#biggest ride-or-die in the franchise

[knightofthenewrepublic]

[shellshooked]

Can u plz do more of the Zelda movie au? I really like it and would like to see like maybe a documentary comic about the filming and are the actors for link and Zelda dating or is it just them as characters? (u don’t have to actually draw that if u don’t see this or u don’t want to)

im so late replying to this but i have SOOO many ideas on the zelda movie au!! let me share some lore hehe

So you know the spiderman actor and his love interest actress dating curse? how every actor that has played spiderman ends up dating the actress for mj / gwen Stacy? i like to think it's a similar trend with the zelink actors, except not all of them are dating. Botw / totk zelink DEFINETLY and the actors like to keep the details of their relationship private, but Link is NOT shy about how head over heels he is for zelda

Skyward sword zelink? you can never tell. it's the type of dynamic where Twitter stans are dying to know and interviewers always ask them about it but they both dodge the question successfully each time. They could be besties. They could be secretly married. Nobody knows.

Now, oot zelink are not dating, but in my head they're like Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. Ride or die besties, and they're the biggest oot zelink shippers you'll ever find.

Tp zelink aren't necessarily dating, perhaps some tension (?) however i like to think that their dynamic is more a trio one with midna's actress, who's best friends with zelda and they both playfully bully link

You know who else bullies link? oot ganondorf's actor. Irl he's actually in super good relations with every cast member and probably the warmest kindest most solid dude you'll ever meet but in every interview, every red carpet, every con event he always pretends like oot link is a nuisance and that he's only doing this because he's getting paid. When the Wind waker releases, he's obviously cast again (because duh, same ganondorf, so he's also in the Twilight Princess movie), and he takes care of link and tetra very well on set and makes sure they're always comfortable as child actors, all while he acts to be this super evil guy on camera. I love this duality, I feel like he would be so chill to talk to

In a way, I feel like the major cast from the franchise all know each other one way or another whether they're friends or just professional colleagues, they all relate to each other in some way. There's always a playful competition between botw and ss zelink actors on which pairing is the best, tp link's actor always jokingly disses wind waker for its seemingly childish approach while ww link insists his movie has the better soundtrack.

And now I'm rambling, and I definetly did not mean to dump this all on your ask omg I'm so sorry but this au transpires so much fun to me it makes me silly

[dr-spectre]

Gamers since its Halloween I wanna briefly talk about my biggest guilty pleasure ever!!!

And you guys aren't gonna believe it...

It's.... it's Saw.

Yeah the fucking Splatoon guy who loves girlypop Idols and cute shit is also into one of the most gory and brutal franchises of all time. I have range!!!

I love all of these movies, Saw 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7/3D/The Final Chapter, Jigsaw, Spiral and Saw X.

These movies are the equivalent of junk food. It's like each Saw movie is a different flavour of a doughnut you would get at a 7/11. Sure, there are WAY BETTER doughnuts out there and it's not healthy for you, but MY GOD! THOSE DOUGHNUTS BE HITTING DIFFERENT WHEN YOU'RE IN THE MOOD FOR THEM!!!

Saw 1 to 3 I would actually consider good to decent movies. I would recommend the first one to most people.

Saw 4 and 5 are... boring. They got some good traps but they are just.... boring!!!!

Saw 6? That's pretty good... I like the unique angle they took with the criticism of the American healthcare system.

Saw 7.... you wanna hear a hot take? I enjoy that one. It's so bad that it's good in my eyes. It's just pure trash that it rolls back around to being enjoyable.

Jigsaw, that movie sucks I'm sorry HAHAHA! NO STYLE! NO GOOD TRAPS! PLOT HOLES ALL OVER THE PLACE! That movie was not made with love AT ALL!!! But... I do like that giant spiral trap... and the laser collars are fucking dumb as hell but I love em.

Spiral? Eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhh.... I meannnnn.... it's got some decent traps? The uh... the finger trap was cool! The... train one! I like that one... um.... the hot wax one is dumb but the concept is fine enough I guess? The puppet trap with the blood needles is one of the only traps I can't watch because sucking blood with needles makes me lightheaded. The other trap that i cant watch is The Rack. (Also, don't fucking hire Chris Rock in any serious role ever again.)

Saw X... I like that one. It truly felt like a return to the series, even down to the fucking ASPECT RATIO they filmed in!!! Thats good attention to detail!!! And the traps were actually good and memorable, well, most of them. Seeing John Kramer back as the focus is awesome too and Amanda... it was so nice seeing her again.

So yeah, I don't have much to say because my Saw fixation only appears once in a blue moon so I dont remember much. But when it strikes? Oh it STRIKES ALRIGHT!

Only watch Saw 1 and MAYBE Saw 2 and 3 if you're curious. These movies aren't for most people and I don't recommend it to everyone.

Also, I love Billy. He's such a silly guy. I love how he rides in with his tricycle!!!!

I love him in Saw X where he delivered the surgery tools so that a man can cut open his brain! And in Saw 4 where his head became a shotgun!!! And in Saw 1 where he rides in after a traumatised woman cuts open a person's stomach to stop their skull from being utterly destroyed!!! And in Saw 2 where he laughs at some police officers getting killed by a set of deadly stairs and an electric fence. And in Jigsaw where he watches people getting hanged!!!! And in Saw 6 where he swoops in from a wire around his neck and laughs at a guy who has to choose who's he gonna let die. And in Saw 7 where he crashes through a window in a cage to tell a guy to stab himself with spikes to stop a woman from getting impaled on a giant wheel!!!

[spacenintendogs]

modern au ask. What are the gangs personal clothing styles ?

ooooo.... i'm not very fashionable nor am i rlly confident abt my knowledge of styles & stuff so i'm sorry if it's not as creative as it could be :')

hiccup i see a lot of layers, similar to how he dresses in the dreamworks franchise. as he gets older there's more leather since he does a lot of motorcycle riding. flannels, graphic tees, baggier cargo pants & shorts & sneakers are his general go-to. has a nice pair of chucks he brings out once in a while. no piercings but he has a tattoo of toothless' strike class silhouette on one of his shoulder blades.

astrid dresses practically. usually in a pair of jeans or leggings. when she dresses more casually it's basketball shorts with a jersey of some kind. she wears jerseys relatively often too. also shirts she can easily move & breathe in. i think she'd like horizontal stripes for shirts but i might be projecting lol. she's got multiple ear piercings on both ears tho. she also loves her headbands!!! gets a specially made one from tuff & snot with stormfly's spines on it!! steel toed boots.

fishlegs dresses like a hipster. have u seen his moustache in httyd 3?? he's a hipster & he fucking rocks it. also rocks a lot of street styles he's one of the most fashionable of the gang & he is proud of it. he looks great always. gets the tattoos on his arms like he has in httyd 3. he also likes wearing rings!! has a wooden bead bracelet he wears from his older sister. uses stuff like beard oil & is super into skincare. u will catch him with a face mask & cucumbers over his eyes.

snotlout prob goes through the biggest style shift. when he's younger he dresses like the usual high school douchebag, backwards cap & everything. once he's a senior & after he graduates he's more biker style (he does become a biker dude after all). super tight t-shirts that show his boobs lmao. he gets his ears pierced & gets a labret piercing. tattoo sleeve on his right arm of monstrous nightmares entangling around each other. old habits die hard tho so sometimes u catch him with his backwards cap. heeled boots bc he likes to be tall.

ruffnut is so fucking cool u guys. she dresses in a variety of styles, sometimes vastly different day to day but she pulls them all off flawlessly. strong fashion is actually how she & fishlegs bond sometimes (or argue lmao). she's got so many ear piercings & switches out what she has by the day. she does her hair the most elaborately out of the gang, when it's long or short. loves long necklaces & layers them. has her nose pierced too. she has a tattoo of barf going down her calf (tuff has the other half so if they stand next to each other it completes the zippleback!!). her fave pair of shoes tho are her sketchers hiking sandals. let the dogs out!!!

tuff is also so fucking cool, though in a more laid back way compared to ruff. more grungy. ripped jeans from falling off his longboard. old sneakers that have been everywhere. shirts he's had since middle school that may be repurposed to have ripped sleeves or become crop tops. that ugly dress u saw at a thrift store? he's wearing it & fucking looks great. he has his septum pierced and multiple ear piercings (like httyd 3). i also think he'd get snake bites. when he's younger he wears beanies a lot but once he's older he puts his hair up in more elaborate "viking" styles with how he braids. also enjoys tank tops & more frayed looks to shirts in general. has belch tattooed down his calf (ruff has the other half, as stated above).

[hartwinorlose]

this is going to be an extremely negative review about furiosa

if you liked it, i am so happy that you got something from it, but i nearly cried tears of anger and frustration. i know that's a bit of an overreaction but mad max: fury road got me back into writing fanfiction, it got me into action movies, and it made me more interested in cinema as a medium

all that to say

i not only disliked this movie, i actively hated it, and i think it brings the franchise down. i'm going to indiscriminately get into spoilers but, like... please save yourself the money and don't watch this movie

first off, i was not jazzed for anya taylor joy when i first found out about the casting and yeah. she didn't sell me on furiosa. she doesn't look like her, sound like her, or bring anything to the role at all. this was severe miscasting, and i hate to think it was just because she's hollywood's hot commodity at the moment, but i can't think of another reason. (on a separate note, chris hemsworth was the one bright spot in this movie imo - he was actually really good)

the editing and cinematography had some good moments but was overall off-putting. instead of being spellbound by the whole movie like i was with fury road, i marked a few shots that were stellar

i HATED the plot. i cannot FATHOM why you would center this movie around some random guy who actually makes immortan joe look like a hero??? after watching this, i actually cannot understand why furiosa stole the wives from him. he respected her opinions, saved her from the guy she centered her whole life around hating, and just in general did not do anything to convince me that furiosa would hate him. i fucking hate this. why would you do this, george miller

i don't like jack. i don't know him. i don't buy that furiosa would tell him where the green place is because SHE DOESN'T KNOW HIM EITHER. WHY ARE ALL THESE RANDOM GUYS INFATUATED WITH FURIOSA. STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT

like seriously, rictus, immortan joe, jack, fucking chris hemsworth's character whose name i am too upset to remember - they all just take one look at furiosa and go ride-or-die for her and i DON'T UNDERSTAND

we don't see her with the wives. we don't see furiosa with the wives. i don't understand why she was so loyal to them. i wanted to see her build a relationship with them, goddammit, that is the part of furiosa's backstory i CARED ABOUT

the fact that she used the fucking peach pit on this NOBODY of a man and didn't save it to rebuild the green place. she planted it in the citadel, a place she ostensibly hated and didn't realize she would be returning to. she used the peach pit her mother gave her in the home of who we're supposed to be her biggest enemy to get revenge on a dude who doesn't fucking matter in the scheme of her life. look how they massacred my girl. furiosa, sweetie, i'm so, so sorry everything in this movie centered around a goddamn MAN

i mean, they basically fridged her mother. this is every "dead wife as motivation for revenge story," it's just a mom this time. what the fuck, that's so fucking shallow. you really couldn't come up with anything better. no one pitched ANYTHING better??? bullshit

[vidreview]

VIDEO ESSAY ROUNDUP #5

[originally posted march 30th 2024]

it's been a minute since i've done one of these, for a whole host of reasons. the biggest one is that i just haven't been watching very much youtube lately, on account of spending my time making youtube instead. in February i released a scripted essay about the German time travel murder mystery show DARK, while in March i posted an unscripted conversation piece about all the movies i own but haven't watched. i've got a lot more planned for this year, but we're here to talk about other people's essays, not mine. so let's do that!

"Yellow Paint" by Caleb Gamman.

i've talked about Caleb Gamman on this blog before, and no doubt i will continue to do so. he's a fantastic and criminally underrated essayist whose materialist approach to media analysis is a model for the kind of thing anyone making video essays ought to aspire to. nominally about the discourse over yellow paint signposting interactible objects in modern AAA video games, this essay is a disgusted and exhausted act of passive aggression (which turns into regular aggression by the end) against the ways social media and corporate greed have engendered an atmosphere of deliberate ignorance and illiteracy towards games, traditional media, news, politics, everything. it's an entertaining and vindicating watch, full of great points argued with genuine conviction.

"PS1 STORIES - 3D SHOOTING MAKER" by Blue Bidya Game.

this one i found through a friend posting about it. we're looking at a review of a very specific PS1 "RPG Maker" spinoff dedicated to 3D rail shooters a la Star Fox --which is an instant sell for me, a long-suffering Star Fox enjoyer. but it's just as much an in-depth history of the Maker franchise as a whole, which is a lot deeper and more interesting than i ever could've imagined. a lot of research went into this, a task i can only imagine was made incredibly difficult by the language barrier. it's a great little video that packs a lot of charm into its 31 minute runtime, but what i find even more remarkable is Blue Bidya Game's mission statement: "I do sentimental videos on every game in the PS1 library alphanumerically and region-free until I die. Let's get weird and look through low graphical detail windows together. What do you think is out there? What could be just past those blocky hills?" at time of writing, there are 36 videos on Blue Bidya Game's channel, the vast majority of which are below 2000 views. if the quality of this single essay is even remotely indicative of the rest of his catalogue, then this might qualify as one of the most exciting & slept-on works of historical games journalism out there. if you were a fan of Tim Rogers' "Let's Mosey: A Slow Translation Of Final Fantasy VII" series, i think you may have found your new favorite youtube channel. you're welcome

"VR's Greatest Hope, We Thought - Half Life: Alyx Four Years Later" by Brother Burn.

there was a time when i believed wholeheartedly that VR was my beat. i futzed around with the Oculus DK2 at the University of Oklahoma tech lab in, what, 2014? and had my mind blown by the experience of riding a virtual roller coaster. in 2016 my roommate and i went halfsies on an HTC Vive, which arrived on our doorstep the very day that Donald Trump won the presidential election. more on-the-nose symbolism you couldn't possibly ask for-- that is, assuming VR software development & investment kept up its then-rapid pace long enough to support total quadrennial escapism, which it absolutely did not. don't get me wrong, i found a number of titles to love; i made a video about perennial VR classic Beat Saber in 2018, but was plenty charmed by the likes of Arizona Sunshine, The Gallery, Vanishing Realms, Zombie Training Simulator, and especially the fast-paced climbing game To The Top, whose only weakness for me was the limited number of tracks in its (admittedly good) OST with no ability to easily import your own tracks instead. yet for as much as i liked these games, vanishingly little about them was so far beyond what was offered by the tech demos present in Valve's VR pack-in The Lab that you couldn't get an approximately similar experience by just playing that instead. alas, the horizon of possibility for VR games hit something of a ceiling once all the most obvious ludic experiences had been more or less perfected.

anyway, this video by Brother Burn is at least in part about that. i never played Half Life: Alyx, but it certainly seemed positioned to be "VR's Greatest Hope" at the time and so i was naturally drawn in by this essay's title. what it confirmed for me is that i'm glad Alyx exists, but don't feel an especial need to play it. he talks at length about the stealth level "Jeff", which sounds cool as hell and is something i could never under any circumstances subject myself to. i cannot handle horror in VR. there's a section of Arizona Sunshine set in an abandoned mine that i had to psych myself up to finish for three weeks. so it's good, in that respect, to get a breezey overview of Alyx from someone who isn't a Half Life superfan (like me), who gets motion sick in VR easily (also like me), and who clearly came up during a very specific era of youtube (ditto). Brother Burn's style is a time-capsule from 2017 in all the best ways. post-Game Grumps, pre-Breadtube, high effort editing with a lightly self-aggrandizing sense of humor, lives maybe two or three doors down from Errant Signal; i dunno what to say except i find his work charming. that he has less than 2000 subscribers at time of writing is as unfortunate as it is unsurprising.

"remember fingerboards?" by Jeffiot.

this may quietly turn out to be one of my favorite video essays of the year. a history of skateboarding with a history of finger-skateboarding along with a personal history of both into a genuine loveletter to what is objectively a very silly activity? oh yes, thank you very much, i'll take two. the section where he first tries fingerboarding is so surprising and charming, and everything that follows is like… i dunno, freeing? there's something about this video that feels like a substantially relieved exhale, as it's the first really niche thing Jeffiot's done since the astronomical success of his Skull Trumpet essay. the scariest part of being Suddenly Popular after such a long time being totally invisible is the looming specter of What Next. the temptation must've been there to just keep on doing videos investigating the origins of Weird Internet Ephemera forever, since that clearly resonated with a lot of people. instead, here he is doing something totally unrelated, in a realm that none of his new subscribers are likely to be interested in --a supposition at least momentarily supported by the fact that this video only has 14,000 views after a single day (compared to the 100k+ views his last few hit). that number will surely go up, but for the moment i think it's illustrative of the fact that every channel's subscriber count actually contains at least two, probably more, discrete pools of audience. 155,000 subscribers is impressive and substantial, but how many of those people are there for Jeffiot, and how many are there for More Skull Trumpet? all things being equal (which they very much are not), i see that 14k viewership number as a soft indication of Jeffiot's dependable long-term viewers, the people who'll follow him down whatever blind alley he wanders through.

i plugged Jeffiot in the previous roundup, with a lot of time spent analyzing the phenomenon of running a small channel that suddenly gets huge because of a single viral hit. when i wrote that post in january of this year, he'd just exceeded 50,000 subscribers after having only 5,000 a few weeks prior. now, two months later, he's got over 155,000 subscribers. this makes Jeffiot's channel a really useful case study in how one translates good luck into good fortune. the most notable development in my opinion is that quite a lot of Jeffiot's back catalogue has seen an immense increase in viewership as well, something that simply does not happen unless there's a palpable and immediate and consistent qualitative energy shared between the old stuff and The Thing That Went Viral. when i say that the job of a video essayist toiling in sub-5k-views obscurity is to lay the groundwork for getting lucky, this is exactly what i mean. Jeffiot's stuff is high-effort, surprising, and thoroughly entertaining across the board, unique in subject matter yet somehow broadly approachable (that he's clearly very influenced by the work of Tim Rogers over at Action Button is, i'm sure, just a coincidence). i really hope that Jeffiot doesn't take the relatively low viewership of this fingerboard essay as a Failure and vow to stay away from such seemingly off-brand subject matter in the future. it's not a failure (i mean, god, i'd kill for a video of mine to even break 5k in a single day at this point), but rather an indication of confidence and direction. the best artists and creators will walk their path whether you follow them or not. there's no being true to what compels you which also permits universal success, and any attempt to the contrary is a great way to strangle your soul to death. the successes float you on from the sinkers. views and subscribers don't have a linear relationship with monetary success on youtube (unless you rely exclusively on ad revenue, at which point you're already fucked and should probably check a calendar to see if it's still 2015), yet it's so easy to get spooked by them because youtube wants us to be obsessed with analytics. somehow, i think Jeffiot's smart enough to avoid such pitfalls.

"The Mass Extinction Debates: A Science Communication Odyssey" by Oliver Lugg.

this one was suggested to me through my askbox. what strikes me most about this video is how it spends 45 minutes building up the context leading up to the debates about what actually caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, so that you understand what they really represented beyond a simple who's right/who's wrong. i had no idea this was such a recent thing-- 1996, man. that's so in my lifetime. i've always thought the asteroid theory was just uncontroversially true, it never occurred to me that there would have been a combative dogma against it in the scientific community. this is just a good, fun, enjoyable and educational video essay.

"Everyone But Me Is Wrong About The Cornetto Trilogy" by Innuendo Studios.

this is an essay refuting the semi-popular assertion that the Cornetto Trilogy (Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World's End) are about stunted manchildren being forced by circumstance to finally grow up. instead, Ian Danskin argues, these films are about stunted manchildren who refuse to change until circumstances beyond their control forceably change the entire rest of the world in a way that allows them to never have to grow up. this is one of those essays that's clearly been on the backburner for a long time, delivered with a real sense of frustration and desire to correct the record on something that seems, to Danskin, transparently obvious.

i liked this essay a lot because (to get a bit inside baseball) i'm dedicated to finally producing my extremely-long-in-the-works essay titled Everyone Is Wrong About LOST, about how everyone is wrong about the tv show LOST, by the end of this year. a big question for me in writing that essay has been what tone to strike, how much indignance i should show, where the line between funny and annoying lies. this essay did a lot to clarify that question for me, which is only that much more edifying because Ian Danskin has been at this since 2014. his original essay, This Is Phil Fish, was a big inspiration for me when i first started thinking i might want to try my hand at this gig, and his work ever since has remained some of the most consistently good and clear argumentative writing on the platform. any time he posts a new essay is a moment of quiet celebration for me, especially on the rare occasion he does traditional media analysis like this instead of the equally excellent but generally dry rhetorical analysis he's been doing with the Alt-Right Playbook for the last 6 years. it feels somehow poetic to once again have the path forward in my work clarified by a creator who inspired me an entire gender ago, like somehow despite all that's changed i'm still being true to my WAIT HOLD ON WHAT

well i guess i'd better hurry up and make this fucking LOST video, huh?

<- ROUNDUP #4 | ROUNDUP #6 ->

[minijenn]

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Alright it's time to out myself in front of the entire HTTYD tumblr fandom. I like this movie. A lot. Ok? Like I think its really fucking great and I will not deny that. Is it as good as the first two entries in this franchise? No, but it's still damn solid in its own right. So let's get into it.

We pick up a year after the last movie, with the arrival of another new threat to Berk, the "Night Fury killer" Grimmel the Grisley. To protect his people and their dragons, Hiccup moves the entire tribe to a new island while in search for the Hidden World, an unreachable utopia for all dragonkind. Meanwhile, Toothless is allured by the arrival of a new, mysterious female dragon, the Light Fury, which complicates matters even further as Hiccup begins to worry that he and Toothless are growing apart.

So yeah still a pretty good plot, though not as solidly cohesive as the first two. Still, I enjoy the ride here a lot; we still get a lot of great scenes of the riders fighting their foes, lots of great flying scenes (especially that one between Toothless and the Light Fury, man that scene is just gorgeous), lots of action and strangely enough, a bit more of a focus on humor here than usual? I mean it's ok, but a little strange given this is the final entry in the franchise and the stakes are supposed to be higher than ever.

Speaking of stakes, let's talk about that. Grimmel is by in large the only real new character here (aside from the Light Fury I guess, and she's fine, I don't understand the hate towards her design, I think she's cute). And he is... probably the lamest fuckin villain in this franchise, there I said it. He's just... some dude. He's nowhere near as unhinged and intimidating as Drago, nowhere near as smart or interesting or even just fun to watch as any of the villains in the HTTYD shows, he's just... idk man, a really boring villain. Certainly not what I think the "ultimate" challenge for a protagonist as well developed and interesting as Hiccup should be imo.

I know there are plenty of complains thrown around about this movie, the other riders are poorly-characterized, Grimmel is a lame villain (as I just said, I agree with that one), and of course, it's biggest controversy, it's ending. But here's my take on the ending. I think it's actually pretty bold of them to have the dragons leave? Like yes, there is a heavy sense of finality to it, but that's sort of the point. There's a massive change to the status quo, it feels like a genuine ending with little in the way of Dreamworks doing what they always fucking do in trying to bait any unecessary sequels. And then of course, there's the epilogue, which may be one of my favorite scenes in the entire franchise. I literally cannot watch it without crying, I'm such a fucking wreck for this boy and his dragon oh my god.

As usual, visually and audibly, this movie is absolutely wonderful. The animation here is especially impressive, the lighting took my breath away in some spots with just how realistic some of it looked, while still maintaining the series' usual style. The Hidden World especially, we don't see it for very long, but it is so damn pretty to look at. The music is, of course, also absolutely lovely, once again drawing on familiar themes from throughout the series to send it off one last time.

There's lots of other little things I love about this movie too, like the flashbacks to Stoick and Hiccup when Hiccup was little (I cry), any cute Hicstrid moments, especially the wedding (I cry), Toothless being an absolute mess while trying to impress the Light Fury (I die laughing), just... god, it's more How to Train Your Dragon, man, I fucking love this franchise, how the hell can I possibly hate this movie when there's still so much of what I love about the first two in here?

I do understand, this movie is flawed in some pretty big ways. And yet... it's still so beautiful all the same. I adore it, even if others don't, and I think that's ok? We can all enjoy different things and I just so happen to enjoy this. No, it's certainly not the best this series can do, and maybe the HTTYD franchise does deserve a better conclusion. But for what we got, well... I think it's pretty damn great all the same.

Overall Rating: 9/10

Verdict: How to get your dragon some rizz bc gottdamn he needs some

Previous Review (Captain Underpants: The Epic First Movie)

Next Movie (Abominable)

[rosewood-multifandom-writer]

Review Speed-Round of the Bad Boys series (minus Ride or Die because I have not seen that yet):

I’m just gonna review them as a worst to best ranking, so that’s how that is gonna go. Speed round reviews behind the cut because my ramblings about the third one is a very chunky paragraph, lol.

3. Bad Boys 2. It’s not a terrible movie by any means, but it suffers from a few more issues than the first 1995 film had. It’s a 2000’s film, so it’s gonna have the typical and over-the-top at times vulgar jokes. Then of course we have to make the best female character be a damsel in distress. The villain is also a typical greasy loser who just so happened to be a mob boss with a ton of money from transporting a bunch of ecstasy from multiple parts of the world, and Miami just so happened to be one of the places he tries taking over. Not to mention that this film had a bukkake of explosions and buildings getting destroyed. Less is more. give this film a 15/20. It’s saved by the good acting and the humor that comes from Martin Lawerence, and Captain Howard and the other police and former SEAL men are the best supporting cast.

2. Bad Boys 1995: A good start to this franchise. My only problems with this is once again, the lackluster female supporting cast. Juli the minute she’s doing something good, it’s overshadowed by the fact that she became a damsel in the last half of the movie. The villain is also a typical 90’s mustache twirling gangster, I don’t even remember his name. Or the name of the Bad Boys 2 villain. In fact in my opinion, Bad Boys For Life made a more memorable villain, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Once again, a lot of it is made up with the humor and chemistry between Mike and Marcus as well as Captain Howard. Also, excessive explosions, courtesy of Michael Bay. I give this a 17/20.

1. Bad Boys for Life. In my opinion, it’s a near perfect third sequel. It deconstructs the character Mike Lowry, who is a typical macho man Casanova guy that lets his dick do the talking and thinking for him when around a hot girl or some strippers. Him hopping in bed with La Bruja bit him in the end severely, as the contents of his balls nearly beat him to death at the climax. Marcus is at his best here too, being a good balance of comedic and serious. The serious moments from Marcus are my favorite moments. The moments where he’s praying to god that Mike makes it after getting shot four times in his torso, grieving Captain Howard’s death, and finding out that Mike had a “damn, did not use protection” baby with La Bruja. The villain is fantastic. In fact, the biggest flaw in the previous two Bad Boys films is fixed here. The female characters felt like they served a purpose other than being a damsel or a victim. The main villain is one of Mike’s old flings, and the supporting cast are just as badass as the duo. If I talked about this more, this speed round review would ironically be long (lol as if it isn’t already long) so I’ll stop there. It’s a great movie, I’d recommend watching the first movie and then skipping to this one. 19/20. This film does jump the shark, admittedly, but I’ll see if Ride or Die is just as good a this movie, is decent, or just as bad as Bad Boys 2.

TL:DR, I want more female villains as diabolical, vengeful, and dangerous like La Bruja. In fact, might make a new female villain character based off of her. Give Bad Boys 2 a skip, it’s a mix of good humor from the 1995 film mixed with vulgar try-hard 2000’s humor mixed with a weak forgettable villain. Bad Boys 1995 is a classic and has flaws, but is still otherwise enjoyable and aged fairly well. Bad Boys For Life is the rare good third sequel that is a great mix of action, drama, and the franchise’s usual humor.

I love action movies.

[wingitbold]

Final Destination

So, Final Destination is a good franchise, right? Freak accident that traumatized us since we were kids (I am a genZ born before 2000), traumatized us, gave us some freaky life lessons on how to not drive behind a truck carrying log, NEVER ride a roller coaster, do NOT plunge your hand into the drainage pipe (OK, but who does that?), make sure your cup is not leaking on electronics, stay away from things if they are just looking out of place, look for signs, among other things.

I wonder if half of my anxiety and obsessing over double checking things comes from that. Which is, mayhaps a good thing. But, to me, after recent binge watch session, I guess these movies rather should be put in the psychological horror section rather than pure horror. Because, when you watch them, even 4 of them in one sitting, they don't really phase you much. But then everything related to it keeps messing with your head. Also the fact that, all these freak accident can very much happen to anyone of us doesn't really give us a lot of confidence.

Now, coming to the plot, I have questions.

1. Who is the death?

See, they don't really emphasize on a personification of death or its logic of justice much in the film series, but I am reluctant to believe that death doesn't have some uncanny connection with the guy form morgue. He, whenever mentions death, acts like he is talking about an eccentric friend who we find quirky but can be scary to others. Like, how he words his thoughts or warnings on death is creepy and amusing. A mere mortal shouldn't be that amused when talking about death and its "design".

2. Death's Design

Now, coming to design, what was it? Considering in FD1, deaths kept visiting them in a "first come, first serve" basis. In part 2, it went on reverse gear.

In 3, deaths kept taking its turn not only based on order, but also based on some creepy hints laid around through pictures taken before the first premonition happened. Showing, death had an alternate plan for all of them since the beginning. I also believe, among the students on the roller coaster, some were never meant to be saved even by Berkeley. Like, Jason whose picture had only the roller coaster rails behind him, indicating he was designed to die from the freak accident from the beginning.

3. Cheating the Design

Now, this is an exam where no one can cheat. Some characters might feel at some point that they were saved, and cheated death successfully, but their claim were always refuted soon enough. The only one to successfully dodge it are from Final Destination 2, but then I guess the design was hinted at being reset again after that kid's death.

4. PTSD??????!!!!

However the biggest question of them all, was PTSD a thing in that universe. Man, the things they witnessed, how most of the characters became witnesses to other very gruesome deaths make me wonder, how the f#ck they didn't die of stress, fear, heart attack, or even dead appetite before death could even knock on their door. Because, tbh, Frankie's death in 3 or Billy in 1 would most probably kill me just by excessive vomiting. Those kids had the heart of fudging Hercules.

Anyway, thank God I will be working from home today, or else riding on that metro (subway) would have stressed me out.😐

[themosleyreview]

The Mosley Review: The Marvels

Recently, the fandom surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become splintered into two types. On one side, you have the die hards that have enjoyed everything up to this point, but will also admit that there is a problem in the quality control with the films and television shows. On the other side, you have those that believe that we are currently experiencing superhero fatigue and Marvel has really gone down hill and should stop. Well, I'm of both camps. I have been there since day 1 and have enjoyed seeing these heroes have their stories told in a grounded manner. I also whole heartedly agree that ever since Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home, the franchise has been floundering when it comes to the great storytelling and truly is running out of gas. The clear vision of where these stories were leading to has been so vague in this "Multiverse Saga" and it has truly hindered any hopes of recovery. Now comes this film that seeks to continue the cosmic portion of this saga by bringing us a sequel to a film that did nothing truly special for its titular character, but at least she gets some help. It should make for a fun and engaging story that helps further each character in development and maybe right the ship a little bit. Right? Unfortunately, that is not the case here and especially for Captain Marvel. I thought Thor was being miss handled in his third and fourth films, but man this character was all but destroyed in just her second film. Its a sad day when all that is worth watching in your big budget space adventure is your main three leads and only one of them is the true star.

Brie Larson returns as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel and she was better this time around as the character. She had genuine moments of humanity as we see her become not so perfect. Where it all falls apart is when she continues to be the battering ram of a character that has no regard for authority or the lives of others when making her decisions. There are almost no consequences for her actions and she ultimately becomes the true villain of the story in my opinion. Teyonah Parris returns as Monica Rambeau and she continues to be a fun addition to the universe and I liked the growth of her character. She gets to let loose a little more and not be as tight and focused all the time. Her emotional connection to Carol comes full circle and it was one of the highlights of the film. Iman Vellani makes a joyuss return as Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel and she truly was the star of this film. Her adorable and youthful energy really saved so many scenes and you really connect with her as her worldly views expand. The chemistry between all three of them is where the film shines and makes the film entertaining. Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury, but I was saddened by him. For half of the film, Sam IS Nick Fury and the other half is Sam being Sam as he just reacts to things and is just there for the ride. His connections to Monica and Carol are still good to watch but other than that, he really didn't have much to do in this film. Gary Lewis was really good as the leader of the Skrulls, Emperor Dro'ge and he highlights one of the biggest problems of the film. He carries the devastating torch left from the Secret Invasion series and it was so depressing. The so called "hero" Captain Marvel just makes things worse for him and his species. Speaking of problematic, Zawe Ashton was fantastic as the main antagonist Supremor Dar-Benn. Its always more interesting when a so called villain is trying to do something for the greater good, even if their methods are cruel. She embodied that and I empathized with her. The reason why I say shes problematic, is that there wasn't really anything else interesting done with her. She had all the fixings to become a truly memorable villain, but she falls into that predictable trap of just fighting all the time and not trying to solve the problem logically. The action scenes between her and The Marvels were all great, but I wish she had time to actually shine.

The score by Laura Karpman was good and puncuated the action scenes. I did like the theme this time around for Captain Marvel. It was more heroic and slightly more memorable. The action set pieces were the highlight of the film and there's plenty of it. So with all of the action sequences and spectacle stripped away, what do you have? A film about consequences for brash actions? No. Character growth of an older hero learning how to reconnect with humanity from another younger hero? No. How about using your head to solve a crisis for the betterment of a dying planet and/or its people? Not at all. What you have is a film that's all spectacle and none of the substance the Marvel films were known for in the past. For example, once we get to a solution for the antagonist that could benefit everyone, its as if the writer was like "Nah. That's boring. Make them fight and blow more stuff up!" and then the film is over. Honestly, the plot could've been solved in less than twenty minutes. Oh and don't get me started on the post credits scene. Its a cool reintroduction of a beloved character, but its an unnecessary over CGI'd version. I know the character looks more comic book accurate, but their practical version that was done years ago was so much better. This wasn't the worst Marvel film to date, but it didn't do Captain Marvel any favors. This was just a waste of time in the end. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in comments below. Thanks for reading!

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Two Topics

Boofy777:

Hello, this will be two parts on two different topics so please bear with me.

FIRST OF ALL, RED HAIR. It would seem that red hair = impending  death in the TWD universe, and here are the reasons I believe this.  First of all we have Sophia and her red haired doll, and of course Sofia passed away. Next we have Mica in S4 and the red haired doll she found in the cabin in The Grove named Griselda Gunderson.  As we know, Mica was killed by her sister, Lizzie. We also have the redheads Eric (killed in the Negan war), Frankie (Negans’s former wife, killed by the Whisperers), Daniel from The Kingdom (died in Negan war) Leah, whether a natural redhead or Daryl’s hallucination as a redhead, killed by Daryl himself.  And last but NEVER least, Abraham, killed by Lucille - and let’s not forget, Michonne saw a walker with red hair who looked just like him. Redheads just don’t fare well on the show.

I would also like to discuss the podcast for a bit.  Many die hard TDer’s have left “the team” over the last few years, finally reaching the conclusion that the original plan WAS to bring Beth back, but somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, “plans got dicked”, to quote Abraham Ford.  To me, the biggest argument against this idea is that EMILY HAS NEVER EXPLAINED THAT THIS WAS THE CASE.

Laurie Holden, who played Andrea, has been very frank in a couple of interviews since Andrea’s death   that the original plan for her character was to remain with the franchise for at least eight seasons. She even said that she was supposed to “save Woodbury  riding in on a horse” and was “supposed to end up with Rick”, as in the comics. 

Okay - so why hasn’t Emily stated this in interviews when the topic of returning is brought up?  It’s been YEARS now, so when people ask, why not say so?  Like, “Well I was supposed to come back, but …."  ??? I mean,  she could cite creative differences, conflicts with her music projects, anything at all.

And yet….she doesn’t.  She’s not even smooth about it, saying something like, "well in the zombie apocalypse, anything is possible, right?” Which would be true either way, since shows write people back in all of the time, this is all FICTION after all, so why is she so dodgy and uncomfortable when this is brought up?  What are your thoughts?

TWDMusicBoxMystery:

I heartily agree! You explained both of these very well. I’m super impressed with all the examples of doomed red heads you came up with (RIP all of them). Great connections there.

And I agree about them explaining it, too. I always make the same argument for the as-yet-unseen scenes they filmed with Emily at the white cabin during S5. Can sequences like that get cut? Sure. But when they do, they ALWAYS end up as deleted scenes or DVD extras. Furthermore, there was a man who owned the property and was allowed to take pics while they filmed, but was told he couldn’t post them until after the scenes aired on TV. He still has not shared those pics. And if the scenes had been scrapped, he would have been allowed to post his pics already.

So yeah, it all amounts to the same thing: Beth and those missing scenes are still in play, which is why the writers and everyone associated with the show are so tight-lipped about them. If things had changed, trust me, we’d know. Just as you said above. So, we’re definitely on the same page about this.

Xoxo! 🔔💝

[fridge-04]

Reminder that Rouge the Bat is the biggest ride or die mf in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise

[haroldgross]

New Post has been published on Harold Gross: The 5a.m. Critic

New Post has been published on https://literaryends.com/hgblog/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one/

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

[3 stars]

While this boasts some of the biggest and most unrelenting action of the MI franchise it also, surprisingly, has the second weakest script of the series so far (only topped by MI 2). And I say “surprisingly” because it was another co-written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie (Top Gun: Maverick).

This latest installment… or should I say down-payment given the nature of the two-part tale… isn’t bad. In fact it has a thrill a minute and was quite prescient about the world. It was already in the can  just months ahead of ChatGPT becoming the seismic market and political hot potato that continues to rock the world.  In fact, it would have preceded it if it had hit theaters as planned before the pandemic. However, that also means they spend a great deal of time explaining things that, now, everyone knows and thinks they understand. It makes the movie a bit exposition heavy, to be sure.

But all that aside, the truth is that MI has been getting steadily darker for the last few movies. Much like Bond, the man at the center of the stories is getting worn down and losing those around him. The humor has drained out of the stories and the reality of the fight has taken over, for better and worse. It has made the stories more realistic, but it has also leeched out much of the respite and joy that made them triumphant at the end. It is feeling a lot more like No Time to Die than, say, Octopussy.

Some of the humor gap was due to the lack of screen time for Simon Pegg (Luck) and Ving Rhames (Wendell & Wild), who have both been support, brains, and comic relief for the series. Rebecca Ferguson (Silo) had more humor, or at least light-hearted interaction with Tom Cruise (Top Gun: Maverick) than either of the two making for an odd rhythm. And Haley Atwell (Christopher Robin), who finally got the spy-ish role she has deserved, likewise carried that aspect of the story.

The women, interestingly, are the real center of movie, holding it all up. Even Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Thunder Force), with a smaller role, added significantly to that aspect.

But our big bads were an odd mix. Esai Morales was very effective as the cold representative of destruction. But Vanessa Kirby ( Hobbs & Shaw) reprising her role was a bit more confused and unfocused. Perhaps we’ll get more in part 2 of the story to understand her conflicts? And even the “good” side of the equation, read Cruises’ own folks, were less than crisp in their actions and motivations. Shea Whigham (Vice) clearly has a personal beef that isn’t yet revealed. And Cary Elwes (We Don’t Belong Here) was, well almost laughable in his role as Director. How much of this came down to late editing of stories versus just weak directing on McQuarrie’s part is hard to pull apart, but some of it lands at his feet to be sure.

Ultimately, this is a great ride with a lot of open questions and wounds to be resolved in the second film. Did it need to be two films? Probably not. One 3 hour installment probably could have done it by trimming several of the many, many, many chase scenes and several discussions. But I am willing to reassess when I see the true ending of a clever saga. So do see this if you like the MI universe, but know that you’re not going to feel sated at the end, only primed for the next sitting.

Where to watch

[cardentist]

I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships. 

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext. 

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole. 

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...)  When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

[hannahstarshade]

R I S E

It's that time of year again. The weather is getting colder and we all want to snuggle up under some blankets and watch something comforting to distract us from the hellfire surrounding us. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will always be a comfort franchise to me. In recent years, the 2018 animated series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has risen to the top of my list of go-to’s. I can't remember the last time I felt this kind of wholesome energy from a bunch of fictional characters. This particular iteration of the turtles hits home. So yeah. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was great and here’s why. Please be warned, there will be a few spoilers ahead.

CHARACTERS

In every iteration of TMNT, the characters are what matter the most. The four brothers are the focal point. Their experiences and interactions with the world are key. This is by far the most loving family dynamic I’ve seen with Turtles. They act as teenagers would, and not in a “boys will be boys” kind of way. They have their moments of stupidity and insightfulness. They are aware of what they do, but still have much to learn. I also appreciate that April is a part of the family from the get-go. There aren’t any episodes that show her acclimating to the idea of mutants. She’s their ride-or-die in the first few minutes all the way through the finale. Another thing this show has going for it is Splinter. He comes across as uncaring and washed up until we learn about his backstory. I’ve said it before, but his influence on the brothers is paramount. The rogue’s galley is more reminiscent of a villain of the week style show, with a few stand-outs that drive the more plot heavy episodes. Before being introduced to Shredder, the biggest threat is Baron Draxum. He is brand new to the canon, and is just campy enough to fit into this universe. Also don’t even get me started on Big Mama, aka the literal definition of gaslight gatekeep girlboss. I like this show’s version of Shredder. He is by far the most intimidating and the most powerful. This makes the turtles’ numerous defeats and final victory all the more impactful and satisfying. 

STORYTELLING

Most of the episodes are split in half into segments. These run about eleven minutes each, and are full of the typical wacky crazy adventures you’d expect the teens to get into. Returning a rented movie, trying on fashionable clothes, competing for the best bedroom in the lair, and more, all lead to hijinks aplenty. While these episodes have a few elements that link together in the grand scheme of things, they can be enjoyed on their own as short romps. The more plot driven episodes take up the whole twenty-two minutes or so. As someone who has difficulty paying attention sometimes, this set up is perfect for both binging and casual watching. I can take breaks and feel like I didn’t miss something vital, or I can view everything all at once and watch the threads weave together. The story itself feels both familiar and brand new to the Turtle canon. After nearly four decades, we all probably know the lore. Four turtle brothers are trained by their rat father to defeat the evil Shredder and save the world from various national and intergalactic threats. What makes Rise stand out is the fantasy elements and the emotional beats. Baron Draxum is the main threat for a long time, as he attempts to take over the Hidden City and the surface world by amassing power from Big Mama and the Foot Clan. Instead of being a present figure, Shredder is in literal pieces. His vessel has to be constructed to bring him to life. Despite the fun times, there is a constant looming fear that Shredder will return, and the turtles are none the wiser until it’s too late. As this is happening, the turtles are still coming into their own as they train to master their mystical weapons. Splinter, on the other hand, must face the past he has been running from. When they do encounter Shredder, it feels earned. They then have to shift gears and save the world from a demon’s wrath. Draxum has a change of heart, Splinter comes to terms with his mutation related trauma, and the turtles and April band together as a family to save the day. While simplistic on paper, it works with this show’s particular format.

ANIMATION & DESIGN

There was a lot of initial criticism directed towards the animation. Some saw it as too bouncy or thought characters like Splinter were too ugly. Personally, I loved it all. Each character is designed with their personality in mind. Raph is the bulkiest of the turtles, lending to a more direct bruiser approach to fighting. He is also the biggest softy of them all with a lot of love to give. In contrast, Leo is smaller and able to move through fights with ease. Just as he dodges blows, he dodges his responsibilities. The animation itself is quick and clean. Because this series leans more towards light-heartedness, this makes the exaggerated expressions and movements all the more effective. This also means fight sequences are spectacular to watch. The most noteworthy are the no-weapons fight against the rogue gallery, Splinter vs Draxum, and all fights against the Shredder. If you know, you know. If you don’t know, please go watch them. You will not be disappointed. The colors are rich and vibrant in every scene, working to set the mood throughout the entire story. The two main settings are the bustling metropolis of New York and the mystifying Hidden City underneath. They both feel alive and well populated. We are constantly introduced to side characters and reminded that the Mad Dogs (the main characters) are constantly surrounded. We empathize with their discomfort in New York and their awe in Hidden City. Coming off the heels of a series where New York consisted of roughly twenty people, this makes for extremely important world building. As we draw closer to the series finale, the destruction of New York and the disappearance of its residents makes the situation feel all the more dire. 

BREAKING THE MOLD

Rise had a lot going against it, but it’s biggest downfall was the lack of marketing and promotion. I fully believe the reason it began airing on Nicktoons so quickly was because Nickelodeon panicked over the reactions of long time fans. The turtles had different roles, there would be more fantasy elements than sci-fi ones, the main antagonist was brand new. I’d argue all of these elements are what make the show fantastic. The world the writers and animators created was a breath of fresh air. Making Raphael the leader of the group lent itself to a completely different dynamic we have never seen before. Leaning more into the fantasy genre opened up a completely different world with brand new stories and characters. Focusing on different villains made the build up to the Shredder all the more exciting and suspenseful. A lot of hard work and dedication went into making this show what it became. Way back when I ranked every iteration of TMNT we’ve seen over the past 37 years, I ranked Rise as third best based on only a few episodes. After seeing the show in full, I'd say it’s earned it. There’s something incredibly endearing about this show. It did not deserve to be pushed to the wayside like it did by the Nickelodeon executives. While I feel it would have reached it’s full potential had the series been produced in full, despite the rushed finale, the show we got was phenomenal. My only hope is that the movie doesn’t get stalled and captures the same vibes as the series. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles truly managed to transcend what a traditional TMNT show could be. These turtles did what they promised: they rose above the rest.

[grigori77]

2021 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 3)

10. NO TIME TO DIE – another BIG movie that got knocked about A LOT looking for a release date due to COVID over the past two years was this long-awaited (SERIOUSLY) latest entry in the “reboot” universe James Bond, 007 spy film franchise, which got rescheduled so much we were beginning to fear we might NEVER get to see it. This was especially frustrating since it was intended to be Daniel Craig’s FINAL tour of duty as Bond, James Bond, the greatest spy to ever kiss-kiss-bang-bang, making it the biggest event in the franchise since it was first retconned for a new generation with the masterful Casino Royale. Since then the series has had highs and lows, but by and large it’s been REALLY STRONG, I’ll admit that, despite being a big fan of the old school Bonds I’ve really come to prefer this new version, and it is dominated by what many (myself included) consider to be the greatest Bond picture of all time, the incomparable Skyfall. So how does this one stack up? Well right away I must admit it DOESN’T reach the dizzying heights of awesomeness that Skyfall managed, but it’s very close to Casino Royale quality, and it’s definitely a strong improvement on the comparatively meh SPECTRE … most importantly, though, it certainly is a worthy and simply SPECTACULAR send-off for one of the best Bond actors of them all, to such an extent that it genuinely feels like the end of an era. It’s certainly as lush, lavish and well-appointed as we’ve come to expect from one of the most opulent big screen properties out there, and once again the Broccolis have drawn in all the best talent to execute it, particularly in the director’s chair, enlisting the heavyweight talent of True Detective, Sin Nombre and Beast of No Nation writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who here also delivers a corker of a screenplay alongside franchise regulars Neil Purvis and Robert Wade, with extra spice added by Fleabag and Killing Eve creator Phoebe Waller Bridge, and the result is a globe-hopping, labyrinthine thrill-ride that’s every bit as exciting, intriguing, amusing and emotional as any of its predecessors. It’s also definitely the LONGEST, clocking in at an unprecedented (for the franchise) two-and-three-quarter hours, but then it’s got A LOT of story to cram into its running time, and the best part about this film is that everything’s done so well and is so thoroughly absorbing that you never feel it’s dragging its feet or that it’s too overlong. I won’t give away too much of the plot because it’s too much fun just letting the story unravel by itself, suffice to say that at the start there’s trouble in paradise after Bond drove off into the sunset with Madeleine (Lea Seydoux), as SPECTRE-based complications drive a wedge between them and forces Bond to go to ground, only for them to be reunited after five years when a new threat surfaces in the form of Safin (Mr Robot and Bohemian Rhapsody’s Rami Malek), a devious global terrorist from Madeleine’s past who’s gotten his hands on something capable of threatening the entire world. The problem is, now Bond’s on his own and MI6 have got a new 007, Nomi (Captain Marvel’s Lashana Lynch), who’s on the case herself and isn’t about to let an out-of-touch has-been get in her way. Craig’s magnificent as ever in what’s now officially become the greatest role he’s ever played, thoroughly badass but still maintaining that underlying element of vulnerability and self-deprecating humanity that’s always made this incarnation of Bond so effortlessly compelling, while Lynch shows a hell of a lot of promise for the future if the franchise does decided to go in the intriguing direction of following a new 007 in the future like the rumours say, investing Nomi with a cool confidence that hides hidden depths and complexities that I for one would very much look forward to exploring in the future; Seydoux, meanwhile, once again brings brittle beauty and grace to her role, but there’s steel beneath the surface, and it’s great fun seeing so many returning faces from the previous films, from Ralph Fiennes’ M, Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny and, of course, Ben Wishaw’s deserved fan-favourite Q to the welcome return of a far-too-long-absent Jeffrey Wright as Bond’s friend and CIA opposite-number Felix Leiter. Meanwhile there are two particularly notable turns from franchise newcomers, with Malek delivering one of the most intriguing, chilling and evocative villains the franchise has fielded in some time (even going so far as overshadowing Christoph Waltz’ returning mastermind Blofeld), while Blade Runner 2049’s Ana de Armas is clearly having a ball getting to kick arse and take names while reuniting with her Knives Outco-star as precocious rookie CIA field operative Paloma (another character I’d love to see again, especially if we could see her teaming up with Nomi). This is the Bond films doing what they do best, delivering maximum escapism while whipping several big budget, breakneck set-pieces past us with very little CGI in the mix at all (the unshakeable commitment to doing ALL the action physically has always been one of the things I most respect about these movies), but there’s a particularly strong emotional undertone this time round that makes it an especially powerful watch, which is perfectly suited to the gravity of this event picture, especially in the charged climax. Like it says in the song, “nobody does it better,” and when it comes to Bond that’s damned right.

9. GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ best offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS. Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate blowback, leading her to take on a reparation job retrieving missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob. The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process. Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years. The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly reined-in and bursting with zingers. Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I saw in 2021, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions. Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father. There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of family (both blood and found) and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing over the brutalities of toxic masculinity. I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

8. JUDAS & THE BLACK MESSIAH – I’m a little fascinated by the Black Panther Party, I find them to be one of the most intriguing elements of Black History in America, but outside of documentaries I’ve never really seen a feature film that’s truly done the movement justice, at least until now. It became a major talking point of the Awards Season, and it’s easy to see why – director Shaka King is a protégé of Spike Lee, and together with up-and-coming co-screenwriter Wil Berson he’s captured the fire and fervour of the Party and their firebrand struggle for racial liberation through force of arms, as well as a compelling portrait of one of their most important figures, Fred Hampton, the Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the BPP and a powerful political activist who could have become the next Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya is magnificent in the role, effortlessly holding your attention in every scene with his laconic ease and deceptively friendly manner, barely hinting at the zealous fire blazing beneath the surface, but the film’s true focus is the man who brought him down, William O’Neal, a fellow Panther and FBI informant placed in the Chapter to infiltrate the movement and find a way for the Federal Government to bring down what they believed to be one of the country’s greatest internal threats. Lakeith Stanfield (Sorry to Bother You, Knives Out) delivers a suitably complex performance as O’Neal, perfectly embodying a very clever but also very desperate man walking a constant tightrope to maintain his cover in some decidedly wary company, but there’s never any real sense that he’s playing the villain, largely garnering sympathy from the viewer as we’re shamelessly made to root for him, especially once he starts falling for the very ideals he’s trying to subvert – it’s a true star-making performance, and he even holds his own playing opposite Kaluuya himself. The rest of the cast are equally impressive, Dominique Fishback (Project Power, The Deuce) particularly holding our attention as Hampton’s fiancée and fellow Panther Akua Njeri, as does Jesse Plemmons as O’Neal’s idealistic but sympathetic FBI handler Roy Mitchell, while Martin Sheen is the film’s nominal villain in a chillingly potent turn as J. Edgar Hoover. This is an intense and thrilling film, powered by a tense atmosphere of pregnant urgency and righteous fury, but while there are a few grittily realistic set pieces, the majority of the fireworks on display are performance based, the cast giving their all and King crafting a potent and emotionally resonant, inescapably timely history lesson that informs without ever slipping into preachy exposition, leaving an unshakable impression long after the credits have rolled. This doesn’t just earn all the award-winning kudos it gained, it deserved A LOT MORE recognition that it got, and if this were a purely critical rundown list I’d have to put it in the top spot. As it is I’m monumentally enamoured of this film, and I can’t sing its praises enough …

7. RUN, HIDE, FIGHT – the biggest surprise hit for me this year was this wicked little indie suspense thriller from writer-director Kyle Rankin (Night of the Living Deb), which snuck in under the radar but has nonetheless garnered an impressive reputation fit for future cult success. Critics have been less kind, but the subject matter IS a pretty thorny issue, and handled the wrong way it could have been in very poor taste indeed. Thankfully Rankin has crafted a corker here, initially taking time to set the scene and welcome the players before throwing us headfirst into an unbelievably tense but also unsettlingly believable situation – a small town American high school becomes the setting for a fraught siege when a quartet of disturbed students take several of their classmates hostage at gunpoint, creating a social media storm in the process as they encourage the capture of the crisis on phone cameras. While the local police gather outside, the shooters discover another threat from within the school throwing spanners in the works – Zoe Hull (Alexa & Katie’s Isabel May), a seemingly nondescript girl who happens to be the daughter of former marine scout sniper Todd (Thomas Jane). She’s wound pretty tight after the harrowing death of her mother to cancer, fuelled by grief and conditioned by her father’s training, so she’s determined to get her friends and classmates out of this nightmare, no matter what. Okay, so the premise reads like Die Hardin a school, but this is a very different beast, played for gritty realism and shot with unshowy cinema-verité simplicity, Rankin cranking up the tension beautifully but refusing to play to his audience any more than strictly necessary, drip-feeding the thrills to maximum effect but delivering some harrowing action nonetheless. The cast are top-notch too, Jane delivering a typically subtle, nuanced turn while Treat Williams is likeably stoic as world-weary but dependable local Sherriff Tarsey, Rhada Mitchell intrigues as the matter-of-fact phantom of Zoe’s mum, Jennifer, concocted to help her through her mourning, Olly Sholotan is sweet and geeky as her best friend Lewis, and Eli Brown raises genuine goosebumps as an all-too-real teen psychopath in the role of terrorist ringleader Tristan Voy. The real beating heart and driving force of the film, though, is May, intense, barely restrained and all but vibrating with wounded fury, perfectly believable as the diminutive high school John McClane who defies expectations to become a genuine force to be reckoned with. Altogether this is a cracking little thriller, a precision-crafted little action gem that nonetheless raises some troubling questions and treats its subject matter with utmost care and respect, a film that’s destined for major cult classic status, and I can’t recommend it enough.

6. COPSHOP – thanks to COVID (wow, that really has become something of a mantra here this time, hasn’t it?), writer-director Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team, The Grey, Stretch) delivered a double-threat in 2021 – first up was the under-the-radar, long-delayed release of his delirious time-loop sci-fi action comedy Boss Level¸ which JUST missed out on making my lists for the year but I would happily recommend it all the same. Thankfully when it came time for what is, if I’m entirely honest, probably THE BEST FILM HE’S EVER MADE (seriously, I don’t think he’s EVER done anything better than this, and you’re talking to someone who ADORES Smokin’ Acesand The Grey), the cinemas were finally open again and the studios were willing to take a chance again, so we got to see this how it was MEANT to be seen. I’m so glad, because this movie was QUITE the experience, and one I thoroughly appreciated getting to enjoy amongst a proper audience – from its intriguing slowburn start to its deliriously over-the-top bonkers ending, this is an absolute GEM of a thriller, but also, as befits your typical Carnahan film, one with a strong and very, VERY dark sense of humour shot right through it. It starts simply enough, with wounded conman Teddy Murretto (Carnahan regular Frank Grillo) punching out small-town Nevada rookie cop Valerie Young (Watchmen and The Good Lord Bird’s Alexis Louder) in order to get himself arrested and gain a little temporary shelter from the various killers who are tailing him, only for one of them to track him down and pull the same trick to get himself into one of the neighbouring holding cells, deservedly notorious professional hitman Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler). Things get more complicated when the precinct house is besieged by decidedly unhinged psychopath Anthony Lamb (Carnivale and Halt & Catch Fire’s Toby Huss) and corrupt local cop Huber (Queen of the South’s Ryan O’Nan), forcing Valerie to hole up in the lock-up with Teddy and Viddick, both of whom start working hard to convince her that the only way she’s gonna make it out of here alive tonight is if she cuts one of them loose. This is a darkly comic delight, taking its time so it can build a strong rapport with us while establishing its incredibly strong characters and establish the threat before finally unleashing some proper chaos, and then in the second half we reap the magnificent rewards as we get to indulge in some explosive anarchy with characters we’ve duly become most invested in. Grillo and Butler are both absolutely on fire throughout, both getting once-in-a-career level roles to really sink their teeth into, and it’s a privilege getting to watch these two heavyweights go toe-to-toe in scene after scene of perfectly-written brilliance, while Huss is a genuine (ahem) killer antagonist, investing Lamb with a streak of thoroughly unrestrained (but also occasionally surprisingly reasonable) lunacy that means he steals every scene he’s in, but the film TRULY belongs to Louder, an up-and-comer who is doubtless set to break into the big time SPECTACULARLY thanks to this – Valerie is a seemingly sweet youngster who progressively reveals that she’s actually a secret badass, and she holds her own magnificently when playing against all the incredible top-tier talent on offer, so that in the end Valerie’s easily one of my top female protagonists of 2021. This film is, without a doubt, an undeniable masterpiece, a work of rare genius and superb quality that, if I was brutally honest, is almost TOO GOOD for the lowbrow genre it occupies – seriously, I think the script alone is worthy of some genuine award considerations, and for once Carnahan could even be looking at some actual consideration for his direction too. Not that I’d bet on it – this really isn’t the kind of movie that the Academy and their ilk ever considers, which is a downright shame. Gods know it’d have my vote. Honestly, if this was a purely critical list of THE BEST movies of 2021, I would still have to place this very high indeed …

5. KATE – boy oh boy, Netflix has had QUITE THE YEAR, success after success even AFTER the cinemas reopened, and their very best “cinematic” offering of 2021 (only coming second in their overall output for me due to the sheer fucking AWESOMENESS of Arcane) has a really good chance of going down as one of the all-time great action movies of this new decade. It’s another magnificently simple concept turned into a brilliantly complex piece of work that only this genre can really pull off, The Huntsman: Winter’s Wardirector Cedric Nicolas-Troyan finally delivering on the promise that was only really hinted at in his (largely unwanted sequel) feature debut as he weaves a thrilling and thoroughly engrossing action thriller that quickly builds up to a frantic, breakneck pace and then rarely lets its foot off the accelerator for the remainder of its impressively tight running time. In the end it looks like Birds of Prey & the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn was simply practice for Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who exceeds all expectations here as the titular Tokyo-based hitwoman, who’s looking to retire from a business she’s grown disillusioned with, only to find herself poisoned with Polonium, leaving her with just one night to eliminate those responsible before she dies of acute radiation sickness. To this end, Kate kidnaps wayward teenager Ani (newcomer Miku Martineau), the only person who can gain her access to her uncle, Yakuza boss Kijima (The Wailing’s Jun Kunimura), but as chaos ensues through the night, the pair bond and Kate has to face up to the cold, hard truth of what she’s done before it’s too late. From these deceptively simply seeds a mighty action thriller is born, a flawless, all-but-peerless rollercoaster that quite comfortably rivals the likes of the John Wick films (clearly one of its main influences), Nicolas-Troyan using his dazzling visual flair to exquisite effect to give the consistently spectacular fight sequences, shootouts and car chases a particularly eye-popping edge, while also coaxing some excellent performances from his talented cast – Winstead is phenomenal in one of the very best roles I’ve ever seen her play, a stone-cold badass who owns every fight but also breaks our hearts pretty much every time she has to get serious, while Martineau makes a truly awesome debut in fine style, investing Ani with a cocky swagger that’s just a brittle mask hiding deep reserves of inner pain and trauma, while Kunimura and his fellow Japanese cinema heavyweight Tadanobu Asano (as scheming, ambitious Yakuza underboss Renji) both bring effortless class and gravitas to proceedings, and Woody Harrelson once again reminds us what an impressive dramatic actor he can be as Kate’s mentor and handler, Varrick. Knuckle-whitening, gripping, provocative and powerful in equal measure, this is action cinema at its most concise and effective, another winner for Netflix and the genre as a whole. I just wish I could have seen it on the big screen …

4. NOBODY – do you love the John Wickmovies but you just wish they took themselves a bit less seriously? Well fear not, because Derek Kolstad has delivered fantastically on that score, the JW screenwriter mashing his original idea up with the basic premise of the Taken movies (former government spook/assassin turned unassuming family man is forced out of retirement and shit gets proper trashed as a result) and injecting a big dollop of gallows humour. This time he’s teamed up with Ilya Naishuller, the lunatic genius who directed the deliriously insane but also thoroughly brilliant Hardcore Henry, and the results are absolutely unbeatable, a jet black action comedy bursting with neat ideas, wonderfully offbeat characters and ingenious plot twists. Better Call Saul’s Bob Odenkirk is perfect casting as Hutch Mansell, the aforementioned ex-“Auditor”, a CIA hitman who grew weary of the life and quit to find some semblance of normality with his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen), with whom he’s had two kids. Ultimately, he seems to have “overcompensated”, and his life has stagnated, Hutch following an autopiloted daily routine that’s left him increasingly unfulfilled … then fate intervenes and a series of impulsive choices end up with him falling back on old ways while defending a young woman from drunken thugs on a late night bus ride. Problem is, said lowlifes work for the Russian Mob, specifically Yulian Kuznetsov (Leviathan’s Aleksei Serebryakov), a Bratva boss charged with guarding the Obshak, who must exact brutal vengeance in order to save face. Cue much bloody violence and entertaining chaos … Kolstad’s razor sharp writing married with Naishuller’s singularly BONKERS vision means that the anarchy is dialled right up to eleven, while the gleefully dark sense of humour shot through makes the occasionally surreal and bitingly satirical observations on offer all the more exquisite. Odenkirk is a low-key joy throughout, initially emasculated and pathetic but becoming more comfortable in his skin as he reconnects with his old self, while Serebryakov hams things up spectacularly, chewing the scenery with aplomb; Nielsen, meanwhile, brings her characteristic restrained classiness to proceedings, Christopher Lloyd and the RZA are clearly having the time of their lives as, respectively, Hutch’s retired FBI agent father David and fellow ex-spook half-brother Harry, and there’s a wonderfully game cameo from the incomparable Colin Salmon as Hutch’s former handler, the Barber. Altogether then, this is the perfect marriage of two fantastic worlds – an action-packed thrill ride as explosively impressive as John Wick, but also a wickedly subversive laugh riot every bit as blissfully inventive as Hardcore Henry – not to mention the strong possibilities of another hit action cinema franchise for Kolstad to pen …

3. THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the absolute most fun I had at the cinema in 2021 was this long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016. That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely. Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date. Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kinds of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls. Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity is being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup. Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re almost all definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned. Gunn has already proven a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s definitely pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery’s barrel for its most ridiculous D-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling. Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most ridiculous DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history). Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT. By far the funniest thing I saw all year, and if I’m honest the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

2. A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Placewas MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending. Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain. Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother. Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror. The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which are guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat. The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a new spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again. This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds on the skilful foundations laid by the first film as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow. I definitely can’t wait.

1. DUNE, PART ONE – throughout all of 2021 (and 2020, to be honest), there was one film I was looking forward to more than ANY OTHER, which made the frequent COVID-caused delays in its release all the more gut-wrenchingly frustrating. Frank Herbert’s original novel, one of the true, definitive space operas which pretty much wrote the rules on how this particular sub-genre is handled today, is basically my favourite book OF ALL TIME, and while I am somewhat a fan (albeit as something of a flawed guilty pleasure) of the clunky and decidedly mismanaged David Lynch film and the far more faithful but ultimately somewhat rote, cold and heartless early-Noughties miniseries, I can agree with pretty much everyone that it had never before really been done the proper justice it deserved in its adaptations. Like other superfans I was rightly worried that this latest attempt could fuck it up just as bad, or even worse, but I started to grow confident when I heard that Denis Villeneuve, the masterful auteur behind Sicario, Arrival and the simply PHENOMENAL Blade Runner 2049 would be taking up the reins, a fellow superfan who simply adores this book and its overarching universe and wanted to do right by it. This confidence grew as we heard and saw more, so by the time the trailers started to emerge I was getting SO EXCITED … and then the pandemic shat all over it and the delays began, as did our agony. Thankfully, almost a year later than it was due, we FINALLY got to see it and it was EVERY BIT worth the wait, AND THEN SOME. There was never ANY DOUBT that this would top out my list for the year, it was simply impossible anything else could compete with this masterpiece. Villeneuve has exceeded expectations just as surely as he did with his Blade Runner sequel, bringing the far-flung future galactic empire of the Padishah Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV to vivid life through stunning cinematography, incredible production and costume design and visual effects so effortlessly seamless they are INDISTINGUISHABLE from reality (in a way, I guess that extra year for them to tinker away actually paid off here), beautifully capturing the moody, austere grandeur of House Atreides’ homeworld Caladan, the grimy industrial horror of House Harkonnen’s homeworld Geidi Prime, and the bleak, windswept majesty of Arrakis, the titular planet which is the only home of the Spice Melange, a substance of such immense worth and power whole worlds will go to war for its control. He’s also once again assembled a truly magnificent ensemble cast of top-notch talent, each and every role perfectly cast to realise some of the most interesting and intricately-crafted characters I’ve ever come across, so many I could be here all day if praised them all, but the real standouts include Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides, artfully treading a very fine line in his portrayal of a character who’s essentially a deconstruction and deep critique of the classic Chosen One literary trope, Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson as doomed lovers Duke Leito Atreides and the Lady Jessica, Josh Brolin as gruff yet earthily sarcastic Atreides warmaster Gurney Halleck, Stellan Skarsgård as the monstrously twisted Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and Charlotte Rampling as coolly superior Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, while Zendaya and Javier Bardem do a lot with very small roles as Fremen warriors Chani and Stilgar, who I look forward to seeing fleshed out far more when Part Two finally arrives, but my biggest delight here, without a doubt, is my absolute favourite character in the books (and one of my top-five all time fave literary characters PERIOD), Paul’s best friend, the legendary swordmaster Duncan Idaho – I’ll admit when I first heard the casting I was a little dubious, as much as I love Jason Momoa he’s not at all how I’ve always pictured Duncan in my head (for me he’s always been relatively small and lean and, for some reason, very Scottish), but now I can’t imagine him any other way because he just OWNS this role, an unstoppable force of personality, skill and well-restrained rage who completely dominates every scene he’s in. Altogether I could not have asked for a better adaptation – everything here is precision-crafted and pulled off to perfection, a hand-made labour of love that pays full respects to the source material while making it incredibly relevant to today, from Villeneuve’s artful screenplay, co-written with Jon Spaihts (Prometheus, Doctor Strange) and Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Insider, Munich), and peerless, evocative direction to the weighty and evocative action, while this could almost stand as a textbook example of how to consistently deliver a large amount of exposition in the most economical, fluid and entertaining manner possible, informing the viewer without ever talking down to us or getting bogged down in dogshit-dull infodumps. The icing on the cake definitely comes in the form of Hans Zimmer’s intriguingly offbeat and challenging score, definitely one of his most original works to date, which perfectly complements the visuals and emotions it accompanies, but then Zimmer’s another Dune superfan who turned down Christopher Nolan’s offer to score Tenet for the opportunity to compose music for his dream gig. Thankfully Warner Bros. have seen sense and greenlit Villeneuve’s intended Part Two so we can see this story completed on the big screen, and I’m thoroughly confident it’ll be just as stylish, evocative, intense, grand, well-appointed, rewarding, epic and emotional as this very long-awaited Part One …