#as some sort of performance art piece about how *you the fan* are exploiting him

[silverfoxlou]

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[brokehorrorfan]

Interview: James DeMonaco (The Purge franchise)

James DeMonaco thought he had purged himself from The Purge. Having written and directed the first three entries in the hit dystopian action-horror franchise then writing and producing two more sequels and a TV series, he publicly declared that The Forever Purge - released in theaters in July and on home video last week - would be the final installment. "I say it's my last Purge at the end of every one, so I feel like a fool saying there's going to be another one, but I definitely thought [The Forever Purge] was it. I can't lie. That was it for me. I thought I ended America appropriately."

It was the United State Capitol insurrection on January 6 that sparked an idea for a sixth entry. "The country felt like it was coming apart at the seams, and I think the sociopolitical discord fueled something in a nightmare of mine. I woke up with this idea, and I pitched it to Sébastien Lemercier, my producer, then Jason Blum, the other producer. I don't know if they were ready for another Purge, but they liked it. We pitched it to the studio, and they liked it, so I was given the green light to write it.”

The script brings back Frank Grillo's character of Leo Barnes, who was introduced in The Purge: Anarchy and returned in The Purge: Election Year. "I said, ‘If I do another one, I’d like to do it with Frank Grillo.' People loved him, and I love working with Frank." The script is complete but production is uncertain at the moment. "I’m guessing the studio is evaluating the COVID release of [The Forever Purge], so we’ll know soon I guess... I’m hoping we get to do it. I can’t give any definitives other than it’s written and Frank’s excited to do it."

As for the plot of the proposed seventh installment, "It takes place 10 years after The Forever Purge. America has been completely remapped. The states are much different and how they’re broken down is much different, without giving too much away, but there’s a tribalized nature to the new America. [Leo] is living kind of off the grid, but he’s pulled back into the Purge world that still exists in some way, shape, or form."

Truth be told, DeMonaco never expected The Purge to become a franchise. "I didn’t see it going past one [movie]. When we had the script, I think we counted 37 financing entities that had read the script and almost all said the same thing: ‘It’s too anti-American. It’s too nihilistic.’ We really thought if we did get it made, it was going to be a small Michael Haneke film, something like Funny Games, that would play at arthouse theaters and wouldn’t have a wide release."

It was horror producer extraordinaire Jason Blum - who had optioned scripts from DeMonaco when he was an executive at Miramax earlier in his career - that recognized the possibilities of The Purge. "We didn’t see the scope of the potential release until Jason [Blum]. He read it, and he saw something in the conceit that I don’t think I saw; the bigger potential of it. We had no idea I’d be here five movies and two seasons of a TV show later. It’s been a strange ride!"

DeMonaco stepped down as director after three installments of The Purge, but he was eager to guide the franchise as writer-producer. "I was ready to move to something new. I had been Purge-ing for many years in a row. It’s a dark world to live in. I still wanted to shepherd the story. I was always afraid, if it went into someone else’s hands, it potentially could become something I didn’t want it to be. Maybe it could be even better than what I would do, but it also could be something more exploitative in a way that I didn’t want it to go."

DeMonaco found filmmakers he could trust to hand over the reins, but he's eager to return to the director's chair if the next chapter comes to fruition. "When we found Gerard [McMurray], I felt like we were in great hands [on The First Purge]. He understood the sociopolitical nature of the piece. It’s what he loved even more than the genre elements. He felt like the right guy to take over, as did Everardo [Gout] on Part 5. But for 6, I was excited to direct again when I came up with this conceit, so I do believe there’s a chance, if Frank came back, we could re-team and do it together.

Any successful, long-running franchise - particularly one as politically-charged as The Purge - is bound to have its critics, and DeMonaco takes it all in stride. “To my detractors I often say, ‘The Purge is not a subtle film.’ There’s no subtlety at all. I’m hitting people over the head with a sledgehammer with my thoughts on the current political climate in the country. I think some people think it’s too political, and I get that. They don’t want to be preached and proselytized to. Some people love it for those exact reasons. My favorite movies are usually in the 50 percentile on Rotten Tomatoes. They’re gonna piss a lot of people off, and they’re gonna make some people really happy. I think sometimes you have to be bold in what you’re doing. For the people who hate it, that’s their right to hate!” he chuckles.

DeMonaco challenges himself to make every entry in The Purge series unique. "I really take a lot of time to make sure each one is very different than the previous, so even if you’ve seen the first four, we have a mandate between us to say, ‘Let’s not repeat ourselves. Let’s really try to flip it on its head.’ I think [The Forever Purge] feels new. Even the visual palette of the film is new. It takes place in a new territory, a new terrain; it’s not back in an inner city. It takes The Purge to a new level that we haven’t seen before, and I think the characters are wonderful. These are people you truly come to care about, and you want to go on the journey with them. It’s not a rehash that I’ve seen in some franchises. It’s very hard to keep doing new things, but I think it’ll feel fresh."

The Forever Purge's original release date was delayed due to the pandemic, and then it became one of the first wide releases once vaccines were rolled out. "We still don’t exactly know how to process if it’s good or bad financially. It’s hard to know, to be honest. I’m not privy to the backdoor meetings with the adults regarding the financials," he smirks. "But they’re great partners, so I hope they’re happy. I know it was a weird time. A Quiet Place [Part II] came out of the box so big that we all thought, ‘Hey, we’re back!’ But I didn’t know anybody at the time that was going back to the movies. It was a monstrous opening, yet I didn’t know one person who saw it in the theater. It’s still confusing as to what the future of the box office is."

"My biggest fear is that the box office doesn’t return, because I think we can’t replicate inside a movie theater. It’s a scary time." The impact of the theatrical experience is the centerpiece of DeMonaco's latest film, This Is the Night. It reunites the writer-director with Grillo and Blum, but it plays like an antithesis to their work on The Purge. “I think it was something I needed to do,” DeMonaco explains. “Movies have been my guiding force in life. My religion was cinema, and it’s been my passion. I always wanted to make a movie about that love of cinema and what it can inspire. It was wonderful to do after the first three Purges.”

Set in Staten Island during the summer of 1982, the coming-of-age story serves as DeMonaco’s love letter to cinema. "It’s about Rocky III - or any movie, which is why I don’t show any of Rocky III during the screening - that can inspire people to rise up and be better people. It’s about the power of art. It was great to make. I think it’s a very sweet, good-feeling film. I think I needed that myself after making The Purge.”

DeMonaco is currently developing a new horror movie starring Saturday Night Live favorite Pete Davidson. "We’re friends, we live close together. He was a big Purge fan, so we hit it off through a mutual friend." While he's elusive regarding plot details, he does offer a few hints. "I can’t really say it’s contained. It takes place in one place but a big place, so it’s not Purge-size. It’s bigger than that; a facility of some sort."

On working with Davidson, DeMonaco notes, "Big Time Adolescence is a great performance, so is The King of Staten Island, but there’s some humor in those films. There’s almost zero humor in the one we’re doing together. I think that’s exciting for me working with Pete, in that he’s going in a very new direction. This one is much more straightforward for his character." He enthuses, "I’m psyched to work with Pete. I can’t wait."

[kreekey]

examples of people being racist toward yoko unintentionally: 1- calling her a weird stalker when they glorify/don't mind the many white fangirls who used to stalk the Beatles. 2- spreading misinformation that she lost custody of her daughter when in fact she'd won against her white crazy ex despite everything NOT in favour of her 3- bashing her for using John's glasses on the album cover she worked with John on, when they would've praised the artistry and bold statement if she was a white woman

Hey sorry I got around to answering your ask so late! You make a lot of really interesting points and I rarely hear people consider that. 

1 - reminds me of a Tumblr post I saw about an obsessive Beatlemaniac stalker and people were like “me” or “bless her” haha. Definitely different when they can interpret Yoko’s actions as “stalking”. And your point also reminds me of this quote, which isn’t about fangirls but still somewhat kinda related.

“Like Yoko when she met John, Linda was a divorced woman with a daughter when she met Paul mere months later.  There are stories similar to those about Yoko of her “scheming” to meet and marry Paul.  In the same way that Yoko is said to have joked prior to meeting him that she was “going to marry John Lennon,” Linda joked like any woman with a celebrity crush about how she was “going to marry Paul McCartney.”  (Bob Spitz notes both in his book The Beatles.  Guess which one he thought was conniving, and which one he thought was adorable.)... Was it the lucky fact that Linda got the scene a few months later than Yoko, or was it her whiteness?“ 

X

And I don’t have the answer if it was Yoko’s race that made her such a target, but it’s something interesting to consider and note. [And I’ll clarify this, I'm pretty sure Yoko didn't know about the Beatles until she became face to face with one, like she wasn't a fan who got lucky enough to meet her idol. In the David Frost interview and the 1971 Rolling Stone interview, John noted that Yoko didn't know him when they met, and Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies by Neil Beram says this on their meeting: "She was about as familiar with John's work as he was with hers. "I was an underground person, and such an artistic snob," she said later. "I knew about The Beatles, of course... but I wasn't interested in them." Just about the only thing she could recall about them was the drummer Ringo Starr's first name, because ringo means "apple" in Japanese.”] Also, and this definitely wasn’t stalking, but I posted a quote from Bob Spitz’ biography where he writes along the lines of

“[Linda] always insisted that she was going to marry Paul McCartney,” [Nat Weiss] recalls, “even before she met him”... It was no accident that Linda Eastman veered into his aura. She’d taken a few polite shots of Ringo and George before “zeroing in on Paul,”... Linda had come dressed to kill. Most days she played the typical rock chick, decked out in rumpled jeans and a T-shirt, with little or no makeup and unwashed hair. But today her hair had been carefully blow-dried so that it fell perfectly forward in wing points at her chin. And she was dressed in an expensive double-breasted striped barbershop jacket arranged just so over a sheer black sweater, with a miniskirt that flattered her gorgeous legs. When she squatted down – not so subtly, in what must have been a rehearsed gesture – in front of Paul for an intimate chat, he had trouble keeping his eyes from wandering below-decks...

, and some people commented that it appeared kinda predatory/pre-planned (reminds me of some criticism of Francie Schwartz’s meeting with Paul), but overall cute and everything. At the time I wondered how people would react if Yoko did that to John lol. No way of knowing, just a thought. And also, I know Yoko sent him Grapefruit and little instructions often, I think that’s usually what people cite as the stalking, that she tried to ensnare him with it. Again quoting Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies, 

For a time Yoko kept in touch with John by mailing him daily instructions-she called this Dance Event-that said things like "Dance" and "Watch all the lights until dawn" and "I'm a cloud. Watch for me in the sky." John found the instructions as perplexing as he found them intriguing.

And quoting this interview (in which she also asserts that “each and every occasion she visited John at Kenwood, it was at his invitation.”),

Despite the popular theory that Yoko was frantically inventing schemes to snare the wealthy Beatle, she was struggling with problems in her marriage [with Tony Cox] and also working hard to establish her career in the UK. Arriving in London in September 1966 to perform at the ‘Destruction In Art Symposium’, Yoko was already respected as an avant-garde artist and performer in New York, where she was allied to the Fluxus movement. She had a trained musical background, and had recently been involved in the improvisational music favoured by her peer group. She had also compiled a book of conceptual and instructional pieces called Grapefruit, and printed up a limited edition.

Yoko distributed copies to a number of influential people during 1966-’67. And John Lennon was one of the recipients. This has since been interpreted as one of various ruses on Yoko’s part to enchant Lennon.

She retorts: “There was a myth that I sent Grapefruit to him… how I wanted to trap him. It was a printed, published book. I had an orange carton of them, a lot of it. I would be giving it to critics. It was that sort of thing. He wasn’t the only one who got it.”

X

And by then, John had already eagerly offered to sponsor one of her shows, I think he was genuinely interested in her work. I don’t think John was actually threatened by these notes or felt he was harassed, especially since he made the jump to invite her over while his wife was away (and Yoko just thought it was a party!). He once referred to Yoko “someone that could turn me on to a million things” in the Lennon Remembers interview, he admired her art. And I know he said to Cyn that the letters were just junk from another one of those weird artists, but c’mon, what do you think John would say to his wife regarding the woman he’s romantically interested in? I don’t think it would’ve been fully truthful IMO, especially considering when John said that he nearly invited Yoko to India around that time because he liked her so.

2 is very true. Tony himself tried to make it seem like Yoko and John were crazy heroin druggies, and that's the case he tried to make (and that’s what he tried to tell Kyoko, that he was “saving” her from drug obsessed occultists). But, Yoko had gone “cold turkey” (ala the song) off heroin in 1969. This was 2 years before she won full custody in 1971. 

Although neither parent had been awarded sole custody of the child, Mr. Cox became increasingly reluctant to let Yoko and her new husband spend time with Kyoko, and finally refused to permit it at all. For a year before the Lennons came to America, they had been chasing Mr. Cox and Kyoko around Europe. In Majorca, Spain, the Lennons caught up with them and spirited Kyoko off to their hotel; but Mr. Cox called the police, and a Spanish court gave the child back to him. The incident added to his fear that the Lennons wanted to take her away from him for good.

Soon after the Lennons arrived in New York, they went to the United States Virgin Islands, to the same court where Yoko had been divorced, and that court awarded her permanent custody of her daughter.

X

But, Tony then took Kyoko to Texas (hiding/kidnapping her) which was in violation of that court order. Then more custody battle due to Tony’s stubbornness and evasiveness, but yes, Yoko did win custody then despite everything (even though John was very threatened by Tony lol, to the point he disallowed Yoko to visit him alone in order to discuss co-parenting when that was an option and suggested kidnapping Kyoko. But then again Tony was also kinda crazy. Seriously though IMO Yoko really tried gallantly to have Kyoko in her life, and the loss hurt her. To hear people try to spin it as Yoko being the monster in the situation through misinformation is unfortunate.)

3 is hypothetical, but I do speculate that if Yoko was white, the attitude toward her would’ve been different. Sean said, “It’s intense how racist the world is. If my mother had looked like Debbie Harry, I really think the reaction would have been different.” (X) Yoko’s former partner, Sam Havadtoy, also touched on this in an interview from 1990:

Q: ...No matter what Yoko does, she’s frequently the victim of a bad press. Any idea why?

Havadtoy: After John’s death, newspapers wrote that Yoko was this selfish person hoarding John’s memory, controlling it, not willing to share it with his fans. So after two years, she puts out 200 hours of film footage and a record and they say she’s exploiting John’s memory. She can’t win.

Q: Why not?

Havadtoy: Racism. If she were blond-haired and blue-eyed, nobody would have blamed her for breaking up the Beatles. They were the darlings of the universe; she was an outsider, an Oriental, an avant-garde artist--easy to pick on. When John married Yoko, the British press wrote: “At least he will have clean laundry.” And it’s still happening. America is infatuated with Japan-bashing. 

X

And I do think Season Of Glass was a memory thing, I posted about it here: X. 

And yes, I think that much of Yoko’s criticism/legacy was rooted in that initial reaction, which was pretty sexist and racist. But I think that influence can still be felt today, in ways that aren’t obvious. And like you said, unintentional. (Before anyone gets mad, if you dislike or hate Yoko that doesn't automatically make you racist lol. But the narrative built around her might’ve influenced your opinion of her, and the narrative was kinda rooted in a racist mentality. So that’s why and re-interpreting her in a fresh light is necessary).

[blackbeerandcoffeemovies]

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze

This movie came out in 1975 and I’ll be blunt: it has not aged well. You can take that as a warning.

In fact, you find yourself in various states of cringing, laughing hysterically and wincing at how mind-numbingly “campy” this movie is. It would help a lot to remember that this movie was made in a different era, with a different vibe throbbing in the culture. Personally, I watched this movie not just for the memories but to perform a symbolic gesture of sorts; like a wink to a beloved ex-girlfriend who you may have connected with recently.   

So if you are still curious enough to continue reading this review though, you’ll get to know more about arguably THE first superhero ever! The prototype from which all the other modern costumed, world-saving, aliens/monsters/despot-fighting paladins found their inspiration from.    

But first, let’s take a trip down memory lane. Way down. Thirty-eight years ago to be exact. . .  

I grew up with American comics. I was just a Malay kid who was so fascinated with this wondrous world of mighty men battling equally mighty villains. My memory is a bit hazy but I do remember that, as a scrawny 7-year old in 1982, I fondly remember clutching my first comic book with a stupid grin on my face as I left the store selling PX goods and “stateside” items (it was an issue of “The Flash” by the way). This literally and figuratively, colorful piece of literature not only served to enhance my facility with the English language but it also introduced me to a large slice of Americana in all its “Western” ways.

Later, this love of the colored pages unknowingly led me to appreciate another, more ancient kind of literature as soon as I was able to intellectually grasp it: mythology. I graduated from skin-tight, super-powered, 2D heroes to flexing my imagination about ancient stories of immortal gods who could throw lightning bolts, imprison giants, and command the elements. Was I sensing a familiar pattern here?

That underlying pattern, I ultimately found later in university, was called the archetype. To those unfamiliar, the archetype as is known in various fields of studies is basically an image or representation of a grander ideal that we recognize readily when we see it. When you see these beings, your insides get flooded with inspiration and comfort because you know they embody strength, protection, justice, restoring balance and all that good stuff. Such symbols have been around since the dawn of humanity simply because they give us an ideal to aspire to and not be simply hairy meat bags existing just to make it to another day.    

So who is Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze exactly? Created in 1933 (Yes, he’s that old. Years later, some super-strong alien with a big letter “S” on his chest would also rip-off the idea of having a Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic and be called “Man of Steel” instead, but let’s not talk about him. . .) from a time that was before the modern comic book format. This was the era of the so-called pulp magazines, circa 1890’s to the 1950s. As the name implies, the paper used was made from wood pulp material with the pages having rough, untrimmed edges very different from the higher-quality paper used in magazines. In terms of literary style, think of them as short, “cheap”, unsophisticated works of fiction for mass consumption with almost no illustrations. Thus, the reader defaults to his/her imagination for further immersive experience. The heroes at this time were in the truest sense crimefighters or ordinary men having heroic exploits by uncovering plots and bringing wrongdoers to justice.

Clark “Doc” Savage Jr. would be the template for the rich, over-achieving polymath industrialist with limitless resources (think Batman, Ironman and Black Panther with a bit of Robin Hood thrown in). He was raised to be the peak of manly perfection having unmatched athletic ability, a photographic memory plus an inventive intellect that would rival Da Vinci or Newton and the discipline that would make a Special Forces operator blush! To add to his already considerable arsenal was his cadre: The Fabulous Five. This crew was made-up of his previous military comrades that included an industrial chemist, a construction engineer, a high-level electrician, a renowned archaeologist/geologist, and even a noted Harvard lawyer. Banding together with Doc taking the lead, they pooled their various skillsets and traveled the world having adventures and fighting for justice. Above all else, Doc Savage apparently had a character that was closest to the ideal of all humanity. This was exemplified in “The Oath” he and his team strove to live by: 

“Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better, to the best of my ability, that all may profit by it. Let me think of the right and lend all my assistance to those who need it, with no regard for anything but justice. Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage. Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens and my associates in everything I say and do. Let me do right to all, and wrong no man.”

Finally, the blessed movie itself. I really believe they could have treated the material better. If you’re a fan of the clownish Batman TV series of the 1960’s, you’ll feel right at home with how the makers of this film approached it. The ridiculously cartoonish characters, the contrived banter/bickering dialog between the team, the mediocre special effects, the lack of depth of emotion. . . Do I really need to go on?  I should let you know I’ve never had a colonoscopy before, but I imagine this would be the closest experience to it, with the procedure being done to you with minimal anesthetic as possible!  

If this movie had any saving grace whatsoever, it would be lead actor Ron Ely (“Tarzan” TV series of the 1960s). If we’re looking for an archetype of the “ubermensch”, Ely is the closest we have of him with his obvious manly presence and the dignity he carried himself with was convincing. That being said, the grand final fight scene between him and the villain/criminal mastermind apparently displaying their mutual mastery of several martial arts is best watched with strong liquor of your choice. Trust me; it helps numb the cringe!   

Yes, this movie was indeed like reconnecting with an old flame. The memories, both good and bad come tumbling back (mostly the good though), but REALITY suddenly comes down hard like the current jealous partner! That was then, this is now. It gives you pause to think that perhaps there’s a reason why it was only good in the past, and that is so you could appreciate what you have NOW in the present.   

Doc Savage has a tremendous amount of potential if given the right elements for proper flimhood. Still hoping this granddaddy of superheroes gets to have a worthy remake one day! 

[mikkock]

i'm not the anon, but i do want to hear about your OCs!!!!!!! i'm bad with details but i vaguely remember you had these two gay bois and maybe one was a computer programmer or something?? idk but i think you had an art piece of him at a laptop,, anyway they were v cute

alright since i got a lot of gay boys i had to go searching to make sure i had the right gay boys sdhjfghsgsfg why do i have so many gay boys i do wonder mh

so im thinking u mean vince n xiaoli cuz of that piece of the latter 

if not then oops u gon have to hear about them anyway uwu (im putting this under cut cause i tend to speak a lot and i dont wanna clog up people’s feed ya feel) if i got it wrong feel free to scream at me and demand explainations of other characters lmao

its em

Those two got a whole ass story (not a story about ass i just keep putting the word ass everywhere). 

They were besties as kids, like, very young kids, talking inseparable besties. But, one day, quite suddenly Xiaoli’s family had to move back to China and so the two were seperated with no ways to contact or even ideas as to where the other was (factor in the fact that they were still very young and all, and if we take time into account that must mean they were in some time of barely no internet for everyone so prolly didnt have even emails tbh). The whole story i got planned for em is about how they grow up, evolve, yet still try to find each other again through the few pieces of useful information that they remember from back in the days. (and since im a sucker for happy ending it aint no spoiler that they do find each other at the end or smth like, pls, id die if they didnt. the important part is the path they took, and all the shit that happens in between ofc)

 but who cares bout plot tbh, the important thing is the cHARACTERS (i kno cause my studies include storytelling classes so like bitch, i kno the story is the characters and all that jazz) so lets talk about the boys themselves some more, shall we uwu

Lets start with Vince, who’s the youngest of the two :

first thing i gotta say is that he changed a LOT design wise, like his first looks ?? wack.

who are you i dont know you u look rude im scared what happened to your hair ? so many questions

anyway now he looks like a baby and that’s all that matters.

(that was def done for a school exercise but look how cute he is awn)

He lives in the US, born of Ecuadorian parents. Ever since he was tiny he wanted only one thing, and that is to Win Gold at the olympics (yeah i know, small ambitions, what can i say he’s a realist at heart) for tracks (aint decided yet what exact part of tracks cause im not knowledgeable in track n field and i still gotta do my research boo bad me for procrastinating). 

So he runs. A lot. That’s his main thing. A big part of his identity.  But not all of it naturally otherwise he’d be a running robot not a guy.

He’s still very young so he can be a tad stupid, naturally. He’s also close to his family. And he big gay. He’s a friendly guy, the puppy type with others. He’s really big on listening to his friends vent out since he believes it does a lot to relieve stress (and ya cant be stressed if you want to perform amazing !!!)

He’s kiiiiind of an overachiever. Just a small bit. He wants to do perfect all the time, so he studies a lot, trains a lot, cleans his room, does his bed, brushes his teeth, he’s a Good Kid. He’s got a really strict timetable that he follows really closely, and in general, tends to monitor his life, maybe a biiiiit too much ? Even leisure time is a specific moment of the day, a set time, nothing more. Then he goes to bed, early, so he can get a full good sleep and go run in the morning. He needs to learn how to chill a bit more. He does have friends to help him get back into a more relaxed mindset sometimes, and once he reunites with his long lost bestie he definetly will have to accept a biiiit of chaos and imprevisible...

Cause let’s talk a bit bout Xiaoli huhuhu...

At first glance you may think “oh, what a reliable serious pretty boy, he seems nice and helpful” but he’s actually a sNAKE. Or more like a fox ? I’m no vet so I’m not sure what animal analogy fits best...

Fact is he IS reliable, and nice, but he’s ALSO a bitch. If you’re pal with him he’ll help you out with your homework, listen to you rant about a heartbreak, be a total sweetheart, but if you’re his FRieND then you’ll get that but under snarky remarks, teasing, and he’ll probably record you when you’re doing ridiculous drunk antics or just tripping over your own feet...

actually he def will do that.

He’s also very expressive and open, he’s one of those characters that i like to use for expression practice because his face will stretch in any possible way. He still keeps secrets tho, mostly he doesnt talk at all about his search for Vince (probably because he’s got the biggest lead, namely having randomly found him once through his running exploits and discovering his past bestie was now becoming some sort of “upcoming athlete celebrity you have to keep an eye out for” or something...)

He actually studies medecine, not computer science but tbh, I could change it in the future, its nothing fixed nor anything too relevant to his character dshsfsgs, and also he IS pretty tech savy so that’d make sense mh.....can you believe im gonna turn into those creators who take “fan theories” and turn them canon smh

He’s quite likes going out, partying and having fun. He values balance between work and fun above a lot of things, and he’s also not much of a big planner. 

Also since I mentionned it for Vince, lets make it equal : he’s a HongKong resident, his mum is half Australian so that makes him a ? Quarterie ? Is there a word for half-halfie ? Idk man. And he’s very very bi, and quite chill about it, and quite absolutely into getting dates.

Those two got some potential for me to turn them into a story so i kinda hope i’ll be able to some time in the future, who knows, maybe that’ll happen somedays uwu

[thesinglesjukebox]

CHILDISH GAMBINO - THIS IS AMERICA

[6.33]

And this is your #1 single, America.

Jibril Yassin: Listening to this without the video makes you realize just how much praise we've thrown at Donald Glover for essentially remaking Mother. It's just a shame the song feels like a patchwork of different moods: the capable and effortless singing and the passable rap schemes clashing at each possible moment. It's chaos supplanted by a million Atlanta rapper adlibs featured here -- notable because his past work revelled in his outsiderdom status. Now he relishes in being a medium. What the fuck does Childish Gambino wants us to think about him? The Billboard #1 means that once again somehow Young Thug wins so I'll take that. [5]

Ryo Miyauchi: Hearing that clatter of noise ripping the seams of the Coloring Book gospel felt viscerally thrilling at first. Yet the momentum of it soon died down as Donald Glover muttered ad libs in placement of real lyrics. If this excitement and then immediate bore from violence was the point, then it relies way too much on its visuals to get that across. As pure audio, it's fragments of unfinished ideas coalesced into what barely passes as a song, and those fragments depend upon too much subtext for it to hopefully bear some meaning. [5]

Tim de Reuse: Every word of the lyrics and every frame of the music video begs to be picked apart; that's Charleston, that's Parkland, that's the way white Americans revere gun culture. It's an assault on all fronts, and despite the pull of its main sonic gimmick, an assault on all fronts cannot be incisive. So it contains no arguments or calls to action, working mainly as a mood piece for anxiety, instability, dehumanization, and dread, writhing into itself, and young Thug's haunting outro is the only place where the horrors alluded to are felt rather than just referenced or replicated. Is it effective? Well, it certainly leaves an impression, but it's not as focused as it could be, and to get any kind of solid message out of it you've got to put in just as much as you're going to get out. [6]

Alfred Soto: A compelling statement of protest that doesn't mind flirting with the exploitative and why not -- the video, that is. A fitfully compelling protest whose tonal variety compensates for its lyrical shortcomings -- that's "This is America." Like many #1s, it's a vessel for listeners. Few hits in the twenty-first century benefit from a cultural moment like Donald Glover's. This is America? No -- this is America. [7]

Will Rivitz: There isn't much I can say about "This Is America" that Doreen St. Félix hasn't already said, so let me talk about its place as an "ambiguous document" on terms in which I feel slightly more authoritative: As a nuanced, complicated, and enigmatic dissection of Black existence -- which is about as specifically as one can describe the song and its accompanying visuals, since any narrower portrayal risks an uneasily reductive summary of its purpose -- Gambino's newest is excellent, aesthetically compelling and subtly difficult in all the right ways. As a pop song that's raced to number one on the charts with the force of a "God's Plan," it's less successful, so instrumentally and allusionally dense that, aside from Gambino's chorus and ad-libs, even a dozen listens in I still have trouble tracking its structure -- and a pop song that isn't easily accessible tends to fail at providing the populist unification that the best of that ilk inflict on a club at 1 AM. As a song, period, it's also a little weak: for all its bassy bluster, its aggression is pallid compared to the distortion of a Clipping or a Death Grips, and its Yeezus-cum-TLOP blend of gospel and snarl doesn't quite reach what made both of those albums so excellent. This, as much as I do love it at times, is what makes the single-number rating system we have on this site a smidge simplistic: we're rating songs based on a singular scale with which we try to summarize all of its qualities into a one- or two-character final word. On "This is America," the ambiguity that St. Félix characterizes so well can't properly be reduced to a score, because the song succeeds and half-succeeds and half-fails on so many disparate levels that it doesn't really do the song justice. That said, I've listened to this one the past two weeks about as much as I listened to "Plug Walk" last month, and I gave that one a [7], so here we are. [7]

Stephen Eisermann: There've been more than enough think pieces and Twitter threads about on this song that I won't try analysis. Instead, I want to highlight how impotent the song is without the accompanying video: how it's a great addition to the accompanying video. This song is good, sure, but the video makes it great. [7]

Julian Axelrod: "This is America" feels like an anomaly in so many ways: It's a song that meets Donald Glover's outsize ambitions, which have previously made him feel like an auteur in search of a masterpiece. Its popularity is partly due to an eye-catching viral video that justifies the hype and amplifies its song's message rather than overshadowing it. And most impressively, it's a cultural and political statement that actually feels suited to how we live now. The song builds and buckles under its oppressively sunny tension, like a powder keg with a smiley face plastered on the front. But check that title again: While "This is America" is clearly a product of our current climate, its anger is nothing new. As long as you live in a country that refuses to let you breathe, the only true rebellion will be dancing on its feet. [8]

Jonathan Bradley: Who is Childish Gambino? This is what I ask from "This is America." Because we know Donald Glover: he's Troy from Community, he's a trash punchline rapper, he's a shockingly impressive nu-funk singer, he's Atlanta's dramedy auteur of the late 2010s. And now he's the ghost of Kendrick Lamar (because Kendrick invented political raps for the '10s the way Chuck D did for the '80s), he's Earn Marks, he's this shuckin' and jivin' shooter playing callous with life. Or has he surpassed performance; is "This is America" any black man playing the best role a white society can ask of him? "Have you seen 'This is America'," people ask of me, and I say, "no, I still have some episodes of Atlanta left to watch." As protest, aren't they as meaningful? As video, "This is America" doesn't resolve. Is this America? Well, song as shareable content is not new; pop history is articulated through tunes that capture an audience's spirit for their times. As song: the choir is lovely. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: Remember when a bunch of white people thought it was OK to roll their eyes at Donald Glover for feeling "too white for Blacks, too Black for whites" on Camp? Some people dished out laundry lists of other Black people who were, in their minds, definitive proof of Glover being a fraud. Invalidating his experiences was a sure way to make him -- and other Blacks who felt similarly -- even more insecure about their identity. Here we are, seven years later, and Donald Glover's finally "made it" according to the standards set by white gatekeepers and lay internet folk (one and the same?), and it seems as if people consider the vivid depictions here as being astronomically different -- more artful, more profound -- than what was present in his earlier discography. It's been stated that "This is America" is not the lead single to the upcoming Childish Gambino album, indicating that this is a standalone product meant to be engaged with both aurally and visually. Glover knows: a video is going to be far more affecting simply because of how people approach one. Music is far more susceptible to passivity; people can hear, but they don't listen. Still, it's impossible to ignore the prevailing pernicious attitudes that lead to uniform declarations of "This is America" as a powerful political statement. Does everything need to be so painfully explicit and overt in its intentions to qualify as such? There's a sort of dysconscious racism underpinning how writers and fans are content with categorizing "This is America" and Donald Glover as political while denying such a label to the various rappers who provide ad-libs here. So let's break it down: Young Thug provided one of last year's most heartbreaking verses while mourning the murder of Keith Troup. BlocBoy JB dedicated his recent mixtape to Simi, a friend who died by gunfire. On "Work Hard," Quavo proudly declares that despite dropping out of school, he's rich enough now that his mom doesn't need to work. Slim Jxmmi says essentially the same thing on "Brxnks Truck" and unabashedly celebrates his affluence on "Growed Up." Kodak Black, who's namedropped here, explains how people don't see potential in him because he's "a project baby" on "Misunderstood," and spends another song later on Project Baby 2 sounding absolutely suicidal. And 21 Savage's "Bank Account," one of the most popular rap songs of last year, saw the rapper elegantly illustrating how being a successful Black man doesn't mean you can suddenly present yourself as vulnerable. It's funny: that everyone here is relegated to ancillary elements in the instrumentation ensures that people won't decry the presence of a less "conscious" (i.e. less "worthy," less "real") rapper. Glover understands this, and this decision is an effective middle ground between making significant impact and allowing all these other rappers to have a voice. It's moving because Glover's doing the exact opposite of what his Camp detractors did: unifying, validating, and empowering. The result is a beautiful tapestry that seems to be delivering a message hidden underneath a more obvious one. Every Black rapper is making political music. Every Black rapper is showing what it means to be Black in America. Every Black rapper deserves the attention to detail that has been poured upon this song and video. To think otherwise -- to discredit and disparage the truths of these Black people's lives -- is to disagree with the more obvious realities presented in the video. It's happening, and that is America too. [5]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[aion-rsa]

Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1: The Most Epic Sword Fight Ever Filmed

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When it comes to action choreography, any long take sequence that lasts more than a few minutes is an achievement. Stunts and fights are risky. They can even be deadly. The longer the scene, the more chances of an accident. But a 77-minute one-er? That’s just crazy. 

Talented filmmakers strut their stuff because the technical skill behind a good one-er demands next-level directorial and choreographic mastery. Setting up a long take scene is exponentially more challenging than a normal scene with cuts. For example, the short one-er that opens Lindsay Vonn’s new Amazon Prime reality game show series The Pack only runs a few minutes and is split by a cut in the middle, but it took 26 hours to prepare, film, and strike the sequence. Plus they had to shut down the 110 Freeway to film it.  

The extensive long takes in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman and Sam Mendes’ 1917 have won international acclaim, Oscars, and other notable awards. Asian cinema has also been delivering some impressive one-ers. Standing out among the rest is rising director Bi Gan, who blew his entire budget for his second film Kaili Blues just to create a complex 42-minute long-take sequence. He topped that with a convoluted 59-minute one-er in his last film, Long Day’s Journey Into the Night, in 3D no less. It was such a remarkable achievement in filmmaking that it was recognized by Cannes.

Making the Cut Before Someone Gets Hurt

Action one-ers are the most challenging because so much can go wrong in fight choreography. There’s no room for error. Even with regular action sequences with plenty of safety edits, stunt people can get injured, even killed. This makes action one-ers shorter, but far more intense, especially from a technical standpoint. Although there is a place for good wire-fu, martial arts fans have the highest admiration for fight scenes grounded in reality so when actors can pull off long complicated fight scenes, it’s a testament to pure skill. 

Recent Hollywood action movies have embraced long take fights with films like the Keanu Reeves John Wick films. That franchise is directed by Chad Stahelski whose background is in stunt work. Director Ryan Coogler delivered some gripping long-take scenes with the Casino fight in Black Panther and Adonis’ first fight in Creed. 

These recent one-ers stand on the shoulder of past ones, so cherished by action fans that some have their own nicknames. John Woo’s Hard Boiled included a 3+ minute single-tracking take known as the “hospital scene.” It’s a wild piece of Woo’s signature balletic gunplay that is off-the-rails ballistic and explosive. And that film was shot in 1992, long before CGI allowed such destruction to be faked. According to film lore, the scene was originally meant to be 5+ minutes but the crew couldn’t sustain it. 

Chan Park-wook’s Oldboy included a 3+ minute brutal “hallway fight” that allegedly took 17 takes over 3 days to capture. It’s an incredible piece of ultraviolence that gave new meaning to hammer usage. It’s even more impressive considering that actor Choi Min-sik didn’t come from a martial arts or stunt background. He learned his fighting skills specifically for that film. Oldboy was also recognized by Cannes for its daring filmmaking. 

Tony Jaa’s legendary 4+ minute staircase fight in Tom-Yum-Goong (a.k.a. The Protector) took a month to prepare. According to Jaa, they got it in 8 takes, but they could only attempt 2 takes per day because it was so complicated. Jaa also claims they would’ve gone longer but were hampered by the how much film their camera would hold. Today’s digital recording allows one-ers to go much longer than in the days of film. In 1948, Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking long-take film Rope! was limited to one-ers under 10 minutes because that was the maximum length of film in his camera magazines back then. Digital filmmaking has no such constraints and today’s directors are exploiting this. 

The Sword Saint – Miyamoto Musashi

Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 is a fictional story about Japan’s most famous sword saint – or Kensei – Miyamoto Musashi (1585-1645 CE). The original Japanese title is Kyo Musashi (Kyo means “crazy”) and an alternate anglicized title is Crazy Samurai Musashi. However, beyond the name, this is not any sort of biopic of Musashi. The real Musashi was undefeated in 61 duels, and although that falls far short of 400, that’s the most documented victories of any swordsman in Japanese history. 

Musashi’s first duel was against Arima Kihei. Musashi accepted a public challenge from Kihei and beat him to death with a bo staff. That was when Musashi was only 13. Musashi went on to write one of the most venerated treatises on swordsmanship of all, The Book of Five Rings. 

However, if you’re looking for Musashi’s history, Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 isn’t the film for you. This film is about fight choreography. Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 clocks in at 92 minutes total running time. Subtract that 77-minute fight scene and that only leaves 15 minutes for story development. The premise is established within the first 8 minutes. 

Musashi (Tak Sakaguchi) has killed Seijuro Yoshioka, and the Yoshioka clan wants revenge. Anticipating Musashi to answer a challenge, the clan lays a trap. The new head of the clan is a prepubescent boy, Matashichiro Yoshioka (Kousei Kimura), and the clan sets him up to challenge Musashi to regain the clan’s honor. But it’s a ruse to ambush Musashi at a dueling field with 100 of their students and 300 mercenaries. A white moth flutters by. In Asian culture, white moths are messengers of death (some claim this underpins the Kaiju monster Mothra). Then Musashi enters and the sword swinging craziness begins. That’s all we get for story development. 

Anyone familiar with Musashi’s real history recognizes that Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 is loosely based upon his battle with the Yoshioka clan. In a series of duels, Musashi defeated the Yoshioka brothers, Seijuro and Denshichiro. The clan did use Matashichiro as bait to lure Musashi into a trap. A retinue of followers lay in wait to ambush Musashi, but there weren’t 400 of them. Musashi arrived late, launched a surprise attack, beheaded Matashichiro, and then fought his way out. 

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The battle against the Yoshioka clan occurred when Musashi was turning 20 and allegedly inspired him to invent his signature two-sword method of fighting known as Nitenichi (Two Heavens are One). Within the 77-minute fight, Sakaguchi does demonstrate a few instances of double sword play, however the bulk is single sword work. Two swords are twice as heavy as wielding one, so this was surely a strategy to conserve Sakaguchi’s energy so he could go the distance. 

Beyond that, Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 offers a few more Musashi Easter eggs. Most of the battle consists of hordes of hapless swordsmen rushing Musashi only to get cut down in a few strokes but there are some more notable opponents plucked from Musashi legend. Separating the horde of ambushers are a few distinguished fighters who declare themselves to Musashi before engaging him one-on-one.

His first duelist is Nanpo Yoichibei, who is mentioned as part of the Yoshioka clan in Eiji Yoshikawa’s timeless novelization Musashi.  Shishido Baiken (Akihiko Sai) is his second challenger and he fights with a kamagusari (sickle and chain). There are stories about Musashi facing a kamagusari wielding fighter named Shishido, but they aren’t verifiable. Ueda Rhohei (Kazuto Nakamura) is a fictional character from Vagabond, a popular manga based on Musashi by Takehiko Inoue. 

400 vs. 1 in a single TAK

Tak Sakaguchi often just goes by TAK (and yes, that’s in all caps). This is how he is credited in Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1. TAK claims to have been an underground street fighter until he was discovered by firebrand director Ryuhei Kitamura. Kitamura cast him in his debut role as Prisoner KSC2-303 in the zombie Yakuza cult classic Versus in 2000. Since then, TAK has worked in nearly 50 action films in roles ranging from actor, director, writer and of course, fight choreographer. Beyond several collaborations with Kitamura, he has also worked with film maverick Sion Sono. The concept for Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 came from Sono. Sono and TAK planned a project together called Kenkichi, which was to feature a long one-er, but the film was never made.

Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 is directed by Yuji Shimomura, who like Stahelski, has a background as an action director or fight choreographer. In 2019, Shimomura and TAK partnered for manga-based actioner Kingdom. They filmed Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 nine years ago. It was completed two years later, but it languished in storage until last year. Albatros, an independent distributor, showed last August in Japan, but given the pandemic, it was only presented on 50 screens. The film performed poorly at the box office and received mixed reviews. Critics who were unimpressed by fight choreography panned it and rightly so. There’s not much here beyond a marathon fight scene. 

But still, what do you expect from a film that sells the gimmick of a 77-minute one-er fight scene? Story and character development are not what this film is about. There’s minimal dialog. There’s barely a story. Even the soundtrack is sparse. There are some moments of Taiko drumming or mournful piano, but mostly it’s whistling blades, dying grunts and blood gushing spurts. It’s like sword fighting porn – hardcore porn violence – relentless and unforgiving.  

“How many more?”

Despite its shortcomings, any genuine fan of fight choreography must bow down to what TAK and Shimomura have achieved. Within the first five minutes of shooting, TAK took a hit that broke some of his fingers. In later filming mishaps, he also broke some ribs and some back teeth. Despite his injuries, he managed to fight through it all, cutting through a ridiculous number of assailants, and his pain and exhaustion is palpable.

Remarkably, there are very few moments where a digital stitch might have been inserted. A common trick with one-ers is to pan across something static like a wall. That can hide a cut in the action. There aren’t very many of these – a few walls and a shot of a dead body – but for most of the 77 minutes, moving actors are in frame. 

The fight choreography is simple, practical, and somewhat repetitive. It’s choreographed for the long haul. TAK’s Musashi usually adopts variations of hasso or waki stances which place his sword on the right side of his body. It’s an invitation for his attackers to come at him on his left side to which he responds with a lot of spanking parries. He deploys many ripostes repeatedly – a standard cut to the head or belly, a cut to the leg, a common move from Kendo where the right hand releases its grip to lengthen a strike with using the left hand. There are several scenes where about half a dozen swordsmen charge Musashi one by one, each to be cut across the gut in succession. 

This is not the sort of flowery swashbuckling flourishes shown in most sword fights. To endure for that long, TAK relies on techniques that are simpler and, in many ways, more real. If an uninitiated viewer doesn’t grasp the tremendous staying power of TAK’s performance, they will leave unimpressed. To martial arts practitioners, TAK’s use of feints and his control of distance are superb. And anyone who has worked out for an hour straight will be humbled by TAK’s stamina.

After half an hour, Musashi takes his first water break. Bamboo thermoses are stashed throughout an abandoned village where much of the fight takes place, along with snacks and fresh swords. How those got there is never explained in the film, but it makes perfect sense from a choreographic standpoint. TAK had to pace himself to make it through. The rest of the fight is choreographed so TAK gets a water break every five minutes or so.

Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 isn’t a film for everyone. As a film, its storytelling is sorely lacking. However, for genuine connoisseurs of action cinema and fight choreography, it is a masterpiece.

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Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1 premieres on February 12, 2020 on Hi-YAH! and comes to Blu-ray and Digital on March 2. 

The post Crazy Samurai: 400 vs. 1: The Most Epic Sword Fight Ever Filmed appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[honeybadgerradio]

Scaring Sons Into Suicide – Polecat Cast 115

Mattress Girl returns! Urban Dictionary! Wonder Woman! All this and more on this week’s Polecat Cast!

Show Notes:

Urban Warfare By Mike J.

Founded in 1999, the website Urban Dictionary has served as little more than a fun way to waste. The site allows users to add and define words or phrases, some of which more contemporary dictionaries wouldn’t dare touch. Other users then vote up or vote down these newly defined words with the highest voted ones winning the honor of being displayed more prominently than it’s rivals. Since it’s launch Urban Dictionary has become a good source for picking up cutting edge internet slang. At one point, IBM decided to upload the entire Urban Dictionary to their supercomputer Watson, but after the machine began swearing incessantly, the new lexicon was promptly removed. The Urban Dictionary has also become an unlikely battleground of sorts recently in the battle for men’s right’s. Several of the more controversial definitions such as misogynist, rape, feminism, and MRA have received popular definitions that many feminists do not approve of. It seems that not being content with ruining the Oxford English Dictionary, feminists have now set their sights on doing the same to the Urban Dictionary. But where it was much easier to make the Oxford English Dictionary kowtow with pressure from feminist in academia, the fight against Urban Dictionary won’t be that easily won.

Source: http://www.bodyforwife.com/mens-rights-activists-have-taken-over-urban-dictionary/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-watson-memorized-the-entire-urban-dictionary-then-his-overlords-had-to-delete-it/267047/ http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/26/dictionarygate-twitter-feminists-force-dictionary-to-review-sexist-definitions-of-nag-and-bossy/

Rape Victims Shouldn’t Like to Relive Their Rapes By Max Derrat

More famously known as Mattress Girl, Sulkowicz is back in the news, topping her past maniacal exploits. Originally, Sulkowicz proclaimed she was raped to her University, and when they decided that the evidence was against her (not that there was a lack of evidence, but that the available evidence was AGAINST HER) she proceeded to carry around a mattress for her senior year as a form of art and a form of protest. Then she did a video re-enactment of her rape online, titled Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol (French for “this is not a rape).

Now, she’s doing BDSM as performance art. At the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, she presented a piece called “The Ship is Sinking”. She describes her piece in her own words: “[I chose] to have a white man tie me up while wearing a business suit with a Whitney necktie, while I wear a Whitney ISP thong bikini.” “We’re acting out this sadistic-masochistic relationship between the institution with all of its financial power, and this program that wants to be political but can be really because it’s being tied up by this institution.”

As her performance started, the aforementioned white man, named Master Avery (who happened to be a professional dominatrix), started to insult Sulkowicz by saying things like, “Your boobs are too small”, and “You can’t even stand up straight.” He tied knots around several parts of her body for 45 minutes until she was completely tied up to a large wooden beam. Using a pulley system attached to the ceiling, she was lifted from the ground, purposefully trying to resemble the woman often seen at the front of a ship.

Then Master Avery started hitting her with a belt. Avery at one point asked if anybody wanted to participate, and one man from the audience volunteered. He proceeded to slap her across the face.

In respect to the purpose of her performance art, Sulkowicz said the following: “Historically, performance art has been a very important medium for women of color and queer people. There’s an accessibility to it, it’s the only art form that doesn’t cost money. Then there’s also that women, people of color, queer people, we live embodied history.” “My body already carries material in it just because of the way I look, it’s embedded in my skin. White men have the privilege of entire institutions built for their paintings… these paintings are very often abstract. You have people like Pollock splattering a bunch of shit and then saying it’s art. It doesn’t say anything political and in fact, that actual political statement it does say is: ‘I’m a white man and I can do whatever the fuck I want and make a ton of money off of it.”

Source: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mattress-girl-emma-sulkowicz-is-backand-channeling-her-rage-through-bdsm

ENOUGH With This Wonder Woman Bullshit By Max Derrat

You know that really innocuous, unimportant women-only Wonder Woman screening thing? People are apparently still talking about it for some reason, and it’s mostly because people are making so much out of it, on both sides.

One of the people fanning the flames of this intense reaction is Heat Street writer Stephen Miller. He bought a ticket to this “women-only” screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn, New York, and posted a picture of his receipt on Twitter. He expressed a desire to not cause a scene, and replied the following to anybody expressing anger at his choice: “I’ll be enjoying the film with the ticket I purchased.” He also pointed out that kicking him out specifically on the grounds of sex or gender identity would be illegal. It doesn’t seem like Miller is doing this to make any positive statement. After all, in his Twitter feed, he constantly refers to the Wonder Woman movie as the “Chris Pine superhero movie.” To conclude, one Twitter user named @Bro_Pair wrote the following in response to this: “Some men lay down their lives battling white supremacists on the streets. Others demand admittance to the women-only Wonder Woman screening.” This is clearly in reference to last Friday’s Portland murders. The Daily Mail classified the murderer in this case as a self-avowed Nazi supporter, when minimal research concludes that any supposed ties to Nazi’s were disproven as false flags by the murderer to discredit Trump voters. Anybody else tired of this yet? Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4549842/Man-provokes-fury-ticket-women-WW-screening.html

Anti-Stealthing Law is Anti-Men By Mike J.

On May 16th, California assembly women Christina Garcia introduced a new rape law that would seek to punish the ill-defined and nearly unprovable act of “stealthing”. Stealthing, for those not in the know, is the act of intentionally removing or tampering with a condom during sexual intercourse. Stealthing, Christina Garcia argues, is just another form of rape. The problem with adding such a clearly flawed and biased addendum to the currently existing rape laws would be many. It would be very hard if not impossible to prove such a case as condoms can break due to improper usage or age. It creates the possibility for false allegations against men by women who have become pregnant by accident. It also says nothing on the topic of women who would tamper with contraceptives to become pregnant, despite a male sexual partners wishes. Assembly women Garcia is no stranger to pushing these ill-conceived amendments to current rape laws. In August of last year she helped pass an amendment that would make any form of an alleged non-consensual act be defined as rape. Sadly, this new law, like those before it, seems likely to pass given Governor Jerry Brown history with approving every new rape law amendment put through by congress.

Source: http://menslaws.com/index.php/2017/05/28/california-amend-rape-laws-target-men-stealthing/ https://a58.asmdc.org/press-releases/rape-definition-ca-include-stealthing http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB701

Scaring Sons Into Suicide By L Kemlo

An Illinois family is claiming a school discipline meeting scared their son into suicide. Corey Walgren, 16, jumped to his death in January, less than three hours after meeting with school officials and police at Naperville North High School.

The meeting was about an alleged cellphone recording of a consensual sexual encounter with a female classmate. Corey had no criminal history and had never been in serious trouble at school. Corey’s parents claim the school officials questioned him about “child pornography” and threatened to have him registered as a sex offender. According to the Chicago Tribune, Corey’s mother thinks the school wanted to scare him straight, “instead, they scared him to death.”

According to the Tribune it does not appear any pornographic images were found on the teen’s phone, but it did contain a file with audio of the sexual encounter. Apparently, the female classmate in the recording alleged that he may have played it for his friends. Records of the meeting show police did not intend to pursue charges, but wanted to handle the matter in a way that ensured Corey understood the seriousness of his actions and how it affected his classmate, who was described as “mortified” in the police report.

After the meeting, the school had contacted his mother but Corey left school grounds and walked to a nearby parking garage, where he jumped to his death. His parents plan to sue the school district and the police department.

Sources: http://nypost.com/2017/05/23/family-says-school-discipline-meeting-scared-son-into-committing-suicide/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-naperville-north-suicide-20170522-story.html

Check out the latest Honeybadgers episode.

[mwheelerbooks]

Our Pleasant Facade of Decency Something to Celebrate part 2

My phone alerts me to the most unpleasant news headline one can imagine: “Inside rebel held Syria, where children beg to die “.

I begin to read the article because that’s what decent people do when alerted to injustice — they look into it. Ultimately we do nothing but we do investigate because that is the decent thing to do. Before I can finish the article, my patience with decency thins and I finger further down my news stream as I search for something to reestablish my pleasant mood. 

“A Porn-Free America? Republicans Pledge Expurgation Of ‘Public Health Crisis’ That Is ‘Destroying The Lives Of Millions’”

I have to look away from my phone screen to organize my thoughts. I tell myself, you’re here for AVN focus. So I search Google for old AVN-related articles and begin to drift off while staring into the video poker screen in front of me lying flat across the bar top. As I gaze deep into it, the lights on the unpaid machine gazed back at me. I guess my phone is situated in front of me in a way that must appear to anyone looking at me as if I’m thumbing through Facebook because I hear a deeply-accented Indian voice, using perfectly stated and understandable English, ask, “Are you OK, buddy?”

I say, “Oh, I’m fine, thank you.”

The gentleman offers another question. “So what’s happening in the world of fake news and ugly children?”

Turns out this is Raj and Raj isn’t only trying to make a funny about Facebook but also was trying to get to the bottom of my distraction for he had attempted, and failed, on several occasions during my trance to inquire about the availability of the empty bar stool to my left. We progress through the pleasantries like regular civilized people do and Raj takes the seat to the left of me. And through those pleasantries I gather that Raj is a software developer from a place I never bother to inquire about. In an attempt to maintain our convivial environment Raj says, “So what had you in such deep thought?”

And in an attempt to support our convivial environment, I stifle my honest answer and reply, “I do more than I can handle. And I am here, at this moment, thinking about several articles I have read pertaining to the event tonight.” I use my eyes to gesture towards Raj’s overflowing Adult Video News Convention swag bag, which was carefully wrapped and cocooned by his jacket and situated deep under his feet so any words, symbols or signage identifying the very indecent Adult Video News are carefully covered from the possibly prying eyes of the decent people of this Las Vegas casino.

Then, in the most pleasant way that things of this nature can proceed, I continue with my self absorbed rant. “Seems like plenty have come to the AVN Awards and written about their experience from the perspective of the ‘too cool for school’ journalist blighted by the opportunity to cover the Adult Video News Expo awards ceremony. Some articles in recent years have depicted the event as underwhelming and on the decline when compared with ‘the glory years.’ So underwhelming that some have felt that covering the events of a festival of eager sex industry workers wasn’t sufficient to make an article scandalous enough. Some felt that they needed to make themselves and their sexual exploits the focus of the piece. One lady wrote about how she came and got laid.”

I pause and look at Raj with an expression to mean, ‘Can you believe that?’ His eyebrow raises in a way which shows, in an act of being pleasant, he doesn’t want to reveal that I have lost him. And as oblivious, pleasant people do I continue, “It’s my honest belief that any moderately desirable woman could get mounted in a church during Sunday mass by a married man if she felt the desire to proposition said man in that holy structure. So I found it weird that anybody thought it was news for a woman to get laid, never mind get laid at a porn convention where a one-legged cyclops female midget could probably get sodomized, cunnilingasized and score a three-shoot contract with the Brazzers production company within ten minutes of entering. Certainly I would consider it more newsworthy if a game female entered and exited the four-day event without having intercourse of any sort.”

Raj doesn’t smile. He pulls on his American spirit and muses for a moment. I interrupt his internal trip with a question, “You going tonight?” “No, the tickets are quite expensive.”

Indeed they are. Between $300 and $5,000 dollars expensive. Such an unpleasant price to think of, never mind pay. So we agree, like agreeable men do, on how displeasing the ticket price was. And Raj, like a pleasant, agreeable man, not wanting to upset our convivial environment, offers no more questions because Raj is typically pleasant but atypically observant. And as a pleasantly observant man, he observed and appreciated my need for mental space, leaving me to drift off to my own place.

And in a very agreeable manner, that’s exactly what I do. And in my space, I continue to use my own prejudices and those prejudices which I have read and those prejudices which I have absorbed though a lifetime of being brainwashed to form my pleasantly small-minded opinions. But anyone can grow tired of retreading old thought patterns and reinforcing narrow-minded ways of thinking that need no reinforcement. So, unfortunately, I grow tired of being pleasant, and I pay my tab and vacate my stool. But before leaving, I offer my extra award show ticket to Raj, and as pleasant people are, because he is pleasant, Raj is grateful and accepting.

Later that night, I arrive at the award show and I am impressed in ways that events of this nature tend to impress the impressionable. The event is very well organized, likely because those who were paid to organize it did their jobs well. And why wouldn’t they? Who knows why I expect the things I do, but I did expect that an event celebrating sodomy would be a bit more… I don’t know…. second rate. I must have been an imbecile to think, even if only for a second, that the organizers, who organize such events, might allow some fluff girl to be in charge of the pyrotechnics or a nominee for best gangbang to spearhead set design.

Like most agreeable, pleasant people, I need to make things fit in their neat little boxes so I can move comfortably though my pleasant, oblivious life with my civilized herd mentality. So I make these unfounded assumptions. What an incredible imbecile I was because second-rate it is not and impressed I am. The event is as well put-together as it could be, from its floors to its ceilings, all the little things in between, and as grand as one could imagine. Serving as just a quick reminder to me not to let one’s own biases intrude on one’s own common sense and good logic.

I should have expected a great show from this lot, being that this industry, as much as any industry, resides in the state of the art of visual technology. And if your industry is on the cutting edge of visual tech, logic should have lead me to believe that your industry’s defining ceremony should look damn near like a Star Wars scene seen though a pair of 360-degree VR goggles viewed by John Logie Baird days after he invented the precursor to the television, and it does. For today, tech is king and the king has bestowed upon his humble servants of smut a bounty of visual technology and eye candy for them to use as they will for their celebration. From the lighting to the multiple fifty-foot high-def flat screens on stage to the camera-equipped drone which is then attached to a large neon green blimp that hovers over the crowd, the gala’s aesthetics are a few steps beyond impressive. At one point during the show I think back to what one writer wrote about last year’s award show, stating that it was somehow on the decline when compared to years past.

Yet another typical thought pattern of pleasant people, to think things were better ‘back in the day.’ I myself am not a huge fan of ceremonies, but I can say that I’m not sure how the show could be much better unless ‘back in the day’ it was held on a space station with a perpetual orgy in progress on stage throughout the festivities.

But those are all just props; it’s people that make events. Is it not? Well, all the people are pretty and everyone smiles and most everyone says the right things except for when the things said are crass but those are the right things as well because this is a celebration of not just the freedom of expression but of free will.

Oh yes, the people who perform the unpleasant acts on camera do not do what they do for art or pay alone, they do what they do because this indeed is what they want to do. Against what Reverend Bob, Grandma Ethel and Senator Kate may think is in the best interests of them and theirs, these crusaders of sodomy stand in protest with their performances, with their convention and, this night, with their celebration. For these people are no less pleasing and proper than Grandma Ethel. And no more unsavory or uncivil than Reverend Bob, who condemns pornography out of one side of his face and demands money, to provide for his lavish lifestyle, from his indigent parishioners out the other side. In fact, these people can be pleasant and proper and do what most pleasant and proper people can’t: they can, like my friend Raj, recognizing I was distant and allowing me my space do as I please, be pleasant and proper and civil while also, in a very pleasant and proper way, without judgement, allow people the space to live their lives the way they want while they in turn live theirs.

My friend Raj, by the way, never gets to see just how magnificently pleasant an event organized by an industry of indecency and unpleasantries can be. Maybe he has had his fill of indecency, or maybe it is he who was tired of being pleasant, or maybe it is me whom he found unpleasant. I will never know, for my friend Raj is a no-show.

The whole production makes me think of how amazing it is that as long as humans have inhabited the face of the Earth we still have not grasped the concept that, of all the freedoms that we have seen fit to define by words, sexual freedom is likely the least harmful of all. Forget the simultaneous penetration of someone’s orifices by multiple phalluses somehow being a threat to human morals and civilized society; history has shown us that judgment and intolerance is what is truly uncivil and unpleasant.

Great show, AVN. Thank you for the experience.

[armstrong48-blog]

The War Against Wrestling

Especially whenever there's a pay-per-view one week away with numerous championships at stake. You may opt not to wrestle freestyle. Some could envision themselves standing on the surface of the podium in 1st location. The song selection is fine. Following that, take your pick through the dumpster so far as very good tag teams go. There are some fundamental differences in freestyle making it an enjoyable and strategic style to take part in. The Wrestling Cover Up Rayne is attempting to make separation. The shoulder has to be in alignment with the arm to prevent injury. The aging fighter is not unusual. To get additional details on john cena cardboard cutout kindly visit https://www.superstarcutouts.com/john-cena-cardboard-cutout. Nakamura may be called up and create the challenge his very first night (highly unlikely). While Lesnar will be searching for revenge, there are a number of other clashes in the night to seek. 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Freestyle youth wrestling resembles folkstyle and a lot of moves may be used for both. It is exactly just like this. Blanchard dumps Rayne from the ring. Brock Lesnar is easily among the most protected Superstars in WWE history and he's got a WWE huge contract which likewise will come with limited dates. Some wrestlers can have a lucky tee shirt. The Debate Over Wrestling Champions have an absolute urge to win. It is one of the sports that provide entertainment for the viewers or fans. For non-wrestling fans, it's simple to compose professional wrestling for a joke. Jackson's best season for a football player would arrive in 1989. The game appears to be a compelling combination of old and new talents of WWE superstars. Match-3 games were the king of the cell gaming hill for a lengthy time, with games like Bejeweled and Candy Crush making MILLIONS of dollars each week. 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The program contains a string of exercises each performed at several stations in the gym. Braun angry Big Dog not wish to have match. The particular fan The New Day attracts is the sort of fan who would like to be the meme. To start with, one reason I stand by Reigns is the guy can do the job. What You Should Do to Find Out About Wrestling Before You're Left Behind Help contribute to the website! Western nations also have developed series using that specific style. WWE is going to have particular hashtag for each sector of the show, thus following Jayar Donlan's promise to its fans of producing content they want on a platform they want. Then you'll have a better idea when it actually counts. First principles thinking isn't straightforward ifthenthinking, has the capability to reorient and release complexity. If you would like to succeed in indie marketing, you're likely to need to be a little bit of a spectacle. Ruthless Wrestling Strategies Exploited The freestyle season might be a time that seems a little more relaxed. Fast and simple spot to acquire the gear you demand! The only slight distinction is that often the face or heel signfier isn't a universal description. A show is only going to contain block matches from one of both blocks. Like golf and tennis, it's only likely to attract a certain kind of fan. The larger picture was obviously the match for a whole. What the In-Crowd Won't Tell You About Wrestling Not everybody can be their very own hype man. Factions and a good deal more six and eight man tags would help protect a great deal of their feuds for larger shows. You are able to guess who the decent guys are. Ideas, Formulas and Shortcuts for Wrestling One particular interesting facet of wrestling is what it requires to prepare for your matches. If you think like many individuals, the very first thing you imagine when you think about wrestling is the violent, choreographed mayhem of WWF-style expert wrestling. The majority of people have a general understanding of sumo wrestling games. The following suggestions will help you develop your wrestling strength and stay it throughout the season! When you take a youthful child to tournaments throughout the place make sure it is fun for him. There's tons of room on earth for one more side scrolling indie platformer with a large headed protagonist in a scary planet, but only as long as you're prepared to further innovate on such a concept. The Pain of Wrestling You may simply rehearse the moves and skills you would like to improve upon for as long as you desire. The punt kick isn't creative in any respect. So, practice doesn't need to be drudgery. 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Breaking the rules can lead to fines and in certain cases suspension. WWE makes a whole lot of questionable decisions. What's Truly Happening with Wrestling From that point, Barrett's WWE career appeared to be full of lots of false stars and non-finishes. A great deal of wrestlers have a tendency to jump around to and from other promotions but The Undertaker proved to be a massive portion of WWE for his whole run there, 27 decades. The match with Reigns here showed exactly why Balor belongs on the principal roster and once more, I cannot discount the operation of Roman Reigns. Because wrestling is fixed, obviously a few of the wrestlers will have to lose. Brock Lesnar is easily among the most protected Superstars in WWE history and he's got a WWE huge contract which likewise will come with limited dates. Some wrestlers can have a lucky tee shirt. Up in Arms About Wrestling? One of my finest friends once told me the difference between a fantastic booker, and an amazing booker. It can be hard at times to come across an idea that could be successful and you will love doing at exactly the same moment. In the world today, life is outside the home. The Key to Successful Wrestling There aren't any running collisions which can lead to concussions and as a result of the fluid nature of wrestling there aren't any repetitive motions that can result in major joint damage like in baseball. If you're looking to receive absolutely free energy in castleville then you've reached to the proper place. Don't starve yourself, just make certain you eat healthy though or else you'll have a challenging time cutting weight and not have a lot of energy whatsoever. You can't wrestle if you don't have any energy. Freestyle provides a small change of pace from folkstyle and you might not be as concerned about maintaining a particular weight. Ideally, in case you have chosen the proper exercises, participants ought to be in a position to experience an entire cycle 3 times. You are going to be more able to dodge or slip from a tight hold. A pin can be turned into anywhere. The match wasn't perfect, it was not a travesty either. A show is only going to contain block matches from one of both blocks. In addition, it's simple to create a tag team online. When you watch the chess match that's Freestyle, the smaller details might be lost on the typical fan. The Hidden Treasure of Wrestling In the past few years, mixed martial arts have come to be ever more popular for kids and adults of all ages. My very first love was music and have been in the business for twenty decades. Fighting for an advanced age is apparently a trend. New Step by Step Roadmap for Wrestling Being on the top of WWE ranking can be accomplished with the exemplary training and very good gaming strategy. It is one of the sports that provide entertainment for the viewers or fans. Beach wrestling is fun for everyone. Therefore, you've been playing cityville for some time now or perhaps just started. To the extent you've got an interest in playing wrestling on the web, you're going to be very happy to hear you can now play these games without actually having to pay any money. There's tons of room on earth for one more side scrolling indie platformer with a large headed protagonist in a scary planet, but only as long as you're prepared to further innovate on such a concept. Wrestling at a Glance If, say, you need to capture your entire body, you'll need a screen that trails along the ground with a lengthier length based on how far away your camera will be and how much is shown. There's a big quantity of discipline that comes with the lifestyle you're choosing when you sign on. Don't starve yourself, just make certain you eat healthy though or else you'll have a challenging time cutting weight and not have a lot of energy whatsoever. You can't wrestle if you don't have any energy. Freestyle provides a small change of pace from folkstyle and you might not be as concerned about maintaining a particular weight. Ideally, in case you have chosen the proper exercises, participants ought to be in a position to experience an entire cycle 3 times. Top Choices of Wrestling Lifting weights should also be useful for your forearms. The standing arm wrestling appears to be somewhat simple but its not. The aging fighter is not unusual. The Battle Over Wrestling and How to Win It A number of the anime series had a massive influence on the cultural aspects as people started to learn more about Japanese cultural influences. Western nations also have developed series using that specific style. WWE is going to have particular hashtag for each sector of the show, thus following Jayar Donlan's promise to its fans of producing content they want on a platform they want. The Do's and Don'ts of Wrestling The decade of destruction is really as soon as the streak began to get steam. To put it simply, Brock Lesnar remains in the majority of ways undefeatable, unless of course there's some type of interference or outside assistance, the same as Undertaker appearing at Battlegrounds when he fought Rollins. There's almost always a fresh roster which never loses credibility. Most Noticeable Wrestling If you merely practice your favourite moves to be able to earn practice enjoyable then you might not continue learning and improving. To put it differently, deliberate practice takes a considerable amount of work and is not enjoyable. There's always a plan in place, and even though we might not always see it, WWE is trying to create relationships with different companies due to the fact that they know in order to keep on top they will need to think long-term. Type of Wrestling Tons of different states are creating an increasing number of opportunities for girls wrestlers. Mental rehearsal can possibly improve your skill development. Hager isn't alone in locating another career in actual combat sports. It ought to be part of every significant strength training regime for wrestlers. It's this sort of weight-loss that has made athletes choose different sports rather than wrestling. Their chemistry for a team is legendary. A Secret Weapon for Wrestling It's also called Folkstyle wrestling on occasion. The wrestling ring has come to be the key scene. Therefore, attempting to use periodization for wrestling may appear impractical. But What About Wrestling? The Aerial Assassin is already so utilized to the greatest heights, he can just live comfortably there whenever the time is proper. Bubba finally receives a tag and downloads. Miguel was extremely valuable. The Basic Facts of Wrestling Finally, it's an established actuality that John Cena is the best wrestleman to get ever lived and would be an even greater father. Jericho's promos and segments build until the moment where someone is going to wind up on the list, or will receive this, or will get called a stupid idiot. The movie actually offers two stars trying to escape their TV roots for the purchase price of one.

[breakingtheglasses]

Scaring Sons Into Suicide – Polecat Cast 115

Mattress Girl returns! Urban Dictionary! Wonder Woman! All this and more on this week’s Polecat Cast!

Show Notes:

Urban Warfare By Mike J.

Founded in 1999, the website Urban Dictionary has served as little more than a fun way to waste. The site allows users to add and define words or phrases, some of which more contemporary dictionaries wouldn’t dare touch. Other users then vote up or vote down these newly defined words with the highest voted ones winning the honor of being displayed more prominently than it’s rivals. Since it’s launch Urban Dictionary has become a good source for picking up cutting edge internet slang. At one point, IBM decided to upload the entire Urban Dictionary to their supercomputer Watson, but after the machine began swearing incessantly, the new lexicon was promptly removed. The Urban Dictionary has also become an unlikely battleground of sorts recently in the battle for men’s right’s. Several of the more controversial definitions such as misogynist, rape, feminism, and MRA have received popular definitions that many feminists do not approve of. It seems that not being content with ruining the Oxford English Dictionary, feminists have now set their sights on doing the same to the Urban Dictionary. But where it was much easier to make the Oxford English Dictionary kowtow with pressure from feminist in academia, the fight against Urban Dictionary won’t be that easily won.

Source: http://www.bodyforwife.com/mens-rights-activists-have-taken-over-urban-dictionary/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/ibms-watson-memorized-the-entire-urban-dictionary-then-his-overlords-had-to-delete-it/267047/ http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/26/dictionarygate-twitter-feminists-force-dictionary-to-review-sexist-definitions-of-nag-and-bossy/

Rape Victims Shouldn’t Like to Relive Their Rapes By Max Derrat

More famously known as Mattress Girl, Sulkowicz is back in the news, topping her past maniacal exploits. Originally, Sulkowicz proclaimed she was raped to her University, and when they decided that the evidence was against her (not that there was a lack of evidence, but that the available evidence was AGAINST HER) she proceeded to carry around a mattress for her senior year as a form of art and a form of protest. Then she did a video re-enactment of her rape online, titled Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol (French for “this is not a rape).

Now, she’s doing BDSM as performance art. At the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, she presented a piece called “The Ship is Sinking”. She describes her piece in her own words: “[I chose] to have a white man tie me up while wearing a business suit with a Whitney necktie, while I wear a Whitney ISP thong bikini.” “We’re acting out this sadistic-masochistic relationship between the institution with all of its financial power, and this program that wants to be political but can be really because it’s being tied up by this institution.”

As her performance started, the aforementioned white man, named Master Avery (who happened to be a professional dominatrix), started to insult Sulkowicz by saying things like, “Your boobs are too small”, and “You can’t even stand up straight.” He tied knots around several parts of her body for 45 minutes until she was completely tied up to a large wooden beam. Using a pulley system attached to the ceiling, she was lifted from the ground, purposefully trying to resemble the woman often seen at the front of a ship.

Then Master Avery started hitting her with a belt. Avery at one point asked if anybody wanted to participate, and one man from the audience volunteered. He proceeded to slap her across the face.

In respect to the purpose of her performance art, Sulkowicz said the following: “Historically, performance art has been a very important medium for women of color and queer people. There’s an accessibility to it, it’s the only art form that doesn’t cost money. Then there’s also that women, people of color, queer people, we live embodied history.” “My body already carries material in it just because of the way I look, it’s embedded in my skin. White men have the privilege of entire institutions built for their paintings… these paintings are very often abstract. You have people like Pollock splattering a bunch of shit and then saying it’s art. It doesn’t say anything political and in fact, that actual political statement it does say is: ‘I’m a white man and I can do whatever the fuck I want and make a ton of money off of it.”

Source: https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/mattress-girl-emma-sulkowicz-is-backand-channeling-her-rage-through-bdsm

ENOUGH With This Wonder Woman Bullshit By Max Derrat

You know that really innocuous, unimportant women-only Wonder Woman screening thing? People are apparently still talking about it for some reason, and it’s mostly because people are making so much out of it, on both sides.

One of the people fanning the flames of this intense reaction is Heat Street writer Stephen Miller. He bought a ticket to this “women-only” screening at the Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn, New York, and posted a picture of his receipt on Twitter. He expressed a desire to not cause a scene, and replied the following to anybody expressing anger at his choice: “I’ll be enjoying the film with the ticket I purchased.” He also pointed out that kicking him out specifically on the grounds of sex or gender identity would be illegal. It doesn’t seem like Miller is doing this to make any positive statement. After all, in his Twitter feed, he constantly refers to the Wonder Woman movie as the “Chris Pine superhero movie.” To conclude, one Twitter user named @Bro_Pair wrote the following in response to this: “Some men lay down their lives battling white supremacists on the streets. Others demand admittance to the women-only Wonder Woman screening.” This is clearly in reference to last Friday’s Portland murders. The Daily Mail classified the murderer in this case as a self-avowed Nazi supporter, when minimal research concludes that any supposed ties to Nazi’s were disproven as false flags by the murderer to discredit Trump voters. Anybody else tired of this yet? Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4549842/Man-provokes-fury-ticket-women-WW-screening.html

Anti-Stealthing Law is Anti-Men By Mike J.

On May 16th, California assembly women Christina Garcia introduced a new rape law that would seek to punish the ill-defined and nearly unprovable act of “stealthing”. Stealthing, for those not in the know, is the act of intentionally removing or tampering with a condom during sexual intercourse. Stealthing, Christina Garcia argues, is just another form of rape. The problem with adding such a clearly flawed and biased addendum to the currently existing rape laws would be many. It would be very hard if not impossible to prove such a case as condoms can break due to improper usage or age. It creates the possibility for false allegations against men by women who have become pregnant by accident. It also says nothing on the topic of women who would tamper with contraceptives to become pregnant, despite a male sexual partners wishes. Assembly women Garcia is no stranger to pushing these ill-conceived amendments to current rape laws. In August of last year she helped pass an amendment that would make any form of an alleged non-consensual act be defined as rape. Sadly, this new law, like those before it, seems likely to pass given Governor Jerry Brown history with approving every new rape law amendment put through by congress.

Source: http://menslaws.com/index.php/2017/05/28/california-amend-rape-laws-target-men-stealthing/ https://a58.asmdc.org/press-releases/rape-definition-ca-include-stealthing http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160AB701

Scaring Sons Into Suicide By L Kemlo

An Illinois family is claiming a school discipline meeting scared their son into suicide. Corey Walgren, 16, jumped to his death in January, less than three hours after meeting with school officials and police at Naperville North High School.

The meeting was about an alleged cellphone recording of a consensual sexual encounter with a female classmate. Corey had no criminal history and had never been in serious trouble at school. Corey’s parents claim the school officials questioned him about “child pornography” and threatened to have him registered as a sex offender. According to the Chicago Tribune, Corey’s mother thinks the school wanted to scare him straight, “instead, they scared him to death.”

According to the Tribune it does not appear any pornographic images were found on the teen’s phone, but it did contain a file with audio of the sexual encounter. Apparently, the female classmate in the recording alleged that he may have played it for his friends. Records of the meeting show police did not intend to pursue charges, but wanted to handle the matter in a way that ensured Corey understood the seriousness of his actions and how it affected his classmate, who was described as “mortified” in the police report.

After the meeting, the school had contacted his mother but Corey left school grounds and walked to a nearby parking garage, where he jumped to his death. His parents plan to sue the school district and the police department.

Sources: http://nypost.com/2017/05/23/family-says-school-discipline-meeting-scared-son-into-committing-suicide/ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-naperville-north-suicide-20170522-story.html

New Honey Badger stuff

[kickoffme-blog]

The Majesty and Horror of Alien: Covenant

New Post has been published on http://www.kickoffme.com/the-majesty-and-horror-of-alien-covenant/

The Majesty and Horror of Alien: Covenant

The Majesty and Horror of Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant is a masterclass in balancing gory horror and high-minded science fiction

Beware: There are minor spoilers below…

It’s appropriate that Ridley Scott’s mutated Alien prequel/Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant begins (and ends) with the mention and music of Richard Wagner. The wildly influential German composer’s life, writings and operas were an early and steady influence on Adolph Hitler and it’s thought that the future Fuhrer’s skewed, sociopathic philosophies on “racial purity” and his festering anti-semetism stemmed from this obsession.

“Wagner’s line of thought is intimately familiar to me”, the Nazi party leader once said.

“At every stage of my life I come back to him.”

It’s important to mention this because Scott’s remarkable and high-minded blend of splatter show and cerebral science fiction is about these very themes, of ego, narcissism, spite and jealousy fueling a quest to alter the path of creation to suit a singular agenda. Fueled by these things, Hitler inexplicably rose to power and in his quest to dominate, also murdered millions of innocent men, women and children. All in the name of a psychotic desire to meddle with natural order, to “play God” for no other real reason that to appease his obsessions.

And so it goes with David, the “synthetic” played by Michael Fassbender who we first met in Prometheus and who we are re-introduced to here, in the prologue for Alien: Covenant. The film begins with David opening his eyes and meeting his “father” Weyland (Guy Pearce).

“Am I your son?” asks David.

“You are my creation,” responds the aging, weary inventor.

As David sits down at the provided piano, Weyland tells him to randomly pick one of the no-doubt thousands of pre-programmed pieces of music that have been hard-wired into his being by his makers. He picks something from Wagner’s Das Rheingold, “Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla”, and he plays the theme perfectly. And yet he is chastised for his performance by Weyland, who notes that without the full orchestra, the piece is weak, skeletal…unfinished. As David considers this and persists with questions about his “birth” and the origins of his creator and of man, we see the seeds planted for the horror that is to come. And it becomes clear that what Scott and company are doing with this movie is something both ambitious and elemental and far from the simple Alien sequel that 20th Century Fox is marketing the movie as.

Because ultimately what Alien: Covenant is, is an exploration of the myth first etched by Mary Shelley in her oft-adapted novel Frankenstein. The subtitle for that novel was “The Modern Prometheus”, after all. And so it goes…

RELATED: Read another review of Alien: Covenant here

I’m writing this response having just left the theater after seeing the opening night screening of Alien: Covenant. Many of the people in that screening were families, parents and teenage children, elderly men and their middle-aged sons. The Alien franchise is iconic and for many film fans, it’s a rite of passage. It’s an event to have a new Alien film scream into theaters. It has meaning. And yet I know that many of those people purchasing tickets and expecting to see a film that revels in chest-bursting and men in Xenomorph costumes crawling around Giger-esque sets, menacing gun-happy humans in deep space, will be disappointed. Some may be angry. Certainly, many “purists” indeed recoiled at Prometheus, a film I admired and loved because Scott knew he couldn’t go back and just repeat the formula he invented, and instead dialed the story back and explored new themes and ideas in a sort of sister Alien universe. That film is a bit of a marvel and I’m happy to see that many of the initial confused detractors of Prometheus are now slowly, surely become reluctant fans.

Alien: Covenant sees Scott trying to please both camps, once more using that sister universe to explore ideas and philosophy and probing psychology while still providing the frissons and gory geek-show tropes that the hardcore Alien fans demand. It’s all here and things burst out of bodies and cause much mayhem. But for every exploding torso, Scott drags us into another world, introducing another element that takes us deeper into the mythology of the franchise and tunnels into completely new terrain.

Indeed, with both Alien: Covenant and Prometheus, we see an auteur filmmaker exploiting his most popular creation to mutate it and evolve it into an entirely new species.

Kind of what like David does. Life mirroring art mirroring life, repeated like a fun house mirror ad nauseum.

The plot of Alien: Covenant is familiar. A ship – the Covenant – jets through space looking for a planet to settle its 2000 strong, cryogenically preserved army of colonists, to find a new world to blaze new trails far from their own dying terrain. Among the various heroes (all essayed by a strong cast of players) is a “synthetic” named Walter (again, played by Fassbender) who has been programmed to do his duty and protect “his” humans and keep the mission on track. When they receive a phantom signal from an uncharted planet, they land and explore and of course encounter death and alien infection. But the real story begins when the humans are “rescued” by David, who has been stranded on this planet for a decade and has built a one-man (“man” being a questionable word) society where he has indulged his desire to create art…and other things.

Here, Walter and David begin having conversations which lead to new plot revelations and that’s the real power of the picture. These dialogues and the actions that spring from them that are dark, frightening and fascinating. Where science, faith, humanity and horror intersect in beautiful, challenging passages of imagination and intellect that are perverse, allegorical and cautionary. And, expertly, every-time Scott gets too heady, he flips the switch and one of those gorgeous Xenomorphs jumps out and spits its teeth out, marauding across nightmarish sets that seem ripped from the recesses of the Freudian ID. And yes, sure, the monsters are now mostly CGI tweaked creatures but set in the design of this modern film, it makes sense.

Ardent fans of Scott’s important filmography will also thrill to how concepts explored in his groundbreaking and influential 1982 Phillip K. Dick adaptation Blade Runner are also woven into the film. But we won’t touch that any further. See it for yourself.

Ultimately, if you care about modern, blockbuster filmmaking that trades in ideas and prefers to break ground as opposed to just crassly regurgitating formulas, I urge you to be open to this majestic, horrifying study in mad science gone wild in the absence of God. Come for the face-huggers, stay for the cerebellum (some of which ends up splattered on the walls, but hey, that’s okay too).

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

Alien: Covenant

The post The Majesty and Horror of Alien: Covenant appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

Read more May 20, 2017 9:32 pm