#and while to an extent it is. The character that made me realize is Garry from Ib.

[strawberryjamsara]

There’s a reversal of that ‘I can understand villains killing people but I draw the line at shitty parenting’ that I feel and it’s ‘I will excuse any characters shitty behavior if they’re good with kids’

[expertmakodriver]

30 Day Mass Effect Challenge: Day 5

5. Favorite character?

Surprising (hopefully) not a soul: Garry Vakary himself

(Disclaimer: I’m going to be talking about him in the context of the first two games while disregarding the third. Also, while Femshep technically is my favorite character, I already made a post about her, so I’m making this section about Garrus.)

Strap in, folks, because this is going to be a long post. 

When I first encountered Garrus, I immediately felt a connection to him since he seemed like one of the few people on the Citadel who actually gave a shit about stopping Saren. Despite being a C-Sec officer bound by red tape, he proved that he was a man of action by leaving all of the bureaucracy behind and getting some real work done with Shepard and the Normandy crew. Since turians and humans had a few remnants of tension between them as a result of the Relay 314 Incident/First Contact War, which was still somewhat recent, it was nice to see another turian, besides Nihlus, act civilly towards a human. 

Garrus was so eager to step up and take action against Saren; of course I let him aboard the Normandy. His struggle and Shepard’s struggle with politics are very similar; they both don’t like being told what to do by clueless politicians/higher-ups who try to prevent them from solving problems. This comes into play when Garrus and Shepard begin conversing more and more on the Normandy. I’ve always felt that Garrus’s interactions were a bit more profound than those of any other crew member; they don’t just talk to each other, but exchange opinions and feedback and really try to understand each other. They eventually develop a sort of mentor-protégé relationship to the point where Shepard really has a deep effect on Garrus in terms of his way of viewing the world. I had Shepard lead Garrus down the Renegade path while enforcing a few Paragon ideas (such as being cautious of the thin moral line that any Spectre walks as someone with nearly unlimited power in Citadel space), and I still do to this day.

I’ve always found it funny that Garrus is always super respectful to Shepard despite being a bit of a jerk to pretty much everyone else. Seeing him thank the commander at the end of the game for letting him in on the action and teaching him some valuable lessons was heartwarming, too. It made me kind of sad to think that he would go back to C-Sec after the war with Saren and Soverign was over, especially since he seemed to be so miserable there, but it was nice to know that he would follow Shepard’s lead and train to be a Spectre later on. 

Fast forward to Mass Effect 2, and I was so upset when The Illusive Man said that Garrus had disappeared a few months after the Normandy was destroyed. I kept wondering what had happened to him and if he would ever appear in the game again, but when I took a closer look at Archangel’s dossier and noticed the line “omni-tool expert and noted sniper” on it, I became very suspicious despite not wanting to get my hopes up.

Throughout Archangel’s recruitment mission, I kept worrying. Hearing the mercs talk about how Archangel had been cornered and put through hell for the past few days didn’t sit well with me. I think that was the one point at which I hoped that Archangel wasn’t Garrus, because I didn’t want to imagine Garrus going through all of that on his own. When I saw that Archangel had blue armor, I knew for sure it was him. Taking off his helmet and revealing his identity to Shepard made me so happy that I wasn’t at all bothered by how little I was surprised. I wasn’t entirely relieved, though, because Garrus was still in immediate danger. Seeing him so tired and damaged was rough; he was fairly different from the enthusiastic C-Sec officer that I had brought with me on every mission in the previous game. Even though he was exhausted and didn’t exactly have sufficient energy to physically display his emotion, you could tell just how happy he was to see Shepard alive and kicking. “Yeah I shot at you, Shepard. I wanted to get you moving so you could come get my ass out of here.”

When Shepard was forced to leave his side to close the shutters in the base’s lower level, I was in full panic mode. I didn’t trust Jacob or Miranda enough to leave them alone with him. Then when Garrus was nearly killed by the rocket that blew half of his face off, I literally had to pause the game and calm myself down because of how pissed I was. Of course I was distraught at the sight of his motionless body bleeding out on the ground, but I was also upset with the possibility that the game would give me a surprise reunion with my favorite character just to kill him off so quickly. I was, for the second time, overjoyed when I saw that he was alive a few moments later, but hearing him gasping for breath and choking on his own blood with Shepard, who is almost always composed and level-headed, freaking out while trying to help him was heart-wrenching. 

Then, right after I see Shepard looking very nervous and upset as Jacob explains the extent of Garrus’s injuries to her back on the Normandy, the smug bastard himself walks out of surgery and just casually waltzes up to Shepard like, “It’s only a flesh wound, I’ve had worse” and I literally thanked BioWare out loud for not killing Garrus. Shepard’s look of absolute relief and joy when she saw that he was okay was very touching, as was the fact that Garrus expresses that he’s more worried about Shepard than himself even though he nearly died a few hours ago. Garrus was so eager to fight alongside Shepard again that he put himself right to work at the Main Battery, and that really demonstrated how much trust he had in Shepard and her motives though I wish there was an option to have Shepard tell Garrus to focus on relaxing and getting some rest. Poor guy just went through hell and already wants to bury himself in calibrations. 

While Shepard and Garrus were catching up later on, Shepard was so gentle with Garrus while she asked him about his team and what he had been doing while she was gone, and I could see how broken he was by the death of his team and the betrayal of his former teammate. I felt bad for him. When he asked Shepard to help him find Sidonis a few hours of gameplay later, I knew it was because he wanted the moral support - he wanted Shepard to be there with him while he sought closure with Sidonis (regardless of how he gets it). 

Seeing Shepard and Garrus so synchronized while they tracked down Harkin and obtained information about Sidonis was great. They seem more like partners than mentor and student, and that was exactly what the writers were going for. 

When it came to allowing or preventing Sidonis’s death, I let Garrus shoot him, and I continue to do so during every playthrough. There are three main reasons for this, the first being that I felt that Shepard shouldn’t be involved in the situation as both a separate party and a non-turian. Turians have their own culture and deal with responsibility and leadership a bit differently than humans do; they pride themselves on taking ownership over their choices and putting the safety and interests of the whole before the individual. Sidonis broke both of these cardinal rules. Garrus, as both a turian and the leader of the group who Sidonis had betrayed, felt obligated to serve justice to Sidonis, another turian, and that is inherently something that Shepard cannot fully understand as a human. It wouldn’t feel right to let Shepard deny Garrus the right to deal with Sidonis in the way that he saw fit.

The second reason is that Sidonis was more than just a coward; he had the opportunity to warn Garrus of the trap set by the mercs for his squad, but he didn’t. Garrus says that he learned through some old contacts that Sidonis “booked transport off of Omega just before the attack” and disappeared. He didn’t even try to make things right with Garrus by confronting him afterwards and apologizing. This is why I’m not bothered by Garrus wanting to kill Sidonis. If I felt that Garrus was being too destructive or going too far, I would have had Shepard steer him back in the right direction. He kept himself in check well enough (like when he didn’t kill Harkin). 

And finally, the third reason: If Shepard came back to the Normandy one day and found that everyone - Garrus, Joker, Mordin, Tali, etc - had been slowly and painfully killed by an enemy group because, say, Jacob had been captured and sold Shepard out (and didn’t even try to warn Shepard or stop the attack), you know damn well that most, if not all, players would bring the fury of hell onto him. 

Now for the juicy part: Garrus’s romance. When I was innocently exploring Garrus’s dialogue options after his loyalty mission and stumbled across the “We could ease stress together” line, I lost my freaking mind. The game is going to let Shepard sleep with Garrus? Is this for real? I didn’t immediately realize that “easing tension” would turn into “making love and wordlessly declaring mutual feelings for each other”, so I was a little disappointed at first, but I was willing to take what I could get. Garrus was so flustered by Shepard’s proposition, to the point where he seems like he wasn’t expecting her to be interested in him at all, and seeing badass vigilante, merc leader, and hero of Omega turn into a shy softy around her was cute. 

Through further dialogue, Garrus began to hint that he had feelings for Shepard, and ugh it was so endearing. He made subtle remarks about wanting more than just “blowing off steam” with her without making his feelings obvious, probably because he didn’t want to chase her away with his heart, and when I combined this with the fact that despite these feelings, which he has had for who knows how long now (maybe even the first game?), he isn’t the one to make the first move, I realized that Garrus was probably too afraid of approaching Shepard with any sort of interest that he had in her because he didn’t want to be rejected and/or feared ruining their relationship. That was the final straw for me: I was super attached to his character at this point. The little dork wanted to watch porn to learn how to properly satisfy a human woman and thought that playing shitty club music was a good idea. The nerd. The doofus. I love him.

I’m just going to admit it: the first time I saw his romance scene with Shepard right before the Omega 4 Relay, I went from laughing as he awkwardly played techno music and tried to woo Shep with his bad flirting skills to tearing up as he confessed to her that he wanted their time together to be special and that he wanted to do things right. Notice how this is different from something he said previously about how if their romantic rendezvous goes south due to species incompatibility, fighting the Collectors would be “a welcome distraction” and wouldn’t be a big deal. Oh, no. It would be a big deal. Garrus wants to give Shepard the best final moment of peace he can before they take on the Collector base, and when Shepard shut him up and they touched foreheads (which I suppose is like the turian equivalent of a kiss given that turians don’t have lips to kiss with) I just lost my mind. I cried and I’m not ashamed to say it. It takes a lot to make me cry, since I’m not easily moved, but seeing Garrus and Shepard so happy in such a tender moment was too much for me. My two favorite characters enjoying peace and joy that they deserve. Beautiful. 

The suicide mission - I have all my upgrades, all loyalty missions complete, and I’m still freaking out about who is going to die and who is going to survive. I made the right choices in terms of who I assigned to what, but even with Garrus at Shepard’s side the whole time, I was again in full panic mode. I had like three separate heart attacks thinking that Garrus was about to be killed. I was literally shouting in horror as this happened: 

Everything worked out in the end, though. The whole crew survived, the base was destroyed, and Shepard got to snuggle with Garrus in her cabin afterwards. I was very, very happy.

So yeah, Garrus having such a profound character and being not just a likable badass but also Shepard’s most loyal companion is why I love him so much. Evidently, this is also why he’s one of the most, if not the most, popular characters from Mass Effect. Archangel owns all of our asses.

[marvelsagentsofshieldtv]

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Clark Gregg Talks Life After Coulson

INTERVIEW Michael Ahr (DEN OF GEEK)

Clark Gregg has been playing Agent Philip J. Coulson for a decade now: five years in various Avengers movies and Marvel One Shots and five years in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. But throughout season 6 on ABC, we’ve come to enjoy Gregg’s performance depicting a new, less scrupulous character named Sarge, whose role has evolved from that of an outright antagonist to an adversary with a common enemy. We spoke to Gregg recently about how he made the transition to his new character on the show.

DEN OF GEEK: So was it difficult to let go of Phil Coulson?

CLARK GREGG: We learned on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D some time ago that everything’s on the table at all times as our nimble writers scour these characters and the greater Marvel universe for going on seven seasons worth of stories to tell. Yet I don’t think I was prepared to basically shed everything but the guy’s skin to play a very different, much darker character whose name is apparently Sarge.

it wasn’t until I got there that day and started to get fitted for the gear that would set up the flaming skull transition that I said, ‘You know, it occurs to me there are implications to the mortality of anyone who plays Ghost Rider.’ And they were like, ‘Yes, there are.’ And I said, ‘Oh, okay, maybe we should talk about that!’ And they really didn’t, and I’m glad they didn’t.

But I was talking to Jeff Bell and Jed Whedon off behind some flats while they got ready to light the scene. They really didn’t give me much because there was this scene where Gabe Luna’s Robbie Reyes character is saying, ‘Do you understand the deal you just made? And more importantly, does your team?’ And I say, ‘Yes, I understand the deal I just made, and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me share this information when I choose.’ And it just felt heavy, and I thought, ‘God, okay, this is going to have longer reaching implications,’ and it wasn’t until the disease that was tearing through him, the waste and the necropathy, that they really said, ‘Yeah, this is your deal with Ghost Rider coming due.’ He basically burned through whatever was left of the revivifying Tahiti stuff.

And now Phil Coulson was really going to die. And I thought that was a bold choice! They don’t mess around; they take bold choices. It was a little startling after, at that point, ten years of playing the guy and having died already once and the grim stuff I went through in season 1 and realizing how I’d been brought back. And yet Phil Coulson’s always been a little uncomfortable with having felt like he was on somebody else’s library card being here. So it was an ambivalent feeling, and then they said, ‘We will have you back for season 6.’ And then they pitched this Sarge setup essentially in a very rough pencil-sketch form, that he would be somebody else from somewhere else who was as surprised as they were when they were recognizing him.

There’s years of gradual evolution of that season 5 iteration of Phil Coulson, through the various movies and then five seasons of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and all those adventures and that family that he evolves. That was a real gradual settling into that skin and character, and suddenly all those bets were off. It was about not knowing this new person. He has a completely different story, and I didn’t know it. And at a certain point it starts to become clear that he has real gaps in his memory and understanding of that character.

So that’s very hard to make sense of, and at the same time he has a lot of emotional entanglements. A moral compass — all of that was gone, and this guy was delightfully free of anything but rabid, fierce dedication to taking on these creatures that we’ve started to meet who seem to be paving the way for some kind of creator to come down. And he seems maniacally bent on destroying them and whoever the creator is.

Before I directed that first episode (because I’d never really done an episode of television with commercials; I’d directed a couple of features) I sat down with those two and also with Billy Gierhart who also directed a number of episodes of our show. They had really done the most compelling episodes for the most part, and I just kind of soaked them for their tips. But also Jed had directed a great episode, and he and Maurissa, the bosses, the showrunners were really generous in terms of giving me the time and the resources I needed. And our producer Garry Brown, I’ve gotten to watch him direct a lot of the action stuff and he was — they were all super supportive.

It’s really about trying to find a way to tell the story in the style of our show and find what’s different about that episode that you’re doing and really do it justice. I’d be remiss in not pointing out that when they gave me the shot to do the premiere episode of season 6, that was a huge episode with a lot of visual effects establishing a whole new chapter and to some extent a world for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D that was more space sci-fi than we had dealt with. And Mark Kolpack, our visual effects genius, really came through on that.

Coulson and Sarge are both understated leaders. Would Coulson have any appreciation for the manner in which Sarge leads his team?

I don’t think so. I think standard issue Phil Coulson would find Sarge’s methods and that way that he is maybe using some of the same quiet notes but really ruling through fear to be antithetical to his leadership style. That would have been a great death match: Sarge versus Coulson. I have to say my money would be on Sarge!

I think by now we’ve started to see that Sarge thinks that this is just a mild, strange piece of information that people seem to recognize him, but as they seem to know to say things to trigger memories and to send weird vibrations through his being and expose how many gaps there are in his own understanding of who he is, he starts to, in a way that’s eerily reminiscent of Phil Coulson season 1, to be on a little bit of a mystery mission himself to find out why this is happening. And at a certain point that puts him in an uncomfortable alliance of sorts with S.H.I.E.L.D, and that’s I think when we start to roll into when season 6 gets really dangerous and interesting.

I feel like Sarge thinks that there’s a lot that S.H.I.E.L.D could learn from him especially when it comes to the truly monumental threat that’s presented by the shrike and the creatures that they take over, these kind of zombie warriors. There’s a couple of species of insects that are able to drop spores into their prey, that take over their brain stem and basically have these zombie mutant prey building a nest for the offspring of those wasps and then basically becoming their food. That’s the level of what these creatures are doing, and I think Sarge has a tough mission ahead of him to make the nature of this threat be understood by May and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.

How do you think Coulson would feel about Deke co-opting all of that S.H.I.E.L.D technology in “Code Yellow”?

[Deke] is a creature of his upbringing as, to a certain extent, we all are. He was raised like a pack rat with nothing in the future fighting for survival, and I think he has some trust issues. So I think Coulson would have a level of compassion for Deke the way that Mack does, but I don’t think he would put up with this grand scale S.H.I.E.L.D technology theft, especially in terms of presenting that technology to the world outside of classified settings.

What other character arcs besides your own are you particularly fond of that you feel fans will really respond to in season 6?

I think that everybody who cares about Fitz-Simmons and, like me, had a lot of problems with keeping all of the water out of my eyes when they got married really wants to see those two once again find their way back to each other. I think there’s a lot of fun coming in terms of Melinda May, who seems far from nostalgic about the appearance of this Coulson person. If anything it just triggers some murderous feelings, so I think the showdown between these two is going to get down and dirty before it gets nice at all. That’s going to be exciting!

And I think the reunion of this person who looks like Coulson but really isn’t with the S.H.I.E.L.D team to confront the most out-there, terrifying threat that I think we’ve ever seen — and that’s saying something at this point in season 6 — I think that’s going to really pay off like something we’ve never seen before.

Notably, Gregg referred to the flying beasts as “shrike” in this interview and teased that Sarge might be on the lookout for who created them in the first place. When Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D returns from its week off this Friday, perhaps he will persuade Melinda May to unite against this mutual danger. The next episode is entitled “The Other Thing,” and it airs on Friday, June 14, 2019

[angeltriestoblog]

I watched a couple of movies! (April roundup)

I’m glad to announce that I finally found a way to rave about the movies I’ve watched without boring you all to death, driving myself to the brink of insanity, and damaging my eyesight even more. Instead of giving a comprehensive review on each one, I decided to give you my top picks for every month in an attempt to convince you to watch these life-changing pieces of cinema! Maybe someday I could include some of the worst I’ve seen as well because it's easier (and more fun) to point out the flaws I spot.

So without further ado, here are the creme of the crop for the month of April!

Philadelphia (1993, dir. Jonathan Demme) ★★★★★

This superbly crafted film was one of the first in Hollywood to tackle the issue of HIV/AIDS—and with the right amount of sensitivity—during a time when discrimination against victims was at its most rampant. That fact alone makes it deserving of the praise, recognition, and accolades it has collected over the years. Add to that the remarkable performance of Tom Hanks as Andy Beckett, the lawyer fired from the prestigious firm he works for who enlists the help of Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) to take this matter to court. His dedication to the role is evident not only in his dramatic weight loss but the intensity of the emotions he brings to all of his scenes. Though I know a lot of audiences are concerned that the account is told mainly from Miller’s perspective, I found this aspect crucial to his growth as a character and the movie’s effectivity as a call to empathy and compassion.

Certified Copy (2010, dir. Abbas Kiarostami) ★★★★½

It's so difficult to review this without giving away what makes it different from anything that's ever been made, probably. But then again, even if I dive deep into the plot and provide my theories, I doubt it’ll make sense so I’ll say this. Certified Copy is a mind-bender of an arthouse film disguised as a love story of the Before Sunset variety. It’s a deceivingly linear tale of a French woman known only as “She” (Juliette Binoche) who goes to a book signing and offers to explore the city of Tuscany with the author (William Shimell). His work asserts that the reproduction of a certain thing possesses as much value as the original, so much so that it can even take its place. The extent to which this is true is shown in the many ways their relationship changes in the span of a single afternoon. It’s normal to be frustrated once you’ve finished it. I had a “What the hell?” moment myself and had to rewatch some parts a few more times. But once you realize that the plot is an artifice, like fiction and art itself, that’s when you come to terms with how real it actually is.  

The Farewell (2019, dir. Lulu Wang) ★★★★★

This is practically Wang's two-hour thesis on why grandmothers are the best people on the planet and we don’t deserve them. It's not like I needed an external source to prove it was true but I adored it anyway. This Oscar snub is “based on a true lie”: Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), the matriarch of a Chinese clan, is diagnosed with cancer, and her loved ones go to extreme lengths to keep it a secret from her. I appreciated the accurate depiction of the mess that is the Asian extended family: immigrant parents, their first-generation kids, and the relatives they left behind at the homeland under one roof can only mean endless bickering and picking at old wounds. But in all seriousness, its grasp of human emotions—as seen in the brilliant acting performances and authentic dialogue—reels you in instantly and keeps you emotionally invested and painfully waiting for the heartbreaking (?) conclusion.

Interstellar (2014, dir. Christopher Nolan) ★★★★★

In what is arguably Nolan’s most complex and ambitious work yet, we find Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) in what appears to be a shadow of the Earth we live in right now. After a fateful turn of events, he is tapped by NASA to carry out a mission in search of a habitable world for the human population. Rarely do we see a creative project that aspires to be everything at once and succeeds with flying colors. Interstellar is that gem for me. It pushes the limits of our imagination and tests the very boundaries of science and space while serving as a reminder of what it means to be human. It may clock in at 167 minutes but I think that if the run time had been cut down, it would be impossible to do justice to this multi-faceted story. In fact, with the emotionally resonant performances by the cast as well as the phenomenal score (Hans Zimmer, you are a god) and cinematography, I am honestly willing to see another three hours of extra footage.

Mommy (2014, dir. Xavier Dolan) ★★★★½

This… was a lot. I remember watching this first thing in the morning a couple of weeks ago, and not being able to do anything of importance for the entire day since I was too busy wondering if I’ll ever be suitable for the lifelong commitment that is motherhood. This award-winning, affecting tale revolves around Die Despres (Anne Dorval), a struggling journalist and single mom to Steve (Antoine Olivier Pilon), her hyperactive, abusive son diagnosed with ADHD. Although a law had been passed in Canada which lets cash-strapped parents place their troubled kids in hospitals, she refuses to give him up and takes him under her wing: after all, they’re best at loving even when it’s hard. What unfolds after makes it hard to tell how the whole thing ends, but it’s a visually arresting and thought-provoking experience anyway. Dolan also possesses a strong command of the language of filmmakers: critics agree that its most notable aspect is the fact that it was shot in a 1:1 aspect ratio, which allowed me to assume the position of a next-door neighbor peering through their living room window.

Frances Ha (2012, dir. Noah Baumbach) ★★★★★

Before Greta Gerwig was the director extraordinaire we know her to be, she was Frances Halladay, an aspiring dancer who moves to New York City with her best friend and comes face to face with several, consecutive life crises. Her reality couldn’t be any further removed from mine (as a 19-year-old student on the complete opposite side of the world), but it remains highly relatable. At their core, her problems are rooted in a fear of loneliness and failure—just like the rest of us! Come to think of it, maybe that’s why it’s in black-and-white: to give the movie a sense of timelessness since it tackles themes and issues that remain universal and prevalent across generations. I loved Frances as a protagonist, though she far from perfect: she’s immature and petty and quite frankly, she had no clue what she was doing until the last 15 minutes—just like me! And yet she powered through in the end, which gives me hope that I’ll be able to do the same.

Fight Club (1999, dir. David Fincher) ★★★★½

Believe it or not, despite its straightforward title and predominantly male fanbase, I was completely taken aback when the unnamed narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) started beating each other up in the middle of a parking lot—the very event that led to the establishment of their underground fight club. What initially appears to be a man’s search for a way out of the boring humdrum of his everyday existence evolves into a structural analysis of consumer capitalism and critique of toxic masculinity. There’s a lot of gore and violence but I pulled through thanks to the stunning visuals, unpredictable plot, and Brad Pitt’s beautiful face. Although the twist towards the end wasn’t exactly revolutionary for me because it kind of resembled Primal Fear (1996), it was still a mind-blowing and fitting conclusion to this cult classic.

Pretty Woman (1990, dir. Garry Marshall) ★★★★★

This modern-day Cinderella story about a hooker who falls in love with a wealthy businessman has become problematic for my generation. There are a ton of essays on Letterboxd attempting to start discourse on its ethics, calling it out for its misogynistic undertones, and criticizing it for being unrealistic. I actually saw a review that said it indirectly promotes prostitution as a means to get ahead in life, which could wrongly influence teenage girls. (How stupid do you think we are?) At the end of the day, this is a romantic comedy—and an outstanding one, at that! This probably has the most equal distribution of swoon-worthy scenes and laugh-out-loud moments out of all the romcoms I’ve watched, and we have the lead actors’ insane chemistry and the consistently witty script to thank. Needless to say, Julia Roberts is an absolute delight as Vivian Ward and it’s only fitting that it was this particular role that catapulted her to superstardom. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna rewatch this then proceed to play It Must Have Been Love for another 70 times.

The Fundamentals of Caring (2016, dir. Rob Burnett) ★★★★★

I genuinely think that everything Paul Rudd touches turns to gold. Here, he plays Ben, caretaker to Trevor (Craig Roberts), a sarcastic teen suffering from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Together, they make a spur-of-the-moment decision to take a cross-country road trip to see several roadside attractions and of course, come to terms with their own issues. I admit that my love for this comes with the acute awareness that if I had found it on Netflix at a different time, I wouldn’t have appreciated it as much. It’s fairly predictable, it doesn’t strive towards anything complex or require much reflection on our part but it ties together neatly and satisfyingly in the end—truly a perfect comfort film! The equivalent of the warm, 10-second-long, oxytocin-inducing hug that we all need and can't have right now, given the state of our world!

Edit (05/09/20): I’m currently binge-watching Timothee Chalamet interviews and he just told Stephen Colbert that he had auditioned for this but wasn’t accepted for the job. Imagine him and Paul Rudd together... the visual power that duo would hold... I would miss the point of the movie entirely.

So, that’s it for this month! I’ve actually been spending more time writing lately but I hope I can continue to squeeze in something to watch into my schedule so I can actually be consistent with this series. Till next time! Exciting things up ahead! Wishing you love and light always, and don’t forget to wash your hands, check your privilege and pray for our frontliners!