#can you tell how many times i've rewatched this film by now?

[jus-alilcomforblelad]

i present: one of my absolute favourite scenes from the film

[meatballlady]

It's time for the fandom to start Looking Where the Furniture Isn't

For a bit of background, one of my irl professional responsibilities is to identify and avoid making undue assumptions. There are a LOT of things that we humans assume. We assume that terminology means the same to other people as it does to us. We assume everyone has the same context of a situation we do. We assume that we aren't missing any information.

We operate on the information we have.

There was an ask before season 2 aired asking whether many of the plot points had been revealed by the clips (which almost all took place during the first half of the first episode). Neil's response was something like "oh you sweet summer children you know nothing yet." And boy was he right.

Neil Gaiman is a master of controlling assumptions. Just look at his Tumblr askbox replies.

Here's a few s2 examples of assumptions we all made (as I'm starting a rewatch):

Why did Crowley do the (very fun and distracting) apology dance? You might say it was because he walked out on Jim, but he never specified, did he? And Aziraphale was surprised that he proposed they would hide him "together"

How did Shax get a rumor about something going down in the Up (presumably) before Gabriel even went downstairs?

Did Jim need to bring Aziraphale something other than the box? He never actually specifies; Aziraphale just assumes it's the box.

Why did Aziraphale assume Maggie could feel [Michael, Uriel, Saraquael] arriving?

Why does Aziraphale say Heaven would notice even a small miracle? Crowley is seen doing a miracle before their large miracle (traffic light), and later Aziraphale makes the guy leave the table at the pub

To go deeper:

Are we assuming that characters are telling the truth? Example: "Miracles don't work like that," "[Extreme sanctions] was just something we said to frighten the cherubs" etc.

Are we assuming that nothing of note happened between apocalypse v1 and s2? (ex. the claims that Crowley didn't tell Aziraphale about the trial in heaven despite him referencing it in s2s1) What if we the audience are just jumping in near the end of this story?

Are these assumptions correct? Or are we just working with the information that we have?

Now that I'm looking for it, there's also SO many corrections of assumptions (usually for the sake of a joke, but still) (these are just the ones that happen while I type them out while watching e2):

"Can I be a blue one?" "You haven't annoyed me yet" "But can I be?"

"You recognized [Michael, Uriel, Saraquael] those people who were in the shop just now?" "Of course, they were in the shop, just now!"

"oh my god!" "blasphemy, angel, that's not like you", "no, oh, my god"

Many of the themes were about hiding things in plain sight: the kids (and kids), Jim, "aim for my mouth but shoot past my ear." Clue (1985) was heavily referenced in the lead-up. The whole point of that film was looking at what was going on elsewhere. Looking where the furniture isn't, you might say.

The more I watch s2, the less certain I am that any of it makes sense on its own.

I'm currently combing through it to see if there are any discrepancies with where people are (easiest example is when Crowley just disappears from the bookshop while they're reviewing the Job story). It'll be a lot of data and might not lead anywhere, but I'll definitely share once I finish looking into it.

I will also honestly admit that these things are all circumstantial, and I could be going insane. But they just keep cropping up all over the place. I've got a lot of time before S3 comes up and I intend to investigate the furniture. And try to not make assumptions.

[pencileraser1]

things i noticed/thoughts about most recent rewatches of dps (plus laserdisk deleted scenes):

whenever theres a group scene i've started watching the characters that the story isn't focusing on to see what they do and i've been having a fun time with that. pitts and cameron specifically seem to almost always be doing something interesting in the background.

hopkins!!!! my favorite minor character who somehow got character development despite having like 2 lines!!!! the last guy to stand on the desk but he did it!!!

sometimes i do like to think about what the rest of the students thought about the dead poets society, esp in alternate timeline neil lives dps keeps meeting universe. like yeah theres this guy in their class whose one of the most credited students in the school and we think he maybe started a cult. idk though. but that group runs out into the woods every few days to do god knows what and one of them keeps talking about "dead poets honor" whatever that means and holy shit welton star student neil perry started a cult.

i watched the movie with headphones. and maybe it's because ive seen this movie Far too many times and mabe i'm listening too hard but it was Really obvious sometimes when audio was added in post production. llke in the sweaty toothed madman scene when you can hear laughing and to be fair the camera is behind their heads. but it does Not look like anyone's laughing. my favorite is at the end of the phone call to chris scene where knox is like i'm gonna seize the day!! and runs up the stairs and the poets are cheering him on and neil is sort of yelling "carpe!!!!" and i could be wrong but i'm like 75% certain that the person singing is Also rsl so now neil is just speaking two times at once somehow. anyways it didn't ruin the experience for me or anything it was maybe just a little bit funny to notice but very sorry if this did ruin anyone's viewing.

people talk a lot about how rsl and ethan hawke really made their characters what they are but i have to add dylan kussman to that list. I get the impression that older versions of the movie didn't really give as much depth to cameron and watching dylan kussmans performance is like. he Knew who his character was so fucking well and it shows!! like the deleted scene of them getting clubs assigned. like i could tell So Much about cameron from that scene

for how little she actually appeared, there is an emphasis put on the fact that neil's mom smokes pretty frequently. and i think that's interesting considering neil is one of two poets shown actively smoking. neil's mom doesn't appear for very long in the movie but during that time it definitely seems like the movie is intentionally making parallels between the two, particularly in the last argument with neil's father. neil and his mother are both sitting for almost the whole time, which contrasts with his father who is standing. they are both almost powerless in this scene. they stand up at almost the same time. anyways there's a couple different possibilities for what this could mean? that i've though of? 1. to show that neil's mother is in a similar situation to the one neil is in in regards to neil's father and 2. maybe a stretch here but the theory that neil inherited his mental illness at least partially from his mother. i'm pretty sure 1 was fully intentional on the directors part, not entirely sure about 2 though

unmanned flying desket scene: it's probably cause he and ethan wrote the scene themselves but the way rsl talks in this scene feels more like the way he talks in general than the rest of the script. like briefly neil perry is talking in rsl's voice. one of my absolute favorite scenes though the sarcastic dialogue is so good.

the light of knowledge at the first shot of the film vs. todd standing on his desk at the last shot of the film paralel

[huntermanor]

'Labyrinth' and how trauma makes us search for escapism

Welcome to 'Mikaela please log off' where i talk and overanalyze movies because i'm unemployed. In today's hell of a post, i'm going to talk about probably my favourite movie and one that has shaped me for my entire life: 1986 'Labyrinth', with musical numbers written and performed by none other than Miss David Bowie himself! SPOILERS AHEAD.

Now i've seen this movie more times than i've seen my own face in the mirror. It's a movie i enjoyed in my childhood and certainly one that has shaped me, with how the puppets have a certain uncanny feel to them almost and how crazy and whimsical the whole movie is. It trully is an amazing movie that can be enjoyed by children, but also by adults as well, with many of the movie's themes and meanings being hidden or something you find with experience or relate to later in life. Because the movie is a very clear reference to fairytales like Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, is no surprise to know there are many, many different readings that can be done to it. The firts reading i made of the movie when i rewatched it as an adult was that the movie was a very clear allegory for growing up and maturing, having to leave behind your childhood but also keeping in mind your inner child so that you don't lose yourself in the labyrinth that is life.

While the allegory reading is correct, and i think it's one of the meanings behind the movie and certainly the most obvious theme, it's definetly not the only one. One thing kept me wondering after watching the movie this time: Why is the phrase 'You have no power over me' so important? It's used in the beginning of the film, with Sarah forgetting this line in her book, and by the end, when she's facing Jareth, Sarah remembers the phrase by herself, clearly showing us as viewers the inner power Sarah has over her life. It's obvious this line is meant to represent Sarah's ambition and power, but why is it this phrase? Whi is it You have no power over me and not something else like 'My power lies within me' which could tie to the end of the film, with Bowie's Within you playing? Well, after rewatching it recently, i figured it out: Sarah isn't just talking to Jareth, she's talking to her stepmother.

At the beginning of the film Sarah seems to be, on the surface, a spoiled 15 year old girl who doesn't want to do her chores and just wants to play around, not even wanting to date, something her stepmom wants her to do. Her stepmother wants her to mature and grow, to find love, etc. And Sarah and her obviously do not get along a lot. Two important details appear when Sarah goes back to her room at the beginning after fighting with her stepmother over having to take care of her little brother: her stepmother talks to her dad, telling him 'She treats me like the wicked stepmother of a fairytale', and when Sarah goes to talk to her to her room, he doesn't even bother to open the door or make sure she's okay after the fight. To some people these details seem just normal parent behaviour, but it was very clear to me after the film that Sarah is being emotionally neglected by her father, and possibly made by her stepmother to grow up to fast. Sarah is fifteen and an older sister, and unfortunately is common for older sisters to act as parents for their siblings while also not being taken care of themselves. We see Sarah clinging to her childhood as an escapism from the fact she feels completely neglected, since her dad won't even open the door to talk to her.

When Sarah tells Toby her fairytale, it's a clear depiction of how she feels like: There once was a princess who was basically a slave to her stepmother and she was forced to take her of her baby brother. Sarah takes her rage out on her brother and sends him away with the goblins, and inmediatly regrets it. She's repeating patterns of abuse. She's realizing sending her brother away is the submitting him to the same neglectful behaviour she has struggled with. So she makes a deal with Jareth to get him back.

Jareth poses an interesting character in Sarah's healing journey from her trauma. He's in love with her, in very possessive, clingy way that makes him do anything she asks him too to try to manipulate her to love him, which doesn't work on her, because she's probably used to it. The fact Sarah has a lot of toys and costumes, which makes us feel like she's spoiled, while being simultaneously emotionally neglected, is a very common way a manipulator convinces the victim there's no reason to feel that way. So seeing as she's used to being gifted things, being given 'her dreams', instead of actual emotional support and availability, Sarah is basically inmune to Jareth's advances. This could be read as Sarah's first experience with love outside of her family life, which is also a common thing in the experiences of older sisters: they date men who aren't good for them, repeating the patterns they're used to and being once again emotionally hurt. By the end of the movie, after meeting new friends Sarah loves deeply and grows to appreciate, and by being shown there are people who do care about her and who do love her and respect her, Sarah is able to fight Jareth alone, because she might be phisically alone, but she knows her friends have her back always. The found family trope is used here even until the end when we think Sarah has grown and the people she met in the Labyrinth are gone, and Sarah tells Jareth he has no power over her because she finally has healed, and she knows she deserves better.

By the end, Sarah has matured and learned, not just about herself, but about love and relationships of all kinds. She gives Toby her plushie as a way of showing she doesn't need to desperately cling to her childhood anymore, because she now has people in her life who care about her for real, and also she tucks him in as a way to show she's going to break the cycle, and show him finally the emotional support she didn't get from her parents. She keeps many things in her room, but puts others away, and when her friends from the Labyrinth appear to tell her they'll be there if she needs them, they don't simply say this and go away, but she makes them stay. 'I need you', she tells them, because even if she's healed, her life might still be filled with the remnants of her trauma, and an escapism might be needed. But most importantly, 'I need you', because they're her friends, her found family, the people who have shown her what she deserves in her life.

The movie definetly shows us the many highs and lows in life, particularely in adolescence, and how the journey to being mature can be difficult. But these subtle themes of emotional neglect, trauma, and the struggles of a young girl forced to grow up a little too soon trully give the movie another layer of depth that maybe not everyone might see, but some of us, specially those of us who relate to these struggles, do see and aknowledge, reminding us that we're not alone and that we deserve better, for our trauma has no power over us.

[augustjustice]

It's What's Inside!!!! is good!!!

It really is!!! I got the chance to watch it Friday, I've just had a crazy hectic weekend so couldn't respond until now. But I really, really liked it, and I'm so happy you did too! So relieved to have a good bodyswap flick that isn't afraid to do some cool things with the premise.

Some spoilery thoughts below the cut:

You mentioned this in your liveblogging of it, but I really liked the editing style here and how it drew attention to itself! The freneticness of it did a great job capturing both the imitation of social media they were at times going for and also some of the chaos of the premise as it went off the rails in the latter half. And I thought they did a great job depicting what anxiety can be like with some of the filmic techniques they used, which I know the director has spoken about wanting to tap into with this movie.

Some of those tricks especially worked well with the bodyswapping concept! I liked the moments when the camera peeled back the layers to reveal "who was inside." At the time when they didn't show Forbes, I thought they were just playing 4D chess with us, keeping who was who somewhat concealed. That worked really well looking back with the eventual Beatrice reveal at the end.

The way the film layered in roleplaying/desire to be someone else was deftly handled, I felt. I think it was smart to kind of anchor the movie in Shelby and Cyrus's relationship troubles with his continued fixation on Nikki being at the center of it. The entire friend group's dynamic being so messy with many of them clearly still romantically and sexually hung up on each other really heightened everything, and it also opened up some interesting questions about physical vs. romantic desire. Like, the fact that Cyrus was obsessed with Nikki regardless of "what was inside" (🥁) is...telling. I also thought it was fantastic to have a film acknowledge race as a complicated component of identity when it comes to bodyswapping! Gender is often played with in this trope, but that was the first time I had seen media try to tackle that element of things.

One thing I liked the most about the movie is that the events had real consequences. I've never seen a piece of media actually engage with the question of what would happen if someone else died while inside your body, so it was exciting to see that tackled and to have an ending without a neat resolution. It leaves you as a viewer to ponder their fates and what happens after this, which I really appreciated.

Also, brief shout out to the acting! Of course that's always pivotal in these movies, but the cast did a stellar job of telegraphing who was who even when those characters were trying to conceal their identities from each other.

Overall, fantastic movie! Definitely going into my rewatch list of bodyswapping films.

[cometcrystal]

listen. anyone who knows anything about me knows that i LOVE bad media. i fucking LOVE it. it legitimately brings me joy to see a movie or a game etc etc that just fucking SUCKS. i've seen manos: hands of fate 12 times. i love to rewatch vods of streamers playing the gollum game. mia and me and cyberkidz are two of my favorite shows. i will watch literally any film with a rating below 2 stars on letterboxd and i'll probably end up rating it 5 stars.

but i was watching socpens play some nintendo DS games. and beastly: frantic foto made me genuinely fucking pissed.

i have no opinion on the movie Beastly. i've never seen it. but i have a basic understanding of the premise and i thought a nintendo ds game based on this movie would be really fucking funny.

it's literally just a "find the difference" game. the ENTIRE game is finding the differences between two photos like a shitty flash game on nick dot com back in the day. there is NOTHING ELSE. it just gives you a screencap from the movie and you have to find the 5 differences. there are no other gameplay mechanics. the music is insanely generic. sometimes it switches it up a little by flipping the image or giving you a slide puzzle but that's IT.

normally, when something is so bad that it's not enjoyable to me, i still don't really get mad about it. i just go "eh it's not for me" and move on, even if the quality is abysmal, because 1000% of the time i can always tell there was at least 1 person who was putting a MODICUM of effort into making something that could be called a movie or a game or a book or whatever. like...this person didn't have to CARE about their product, necessarily. but they were like "okay, i'm making a game, so there's gonna be a little bit of gameplay". do you get what i mean?

there is not an ounce of human soul in this game. there is not an ounce of effort. this game is NOTHING. there is no reason for it to exist at all. beastly is not a movie that warrants a licensed game. not a single beastly fan in the world would lose sleep if there weren't any video games made for it. but frantic foto was made anyway.

and for what reason? who benefits from this? they weren't trying to appeal to a single human alive. even if you're a person who enjoys spot-the-difference, you're not gonna buy a whole fucking DS cartridge to play them. beastly fans aren't gonna buy it because it's just screencaps from the movie and nothing else. parents aren't gonna buy it for their kids because beastly's not really a kid's movie afaik. did ANYONE win here? because i highly doubt they expected to profit from this.

i'm so mad. i'm so fucking pissed right now. I DON'T GET ANGRY AT "BAD" THINGS EVER IN MY LIFE AND THIS HAS PISSED ME THE FUCK OFF!!!! HOW MANY RESOURCES WERE WASTED TO MAKE PHYSICAL COPIES OF THIS GAME??? HOW MUCH PLASTIC???? I'M SO FUCKING MAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[theflyindutchwoman]

Omg girl I just noticed something while watching a Chenford TikTok and I wanna know if you noticed too or if this is a new discovery lol

In 5x12, when they’re back at the station and talking about Lucy transferring, right after they realize their shifts probably won’t sync and they’ll see each other less, she’s reaching for the bags and you can literally see like such sadness on Tim’s face. He’s in that moment 100% making the decision to go to Grey and move out of patrol.

It’s such a quick little moment, not even a second but if you watch him in that scene you’ll see it. I tried to grab it in screenshots but look

I’m dying right now

LOOK AT HIM!

YEEES! And I love it so much! Thanks for sharing! Listen, this scene is the gift that keeps on giving : the more you watch it, the more details you catch.

And this one is so easy to miss with everything happening. Not to mention that, as you just said, it's a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of moment. I think I caught it on a rewatch (I can't even tell you how many times I've watched it). Or maybe it was on a gif? Anyway. There's so much sadness, pain and longing in that look. There were both getting nostalgic at the idea of this being their last shift riding together and the second Lucy tells Tim that it's going to be weird to no longer see him all day, it really hits him. And I think it also triggers some memories for him. He knows all about the difficulties of having a partner working in a different station, of having to sync-up their shifts. That was his life for close to a decade. And while Lucy is coming to terms with the reality of the situation, Tim is hit with this wave of sadness. He's picturing a future where they won't see the other at the station, be able to go home together at the end of their shifts or even see each other for days when she's working the night shifts.

So yes, I agree with you : to me, that's also the moment he decides to do something about it, to see Grey and move out of patrol. He's seen this film before and didn't like the ending. Seeing Lucy less is not an option he's interested in. Not when he can do something about it. Remember when Lucy used to say she couldn't wait to be "free" of him or when Tim used to pretend he wouldn't miss her?! A joke.

[diableasura]

Now that i've watched every one piece movie that isn't a retelling of an anime arc or straw hat chase i'm gonna go ahead and indulge in the very human tendency of ranking them in order from best to worst (SPOILERS!!!!):

One Piece: Strong World. Maybe it's because this was the first movie i watched and my first experience with one piece in animation but strong world has remained my favorite since day one (though the second place is very very close i must say). The straw hats are all great and have their little moment to shine the plot is solid and they do a great job with nami, out of the four straw hats with a movie more focused on them she's by far the one that gets the best treatment. Strong world is in the perfect position of being a pre time skip movie, so it's not dragged down by the expanding cast of post time skip, but also since it was the tenth anniversary movie they put in more effort than with the previous movies and it shows. Also sanjis cowboy outfit instantly makes it top tier.

One Piece: Film Gold. I'm... kind of obsessed with this movie?? Seeing the straw hats in a heist really scratched an itch i didn't know i had but my god does it feel good. The designs really excelled here the crew looks gorgeous throughout the entire movie and tesoro's island is so interesting and fits very well in the one piece world. Tesoro is also my favorite villain of any movie, i've seen people say he's the perfect blend between crocodile and doffy and that's so true lmao. Loved having zoro as the damsell in distress, inject that shit straight into my veins i love it when the strong character is the one in need of rescue. Everyone was very cool during the heist but i remember really enjoying franky and luffy's dynamic cause lbr we're kinda starved of it in the manga so it was nice to see them interact so much here. Overall amazing movie and the only one i've rewatched out of all of them.

Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island. This movie has become a cult classic amongst the fandom and with good reason. It breaks away from the loud spectacle of the other movies and is quieter and more unsettling and so far the only example of actual psychological horror in the lore. I've talked about this before but that final scene with the straw hats cheering luffy on even while they're being consumed by the baron and luffy struggling to the brink of death to save them changed me... I love seeing this family love each other so much!!

Clockwork Island Adventure. I know, I know what's the second movie doing so high up... but it was just so good!! It's very short but that's just a benefit to the plot and i love the gimmick of each straw hat being captured one by one till it's just luffy remaining and the one who has to free them (can you tell i love the movies where the straw hats are kidnapped and the others have to rescue them?? that's my drug). Sanji's fight in this movie kicks ass too, the animation is gorgeous.

One Piece: Film Red. This might seem like a sin, to have this movie so far down the list cause i've seen its pretty unanimously tied up with baron omatsuri as the best movie but to be honest i feel like that's just recency bias. The movie is still a spectacle and the songs slap and yes one of them was in the top 5 of my spotify wrapped this year lol. Uta is a good antagonist but i was never that hooked by her shared past with shanks and luffy, mainly because it's so aggressively impossible for it to be canon, it almost broke my suspension of disbelief. Zosan sleeping side by side was pleasing to my monkey brain and it almost made up for including st charlos in the movie seriously what the fuck was he doing there-

One piece: Stampede. The start of this movie is amazing cause they come up with the perfect competition to have all of these pirate crews on the same place but it quickly devolves into a "how many characters can we fit in" contest and the plot quickly turns into "lets all beat up the villain", which is fine! I did like seeing so many characters, at one point half way through the movie crocodile just appears out of nowhere lmao but hey i'm not complaining i love crocodile. Usopp is the straw hat who's focused on the most in the movie and i feel conflicted with what they did with him cause it just felt like they were making him go through his water 7 arc all over again by having his inferiority complex flaring up. And usopps arc was amazing in water 7 but reviving it for this movie felt a bit weird and repetitive. Despite this though i was very happy seeing him getting the focus, usopp is a painfully underrated character so having him on the spotlight is always welcome.

Dead End Adventure. This movie is a lot of fun. There's a bar fight, a secret pirate race and sanji being his sneaky self and helping out luffy during the final fight. Whats not to love?

One Piece: Film Z. Much like Stampede, i really enjoyed the start of this movie cause the monster trio get to briefly fight the big baddie together, but the plot kinda loses some steam for me after that. Also they tried to make the admirals sympathetic cause the villain is a retired admiral who was once their mentor but i really really really dont care about the marines at all so that was a bit awkward. The straw hats look stunning in this movie, i love that in the movies they give them a million different outfits and the ones from this one absolutely slayed.

Choppers Kingdom on the Island of Strange Animals. Another fun movie where all the straw hats get a moment be cool. There's a kid on this island who i found completely insufferable but i can forgive this movie cause this is also where zosan have that famous scene where they praise the other to their defeated oponent, which made my monkey brain happy.

One Piece: The Movie. This movie's biggest misstep is that sanji isn't in it, but even with this critical flaw it was still quite enjoyable. Zoro is very funny on his own but add luffy into the mix and their dynamic was hilarious. Usopp as always was great. The villain is small potatoes tbh but not really the important part of the movie, which focuses more on the relationship between the kid they meet and his gramps. The final message was surprisingly very sweet. Also sanji appears briefly in the end credits to appease me.

Giant Mechanical Soldier of Karakuri Castle. This movie is a-okay. The villains are a complete joke and it takes the crew less than five minutes to deal with them. The crew dynamics carry all of my enjoyment with this one.

The Cursed Holy Sword. Yeah... this movie commited the unforgivable sin of having zoro as the main focus and yet managing to do absolutely nothing interesting with him. Even if they did shamelessly create kuina 2.0 with saga, they could've delved into how zoro would react when two different duties (his promise to saga and his position as the crew swordsman) clash against each other... but instead we see no conflict with zoro, even though we all know this situation would be conflicting for him. They just make him scowl throughout the whole runtime and thats just not who Zoro is... Luffy and usopp are a lot of fun though.

TL; DR my ranking is:

Strong World

Gold

Baron Omatsuri

Clockword Island

Red

Stampede

Dead End

Z

Choppers Kingdom

One Piece: The Movie

Karakuri Castle

Cursed Holy Sword

Conclusion: the one piece brainrot is no joke.

[teddybeartoji]

my latest films!!!

hi hello citizens of loserville i bring you a few ramblings about a few movies bc why the hell not!! very much not proofread i just wrote down whatever popped into my head so yk bear that in mind

fight club (1999) -

this was my tenth rewatch............................. THIS IS MY COMFORT MOVIE OKAYY DON'T JUDGE ME second time to see it on the big screen too!!! this is the perfect movie for me - it has the soundtrack (btw when i first saw this film i got so addicted to the score that the artist ended up being on my spotify top5), it has the actors, it has the outfits, the pacing, THE JOKES, the visuals etc etc etc it's very good for me

NOW this is very niche this is special but just yk stay with me here.... i am driven by two things - curiosity and spite. and my curiosity is very... extreme..... meaning that for like many years now i've been telling my friend about how i need to get punched in the face at least one bECAUSE I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE OKAY NOTHING MORE TO IT THAN PURE CURIOSITY and then i'm watching fight club..... and The Scene comes. brad pitt goes i want you to hit me. huh? edward norton goes huh? and then pitt just tells him that he's never been to a fight and drops the line of how much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight - the way my mouth just hung open i think a couple of flies flew in there. bc what. he... he gets me..... I JUST NEED TO KNOW OKAY it's stupid i know i know and yet......... here i am + somewhere on tumblr there's a post that says "touch starved but for physical violence,, touch starved but in a sensory seeking way,, AUTISTIC FIGHT CLUB WHEN???" and this just sums it up pretty well i think

i love the narrator btw. super loser. i like his final outfit and i like it when pitt calls him "ikea boy". he's literally me. + i don't like brad pitt he can die but his outfits in this one thoughhhhhhhhhhhh ULTIMATE GENDER GUY when he has that shorter shirt on and it lifts up when he raises his hands broooooo insane

oke anyway i really like this silly little movie i won't go too in depth bc this post is already long i am writing this after i already did the last two parts lmao

when harry met sally (1989) -

MY FIRST WATCHHH!!!! absolutely loved it. i was doing breathing exercises as to not BAWL MY FUCKING EYES OUT i am a changed person now.

had the amazing oppurtunity to see this at the cinema too and let me tell you - it just made it so much better. it feels... so fucking good.... to laugh with people. no better feeling than just a room full of strangers, laughing and enjoying a film together. hearing a chuckle from a row over or a whisper followed by a quiet giggle or just having the entirety of the room laugh together as one is just so so so good i'm sorry my vocabulary is just good and amazing but yk it's about the fucking point okay. i loved it. made me feel good, made my heart warm.

the movie itself. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. yeah. the main characters were so fucking great, felt like real people yk. and the dynamic between them???????????????????????? ouch. there's a point in the film where she says that she's difficult while bawling her eyes out and the guy responds with you're challenging with hearts in his eyes while gently brushing the hair from her face. look whatever i might be biased here - as a Challenging person myself, it just felt so reassuring to hear that like that. ++ while she's very stubborn and like things to be the way she wants them to be, he's so fucking patient with her and i think that's my favourite thing of the whole movie. how patient he is. how when everybody else is rolling their eyes, sighing, listening to her tell her very specific order - he's just calmly waiting with a smile on his face. yeah no i'm like super normal about this btw.

the same scene where's she's crying, she's ranting at first, right? she's pacing around, yapping his ear off while he's sitting on the bed with a tissue box in his hand, offering her one the second she throws the away. his eyes are glued to her, he's literally changing and turning himself on the bed so he could be facing her at all time. I'M SOOO NORMALLLLL. when she finally sits down, his eyes are still on her; i'm talking tilting his head just to catch a glimpse of her eyes. + how he kept touching her - a hand in her hair or a hand on her shoulder/thigh sighhhhhhhhhh this guy is the new rolemodel love how i say new when this film literally came out in 1989....

NOWWWW THIS MOVIE AND SATORU MY BELOVED. I THINK. HE WOULD FUCKING LOVE THIS ONE. I THINK HE WOULD ABSOLUTELY ADORE IT. i kept thinking about him during the movie too (smh down very bad) but i just.... i feel like he actually fits the male character very well. he's annoying. he's funny. he has a staring problem. he's touch starved. he's sensitive. he's silly. he's patient (yes while gojo can be very impatient with a lot of things i think when it comes to his beloved... he's ready to take all the time in the world). he's thoughtful. he's a bit childish. he's gentle. he's funny. yes i said that twice what about it. i love him i love them. there's a point in the film where the guy is talking about a hookup and he goes "i made her meow." and i just shghashagsahshgashgahg like c'monnnnn how is this not the most gojocoded thing ever. and he was super chill about it too; his friend had to ask three times you made her meow? and everytime he went i made her meow

this is genuinely a film that i recommend to everyone. it's so fucking sweet and i just had the biggest smile on my face throughout the entire thing ahhhh i really did love it please please lovers watch it<33

dune (2021)

this was my sixth time seeing this movie............. fourth time at the cinema too...... ANYWAY i love denis villeneuve this man is a fucking genius i love all of his movies soooooo much they always look amazing and they sound amazing

the sound design aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa sorry to get weird about it but hearing this is like having a real braingasm. especially at the cinema. my eyes were rolling back inside my head this is not a joke ++ the soundtrack. HELLOO???? i mean ofc it's good it's the god himself hans zimmer for fuck's sake he always delivers he's so fucking good

NOWW i neeed to talk about oscar isaac. very important. my most watched actor of last year btw i think he's wonderful. in this film - i think he gives the best performance out of the whole cast and you can't even argue with me bc i'm literally right. his character is so stoic and he seems so strong and powerful and yet whenever he's with his son or his wife you can just see the love. okay this is mostly villeneuve's directions but knowing oscar's work it's 10000% him too.

it's the small touches and gazes - right in the beginning, it's this important Thing and he's the duke of house atreides he needs to look the part, he looks tough he looks serious but then he looks over to his wife and gives THE most reassuring little look wahh and then he does the same with paul. and it's the other way around bc he looks at paul (his son for who don't know btw), kind of asking for reassurance too although he's literally the duke??? and they can't even stop the deal, it's already happening but he still wanted his son's approval...

i mean then it's the obvious "you'll still be the only thing I have ever wanted you to be- my son." LIKE WHAT AN INSANE LINE my daddy issues are crying a bit i think. and when they're talking he has his hand on his shoulder and it just sooo refreshing to see a father-son relationship like that.

and when he's with his wife, jessica..... godddddd the hand holding when they arrive on arrakis.... the way he lays his head on her lap while she massages the skin between his brows and he reaches up, just to hold her too................. FUUUCKKKK and it's just his eyes man he acts with his eyes and he's sooo fucking good

talking about his eyes- eee wait this paragraph contains a big spoiler ig so if u haven't seen it don't read this one. anyway... when he's paralysed and he can literally only act with his eyes.............. HE DOES IT SO WELL AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA when the baron gets close and talks about how his family will die how his son will die and the one singular tear falls broooooooooooo i can'tttt he's sickk i love him a lot

this is such a simple movie while simultaneously being like light years away from simple. not a lot happens while a lot happens??????? first time u might be a bit confused (this is questionable though bc i haven't read the book but i thought that villeneuve made the story rather easy to understand but my dad (who also hasn't read the book) didn't understand shit and i had to explain everything to him????) while again - not a lot is happening. everybody knows that this is a two and a half hour INTRO to the next part, it's just setting the tone for the next one but it's still so fucking good on its own it's insane.

+ shoutout to stellan skarsgard too!!! i feel like he's a bit underrated in a sense that i rarely see anybody talking about him even though he's in so many big things and he's sooooo good??????? absolutely devours every single role of his and this was no exception. LOVEDD the scene where the baron is first introduced (the sound design and the soundtrack were crazy in this scene too), he's just immediately sooooo off-putting??? he's a bit scary and like weirdly calm and a bit uncanny and well, something is just not right about this guy and you're just hooked. cool guy. a+

good movie. i like. super excited for the new one!!!! oh wait also also they showed us a secret little clip from the new one and i had chills it looked so fucking good and then villeneuve talked a few words too and i was just looking at this guy talking about his movie with a big big smile my cheeks hurt after that i hope he's having a wonderful day

[mariusperkins]

my favourite new-to-me movies of 2023

a few years ago my resolution was to stop just only rewatching Ocean's Eleven over and over and actually watch some of the thousand-ish movies that I say I'm going to watch and then don't, which, honestly, has been Very fun and something I highly recommend! It also means that I watch a lot of movies that aren't actually "new" (which, honestly, I also recommend).

Picking a top 20 was really hard this year (I would do top 10 but that was impossible), I watched so many movies I absolutely LOVED, and so I narrowed them down to the below using the only criteria that I think really matters when it comes to lists like this which is 1. How insane did I feel about the movie at the time, and 2. Do I still feel insane about it when I think about it now.

This list got long so to save your dash I have put it under the cut:

20. Fire of Love (2022): a documentary about the lives of two volcanologists who ultimately died together in a volcanic eruption. It's told in such a beautiful, moving way, and I've been telling everyone I know to watch it, so of course it had to make this list

19. Lady For a Day (1933): a group of loosely-socially-connected people work together to convince a wealthy man that an old impoverished apple seller is a member of high society so her daughter (who also believes her slightly-estranged mother is high society) can marry into real high society. It was literally the first movie I watched in 2023 and I truly can't think of a better way to start off a year than with a movie that is about helping other people for the sake of Just Helping Them, because we should care about other people, because what else are we on this earth for if not to help and care about other people. Also, this is one of those 1930s movies that seems wildly progressive in it's treatment of women (nobody shames Annie for having a daughter out of wedlock or anything that goes along with that, everyone wants her to be happy, and healthy, and to help her get the thing that she wants above all else: for her daughter to be happy and safe).

18. The Talk of The Town (1942): one of the many "Cary Grant's most bisexual movies" but boy howdy is it!! Cary Grant, a communist sympathiser and unionist, has to hide out at Jean Arthur's farmhouse to escape the law after being accused of a crime he didn't commit but wouldn't you know it, Jean Arthur's just rented out her farmhouse to Ronald Coleman, a judge who prides himself on his neutrality who's about to be nominated to the supreme court! Jean Arthur, thinking fast, says Cary Grant is her gardener for the farmhouse and also sets about trying to prove to Ronald Coleman that Cary Grant is innocent, Cary Grant sets about trying to radicalise Ronald Coleman before he can get to the supreme court. Ronald Coleman spends a significant amount of time playing chess with Cary Grant while the two of them speak softly to each other. Just wonderful stuff, and Jean Arthur is so beautiful that I genuinely tried to find out what her skincare regime was.

17. Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes (2020): a short (just over an hour) Japanese scifi film where a man discovers that the tv in the cafe downstairs from him and the tv in his apartment are connected, with the tv in the cafe showing two minutes into the future (of whatever is in front of the tv in his apartment). It does some really fun stuff with this time-travel adjacent concept, especially in the final "fight" sequence! It's a little hard to find (I think I might have watched it on vimeo?), but absolutely worth it.

16. White Zombie (1932): sometimes called the "first zombie movie", it's so different from what we now think of as a "zombie movie" that it feels fresh (or, at least, it did to me). A young bride is "killed" by an evil count and brought back as a zombie forced to obey his will. I found the short scene towards the end of the movie where her husband and True Love almost breaks the hold on her mind and there's a close up of her expression as it changes from wide-eyed blankness to almost a smile before she slips back under Bela Lugosi's spell to be genuinely affecting. Also, there's a scene right at the start where Bela Lugosi's eyes are superimposed over a scene that I found genuinely frightening, I was as jumpscared by those eyes as a person watching in 1932 probably was, which is always a fun feeling.

15. A New Leaf (1971): Walter Matthau, an aging, asexual bachelor is informed that he is on the brink of complete poverty and decides to find a orphaned heiress to marry (and then murder) to keep himself in his preferred lifestyle. After several unsuccessful endeavors he meets Elaine May (who also wrote and directed the movie), a weathly and extremely absent-minded botanist. Instead of killing her, he trips his way through improving both her life and himself. I was enthralled by this movie, I just want to rotate every part of it in my mind forever.

14. It's a Wonderful Knife (2023): the most recent of all the movies on this list in terms of both release date and me having watched it, this slasher retelling of 'it's a wonderful life' has it all: a Scary Slasher opening featuring a killer with a gimmick ("The Angel"), the classic bit where she wishes she'd never been born and stumbles through realising Oh No I'm In The Universe Where I've Never Been Born, the universe saving True Love of lesbians, Justin Long being a little weirdo, the bit where she runs down the street wishing everyone and everything a merry christmas. All the in-text callouts by the characters that what's happening is "just like" it's a wonderful life snowballed into a (to me) touching romantic moment ("you were my Clarence"). It all just Worked!! The perfect holiday watch.

13. Bones (2001): I love a horror movie that I've never heard of and the early 2000s is a great time period for this. 1970s Snoop Dogg (with beautiful 1970s hair!) is murdered, and his ghost comes back to get revenge on those who killed him. Features some great gross-out horror scares (the nightclub scene, especially, made me jump out of my seat and pace around). Also, a very cool, scary-looking poster!

12. Eyes Without A Face (1960): A doctor attempts to use his plastic surgery skills to "replace" his daughter's face, which has been mangled in a car accident (that he caused). I hope whoever designed the mask the daughter wears, which is a plain white 'death mask' style with only the eyes cut out, got some kind of award because it's visually striking in every scene (especially when combined with her mod/60s coat). This movie is full of the gestures towards a broader life that his daughter would have had, or the life she did have that is just enough to both paint a vivid picture and make you feel so curious that the movie would be enthralling even without the serial murder/body horror aspect. Has one of the greatest "good for HER" endings to a movie I've ever seen, which I would implore you not to spoil for yourself if you want to watch this. The version up on internet archive does have english subtitles (thank you internet archive!!).

11. Grosse Point Blank (1997): A disconnected and disaffected hit man attends his high school reunion, confronting his past (the mother that barely recognises him, the girlfriend he abandoned on prom night, the friend that never heard from him after he left town) and his present (the other hit men attempting to kill him). I feel cringe somehow for putting this on my list, I feel cringe admitting that I did feel a big Swell of emotion as John Cusack makes eye contact with a baby as the lyrics to Queen/Bowie's 'Under Pressure' swells in the background (why don't we give ourselves one more chance), I even feel a little cringe for liking something that seems like it should only appeal to Gen X's. But what is this list for if not for films that game me cringe levels of emotions?

10. Waxworks (1988): Much like the early 2000s, the 1980s are also a great decade for 'horror movies you've never heard of'. The plot summary doesn't do much to give it away: 'a group of teens go to a wax museum and get killed off one by one'. "Well, that's just house of wax", you think to yourself, "I know what to expect from this movie". It isn't, and you don't. Please don't look up scenes ahead of time, please do watch this movie!

9. Knightriders (1981): I'm a very loud member of the Movies Should Be Shorter club but this movie is over two hours and I wish it had gone on forever. Every time you think 'well that's the end of the movie' another movie arc starts, and I couldn't have been happier. It follows the "knights" (motorbike stuntmen) in an 80s renaissance fair as they travel from town to town, argue about modernising, and put on shows. Feels like you're really vibing with them under the 1980s sun. Also features a cameo of Stephen King, who eats a sandwich in a truly disgusting way.

8. House (1977): a group of teen girls go to the house of one of the girl's aunts. It's a very haunted house. The best way I can think to describe it is that it's like watching the description of a nightmare you had as a child, almost too over the top and ridiculous to be scary in an explainable way but it is still scary. I'll think about the piano sequence until the day I die.

7. They Might Be Giants (1971): A man who, after the death of his wife and his subsequent mental breakdown, believe himself to be Sherlock Holmes. His brother, who's attempting to get him committed to collect his inheritance, introduces him to a woman named Dr Watson. They run around around town as the man who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes attempts to solve the mystery that he believes Moriarty is orchestrating, solving real problems for various people around town almost by accident. A extremely hopeful and upbeat movie with the saddest last 60 seconds to a movie I've ever seen, a very, very bittersweet love story.

6. The Palm Beach Story (1942): Claudette Colbert is deeply in love with her big rectangle of a husband Joel McCrea, but wants to divorce him because she believes that providing for her is holding him back (and he won't let her accept money from random men who want to give her money for being beautiful - a realistic thing to happen if you are Claudette Colbert imo). He's desperate to stay married to her so when she runs off to Palm Beach for a quickie 1940s divorce he follows her, but on the way she meets mega rich Rudy Vallee who falls instantly in love with her. As a complete 180 to the previous movie, this is a fun movie with the most rediculous final 60 seconds. I truly believe that your enjoyment of the movie hinges on those final moments - I, of course, loved it.

5. The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971): the king of horror Vincent Price stars as the mysterious Dr Phibes, who's out to kill a very specific set of people in various very specific ways, assisted by his beautiful and incredibly dressed assistant Vulnavia while the police unsuccessfully try to figure out what he's doing and stop him. I truly loved this movie, the mystery just silly enough, the kills just over the top enough, the elaborate sets not really trying to not look like sets and better off for it!! The sequel, in which Dr Phibes and Vulnavia travel to Egypt to resurrect Dr Phibes' wife, is also quite good!

4. Brief Encounters (1945): A man and woman, both happily (or at least contentedly) married to other people, meet and fall into a whirlwind-style love before the real world crashes back into them. Soul-obliteratingly sad, but in the way that love can be, sometimes.

3. Shocker (1989): A college student starts having visions of a serial murderer in which the murderer can see him, helps to catch the murderer... And then the movie really starts. This was going to be lower down until I realised that it's become such a reference point for me since I watched it. I wish Wes Craven would make a sequel about the protagonist's girlfriend, who, by the end of the movie, is a ghost who shares his body.

2. Wild Thing (1987): Tarzan, but if Tarzan was in 1980s New York instead of the jungle. I had such a fun time with this movie! Excellent use of 'wild thing' (the song) needle drop, which happens in conjunction with a Spiderman-style man-on-the-street interview section. To me, this one is an undiscovered gem.

1. Tampopo (1985): a woman, who isn't good at making ramen but owns a ramen shop, asks a truck driver and his friend to help her improve her cooking. He agrees, and they begin a winding journey, encountering and befriending various people to help her along the way. Tampopo is also a movie that's interested in exploring the different relationships people can have to food and the different roles it plays in society, so it's full of little tiny scenes staring all kinds of wonderful weirdos like this scene, which is one of my favourite scenes in all of cinema, of a little old woman causing chaos in a small supermarket late at night. Also, if you watch this movie: get ramen first, because otherwise you'll have to pause the movie to go and get food.

Honourable Mentions: You've Heard Of This Edition

Best movie about The Movies: Asteroid City (2023)

Best action scene that made me claw at the person next to me: Mission Impossible (Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Award for 'movie famous for being good that is good': RoboCop (1987)

Award for 'movie referenced as a punchline that actually has Things To Say about the treatment of houseless people to the point that I now feel like those punchlines do the movie and incredible disservice': C.H.U.D (1984)

Best rediculous stunts/scene chewing from Jake Gyllenhaal: Ambulance (2022)

Best 4th movie in a film series that was still incredible and also made me cry: John Wick Chapter 4 (2023)

Award for special effects/goo (for when you see the clones sloughing out of the pods): Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Best use of Bill Pullman as a romantic lead: While You Were Sleeping (1995)

Award for 'predator movie that is actually enjoyable to watch': Prey (2022)

Best use of cocaine as a plot device: Cocaine Bear (2023)

Honourable Mentions: Maybe You Haven't Heard Of This Edition

Best movie that is just really a series of weird little sketches: Better Off Dead (1985)

Best movie about a married couple that are horny for each other: Undercover Blues (1993)

Best use of Willem Dafoe as an ally to the protagonist: Daybreakers (2009)

Best use of a one location (and primarily one set): Welcome Back Mr McDonald (1997)

Best use of the little lock of hair that falls out of the gelled-back hairdo in a 1930s male lead: Love Is News (1937)

Best use of enemies-to-lovers: Legal Eagles (1986)

Best use of Bob Hope: Nothing but the Truth (1941)

Award for 'most people cheating on each other with everyone else' in a single movie: Dinner at Eight (1933)

Best movie involving a woman who died and then possesses another woman to get revenge on the man who killed her: Supernatural (1933)

Best use of weird masks and scary basements: Popcorn (1991)

Award for 'most 1980s tropes in a 1930s movie': The Old Dark House (1932)

Best underutilised setting for a horror movie: Intruder (1989)

Best movie that you truly can't believe got made and released: Roar (1981)

Best performance of an actor pretending to be a robot: Deadly Friend (1986)

Best 1930s 'extremely wealthy old man and poor fast talking woman best friendship' in a movie: Easy Living (1937)

Best early 2000s thriller you haven't heard of/best Emily Blunt performance: Wind Chill (2007)

Best use of 1940s tropes and jokes in a hallmark movie: A Biltmore Christmas (2023)

Best use of best friends in a noir movie: The Gun for Hire (1942)

Best netflix movie that netflix inexplicably didn't bother promoting: They Cloned Tyrone (2023)

Best Dylan O'Brien performance: The Outfit (2022)

Best slimy little weasel performance: Cure For Wellness (2016)

Best use of time travel to a Very specific but not well-known historical event: Timeline (2003)

Award for most specific accident in a horror movie that required a transplant: Mad Love (1935)

[maester-of-spreadsheets]

Tagged by @vonlipvig and it's come around at a great time because I've actually been finishing media lately. Imagine that.

Last song/piece I listened to: Chor Bazari from Love Aaj Kal. AZAD HOON MAIN TUJHSE! AZAD HAI TU MUJHSE! wait i just noticed that the lyrics are saying "now i'm free from you, now you're free from me" but it's using the most informal 'you.' Which kinda implies they still have a degree of emotional intimacy despite being exes. Despite the whole song being about how they're exes who are handling this reunion super maturely even if they're bemused by it all lol. Interesting.

(also Deepika was still in her awkward rookie actress phase here but I can see the glimmers of the kind of stuff that would go on to make her really good at more naturalistic roles.)

(great now I want to rewatch it even though I remember it being the platonic ideal of a timepass hahah. If only to rewatch the sequence where early on they have a 'we're breaking up!' party because they dont want to do long distance and then later on she calls him from the airport and they have this lighthearted conversation talking about their gripes with one another that they never mentioned in the relationship in order to keep the peace.)

Last book I read: Diavola by Jennifer Thorne. Horror novel about the bisexual disaster black sheep of a family going to a family reunion in Italy and... oops [cocks gun] villa's haunted.

On one hand is it kind of a mess with weird pacing and some dropped plot threads and it has multiple themes that don't quite congeal? Yes.

On the other hand, did it FUCK MAJORLY?? Yep!! Probably my favorite book I've read this year so far. So cathartic.

Last film I watched: Piku, solely to look at several actors' faces and it delivered on that front.

Last TV series: I don't... know? I think it might have been that documentary series about Nickelodeon. And I'm glad survivors got to tell their stories, but like a lot of recent true crime documentaries about systemic crimes I felt like it didn't go deep enough. For every Dan Schneider, there are quite a few people above people him in the corporate ladder who have to sign off on their abuses. But that's all very bleak so let's move on. (Also it turned out I am still not far away enough from The Old Job to really be able to deal with this content.)

Last video game: Pentiment! I was playing a "choose the rudest option" round and was shocked every character hated me.

Last thing I googled: Diavola to remind myself of the author's name.

Last thing I ate: Pasta and broccoli.

Sweet, savory, or spicy: Spicy.

Amount of sleep: As usual I genuinely don't know how much was actual sleep and how much was lying around half awake.

Currently reading: Uhhhh so many things. My Lent resolution to only read things I own and/or have started didn't go too well (but better than I had been before because I actually finished some things.) I'm probably going to try and make an effort to return Emily Wilson's Iliad translation and/or the biography on J. Dilla.

Currently watching: Uhhh does watching the Murder on the Orient Express play all the way through every other night count?

Tagging @onetrueharem @ponydeathisland @amarguerite @invaders-forever @sickfreaksirkay aaaand honestly everyone who wants to do. And doesn't want to YOU LOT ESPECIALLY

[seriouslycromulent]

Leave it Star Trek to remind me how much we're worth fighting for

Note: This is a going to be a long, nerdy post. You have been warned.

So a couple of weeks ago, I purchased tix to attend the Star Trek: New Jersey fan convention scheduled to take place during the 2nd week in November. The idea at the time was that I would not only get to see some of my favorite people from my favorite fandom, but the entire event would likely have some amazing energy following the week of the US election.

But then, we had the election that we had, and ... well.

Here we are.

Thankfully, everyone was determined to make the best of the event, and the nerds in attendance were all still fairly respectful, patient and excited to be there.

Now gone are the days when I would try to do as much as possible at cons because I'm an old Trekker. For me, simply being in the space and enjoying the Q&A panels is enough. What can I say? I'm a cheap date.

However, I told myself that if I saw a souvenir that I simply had to have, I gave myself permission to buy it. But otherwise, I wanted to try to keep my spending under control.

Plus, I've already seen many of these beautiful performers at conventions past, so the pull of the autograph or photo op isn't as strong as it used to be. For example, the only members of the TNG cast I've never seen at a con (Michael Dorn and Gates McFadden) sadly weren't doing a Q&A until Sunday and I only attended on Saturday, but it was great to see them at their tables signing and talking to fans nonetheless.

OK. Enough preamble. Let's dive in while the memories are still fresh.

_______

Warning: Most of photos here are awful. But they stand as proof that I was there, so I'll take it.

If you're not a fan of a particular Trek series, feel free to skip that section. I added the names of each series the guests were associated with before their respective parts.

Deep Space 9 🌠

As I mentioned, I didn't buy any photo ops or autographs, but I sat in on a lot of panels. I really enjoyed seeing some of the ST: DS9 cast members together (Casey Biggs, Terry Farrell, Max Grodenchik, Vaughn Armstrong, and Jeffrey Combs). Max, Jeffrey and Casey talked the most, and fun was had by all.

Max and Casey seemed to have the bulk of the stories to share. Some of the stories were funny; some were just good-natured mocking of each other.

One question I remember someone asked to Terry was about shooting the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" and the technical work involved with trying to get everything to match with the green screen and the original series plate. Farrell said they had a lot of fun shooting that episode even though everything had to be very precise.

Another fan asked about why they (the cast) thinks the character development on DS9 is so good [compared to other Trek series]. A question I loved because that's one of of the reasons DS9 is my favorite of all the Treks. The series objectively did a much better job of giving their characters realistic growth and development.

I believe Casey Biggs fielded the answer to this one though. He said that essentially because DS9 was sandwiched between TNG's ending, TNG films, and Voyager's first seasons, the studio (Paramount) didn't really pay that much attention to DS9 and forgot about them while constantly fiddling with the other two. He said one of the advantages to being the "red-headed stepchild" of the Trek universe was that it allowed the writers to tell the stories they wanted to tell without the studio constantly giving them notes on what to change. This gave executive producer Ira Steven Behr the space to develop the characters the way he wanted and tell the stories the way he planned them for each season.

Most of the remaining fan questions -- along with the detailed stories in response -- just reminded me of how I need to do a complete rewatch of DS9.

With that said, the sound in the venue was unfortunately not great, and the echo around the space was annoying. You really had to pay attention and listen with every cilia in order to focus on the responses. But overall, it was still a fun experience.

If they do this again in this area of NJ, I would recommend holding the con in a ballroom with a carpeted floor and non-metallic fixtures all over the space.

Strange New Worlds 🛸

That lovely panel was followed by our ST: SNW duo Q&A with Anson Mount and Ethan Peck, which had the single best question asked in any of the panels that took place on Saturday. A young fan who caught onto Ethan's subtle allusion to the IDIC vision of Star Trek in a previous answer, stepped up to the mic and asked Anson and Ethan the following:

[Note: I'm paraphrasing]

"If Starfleet believes in the concept of IDIC -- Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations -- and the Vulcans are one of the founding members of Starfleet, why do all the Vulcans have the same boring haircut?"

To which, both Anson and Ethan said was the absolute best question they've ever been asked at a con. Ethan then kind of dropped a wee bit of spoiler about an upcoming episode of SNW where Capt. Pike will go undercover as a Vulcan, and he interestingly will not have the standard Vulcan haircut we all know and love.

Again, sorry for the awful photos. I was in the General Admission section and the camera on my phone isn't that great from afar.

There were a few good questions in this panel, but I think the biggest takeaway for us nerds is that Anson Mount is a new pottery enthusiast and he has taken up making pottery for his fellow castmates as gifts. He originally bought the potter's wheel for his wife, but after she only used it once, he decided to give it a try and he loves it.

So now we know that the "Man of 1000 Exasperations" both likes beekeeping and throwing pots. He used to teach acting and theater classes in NYC. And his secret to great onscreen hair is to not wash it too often. (I learned that from a Hell on Wheels interview from a few years back.)

Personally, I wish I could've thought of the question that came to me after the con ended a little bit sooner, then maybe I would've had a chance to walk to the mic and ask it. Although with all the pre-fan question chatter that the MC/host engaged in, maybe not.

My question was going to be about Anson's experience working on the Dr. Strange 2: Multiverse of Madness with Sir Patrick and Cumberbatch. I know it's not ST related, but I was very happy to see him pop up in a Marvel movie (even if his demise is gruesome and awful) and it was great to see 2 Star Trek captains play superheroes on the big screen.

ST Merch Tables 💸

Moving on, after the SNW panel, I took a break to go walk around some of the merch tables before settling on the floor in the lobby area to charge my phone, share some pics with some friends & family, and people-watch all the folks in awesome cosplay.

I did stumble across a lovely souvenir to take home with me at one of the merch tables. I rationalized that it was ok because it was both geeky and practical. I bought this cute flash drive that looks like a cork to a wine bottle with Picard's vineyard logo on it. Although, to be fair, for $20 I feel like it should be more than 64 GB. But oh well. It's still cute.

After that, I headed back into the main Q&A room to watch the Costume Contest, followed by arguably biggest headliner of that day's panels (no shade at Ms. Ryan or her fanbase -- which was robust). The 3:45pm panel featured two not-so-young whippersnappers by the name of Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner.

But first the Costume Contest.

Costume Contest 🖖🏽

There were a lot of participants into the Costume Contest, but not so many that there weren't some clear standouts. Plus, I love the fact there were a lot of fans dressed in ST uniforms from all the different eras and styles who didn't even entire the contest. I saw everything from TOS uniforms to DSC uniforms. Plus, a number of cool nonhumans.

Not to be outdone, there were a number of Andorians at the event, and I think all of the entered the contest. And there was not a bad one in the bunch. I think my favorite was the Andorian woman with the bottle of ale hanging from her belt.

There were also a lot of creative one-offs. One couple costume entry was dressed as Shaxs and Dr. T'Ana from ST: Lower Decks. That got a big fan reaction. And there was also a family dressed as the creatures from Farpoint Station at the end of the ST: TNG premiere. It was 2 parents and their little kid, and they all were very cute.

My favorites in the contest were the woman who dressed as Jaylah from Star Trek Beyond. Her makeup and outfit were very well done. If it were up to me, she would've come in 3rd place. (Unfortunately, I didn't get a good photo of her.)

Instead, the actual 3rd place winner would've been my 2nd place choice. It was a woman dressed as the oil slick creature, Armus, from the "Skin of Evil" episode of TNG. She even had a little Riker figurine sitting on her shoulder, like he was sinking into the slime.

And 1st place went to the fan who seemed to be everyone's favorite: a mechanically accurate Borg. To be fair, not everything in his suit moved, but there was a lot detail, and clearly, a lot of work that went into that costume. And with each elimination round, he kept staying near the top, so it felt fair that he won overall.

There was also a really great Borg Queen costume as well. If it were up to me, I would've had her as my Honorable Mention. So to recap, my picks were:

Realistic Borg

Armus

Jaylah

Borg Queen

Another great costume that didn't make it into the final round, but did get an enthusiastic response from the other fans was a woman in a wheelchair who was pushed by her friend around the convention & merch hall. She carried a sign that said, "The doctor gave me a pill and I grew a new kidney!" It was so freaking adorable and made a lot of folks laugh. Eve Smith, the actress who played the roll in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, was such a delight whenever she showed up in TV and films in the 80s and 90s. I think she would've gotten a kick out of people remembering her small, but delightful performance so many years later.

Overall, it was pretty decent costume contest. Again, the sound in the space was not the best, but it seems like most people enjoyed it.

The Next Generation 🚀

Now on to the biggest -- in terms of personality -- panel of the day! Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner came out to huge applause, as expected. And even though the hall was pretty full already, even more people made their way inside the curtained off area as the duo were getting settled in.

Although, it's fair to say that they didn't really settle at all. Has Frakes ever settled in at any convention?

I'm not one to diagnose from the stands, but man, did Jonathan seem a wee bit "caffeinated" on stage. And I mean that in the best sense. He was funny as usual. Engaging. Silly. He came with the behind-the-scenes anecdotes and playful shots at his castmates and friends. But getting him to focus for more than 3 minutes was like watching someone try to wrangle a kindergartener on the playground after lunch.

Jonny kept asking Brent to do his Patrick Stewart impression, which he was more than happy to do throughout the Q&A, and then Jonathan became fascinated by a marquee advertisement that had all the faces of the actors who are a part of the convention tour on it, and he kept walking over to it to "complain" about the order of the faces on the marquee.

Of course, all of this was in good fun! But the man definitely did not feel like sitting still for very long, and as a result, the 2 of them only answered like 4 or 5 fan questions tops.

It didn't help that we had not 1, but 2 groups of special guests interrupt join the boys on stage during their mere 45 min-panel. First, came the always dynamic and fearless Marina Sirtis, who was quickly joined by Michael Dorn. Marina plugged a new series that she's working on, and Michael came on to just chill and make fun of Marina. (Don't read into that too much! They had a Q&A scheduled together for Sunday.)

So after Marina and Michael joked around a bit with Brent and Jonny, there were a couple more questions from fans and other shenanigans. Then, the lovely Tawny Newsome and Eugene Cordero from ST: Lower Decks came out bearing gifts of water for our power duo like lowly interns working in a megacorporation.

Their plan was to steal a little air time from the headliners, but they ended up getting invited to stay and shoot the breeze with Jonny and Brent for a large part of the Q&A. And at one point, Dawnn Lewis came out as well to join them.

I honestly don't remember any of the questions from this panel. I do remember there was a bit of singing from Jonny, Dawnn, and Tawny. And Jonny swore a lot. But if you've ever heard him on a podcast, you know he cusses like a sailor. In the end, a good time was had by all. Except maybe the poor fans who lined up to ask questions at the microphones.

Lower Decks 🌌

After our Baby Boomer duo left the stage, the "babies" of the Trek extended universe came back out to do their Q&A panel for ST: Lower Decks with Tawny, Dawnn, Eugene, and Gabrielle Ruiz. The MC/moderator came back out to guide us on our journey, and this time, even though I still thought he was a wee bit too chatty and took too long to get to the fan questions, most of what he contributed was still pretty good.

To be honest, I don't remember many of the questions during their Q&A, but I do remember that the general vibe of their panel was "silly coworkers letting us watch them be silly."

The moderator/MC had them each go down the line and answer some oddball getting-to-know-you type question before launching into anything Trek-related. Each cast member answered it in stride while also making fun of how dumb it was.

Then, they launched into different stories about shooting different episodes, and what they'll miss about the show now that the final season has began airing. Tawny and Eugene plugged an improv show in Brooklyn for later that evening, inviting anyone who didn't already have plans.

Like I said, most of the questions weren't too memorable. The only one I kind of recall was one that ticked me off a little bit. The question itself wasn't a bad one, but the guy who asked it had to get in a little dig at the Kelvin universe cast -- and I did not care for that.

Anyway, his question was: "Now that Lower Decks is coming to an end as a series, would the cast like to see a Lower Decks movie? And if so, would they want it to be live action or animated?" Every cast member pretty much loved the idea of doing a Lower Decks movie, but they're not sure in what direction it would go given what happens in the series finale that hasn't aired yet. So their answers were both positive and a wee bit cryptic.

Admittedly, it was a pretty good question, but he had to throw in some shade claiming that Trek fans would rather see a Lower Decks movie than another Kelvin universe movie. To which I say: I would love to see both! I enjoy both of these Trek iterations equally, but for very different reasons. And although it will never be the same without Anton Yelchin as Chekov, I am looking forward to seeing Karl, Chris, Simon, and John suit up one more time.

And on that note, I think I'll end this absurdly long convention report that I started over a week ago, but kept coming back to add more and more detail.

I'll also add this one last photo from the convention room floor where all the autographs were being signed. Since I wasn't getting autographs, I decided to just steal quick shots of the actors signing for other people. Again, it serves as proof that I was there, and it feeds the general fun of being a nerd in my favorite fandom of all time.

[sleepergeek42]

beyond the fact that the last thing anyone should be complaining about with the strike is "but what new shows will we watch?!".... literally TAKE YOUR PICK! maybe we won't get new shows and seasons while writers and actors are fighting for their livelihoods... deal with it?? yeah there's stuff i'm looking forward to as well. but y'know what?? there is so much media out there.

have your friends whip up lists of media you should watch!

watch all the star wars things! the movies, the shows!

how about you watch the ten star trek shows there are! it'll take a good long while. don't forget the movies as well!

rewatch your old favorites! the comfort media! rebinge that decade-long show you adore but have never found the time to sit through again beginning to end!

how about classic doctor who! twenty-six seasons! all camp and wonderful! haven't gotten in to doctor who yet? watch the thirteen seasons of the revival! already into doctor who? watch class, or the sarah jane adventures, or torchwood (although caution is advised).

hell, do you like media that isn't film or tv? READ A BOOK! READ SO MANY BOOKS! GET INTO AUDIO DRAMAS! OR PODCASTS!

doctor who has the most expansive media out there go crazy go nuts! listen to the magnus archives or welcome to night vale!

and that's just a fragment of the nerd shit i could think of let alone more mainstream stuff. go watch the stargate series or red dwarf. watch the different batman shows. i don't know!

there is literally *so much media* out there, no matter what your tastes and interests are. maybe ofmd is gonna get delayed, maybe we don't get marvel shows (beyond the things already filmed) for a while, THERE'S SO MUCH YOU CAN STILL ENGAGE WITH

i, personally, will be combing through the five-page-and-counting google doc of media i want to rewatch/reread and media i want to get around to (all while watching all the things still coming out like good omens and strange new worlds and wwdits). i've gotten through nine books in a seventy-three book series right now. yeah! it's the eighth doctor adventures (edas) from doctor who and they SLAP. and while i'm waiting for these brilliant and hard-working people to get an iota of what they're deserved, i will gladly be reading the remaining sixty-four.

(also idk who needs to tell you this but fucking pirate. media corporations don't deserve your money and ESPECIALLY don't while this travesty is happening)

[letshaveadepressionparty]

Gus Gus!! I can't remember if I asked you this or if we've discussed it but I'd love to know or re-learn it again lol.

What's your favorite movie and why? It can be any medium, live action or animated! *but bonus points if it's animated jk hehe...maybe lol*

I'll do you one better, I'll tell you all of my favourite animated movies because honestly I can't pick only one AND SORRY I TOOK TOO LONG TO ANSWER I went completely nuts with this btw.

The Tigger Movie

This movie, this fucking movie, because of this movie and Winnie Pooh in general I love the found family trope. That need of Tigger to find his family, all the others jumping in to help him and then trying to cheer him up, and then him realizing that his family has been there right in front of him all this time, his relationships with Roo and Rabbit mean everything to me, the acting and animation YOU COULD FEEL TIGGER'S SORROW, Tigger is my favourite character and this movie fucked me up emotionally and I love it so much.

Lilo and Stitch

OHANA MEANS FAMILY. FAMILY MEANS NOBODY GETS LEFT BEHIND OR FORGOTTEN. It has aliens, complex but loving family dynamics (with found famiy mixed into it), great fucking music (I knew all the dances) and it's beautiful. I've watched every single bit of media related to Lilo and Stitch, every movie and the tv series, and I love it all, but the first movie is so very special to me. The movie kinda grew up with me in a way, because when I was younger I related a lot with Lilo, but then I started relating so much with Nani, mostly because I'm the oldest sibling. Also Jumba and Pleakley are married I will die on this hill.

The Iron Giant

He wanted to be like Superman and he WAS he really was. I haven't seen this movie in a while now, I should rewatch it, but the friendship the kid and the robot had is something beautiful, and just all the humanity and care and love he experienced, he showed all of that way more than most of the humans from that movie. IT'S ART.

Ice Age

The first one specifically, the second one is really cool too but the others are kinda meh to me. Anyway I had this movie on vhs and I watched it so so many times, I know most of the movie by heart. And hey we have a beautiful found damily dynamic yet again!!! How Manny, Sid and Diego's friendship and companionship evolves as the movie progresses is awesome, Sid is fucking hilarious, Manny is a mood, I had a bit of a crush on Diego I'll be honest, and you really feel for all of them. And Scrat is Scrat, an absolute delight to witness.

The Spongebob movie (the first one ever created)

Just like with Ice Age, I know basically all the dialogue all the songs, I would watch this again and again with my little brother (this time on cd) it never gets old man. No thoughts only SpongeBob.

Over the Hedge

I have the soundtrack for this movie in my playlist, enough said. THIS MOVIE IS EVERYTHING, AND AGAIN FOUND FUCKING FAMILY. I'm realising with this list that I like that trope more than I thought, idk what that says about me. Hammy is my favourite guy, he's my little guy he can do no wrong whatsoever. And Stella the skunk is the character ever we love her in this house.

Shrek (the whole fucking saga)

There's no need for explanation here. Might be one of the best animated movie saga out there let's be honest here. AGAIN I have seen these movies so many times I know everything about them but I still enjoy the absolute fuck out of them.

Aardman Animations

Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, Flushed Away, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!...AMAZING FILMS ALL OF THEM. I know not ALL of them are stop motion/claymation, some are computer animated, but because of these movies (and Laika's of course) my love for this animation medium began, and I could not be more thankful for that.

Monster House

My love for horror increased 100% after this movie, it's funny, it's spooky, it gets sad as hell, it has a great plot twist???? What more do you need.

Laika

Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings are my favourites from Laika, but all their other movies are gems as well. Coraline, I don't know if I can completely express why I like it, it's a classic and it's so ingrained in myself after so many years, I can't not love it. Kubo and the Two Strings is a movie I watched much recently, last year I think, and I love it so much, the way it's animated is absolutely stunning it's a beautiful piece of art (much like all of Laika's work) and the story and characters are so lovely. Like I said before, seeing Laika's animations, seeing how much work and love is put into these films made me love stop motion so much and inspired me to become an animator.

Meet the Robinsons

THIS MOVIE MAKES ME SOB UNCONTROLLABLY. That part when Lewis sees his bio mom leave him at the orphanage???? The ending???? The message???? FUCK AHHHH. I'm a mess every time I watch this movie. Everything about it is, lovely oh so lovely, the characters we meet, the story, how we put the pieces of the puzzle together as the story goes, Goob kills me man (also he's literally me for real) I just, this movie means a lot to me. "Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." Reading that and hearing the ending song absolutely DESTROYS ME.

HONORARY MENTIONS (that everyone should check out btw)

Emperor's New Groove and Kronk's New Groove, Road to el Dorado, Treasure Planet, Monsters Inc, Ponyo (and every other Studio Ghibli movie), Song of the Sea (and all other movies made by Cartoon Saloon because they are top tier, absolutely incredible movies), Megamind, The Lego Batman Movie, Manuelita (argentinian animated movie), every fricking 90s/00s Scooby Doo animated movie, Chicken Little, Brother Bear (the first one, the second one is kinda meh to me personally), Sword in the Stone, Klaus, Bolt, Spiderman into/across the spider-verse movies, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs.

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s1 ep1: Caretaker

I'm finally doing it- I'm re-watching all of Star Trek: Voyager from beginning to end, in order, for the first time since it originally aired!

I've watched re-runs many times in the intervening years, but never in a complete and methodical way (including episodes I hate and usually avoid- pray for me lol) and now I'll also be recording my observations on tumblr!

I have a love-hate relationship with Voyager, since I feel the writing was extremely uneven, but I'm definitely on the side of love for the show, overall. I'll critique it and be snarky about the bad stuff to high heavens, but it's still one of my formative childhood Trek shows, and I'll always be loyal to it.

First up: Caretaker (long post behind cut)

The two hour special pilot was an event back in the day, and you can tell they spent a ton of money on it, and it still looks good. (I had forgotten all about the little opening info text, lol, like it's Star Wars, and we're some general audience unaware of Star Trek lore. But they were still hoping to bring in a general audience beyond Trekkies back then- does anyone here remember how Voyager was the show that launched the UPN network? Or is that just obscure trivia to the baby Trekkies now??)

Voyager was the first Star Trek series I actually remember watching the premiere of, since I was too young to remember the premieres of Next Gen and DS9, though I was surely in the room while my mom watched them. But I was a proper Trekkie by the time Voyager came around, and as a little girl, having a woman captain on a Star Trek series for the first time was a big deal. And from the first moment Captain Janeway appeared on screen with her Katherine Hepburn voice and full-on Gibson Girl hairdo (in the 24 century no less, what an icon!), she commanded every scene, and I loved her instantly. I can never watch the first ep without remembering that first viewing. We were all crazy excited, and it lived up to the hype. It's a solid, exciting adventure story, and it sets up the characters and the series premise well. And it might not seem like it now, but I can't begin to describe how fresh and high tech and cool this show looked to us in 1995. The opening credits alone had us all oohing and ahhing like the Webb space telescope images do now. And tbh, it's still really pretty, almost 30 years later. It has more of a movie look to it than most 90s Trek eps, for one thing, the lighting looks different from most of the rest of the series, I should go back and see if it was different designer than they usually used. But the whole scale is just bigger. They were able to fit in lots more locations than a regular ep with the two hour timeslot, which gives it a grand adventure/quest sort of vibe. Wherever they filmed the Ocampa city scenes was huge and looked nicely futuristic, it really added to the big movie feel. (I'm suspecting part of it at least was a shopping mall, since there's a scene where Janeway and crew are literally riding on an actual escalator. Lolwut?) The matte paintings as well are just goregeous. I will forever and always stan old Trek's matte paintings of alien cites, they're so beautiful and atmospheric and so full of cool tiny details that usually get overlooked in CGI.

I'd forgotten how Tom Paris-centric that first ep was. Looking back, I can imagine the predominantly white male writer's room desperately clinging to their one white male character for dear life, since they were already stretching their little brains to figure out the whole 'woman captain' thing, and were probably having a hard time identifying with a woman lead character because patriarchy, so they had to fall back on Paris, who I think actually ended up being the character with the most POV scenes in the first ep. (Apparently Robbie McNeill was second on the call sheet for the pilot, according to Garrett Wang on their Delta Flyers podcast, so they apparently thought of Paris as the second lead going into the series.) I don't feel sorry for the writers at all though, and I don't forgive them for the weirdly racist lines they gave Paris in this one- I'm ignoring it and casting it out of canon in my mind the same way I do for the crazy sexist lines that get tossed out in the original series every other ep. Obviously they were trying to make Paris a bad boy in the beginning, but the stuff about 'can't Native Americans magically turn into animals if they want' (!!) was egregiously racist even in the 90s, and it's incredibly anachronistic for a story that's supposed to be set in a post-racism utopian future where no one would even think something like that, let alone say it, even as a joke.

Luckily Tom and Harry immediately adopting each other as new best buds is adorably sweet from the get go, and already undermining the Tom Paris bad boy narrative. Even in this first ep, half the time Tom is going out if his way to help people, even though at this point he barely knows them. What a rogue! So un-Starfleet! lol

I'd forgotten how creepy the alien abduction scenes were too. They were pretty brief, and that particular sub-plot wasn't well fleshed out, but they definitely ramped up the suspense for sure.

Also I'm now gonna always be a little bitter that the unamed chief medical officer who had one scene before getting killed off was played by Jeff McCarthy. As a huge musical theatre nerd, I've been a fan of his on several cast recordings, and would absolutely have loved to have him on a Star Trek show as a regular, if only! I'm not the hugest fan of the EMH, and Jeff McCarthy can sing too, and how! What we could have had!! (But then they'd have had a hard time selling whitebread little Tom Paris as a lothario next to Jeff and his devastatingly sexy baritone voice lol. Seriously, go listen to him on the Side Show album and swoon. And per Garrett Wang, Jeff was really nice in real life and gave him encouranging words on set during their scene, aww!)

All the main characters had really nice scenes that gave a nice essence of who they were. I think Harry and B'Elanna were good characters to throw together since they're such opposites, they played off each other really well, and I wish we'd have had more of them working together throughout the series. The only exception to the otherwise good charcter revealing scenes was Chakotay, who just had to make do with complaining about not liking Tom Paris. Unfortunately I think it foreshadowed a larger problem with the writers not really knowing who he is either, but that's a subject to be explored in subsequent episodes.

My biggest disappointment on re-watching is how they failed to make the reason for Voyager being stuck in the Delta quadrant actually make sense. I get that they tried to make it a moral dilemma, and show that Starfleet people are so noble that they'll chose harm to themselves before causing harm to others, but the particular setup here doesn't really work. There's no reason they couldn't have used the array to get home and like, left a bomb on a countdown to destroy the array right after they left, but they didn't even consider it, even though Starfleet officers totally would at least consider possible options. They didn't stay to protect the Ocampa anyway, and eventually when the Caretakers' gifts run out their society is probably going to collapse, so how much good did Voyager really do for them by destroying the array? It might have helped them temporarily, but eventually, and maybe not even that long after, the Ocampa were still gonna end up in a vulnerable position. It kind of makes the whole series seem a little frustrating, in that the main problem is something that didn't really even have to happen at all. (But on the other hand, no wonder Janeway spends the whole series wracked with guilt, yikes.) I truly wish they'd have come up with something that made destroying the array the only possible choice, with absolutely no loopholes, but sometimes in fiction we have to suspend our disbelief and go with it. This is one of those times, so I'll just savor Kate Mulgrew's impassioned closing speech, with her signature soap opera pathos (she's the only actor on the planet who can deliever a monologue and then look off into the distance with a pensive Soap Opera Stare, and I buy it completely. I love her and her face, ugh) and I'll try to ignore the parts of the story that don't work, and keep focused on the things that do. (Which is the mantra I use to get me through like half the episodes lol)

On to episode two!

[destinyc1020]

Hey destiny,

I dont know if you want to respond to this ask because it's about Tom and post Romeo and Juliet. I write this cause there have been so many think pieces bout hisbchiuces and some fans catastrophize, and I value your perspective on these things.

I'm excited for SM4 and Uncharted 2, but after that, I don't want Tom to be a part of Avengers 5 or any crossover until he has success outside of the MCU.

He's too talented to be stuck in that franchise that rn doesn't sound secure and looks to be dependent on him. Shawn Levy gave him praise a few days ago, teasing a deadpool crossover and for me thats an alarm bell in my head because it's so obvious they are trying to make his SM the Iron Man of that universe. What is baffling with me with his career is that he's doing these films cause he wants to, but deep down, I don't think he just wants to do just this. I remember the q&a for TCR for sag-aftra and how he was scared to go outside of the MCU bubble before taking that role and how he was happy he was doing this.

I'm confused because it's not just for money to stay in that universe. Tom avoids fashion shows and campaigns that could pay more than a movie star salary. He could really milk his persona for money due to him being a walking meme. He actively avoids socialising in hollywood or going to parties or events, yet he's stuck doing sequels? Tom is still young, he can always come back to those films cause the demand is high and i dont mind those films but i want some more variety. I selfishly want to understand where his head is. I would understand if he was deeply pretentious, but he's not. I've yet to see him do an a24 film or projects filmtwittwr has a hard-on for, lol. I don't like film twitter, sorry. Very toxic imo.

I rewatched TCR, and it's honestly so much better than I remembered. Tom is displaying an arpeggios of emotional acuity that is so uniquely rare that I didn't even want it to finish. I wanted to know more about Danny and his treatment. I'm not against big ip movies, I'm concerned with the lack of vision, director, scripts, and lack of practical effects. I want style as well as a blue screen.

The winner rumours are giving me hope because it's a risk, and I know Tom can do this. I think my irritation for his existing ip as of rn is those toxic fanbases and biased critics that use it against Tom as a cautionary tale. Don't do Marvel, or you'll end up like him like he isn't in high demand and talented af. Like JE is considered a movie star yet tell me a film he's opened as a lead not supporting, that made profit for over 200 million? They always move the goalposts for Tom and also Z, but that's for another day, lol.

If there's on actor Tom should look for inspiration, it's Tom Cruise. Take away his personal life, an actor who didn't fit the mould for most male actors of that time,he's the only one career that has still stayed intact. I remember reading that after being cast for his role in the interview with a vampire, he was swarmed with hate against him doing the part. Even the author and brad pitt were against his casting, and he proved them wrong. He doesn't have an oscar, but he's still considered a movie star as opposed to his peers who faded out.

Tom is a movie start idc. He sold out his show with just his name alone and an old pic, without Spiderman with a cast that was yet to be announced. Every day after a show, crowds are swarming to see him and the cast, not SM.

He has the sauce, I just hope he uses it now and don't wait.

Whew! Anon....You wrote a LOT in this ask lol. I'm not sure I can get to everything you've addressed in here, but I'll pick out some main points. I'm not sure if you intended this to be a "confession" or not, but I'll just answer normally...

First off: I write this cause there have been so many think pieces bout hisbchiuces and some fans catastrophize, and I value your perspective on these things.

I'm sorry, but WHAT?? 😅

I have no clue what that word means.

I'm excited for SM4 and Uncharted 2, but after that, I don't want Tom to be a part of Avengers 5 or any crossover until he has success outside of the MCU.

Hmm...I mean, I guess I can sort of understand that sentiment. You just want him to not be typecast as a Superhero, or to be seen as someone who can only be successful in action films/popcorn flicks I'm assuming? I think that's pretty fair. With that said, I will say that even though some of Tom's projects outside of Spiderman haven't been as well-received as we as fans might want (i.e. "Cherry", CW, TCR, I personally thought TDATT did pretty well actually), I will say that he's been very fortunate that a LOT of these have been only STREAMING projects. It's not like they were put out in theaters, so even if they weren't that well-received by critics, who cares?? It's not like they had "box office numbers" to also worry about.

Plus, who knows if these films might have done well at the box office even in spite of negative film critics' reviews? 🤔 Did anyone ever consider that? Either way, to me, it hasn't been that big of a deal?

He's too talented to be stuck in that franchise that rn doesn't sound secure and looks to be dependent on him.

Tom is definitely very talented! But does TOM himself feel "stuck" in the franchise? He hasn't filmed a Spiderman movie since 2020/2021...that's almost 4 years ago. Is he really "stuck"?? 🤔

What is baffling with me with his career is that he's doing these films cause he wants to, but deep down, I don't think he just wants to do just this. I remember the q&a for TCR for sag-aftra and how he was scared to go outside of the MCU bubble before taking that role and how he was happy he was doing this.

I definitely don't think that Tom wants to be typecast or put in a box... He seems to want to do other things outside of MCU films (hence, his venturing and experimenting with other more challenging roles), but at the same time, I do think that he genuinely enjoys playing the Spider-Man character? I don't think two things can be true at the same time. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I'm confused because it's not just for money to stay in that universe. Tom avoids fashion shows and campaigns that could pay more than a movie star salary. He could really milk his persona for money due to him being a walking meme. He actively avoids socialising in hollywood or going to parties or events, yet he's stuck doing sequels?

Maybe those just aren't his thing? 🤷🏾‍♀️

With that said, I mean, I DO think it's good to go to Hollywood parties SOMETIMES, because those afford you a lot of ways to network and meet people you look up to, and maybe influential people who can possibly give you another acting job at some point. 👀 To me, it's just smart?? But not everyone likes to go to parties, and not everyone is really wanting to have a persona. In Tom's case, he's UBER famous, so he might actually be trying to TEMPER down his fame a bit, so that's why he prefers not to really be out there. Even his dad said that he worries at times about Tom's fame (not about the work), because his level of fame might not afford him the ability to just go out and do things like that, and still live a normal life w/out being hounded, ywkim?

I've yet to see him do an a24 film or projects filmtwittwr has a hard-on for, lol. I don't like film twitter, sorry. Very toxic imo.

I'm not really understanding what this has to do with anything. MOST actors take on roles that speak to them or ones that they find either challenging or interesting. MOST actors aren't taking roles because they think "Film Twitter" is going to like it. 🙄 Most actors don't even care about what their fans or people are going to think when choosing roles.

They choose to do a role because it's a great opportunity to maybe work with a great director or cast that they've always wanted to work with, or because the story/writing/plot is very compelling and it's a role that they can really sink their teeth into.

I rewatched TCR, and it's honestly so much better than I remembered. Tom is displaying an arpeggios of emotional acuity that is so uniquely rare that I didn't even want it to finish. I wanted to know more about Danny and his treatment. I'm not against big ip movies, I'm concerned with the lack of vision, director, scripts, and lack of practical effects. I want style as well as a blue screen.

Yea, Tom did an amazing job in TCR! 😃 I'm sorry the series was so heavy that it kind of made him go into a dark place while filming it 😔, but overall, I'm really glad that he went outside of the grain and did something very different from the norm! 😊

And the Critics Choice gave him a nomination, sooooo.... Obviously it must not have been hated THAT badly by the critics lol.

If there's on actor Tom should look for inspiration, it's Tom Cruise.

I've been saying this for a while now! 😃

Tom is a movie start idc.

Of COURSE he is!! Why do you have doubt anon?? 😅

He has the sauce, I just hope he uses it now and don't wait.

Tom definitely has the sauce, and I actually think he's already been using it?? 🤔 What are you looking for anon? Also, do you know that actors (male actors) are typically able to have a long-running career in Hollywood and be just fine?? It's female actresses that usually have a time limit on the types of roles they can play. But men can play just about anything for as long as they're still alive. It's unfair, but it's true.

Tom is a white, hetero, MALE actor in Hollywood. He will be just fine! He has DECADES to play a ton of roles Anon. Some actors out here are only JUST NOW getting their shine and they're past their 30's and 40s. Look at Coleman Domingo for example. He JUSt now got an Oscar nomination this year, and he's 54 years old. Idk where fans get this idea that Tom (or ANY actor for that matter) needs to be winning Oscars in their 20s, or doing such huge roles before they've even hit their 30's, as if their time is going to somehow run out and they don't have 30 MORE years to go in this industry lol. 😅🤣

Even Leo didn't win an Oscar until he was well into his 40s. He got his first nod at age 19, but didn't actually WIN one until his 40s'. Leo has been touted as some kind of acting prodigy, but even HE didn't get recognized with an Oscar until his 40's, and he's been acting since he was a kid! So, Idk where this sense of urgency comes from when it comes to Tom and his acting career, but the man isn't even in his 30's yet lol. He has PLENTY of time to do a wide range of roles! 😊