules of exposing cruelty, exposing blood, and even exchanging violence for violence. What is shocking about "Hidden Blade" is that it uses beauty to overcome ugliness. It is amazing: It turns out that suffering can be interpreted calmly, with warmth and depth! "You can't get involved in the frame," is the domineering determination of the man behind the scenes.

Light and heavy, cold and warm, it completes the unfinished soul judgment on a country's sin of aggression in reality. In the sense of cultural export, "Hidden Blade" integrates the isolated history of China's anti-Japanese resistance into the world narrative of the great history of World War II.

It is a message from the times to the times. In the theater, "Hidden Blade" makes us feel the power of literature and art. After walking out of the theater, you will naturally understand what the merits of the unknown are!

[thegooseoforegon]

Amazing Digital Circus Theory

Move over Film Theory, it is time for I, the amazing Goose of Oregon, to debut my first ever theory about something with my over the top analytical skills. (no hate towards Film Theory though. You guys are great!)

The Amazing Digital Circus is an in-universe TV show, with the main cast being trapped in it by the headsets they put on. And Jax is either a hacker hired to take it down from the inside, or hired by the ADC company to be the antagonist of the show.

To clear up the TV show theory, both Jax and Bubble (and arguably Caine) acknowledge people are watching the show. Jax points to the camera multiple times, sometimes even speaking directly to the audience, while Bubble (indirectly) acknowledges in episode 3 that kids watch this like a tv show. Yes, I know that's more of a reference to the real world, but it can swing both ways (just like me, if you catch my drift) also, they have a theme song, as seen in episode 1. Just like a kid's tv show!

Obviously Caine and Bubble are Ai assistants, higher level than a regular NPC. Meanwhile, NPCs act like monsters/sidekicks of the week, not having much motivation behind them, just being there to be there. The original main cast was also made up of AI bots, but that put the ADC company under fire from lawsuits and critics, cause let's be honest, generative AI sucks. The current main cast then unknowingly got transported into the Digital Circus by putting on those headsets, in a sort of Truman Show way.

Now for Jax

Jax has either one of two roles in this world. My first theory on him is that he's a hacker, hired by a rival company to take it down from the inside, trying to derail the show plots and get ratings down. Also be a bad role model for the children who are presumably watching the show. After a couple seasons of this, the show would be shut down, and the rest of the cast would either be released or killed.

The second theory about him is that Jax was hired by the ADC company to be an anagonist. The ADC company was under fire by critics for never having a consistent protagonist, like so many shows now adays, instead sticking to villains of the week like the Gloink queen, Gummigoo and his bandits (yes, I know he's not a villain from our viewpoint, but the show was setting him up to be a sort of sympathetic anti-villain), and The Fudge, to name, well, all of them.

Both of those theories about Jax explains why he has access to everybody's rooms, knows the camera placement, (Hacker abilities or admin access), and why he's such a dick to everybody.

Here's are the problems with this theory; Abstraction and the second part of Mildenhall Manor. We'll deal with the latter first.

The second part of Mildenhall Manor is what Pomni and Kinger went through, with the angel and hunter guy. My guess is that was meant to be either a subplot/plot B for the episode, while Ragatha, Jax, and Gangle where the main plot/plot A. (We got a view more heavily centered on Kinger and Pomni, of course.) Either that, or the show was punishing Zooble for not being compliant with what they want, or trying to help them (Zooble uses they/them prounouns, right?) feel more comfortable with the show. Probably the first one, but the second one could work.

Now for Abstraction. We all know what happens, so I'm not going over that. The question is, what happens to the IRL bodies after the ADC character abstracts? My guess is they go brain-dead and die, and the ADC company gets rid of them. I don't exactly know how they explain Abstraction in the show, but we'll have to just wait and see...

[alienteashop]

ALIEN ROMULUS

SPOILER WARNING

From Below the Cut

just want to say this is all my opinion but let's get into a rating from me lol

So overall I set a rating for Alien Romulus to a 8.5/10

This movie to me was great. there were a few drawbacks overall in which I feel took away from some of the horror elements in this movie like the amount of references to all of the other movies before it, and when I say all, I mean ALL of the movies both new and old

The thing about this movie is that I both hated and loved the fact that it was a mash up of every single alien movie before it, love in the fact that the tech was the same as the original movies (something people complained about in Prometheus) and that the original alien designs stayed the same in both looks and mannerisms

The thing I mainly disliked was the fact it was a mash up of every single movie, don't get me wrong some were really good and well done but others were kinda... cringe? In a way that you almost get second hand embarrassment from knowing them but in a laughing way

The actors I think did an amazing job and the general cinematography is great, it feels modern without taking away the old charm and tricks

The settings and placement of the general look and feel of everything was great with certain references to all movies and I believe even the game

Now I'm going to talk about the scenes in specific

just so everyone knows I'm not doing a summery I'm just talking about my favorite and or least favorite scenes

--

So in the beginning I just want to praise the use of the colony, an ALIVE colony I might add, and even though it's only a short part I do like the little insight you learn about the lives of the people and main characters, I also do like the clothes and lighting of these scene(s)

However in the beginning beginning aka the opening, they get transported fossilized rock and take it into research or whatever, not much is known other than the fact that the alien is back lol, it did kinda remind me of dead space with the artifact and it bringing the aliens along

And I think it was coolI also love the use of the androids in this film, with Andy being known as an android in the very beginning which proves to be useful later (Also I might add I do find the brother sister dynamic of the two bittersweet)

As for the facehugger scenes I absolutely loved them, I do think it was a little cliche with the whole body temperature thing and the fact that they couldn't see them because Andy said that if they sweat at all they kinda die and I felt like you would definitely sweat at that temperature especially with that stress but honestly it's kinda the nerd in me

However for the alien scene I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT I loved the use of a cacoon and the remembrance of acid for blood playing an important impact

I don't like the use of pressure in here I do feel like in space the pressure would definitely kill faster than it did/didn't but I appreciate the mention of it mainly in the ending scenes where her helmet is cracked and she didn't die? Maybe I need to catch up on space and pressure but idkkk anyway still the nerd in me

My favorite scenes were in the beginning they were walking down the halls and the lights was muahhh chefs kiss loved the tension and shot

I do genuinely like the lab part in the movie where the black liquid goop was shown as something good but was actually bad as seen with the rat transforming into its own thing

Because in the end although the Xenomorphic are parasites they are their own species in the end meaning they are going to be separate form whatever you put them in (idk if that made sense)

Now I will say I was a little hesitant when I realized in the end it was going to be a spin off of alien resurrection (aka alien 4) but I will say they did it amazingly

I do absolutely love their take of the human alien hybrid baby and the love the thing of the creature/baby eating its own mother like many species do and the creatures design is something that I will admit truthfully disturbed me the uncanny but also very human face and expressions made my skin chill a bit

I did not like the acid seen I feel like it could have been better

Final notes

--

I wrote this in my car directly after the movie so it's a little scatter brained but I needed to get it out lol

Okay truthfully that was all I really wanted to talk about I genuinely love this movie and thought it was great, and I will say that I'm just waiting for fanfiction of xenos of that one scene in the elevator where it caught Rain with it's tail, I feel as if people are going to eat that up 😂

Overall 8.5/10

Some cringey lines and scenes which are sooo obviously ripped from the past movies along with concepts but I think the movie was great and a fun time for sure

--

Also a thank you to @ozzgin for hyping the movie up for me 😆

[twenty-words-or-less]

The Crow (2024)

Summary: Eric (Bill Skarsgård) and his girlfriend Shelley (FKA Twigs) are killed by demonic crime lord Vincent Roeg. Eric is resurrected and goes on a rampage of revenge.

Gore effects and opera house sequence cannot counterbalance lack of cohesion and chemistry between leads, and weird music placement.

Rating: 1.25/5

Photo credit: Film Stories

[albertonykus]

Doraemon Movie Review: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen (1994)

What is Doraemon? The title character of the Doraemon manga and anime is a blue robotic cat from the 22nd Century who keeps an array of high-tech gadgets in a portable pocket dimension on his belly, and has traveled from the future to improve the fortunes of a hapless schoolboy named Nobita. Although relatively obscure in the English-speaking world, Doraemon is a Mickey-Mouse-level cultural icon in East Asia (and some other regions, too). The Doraemon franchise was a big part of my childhood, and there are still elements of it that I enjoy now.

Doraemon has released theatrical films almost annually since 1980, most of which involve Nobita and his friends (kind Shizuka, brash Gian, and crafty Suneo) getting swept into adventures thanks to Doraemon's gadgets. Despite being of potentially broad appeal to fans of science fiction and animated films, there are very few English reviews of the Doraemon movies, so I'm embarking on a project to write about all the films that have come out so far. Good luck to me…

Movie premise: Nobita and his friends play a fantasy RPG game in their dreams.

My spoiler-free take: Features one of the darkest and most gripping adventures in the Doraemon films, but it’s best not to think too hard about how the interplay between the dream world and reality works.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT

Review: Another childhood favorite of mine, and I had a good time seeing it again. This film boasts an arresting adventure and one of the most intimidating-looking Doraemon villains. It also ranks among the darkest Doraemon movies, with several antagonists and even main characters being killed onscreen. That’s fine though, because the entire escapade takes place in a dream, right? Not quite, because the machine facilitating it has a setting to reverse the dream world and reality! Fortunately, the protagonists manage to beat the game with the main villain thoroughly impaled through the body, courtesy of Shizuka’s quick thinking.

Shizuka-saves-the-day count (cumulative): 5

As fun as this movie is to watch, the interactions between the dream world and the real world raise many questions. How was the villain’s bird-like minion able to enter the real world before the game had even been activated? Why does the robot who retrieves the Dream-making Machine in the end look and sound like the bird person? Why is Nobita’s school suddenly on top of the hill in the closing scene of the movie? So many mysteries... To make things even more confusing, the resemblance between the bird person and the robot, as well as the the placement of the school on the hill, were not present in the manga version of this story, so they must have been deliberate creative decisions added by the filmmakers. (Yes, I’ve seen the obvious fan theories about how this all indicates that the main characters never escaped from the dream in the end.)

No time to dwell on that though, because there’s an upbeat ending song! All’s well that ends well?

(For real, the end credits song and illustrations are cute.)

Star rating: ★★★★☆

[coherentmarketinsights]

Global Oilfield Stimulation Market: Trends, Analysis, and Growth Opportunities

Oilfield Stimulation Chemicals: An Overview

What are Stimulation Chemicals? Stimulation chemicals are compounds used in oil and gas well operations to maximize productivity from reservoirs. These chemicals are used during processes like hydraulic fracturing, acidizing, and matrix stimulation treatments which help stimulate reservoir flow. Some common stimulation chemicals and their functions include: Proppants - Materials like sand or ceramic beads that are pumped into fractures created through hydraulic fracturing or acidizing to prop them open once pumping pressure is removed. This allows oil and gas to more easily flow through the induced fractures and pores to the wellbore. Acids - Various acids are used to dissolve minerals in the formation like calcite or dolomite, widening existing pores and fractures. Hydrochloric acid and other acids help increase near-wellbore permeability and conductivity. Biocides - Biocides are chemicals that kill bacteria in fracture fluids which can impede flow. They prevent bacteria from colonizing in the produced fluids and degrading the formation. Common biocides used include glutaraldehyde and polymaleic acid. Friction Reducers - Polyacrylamide polymers and other friction reducers are added to fracture fluid slurries to reduce friction pressures during pumping. They allow fluids to carry higher proppant concentrations farther through wellbores and created cracks. Corrosion Inhibitors - Chemicals like isopropanolamine help form a protective film or coating inside the wellbore and production equipment to prevent corrosion. This inhibition is important to maximize asset life and production uptime. Gellants - Chemicals that increase the viscosity of fracture fluids through crosslinking. Viscosified fluids can suspend more proppant per gallon of fluid pumped to maximize proppant placement deep inside fractures. Common gellants are guar gum and cellulose derivatives. Breakers - Used to decrease the viscosity of fracturing fluids after the job is complete so they can be recovered from the formation. Breakers enzymatically or hydrolytically degrade gelling chemistry allowing fluid flowback. What is Hydraulic Fracturing? Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a stimulation treatment employing high-pressure fluid to induce cracks in underground formations. Water, proppant, and additives are pumped downhole at pressures exceeding the fracture gradient of the rock. This creates cracks radiating away from the wellbore, providing channels for oil and gas to flow more easily. Fracturing fluid is mostly water but contains chemicals like acids, biocides, friction reducers, crosslinkers, and proppant. Pumped at pressures as high as 15,000 psi, it generates cracks up to 1000 feet long. Proppant like sand props the fractures open against reservoir pressures once pumping stops. This creates a conductive network for hydrocarbons to travel through, boosting production rates. How are Acids Used in oilfield stimulation chemicals? Acidizing refers to injection of acidic fluids into the formation to increase porosity and permeability near the wellbore. Various acids are tailored for different rock mineralogies: - Hydrochloric acid dissolves calcite and dolomite, common minerals in carbonate reservoirs. It is the most widely used acid for this purpose. - Hydrofluoric acid is more effective for dissolving siliceous materials like quartz and feldspar in sandstone reservoirs. - Acetic, formic, and other organic acids are sometimes used as alternatives or mixtures with HCl to control reaction rates. During an acidizing treatment, acid is pumped downhole and allowed to contact the formation for a set injection time. As it reacts with minerals, it widens natural and induced fractures as well as dissolving pore-filling deposits. This enhances conductivity and injectivity around the wellbore.

[denimbex1986]

'Even though I had already heard that it will disappoint high expectations, I wanted to be in on the conversation...

...it...is a thoughtful period piece. It’s more interesting than the next Marvel installment.

Though it almost drowns in the unwieldy plot, this is a movie about talent. Hitler was alienating and killing Jews in Germany, which affected the kind of talent mobilized on both sides of the war. There are several explicit references to antisemitism and motivation among physicists. Matt Yglesias observes, “They beat Heisenberg to the bomb — in part because Niels Bohr refuses to help the Nazis…”

I had written about talent and wars earlier, also concerning World War II but a different kind of doctor. “In 1939, Keynes had hired János Plesch, a Hungarian Jewish doctor who had relocated to London after fleeing Nazi persecution.”

How to manage talent becomes the challenge once brilliant scientists have been recruited to Los Alamos. The scientists did coordinate their activities enough to succeed in making the bomb, but some of the drama hinges on their rebellions against Oppenheimer. Now that machines are becoming smart, this ties into a previous post about managing artificial intelligence. “A question this raises is whether we can develop AGI that will be content to never self-actualize.”

Yet another theme of the film is the Communist movement in America in the 1930’s. I have studied this through the biographies and essays of Joy Davidman. Davidman was a committed member and then left the Party, as did several characters in the film.

And yet another tiny theme was women scientists on the project. There is a woman who complains that she was asked to be a typist even though she went to Harvard for science. Oppenheimer briskly puts her on one of the scientist teams. It goes by fast. I felt like the director was saying, “If you went to see Hidden Figures, here’s a 20 second recap of Hidden Figures for the people who like that, NEXT!” This is an example of hurrying everything in order to stuff 8 movies into 3 hours. The Advanced Placement Program® (AP) has a blog on “Women Scientists of the Manhattan Project” I know from my research on getting people to code, that women today study AP Computer Science at a considerable lower rate than male high school students.'

[picturelockshow]

"The Harder They Fall" Review: A Refreshing Western Genre Entry

The Harder They Fall is a stylish, fully realized vision from co-writer/director Jeymes Samuel. Rooted in the western genre it borrows French New Wave characteristics as well. With a stellar cast, engaging dialogue, and a bumping soundtrack, this movie is not only an entertaining watch but memorable as well. With a predominately black cast, the film tells a fictional tale of real life black cowboys who once roamed the American West.

The film starts out giving us the backstory of Nat Love (Jonathan Majors) as a child. After witnessing the murder of his parents and receiving a scar from Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), we find Nat as an adult years later on the path to accomplishing his revenge. Layered through this journey we’re introduced to Mary Fields (Zazie Beets), Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo), Trudy Smith (Regina King), and Cherokee Bill (Lakeith Stanfield) amongst other notable faces. That’s about all I’ll reveal as far as the plot goes because how the story unfolds is where so much of the enjoyment lies here. 

There are way too many beautiful shots to talk about in this film. In a scene where Cherokee Bill is introduced to us, he slowly glides down the center of the train, center framed while the rest of the gang is blocked by his head. He gives a young boy an alternative telling him to “put the gun down or we’ll kill everyone on this train”. When no movement is made, Bill draws his weapon and simultaneously arms from his gang members behind him shoot out of his head in the background. This camera placement and blocking of the actors conveys the danger while showing us in one shot in a stylistic but thoughtful use of framing. This is consistent throughout the film as Samuel uses his camera to show instead of tell.

Samuel takes his framing even further with the use of music and sound. Whether it’s pushing in on a character to the thump of a gun hitting the floor or the kick of a drum in the soundtrack, there is intentionality here. Two percussion hits reveal one character behind another in step with a camera move to the right. Samuel’s chucking of conventional framing has French New Wave influence but shows his creativity in creating a movie that draws on western genre traits while being refreshingly unique.

Cinematographer, Mihai Malaimare Jr. (The Master, Jojo Rabbit) adds his gift of painting with light here. The colors in the film are vibrant throughout while shifting from cool to warm temperature with ease. Understanding when to implement the shift in palettes may be missed by the average viewer, but it builds this story to perfection. When a character tells something from their past, warm colors are used to bolster the vulnerability of discussing an old memory. 

The dialogue in this film is handled masterfully in its delivery from each main cast member. Silence is used where it’s needed to allow the visuals of the film speak for itself. If someone speaks, it's important to the forward progression of the film’s storytelling. The southern drawl or New Orleans accent of characters not only rings authentic, but serves as a layer to this delicious cake of a film. The soundtrack of the film fills in the role of an additional, unseen character, telling a part of this tale. Turn on the subtitles and you’ll see the lyrics align perfectly with each scene they are heard in.

At a two hour and ten minute running time, you won’t notice it. The Harder They Fall is engaging from start to finish and if we got more from this world we’d be lucky! Grab your popcorn and turn on Netflix as soon as you can!

Rating: A

[theadusa]

All the dramas I’ve watched in 2020

These are all the dramas that I watched in 2020, with some review there should be NO Spoilers. I think I watched a lot more than usual probably because what else am I supposed to do between school and quarantine. So this is gonna be a long one...

Crash Landing on You (Lee Jung-hyo, 2019-2020)

Main Leads: Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin

Episodes: 16, 70 to 110 Minutes 

Thoughts: I enjoyed this drama, and it was a good one to start 2020 with. I thought it was a perfect blend of romance, comedy, heartfelt, found family, action, and some tragedy. I would highly recommend it, especially for those who are new to Kdramas. Also fun fact this is my first Hyun Bin drama. Rating: Fun and adorable

Tale of Nokdu (Kim Dong-hwi, 2019)

Main Leads: Jang Dong Yoon and Kim So Hyun

Episodes: 32, 35 minutes

Thoughts: I actually started watching this when it was airing but I stopped around episode 13 because of my busy schedule and finished it in the new year. I adore the main couple, the romance, comedy, the found family, and the women center story. I thought it shined the brightest when it was focused on the group and its funny and warm moments but once it got too political it kinda fell flat. I loved the ending, however. Also, I really like Jang Dong Young as an actor, I saw him in Solomon’s Perjury (2016) and Mr. Sunshine (2018) and I loved how he played Nok Du too. Rating: I love a women’s only widow village

I’ll Find You When The Weather is Nice (Han Ji-seung, 2020)

Main Leads: Seo Kang Joon and Park Min Young

Episodes: 16, 60 minutes 

Thoughts: I really liked this drama, probably one of my favorites this year. As you will notice I enjoy quieter and more slow-burn stories. Also, I am a fan of Park Min Young she tends to pick more interesting and strong-willed female roles, so it is really enjoyable to watch.  Rating: makes me want to own a book store.

King: The Eternal Monarch (Kim Eun-sook, 2020)

Main Leads: Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun

Episodes: 16, 70 Minutes

Thoughts: Confession; I am actually not the biggest fan of Lee Min Ho, nothing against him I just hate rich bratty characters and he tends to play them. However, I surprisingly really liked his character, he wasn’t a rich brat he actually was likable. I also really like Kim Go Eun, she is actually one of the main reasons why I watched and also with all the hype around it. Woo Do Hwan, who I have always liked, stole the whole show, however. I didn’t hate it like a lot of people, I really liked the characters, I liked the romance and the action. Also, Lee Min Ho and Kim Go Eun’s hugs were absolutely fabulous. It wasn’t my favorite and there were too many product placements, but I don’t think it was the worst drama this year. Rating: Lukewarm 

A Piece of your mind (Lee Sang-yeob, 2020)

Main Leads: Jung Hae In and Chae Soo Bin

Episodes: 12, 70 minutes

Thoughts: I actually really liked this drama despite the low views, again I’m big on slow burn stories and character focus. I believe the episodes were cut from 16 to 12 I don’t know exactly why maybe because of the Pandemic or due to viewership or a mixture of both. Despite its being cut short I really liked the ending, and I thought the two leads were sweet. Rating: Wish we had more time to develop the characters.

Its Okay not to be Okay (Park Shin Woo, 2020) 

Main Leads: Kim Soo Hyun and Seo Yea Ji and Oh Jung Se 

Episodes: 16, 70 to 85 minutes

Thoughts: Out of all the dramas I talked the most about this one. I have always been a fan of Seo Yea Ji since Save Me (2017) and Lawless Lawyer (2018) and I am happy to see her getting more recognition because of this role. The entire cast was amazing and I think I cried every episode. Such a good and heart-wrenching drama which is why I chose to watch it before work every time. Rating: I would let Seo Yea Ji stab me with a knife anytime.

Mystic Pop up bar (Jeon Chang-geun, 2020) 

Main Leads: Hwang Jung Eum and Yook Sung Jae and Choi Won Young

Episodes: 12, 70 minutes

Thoughts: I actually watched this while I was watching Its Okay Not to Be Okay and it was a nice balance to it because this was more of a found family story with less heartbreaking moments. Though it did have its share of heartbreak. I really liked all the characters and their relationship. Also, I am a sucker for bureaucratic fantasy/ magic, and kdramas are so good at it. Rating: I wish it was 16 episodes. 

When the Camila Bloom (Cha Yeong Hoon, 2019) 

Main Leads: Gong Hyo Jin and Kang Ha Neul

Episodes: 20, 63 to 75 minutes

Thoughts: I liked the story overall, the romance was cute and the mystery was interesting but I thought the family expectations was the best part of the story. This was not my favorite drama, but it was enjoyable and heartfelt. I watched it right after It's Okay Not to Be Okay and while I was watching Flower of Evil (2020) which probably is why I was so underwhelmed by it. Rating: Sweet romance and adorable found family.

Flower of Evil (Kim Cheol Kyu, 2020) 

Main Leads: Lee Joon Gi and Moon Chae Won

Episode:16, 70 minutes

Thoughts: This was my favorite drama of this year. I went into this drama not thinking much of it, and I mainly watched it as a post drama blues drama. It was an action and thriller which I mainly don’t get attached to plus I am a huge fan of Lee Joon Gi. I should have known better, I cared so much about all the characters, the acting phenomenal, also every time they showed their hands I cried. This drama left me shriveled and empty inside. Rating: Lee Joon Gi will literally kill me one day. 

Put Your Head On My Shoulders (Zhu Dongning, 2019) 

Main Leads: Xing Fei and Lin Yi 

Episodes: 24, 40 to 45 minutes

Thoughts: This is the first Chinese drama on this list. I thought it was cute, I liked the couple and thought it was alright. I started to dislike the male lead later in the series but it was overall fine. It was basic and sweet with very little drama. Rating: It did its job.

The School Nurse Files ( Lee Kyoung Mi, 2020)

Main Leads: Jung Yu Mi and Nam Joo Hyuk

Episodes: 6,  45 to 57 minutes

Thoughts: This is probably my second favorite drama. I couldn’t tell what happened in the drama but I loved it. I thought it was weird and fascinating, and just so magical. I loved the children and just how the whole school was just off its rocker. I also think that Nam Joo Hyuk does really well in serious roles, and I thought he did a really good job here. Rating: 1 jelly heart.  

Mr. Heart (Park Sun Jae, 2020) 

Main Leads: Cheon Seung Ho and Lee Se Jin

Episodes: 8, 11 Minutes

Thoughts: This was 8 episodes of start fluff and I adored it. Apparently, it is apart of a BL series by Park Sun Jae and there is a movie version that I haven’t watched. If you want to destress and watch just fluff this is the show for you. Rating: If it is any sweeter I would be going to the dentist. 

You are My Destiny ( Ding Ying Zhou, 2020) 

Main Leads: Xing Zhao Lin  and Liang Jie

Episodes: 36, 45 minutes

Thoughts: I hated this drama, I thought it was the worst thing ever. I don’t know why I even watched all 36 episodes. Apparently, it is a remake of a popular 2008 Twaniese drama Fated to Love You and there is a Korean remake of it as well. I have watched neither of them, so I was brand new to this story. I hated, despised the male lead. He was whiny, entitled, and an asshole. The only good part of the drama was the male and female lead actually had a lot of chemistry, unfortunately, they are playing awful characters. Rating: This was made in 2020???

First Romance (Ding Pei, 2020) 

Main Leads: Wan Peng and Riley Wang

Episodes: 24, 45 Minutes

Thoughts: This is another Chinese drama. Similar to Mr. Heart (2020) this show was super fluffy. I really liked the main couple they seem to respect each other and they both had adorable crushes on each other. I loved the whole dumb jock and dumb artist dynamic it was so funny. Rating: Cute!!! 

Lost Romance ( Eri Hao, 2020) 

Main Leads: Marcus Chang and Vivian Sung

Episodes: 20, 70 minutes 

Thoughts: This is the only Twainese drama on this list. I think I liked this drama, I actually only remember very little of this drama. I like the CEO in the real world more than the book world, and I also really liked the female lead except she lowkey stalked the CEO like that was not okay. Rating: I think I liked it???

When We Were Young ( Deng Ke, Liu Guo Hui, 2018)

Main Leads: Neo Hou and Wan Peng and Gala Zhang and Pan Mei and Ye Marcus Li

Episodes: 24, 45 minutes

Thoughts: I really liked this film, I loved all the characters and thought it was all very heartfelt. I cried like a baby, and Hua Biao was such a touching and relatable character. And the whole grandma story hit so close to home. Rating: Made me cry like a baby.

Moment of 18 ( Sim Na Yeon, 2019)

Main Leads: Ong Seong Wu and Kim Hyang Gi

Episodes: 16, 70 minutes

Thoughts: I really liked this drama, and I thought the romance was so cute. I also really liked the relationship between the moms and was sad that the rich mom was a bitch and ruined the friendship. I also wasn’t a big fan of the ending, but I loved the rest of it. Rating: The main lead is part of a boy group because he had a random singing moment. 

Perfect and Casual ( Li Shuang, 2020) 

Main Leads: Miles Wei and Xu Ruo Han

Episodes: 24, 45 minutes

Thoughts: This is another Chinese drama on this list. I’m pretty sure it's considered an Idol drama so that sets your expectations. I really liked this drama a lot, I am a big fan of contract marriages and I thought the leads were so cute together. Also, this is the first contract marriage drama where the leads don’t break up which I like. A lot of the drama came from outside of the relationship. Rating: You can’t analyze love.

Le Coup De Foudre ( Wang Zhi, 2019) 

Main Leads: Janice Wu and Zhang Yujian

Episodes: 35, 45 minutes

Thoughts: My favorite Chinese drama on this list. I loved this drama, I thought it was sweet and simple and the main couple was so realistic. Unpopular opinion I disliked the second couple and the best friend I thought she was annoying and brattish. However, I adore the main couple and their relationship. Rating: Realistic sweet romance. 

More Than Friends ( Choi Sung Bum, 2020)

Main Leads: Ong Seong Wu and Shin Ye Eun

Episodes: 16, 70 minutes

Thoughts: I enjoyed the overall story and characters. I loved the group and their relationships. Also, Young-Hee made me cry, and her relationship with Hyun Jae was so sweet. The main leads were also sweet, and I related a lot to Lee So. I just didn’t like the back and forth. Rating: How many times can we break up in a drama. 

Be With You ( Zhou Miao, 2020) 

Main Leads: Ji Xiao Bing and Zhang Ya-Qin

Episodes: 24, 45 minutes

Thoughts: This is the last Chinese drama I watched this year. It was alright, the romance was sweet, I really like the female lead, and the male lead was nice to look at. It was okay. Also, the second couple was so ??? She was his boss, enemy, and older than him, what?? Rating: Sometimes you need to fall in love to be creative. 

Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo ( Kim Kyu Tae, 2016) 

Main Leads: Lee Joon Gi and Lee Ji Eun (IU) 

Episodes: 20, 60 minutes

Thoughts: I know I am really late watching this, but I finally did. I went in knowing this would hurt me and Lee Joon Gi already scared me this year ( damn this man) so I was fully prepared. I really wasn’t,  it so much. (SPOIlERS) When Wang Eun and Park Soon Deok died I sob like a baby (SPOILER ENDING). It took me a long time to finish this show because its heart so much, like it physically hurt me. The show was really good, and heartbreaking, and the ending stabs me in the heart 20 times. Rating: Lee Joon Gi is trying to kill me with tears. 

Persona ( Lee Kyoung Mi, Yim Pil Sung, Jeon Go Woon, and Kim Jong Kwan, 2019) 

Main Leads: Lee Ji Eun (IU) 

Episodes: 4, 19 to 27

Thoughts: This is a collection of mini-films by directors. 4 separate stories are starring Lee Ji Eun. I thought all of them good, especially “ Kiss Burn” and “Walking at Night.” There isn’t much else to this, more than it is an artistic display of filmmaking. Rating: Hipster Kdrama

Come and Hug Me ( Choi Joon-bae, 2018) 

Main Leads: Jang Ki-Yong and Jin Ki-Joo

Episodes: 32, 35 minutes

Thoughts: I actually just finished this show today. I really liked it, I thought it was both sweet and heartwarming/wrenching. I hated that one journalist and the public like why are they blaming a victim. I didn’t watch it with my full mind because I’ve been distracted lately, but I did enjoy it. Rating: another cute but sad couple. 

Movies I watched this year: 

Spell Bound ( Hwang In Ho, 2011)

Main Cast: Son Ye Jin and Lee Min Ki

Running Time: 114 Minutes

Thoughts: I watched this at like 12 am after a bad day and it was cute. I love RomCom fantasy, which I think Korean media does really well. I don’t know what else to say except it is a really cute romance. Rating: Is it the ghost or the butterflies

The Host ( Bong Joon Ho, 2006)

Main Cast: Song Kang Ho and Byun Hee Bong and Park Hae Il and Bae Doona and Go, Ah Sung

Running Time: 119

Thoughts: This film I had to actually watch for class. It was a really good film which is expected from Bong Joon Ho. I love monster films and I thought this was a good rendition of this film. Also, The monster was so cool especially from 2006. I thought it was heartbreaking, stirring, and so beautifully shot. Rating: Oscar-worthy Direction 

Little Forest ( Yim Soon-rye, 2018) 

Main Cast: Kim Tae Ri  and Ryu Jun Yeol and Moon So Ri and Jin Ki Joo

Running Time: 103 minutes

Thoughts: I really, really liked this film. It reminded me so much of I’ll Find You When The Weather is Nice (2020) that I thought that it was based on this film but it isn’t. I have watched this film 3 times since October and every time I watch it have made bread. I really just love everything about this film, how quiet it is, the cinematography, the acting, just everything. Rating: Three loaves of bread. 

Always ( Song Il Gon, 2011)

Main Cast: So Ji Sub and Han Hyo Joo

Running Time: 106 Minutes

Thoughts: I thought it was okay, I watched it while I was knitting so I was distracted a bit. But I thought the couple was sweet, and the characters were interesting. Rating: It's Okay.

       Currently watching 

True Beauty ( Kim Sang-hyeop, 2020-) 

Main Cast: Moon Ga Young and Cha Eun Woo and Hwang In Yeop

Episodes: 16, 70 minutes 

Thoughts: This is currently an ongoing series that is actually really popular. Apparently, it is based on a webtoon, which I haven’t read. I like it so far, I always liked Moon Ga Young and I think she is a great actress. She plays Im Ju Kyung in a likable and insecure way, instead of someone annoying which could easily happen. I will be continuing watching. Rating so far: Okey dokey yo.

Live On ( Kim Sang-woo, 2020-) 

Main Cast: Jung Da Bin and Hwang Min Hyun

Episodes: 8?, 60 Minutes

Thoughts: I really Like this show. The main couple is sweet and supportive. I really like the female lead, I like that she is cold and kinda quiet, but with a sweet spot if you are not a dick. I really like the main relationship conflict comes from friendship instead of romance, I think it makes the show more interesting. Rating: I want to Join a Broadcast group.  

On My List: 

I actually don’t have anything else on my list so if anyone has recommendations please tell me. I am thinking about watching Mr. Queen ( 2020) because I really like Shin Hye Sun. I also want to watch Sweet Home (2020) the Netflix series. But please recommend me some dramas!!!

This is such a long list, and I had fun doing it and going back over all the dramas. I hope everyone has a good New year and that we will have many more good dramas in 2021!

[johannesviii]

A Useless Post Rating the Preppers From Death Stranding

Because I can and I will. I got super attached to some of these bunches of pixels while playing, and I want to share my useless and extra subjective opinions

No plot-related spoilers. This is only listing the Preppers and not any Bridges employee from the various cities and facilities. No reasonable individuals to be found here, only strange people living in bunkers, baby

Let’s go

The Ludens Fan

Shelter placement: On a mountain, right between a Timefall zone and MULE territory, and not on any obvious delivery route. Not great. The view is super nice, though. 6/10

Prepper: A cinnamon roll who believes the world will be saved by fandoms and games. Always happy to see you. Gets super excited when you find old figurines for him. Sends lost stuff to people he doesn’t even know. Has toy dinosaurs.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: He is a Friend. 9/10

The Musician

Shelter placement: Hidden behind a little cliff, on a mountain, in a patch of nice fresh moss, next to a cool waterfall, overlooking the whole valley. Not on any delivery route whatsoever but come on. This guy is living the dream. 10/10

Prepper: Talks to you as if he’s known you since highschool. Has an emo haircut. Very passionate about rock albums from the “beginning of the 21st century” so I’m assuming he’s a fellow MCR fan. The walls of his shelter are covered in vinyls. Wants to create and share the music of the future for free. Streams his concerts on the chiral network.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A harmonica. You can play it. I’m in love

Opinion while playing: Hell yeah what a cool dude 10/10

The Engineer

Shelter placement: In plain view right next to a huge road and two MULE territories. Dude didn’t even try to hide and his packages are stolen all the time. At least the weather is nice? 3/10

Prepper: Has spent his entire life inside of this bunker since birth. Polite and a bit shy. Has a friendly smile. Judging by the amount of alcohol we deliver to him, feels lonely. Sometimes you’ll find gallons of lube with his name on it and he’ll refuse to give any kind of explanation and to be fair the guy probably uses it for all his mechanical inventions. But deep down, we know.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the Power Skeleton. You know you want them.

Opinion while playing: Another Friend. I will judge him silently every time I have to bring him his lost lube though. 9/10

The Craftsman

Shelter placement: Next to a huge road on a plain ravaged by Timefall, between two MULE territories and a voidout crater choke-full of BTs. Can potentially see the nightmarish ruins of a roadside factory and a traffic jam where everyone clearly got killed. I don’t know if I hate it or respect the shit out of it. 2/10

Prepper: Suspicious of us. Sends us on a suicide mission to fetch old equipment in a terrifying place. Hates Fragile, so we can’t be friends. Likes to fix broken watches, apparently. A lot of his lost packages seem to be special reinforced underwear. I’m curious but also I don’t want to pry.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Custom hematic grenades. Can’t live without them.

Opinion while playing: A suspicious little shit and I don’t trust him but he’s still a good ally. 5/10

The Elder

Shelter placement: On a majestic plateau in the middle of the region, overlooking everything. Not on any obvious route, which is a problem, but also away from danger, Timefall and MULEs. A green little patch of heaven. 9/10

Prepper: Old and kind but takes no shit from anybody. All of his emails are like “anyway, f█ck the government and f█ck this country” and I’m living for it. Will give away old photo albums, books and games predating the Death Stranding, in hope they can be shared with other people and their kids. Wholesome as hell.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: The most valid boomer you will ever see. My adoptive grandfather and I must protect him at all costs. 10/10

Peter Englert

Shelter placement: Not on any obvious delivery route but right next to Lake Knot City on a plain ravaged by Timefall. You can see Middle Knot City’s crater from there. Not a bad spot, but also no good vibes whatsoever. 6/10

Prepper: Never at home, has no hologram and keeps finding terrible excuses not to be there, which is rude. Possibly imaginary friends and relatives. Writes extremely long and well-spoken, obsequious, smarmy emails to you and you’ll receive them at the worst possible moments, like he just knows. Only interested in pizza, and you.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Hope you like high quality guns, and very disturbing journal entries.

Opinion while playing: Was literally calling him my nemesis even BEFORE learning anything about the guy. The best and the worst prepper at the same time. Go f█ck yourself, dude, I love you. Pizza/10

The Timefall Farmer and the Environmental Scientist

Shelter placement: Right next to a huge MULE territory. There’s the Tar Belt in the distance and no city, road or friends for miles. Very awkward. 4/10

Preppers: Planned to study the effects of Timefall on plants and became farmers instead. They are not enjoying it one bit and you’re under the impression they occasionally get on each other’s nerves even though they’ve been colleagues for years. The concept of their farm is a fantastic bit of worldbuilding, though, but they are a bit bland themselves.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A goose hologram. I need it

Opinion while playing: They’re super nice but their general weariness is too contagious for comfort. 4/10

The Film Director

Shelter placement: In the middle of jagged rocks, reasonably far away from local MULEs and Timefall, but also from any kind of road or decent delivery route. The ground is a poisonous reddish brown with occasional smoke. Ominous. 5/10

Prepper: Really worried about ancient media getting lost and forgotten, and will do anything to save old movies from oblivion. Trusts you instantly. Is always surprised you brought something for him, or just thought about him, and it’s heartwarming to see. Geeks about things he likes in your emails when he isn’t low-key flirting with you. Has the most epic beard you will ever see in your life.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A rock hologram. Uh?

Opinion while playing: Came for the geeking, stayed for the flirting  8/10

The Collector

Shelter placement: Inside a cavern two-thirds up a vertical rock face in a canyon slap bang in the middle of MULE territory. Invisible from ground level, and invisible from the bottom of the canyon. The MULEs live literally next door and don’t even know the guy is there. No chill whatsoever. Incredible. What a king. 10/10

Prepper: Shaped like a friend. Loves videogames and loves geeking about them. Fascinated by pre-Stranding press like “people were buying newspapers? On real paper?? :O”. Really wants you to read his emails because he’s got nobody to share his special interests with. Wants to write about your adventures to inspire other people. Occasionally you’ll find a lost package with a vintage playstation and you know it’s for him even without looking at the name on the tag.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A backpack cover to protect your stuff from Timefall?? holy shit?

Opinion while playing: We have no choice but to stan. 9/10

The Junk Dealer

Shelter placement: On a heavily polluted, rust-colored hill in the middle of a scrapyard full of broken down cars, overlooking both MULE and BT territory AND some f█cking terrifying ruins on all sides. It’s metal as shit, but also, the dude’s got a death wish. 3/10

Prepper: Tries to emotionally blackmail us with videos of his supposedly dead girlfriend. Very rude. Sends us on a suicide mission in BT territory to look for junk just for a laugh. Is such a piece of shit he got divorced by a woman who was willing to be carried under heavy Timefall through a horde of BTs to see him. Killed his girlfriend’s parents and didn’t tell her.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the Speed skeleton, and also chiral ladders, which are both life-saving, and I hate the fact that I need those so much.

Opinion while playing: A piece of shit and a terrible human being. Go sit on some rusty metal in BT territory, my dude. 1/10

The Chiral Artist and her Mother

Shelter placement: Overlooking a bottomless lake of tar and depressing ruins plagued by Timefall, far from civilisation but also far from trouble. Depressing, but safe. 6/10

Preppers: A little ray of sunshine. Capable of planning a journey on foot while avoiding Timefall and BTs after having done the trip exactly once (1) and on our back, which makes her one of the bravest Preppers we ever meet. Talented as hell with chiralium. Very awkward speech patterns and elocution which I always find relatable. Makes extremely bad choices regarding her love life. Will send you likes in a cringy but cute way. I don’t really trust her adoptive mother too much but she seems to be friends with the Cosplayer and any friend of the Cosplayer is my friend.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Chiral boots. Literally the most useful thing anyone anywhere gave me in this game. No matter how far I am from her and her mom I will backtrack to get some brand new chiral boots from her every time I need them. They are that good

Opinion while playing: I love her but she’s making extremely bad life choices and it’s giving me mild anxiety 8/10

The Cosplayer and the Wandering MC

Shelter placement: At the very bottom of a long, narrow canyon plagued by Timefall, inside a vertical hole in the ground. How they haven’t both drowned yet is beyond me. This is the worst idea ever. 1/10

Prepper: Both of them are always super excited to see you. Trade a ton of art and crafts supplies back and forth with everyone in the region. Organised a goddamn post-apo cosplay convention through the chiral network. She considers cosplay to be ‘the art of transformation’, and he’s a big fan of you, and also otters. Otter facts. Dad Jokes to the max. Legends only

Will I get something nice if I help them: Backpack custom options. And the otter hood. Come on. Who doesn’t want to look like an otter. According to the MC it was “threaded and triple stitched by [his] cosplay partner using silk”. I don’t deserve this gift

Opinion while playing: Just because it’s the apocalypse doesn’t mean you can’t look and feel your best 10/10

The Doctor and the Medical Device Engineer

Shelter placement: Overlooking a little river in the mountains, right before the snow starts. Extremely close to Mountain Knot City. Practical and beautiful. Lovely spot. 8/10

Preppers: She invented and crafted a medical terminal that allows doctors to examine patients remotely through the network, and distributed it for free. He’s sitting on years of medical knowledge and stockpiles of meds, and also sharing both with everyone. Got married because they admired each other so much and shared a common hatred of the lack of medical assistance post-Stranding. Two absolute angels. We don’t deserve them

Will I get something nice if I help them: Custom blood bags. A must during boss fights.

Opinion while playing: A bit too serious, but mad respect. 7/10

The Photographer

Shelter placement: In the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, overlooking the valley, but away from everything and everyone, next to BT territory and daaaangerously close to the biggest Demens camp in the entire country. Who told you this was a good idea. 4/10

Prepper: The walls of her shelter are decorated with photos of beautiful landscapes. Friendly but takes no shit. Constantly trying to go out to take pictures of cool places and weird paleoart and stuff even though there’s a whole gang of terrorists outside firing live ammo at anyone on sight. Her cameras get stolen all the time, and yet she keeps doing it again and again. Judging by one delivery she sent to Mountain Knot City, she even has footage of Edge Knot City. You know. The unreachable nightmarish place beyond the f█cking Tar Belt. HOW

Will I get something nice if I help them: Guns because she clearly has no chill

Opinion while playing: This woman has more nerves in her left pinky than I have in my entire f█cking body. We stan a queen 9/10

The Novelist’s Son

Shelter placement: In a vast, beautiful green plain full of rivers and lakes, kind of in the middle of nowhere but also at a safe distance of the Demens territory. It’s painted the same green as the rest of the plain, which is a stroke of genius. 8/10

Prepper: Considering his title and the fact that the walls of his shelter are full of bookshelves, I expected a pretentious writer of sorts. But no. He doesn’t write. He’s just a soft boy who wants to save the world with plants. Will make sure you read his emails because he’s very passionate about gardening, gourds and mythology, and wants to talk about it with everyone. Too good for this world, too pure.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Special cryptobiotes! Pretty cool. I want to save some for Fragile

Opinion while playing: I love him I love thinking about him 10/10

The Roboticist

Shelter placement: High in the mountains, but in some sort of hollow, surrounded by snow and rocks on all sides. There’s also a nice hot spring nearby. Feels strangely safe and pleasant for such an isolated spot. 7/10

Prepper: Super approachable and quite friendly. Clearly a genius considering how good the all-terrain skeleton is. The stuff she’s looking for goes from stuff for her projects to a plush for her kid or a vintage coffee machine. Her emails, meanwhile, are shit-your-pants terrifying, like her wondering if machines should replace humans, or pranking you by pretending she was dead the whole time and her hologram is an IA. Thank you for the heart attack.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Upgrades for the all-terrain skeleton, hell yeah baby

Opinion while playing: I’m very conflicted because her emails are scary as shit but if she stepped on my face I’d say “thank you” 8/10

The Mountaineer and the Mountain Guide

Shelter placement: On top of a mountain but in a relatively flat and safe area, very isolated but also far from Beached Things, with good visibility. There’s logic to the madness. 6/10

Preppers: Initially in panic mode due to a medical emergency. Tough outside, but soft inside. He gives you precious advice about whiteouts and how to deal with them and stay alive in the mountains. We don’t know much about her, except she used to explore the mountains using chiral climbing anchors. Just speculation but I’m under the impression they met one day on a super dangerous expedition and ended together because they were both tough as nails, or maybe because they saved each other. Their kid is going to be unstoppable.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Chiral climbing anchors.

Opinion while playing: Wholesome couple of adventurers. A bit bland, but in a good way 7/10

The Spiritualist

Shelter placement: On a mountain peak in the middle of a whiteout area, but sometimes the weather can be decent and the view pretty nice, if you squint. Getting there feels like a test to join a secret cult and I don’t like that one bit. 3/10

Prepper: Twin sister of the Cosplayer, but gives off a very different vibe, like some sort of white suburban mom who’s discovering new age stuff. Has a very mystical approach to this whole apocalypse thing but seems to be wayyy too much into it for comfort. Really wants to see the Beach and tries to do so through meditation. We can receive chemicals from her. I do NOT want to know what’s in there.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A RACCOON HOLOGRAM?? I LOVE IT

Opinion while playing: Harmless but she scares me. 3/10

The First Prepper

Shelter placement: On a nearly inaccessible mountain peak battered by snow storms. The slope is so dangerous I straight up died once while walking on it. Absolutely nothing for miles and no visibility. That’s not a shelter, that’s a coffin. 1/10

Prepper: Apparently his family has lived in shelters ever since the beginning of the Cold War, then decided to stay there in case the world would end in the year 2000, then because of the Bush era, and long story short the guy is like “I did it before it was cool” and he’s literally gatekeeping other Preppers and calling them amateurs. Tries really hard to convince us to stop helping people and get our own shelter. At least he admits self-sufficiency is a mirage in the end, which is more than I expected from this clown.

Will I get something nice if I help them: A hat, and a wolf hologram

Opinion while playing: When the nicest thing I have to say about a Prepper is “well they’re not hurting anybody”, you know it’s bad. What a jerk 2/10

The Evo-Devo Biologist

Shelter placement: On an isolated snow slope away from civilisation, overlooking ruins and geysers in the distance. Not far from BT territory and terrorists, but still at a reasonable distance. Next to a hot spring. The view is majestic as f█ck. 9/10

Prepper: Looks strict and gives off severe teacher vibes, but you’re under the impression that’s purely because she hasn’t seen or talked to another human being in years. Polite but distant. Thinks the sixth mass extinction is a golden opportunity for science, and inevitable, and that we should study the shit out of it even if we end up dying. She’s not wrong exactly but also, yikes

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: I genuinely have no idea. An enigma. 5/10

The Geologist

Shelter placement: High in the mountains on a desolate snowy slope, completely isolated from everything. I think I’ve seen a movie about that kind of place once, except it was a hotel. 2/10

Prepper: The first package we bring to him is a shipment of meds to fight chiral contamination. No more nightmares or suicidal thoughts after that, so he’s ok. Also he’s obsessed with Heartman to the point you wonder if he’s got a crush on him, belittles himself and his work constantly, and also thinks saving the world is a waste of time and effort. No no he’s still ok, he swears. But yeah uh. Dude is clearly one small step away from blowing a fuse and going full Demens, we need to sit down and talk about your problems my friend

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: I like him but he worries me a lot and I’m a bit scared for him 7/10

The Paleontologist

Shelter placement: In a little valley in the mountains, where grass and snow meet, miles away from civilisation and roads, but also miles away from problems. If there wasn’t this pit full of toxic gas literally next door, this would be perfect. 8/10

Prepper: Likes to complain about everything and everyone. A bit rude but more in a familiar way than an unpleasant way. Extremely passionate about fossils and prehistoric stuff and gets super excited about ammonites in particular. Mentions exploring a place full of toxic gas without any kind of protection just to fetch some neat rocks once, so we both clearly have the same level of survival instincts when our special interests are involved.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really, unless you count level 2 Hematic Grenades

Opinion while playing: Relatable as shit. I feel like I’d be this guy if I existed in this game’s world. 9/10

The Veteran Porter

Shelter placement: Nowhere Man lives on a very abrupt slope full of rocks in the middle of Nowhereburg, Nowhere State, Nowherica. You get the feeling he knows the region like the back of his hand and picked that spot exactly for that reason and frankly, I have to respect that. 7/10

Prepper: Ex-Porter with a damaged spine. A retired adventurer, exhausted after carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Higgs used to be his boss back when he was still working at Fragile Express so the dude has massive trust issues now and I won’t argue with that. Initially suspicious of us and Bridges, for good reasons. Every time I found a super isolated bunker signed under Fragile Express I was like “woah their employees were hardcore to find all these places that Bridges couldn’t find”, and he’s one of these guys, and I get it now. And he’s tired. So tired. A whole mood.

Will I get something nice if I help them: Not really.

Opinion while playing: Unlike the First Prepper I respect the shit out of him and I want him to enjoy his well-earned retirement 8/10

[stella-monstrum]

Bride Of Chucky (1998), Rated R [A beginners crash course]

WARNING: This article contains clips and photos that I do not own and are simply including to watch along with this article. NSFW CONTENT AND POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD)

(Written by Stella, edited by Jacob J.)

In the era of “semi charmed” living, the birth of Viagra, & heartthrob Leo, 1998 was also a time for some unique box office horror films.

For my first post, I want to really dive into the Don Mancini Chucky franchise. I have a history and (albeit irrational) fear of the twisted “Good Guy,” but dammit—I figured it wouldn’t really hurt to give Bride of Chucky a view for the first time.

To be fair, I did go into this without watching Child’s Play at all. If you, like me, are new to horror, let’s be honest—skipping it completely wouldn’t hurt. Let’s start by talking about the cast, shall we?

We’re joined once again by Brad Douriff (as notorious serial killer Charles Lee Ray—AKA Chucky), this time with a new slate of co-stars to join him.

Jennifer Tilly as Ray’s scorned ex-lover (Tiffany Valentine),

Romeo & Juliet like lovers Katharine Heigl (Jade) and Nick Stabile (Jesse),

Their best friend (and somewhat voice of reason), David (Gordon Michael Woolvett)

Chief Warren Kincaid (John Ritter), Jade’s shitty cop dad

Lieutenant Preston (Lawrence Dane)

Norton (Michael Louis Johnston), Warren’s officer rat

From L-R: David, Jesse, Jade, Warren, and Norton. (Screencap, Bride of Chucky, 1998)

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To sum the film up, Tiffany Valentine sets up an officer to bring her the ripped-to-shreds “Good Guy” so she can hold a ritual to put Ray’s soul back into the body of Chucky. From then on, the film deals with commitment issues, Tiffany ending up in the body of the “bride”, and two HS teens who run away on a road trip to New Jersey when Jesse gets paid to take the (unknowingly) possessed dolls to the gravesite of Charles Lee Ray. Moreso, shit goes south very quickly when Jesse and Jade get framed for the murder spree that the dolls commit.

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Now to the nitty gritty of what I loved, hated, and honorable mentions of the 1hr 29min film:

(Cont)

LOVES:

1) Balance of well-timed comedic one-liners, masochism, and satisfying kills

Let’s face it—every shitty character that a film makes you hate from the get-go eventually gets what’s coming to them.

—The karma-filled death of Officer Warren. Whilst Jesse and Jade believe that Warren is not home, they pack for their little road trip. Warren shows up to plant drugs into the van, which makes Tiffany and Chucky take matters into their evil little doll hands so that their plans don’t get derailed. Tiffany lures Warren to the front of the vehicle, only for him to be met with a face full of nails ejected from opening the booby-trapped glove box.

(Screencap, Bride of Chucky, 1998) (If you’re curious, you can view the scene HERE) 

Talk about getting NAILED, but not in the fun way HAHA

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My most favorite thing about the film BY FAR? The comedic and perfectly timed one-liners.

 —On the theme of masochism, after Jesse and Jade elope at one of those cheesy quick marriage chapels, they spend the night in the honeymoon suite. They meet a swinging and swindling couple who steal the $500 Tiffany left for Jesse to make the trip. Tiffany and Chucky catch the woman and sneak away to get their revenge after Jesse and Jade fall asleep. The swingers die (in a very cool, albeit horrible, way) when Tiffany throws a bottle of champagne into the voyeurism mirror above the bed, leaving the swingers a shredded bloody mess amidst pieces of now-shredded waterbed. [Pt. 1, you can view HERE.)

 Valentine’s brilliance gets Chucky…“going” (look, I feel weird even typing that), and they decide to act out what every kid does with dolls when their parents aren’t looking. In the middle, Tiffany asks Chucky, “Do you have a rubber”? To which Chucky replies that he’s made of rubber.  (Okay, view at own risk of ruining your childhood HERE.)

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2) Story & timeline recap and consistency

Like I mentioned in the beginning of this review, you really don’t need to watch “Child’s Play” to get the gist of this film whatsoever.

—When we’re introduced to Tiffany’s trailer home, the camera takes a brilliant panoramic stroll across a shelf of newspaper clippings that she had kept. These clippings detail the date when Charles Lee Ray (Chucky) was caught & killed, as well as the snippets of Andy telling the police that the “Good Guy” doll was responsible for the murders all the way in 1988’s first installment.

The Heart of Damballa” AKA the Amulet

—When Chucky gets back at Tiffany for keeping his doll form locked up in a wooden play-pen, he eventually escapes, electrocutes Tiff in the bathtub, and transfers her body into the bride doll that she got to give Chucky as a sick joke (will explain later on). When they’re both stuck in their new bodies, Chucky explains (as the film shows), that when Charles died, he had the amulet around his neck that transferred his soul (as seen in Child’s Play)—hence the road trip to get it so they can do the same with living potential vessels, Jesse and Jade. 

[The Heart of Damballa, buried with Charles Lee Ray. (Screencap, Bride of Chucky, 1998)]

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DISLIKES:

1) The extremely hot/cold cat-and-mouse game between Chucky and Tiffany throughout

This all stems from Tiffany finds a ring that she believed Charles had left for her after he’d been caught and gunned down. Chucky shortly informs her that she was “fuckin’ nuts” for thinking that he’d commit (hence Tiff getting set off and locking him in the pen). Sure, a couple argues here and then. But in this case, when the audience (I) think(s) that there’s a breather, they continue to pile on. I get that they’re laying out the character dynamic, but it’s a bit much. They have heartwarming moments (considering the fact that they’re serial killers), but as soon as you blink, they want to kill one another.

[Tiffany taunting Chucky after locking him in with his “bride.” (Screencap, Bride of Chucky, 1998)]

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 2) THE ENDING—okay, well, specifically one piece to the finale of the film

As the police hunt for Jesse and Jade, Lt. Preston finds them at the dug-up gravesite of Charles Lee Ray. Preston then sees the evil and very much alive doll. Preston tells Jesse and Jade that the police won’t believe what’s clearly unfolding. He then gets a call and simply says (I’m paraphrasing) “Well, Jesse and Jade, they didn’t do it.”

—Honestly, it came across as anticlimactic. I would have liked to see them get further framed, because, at that point, I couldn’t stand the couple anymore. That’s just me being a cynic.

(Screencap, Bride of Chucky, 1998) [Preston taking a phonecall]

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HONORABLE MENTION:

The soundtrack!!! As much as I love films, the first things that stand out to me about any movie are the score and licensed music that go along with them.

If you’re not familiar with the artists, the groovy/rocking/brooding musical picks fit so incredibly well with their placements within Bride of Chucky and oh so perfectly encapsulates a true throwback ‘90s film.

From SLAYER and Judas Priest to White Zombie, Blondie, etc., this album fully kicks ass and makes you feel much more immersed into the movie.

(Credit: Genius.com)

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All in all, the humor aforementioned in #1 saves the minor annoyances in this film for me. If you’re terrified of the dolls (like I was), this is the perfect “ice breaker” to start out with.

Rating:  🔪 🔪 🔪 🔪 (4 out of 10 Stabs)

Anyone still want Tiffany’s meatball recipe?? 

(Screencap, Bride of Chucky, 1998)

[dweemeister]

Kiss of Death (1947)

When 20th Century Fox put together the pieces to launch a production of film noir Kiss of Death, the picture was to be a vehicle for leading man Victor Mature. Mature had impressed Fox’s chief executive, Darryl F. Zanuck, in a supporting performance as Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine (1946). Zanuck wished to reward the Fox contractee with a starring role, buying the rights to the film’s story with Mature in mind. But no one at Fox expected what would happen next: an actor debuting in his first film role would overshadow Mature. Kiss of Death marks the cinematic debut for Richard Widmark, best-known at the time for his Broadway work in pleasant, romantic comedy roles. For his first movie appearance, Widmark – and I don’t write something like this lightly – provides one of the most terrifying debuts in film history. This is not to downplay the performances (of Mature, Brian Donlevy, or fellow debutant Coleen Gray) or the filmmaking, but Widmark’s performance alone make Kiss of Death – directed by Henry Hathaway, from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer – an essential film noir.

After a failed jewelry store robbery on Christmas Eve, ex-con Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) is offered leniency from New York City Assistant District Attorney Louis D’Angelo (Brian Donlevy) if Nick can provide the names of his accomplices to the robbery. Against all common sense and in the belief his accomplices will take care of his wife and daughters, Nick refuses. He is handed a twenty-year sentence in Sing Sing. Several months into the sentence, he learns that his wife has committed suicide following a rape by one of his accomplices* and that his daughters have been handed over to an orphanage. Former babysitter Nettie Cavallo (Coleen Gray) divulges this news to Nick, who then indicates his desire to cooperate with the ADA. In an arrangement agreed to by D’Angelo and Nick’s lawyer, Earl Howser (Taylor Holmes), Nick becomes a jailhouse informant and is given the possibility of an earlier parole. While serving as a jailhouse informant, he will encounter Tommy Udo (Widmark) – who, eventually, uses any means at his disposal to keep Nick silent about his plans and partners-in-crime.

The film also stars Mildred Dunnock (appearing briefly in one of the most memorable scenes in any film noir), character actors Howard Smith and Millard Mitchell, and only the second credited film for eventual star Karl Malden.

Before commenting on how the performances heighten what could have been your run-of-the-mill film noir, Norbert Brodine’s (1938’s Merrily We Live, 1949’s Thieves’ Highway) cinematography and J. Watson Webb Jr.’s (1944’s The Lodger, 1952’s With a Song in My Heart) editing are superb. One only has to watch the opening moments of the film to witness the benefits of their collaboration. The failed robbery scene is a textbook example of economical filmmaking. Webb’s cutting neither lingers nor moves away too rapidly for the audience’s comprehension. Brodine’s strategic placements of his camera and use of blocking – of Mature, the supporting actors, extras, and the production design – ratchets up the tension, suggesting without any words how little room for error there is in this operation. Small details such as what level an elevator is on allow the audience to agonize – however much we do not want to see this robbery succeed – over the robbers’ wasted seconds. In Kiss of Death’s tensest scenes, this mercurial combination splices into moments that will shock and unnerve. Kiss of Death is an ideal counterargument to black-and-white film’s uninformed naysayers but, more compellingly, an entry point for film noir novices.

When complemented with Richard Widmark’s performance, Kiss of Death becomes horrifying. Widmark’s face often sports a toothy half-grin that only serves to intimidate. To make matters worse, as Tommy Udo, his staccato snigger accompanies a grin belying a man unhinged, delighting in his sadistic and psychopathic ways. Udo’s disconcerting voice and manner of speech reveals a character as slippery as a soapy eel. The way he tells a cop prodding for information that, “I wouldn’t give you the skin off a grape,” comes laced with dismissal, menace, and even playfulness.

It is difficult to watch the harm Tommy Udo brings to others. But Widmark is so convincing in the role, it is impossible to keep one’s eyes off of him. If you are aware about the basics of the Hays Code, you can easily guess Tommy Udo’s fate. But beyond the scope of the film’s narrative, the character inspired certain men in American colleges and universities to form Tommy Udo clubs or fraternities. These clubs and fraternities codified Udo’s disgusting male chauvinism – as if colleges and universities needed any more such behavior. It is a magnificent about-face from Widmark’s Broadway roles at the time; his actual off-screen persona (by all accounts, Widmark was one of the kindest people in Hollywood and was known to apologize for any hurtful words or behaviors he performed while in character on a film shoot); and many of the upstanding roles he would play later in his career.

Though outshone by Widmark, Mature strikes the balance of being a former hoodlum and caring parent. His physical acting cannot hide his character’s violent past, but – akin to his performance as Doc Holliday the previous year – there is ample room for melancholy and remorse. Mature pairs well with Coleen Gray, whose innocent demeanor recalls her later performances in Red River (1948) and other film noir projects.

Speaking of film noir, most noir is set in an urban environment and filmed on a soundstage. Kiss of Death is no exception to this rule, but a decent portion of the film was shot on-location in New York City and numerous interiors do not feel as if shot on a soundstage. The Bianco family home has a riverfront view in Queens and the interior and exteriors of the Chrysler Building (where the opening heist is filmed), Criminal Courts Building, Sing Sing (Hathaway had Mature and Widmark go through a simulation of convict processing to help them embody the mindset of a prisoner), among other locations. Quotations from the main theme of Alfred Newman’s score to Street Scene (1931) bolsters the authenticity of the film’s New York environment. In terms of backgrounds and production design, there is little sense of artificiality that might have emanated from an all-too-obvious soundstage. Hathaway’s direction posits Kiss of Death as documentary-like without ever quite crossing the lines of fiction and non-fiction. In combination with the performances, these decisions, in aggregate, elevate Kiss of Death from just another film noir. No disrespect intended to the esteemed and prolific screenwriters, Ben Hecht (1932’s Scarface, 1946’s Notorious) and Charles Lederer (1940’s His Girl Friday, 1960’s Ocean’s Eleven), but this was not their most original screenplay – ideologically, structurally, or in terms of character development.

Other reviewers have noted how Tommy Udo might have been influenced by the Joker from the Batman comics. Some go further, claiming that Widmark was a fan of Batman and based Udo’s persona on the Joker and that actor Frank Gorshin based his portrayal of The Riddler in the 1960s Batman television series on Udo. There are no primary sources to confirm any of these claims. If any prior narrative media influenced Widmark’s performance, I cannot confirm any such claims however convincing, on the surface, they might be. The provenance of the influences of and by this performance remains a mystery.

Kiss of Death derives its power almost solely from its performances and nail-biting action. The latter is almost entirely accomplished with slower and/or less motion than one might expect. It is another tribute to the editing’s manipulation of space and time that segments featuring a steady walk, a seemingly ordinary dinner table conversation, or a character sitting alone in darkness watching the movement across the street can leave viewers with wide eyes and goosebumps. Kiss of Death may not stake a claim to being one of the best examples of film noir. Yet through its incredible performances and dramatic ferocity, it will leave impressions that will jangle even the most composed viewers.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

* Actress Patricia Morrison (1943′s The Song of Bernadette, 1946′s Dressed to Kill... but better known for her stage performances) was cast as Nick Bianco’s wife. She filmed both the rape and suicide scenes, but both were cut in the final print. It is unknown who – Hathaway? Kohlmar? Zanuck? – made this decision. But I imagine that the Production Code Administration, applying the Hays Code which forbade such depictions, might have been instrumental in forcing Fox to drop the scenes.

[sshbpodcast]

Something for Everyone (unless you liked Jadzia) in S7 DS9!

by Ames

How exactly does one pick top and bottom episodes from a clump that’s mostly serial? A Star to Steer Her By found a way! It’s a strange final season of Deep Space Nine that’s split almost evenly between the ongoing storyline of the show and a bunch of episodes to pad for time while the writers created that ongoing storyline for the show.

Read on below for our bests and worsts of season seven, which you can also listen to at our absurdly long series-wrap podcast episode here (jump to timestamp 1:38:05 for the season discussion), where you can hear the bonus tops and bottoms of fan-favorite guest star Liz and also the full series ratings!

[images © CBS/Paramount]

Bottom Three Episodes

This season really suffers from some characters regressing hard as if they didn’t make any development over the course of the show. Some regressed so hard, they basically restarted the character (oof, too soon…).

“Afterimage”: Chris Quick! We’ve only got a couple episodes to establish Ezri as a character because we were huge dicks to the last Dax and killed her off. Let’s rush through showcasing this new Dax in a barely formed plot mostly spent treating her like a sex object. Check, check, and check!

“Take Me Out to the Holosuite”: Ames, Caitlin Season 7 is all about wrapping up the Dominion War arc, but let’s pause that for two weeks to have a goofy baseball game that is entirely lifted from every other TV show, to wash all the sci-fi off the show, and to just crack jokes that don’t land. That’s strike three; you’re outta here!

“The Emperor’s New Cloak”: Caitlin, Jake Mirror universe episodes tend to always feel like fanfic as it is, but our final trip through the looking glass basically said “Hold My Beer.” The whole thing felt like a checklist of in-jokes, some tropey character nonsense, and even more objectifying women to round it off!

“Extreme Measures”: Ames, Caitlin Julian goes full hypocrite in this not-even-a-little-bit-surreal mindtrip when he kidnaps and tortures Sloan, gets him absolutely killed, and takes a whole episode for a boring brain adventure. This is not the Julian we thought we knew, and it’s a shame.

“Chrysalis”: Chris, Jake And that’s not even the worst thing Julian has done lately! He has fully reverted to his sleazy season-one self, grooming women so he can date them, performing surgeries on them to “fix them,” and still somehow making everything about him. Gross, Julian. Gross.

“Field of Fire”: Ames, Chris, Jake One thing we can say about our new Trill character is at least she’s consistent… because every single time we do a Trill episode, it’s entirely contradictory of all the preceding Trill episodes to the point of confoundment! Joran is the worst he’s been and what even is this new overpowered weapon?

—

Top Three Episodes

On the flip side, this season also benefits from how varied its episodes are that it really does somehow have something for everyone, especially if you love you some schlock!

“Take Me Out to the Holosuite”: Chris Sigh. Chris likes doofy, fillery episodes and I’m not even going to try to parse why this time. The uniforms looked good, I guess? That must be it. If you like doofy, fillery episodes and aren’t bored to tears by baseball, then this episode… has some good uniforms for you.

“Once More Unto the Breach”: Jake We love us a good Klingon episode and this one’s got a lot to sink your teeth into. It was an excellent send off for the long-established character of Kor, it reflected on some of the less honorable elements of Klingon culture, and Worf got to put his knife skills on display!

“Badda-Bing Badda-Bang”: Caitlin Heist episodes of the world, take note! This is how you pace and tell a concise, interesting, coherent, and clever heist story. Placement in the middle of the war arc aside, this episode gave us some great acting, costumes, music, film techniques, the works! Badda bing!

“The Siege of AR-558”: Chris, Jake We’ve also got a straight-up war episode featuring some tense ground patrol action, horrifying new weapons, and Quark with a gun! Also we see actual consequences for characters’ actions! What Star Trek so far has ever given us that before?

“Treachery, Faith, and the Great River”: Ames, Jake Proving that two Jeffrey Combses are better than one, this episode doubles your Weyouns and gives us some excellent Vorta time that really kicks you in the feels. It would take a bunch more Weyouns to reach the level of this excellent story. Those are our demands, Star Trek; get on it.

“The Changing Face of Evil”: Ames, Caitlin One of the absolute highlights of the big honkin’ ten-part finale is the Dukat-Winn relationship you never realized you needed. The hottest elements of which are all on display in this episode in particular, which are all pretty drool-worthy, but the most props go to Louise Fletcher for totally selling every moment.

“It’s Only a Paper Moon”: Ames, Caitlin, Chris This episode achieves the impossible: It gives us some really genuinely good Vic Fontaine. All the credit, of course, does go to Aron Eisenberg for his really touching and complete characterization of post-traumatic stress disorder. Thank you, ensign Nog, for being such a treasure.

—

So that’s all the season-by-season bloodwine we can spill on Deep Space Nine. We’re sad to leave the station and take our final look at the wormhole, but there’s also the full series top and bottom fives to celebrate and lament, respectively. Watch this page for more, listen to weekly episodes at our home on the web on Soundcloud, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and tell the prophets to stop it with all the baseball already!

[zhenreviewsmovies]

Tenki No Ko (Weathering With You)

My Rating: 8.5/10

Well it just came out on piratebay so, it was about time I watched this. So, the long awaited next project by director Makoto Shinkai, I was really hyped to watch this movie after watching Your Name and well, I sort of watched that after Weathering with You was long gone from cinemas, good job me. The movie follows Hodaka and Hina on an epic romance movie where the weather is absolutely nuts basically. But, my gosh this movie, the rain, absolutely beautiful.

As I am late to this movie (by a year), I don't think I can provide you with any new insight other than the fact that it looks stunning because my gosh is it stunning, it is beautiful and as someone whom enjoys a rainy setting on any given day this movie was extremely pleasing to the eye. The plot is enjoyable, the story, the characters, it is just a blast to watch in my opinion. The music, once again done by RADWIMPs is just fantastic and kudos to them as I get another soundtrack that I could listen from time to time again. 

Before I continue on, I want to comment on the theme, love. I tell you, the things you do when you love someone, the risk of opening up and being vulnerable to someone, you are practically standing there naked in a sense, not physically but emotionally, mentally, you are absolutely stripped down and there you are, all your flaws, all the emotional baggage you carry with you from childhood, there you are, helplessly in love. But a simple concept such as this is often times complicated in well, society.

I think watching this movie beings back that illogical sense of love that we all seem to forget once we get older. Not only to love your wife or girlfriend which in itself there are issues out there in regards of abusive relationships. And with the killing of George Floyd, man, this world is nuts, we say love knows no bounds and then we see someone of a different background, a different skin tone, a different colour of hair or what not, anyone different and we go ahead and say yes we love everyone except that group. Like hey, my gosh have we really forgotten what love is? Are we at such a dysfunctional stage in large world that we do not know the difference between love and hate?

But yes, carrying in with the movie, to me where the movie falls short is when people like me, those whom are fresh from Your Name, jumping onto this boat decide to compare the two movies and, the two movies are fairly similar from the notes within the film and the musical placement for the I guess music with vocals so to say (maybe that's a bit of a leap but yeah that's what I felt). I think there is less character development here in terms of our main characters as opposed to the character development in Your Name as this movie attempts to balance a wider variety of characters and providing in depth looks at the side characters rather than the serviceable side characters provided in Your Name. 

I think generally I was disappointed as the movie somewhat follows the same formula of Your Name and I guess that's my main issue with it. However, this movie is indeed a well made movie and I absolutely enjoyed this movie but then again I got to be honest, I was a little disappointed in the movie.

[aawesomepenguin]

[SPOILERS FOR THE SONIC MOVIE]

Ok, with the new trailer approaching, I thought that it would be good if I made a master post containing everything that we know for sure are happening in the Sonic Movie, thanks to an AMA done back in March.

The AMA was then proven to be true when the Sonic Movie trailer debuted in Cinemacon a month later, matching with a lot of what he said. Then Toywiz accidentally leaked that they were going to do some Sonic Movie toys, and one of them matched again with that AMA. It is legit.

So, needless to say, I’m going to literally spoil the entire movie. From beggining to the end. You’ve been warned.

Direct citations are in “”.

-The Movie is basically going to be a “Sonic; Origins”, it’s going to give backstory to Sonic and Robotnik, it’ll talk about how the two of them met, and how they became mortal enemies.

-Only the Robotnik name is used. No mention of the “Eggman” name.

-He gave the movie a 7/10 grade.

-If he had to compare this movie to a previous one, it would be the 2014 TMNT movie: “Id say it is more TMNT with reference to story and action balance. It's a solid mix between engaging action which continues to develop the bromance between sonic and Tom.”

- The movie is indeed, focused for the younger demographic, but there is some bonus for the long time fans: “ Its definitely being targeted towards youth demo. It seems their goal is to intro sonic to the next Gen of fans. More so with access to their parents wallets for spin off merch and happy meal toys. I enjoyed it similar to seeing transformers. Don't expect the green mile storytelling but turn your brain off and just enjoy for what it is. The cast does a great job”

-About Sonic himself in the movie:

*In order to survive, he keeps stealing stuff and living in the shadows of the Green Hills town. He usually steals food from super markets to eat, and also he steals a LOT of sneakers. He ends up being treated as an urban legend, called as the “Blue devil” by the locals, until he is discovered.

*Sonic isn’t from Earth, he comes from another dimension that is inhabited by other animals like him. Sonic’s past will be explored.

*It’s revealed that he was raised by an owl when he was a baby. Everything seems to point that she is a regular owl, not an anthro one. She eventually ends up dying for some unknown reasons, which will be a “tearjerker” scene.

*”Rings are how sonic got to earth. He can throw one and imagine a place and it will take him. He is fast from his first steps.”

*About Sonic’s ‘eletricity’ powers, he does it only when he focuses or is extremely emotional. His charged run is why he gets detected and why the power on the entire Pacific Northwest goes down and that’s how Robotnik comes into the film.

*But Sonic will need to learn how to control his powers though.

-About references to the old games, he said that: “It’s a good balance between giving the old fans something but introducing him to kids. I went in not knowing it was gonna be screened or any expectations. Cheesy but enjoyed it from start to finish. Jim Carrey kills the role.”

-About the movie’s plot:

* Sonic ends up being far away from his home planet and grows up on Earth.  Ends up alone after some time and grew up staying hidden. Loneliness gets to him which leads to him making a massive energy disturbance, knocking out the power on the entire Pacific Northwest.

The government, scared by the blackout, decides to bring in Robotnik to find out why the energy disturbance happened. Hijinks ensue and a good story is told. Tom and sonic become best friends.

-About the action:

“ Action scenes were great in story telling and execution wise. Effects weren't complete so a lot of it was still early cgi and the hidden actors playing sonic. At one point he was just a blue doll on the counter lol”

-The movie is aiming for a PG Rating.

-About Robotnik:

“He's just a psycho super smart doc that works for the gov initially. They give him the power and he goes full Eggman lol. He's super obnoxiously smart too. Makes tons of comments in the film about how superior his brain is lol. Really fun role for Jim Carrey.”

“He doesn’t rock the signature look until tail end of movie. Has the typical long coat and all dark evil scientist look. Short mustache as well initially”

Robotnik trying to catch Sonic eventually makes him go more and more insane and obsessed with the hedgehog. With him eventually getting the “Eggman” look.

-”Lots of humor and fun for all ages. Kids ate the comedy up. Sonic dances right after an short battle and kids about died laughing in the theater.”

-The Chaos Emeralds are NOT present in this movie.

-There is a post credit scene:

“Robotnik is defeated and ends up on a foreign planet [possibly Sonic’s World] that Sonic was supposed to escape to in the event of being found on Earth. He is now hefty and rocking the full blown stache”

- “Sonic and Tom end up helping each other solve their personal conflicts. They balanced Sonic and Tom pretty well and they are a good duo.”

- There’s a scene in San Francisco that is a direct homage to City Escape.

-The only characters from the games that show up are Robotnik and Sonic.

- The movie has one car chase scene. Sonic does the floss to celebrate (that dance that is used in Fortnite) and “the kids ate it up”. About product placement, there is two, one with the Olive Garden restaurant and Puma. Tom also gets a gift card as an apology at the end from the gov guy who initially brings Robotnik into the picture.

-Yes, Sonic will floss in the movie.

- Tika Sumpter plays the character Annie Wachowski. She is a vet that is very gentle with Sonic. It’s thanks to her that Sonic felt that he could trust the Wachowskis.

- In order to retrieve Sonic’s lost rings, Sonic and Tom embark on a roadtrip to San Francisco, using Tom’s Tacoma.

The Tacoma’s roof is ripped out due to the automated car that Robotnik sent to attack them. This leads to a conflit between Sonic and Tom.

-About how Sonic and Tom meet:

“Tom has racoon problems in his trash. When he sees Sonic face to face for the first time. He tranqs him and puts him in a cage.”

Robotnik shows up and they escape and Tom begrudgingly agrees to help. His main concern is moving to SF to prove to himself that he can handle real cop crime and not Montana small world problems. You see it early on for character development.

-The movie’s runtime is around 90 minutes. 

- “There were stakes and it balanced between a family adventure and action movie.”

-About the final battle:

" Yeah there's a good scene between doc and the good guys" It’ll be about Sonic and Robotnik running across the entire world using the Power Rings, they’ll end up in different places from Earth, such as Egypt and Paris.

-About Robotnik’s lackey:

Agent Stone is Robotnik’s right hand. He is very funny and a big Robotnik fanboy. He’s super happy to be working with him.

- “Tom was really enjoyable. Fun and backwoods kind of smart. He wants to prove to himself that he can make it as a big city cop”

- The film will begin showing Sonic as a baby. He’ll be saved by an owl, that’ll be sort of like his mom owl. His mom owl dies, and then Sonic will realize that he is on his own on Earth, and alone.

-There’s a scene where Sonic and Tom stop by a bar localized in the American highway path between San Francisco and Green Hills. It’s full of buff bikers, with tatoos and everything. Sonic accidentaly creates a fight in the bar.

-Robotnik has as a part of his arsenal drones, tanks, automated cars, and realistic robots.

-Sonic ends up becoming a sensation in Green Hills, and the locals begin to appreciate him, and begin to defend him.

-How the final battle ends:

The fight across the world between Sonic and Robotnik ends up back in Montana via the rings. The locals from Green Hills help by getting Robotnik’s attention. Sonic then super electro charges a spin dash, and knocks Robotnik into a ring which sends him to another planet [possibly Sonic’s World] and they technically win for now.

-The final battle begins, I believe, at this part:

And that’s preety much it. If you want to see the AMA for yourself, click here.

[rex101111]

Following Orders.

Rating: E

Warning: Gore, blood, body horror, Mentioned attempted suicide, Holocaust mentions, civilians getting shot by nazi soldiers (the usual awful things).

Right so I recently got into The Magnus Archives so I had to contribute something :D blame @imbeccablee she introduced me to it. You should check it out it’s REALLY fun if you into horror and podcasts and horror podcasts :D

Anyway enjoy!

"Statement of; Johan Hess. Regarding an encounter in France during his time in the German army around the Normandy landings.

Statement Originally taken: December 15th, 1981

Recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute.

Statement begins;"  

-_-

The phrase "I was just following orders" is the emptiest thing a soldier could say. It is a pathetic, cowardly attempt to dodge responsibility by pinning it on your superiors. You throw away your choice, the option that you could have done different, by claiming you had no choice at all from the moment you placed yourself in uniform and became just another face in a firing line.

Of course I shot those civilians, I was following orders.

Of course I burned that house down, I was following orders.

Everyone was following orders, everyone was shooting each other and walking in lockstep as they were told to march, march forward onto hell and onto death and onto the enemy's bullets and bayonets without a thought.

We were all just. Following orders.

It's the excuse, and that it all it will ever be, an excuse, given by soldiers in the Great War when questioned about the mustard gas in the trenches. It's the answer you'll get from the soldiers that came back from Vietnam with mud between their fingers and blood in their teeth.

And it was the excuse I used, every single day of my life, from the moment I joined the German Military during World War Two. It is the excuse I use to get up from my bed in the morning, the one I used when I hugged my wife and had to convince myself I had the right to say that I loved her, the one I used day in and day out even after the true scope of what the Fuhrer had done to the morals of my country and the values we held dear.

I know it is a lie, that the cause for that war was corrupt and cruel from the very beginning, I have always known, but that lie is the only reason I managed to keep the barrel of my gun out of my mouth after we saw the...footage.

Have you ever seen pictures of the survivors of the death camps? Those gaunt figures with their bones nearly sticking out of their skin? Bodies, dressed in filthy rags, so emaciated that they barely appeared to be human? Their eyes filled with pain and fear?

How about film? Even in black and white, the way they moved, as if struggling against the wind lest it folded them in two, spoke to the depth of the horror and cruelty those people endured.

My people did that, my countrymen did that to those people. My neighbors and friends dragged them out of their homes, shaved them bald, starved them, beat them, put them into rooms filled with death, stripped them of everything that made them human until all was left was a massive hole in the ground filled with meat and blood.

 And I allowed it to happen, me and every other soldier in that army when we put on those uniforms. As we swept through Europe like a hive of locusts, stripping the land bare and dragging people kicking and screaming from their homes and gave Hitler and his sycophants more power and territory. I was not one of those animals, those soulless demons of the SS, but the blood on my hands was the same as the blood on theirs.

 Both of us allowed those terrors to happen. The only difference between them and I is that they did of that all directly, with full knowledge of what would happen to those poor Jews and Blacks and anyone deemed lesser. I was a fool, placing my fingers in my ears and refusing to see things as they were.

 My fellow soldiers were the same, high on patriotic fervor that blinded them to what our fatherland had become. I didn't join the Wehrmacht to kill people, though I knew that it would be asked of me, I joined because the thought of my friends and family dying out there alone made me sick. I wanted to do my part, and every article in the newspaper and every poster on the streets and every speech on the radio convinced me that my part was to hold a gun and shot until I was either dead or we won.

 Even as we turned on the Russians and operation Barbarossa failed miserably, even as the Americans started landing on the beaches of France, even as more and more of my fellow soldiers died around me, I was convinced that I needed to do my part.

 That all changed in a single night.

 I was stationed in France, near the Eawy forest, on June 13, a week after the Allies began landing on Normandy. I was sent to France almost as soon as I finished my training, almost two years previous, and had been to many places in that time. France is a beautiful place, its cities gleamed and its nature spanned wide and far in many places.

 It pained me in a way I refuse to say out loud to have to visit this place with guns and tanks.

 I was a part of a unit made to combat partisans and French rebels hiding in the forest, rooting out encampments between the trees and keeping the local population in line and stop them from thinking to do anything as foolish as fighting back.

 My unit passed through many villages in the forests of France, burning and pillaging as we went. Our commander, Heinrich Werner, was a vicious man who believed the word of Hitler down to his bones. He ordered us to take every Jewish civilian we could find in every village we passed, gather them in the town square, and shoot them were they stood.

 He often complained aloud at how unsatisfied he was at his position and placement, only growing louder as news of the Americans landing on the beaches reached us and we all stayed put. I suspect he exercised this cruelty to prove himself in some way, to show he should be fighting the allies instead of hunting in the forest for rebels with rusty weapons. If that was true than he failed miserably, and only grew more and more cruel as time wore on.

 Man, woman, child, elder, Werner wanted them all dead to the last. It mattered not that they screamed or begged, his voice was calm and steely as he ordered us to bring our rifles to bare.

 And no matter how they screamed and pleaded and cried, we all did as he said, we all followed our orders.

 None of us hesitated, none of us questioned, none of us were shot for disobedience. Every time, we lined up our rifles, steadied our grip, and pulled our triggers as one. You never appreciate how loud a gunshot could be until you put your hands on an actual firearm. Movies will try, but the sheer noise a gun makes when you tell it to help you take a life is something that can't be replicated.

 Imagine a wall of noise, slamming into the center of your chest. For a split second, every single one of your bones rattle inside your flesh. The liquid in your eyes shivers from the shock, blurring your world for a long moment.

 And then, nothing. Your shot echoes out, slowly dying in the air, but all you hear is nothing. The world is a void of sound and noise, the shot ringing in your ears is gone almost as soon as it arrived. When you are part of a firing line, you not only have to suffer the shock from your own weapon, but the weapons to your sides as well, walls of the noise crushing you from all directions at once.

 It deafens you, even after your ears either adjust to the noise or are so damaged by constant gunfire that it no longer stings, those walls of noise steal every sound from the world for a few moments.

 Just long enough for you to hear the bodies of your targets fall to the earth. You shot someone while they stand and they fall apart from the bottom up. First their legs give out, lacking the strength to hold up the weight, and then they slump forward or backwards, laying on the ground as if their strings were cut.

 The thud of flesh hitting the ground, be it mud or cobblestone or bricks, is unavoidable. You can't escape it. Even if you fill the air with so much noise and fire and death that you can't even hear your thoughts from the lead all around you, you can always feel the moment someone hits the ground and begins staining it with blood.

 And if your bullet is the one that caused it, the thud echoes. It reverberates through your chest and lodges itself between your lungs, and for a long time after you hear it with every breath you manage to pull.

 The nights after we raided a village were always quiet after that, each of us making sure not to look each other in the eyes as we ate our rations and crawled into our sleeping bags.

 Until one night, when Werner started screaming at us to get up, "On your feet! Everyone in uniform! NOW! EVERYONE OF YOU GET UP!" I remember those words exactly, even after all those years, like he had just shouted them right in my ear. It was the first time I ever heard anything other than cold satisfaction or cruel excitement from the man. This time, every single word he spoke was quivering with shock, even as he tried to hide it with his orders.

 It was a rush of people in the dark, elbowing me and hissing at me to hurry up as I shook the sleep from my bones and put my uniform on in a near blind panic. I was the last to get ready and follow the rest of the soldiers to the center of our makeshift camp.

 I was not very close with many of the soldiers in my unit, despite how long we spent together. I was never an overtly social person even back home, so I exceled at making sure I never stepped on anyone's toes, but suffice it to say no one there considered me a friend and I extended them the same courtesy.

 None of that made the sight of a mangled pile of body parts any less shocking to me. Least of all because I recognized the soldier it had once been. It was Karl, one of the riflemen that always seemed to be the most eager to file into a firing line when Werner started barking orders.

 He was pulled apart like an old doll, each of his limbs bleeding profusely from ragged stumps on the torso they were arranged on, with his head on the very top of the pile as some sort of vicious centerpiece.

 And his face. His face was the worst of it, instead of a blank stare like that of a drowning fish, or the twist of dying agony and terror I had so grown used to over the two years of my service, instead his face was the very picture of fathomless sorrow. His eyes were as if on the verge of weeping, his mouth closed in a mournful grimace.

 I felt myself drawn into those eyes, the clear blue of it glinting in the moonlight as I stared. I could swear they were filling up with unshed tears as I continued to gaze in numb horror and felt a deep, shredding dread cutting up the pit of my stomach.

 I could hear more than a few of my fellows retching at the sight, and I was barely able to hold back my own bile as Karl's blood continued to pool around the flesh of his mangled corpse.

 Werner was pacing back and forth, breathing heavily through his nose as he glared at us. "Who did this?" He asked us, voice trembling with some mix of anger and fear. "One of you must have heard something, did anyone see?"

 We all looked at each other uneasily, none of us having heard a thing before Werner had started screaming. He started shouting at us again, calling us all idiots, pathetic excuses for soldiers if someone could just walk into our camp and kill one of our own and get away with it.

 He continued shouting meaningless insults for another full minute, wildly gesturing with every word as he seemed to try and wring out his own fear, before he stopped abruptly, leaning his ears towards the deep, dark woods.

 We did the same, and all of us flinched at once when a deep, loud noise rumbled from between the tree trunks. Nothing human could have made that sound, and I heard no animal capable of anything like it either. It was something between the growl of a bear and the dying gasp of our many victims, echoing with a mix of anger and hate, and it made the dread in my stomach burn more and more brightly.

 Werner snapped at us once more, barking at us to gather our rifles and flashlights, and to march with him into the woods to hunt down whatever was, "making a fool of him." His face was twisted with anger and denial, as if the murder of his soldier and the noise was accusing him of something, and his pride was refusing to take it laying down.

 It said something of German Military discipline when there was only a short moment of hesitation before we all began to gather our equipment, all of us defaulting to the one thing our basic training had drilled into our heads in the face of this horror.

 We followed our orders.

 Again, I had fallen a bit behind, only one of the other soldiers, Wilhelm, waiting for me for a moment before continuing on to the group gathering in front of the woods with Werner. My hands were still shaking from the pile of body parts, unable to stop myself from stealing glances at it as I gathered my things.

 As I finished attaching the bayonet to my rifle, something caught my eye near what was once Karl. A piece of paper, resting on the palm of one of the hands, not flying off in the breeze despite the fingers being spread open.

 I walked over to the paper almost without thinking, the sounds of Werner shouting orders and warnings to the other soldiers sounding muffled, as if through water. With every step I took towards it, Werner sounded further and further away, finally falling silent as I stood right next to the outstretched, severed palm of my fellow soldier.

 It was a note, on it a single word, scrawled in French, the letters scratched and thin.

 I learned more than a little French back at home, my mother being from Paris, and the word on that note was unmistakable.

 In the beginning, the Jews we executed merely whimpered at us, begging for their lives. As time wore on, as the French people became more emboldened by the resistance and the allies pushing us back, they began shouting at us in rage and anger.

 They shouted many things, but one word kept repeating, over and over, the children screaming first, before their parents joined in. The word echoing in my ears even as the gunshots died on the wind.

 The same word on that note, the letters changing color from ink black to a familiar red as I stared at it, burning themselves in my mind as the note started to bleed from them.

 Monsters.    

 I was suddenly wrenched from my trance when I heard Wilhelm calling out to me, the rest of the unit, 29 men in all including myself, Wilhelm and Werner, already deep in the woods. I looked back at Karl's palm for a moment, and saw that it was empty.

 I shook my head and followed Wilhelm's call, barely hearing Werner shouting marching orders at the head of the party. I took a breath and marched forward with clenched teeth, feeling the woods swallow me whole.

 Forests at night were a terrible thing. Without the sunlight filtering through the canopy, they were utterly pitch black in every direction, only the occasional ray of light from the moon piercing through to barely illuminate anything.

 You could hear every little sound in the night, owls flying between branches, insects and lizards scrabbling up the bark, the trees attempting to deafen you while you were blind. Only the solid footfalls of my unit walking together gave me some sense of place, and whenever I looked away, the dark seemed to stretch out for miles.

 The Eawy Forest is one of the largest in France, over six and a half thousand hectares of forest, a border of trees on the northern edge of Pays de Bray. You could literally walk for miles, hours, weeks in these woods if you got turned around. And in the dark, the trees stretch out into the abyss no matter how hard you look.

 You could hide a body in these woods, and it would be months before anyone found what was left of it. There could be an enemy hiding behind every trunk, every errant bush, and the possibility of that seemed to finally enter Werner's head as we walked on and into the woods.

 More than once, a loud snap would sound from a direction, and every one of us would whip our rifles to shot whatever made the foolish decision to be alive and moving within our sight. Every time, there was nothing, and Werner would growl at us to keep our wits and keep marching, his voice losing more and more of its edge with each repetition.

 I don't know how long we moved through those pitch black trees, at some point my mind was panicking over why we hadn't seen the sun yet, thinking we must have walked for hours now.

 Me feet ached, but I dared not complain, not even as a matter of discipline, but more that the thought struck me that if something in these woods heard me admit a weakness, it would be the last thing I would ever do.

 And so we walked, deeper and deeper, almost in a trance, not a single one of us daring to speak a word, fingers tight around our weapons. In that silence, I noticed the sounds of the woods stopped as well. Wilhelm looking over his shoulder at me, a ray of moon light illuminating his face just enough for me to catch the worry in his pinched brow.

 I could only shrug helplessly at whatever silent question he threw at me, and he turned away with a silent grimace.

 All of a sudden, we stopped, Werner having apparently seen something and ordered a halt. One by one, the unit began to spread out wide and forward, with me at the very back I could only see why when the motion reached me about a minute or so later.

 We reached a clearing, large enough to fit all thirty of us and still leave room to spread our arms out. The moon was shining brightly, perfectly lighting up the clearing even though it had almost completely waned.

 I looked around at the rest of the unit, seeing them all stare ahead at something at the far end of the clearing, all of them still perfectly silent with Werner the furthest in. I leaned my head up to see what it was, not trusting my voice enough to risk breaking whatever heavy silence had fallen on us all with a question, and then felt the bile rise again in my throat as I caught the smell.

 The acrid scent of old, stagnant blood filled the air. Every breath I took was laced with the pungent odor of rotting, fetid meat, and the source was right in front of me, but I could not see. Images of torn city streets flashed in my mind, bodies strewn about haphazardly and left to bleed and rot in the sun, crows and maggots picking at their flesh.

Some force of morbid curiosity pulled me forward, the same mindless walk that led me to the note in Karl's hand, and I was about 10 feet away from Werner when I saw what he was staring at.

 And saw him shaking like a leaf in the wind, whimpering like a child.

 It was a pool, about 30 feet wide and stretching out into the dark of the forest, it's surface calm and smooth as glass, and the moon light blooming in the clearing reflected of it perfectly.

 The smell, fetid and stagnant and rotten, was the strongest right at the lip of the pool, and the moonlight made it impossible to miss the deep, red color of the water.

 No, not water, the more I looked the more I was certain that not a single drop of water was in that pool. The bile rose in my throat and burned it as I stared at this huge pool of blood, smelling of decay and sorrow so strongly it nearly knocked me off feet, and so thick I could not see through it.

 I desperately wanted to look away, to hold my nose and turn on my heel and flee from this place with all my might, but I was rooted to the spot. Despite my horror, something else rose in my chest, a crushing feeling of guilt stuck itself between my lungs and stopped me from breathing, and tears started welling up in my eyes as I continued to stare at this massive pool of red.

 A Knowing grew in my head, a certainty that would have dragged me to my knees had I been able to move. I spilt this blood, I filled this pool to the brim with every trigger I pulled, I couldn't look away, I had no right to look away. All I could do was weep and feel the bile I could not vomit churn in the back of my throat.

 I could vaguely hear the soldiers around me whimpering along with Werner and myself, some of them whispering desperate apologies and gagging on their own vomit as we stared at this pool of gore we all made.

 After what felt like an eternity of begging for forgiveness and staring unblinking at that pool of blood, the glass like surface of the pool began to ripple outwards from the center, something moving just below the blood.

 The ripples began inching closer and closer to the edge of the pool, closer to us, before stopping dead and vanishing all at once. We all fell silent and held our breaths as we stared at where the ripples were, waiting for…something.

 Almost without warning, an arm shot out of the crimson pool, and started clawing at the grass. Before we could fully understand what we were seeing, a second arm joined the first, and together they started pulling at the ground, dragging something, someone, out of the blood.

 It stood up slowly, painfully, blood dripping off in rivulets and pooling near its feet instead of sinking into the ground. It was barely the size of a child, limbs thin and muscles emaciated. They wore bloody rags, the cloth sticking to its skin, through which I could see bones nearly bulging out, bent at odd angles.

 Its hair was shaved in irregular patterns, and what hair it had was soaked with blood like the rest of it. It kept its head down, taking deep, ragged breaths. Every inch of me was screaming at me to run, that what I was seeing was wrong, that staying where I was meant death in every sense.

 But I did not move, the Knowing that told me I made the pool told me that this is where I needed to be, and I could do nothing but stay, and wait.

 It raised its head, and it wore the face of a child, the face of every child. The face of every child I saw while I went to school, the face of every child I saw dragged kicking and screaming to the trains, the face of every child I saw at the far end of my rifle.

 Its eyes were a deep brown flecked with red, mud on a rainy battlefield, and the sheer depth of hatred in its eyes made me feel like someone was ripping me in two. It hated us, this thing from the pool, hated us all, personally, on the deepest level possible. It hated me, for everything that I was, everything that I am, for everything that I ever did in that pointless, cruel war.

 Its jaw started twitching, wrenching open with a sickening sound of stretching flesh, and a sound began coming out of its throat, slowly forming into a word.

 I knew the word before it said it, before it scowled at us and its face twisted into an overwhelming expression of sheer rage. I could feel the word burning in my mind as it took a deep, wet breath between its blood stained, jagged, broken teeth.

 Monsters.

 It spoke with the voice of a little girl, word dry and ragged in the air like it hadn't had a drop of water for years, and it echoed deep into the woods and deep in my bones and I could not argue with it at all.

 It said it again, and again, and again, the same word, the same accusation, over and over and over.

 It called us monsters, in French, in German, in Hebrew, and more and more and even when it spoke in a language I had never heard before I knew what it said, knew every implication and every nuance and every inch of hate in the words it used.

 And I knew, know, that it, that she, was right.

 We were monsters, every single one of one of us, and we had earned the hate in her eyes. Every. Last. Inch of it.

 I felt myself fall to my knees, tears of shame and fear and sorrow running down my face as the words flowed through my blood and strangled my heart. I heard the soldiers around me do the same, their whimpers replaced with broken sobbing as the words sank into the trees behind us and went on, on into the wind until all was silent again.

 She stood there for a moment, sweeping a hateful, furious scowl all around the clearing as she took us all in. And she scoffed, but said nothing in response to the weeping and sobbing of the men, cowards, monsters, around her.

 She began walking forward, her steps landing in a loud squelch of wet dirt, the blood dripping off her form never seeming to end as she closed the distance between her and the sobbing mess that was Heinrich Werner.

 She stood in front of the bawling man for a long moment, staring down at him as he fell apart under her burning hateful gaze. He said nothing intelligible, all he could manage was a long string of blubbering and tear soaked pleas for mercy. His voice went on and on, growing more and more hoarse until I was sure I started to see blood mix with his spit from the strain and yet he kept begging her. Begging her to spare him.

 Even as she ripped off his right arm, gripping it with boney fingers and slowly ripping the flesh away from him he continued to beg.

 She ripped off his other arm, his legs, cut open his stomach to let his entrails spread across the grass, and yet he kept begging.

 She grabbed his head with both hands, her broken teeth grinding together as she started to pull, and only then did he stopped begging, and started screaming.

 His head screamed and screamed, even as the last strips of flesh connecting his neck to his skull snapped away with a wet sound. It screamed and screamed and screamed, the sound ringing in my ears and rattling the teeth in my head, before she crushed it between her palms, the gore of Werner flying off in odd directions, spraying me and the other soldiers in blood and liquids I dare not name.

 She grabbed the body parts she pulled from Werner, and dragged them to the pool, tossing them into the deep, dark red with a careless gesture. The ripples died almost as soon as they started, the opaque blood swallowing the meat ravenously until nothing remained.

 And then she went to Wilhelm, and the begging, the tearing, the screaming, it all started again.

And again with the next.

 And the next.

 And the next.

 All around me the soldiers begged and then screamed and then were devoured by the pool as she ripped them apart one by one. I could not move, not to run, not to look over my shoulder to see her claiming her pound of flesh from us. All I could do was sit on my knees, the tears continuing to fall down my face, and wait.

 Soon, the last soldier screamed their last behind me, and she walked passed me to TOSS the meat into the pool. She stood in front of it for a long moment, the wind whispering between us as I waited.

 Slowly, painfully slowly, she turned to face me, the hate in her eyes burning just as brightly as when she first emerged. She pinned me down, stopping my shaking and crying and even my breathing as her face twisted into a soundless snarl.

 I blinked and she was right in front of me.

 She waited, waited for me to beg, to scream, to plead.

 I opened and closed my mouth, trying to say the same as the rest of my unit, but my voice refused to leave my throat to say them. I was a monster, just like they were, I deserved no less and no more than what she did to them.

 But when I finally spoke, when my voice finally formed into words, all I could manage was a sob.

 I took one last breath, and using strength I did not have, by the force of a will I did not deserve, I looked right into her eyes, her burning, piercing eyes, and said, "I'm sorry."

 No excuses, no begging, no pleading for mercy or cries of fear. Nothing more than apology, weightless and pointless in the face of my sins, but it was all I could manage to say.

 For a moment, for a single second, the hate in her eyes were replaced with shock, her face dropping the burning scowl she's had from the beginning. I could see her for the first time, truly see the young girl behind the gore and blood that called us all monsters with such conviction. And the guilt sunk in my chest again, and the Knowing came back and told me that I did this to her, and more tears fell again.

 As soon as that Knowing passed through my mind, the hate returned to her eyes, twice hot and making my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach, before I could say another word, a plea or another worthless apology, her fingers clenched the flesh of my shoulder and pulled, ripping my arm without a hint of resistance.

 The pain blitzed through every inch of me, burning so bright I couldn't even scream, but the urge to do so blared in my mind so brightly it nearly blinded me. Before I could even fully comprehend the pain, she grabbed me by the collar of my uniform shirt, and started beating me furiously about the head and face.

 She did so soundlessly, no grunts of exertion, no growls of anger, but in the brief moment before she landed each blow, I could see her face. The scowl was still there, still as accusing and raging as it had been since the beginning. But between her beating my face to a pulp I could see something reflecting the moon light off her cheeks, and in the delirium of pain I realized they were tears.

 The beating went on for what felt like hours, but soon she dropped my bloodied form on the grass. She looked down at me like I was a piece of filth stuck to her shoe, face impassive as I spat red stained spit and teeth on the ground.

 My vision began to blur, but before oblivion could embrace me fully, she grabbed me by the shortened hair on my bleeding scalp and began dragging me towards the pool. I dared not struggle, knowing, Knowing, that she was pulling me to a fate I deserved.

 I think I managed one more blood soaked apology before I blacked out, but I was never sure.

 Next thing I remember; I was in a field hospital in the village of Ventes-Saint-Remy, with a missing arm and nearly my entire body covered in bandages. My head especially was heavily wrapped in gauze with the exception of a single eye.

 A nurse was the first thing that I was able to focus on, she was speaking to me in calming, gentle French, asking for my name.

 Without thinking, I answered in French, and she smiled at me with kindness I will never deserve.

 I did not tell her I was a German soldier, and she did not think I was. Apparently I was found in the woods by a couple of young boys, naked as the day I was born and covered in wounds. That was months ago.

 It was December, she told me with a grateful and tearful smile, and the Germans were losing.

 If you asked me why I didn't tell her who I truly was, or what had happened to me, the only answer I could give you is that I was a coward. That I am a coward. But whatever the reason was, I spent the rest of the war in that hospital, slowly regaining my strength under the care of that nurse.

 Her name was Irene, and her kindness and heart were more than I will ever deserve.

 As the war ended, I found my way back to Germany, and saw my home in ruins. I did not live in Berlin or anywhere that far east, so I was somehow spared having Stalin and his Soviets watching my every move.

 But I never forgot that night in the forest, where my whole company payed the price they owed for being monsters. I spent years waiting for a court martial, or for someone to unearth some document that proved I was the unit that burned lives and towns in France and for an angry mob to demand my head.

 But it never came, it was like I never fired a gun or served in the army a day in my life. Whenever I asked my parents about it, they acted like I spoke nonsense, that I never spent a day in France, much less as a member of the Wehrmacht. They said my injuries were because of some car accident, or the result of a building fire, every time I asked they were confused as to why I didn't remember and refused to speak further of the matter.

 I started to believe that perhaps I imagined it all, that perhaps my nightmare in the French forest was just that. A nightmare.

 Years passed, I started a family, had children, and tried to ignore that alien feeling of guilt that sliced up my stomach whenever I passed a Jewish temple. It was a nightmare, it had to be, and that was what I was able to convince myself.

 Until the pictures started coming out, until the trial in Israel began appearing in the newspapers. Until footage of the full scale of what would be known as the Holocaust became public knowledge.

 I went to a newly opened museum in my home town, and with every display, with every picture, with every frame of film, the terror I remember from that night returned to me in full force.

 Gaunt figures, broken teeth, shaved heads, every one of them a reminder of that blood filled night in the forest.

 I can still remember that moment, that instant where I recognized a face in a group photo, a young girl in rags. The face nearly made me vomit in the hall, but when I saw the caption of the picture, saying it was taken in France, I collapsed then and there and rushed to a hospital.

 I never told my family the truth that I could no longer deny. Not my wife, not my children, not my grandchildren. Even as I had irrevocable prove of the punishment I had suffered, I could never find the courage to admit to the ones I loved that I was a monster.

 I spent the last few years applying myself to charities for the survivors of what my people did. I spent back breaking hours in soup kitchens and rallies, I devoted every second I had to make the apology I breathed in the forest air mean something.

 It was never enough, even as people received help and money and hugged me so fiercely I thought they would snap me in half it was never enough. And I never told a soul that I wore the same uniform as those that treated them like animals.

 Until today.

 Understand, I did not come here for absolution, or aide, this was simply a long needed confession from me. It is getting harder and harder to get out of bed, my wife passed away years back, and my children and their children barely keep in touch with me anymore.

 I have run out of excuses, I can no longer hide behind the orders that told me to commit such horrible sins. I will forever be a monster, no amount of charity or apologies will change that, but me being a coward? That is something firmly within my control.

 I do not expect you to find anything, or even believe this crazy, one armed man who suddenly appeared on your doorstep. That's okay, giving me a chance to write this story down, even if no one will ever read it, was more than enough.

 Thank you, all the same. And for the tea.

 It may seem small to you, but to a monster like me? It's more than I will ever deserve.

-_-

"Statement ends. Johan Hess died two months after giving this statement, so any chance of a personal follow up is impossible as this point.

 Further, considering that he recounted events that happens forty years previous, even Gertrude could not find much with what little investigation she did. According to German Military records that have survived from the French Occupation, no unit such as the one that Hess claimed he belonged to ever existed, at least not anywhere near Eawy Forest.

 In fact, there is indeed no document stating that Mr. Hess served during the war at all, so nobody remembering he went to France is no big surprise.

 There is a picture of him included in the statement, which does show an extensive amount of injuries to his face along with a missing left arm, but that hardly proves anything. Finding anything about any building fires or car accidents that could have given him those injuries have also turned up nothing.

 He didn't lie about his contributions to charity work to support Holocaust survivors, and there was a report of him being rushed to the hospital after collapsing in a museum, but that's where anything solid about what is said in this statement stops.

 I would dismiss this report entirely, if not for one thing regarding his death. The death itself was not as…visceral as what had allegedly happened to his unit, simply a heart attack in his sleep. But his neighbor, who had reported his death to the police and called an ambulance, found something clenched in his hand.

 It was a note, written in French. The neighbor, as well as the rest of the tenets in the building where Mr. Hess was staying, does not speak a word of French, and handwriting analysis determined that Mr. Hess did not write it himself. Translated, it reads as follows:

 Not a monster. Not anymore.

 End Recording."