#anyone who watches it do u have to know stuff that happened past season ten in order to watch the prequel

[theofreakingbell]

saw ten seasons of supernatural when I was younger and decided that was enough for me and never watched the 11th or any further I will NOT get dragged into the prequel bc they brought my favorite minor character back

..... right?

😅...

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Sole Crusher

Well... It's finally here... the episode introducing the new bee hero. And what do you know? It looks like I was right about how the new character would be portrayed.

It's kind of funny how I made predictions exaggerating what could happen, and they were surprisingly accurate. Isn't that funny?

Let's just get into the seventh (chronologically the seventh and the seventh episode in the season to air after “Mr. Pigeon 72”) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Sole Crusher. Damn, I hate that a pun this clever was used for the title.

We get to the point pretty quickly with the first scene being Zoe arriving in Paris and getting a tour of the city. She asks to stop at the Dupain-Cheng bakery, where she meets Marinette through some brief Unfunny Marinette Slapstick. The two quickly strike up a conversation.

I mean, it's not like Zoe is the sister of the absolute worst human being in existence, right?

Marinette compliments Zoe's shoes, and she points out that she designed them herself, and wrote every good thing anyone has ever said to her on them. But because she only has one friend, there's only a standard “I <3 U” on the left shoe.

So Zoe leaves the bakery and heads to Le Grand Paris where she meets her mother, Audrey. Unlike how she talked with Marinette, Zoe pretends to be just as snobby as Audrey in order to fit in. She then meets up with Chloe, who criticizes her for having poor person things like a phone without any diamonds embedded in it. And then she sees Zoe's shoes.

Look, that meme was already dated when it was referenced in Black Panther three years ago. Please don't try to reference memes in 2021, Miraculous Ladybug.

Chloe offers some golden heels while saying that those kind of shoes are for winners to wear and crush the losers underneath. This is the only episode to mention this kind of ideology, and believe me, it gets worse when Chloe decides to teach Zoe how to be like her.

Get used to this. This episode is all about demolishing any semblance of likability in Chloe's character. Now that Astruc doesn't have to bother with writing Chloe with decency since she's not Queen Bee, watch as he turns her into an absolute caricature of her former self.

Yes, Chloe has ordered her father to give her a lot of frivolous things in the past, but she has been shown to care about him, like immediately rushing to hug him after she was safe in “Origins” and showing concern for when he was akumatized into Malediktator while apologizing for causing it. For the love of God, one of the first things she did when she allied with Hawkmoth at the end of Season 3 was to have him unto her parents' akumatization. I guess she only cared about her rich parents for their status and not because she actually loved them right?

Next up on the list of Chloe's positive qualities to ruin is her friendship with Sabrina.

🎶It's seven o'clock in the morning🎶 🎶I can't believe they made this scene🎶 🎶With the writing Astruc's enforcing🎶 🎶It's like he's trying to piss off me🎶

Yep, Chloe doesn't view Sabrina in a twisted view of friendship anymore. Now she's a slave. I'm not exaggerating by the way, he actually said that in a tweet.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES

Okay, so I guess all those times we saw Chloe playing superheroes with Sabrina in “Antibug” and “Miraculer” were just a slave driver playing with their property. Actually apologizing to Sabrina for getting her akumatized in those episodes? Protecting her from the Scarlet Akumas in “Ladybug”? She was just interested in keeping her slave around. I think Astruc may have slept through the slavery unit in his history class. Yes, Sabrina was mostly used as a joke to show how controlling Chloe could be, but there were still semblances of an actual friendship between the two.

Chloe arrives at school and introduces Zoe as her half-sister, despite being the same age and having the same mother. Because I guess we can add basic biology to the list of things the writers don't understand. Now that we're at school, Chloe's friendship with Adrien is next up on the chopping block.

Yep, despite being Adrien's only friend and making a big deal about valuing his friendship to the point where she threw a big party just to make sure he wouldn't leave her and risked cooperating with an Akuma to save him, now Chloe just sees Adrien as a rich meal ticket. Two of the earliest episodes to show Chloe had a more compassionate side to her, and they just undid them. Even as much as I hated the episode, “Felix” showed Chloe was willing to cooperate with Marinette and her friends just to find a way to cheer Adrien up on the anniversary of his mother's not-death.

For the love of God, Astruc, 1984 was supposed to warn people about what could happen if they rewrote the past, not encourage people to rewrite the past. He probably finished Animal Farm thinking Snowball really did work alongside the humans, didn't he?

Marinette comes up and Zoe pretends to hate her, leading Marinette to wonder why she did that. She texts Zoe (she gave her number to her earlier) and invites her to a concert on the Liberty, but Chloe finds out. Zoe thinks fast and pretends it's just so she can torment her more. Chloe then takes out a book listing all the ways she can torture Marinette. I wonder if this is a metaphor for the writing process behind most of the episodes last season.

Zoe decides to go outside for some fresh air, and Andre comforts her. Funny how Andre bends over backwards to give Chloe whatever she wants, yet he's willing to actually talk to Zoe like an actual parent. Andre tries to cheer Zoe up, but she talks about her past where she had to put on an act so she would be liked, but (bet you've never heard this before) she just wants to be accepted for who she truly is. The surge of emotions is enough for Shadowmoth to akumatize her into Sole Crusher.

In addition to having one of the most clever puns for an Akuma name, I actually like Sole Crusher's design. Not only is it a good excuse to reuse Chloe's character design, it makes sense thematically, as Chloe was trying to mold Zoe into a copy of herself. The gold and diamonds also make sense given Chloe's love for shiny things. Her powers tie into the bizarre belief Chloe has about stepping on the winners. Whenever Sole Crusher kicks or steps on someone, she absorbs them and gets progressively bigger, making it easier to do so. While it's not cracking my top ten anytime soon, it's still an interesting character design.

Sole Crusher heads to the hotel to get Chloe, and she manages to get away pretty quickly. Maybe in an alternate universe, she's a track star? For some reason, she runs to the Dupain-Cheng bakery and then... Oh my God... pushes Marinette's parents so they get absorbed by Sole Crusher, before trying to do the same with Marinette.

When has Chloe ever done something like that? Whenever she endangered someone during an Akuma attack, it was unintentional or a result of her naivety. She was only trapped in Pixelator's dimension because Adrien tried diving to save her, she only alerted Rogercop to Ladybug's presence because she eagerly called out for her, and during “Zombizou” she only tried to throw Sabrina towards the horde of kissing zombies once, and that was meant to highlight her growth. The only person to actually do stuff like this consistently is Lila, but I guess she got vaporized by Big Brother offscreen.

This episode is determined to make the audience hate Chloe by retconning everything about her character while portraying her as a complete monster. As bad as Chloe could get, she was never selfish enough to use anyone as a human shield. This kind of behavior honestly could be explained by saying Chloe was lashing out as a result of losing the Bee Miraculous permanently, but the events of the Season 3 finale aren't mentioned ONCE, not even in the next episode that introduces Queen Bee's replacement! How the hell can you set up the next Bee hero without explaining why the original needs to be replaced in the first place?! And trust me, I'm going to talk about Zoe replacing Chloe later.

Sole Crusher grabs Marinette in her hand, so the Horse Kwami, Kaalki, uses her power to teleport over to Adrien's house and inform him Ladybug needs help, meaning once again Adrien did nothing in this episode before becoming Cat Noir.

At the Liberty, Chloe offers more victims to Sole Crusher in the form of the band Kitty Section (consisting of Luka, Juleka, Rose, Ivan, and Mylene) and theatens the giant golden supervillain she can send her back to Paris, even though she's really not in a position to bargain right now. And she STILL continues to insult her. Do you hate Chloe yet? Come on, do you? The writers won't stop until you do.

After we see Sole Crusher's conflicted emotions, Marinette is set free by Cat Noir and transforms into Ladybug, immediately summoning her Lucky Charm, a shoehorn. They only learn Zoe's sneakers were where she were akumatized thanks to Chloe's ranting, so the episode unintentionally made Chloe save the day. Ladybug breaks into Le Grand Paris and breaks the sneakers where Zoe hid them, using the shoehorn to open a door. So Sole Crusher is de-evilized, Ladybug fixes the damage, and gives yet another charm to Zoe.

Afterwards, Zoe goes to the Liberty, apologizes for the act she put on, all while divulging to the audience her “tragic backstory”.

Of course, everyone welcomes her with open arms.

And right here is where the biggest problem I have with Zoe as a character. I normally hesitate to use this term given how often it gets thrown around when criticizing characters these days, but I really can't say anything else.

Zoe... is a Mary Sue.

For those who don't know, the term Mary Sue originated in a Star Trek fanfiction from 1973 satirizing several self-insert stories at the time. Most of these stories showed a beautiful young woman joining the crew of the Enterprise and immediately gaining the attention of the crew. Mary Sue parodied this character archetype by showing how much she was appreciated by Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, the latter being driven to tears at her funeral despite his species being emotionless normally.

What does this have to do with Zoe? She has the exact same storyline as Mary Sue in the parody fanfiction. Her mere presence is enough to make Chloe act extremely out of character in an attempt to make her look better, and as soon as she apologizes while giving a frankly vague backstory, everyone just accepts her as their friend, and I mean everyone in the entire class. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't feel earned. Why was she bullied at her old school? What did her bullies have against her? What caused her to stop going along with her peers, and why did everyone turn against her? How the hell did the bullies who put cockroaches in another student's locker get no punishment while the victim was forced to transfer schools? It's an intentionally unclear backstory designed to make the audience feel sympathetic towards Zoe without actually doing anything else.

I want to ask anyone reading this who watched the episode a question: Outside of her backstory, what do we actually know about Zoe?

What is her personality like? She's nice? Socially awkward? We've never had a character like that in Miraculous Ladybug before! Sorry Marinette, Adrien, Juleka, Nathaniel, Mylene, and Marc, there's a new character with more personality than all of you combined!

What are her goals? She wants to be an actress? Great, but why? Even though there's no clear answer for why Marinette loves fashion, or why Alya loves journalism, or why Nino loves DJing, you can still see the passion in their lives when they do something related to their goals. Zoe only says she wants to be an actress, connecting it to her people pleaser backstory (and given how it ended, she must be a terrible actress), and in the next episode, she immediately gets the lead role in a student film.

When Mylene got the starring role in the movie in “Horrificator”, we at least got snippets of her acting skills in the same episode that established her desire to be an actress, which is also implied to be because she was inspired by her father in “The Mime”. She didn't just say she wanted to be an actress and got the leading role. She still had problems to overcome like her cowardice, which threw her own self-confidence into doubt. Here, Zoe just says she wants to be an actress, and is rewarded for no reason the very next episode.

Zoe basically exists only to be a foil to Chloe, and the writers had no idea what to do in terms of a personality, so they just dumped a bunch of extremely likable character traits onto her without thinking of how her character could come off. And like I said, she's a Mary Sue.

I'm not the only one who thinks this. I've seen a handful of posts on this very site calling Zoe a Mary Sue. In fact, I even asked another Tumblr user @anxresi​ to quote their take on Zoe being a Mary Sue, which I couldn't even top in terms of accuracy. They basically listed off five things that made Zoe a Mary Sue.

She has to have a ‘tragic backstory’ so all the other characters will fall in love with her. Usually within minutes, in the very first episode they’re introduced.

She has to have a supercute design so that the audience at home will fall in love with her. And if they don’t, they’re automatically dismissed as ‘haterz’ even if their objections are purely from a writing POV.

Her only flaw will be thinking too little of herself. “What, lil ol’ me as the Bee Miraculous holder? With my shyness, colorful shoes, chic beret and personalized pink strip in my hair? Gosh, who’d have thought it?”

The contrast to her half-sister will be a constant plot point, with Chloe always getting dumped on. “You see, kids? Bad things happen to bad people. But you see this super-sweet girl over here? She gets a free DAD. Instant FRIENDS. To star in her own MOVIE. The chance to be a SUPERHERO, even though she only arrived last week. Who cares if she has no depth, no personality and barely any reason for being in the show, apart from being a massive ‘Up Yours’ to all the Chloe fans out there?”

What about character development, Mr Generic Zag Guy? “Development? What’s that?! Zoe is already perfect as she is. The only ‘development’ she’ll receive is having her hair done in the first episode she’s introduced. Besides, That‘d’ word is banned here at Zag studios. Why do you think we abandoned Chloe’s stillborn arc so quickly? This is a KIDS show, why bother trying to create a complex character with more than one dimension?”

This is essentially who Zoe is. She's perfect, has no character flaws, has a cute design so the audience will love her already, and was designed only to replace Chloe as Queen Bee. That's all she is.

So the episode ends with Zoe feeling happy at all the new friends she made while we get one of the most blatant attempts of symbolism in the ending card I've ever seen.

See, look. While Marinette is happily talking with Zoe with the image of Ladybug next to them, Chloe is to the far left with an EVIL purple aura, showing how bad she is compared to how great Zoe is. Only a braindead moron would actually like Chloe over the super awesome and pretty Zoe!

I'll give my final thoughts on the episode in the next part where I analyze this plotline as a whole.

LINK TO “QUEEN BANANA” REVIEW

[phoebehalliwell]

on the subject of crackships.

in a prue lives, phoebeleo piperkyle pruecole paigeandy au (in which paige meets them in s1) how do u see it playing out and ALSO. do u see them all having kids still. this is so random i am so sorry (also i don't mean they have to be set from the get go and never get w anyone else but these would hypothetically be endgame)

i mean with phoebeleo like hard yes like in s2 when they're watching the baby at the end everyone's like phoebe ik you're gonna be a great mom you're gonna have like a million and one kids like mark my words and phoebe's real smitten about it like wow u really think you : ) i'd like to. guess i should probably find a guy first tho huh. but if that guy's already there bc it's leo and he's been here since season one i think they are easily first to have kids and first to get a full power of three the other three is definitely like another can of worms bc like.

okay so for paigeandy obvi we're starting andy's an old childhood friend of the halliwell's for the sake of cleanliness did not date any of them (if we're going messy tho dated prue hooked up once or twice with phoebe (not while dating prue, but neither of them ever mentioned it around prue bc well. yikes.) And piper had a major crush on andy for like. a decade. from ages 13 to 23) and he's a cop and does. stuff idk helps people and this lands him frequently in bed with social services which is. consistently. a pain in the ass. and he doesn't try to hold it against them bc they're clearly understaffed underpaid there's a lot to do but um jesus. and everyone in the precinct Hates having to go over there to do stuff bc you're just standing in the lobby drinking bad coffee for fifty minutes before you can even get a word in with the work and unlucky andy he drew the short straw ends up at social services and who should he meet there if not this gorgeous but really scatterbrained berkeley grad with a mouth like a sailor and a heart of gold and now um there's no need to draw straws at the station because andy straight up volunteers to go to social services just to see paige which she notices of course because like. were you jinxed or something? cursed? i've never known someone to draw the short straw so many times. and andy's like no i just um. like being hands on with my work i don't like leaving up to some dumb rookie with bad luck and paige is like oh don't worry i promise it is still being left to some dumb rookie with bad luck i mean i am right here blah blah blah banter conversation hint at a tragic backstory give it half a season and then it's official bf/gf shit and as far as charmed goes it's a prophecy about four sisters and the halliwells are like phew. dodged a bullet there lmao. until they do something only charmed ones could do and they're like Wait. Fuck. Is There A Fourth Sister Out There? so they find paige within the first hmm ten episodes or so.

so since we have both s1 phoebeleo and paigeandy i'd say they'd be on the fastest track but i feel like paige does have a lot more issues when it comes to getting married and having kids than phoebe does regardless i think by s4 they're married on track to have kids with pruecole we're doing the s3 introduction and the enemies to lovers arc we seal that with either a wedding at the very end of s4 or at the very beginning of s5 however kids is like. like they both want kids but prue has daddy issues and cole has mommy issues not to mention the charmed one/demon hybrid so they need to do some soul searching on that one. prue's probably pregnant by the end of s5 and has her baby halfway thru s6. paige may or may not have had kids at this point if they did they were kind of a whoopsies baby but she and andy r embracing it with open arms.

piperkyle imo is peak in a divorce/widower era it's been pitched like piperkyle au where he's not fucking insane piperkyle au where she's not brokenhearted piperkyle au where they're both normal happy people who then meet but like. nah. the appeal of them to me really is being the broken fucked up human being and feeling like you're kinda just gonna stay broken and fucked up bc you had your shot and you blew it so now you're here get used to it and then to have someone to meet someone who sees you so genuinely as you are that at first it's disgusting leave me alone i hate you but out of that just honest sight grows familiarity and comfort and before you even realized it happened love and jfc i'm in love with them???? but you realize that you're always happier when they're around you want to stay by their side and you don't even have to wonder if they feel the same because you just know they do because you Know each other and you don't have to wait for them to turn and run once they see who you really are because they know who you are they've known from the start saw the ugly the broken and vile and looked past that and saw the beauty and genuine love underneath like 🗣‼🗣‼🗣‼🗣‼. piperkyle consistently makes me insane. So. in order to hit this. we're bringing in dan. that's right, from season two to six (maybe just five but i'd like to have the pruecole arc wrapped up in a nice bow by the time we open up the next enemies to lovers) piper and dan give a relationship the old college try going from the honeymoon phase to the cringe failmarriage stage until it's eventually just time to call it quits like you literally can't move forward. so because of the delayed start piperkyle would def be the last to have kids but because this is a long slowburn full of character development and just like. vulnerable bonding moments i think that once they go official as a couple wedding and kids are not far off on the horizon i think if we close out a season (a hypothetical 9 or 10) with them getting together for the first time then we gotta burn some miles on the freak out denial stage because i always think that's funny that'll last half a season? maybe a third. and then by the end of the season we're looking at a wedding. by the end of the following season they def have a kid

superlatives!

most fashionable couple: pruecole

most likely to name their kids after dead relatives: piperkyle

most likely to break p tradition: paigeandy

most chill about dating a charmed one: phoebeleo (andy kyle & cole would all be way too willing to throw themselves into danger, leo trusts phoebe's foresight and knows when he needs to sit on the sidelines. it is a lesson all the other men still struggle with)

bonus round!

best bromance: 1st place: leoandy 2nd place: leocole 3rd place: colekyle

[living-dead-parker]

New Girl

Summary: Request - Can you do an imagine where your Tony’s daughter and there’s this new girl intern whose trying to outdo you so u feel like the avengers don’t really need you because you think she’s smarter and prettier than you .. thanks :)

What? I actually wrote something??

Warnings: cussing probably, slight angst, real ooc shit but idc man

Word Count: 4.5k ooh she long

You're not a jealous person. Really, you'd always felt jealousy was an ugly color. Unfortunately for you, everybody would describe you as such at the moment. Though in your defense, it's not jealousy. It's a case of fraud!

"Good job, Ally," your dad congratulates the intern. she'd originally been a temp. A seasonal temp for the Spring. Well, spring was over three months ago. In fact, Fall is approaching and it seems like she'll still be here for at least another three months. You scowl inwardly, tired of hearing her name. " We're all meeting in20 to discuss the Halloween charity event," Tony says and your eyes widen. She was definitely not invited to that meeting! "Meet us in conference room B, please?"

It's not that you don't like temps or interns. In fact, you've become great friends with a lot of them over the years. It's just something about Ally. She's a total suck up and she's totally stealing your place. Before she came along, the team would come to you for suit and tech upgrades. They'd go to you for advice on combat in regards to their suits or tech. But ever since Ally came around, she's taken over that. The team goes to her now and they seem to like her better for it as the last person to have stepped into your lab was your dad, three days ago to ask you if you could consult with Ally. Before that was Peter about a month and a half before that to hang out. It's been a while. Then you'd been placed to work on some SI renewable energy source project but then that responsibility went to Ally as well. Ultimately, you didn't have much to do, so you started, unknown to anybody but yourself, dabbling in the fashion industry and took up witchcraft because you have the time.

Before you even hear her response, you turn around and head out towards the elevators. Along the way, you find yourself bumping into Peter. He's quick to apologize despite the fact that you were the one not watching where you were going.

" Peter?" you call out confused. Why he's even on that floor, to begin with taking you by surprise. He has his own lab on the same floor you, your father, and Bruce do. Nowhere near this floor. "What are you doing here?"

" Uh," he pauses, nervously scratching his neck. "I was gonna meet with Ally. Gonna ask her if she can help me repair my web shooters, hang out a bit too."

You almost visibly deflate at that. Great, even your crush would rather go to Ally for something than you. You've helped Peter with his web shooters before, and he'd usually always hang out with you. What the hell? " Oh," you finally respond. "I can help you! After the meeting, I mean."

" It's fine, Y/N," Peter responds. "Don't wanna put a lot on your plate. Go work on your pitch."

Before you can say anything, Ally is walking out with your dad. The two are laughing like they've known each other for years. She calls out to Peter and he tells you he'll see you in a few. You watch him walk up to Ally and you pick up on how she bites her lip, tucking a strand of her long, black, straight hair behind her ear. Her green eyes stare into Peter's and you suddenly feel self-conscious as Peter stares at her.

"Hey Y/N," your dad calls out, walking next to you. "Why are you down here?" He presses a button and the elevator opens, allowing both of you to step in.

"Oh, you know," you start, waving him off. " Just practicing for the meeting. you know how I am."

Tony nods as the elevator goes up two floors to the conference floor. Upon arrival, your phone dings, showing an email notification. You open it and see it's from someone named Alex Gianni. A fashion designer on the come up. Not too unknown as his clothing is all the rage with teens and internet influencers. However, the biggest thing about him is that his father, Arlo Gianni, is one of your father's biggest critics. The two have a mutual dislike for each other and it's kind of hilarious. Nonetheless, you're acquaintances with Alex.

' Y/N Stark, It's in my interest to ask you if you're available to direct my winter line's fashion show. I'm well aware of your eye for design and fashion as well as the mixture of applied sciences into your practices. In short, I grant you creative freedom over the show, based on the looks should you decide to accept this offer.'

Initially, you didn't think much of the email and decided to ignore it for the time being. You'd decline his offer later, for the sake of your dear old dad. However, the offer is very tempting. You've been wanting to do a show before, but you never really got the chance. Nonetheless, you push the thought behind and decide to focus on the subject matter of the meeting.

"Where's Parker?" you find yourself asking, seconds before the meeting is set to start. Everyone shrugs but Tony says to just start without him, that he'll fill him in on the information. So you commence the meeting. Most of your bit is the introductory stuff. Pepper would begin discussing the meat of it all. Halfway through your speech, Peter and Ally walk in, laughing obnoxiously loud. Their eyes widen when they see you and your upset face. Being the professional you are, you continue like that never happened. However, as you continue, you notice the unprofessionalism of the others in the room. They all managed to start some kind of conversation with Ally and even Pepper and your father managed to ignore you and to join in. Peter couldn't seem to keep his voice down and that was the final straw. "And I have a big announcement to make!"

The loudness of your voice gained all thin attention. With a smile used to hide the anger and the heartbreak, you speak up. "I've decided to drop out of the charity event organizer committee. Pepper will be fine on her own, I know she will be."

With that, you head out the conference room and into the elevator. Once the doors shut, you let the tears fall. The anger and the sadness of having everybody forget about you and Choose the seemingly smarter and prettier girl finally coming out. Through teary eyes, you unlock your phone and decide to email Alex back.

' Hey Alex, I would be honored to direct your show! I'm so glad you chose me, please let me know when you'd like to meet to discuss plans.'

Two days passed before you got a sudden response. You'd spent those two days in bed crying and listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac. No one even tried looking for you or talking to you for those two days given that you haven't gotten a single knock on your door, nor a text or call, not even a message from FRIDAY. When you opened the response, you saw that it was a text from Alex asking if you could meet in two hours. You were quick to respond, jumping up to get ready. For the first time in 48 hours, you were up and smiling.

You were quick to throw on some jeans, a top, and a coat over that. You asked FRIDAY to do a scan where everybody was so that you could avoid them all for now. Deep down, you feel like you're exaggerating, but at the same time, you know you're not. Everyone has been forgetting about you, often ignoring you for Ally for the past six months. Some you've gone that amount of time not seeing. It's depressing. Their unprofessionalism was just the thing that made you break. So, FRIDAY gives you the best route to take so you don't have to see any of them and you take it. You're in a car withing ten minutes and you're driving off toward's Alex's house to meet up.

That's how the next couple of weeks went, without anyone noticing. You'd wake up at 9 AM, get ready for your day and head out as soon as you were ready. You'd go to the nearest cafe, get some breakfast, and eat. Then, you'd get to Alex's house by 10:30. Then, you'd both convene for a while, bouncing ideas off each other, and get to drawing or writing plans. You'd try on the clothes, feel it, look at it. He'd take you to the stores, spend some time with the die-hard fans of his and his brand. You truly delved into the world of the clothes. By the time you were done, it'd be dinner time. You'd have dinner with Alex's family, and it was those moments that you got the familial attention you'd been craving for some time now. Sure, Arlo made comments about your dad, and usually, you'd refute them, but not this time around. Instead, you ignored them and just pretended they were never said. It felt wrong but it felt nice to have someone actually ask you how your day was despite spending the day around you. On days where you weren't over at Alex's house, you'd spend some time watching videos or pictures from influencers who wore his stuff. You'd be in your own rabbit hole for hours on end, listening to music that could serve as a possible soundtrack. You'd even go into your lab and find ways to improve on the show through engineering and science.

Then it all came crashing, in a sense, one day. There were about three weeks until showtime, and you were at home in your lab. You'd gotten the notification. You were expecting the news to come out, it had to at some point before the show. However, you weren't really expecting the backlash from those around you. It started with Alex's brand posting the picture on the brand's account. It was a black and white picture of you, Arlo, and Alex standing in Alex's office. You're all looking at a rack of the new clothes and you're all smiling and laughing. A candid picture. Around it had the words 'Lexicon Couture x Y/N Stark Fall and Winter 19.' It had the date of the show and the time it would happen. The caption read, 'Something big is coming. #LexiconxStark #GiannixStark'

Everyone was freaking out in the comments, the post becoming one of the brand's most liked. Next, came Alex's post. It was the same thing, except he tagged you in the post and he even added a red heart emoji. A most exclusive emoji. Then finally came Arlo's post. It was a repost of Alex's and he added something along the lines of 'my basically new daughter has teamed up with my son for his line.'

Not too long after the posts went viral, you got the email from the company to repost the pictures to gain even more viewership, so you did, leaving the caption as simple yet ominous as the brand's caption. Not too long after you posted it was there a knock on your door. You were too busy adding some finishing touches to the design to care that it could be something not good, so without hesitation, you tell the person to come in.

"You're working with Arlo Gianni?" your dad asks, bursting through the door. You look up from your tablet, seeing Tony's totally devastated look. Without thinking about it, you nod, looking back down at the sketches on your tablet. "The Arlo Gianni? The one who's one of my many enemies? Y/N, how could you do this to me?"

"It's not that serious-"

"Not that serious? He called you his daughter, in his post, Y/N. I take offense to that."

"Look, I didn't take offense to you calling Ally 'like a daughter' okay? Plus, he's not that bad once you get to know him. I was only working with Alex at the beginning but much like all his other kid's ventures, his dad got involved because he cares. Plus Arlo feeds me and asks me how my day has been. I'm just finally trying to set foot into the fashion world like I have been for the past couple of years and my good friend Alex is offering me an outlet to do just that by allowing me full artistic and directorial creativity over his line's show."

Tony stays quiet, noticing how you don't look up at him. "Well, Peter seems devastated that you're so close to Alex. He ranted to Ally the other day that the girl he likes, you know you, has disappeared for days and suddenly she's shown hanging out with Alex Gianni. So...."

"I don't know what you want me to say, dad," you respond, hoping he gets the hint that you're upset now. Hoping he'll react in one of two ways; leave you alone, or apologize for being a dick. "I'm just chasing my dreams here since I have nothing to do here. So, if you're gonna keep chastising me, please go away."

Without another word, he exits your room. When the door shuts, you ask FRIDAY to lock it, feeling the tears come out. Suddenly, you're friends with the enemy and that's when Peter and Tony decide to come around to realizing that they want you? That's when they decide to come around? All for the wrong reasons too? Well, now you plan on rubbing it in that you don't really need them. Yeah, sure it's mostly spite speaking, but deep down you're pissed. How dare they think that they can cast you out and then get mad when you find something of your own to do?

So the next day when Alex asks you if you want to go on his family's vacation for the week, you're quick to respond yes. They'd claimed it would be a celebratory trip to Italy for finishing the show ahead of time. You'd spent the next week teasing your father, the Avengers, and Peter by making them jealous. A post about how Alex is your most handsome best friend at the moment for Peter to see, an Instagram post with Alex's whole family, calling them the best and most supportive team on earth aimed at all the Avengers, and a Snapchat post with Arlo pouring you a glass of champagne to stab your own father in the chest the way he did to you. It was petty, it was ridiculous, and it was everything you felt like doing at the moment. Then at some point in the week, your intentions became sort of clear to Alex, who found it rather amusing. He admitted that he wasn't attracted to you in that way because he's gay, but he'd help you in the part of making Peter jealous by posing with you in various promising poses.

The week was over and you were back home. Now there were only two weeks until showtime and it was time to do some press. Alex had been in interviews all day and you were meant to be working on a guest list for the show, and you weren't so sure if you wanted to invite your dad or the Avengers. On one hand, you've worked on this on your own. This was your thing and you wanted to enjoy it as such. However, you do want them there, even if you currently are upset with every one of them. Plus, it could be a good way to rub it in their faces.

So with that, you add them all to the list. You go on about your business for the next couple of hours, until you see that Alex has sent you a link to a video of one of the interviews he did. In the interview, he reveals that he wanted you to do the show because you inspired the line. He'd based most of the line on your style but gave it a more urban and even modern spin for the youth to wear, as he claimed. Essentially, you were his muse. It all kind of made sense why it all came easy to you. It was based on you. You found it flattering and that made your heart skip a beat, joy filling every fiber of your being. Someone did notice you when everybody else did not.

So, you did some press and eventually, the show came around. You'd been at the venue all day, helping prepare and get everything accounted for. You were running this thing and it was a tight ship, so nothing could go wrong. Everyone got there in time, everything got put together in time, and by the time it was an hour until showtime, you were beyond tired. You had a total of thirty models, a great variation of everything and you felt proud. You cooled down before the show, deciding to get yourself sort of ready for post-show pictures and interviews. When the show started, the sound of Rico Nasty's Roof began to play and the crowd began to cheer. Then the first model walked out; donning a pair of acid-washed distressed jeans with a cropped multi-color jacket, a white Lexicon tee, and some platforms. Her hair was in messy space buns and she wore some neon-pink sunglasses to match the jacket. Right as she reached the end of the runway, another model came out, wearing more from the fall line. You watched from behind the walls of the facade to see the Avengers, your dad, Pepper, and Peter all sitting front and center. Nowhere in sight was Ally. Good.

People seemed to enjoy the fall portion of the show, and it was probably the most fun part to direct. The fall line was more of a modern urban thing, something the cool kids are wearing today and it's very in your face. It's very 'break shit and rage' as you've explained before and you've always had a knack for alternative dress styled. It was punk meets hood and you've always thought that was a cool style. Eventually, after a good twenty minutes, that portion of the show was over. Alex came out and announced a short five-minute intermission, wanting to prepare and transition into the second portion smoothly. In that time, you ran around making sure everyone was good to go. Once the five minutes were over, the sound of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain begins to play. This was the fall portion, which to you was a more formal style. It was warmer in tone and in use, and it was more sophisticated. It still had a youthful feel, but it was more formal than the other stuff. Nonetheless, everyone at the show seemed to dig it. By the time the show was over, everyone was giving the models a standing ovation. At the end of it, you and Alex came out, earning the loudest cheers of all.

At that moment, you felt the rush you'd been searching for. You found your calling and it was everything you expected it to be and more. Once the crowd silenced, Alex wrapped an arm around your shoulder and hugged you close as he took the mic and took the time to address the audience. You watched him proudly as he spoke, one of the biggest smiles on your faces.

"I especially want to thank my best friend, my partner, my muse, Y/N Stark," he speaks, looking back at you as the crowd cheers. "For taking up the job as director of the show. She did an amazing job with everything and through this process, we became closer. She's so creative and I'm glad she agreed to this. My show wouldn't have been the same, and it probably would have failed if it was anybody else."

He hands you the mic and you take it, watching as everyone silences down. You begin your speech, just saying thank you to everyone and it makes you feel emotional deep inside.  "I also want to thank the Gianni's for taking me in during this process, making me feel like family and taking care of me during all the long nights and early mornings," you say, taking your father by surprise. "I also want to thank my father Tony Stark and the Avengers for unknowingly fueling my necessity for this show, otherwise, I don't know if I would have done it," you continue. "Most of all, I wanna thank Alex," you pause and notice the way Peter looks jealous as you turn to Alex. "For putting me on this project, for trusting me to do this, and for being the best friend a girl could ask for. For encouraging me to do my own thing after this and for helping me realize some things. Anyways, thank you all so much!"

By the time everyone is off stage, all sorts of people are coming up to you and to Alex, asking you all sorts of questions. All you want to do at this time is get to the afterparty and get a drink or something. Maybe get a burger or some tacos on the way, but you just want a meal and a drink. So, you get through it all as quick as possible and by the time you're done, the only people left are your dad and the Avengers. They're all standing together, some of them holding flowers, others holding cards. You chuckle, feeling a little nervous to approach them. However, you do it anyway, because you can only ignore them for so long. Apparently that limit was about two months. So with that, you walk up to them, a small smile on your lips.

"I have a feeling we're all in for a lecture," Tony speaks up, handing you some flowers. Your nod, eyes wide and words ready to go.

"Yeah, thank you, you whole bunch of actual assholes," you say, making them all go wide-eyed and gasp at your bluntness. "For ignoring me for nearly eight whole months over some intern who was just supposed to be a temp. I don't know if any of you notice, but Ally? I hate that bitch! And I rarely hate anybody! So, the fact that you all ignored me for her at some point in time? That's kind of annoying."

"We didn't ignore you for her-" Steve begins.

"Yeah, we didn't mean to, at least." Natasha comments.

"Hm, let me think," you say, letting it all out now. "Natasha the last time we talked was literally four months ago. Steve, you haven't talked to me in six. Peter, you've ditched me for Ally, which was kind of heartbreaking because I liked you and I kind of thought you liked me back, but ya know, and she's so much prettier than me, so that doesn't help either," you ramble. "Pepper, you basically wanted me off that project and then you got Ally's help, so that was fun. Bruce, Thor, Sam, Bucky, and Wanda, all of you immediately ditched me for Ally, so that kind of sucked. And most of all, my dead old dad. That little argument with you kind of hurt because you were so betrayed that I was working with Arlo Gianni, but behind closed doors, he'd been taking care of me better than you had for the past couple of months since Ally came around. Plus, you only ever talked to me to tell me that Ally would be taking over one of my projects or that I'd have to cover for you in a meeting."

"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Tony asks, mirroring everyone's guilty frown.

"I wanted you guys to realize you were shutting me out," you say, the tears you'd been holding in for the better part of eight months now finally coming out. "I was always initiating interactions with you because no one paid me the time of day. But then I finally decided to stop, see if it made an impact, and apparently, it did not, because no one sought me out for so long. But that day of the Halloween Charity meeting, Alex emailed me right before it, asking me to direct this for him. I was initially going to decline, but once the meeting was in full swing and then Peter was walking in laughing with Ally, and then everyone began to tune me out to start talking with her, that was what caused me to snap. You all shut me out, so I took the hint and fucked off. I accepted Alex's offer and for the first time in months, I'd felt happy. I felt happy, I felt needed, I wasn't alone, I wasn't someone's second or last choice. And it felt good."

"Y/N," Tony whispers, stepping closer. "We're so sorry, sweetie," he says sincerely, pulling you into his arms. Everyone begins piling around, hugging you as well. "I'm sorry we didn't realize that earlier. I didn't know we made you feel that way, it wasn't anyone's intention to make you feel worthless or anything. I just told everyone to back off a bit because I didn't want you thinking that SI or Avengers stuff was all you had to do all the time."

"But did I ever complain?" you ask, and everyone goes silent. "I didn't mind helping with that. I loved doing all that work because it meant that I was always hanging out with one of you guys. So you can only imagine how shitty I felt when suddenly, no one was talking to me. Trading me in for Ally."

They all stay silent for a few seconds. Then the wave of apologies came around and you find yourself laughing.

"Look, it's fine. I'm over it now, my grudge has gone away because I found my calling, I found my thing and I'm happier now. I found my best friend in this world, and I found my group of people away from my initial group of people and I'm just over it. But please from now on, no ignoring me? Or else I'll pick up a new passion out of spite."

Everyone is quick to agree, hounding you in another giant group hug, assuring you that they all still cared. After that day, Ally didn't become much of a problem. She still worked at SI, still in her current position, but you managed to stay away from her. Everyone would talk to you like normal and Peter went back to hanging out with you again, making sure to always comment on how he likes you and not Ally. You'd hold it over him for some time, opting to torture him with his crush just a bit longer, just because you're a sadistic spiteful person. In the end, it all worked out as you began to take the fashion world by storm.

Leave feedback, requests, and asks, please!!

[idkwhoiamanymorebutwtf]

Something That Frustrates Me

You can figure out Cass as a character and her motives and stuff if you look but I really feel like her main motivations and reasons for acting out the way she does don’t really have much to do with her mother and that’s hard to convince people of.

Like yeah, showing Cassandra what happened with Gothel was how Zhan Tiri got to her, but it always felt like a matter of breaking her so she’d be easy to manipulate. Before Zhan Tiri dragged up all her repressed memories, Cass was incredibly strong and resilient as fuck and just kinda planned to push through the pain. All her reasons for wanting to turn against Raps and the other’s were there but she hadn’t been triggered into feeling that desperation to do so yet, and so her pride and emotions got in the way of any will she may have had to break away from the other’s. Showing her what happened with her mother was just how Zhan Tiri got past all that. It’s significantly easier to manipulate somebody dealing with years of repressed trauma than it is to get into someone’s head when they’ve buried themselves so deep into being on your enemies side that they’d literally die for your enemies. Plus the fact that Zhan Tiri was the one to show her the truth made Cass more likely to trust her and is why she wasn’t suspicious of her like she tends to be suspicious of most people.

However, Cassandra’s anger towards Rapunzel and the other’s has more to do with the rejection she’s faced and her role as a lower class servant, which, while in a way could be traced back to her issues with her mother, aren’t connected nearly enough for me to say that Gothel is her biggest motivator. Or even a motivator at all, tbh, because if she only had the trauma of what happened with her mother and nothing else ever happened to leave Cass hurt and angry and desperate, then I don’t think she’d have turned her anger onto Raps and the others so easily. For anyone who’s ever played Minecraft, you can break a diamond pickaxe mining stone, but it’s not because the stone was too tough for it, you just wear down your tools over time. In Tangled, Cass was worn down over time by being rejected and cast aside and rejected out of hand and just being devalued time and time again, and the fact that Gothel’s the thing that broke her doesn’t really speak to what her big motives are. 

However it’s so hard to explain to people and that’s honestly a frustration I have with the show. Because I had to think a lot on the subject to realize why Cass turned against the others and what drove her to that point. I remember distinctly yelling “WHY?” at my screen for like ten minutes after the season two finale and genuinely thinking it was all about Gothel by the next episode. If I didn’t think on it for a while and rewatch certain episodes with a closer look at Cassandra, I don’t think I would’ve even considered connecting her role as an antagonist to her negative feelings over being cast aside. Having Waiting In The Wings reprised in the first episode of season three helped but I didn’t connect that back to her frustration towards her role as a servant and class in general until I rewatched the episode Rapunzel And The Great Tree in full and forced the link between how Adira and Hector taunted her with her role as Lady In Waiting with the song Waiting In The Wings. That episode’s helpful with analyzing Cassandra, but honestly nothing except the fact that they reprised the song actually made me connect that episode with the fact that she turned against the group, and it’s easy to see how some people missed the whole connection. 

I think the show should’ve made it more clear because I had to rewatch episodes and think for a while on it, and I know there are people who aren't willing to watch things again and analyze thoroughly and the fact that they repeatedly shove the whole Gothel thing down our throats instead of taking the time out of what’s left of the show to further drive home the themes of Cassandra breaking away from her servitude and things like that? It’s just frustrating. And yeah lines like “I don't follow your orders anymore” in Cassandra’s Revenge really help, but then when you have Cass taunting Raps over what happened with Gothel in the same episode it just muddies the whole situation. Zhan Tiri is using the whole Gothel situation to her advantage and Cassandra’s hurt over it and yes it’s an important element of the show right now with all the trauma Cass went through and is now remembering. And yes, they give us lines hinting at the other reasons Cass is upset with Rapunzel, but god, I feel like there are better ways to go about it. And the episode A Tale Of Two Sisters is what spurred this on. Before that episode we’ve had so many lines and hints connecting back to her role as servant and her need for a destiny and things like that to the point where I felt like it was fine, but this episode felt different. It felt like they wanted to connect things too much to Gothel. The girls started getting along after Rapunzel  insisted that Gothel didn’t love either of them and they argued again because of Gothel and when Cass came back home she insisted her mother did love her, and while I know it must be hard for the writers to balance pushing the fact that Zhan Tiri was taking advantage of Cass’s trauma and reiterating that it’s not really about Gothel, but I just kinda feel like they put a bit too much emphasis on her in this episode? Especially since putting Rapunzel and Cassandra together was a great opportunity to use the things that Cass is actually upset at Raps over and reemphasize her bitterness using that. Maybe Rapunzel tries to take a bit too much control over Cass for her liking. Or perhaps she jumps into some sort of danger despite Cassandra’s warnings. They could even still have the whole mirror plot element if the wanted, but maybe have it fall out during some sort of disagreement they were having relating back to the reason Cass is actually upset with Rapunzel? Or even just put more emphases on the whole “You lied to and hid things from me” element of it instead of the “Mom did love me after all but u stole my mommy” element of things? I just....idk. I think I have a pretty good hold on Cassandra and her personality and the whole situation but the way they’ve been putting Gothel first and her other issues second lately? Leaves a lot of room for people to misunderstand (Hence a lot of the Cassandra hatred I see lately, usually derived from people not connecting her role as lady in waiting to her waiting in the wings to her trauma with her mother and instead focusing exclusively on Gothel). Some things you have to spell out for your audience, and something that demands the kind of balance that Cassandra's motives need to have is one of them.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 10/13/20: FREAKY, THE CLIMB, MANK, HILLBILLY ELEGY, AMMONITE, DREAMLAND, DOC-NYC and MUCH MORE!

It’s a pretty crazy week for new releases as I mentioned a few times over the past couple weeks, but it’s bound to happen as we get closer to the holiday movie season, which this year won’t include many movies in theaters, even though movie theaters are still open in many areas of the country… and closing in others. Sigh. Besides a few high-profile Netflix theatrical release, we also get movies starring Vince Vaughn, Margot Robbie, Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Mel Gibson and more offerings. In fact, I’ve somehow managed to write 12 (!!!!) reviews this week… yikes.

Before we get to the new movies, let’s look at a few series/festivals starting this week, including the always great documentary festival, DOC-NYC, which runs from November 11 through 19. A few of the docs I’ve already seen are (probably not surprisingly, if you know me) some of the music docs in the “Sonic Cinema” section, including Oliver Murray’s Ronnie’s, a film about legendary jazz musician and tenor sax player Ronnie Scott, whose London club Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has been one of the central cores for British jazz fans for many decades.

Alex Winter’s Zappa is a much more satisfying portrait of the avant-garde rocker than the doc Frank Zappa: In His Own Words from a few years back, but I was even more surprised by how much I enjoyed Julien Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, because I’ve never really been a Pogues fan, but it’s highly entertaining as we learn about the chronically-soused frontman of the popular Irish band.

I haven’t seen Robert Yapkowitz and Richard Peete’s in My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton, a portrait of the blues and folk singer, yet, nor have I watched Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider’s Los Hermanos/The Brothers about two brother musicians separated from childhood after leaving their native Cuba, but I’ll try to get to both of them soon enough.

Outside of the realm of music docs is Ilinca Calugareanu’s A Cops and Robbers Story, which follows Corey Pegues from being a drug dealer and gang member to a celebrated deputy inspector within the NYPD. There’s also Nancy (The Loving Story) Buirski’s A Crime on the Bayou, the third part of the filmmaker’s trilogy about brave individuals in the Civil Rights era, this one about 19-year-old New Orleans fisherman Gary Duncan who tries to break up a fight between white and black teens at an integrated school and is arrested for assaulting a minor when merely touching a white boy’s arm.

Hao Wu’s 76 Days covers the length of Wuhan, China’s lockdown due to COVID-19, a very timely doc that will be released by MTV Documentary Films via virtual cinema on December 4. It’s one of DOC-NYC’s features on its annual Short List, which includes Boys State, Collective, The Fight, On the Record, and ten others that will vie for juried categories.

IFC Films’ Dear Santa, the new film from Dana Nachman, director of the wonderful Pick of the Litter, will follow its Heartland Film Festival debut with a run at COD-NYC before its own December 4 release. The latter is about the USPS’s “Operation Santa” program that receives hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa every year and employees thousands of volunteers to help make the wishes of these kids come true.

Basically, there’s a LOT of stuff to see at DOC-NYC, and while most of the movies haven’t been released publicly outside festivals yet, a lot of these movies will be part of the doc conversations of 2020. DOC-NYC gives the chance for people across the United States to see a lot of great docs months before anyone else, so take advantage of some of their ticket packs to save some money over the normal $12 per ticket price. The $199 price for an All Access Film Pass also isn’t a bad deal if you have enough time to watch the hundreds of DOC-NYC offerings. (Sadly, I never do, yet I’m still a little bummed to miss the 10Am press screenings at IFC Center that keeps me off the streets… or in this case, sitting on my ass at home.)

Not to be outdone by the presence of DOC-NYC, Film at Lincoln Center is kicking off its OWN seventh annual “Art of the Real” doc series, which has a bit of overlap by running from November 13 to 26. I really don’t know a lot about the documentaries being shown as part of this program, presented with Mubi and The New York Times, but check this out. For just 50 bucks, you can get an all-access pass to all 17 films, which you can casually watch at home over the two weeks of the fest.

Okay, let’s get to some theatrical releases, and the one I’ve been anticipating the most (also the one getting the widest release) is Christopher Landon’s FREAKY from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures. It stars Kathryn Newton as Millie Kessler, a high school outcast who is constantly picked on, but one night, she ends up encountering the serial killer known as the “Blissfield Butcher” (Vince Vaughn), but instead of dying when she’s stabbed with a ritual blade. The next morning Millie and the Butcher wake up to discover that they’ve been transported into the body of the other. Oh, it’s Friday the 13th… oh, now I get it… Freaky Friday!

Landon is best known for writing many of the Paranormal Activity sequels and directing Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Msore importantly, he directed Happy Death Day and its sequel Happy Death Day 2 U, two of my favorite Blumhouse movies, because they so successfully mix horror with comedy, which is so hard to do. That’s what Freaky is all about, too, and it’s even harder this time even though Freaky has way more gruesome and gory kills than anything in Landon’s other films. Heck, many of the kills are gorier than the most recent Halloween from Blumhouse, and it’s a little shocking when you’re laughing so hard at times.

Landon does some clever things with what’s essentially a one-joke premise of a killer in a teen girl’s body and vice versa, but like the Lindsay Lohan-Jamie Lee Curtis remake from 2003, it’s all about the talent of the two main actors to pull off the rather intricate nature of playing humor without losing the seriousness of the horror element.

It may not be too surprising with Vaughn, who made a ton of dramas and thrillers before turning to comedy. (Does everyone remember that he played Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho and also starred in thrillers The Cell and Domestic Disturbance?) Newton is a bit more of an unknown quantity, but as soon as Tillie dawns the red leather jacket, you know that she can use her newly found homicidal attitude to get some revenge on those who have been terrible to her.

In some ways, the comedy aspects of Freaky win out over the horror but no horror fan will be disappointed by the amount of gory kills and how well the laughs emerge from a decent horror flick. Freaky seems like the kind of movie that Wes Craven would have loved.

I’m delighted to say that this week’s “Featured Flick” is Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin’s indie comedy THE CLIMB (Sony Pictures Classics), a movie that I have seen no less than three times this year, first when it was playing Sundance, a few months later when it was supposed to open in March… and then again last week! And you know what? I enjoyed it just as much every single time. It’s an amazing two-hander that stars Covino and Marvin as best friends Mike and Kyle, who have a falling out over the former sleeping with the latter’s fiancé, and it just gets funnier and funnier as the friends fight and Kyle gets engaged to Marisa (Gayle Rankin from GLOW) who hates Mike. Can this friendship possibly survive?

I really had no idea what to expect the first time I saw The Climb at the Sony Screening Room, but it was obviously going to be a very different movie for Sony Pictures Classics, who had started out the year with so many great films before theaters shut down. (Unfortunately, they may have waited too long on this one as theaters seem to be shutting down again even while NYC and L.A. have yet to reopen them. Still, I think this would be just as much fun in a drive-in.)

The movie starts with a long, extended scene of the two leads riding bikes on a steep mountain in France, talking to each other as Kyle (once the athlete of the duo) has fallen out of shape. During the conversation, Mike admits to having slept with Kyle’s fiancé Ava (Judith Godréche) and things turn hostile between the two. We then get the first big jump in time as we’re now at the funeral for Ava, who actually had been married to Mike. Kyle eventually moves on and begins a relationship with his high school sweetheart Marisa, who we meet at the Thanksgiving gathering for Kyle’s extended family. In both these cases, we see how the relationship between Mike and Kyle has changed/evolved as Mike has now fallen on hard times.

It's a little hard to explain why what’s essentially a “slice of life” movie can be so funny. On one hand, The Climb might be the type of movie we might see from Mike Leigh, but Covino and Marvin find a way to make everything funny and also quite eccentric in terms of how some of the segments begin and end.  Technically, it’s also an impressive feat with the number of amazing single shot sequences and how smooth some of the transitions work. It’s actually interesting to see when and how the filmmakers decide to return to the lives of their subjects – think of it a bit like Michael Apted’s “Up” series of docs but covering a lot shorter span in time.

Most importantly, The Climb has such a unique tone and feel to other indie dramedies we’ve seen, as the duo seem to be influenced more by European cinema than American indies. Personally, I think a better title for The Climb might have been “Frenemied,” but even with the movie’s fairly innocuous title, you will not forget the experience watching this entertaining film anytime soon.

Maybe this should be called “Netflix week,” because the streamer is releasing a number of high-profile movies into theaters and on the streaming service. Definitely one of the more anticipated movies of the year is David Fincher’s MANK, which will get a theatrical release this week and then stream on Netflix starting December 4.

It stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who has allowed himself to succumb to alcoholism but has been hired by Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to write his next movie, Citizen Kane, working with a personal secretary Rita Alexander (played by Lily Collins). His story is told through his interactions with media mogul William Hearst (Charles Dance) and relationship with actress and Hearst ingenue and mistress, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).

It I were asked to pick one director who is my absolute favorite, Fincher would probably be in my top 5 because he’s had such an illustrious and varied career of movie styles, and Mank continues that tradition as Fincher pays tribute to old Hollywood and specifically the work of Orson Welles in every frame of this biopic that’s actually more about the troubled writer of Citizen Kane who was able to absorb everything happening in his own Hollywood circles and apply them to the script.

More than anything, Mank feels like a movie for people who love old Hollywood and inside Hollywood stories, and maybe even those who may already know about the making of Welles’ highly-regarded film might find a few new things to appreciate. I particularly enjoyed Mankiewicz’s relationships with the women around him, including his wife “Poor Sarah,” played by Tuppence Middleton, Collins’ Rita, and of course, Seyfried’s absolutely radiant performance as Davies.  Maybe I would have appreciated the line-up of known names and characters like studio head Louis B Mayer and others, if more of them had any sort of effect on the story and weren’t just

The film perfectly captures the dynamic of the time and place as Mank is frequently the only honest voice in a sea of brown nosers and yes-men. Maybe I would have enjoyed Oldman’s performance more if everything that comes out of Mankiewicz’s mouth wasn’t an all-too-clever quip.

The film really hits a high point after a friend of Mank’s commits suicide and how that adds to the writer’s woes about not being able to save him. The film’s last act involves Mank dealing with the repercussions after the word gets out that Citizen Kane is indeed about Hearst.

Overall, Mank is a movie that’s hard to really dig into, and like some of Fincher’s previous work, it tends to be devoid of emotion. Even Fincher’s decision to be clever by including cigarette burns to represent Mank’s “reels” – something explained by Brad Pitt in Fight Club – just drives home the point that Mank is deliberately Fincher’s most meta movie to date.

You can also read my technical/crafts review of Mank over at Below the Line.

Ron Howard’s adaptation of JD Vance’s bestselling memoir HILLBILLY ELEGY will be released by Netflix into theaters ahead of its streaming debut on November 24. It stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close, but in honesty, it’s about JD Vance, you know, the guy who wrote the memoir.  The film follows his younger years (as played by Owen Asztalos) while dealing with a dysfunctional white trash family in Middletown, Ohio, dealing with his headstrong Mamaw (Close) and abusive mother dealing with drug addiction (Adams).  Later in life, while studying at Yale (and played by Gabriel Basso), he has to return to his Ohio roots to deal with his mother’s growing addiction that forces him to come to terms with his past.

I’m a bit of a Ron Howard stan – some might even say “an apologist” – and there’s no denying that Hillbilly Elegy puts him the closest to A Beautiful Mind territory than he’s been in quite some time. That doesn’t mean that this movie is perfect, nor that I would consider it one of his better movies, though. I went into the movie not knowing a thing about JD Vance or his memoir but after the first reviews came out, I was a little shocked how many of them immediately went political, because there’s absolutely nothing resembling politics in the film.

It is essentially an adaptation of a memoir, dealing with JD Vance’s childhood but then also the past that led his mother and grandmother down the paths that made his family so dysfunctional. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the older Vance and his future wife Usha (as played by Freida Pinto) earlier in their relationship as they’re both going to Yale and Vance is trying to move past his family history to succeed in the realm of law.

It might be a no-brainer why Adams and Close are being given so much of the attention for their performances. They are two of the best. Close is particularly amusing as the cantankerous Mamaw, who veers between cussing and crying, but also has some great scenes both with Adams and the younger Vance. The amazing special make-up FX used to change her appearance often makes you forget you’re watching Close. I wish I could say the same for Adams, who gives such an overwrought and over-the-top performance that it’s very hard to feel much emotionally for her character as she goes down a seemingly endless vortex of drug addiction. It’s a performance that leads to some absolute craziness. (It’s also odd seeing Adams in basically the Christian Bale role in The Fighter, although Basso should get more credit about what he brings out in their scenes together.)

Hillbilly Elegy does have a number of duller moments, and I’m not quite sure anyone not already a fan of Vance’s book would really have much interest in these characters. I certainly have had issues with movies about people some may consider “Southern White Trash,” but it’s something I’ve worked on myself to overcome. It’s actually quite respectable for a movie to try to show characters outside the normal circles of those who tend to write reviews, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie might be able to connect with people in rural areas that rarely get to see themselves on screen.

Hillbilly Elegy has its issues, but it feels like a successful adaptation of a novel that may have been difficult to keep an audience invested in with all its flashbacks and jumps in time.

Netflix is also streaming the Italian drama THE LIFE AHEAD, directed by Edoardo Ponti, starring Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, who happens to also be the filmmaker’s mother. She plays Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor in Italy who takes a stubborn young street kid named Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), much to both their chagrin.

I’ll be shocked if Italy doesn’t submit Ponti’s film as their choice for the Oscar’s International Film category, because it has all of the elements that would appeal to Oscar voters. In that sense, I also found it to be quite traditional and formulaic.  Loren is quite amazing, as to be expected, and I was just as impressed with young Ibrahima Gueye who seems to be able to hold his own in what’s apparently his first movie. There’s others in the cast that also add to the experience including a trans hooker named Lola, but it’s really the relationship between the two main characters that keeps you invested in the movie. I only wish I didn’t spend much of the movie feeling like I knew exactly where it’s going in terms of Rosa doing something to save the young boy and giving him a chance at a good life.

I hate to be cynical, but at times, this is so by the books, as if Ponti watched every Oscar movie and made one that had all the right elements to appeal to Oscar voters and wokesters alike. That aside, it does such a good job tugging at heartstrings that you might forgive how obviously formulaic it is.

Netflix is also premiering the fourth season of The Crown this week, starring Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and bringing on board Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Emma Corin, Helena Bonham Carter, Tobis Menzies, Marion Bailey and Charles Dancer. Quite a week for the streamer, indeed.

Another movie that may be in the conversation for Awards season is AMMONITE (NEON), the new film from Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), a drama set in 1840s England where Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning, a fossil hunter,  tasked to look after melancholic young bride, Charlotte Murcheson (Saoirse Ronan), sent to the sea to get better only for them to get into a far more intimate relationship.

I had been looking forward to this film, having heard almost unanimous raves from out of Toronto a few months back. Maybe my expectations were too high, because while this is a well-made film with two strong actors, it’s also rather dreary and not something I necessarily would watch for pleasure. The comparisons to last year’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (also released by NEON) are so spot-on that it’s almost impossible to watch this movie without knowing exactly where it’s going from the very minute that the two main characters meet.

Winslet isn’t bad in another glammed-down role where she can be particularly cantankerous, but knowing that the film would eventually take a sapphic turn made it somewhat predictable. Ronan seems to be playing her first outright adult role ever, and it’s a little strange to see her all grown-up after playing a teenager in so many movies.

The movie is just so contained to the one setting right up until the last 20 minutes when it actually lives the Lyme setting and lets us see the world outside Mary’s secluded lifestyle.  As much as I wanted to love Ammonite, it just comes off as so obvious and predictable – and certainly not helped by coming out so soon after Portrait of a Lady. There’s also something about Ammonite that just feels so drab and dreary and not something I’d necessarily need to sit through a second time.

The animated film WOLFWALKERS (GKIds) is the latest from Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, directors of the Oscar-nominated Secret of the Kells (Moore’s Song of the Sea also received an Oscar nomination a few years later.) It’s about a young Irish girl named Robyn (voiced Honor Kneafsey) who is learning to be hunter from her father (voiced by Sean Bean) to help him wipe out the last wolf pack. Roby then meets another girl (voiced by Eva Whittaker) who is part of a tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.

I have to be honest that by the time I got around to start watching this, I was really burnt out and not in any mood to watch what I considered to look like a kiddie movie. It looks nice, but I’m sure I’d be able to enjoy it more in a different head (like watching first thing on a Saturday morning).

Regardless, Wolfwalkers will be in theaters nationwide this Friday and over the weekend via Fathom Events as well as get full theatrical runs at drive-ins sponsored by the Landmark, Angelika and L.A.’s Vineland before it debuts on Apple TV+ on December 11. Maybe I’ll write a proper review for that column. You can get tickets for the Fathom Events at  WolfwalkersMovie.com.

Next up is Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s DREAMLAND (Paramount), starring Margot Robbie as Allison Wells, a bank-robbing criminal on the loose who encounters young man named Eugene Evans (Finn Cole) in rural Dust Bowl era North Dakota and convinces him to hide her and help her escape the authorities by taking her to Mexico.

Another movie where I wasn’t expecting much, more due to the generic title and genre than anything else, but it’s a pretty basic story of a young man in a small town who dreams of leaving and also glamorizes the crime stories he read in pulps. Because of the Great Depression in the late ’20, the crime wave was spreading out across the land and affecting everyone, even in more remote locations like the one at the center of Dreamland.

The sad truth is that there have been so many better movies about this era, including Warren Beatty’s Bonnie and Clyde, Lawless and many others. Because of that, this might not be bad but it’s definitely trying to follow movies that leave quite a long shadow. The innocent relationship between Eugene and Allison does add another level to the typical gangster story, but maybe that isn’t enough for Dreamland to really get past the fact that the romantic part of their relationship isn’t particularly believable.

As much as this might have been fine as a two-hander, you two have Travis Fimmel as Eugene’s stepfather and another generic white guy in Garrett Hedlund playing Allison’s Clyde Barrow-like partner in crime in the flashbacks. Cole has enough trouble keeping on pace with Robbie but then you have Fimmel, who was just grossly miscast. The film’s score ended up being so overpowering and annoying I wasn’t even remotely surprised when I saw that Joris-Peyrafitte is credited with co-writing the film’s score.

Dreamland is fine, though it really needed to have a stronger and more original vision to stand out. It’s another classic case of an actor being far better than the material she’s been given. This is being given a very limited theatrical release before being on digital next Tuesday.

This might have been Netflix week, but maybe it could have been “Saban Films Week,” since the distributor also has three new movies. Actually, only two, because I screwed up, and I missed the fact that André Øvredal’s MORTAL was released by Saban Films LAST week. Not entirely my fault because for some reason, I had it opening this week, and I only realized that I was wrong last Wednesday. Oh, well.  It stars Nate Wolff as Eric Bergeland, an American in Norway who seems to have some enigmatic powers, but after killing a young lad, he ends up on the lam with federal agent Christine (Iben Akerlie from Victoria).

This is another movie I really wanted to like since I’ve been such a fan of Øvredal from back to his movie Trollhunter. Certainly the idea of him taking a dark look at superpowers through the lends of Norse mythology should be right up my alley. Even so, this darker and more serious take on superpowers – while it might be something relatively unique and new in movies – it’s something anyone who has read comics has seen many times before and often quite better.

Wolff’s character is deliberately kept a mystery about where he comes from, and all we know is that he survived a fire at his farm, and we watched him kill a young man that’s part of a group of young bullies.  From there, it kind of turns into a procedural as the authorities and Akerlie’s character tries to find out where Eric came from and got his powers. It’s not necessarily a slow or talkie movie, because there are some impressive set pieces for sure, but it definitely feels more like Autopsy of Jane Doe than Trollhunters. Maybe my biggest is that this is a relatively drab and lifeless performance by Wolff, who I’ve seen be better in other films.

Despite my issues, it doesn’t lessen my feelings about Øvredal as a filmmaker, because there’s good music and use of visual FX -- no surprise if you’ve seen Trollhunters -- but there’s still a really bad underlying feeling that you’re watching a lower budget version of an “X-Men” movie, and not necessarily one of the better ones.  Despite a decent (and kinda crazy) ending, Mortal never really pays off, and it’s such a slog to get to that ending that people might feel slightly underwhelmed.

Seth Savoy’s ECHO BOOMERS (Saban Films) is a crime thriller based on a “true story if you believe in such things,” starring Patrick Schwarzenegger as Lance, a young art major, who falls in with a group of youths who break into rich people’s homes and trash them, also stealing some of the more valuable items for their leader Mel (Michael Shannon).

There’s a lot about Echo Boomers that’s going to feel familiar if you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring or the heist movie American Animals from a few years back, but even with those similarities, Seth Savoy has a strong cast and vision to make more out of the fairly weak writing than another director might manage. Schwarzenegger, who seems to be pulling in quite a wide range of roles for basically being another generic white actor is only part of a decent ensemble that includes Alex Pettyfer as the group’s ersatz alpha male Ellis and Hayley Law (also great in the recent Spontaneous) as his girlfriend Allie, the only girl taking part in the heists and destruction. Those three actors alone are great, but then you add Shannon just doing typically fantastic work as more of a catalyst than an antagonist.

You can probably expect there will be some dissension in the ranks, especially when the group’s “Fagan” Mel puts Lance in charge of keeping them in line and Allie forms a friendship with Lance. What holds the movie back is the decision to use a very traditional testimonial storytelling style where Lance and Allie narrate the story by relaying what happened to the authorities after their capture obviously. This doesn’t help take away from the general predictability of where the story goes either, because we’ve seen this type of thing going all the way back to The Usual Suspects.

While Echo Boomers might be fairly derivative of far better movies at times, it also has a strong directorial vision and a compelling story that makes up enough for that fact.

In theaters this Friday and then On Demand and Digital on November 24 is Eshom and Ian Nelms’ action-comedy FATMAN (Saban Films/Paramount), starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus and Walton Goggins as the hired assassin sent to kill him by a spoiled rich boy named  Billy (Chance Hurstfield) who unhappy with the presents he’s being brought for Christmas.

While we seem to be surrounded by high concept movies of all shapes and sizes, you can’t get much more high concept than having Mel Gibson playing a tough and cantankerous* Kris Kringle (*Is this the week’s actual theme?) who is struggling to survive with Mrs. Klaus (played by the wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste from In Fabric) when they’re given the opportunity to produce military grade items for the army using his speedy elf workshop. Unbeknownst to the Kringles, the disgruntled hitman who also feels he’s been let down by Santa is on his way to the North Pole to fulfill his assignment.

You’ll probably know whether you’ll like this movie or not since its snarkier comedic tone is introduced almost from the very beginning. This is actually a pretty decent role for Gibson that really plays up to his strengths, and it’s a shame that there wasn’t more to it than just a fairly obvious action movie that leads to a shoot-out. I probably should have enjoyed Goggins more in a full-on villainous role but having been watching a lot of him on CBS’ The Unicorn, it’s kind of hard to adjust to him playing this kind of role.  I did absolutely love Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the warmth she brought to a relatively snarky movie.

I’m not sure if Fatman is the best showing of Eshom and Ian Nelms’ abilities as filmmakers, because they certainly have some, but any chance of being entertaining is tamped down by a feeling the filmmakers are constantly trying to play it safe. Because of this, Fatman has a few fun moments but a generally weak premise that never fully delivers. It would have thrived by being much crazier, but instead, it’s just far too mild.

Malin Åkerman stars in Paul Leyden’s CHICK FIGHT (Quiver Distribution) as Anna, a woman unhappy with her life and inability to survive on the little money she makes at her failing coffee shop. When Anna’s lesbian traffic cop friend Charleen (Dulcé Sloan) takes her to an underground fight club, Anna her trepidation about joining in, because she has never been in a fight in her life.  Learning that her mother has a legacy at the club, Anna agrees to be trained by Alec Baldwin’s always-drunk Murphy in order to take on the challenges of the likes of Bella Thorne’s Olivia.

Another movie where I’m not sure where to begin other than the fact that I’m not sure I’ve seen a movie trying so hard to be fun and funny and failing miserably at both. Listen, I generally love Akerman, and I’m always hoping for her to get stronger material to match her talents, but this tries its best to be edgy without ever really delivering on the most important thing for any comedy: Laughs.  Sure, the filmmakers try their best and even shoehorn a bit of romance for Anna in the form of the ring doctor played by Kevin Connolly from Entourage, but it does little to help distinguish the movie’s identity.

Listen, I’m not going to apologize for being a heterosexual male that finds Bella Thorne to be quite hot when she’s kicking ass in the ring. (I’m presuming that a lot of what we see in her scenes in the ring involves talented stuntwomen, but whoa! If that’s not the case.) Alec Baldwin seems to be in this movie merely as a favor to someone, possibly one of the producers, and when he disappears with no mention midway through the movie, you’re not particularly surprised. Another of trying too hard is having Anna’s father Ed (played by wrestler Kevin Nash) come out as gay and then use his every appearance to talk about his sex acts.  Others in the cast like Fortune Feimster seem to be there mainly for their bulk and believability as fighters.

Ultimately, Chick Fight is a fairly lame and bland girl power movie written, directed and mostly produced by men. I’m not sure why anyone might be expecting more from it than being a poorly-executed comedy lacking laughs.

And yet, that wasn’t the worst movie of the weekend. That would be Andrzej Bartkowiak’s DEAD RECKONING (Shout! Studios). Yes, the Polish cinematographer and filmmaker who once made the amazing Romeo is Bleeding, starring Gary Oldman and Lena Olin, has returned with a movie with the onus of a premise that reads “a thriller inspired by the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.” No, I did not make that up. It mostly takes place in Nantucket, Massachusetts, which I guess is sort of close to Boston, but instead it focuses on the relationship between teens Niko (K.J. Apa) and Tillie (India Eisley), the latter whose parents died in a plane crash that might have been caused by a terrorist. It just so happens that Niko’s brother Marco (Scott Adkins) is an Albanian terrorist. Coincidence? I think not!

Once you get past the most generic title ever, Dead Reckoning is just plain awful. I probably should have known what to expect when the movie opens with Eric “Never Turned Down a Job” Roberts, but also, I strong feel that Scott Adkins, better known for his martial arts skills, is easily one of the worst actors ever to be given lines to say in a movie. And yet, somehow, there are even worse actors in this movie. How is that even possible?

Although this presumed action movie opens with one of three or four fight sequences, we’re soon hanging out on the beach with a bunch of annoying teenagers, including Tillie, who is drowning the sorrow of recently losing her parents by literally drinking constantly in almost every single scene. When she meets the handsome Eastern European Niko, we think there’s some chance of Tillie being saved, but it isn’t meant to be.

Part of what’s so weird is that Dead Reckoning begins in territory familiar to fans of Barkowiak’s movies like Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave and Maximum Impact but then quickly shifts gears to a soppy teen romance. It’s weird enough to throw you off when at a certain point, it returns to the main plot, which involves Adkins’ terrorist plot and the search by FBI Agent Cantrell (played by James Remar) to find the culprit who killed Tillie’s parents. Oh, the FBI agent is also Tillie’s godfather. Of course, he is.

Beyond the fact that I spent much of the movie wondering what these teens in Nantucket have to do with the opening scene or the overall premise, this is a movie that anything that could be resembling talent or skill in Barkowiak’s filmmaking is long gone. Going past the horrendous writing – at one point, the exasperated and quite xenophobic Cantrell exclaims, “It’s been a nightmare since 9/11... who knows what's next?” -- or the inability of much of the cast to make it seem like anyone involved cares about making a good movie, the film is strangled by a score that wants to remind you it’s a thriller even as you watch people having fun on the beach on a sunny day.

Eventually, it does get back to the action with a fight between Cantrell and Marco… and then Marco gets into a fight with Tillie’s nice aunt nurse Jennifer where she has a surprisingly amount of fighting skills. There’s also Nico’s best friend who is either British or gay or both, but he spends every one of his scenes acting so pretentious and annoying, you kind of hope he’ll be blown up by terrorists. Sadly, you have to wait until the last act before the surfboards are pulled out.  (Incidentally, filmmakers, please don’t call a character in your movie “Marco,” especially if that character’s name is going to be yelled out repeatedly, because it will just lead to someone in the audience to yell out “Polo!” This is Uwe Boll School of Bad Filmmaking 101!)

The point is that the movie is just all over the place yet in a place that’s even remotely watchable. There even was a point when Tillie was watching the video of her parents dying in a car crash for the third or fourth time, and I just started laughing, since it’s such a slipshod scene.

It’s very likely that Dead Reckoning will claim the honor of being the worst movie I’ve seen this year. Really, the only way to have any fun watching this disaster is to play a drinking game where you take a drink every time Eisley’s character takes a drink. Or better yet, just bail on the movie and hit the bottle, because I’m sure whoever funded this piece of crap is.

Opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Manfred Kirchheimer’s FREE TIME (Grasshopper/Cinema Conservancy), another wonderful doc from one of the kings of old school cinema verité documentary filmmaking, consisting of footage of New York City from 1960 that’s pieced together with a wonderful jazz score. Let me tell you that Kirschheimer’s work is very relaxing to watch and Free Time is no exception. Plus the hour-long movie will premiere in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema, accompanied by Rudy Burckhardt’s 1953 film Under the Brooklyn Bridge which captures Brooklyn in the ‘50s.

Also opening in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema Friday is Hong Khaou’s MONSOON (Strand Releasing) starring Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) as Kit, who returns to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time since his family fled after the Vietnam War when he was six. As he tries to make sense of it, he ends in a romance with Parker Sawyers’ American ex-pat and forms a friendship with a local student (Molly Harris). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to watch this one before finishing up this column but hope to catch soon, because I do like Golding as an actor.

I shared my thoughts on Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s FIREBALL: VISITORS FROM DARK WORLDS, when it played at TIFF in September, but this weekend, it will debut on Apple TV+.  It’s another interesting and educational science doc from Herr Herzog, this time teaming with the younger Cambridge geoscientist and “volcanologist” to look at the evidence left behind by meteors that have arrived within the earth’s atmosphere, including the races that worship the falling space objects.

Opening at the Metrograph this week (or rather on its website) is Shalini Kantayya’s documentary CODED BIAS, about the widespread bias in facial recognition and the algorithms that affect us all, which debuted Weds night and will be available on a PPV basis and will be available through November 17. The French New Wave anthology Six In Paris will also be available as a ticketed movie ($8 for members/$12 for non-members) through April 13. Starting Thursday as part of the Metrograph’s “Live Screenings” is Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher’s Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists from 1980. Fischler’s earlier doc Frame Up! The imprisonment of Martin Sostre from 1974 will also be available through Thursday night.

Sadly, there are just way too many movies out this week, and some of the ones I just wasn’t able to get to include:

Dating Amber (Samuel Goldwyn) The Giant (Vertical) I Am Greta (Hulu) Dirty God (Dark Star Pictures) Where She Lies (Gravitas Ventures) Maybe Next Year (Wavelength Productions) Come Away (Relativity) Habitual (National Amusements) The Ride (Roadside Attractions, Forest, ESX) Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix) Transference: A Love Story (1091) Sasquatch Among the Wildmen (Uncork’d) All Joking Aside (Quiver Distribution) Secret Zoo (MPI Medi Group/Capelight Pictures)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, I think you’re very special and quite good-looking. Feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[hmhteen]

HMH Teen Teasers: AFTER THE SHOT DROPS by Randy Ribay!

We are so excited that AFTER THE SHOT DROPS is almost here! For Kwame Alexander fans that have grown out of middle-grade, or YA fans of THE HATE U GIVE and ALL AMERICAN BOYS, this sports novel about two best friends torn apart by privilege is heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful. Scroll down to read an excerpt!

1

Bunny

I’m never sure what to write for the dead. I mean, most of the time when someone hands me the marker at one of these vigils, I just end up laying down something vague

and comforting. You know: See you in heaven. We’ll miss you.

Rest in peace, bro. 

Something like that. But it never feels right. Never feels like your words will make a difference, like they’ll make his family feel better or stop anyone else from dying for no rea- son. The person they’re meant for won’t ever read them, so you’re just wasting ink.

But the small, silent crowd shuffles forward, the girl ahead of me passes me a marker, and it’s my turn. I’ve got to write something.

I step up to the big oak tree that stands in the middle of Virgilio Square, its bare branches spread out overhead like skeletal fingers. A white sheet’s been wrapped around its trunk, with te queremos, gabe, airbrushed across the middle in big blue letters. I know enough Spanish to know that means “we love you.” Everyone’s notes and signatures are scrawled in the spaces all around it. A bunch of teddy bears and can- dles sit at the base of the tree in front of a framed photo of Gabe smiling big, all nestled in a nook formed by the roots.

This is where Gabe and his friends were hanging when the shots were fired. Word is the bullet was meant for some- one else. Too bad the bullet didn’t know that.

I’m tall, so I decide to add my message up high on the sheet where there’s only a couple others. I take off my glove and shake my hand to try to warm it up, then I lean against the tree and press the tip of the marker against the white cotton. The black ink bleeds into it.

I stay like that for a few moments, adding nothing but a black dot because I still don’t know what to write. I want to put down something meaningful. Gabe lived three streets over and was only a year ahead of me in school. We weren’t real tight, but coming up, he was part of the group of kids we’d always play football or manhunt or whatever with. For some reason, I keep thinking about how he used to eat apples whole, core and all. The rest of us would tell him a tree was going to grow in his stomach if he drank too much water. Funny how your mind picks something small like that to re- play.

But I also think about last summer, when I announced that I was transferring from Whitman High, our neighbor- hood school, to St. Sebastian’s, a private school in the sub- urbs. Pride in Whitman High’s basketball team runs real deep around our way, so a lot of people didn’t like that one bit. My main man, Nasir, straight up stopped talking to me. But Gabe was cool about it. I was shooting around at the courts one day shortly after the announcement, and some guys started getting in my face about it. Gabe stepped in, calmed them down, and sent them on their way. Then he told me to keep my head up, to not let it get to me. Maybe it’s because he was good at football and so understood what I was trying to do with basketball, but whatever the reason, it meant a lot. Only, I don’t know how to express all this on a bed sheet wrapped around a tree.

I feel the line behind me growing restless, since I’m tak- ing forever, so I give up trying to find the perfect words. I settle for i won’t forget you, and sign my name. Don’t know what happens to us after we die, but if there’s some way he can read this, I know he’ll understand the words I feel but can’t find.

After handing the marker to the woman behind me, I step aside, slip my glove back on, and dig my hands into my coat pockets. I go back to the rear of the crowd that’s gathered in the blocked-off street, bundled up in their winter gear and waiting for his pastor or his parents or whoever to take the mic that’s set up in the patch of grass next to the tree. After a bit, one of the local politicians gets up there and starts going on about how we can’t let something like this happen again. I’ve heard this song before, so my mind drifts.

It’s overcast and frigid. Late February and still hasn’t snowed more than a dusting all winter. Looking up, I wonder if today’s the day. The gray clouds feel heavy as my heart, like they’re about to dump two feet of snow on us at any moment. An airplane crawls across the sky on its way to Philly on the other side of the river, the drone of its engines getting louder as it approaches. A lot of people hate that we’ve got these jets flying past every few minutes, but I don’t mind. It’s like God’s constant reminder that there’s more out there than this. Besides, I kind of like how they make the sun blink when they pass by on a clear day. Of course, right now the sun’s hid- den behind the clouds, so the plane passes and then it’s quiet again except for boots shifting, people sniffling, cars passing on the side streets. Some hushed conversations. Quiet, sad laughter. Every now and then someone breaking down.

The politician at the mic is still carrying on, for some reason talking about one of her new initiatives. I stay tuned out, letting my eyes wander across the crowd. There are a lot of families from the neighborhood out here, as well as what seems like most of the kids from Whitman High. The girls hold each other and dab at their eyes while the guys stand around like they’ve got faces cut from stone. A few nod at me, but I hang back.

I mostly stay to myself these days. My interactions in the neighborhood usually go one of two ways: either people try to start something like I betrayed them personally by trans- ferring to St. Sebastian’s, or they try to put all this pressure on me to go back to Whitman High. Either way, I’m not feeling like dealing with any of it, so I turn to leave, even though the memorial’s still going.

That’s when I see Nasir. He’s off to the side with his cousin Wallace. Easy to spot them, what with Wallace’s height mak- ing Nasir look even shorter than he would by himself. Both have their hoods up. Nasir stares at the teddy bears at the foot of the tree while Wallace looks all around like he’s got somewhere else to be. I’ll see them on the court tomorrow since they both still play for Whitman, but I consider walking over to say what’s up to Nas. It’s stupid we’re still not talking because I want something more than what Whitman can of- fer. Out of everyone, I expected him to get that.

But as I’m about take a step toward them, Wallace catches sight of me. I nod at him, but he doesn’t nod back. He holds my gaze for a beat and then nudges Nas. Nas lifts his eyes and they meet mine for a moment. Then he turns his back to me and walks away. 

2

Nasir

Everyone’s hanging their head as we trudge toward the bus, headphones on and bags slung over shoulders. Got our asses handed to us by St. Sebastian’s, 29–65, and

now back we go to Whitman. We might argue we weren’t feeling it, what with Gabe’s death hanging over us and all, and, yeah, maybe that was part of it. But the main reason we lost tonight?

Bunny Thompson.

Bunny tore us apart at both ends of the court. You think he’d at least have the decency to pull back a bit against his old teammates, but no. Put up a double-double — his, like, fifteenth consecutive one this season. Not that I’m keeping track of his numbers or anything.

And with that, our season’s finished. We’re teammates but not a team. Players out of game.

The sun is setting behind us, and the air smells like snow. I’m last in line, and before I step through the narrow door, I look over my shoulder at St. Sebastian’s one last time.

The school sits there with its fancy stonework, a statue of its patron saint perched above the main entrance. Dude’s hands are bound behind his back, and he’s wearing noth- ing but a loincloth. Five or six arrows stick out of his body, but he’s got this smug look on his face like he’s about to say something.

The driver starts the engine, and its low rumble calls me back to reality. I turn around and climb onto the bus. Wallace waves for me to join him in the back, but I pretend like I don’t notice and slide into an empty seat a couple rows be- hind Coach Campbell and Coach J. They don’t even bother to take attendance. Coach Campbell tells the driver we’re all set and then leans back, folds his arms over his broad chest, and closes his eyes. Even Coach J — who’s usually so positive you want to slap him — just flips open the scorebook and shakes his head. They didn’t say a word about the whole Bunny thing tonight, but they must have been as sore as we were see- ing him suited up in St. Sebastian’s red and white instead of Whitman’s purple and gold.

But whatever. The bus rolls out.

 I readjust my earbuds and turn up my music. I consider finishing this book we’ve been taking forever to read in En- glish class, Of Mice and Men, but I decide I’m not feeling it. So instead, I gaze out the window and watch the rich suburbs surrounding St. Sebastian’s slide past. My parents always taught me to be content with what I have, to value people over stuff. But still, these are some big-ass houses.

I also try not to think of the game. I mean, it’s not like ball’s my life — I’m not even a starter. But my brain keeps pushing it into my thoughts. This loss hurts more than most. Not that anyone expected us to win tonight. St. S was a pow- erhouse even before this season, before they stole Bunny. That didn’t stop me from fantasizing that we’d destroy them and Bunny would realize he made the wrong decision.

Last year, when he was still on our team, we went twenty and nine. Even made it to the semifinals of sectionals. This season: ten and seventeen. Didn’t even qualify for the post- season. Unforgivable for a team that’s produced its share of all-Americans in its day. I mean, we even lost to William H. Harrison High this year.

William H. freaking Harrison.

Maybe I won’t play next season. It’s not like I’m that good. Main reason I tried out freshman year was because Bunny wanted me to.

But the worst part? He didn’t even talk to me about all this. Went away for a week to DC with his AAU team for nationals in July and came back with the news that he was headed to St. S in the fall.

I realize I’m clenching my jaw and tensing my shoulders. So I take a deep breath, try to let it out real slow and even. Bunny doesn’t care about me anymore, so why should I care about him?

Wallace comes up from the back of the bus and drops heavily onto the seat across from me. I sigh on the inside, because I’m not up for pretending to laugh at the dumb jokes I’m sure he’s about to crack. But all he says is “You cool?”

I nod, then he nods and turns to look out his window, like all he means to do is keep me company.

Grateful and exhausted, I close my eyes. The track I’m listening to ends, and the next one begins.

3

Bunny

My hands are so cold the warm water hurts. I clench my teeth and count down from thirty. The pain will pass. Always does.

Sure enough, by the time I get to zero, my fingers feel like fingers again instead of icicles. I shut off the faucet, pat my hands dry on my hoodie, and then head back into the living room.

Jess is on the couch wearing a big sweatshirt and winter cap because the heat’s broken again. She’s got a fat textbook open on her lap and a yellow highlighter in her gloved hand. But her eyes are on the TV, where the news is playing real quiet. Justine and Ashley, our little twin sisters, are curled up against her on either side under a pile of blankets, asleep like they had a real hard day in the second grade.

I pick up the ball from the other end of the couch. 

“You really going back out there?” Jess asks. Her eyes are locked onto the old guy on the screen going on about politics or something.

It’s tempting not to. Trust me. It’d be real nice to unlace my sneakers and take it easy the rest of  the night. Maybe play 2K or plop down on the couch right here or go over to Keyona’s place. I mean, I did have a full day of school and a hard workout at practice.

But then I think of  the playoffs. We’ll start with a bye since we were seeded first, so we’ll play on Friday for the quarterfinals. Four more days to get ready.

I also think of Mom busting her butt working the grave- yard shift at the hospital right this very moment and Dad’s bookstore not doing so hot. I think of Jess sitting in front of me studying hard but still racking up student loan debt. I think of the twins buried in blankets because our landlord doesn’t bother getting anybody over here to fix the heat like he claims he will and leaving the oven open doesn’t warm the whole place.

I know there are people out there who got it worse than we do, but there’s people who got it better, too. A lot better, and they’re probably not even working as hard.

“Yup,” I say. “Right back at it.” “Isn’t it cold?”

I shrug, pull my own knit cap from the front pocket of my hoodie, yank it down over my head, and then flip my hood up. “Like it’s summertime in here?”

“You’re crazy,” she says, though I’m thinking the same thing about her spending all that time studying to become an underpaid social worker someday. If I’m going to work hard for something, you better believe it’s going to pay the bills. “Aaron said he called someone about the furnace.”

“Right,” I say. Aaron’s our landlord, who lives in the suburbs. “In the meantime, feel free to burn those to keep warm.” I gesture toward the kitchen table at the stack of col- lege brochures that’ve been flooding our mailbox for the last few months. Schools can’t send me specific recruiting stuff until June 15, when I officially become a junior, but until then they can send me all the junk mail they want, apparently.

“Mom and Dad would kill you,” Jess says, laughing.

I laugh, too, because it’s true. They’re collecting each and every one so that we can go over them together when they have time. They won’t let me toss one until we’ve read it all the way through and discussed the pros and cons, even if it’s from some small school nobody’s ever heard of before, like the University of Chicago in Nebraska or something wack like that. But the problem is they both work so much that that pile of brochures will probably reach the ceiling before long.

I say goodbye to Jess one more time and then head back outside, careful not to make too much noise as I close the door behind me. Out of habit, I glance up at Nasir’s window across the street. His light’s on, so I think about rapping on his door and asking if he wants to come with me. But then I think of him turning his back on me at the vigil the other day and then him acting like I didn’t even exist during our game, so I roll out by my lonesome.

The streets are empty. The houses are dark. Don’t want to wake anyone, since it’s a Monday night, so I hold the ball on my hip with one hand and bury the other in my pocket as I make my way to the courts. I walk quickly, with my breath puffing out in front of my face. Nasir and I must have made this walk together a million times throughout the years. One of us would play offense and the other defense as we went up the sidewalk. If the defender could steal the ball, then we’d switch. Most of the time I was the one dribbling. Not that Nasir was that bad, but I knew him well enough to know that his eyes would flick downward right before he’d lunge for the steal, and that’s when I’d cross over and spin, slipping past him to run the rest of the way to the court, laughing as he trailed behind. But sometimes I’d let him swipe the ball away just because.

That was how it used to be, though. Now I’m always mak- ing this walk alone, putting my moves on ghost defenders. Wondering if I made a mistake.

After a few blocks, I reach the park. It’s behind the com- munity center on the other side of the soccer and baseball fields, far enough away from any houses that I don’t feel bad dribbling once my feet hit the blacktop.

There’s an empty forty at center court. At least whoever left it didn’t bust it and leave the blacktop littered with shards of glass like they sometimes do. I go over and pick up the bottle with my right while dribbling with my left. Toss it into a trash can and then turn back to the hoops.

It’s not as nice as St. Sebastian’s gym, but this is my home court. This is where I started really playing ball with Nasir once we graduated from the low-hanging crate nailed to a telephone pole on our block. I know every crack and dip like the back of my hand. I know if the shot’s going to drop by the sound of the clang when it hits the steel rim. I know the lights click off at ten but you can still see enough to keep shooting if the moon is bright.

This is where I’ve lost and won a thousand games. Where I drained that half-court shot as a sixth-grader to beat the high school kids. Where I broke my nose catching an elbow on a drive and didn’t get the foul shots. Where I dunked for the first time and nobody was around to see — except for Nasir.

This is my home court. Our home court. 

I toss up a rainbow, which sails through the netless hoop. But I’m not here for three-pointers. I’m here for fadeaway, midrange jumpers — the shot I blew three times during to- night’s game. If I’m going to lead St. Sebastian’s to another state title, I can’t be missing that action every time.

After grabbing the rebound, I reset at the top of the key. Lower my dribble and visualize my man crouching low, hands up like they teach in basketball camp. I start counting down from ten. At five, I fake right and then cross over to the left. At four, I turn and back the dude down, and at three, we’re a few feet inside the arc. At two, I pivot and leap. At one, I release the shot at the peak of my vertical. At zero, I fall backwards . . .

The shot falls short and glances off the front of the rim. I chase it down, return to the top of the key, and restart.

Dribble, cross over, back down, pivot, fade away, and release. Another brick. Another rebound.

I keep repeating the motions. Each dribble echoes across the night. The soles of my sneaks scrape over the concrete with each motion. The wind picks up, frigid and stinging. My fingers and toes start to feel numb again, begging me to quit, to save it for practice tomorrow.

But I don’t.

I dribble, cross over, back down, pivot, fade away, release. 

Rebound.

Reset.

***

Bunny and Nasir’s journey has only just begun. If you want to read more of this incredible YA for fans of THE HATE U GIVE and ALL AMERICAN BOYS, pre-order it from the links below!

Amazon

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[luminoustico]

What was your vampire diaries otp?

*16-year-old me comes bursting into the clearing*

HOLD UP DUDES, BUCKLE UP BECAUSE I NEED TO INTRODUCE YOU TO THE OTP THAT STILL HOLDS A PORTION OF MY HEART, SIX YEARS ON FROM ME THROWING MY HANDS INTO THE AIR AND SAYING ‘FUCK THIS SHIT I AM O-U-T’.

Iiiiiiiit’s…

These fuckers!

Oh, I was happy and dandy, completely fine watching The Vampire Diaries as a sort of guilty pleasure. It wasn’t the best show around, I didn’t really follow the storylines, found Stefan a bit boring, Elena dull, Damon your average ‘vampire bad boy’, but I really stayed watching it for the minor characters, like Bonnie, Jeremy, Matt, Tyler and Caroline because I felt like they were really kind of the flesh of the show. Their dynamics were the meat of it, and that’s what kept me tuning in.

Then Caroline Forbes got turned into a vampire. This bright, peppy character suddenly had a power she never expected to have. A strength I never expected the stereotypical cheerleader in this sort of show to have. It changed everything.

The Vampire Diaries basically became the Caroline Forbes Show, for me. I wanted more of this sunshine with this unlimited life and power.

And then Klaus Mikaelson rolled up. Your standard vampire villain, with a tragic backstory of shitty dad being shitty, and a bloodthirsty need to take over the world via the conversion of numerous mortals into vampire/werewolf hybrids.

So, those are the two pieces on the chessboard. The white queen, Caroline Forbes, socialite vampire grappling with the organisation of prom and her own immortality. The black king, Klaus Mikaelson, British-accented vampire villain with a penchant for witty one-liners and slowly making his way up the list of favourite characters. Destined, pretty much, never to meet until the end of the game.

Then the show kicked things up a notch, some hybrid stuff happened in badly lit scenes, and Caroline ended up, on her birthday, slowly dying in her bed from a bite given to her by her boyfriend. Klaus shows up. Laying out the red carpet of faux concern: “oh my gosh Caroline got bit by Tyler, a hybrid??? Sired to me??? What an amazing coincidence!!! Now invite me in, there’s a good girl, toodle pip”. Obviously part of some bigger plan that’ll come into play. Sherriff lets him in.

So here’s the black king standing in the doorway of the white queen’s bedroom. There lies the white queen pale and sickly, dying, with ironic 'Happy Birthday!’ cards arranged artfully on a bedside table. The king is in a position of power; this is acknowledged as soon as he walks in the door, as it always tends to be when Klaus Mikaelson walks into a room but hey, let’s focus here. 

Some standard 'you’re the Big Bad, I’m the friend of the Holy Good why the fuck are you here’ dialogue is exchanged. Klaus Mikaelson, the sage old king, mentions that he likes birthdays; that Caroline, the newly appointed queen, as a vampire, is duty-bound to celebrate the now non-existent commitment she has to human conventions.

“You’re free,” the old king breathes.

“No…” replies the new queen. She flicks her eyes up and meets the old king with a stare as deep as his. “I’m dying.”

A-ha! The playing field is equal. The moves have shrunk. They shrink further still as the king admits he still holds the ace – her life. He could indeed, let her die. At this moment, I expected some corny claptrap about how her death wouldn’t affect the grand scheme of things, how she was never to be a part of his plan—

“I thought about it myself.” Hello? What’s going on here? “Once or twice.”

The old king leans closer to the new queen, young and green in her reign, and tells her that there is a whole world out there, and suddenly, immortality pales in comparison to the promises of music, and art, “genuine beauty”. Immortality ain’t beautiful. The world is.

She can have it all, “a thousand more birthdays”. If the new queen just asks. She can reign everywhere, anywhere she wishes for as long as she wants. Human conventions be damned.

Textually, it’s obviously a power play. Klaus is gaining an alliance from Sherriff Forbes, and a debt from Caroline Forbes, which he will no doubt call on. Caroline surrenders, admits that she doesn’t want to die after all.

But what’s she saying yes to? She’s saying yes to all those birthdays, the art, the music, the promise of genuine beauty.

So drink up, whispers the king. The queen drinks, she sleeps, and she wakes to find a bracelet of astonishing, genuine, beauty contained in a black velvet box with a neat white bow and a scrawled note. “From Klaus”.

Then, nine episodes later, at a 1920s themed dance, the old king makes his intentions very clear to the new queen. It’s clear she knows the debt that hangs over her head, the connection that haunts Tyler, so she acquiesces to his request for one dance. “I don’t bite,” he says silkily. There’s the old 'Big Bad/loyal to Holy Good friend’ dialogue exchange, as before. Then, a reiteration of his promise of the whole world, worded differently, but still there. The old king speaks of waiting for 100 years for her to accept his offer, his promises, as if to do so is easier than breathing. Oh, the new queen side-eyes him, but the pieces shift, the game changes and she’s looking at him in a whole new way. He looks at her with a depth not found in the eyes of a small town boy. She breaks it with a scoff, and there’s your standard 'Big Bad is pissed off’ dialogue from Klaus before he storms off. And, quite crucially, she looks back.

Anyone who has watched any period drama ever knows the importance of looking back.

And just one single episode later, Caroline Forbes is running down a corridor, your standard horror film shot. She is alone, scared, frightened. She is caught by Klaus Mikaelson, her saviour not ten episodes ago, who has twice offered her the world and all its beauty. Not its glories, not its triumphs. Its beauty. 

He promises to save her friend and brushes his fingers over her hair as if it’s already second nature to him to treat her this kindly, this intimately. (Do not get me started on how he cradles her when she drinks his blood, do not.) He tells her, fiercely, to get home and stay safe.

“Do you understand me?” barks he.

“Thank you,” she says. She looks at him like she still cannot work him out, and is afraid because of it. But the thanks is as easy as breathing.

For reasons that are known as ‘I cannot put up with this shit writing for a moment longer’, I give up on the show come season 3 finale. I watch clips of their scenes on YouTube, scrabble for any desperate hope that the potential I saw and shipped and loved is still there. It falls down, down the drain and I personally like to pretend anything past season 3 doesn’t exist.

So now, here I am. 22 years old with 16 years old me screeching the dying screech of a frustrated fangirl whenever she sees a gifset of Klaus Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes together on her Tumblr dashboard because you had a queen with power yet to be unlocked and a king willing to give her that power in exchange for being allowed to worship her as he always wanted to, and because of some shit to do with hybrids, it all went tits up.

But those fuckers called Klaus Mikaelson and Caroline Forbes? They have a portion of my heart (the right ventricle, to be specific) that continues to beat for the queen and king that almost ruled together. #foreverbitter