#b) i’ve been watching the us open go coco obviously

[possibilistfanfiction]

nightmare for the one word prompts

[a little sad but mostly very silly, butch bea universe]

//

'i really don't have to go today,' beatrice says, kissing your forehead before settling down next to you on the couch. you know she means it: beatrice means everything she says, first of all, and you have grown — despite your brain's best efforts to steer you otherwise — to trust her when she offers care. you take her in: her fresh haircut that she gets done every month now, usually neatly parted on the top, messy from sleep; her tender wrists; the soft skin of her thighs; the soft sweater you bought her last christmas, sleeves pulled down over her hands, which are always cold.

you sigh. you had had nightmares — more than one, which is rare this many years later, after the worst of it — and woken up with scars that you don't think about too often, or at least with too much pain or sorrow anymore, aching all over your body. your legs had been pins and needles — worse, you've discovered, than feeling nothing some days — and your spine had ached, the halo feeling your sorrow, sharing in it. beatrice had skipped her typical surf session this morning, partially because she'd woken up with you both times last night, and partially because she's worried. she doesn't try to hide it anymore, her concern written all over her gentle face, in her sweet eyes, her soft hands. you find it nestled along all the small things she did for you in the past two hours: bringing you pain meds along with an easy breakfast of scrambled eggs and your favorite rosemary sourdough toast, doing a few snuffles with korra's morning unkibble so she's calm and ready to work today for whatever you need, helping you, after your glum nod, transfer from bed to your chair. you twist the wedding band around on your finger, focus on the few freckles that sit on the tops of her hands because of her time in the sun. your life is real, you remind yourself. your time on the other side, every endless day you spent in hell, was worth it for this, for beatrice quietly and patiently sitting next to you, soft and always becoming more herself; for your family visiting at the end of the week, camila begging to go to universal studios, lilith grumbling but giving in; for the respect people owe you now, and ready give; for your dog and your bar and the edibles you share with beatrice some nights, easy with laughter, and the farofa you feel confident in making for dinner when your friends come over, a warm offering.

'no,' you decide on, firmly, and you know beatrice will trust you. 'we should go. it'll be fun.'

'it will be fun,' she says, the same gleam in her eye you remember from years ago when she was ready to "maim or kill" (lilith's words) anyone who was in the way of her and the mission, especially once you became involved.

'you remember this is, like, your weekly tennis match for fun, right?'

'of course, ava.'

the way she cracks her knuckles tells you that the for fun is lost on her for the most part. it's endlessly amusing to you, though, and quite harmless — although maybe not to her opponent's pride — so you don't bother to argue any further. 'okay, well, i think angela and ruth wanted to have lunch anyway today after their jazzercise class, so we can watch you play.'

'no catcalling.'

you pout. 'you're my wife.'

'not from you, not from ruth or angela.'

'they're old, bea. let them have some fun.'

'at my expense? no thank you. i need to focus while i compete.'

she's already sitting up straighter, eyes lively. she's playing david today, you think, if you remember the club's "adult intermediate to advanced tennis league" rotation correctly. he's a decent player, and their head to head record is relatively even. he's also a bit of an asshole, and a venture capitalist, so it stands to reason beatrice despises him.

'fine.' you squeeze her hand. 'but can you change your shirt between sets?'

'ava.'

'gratuitously towel off or something at least.'

'ava.'

'whatever,' you say. 'i'm wearing a bikini. at least ruth and angela will appreciate it.'

'oh, i'll appreciate it,' she says, and then laughs softly and leans over to kiss you.

/

everything about beatrice, you decided years ago, is endearing. can she kill a man in, like, one second using just her hand? yes, sure, but you've seen her very skillfully practice her forms every morning for years, barring injury, and frown when anything is off, even by a breath. most people find her precision in all things kind of terrifying, but you've learned that some of it is a trauma response — from her childhood, from being a soldier, from losing you — and some of it is really just how she is. her books sorted exactly how she wants them — by genre, subgenre, and then author's last name — on the bookshelf; the meticulously labeled spices in your pantry, always in both their language of origin and english; her surfboards waxed perfectly and neatly stored in the small shed in your yard. everything about her precision is endearing because you understand her and you love her, and maybe the most endearing, or at least you think some days, is the way she treats rec league club tennis.

no matter how many times you've jokingly reminded her that your club isn't wimbeldon, she likes to wear all white little outfits; men's shorts and, your favorite, a neat polo. in the summer, she favors tanks, which you are not complaining about. she has three racquets and a very impressive bag like all the pros carry onto the court, special towels, pristine sneakers, and, when you're most amused, a wristband she very sincerely wipes her sweaty forehead on. since you'd met she'd loved watching tennis, and she'd taught you — as patiently as she has always taught you anything — the rules, her favorite players (not that it was, like, hard to think serena williams was the best athlete ever), common terms to know. you'd gone out with her a few times to the courts and she'd shown you proper form; you'd found out, eventually from her, that her dream as a little kid was to be a tennis pro, which was so charming and a little unexpected. you had thought she would've wanted to be some kind of scientist, maybe a really good lawyer, but her brother had dug out some pictures of little beatrice in her tennis getup, her expression so, so serious for a nine year old, and you'd fallen in love all over again.

she listens to her "pump-up music" — a lot of pop, surprisingly — as she drives you both to the club, focused already in her tennis outfit, complete with a quarterzip warmup top and everything. you're endlessly amused by her, in a way that most people are too intimidated to be, and you think it's good for her, to feel human, to not be taken so seriously when she should get to just enjoy things. your pain meds are helping by the time you get to the club, the pins and needles down your legs leveling out, the halo shaking off some of its deep sorrow, the memories of torture and abject aloneness that sometimes show up in your dreams. today is bright and sunny, the bluest sky, and your friends wave to you once you get out to the tables near the tennis courts. beatrice says a quick hello and then bustles off to start her very precise warm up routine, and you all wait until she's out of earshot to share a fond laugh.

'david today?'

'i swear she was rewatching coco and iga's last match yesterday to prepare.'

ruth pats your hand and angela orders a charcuterie for the table, gets prosecco for ruth and herself and — they both know you well enough by now that your chair usually means you've had to take medication, which you don't mix with alcohol — a cranberry soda for you, your favorite.

david shows up a few minutes later as you're gossiping, angela gasping at ruth's latest escapades with her new boyfriend while you laugh delightedly. he's the kind of muscular dude that likes to run along the beach shirtless because he thinks it's impressive but really it just looks ridiculous, the kind of dude that would give unwanted pointers in the gym. you don't have a disdain for him like beatrice does, because he's never done anything abhorrent to you personally, but when you see her steely gaze as he goes to his bench on the court, you get it. and, also, it's hot, so, like, you shoot a quick thanks to david and his douchey backwards cap for that.

/

things go just about as you'd expected: beatrice plays with the amount of passion you'd see in a wimbeldon final, and angela and ruth relentlessly whistle and cheer and boo. the charcuterie has a new truffle havarti you're all in love with, and the bottle of prosecco gets split happily while you watch. it's a fairly even match — david hits harder than beatrice but is slower and definitely stupider — and she wins the first set 6 games to 4. she gets mad at him for serving too slowly, and they briefly have an argument over whether or not one of his backhands was in. it's all deeply ridiculous for an afternoon at in an amateur club league, but beatrice and her overhand serves get you every single time.

she's down a break in the second set when she hits a drop shot that has david falling over his own feet, and you know it's over then. the second bea realizes someone is truly out of sorts, in any scenario, she's already won.

they shake hands after the match is over, beatrice taking the second set much quicker than the first, and then she makes her way over to your table and sits, very satisfied, in the chair next to you, a towel around her neck.

'my champion,' you say, and she rolls her eyes, accepting the congratulatory beer angela had already ordered for her as the last game was winding down with a thankful nod.

'great match, beatrice,' ruth says, half-sincere, half-teasing, but beatrice smiles anyway. sometimes, things are not good; sometimes, on the worst days, even now, even still, even with all this love, you still remember what it was like to suffer alone — without feeling, with too much feeling — for so much of your life. but beatrice slips into her quarterzip next to you and you smell sweat and laundry detergent and the pomade she puts in her hair, you feel the sun warming along your back and you hear the small group of children starting their lesson, laughing brightly. beatrice holds your hand and you'll nap later; you'll order takeout from your favorite thai place and watch the sunset on your patio; you'll fall asleep in her arms. you'll wake up and do it all over again — the loneliness, the pain, the longing — just for this.

[itsclydebitches]

Welcome back, everyone! Today’s recap is surprisingly positive. I liked a lot of what we got in Chapter One, with the biggest complaint being the sheer amount of Sun-bashing throughout. On the one hand it does decent things for Coco’s characterization, on the other hand… we’ve really got to rake one character across the coals in order to forward another? It’s a mixed bag, but we’ll get to all that.

Initially we open on SSSN and CFVY having breakfast together. Which Coco is surprised to find herself enjoying. In fact, she’s enjoying it so much that she’s called out for laughing/smiling too much.

“I thought you boys liked it when girls smiled,” she said.

Honestly? I’m here for the lesbian weaponizing that against a bunch of guys. I’ve been told to smile so much in my life that I too would get snarky if I was then told to stop. I can be petty that way.

Of course, Coco isn’t really the victim here. She’s specifically laughing at the fact that her team needed to help Sun out last night, which is not only mean (I do support the boys telling her to knock it off even while I support snarky quips about smiling) but also flies in the face of everything huntsmen are supposed to represent. I’m honestly surprised by the amount of disdain for teamwork throughout both the web-series and this book so far. It’s like Ozpin tried to teach his students – and the audience – that teamwork is a necessary skill by creating literal teams… but instead of learning that every huntsmen in training went, “Great! Now that we have these teams we’ll never need to work with anyone else ever.” There’s obviously some leeway here in regards to how Team RWBY became Team RNJR and then Team RWBYJNR(+O), but their mega team has the same ‘us vs. the world’ attitude that Coco displays here. Factor in the team partners and it feels like everyone missed the memo about working with others being a good thing.

We’ll see this again just a little farther along, when Coco mentally complains about how SSSN only “assisted” them previously, not “rescued.” It’s the same distinction Sun made in the prologue: You didn’t save me. Even though they did. Coco is more concerned with how SSSN is tarnishing the “shine” of their reputation, rather than how they helped her or how she, in turn, could help them. Whenever the main story insists that the antagonist of the week is dividing the world for Salem, I want to point very emphatically to the heroes who are supposed to be enacting that unification... but aren’t. If they can’t even admit that a peer helped them without scrambling to assuage that supposed blow to their pride, how are they ever going to deal with the actual, weighty ethics of these problems? The ‘my way or the highway’ attitude we’ve seen Ruby display starts here. Everything is black and white. It’s simply not possible for them to be impressive, capable fighters and in need of rescue now and again. Therefore no rescue took place and peers – however subtly – are viewed as competition at best, potential enemies at worst. When you take these teens out of school and put them in, say, a military environment where your peers have incredibly difficult decisions to make… that’s where problems crop up.

I also think it’s worth acknowledging that Sun was in legitimate danger last night. Unknown adversaries + an inability to combat them = potential death. Sun even comments in the prologue that he has to keep a close eye on his aura because otherwise he might come out of this encounter seriously injured. It reads as continually strange to me that characters who just lived through a major battle still have the confidence and naivete needed to view Sun’s encounter as a hilarious one-upmanship. ‘Ha! My team had to save you~’ should not be the reaction of kids who now fully understand the ‘save you’ part. The world is dangerous and unpredictable. People have died. Sun himself could have died or just (“just”) been hurt. What’s funny about that?

Meanwhile, the rest of SSSN is pretty pissed. Neptune likewise thinks Sun getting beat up “on your own turf” is funny, but Coco notices his angry tone. She wonders “if he meant he wished he’d been there to watch more than help.” So yeah, really pissed. What stands out to me though is that these are just feelings. The act of thinking and saying horrible things – “If you were one of my men I’d have you shot” – is not the same thing as actually acting them out, or allowing them to happen. I have no doubt that if Sun were in trouble Neptune would do everything he could to help him. The SSSN group would not literally stand by and watch a teammate get beat up… which just re-emphasizes for me how horrible Team RWBY’s actions were in Volume 6, watching indifferently as Ozpin begged, cried, and was attacked. For all this book’s problems, there’s a lot in this chapter that I wish we’d seen with Team RWBY. A moment where the group implied they were angry enough to abandon Ozpin but not actually doing that would have made a massive difference.

Coco notices Neptune’s meaning, but “she doubted Sun had the awareness to see that.” From here on out the Sun-bashing picks up and it’s… a lot. Far too much in my opinion. She mentally claims that Sun attaches himself to better teams to “make up for the fact that he and his own team were mediocre at best” even though, to my recollection, we haven’t seen any evidence of this. SSSN has potential, but only if they get a strong leader. Meaning, in her opinion, not Sun. He’s “too unstable, too unreliable” and Coco doesn’t even like eating with him most days, especially since she blames him for messing with her team’s morale. There’s exactly one moment where she agrees with him… and feels the need to remind herself (the reader) that it’s just this once. She also has little qualms about saying at least some of this to his face.

“But it is our business,” Coco added. “We don’t need you. No offense.”

Scarlet stood. “Why would I take offense?” he asked. “Just because you think you’re too good for us.”

Me experiencing the second-hand discomfort: 

WOW that’s a lot of anti-Sun sentiment. As mentioned at the start, I do think this work brings some value to the story. Meaning, characters are allowed to dislike other characters and it helps make Coco a well-rounded person to show that she has this flaw of being judgmental and overly critical. We know it’s a flaw because of how her team reacts to her comment:

Coco glanced at her team. Velvet avoided looking at her, which meant she wasn’t on the same page this time. Yatsuhashi looked uncomfortable, but he kind of always did during personal conflicts. And Fox—

“It wouldn’t hurt to have some reinforcements,” Fox sent, using his telepathic Semblance, presumably just to her.

“I don’t disagree,” Coco sent back. “If it was the right team.”

This is good! Velvet and Yatsuhashi’s body language tells us they don’t fully agree with Coco, if at all. Fox is comfortable enough to push back some and suggest that they could use the support. Coco, in turn, doesn’t brush him off. She still holds the opinion that Sun and his team aren’t the “right” kind of support, but she’s not rigid in her stance. She values her team’s opinions and is flexible enough to start accommodating them, even when they bump up against such an intense bias. Later in the conversation, Coco will outright ask for Velvet’s opinion and, based on that, changes her decision:

“What do you think, Velvet?” Coco sent.

Velvet was quiet for a while before she lifted her eyes and looked directly at Coco. She smiled. “I like proving people wrong.”

This is the sort of work I wish we were getting with Team RWBY. Behold! The leader can be wrong! Her team doesn’t always agree with her! They tell her as much and she takes those complaints seriously, resulting in a change! It’s such a sharp contrast to Blake’s elevator promise, the group keeping dead quiet as Ruby lied, everyone just shrugging off their supposed discomfort with that, Blake and Yang spilling secrets to Robyn and the team apparently doesn’t care… The writing could take some tips from this scene here.

However, all of this only comes about through that intense Sun-bashing. Which, coupled with the opening that was hyper-focused on showing how inept he supposedly is, is A Lot. It’s great to round-out Coco like this, it’s just too bad it came at Sun’s expense. Anyone who is a fan of his isn’t going to enjoy another character given so much space to criticize him with comparatively little disagreement, given that Sun’s team is also mad at him right now. He has no support here, to the point where any defense is given the ‘but you’re not totally wrong’ caveat.

“And you’re not exactly the best and brightest student at Shade,” she added silently.

“Harsh,” Fox sent.

Okay, so she hadn’t thought it silently enough.

“But fair,” Fox added.

I know I wouldn’t enjoy reading that about one of my faves. Indeed, I’ve already sat through it. It’s not enjoyable.

(Aside #1: I want more info about how Fox’s semblance works. Specifically, I want to know how others send him a message. It’s clear here that Coco didn’t mean for him to hear that thought, so did she accidentally do something to send it to him? What does it mean to think it “silently enough” that Fox won’t pick up on it? Is it a matter of “speaking” deliberately inside your head? Or does he have the potential to hear any thought passing by? Which would be one hell of a privacy issue…)

Not much happens plot-wise during all this. It’s mostly Coco’s thoughts with that dash of disagreement regarding whether SSSN should help out. We do learn, however, that “the native Vacuans called them weak for abandoning Beacon Academy” and uh…

I hope I don’t need to explain how getting overrun isn’t the same thing as “abandoning” their school. However, this does cast the prologue in a new light. If Vacuo is THAT obsessed with standing your ground, was Sun’s clan just outliers for deciding to move? Obviously you can’t paint a whole kingdom with one brush, but it feels weird to get wise ‘Some battles you can’t win’ advice in one chapter and then in the next learn that (apparently) most Vacuans are so stubborn they view a tragic defeat as abandonment.

The conversation segues into how Headmaster Theodore hasn’t done anything about the Crown yet, but Coco is more shocked that Sun refers to him as “Theo.” As someone who grew up calling teachers – including principals – by their first name, this made me laugh. 

That aside, Sun clearly has some connection to the headmaster. Something from the first book I missed? Entirely possible. I’m figuring this out as I go. The important bit is how the conversation actually tackles student agency vs. responsibility. Or, whether a bunch of unlicensed teens should be getting involved in a dangerous mission they already handed off to the professionals:

“Keeping us in the dark isn’t going to help anyone,” Coco said.

“You keep forgetting,” Scarlet scoffed. “We’re just students.”

“We’re already better than a lot of trained Huntsmen,” Coco said.

“But we still have a lot to learn. And we’ve already failed to defend one school.”

Coco corrected him. “We were all taken by surprise. Haven fared better.”

“Most of us weren’t even there, and I still wouldn’t call that a win,” Scarlet replied.

I appreciate that both sides are given weight here. Scarlet and Coco are allowed to make points as equals. Obviously given that this is a fighting story with students as protagonists, the plot is going to find ways for them to get involved. I’m not at all surprised that, by the end of the chapter, they’ve re-established the “need” to investigate despite being told that at least one fully-trained huntsmen was already handling it. We have to have a story. However, we can’t ignore the in-world fact that yes, they are just students. No, they’re not better than a lot of trained huntsmen (some, sure, but Qrow could kick their ass). They did get in over their heads. And “we were taken by surprise” isn’t the defense Coco seems to think it is. If you can’t handle a surprise attack... you’re not ready. To ignore all this is to write characters who come across as arrogant to the point of delusion. By having at least one person point out the flaws in this thinking, they read much more like young people trying to make a difference and letting that drive/impulsivity carry them a bit too far. That’s relatable – and engaging. This is more work I’d like to see with Team RWBY. Less, “That was before you trained us” and more “You keep forgetting, we’re just students.” It’s the heroes who are perceived as “just” something and manage to save the day anyway that’s exciting. Not the heroes who come sauntering in proclaiming that they’re the best ever and then manage to scrape by because the plot ensured they would. Or again, make one or two characters like that. Not an entire team.

(Aside #2: Sometime during all this Fox is referred to as “Fox Alistair.” Why the last name in the middle of a scene??)

So the whole group is upset that the headmaster doesn’t appear to be doing anything. Sun wants to help and feels strongly that they need it. Coco is adamant that they may need help, but not from him. During the course of this the Great War is brought up and the long-standing bias it has produced:

“The Great War again.” Coco shook her head. “Ancient history. Let it go.”

“Easy for you to say,” Sun said. “But have you let go of what happened to Beacon?” He sat down and put his hands together. “You. Need. Us.”

I get the point that Sun is making but uh… those aren’t the same thing. As Professor Rumpole will acknowledge in just a bit, even something from fifty years ago can feel like “ancient history” to someone who didn’t live through it. A war that ended eighty years ago – and began a decade before that – simply isn’t going to resonate emotionally with the new generation. They’ll feel the impact of it, but it’s still different. Trying to compare a kingdom’s attachment to something that happened a literal lifetime ago to the tragedy that they all personally experienced a year ago is unfair. It’s like if someone rightfully pointed out, “Hey, I want to acknowledge that the people down the street shouldn’t automatically hate me for something my grandfather did to their grandfather” and the response to that was, “Yeah but last year someone did something horrible to you and you haven’t let that go, so…” You’re talking about two very different situations, not to mention trying to use that trauma as leverage. Coco gets mad at Rumpole for doing the same thing in class: don’t use the fall of our school as a point for your argument. 

This whole chapter has a running theme of history and its impact, including a dual joke from Fox about “those who miss history are doomed to repeat it” (that is: the old adage of learning from past mistakes as well at the fact that if they miss their literal history class they’ll need to repeat the course). Which, taking the novel as a whole, is presumably reflective of these two teams. I may take issue with the pervasive perspective that huntsmen can get by on their own, but the fact is that Sun and Coco do work together, despite the complaints. It’s right there on the cover. So we have this larger setup of kingdoms fighting and the ways that this is still negatively impacting the next generation. Now here that generation comes along, struggling with but ultimately overcoming that hurdle. We will work together. We will choose to trust one another, hard as that is. It’s – again – a better example of the younger generation surpassing their elders than what the web-series has managed to give us lately.

Right now, Coco is only agreeing to work with SSSN because she intends to avoid problems, not because she thinks they’ll be a benefit to her: “It made sense to combine their efforts—if only to make sure Sun didn’t get in their way, or to make sure Scarlet didn’t rat them out to Rumpole.” It’s a horrible thing to think about someone, let alone a someone who is meant to be a friend. However, the hope is that Coco grows over the course of the novel. I certainly hope poor Sun doesn’t spend 200+ pages helping her only for Coco to come out the other side still holding such a low opinion of him…

So we get a bit more about how scary Coco can come across as, how much she enjoys that, and how “This whole ‘accepting help’ thing wasn’t exactly her style.” We get it. The powerful huntsmen never need help, etc. etc. Maybe I’m just a community-driven gremlin but I find this concept of extreme individuality to be terrifying. Accepting help is absolutely my style. Please help me. For the love of God, if anyone can make this world a little more manageable I will take it.

I’m not a cool girl like Coco though. Maybe that’s the difference.

The group finally goes to history class where they hold their heads high despite coming in late. No, no, no. No feeling pride over disrespect. Rumpole has every right to be shaking her head at them. You’re late because something came up, you accidentally slept in, etc.? That’s life. You’re late because you couldn’t be bothered to arrive on time and think you shouldn’t feel any guilt over that? C’mon.

All of which segues into how Coco was in “her share of disciplinary meetings” back at Beacon. In contrast to the head-held-high attitude though, Coco admits to herself that she found the feedback valuable. As she moves through thoughts about how she totally doesn’t need praise, Fox corrects her:

“I don’t need eyesight to know you’re great, Coco. But maybe those shades of yours have been distorting how you see things. Try taking them off once in a while. You’d be surprised to learn there are lots of people outside of our team worthy of praise.”

I am legitimately enjoying a main character – a leader no less – getting kindly called out for their inaccurate perspective. That’s what we want!! Growth!!! Especially since Fox neatly ties this back to the real conflict at hand: “You’d be surprised to learn there are lots of people outside our team worthy of praise.” Indeed, Coco does try taking off her glasses (horrible as that metaphor is. Like... it’s really awkward) and is then able to articulate just how much she appreciates Rumpole. I’m not going to lie, reading a scene where someone over 30 is praised and respected did my heart some good.

(Aside #3: I’m having trouble reconciling this Fox with the one I know is going to appear later with Neptune. It’s quite a leap to go from wise ‘Other people are worthy of praise’ to being so uncaring you’ll advocate for the continued torture of a peer...)

We move through Coco’s admiration for Rumpole’s fashion and how that reflects her personality: stylish but, at the end of the day, practical. We get some nice details about Fox keeping the team awake and giving them answers with his semblance, which is exactly the way I would expect students to use telepathy in class (alongside singing annoying songs to piss each other off, reading aloud memes they’re looking up on their phones, desperately asking what the hell the teacher just said because oh god it’s going to be on the exam isn’t it?) Eventually all this leads to Coco subtly calling out Rumpole for – supposedly – not investigating the Crown. Hey, teach. Why are we learning about this time period now? Don’t you want to talk about when the crown was the center of authority around here?

It's subtle… ish.

Message received, Rumpole speaks with them after class to explain that she hasn’t brought this to the headmaster yet because he’s got too much on his plate. Instead she’s investigating it personally and will fill Theodore in when she has something substantial. Coco, while pleased that Rumpole hasn’t completely blown them off, is insistent that dealing with today’s problems is all that matters. Who cares about tomorrow?

“That’s a luxury you have as a Huntress in training. Theodore has to be concerned with both today and tomorrow.”

Ding ding ding! This is Team RWBY’s problem too. What do you mean we can’t just solve this problem here and now? I want to fight today, no matter what that might do to tomorrow. Meanwhile, Ozpin isn’t just thinking about tomorrow, but generations of tomorrows. This is a luxury that only the very young and the ones without responsibility can have. Make them fight for a thousand years and they’ll start caring about what the next thousand will look like. Give them the weight of a kingdom and watch them weigh decisions when, suddenly, it’s no longer just their own lives they’re risking. God I hope Team RWBY starts realizing this in Volume 8…

The only downside is that Rumpole provides all this via more shade thrown (partly) at Ozpin: “The headmasters of the other schools have been reckless, negligent, or overprotective.” Thus far, the people of Vacuo seem quite happy to assume they would have done better in Beacon’s place. Well, if I were at Beacon I simply wouldn’t have abandoned it. If Theodore was headmaster there it simply wouldn’t have fallen. That’s a luxury of Rumpole’s own: the ability to stand safe in a currently untouched kingdom and assume that, if put in the same position, she and her people would have come out for the better.

She continues with,

“Theo’s first priority will always be helping you reach your full potential, making you strong enough to survive anything that comes your way. He has your best interest in mind, no matter where you come from or where you started your training. Who else can say that?”

Uh… Ozpin?

Absolutely Ozpin.

However, Rumpole does provide good reasons for why the group should hang back. Not just the “You’re students” argument but also an acknowledgement that she has very sensitive leads going. Getting others involved might jeopardize that. Of course, they interpret all this as Rumpole just telling them to be cautious. Get involved, just don’t get caught. As mentioned above, this was inevitable. There’s no story without the group’s involvement and coming up with ways that they oh so unexpectedly (conveniently) end up involved without intending to be can get very old, very fast. So I get it. Let’s just hope that they go about this in a way that doesn’t make them seem like completely over-confident fools.

So all in all not a bad chapter. At least comparatively. If you’re able to overlook the Sun-bashing and the execution of some ideas (the prose is still incredibly messy in places) there’s actually a lot of work here that I appreciate. Work I’d really love to see implemented into the web-series. To be frank, it’s not that I think this is all particularly good… just not particularly bad either. Good for RWBY, shall we say. In another franchise I’d be heavily disappointed in this, but for a series with so many other flaws lately? Seeing just an inkling of this complexity is a relief. Even if the details grate.

Only question is, can the novel maintain this low-bar standard all the way through? Based on public reaction I’m gonna guess no…

But we shall see! 💜

[seasonal-shifts-au-fanartfunart]

Father Christmas-Father Winter

We interrupt our regularly scheduled asks for a Christmas fic because A) inspiration from one of @marvelfangeek09‘s comments: #also i know youre joking but i have NO DOUBT that patton dressed up as santa and magicked a bunch of presents into peoples houses  and B) I literally got kinda excited about the Tiniest little inch of snow on the ground this morning.  and I’m gonna call this my summery.

Words: 1590~

Warnings: Look. Everything Winter!Patton related tends to get a bit melancholy at the end, I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I promise, this was supposed to just be cute and fluffy. Tell me if there’s anything I need to note.

-

Patton knew Good ‘Ol Saint Nick. He even still had the little cloak the man had given him. It was obviously too small for him to wear now, but, he still kept it in his room. (He knew exactly where it was too, it was folded neatly in a keepsake chest that he’d decorated to mimic a wrapped present with a little bow). Either way- Patton knew Saint Nicolas, so he didn’t mind that the little presents got attributed to him now. Besides, if he let everybody know it was him, the whole thing wouldn’t be half as rewarding or fun.

He did, however, miss when kids asked for things he could like... actually make.

“What even IS that,” He whispered, staring at the letter. “Ok, ok- um, maybe she’ll like... maybe a rocking horse? ah- no that’d be too big, I don’t think the parents would forget that- A doll is always a safe bet-”

“Santa?”

Patton stiffened. This is what he gets for talking to himself. Patton turned, smiling at the little girl as he leaned down to her level. “Hello little miss- uh-” he spared a glance to the letter, “Miss Jemima, is it? Whatever are you doing up?”

She tilted her head, “You’re younger than I thought.”

Patton smiled, nose crinkling as he restrained a laugh, “No kiddo, I’m just older than I look. I’m a good several thousand years old you know.”

The girl grasped his cheeks and pushed his cheeks up so it made crinkles around his eyes. She nodded decisively, “Ok.”

Patton laughed and pulled his face out of the child’s hands, “It’s very late, Miss Jemima, I’d think you’d be asleep.”

“The bells woke me up.” Jemima said, eyes fixed on the small set of bells that adorned the red outfit Patton wore (despite the fact that red was more Roman’s color than his).

She gasped, “Where’s the reindeer?”

Patton’s eyes widened. As much as he liked to indulge the imaginations of the world, he was not about to use all his energy to take flying reindeer of all things around a global trip. He just blipped across the world like he did normally. But- He pointed to the roof, and ever so slightly dropped the intimidate temperature so the wood in the roof of the house creaked. Close enough to the sound of the shuffle of hooves above them.

The look of wonder in the child’s eyes was worth it. She hopped, exclaiming ‘oh!’ a few times, and raced into another room before running back in with a couple of carrots and a few cookies. “For the reindeer! And for you!”

Patton shook his head, “Oh, oh, I don’t- I don’t need anything, kiddo, I’ve got all I need-”

Jemima frowned, “But-” She raised her collection towards him, practically pouting.

Patton sighed, shoulders falling, “Ok, ok. Just one cookie though, ok?”

“Are you suuure?”

Patton bobbed a little before shaking his head, “I am feeling a little dangerous-” She tilted her head and Patton extended a hand, “Alright, I’ll take a second cookie.”

The girl dumped the carrots into his hands and then topped the pile with two cookies. Patton laughed. “Thank you very much, little miss.”

In a gentle motion, he sent the collection back home- hopefully Logan or Roman could figure out a way to use the carrots-, after snatching one of the cookies from the pile.

He glanced down at the girl’s letter as she looked at him with wonder in her eyes. He glanced back up, “Now, um, I don’t have what you asked for, and I apologize for that, but, is there something else you’d really like?”

Jemima shook her head. She looked down at her feet before gasping, “Wait, can you make it snow?”

Patton startled, blinking. “Can I- what?”

“I wanna be able to play in the snow! That way it can be a ‘White Christmas’! I haven’t had one before! Can you make it snow?”

Patton glanced out the window. He could change up the usual weather plan, just this once... Patton smiled, “I can most certainly do that, kiddo. Anything else, at all?”

She shook her head.

Patton nodded, “Alrighty then, one White Christmas for one Miss Jemima.” He opened his palm a sparkle of frost coating the glove as he summoned a small snowflake. Jemima clasped her hands around the flake, melting on her palm as she opened her hand to look. Patton giggled.

“Look outside.” Patton directed.

Jemima raced to the window, as she looked out to the sky, the gentle flutter of snow curling through the sky.

He took a bite of his gifted (now incidentally frozen) cookie as he stood up, watching the girl’s amazement. He glanced down at his feet, and nodded to himself, and stepped backwards into the doorway back home.

“Thank you S-” Jemima turned, looking up to find her Santa Claus missing. Jemima glanced down at the floor, a light layer of slowly melting frost that curled from around a pair of boot-prints. The only proof he’d been there at all.

-

Roman probably shouldn’t be in Patton’s Room. Snowdrops seemed to follow him as he walked through the snowy room, and he half wondered if his presence would somehow hurt Patton.

Roman rubbed his arms. He just needed to find something... He’d be in and out and- Ok. He just... missed Patton. He can admit that. The idea was simple. Patton kept so many things, especially from the humans he’d befriend, and it helped him when he could no longer see them so, maybe something of Patton’s would help him.

That said, he was usually only in Patton’s room with Patton. It felt a little weird to be here alone. He eventually found the main portion of his room, Patton’s bed was blanketed (ha, pun.) with a layer of snow, untouched. Roman glanced down to the foot of the bed to see a small wooden chest. He’d seen Patton take out extra blankets from that before. Patton wouldn’t mind if he borrowed a blanket. He’d bring it back later.... after his own room stopped being cold. How did Patton ever sleep in this cold of a room?

Roman brushed the layer of snow off the chest, and let out a soft laugh as he discovered it looked a bit like a Christmas present. Roman undid the latch and lifted the lid, glancing over the contents.

Roman tugged out the largest of the blankets inside, pressing the soft fabric against his face. The blanket smelled almost overwhelmingly of pine and spruce, likely from being in the wooden chest so long, coco, and a faint hint of some spice- maybe cinnamon? Whatever it was, it was familiar. And vaguely comforting. Roman let out a soft breath and wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. Yes, Patton wouldn’t mind if he took it for now. He’d give it back when Patton came home. (Because Patton would come home. He just would....right?)

Roman moved to put the chest’s lid back, but- Was that the old cloak Patton wore during the 4th Century?

Roman dusted off the garment, most of the color seemed to have faded, having once been a pretty red. Patton always looked pretty good in red, in his opinion. (Although, he also just liked that color a lot, so maybe he was biased.) It was so much smaller than he remembered. Heavens, how old were they all during the 4th Century? Patton had to be maybe 10 in human terms? He ran his fingers over the cloak and glanced at what it had rested above-

“Oh.” Roman rested the old cloak atop one of the other blankets in the chest, looking over one of many letters, neatly folded. He pulled out one of them.

“Dear Santa Claws,

How are you? I hope you’re good!! I didn’t get to say thank you for the snow last year! Me and my friends made bunches of snowmen, and Papa took me out to go sledding! If you can, I think it’d be really nice to see more snow this year too. One of my friends said they don’t get Santa, they have a bunch of candles though. Do you do something else for them? Oh, and, Mama said that I probably didn’t get what I wanted last year because you didn’t know what it was! Sorry! This year I think just a fluffy puppy stuffy would be good!! With the spots! And if you can’t get one, I don’t mind! I think more snow would be just great. Or... maybe a bell, if you have extra? They were really pretty. Thank you! I’m gonna set out more cookies and food for the reindeer this year, I hope that’s ok. Oh! And what’s their names?! Give them hugs for me!

Thank you!

Jemima”

The letter was signed with a little heart at the end of the child’s name. Roman glanced over the other letters and laughed, “Oh, of course you’re Santa.”

Roman frowned, folding the letter and replacing it. He covered them again with the cloak and he shuffled through the rest of the chest. He eventually uncovered a red outfit, more fit to an older Patton.

Roman tugged on the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He leaned his cheek against the blanket, “When did you stop being Santa, too?” Roman whispered.

Roman glanced over his shoulder towards the door from Patton’s Room. He let out a huff, “Dear Christmas Roses... Well... I do look good in red.”

[alexisbundy1-blog]

[this post is just for kicks]

ok so i have a playlist called junior (go follow it) that contains almost all the songs i have discovered this year. here are some of my favourites:

“Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” - Kate Bush I first discovered Kate Bush the summer before freshman year. I don’t remember how, but it most definitely links back to having the knowledge that she had a song entitled “Wuthering Heights.” (Sound familiar?) Afterwards, the words “Kate Bush” became a part of my music vocabulary. Did you know she wrote “Wuthering Heights” at 18 years old, became the first woman to ever have a number-one hit in the UK, AND was only 19 when the song hit the charts? When I’m 19, my biggest accomplishment will be doing my own laundry. ANYWAY - so after two years of being a Kate Bush fan, I noticed that her acclaimed album Hounds of Love was finally on Spotify and decided to give it a listen. Her artist page showed that this one song was one of her most popular, so I gave it a go. Not to be hyperbolic, but this song rocked my world. I mean, I knew Kate Bush was one of the coolest people ever, but this song just took her radness to a new level. The synths, the power of her vocals, the lyrics, the video(!!!). Kate Bush is just a tour de force. I love her, and so should you. And also she should have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Just saying.

“Personal Jesus” - Depeche Mode So technically I first heard this song over the summer but...who cares...I was technically a junior. First of all, this song goes HARD. Between the bassline and the sporadic interjections of synth, “Personal Jesus” is just simply a tune. It makes you feel badass, even if the lyrics don’t really align with that feeling, and I wish I could provide some more persuasive evidence as to why it’s so good, but you have to listen to it yourself. It’s just...a tune. That’s all.

“Edge of Seventeen” - Stevie Nicks Okay so I’m relatively embarrassed to say that I only heard this song in July...and it initially struck me because it shared the same bassline as a Destiny’s Child song...sorry, Stevie. But it’s such a good song!!!! Fun fact: the title comes from a discussion Stevie had with the late, great Tom Petty’s wife, who said she had been in love with Tom since she was the age of seventeen; however, she had a southern drawl, so it sounded as though she was saying “edge of seventeen.” And the rest is history. And you should listen to this song if you haven’t already. Another badass song with a wobbling bassline and cool female vocals.

“Praying” - Kesha No offense to Madison, but I’ve been the Kesha fan from day one. Don’t even @ me. Like, Kesha posters everywhere in my room, buying Kesha albums in secret (my mother wasn’t a fan), knowing all the words to her songs - the works. So when Kesha released this TUNE in late July/August, not only was the world shook - I was so shaken. I was like, “Is this Miss Ke-dollar sign-ha???? Is this Kesha Rose Sebert???” First of all, I was literally in pieces when Kesha’s court case ruling came out, and then she dropped this song and I was like “Adios.” I always knew Kesha was a ~talented songstress~ but her vocals on this song...I cry every time. WHY DIDN’T IT WIN A GRAMMY.

“God Bless America - and All the Beautiful Women In It” - Lana Del Rey No offense....but Lana Del Rey dropped the best album of the year (tied w/ DAMN. again don’t @ me) and it is also the best album of her career. There are a lot of fabulous songs on this album but this is my favourite. It’s so subtly political yet so ethereal. The vocals and guitar on this song just soar. I love Lana so much <3

basically Dua Lipa’s whole debut album - Dua Lipa I’ve been a Dua fan since summer 2016 and when she dropped this album she also drop-kicked me to another planet. Prior to the album’s release, she released hit after hit and I was over here like “Thank u Dua for blessing us with ur killer vocals and ur mega tunes” and THEN she had the AUDACITY to just rock my world with this album. Is it Dark Side of the Moon? No. Is it still a great pop album?? Yes. And do the songs go hard?? They go hard. No offense but every song on this album - even the bad ones (*cough* “Room for 2″) - are better than “Shape of You” and YET who won the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance?? Not Dua Lipa the true winner. Anyway if you have a chance just listen to the whole album. My favourite songs are-jk I love them all. Except for “Room for 2″ just ignore that one.

“Bodak Yellow” - Cardi B ....do i really need to speak on this one...

“Go Gina” - SZA I am still so offended that the Recording Academy snubbed SZA’s debut album but WHATEVER IT’S FINE. This song is about halfway through the album, and it serves as a slight interlude. But it’s my favourite. It’s succinct, it’s gorgeous, it references Martin. SZA is so talented and deserves the world.

“Raspberry Beret” - Prince I first heard this song on the last episode of She’s Gotta Have It, the TV reincarnation of the Spike Lee film. I was a Prince fan, but this song just gave me a new respect for him. It’s not necessarily in the lyrics, but the music is just insane. There’s a combination of Prince’s signature guitar-and-synth combo, but then there’s a harmonica-type instrument as well that ties into Prince’s ventures to an abandoned farm/barn. This is a good memory of Prince. 

“Best Friend” - Sofi Tukker Can I just say...this song deserves better. I know a lot of people have heard it in iPhone ads and whatnot, but Sofi Tukker is just such an amazing group and this was the first song I heard by them and they are so talented. This song just truly goes hard. I’m upset I don’t hear it more often. The wobble of such a strong bassline adds so much energy to an already enthusiastic song. It’s a great mainstream introduction to Sofi Tukker.

the entire Black Panther soundtrack again...do i really need to speak on this....

every song on the Call Me By Your Name soundtrack but especially the Sufjan Stevens songs ok so it’s common knowledge that this movie has damaged me forever, but you know what else damaged me? the soundtrack. who else gets away with intertwining classical piano music and euro eighties hits and sufjan stevens songs? no one except for luca guadagnino. so let’s briefly discuss,,,,first of all i had actually never listened to a psychedelic furs song before and i feel like that’s embarrassing especially for me so “love my way” was just such a wow moment for me. great pop song with great lyrics that truly pertain to the movie. excellent choice. also my new favourite song “paris latino” by bandolero is just so campy and european and eighties. what a tune. and the opening song, “hallelujah junction” by john adams, is just so gorgeous. it’s such a fabulous opener. now lets talk about sufjan stevens....we’re first introduced to his music in the movie with a remix of his song “futile devices.” this remix is so ethereal and stunning; it fits so perfectly within the movie. then there’s the happy little ditty “mystery of love” that basically should have won the oscar but then i saw coco and “remember me” made me cry so i wasn’t too mad. not much to say about this one because it speaks for itself. great song. now,,..,.,.,.”visions of gideon”.....,.,.,this song is so offensive. every time i listen to it i want to sit in front of a fire place for the whole duration of the song and CRY over my lover who is getting married and teaches at columbia. it’s so delicate and haunting. it just makes me cry.

“Lemon” - N.E.R.D & Rihanna idk about you guys but i heard this on the radio like once and i was so offended by how little airplay it received because this song is just so amazing. like pharrell + rihanna = modern musical genius. this was all the world needed. 

“This is America” - Childish Gambino I know literally the entire population of Earth is talking about this song but I think the visuals are the more intriguing part (obviously). Like on its own, the song is great, but the music video adds way more to it, in my opinion. As it has been said numerous times, you really have to watch the video multiple times to catch everything, but it’s such a stunning video that really forces you to think and comprehend everything going on. Props to you, Donald Glover. Even though you have been slightly problematic in the past.

so obviously i could have like a gazillion songs listed here but a) some of them are hard to explain b) i don’t want to offend anyone and c) i tried to make it seem like my taste in music is both good and slightly mainstream so people can #relate. i also discovered a lot of bruce springsteen within this period and i am proud of myself for doing so. okay, well i hope it’s noted that i did this just for fun and would obviously not like to be graded on it i just kind of wanted to have something to reflect on the year! unlike my actual blog post for this month. and i just wanted to have a platform to talk about music and get people to listen to my playlist. ok see you!! go read my real blog post!!

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior March 6, 2020 – ONWARD, THE WAY BACK, EMMA and MUCH More!

Thankfully, February ended pretty well as The Invisible Man fell just shy of my abridged $30 million opening prediction, but still, $29 million is pretty damn good, and the movie’s “B+” CinemaScore makes me think that it will do pretty well going into March even with another Blumhouse genre film opening next week. Oh, yeah, and A Quiet Place Part 2. Anyway, next week is next week. Let’s get to this week…

March kicks off with ONWARD, the latest animated movie from Disney’s Pixar Animation division, which his coming off its 10th Oscar in the Animated Feature category last month, as it launches its 23rd movie over the course of 25 years. It’s pretty amazing how far Pixar has come since it was launched with John Lasseter’s Toy Story way back in 1995, the company having amassed $6 billion in North America alone and $14.4 billion worldwide.

Onward is the new movie from Monsters University director Dan Scanlon, a fantasy involving two elf brothers, voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt, who go on a quest to find magic that will help them bring back their dead father. The movie also features the voices of Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, Tracey Ullman, Lena Waithe, Octavia Spencer, Ali Wong and Mel Rodriguez.

This is Pixar’s first original movie since Coco in 2017, but it’s also the first movie released by the studio outside of the profitable summer and holiday box office seasons. It’s certainly a departure, but this will also be the third time where there are two Pixar movies in the same year. The last time this happened was in 2015 when the summer release Inside Out was another $350 million hit but it led to the November release of The Good Dinosaur, which to date is still Pixar’s lowest grosser even compared to 1998’s A Bug’s Life.  Good Dinosaur opened with just $39 million over the normally-lucrative Thanksgiving weekend and only grossed $123 million domestic. The March release might make some wonder if Onward isn’t one of Pixar’s stronger offerings. (Pete Docter’s Soulis getting the studio’s higher profile summer release, but that’s what comes when you turn original movies like Up and Inside Out into blockbuster hits without the benefits of being a sequel.)

Having big stars like Pratt and Holland providing the main voices might normally help, especially in terms of getting publicity for the movie, although Holland just provided his voice for Fox’s animated Spies in Disguise with an equally big star like Will Smith and that only grossed $66 million after opening last Christmas.

A last-minute boost for Onward might come from the fact that it’s preceded by a brand new “The Simpsons” short, another benefit from the massive purchase of Fox and its properties by Disney last year. That and the Pixar brand should drive business opening weekend, which should be good for roughly $50 million even with stronger family films like Call of the Wild and Sonic the Hedgehog, which will step aside to give Onward the required berth. I’m not sure Onwardwill achieve the $200 million benchmark of other non-Pixar sequels but it should be good for around $160 to 170 million with a bump from schools having spring break in March. (I’m not going to start presuming that the current corona scare might impact moviegoing, at least not just yet, although it’s something that needs to be kept in mind.)

Having not seen Onward yet, I don’t have that much more to say, but I have good news, and it’s that I’ve been invited to see Disney’s Mulan, so a.) I’ll have a review for you, and b.) I’ll hopefully have more insightful thoughts on that movie’s box office since I’ll have seen it.

The other wide release this weekend is the second team-up between Ben Affleck and director Gavin O’Connor, following their 2016 hit The Accountant. Unlike that thriller, THE WAY BACK (Warner Bros.) is more of an inspirational drama about a man trying to overcome addiction to find redemption.  Affleck plays Jack Cunningham, a former high school basketball star struck down by alcoholism, who is given another chance to coach his old high school basketball team. The drama comes from whether he can overcome his demons to find redemption. It wouldn’t be a particularly inspirational movie if he doesn’t.

Oddly,The Way Back is a far more common type of March release than Onward but it is also Affleck’s second attempt at a comeback, having recovered from the bombs of the mid-00s to find favor as a director with the Oscar Best Picture winner Argo, which followed a decent-sized hit with 2010’s The Town. Unfortunately, Affleck’s 2016 movie Live By Night bombed really badly, countering the success he had as Batman in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Supermanand in 2016’s The Accountant, which grossed $86.3 million. The fact that Justice League made $100 million less than Batman v Superman got Affleck replaced by Robert Pattinson in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, due out next year, so Affleck definitely has something to prove with this movie.

Besides reuniting Affleck and O’Connor, The Way Back also has a chance to draw in older males by being set in the world of basketball, as we’ve seen movies like Coach Carter, starring Samuel L. Jackson, open big with $24.8 million over the MLK Jr. weekend in 2005. On the other hand, Disney opened the basketball drama Glory Road, starring Josh Lucas, on the same weekend and that opened with half that amount. O’Connor is no stranger to inspirational feel-good sports movies having directed Disney’s Miracle about the 1980 US hockey team, which ended up grossing $64 million after a $19 million opening in 2004. Obviously, these are all movies that are nearly 15 years old, and it’s harder to find more recent sports hits unless you look to the world of faith-based dramas, and maybe Warner Bros. hopes that crowd will be out for this story of redemption.

I wish I had more confidence in this film, although I generally have never been a very big Affleck fan, and I’m not sure if this is the kind of movie that will entice older males in the same way as The Accountant (which I didn’t like, mind you). I’d like to think that the movie can do somewhere in the range of Thunder Road’s $13 million opening, but I have a feeling that this will end up closer to $10 to 11 million this weekend and will have to rely on word-of-mouth if it wants to maintain business through a month with a lot of strong offerings to come.

Mini-Review: On paper, The Way Back would seem like a very obvious movie, both for Ben Affleck and also for director Gavin O’Connor, who has dealt with inspirational sports movies and those seeking redemption. (Warrior is still one of my favorite films he’s made to date.)

We meet Affleck’s Jack Cunningham as he’s still on a low after splitting from his wife (Janina Gavankar) with a beer can always in hand, although we won’t find out what happened until much later. Out of the blue, Jack is called by the pastor of Bishop Hayes Catholic high school where Jack was the big star destined for greatness decades earlier. Even though he hasn’t touched a ball since then, Jack takes on the challenge of trying to turn things around for the worst team in the league. At the same time, he tries to help a few individual players and not get on the bad side of the chaplin with his constant swearing.

This is a great vehicle for Affleck and O’Connor, working from a script by Brad Ingelsby, whose screenplay for last year’s American Woman was another nice surprise. Affleck really has never been better in a role that allows him to pull from his own addiction and marital issues to create a fully-rounded character. The way O’Connor shoots the basketball games and the progress of the team keeps things exciting.

The only significant problem with the movie is that the first 2/3rds of it seems like two separate movies, one involving Jack trying to bring Bishop Hayes back from being the worst team in the league and the other being Jack’s alcohol problems. The two sides of the movie rarely intersect for a good chunk of the movie.

The real surprises come in the film’s last act where we think everything is going great and can’t imagine things could get bad again for Jack… and of course, they do. I won’t say about how and what happens, but when you’ve spent the whole movie watching him do something so inspiring, it’s a little deflating to be brought back down to reality.

Sure, The Way Back may be predictable (to a point) but it’s a damn good version of the movie that you’re expecting, offering a big-time tug on the heart strings. Rating: 8/10

Hitting theaters nationwide this weekend – roughly 1,500 theaters -- is the new Jane Austen adaptation EMMA. (Focus Features), starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Bill Nighy. The movie has done pretty well platforming, but it will be a tougher sell as it expands into regions outside major cities, so the per-theater average will fall quite a lot since last weekend. I think it should be good for $2 to 3 million which will allow it to place in the top 10 but we’ll have to see how it fares before expecting much more of an expansion.

Also, Sony Pictures Classics is planning to expand Michael Winterbottom’s Greed, starring Steve Coogan, into a nationwide release, but who knows if that’s 400 theaters, 500 theaters or more? (UPDATE: Theater count is confirmed at 596 so I’m sticking with my earlier prediction of $1.2 million.) I’m not sure they should go very wide with a $7,124 per-theater average this past weekend (worse than Searchlight’s Wendy), so I don’t think it will make enough to crack the top 10 this weekend even with a fairly low entry point.

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

1. Onward (Disney-Pixar) - $51 million N/A

2. The Invisible Man (Universal) - $16.3 million -44%

3. The Way Back (Warner Bros.) - $10.5 million N/A

4. Sonic the Hedgehog  (Paramount) - $8.5 million

5. The Call of the Wild (20thCentury) - $6.8 million

6. Emma. (Focus Features) - $3 million +71% (up .8 million)*

7. My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising (FUNimation) - $2.7 million

8. Bad Boys for Life (Sony) - $2.4 million

9. Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey  (Warner Bros) - $2.3 million

10. The Impractical Jokers Movie (TruTV) - $1.6 million -55%

-- Greed (Sony Pictures Classics) - $1.2 million

*UPDATE: Keeping most of my predictions the same except that I’m giving a little bump to Focus’ Emma, since it should act as decent counter-programming to the other new movies.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

The big festival kicking off in New York this week is the annual “Rendezvous with French Cinema” up at Film at Lincoln Center, which runs from this Thursday through March 15. It kicks off on Thursday with Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first French language film The Truth as the opener with stars Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke introducing the film at 6:30pm after doing a separate conversation earlier (only standby available for the conversation and early screening but tickets available for the 9:15pm screening sans introduction). I’ll probably write more about this next week when it gets its limited release, but the two actors play a couple who come to France to spend time with her actress mother Fabienne (played by the amazing Catherine Deneuve) who is publishing her contentious memoirs. The other movie I’ve seen which I liked a little more is Quentin Dupieux’s quirky Deerskin, starring Jean Dujardin (The Artist), which also opens theatrically this month. I wasn’t able to catch Alice Winocour’s Proxima, starring Eva Green and Matt Dillon, but hopefully that will be one of the films that finds distribution, as many of the “Rendezvous” offerings, this festival might be the only time to see them.  Other returning filmmakers include Cédric Klapisch, Bruno Dumont, as well as Christophe Honoré’s On a Magical Night with Cannes winner Chiara Mastoianni in attendance, plus more. Click on the link above for the full rundown.

LIMITED RELEASES

This is a pretty decent for limited release, so if you’re in New York or L.A. and have already seen some of the expanding movies or aren’t interested in the new wide releases, you have a LOT of other options… and that’s even before we get to the repertory stuff below. There are just way too many limited releases coming out the next couple weekends.

I’m gonna do something a little different this week. Instead of picking just one “Featured Movie,” I’m gonna go with a “Featured Theater” since two decent movies are opening at New York’s Film Forum this coming week. (Plus it begins a new Hitchcock series, which you can read about in the repertory section below.)

We’ll begin with SORRY WE MISSED YOU (Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber) – opening at Film Forum Weds. and in L.A. at the Landmark Nuart on Friday. It’s the new film from director Ken Loach, who has an amazing filmography of British “kitchen sink” dramas but also great historical films like The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Loach’s last film I, Daniel Blake was in my top 5 a few years back and Sorry I Missed You is very much a follow-up, once again dealing with Brits struggling with the system to make a living. In this case, it’s Kris Hitchen’s Ricky Turner and his wife Abbie (Debbie Honeywood) as he signs on for a “zero-hour” job delivering packages, a system that requires working longer hours. Meanwhile, Abbie is working just as hard as a home care worker. As they struggle to make a living, their teenage son is skipping school and getting into trouble.

Although as a freelance writer, I could definitely relate to the idea of having to work extra-hard in order to earn enough money to survive, especially in the jobs I was doing getting paid by piece which was never helpful in making ends meet. Seeing how the package delivery industry in northern England is used to take advantage of individuals is partially what keeps things interesting.  Like The Way Back, you sort of expect things to get bad for Ricky, especially in regards to his son, but there’s a certain point where you think he’s gonna crash his van cause he’s so exhausted. It doesn’t happen but what happens next is almost worse than that. Either way, it’s another decent movie from Loach (and regular writer Paul Laverty), maybe not as good as I, Daniel Blake but still worthwhile.

From China comes THE WILD GOOSE LAKE (Film Movement), the new film from Daio Yinan (Black Coal, Thin Ice), which is quite a different film for Mr. Yinan, starring Hu Ge as mob leader Zhou Zenong, who gets into a feud with another local gang leader, ends up killing a police officer in the ensuing mayhem and ends up hiding out in the area of Wuhan known as Wild Goose Lake, becoming entangled with Gwei Lun-Mei’s Liu. This is another interesting take on the crime noir genre from Zenong, one that maybe gets a little more artsy-fartsy than Black Coal but one that also veers further into genre territory, particularly with some of the violence and bloodshed involved. It offers further proof that Yinan is a true master of cinematic storytelling since it’s so unlike the many other Chinese crime films that have come from both Hong Kong and the mainland. This one is quite the film, although I still recommend seeking out Black Coal if you ever have the chance. This one will open at the Film Forum on Friday. (While you’re going to the Film Forum, check out Corneliu Porumbiou’s crime-thriller The Whistlers, which I watched over the weekend, and it’s quite different from many other Romanian films I’ve seen, not only because it’s under 2 hours.)

Next up is THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY (Sony Pictures Classics), Giuseppe Capotondi’s adaptation of Charles Willeford’s book, starring Claes Bang from The Square and The Girl in the Spider’s Web as art critic James Figueras, who is giving lectures in Italy when he meets Elizabeth Debicki’s Berenice. It’s a meeting that turns into a fast relationship that has them both in bed, and when James is called to the mansion of a rich Italian art lover named Cassidy (played by Mick Jagger), he brings Berenice along with him. Once there, James learns that Cassidy has become the benefactor for reclusive artist Jerome Debney, played by Donald Sutherland, whose entire body of work was destroyed in a fire. Cassidy has gotten James an exclusive interview with Debney with the condition that he gets one of Debney’s in-demand paintings out of the deal. I’m not really a fine art fanatic nor have I read Willeford’s book, but I found this to be an interesting dramatic thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley as you watch this cat-and-mouse game being played between the characters. Sutherland is pretty awesome as Debney, who flirts with Berenice while playing mind games with James, and the way these dynamics play out is what makes this film better than other art-driven films. As you watch this movie, you’ll probably realize that Claes Bang really should be playing a James Bond villain and then Mick Jagger appears on screen with him and you REALLY think that Jagger should have played a Bond villain anytime in the last few decades as he’s great at playing devious. This is another great release from Sony Classics in a year where they seem to be turning things around from the last couple years. So far, besides this, I’ve also liked Greed, The Traitor and The Climb, which will be released later this month.

Having been delayed from its intended December release due to many controversies, George (The Adjustment Bureau) Nolfi’s THE BANKER (Apple+) will finally hit select theaters for a few weeks before launching on Apple+ on March 20. It stars Anthony Mackie as Bernard Garrett, a young genius growing up black pre-Civil Rights and dealing with the Jim Crow racism in his hometown of Texas, so he moves to Los Angeles and becomes heavily involved in the real estate business. Eventually, he finds a partner in Samuel L. Jackson’s Joe Morris, a club owner with money and a good amount of real estate experience himself. Slowly, they begin buying up buildings in downtown L.A. using the ambitious white Max Steiner (Nicholas Hoult) as their frontman, while letting affluent black people in to build a community and Bernard decides it’s time to buy the bank in his old Texas hometown. That’s where things start going wrong, but I won’t get too deep into the story. This is a decent film from Nolfi with particularly strong performances from Mackie and Jackson, as well as Nia Long as Garrett’s wife. It’s very reminiscent of Spike Lee’s BlackKklansman with a similar level of humor despite being about a serious subject. It does hit a bit of a lull when the story moves back to Texas and the trio’s dealings with the banks, and it gets a little bogged down in all the numbers, but it does end up delivering a decent true-life story that will be of interest.

Kelly Reichardt’s latest period piece is FIRST COW (A24), set in the Pacific Northwest during the time of the Gold Rush as a cook (John Magaro) encounters a Chinese immigrant (Orion Lee) in the Oregon Territory and the two of them hatch a money-making scheme to sell biscuits using stolen milk from a local landowner’s prized cow. Although I have not really been a fan of Reichardt’s work, even her historic film Meek’s Cutoff, I think with this movie she really finds her footing with two great actors/characters and a story that’s fairly intriguing in its own right. I wasn’t too crazy with how the film ended (foreshadowed by the film’s opening framing device) but it’s one of Reichardt’s few films where I didn’t get bored or lose interest, so that’s certainly sayin’ something. What’s even more impressive is that two local theaters (BAM, MOMI) held repertory series in conjunction with the release of First Cow and apparently, other cities are doing the same.

From Brazil comes BACURAU (Kino Lorber), Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s odd genre film that’s based around a small village in the Brazilian equivalent of the Outback, a remote place whose matriarch Carmelita has just passed away at the age of 94. There are forces at work trying to drive the villagers out of their homes, including putting a dam to cut off their water supply, but things get stranger when a nearby farmer and his family end up dead, which leads to a twist that takes the film directly into genre territory. I don’t want to say too much about what happens but it involves Udo Kier and a lot of weapons… Bacurau opens at the IFC Center downtown and Film at Lincoln Center uptown (with QnAs at the latter, which is also holding a “Mapping Bacurau” series starting March 13.)

Carlo Mirabella-Davis’ SWALLOW (IFC Films) stars Haley Bennett as a newly-pregnant housewife married to her perfect husband Richie (Austin Stowell, who recently appeared in Fantasy Island), but as she tries to please him and his parents, she starts developing a dangerous habit in the form of a disorder called pica that has her compulsively swallowing inedible objects. Okay, then. It will open at the IFC Center, the Laemmle Monica Film Center and as well as On Demand and digital. Bennett won an award for her acting at last year’s Tribeca Film Festival, but I somehow missed it.

Next, we have a trio of films opening at New York’s Village East Cinema and a few other theaters both in New York and select cities:

I really wanted to like Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman’s Irish horror-comedy EXTRA ORDINARY (GDE) more, since the trailer really made it seem like something I might enjoy. In the movie, Maeve Higgins plays Rose, a smalltown driving instructor who has supernatural talents who is called upon by Barry Ward’s Martin Martin, whose daughter is being used by a former rock star (played by Will Forge) who needs a virgin to commit a Satanic pact to regain his fame. The movie just seemed rather silly and not nearly as funny as the trailer makes it seem, but maybe it would be better seing it with an audience.

Another movie that looks good (and I hope to watch soon) is Ricky Tollman’s directorial debut, the political thriller Run This Town (Oscilloscope), which stars Ben Platt (from Pitch Perfect), Mena Massoud, Nina Dobrev, Scott Speedman,  Jennifer Ehle and Damian Lewis, quite an impressive cast. Platt plays Bram, a young journalist who becomes entangled in a political scandal with his political aide friend Kamal (Massoud) after catching the latter’s city hall boss doing something bad that can help the former’s career.

Also opening this weekend at the Village East and other cities, Anna Akana stars in Emily Ting’s semi-autobiographical Go Back to China (Gravitas Ventures) playing a spoiled rich girl named Sasha Li, who is forced by her father to return to China after blowing through her trust fund. Once there, Sasha finds herself by reconnecting with her estranged family and getting into toy designing. I haven’t watched this yet but the trailer looks cute, and I might have to make an effort to watch this.

Sadly, I had to refrain mentioning Daniel Radcliffe’s previous movie released last week, but he stars in another one this weekend, Francis Annan’s Escape from Pretoria (Momentum) based on Tim Jenkins’ autobiography “Inside Out: Escape from Pretoria Prison,” a thriller about the attempt by two political captives to break out of prison during apartheid South Africa. It also stars Daniel Webber, Ian Hart, Mark Leonard Winter and Nathan Page.

A few other films I haven’t had a chance to watch include William Nicholson’s Hope Gap (Roadside Attractions), starring Annette Bening and Bill Nighy with Bening playing Grace, a woman who learns her husband (Nighy) is leaving her after 29 years and how that break-up affects their grown son (Josh O’Connor).

Freida Pinto and Leslie Odom Jr. star in Takashi Doscher’s Only(Vertical Entertainment) in which a comet releases a deadly virus that attacks all the women in the world forcing the two of them into hiding in their apartment from the savages hunting the surviving women. That’s a pretty strange premise that sounds like the opposite of the comic book series “Y the Last Man.” If only there was enough time to watch half the movies opening this weekend.

I accidentally included D.W. Young’s doc The Booksellers (Greenwich) in last week’s column, but it actually opens at the Quad in New York and other cities this Friday. It takes a look behind the scenes at the world of rare books with appearances by Parker Posey, Fran Lebowitz and Gay Talese.

From Bollywood comes BAAGHI 3 (FIP), Ahmed Khan’s martial arts action movie, starring series regular Tiger Shroff (who is filming a Bollywood remake of Rambo!) and Ritesih Deshmukh as brothers Ronnie and Vikram, the latter being kidnapped and beaten while abroad for work and Ronnie seeking revenge. Shraddha Kapoor returns after starring in the first movie of this action series.

Other movies, mostly hitting On Demand (with limited theatrical) include Transference (Epic Pictures), which opens in L.A. on Friday and hits On Demand next Tuesday, Final Kill (Cinedigm), Beneath Us (Vital Pictures) and Seven Stages to Achieve Eternal Bliss (MarVista Entertainment).

STREAMING AND CABLE

Some big stuff hitting the streaming…um… streams this weekend, including director Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg’s latest collaboration, the action-thriller SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL on Netflix. I have really enjoyed this duo’s collaborations in the past, including Patriots Day, Deepwater Horizon and Lone Survivor. (Mile 22 was a bit of a disappointment, considering how great those other three were.) This one has Wahlberg playing the title character Spenser, an ex-cop who teams with his roommate Hawk (Winston Duke from Usand Black Panther) to take down criminals responsible for killing two Boston police officers.

Equally exciting is the launch of Alex Garland’s new sci-fi series Devs, which will launch on FX on Hulu on Thursday. This is a really terrific premise from the director of Ex Machina and Annihilation with a fantastic cast that includes an amazing cast that includes Nick Offerman, Alison Pill, Jin Ha, Cailea Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson and more.

Also launching this week on Hulu is Nanette Burstein’s documentary Hillary (Hulu), which followed former Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton over the course of her 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The movie just premiered at Sundance in January to raves.

Steven Spielberg’s revival of his popular ‘80s anthology series Amazing Stories will debut on Apple TV+ this Friday with the first episode, “The Cellar.”

REPERTORY

Before we get to the regular repertory stuff, I want to mention that Satoshi Kon’s classic 2003 anime Tokyo Godfathers will get a nationwide theatrical release via Fathom Events with Monday night, March 9, being the original subtitled version while Weds. the 11th, there will be a dubbed version.

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The big debut this week is the Metrograph Pictures release of the restored version of Fruit Chan’s 1997 classic Made in Hong Kong, which has never been released in the United States! Apparently it was also the first movie released in Hong Kong after it received independence in 1997. It’s an interesting crime tale that deals with the relationship between three young people, hoodlum August Moon, who collects debts for a local loan shark, his dim-witted friend Sylvester and Ping, an attractive but troubled young girl who begins a relationship with August. It also deals with the death of a young girl who seemingly jumped off a roof and the three of them trying to solve the case and get a few letters she left behind to those they were meant for.  If you can imagine a cross between River’s Edge, Me and Earl and the Dying Girland the recent Peanut Butter Falcon, all set in the gritty street crime culture of 1997 Hong Kong, then you can only begin to imagine what you’re in for, but it’s an amazing film and nothing you would ever see made or released in the U.S., so good on Metrograph for picking up the distribution rights and getting it out to the world.

On Sunday, Metrograph regular Alex Ross Perry will be showing Peter Hyams’ 1974 film Busting, but on Saturday, actor Chiara Mastroianni, who will be in town for “Rendezvous with French Cinema” (see above)  will show her “Dream Double Feature” of Dino Risi’s 1962 film Il Sorpasso and Charles Laughton’s psychological horror classic The Night of the Hunter (1955).

This weekend’s Late Nites at Metrograph is Fassbinder’s 1972 film The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant and apparently, the “Playtime: Family Matinees” has been replaced with “Metrograph Matinees” on Saturday and Sunday, which includes some less kid-friendly fare. For instance, this weekend, they’re showing Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend (1967), which I’m assuming isn’t for the kiddies.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Tonight’s “Weird Wednesday” is Robocop 2, while next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is the 1989 giallo Paganinni Horror, starring Donald Pleasance, and “Weird Wednesday” is the 1985 action film Sword of Heaven.

Over on the West Coast, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema Downtown Los Angeles will screen 1968’s Wild in the Streetsas it’s “Weird Wednesday.” Saturday’s “Kids Camp” is The Shaun the Sheep Movie and then Sunday is a Brunch screening of The Brady Brunch. Marc Bernarndin’s Monday “The Minority Report” screening is Joss Whedon’s 2005 film Serenity. Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is Kathryn Bigelo’s Near Dark and then the “Weird Wednesday” is Bobcat Goldthwait’s 2011 dark comedy God Bless America

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Weds’ afternoon matinee is Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter (1973), while the Weds/Thursday night double feature is The Man Who Would Be King (1975) with Zulu Dawn  (1979). The “Freaky Fridays” matinee is Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Trooper (1997) and then we’re into the weekend with Friday/Saturday double features of Blake Edwards’ The Return of the Pink Panthe r(1975) and The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1975), both starring Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau. The weekend’s “Kiddee Matinee” is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princeand the Saturday midnight screening is Hal Ashby’s fantastic Harold and Maude. Sunday and Monday will continue the Blake Edwards love with 1965’s The Great Race with one of the greatest all-star casts of the decade. On Monday afternoon you can see the classic House Partyfrom 1990 and then Tuesday’s Grindhouse is David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979) with Scalpel (1977).

FILM FORUM (NYC):

The big rep series beginning this week on Wednesday and running through March 19 is “The Women Behind Hitchcock,” mostly focusing on Hitchcock’s relationship with wife and editor Alma Reville and secretary Joan Harrison. The series includes Hitchcock classics like Rebecca  (1940) and The Lady Vanishes (1938), as well as Robert Siodmak’s 1944 film Phantom Lady (produced by Harrison) as well lots more. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is Jim Henson’s Muppet Treasure Island (1996) and Friday is a screening of Claude Lelouch’s Oscar-winning 1966 film A Man and a Woman with Lelouch in person. (That’s already sold out online but will have a standby line.)

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Thursday offers an encore screening of the Russian film Come and Seeand then Friday begins “Noir City Hollywood: the 22ndAnnual Los Angeles Festival of Film Noir” with a double feature of The Beast Must Die (1952) with Gilda (1946) and then Saturday offers a TRIPLE FEATURE of Fritz Lang’s 1931 M, Joseph Losey’s 1951 remake M and El Vampiro Negro, the 1953 Spanish Language. That’s a LOT of “M”s. Saturday night in the Spielberg Theater, “Joe Dante’s 16mm Spotlight” will screen Brian De Palma’s 1968 film Murder À La Mod. Sunday offers two Film Noir double features, two from Robert Siodmak: The Devil Strikes at Night (1957) and Fly-by-Night (1942) and then the Korean noir The Housemaid (1960) with My Name is Julia Ross (1945). Meanwhile, the AERO will mainly be doing the West Coast version of “Canada Now 2020,” and then on Monday, David Mamet will be on hand to show his film House of Gamesas part of “Noir City: Hollywood.”

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Horace B. Jenkins’ 1982 film Cane River continues through the weekend, as does Pandora and the Flying Dutchman and Brazilian filmmaker Bruno Barreto’s Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976) plays Saturday night and then again a couple times next week.

MOMA  (NYC):

Lots of new series this week including Modern Matinees: CicelyTyson, which will focus on the Tony, Emmy, honorary Oscar and Presidential Medal of Freedom honoree and her body of work with matinee screenings on Weds through Thursdays. It kicks off Weds with 1954’s Carib Gold, followed on Thursday by Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and Friday’s screening of Rob Cohen’s 2012 movie Alex Cross. The latter might seem like a strange movie to screen at MOMA, but this week also begins In Character: Daniel Craig, which will cover the roughly two decade career of the British actor best known for playing James Bond. The latter begins on Tuesday night with a screening of his Bond debut, 2006’s Casino Royale, but then it will take a week off and be back next Weds for a repeat. SThe latter is delayed for a retrospective on Israeli journalist Efratia Gitai and her filmmaking son Amos Gitai’s work called “In Times Like These.”The weekend series includes 2009’s Carmel, 1986’s Esther, 1989’s Berlin-Jerusalem and 2002’s Kedma, as well as a staged reading of his mother’s letters.

ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES (NYC):

A new series begins Thursday called “1995: The Year the Internet Broke” with a mix of sci-fi films like Hackers, the anime Ghost in the Shell, Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days, The Net, Johnny Mnemonic, Virtuosity and more. It looks like a pretty solid series, while the more obscure Dusan Makavjev, Cinema Unbound through Sunday. Next Tuesday begins “The Cinema of Gender Transgression” begins with Neil Jordan’s 2005 film Breakfast on Pluto.

NITEHAWK CINEMA  (NYC):

Williamsburg will show the Julia Roberts Oscar-winning Erin Brockovich and then the Friday night midnight offerings are Dan Bush’s newish The Dark Redand Ben Wheatley’s underrated 2012 movie Sightseers. Saturday morning screening is Joseph Mankiewicz’s All About Eve from 1950 but your other option is the ubiquitous Nicolas Cage in 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas. Monday night is a special screening of Anna Rose Holmer’s 2016 film The Fits as part of “Women’s Month.” (Next Tuesday night screening of Cage’s Gone in 60 Secondsis already sold out unfortunately.)

Over in Prospect Park, the Saturday brunch offering is Agnieszka Holland’s 1993 adaptation of The Secret Garden and then on Tuesday night is a screening of Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) as part of “Woman’s Month.”

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

“See it Big! Outer Space” continues this weekend with screenings of Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity on Friday and Sunday and Star Trek: The Motion Picture on Saturday, plus 2001: A Space Odyssey screens on Saturday afternoon, per usual.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

Kelly Reichardt Selects: First Cow In Context ends on Wednesday with Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: Luis Buñuel takes a couple more weekends off, while Waverly Midnights: Hindsight is 2020s is showing James McTeigue’s 2005 adaptation of Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta. Late Night Favorites: Winter 2020 will show Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

The Cage run continues with Paul Schrader’s 2016 movie Dog Eat Dog, co-starring Willem Dafoe,on Weds and 2011’s Drive Angry Thursday.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

Uh oh, this Friday’s midnight is…the 2019 disaster Cats!

Next week is a busy one with four new wide release ranging from Sony’s Bloodshot, starring Vin Diesel as the Valiant Comics hero, to Blumhouse’s The Hunt, the faith-based Lionsgate film I Still Believe and David Batista’s family comedy My Spy (STXfilms).

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or send me a note on Twitter. I love hearing from readers!

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Black Girl Magic Continues at The U.S. Open: Gauff, Osaka Shine And Townsend Ousts Wimbledon Champ Halep | Sports

Day Four (Thursday) at the U.S. Open in NYC used to be every other glimpse into the way forward for girls’s tennis. 

Defending champion and international #1 Naomi Osaka had a instantly units victory in entrance of pals Kobe Bryant and Colin Kaepernick. 6-2, 6-Four over Magada Linette to advance to the 3rd spherical. 

15-year-old American sensation Cori “Coco” Gauff, gained an exhilarating 3 set fit in opposition to Timea Babos 6-2, Four-6, 6-Four to advance to the 3rd spherical as smartly, the place she is going to play Osaka. 

And in essentially the most surprising disillusioned of the ladies’s draw, so far, twenty-three 12 months outdated Taylor Townsend defeated the #Four ranked participant on the earth and 2019 Wimbledon champion, Simona Halep. 

Townsend served and volleyed her solution to a 2-6, 6-Three, 7-6 win and a spot within the 3rd spherical of a big for the primary time in her occupation. 

This used to be further particular for Townsend, who at one time used to be, the “next great hope” of American girls’s tennis. Much the similar manner, Osaka and Gauff are actually. 

She battled thru self belief problems, deficient shape and one of the vital issues that may derail a promising younger occupation. 

Following the fit Townsend used to be emotional in her on-court interview pronouncing:

“This means a lot. It’s been a long journey.”

For goodbye, tennis has been a predominantly white recreation, and whilst the numbers nonetheless lean closely in that route, increasingly folks of colour are collaborating and we’re seeing them excel at the best possible ranges. 

For their portions, each and every of those girls, albeit in numerous techniques, perceive the drive and what it’s love to be dubbed because the “next” or slightly actually the inheritor obvious to the best participant of all time, Serena Williams. 

They all appear to grasp the macro and what that suggests to the game and what they constitute. 

But they actually have a prepared sense of the micro and what a unique second, time and alternative that is. 

Following her fit win, Gauff stated:

“I saw Taylor won today. I think we’re all just kind of pushing each other. Obviously when we play against each other, we don’t want the other person to win. But literally when we’re playing someone else, we root for each other. We grew up together and train together all the time.”

Osaka weighed in, earlier than she knew Gauff could be her opponent, pronouncing:

“Yeah, she’s super sweet and I would love to play her, of course. For me, when I hear people talking about someone, I want to have the opportunity to play them just to assess it for myself. You know what I mean? So, yeah, definitely would love that…”

And Townsend:

“I think, like, that’s the beauty of this sport, that you can watch people from such a young age kind of develop as people and players. For me, like, you know, I’ve just evolved. Like I said, I’ve always been this person. I think for some years I was lost, lost in a sea of a lot of stuff. But it’s nice to be able to come up to the surface and float, eventually swim.”

Here’s to the way forward for girls’s tennis. They are younger, Black, and superb.

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The Weekend Warrior  Movie Preview November 27, 2019 – KNIVES OUT, QUEEN AND SLIM, THE TWO POPES, 63 UP

You might notice that this column is no longer called “What to Watch This Weekend.” There are reasons for that I will not go into in much detail right at this time. I’ve always considered myself an original and when I recently learned the title had already been used long before “I came up with it,” I had to change gears and go back to a more familiar title. I have a feeling that few people read this column each week to even notice the difference.

Of course, Disney’s Frozen 2 will win the weekend, but the big new release has to be Rian Johnson’s KNIVES OUT (Lionsgate), which has such a to-die-for cast, including Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield and many more. You can read my review of that here, and obviously I’m very bullish on recommending this to people since it’s such a fun whodunit, much better than last year’s Murder on the Orient Express. I really hope this does well since it will allow Johnson to keep making cool and original movies like this.

The other movie opening this weekend is Lena Waithe’s QUEEN AND SLIM (Universal), directed by Melina Matsoukas (who directed that long-form Beyoncé music video), and starring Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith. 

I wasn’t going to review this, but I might as well use this space to talk about the problems I had with the movie. I feel I might be mainly on my own with this one, but it reminded me so much of Moonlight, a movie I was pretty non-plussed by, yet that not only went to the Oscars but won Best Picture that year. Huh. 

I feel like Queen and Slim is another example of a movie that will be pushed for its SJW message even if the story has so many issues that I’m shocked so many people are overlooking them. The essential premise has Kaluuya and Turner-Smith as a couple who meet on a Tinder date, she a defense lawyer whose client has just been sentenced to death. After an awkward meet-cute at a diner, they drive off but are stopped by a police officer. One thing leads to another, the officer ends up dead, and the defense lawyer decides, “We should make a run for it,” and that’s exactly what they do.

That’s one of the big problems I had with the movie and it continued throughout, which is why I think this movie should have been called “Bad Decisions: The Movie,” because these are clearly two smart individuals, yet they are constantly doing really stupid things, which makes it really hard to root for them. On top of that, I wasn’t too impressed by Matsoukas/Waithe as a filmmaking team, as the movie had a lot of beautiful shots but really didn’t have much of a flow, making Matsoukas’ music video background far too obvious. It’s very typical of a new filmmaker wanting to create this beautiful-looking movie and losing sight of the actual narrative storytelling, which isn’t great. And then there’s the message Waithe is trying to drive home, clearly inspired by #BlackLivesMatter, but it just goes completely overboard at times, and no one in this movie acts like normal people might act in order to resolve their issues. 

In other words, Queen and Slim is trying to be an arty film in what is a business where movies that cost a lot of money need to make that money back, and I see this as a pretty big risk on Universal’s part for a movie that just isn’t that great.

You can read about how the above movies might fare at the Thanksgiving box office over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

There are, thankfully, a fewer number of limited releases this weekend, the big one being Netflix’s THE TWO POPES, starring Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, which is absolutely fantastic. Directed by Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles from a screenplay from Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hour). Basically, it’s about the relationship between Popes Francis (Pryce) and Benedict (Hopkins) as the latter is being criticized for allowing Catholic priests to get away with repeated sexual abuses against young parishioners. I saw this movie quite some time ago, and I really need to see it again before writing any sort of review, but it will probably be in my top 25 mainly for the amazing script and the performances by the two leads. This will open in select cities on Wednesday and be on Netflix December 20, and maybe I’ll have a chance to rewatch so I can write more about it at that point. Regardless, it’s another movie opening this weekend I recommend seeking out.

Opening at the Film Forum on Wednesday is Michael Apted’s excellent doc 63 Up (Britbox), the culmination of the 56 years he has spent following the lives of a number of British kids from different classes over the course of their lives. I’ve loved this series since I first discovered it, probably around the 21-Upyears, but it’s amazing how every seven years, you can revisit these people and learn more about them. There are a few of the subjects that you’ve begun to really care about, but at a time when class struggles play such an important part in the conversation and films like Parasite and Knives Out (see above) and M. Night Shyamalan’s new series Servant, it’s amazing to watch this venerable doc series in that context. I’m not sure if Apted will make it seven more years to make 70 Up, but if not, this is a fine conclusion to his masterful masters thesis. 63 Up will open at the Landmark Nuart in Los Angeles on Dec. 6 before hitting Britbox.

Getting a week-long run in New York and Los Angeles starting Friday is Ladj Ly’s intense police thriller LES MISERABLES (Amazon), which is France’s selection for the Oscar’s “International Film” category, and it’s an amazing film that follows a group of cops trying to cover up the shooting of a kid from the projects. Like many police dramas, it involves a rookie who is thrust into this world of crime, and I’ll definitely have more to say about this before its official theatrical release in January.  

Also getting a qualifying run in New York and L.A. this week is Emily Taguchi and Jake Lefferman’s documentary After Parkland (ABC Documentaries/Kino Lorber), which I somehow have missed so far, but I’ll probably have a chance to see it in 2020 when it’s getting its official release. As one can gather from the title, it’s about a number of families from the Marjory Stoneman Dougle High School trying to get through the Parkland shootings that left 17 dead.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Before we get to this section, I want to give a quick shout-out to VitalThrills.com who have an absolutely amazing Streaming section that you should be using as a resource, since it’s quite complete, maybe the best one on the internet?

If you’ve been putting off seeing Martin Scorsese’s 3-1/2 hour THE IRISHMAN, because you feel that’s too long to be sitting in a movie theater, it’s now on Netflix so you can watch it over and over, stopping and starting whenever you want. Happy?

While I’ve mostly been using this section for Netflix stuff (because it’s the only streaming/cable company that sends me regular PR), I’m excited that M. Night Shyamalan’s SERVANT will be debuting on Apple TV+ on Wednesday (today!), and that will be another darkly funny thing to watch with the family after Knives Out. You can watch the first three episodes, but I wrote a review of the first half of the season, which you can read here.

French filmmaker’s animated I Lost My Body will hit Netflix this Friday with its amazing story of the romance between a pizza delivery guy and a librarian, based on Guillaume Laurant’s novel “Happy Hand.” Also, Mati Diop’s Cannes-winning film Atlantics, which I STILL HAVEN’T WATCHED!!! Will hit the streaming network on the same day, so I’ll stop having excuses for not having seen it. Also hitting Netflix Thursday is the holiday comedy HOLIDAY RUSH, starring Romany Malco, La La Anthony, Sonequa Martin-Green and the legendary Darlene Love.

Also, Disney+ will be adding The Wonderful World of Disney Presents the Little Mermaid Live! to its library on Wednesday as well as Pixar’s Cocoon Friday, along with the fourth chapter of its ongoing series including one you might have heard of called The Mandalorian.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

The Metrograph once again wins the Repertory Wars this weekend. Its Noah Baumbach Residency continues this weekend with the filmmaker’s 2010 film Greenberg and 2017’s The Meyerowitz Stories, both starring Ben Stiller, as well as screenings of Working Girl (1988), Pauline at the Beach (1983) and Five Easy Pieces (1970). (I don’t think Baumbach will be at any of these.) The annual Holidays at Metrograph series begins this week with 1934’s The Thin Man, Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and the 1940 film Remember the Night this Friday and Saturday. Filmmaker Whit Stilman will be back at the Metrograph, once again showing his 1990 film Metropolitan (another Metrograph holiday mainstay) on Sunday, and he’ll also introduce a screening of 1998′s The Last Days of Disco. Welcome To Metrograph: Redux will screen George Cukor’s 1950 film Born Yesterday, Clint Eastwood’s 1995 film The Bridges of Madison County (with screenwriter Richard LaGravanese  introducing the screening Saturday night) and David Lean’s 1945 film Brief Encounter. Late Nites at Metrograph  screens Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 film Ghost World, starring a VERY young Scarlett Johansson, while Playtime: Family Matinees  will screen the appropriate Miracle on 34thStreet, the one from 1947.

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

Next week’s Terror Tuesday is Charles B Pierce’s The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) in a new 4k restoration with a QnA with Pierce’s daughter moderated by Mohawk director Ted Geoghegan, then the Weird Wednesday is Liam Neeson in Sam Raimi’s Darkman (1990) in 35mm. (The latter is a fantastic film if you haven’t seen it yet.)

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Today’s Weds. Afternoon Classics matinee is Samuel Fuller’s 1959 film The Crimson Kimono and Friday’s “Freaky Fridays” offering is David Cronenberg’s Existenz (1999). The weekend’s “Kiddee Matinee” is Jon Favreau’s Elf(2003), starring Will Ferrell, and Saturday’s midnight is a repeat of David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. Otherwise, it’s mostly screenings of Once Upon a Time … in Hollywoodthis weekend.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Opening this week is a 70thAnniversary 4k restoration of Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets, starring the great Sir Alec Guinness in 8 roles! Also this week, you can see a 4k restoration of the 1951 comedy The Man in the White Suit (on Weds and Sunday), as well as the 1955 film The Ladykillers, both directed by Alexander Mackendrick and also starring Guinness. Another repertory film getting a few screenings this weekend is the 1951 film The Lavender Hill Mob (another Guinness film!) and Carol Reed’s The Third Man from 1949 will get a full-week 70th anniversary presentation. This weekend’s Film Forum Jr. is To Kill a Mockinbird… ookay. On Sunday, you can see the 1975 Hal Ashby classic Shampoo in a single screening, and then on Monday night, there’s a single 35mm screening of Masaki Kobayashi’s 1964 film Kwaidan, based on four ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn, introduced by Monique Truong, who has written a book about Hearn. Oh, it’s also over 3 hours long.

AERO  (LA):

The AERO’s “Happy Thanksgiving 2019” movies include Planes, Trains and Automobiles on Wednesday, Singin’ in the Rain on Friday, and Saturday is a triple feature of “Satirical Cinema: Using Comedy to Underminte Hate” of Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940), Mel Brooks’ The Producers(1968) and Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit… yeah, one of these movies doesn’t match up to the others, and also isn’t really repertory. Sunday is a Charlie Chaplin double feature of City Lights(1931) and The Circus (1928). Tuesday’s “Christmas Noir: A Hardboiled Holiday” matinee is Blast of Silence from 1961.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Friday is a “Black Friday Double Feature” of mall-related horror films with Chopping Mall (1986) and Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1989), and then Saturday is an all-day The Lord of the Rings trilogy starting at 1pm.

MOMA  (NYC):

The newly renovated museum continues it’s “The Contenders 2019” series, but Modern Matinees: Iris Barry’s History of Filmwill continue through the week, as well. Vision Statement: Early Directorial Workswill return on Monday with Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, then Darren Aronofskiy’s Pi(1998) and Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali(1955) on Tuesday.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

If you want to find me this weekend, I’ll be spending a lot of time up on the Upper West Side (MTA-permitting) for the continuing “Relentless Invention: New Korean Cinema 1996-2003” for a bunch of movies, including Bong Joon Ho’s 2000 debut Barking Dogs Never Bite. You should also check out Varda by Agnès while you’re up there.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

“The Collected Terrence Malick” continues this weekend with screenings of some of Malick’s more recent films: Voyage of Time: Ultra Widescreen Version, The New World: Theatrical Version (Friday) andLimited Release Version (Sat.), as well as Voyage of Time: Life’s Journey on Saturday, and then the “Brad Pitt version” of Voyage of Time on Sunday. Also, Malick’s classic The Tree of Life will screen Friday and Sunday.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: May All Your Christmases be Noirwill screen The Night of the Hunter (1955), Waverly Midnights: Spy Games screens Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) in a 4k restoration, while Late Night Favorites: Autumn 2019 will screen… I can’t even. It’s movies they’ve shown a dozen times or more… Matt Zoller Seitz’s “Movies with MZS” continues next Tuesday with a screening of Moonstruck with screenwriter John Patrick Shanley.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

Thursday/Thanksgiving is your last chance to see Buster Keaton’s Battling Butler (1926) and The Navigator (1924) from out of the Cohen Films vault.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

Continuing its Nicolas Cage series by screening 1989’s Vampire’s Kiss in 35mm on Weds, Friday and Saturday nights, plus another screening of Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) on Sunday.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This week’s Friday midnight is the uncut version of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1990 film Santa Sangre.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

On Sunday, you can take the family to a matinee of Muppet Christmas Carol.

That’s it for this week. I’ll be taking a week off from the Box Office Preview over at The Beat, but the Weekend Warrior (sigh) will be back here with all the limited releases kicking off December.