#dead wife movie montage series

[gremlinshatephilosophers]

Inspired by "Dan and Phil and a Tiny Horse," the dead wife montage series in the tiny horse cinematic universe (more politely known as Layers of a Movie Montage on ao3) is complete!

1. Love, September

Rating: G • Words: 1,020

Summary: They say you can tell someone's in love by the moments they capture on camera. Dan and Phil on a scenic autumnal walk in the woods, as seen through the videos they take of each other.

2. Till Death Do Us Part

Rating: G • Words: 1,041

Summary: Dan and Phil get married on New Year's eve. A glimpse into the reception, as seen through the videographer's distant lens.

3. Perfect like a picture, even when they look through the grains

Rating: G • Words: 1,335

Summary: Dan and Phil having a cozy night in with red wine, taking photos for a holiday card and taking videos for each other.

4. Would you read my eulogy?

Rating: T • Words: 1,441

Summary: Dan and Phil go on the same walk in the woods two years later, but there are no cameras this time. There's one video Phil doesn't have to watch to remember exactly how it ends.

(The first three can be read as fluffy standalones, but I highly recommend reading those before the final story for context.)

[asktheghosthost]

Finally saw the new Mansion movie and it felt very… 6.5/10, not enough ghosts. Like you could change the title and it would be a good movie on its own but it’s almost not a Haunted Mansion TM movie? Severe lack of proper Host and Constance and everyone else really. Anyhow, what did you think?

That's a very fair assessment. I wonder if I would have liked it more if it wasn't called The Haunted Mansion and didn't have the brand connection. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it; I did. I liked the characters, (but potentially controversial opinion: I do think some of them could have been combined or cut out), and I liked the story. Set design was fantastic. The obvious, over the top product placement was cringe- inducing, though.

But... what I want is a plot about the ghosts. I want them to take center stage. In this movie, they were practically background characters, except for Leota and Hattie. I get the idea of wanting a mortal protagonist as a proxy for the audience, but I don't think it's necessary. I really think you can have a story about the ghosts and audiences would connect with them.

What would I do none of you asked? It starts with a handful of recognizable ghosts all coming to terms with the fact they're now haunting this house together. (Maybe Ghost Host, Master Gracey, Madame Leota, Constance, and Hattie as the starters.) They discover other ghosts haunting the mansion, and realize it's a beacon for wandering souls. With all of these spirits coming in, it's proposed the mansion is made into a safe home for haunts. (Despite some tantrums from Constance and Gracey.) The Ghost Relations Department is created, and we get a fun montage of haunted objects being placed, beloved ghosts showing up, people finding/ falling into hidden passageways, etc. The various ghosts start to really bond and we get a nice found family set up.

Enter: Our threat. One of two things.

A. Mortal antagonist. Someone that wants to destroy/ misuse the Mansion, thereby displacing all of these ghosts who've finally found a home. Maybe they want to make it into an amusement park for extra meta commentary or something.

B. And what I prefer. One of the ghosts welcomed in isn't a ghost at all, but the demonic One Eyed Black Cat. The ghosts band together to save their home and exorcize the monster.

C. Combo of the two. Could be doable.

Or that animated series about the little girl befriending the ghosts gets reconsidered. That looked adorable.

At the end of the day, it was a cute movie. There were some scenes I loved, like Ben talking about his dead wife, and the discussions about grief. It's going into my Halloween rotation with the Muppets Haunted Mansion, HM 2003, and Hocus Pocus. Better than I expected, but still not the story I would have told. But still better than The Haunted Mansion: Storm and Shade novel that came out recently. I haven't even bothered discussing that one here yet.

[cantsayidont]

A couple of other movies:

HEATWAVE: Watchable but routine 2022 thriller about a bisexual Black woman with a checkered past (Kat Graham) who lands an exciting job with an upscale commercial real estate firm and finds a sexy white girlfriend (Merritt Patterson), only to find herself in a world of trouble after discovering that her new girlfriend is actually the trophy wife of her jealous, domineering new boss (Sebastian Roché). Making the protagonist a Black woman is novel for this genre (although it has less impact on the plot than perhaps it should), and the Graham character is a resourceful heroine, but the plot isn't quite inventive enough to make up for the all-too-familiar premise, and the story can't seem to decide what note it wants to end on, leading to a less-than-satisfying resolution. The corny voiceover that bookends the film doesn't help either.

THE HOT SPOT: GIF sets floating around Tumblr might give you the mistaken impression that this 1990 thriller, directed by Dennis Hopper and starring Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly, is some kind of forgotten sexy gem. In fact, it's a frustratingly lifeless neo-noir about a sleazy used car salesman (Johnson) in a small Texas town who attempts to juggle an ill-advised affair with his boss's vampish wife (Madsen), who has murder on her mind, with his pursuit of the dealership's financing manager (Connelly), a nice girl who's being blackmailed by a local ne'er-do-well (William Sadler) over her dead sister's past lesbian affair. Wants to evoke DOUBLE INDEMNITY and BODY HEAT, but it trips from plot point to plot point in disjointed, illogical fashion, failing to develop any real narrative momentum, much less suspense. Despite its murders, arson, and other assorted mayhem, it's ultimately just boring, with only the periodic scenes of Madsen or Connelly mostly naked to keep the viewer awake. Don't waste your time.

THE SQUAD: Frustratingly joyless, moderately exploitative 2023 action movie, written, produced, and directed by Rick Walker, about three ruthless, bikini-clad 20something white girls (Alea Hansinger, Meghan Carrasquillo, and Grace Evans), once rescued from foster care by a benefactor called Alpha (Jennifer Ferguson), who attempt to break into the drug scene on the Oklahoma coast in the run-up to spring break and quickly run afoul of the game's established players. The leering direction is a series of music video clichés — every scene feels like it's leading up to either a montage or a dance routine that's not forthcoming — and the clumsy script does a terrible job of establishing basic plot and character details (the girls' relationship with Alpha, the most potentially interesting part of the story, is consigned to a handful of awkwardly placed flashbacks). Of the poorly defined characters, only the girls' friend JC makes any impression, and then mostly because of the physical presence of MMA star Julia Avila (who isn't given much chance to demonstrate whether or not she can act). As demonstrated by the silly but entertaining 2018 remake of SUPERFLY (by Director X and Alex Tse), it's possible to do this kind of thing in a way that at least qualifies as dumb fun, but THE SQUAD is too mean-spirited to work even on that level, and the end titles' promise of a sequel seems more like a threat than a promise.

[maychild]

mini-reviews of bl dramas watched (part 8)

UNINTENTIONAL LOVE STORY 

adfjkldsajfkdslfj i loved this. was it cliche with predictable twists? yeah, but i enjoyed it nonetheless. the angst was sooo good, the chemistry between all the characters was phenomenal. i absolutely loved hotae and donghee and geonhee and his wife. i did not like vice manager jung but i didn't dislike him as much as i usually do unscrupulous people in dramas so...i did love wonyoung standing up for himself there at the end with manager jung so i don't mind the narrative redeeming him. wonyoung still has to work with this dude but maybe manager jung won't think he's such a pushover any more. i didn't like that for the majority of the episodes wonyoung was getting close to taejoon for the wrong reasons, but i did like that the latter half of the series focused on his deceit and the fallout. (a lesser drama would've resolved the whole thing in one ep but, unpopular opinion, i loved that they gave the major falling out and the getting back together the room that they did. i honestly did not feel like the series lost any momentum in that regard. taejoon's whole issue with trust and having it broken already in his life should not be brushed off so easily just so we can have romance and lovey-dovey moments, but again, i gather this is an unpopular opinion in this fandom.) 

of course i want a s2, especially with a focus on donghee and hotae. like they were definitely gearing up to be something there by the end, and we were robbed of them going on double dates with taejoon and wonyoung. (also! no reaction at all from anybody about the wedding rings??!! SO ROBBEDDD. i also wanted scenes with taejoon and his father.). 9.5/10

MY BEAUTIFUL MAN SEASON 2 / UTSUKUSHII KARE SEASON 2

where to even fucking start on how good this second season was??? this season picks up with hira in his final year of college, still anxious in his relationship with kiyoi, still needing to learn how to be an equal partner in this relationship (it doesn't help that hira has such low self-esteem that he still treats kiyoi like a god, and himself as a lowly pebble not even deserving of kiyoi's gaze). the things i didn't like the most in s1 (the miscommunication and the abuse) was fixed this time around--kiyoi has matured wonderfully, he doesn't take hira for granted or treat him like his slave (even tho that would make hira the most happy--someone on viki mentioned he might have a degradation kink and i'm inclined to agree). 

koyama, the second male lead/love interest is still around (obviously), and while i'm not wild about him appearing, he was a good friend overall, and he respected hira rejecting him.

hira is still his oddball, stalkery self, and the drama ended with him very much still a work in progress, but i do like how they emphasized that any meaningful change had to be slow, as it's hard to overcome 20+ years of people not lifting you up emotionally.

i also loved the introduction of more characters like anna, kiyoi's actress friend/mentor, and noguchi hiromi, the famous photographer/future mentor to hira. the story ends with hira and kiyoi still together, but very much both still a work in progress with each other and in their relationship.

(the movie looks trippy as fuck, and i hope we interfans get it soon-ish.) 10/10

STAR STRUCK 

this was so disappointing. both leads lacked chemistry with each other, there was a lack of intimacy, and it was slow/boring af. (honestly, i was shipping jinhwan and hanjoon more than the actual couple, and they only had interactions in one ep!)

the dead fish kisses also did not help matters--yes, there were a couple of kisses, but i did not buy that these two were in love with each other at all. i get that it was because there was an idol playing one half of the leads, but that didn't stop semantic error! the drama didn't exactly spend any time building up the romance in a believable way. there was a montage! seriously, a montage when u could've just chosen to show and expand on the relationship organically instead of shooing in everything at the last minute. speaking of last minute--the show felt very rushed, wanting to cram in a lot of things in the last two episodes. 

sadly, this had a lot of potential, but, at the end of the day, there's nothing to set it apart from other bland kbls that also didn't have the best chemistry or good story telling. 6.5/10

ALL THE LIQUORS 

this was so dull and boring and nothing really happened. i don't need a ton of angst or plot but ATL essentially had nothing.

some people will say the two leads had okay chemistry but, for me, it was nonexistent. everything felt way worse than an indie film. at least in indie film/shows with low-budget u can tell the show had a lot of passion and heart and drive for the story, but this show felt like it was just checking off boxes on what they thought made a good BL without diving into what the aspects of what made a BL good. (i can tell you it's not teasing an interesting backstory on a character who avoids alcohol as if his life depended on it, and a character who is a borderline alcoholic--i say borderline bc while he tends to drink a lot, so far, it doesn't interfere that much with his life.)

the drama might've had some potential if it delved into the intriguing plot line that ep 1 promised, mainly that of alcoholism and rehabilitation. (the drama might not have been bland if it had something to say about two recovering alcoholics falling in love, but alas, it remains totally unambitious, and the few dead fish kisses we got in the final episode felt like it came a little too late in the game.)

weak storytelling, weak acting, weak chemistry, basically all around weak everything. 4/10

LOVE TRACTOR 

love tractor is a wonderful mix of comedy, romance, and drama. i loved most everything about this drama (except for how short it was): the pacing, the story, and all the characters (there were a couple of ajummas but i needed more, and i needed the back story on village head ma because i definitely think there's a Story there). 

tho i will say, this is on the lower end in terms of heat and romance and passion--there were only a couple of kisses at most, but thankfully no dead kisses, and considering it's the first relationship they've ever been in for one of the younger characters, i can excuse that there isn't a whole lot of eroticism. the characters are developing slowly and if we had more episodes, maybe there would be a lot more passion, but, again, the story is majorly wonderful on its own that i'm not totally bothered by the lack of lust, it's just something i'm always on the look out for, but the lack of it in this drama certainly doesn't detract from how good and almost perfect this drama is.

anyway, loved it to bits and i want more seasons, tho i'm unlikely to get them (or the two main leads to star in another BL). 10/10

PART 1/???, PART 2/???, PART 3/???, PART 4/???, PART 5/???, PART 6/???, PART 7/???

[chipmunkfanno1love]

I've seen both Trolls: The Beat Goes On and Trollstopia I have to admit that I thought the first TV series was better than the second, mainly due to them completely ignoring the fact that Branch and Poppy are officially a couple now and acted more as they were just friends. While I now think both TV shows are AU's (in fact I think the creator of the shows confirmed it) as we see Little Branch talking to his "father" in a flashback of a TTBT episode of which the movies seem to hint that Brozone's parents are completely absent in their lives. Whether it's because they are dead, missing or simply left their children in their grandma's guardianship is yet to be confirmed.

I don't mind if they do another TV series based on the third film (so long as they acknowledge Broppy as a couple), I'd actually more like to see more short films made like these ones:

I think these short films fit better in canon, plus we get to hear the original voice actors continue their voice roles. I think there are a lot of great storylines they could do, e.g. Poppy and Floyd having a friendly ukelele battle, Clay babysitting Bruce and Brandy's children and struggling to taken seriously when it's pointed out that he's "too serious" and "no fun", maybe a cute brotherly montage for Branch and Floyd (or even Clay and Bruce) set up in a similar manner to this music video (only in their own particular style).

I think it would be cool if they did something similar to the Secrets of the Furious 5 short film where we hear what happened to Branch's brothers after they left Branch alone. It would be a great way for us to hear their individual stories, e.g. Spruce meeting and falling in love with his future wife, Brandy and changing his name to Bruce, Clay meeting Viva and becoming the co-leader of the Putt Putt Trolls, Floyd's attempt to start a solo career and then how he got kidnapped by Velvet and Veneer, and even John Dory's hike through the Neverglade Trial and his meeting and adoption of his caterbus, Rhonda.

I'd love it if they did not just another Trolls Christmas special, but also a Valentines special too. It would be so cute to see canon couples like Branch/Poppy, Bruce/Brandy and Bridget/Gristle have their adorable romantic escapades. It might be cute if we get some ship teasing of other potential couples like Cliva perhaps.

Either way, there are plenty of other options of expanding the franchise besides a TV series. Still, whatever they have planned for the future of the franchise I look forward to seeing it.

I’m kinda disappointed that branch and poppy weren’t dating in trollstopia. Hopefully dreamworks makes a new animated series and we get to see them 2 together. And maybe some cliva moments who know 🤷. What are your thoughts?

Ohh yes, I haven't watched the show myself, but that is what I keep hearing, that Branch and Poppy came off more as friends. I think that it is probable, with how much folks seem to like TBT, that an upcoming animated show based on the 3rd movie is likely sometime in the future. I would hope that if this show comes to be, that they are actually portrayed as a couple, since the third movie confirms that they are in the boyfriend-girlfriend status (and they kissed for crying out loud! 😍)

As for Cliva, I wouldn't mind it if they showed them as more of a friendship. I really do ship them and would like for them to get together, but I think the reality of the matter is that they are more platonic (for the time being at least). We only got about less than 2 minutes of them actually interacting onscreen for the 3rd movie, so it'd be nice to see them actually hanging out or something 💚💛

[whileiamdying]

FILM REVIEW; Snow Falling on Cedars: Prejudice Lingers in a Land of Mists

''Snow Falling on Cedars'' is an almost heartbreaking example of what can happen when a filmmaker becomes so overawed by his source that he confuses dramatic storytelling with the production of mammoth coffee-table art books. Bathed in deepening shades of snow-lit Prussian blue, this screen adaptation of David Guterson's popular 1994 novel is admirably high-minded and visually gorgeous but fatally anesthetized by its own grandiosity.

Frame by frame the movie, directed by Scott Hicks (of ''Shine'') and filmed by Robert Richardson (the virtuoso cinematographer behind several Oliver Stone movies), isn't just a series of shots but a sequence of exquisitely balanced photographic compositions. The piling on of so much visual beauty, however, only contributes to the sense of the movie as a frozen artifact cut off from the real world and designed to be viewed from behind a glass casement.

There's a lesson here about the aesthetics of mass-audience movies. Pretty pictures, as nice as they may be, are finally no substitute for a living, breathing screenplay. And ''Snow Falling on Cedars,'' like many an elegant coffee-table book, has a skimpy text (by Mr. Hicks and Ron Bass) that too often substitutes distilled, poeticized oration for everyday speech.

Hardly a moment passes when we're not conscious of the movie's messages about tolerance and forgiveness being shoved in our faces. Even when they are delivered by an actor as gifted as Max von Sydow, playing a defense lawyer who is the movie's official conscience, ''Snow Falling on Cedars'' rings with the hollow boom of a Sunday school sermon.

Perhaps the biggest mistake in translating the novel to the screen was to have the film imitate the book's intricate flashback structure. Flipping back and forth between the present and the past on the page is one thing. (It encourages your imagination to make leaps and allows you to take whatever time you need to bridge those transitions.) But when a movie does the same thing, the imagination is short-circuited, and there is hardly time for reflection. The film is so busy darting back and forth between past and present that from scene to scene its characters barely have time to breathe.

There are also far too many lingering close-ups of haunted faces. And a surreal montage that harks back to the early films of Alain Resnais (specifically ''Hiroshima, Mon Amour''), brings the movie to a dead halt. This might have been a coup de cinema in another film, but here it seems narratively evasive.

The story unfolds as a series of flashbacks from the 1950 murder trial of Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune), a young Japanese-American accused of killing a fisherman on his boat off the coast of the fictitious San Piedro Island, north of Puget Sound. Most of the events are seen through the eyes of Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke), a morose young reporter covering the trial for the local newspaper. Many years earlier Ishmael and the defendant's wife, Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), were teenage lovers who met secretly in the hollow trunk of a cedar tree deep in the rain forest. The affair ends when it is discovered by Hatsue's mother, who is vehemently opposed to interracial relationships.

The film's strongest scenes look back to World War II when the island's Japanese-Americans were interrogated, rounded up and sent to internment camps for the duration of the war. The murder trial revolves around the bitterness surrounding a land deal on which Kazuo's family defaulted while imprisoned. During the trial, the prosecutor (James Rebhorn) blatantly appeals to the local whites' lingering anti-Japanese prejudice in speeches that play on the racist stereotype of Asians as treacherous and inscrutable.

As the movie jumps back and forth in time, we meet Ishmael's late father, Arthur (Sam Shepard), the crusading local newspaper editor who stood up to the anti-Japanese hysteria that swept the community after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Nine years later Ishmael, poring over evidence in the case, decides to strike his own blow for truth and justice.

''Snow Falling on Cedars'' may be dramatically inert, but it is well acted, and it succeeds in sustaining a mood of spellbound reflection. The endless swirling snow, the blue-lit fog and the rain forest with its dripping evergreens evoke a brooding interior landscape where memory and reflection loom solemnly over the present.

But even this mood is undermined by James Newton Howard's bombastic score, which suggests the romantic minimalism of Michael Nyman encrusted with heavenly vocal choirs. The overwrought score is the final lethal touch in a movie that buckles under the weight of its own pretensions.

''Snow Falling on Cedars'' is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has sexual situations.

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS

Directed by Scott Hicks; written by Ron Bass and Mr. Hicks, based on the novel by David Guterson; director of photography, Robert Rchardson; edited by Hank Corwin; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Jeannine Oppewall; produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Harry J. Ufland and Mr. Bass; released by Universal Pictures. Running time: 130 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.

WITH: Ethan Hawke (Ishmael Chambers), James Cromwell (Judge Fielding), Richard Jenkins (Sheriff Art Moran), James Rebhorn (Alvin Hooks), Sam Shepard (Arthur Chambers), Max von Sydow (Nels Gudmundsson), Youki Kudoh (Hatsue Miyamoto) and Rick Yune (Kazuo Miyamoto).

Snow Falling on Cedars Director: Scott Hicks Writers: David Guterson (novel), Ronald Bass, Scott Hicks Stars: Ethan Hawke, Max von Sydow, Yûki Kudô, Reeve Carney, Anne Suzuki Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2h 7m Genres: Drama, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

[billiewena]

since I never made a post for these, here are all of MY ideal endings for sam (and how I would do them) that I spite-wrote after a coworker told me about how perfect his finale was <3

HUNTER NETWORK ENDING: Sam establishes an official network for the American hunters, leading a new generation of hunters as the antithesis of John Winchester. One of the final shots is a montage of all the hunters working and saving people all across the country, proving the Winchesters are no longer alone in the world.

SAMWITCH ENDING: Sam becomes a full-fledged witch thanks to all the magic supplies he inherited from Rowena and blends hunting/witch shenanigans. He can still be powerful but now he gets to choose where that power comes from. Okay this is basically Goldenrod Revisions, leave me alone.

SEPARATE WAYS ENDING: Sam and Dean both alive but living / hunting apart, going their separate ways like a parent and child who is finally leaving the nest. Sam gets the independence he always wanted while also getting to keep his brother in his life, because this is the ultimate proof that Dean trusts him. For the first time, they can move on without the reason being the other is dead. They no longer doubt they will always be there for each other even if they’re not living under the same roof anymore. The episode ends with Sam breaking into Dean’s [insert post-finale residence of choice here] in a callback to the pilot, saying he was in the area for a hunt. The last lines are Sam asking if he wanted to reunite for the hunt for old’s time sake and Dean saying “looks we got work to do.”

PODCASTER ENDING: Sam starts a podcast about the supernatural discussing urban American legends, myths, and mysteries that also helps viewers know what to look for and maybe even teaches them to defend themselves. Some take it as fiction, some use what he tells them to save their lives. It hits the top of the paranormal/mystery charts. The Ghostfacers, whose attempt to get into podcasting failed, ARE livid.

THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END: Sam and Dean both die in a blaze of glory, sacrificing themselves to defeat Chuck and bring back the rest of the world. They both get a moment to say an emotional goodbye to Jack and to each other. The two get a massive hunter’s funeral where all the past hunters come to mourn them and talk about their impact. Jody’s speech probably makes us cry. They get to Heaven at the same time, where they are greeted by all their past friends and family at the Roadhouse. On Earth, they live on forever as urban legends and heroes.

SAM & ROWENA ENDING: Sam says #FuckHeaven and spends his afterlife in hell as the consort to Queen Rowena, drinking margaritas all day, living his best life and stopping any demon uprisings in their tracks. Anytime they give him a hard time, he reminds them that he was Azazel’s boyking and they’re just Random Demon #489. What are THEY doing with their life.

SAM & EILEEN ENDING #1 - MARRIED HUNTER LIFE EDITION: Sam and Dean both survive and continue to hunt / live together, except now Eileen and Castiel are around and live in the bunker with them too after Cas was saved in [insert Empty rescue scenario of your choice.] Sam has some deja vu to the vision he had of all four of them living together in 15x09. He realizes that this is actually real and not a vision; that they are actually together, at peace and beat Chuck. The episode ends with them going to have the movie night that they never got to have in the vision. As Eileen takes his hand to go to the movie room, you see two engagement rings on their hands. Sam realizes that his journey may have started with losing Jessica but he found love again, and that while once upon a time all he and Eileen wanted was revenge, they’ve finally both found peace.

SAFE HOUSE ENDING: Sam starts a trauma center/safe house situation for hunters and ex-monsters to recover and heal, dedicating his life to proving that no one is beyond saving and everyone can redeem themselves and defy fate like he had. Mia Vallens, the shapeshifting grief counselor, is on payroll.

SAM IS THE AUTHOR NOW ENDING: Sam narrates the finale the same way Chuck did for the original series finale "Swan Song", further proving that they are now in control in their story. We get Sam's POV as he tells us what happened to all the other hunters and side characters, as well as him and his brother, with flashbacks from all fifteen seasons and young Sam & Dean growing up together. The episode ends with the reveal that Sam actually finishing the journal entries for the Winchester family's edition of the Men of Letters Bestiary, putting the finishing touches on some monster entries and his own personal anecodotes. He treats the Bestiary like a journal, in a callback to After-School Special where Sam almost became a writer and wrote about his and his family's hunting stories.

BABY JACK ENDING: Sam raises Baby!Jack after he is de-aged and “falls” to Earth in the same fashion the angel Anna once did. Baby!Jack wears overalls that don’t say his name in giant letters because Sam is a good parent who would never do that to his child. The two have a happy life as an adopted father/son duo who defied everything Lucifer and Heaven wanted them to be.

SAM & EILEEN ENDING #2 - EUROTRIP EDITION: Sam going on a year-long vacation around the world now that he has a cool Irish girlfriend who is not afraid of planes, leading to a fun exploration of the supernatural in foreign countries. Who is Dean.

DOG SHELTER OWNER: Sam owns a dog shelter and gets to walk at least ten dogs a day. Jack helps out and Miracle is the HBIC. Life is good.

CHUCK WINS ENDING: Sam lives and Dean dies, Sam throws a funeral for him that no one attends but him and a dog, and moves to the suburbs to live a generic white picket fence life with an unidentifiable wife. As a montage of Sam’s life plays, the camera pans away what looks like a computer and Chuck’s old office. A string of quotes can be heard in the background (“we’re just hamsters running around in a cage” “what would you rather have: peace or freedom?” “I can do anything...I’m a writer” “We will never give you the ending that you want / We’ll see”). The final shot is Jack, dressed in Chuck’s clothes and glasses and using his mannerisms, typing away at a typewriter. He writes “The End” but punctuates it with a question mark instead of a period. His computer screen and our TV screen both go black.

[sour-n-salty-citrus]

Do you like the backstory for rick? Idk I kinda preferred it when Rick's past was a complete mystery and i dont really care about diane at all. I didn't expect the writers to actually write a canon for him either but I guess they realised how much the audience wanted one for him

Ajdjdjeidjs ack, I'll be honest I'm not... keen on it.

(Bolly-quinn actually puts it into words well how I feel about Rick's backstory here)

I liked the mystery element of his backstory! I know it's always exciting to have things in canon, but like... it being open to interpretation was something I always appreciated.

And... ugh, hoo boy. I'm torn. I mean, I love that Rick is completely different from what dudebros and like- "high iq" redditors present him as. He's a man who loved his wife and daughter, loved them so much he would rather give up travelling the multiverse, becoming a genius scientist, just to stay with them. He was vulnerable, soft, and caring. He wasn't nihilistic and reckless and selfish and some "alpha male who wouldn't let anything tie him down". He was ridiculously romantic, optimistic, sweet and loving, and maybe even kind.

And I don't give a shit.

I don't! I don't care. This might sound incredibly cruel and unfair, but I don't care that Rick lost his family.

Ok- let me explain.

I'm... disappointed. I'm disappointed that losing Beth and Diane is all it was that made Rick into the complete and utter monster he is today (or the start of the series anyway). I don't mean to undermine his loss and grief- at all! It's just... for him to go on a (seemingly decades long) killing spree, slaughtering any version of himself he seemed to come across... christ. Maybe in his eyes, they were all as bad as that One. Which is understandable. I'm very lucky to have not experienced that kind of loss. I haven't had to Grieve the way Rick did. Maybe I just don't get it, because I've never felt it. That's fair.

It just felt... god, I don't want to say excessive. I know, people process grief in different ways, and for some it manifests in unhealthy ways, some lash out at the world, fixate on trying to find an explanation, to find justice, etc. And I like how Rick was an absolute inconsolable wreck at first. Something like that, it needs time to process and overcome before you can start moving again.

I just- I don't know. Something rubbed me the wrong way about it all.

It's like- it's not that I wanted Rick to have spent all that time partying or something. It's just- argh, i don't know! Maybe someone else can put it into better words lol.

I hate that he immediately jumped into not giving a single shit about other people (save birdperson and squanchy!). Like- when he blew up those aliens who gave him whatever it was he needed. Ah- ok, they probably weren't exactly innocent or anything, but still. I think it was just I felt if we ever saw Rick's backstory, I'd want it to be a slow decline into who he is, show him gradually losing so much of his morality and becoming so jaded. Idk i guess i just wanted it to be like, a series of significant (and lesser but still important) events that lead to him going down that path rather than- this ONE thing that just apparently completely ruined him? And yeah ik ik it was a BIG thing, but like- i guess i was expecting.... more? Maybe something like idk Rick trying to save all the other Beths and Dianes and failing, idk, just... something more.

I actually would have preferred it if Diane lived. I dont know, I just- man I really hate the dead wife/daughter turns ordinary man into callous asshole trope. I agree, it's hard to really care all that much for Diane, and for a while I couldn't understand why. I thought, idk, is it internalised misogyny? Do I just not like Diane because I want to ship Rick with someone else?

I think I get it now. Diane, for all her significance in Rick's backstory, just... isn't a character. She's just- the motivation Rick needed to kick off the story. You could replace her with literally anybody else Rick could have loved and it wouldn't feel any different. She just doesn't feel special. She's no more unique than any other Dead Wife. We get nothing, literally nothing of her. I kept thinking, why? Why does this just not hit that hard? Rick's had emotional moments with Beth, with Birdperson, even with Summer and Jerry. And then I got it- it doesn't feel earned. It felt like how you feel when you see side characters or extras in the background of an action movie die. Maybe some faint sadness, but mainly nothing. We as an audience get nothing from Diane, we don't know her, don't get to see how she matters to Rick, don't get to see her relationship with Rick, we don't get any chance to connect with her character. So when she dies and Rick gets his montage of seeking revenge, it doesn't feel earned. It feels more like I'm being told about how this guy suffered than really seeing it (which i believe, may have been the writers intention actually...). It's kind of like a feeling of "damn that sucks bro... and?". There's no real heavy emotional response that I could really get from it...

I actually would have preferred if Rick and Diane broke up, divorced. I feel like that would offer so much more for them BOTH as chatacters. Instead of their relationship being happy and sunshine and rainbows until a Big Bad came in and took that away, I'd prefer it if Rick's downfall was just... his fault. (Actually His fault.) If his marriage fell apart because he couldn't make it work. If he estranged his daughter because he couldn't properly handle fatherhood, despite loving her. If he was flawed, terribly flawed, because of his own misjudgement and shortcomings. I guess my biggest problem, is that this is presented as someone having the perfect life, which is then taken away as a result of someone Else. It's too easy to then say, oh, it's not his fault he's like that! He had his heart broken, his life ruined! He lost himself in a revenge spree, poor thing... I'd have rathered if it was just a little bit more... realistic? If Rick had been the root cause of his own problems. If he'd experienced tragedy, but also been the cause of much more. I just wish there'd been more of a balance? It just felt so rushed. And not because of the montage- it just like Rick became completely apathetic way too fast. I just hate hate HATE the "he was a good guy with the perfect little life until tragedy struck and he was never the same". Rick never made the effort to improve his life, to do better, to be better. He's actively a cruel, callous, unkind person (complex, yes, but these are traits no one can deny he harbours). He's done far worse than was done to him, and that will never be justifiable to me... it just all feels so very cliche and out of place, and out of everything, this was the one thing I had hoped they wouldn't do.

I think the writers are aware of this, strangely enough. I mean, Rick even calls it his "crybaby backstory". I think they didn't want to leave it open any longer, and just got it out of the way. I don't think they really want to elaborate on it anymore. From what I predict, they want to focus on the here and now of Rick (and Morty, haha), and the development of who Rick is NOW, instead of who he WAS. I think they kind of just went, here's your gut-punch, your tragic backstory, now leave it alone. Diane is dead, Rick had a hard past, the series is about moving on and change. Now can we PLEASE get back to the sci-fi shenanigans?

(There was something I LOVED about the backstory though, and that was the soundtrack! Like the music for the Battle of Bloodridge, it fucking SLAPPPEDDDD. I can't imagine making synthwave emotional, but it actually kind of worked! The swell of the music actually did a lot more for getting a reaction out of me than the content lmaooo. It kind of reminded me of Kurzegast's "optimistic nihilism" for some reason... I actually liked the Bloodridge track so much, it got me a little into synthwave, which i never listened to before! The music producers this season have just KILLED IT!)

[portiaadams]

Top 5 Boardwalk episodes

1. Home

IT INTRODUCES MEYER AND RICHARD! OF COURSE IT’S MY FAVORITE. But when I watched BWE for the first time, this was the episode where absolutely all the threads laid out in the first six episodes came together and the picture they wove was *shudders*. Nucky burning down his father’s house while Teddy watched; Meyer trying to play Chalky; Lucy sitting alone in the movie theater; Richard and Jimmy’s first meeting/first kill...the whole thing is just perfect. 

2. Gimcrack and Bunkum

Again, this episode felt like the point where season two came together. Boardwalk Empire has so much magical realism infused throughout the run, but in this episode it’s so *apparent*. I actually believe that Richard’s entire encounter with the dog/old men in the woods is a hallucination. He’s in the Pine Barrons for god sakes! Plus, they were so careful about hiding out-of-season shooting, but the Richard scenes positively luxuriate in the bare trees and fallen leaves. For a scene that takes place on *Memorial Day*. 

The whole episode is aces, though. Jimmy doing such a great job giving the speech, while Angela watches proudly, utterly unaware of the undercurrents with Nucky, who is glowering from the front at Jimmy’s success? The fight between Nucky and Eli? The off the charts creepiness of the Gillian/Jimmy scene in the bathroom? And I love Nucky’s plotting (it’s so smart, and I don’t always think that about his plots, although this one rebounds back on him), and I love when real-life people like Attorney General Daugherty and his, ahem, friend Jess Smith show up. But the Jimmy/Richard scenes are my favorite in the series, including the scalping of the odious Jackson Parkhurst. Never before have I cheered the death of a senior citizen.

3. Margate Sands

Season Three is very loud, and Margate Sounds starts with a beautiful montage of men dying dancing from machine-gun bullets, but the finale feels so earned. Everyone is there because of the decisions they made, both good and bad. The scenes with Eli and Nucky, especially about the car, are warm and make them feel like siblings in a way I don’t think the show always managed (Eli often felt like another neglected sorta-son, like Jimmy, which sometimes felt purposefully done and othertimes not so much). Getting Al Capone and Chalky together was *brilliant*. All the wheeling and dealing with Rothstein and Andrew Carnegie? Perfection.

And obviously, all the Tommy stuff breaks my heart, and I love the detail that he won’t go to Gillian while she’s offering sandwiches and Oreos, but runs to Richard, whom he just witnessed blowing someone’s head off. I chewed my nails off watching the rampage the first time.

Every single thing about Charlie and Meyer is outstanding in this episode. Particularly, Charlie trying to make up with Meyer in the hallway, and then the whole scene with AR/Masseria. Also, Masseria is straight-up terrifying in every scene but especially that one. Meyer talking Charlie down because if not, they are both dead? You can feel the danger they were in. 

In the end, though, Gillian broke my heart the most remembering the Commodore-and Nucky-did to her. Richard leaving Tommy with Julia (don’t get me started on Paul’s insta-redemption, the only dumb as hell moment in the whole episode) is a close second.

4. Eldorado

Mabel’s story is absolutely horrific on every level, but I think the biggest success of the flashbacks was fleshing her out. Because she was great! Bold, bright, and conniving. It made her loss so much more real. And she was particularly great in this episode, where you see that’s her own coping techniques that probably led to her undoing.

But this episode mirrors Margate Sands in such interesting ways. Nucky walking through the Commodore’s house for the first time mirrors his walk through it at the end of MS looking at the aftermath of Richard’s carnage. And watching Gillian’s story, which she relives in flashback in MS...JFC. 

Season five is Charlie’s season, and he and Meyer bring the goodness. I cheered when they finally got Narcisse. I can’t believe we haven’t got a miniseries or something, because BWE ended just as their stories heated up (Meyer taking out Nazis? Hello?).

5. Family Limitation

This episode is good for many reasons. Chicago Jimmy is the best Jimmy. Torrio was a much better mentor, who wasn’t afraid to smack Jimmy down but also celebrated Jimmy’s strengths, than Nucky. Being away from Gillian was good for Jimmy. I loved that the rich lady Margaret goes to for advice isn’t judgemental-she’s very pro-Temperance, so-but utterly practical. She gives Margaret advice about birth control. I love it.

But I love this episode for Charlie. Although his relationship with Gillian has some disturbing subtext, due to the fact he’s just a year older than Jimmy, it’s delightful all the same. And the scene where AR calls and tells Charlie, as Gillian rolls her stockings on in the bed behind him, that Gillian is Jimmy’s mother, not his wife?

I LAUGH EVERY TIME. 

Honorable mentions to basically every season two episode, a lot of season three, and the whole back end of season one.

Also-I was writing yesterday so my head is still there and as I wrote this I had to take out a whole section because Nucky isn’t actually Richard’s father-in-law. Whoops.

Thanks!

[gremlinshatephilosophers]

Phil solo IG post with the horse merch right as I post the final fic in the series that kills Dan (based on the calendar photoshoot) is hilarious timing

[mst3kproject]

Light Blast

What’s this?  A death ray movie in which we actually see stuff get death rayed?  Aw, man, that might disqualify it for MST3K right there!  Fortunately for us, however, Light Blast was directed by Enzo Castellari, who brought us Escape 2000, and it stars Erik Estrada. Estrada was never on MST3K but he was on pretty much all the 70’s cop shows they kept referencing, including Mannix and Police Woman, and Mike and the bots would never have let him forget it.

So what do we want out of a death ray movie?  I dunno, some faces melting like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark would be cool, and Light Blast apparently read my mind on that count because we get the first melting face action before the ten minute mark! A couple of young people go to have sex in a boxcar (this scene includes a real classy upskirt shot, just three minutes in) while the bad guy tests his death ray, and in the fine tradition of kids just trying to bone at the beginning of movies, they get zapped.  Meanwhile, somewhere else, Erik Estrada in a speedo takes down a couple of bank robbers by hiding a gun inside a roast turkey.

This is gonna be a weird movie, isn’t it?

Sadly, Light Blast never again rises to that height of absurdity.  Evil Professor Yuri Svoboda has a death ray, and has decided to hold the city of San Francisco hostage for the princely sum of:

Was that even a lot of money in 1985?  According to dollartimes the conversion rate is about 2.5, so that would be $12.5 million today... still seems a little low for a major city.  Anyway.

To show he means business, Svoboda death rays the announcer’s box at a demolition derby.  Thence ensues a series of extremely uninspired car chases and a scene in which Estrada is repeatedly kicked in the avocados by a woman dressed as a nurse (I liked that bit).  Eventually he puts the pieces of the puzzle together, and never even bothers to tell us what the finished picture looks like before running off to what looks like it’ll be the final Power Plant Confrontation.  No such luck.  Svoboda escapes again, and Estrada has to chase him down to the final final confrontation.

There are two things here Castellari seems to really like. One is digital clocks, which are frequently the focus of the death ray for some reason.  The other is men staggering around on fire, filmed in the type of loving slow motion that turns this agonizing death into a moment of over-dramatic hilarity.  Remember in the Making Of Documentary for Return of the King, when Peter Jackson acknowledges that Denethor falling off the top of Minas Tirith while on fire is ridiculous?  Enzo Castellari is definitely not that self-aware.

He is also fond of car chases.  There are three or four of them in Light Blast and they’re competent, I guess.  They’re definitely better than the budget version you sometimes see in really cheap movies, in which the camera turns to watch one vehicle pass by, then repeats the shot with another.  There was probably a storyboard and so forth.  But they’re still pretty monotonous and mostly just look like people driving around with no sense of a destination or a narrative.  Instead, the movie tries to add interest by giving them ‘gimmicks’.

In one of the chases, Estrada doesn’t want the villain to know he’s being followed, so rather than using his own vehicle, he just hops into random people’s cars and makes them do the following.  In one he shows his badge and tells the driver he’s a cop. In another he tells the woman driving that he’s playing a practical joke on a friend from college.  Astonishingly, he never gets slapped or shot.

In another, he steals a race car in order to chase down Svoboda, who is fleeing to a boat from which he plans to death ray the entire city or something.  This chase includes two separate shots in which Estrada jumps the race car over some obstacle in his way, again filmed in slow motion.  In neither was there any sort of ramp to get the car off the ground. It’s like that scene in Speed where the fucking bus somehow jumps over a gap in the highway except they did it twice and slowly to give the audience time to think about how stupid it is. Then Estrada jumps the car again onto Svoboda’s boat, which has already left the dock, and somehow manages to stop on a dime rather than falling into the water.

I recognize that movies are not bound by the laws of physics, but those that get away with breaking them do so by walking a fine line. Things have to look possible. People running away from explosions looks like it should work, and very few of us have ever been in a position to find out what it’s actually like first-hand (partly because those of us who have probably didn’t live to tell about it).  The car jumps?  Nah.

Wikipedia includes a couple of reviews of this film that have been translated, not very well, from Italian.  They’re kind of hard to understand but they do seem to fixate on the preponderance of car chases.  They also reference another staple of 80’s action movies, which is excessive police brutality.  Estrada shoots a whole bunch of people, breaks into a power plant and a funeral home, steals cars, causes a dozen accidents and untold property damage, and bullies his girlfriend into risking her job in order to get him the information he needs.  Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

Other clichés drift by.  The villain gives a pretty classic monologue all about how he Showed Those Fools At The Academy and how his death ray will make him supreme ruler of the world and he’ll bring about a new age of peace.  There’s a bit where Estrada and his partner, the Tall Guy (these characters do have names, I just don’t care) sit down at the kitchen table and put together what they’ve learned… but instead of some exposition to tell us, the audience, what that is, we get a Ryan And Shane Look For Forrest Fenn’s Treasure montage but without the irony.  We can just barely hear fragments of voices through this, as the characters talk about it… enough to tease us with what they know and we don’t.

I dunno, it’s possible the audience is supposed to have already figured this stuff out and I just wasn’t paying attention.  I was pretty bored during most of this movie.

During the montage, the bad guys sneak up outside Estrada’s house (which is on a boat?  I think?) and open fire, basically shooting everybody but Estrada himself, who escapes completely unharmed.  His personality-deficient girlfriend isn’t so lucky… but she was only in this movie so it would have a part for Estrada’s real-life girlfriend Peggy Rowe. This bit is right up there with The Phantom Creeps as a perfect example of why Women In Fridges is screenwriting for hacks.  Estrada is already determined to get these guys.  He already cares about the people they’ve killed in the past and the ones they plan to kill in the future!  He is already frustrated by his failures to catch them!  ‘Making it personal’ is completely unnecessary!  Did the writers really think her death would add anything, or were they just trying to fill up their Action Movie Cliché Bingo card?

In the villain’s evil monologue, Svoboda reveals that apparently Estrada killed his wife?  I guess she was the mortician?  This doesn’t help, because I don’t think Svoboda actually knows that Estrada’s girlfriend is dead and even if he does, she wasn’t his target. His henchmen were after Estrada and Tall Guy.

Then there’s the ending, which is in no way a ‘climax’ and barely even counts as an ‘end’.  Remember I said Estrada jumps his racecar onto Svoboda’s boat?  This knocks the death ray over and it melts Svoboda himself.  Estrada watches this, then basically just shrugs and walks the fuck away.  So… that was it?  No confrontation?  No fight? Just a failure to properly secure the superweapon?

Isn’t the rest of the boat gonna melt now, too?  In previous uses the death ray seemed to melt things over a fairly wide area.  Isn’t anyone worried about that?  No, we’re just rolling the credits?  Okay, fine. At least the movie’s over.

Is there anything nice I can say about Light Blast? Well… I guess it passes the Bechdel Test.  There’s a bit, completely irrelevant to the plot, where two women who work at the police station discuss perfume.  It’s as if one of the writers had read about the Bechdel Test and shoved that in there just to pass it, without bothering to think about what the point of the ‘test’ is.

For all I’ve bitched about it, Light Blast isn’t a full on disaster.  It’s merely a mediocre 80’s action movie.  What makes it so damn disappointing is the wackiness of that early scene with Estrada in his underwear and the gun in the turkey.  That bit has the same effect as naming your movie Hercules Against the Moon Men – it gives the audience the impression that you have a sense of humour, and then the rest of the film can be nothing but the slow downward spiral of realizing that you were, in fact, serious.  Even then, it still could have been fun if the writers and director had kept up that kind of cheese throughout but no… Light Blast couldn’t even be bad enough to be good.

If any of you MSTies reading this are aspiring film-makers, let this be the lesson for you: the introduction of your main character sets the tone.  Do that wrong, or in a way that doesn’t match the rest of your movie, and you’re sunk. And if you only have one interesting or funny idea, for love of Apearlo put that at the end of the movie, not the beginning!

[hello-robin-goodfellow]

FICTIONAL CHARACTER ASK: ROMEO MONTAGUE

TAGGED BY: @princesssarisa​

@ardenrosegarden​ @giuliettaluce​ @gravedangerahead​

Favorite thing about them: Oh my sweet boy, he is a sensitive poet that only wants to distance himself of violence and to share his love (for Juliet and for love itself) with the world.

Least favorite thing about them: That fact that when Tybalt kills Mercucio, he blames Juliet for “turning him affeminate” (weak) and decides to kill Tybalt in relation, believing this will prove that he is “man enough”. This obviously is the biggest mistake he ever commited.

Three things i have in common with them:

-His melancholy.

-I also can sometimes find dificult to communicate my true feelings to friends and relatives.

-I also love Juliet Capulet.

Three things i don’t have in common with them:

-Nobility status.

-Training to fight with a sword.

-I can’t improvise poetic dialogue the way he can. And i don’t have his french.

Favorite line:

“I fear, too early: for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night's revels and expire the term Of a despised life closed in my breast By some vile forfeit of untimely death”.

 “What lady is that, which doth enrich the hand Of yonder knight?

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear; Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear! So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand. Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night”.

“ If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss”. 

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O, that she knew she were! She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that? Her eye discourses; I will answer it. I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks: Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars, As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven Would through the airy region stream so bright That birds would sing and think it were not night. See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek”!

 “She speaks: O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art As glorious to this night, being o'er my head As is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wondering eyes Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds And sails upon the bosom of the air”.

“ Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this”?

 “Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight: Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare; It is enough I may but call her mine”.

“Ah, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy Be heap'd like mine and that thy skill be more To blazon it, then sweeten with thy breath This neighbour air, and let rich music's tongue Unfold the imagined happiness that both Receive in either by this dear encounter”.

“This gentleman, the prince's near ally, My very friend, hath got his mortal hurt In my behalf; my reputation stain'd With Tybalt's slander,—Tybalt, that an hour Hath been my kinsman! O sweet Juliet, Thy beauty hath made me effeminate And in my temper soften'd valour's steel”!

“ This day's black fate on more days doth depend; This but begins the woe, others must end”.

“Alive, in triumph! and Mercutio slain! Away to heaven, respective lenity, And fire-eyed fury be my conduct now”!

“O, I am fortune's fool”!

“Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel: Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love, An hour but married, Tybalt murdered, Doting like me and like me banished, Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair, And fall upon the ground, as I do now, Taking the measure of an unmade grave”.

“ It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops. I must be gone and live, or stay and die”.

“ Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so. I'll say yon grey is not the morning's eye, 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads: I have more care to stay than will to go: Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so. How is't, my soul? let's talk; it is not day”.

 “Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor: Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear As will disperse itself through all the veins That the life-weary taker may fall dead And that the trunk may be discharged of breath As violently as hasty powder fired Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb”.

“Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness, And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks, Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes, Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back; The world is not thy friend nor the world's law; The world affords no law to make thee rich; Then be not poor, but break it, and take this”.

“I pay thy poverty, and not thy will”.

“There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none. Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh. Come, cordial and not poison, go with me To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee”.

“How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! which their keepers call A lightning before death: O, how may I Call this a lightning? O my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet3040 Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love”!

“O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die”.    

brOTP: With Mercucio and Benvolio.

OTP: With Juliet.

nOTP: With Rosaline, Benvolio, Mercucio and Tybalt.

Random Headcanon:

-His favorite colors are: blue, green, white and silver.

-His favorite fairy tale is Rapunzel.

-His favorite greek myth is the love story of Orpheus and Euridice.

-In a Modern Day Everybody Lives AU i made in collab with @giuliettaluce​, he becomes an English Lit and Poetry professor. To know more about it, read it here:

https://giuliettaluce.tumblr.com/post/617050378210590720/modern-headcanon-romeo-and-juliet

Unpopular Opinion: Yes, Leonard Whiting is a good actor and he was a very good casting choice for the role of Romeo in the 1968 movie. But the cuts of many of his lines, like the one where he thinks that killing Tybalt as a regaining of honor and his dialogue with the apotecary, tones the characters actual complexity and intelligence way, way down, and is the cause of the popular misconception that Romeo is an impulsive bratty teenager.

Song i associate with them: 

Flor, Minha Flor (Grupo Galpão), wich is the theme of Grupo Galpão’s montage of Romeo and Juliet: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koIO15cI-8Y

Favorite picture of them:

Sir Ian Holm, 1967

Dolhai Attila, 2001

Adetomiwa Edun, 2010 

Eduardo Moreira, 2012/13

Lucien Laviscount in the Still Star-Crossed series, 2017

[vmecholls]

Veronica Mars

The saying ”The Bitch is Back” is an understatement. The character Veronica Mars in season 4 was unrecognizable.

I’m supposed to believe Veronica Mars is going to take E one night and smoke weed at Wallace’s house (& then shoot guns). Not to mention Logan is an intelligence officer who gets called away at unknown times. Logan is going to take E? Really?!? Those scenes were pointless. This is not the Veronica Mars I know & love. I don’t want to see her take E & smoke weed. It made me dislike the character Nicole as well. I was happy when she got mad at Veronica. Good riddance.

Veronica & Wallace’s friendship is one of the best parts about Veronica Mars. In all the scenes they shared in season 4, there was maybe one cute scene between the two of them. (The one where Wallace is at her place to go see a movie.) Veronica just seemed indifferent to him. I was extremely disappointed.

Weevil... poor, poor Weevil. I understand why he was angry. But Weevil was really, really angry. I feel like Rob Thomas didn’t know what to do with his character. I liked happy Weevil with his wife & kid.

Why wasn’t Dick present at the wedding?! Was he dealing with his father’s murder? Will he hire Keith & Veronica to solve it? I probably felt more for Dick than Veronica. Dick lost his father & best friend in the matter of a day or two. Dick was a reck after Cassidy/Beaver’s death. How would he coup now. He lost the two most important people in his life.

What happened to the sheriff? Neptune has a police chief now?! I’m confused... I didn’t enjoy the police chief scenes. The sheriff scenes always had a great tone to them. The police chief scenes fell flat.

Season 4 was already letting me down. The mystery wasn’t as surprising as the previous seasons. In fact, the mystery was extremely slow at times. It just seemed to drag on. Plus the additional characters (the senator, the Mexican hitmen) were not that interesting to watch. Mattie wasn’t that interesting either. I don’t want a Veronica replica in the form of some random high schooler.

Logan is “poor.” I had to rewind that scene to make sure I heard Dick correctly. I should have known then Logan was doomed. I can’t believe, without explanation, Logan is poor.

Now let’s talk about the final minutes of season 4... Rob Thomas, you lost your bet. You didn’t save Veronica Mars. You ended it.

I can understand the idea of killing Logan. Do I want to watch Veronica Mars without Logan? No. Could you have killed Logan and saved the show? I think so. And this is how...

There should have been a montage of Logan & Veronica’s life together. Honeymoon. Kids. Being happy. Then 10-15 years later, Logan dies. Was it Murder? Was Veronica the intended target? Who killed Logan? That’s where Veronica’s drive comes from. Just like her drive came when Lilly was murdered.

The series comes back with Veronica as a single parent still trying to solve the mystery of Logan’s death (kind of like the series Monk). Logan is still part of the series in flashbacks & conversations with Veronica (like Lilly in season 1). You still get the character Logan, but he’s dead. The mystery isn’t solved in a season, but takes multiple seasons. Veronica can be hired around the world, while still working on her husband’s murder.

Veronica & Logan’s kids are BFF with Noah Fennell. Maybe the kids have their own investigation into Logan’s death. Or Keith does.

As for Logan being poor, that could have been explained better. Maybe Logan gave away the money because he wanted to shed everything related to his family. Maybe Logan & Veronica didn’t want to raise their kids with money. Maybe Veronica gave it away after his death because it was a reminder of her dead husband (except for trusts for their kids’ education).

The best thing about Veronica Mars are the characters. You take Veronica out of Neptune, you loose a big part of the draw to the show.

Kristen Bell stated she wanted to be like Murder She Wrote. As a fan of Murder She Wrote, Jessica’s husband is deceased. You never knew her husband. (Another example, you never knew Trudy from Monk.) That’s why it worked for Murder She Wrote. (And Monk.) It won’t work for Veronica Mars. Logan is a beloved character.... BELOVED!

Maybe the above wouldn’t have saved the show either. I can’t imagine Veronica Mars without Logan & without the characters (Cliff, Vinnie, Wallace, Keith, Dick, Weevil) we love. It’s not Veronica Mars.

The other issue I have with Logan’s death is I have a hard time believing Veronica would continue as a PI after the murder of Logan. Wouldn’t she be afraid someone else might die because of her? I can’t believe Veronica would really welcome/encourage Mattie to be part of the PI business. There was really no motive to Logan’s death. Really, there was no reason the pizza guy had a bomb for Veronica. His Target was spring breakers.

IMO, season 4 was written to isolate Veronica from everyone else. And to do that, Veronica was written as a horrible person. Not the Veronica we all love.

Sorry, I have no interest in this Veronica Mars.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Liev Schreiber Birthday Special - Sabretooth, Kingpin, and The Storm King

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Liev Schreiber is quite an actor, one that I think it is sadly easy to overlook despite his talent at portraying villains or other morally dubious characters. From his integral role in the Scream movies to his later numerous villainous roles, he manages to show himself as a rather skilled and versatile actor, particularly in regards to the latter; Schreiber is easily able to slip into playing a villain and deliver a fantastic performance… most of the time anyway.

The date I’m posting this on (October 4, 2019) is his birthday, so we’re going to take a look at three of his biggest villain roles to date: 

Sabretooth from X-Men Origins 

The Storm King from My Little Pony: The Movie

Kingpin from Into the Spider-Verse 

The first is a great villain trapped in an awful movie; the second is an awful villain inside a fun and enjoyable movie; and the third is a great villain in an outstanding movie.

Motivation/Goals: Sabretooth is, in short, a psychopath. The guy lives for the thrill of battle, and is never satisfied unless he has someone to kill. He’s a predator, using the numerous wars he and his half-brother Logan fought in throughout history to sate his appetite, but it was never enough. Vietnam is when he really lost it, and soon after that his relationship with Logan became tarnished, leading to their numerous conflicts throughout the film. It’s rather simple, yet it’s effective. This is what we want from Sabretooth after all, a bloodthirsty, murderous psychopath who crosses every line imaginable and who just really wants to make Logan as miserable as possible.

The Storm King is kind of approaching dominating Equestria as if it were a business venture, complete with merchandise. Beyond that, he’s a bit of a one-note evil overlord, with none of the complex motivations and characterizations of the other antagonist of the film, Tempest Shadow. He’s just here for some quick laughs and to be the final boss in the third act.

Kingpin has my favorite motivation out of the entire lot: once when he was battling with Spider-Man, his wife and child walked in, and in fear and horror they fled, driving off only to be struck by a truck and killed. Kingpin then shoveled as much money as he could and hired the likes of Doc Ock and Green Goblin to help create a giant dimensional portal all so he could be reunited with his family. It’s such a tragic motive that adds layers of depth to Kingpin, and ultimately makes him an interesting foil for Miles, who decides to continue fighting so he can live up to those he loses (Peter and his uncle) while Kingpin cannot accept his loss or his responsibility and so decides to damn everyone else in his desperate struggle to undo the damage he himself caused.

Personality: Sabretooth is easily the most simple of the villains, in that he is just a completely unrepentant monster who revels in the fact he is a vicious, remorseless killer. Normally a villain like that would be boring and generic… but this is Sabretooth. This is what we want out of him. Add in his brotherly banter with Wolverine and his single-minded desire to ruin Logan’s life at every turn, and he just ends up being a really fun and engaging take on the character, with Schreiber injecting just the right amount of soft-spoken sadism and menace to make Victor Creed pants-crappingly terrifying.

Kingpin is a sleazy, scummy mob boss. He’s another seemingly simple character, but his design really helps show what kind of guy he is without telling us. This iteration of Wilson Fisk really plays up him being a mountain of a man, with him being a hulking behemoth with a very bulky design. Despite being a normal human, he looks like the kind of guy who could kill a superhuman with his bare hands. Despite all this, he does have sympathetic  (but, and this can’t be stressed enough, not redeeming) qualities, such as his love for his family and his single-minded desire to be reunited with them. Of course, this desire is what leads to most of the troubles in the film, so he does show the dangers of that sort of careless and reckless pursuit of a goal is a bad thing, no matter how noble it seems.

Final Fate: The Storm King is the only character out of these three with a clear-cut fate, and it goes a long way to redeeming how bland the character is due to how out-of-place and dark it seems in the world of Friendship is Magic. In short, he is turned to stone, and his statue is allowed to drop to the ground, where he shatters into pieces. By all accounts, he is dead, a fate that seems to befall all terrible Friendship is Magic villains (cough Sombra cough).

Kingpin is the most open-ended, as after Miles stops him and in true Spider-Man fashion strings him up for the police. This does open up the door for Kingpin to appear again, which is a plus. The final showdown beforehand is a lot more interesting. The beatdown he gets from Miles, where Miles gets up from the pummeling that killed Peter and delivering a confident “Hey” like his uncle taught him right on Kingpin’s shoulder, sending him flying back to shut down his dimensional portal really is an  awesome moment for the film and Miles in general.

Sabretooth… it really is impossible to say. He apparently makes it out of this film alive, but Schreiber’s Sabretooth is so disconnected from the one who appears later in the timeline (mostly on the token that Schreiber’s take is actually good and memorable) that it’s impossible what to say happened to him. Further muddying the waters is the numerous canon retcons to the timeline as shown in films like Days of Future Past, which altered the timeline in baffling ways such as causing people to be born earlier than they would have been, and then there’s the deleted idea for his cameo in Logan… Really, there’s no telling what exactly Happened to Victor Creed, as the X-Men series is such an utter mess.

Best Scene: Sabretooth has a few, such as the awesome opening montage where he and his brother fight through multiple wars, but perhaps the best part is when he and Wolverine team up to kill that awful thing pretending to be Deadpool. The real Deadpool would beat them to the punch much later in Deadpool 2, but hey, at least he knew what had to be done when he had the chance.

Kingpin’s is almost definitely the scene where he kills Peter, which shows him going through a shocking amount of emotion, but there’s also the flashback to his family’s demise or even that moment on the train where he becomes a lifetime achiever in the Pontoffel Pock Awards by screwing up in every conceivable reality imaginable and disturbing an entire multiverse worth of his family in his quest to murder Miles. Few people screw up on that epic of a scale.

The Storm King… I don’t know. He’s kinda scary in his final battle? Maybe when he plays with the sun and the moon? Nothing really stands out for him super well, because quite frankly he is massively overshadowed by Tempest Shadow, who has the honor of getting the villain song of the movie. And let me be completely frank: if you are a villain in a musical, and you don’t get a song, you suck. Period.

Best Quote: For Sabretooth, it has to be this quote that really sums up who he is: “I'm not your friend. I'm an animal, who dreamed he was a man. But the dream is over. And the beast is awake. And I will come for you without mercy, because it's my nature.”

Kingpin is a little trickier, because Wilson Fisk is a man of actions, rather than words; I feel like he doesn’t have too many great quips, but he has a plethora of awesome actions. However, I DO enjoy his intro, where Schreiber just kills it with the delivery and establishes Fisk right off the bat as one hell of a crime boss: “Doo-be do. Doo-be do. Yub-yub, doo-bee do, doo-bee-do. Watch out! Here comes the Spider-Man! You like my new toy? Cost me a fortune, but hey, can't take it with you, right? You came all this way. Watch the test. It's a hell of a frickin' light show, you're gonna love this.”

For Storm King… well, this is kind of a funny line: “Here's the deal. I'm in the middle of a big rebrand here. "The Storm King" is tracking, well, as "intensely intimidating", but you know what? I need to back it up. You know what I need to back it up with? A STORM! THAT WOULD BE GREAT! You promised me magic that could control the elements, and right now, I'm holding a what? A branch. A twig. Bleh!” Kind of a reach, but I think he does have some decent comedic moments here and there, and his initial, er, phone call with Tempest is charming enough.

Final Thoughts & Score: These guys are really all over the place, but I think they really showcase Schreiber’s talents very well, as well as how to use him effectively.

Sabretooth is easily the best villain out of this bunch. While X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a terrible, bloated mess of a film, Sabretooth is one of the few redeeming factors, with Schreiber turning in a wonderfully terrifying performance as Logan’s arch-enemy. It’s frankly insulting they never had him come back to the franchise, because he was certainly far more deserving of a comeback than someone like Jennifer Lawrence. At least with Schreiber it was clear he cared about the character, which is more than can be said for whoever played the original Sabretooth (a character who is not even worth a Psycho Analysis; there’s just nothing to talk about there).

Really, the only major issues with Sabretooth are the fact that he’s in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to the X-Men franchise and the writing doesn’t do him many favors, but Schreiber is just acting his butt off to the point where it doesn’t matter, he’s selling it, he’s giving us the Sabretooth even the “better” first X-Men movie couldn’t deliver, and he seriously earns that 9/10. It should come as no shock that his take on Victor Creed is the one thing besides Ryan Reynolds fans truly love about the film.

Contrast the Storm King, who is just a depressing waste of potential. The prequel comics set him up to be something far more fascinating than what we get in the movie; he goes from a silly yet cunning overlord to a comical goober who barely gets any screentime, accomplishes half of his evil actions offscreen, and just leaves very little impression on the audience. Not helping is that he is by and large one of the biggest idiots ever seen in the Friendship is Magic franchise, backstabbing his own loyal followers for no good reason and basically playing with his hand revealed. It’s pretty telling that his henchwoman Tempest Shadow is the one who gets the villain song of the film (which, as I’ve pointed out, is a sign that he really, really sucks as a villain) and who is far more memorable, enjoyable, and interesting.

All that being said, I do appreciate the sentiment of the character, and I do like that Schreiber did it so his kids could watch something with him in it that wouldn’t make them scared out of their minds, and I don’t necessarily think Storm King is one of the most horrible villains ever or anything – he’s just boring and a waste of potential. I’d say he just barely makes it to a 3/10, and that’s mostly because he does have some amusing moments and how bad he is is offset by Tempest Shadow being such a fantastic antagonist; if she wasn’t in the movie, he’d easily be a low 2 and a lot less forgivable. That does seem kind of weird, but I think with a villain like Storm King where he’s just a simple goofball being played by a talented actor isn’t so bad as long as there’s an actual, serious antagonist. It doesn’t exactly make him any better but it keeps him from sinking to the rating of soomeone like Jared Leto’s Joker.

Kingpin is, quite simply, fantastic. I love his design, I love his motivation, I love how he just commands the scene when he walks into the room. This guy is just peak villain design, story-wise and design-wise. Some have taken umbrage with the fact that Kingpin is the one who got to kill Peter rather than a more personal foe like Norman Osborn, but frankly I like that they took a unique approach and decided to utilize a more unexpected foe of Spidey’s.

I think what’s best about Kingpin is just how they manage to make him a rather tragic and pitiable figure despite all the evil he does. Normally it would be a tall order to make the man who murders Peter Parker a tragic figure, but somehow the film manages, showing him to be a bitter, broken man desperately clinging to the tiny hope he could ever see his family again by destroying the dimensional barriers, no matter the cost. And if someone tries to tell him otherwise? Kill ‘em. Obviously this doesn’t excuse his actions, and the movie thankfully never pretends to, but I like that they made this Kingpin such a rich character in his own right, continuing the trend of Kingpin always being given a fantastic performance. Much like Sabretooth, Schreiber really earns the 9/10 with this fantastic vocal performance and just how impactful and even proactive Kingpin is in the story. He gets two major deaths to his name after all.

Liev Schreiber is such a fascinating actor, one who I think is so often overlooked and ignored. While he certainly is typecast as villains fairly often, I think it’s safe to say he excels at those kinds of roles, and he always manages to inject something unique into his roles. You wouldn’t confuse any of these three villains for each other after all.

[mexcine]

The Soul of a Monster (1944) review -- Columbia Pictures was not one of Hollywood’s primary purveyors of fantasy film in the 1940s. Not averse to B pictures, the studio concentrated its efforts in this tier of production on crime series (The Lone Wolf, Ellery Queen, The Whistler, The Crime Doctor, Boston Blackie), comedies (Blondie), and Westerns (Charles Starrett’s Durango Kid), as well as numerous one-offs.  Occasionally a horror film would sneak in, notably The Return of the Vampire (1943), featuring not only a vampire (Bela Lugosi), but also a werewolf!  

           Curiously, in the summer of 1944 Columbia released two fantasy films on the same day, Cry of the Werewolf and The Soul of a Monster.  Produced by different units (Wallace MacDonald and Ted Richmond, respectively) with virtually no overlap in cast or crew, the movies are similar in their low-key approach to horror, closer to the Val Lewton pictures for RKO than the more florid Universal horror movies of the era.  Cry of the Werewolf disappoints because its “werewolf” is an actual wolf (not a hairy human, as in The Wolfman or The Return of the Vampire), while The Soul of a Monster features only a sort-of, occasionally, maybe zombie-like character.

           Screenwriter Edward Dein worked for Val Lewton at RKO (earning an additional dialogue credit for The Leopard Man), and The Soul of a Monster has a (very) slight Lewton-esque feel, both in its script and direction.  This was Will Jason’s first feature as a director (he’d been making shorts since the late Thirties, and was involved in films as a songwriter even earlier than that), and he tosses in a few “fancy” sequences, although these are stuck in the middle of a fair amount of pedestrian work.

           Saintly Dr. George Winson (George Macready) is on his deathbed, suffering from a virulent infection incurred while treating a patient.  His wife Ann (Jeanne Bates), getting no help from God, asks the Devil for assistance.  That’s never a good idea.  But, suddenly, Lilyan (Rose Hobart) appears, some distance from the Winson house. She strides purposely through the streets, is struck by a car (but strolls away unharmed), passes under a sparking live wire, provokes (somehow) a burst of flame near two welders, and finally arrives at the Winson home.  

This is a nice, if obvious sequence, with some dutch tilt camera angles and nice lighting.  One could quibble about a few things—if Lilyan, as we are led to believe, is Satan’s emissary, why did she show up on Earth so far from the Winsons? Seems like she could have manifested in a cloud of smoke on their doorstep and saved herself the long walk.

Lilyan saves George’s life (behind closed doors). However, he’s…changed.  At least, that’s what everyone says.  The film opens with various people remarking about Dr. Winson’s altruism, but we never see it, so his rather stiff attitude doesn’t seem that “evil” to us. However, George does (off-screen) kill his dog, which had formerly doted on him (sitting forlornly at his bedside in the opening sequence).  

Ann’s concern about her husband is echoed by her friend Fred Stevens (Erik Rolf) and George’s assistant, Dr. Roger Vance (Jim Bannon).  Fred is apparently a minister of some sort.  It’s never openly stated, but he talks a lot about souls, and goodness, and evil; he also leads a boy’s choir singing “Ave Maria,” and so forth, but we never see him in a church (the only time we see the interior of a church is when Ann goes to pray—she prays to a statue of the Virgin Mary, which suggests a Catholic church) or wearing robes, and no overt reference is made to his occupation.  The religious content of The Soul of a Monster is at the same time overt and oblique: I’m not sure either “God” or the Devil is specifically mentioned, but there is a considerable amount of philosophical/religious discussion.

George eventually leaves Ann and (I think) moves in with Lilyan (at least he spends a lot of time with her).  Before this, however, there’s a long and fairly effective sequence in which George, Ann, and Fred visit another man’s house and listen to his guest play the piano.  George stands by the French doors and stares outside into the night as a storm approaches. The pianist plays “The Mephisto Waltz” for an encore (irony!).  

Fred continually berates George for his bad attitude; Lilyan telepathically orders George to follow Fred and stab him to death with a scalpel.  We get yet another long sequence as Fred walks home through the city at night, followed by George in a sort of trance, the scalpel clutched in his hand.  Each time George prepares to stab Fred, something intervenes, but he finally sees his chance…only to recoil when Fred bends over and picks up a small cross someone fortuitously dropped on the street.

George does (at Lilyan’s bidding) eliminate Dr. Vance: Lilyan hits him with her car, and George delays treating him until it’s too late.  He’s subsequently charged with murder, which seems rather unfair. He only hesitates for a few seconds! A very strange montage follows: newspaper headlines are interspersed with shots of his grand jury testimony and (when he’s granted) bail, his statement to some reporters--all of these shots (except the newspaper inserts) are extreme dutch tilts.

Fed up with it all, George confronts Lilyan. She shoots him, point-blank, multiple times but he (apparently) crashes through a window with her, and she is killed.  [At least, the screen fades to black, we hear her scream, glass breaking, and the squeal of brakes.  Then we see her dead on the street, and George isn’t around, but Fred is there, looking at her, along with some cops and bystanders. Was she hit by a truck? It’s not the car that hit her at the beginning of the movie.]  Suddenly, we’re back to the beginning of the film, with George on his death bed. Dr. Vance is still alive, and George dies as he was foreordained to do.  The film concludes with an epigram (it also opens with a printed statement, Lewton-like touches) :

“For the man who walks with evil walks alone; he who walks with evil has no soul, no hope; he lives but a life without faith, and without faith there is no life.”

One of the biggest problems with The Soul of a Monster (an inappropriate title if you think about it, since the the point of the film is that George has no soul) is the character of George.  As noted above, we never see “good George” before his fatal illness, and afterwards he has very little personality at all, let alone becoming a “monster.”  Lilyan’s orders, telepathic or otherwise, inspire him to a few less-than-nice actions (attempting to murder Fred, allowing Dr. Vance to die), but otherwise he’s more or less passive, not even that unpleasant (alright, he does kill a dog). There are two vague attempts to characterise George as “undead”--he has no pulse and when Dr. Vance accidentally stabs him with a pair of scissors, there is no blood.  However, nothing is made of this, and Lilyan apparently thinks shooting George six times at point-blank range will “kill” him (she’s wrong), which doesn’t seem to make any sense: if Lilyan is the Devil’s emissary and she resurrected George (or at least prevented him from dying), then wouldn’t it seem logical that she’d be able to kill him in some supernatural manner rather than resorting to a mundane method like shooting him?

The Soul of a Monster is inconsistent in other ways, both in content and structure.  George’s wife Ann and Dr. Vance pop in and out of the plot more or less randomly--the real antagonists are Fred and George/Lilyan.  Lilyan is clearly supposed to be a supernatural creature, summoned by Ann’s petition to the Dark Forces, but later she seems to be a regular person (albeit one with telepathic power) who uses George to avenge herself on Fred and Dr. Vance, who were mean to her.  Then, at the climax, she abandons her magic and picks up a pistol, and is killed herself in a (more or less, it’s vague) normal fashion.

The Soul of a Monster was sold as a horror film, but the film itself is a mix of Lewton-esque speculative maybe-fantasy, metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, and one or two “horror” elements which don’t seem to fit.  Will Jason’s direction is only fitfully inspired, with the “arty” sequences standing out because everything else is so routine and style-less.  

note: as of 4 March 2020, this film is available in its entirety on YouTube.

[the-ink-bottle]

Live Blogging Disney’s Hercules

Okay I’m gonna start with the fact that Hercules was actually named Heracles, and Disney says that his parents are Hera and Zeus but REALLY he was the product of Zeus’ fling with Alcmene. Zeus named the baby after Hera so that Hera wouldn’t kill the little guy out of rage at her cheater husband. But for the sake of the movie we’ll stick with:

00:01: a weird museum full of vases and statues, featuring the muses. I’d like to point out that there are actually nine, versus the featured five. But we all know that these ladies have enough personality to cover those other four. I can JAM to that gospel truth. We next see a view of Mount Olympus. The real Mount Olympus isn’t actually all that big, and really it would have been easy for the Greeks to climb up there and SEE the gods they believed lived there. But they didn’t Do That, which I think says a lot about the Greeks.

00:04 “I haven’t seen this much love in a room since Narcissus discovered himself.” A great joke, but Narcissus was actually a human who was later turned into a flower.

In this scene, Zeus gives his newborn son a gift: a winged horse named Pegasus. Pegasus may have obeyed Zeus, but he was actually the son of Medusa after her rape by Poseidon. He never really had any contact with Hercules that I know of.

00:07 The Fates and their threads of life- creepy right? Well they weren’t actually like that. Disney’s version combines the fates with the Gray Sisters, who were featured in Percy Jackson as being all-knowing and sharing a single eye and tooth between them. The Fates had the power to end life, but they didn’t look the same or have quite the same knowledge.

00:10 So this is just gonna un-do the ENTIRE plot but, suffice it to say that Hades did not give a flying pterippus about Hercules OR Heracles. Hades is pretty well known for staying in the Underworld. He likes it there! Or rather, he hates being near his brothers. That and he isn’t exactly allowed to leave very often...

Anyways, Hercules greatest feats were actually the result of his punishment by King Eurystheus....more on that later.

00:17 A true thing! Hercules was indeed raised on earth, mortal, and strangled two large snakes when he was an infant. In the myth, however, the snakes were sent by Hera. (Fun fact: Hercules was a twin, but his brother, Iphicles, had no powers.)

00:20 Hercules’ song in the movie SLAPS. Go the Distance is a banger and Michael Bolton killed it.

00:23 Zeus tells Hercules that if he becomes a hero, his godhood will be restored. Now - where is the lie? This actually isn’t too far from the truth. His punishment from Eurystheus was to complete a series of labors. At the completion of these tasks, he would be purified of his crimes and be allowed to live on Olympus. What were his crimes? Well....we’ll get there. Patience.

00:31 This movie has a lot of great songs, mythology errors aside. Philoctetes may be a rapist and a creep, but he can sing well enough.

00:35 Now is the time when we finally meet Megara! Megara was indeed the first wife of Hercules. A bit of a downer here: Hera, in one her infinite attempts to ruin the hero’s life, drove Hercules insane one spring night. In his insanity he killed his wife and children. After coming to, he was sent to Eurystheus for punishment. Luckily, Disney skipped that part of the myth. That doesn’t necessarily mean Megara gets a happy story, as we’ll see later.

00:37 Hades is wildly interpreted by several different adaptations of myth. In this movie, he seems like a very sassy, stressed-out gay. To be fair a lot of the ancient greeks were bisexual, including Hercules! But I digress.

00:45 Hercules is faced with battling a Hydra, aka a dragon with multiple heads which regrow after being cut off. This was indeed a feature of the myth, as defeating the Hydra was one of Hercules’ tasks set by Eurystheus. In the myth, he is assisted by his friend and kin, Iolaus. The movie does a good job depicting this, even minus the help. The scene is followed by another SMASH of a song, Zero to Hero. It is during this musical montage that we glimpse his other achievements: the slaying of the Nemean Lion, for example, whose hide is later seen as a cloak around Hercules (peep the Lion King reference).

00:51 Hades: “What are THOOOSE”

00:56 There’s the Lion King ref I mentioned, among several other pieces of comedic relief following that scene with Zeus.

00:59 I CAN HEAR THE BEGINNING NOTES OF “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” AND I AM REAAAADDYYYY also peep the prick of cupid’s arrow in Megara’s back.

00:01 HERE IT IS THE SONG OF THE CENTURY GET IT SUSAN EGAN

01:06 I’m gonna take this time to point out a major change from the myth. Hercules never really had a “trainer” in any story I’ve read, unless you count the musical tutor who Herc killed for being too critical. In actuality, Philoctetes was another hero and friend of Hercules who was badly wounded at Troy. There was never a satyr rapist involved (a sapyst? A ratyr?)

01:15 Hermes is the chaotic good sassy gay and Hades is the chaotic evil sassy gay

01:16 The power of animation is making Megara look gorgeous even after being crushed by a pillar

01:18 If Hades’ hair is fire does that make him flamingly gay?

01:22 A total Orpheus and Eurydice moment, Hercules was never able to get is wife back from the dead in the myth. He did go to Hades in order to dog-nap Cerberus once, though.

01:23 Hades: “MR STARK I DON’T FEEL SO GOOD”

Finalé: Hercules is a great movie for little kids getting started on mythology. I’ve always loved the humor and sound track, even if almost everything is inaccurate.

Aaaand a bonus panel: my favorite meme