#for everything that the Industry and Michael Bay have done to her

[sharkieboi]

although reactions to Subservience: I do love take two of Megan Fox getting to fuck up objectively horrible people

[vivianbernadetteaurora]

Some people have spoke up about abusing the industry or people who have been abused in the industry. It’s so common and I hate it when people say it’s a conspiracy because it’s always the same story let’s start for Michael Bay on the set of transformers he said that he was really difficult to work with and diva so she didn’t continue with the films he was actually really pervy towards, and I can’t even imagine what working with Shia LaBeouf would be like as well, he’s well-known for being abuser and has the money despicable things but he has been abused himself but it does not make it right,

About her she may have been pregnant Schneider and also that Dan Schneider took her in as a parental figure which is more fucked up than you can imagine really isn’t it? The man that’s abusing her along with her father just because Amanda is on drugs at the time, maybe she was telling the truth because she was These people in Hollywood to go on and on and on and on and on until they break and then when they break they no good for the many more they call them drug addicts they call them mentally ill they credit then they call them sluts everything is horrible.?

These Satanist and Jewish Zionist I’m not saying all evil but the ones that run Hollywood sure and they have created all these companies abused young children and young advertise and given them drugs for example Judy Garland on this listM when she was 16 years old cigarettes and barbiturates cigarettes 16 year-old lose weight and barbiturates to help her sleep disgusting she had her awful stage mother and two older sisters she actually stunted her. She was only 5 foot foot or 4 foot 10. She was tiny.,

Then they treated they treated Marilyn like no other Garland but she was just treated as a sex object. Where is Garland was ridicule for her and was told that she was nothing worse than an age. Marilyn was seen as this sex and nothing more intelligent things with her and gave back to people. She grew up in foster care and got married so she could escape the foster care system with her first husband which didn’t last long because they weren’t compatible and things weren’t wrong there.

The story is always the same but Jeanette McCarty wrote a couple of years ago called. I’m glad my mum died. I think her mum was a narcissist. He also had like really child abuse tendencies and would wash her up to all the age of really old it was really horrible for her and she was the stage mother and she also encouraged her anorexia because she was also Really bad about herself. She felt pride of her when she lost loads of weight. She would send her emails back when she wasn’t with her as soon as she got older the mother felt she lost her and the identity of who she was because she wasn’t attached to who she was. She even tried to stop her puberty happening with the anorexia because she didn’t want her out of her sight. She wanted to control her.! this is why that world is so bad and a lot of actors away from it. There are some exceptions like Drew Barrymore like Seth Rogen who was in her small world and films. He was a boy sometimes it’s different for boys but sometimes it’s a lot worse depending on what industry we have film documentary which is about Nickelodeon which I grew up in as a millennial. I am finding out with this stuff which I’m listening to and I’ve heard people like Brian Peck on this documentary who is allowed to go out with children I don’t know what’s going on with him then now but then he was allowed to Charlie Sheen back to him up James Marsden and many many more that Charlie Sheen is any better because he did stuff to Corey Haim pro

Packers allowed to work with children after being convicted of having done minor.

[ramp-it-up]

Sundancer

Pairing: Rafael Casal x Reader

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Minors DNI, Some pictures, Angst, Pining, drinking, explicit language, oral sex (female/male receiving), love fluff. All errors my own.

A/N: This an ask from @honeysucklechocolatedrippin​ from the 100 smut prompts ask list. I got caught up with this one because I went back to the Show Runner AU.  I kinda love these two.  Hope you enjoy. Read Show Runner.

-------

This press tour was going to be all work. No play. 

Those were the strict rules that you were given.

This was the premiere film and television festival and January in Park City could be a fun, wild place and time, but you were on the clock. 

There would be no open flirting, touching, or even covert fucking while the cast was there. 

You listened to the lecture and smiled and nodded when appropriate.

Truth be told, you really weren’t paying attention, just waiting on your knees, naked and wet, to suck the shit out of his dick. 

When he gave you permission to of course.

You were determined to suck all those stupid ideas out of his brain along with all his cum when he gave you the chance. 

And Rafael was, indeed, without much coherent thought when you were done.

_____

Wednesday 

That conversation was of no consequence to you four days later when you landed in Park City. 

Daveed and Rafa had been there for two days and the rest of the cast was trickling in. 

You gathered your bag while answering a few questions from the paps and headed to your hotel alone, following the driver who held your name up outside baggage claim to a luxury suv.

You texted Rafael that you had landed, to which he just replied, “Good.”

No, ‘how was your flight,’ nothing. 

You sighed, assuming he was busy. 

He had been texting you nonstop for the past three days and now he wanted to play you. 

That was cool.

You relaxed as you took in the snowy scenery of snowy Park City. 

You were taken to a stunning tiny little chalet at the edge of the city and halfway up the mountain. 

The views were spectacular, the cute cozy kitchen fully stocked, and the fireplace was bomb.

As you took in all the antler decor, you texted Rafa again, hyped at the accommodations.

This is dope!

You made sure your cleavage was right in your v-neck sweater and took a selfie of you from above in the bedroom. 

I can’t wait to be on my knees for you later.

You saw the thought bubbles, but no response.

Cool cool cool. 

If that’s what he wanted. That’s what he would get. Ice.

You shook your head and looked in the refrigerator for water. You also found your favorite snacks. 

Production thought of everything. You’d thank Gwen later.

You relaxed on the couch until it was time to get ready for the mixer. 

The car was ready to go at 6:45, in time to get you fashionably late to the Television mixer at the Waldorf Astoria at 7.

Because of all the traffic, you didn’t arrive until 7:30, but you were chilling. You spotted your crew immediately, partly because they were the loudest. 

You loved this new family you made.

“Ayyyy! What’s cracking! We thought you’d never make it. Late flight? You want a drink?”

You laughed at Daveed, seeing that he was on his way to getting lit.

“I’ll have what you’re having.” 

He raised his cute ass eyebrow at you. “This grown folks shit. You sure?”

“Yes. I’m grown. I need to catch up to you! I misjudged the time to leave my chalet. What time did you all leave yours?”

“Ummmm. I walked downstairs like 20 minutes ago. The whole cast is staying here. You’re the only one staying on the other side of town.”

“Oh.” 

You didn’t know what to say as Daveed turned to go get your drink.

You looked around and saw a lot of actors you’d love to work with, some you already had, and some you knew to stay away from.

You spotted Rafa’s golden hair on the other side of the room. 

You weren’t going to go after him, and you didn’t need to, because some of your cast mates enveloped you and Daveed brought you a drink.

You were having too good a time to worry about Mr. Artistic Integrity.

You two circled the room, never really ending up in the same place. You finally saw him with Gwen and got a chance to talk. Rafa saw you approach. He nodded.

“Hey, Long time no see. You make it in ok ?”

You looked at Rafael for an extra beat. He’d seen you up close and personal three days ago when you’d ridden his face. 

But you were an actor. You could play this game.

“Hey Casal. Yeah, I got a few hours ago.” 

You turned to the logistics producer. 

“Gwen! My chalet is so dope!”

She raised her eyebrow at you. 

“That’s great! So, you wanted peace and quiet and away from the rest of us, ay?” Gwen laughed as you and Rafa smiled politely. You were seething. 

“Trying to avoid all the parties. I get it now, although I thought it was weird that you declined accommodations.”

“You know our girl, always a loner.”

Rafael took a sip of his drink, looking at you over it. Your blood boiled but you turned and smiled at Gwen.

“Yeah. On my INFJ shit. What’s the lineup for tomorrow?”  

You made small talk to avoid cussing Rafael the fuck out. He stood there for a minute, listening and being an adorable muthafukin asshole. 

Other people came up and you didn’t even notice Rafa step away. But you spotted him, in a corner with that little twat Ava with the tight little body. Just his type.

He saw you stalking out of the mixer as he chatted her up.

—-

Two hours later, you were cozy in the hot tub, smoking some kush to relax, scrolling your phone. 

A TMZ post from your explore page caught your eye. 

There was a picture of Daveed, next to Rafa and Ava, who looked pretty close and fucking beautiful together. 

The gossip site gushed over the picture of the Bay Boys, noting the ‘adorable couple’ and their mingling at the mixer and somehow sneaking in a not so subtle hint that they were staying at the same hotel.

That was the final straw. You saw it all. Rafa wanted you far away from him while he fucked this little miniature Bratz doll. Bet.

It was only midnight. You were going to get your own plastic action figure for the night.

——

Thursday 

The next morning, you met up with the crew at the suite which was set up for the series press day. 

You went straight to Chelsea who was set up in the bedroom of the suite.

You gave her a hug and took off your sunglasses. Your eyes were puffy.

“Damn girl. You did have fun last night. I got just the thing for those circles.”

You breathed a sigh of relief and let her work her magic.

You emerged ten minutes later and went and got something to eat and a bottle of water from the catering station set up in the kitchen. You watched D and Rafa charm the interviewer. 

You took a deep breath. You could do this.

Ten minutes after that, you find yourself sitting in a chair with the cast lined up, somehow seated next to Rafael.

As the first interviewer was setting up, you got comfortable in your chair. Being a professional.

“I see you had fun last night.”

You looked over at Rafael as if surprised to see him there.

“I’m sorry?”

He smirked at you.

“I said it looks like you had fun with Michael last night.”

He held up his phone and you squinted at a post of you and your new friend, a highly sought after actor who had been in one of Rafa’s favorite movies. 

The pic was from after you went back out to the club last night. You were hugged up close.

You looked in his eyes and saw that he felt some kinda way. He had some fucking nerve.

You smirked. 

“Yeah. He’s really truly a dope person. Not just beauty, but brains too. I love an intelligent man. We… talked all night.” 

Rafa’s smile slipped. You sat back and put on a megawatt smile for the reporter.

The entire day was filled with your secret shots and animosity toward Rafa. 

You couldn’t wait to talk to him in private and tell him not to call your cell phone ever again.

Reporter: “This show has many complex relationships, and you are at the center of two of them that are just developing as the series begins. What do you do to ease into a new relationship?”

You leaned back and crossed your legs.

“That is a great question. Let’s just take an example of, say, meeting someone at... a club?”

Daveed leaned in front of Rafa and said, “This is not a true story from last night by the way.”

“Of course not,” you quickly replied and winked. Everyone laughed, everyone but Rafa.

“What I’ve found recently that works wonders is: ‘Oh my god you’re so much better than the last person I was with.’”

Everyone was dying laughing.

Rafa choked on his water. You leaned over and patted him on the back. “You good?”

He just glared at you. You shrugged and kept it moving.

“No, but really. You should start off in a relationship where you can be open and honest. There’s really no relationship if you can’t have that.”

Rafael cleared his throat, but you refused to look at him.

The press day continued.

After eight hours of interviews, you were ready to get out of there, so while Rafa and D were playing host, you managed to get out and to the car. 

You were exhausted of the tension.

On your way to the chalet, Rafa texted you.

‘We need to talk.’

You huffed. Now he wanted to talk. 

Well, tough shit. 

You blocked his number. 

You couldn’t function like this right now. You and him could break it off next week in LA. He was right, you were on the clock.

That night at the Midnight showing, you sat with Michael. 

Might as well try to have some fun. The paparazzi were snapping lots of pictures with you two.

While Mike took a quick interview, you made your way to the bar alone.

“You’ve not answered any of my texts. Or my calls.” 

You rolled your eyes at Rafael.

“You’ve texted and called?” 

You shrugged and took a drink.

“Look. We can do all that back in Cali next week. Gotta keep it professional here, isn’t that the deal?”

You downed your drink and walked back over to Michael, Rafael boring a hole in your back. 

He left you alone after that.

——

Friday

The next day and night were much the same, a cast interview and screening of two episodes during the day and another industry party at night. 

Rafa being so busy made it easy to stay away from each other.

You got back to your place with a bottle of tequila about midnight. 

You were flying out the next day and you should have some fun, even if it was not what you’d envisioned before you arrived in Park City. 

You hated Rafael Casal. 

But you refused to cry. Again.

An hour later, you looked up from your drunken haze to see Rafa standing over you. 

He looked so damn good in this dream.

“You shouldn’t drink a whole bottle of tequila in a hot tub, especially alone.”

“What the fuck do you care? You’re probably fucking Ava ten ways from Sunday right now.”

Dream Rafa raised his eyebrow at you and shook his head.

“Why would I want to fuck Ava?”

“Right? Especially when you could have all this.”

You stood up, almost falling and showing off your wet, naked body.  You giggled as he appreciated you, his eyes sweeping down your body.

Dream Rafa moved closer to you and grabbed your hand as you wobbled. 

“Let’s get out and get you some water.”

He helped you out and wrapped you in one of the huge white fluffy robes that you’d found in the closet.

He led you to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

You drank, your head clearing, but just a bit.

You kept staring at Dream Rafa, who was regarding you steadily, a weird look on his face.

When you finished, he walked you to the bedroom and watched as you lay down. You looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was 1:30 am.

You opened your robe and turned to see Dream Rafa in bed with you.

“How convenient. I’m so so horny Dream Boy. Haven’t had any dick since last week.” 

You untied the robe and grabbed your breasts, squeezing them and rolling your nipples, arching your back.

Rafael watched you hungrily.  

“Help me to get off. Fuck me, Dream lover. The real Rafa doesn’t want me anymore…”

You moved your hand down to your core and started playing in it, moaning and watching Rafa watch you.

As he licked his lips, you brought your hand up and let him taste the wetness on your fingers. He hummed, then took your hand in his.

“Not like this. I want you. Fully present and clear headed. But I want you. And we need to talk.”

He kissed the palm of your hand and covered you with the robe again.

You groaned and turned away from him.

“Even the Rafael of my dreams reject me? I can’t believe I’m in love with such a jackass.”

You didn’t feel Rafa pull you close as you started shoring.

—

Saturday

You woke up alone, mad at the sunlight. Your head was pounding. 

Your mouth was parched, but you found a bottle of water on the bedside table. 

You grabbed it, grateful that you got it on the way to the bedroom last night. 

As you sat up and drank, you groaned as you thought back to your dream. 

You had to get him out of your system.

You got up and went to the kitchen, halfway expecting to see him there. 

You sighed with something that must have been relief when he wasn’t there. 

You took your water and some grapes to the little kitchen bar and sat there, eating and drinking slowly with your head in your hand.

You jumped when you heard a key in the front door and stared when Rafa let himself in. 

“Look who’s up. Bet you’ve got a doozy of a headache.” 

You just continued to gape as he put his bags down on the counter. He handed you a bottle of aspirin.

“You’ll need these.” He put some pedialyte in front of you. “And this.”

“Wait. Did you just let yourself in? With a key?”

“Yeah. This is my chalet. I own it.”

Your mouth dropped open. 

“I thought you had a hotel room.”

“I do. This is business so production put the cast up there. D and I decided to join.”

Your heart clenched at the fact he did not want you there too. What was this reality? Then you thought about the dream.

“Wait. Were you really here last night?” 

You were confusion.

Rafa smiled at you. 

“You want something to eat? Gotta get something in your stomach besides tequila and grapes.” 

You groaned and held your head at the realization that last night was not a dream.

“Fuck. Did I say all that? Did I do all that? Out loud?” 

You peeked at him through your fingers.

That smile. “Yeah.” 

You were mad. He looked to fucking happy. 

“Well, don’t take it personal. I was zooted. When I’m sober, I hate you Rafael.”

He frowned. “Are you sober now?”

You opened the bottle of aspirin and drank some pedialyte. 

“Unfortunately, yes. Very sober.”

Rafa moved next to you.

“I’m going to come closer so I don’t have to yell.”

He tipped your chin up with two fingers.

“I can’t believe I’m in love with a fucking brat.”

You were ready to fight.

“I’m a brat? I’m a BRAT?” 

You leaned back, your hands on the counter behind you to get some space from the electricity bouncing between you.

“You ignore me as soon as I land in the same city as you, and then you put me out here in this secret hideaway so you can fuck with that Ava chick.” 

You closed your eyes because you’d be damned if you cried right now. 

“I thought we agreed that we’d talk to each other before we tired of each other and got with other people?”

Rafa leaned close to you, caging you in with his arms on the counter beside yours. 

You could barely breathe, the emotions were getting the better of you. You just wanted to kiss him.

“Who told you that I fucked Ava?” 

This time you raised your chin on your own.

“No one had to tell me. I saw the pictures of you two together. I can read, Rafa.”

“Not very well in this situation, I’m afraid.”

Rafa shook his head and looked down. Then looked back up at you with those damn eyes.

“You also don’t listen. Did you even hear what I said? I just said I love you.”

You just stared at him.

“Wait… what?”

Rafa brought his hips closer to yours, standing up tall. You wanted them on you.

“I love you, you fucking brat. Why would I want Ava when the woman I love has all this.”

And he reached for you, opening the tie on your robe. He sighed as he moved his hands on your brown skin. He was home.

“I want you to listen. Listen before you jump ahead and try to argue.”

You were about to say something and clamped your mouth shut at his warning glance.

“I told you, this was work. And we agreed not to go public with our relationship yet.”  

He saw you wanting to protest.

“We agreed.” 

His hands spread against your stomach, thumbs on your warm nipples.

“I wasn’t ignoring you, I was controlling myself. I wanted to meet you at the airport, but the paps are swarming.”

Rafael's blue eyes were now dark.

“And I didn’t stash you away because I wanted to fuck Ava, but because this is my home and I wanted you in it.” 

Rafa finally kissed you, and you took his tongue in your mouth, wanting to own a part of him.  Your moan while you kissed was getting him even harder.

“And when you sent me that picture of you in the bedroom, I wanted to run over here and take you in every room,  but I couldn’t. Still working. Just had to jack off when I could. To that picture.”

You moaned as his words made you drip down your thigh.

He pressed his pelvis to you and you could feel how hard he was. You took a ragged breath and forced your hands to remain on the counter. 

But you looked up into those burning blue eyes. You were wet and ready.

“It was killing me knowing that you were so close, sleeping in my bed without me, naked in my hot tub without me, and that I couldn’t touch you, hold you. Fuck the shit out of you. Hear you scream my name.”

“Tire of you? God, I wish I could get tired of you. I want you all the time, I can hardly function when you’re not around.”

He kissed across your collarbone to the other side of your neck. You were definitely weak.

“I was coming over that first night, but I saw you going out. To the club. Where it seems you hooked up with Mike.” 

Rafa bit down on your pulse point.

“Rafa, I…”

Rafa licked the spot he just bit. 

“Shhh. I know you didn’t get with him, but you were a bit of a bitch at the Q and A day. And then you took him to the midnight screening.”

Rafa was appraising your body possessively now.

“You tried to make me think that you were with him; that he was touching you like this.”

Rafa grabbed your breasts and squeezed your nipples between your fingers. You arched into his hands.

“It was like you were teasing me.” 

His hands moved down your torso and around to your ass, squeezing and pulling your cheeks apart and ghosting your intimate parts with his fingers.

“You know I don’t like to be teased.”

He released you and took two steps back, leaving you feeling bereft.

You were panting in the middle of his kitchen. You felt what it was like to be teased.

“Rafa, I’m sorry. Please…”

Rafa was two steps ahead of you. He was pulling his Oaklandish hoodie over his head. Then he shook his head at you.

He bent his head to your breast as he lifted it roughly to meet his lips. He drew your hard bud between his lips and grazed it with his teeth. 

Rafa nipped and sucked your flesh roughly as he licked the fingers in his other hand and reached between your legs.

“Did you want Mike to touch your cunt like this?”

“No...only you Cash…”

He traced his fingers between your wet lips, causing you to shudder and moan. Then he started to tease your clit.

“Tell me what I want to hear. Tell me you love me.”

“I..I…” You didn’t know when it happened, but it did. “Fuck it. I love you Rafael.” 

You sigh in relief and with desire as he pushed his fingers deeper into you.

He moaned softly in your ear as he pressed you back against the island.

“Good girl. Now tell me more. Tell me you love what I’m doing to you right now. Tell me you love this shit.”

“I love it so fucking much,” you squeaked, holding on to his shoulders for dear life, your nails digging in.

As he pumped his fingers, you wriggled and started to grind against his hand. As you wriggled more, he cursed under his breath.

“Fuck! Stay still.”  

His tongue licked up and down your neck as his hand went faster and faster, playing you like an instrument.

You were getting so close, and Rafa could feel it. So he stopped and stepped back again, panting while he tasted his fingers and leaving you quivering and emotional.

You refused to beg, but he knew what you needed.

“I want to punish you for not listening to me and your heart, but I can't because I’d be punishing myself.”

He walked toward you again, put his hands on you and slid down your body as he knelt before you.

Rafa looking up at you like that made you fall in love all over again. 

He leaned forward and kissed your lower lips oh so tenderly. Then, he licked them, and you had to hold on to the counter again. Then he started talking.

“I’ve been hard for you ever since you texted me that you touched down.” 

He kissed each of your thighs and lifted one up and rested it on his shoulder. You were not ready.

“I was so pissed off all day. Until I saw you that night.”

Rafa lightly licked a long stripe between your legs.

He pulled back and looked at your pussy, as if entranced.

“But, I stayed away from you at the mixer because I knew I would drag you to a bathroom and bend you over the sink…”

Rafa slowly rolled his tongue over your slit. You held your hand over your mouth as you watched him.

He looked up at you and chuckled. 

“No close neighbors. Let me hear you.” 

He sighed as he looked at you again. 

“I wanted to take you in the bedroom at the suite during the press day and put your ankles around your ears to dig out that attitude.”  

Rafa licked you again, making you tremble and moan loudly.

“I decided to come and give you an ultimatum last night, but I get here and you were so cute and drunk and said that you loved me.”  

He graced you with a smile. You smile back and brush his hair out of his eyes.

“I know you said that I don’t own you. But you own me. Body and soul. I’m starving for you.”

And then he dove in, making you gasp as he eagerly parted your lips with his tongue and started to flick it back and forth over your clit, grasping your ass and your leg to support you and keep you in place.

This time he didn’t stop. He licked and sucked and swiped, his head moving back and forth as he ate. He did it until your eyes rolled back into your head and you were screaming his name. He increased his pace and intensity until you were a quivering, moaning mess. 

You come on Rafa’s face in the middle of a ski chalet in Park City, Utah.

You were still quivering as you watched him stand up, take off his shirt and wipe his face with it.

“So, you can take your flight back to LA in a couple of hours, or you can stay until Monday and we can be seen together tonight. In public.”

Your face lit up as he led you to the bathroom. You were catching on.

“And we will be ‘good friends’ for a few weeks until we let on.”

“Now, you’re listening.” Rafa was smiling wide now.

“Wait, does Diggs know about us?” Rafa started taking off his pants. You needed what was inside.

“Nevermind. I know the answer, Jackass.”  

You ignored Rafa’s laugh as you began to make up for lost time.

-------

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In Defense of G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

During the height of Michael Bay's Transformers series, Hasbro and Paramount collabed again to adapt another one of the former's famous toy brands. When G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra was released, the results were about the same as the average Michael Bay Transformers movie. Despite being financially successful, critics generally didn't care for it and mostly thought it was a dull action movie. Having rewatched the film for the first time in years, I'm of the opinion that this movie is not only a really cool action movie, but also my personal favorite film based on G.I. Joe thus far. Allow me to explain.

As the title of this movie suggests, this film serves as an origin story for the characters who would eventually become the Joes and Cobras we know from back in the 80s. The film utilizes flashback to showcase the origins to different characters as well as showing specific plot points for the film. The actual plot of this film is very fitting in introducing the Joes and Cobras and how they operate. MARS Industries creates nanotech warheads which have the potential to decimate entire cities. Once Cobra gets their hands on them its up to Duke, Ripcord and the rest of the Joes to save the day. In addition to having really strong writting and good pacing, the film as has some intense action scenes with very well rehearsed stuntwork and really good cinematography. The fight scenes between Snake Eyesr and Storm Shadow are easily my favorite parts of the whole film. There are also a couple moments of genuinely funny humor, particularly from Ripcord in his accelerator suit.

The characters in the film are all very entertaining and well defined in their personalities. Starting with our main hero, Duke is a brave, snarky and resourceful soldier who not only wants to save the world but also make things right with his ex (more on that later). Ripcord his Duke's funny best friend who tags along with Duke and also has some of the funniest moments in the film. Together, Duke and Ripcord serve as the eyes of the audience as we're introduced to fellow Joes Hawk, Heavy Duty, Scarlett, Breaker and fan favorite Snake Eyes. Hawk is the smart and brave leader of the Joes who trusts that his team can get the job done in the end. Heavy Duty serves as the field commander of the team and his presence is felt in every scene he's in. Scarlett is a very smart woman who's intelligence expertise is vital for the time. Breaker is the team's hacker who's known for his witty banter with Ripcord. Snake Eyes is very much the strong silent assassin who let's his actions speak loud than words. Together they form a great team that does everything they can to save the world. On to Cobra, the Baroness as Duke's ex-fiancee, giving her more of a personal connection to our hero. We also see Destro as the primary antagonist of the first half of the film being a sneaky arms dealer who creates the nanobite warheads. Zartan is a quirky assistant to Destro know for whistling For He's a Jolly Good Fellow from time to time. Storm Shadow is also present as a skilled marksman who doesn't hesitate to kill his target. Then there's their leader, Cobra Commander. At the start of the film he's simply referred to as the Doctor, an eccentric scientist who injected the Cobra soliders with nanobites to make them stronger, faster and more durable. When it's revealed that he was Dukes old friend Rex who survived being blown to kingdom come, it was a shocking revelation that gives this iteration to Cobra Commander some depth.

While it's unfortunate some of the actors didn't care for working on this movie, I thought they all put in a solid effort into bringing these characters to the big screen. Channing Tatum really sold the courageous and snarky personality of Duke and his friendship with Ripcord feels very real and genuine. Speaking off, Marlon Waynes is funny and really gets into the military aspect of Ripcord. Dennis Quaid really nailed the authoritative nature of Hawk, Rachel Nicholas made Scarlett sound smart and honest, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaji was very impossing as Heavy Duty, Said Taghmaoui was funny and smart as Breaker and Ray Park was simply magnificent as Snake Eyes. On to the Cobra actors, Christopher Eccleston really sold the sleazy arms dealer that Destro is. Sienna Miller played the part of the Baroness really well, not only selling her sinister and deadly appearance, but also her tragedy in the flashbacks. Bryung-Hun Lee really sold the fierce nature of Storm Shadow, making him look like he could kill anyone with his looks alone. Arnold Vosloo was just having as much fun as he could with the screen time he was given as Zartan, yet he still made a lasting impression. Last but not least we has Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander. I didn't recognize him under that amazing make up, but that just shows how amazing he was as this iconic villain. Every scene he's in he has such fun and chews the scenery like it's a full course meal. He also really sells the relationship he once had with Duke and takes great pleasure in utilizing nano technology.

Visually, the film looks really good in all departments from the sets to the costumes and even the CGI. I like how the Joes have more lighter gray military suits to contrast with Cobra's all black attire. Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow are of course the exceptions as they look liked they leaped from the cartoon into the film. I though the CGI was also very well rendered and brought the sleekness of the ships and accelerator suits to life. The CGI is especially will done when it comes to showcasing the nanobites and how they destroy everything they touch. I once again cannot praise Cobra Commander's make up enough as he looks so burned and that oxygen mask with the monocle really sells it.

I do have one criticism with the film though and it's what prevents the film from being better in my opinion. During a flashback that after the Baroness' brother, Rex, was supposedly killed in an explosion, it's revealed that Rex survived and injected her with nanobites which ultimately lead her to joining Cobra. She also is not aware that Rex and Cobra Commander are one and the same. To me these feels a like an unnecessary retcon to make it seem like the Baroness was a victim. To me, I think it would make more sense for the Baroness to join Cobra of her on volition without injecting nanobites into her system. This way Duke (who's kinda without an arc in this film) would have to learn that the woman he fell in love with and wanted to marry is long gone. In my opinion the film could've benefited more from the Baroness staying a villain rather than being somewhat redeemed in the end.

Overall I still very much enjoyed G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. Despite it's unnecessary redemption of the Baroness, I still very much enjoyed the characters, thought the action scenes were intense, the sets and costumes well done and the acting really solid. In my opinion, the G.I. Joe film series was off to a pretty good start in 2009 before abruptly ending with its sequel in 2013 with a reboot that just came out this past Summer to less than stellar results financially. Thank you so much for reading and I'll see you next time.

[bonnie-barstow-of-flag]

What Keeps You Up at Night part 2: Michael Knights Pov

Bonnie’s POV X

Dedicated to @aspacerat1 and two other people who begged me to write this.

For most silence is craveable, worth more than its own weight in gold. However, for Michael Knight, the quiet is intrusive. An invading force that extends its wicked tendrils into corners of his life he'd prefer to leave undisturbed. He had enough personal demons plaguing him without reawakening those wicked wraiths left to slumber in the wakes of the past.

Stirring, walking, and working forced those unsettling spirits to remain cast out to bay where they belonged. Observant azure orbs behold Wilton’s garage, taking note of the thermal pools of light exuding from within. Michael pauses outside the industrial doors, his fingers clasped around the solid steel handle. Dare he interlope on the work being done within? Would Bonnie be receptive to the encroachment on her territory at this hour? Or should he travel onwards like the wayfaring soldier he was? Warring deliberation is evident upon his striking face though it rests in the realms of darkness. The unyielding urge to investigate eventually wins over.

Barstow hears him though his practiced steps are hushed. A fact, he deduces, comes from having been snuck up on one too many times. He is pleasantly surprised when she does not berate his nosiness but rather, welcomes it. A whimsical Cheshire-cat-like grin snakes across his lips at her prodding. “Ya know, Bons, I could say the same thing.” He casually leans his weight against Kitt’s door.

For posterity's sake, he casts a glance down at his watch. His azure orbs briefly denote the time. It’s the bewitching hour of three when thick blankets of fog cuddle close to the ground and envelope everything including the skyscrapers of the far-off city. Darkness has not yet tasted the welcoming vibrancy of sunlight. Even still, the sky is gradually perfecting a reverse ombre. Thoughts of any realm outside the present garage fizzle into nothingness.

Michael is genuinely touched by her obvious concern. His lips part ways with a gentler, more tame smile. “I’m fine.” Suddenly, he is overly conscious about the focus of her eyes flashing over him. His large hand smooths through the luxuriously thick tangles of his dark curls, hoping to bring some measure of order to the otherwise half disheveled and unruly appearance. After a pause, he finally embellishes his answer to her question. “Figured I might as well make myself useful since I can’t sleep.” Devon surely had mountainous stacks of manila folders laying around with new cases. Some of them might even become the Foundation’s priority before too long. Yet, he’s not really interested in swimming through the black inked collections of information. By preference, he invests fully in his favorite prepossessing coworker.

His azure eyes practically glow, wired by mild disquietude as if they were neon lights when she lets out a huff. Had he ventured to ask something he shouldn’t have? He is about to apologize for any offense he may have dealt her when she finally begins to speak. Any semblance of a smile completely evaporates. Her first answer to his inquiry felt deliberately vague but in a way, he fully understood it. There had been so many instantaneous reactions and so many moments over the years that he would amend if he was ever given such an opportunity. Lingering at the top of that very list was the way he spoke to the poor dying Wilton Knight the day he stormed into the garage. Devon said Michael had just struck a dying man. That phraseology though simple haunted him still. He’d spend the rest of his life wishing he could take those venom-laced words back.

Sympathetically, Michael nods. In existence, there were probably a trillion comforting words he could offer. Begrudgingly, not a singular term would willfully lend itself to snuffing out her quieted sufferings. Even still, he refused to be dismissive of her pain. “I get it. Trust me, I do.” And the hideous truth was, he painfully did comprehend. He waits till she stands to draw nearer. “Look I know you don’t need me to tell you this,” Michael starts, “but there’s no use in torturing yourself over the past. It just takes your mind away from your present.” A pause. “Besides, every mistake is a lesson propelling you on your way to success.”

“You stole that off some cheesy poster, didn’t you?” Bonnie playfully accuses.

Bonnie wasn’t wrong. He had pilfered some of it but adapted it to fit in his own lax lexicon. Notes of cheerfulness begin to creep back into his countenance and it is denoted in the softening of his eyes. “Well, it’s more like borrowed,” he cheekily returned. Stealing was such a dirty term.

Bon’s next confession cuts him to the quick. He felt as though he had been sucker-punched. The strangled breath that he emits attests to the awful palpable sensation of having been viciously belted by her words. “Bons...” Her nickname is expelled reverently, in the form of a near prayerful whisper. His hands which had been mindful of respecting her personal space now lurch forward, gingerly collapsing around the slopes of her shoulders. He swallows sharply with the realization of just how much responsibility she allowed to weigh down upon her shoulders. They’ve had their share of close calls but not a single one of them had occurred as a result of anything Bonnie had done. Michael couldn’t fathom how she’d ever shift that blame to herself.

Making sure he is holding her gaze, he speaks again. “You’ve never let either of us down. No matter how hopeless our situations have been. I know you constantly say that you’re a scientist, not a miracle worker, but I tend to think of you as both. Without your skills and expertise, neither of us would be here.” His chord is full of unwavering conviction. “I know you, Bon. You will never let Kitt and I peel out of this garage if you genuinely thought we would not return in, at the very least, a salvageable condition.” He knows that this will probably do little to assuage her fears. Yet, he is trying. Michael allows one hand to depart her shoulder to cup her face. His thumb purposefully swipes slow strokes across the smooth globe of her cheekbone half-committing her beauty to memory.

He can discern wisps of terror coiling through those turquoise pools of hers and immediately, his poor heart gives off a series of terrible thrashing pangs. He desired to remove that fear from her, to let her know that he and Kitt are always going to return to her. Perhaps, he thinks to himself; he should take some measures towards being less feckless. “We’re safe. We’re going to stay that way. I promise.” Sure, he knows he ought not to make vows that he is uncertain he can keep but it feels exceedingly important in this very moment to do just that.

He can feel unintentional crater-like chinks forming in his armor both physical and emotional. Shielding her from bearing witness to anything that may translate into the depths of his eyes, Michael opts to press a doting kiss to the expanse of her forehead. It’s a sin. He knows. But he allows the cracked leather of his lips to remain against the warm silk of her skin for a touch longer than he ought. While there, he reveled in the familiar scents of her shampoo and body wash. Man, oh man, he jealously coveted her the way pirates did their treasures.

Barstow’s question causes Knight to unintentionally recoil. It’s something he hadn’t allowed his mind to ruminate on. Hell, he can’t remember the last time he thought about the causes behind his insomnia. Withdrawing his lips and taking a step back, he elects to gaze upon her countenance. She deserved nothing but an honest answer.

The unspoken reply hits Michael the way a barreling freight train might. With every click along the tracks shot fleeting shadows, hollow phantoms of faces and places, resurrecting images imprinted on his mind. Whether they were imagined or real or an unholy collision of the two, he could not distinguish. There was nothing concrete left in the whirlwind the question created and still, the sparks felt indelible. Among these things, Michael dared not give a voice were: oppressively thick jungles with flickering silhouettes of soldiers traversing cautiously through them, glints off of silver and gold shields with the towering engraving of city hall etched in them and the casts of red and blue flashing lights, hot Nevada nights, his father and mother or a man and woman with near enough resemblance to Long, American flags draped over caskets, super-nova like bursts of light from guns being fired, and something- something way back in the blur of memory. He thinks though it is with no absolute clarity, that it might have been home. No. It is not his current place of residence but rather that of his, correction Michael Long’s, childhood. Having taken two bullets to the skull had done little to preserve the things most other people could never forget. Tanya Walker’s bullet managed to wipe out the most solid impressions of the past. While he was grateful not to relive a majority of the horrors and atrocities of Nam, he mourned the loss of recollection towards the rest of Michael Long’s life.

Somewhere along the way, the unspoken reminiscing to the lost voices of the past derails. It takes a wrong turn, spinning on an axis until it conjures up feelings of dread, anxiety, and intense anger. His fingers curl up, clenching tight at his side before going lax again. Just as quickly as the negative emotions arrived, they vanish.

Embarrassment flushes across his cheeks when he realizes that she is patiently staring and he had not given her a response. He had been floundering, drowning without hope of rescue, in things he couldn’t entirely understand himself. He’s never been raw and open about any of his wounds. Discussing them wasn’t going to be an easy feat.

Despite Michael Knight’s outward confidence, insecurities dogged his every step. “Sometimes,” he starts, his voice unusually gravely and husky. “Sometimes I lay awake, wondering why Wilton Knight chose me to carry on his legacy instead of someone else. Instead of Devon or .... or any number of readily available people.” His tongue trails briefly over the jagged edges of his lips. “If anyone deserved a second chance at life, Muntzy did.” It is a fact Michael whole-heartedly believed. He would have traded his life a hundred times over to ensure that poor Rebecca (Muntzy’s wife) and his three little girls wouldn’t have to face a life without their father.

Bonnie listened intently. Her eyes never daring to depart from him. She is so astonished by the revelation, that she finds herself at a rare loss for words. Her brows furrow in disbelief. In her mind, she never questioned Michael’s appointment to FLAG’s most trusted operative. Devon might have earned the position were he younger, more nimble, and less inclined towards a life of predictability. Sure, he had been wild in his youth but those days were long tossed to the wind. Regardless, Wilton had always been startlingly confident in his choice! There had been no doubt in his mind to Michael’s worthiness.

In a softer agonized tone, he rhetorically prods, “why me of all people?” He didn’t fancy himself as being overly special but more than that, he didn’t feel deserving of Wilton Knight’s incredible mantle. The extraordinary burden of which had been thrust upon his shoulders without his ever being asked with the demand that he walks away from everything and everyone he cherished. There hadn’t been one single moment where Michael had been gifted the opportunity to turn back. Michael Long was dead.  “What if I cease to make him proud? What if one man isn’t enough to make a difference?” He shifts uncomfortably. His hands briefly delving into the denim pockets of his jeans. His eyes dart around the garage before returning to her. Where he expected to find judgement, he found only empathy. Before she can open her mouth to further comment, he changes the subject.

Taking one of the cleaner rags he could find nearby, he starts running it along Kitt’s outer shell. It was easier to focus when he could be doing some menial task or other. Or so, he tells himself. “There are some nights where fragments of intelligence missions in Nam and my early days of police work come back to me. Can’t make odds or ends outta them but I know they’re there. They’re hopelessly jumbled like a tangled ball of yarn.” It was hard to put to words unless one had experienced it for themselves. It was like trying to recreate a phenomenal recipe with no real idea of what ingredients went into it. Even if you did, by some miracle, manage to secure all of the ingredients, there was still a mystery pertaining to measurements. When they’re all mixed together, it never really turns out like the original. Now, does it? Heck, sometimes it didn’t make for even a shallow reproduction.

When he tried to connect the dots of things that happened in Nam and on the big bad streets of Nevada and Los Angeles, they came out pixilated a kaleidoscope of images woven tightly together.  Everything would shift and warp with the slightest touch, altering in their entirety. Reality or fiction? It was impossible to discern which category each memory should be assigned to. There is no one he could ask to assist him with the task of making distinctions. A majority of his work gathering intel reports and sending them along in a timely manner had been highly classified. Worse still, there were no war or cop buddies who were made privy to the knowledge of Michael Long’s rebirth into Michael Knight. He had to circumnavigate lapses in memory on his own.

Relinquishing a frustrated breath, he continues in a low voice, “ there are nights when I close my eyes and see her. I see Tanya and that sharp burst of yellow light from the gun...” The words feel thick and he chokes a little. A frigid chill creeps down every vertebra in his spine. Even talking about it makes him recoil. He knows Bonnie wouldn’t ask him to further elaborate. She knows about the accident and a good bit of the aftermath.

Turning back to her with a plaintive expression, he decides to confess a terror that made every drop of his blood turn to ice. “Hear me out,” he starts, abandoning the cloth rag on Kitt’s T-top so that his hands might return to Bonnie’s frame. He hesitates, pulling his hands away from her shoulders at the last second and opting to cradle her face. “Those things are all intense but thoughts of losing you are by far the worst.” He spoke in a manner that left no debate towards his sincerity. Azure orbs vigorously drink her in. He’s lost one love and he made a vow before heaven and earth that he would stop at nothing to protect her.

[surrealistnyc]

A Spark in Search of a Powderkeg

Rebellion is its own justification, completely independent of the chance it has to modify the state of affairs that gives rise to it. It’s a spark in the wind, but a spark in search of a powder keg.

André Breton

If only one thing has brought me joy in the last few weeks, it began when the matriarchs at Unist’ot’en burned the Canadian flag and declared reconciliation is dead. Like wildfire, it swept through the hearts of youth across the territories. Reconciliation was a distraction, a way for them to dangle a carrot in front of us and trick us into behaving. Do we not have a right to the land stolen from our ancestors? It’s time to shut everything the fuck down!

Tawinikay (aka Southern Wind Woman)

The toxic cargo carried in Canadian pipelines, whether it be tar sands oil or fracked liquid natural gas (LNG), is, according to all serious climate scientists, a major, perhaps even decisive contribution to global warming, i.e. ecological catastrophe.   Meant to fuel industrial expansion, the pipelines have themselves become fuel for revolt. Designed to move these dirty fossil fuels from one location to another, they are a crucial element in normalizing the dubious paradise of unlimited growth in awe of which all obedient consumer/citizens are supposed to genuflect. In what the colonial mapmakers have called British Columbia (BC), resource extraction has always been the name of the game. However, the emergence in February of this year of a widespread oppositional network ranging from “land back” Indigenous warriors to elder traditionalists and from Extinction Rebellion activists to anarchist insurrectionaries was heartening. Railways, highways and ferries were blockaded, provincial legislatures, government administrative offices, banks and corporate headquarters were occupied. The catalyst for this rebellion was a widespread Indigenous uprising that refused the illusory promises of reconciliation. Together, these rebel forces disrupted business as usual in solidarity with the Unist’ot’en Big Frog clan of the Wet’suwet’en tribal house.

       ​As objective chance would have it, the primary Indigenous land defense camp is situated not far from the same Hazelton, B.C. area to which surrealist Kurt Seligmann and his wife Arlette had journeyed in 1938. During that time, they visited Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en villages, marveled at the imaginative power of the totem poles and ceremonial objects, made field notes, shot 16mm film, collected stories and recorded mythic histories. Now, in 2020, growing numbers of these same Indigenous peoples have been threatening to bring the Canadian economy to a grinding halt. Unwilling to be bought off by corporate petrodollars or mollified by a legal system that has never done anything but pacify, brutalize, or betray them in the process of stealing their land, Indigenous peoples passionately fought back against the forces of colonial law and order in a radical whirlwind of willful disobedience and social disruption. One action built upon another in creating a rolling momentum that seemed unstoppable. When one railroad blockade would be busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), another would spring up in its place elsewhere extending the frontlines of the battle all across the continent. Then the debilitating Covid-19 virus arrived to compound the damage that had previously been done to the capitalist economy by the incendiary virus of revolt. The resistance of these Indigenous communities against the pipelines concerns all of us, worldwide, since they are on the front lines of the struggle to prevent cataclysmic climate change.

       ​In the future, a key question will be whether Canadian authorities can successfully put the genie of Indigenous rebellion back in the colonial bottle of “reconciliation”. As surrealists, we hope they will not, and we stand in solidarity with the unreconciled insurgent spirit of defiant Indigenous resistance. A new reality is to be invented and lived instead of the one that today as yesterday imposes its environmental miserabilism and its colonialist and racist hierarchies.  As surrealists, we honor our historical affinity with the Kwakwaka’wakw Peace Dance headdress that for so long had occupied a place of reverence in André Breton’s study during his lifetime before being ceremoniously returned in 2003 to Alert Bay on Cormorant Island by his daughter, Aube Elléouet, in keeping with her father’s wishes. With this former correspondence in mind, we presently assert that our ongoing desire to manifest the emancipation of the human community as distinctively undertaken in the surrealist domain of intervention is in perfect harmony with the fight of the Indigenous communities of the Americas against globalized Western Civilisation and its ecocidal folly.

                                                                                                               Surrealists in the United States: Gale Ahrens, Will Alexander, Andy Alper, Byron Baker, J.K. Bogartte, Eric Bragg, Thom Burns, Max Cafard, Casi Cline, Steven Cline, Jennifer Cohen, Laura Corsiglia, David Coulter, Jean-Jacques Dauben, Rikki Ducornet, Terri Engels, Barrett John Erickson, Alice Farley, Natalia Fernandez, Brandon Freels, Beth Garon, Paul Garon, Robert Green, Maurice Greenia, Brigitte Nicole Grice, Janice Hathaway, Dale Houstman, Karl Howeth, Joseph Jablonski, Timothy Robert Johnson, Robin D.G. Kelly, Paul McRandle, Irene Plazewska, Theresa Plese, Michael Stone-Richards, David Roediger, Penelope Rosemont, LaDonna Smith, Tamara Smith, Steve Smith, Abigail Susik, Sasha Vlad, Richard Waara, Joel Williams, Craig S. Wilson

Surrealists in the UK: Jay Blackwood, Paul Cowdell, Jill Fenton, Rachel Fijalkowski, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Merl Fluin, Kathy Fox, Lorna Kirin, Rob Marsden, Douglas Park, Michel Remy, Wedgwood Steventon, Frank Wright, the Leeds Surrealist Group (Gareth Brown, Stephen J. Clark, Kenneth Cox, Luke Dominey, Amalia Higham, Bill Howe, Sarah Metcalf, Peter Overton, Jonathan Tarry, Martin Trippett), the London Surrealist Group (Stuart Inman, Philip Kane, Timothy B. Layden, Jane Sparkes, Darren Thomas) and the surrealists of Wales (Jean Bonnin, Neil Combs, David Greenslade, Jeremy Over, John Richardson, John Welson)

Surrealists in Paris: Ody Saban and The Surrealist Group of Paris (Elise Aru, Michèle Bachelet, Anny Bonnin, Massimo Borghese, Claude-Lucien Cauët, Taisiia Cherkasova, Sylwia Chrostowska, Hervé Delabarre, Alfredo Fernandes, Joël Gayraud, Régis Gayraud, Guy Girard, Michael Löwy, Pierre-André Sauvageot, Bertrand Schmitt, Sylvain Tanquerel, Virginia Tentindo, Michel Zimbacca)

Surrealists in Canada: Montréal (Jacques Desbiens, Peter Dube, Sabatini Lasiesta, Bernar Sancha), Toronto (Beatriz Hausner, Sherri Higgins), Québec City (David Nadeau), Victoria (Erik Volet), the Ottawa Surrealist Group (Jason Abdelhadi, Lake, Patrick Provonost) and the Inner Island Surrealist Group (as.matta, Jesse Gentes, Sheila Nopper, Ron Sakolsky)

The Surrealist Group of Madrid: Eugenio Castro, Andrés Devesa, Jesús Garcia Rodriguez, Vicente Gutiérrez Escudero, Lurdes Martinez, Noé Ortega, Antonio Ramirez, Jose Manuel Rojo, María Santana, Angel Zapata

Surrealists in Sweden: Johannes Bergmark, Erik Bohman, Kalle Eklund, Mattias Forshage, Riyota Kasamatsu, Michael Lundberg, Emma Lundenmark, Maja Lundgren, Kristoffer Noheden, Sebastian Osorio

Surrealists in Holland: Jan Bervoets, Elizé Bleys, Josse De Haan, Rik Lina, Hans Plomp, Pieter Schermer, Wijnand Steemers, Laurens Vancrevel, Her de Vries, Bastiaan Van der Velden

Surrealists in Brazil: Alex Januario, Mário Aldo Barnabé, Diego Cardoso, Elvio Fernandes, Beau Gomez, Rodrigo Qohen, Sergio Lima, Natan Schäfer, Renato Souza

Surrealists in Chile: Jaime Alfaro, Magdalena Benavente, Jorge Herrera F., Miguel Ángel Huerta, Ximena Olguín, Enrique de Santiago, Andrés Soto, Claudia Vila

 The Middle East and North Africa Surrealist Group: Algeria (Onfwan Foud), Egypt (Yasser Abdelkawy, Mohsen El-Belasy, Ghadah Kamal), Iraq (Miechel Al Raie), Syria (Tahani Jalloul), and Palestine (Fakhry Ratrout)

Surrealists in Prague: Frantisek Dryje, Joe Grim Feinberg, Katerina Pinosova, Martin Stejskal, Jan Svankmajer

The Athens Surrealist Group (Elias Melios, Sotiris Liontos, Nikos Stabakis, Theoni Tambaki, Thomas Typaldos, Marianna Xanthopoulou)

Surrealists in Costa Rica: Gaetano Andreoni, Amirah Gazel, Miguel Lohlé, Denis Magarman, Alfonso Peña

Surrealists in Buenos Aires: Silvia Guiard, Luís Conde, Alejandro Michel

Surrealists in Australia: Anthony Redmond, Michael Vandelaar, Tim White

Surrealists in Portugal: Miguel de Carvalho, Luiz Morgadinho

Surrealists in Bucharest (Dan Stanciu), Mexico (Susana Wald), and the Canary Islands (Jose Miguel Perez Corales)

 Postscript: During the process of gathering signatures for the above declaration, we were inspired to see its uncompromising stance against white supremacy and police repression reflected in the brightly sparkling flames of the Minneapolis uprising that lit a powder keg of pent-up rage and incited an earth-shaking eruption of spontaneous rebellion in the streets of America. It was only fitting that in solidarity with the uprising about police brutality kicked off by George Floyd’s execution/lynching at the hands of the police, anti-racism protestors in the United States would take direct action by beheading or bringing down statues of Christopher Columbus, genocidal symbol of the colonial expropriation of Native American lands. (Guy Girard, Michael Löwy, Penelope Rosemont, and Ron Sakolsky, June 18, 2020).

[moviemagistrate]

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD review

ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD is my favorite movie of the 2010’s. 

I’ll give you a minute to put your recently-blown mind back together.

So why do I love this movie so much? The overall response to Quentin Tarantino’s supposedly penultimate opus has been very positive if not rapturous, but I’ve seen some surprisingly lukewarm and even negative reviews, with people criticizing it for being slow, meandering, lacking in depth or *shudder* boring. Obviously the quality of any movie is subjective, as I’m quick to remind anyone who hates Michael Bay movies, but I honestly don’t understand people who dislike OUATIH. Maybe it’s a matter of expectations, because I didn’t know how to feel about the film for much of the first time I watched it either.

The year is 1969, a time of great political and cultural change in the country and in the entertainment industry. The star-driven films of yesteryear are giving way to grittier, artsier, more auteur-driven works as we primarily follow Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), former star of a popular cowboy show whose failed attempt to start an A-list movie career has left him relying on guest spots as TV villains-of-the-week to stay afloat. This is wonderfully laid out in the opening scene where he meets casting director Marvin Schwarz (Al Pacino, easily his best role since JACK & JILL), who lays out Rick’s lowering hierarchical status (“Who’s gonna kick the shit out of you next week? How about Batman & Robin? PING. POW”), while offering him an opportunity to be a leading-man again in Italian pictures.

Tagging along is Rick’s best, and maybe only, friend Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), Rick’s go-with-the-flow stunt-double who in the slowdown of Rick’s career has effectively become his driver and gofer, as well as Rick’s sole source of emotional support. Rick is also neighbors with Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), the beautiful young actress and wife of then-superstar director Roman Polanski (whose inclusion in the film is minimal and handled tastefully), as she lives out her idyllic life, beloved by those around her like the ray of sunshine she was in real life. Her gated, hillside home looms over Rick’s, as he ponders aloud about how even meeting her the right way could resurrect his career.

For almost two-and-a-half hours, we follow these three characters as they just live out their lives, Rick nursing hangovers and having emotional breakdowns in front of his 8-year-old co-star on set while contemplating his future, Cliff going where the wind blows him while taking care of his adorable and highly-trained dog, and Sharon as she drives around Old Hollywood, spends time with her friends, and sneaks into a matinee showing of one of her movies, her eyes and infectious smile beaming with pride when the audience laughs at her comedic timing and cheers her martial-arts prowess.

I think it’s safe to say it’s not the film any of us were expecting from Quentin Tarantino. Having only made loud, gory, over-the-top genre pastiches for the last 15 years, you’d expect from the trailers for this to be about an actor and his sexy stunt-double getting mixed up with the Manson family before teaming up with Bruce Lee to save Sharon Tate from her horrific real-life fate, mixed with the filmmaker’s usual self-indulgent homages to films of yesteryear. While some of this is true to some extent, it’s surprisingly a much more relaxed, easygoing dramedy that follows a trio of funny, charismatic people as they just…exist, as people living in the moment instead of relics.

OUATIH is much more concerned with atmosphere, character, and capturing the feeling of a bygone era than the traditional narrative structure. It’s more effective than pretty much every nostalgia trip movie I've ever seen because you can feel Tarantino's affection for this era of his childhood bleed through every character, car, song, radio advertisement, TV show, background poster, etc. It’s through this meticulous level of detail and willingness to just hang out with these characters and take in this world that he reconstructed, Tarantino successfully resurrects the era in all its 35mm glory, but with the knowing twinge of real-world melancholy.

I guess the reason I love it so much is because the love that Tarantino has for everything and everyone in it is so tangible that it’s infectious. Watching OUATIH I honestly felt like I understood him better as both a filmmaker and as a person. He shows a level of restraint and maturity I haven’t seen since JACKIE BROWN. Even most of his trademark foot fetishizing is tasteful and subdued (I say “most” because I recall at least three close-ups of actresses’ feet that definitely made him a bit sweaty behind the camera). He’s a weird, shameless nerd with a big ego, but he’s 100% sincere about expressing his love for film and its rich history. And it’s this love, and the skill and style with which it’s expressed, that just put a big smile on my face each of the 6 (SIX) times that I’ve seen it since it came out. 

Tarantino offers a tantalizing contrast between reality and fantasy. Throughout the film, as the characters of Hollywood live in their own idyllic world, relaxing in pools or driving around in bitchin’ cars, we also see the disquieting eeriness and griminess of the Manson family. The soundtrack and accompanying old-timey commercials for tanning butter or Mug Root Beer that plays through a lot of the film is a joy to listen to, but we also hear news bulletins of the war in Vietnam or the aftermath of the Bobby Kennedy assassination. You could argue this is just to set the scene for the era, but it feels too deliberate, because even after that joyously fantastical ending, we remember that it was just a fairy tale and real life didn’t turn out as pleasantly. Tarantino’s ability to make his world and characters so meticulously detailed and lived-in works to great effect in instilling a bittersweet melancholy to this film in a way I was really taken aback by. It feels like a window into his soul, someone who yearns for the fantasy of the world he grew up in but remembering that not all good things last and not everything in your nostalgic past was good to begin with.

One beautiful, spellbinding scene is Rick and Cliff coming back from their excursion into the world of Italian filmmaking. In this montage, we see Rick, Cliff and Rick’s new Italian wife arriving at the airport and driving home before unpacking their baggage, interspersed with Sharon Tate welcoming a guest at her home and having lunch, before cutting to a series of shots of famous LA landmarks like Grauman's Chinese Theatre, Taco Bell, and Der Wienerschnitzel all meticulously resurrected in their retro glory as they light up the night. “Baby, baby, baby you’re out of time”, sings Mick Jagger as we’re watching multiple stories about people who are each embodying those words: Rick’s career, his friendship with Cliff, Sharon Tate, and Hollywood itself.

Tarantino himself feels like one of the last mainstream auteur filmmakers, as well as one of the last and biggest proponents of shooting large-budget movies on film (even Scorsese’s embraced digital now, the fantastically-talented traitor). And with the rise of streaming services, one can’t help but feel like the movie-going experience itself is also becoming obsolete, especially recently, what with theaters going to war with distributors over fucking TROLLS: WORLD TOUR, not to mention that global pandemic we’ve been having lately all but killing general audiences’ enthusiasm for the movie theater experience (Christopher Nolan’s TENET certainly didn’t help). If all these things, both real and fictional, are indeed out of time, then at least with Tarantino’s penultimate film they get one hell of a bittersweet sendoff, a great time that’s more of an Irish wake than a funeral, and it’s a film I have no issue calling a truly introspective, late-career masterpiece.

And that’s without mentioning uniformly incredible cast. Leo DiCaprio, an actor I normally don’t care too much for, gives the best and funniest performance of his career as a dependent prima donna actor clinging to his remaining fame. Brad Pitt earns the hell out of his Oscar as an embodiment of old-school masculinity and charisma with an amazing set of abs (and everything else) whose outward coolness masks his mysterious past and complete badass-ness. Margot Robbie shines in her depiction of Tate, a beacon of warmth and likability who in many ways symbolized the love and carefree attitudes of the swingin’ 60’s. I’ve heard people criticize her character for not having a lot of dialogue, but to me it feels like they’re ignoring the visual storytelling, which just gives way to them assuming the film is sexist just because the female lead isn’t constantly monologuing. Every member of the supporting cast is memorable with their own quirks and great lines, no matter their screentime.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a Tarantino joint without some truly hilarious and shocking violence, and without going into spoiler territory, the last 20 minutes delivers on this promise to such a degree that I feel comfortable calling it the best thing he’s ever done. Some may decry the climax as unnecessary or over-the-top, but the way it leads to an alternate world while subtly acknowledging what happened in the real one is cathartic beyond belief. And if you’re paying attention, every scene in the movie has been quietly building towards this finale, which to me takes away any potential of feeling meandering in the story. If you saw the movie and didn’t much care for it, I recommend giving it another watch. Having the context ahead of time makes it feel so much more rewarding, and even on the fifth watch I’m noticing clever, subtle set-ups I missed beforehand.

It’s also just super cozy and really easy to watch. The two hours and 45 minutes fly by. I could watch a 4-hour version of this.

Quentin, if you’re reading this, please don’t let your last movie be Star Trek.

[tarajenkins]

Given what you've said of Vauthry, about how we're never given any chance to even try and redeem him, help him become a better person, I'd like to ask: how would you go about "saving" him? When he transforms into that Lucifer/Archangel Michael-looking guy, he seems permanently lost, but how would you write out a redemption narrative for him?

I love this ask, I hate the answer I have to give. But it’s gonna be a long response anyway, because context and because you already know I don’t know when to shut up about characters, lmao. 

SO I HOPE YOU LOVE HEARING ME RAMBLE UNDER THIS CUT (but I won’t blame you if you don’t)

I don’t think the in-game narrative allows Vauthry any chance at redemption in the current time, even if he had the agency to take it.  I don’t think we ever saw what he actually could have been. I think what we saw in Shadowbringers was the Lightwarden he’d been carrying finally “awakening”, as Innocence’s Triple Triad card put it. Or, as the X-Files put it in their eighth ep: “We are not who we are”.  

Even if that Lightwarden could be driven out of him (I know an “Aethertech” who would do anything to make that possible cough), I don’t know if he’d regain clarity he may never have had to start.  I’d love to think that he did, a long time ago. The Minstreling Wanderer tells us he can’t say whether or not Vauthry was a monster as a child, when you unlock Crown Of The Immaculate EX.

I believe the Lightwarden’s influence was driving a lot of his brutal acts of “justice”, because that is kinda their whole thing.  As for the man inside the monster?  I have a hunch he was desperate to not be seen as unnatural, and was trying to make sense out of what was happening to him in a way that would not make him a hybrid abomination. Because if he wasn’t a God, if he wasn’t this divine thing he was told he was – then what was he? The way he worded it, “this is why I was born…as man and Sin Eater both…” – it makes me feel he had, at some point in his life, at least once, ASKED why he was born as he was. That he had perceived it was wrong. He needed it to be right. And that was just fuel to the corruption fire.

The talk of godhood actually seemed to be a recent phenomenon, as no other NPC mentions a thing about it – they refer to him as “Lord Vauthry”, and speak of him in mortal terms, apart from his miraculous ability to keep the Sin Eaters at bay. He freely boasted of being a God to the Crystal Exarch, yet we’re to believe he didn’t say a word to his own people, all this time? Or that no one, in turn, would mention to us “Yyyyeah, about this guy….” Mayor Punchable Face may have told him he was a God, but it doesn’t sound like Vauthry bought into it enough to spread the good word for at least twenty years. 

Also consider he called his transformation into Innocence a “trial”. Why would a god need to be tested? And by whom?

By the time we see him in-game, it seemed he was in a rapid decline of sanity, or at least the ability to keep up appearances, and whatever was left of him was fervently clinging to the only purpose he was ever apparently given – which is exactly what that Lightwarden (and Emet-Selch) would want. 

 He was really cynical about the rest of humanity. Given his father, I can see where he’d get that from. Not that daddy told him people suck, it’s that Vauthry probably learned that by his father’s example. Maybe by the rest of Eulmore, too, but I got the impression he was kept seriously isolated from society before his inauguration. He seems to prefer being alone – he only leaves that room when he moves the Sin Eaters against Lakeland. He gives no indication he knows how to socialize, period. You either come to him, or you don’t see him. (He may be keenly aware humes don’t typically reach at least fifteen feet tall. Seriously, look at Cruelty’s size compared to player characters, now look how Cruelty makes a comfy couch for him.)

Cynical, and yet, he wanted to see the people of Eulmore’s “dreams fulfilled, their wishes granted”. Just so long as he was the one responsible, and he was the one recognized for it. He needed their acceptance. 

ANYHOO.  On to stuff I still have zero idea what to make of. 

I should preface the rest of this infodump with the fact I found the Eulmore arc to be the weakest of the expansion, between Vauthry and Ran'jit. Most of the MSQ was given nuance. Eulmore was given a Saturday Morning Cartoon sledge. A -lot- of questions, with no answers, unless Squeenix decides to be generous in a fifty-buck lore book later. (something I hated Warcraft for. I should not have to pony up for a book to understand the main story quest chain in a game.) So, here are some of the questions I’ve got:

- FOOL! THAT WILL NEVER WORK!

They don’t really explain why Emet-Selch thought corrupting an infant was a good plan, as the Sin Eaters seemed guaranteed a win on The First, if only by outlasting the survivors of the Flood. Impatience, maybe? Why not give it to the mayor? That dickpickle would’ve said yes. Maybe we’ll get more answers with the Eden raid. IT’D BE NICE *COUGH*

- The meol thing.  

It’s using Sin Eater’s non-existant flesh to make a bread, and through that bit of Sin Eater, Vauthry could control whoever ate it.  The fanbase loves the “soylent green is people” angle, but it’s done pretty haphazardly, when you think about it like that? Sin Eaters have no lasting corporeal body. They are Light, mixed with a bit of the lingering essence of whatever they originally were – and what they originally were did not have to be humanoid. They dissolve into sparklies in the air upon death – and arguably, they would not have to die to contribute sparklies to somehow mix into food. Forgiven Cruelty lost a whole wing to Thancred when Thancred first took Ryne from Eulmore, and it seemed to have grown back just fine by the time we see Cruelty again. Killing Sin Eaters also would be entirely counterproductive to a nation that devoted themselves to NOT killing them. Also – we are shown the Afflicted, people who are falling to corruption from a SIn Eater attack they’d survived. How is it people who eat meol don’t become corrupted themselves?

Where did the idea for meol  even begin? Vauthry’s father was ousted by the people as mayor before Emet-Selch said hey there, friend, you have a punchable face, let’s make a deal – and Vauthry only took control of Eulmore 20 years ago. He looks a LOT older than 20, or even 40. So his father must’ve rode his child’s coattails before then.  Did Mayor Punchable Face think that was a wise countermeasure against future insurrection? In any case, Vauthry did not exert that control until the WoL and allies were coming to kill the Lightwarden of Kholusia (him), so it did not seem to be a priority of his. Alphinaud confirmed the people were of a free mind until they were made to fight the WoL and allies. (and dialogue stressed it was very noticeable when someone was not of a free mind.) Squeenix: *throws meol into purse* I have to go plotholes came up

- The “Perverted Paradise”.  (I at least giggle every time Alphinaud says this.)

Vauthry is presented as the pinnacle of vice, yet the game does not really show this well – in some cases, not at all.

Gluttony: He isn’t shown to indulge in drink, let alone overindulge. Apart from the meol scene at the end, which was related to controlling the Eater-corrupted citizenry, not gluttony, he was not shown to have so much as a snack. There’s food in his chamber, all of it untouched. But! In the Shadowbringers trailer, Squeenix thought the best example to showcase Eulmore’s decadence was – three thicc'qotes. Having pleasant conversation ‘round a table. Eating fresh fruit.

Not the creepy-ass old patron who thinks that  since his pretty servant can’t sing anymore, she should be “Ascended” as a kindness, although it was implied she could have recovered her health, just not her voice. Not the guy who tossed his servant from a balcony because reasons and wanted us to bring him back. Not even the noblewoman trying to have her servant killed because her lecherous husband put designs on the poor girl.

Three thicc'qotes. Having pleasant conversation ‘round a table. Eating fresh fruit.

We get it, Square, we’re supposed to see he’s fat and think that is bad. Moving on.

Lust: He doesn’t visit the adult nightclub downstairs (the adult nightclub that is shown practically empty and behind closed doors, the lewdness of it all – I clutch my pearls.) He doesn’t  creep on your player character like Magnai did in Stormblood – he doesn’t creep on anyone. He doesn’t want you to be his steed. No interest is shown in the Sin Eaters apart from them fighting for him, as much as some people in the fanbase theorize he is fucking them. (They probably think that Spirited Away is about the sex industry and My Neighbor Totoro is about dead girls, too.) This game is pretty blatant when they intend that sort of thing, see: Yotsuyu, Sastasha, any number of things in Ishgard or Ul'dah. I’ve found nothing here, except the German translation for “Consort Of Sin: Forgiven Obscenity” is “Purified Fornication: Playmate Of The Redeemer”. Since this is not implied in any other translation, I put my trust in Koji Fox and the fact Obscenity’s job seems to be Official Nose Petter to Forgiven Cruelty.

Greed: I am not going to hold his rings and his robes against him, as Urianger has just as much bling (more, actually), The wealthy are made to give up ALL their fortune to be permitted to stay in Eulmore – but that wealth is then used to provide everything for free to those who live there, and the free citizenry are apparently given funds for private use to boot. If they intended to show that Vauthry was using all that for hookers and blow for himself, it did not convey well.

Wrath: If one has broken the rules of the city (or has thrown shade that takes him a full two minutes to catch), Vauthry definitely has this in spades, with a temper tantrum a lot like Philia’s Fierce Beating attack.  But again, the writers don’t really show the extent of the wrath they are trying to tell . Because if you don’t break the rules? Nothing happens, apparently. Trouble seems to have to be brought forward to him, he doesn’t go looking for it.  It didn’t feel any different to me than the Grand Companies, yet this is the one that finally makes Alphinaud do the *GAAAAASP*.

The populace does not seem afraid of Vauthry. In fact, they feel free to pop ‘round to have a word if they think something needs doing. Chai-Nuzz did not seem distressed by his wife’s suggestion she would have a word with Vauthry to soothe the “hard feelings” stirred up in the quest “Emergent Splendor”.  

Pride: He has great pride in his ability to keep the SIn eaters under control, but doesn’t really display any vanity in himself. No portraits, statues, etc. When Alphinaud interfered with Kai-Shirr’s punishment, Alphinaud was told he’d be permitted to stay in the city if he made a painting – not a portrait of Vauthry, but of the city itself.

Sloth: We get it, Square, he’s fat and he sits down, moving the FUCK on.  No actually, hold up, to be honest? As tired and :| as he looked all the time, he struck me as depressed. What guy in Paradise looks that haggard?

NOW moving on.

Envy: If my theory holds, probably plenty of unresolved envy for folks who are not “half Sin Eater”. Otherwise, I can’t think of an example here.

- “Ascension” (Sure thing, Jan)

This is only made reference to in the Weeping Warbler quest chain. “As all know, the sin eaters exist to devour the sinful. But also do they serve to gather the souls of the innocent, and shepherd them unto celestial paradise.”

Sin eaters ate a meal that represents the sins of a household you fool oh wait this is The First

The thing I don’t get here is - why are there obviously limitations on who can be ascended, and when? If the idea is strictly to feed the Sin Eaters, or make meol, or just be an asshole, why is this the only time we hear of it?

It’s like if there are no more mortals, Vauthry wouldn’t have that reassurance he is doing good anymore. Either that, or since he’s never worked in retail, he doesn’t know how to push features.

But I’m betting on the former.

- LASTLY: the hypocrisy of the writer’s narrative (and the fanbase).

Tesleen was our first and horrifying sample of what Sin Eater corruption can do to a human. No matter how strong her will may have been, she was just lost to it. She scratches madly at her face when she uses one of her attacks in Holminster Switch, as though trying to stop herself, or punish herself. But she can’t help it. And we know this.

Titania was a tragedy, had to be stopped. But, a TRAGEDY. Whatever was left of the benevolent ruler was corrupted. There was never a moment where our heroes went “dis binch just evil, they gotta go down”. ( I had many choice words for Titania when I wiped enough times to them, but no actual game dialogue really says it. )

We, the Warrior Of Light, came this close to becoming a Warden ourselves. Somehow it was stalled (convenience!), but there was never a question corruption = bad and out of our control.

Vauthry, on the other hand, is treated as though he is in full control of his faculties, although the corruption before birth makes that questionable at best and he pretty clearly is not? Even as he did that Exorcist neck-twist, no one was like “oh fuck, the Sin Eaters got to another one, damn that poor man”.  (Which would seem a logical conclusion to me, I hate we have like zero real say in our characters’ reactions) Not even a “ahaha okay no seriously what the fuck is going on guys”. Nope. Their reaction was “EVIL”.  Trying to help somehow was never on the table. Watching him die slowly at our feet was.

We saw the Echo of the real circumstance of his birth. It had to come from the Sin Eater that corrupted him, because he wasn’t out of the womb to see that scene play out. Or Emet-Selch. Either way, we saw it, yet at no time afterward do we try to bring the truth out. We just let everyone believe he was evil by choice, and not another casualty of this mess.

And remember earlier, how I said Alphinaud confirmed the free citizenry were not under Vauthry’s control until the fight? Remember the noblewoman whose husband went after their bonded servant, and so she tried to get the girl murdered?

Yeah, we catch up to that noblewoman who tried to murder her servant. She feels really bad about that now.  And what is an option we get to tell her ex-bonded servant when she wonders how she could possibly trust the woman who tried to kill her?

“Vauthry’s society brought out the worst in people…”

Fffffffuck you Square lmao

TL;DR:

In private RP land? In private RP land, where we can back the fuck up in the timeline at will? You are damn skippy that Lightwarden got purged before it took complete hold. (an Aethertech did it with SCIENCE.) And Vauthry is cynical and scarred and bitter and broken and betrayed, but he’s not evil. If anything, he’s actually pretty relatably human. And he’s actually pretty damn glad his father’s shitty legacy is over.

[smokeybrand]

Irreconcilable Differences

I touched upon this in my Knightmare Scenario post but there is a shift in how we, as moviegoers, consume film. The Wuha has shown us all that it’s not necessary to actually patron movie theaters to get our flick fix, that streaming services are a viable option for studios to release tent pole movies instead of in the major multiplex franchises. This sh*t could be a death knell for the entire theater industry and they’re lashing out violently. All of this stems from the fact that Trolls: World Tour did f*cking gangbusters on streaming and Universal, the studio attached to this corporate abortion of a film, mad about fur times the profit they would if it was released in cinemas. See, theaters pay for the license to screen films. To recoup that loss, they most of the ticket price. Some more powerful studios like Disney, can force a higher percentage for a shorter time. Maybe forty percent over opening weekend, but that’s it. Everything after that is all theaters until the Wuha f*cked that sh*t all up.

After Universal made more profit than any movie they have ever released, in the shortest amount of time they’ve ever run a film in theaters, they immediately altered their release schedule. They wanted to do dual release; Streaming and theatrical. Theaters, obviously, AMC specifically, we like f*ck all of that. People would definitely forgo the theater experience, with all of the sh*tty food, cramped spaces, and assholes disguised as patrons, to sit on their couch, in their draws, watching with people they actually like. There’s no way the theaters come back from that and, in a deluded effort to strong arm an industry that just realized they don’t even need their partnership, tried to strong arm Universal by boycotting their films. Okay. This sh*t lasted less than a week and the theaters came groveling back. I imagine there were some negotiations behind closed doors because, to give up four times the profit just to prop of a dying industry, ain’t something any business would do out of the kindness of their heart.

I like the simul-release model a ton. Don't get me wrong, i love the cinema. I love going to the theater, sitting in that AC eating my forty dollar hot dog, and taking in that big ass screen I love that whole experience and, before the Wuha f*cked it all up, i had planned to spend the entire summer in thee. I live down the street from the newest theater built in my area so they have all of the dope sh*t. More to the point, there re some films that absolutely must be seen on a theatrical screen. I cannot express to you how it felt to see Infinity War with a crowd of people. To experience the same emotions as hundreds of strangers was profound. After that film ended, the theater was dead silent. I saw that movie five times, with five different audiences, and the same silence followed each viewing. It was intense and there’s no way you get that on your couch, even is you have a streaming group showing. The experience is completely different. You don’t feel Pete getting dusted the same way you would with a proper audience. That energy is lost in home and you need it to fully experience a true blockbuster like that, properly.

A total shift toward streaming would do a disservice to filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Denis Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott or Michael Bay. I hate Bay with a passion but i did watch a little bit of 6Underground and was profoundly underwhelmed. Bayhem needs the theater screen for it’s gratuitous levels of explosive, sexist, nonsense. It doesn’t work on a sensibly sized television. You’d lose too much of Scott's intimate detail and sweeping vista shots he loves to sprinkle in his films. Dude has a penchant for the nature porn and it is duly appreciated. Denis Villeneuve’s rich shot composition and breathtaking cinematography would fall flat if you’re first experiencing them in your f*cking living room. I should know. I actually have a fifty-two inch, 4k, UHD television and Blade Runner 2049 pales in comparison on my TV, to how I experienced it in theaters. Speaking of experience, anything Nolan makes would immediately be sh*t. His films need to be experienced in a theater, ideally IMAX. That’s how he shoots his films. You need that size. you need that overwhelming immersion. TeneT on the small screen will never compare to it on the screen it was shot for. You will never see that film the way its supposed to, if theaters are done in totally.

It’s not like only theaters see the benefit of a dual-release system. There area lot of great films that fester or languish in their runs because of they’re consumed by the Disney juggernaut or some Fast flick takes all of the screens. It took Ex Machina weeks after releases to make it into theaters out here because it was so niche. I waited for three weeks after the VVitch dropped and had to plead with a good friend of mine to get her manager just to screen it. Hell, Hereditary, one of the greatest performances i have ever seen captured on film, got to my theaters a week late and had only one screen in the basement. Thee were, like, fifty seats in there. Imagine if that thing had the buzz it did and dropped straight to Netlfix. Suspiria had a limited theatrical run and made it’s way to Amazon within months where it has had a pretty lucrative run so far. Imagine the shine it would have received if it had released there immediately instead of getting that niche nod in the actual theater. I mean, i saw all of these films in the cinema because that’s my thing but i can see why and how a streaming release strategy would benefit their visibility far more positively.

I think, though, this is more than anything, the establishment has the problem with this situation than anything. There is a system in place and no one wants to f*ck it up. Some of the best films i have ever seen were produced, funded, and released to streaming services. Beast of No Nation would have never been successful in theaters but it found life on Netflix. A Marriage Story is another film that i think would have floundered in the cinema. It’s an excellent film that as great performances and a very human tale that was overlooked by the Oscars because streaming isn’t seen as a medium viable for their highfalutin blessing over at the Academy. That sh*t smacks of stuffy, archaic, elitism and it’s a f*cking shame. It cheapens the Oscars and continuously proves that those awards are little more than an ego stroke for a dying Hollywood system. This streaming sh*t is a direct accusation at the old garb.

Recently, a film called The Lovebirds dropped on Netflix. It was supposed to release in theaters sometime this month but, since the Wuha has everything so f*cked up, it was sent directly to streaming where it has garnered an amount of success. With an African-American woman and a South Asian male as romantic leads, this probably wouldn't have flown all that well if it had a theatrical release. Considering it uses the fact that they are both brown as the reason for why they would run from the cops after a very obvious misunderstanding, kind of lends itself to me thinking this bad boy would have tanked with broader audiences. This thing’s home release, where certain individuals who might have a not-so-favorably a public stance on us darkies but secretly hate-love our stinky draws, could watch it without anyone knowing definitely contributed to that flick’s success. A success that may have eluded the movie if it was released theatrically because cats can’t be seen supporting certain films.

Movies that are driven by people of color not produced by that bojanglin’ Tyler Perry, flick that weave a small scale, human tale of frailty, lost love, and true emotion, or telling a proper, respectful LBGTQ love story, can thrive on streaming. These smaller, more actor driven, movies can side-step all of the political noise that goes along with such visible release dates, avoid conflict with mega-blockbusters, and be readily accessible for anyone curious about their pedigree while making the most money they can. Hell, why even exclude the big-budget fair? Cult films that did okay or even poorly in theaters, like Alita: Battle Angel, can get that big-budget sequel, drop on streaming, and turn a profit with a fraction of the viewership without having to worry about directly competing with an MCU Berserker or some sh*t. I would love to see Alita in theaters for a second round but, if the only way i can revisit this world theatrically would be on the small screen, i am okay with that. Everyone should be okay with that.

I think the people paying for these movie ARE okay with that. No one i spoke to had any issue with streaming a day-one release. No one I asked had a problem with checking out a summer blockbuster on their TV. We just need theaters and studios to be okay with it. We need theaters to accept the fact that they’re going to have to adjust what they show and how they show it. Studios are going to have to be okay with maybe missing a prestige award for a few years until streaming films become normalized. I think everyone wins in a duel-release scenario. We get more content. Studios can get back to taking risks and letting creators, create. Theaters have more screens to show the moneymakers. I like the position of cinema going in the future. I like the options. This is progress. This is growth. Now let’s just hope the divorce from the theater system isn’t as bloody in the end, as it was in the beginning.

[newagesispage]

                                                  APRIL                      2019

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***** The Rolling Stones have cancelled their North American tour. Mick Jagger apologized for cancelling due to undisclosed medical treatments.  Oh Baby, Get Well Soon!!!!

***** Mick and his squeeze, Melanie Hamrick have put together a ballet set to Stones music called Porte Rouge. After premiering in Russia it will come to NY on April 18 for an opening night charity event to benefit Youth America Grand Prix.  Tickets start at $600.

***** Tina Fey and Carol Burnett  are working on a movie about Carol’s book, Carrie and me: A Mother –Daughter love story.

***** When I hear Bernie Sanders going on, I can’t help but think of Jimmy Carter. He was pushing many of these messages in the seventies. He tried to get us to have more respect for the land and to save energy and the greedy wrote him off as boring and the era of greed took over. Will we listen this time?

***** The Mueller report was finally turned over to Attorney General William Barr. This has started a whole new set of problems. Barr gives us a summary that is like springtime for Trump. He jumps right in to those that done him wrong and FISA warrants. Should congress get a look at the full report? Everyone is talking over each other and don’t seem to hear what the other is saying. Everybody piles on Adam Schiff because they think he isn’t accepting the report like a good Dem should. If they would listen, he makes it very clear that he respects the findings but they need to see the report. How dare they ask HIM to resign as Intel committee chair. It was heartwarming to see his backbone. They must quit backing down. We still don’t have the whole story but he still free to say that he thinks the actions we already know of were wrong. What the hell is wrong with that? Barr is supposed to release the heavily redacted report in mid- April. No collusion? Perhaps, Scary Clown 45 would probably not get his hands dirty. Obstruction? We’ll see. ** Tyler Mcgaughey, William Barrs son in law will now advise Trump and the White House staff. ** I am really sick of listening to the old white man POV.

***** Dow chemical has donated a mil to Trump’s campaign. Strange that Trump has blocked a report  that took years of research and shows proof of Dow toxic pesticides which jeopardizes over 1,200 endangered species.

***** US from Jordan Peele opened to 70.3 mil. Just like his last movie, critics tell us to watch it twice. How great for the bottom line.

***** John McCarty, a dead man is running for village President in Spring Bay, Il.

***** Look out for the new film, The Kid, directed by Vincent D’onofrio. The western stars Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt, Hawk , D’onofrio , MorningStar Angeline and Leila George.

***** Did you ever see the reunion movie ‘Return to Green Acres? ‘  They tried to warn us of who Trump was a long time ago. How strange that it came full circle with that ridic Emmy Green Acres thing he did.

***** Shaq has become a deputy sheriff and has also been added to the board of directors of Papa John’s where he is an investor.

***** In sexual harassment news, Lucy Flores, a former Nevada assemblywoman has accused Joe Biden of unwanted touching and kissing at a 2014 campaign event.

***** Mark Hamill will voice the Chucky doll in the new Child’s Play.

***** Law and Order will get its 21st season.

***** The daytime Emmy noms have been announced and Days got the most this year. WOO HOO! The soap was nominated for drama, writing, costume, music, casting, art direction and oh, just everything. In the acting category the lead noms are Marci Miller, Tyler Christopher and Billy Flynn.  Kate Mansi was noticed for a guest spot as Abigail so 2 actresses are up for Emmys in the same role. Other guest noms went to Thaao Penghlis and Philip Anthony Rodriguez. Kassie Depaiva, Linsey Godfrey (really?), Martha Madison, Greg Rikaart and Eric Martsolf were all nominated.  Younger actor nods went to Olivia Rose Keegan, Lucas Adams, Victoria Konefal and Kyler Pettis.  C’mon , why nothing for Lauren Koslow, Greg Vaughan, Casey Moss, Susan Seaforth Hayes and Robert Scott Wilson?? I think I would switch a few of these around but it is still great to see Days so blessed.  I was also happy to see Max Gail from GH get noticed. CBS led the networks in noms. Hooray for Wayne Brady for game show host and Mark Hamill, Ruth Negga and Steve Buscemi in animated programs. Watch for the Daytime Emmys on May 5 which will not be on television again.

***** General Robert Neller has told the Pentagon that funds diverted to the wall are keeping Marines from rebuilding hurricane hit bases.

***** Devin Nunes is suing Twitter for the parody accounts, Devin Nunes Mom and Dvin Nunes cow which is pretty funny.

***** The EU is banning straw, cotton swabs and plastic cutlery by 2021.

***** Jenny McCarthy has a book out that slams The View.

***** Roseanne is thinking about suing ABC and has said some rather nasty stuff about Sara Gilbert.

***** Michael Avenatti was arrested for trying to extort $20 mil from Nike in NY. He claims he was just doing some lawyering.  California has him on bank fraud charges.  Why is there so much shadiness in this world? Let’s start rewarding the people doing good in this world and quit talking these headlines everyday.

***** Why did this Jussie Smollett thing go away?

***** Wal Mart is walking back this getting rid of the elderly and handicapped greeter thing.

***** Tracy Morgan and Will Forte are to star in the new animated Scooby Doo movie.

***** Johnny Depp has sued ex Amber Heard over the abuse allegations.

***** Martha Stewart is diving into the Marijuana product industry.

***** New York charges Manafort with 16 crimes. Perhaps he won’t get off as lightly with the state crimes.

***** Season 9 of American Horror Story has no premiere date yet. Emma Roberts is confirmed to return. It looks like it will also include Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters and silver medalist Gus Kenworthy.

***** New California Gov. Gavin Newsom has halted executions for now.

***** Dems will hold their convention in Milwaukee. And if I hear again that Hillary didn’t go to these sorts of places, I am gonna puke. She went! She went! Just not so much at the end.

***** Howard Stern will release his first book in 20 years this May.

***** Ok, so glad to see Whoopie Goldberg is starting to get back to work but it is just so unbelievable in this day and age and access to info that she seemed shocked that the insurance companies decide people’s fate. Of course, that is if you are lucky enough to have insurance.

***** Sandy Hook families can take lawsuits against the gun companies to court now.** Three suicides have recently come from survivors and a parent of Parkland and Sandy Hook. The pain goes on.

***** The Senate voted 59-41 to terminate the emergency declaration. VETO

***** Rick Singer, founder if a college prep business had pled guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice and racketeering. The nationwide college entrance exam scandal involves about 50 people including Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin that dates back to 2011. People paid millions to use ringers to take or fix their children’s exams and sometimes faked photos with coaches to include them in sports they were never involved in. The U.S. attorney does not believe the schools themselves were involved. **Lawsuits have already begun from those claiming they could not get into a good college because those spots were taken by these alleged cheaters.

***** Jennifer Hudson will play Aretha Franklin in the biopic.

***** Experts say a recession is on the horizon.

***** Two Sacramento police officers will face no charges for their overkill of the unarmed Stephon Clark. Oh Big surprise!!

***** White supremacist groups on line are growing faster than ISIS. ** I never get it, if white supremacists are so supreme, so wonderful, wouldn’t they rise to the top naturally? Why do they need to rid the world of others or keep minorities down?? If they think others are so inferior, those they hate or fear should not be a problem .

***** Jeanine Pirro was pulled off Fox news after a racist rant about Muslims. ** And where is Rudy? The lawyer hasn’t been seen on the air since January. ** Is this true? Did Ivanka and Jared really try to resign? Did Scary Clown 45 try to push them into it and then not accept those resignations?

***** This can’t be true. Only 5 states have laws requiring patient consent for medical students to do vaginal exams on women under sedation.

***** I rarely think about Jay Leno but he was right about the late night comics all doing different versions of the same joke.  But, who is he to talk? I mean how many different things did you do on OJ and Clinton?? At least these guys are funny.

***** The talk that people stay in their bubble becomes crystal clear when you see the poll asking if the President is truthful: Fox viewers : 84%, MSNBC viewers : 21% and CNN viewers: 1%. Whoa!

***** Word is that Scary Clown ordered economic advisor Gary Cohn to pressure the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block the Att-Time Warner merger to retaliate against CNN.

***** At least 250 power plants across the country are leaking toxic chemicals into nearby water.

***** Jay Inslee is running for president! I think Stacey Abrams and Jay Inslee would be a nice ticket>

***** Beta O’Rourke is running for President! The psychedelic warlord!

***** Kristen Gillibrand is running for President!

***** Conor McGregor was arrested and charged with felony strong armed robbery and criminal mischief in Miami.

***** The process is in the works to get Trumps tax returns.** The house Judiciary committee has requested 81 documents.** This can’t be true. Trump was signing Bibles for volunteers and survivors in Alabama??

***** Just when it can’t get any weirder: Li Yang and her hubby, Zubin Gong run a string of massage parlors with questionable reputations. Until recently they ran the one that Robert Kraft was busted in. They also had a web site that seemed to sell access to their buddy, Donald Trump with Chinese business contacts. As soon as the story broke, the sites for an international consulting firm, text only in Chinese and no prices for the meets came down. Li Yang and her associates are in pictures at the inauguration, the White House, Mar A Lago and Trump’s super bowl party with the Pres, his sons and other Trump family members. We should have seen this coming. The old adage that always holds true with this administration seems true here. They always blame others for what they are really guilty of, this explains the Pizzagate garbage. This could be bigger than we ever dreamed. Even stories that we may have thought a bit out there need to be looked at closer. Can we connect the sex trafficking, the White House, the money? It is time to quit fucking around with the sellers and customers of those exploited in the sex trade. I don’t get it, all these men from Trump to R Kelly have the power over the women they supposedly use and abuse and yet they are always so angry. Perhaps they wouldn’t be losing their power if you treated others with respect and dignity. They always want all the power for themselves. And c’mon media, stop talking your heads off about the Omar story and give this Li Yang story a closer look.

***** The story of the fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes is a sad one. It does show that greed and massive fraud are not just for the men of this world. When I first heard of her plans for the blood testing, I was so impressed with what she was accomplishing at her age. Yes, she was another poor little rich girl whose family fortune was quite diminished by the time it got to her. Even without the Fleischman yeast money, she did seem to have advantages. I can see how some of us were fooled but what about the big investors, the stalwart statesmen?  Do they not remember that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is? How can all the hype, the press, the marketing snowball before there is any proof that something is what is actually supposed to be?? I always assumed that by the time I am hearing about it, things are about ready to go. Seeing all these stories like Trump and Deutsche bank, light sentences for Manafort and now Holmes and her partner in crime seeming to get off lightly, there is not much hope for the little guy. WHY can’t we hold those involved in big money crimes really responsible??

***** It’s true, rich people cause socialism – Neal Brennan.

***** Even in 1692 the rich were different. –Stacy Schiff- The Witches.

***** FEMA released the personal data of 2.3 million victims.

***** They have dug up old words from Fox’s Tucker Carlson. Big surprise that he seemed to empathize with Warren Jeffs, thought women should just shut up and called a woman “cunty.”  The women who lap up the words of these men must not think much of themselves.

***** Why are we letting the banks finance detention centers and prisoners? It’s more than immigration or punishing criminals. Why is this big business?? I can’t believe this is still going on. Wake up!!! When will the children be free?  C’mon House and Senate, Pass the Shut Down child prison camps bill.

***** Somebody has to pay for this President’s folly: The scary clown new budget cuts:$ 1.5 trillion from Medicaid/ $845 billion from Medicare/ &25 billion from Social Security.

***** About 1 rural hospital a month is shutting down due to lack of support and lack of funds.

***** Globalization seems to be spreading a pathogen killing the olive trees in Italy.

***** A fake Melania?? WTF? UGH!

***** Matthew Whitaker is out! Bill Shine is out!

***** When will we ever be able to buy the boxed set of Late Night with Dave?? Hurry so the next generation can see the genius they may have missed.

***** Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale??

***** Hey Bill Maher, way to go with your PETA message about the terrible treatment of the geese used to make Canada Goose down jackets.  I will stay away!!

***** J Lo and A Rod are engaged.

***** Bette Midler and Judith Light will join the cast of The Politician.

***** Jussie Smollett has been indicted on 16 felony counts.

***** HBO’s Crashing was cancelled. Pete Holmes was great in this but I never really saw much promotion for it. I hate it when good stuff falls thru the cracks.

***** Kathy Griffin has a new film about the ridiculous Trump head, nearly career ending, Government harassment crap in her life. Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a story. Make that lemonade!! A girl has to take care of herself. It premiered at SXSW.** Speaking of SXSW, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez drew great crowds while she was there.

***** R Kelly lives in Trump tower in Chicago. Well, of course he does.  Why is it ok for the rest of us to put up with these arrogant, abusive males in this society? Everyone is giving kudos to Gayle King for her calm demeanor in her interview. Yes, how professional of her but why should she be subject to that disrespect??  She is in her workplace. Would R Kelly have liked his Mother or daughter to be treated that way?

***** So, word is that Isaiah 45 is a Trump thing with the evangelicals. This scripture refers to Cyrus , the anointed one. OY!

***** Days alert: Robin Strasser is coming OH BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!** Judith Chapman and her old style soap acting just too much. ** C’mon Chloe and Rex!!** More Nurse Shelly!! ** Is Johnny Dimera on his way to town? ** I was so glad to see Tony, one of the best characters ever anywhere, even if it was part of an out of body experience.

***** Why do we have to keep talking about George and Kelly Ann Conway?? Are they just covering their bases? With one on each side of the Trump argument, they win no matter what happens right?

***** So now we know that about 400 Catholic clergy have been accused of sexual  misconduct in Illinois. It never ends.

***** End the electoral college!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

***** S

***** Fox has hired Donna Brazile. People seem to finally be taking Bill Maher’s advice and telling their point of view to the other side. How else will sanity prevail if we don’t find common ground? We cannot look to this administration for guidance in this world, we have to figure these things out for ourselves, which we should be able to do anyway.

***** Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15-24 year olds.  We have to find our self- worth.  

R.I.P. Andy Anderson, Katherine Helmond, Nathaniel Taylor, Luke Perry, Alabama tornado victims, Jan Michael Vincent,  the Ethiopian airlines disaster victims, Hal Blaine, victims of the New Zealand Mosque shootings, Sydney Aiello, the Ogossogou village attack victims, Denise DuBarry, Larry Cohen, Jeremy Richman, Ray Sawyer, Tania Mallet and Nipsey Hussle.

[calliecat93]

Callie Reviews: TMNT 2012 Season One (Part Three)

(Part One) (Part Two)

Here is where we look at the season as a whole. For this, I will be looking at four things: Animation, Voice Acting, Characters (Heroes, Villains), and Story. I’ll be going more into depths about some stuff I skimmed over here as well. So lets dig in!

Animation

This is the Turtles first CGI show... okay yeah the 2007 movie was CGI, but that was a movie. When I first heard this, I was reluctant as I felt like 2D was becoming more and more of a lost out. But the CGI was really good! Mind you it looks a tad bit dated now as every season they pushed more and more to improve it. But still, it’s very well done. I can’t recall any point where I thought it looked bad or cringy...aside form when they wanted you to cringe anyways. What helps is that the show does add in some 2D elements, There’s the comic-style flashbacks of course, but even past that. They use these anime-like quirks like the sweatdrop, blushing, wide blank eyes when reacting in shock, vein burst when a character is angry, all these tiny little things that give it a more cartoony feel. I can’t recall any other Nickelodeon CGI shows that were doing this prior, so it helped it stand out among the other shows.

Another plus side? The character designs. Aside from a few background characters they re-colored, none of the important characters look the same. Like I know that some don’t like April’s design, but at least they gave her and Karai their own distinct character designs. Then there are the Turtles. Something I don’t like about the upcoming show is how much.. accessorizing they add in to make the Turtles look distinctive. 2k12 kept it very simple. Different heights, eye color, shade of green, and of course body build. For example Donnie, the genius who is mroe invested with machines than training, is both the tallest and most slender. Raph, the strongest, is the most buff and Mikey, the youngest, has larger eyes and freckles to show his child-like nature.And even with Raph,a ll four boys have kind of high school athlete-like builds. Nothing over the top like say... the Michael Bay films. Basically, I can believe that these guys can do the ninja-like agility more than I can with the overly buff, giant versions that have been used.

When ti comes to the mutants, the animators get creative. There are so many unique mutant sin the show. Snakeweed, Spyder Bytez, Dogpound, Fishface, Splinter, Leatherhead, all the mutants have their own unique design that work for them. They also know when to get creepy, like with the mish-mash... thing... from The Alien Agenda. That was disturbing as heck, and it’s not even the creepiest one they come up with! Oh just wait for next season, haha... but yeah, mutant designs are great!

Now the settings are kinda... meh. I mean The Lair is cool, but it’s mostly just either the the Lair, the New York landscape, Shredder’s lair, or an empty warehouse most of the time. It’s nothing really... creative I guess is the right word. We also don’t explore new York much, mainly settling on skyscrapers as the setting. It’s understandable why since New York is the setting, but still it juts gets kind of boring after awhile. But for what it’s worth, they do try to do creative stuff when they can like in Baxter’s Gambit with the black and white screens.

And of course, there is the fight choreography. As I said before, it’s fantastic. All the fights in the series are fluid, well-paced, and fun to watch. If I had to give some examples off the top of my head, there’s New Friend, Old Enemy when the Turtles rise form the water. The mix of black and red is absolutely perfect. There’s the first fight against Shredder in The Gauntlet which despite the boys getting constantly knocked down by Shredder, they give it everything they have. It looks freakin’ badass. Then there is any Splinter fight scene. There’s not many, only about three in this season (It Came From the Depths, I, Monster, The Showdown two-parter) but they are excellent. I said that the Splinter vs Shredder fight was the best and nothing after ever topped it, right?

So yeah, if I was going to rate the animation on a 1-5 scale...

Rating: 4.5

Voice Acting

The series was voice directed by veteran Andrea Romano, so you know that the performances are gonna be solid. As far as casting goes, they got in a LOT of big names both in the voice acting industry and out. There’s of course Greg Cipes (Mikey), Mae Whitman (April), Nolan North (The Kraang), Kevin Michael Richardson (Shredder), Phil Lamar (Stockman), Clancy Brown (Dogpound) and of course Rob Paulsen (Donnie). Rob’s casting was actually a pretty big deal as along with being a veteran with nearly 30 years of experience, he was also the voice of Raph in the original 80′s show. So getting him back even as a different Turtle? Yeah... that’s pretty big!

Then you have more well-known on-screen actors, like Sean Astin (Raph) and Kelly Hu (Karai). Now they both actually have very solid VA-ing careers and still do voice work to this day, but if you’re say... a Lord of the Rings fan and known Sean only for that, this may entice you. The newcomers to voice acting are Jason Biggs (Leo), Christian Lanz (Fishface) and Hoon Lee (Splinter). There’s also guest actors like Jeffrey Combs (The Rat King) and Roseanne Barr (Kraang Prime), so a solid mix of professional voice actors and a few newcomers. The result?

The voice acting is fantastic. Like even as the show goes on and you see more and more mixed reception, the acting is NEVER one of the things you see go down. If anything, it is one aspect that continues to improve episode by episode. All four Turtle actors do an amazing job conveying their characters, able to go from comedic to dramatic in a split second. I’d say that out of everyone, Hoon Lee impressed me the most since he’s the only one aside from Biggs (and... e’ll talk more about him next season) I hadn’t heard of. And he gave a very solid performance. Everyone did. Even for just minor characters like Pulverizer (Roger Craig Smith... yes Pulverizer is Sonic the Hedgehog) or some of the villains like Snake (Danny Jacob who voices King Julian outside the Madacgascar films) or Spyder Byte (Lewis Black), they convey their characters perfectly. Like Black’s character is a rude slob you want to punch, and he does such a great job in making you feel that way!

So yeah, you got a strong cast, a veteran voice director, and a crazy group of characters for them to voice. All of them nail it. And just wait, this is only the S1 cast. Wait until you see who they bring in for future seasons!

Rating: 5

Characters

As I said in Part One, this is the best part of the show. I know a lot of people who fell off TMNT as it went on, but still kept interest because of the characters. To me, this is always the most important part of storytelling. Yes having a good story itself is important, but a good story will be nothing without likeable characters to move it. A cliched story may be annoying, but if the characters are likeable and strongly written, people are usually more forgiving because they care about the cast. This show is no different. To this day, the thing that kept me attracted to the show was the Turtles, April, and Splinter and what they’d get into next. All of them have strong personalities that get you to care about them, or at least see where they’re coming from. I could gush about each of them one by one... so on we go!

Lets start with Mikey because he is the least developed this season... and most of the show sadly. I’d even say that his focus episodes dropped massively in quality after this season as he was forced mroe and mroe into the comedy relief/designated victim/little brother role. It’s a shame too because this season did an excellent job in balancing out both the comedy relief and the more innocent side of the character. Mikey is the most naive of the brothers and the least serious among them. It’s not to say that he can’t take situations seriously, it’s just that he’s more easy-going and fun-seeking than the other three. His biggest problem is his inability to focus and goof around, which has caused several instances of accidentally setting off alarms. 

While not the best of the four, Mikey is a talented ninja and the best at going off just raw talent. He doesn’t think through fighting moves, he can just go with the flow and be perfectly fine. His strongest skill hpwever is his empathy and desire to make friends. While this has backfired on him before, like in New Friend, Old Enemy, where Bradford used and then kidnapped him for a trap, Mikey is incredibly non-judgemental and open-minded. It’s why he could befriend Leatherhead so easily in It Came From the Depths. He saw that the Kraang were attacking him and decided to simply talk to him like he would anyone else, even pointing out that maybe LH only acts like a monster because that’s how he was treated for so long. Mikey may not be book smart, but he’s very emotionally smart. As I said, Mikey’s character sadly devolves into annoying comedy relief as it goes, but for this season he had a strong start. No meaningful development aside form slow progression on paying attention (Parasitica being the final payoff... also if you’re afraid of wasps then avoid that one), but his character is strong enough to carry him through.

Raph is the brawler of the group and the quickest to anger. Hie’s the strongest fighter and incredibly confident... unless he has to deal with bugs. His biggest flaws are his both his anger and his jealous towards Leo. The first half of the season has Raph frequently back-talks and argue with Leo all because he got made the leader over him. For example, in Never Say Xever he is unhappy with Leo using mercy because bad guys don’t deserve it. Leo does eventually use the more Raph-like approach when kidnapping Bradford... and it fails miserably. What saves them? Leo’s act of mercy causing the Purple Dragon to repay the favor sand saving their shells. While he does slowly get a better grip on his temper once Splinter tells him of how dangerous it can be (Turtle Temper), it takes until New Girl in Town for him to overcome his jealousy once and for all. It’s very well done too by having Leo finally get fed up and give Raph what he wanted. Ultimately Raph can’t handle the pressure once things get rough and comes to understand both what Leo deals with essentially every day and how his own actions made it worst.

After that, Raph becomes the perfect example of a follower. While he’s still question Leo, he has good reasons for it, like everything involving Karai for instance. But he actively looks out for him more and stops mocking him outside just brotherly messing around. And even during that point, while Raph could be an insensitive jerk, he does love his family and will make amends when he goes too far. When he mocked Mikey wanting friends in New Friend, Old Enemy, at the end he comforted him after the fallout with Bradford and assured him that he’s a good person. When he mocked Donnie’s crush in Operation: Break-Out and led to Donnie going on a mission solo, Raph was worried about him, realized that he way too harsh, and tried to make amends by giving Donnie all the credit once back home. While Raph doesn’t conquer his temper completely, over the season he does get a better grip on it, can admit when he goes to far, became overall nicer, and by the end is a much better person. It was good stuff!

Donnie is probably the most... divisive of the four. Not because he’s badly written per say. He’s intelligent, but also high-strung and prone to stress. He’s not a bad ninja, but because of his focus on machinery, he’s the least skilled. The two episodes that focus on this are Metalhead and Monkey Brains. Metalhead has an admittedly meh plot where he gets sick of his bo staff and therefore creates the robot Metalhead to act as his weapon. The ‘meh’ plot is IDT it addresses the message of ‘the weapon doesn't make you a good fighter, you do’ very well, ut still Monkey Brains does a much better job, demonstrating Donnie’s tendency to over-think everything and how that is detrimental in a fight. By the climax, he’s able to get himself to rely on his instincts against a mind-reading villain (we’ll get to him later) and kick his ass.

Then there’s The Pulverizer episodes, which are the most interesting but sadly don’t go anywhere after this season. It has Donnie accept Pulverizer as an apprentice of sort, mainly so the kid can have some form of self-defense if he’s going to put himself into danger. It’s ultimately ineffective, but mainly because of Pulverizer wanting to rush and not listening properly. The most important part though is Splinter telling Donnie that by doing this, anything that happens involving him after will be his responsibility. Which we see in The Pulverizer Returns where Pulverizer decides ot let the Foot mutate him to gain awesome mutant powers. Donnie tries to save him, but sadly he fails and Pulverier.. it’s not pretty. While Donnie does still save him after, he’s left with the guilt of ultimately failing his student. I’ll go into mroe about how horribly the writers wasted this next season, but here? It was interesting to give Donnie this plot since you’d expect t to go to say... Leo. I think it really worked for what it was worth and let us see a side of Donnie outside just being the smart one.

So with that said, why is he divisive? Well... it’s because another major part of his character is his crush on April. He doe snot... manage it well, to say the least. He is rather, well... stupid and kinda creepy with it. But I do want to point this out. Yes, it is annoying but I think there’s a good reason for it: he’s an awkward teenager. Yeah him asking her to feel his goosebumps (Metalhead), accidentally calling her ‘his April (The Gauntlet), accidentally saying awkward things when she acknowledges him (pick any episode) are incredibly facepalm worthy at best. And yeah, they should have done better setup than have him just find her pretty when seeing her once. However he does genuinely care about her and int he premiere, he was driven more because he saw an innocent girl scared and was unable to help than his newfound crush. The feelings are genuine and Donnie being awkward about is because... well, Donnie is awkward in general and he does slowly improve. Honestly I’ll have mroe to discuss about this next season cause haha... boy is THAT a clusterfuck. But ultimately while Donnie can be annoying, overall it’s pretty bearable and he has plenty of positive traits to balance it out.

Finally, we get Leo. He’s the group leader, but unlike the past series where he pretty much grew up with that role, here he gets the role halfway through the first episode. He starts as a goody-two-shoes with a mischievous side who had a very basic view of leadership. He see sit as a position of authority, greatness, and unstoppable. That’s not to say that he doesn’t take the role seriously, he does. He devises plans, does his best to keep his brothers focused, and frequently asks Splinter for advice on how to best do things. But he also frequently uses cheesy one-liners and does his best to be as over the top with his heroics as possible, thinking it’s cool when it isn’t. It gives Leo a more naive feel to him, someone who is serious but also is still a teenaged kid who has a lot of learning to do.

The pressures of leadership are Leo’s primary focus as a character. While he has some doubts, the biggest blow to his confident comes in The Gauntlet after there massive defeat against Shredder. The following episode has him unsure of if he can properly lead the team and feeling guilty when things go wrong. But the ultimate meltdown comes in New Girl in Town where Raph finally pushes him too hard and he quits. He’s realized at this point that leadership is not like it is on TV. it’s unforgiving, stressful, and you’re gonna be the one facing the consequences when things go wrong. His difficulty dealing with this is what attracts him to Karai. She’s fun, does whatever she wants, and doesn’t care about the rules. She offers him a form of freedom that he hasn’t had before. It’s why he tries to get her to change sides, he doesn’t want her to be an enemy. Unfortunately things end badly between them this season, but you can see where Leo is coming form no matter how naive he was about it.

Leo evolved a lot over the season. He went from a naive teenager who quoted old TV episodes to a serious, determined leader who was willing to do whatever it took to get his team through. He never quit being optimistic and he does still have his stress with leadership later down the road. But the season is about him easing not the role an understanding the weight of that role. It’s very easy to feel bad for Leo because he tries incredibly hard, but he doesn’t receive a lot of gratitude or payoff, and he just has to accept that. By the finale, he’s willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure both success and his family's safety... something that becomes a bit of an issue in later seasons (looking at you Space Arc). I’d say that because we got to see Leo actually having to come to terms with the role, it makes this imo the best version of the character. We actually have to see him accept the role and how he hate show it limits his free time, something IDT the past versions really did. And all while having this dorky, idealistic side that keeps him likable and all the mroe relateable. Overall, I’d say that the leader in blue was handeled very well here!

April is my favorite character in the show, but her writing this season has some issues. Now as a character herself, she’s perfectly fine. She’s an independent sixteen year old and incredibly proactive. Whenever she finds info on the Kraang or about her dad, she looks into it. When everyone is ready to quit in Panic in the Sewers, she’s the only one who actively tries to do something and get everyone else to not give up. When Splinter offers to train her, she accepts it and we see bits and pieces of her progressing. But it’s done realistically as demonstrated in Karai’s Vendetta where it’s very clear that April is nowhere near her level. But it also demonstrates her determination and how she never gives up, getting back up after every blow and at east trying to put up a fight. While she’s forced to sit most things out and does on occasion get kidnapped, she still tries to be an asset and does very well as an intel gatherer. She’s also incredibly stubborn and can get in over her head without thinking things through, like in Metalhead and the finale episodes. But ultimately her proactiveness and need to take action are her strongest traits and what makes her a useful ally.

The issues with April are in the writing of the plot. I already mentioned how the early episodes could have done mroe in having her ease into the group. There’s also after Karai’s Vendetta where despite living with the guys, we don’t see her until the penultimate episode. We see her express hating it in that episode, but we don’t get to explore the fallout of her losing her normal life. In fact we...d on’t see April’s life outside Turtle stuff until next season, and even then not by much. Now of course the show is about the Turtles and you gotta keep the focus on them, but still we get a bunch of ‘show, don’t tell’ problems with April. We’re told things like she’s living with her aunt, but we never see them interact. Hell, IDT April’s aunt is ever mentioned outside the pilot. We also find out that April is the Kraang’s target... and we never see how she feels about it. If she’s scared, if she’s worried. We can assume that she has some stress about it, as indicated when she vents in Karai’s Vendetta, but little to no showcase of how she feels about it. Mind you we don’t with the Turtles either, but still. Still, overall April is a solid character imo.

That brings us to Master Splinter, the best written character by far. Splinter is the perfect balance of a mentor and a father. He’s firm, strict, and not afraid to dish out punishment when it’s necessary. But he’s also gentle, patient, knows how to give his sons proper guidance, and when to let them figure things out for themselves. He’s also snarky as Hell, so it’s good that he has a sense of humor. He’s also a flawed person. He lost his wife and daughter because of hat is essentially a sibling rivalry that went WAAAY too far and his own inability to control himself worsened things. He lost his family and then his humanity, ending his life as Hamato Yoshi. Since then, he’s hidden int he sewers and tried to focus his energy on raising and protecting his sons. It makes letting them go topside difficult, as it is for any parent whose children are growing up. He can make mistakes, like letting his fear control him and press his sons far too hard in Panic in the Sewers, but he can admit those mistakes.

Splintr’s largest plot in the season, outside mentoring the boys and April, is accepting his mutant status and overcoming his fears. Many epsiodes such as the premiere, Turtle Temper, Monkey Brains, Panic in the Sewers and the finale show how much pain the rat master carries and while he’s move don to a new life, it still haunts him. The episode that best displays this however is a filler episode called I, Monster. In it we get this version of the Rat King, the mind reading villain from Monkey Brains, who uses his power to swarm New York. When he senses Splinter, he proceeds to try and brainwash him too. The episode does an amazing job at showcasing all of Splinter’s fears. The boys outgrowing him, his past tragedies, ending up alone, and the Rat King slowly uses all of it to break him down. Splinter fights back, but the thought of the boys moving on without him is ultimately what defeats him until the boys remind him of who he is. He is Hamato Yoshi, Master Splinter, but most of all their father. They need him and always will. Which lets Splinter overcome the mind control and essentially Airbend Rat King through a wall. It was awesome~

Despite that episode being filler, it’s one of the season's best. It is a strong character exploration piece about a father who has gone through Hell and is faced with the fear of his kids not needing him. It is very relatable and makes Splinter all the mroe sympathetic. And we see Splinter truly embody who he is now when faced with the Shredder again and upon learning that his daughter had survived. He went into full rat mode and gave Shredder the beating that we all wanted. And the season ends on a perfect lead in for the next one. Splinter now knows that Karai is his daughter while she was raised to hate him. It’s any parent’s worst nightmare. He now has to deal with that revelation as well as how he’s going to break it to his students. Splinter has some solid growth int he season, something that a lot of mentor figures in cartoons don’t get, and it’s done perfectly. He has his flaws, but is still a strong father figure to his sons. Add that to Hoon Lee’s absolute perfect performance and you have what is in my opinion the best incarnation of Master Splinter in any TMNT series.

While the main cast is strong, the supporting cast and villains are... not so much. There isn’t really a supporting cast honestly. The best we have is Leatherhead, who is awesome. He’s a damaged character. One treated like a monster and tortured for who knows how long. It left him damaged and prone to trauma-induced outbursts. But he is a good person who knows that what happened to him was wrong and can be quite sweet when given the chance. He didn’t have to save humanity, especially since most would scream and run if they saw him, but he didn’t want anyone else to endure what he did. It’s best exemplified with his sacrifice in TCRI, going back to Dimension X and knowing fully well what’ll await him there. But he does so to save his friends and give them the chance to save the Earth. LH is freakin’ badass and I love him!

The villains though are... kinda boring. Most of the mutants, while the designs are cool, are incredibly one-note. Not all of them, like the Rat King is so dramatic and twisted and his VA does such a great job with the delivery that you both love him and want to strangle him. But others like Snakeweed or Spyder Bytez are just... well, evil for the heck of it. The Kraang are the worst though since at least the mutants are only in like one or two episodes. The Kraang are annoying as HELL. They can be dangerous but the redundant speech pattern and all fo them having essentially the same personality (aka none) is so... boring. Min you in Season 4 we kind of get an explanation to why, but it doesn't change how grating they can get. That being said in large groups they can be dangerous and with things like the Technodrome, they’re not to be taken lightly. Still, GAH I HATE THEM!!!

The Foot are somewhat better. Stockman is pathetic and remains pathetic throughout the entire series. Bradford is a pompous asshole. Xever is a little more interesting in that he kidn of was forced to work for Shredder or go to jail... but sadly after that reveal, he reverts to typical henchman status sadly. Shredder is the Big Bad and a no-nonsense leader. He has no empathy and is more than willing to inflict physical violence on his troops if they fail him. He even threatens to harm Karai, his daughter (kinda...) if she questions him. He is a very single minded perosn, his only goal beign to kill Splinter and his students by any means necessary. Hell. he only starts caring about the Kraang when he realizes that they can advance his goal, but has zero issues letting humanity fall to them. Oh, and there’s his glee when Karai tries to kill Splinter. WOrst? THis isn’t even the worst that he does int he show. Oh just wait for next season. JUST WAIT. Otherwise though, while a powerful fighter, he just mopes in his throne for most of the season, but Richardson’s badass voice acting was nice to hear.

The most interesting villain by far is Karai, and Thank God for it. While Leo is a good-good, Karai is a bad girl. She’s laid-back, does what she wants her way, and doesn’t play by the rules. She’s introduced as a competent fighter, but unlike the other Foot she’s more interesting in talking to the Turtles than killing them. I think she did become genuinely fond of Leo, but ultimately she’s going to be loyal to what she thinks is her family. She also started off realizing that there were bugger problems, like the Kraang, that required more attention over the vendetta until the Turtles betrayed her. Then she pretty much went ‘screw it’ and decided to go with the vendetta, which only got worst when she met Splinter for the first time. Still, ti was nice to have someone actually question Shredder and try to be sensible. She’s definite the most well-written of the villains, and the revelation about her being Splinter’s daughter means that there is MUCH more to come for her. Like I said, just wait for Season 2!

Okay, this section was a LOOOT longer than I thought. So I’ll just finish by saying that the villains aren't all that interesting, but the main characters are very well written. They have strong personalities, plenty of room for growth, and their interactions always gel really well. Very well done!

Rating: 4.5

Story

The main plot threads are the Turtles against the Foot, and the Turtles feud against the Kraang. All with some subplots, like Pulverizer and the mutant of the week stuff, and filler episodes thrown in. I say that the plots are handled very well. For example well go with... say two or three Kraang-centric episodes. Then we may or may not get a filler episode before shifting over to the Foot Clan for awhile. It never felt like we got smothered with one faction over the other, which is good. The plots also slowly intertwined and it felt like they came together at just the right time during the last six or so episodes. Hence hwy the finale worked so well, giving some kind of payoff on both ends.

Many of the episodes were very basic and outright bizarre. Like Cockroach Terminator having a mutant cockroach tr to murder Raph... it’s kinda gross, but entertaining! Every episode normally has at least something small that’ll carry over as the story goes along. For example, Donnie built Metalhead in... well, Metalhead and brought him back in the finale, plus it helped him learn mroe about Kraang tech. In Baxter’s Gambit, April finally gets her own weapon and she attempts to use it in Karai’s Vendetta. The episodes all play a part, even if just minor, in the larger narrative and I feel some of the later seasons kind of slacked on that. This season had a perfect balance.

That’s not to say that it was perfect. Like at the end of TCRI, we find out that April is the Kraang’s true target which makes us wonder why... and the next episode is about Raph’s fear of bugs! So TCRI was episode 17, we don’t even mention this fact again until Karai’s Vendetta, which is episode 21. Five episodes later, and even then we get one tiny hint (April doesn't get damaged by mutagen-laced water) and... that’s it. The.show has a bit of an issue with not exploring fallout, which is weird because Panic in the Sewers did and id it excellently. Maybe it’s because they have to make episodes to sell toys, IDK. It doesn't do too much damage, but it makes it feel like they both wasted character opportunities and like there’s something missing. But at the very least the episodes remain entertaining, so there’s that.

Rating: 4

Final Thoughts

You know what I like about this series and why I ran it above the other ones? Well it does something that I feel that the previous incarnations lacked: The Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles felt like teenagers. They felt like a bunch of kids truly entering the world for the first time. They screw up, they have problems to overcome, and they don’t always learn it immideatly. Like their cockiness is a frequent pain in the shell for example. But the reason that I like pretty much all of the episodes aside form Episode 11 is because it feels like we’re watching a group of kids truly starting to grow up and learn about how rough life can be. How they have to change, how they have to fix their mistakes, and just become better people. As a nineteen year old who was just staring to figure my life out, when I started the show, that drew me in. I related to these characters so much. I felt like I was growing with them and coming to understand who I was due to it.

It felt really nostalgic to go back over this season. Imo, it still holds up big time. It’s funny, action-heavy, well animated, and the characters are just as enjoyable as I remember. Would I call this the best season? Hmm... maybe. I still have three more to look over. But it was a really fun ride and it got TMNT 2012 off on the right track. Can they stay on it during Season 2? Come back next week, and we shall see!

[sceawere]

evaluation | luca changretta

[part one: risk] [part two: understanding] [part three: incentive] [part four: association] 

The light was only just beginning to roll into the window set into the door arch when you woke. The larger ones below were covered with the heavy curtains, keeping the chilled air at bay, but the rays fell through the arch like the crest of a waterfall, pooling down into the close air of the wagon. It was warm in here, almost silent but for the bird song, and the occasional creak of settling wood.

You watched the streams of condensation slide down the frosty glass, the beats of Luca’s chest below your cheek setting a steady pace of time. Usually you were woken by the thud of the factories and furnaces, an industrial heartbeat of its own. This was softer.

His hand slid up your spine at some point, fingers creeping into your hair. You shifted as he bent his head to press a kiss to your scalp.

“Morning”

He gave a low moan in reply, and you lifted your head, pushing up to you elbow at his side. Your eyes traced over him, dancing between the freckles under his closed eyes, the scar above them.

“Stay” you whispered. His eyes opened slowly, settling on you in the low light.

“Stay” you implored, crawling further up to bring your eyes level with his. You hovered over him, and moved your hand to his jaw, rolling your thumb down to press lightly into the cross beside his throat.

He sighed, and smiled slowly, his eyes dancing.

“Can’t stay out here forever, doll” he reminded you, and you swallowed.

“Why not?” you didn’t mean your voice to sound so sad, so raw. But being out here hadn’t lifted the weight so much as reminded you how crushing it was.

His hand came up to your cheek, thumb grazing over cheekbone, as he pulled you down to meet his lips.

“Oh, little doe, it’s time to face the lights” he murmured against your skin. You crawled up over him fully, placing your forearms at either side of his head, and pressed your forehead against his.

“Come home to me” you made him promise, rearing back to trace your eyes over the slope of his again.

“Is this home?” he asked, looping a finger through strands of your hair, swiping it away from your faces “Hmm? Where shall we go?”

“Wherever feels like this, forever” you replied, grabbing his hand, and kissing at his knuckles. He grasped at your hand, keeping a tight hold there, and at your waist, as he moved to sitting. His hands moved down and delved under the shirt you’d pulled on before crawling into the bed with him the night before.

-

There was a car pulled up in front of the house when you arrived back, shiny black paint and polished metal against the dull of the smoke. You’d hung around for a few more hours after Luca had driven off, savouring every second you had. You paused, heels clacking on the paving, and sighed as you looked around. The click of the door interrupted your hazy thoughts, and Polly stepped one foot out.

“Sweetheart”

You lifted your head, eyeing her warily. She pulled on a soft smile, nodding towards the door.

“Come on, they’re waiting”

“What’s happened?” you asked, toeing steps towards her.

“We’re having a meeting, nothing to worry about”

“Everyone’s alright?”

She nodded, wrapping a hand around your shoulders, guiding you into the house.

“Did you have a nice time?” she asked, helping you shuffle your coat off. You looked over your shoulder, turning when she stepped back.

“Yeah” you replied, voice small. She faltered for a moment, returning your soft smile, and then pulled you in for a hug. She pushed her nose into your hair, before pulling back, and framing your face with her hands.

“Yeah, it was lovely. Polly, you’re scaring the crap out of me” you eyed her warily.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” she asked, and you frowned even more.

“Always. What- “

“I do what I think is best”

“Even when it’s batshit” you agreed with her, and the two of you shared a little laugh “Mum, what have you done?”

Her smile fell slowly, eyes haunted.

“Come on, people are waiting”

-

“So. What the fuck happened today, Tom?” Arthur asked. “We all heard. Shooting in Artillery Square”

“Yeah, there was. Today, I killed three men” Tommy replied, and your heart stopped. You lifted your head, eyes pleading at Polly, who kept her eyes to Arthur. You shuffled, looking about to everyone else “Now, our enemies are down to eight”

“I suppose they took you by surprise, did they?”

“No. I knew they were coming” Tommy informed him.

Your stomach turned. Luca’s men. Tommy knew. Three dead.

“Just after Christmas, I received a letter from Luca Changretta…offering to spare my son if I gave up Tommy…and I gave Tommy up” Polly explained, and your blood ran cold.

“Because that was the plan that Polly and I agreed on” Tommy cast a look to you, and then moved back to Arthur. You didn’t hear what was said next, your mind swimming, until the words broke through.

“-didn’t get Luca, but I got- “

You closed your eyes, head dipped to the floor, and swallowed all the bile that had risen in your throat. Tommy knew. Charlie appeared behind him in the doorway, and you pushed away from the wall, moving around the corner into the kitchen. You started filling a glass with water, trying to still your shaking hand. Tommy knew. Polly knew.

The others started joking and laughing behind you as you stared out the window, stomach through the floor, heartrate up through the rafters. Can’t stay here forever, doll. Why the fuck not, Luca.

People started moving around behind you, pouring drinks, joking. Polly came up behind you as you heard Tommy tell Charlie the story, and you wished they’d all move quicker so you could throw up and lie on the floor where you wanted to be.

“Sweetheart”

“Don’t talk to me, don’t fucking talk to me, don’t talk to me” you repeated, eyes stuck on the strands of ink at your wrist.

“I did what I did to protect you”

“How the fuck- “you swung around, catching sight of Lizzie still sat in her chair and got a grip of yourself. You took a breath, lowered your voice to a whisper and leaned in “How the fuck is this protecting me?”

“Tommy said- “

“Tommy said. Tommy said. Tommy fucking said jump and you said how high, and you threw me in with it. How is this protecting me, mum?” you spat the last word, turning back to the sink to run cool water over your hand, patting it to your cheeks.

“We agreed as few people needed to know about the real plan as possible, which meant me and Tommy. Not even Michael knows”

“That explains not telling me shit, it doesn’t explain- “you stood back up, shaking the last droplets off your hands “You told me not to taste my freedom and that if he looked after me, that’s all you cared about, knowing the whole time you were double crossing him, lying to me, and that it was all going to end in Tommy killing him. You should have told me to run for the hills. How could you do that? How could you let me…”?

“I wanted you protected”

“So, I was right. You sent me because you thought I’d peak his interest, right? You paraded me in front of him, hoping he’d take the bait, and fall for me. And then he wouldn’t be able to hurt me, that was the plan wasn’t it”

She looked away from you, into the now entirely empty room.

“Tommy needed Luca to believe we were on his side. And that meant you had to believe we were on his side. I thought…it would make everything easier if you were- “

“There’s a difference between thinking I’m a bad actress and encouraging me to fall in love with a dead man walking, Polly”

“I didn’t know that would happen, I didn’t realise…” she looked away again, sighing, as you stepped back and started pacing.

“I’m not you Polly, I’m not like Tommy, I can’t just throw things off like that. I carry this shit! You know I do! How could you let me…?” you groaned in frustration, leaning over the table. You planted your palms, digging your fingertips into the wood.

“If you knew, you’d feel guilty. You’d know, every time you looked at him, what was going to happen. And I had the choice between giving you that, or giving you a chance to enjoy yourself for a few months. You could be in pain now, or you could be in pain later, but first you’d love. I chose what I thought was best”

“God, everyone in this family is so full of bullshit!” you shouted, slamming your hands onto the wood. The cups and glasses left clinked, shaking and sloshing in place. You stormed over to the door, ignoring her calls after you. You swung at the last moment, moving with the door.

“Be fucking honest, you did it because Tommy told you to. All that shit about being free was lies. We’re still taking orders. And Tommy thought I’d fuck it up, so he told you to lie to me”

She stood, arms crossed, in the middle of the room. You stared at her, incredulous, and scoffed.

“Everyone in this family…is so full of shit”

You stepped into the street, and slammed the door behind you.

-

Someone sat on the bench next to you, and you flicked your head up, sighing when you saw who it was. He shrugged his coat off, holding it up between the two of you.

“Come on, sweetheart. I’m trying to be a gentleman here”

“Matteo, the world’s a fucking…. just…shit fucked piece of fucking shit, isn’t it?” you asked, staring ahead. You turned your head when he didn’t answer, or take the coat back, and clocked his expression.

“Yeah, alright” you took the coat off him, rising to shimmy it around you, and then clunked back to the bench.

“What you even doing here? Thought you would have retreated back to the hotel by now”

“Boss wants to stick around for a little while. We’re…planning the next step and he wants to get some intel first. Besides, last time we tried to go home after a job here, we got held up on a bridge and shot at so…”

“Yeah”

“Yeah” he replied.

“I’d say I don’t think they have anything planned and you’re free to go, but it turns out I’ve been kept firmly out of the loop”

“Been wondering about that”

“I don’t know whether anything I gave you was true. Some of this might be my fault” you realised, and he tutted, throwing an arm up and over your shoulders. You leaned into his side, trying to hold back the tears that had flowed from you the last few hours, walking around aimlessly as you tried to process.

“I don’t believe that, hey?” he rubbed your arm, trying to console you “you can throw an elbow, but I really don’t see you doing the double agent stuff”

You scowled, and looked up at him.

“I was literally working for you as a double agent”

He shrugged, and you rolled your eyes.

“I know what you mean” you agreed, laying your head back on his shoulder.

“You really think if I thought you’d done that to us, I’d be here right now?”

“It might all be a complicated plot to…I don’t even know anymore” you moaned, pushing your head further into his warm shoulder.

“Well, Miss Sunshine, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to get back in the car and get the fuck out of here”

“You really can’t talk, every time I see you, you’re complaining about something”

“Every time I see you, I got something to complain about”

He stood, reaching his arms out to pull you up.

“You look ridiculous in that” he nodded to where his coat was nearly down to your ankles, your wrists bundled in the too long sleeves. You looked yourself over, and then him.

“As do you, but you don’t see me saying it”

He smirked at you, placing a hand on your back, leading you towards the car.

“I got a lucky fucking escape with you, didn’t I?”

“You’d be lucky to have me”

-

Matteo drove you to a building in the Italian neighbourhood, and you looked around as he helped you out of the car.

“I know this place” you mumbled, swinging your head to check the other end of the street.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Tommy’s girlfriend used to live round here, I was friends with her little sister for a bit” he shut the door, stepping beside you. You pointed down to an alley “my names carved in a brick down there somewhere”

“Thought you didn’t grow up with him?”

“I didn’t, not in the house, but I’d visit. We’ve always been…. sort of family” you adjusted the coat, having pulled it off your shoulders, your arms holding it around you “Probably why he hasn’t put my brains onto some alleys bricks by now”

“Hey, boss would never let that happen” Matteo replied, guiding you into the building. Your heels clacked against the tiles in the entry, nervous as you eyed the number of men hanging around the stairways.

“You making friends?” you whispered to Matteo, taking the first step. The men nodded to each other, looking around, letting you pass.

“Friendly ground means friendly faces” he replied, and you laughed lightly, ascending as quickly as you could “we thought it was best to have some reinforcements”

He stepped around you as you reached what was apparently the right floor, taking off down a hallway. It was still a block of flats, you realised, as people stood in doorways, continuing their conversations over your head as you passed. Children ran between them, and you had to step aside a few times to avoid the oncoming rabbles.

You smiled, stomach turning as you heard barely muffled shouting coming down the hall. You moved through a set of heavy doors onto a turn off the main way. Another row of flats, but the doors were all wide open with no one chatting in them. A man stood in each one, keeping guard. Matteo stopped at the last doorway and knocked. A face poked out, and then stepped aside, the door opening.

Luca was roaring at a group of men, loud, quick Italian that didn’t register with you. He saw Matteo and grumbled, clearing the room with a flick of a hand. The men filed out, half ignoring you entirely, the other throwing suspicious looks.

“Your mother lied to me” he rasped, and you rolled your shoulders back, slipping Matteo’s coat off. You held it out for him, and he nodded, stepping out of the room as well.

“You and me both” you replied, eyeing the stripped-out apartment “have there always been safe houses in here? I’m starting to re-evaluate some memories”

He lifted his head, hand stalling where it had been wiping at his mouth, and squinted at you.

“Ok, you’re pissed. I’ll shut up”

“Did you know?” he asked after a moment, and you scoffed, your skin rolling. You stood straight again, turning aimlessly on the spot “Did you- “

“No!” you swung back, screamed at him.

“You tried awful hard to keep me from coming back that morning” he pointed up at you, taking slow steps away from the bare window.

“Yes, because I think I love you and it scares me!” you blurted out, every thought and emotion you’d battled with on your walk bubbling back up. You sighed, collecting yourself.

“I’m scared that I love you. I’m scared that you’re going to die. I’m scared that you surviving means someone else I love having to die. I’m scared what Tommy’s going to do to me. I’m scared that my mother lied to me, and put me in this situation, and that I didn’t realise. I’m scared that everyone I trust is untrustworthy. I’m…fucking terrified. Every moment of the day”

You took a deep breath, and started pacing. You swallowed the tears that were thick in your throat. Luca leaned back against a wall, letting you vent.

“And for just a little while, just a few moments, I didn’t feel scared. I wasn’t hiding in Small Heath. I wasn’t hiding from Tommy. I wasn’t in a safe house, arguing with my…what are you my boyfriend?” you motioned between the both of you “I woke up and I felt like we weren’t this. That we were just people, who were falling in love, and had a fucking chance at being happy. I wanted to live in that moment forever, Luca.

So, yes, I tried to keep you from coming back to this” you spat the word, gesturing around you “I didn’t know Tommy was in on it. I was lied to, so I wouldn’t have to lie to you. I feel terrible, and confused, and more than a little angry. So maybe keep your indignation to yourself if you have nothing useful to do with it”

He pushed up, started a slow pace of his own. He sighed, and wiped a hand over his face, before pausing. His eyes stayed clasped shut as he thought. You paused where you were, too drained to even expend your nerves. At once the moment broke, the stillness, as he marched over to you and pulled you into his chest.

“Alright, I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry, I didn’t- “

“I think I love you, Luca, what the fuck am I- “you sobbed.

“Hey, hey” he pulled your chin up, wiping at your cheek with his thumb. He peppered kisses over the damp skin, nuzzling into your temple as you heaved in breaths “what you doing to me? Huh?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, pushing up on your toes to draw him into a kiss. Your tears kept falling, and you could taste them as you pulled into one another. He drew back, eyes dancing over you.

“Listen, go home and pack a bag, alright? I want you with me until this is over”

“Luca…”

“Don’t argue with me” he dipped for another peck, hand tight at your jaw. You breathed him in, pushed your forehead against his cheek as the two of you refused to break apart fully. You sniffled and calmed your breath.

“Don’t tell me what to do. I’ve had enough of people telling me what to do” you croaked, and he chuckled back, the sound rolling through you. He looked down at you, tilting his head as he sighed.

“You know, when you first walked in that door on that first day…” he smiled wide, reminiscing “I thought ‘they sent a mouse in here for the lion”

You half rolled your eyes, flicking them up into the socket, before dipping your head with a nervous smile. He followed the movement, mirroring it. He rolled his body around yours, found his way into your space until you were sure you were melting into him. His breath was hot at your throat, the mumble against your skin sending it into flames.

“And then you started talking, biting back at me, and I was lost right there” he punctuated the revelation, dating his tongue out and making you jump, landing against his chest. You let out a breath, almost a giggle, as you turned your head away. He laughed at your nervousness as you tried to disentangle yourself and he just moved his hands to hold you somewhere else. You laughed, avoiding his eyes as he tried to move into your field of vision.

“Luca!” you laughed, your voice breaking slightly, your throat still recovering from your tears. You sighed and looked up at him, fingers curling into the front of his shirt as his hands settled on your waist. He kept smiling but it settled down, fell softer on his face.

“I know I love you, doll. I’m done and dusted like you better believe” he crooned, and you sighed. He tucked you back in, bringing his lips to your forehead.

“You know, I didn’t particularly enjoy reading Romeo and Juliet, and living it isn’t much fun either” you complained, and he chuckled.

-

“You were fucking what?” Michael scowled, and you sighed deeply.

“Michael- “

“You told me you weren’t together”

“No, I said we weren’t sleeping together. Which…is still technically true. There was….”

“Stop” he leaned back with a frown. You eyed the nurse as she stepped into the room, finishing packing up Michael’s things. You lowered your voice until she left the room and pulled the door shut.

“I’m just saying, if he doesn’t marry me after all, I can, you know…still probably get away with it, but- “

“Stop”

“I haven’t been a complete saint either” you admitted, eyes tracing over the ceiling “he’s…a fucking beautiful man”

“…Stop”

“I’m not confessing any of this specifically to you, so much as it just needs to be said, you know?” you flapped your hands before you, illustrating “I’ve been keeping a little web in my head and now everyone knows everything, it’s freeing”

“Well, lock it back up” Michael groaned, reaching for a cigarette.

“He tried to kill me” he reminded you.

“He’s tried to kill a lot of us” you replied, and Michael gave a sarcastic acknowledging nod, unable to reply until he put his lighter back down and freed his lips.

“He came in and threatened me, he put a gun to my head” he motioned to the door, cigarette in hand, and it made you almost nauseous to see how much of Tommy there was in the action.

“Yeah” you cleared your throat.

“And then you went off- “

“Michael, listen- “

“And…cavorted in a forest with- “

“Sorry, I did what?” you unfolded your arms, leaning forward against the table.

“There was still blood pouring out of me- “

“You burst a stitch, it’s not like he tore your spleen out. Did you really use the verb ‘cavorted’ to describe- “?

“He’s a fucking madman, and he’s been…” he grimaced, and looked to his cigarette, before taking his deepest drag yet “with my sister”

“Cavorted?” you emphasised.

He rolled his eyes up to you, staring you down, showing how unimpressed he was.

“Michael…sweetheart…we’ve both made some terrible decisions romance wise, haven’t we? Alright. So, let’s neither of us judge”

“My girlfriends have never waged a war against the family”

“Well…pick someone more ambitious, then” you tried, and he rolled his eyes, dropping it back against the chair.

“Is it real?” he asked after a long break in the conversation.

“I don’t really have a frame of reference but…if this isn’t, God help me when it is because…” you let out a long breath.

“You’ve got terrible fucking taste”

“Yeah, I couldn’t have chosen someone more unsuitable, could I? Fucks sake”

“Why are we so messed up?” he wondered, and you made a vague noise of confusion.

“Love you, brother. Despite all the shit”

“Despite all the shit. I love you, too”

-

“What are you doing?” Polly asked, and you ignored her “Answer me”

You straightened your back, pausing at the use of her ‘stern mother’ tone. You finished folding the jumper in your hands, and dropped it into the case.

“Michael’s in a safe place now, think it’s time I found mine. There’s little reason for me to stick around until this is over and he comes back”

“You’re going nowhere. Tommy’s orders”

“Tommy can shove his orders where the sun doesn’t shine. I don’t belong to him”

“You don’t belong to Luca Changretta, either” she replied, and you smiled, turning to her.

“No…I belong to me. And I’ve made a decision”

She sighed, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

“And where are you going to go?”

“The hotel? A safe house? The wagon? A cabin in Canada? I don’t know. Somewhere other than here” you decided.

“This is ridiculous”

“Yeah, we agree on that”

The two of you fumed, neither of you able to form words.

“He’s…he didn’t- “

“No. He wouldn’t” you replied, knowing the intention “he understands family business. He doesn’t hold it against me”

“Good. Good” she said, more to herself it seemed. You nodded, the two of you having cooled.

“I know…. you think…” she started, and you dropped to the bed.

“Here we go”

“No, listen” she continued, and you shook your head.

“Polly, I don’t want to have this conversation. We…when this is done, when we know how the pieces fall. Then we’ll talk. I’m not healing wounds that haven’t finished being inflicted yet, it’ll just mean tearing them up all over again”

She sighed, but nodded.

“You need to speak to Tommy before you go”

“What? You want me dead? That’s nice, mum”

She smiled, shaking her head.

“This family is so full of shit” she agreed, and you laughed.

-

The meeting with Tommy was not particularly productive. You’d been shut in his office for nearly two hours, intermittently sat in frosty silence, and screaming at each other.

“You manipulated me into- “

“Into what? Hmm?” he leaned over, crooking his head as if he was listening up “I didn’t have to convince you of the plan, no. No, you were ready to sell me down the river, all on your own. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that”

“Oh, should I be grateful now?” you shot back “Thank you, Tommy. For being so benevolent as to not shoot me on sight”

“You betrayed me”

“Yes, Tommy. I did. I did it because of exactly this. Because you’re a manipulative piece of shit, Tommy”

He scoffed a laugh, beaming a sardonic smile, before taking a long drag.

“Yeah…” he breathed, leaning over the table “and you were willing to jump into bed with the man who killed my brother”

You almost gasped, drawing in a gulp of air in shock, before you outright laughed. A bitter tone rolled through it as you thrust yourself forward, slamming your hands to the space he left as he stepped back.

“You hypocritical, soulless- “the door creaked behind you and you both swung to it at the same time.

“Fuck off!” you both screamed, and it slammed.

“-piece of shit, bastard, Tommy Shelby”

“Yeah?” he breathed, stubbing out his cigarette violently, and reaching instantly for a fresh one.

“What the hell is happening with you and Jessie Eden? Because from what I’ve heard, you’re jumping into bed with a woman who wants to burn your empire down and hoping your dick does your diplomacy for you. You couldn’t even do a fucking horse deal without picking up some poor widow and now she’s stuck in your little game, isn’t she?

And to really top that off, your wife had barely finished bleeding out before you jumped in bed with Tatiana. I remember Grace being exceptionally fond of her, I’m sure she’d think it was a fitting tribute to her memory. Oh no, let’s not forget, that was selfless Tommy just trying to gain information for his valiant fight against, what was it again? I forget, between all the double crossing you were doing there” you stepped back, holding your hands up in surrender “Saint Tommy, OBE. The saviour of us all”

You dropped your hands, letting them swing at your sides, and sneered at him.

“Using everyone else’s souls to mop up his blood for him. Commit a sin to wash away another, that’s the doctrine, isn’t it?”

You let the words settle in the air, bile turning in your throat.

“Michael told me Alfie gave it to you straight once. When Charlie was gone. I thought that might flick some fucking switch in your head, bring up some part of you that might still exist in there” you drilled a finger at your temple “but you just don’t know who you are, do you?

You’re Tommy Shelby OBE, lord of the fucking manor, big boss when it suits you. But then when it doesn’t, you’re suddenly down trodden little Tommy again, one of the people, victim who just can’t catch a break. You’re not a victim, Tommy, you’re the fucking problem. And I’m not sorry I tried to do something about it”

You stepped back, hands carding through your hair as your tried to settle your breath.

“You’re staying at Polly’s until this is done- “

“No”

“I’m putting men on you, you’re not to leave”

“No” you replied, more insistent.

“You stay there until this is done, and then we’ll- “

“I’m not- “

He slammed his hand on the desk, sending pen and paper flying.

“Just fucking listen. Once this is over, we’ll work out this shit between us, alright? For Polly’s sake, and for Michael’s. Because whatever you think of me- “he waved his hand before you, contemptuous “I give a fuck about this family too, and whether you want to be or not, you are part of that. Now…fuck off”

He turned his back to you, the smoke rising around him as he took another draw, and you hissed.

“I’m going to stay with Luca. You want to put men on me, you do that. I’ll tell him to spare them and never leave the room, so they won’t learn shit, but they’ll be safe. They can stand in an alley somewhere, stare at a window, and you can tick your box with Polly, alright?”

You started walking out of the room, your steps faltering as you reached for the door handle. You turned and leaned your shoulder into the wood.

“You know what, Tommy? I think we’re more alike than either of us wants to think about” you scoffed a laugh, wiping a hand over your face in exhaustion “Making unilateral decisions to do what we think is right. Even when it means someone else paying a price for it. Even when it means shifting the earth under our feet. Doing stupid shit because we’re in love with people we never should have…”

You laughed bitterly, resting your head against the doorframe. You stared into space, drained.

“Never feeling like we belong anywhere. Floating from decision to decision, day to day. Grasping at whatever makes sense because we’re so desperate for it. Running from everything and everyone until we grip onto something so tight we break it”

You turned to look at his back, his bowed head.

“You can’t kill me because you’d be executing yourself. And I bury my head in the sand about Luca and what happened to John…because…it makes it easier. I guess”

You sniffed, feeling eerily settled at the realisation.

“We despise each other because we make each other realise who we are”

“We’re family. It’s our duty to be miserable for each other” he replied, and you nodded sadly.

“I love him, Tommy. Please…please try to fix this” you pleaded, tears pouring back over “I’ll…fucking atone for the rest of my life if it helps. We can…I’ll stomach the shit and try to mop up after you, alright? I’ll watch over Charlie and I’ll do my best to forgive what I see in you, if you can just…try and forgive what you see in me”

There was another flutter of smoke, and he turned slowly, dabbing the butt out softly. He raised his head, not enough to meet your eyes but enough to acknowledge you. And you waited. In silence. Together.

-

“Nobody here trusts me” you told Luca, catching his eye in the mirror.

“They just don’t know you” he replied, perching on the edge of the tub, and folding his arms. He had his sleeves rolled up, his tie off.

“They don’t know you either” you reminded him, wiping your hands off on the towel, and laying it over the rim of the sink. You turned, stepped to him, and wrapped your arms around his neck. He shifted his knees, moved his hands to your waist, and pulled you into him.

“I’m special, aren’t I?” he teased, and you rolled your eyes, not dimming your smile any though.

“Yeah, never seen anyone with an ego that big before” you joked, and he gave your waist a little grip “I like this”

“So do I” he replied, giving you a kiss before rising “come on”

He took your hand, and led you out into the main room, looking a little less bare now. Furniture had arrived from somewhere, and while it was sparse, it looked more like a home in here than a hidey hole.

“The old lady who lives around the corner thinks we just got married you know? She thinks that’s why we moved in here. She thinks all the guys are your cousins and that’s why we own the corridor now” you told him, and he laughed.

“Yeah, I know. I think Matteo’s been telling tales for his own amusement” he replied, flicking through a box of records. He picked one out, got it set up, and put his hands in his pockets as he stepped back. He looked around the room, scratching at his jaw, before delving his hand back into his pocket.

“My parents lived in a place like this when they got started”

“Yeah?” you asked, looking around at the rundown state of the place.

“Yeah” he answered with a smile, moving his eyes to you. You perched on the edge of the window sill, letting the cool breeze roll through the thin wrap you had on over your slip “Told you, I wasn’t always the auspicious man you see before you”

You laughed, shaking your head, as he walked over to you.

“Angel was nearly born by the time my dad really made it”

“I didn’t know that”

He lifted your arms, pulling you up to him, and started circling around.

“What are we doing?” you laughed, and he dipped into you a little more, moving your hand into his.

“We’re dancing, doll. Come on, dance with me”

“Why are we dancing?” you sighed, smiling up at him.

“Because…” he swung you both around and you burst out laughing, nearly losing your balance as you rolled your ankle around his “I remember when we lived in a place like this, and my parents would dance around at night. I used to sneak out of bed and watch them, and I’d think – one day. One day, I’d dance with my girl around our kitchen late at night”

You hummed, moving the hand that wasn’t in his to his neck, and pulling him closer.

“The music’s pretty loud, we’re gonna bother people” you whispered.

“We’re sharing. Let ‘em dance as well” he replied, and you shook your head. You laughed, and dropped your head to his shoulder, swaying together in the middle of the room.

“I asked Tommy for your life” you murmured, breathing him in as you turned again.

“I’m going to London” he replied, and you sighed.

“Alfie Solomons?”

“Yeah. He a friend of yours?”

“He’s a…friend of Tommy’s” you reminded him, not sure about the qualifier.

“I know. I asked around”

You hummed, rolling your head back to look at him. He peered down, fingers splaying further at the small of your back.

“Come home to me” you begged.

“Is this home?” he asked with a smirk and you smiled back.

“Home’s wherever we feel like this” you reminded him, and he spun you around, pulling you straight back into his chest.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Irreconcilable Differences

I touched upon this in my Knightmare Scenario post but there is a shift in how we, as moviegoers, consume film. The Wuha has shown us all that it’s not necessary to actually patron movie theaters to get our flick fix, that streaming services are a viable option for studios to release tent pole movies instead of in the major multiplex franchises. This sh*t could be a death knell for the entire theater industry and they’re lashing out violently. All of this stems from the fact that Trolls: World Tour did f*cking gangbusters on streaming and Universal, the studio attached to this corporate abortion of a film, mad about fur times the profit they would if it was released in cinemas. See, theaters pay for the license to screen films. To recoup that loss, they most of the ticket price. Some more powerful studios like Disney, can force a higher percentage for a shorter time. Maybe forty percent over opening weekend, but that’s it. Everything after that is all theaters until the Wuha f*cked that sh*t all up.

After Universal made more profit than any movie they have ever released, in the shortest amount of time they’ve ever run a film in theaters, they immediately altered their release schedule. They wanted to do dual release; Streaming and theatrical. Theaters, obviously, AMC specifically, we like f*ck all of that. People would definitely forgo the theater experience, with all of the sh*tty food, cramped spaces, and assholes disguised as patrons, to sit on their couch, in their draws, watching with people they actually like. There’s no way the theaters come back from that and, in a deluded effort to strong arm an industry that just realized they don’t even need their partnership, tried to strong arm Universal by boycotting their films. Okay. This sh*t lasted less than a week and the theaters came groveling back. I imagine there were some negotiations behind closed doors because, to give up four times the profit just to prop of a dying industry, ain’t something any business would do out of the kindness of their heart.

I like the simul-release model a ton. Don't get me wrong, i love the cinema. I love going to the theater, sitting in that AC eating my forty dollar hot dog, and taking in that big ass screen I love that whole experience and, before the Wuha f*cked it all up, i had planned to spend the entire summer in thee. I live down the street from the newest theater built in my area so they have all of the dope sh*t. More to the point, there re some films that absolutely must be seen on a theatrical screen. I cannot express to you how it felt to see Infinity War with a crowd of people. To experience the same emotions as hundreds of strangers was profound. After that film ended, the theater was dead silent. I saw that movie five times, with five different audiences, and the same silence followed each viewing. It was intense and there’s no way you get that on your couch, even is you have a streaming group showing. The experience is completely different. You don’t feel Pete getting dusted the same way you would with a proper audience. That energy is lost in home and you need it to fully experience a true blockbuster like that, properly.

A total shift toward streaming would do a disservice to filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Denis Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott or Michael Bay. I hate Bay with a passion but i did watch a little bit of 6Underground and was profoundly underwhelmed. Bayhem needs the theater screen for it’s gratuitous levels of explosive, sexist, nonsense. It doesn’t work on a sensibly sized television. You’d lose too much of Scott's intimate detail and sweeping vista shots he loves to sprinkle in his films. Dude has a penchant for the nature porn and it is duly appreciated. Denis Villeneuve’s rich shot composition and breathtaking cinematography would fall flat if you’re first experiencing them in your f*cking living room. I should know. I actually have a fifty-two inch, 4k, UHD television and Blade Runner 2049 pales in comparison on my TV, to how I experienced it in theaters. Speaking of experience, anything Nolan makes would immediately be sh*t. His films need to be experienced in a theater, ideally IMAX. That’s how he shoots his films. You need that size. you need that overwhelming immersion. TeneT on the small screen will never compare to it on the screen it was shot for. You will never see that film the way its supposed to, if theaters are done in totally.

It’s not like only theaters see the benefit of a dual-release system. There area lot of great films that fester or languish in their runs because of they’re consumed by the Disney juggernaut or some Fast flick takes all of the screens. It took Ex Machina weeks after releases to make it into theaters out here because it was so niche. I waited for three weeks after the VVitch dropped and had to plead with a good friend of mine to get her manager just to screen it. Hell, Hereditary, one of the greatest performances i have ever seen captured on film, got to my theaters a week late and had only one screen in the basement. Thee were, like, fifty seats in there. Imagine if that thing had the buzz it did and dropped straight to Netlfix. Suspiria had a limited theatrical run and made it’s way to Amazon within months where it has had a pretty lucrative run so far. Imagine the shine it would have received if it had released there immediately instead of getting that niche nod in the actual theater. I mean, i saw all of these films in the cinema because that’s my thing but i can see why and how a streaming release strategy would benefit their visibility far more positively.

I think, though, this is more than anything, the establishment has the problem with this situation than anything. There is a system in place and no one wants to f*ck it up. Some of the best films i have ever seen were produced, funded, and released to streaming services. Beast of No Nation would have never been successful in theaters but it found life on Netflix. A Marriage Story is another film that i think would have floundered in the cinema. It’s an excellent film that as great performances and a very human tale that was overlooked by the Oscars because streaming isn’t seen as a medium viable for their highfalutin blessing over at the Academy. That sh*t smacks of stuffy, archaic, elitism and it’s a f*cking shame. It cheapens the Oscars and continuously proves that those awards are little more than an ego stroke for a dying Hollywood system. This streaming sh*t is a direct accusation at the old garb.

Recently, a film called The Lovebirds dropped on Netflix. It was supposed to release in theaters sometime this month but, since the Wuha has everything so f*cked up, it was sent directly to streaming where it has garnered an amount of success. With an African-American woman and a South Asian male as romantic leads, this probably wouldn't have flown all that well if it had a theatrical release. Considering it uses the fact that they are both brown as the reason for why they would run from the cops after a very obvious misunderstanding, kind of lends itself to me thinking this bad boy would have tanked with broader audiences. This thing’s home release, where certain individuals who might have a not-so-favorably a public stance on us darkies but secretly hate-love our stinky draws, could watch it without anyone knowing definitely contributed to that flick’s success. A success that may have eluded the movie if it was released theatrically because cats can’t be seen supporting certain films.

Movies that are driven by people of color not produced by that bojanglin’ Tyler Perry, flick that weave a small scale, human tale of frailty, lost love, and true emotion, or telling a proper, respectful LBGTQ love story, can thrive on streaming. These smaller, more actor driven, movies can side-step all of the political noise that goes along with such visible release dates, avoid conflict with mega-blockbusters, and be readily accessible for anyone curious about their pedigree while making the most money they can. Hell, why even exclude the big-budget fair? Cult films that did okay or even poorly in theaters, like Alita: Battle Angel, can get that big-budget sequel, drop on streaming, and turn a profit with a fraction of the viewership without having to worry about directly competing with an MCU Berserker or some sh*t. I would love to see Alita in theaters for a second round but, if the only way i can revisit this world theatrically would be on the small screen, i am okay with that. Everyone should be okay with that.

I think the people paying for these movie ARE okay with that. No one i spoke to had any issue with streaming a day-one release. No one I asked had a problem with checking out a summer blockbuster on their TV. We just need theaters and studios to be okay with it. We need theaters to accept the fact that they’re going to have to adjust what they show and how they show it. Studios are going to have to be okay with maybe missing a prestige award for a few years until streaming films become normalized. I think everyone wins in a duel-release scenario. We get more content. Studios can get back to taking risks and letting creators, create. Theaters have more screens to show the moneymakers. I like the position of cinema going in the future. I like the options. This is progress. This is growth. Now let’s just hope the divorce from the theater system isn’t as bloody in the end, as it was in the beginning.

[violetren]

You know what my queer ass wants from the next season of Frontier?

I want either Elizabeth Carruthers to go to Fort James looking to set up connections, or for Grace Emberly to go to Montreal for a fresh start making her own business, and for Samuel Grant to go into lowkey panic mode.

He’s too arrogant to act like he believes they could ever be a threat to his business but he does what he can to make sure they don’t meet, even going a little out of his way to try and manufacture some hostility between them, because he might be a chauvinistic windbag but he’s still a fairly shrewd businessman as well.

And of course both women catch onto the fact that odd circumstances keep preventing them from meeting. They also notice, that their strategies seemingly keep clashing and causing problems between them, even though a quick examination of how they each handle their business with others suggests that there is no motive for why they should clash as often as they do, even as competitors in the same industry.  Realising there is more at play they decide to officially meet up.

It takes all of two seconds of conversation for them to figure out it’s Grant’s interference getting between them, and two seconds after that to agree to work togther to take his slimy ass down. There’s some tension over who gets how much and which parts of Grant’s assets when they take him down but that kinda gets tabled. They can better figure that out when they see what’s left to take after destroying him.

After both being told repeatedly that they’re businesses are too small, and too female they decide on a partnership. Merging their businesses together to become a larger force for others to contend with. Grant is still wont to dismiss them, but everytime he does the feeling of cold lead settling in his stomach grows.

He does his best to ignore it however keeping his focus on taking over Fort James from the HBC. Benton is on his last legs, his wounds from the night Declan Harp was rescued and escaped, have turned septic. He’s in misery but also in denial. He’s determined to survive even more obsessed with catching Harp, and now moderately obsessed with capturing Michael Smyth too. Captain Chesterfield thinks its only a matter of time until he’s finally governer but he’s getting impatient, and overly arrogant (more so than normal).

He’s acting as if he’s already governer, which is pissing off Benton, which in turn gives Grant plenty of opportunities to grab at power. The women let him. It’ll be much easier to take down HBC if Grant has done most of the work for them, too focused on that to realise they’ve been planning how to take his company out from under him.

Elizabeth and Grace are both very aware that if they can get the native people to trade with them rather than either of the men that it will give them a massive leg up and make all of their plans much, much easier. Not that their plans necessarily hinge on acquirining trade deals with the Lake Walkers, but it wouldn’t hurt to have them.

Grace knows they’ll have a better chance of getting a deal or a share of a deal with the Lake Walkers if they get Declan’s help. Harp however is still M.I.A. So she seeks out Sokanon instead.

They agree to get Sokanon what she needs in order to find Harp, and to give her, Michael, and Harp shelter after they bring him back, and if Benton is somehow still kicking when they get back, to help Harp get rid of him once and for all with out killing himself in the process. Just so long as Sokanon can help them convince Harp to help them get a deal with the Lake Walkers afterwards. Which will be easier said than done since they’ll have to eliminate and/or replace the Okimaw just to be able to approach the Lake Walkers for business, but they’re all relatively confident they can work it out.

Time passes. Shenanigans, politics, murder, business, adventures, and romance all occur.

Benton and Chesterfield die.

Grant drags his distitute ass back to Montreal, lucky to be alive.

Grace and Elizabeth control pretty much all trade in Hudson Bay.

Harp has survived his quest for revenge and is starting to heal and move forward. He and Grace are a thing, flirting with the idea of marriage. He helps with the business where he’s needed but there is no mistaking that Grace and Elizabeth are the ones at the helm.

Sokanon more often than not acts as the go between for the company and the Lake Walkers, instead of Harp. Pretty well everyone has decided (and Harp grudgingly agrees) that it’s healthier for him to be off the frontlines of the business for the most part, at least until he gets used to not looking over his shoulder for Benton and his schemes anymore.

Michael mostly stays with Sokanon. Things are good between them, possibly in a romantic sense, possibly in a platonic they trust as respect each other more than almost anyone else. Most likely in both ways. Even so Sokanon will occassionally hand him off to Harp, playfully complaining that Harp was the one that decided to take him in, so Harp should take time to teach him some stuff instead of leaving it to her. Not that Michael needs much teaching these days, but the guys enjoy their bonding time.

Elizabeth mostly focuses on doing her part for running the company, and staving off all of the men hoping to get a hand in it by marrying her. She may or may not spend her nights with Graces’s girl Mary. (You all saw Mary seduce that Captain, and Elizabeth is played by Katie McGrath, they could totally pull off some insane chemistry if put together).

Everything is about as good as it can be for that setting and time period. The majority of the main characters are alive and content, happy even (aside from Grant who is alive but definitely not happy or content).

[smokeybrand]

American Horror Story

My brother has a problem with Universal Base Income. He has a difficult time reconciling personal responsibility and objective empathy. Dude thinks that if you give people enough money to live comfortably, they will just be content with that and not strive to for better. Using government funds to make sure people have the ability to live and eat without fear of dying, will effectively kill all American innovation, in his mind. I do not understand that logic at all. I do not get how someone can see a base playing field where no one has to worry about starving, eviction, or getting their utilities cut off, will somehow ruin the entrepreneurial spirit or whatever. I her him say these things and i try to understand his point of view but it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense because the understanding he has about the mentality of his fellow man is skewed.

These programs, free college, free daycare, UBI, social medicine, combined with a livable minimum wage, make for some of the happiest, most industrious peoples in the world. The frugal four in Europe, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands, and Sweden, consistently poll as the happiest places to live, every year, and it's because of these programs. Not all of them have every one, but most run a combination of them all. They have strong unions that force employers to stay honest and tax those with more at higher rates because they can contribute at that level without feeling the hit. If i get a ticket in Sweden, I'd pay three hundred dollars. It's a hit that hurts but it ain't going to cripple me. If a millionaire gets that same ticket, then he is charged a proportional about for them to feel it but not hinder to the point they can't make a bill. This system is not only fair, but it's meritocratic - another sticking point my brother harps on. But that's my disconnect; These programs encourage meritocracy, not hider it.

Way back when 'Murrica was great, we had a lot of these same systems in place. I don't think the US has ever had UBI but we used to have the strongest unions in the world, subsidized state college, and affordable health care. Back when the government was the government and did things like support the people, we still innovated. e still were the best. We went to the f*cking moon, man! That's the most innovative sh*t in the history of man. Knowing that your quality of life is secured, regardless of failure or not, gives cats the courage to try more. Knowing the fact that your kids can eat next week and you don't have to worry about eviction goes a long way to a cat finishing school or writing the net great phone app.  Being secure and happy increases productivity. It engenders loyalty. Cats work harder, faster, and better when these programs are in place. Denmark has a four day work week and maintains a fifty thousand dollar a year salary average. There are thirteen countries based there that still make the Fortune 2000 paying those salaries to their employees. They also have some of the most comprehensive social programs in the world. There is a national support system which includes free health care and education for everyone, job training, subsidized child care, a generous pension system and fuel subsidies as well as rent allowances for the elderly. And business is still thriving in Denmark which means people are still going to to work. They're going less but the same amount of work is being completed. I'm sure there are bad actors working the system for gain, there always are, but this entire situation would have collapsed in on itself if the majority of people were as terrible as my brother believes. So why is Denmark thriving? Why is Sweden thriving? Why are all of these countries with an advanced social safety net, thriving?

This is where personal responsibility comes into play for my brother. See, he works like a dog and get nowhere in his life. Dude busts his ass at work but he's been in the same position his entire adult life. There has been no progress whatsoever. He's trying so hard to lift himself up by his bootstraps while overtly hating those that ave s leg up through generational wealth or the benefit of contacts. What he doesn't understand is, with these social programs, with UBI, he wouldn't have to struggle like this. He'd be able to afford his own place. He'd have a car that could be legal. He can do everything that asshole who was born with a silver spoon can do with these programs in place, but my brother refuses the very notion because someone else might not go back to work. Kid is one of these dudes who's mad no one wants to go back to work after the Wuha because they make too much n unemployment but refuses to understand that is more a strike on the fact cats didn't make a livable wage while working. It took a while for me to see his point because there are thousands of examples of that not happening around the world. New Zealnd is a perfect example. When this sh*t hit, the Kiwi's gave each of their citizens thousands of dollars and they nipped this sh*t in the bud. They all then went back to work, happily and, more to the point, safely. They're going back to a twenty-two dollar an hour living wage, a stark contrast to the seven dollars and twenty-five cent federal incentive we have here in the States. Why would anyone want to go back to that? Who wants to go back to work making eleven hundred dollars a month plus tax deductions, when you were just making twice that for not working? How do you lift yourself up by your bootstraps when you can't afford the boots?

That's what these social programs do for everyone. They unilateral give every citizen a pair of boots to strap up. Once you got the shoes and tie them down, you can run that race without worry. If you're constantly concerned with who got their boots fraudulently, you're never going to see the bigger picture that everyone has a pair for themselves, that everyone has the same opportunity to run that rack without falling on their face or blowing out their leg. If someone does happen to stumble and fall, cats can sop to help them up without worry of getting stuck, themselves, or if they happened to step on broken glass, their feet are protected and they can keep running forward with everyone, pushing our country toward the future. I don't understand this culture of individualism and malevolence toward group success when there is very real evidence those mentalities are a detriment to progress and growth. I don't see how there is a conflict between the notion of hard work and empathy for those who can't. Just because your taxes are paying for a few Welfare Moms doesn't mean we shouldn't throw some loot at free healthcare. Just because you see some asshole abusing the UBI, doesn't mean that sh*t can't help a nineteen-year-old cover rent and food while he works through college.

There are always going to be bad actors. There are always going to be lazy people. Always. But the fact that there are hundreds of countries around the world who have these programs, manipulators included, and are still thriving, should be more than enough to seriously consider a change. They pay their employees a livable wage and are among the happiest nations in the world. These countries, hell, Colorado with all they've done with their weed money, should immediately remove any conflict or apprehension about the positives of empathetic legislature. Never mind the eye test or first hand accounts from people who have traveled abroad or those who came here and were horrified at how we live, there is legitimate data that backs up everything I just said in this rant. If you think a whole ass country would implement such sprawling changes to their economies without an ardent understanding of risk/cost, you're just being f*cking silly. To think an entire nation would uproot everything they built upon, for centuries, on a whim, without substantiating numbers to prove such drastic change would absolutely lead to prosperity for all, is the dumbest sh*t ever. And that's my point. You have to be a special kind of special to see the benefits of these social programs in real time, all over the world, in varying combinations, to varying degrees of success, and be like “Nah, f*ck that.”

There is no conflict at that point. How can there be? The data is clear as day. At that point, it's just plain selfishness. That's it. That's why the US is the way it is. Selfishness, egotism, and anti-intellectualism are championed like the goddamn second amendment here. It's infuriating. We are supposed to be the best country in the world, the delusion we are all forced to learn when we are kids, indoctrinated on the god fearing nationalism modern America pushed with every Michael Bay film or Trump rally, but we won't even take care of our own because it might cost us a little bit more. Because we might have to pass on one Frapp a week or three games a year. The only reason why anyone, including my brother, would be against this sh*t, is strictly because we, as Americans, are the most arrogant, egotistical, ignorant, boors in the entire f*cking world and we completely bought into that narcissistic delusion they sold to us. But we know it is. We’ve all seen it firsthand. Wuha has exposed every dirty little truth about this country no one in this government wants you to know. The bullsh*t has been laid bare and, even then, after this, the stupidest apocalypse, ever, there are people who will stand in front of these programs, this progress, and scream how unfair they are. How Socialism is Communism and it’s bad. How Russia ain’t America even though the tax-docging POTUS wants so very badly to be Putin. There are people who see the splendor out in the world and knowingly choose this squalor. How?

The American Dream is a f*cking nightmare and there are still people who keep willfully hitting snooze and I do not understand why.

[ursafilms]

The New Millennium and                 American Express

Production got positively dull after my last video game with Lucas, Force Commander in 1997. The company pulled it just after casting. Too bad because if you wanted to cast aliens (No. Not those.) and save money on prosthetics, San Francisco should be your first stop. A collection of some very talented people came through every casting session in the Bay Area, but the effects of living in one of the stranger parts of the world had taken its toll.

Casting in New York City had everything from strong character actors to every flavor of leading man and woman. Casting in Los Angeles showcased the concept of The Beautiful People. Casting in San Francisco would generate a remake of Tod Browning’s Freaks.

The tapes from Force Commander’s casting sessions looked like a rehearsal day for George Lucas’ latest meeting of the Imperial Senate. Somewhere in San Francisco’s past the circus came to town and all the performers escaped one night and polluted the gene pool. If PT Barnum had been around in the late 20thcentury, he’d never have gone into the business. The competition in Northern California would have been too stiff.

But alas, Force Commander died on the boardroom floor.

****

My four year run of bloated corporate gigs ran into the recession of 2000 and 2001. Since I cultivated TV, film, and commercial clients, a return to those sources of income presented itself and I took advantage of the ability to cross business sectors.

First up? A return to the world of ad agencies.

American Express ran a series of ads in the early 2000s that utilized the concept of ‘the chase.’ One of them had an Olympic sprinter running through the streets of Rome to catch the thief who had stolen her AMEX card.

Another concept showcased a Mister Softee ice cream truck pursuing a criminal on a Vespa through the streets of San Francisco. That thief had stolen the AMEX card of Michael Andretti, who had stopped by to purchase an ice cream cone.

And that’s where I came in.

The production company, Anonymous Content, a major player in the commercial industry, called to check my availability to manage, not line produce, the job for American Express. I had moved on years ago from production manager, who is one of the most beleaguered individuals you will see on any film set. If you spot someone on a production who looks old for their age and isn’t some Hollywood retread with too much cosmetic surgery, that’s the P.M.

No small amount of convincing later, Anonymous Content had their P.M.

Me.

The job had too many tempting elements to turn down. International buy. Michael Andretti as the on-camera principal driving the ice cream truck. But most importantly, a proposed duplication of the famous chase scene from Bullitt.

So I sucked it up and took the job. Money did not motivate this. Line producers are paid much more than P.M.s and get compensated for more days. P.M.s also have a tendency to work sixteen hour days and are treated by every other person in every other department like the new sex offender in the neighborhood.

Other than that, it’s a great gig in the industry.

The job lost any of its remaining bloom early and went south in a hurry. It all started with the second phone call from Anonymous Content explaining their UK partner, Gorgeous Enterprises would send the line producer from London.

Said line producer would travel from their UK office along with the director, and a camera operator since there are none of those in Bay Area. We’re not talking the Director of Photography. This is someone further down the pecking order and not a shot composer. Literally, about a step up from a button pusher.

The third phone call informed me that a staff coordinator would be joining us, as would the production designer, another Brit.

By the time the fifth phone call came in, I had ten people from England piling onto a Bay Area junket right in the middle of The World Cup. They did spare me from bringing Roger Deakins from London in to shoot the commercial. I only had to drag some guy from L.A. and hire his 1stA.C. who wanted his 2ndA.C. That was an interesting conversation.

1stA.C.: “Let me give you my 2ndA.C.’s contact information.”

Me: “I’m not dating, but thanks for thinking of me.”

1stA.C.: “No, you’ll need it to talk to him about his travel arrangements.”

Me: “Now you’re messing with me. I’m supposed to travel a secondassistant cameraman; put them up at a hotel; give them per diem; and listen to their complaints about how badly production is treating the crew?”

1stA.C.: “This is not unreasonable. When you go out of town, don’t you bring your coordinator with you?”

Me: “No.”

That threw him. He hung up and the next thing I knew, Caliguletta, the line producer from London and Gorgeous Enterprises, called me.

Caliguletta: “I understand you and the A.C. are having a disagreement.”

Me: “It’s not a disagreement. There is no reason to bring a second assistant cameraman up from Los Angeles. A first, yes. Second, no.”

Caliguletta overrode me, and the contingent from Los Angeles, which now included the Key Grip and his Best Boy, had grown to equal that of the Junket Junkies from the U.K., with the addition of the 2ndA.C.

The bloat continued.

The shooting boards timed out at 97 seconds for a 30 second spot. For those of you with a firm grip on math that gave the director a more than three to one amount of creative to go into editorial and subsequently jack up thosecharges. All that says to me, because this particular director is not alone in this type of indulgence, is that the decision making gene in creative types is non-existent.

****

With all the junkets arranged and the prep finished, principal photography began.

On the first shoot day, the director decided to go three hours into meal penalties to get a shot of a Tai Chi group going through their exercises in a city park. Shockingly, the crew and the above-the-line Junket Junkies complained about the three hour old lunch, which many of them do because Junket Junkies don’t actually DO anything on a set. They show up. Eat. Complain. Go back to their hotels. Drink. Eat. Sleep far too few hours. Wake up late for call. And start the entire process all over again.

After the last complaint about lunch was registered with Caliguletta, she walked me around the block and divulged that the lack of a hot truck in the Bay Area would present an ongoing problem. When I countered that perhaps the six meal penalties on a cast and crew of about a hundred might present a larger issue, the response exposed Caliguletta’s financial POV of the job.

Caliguletta appeared non-plussed about the damage to the bottom line. I should have heeded her disinterest as a harbinger of things to come. Quite frankly the job housed and fed a production coordinator, a 2ndA.C., and a camera operator. I’m an idiot for not noticing the Moscow May Day Parade of red flags flying earlier.

The balance of the lunchtime meals for the job now included reservations for a party of about 25 every day for lunch at one of the tonier San Francisco establishments. At the very least, Caliguletta appeared satisfied the above-the-line Junket Junkies would be able to run up a $75 per person lunch tab.

Then the teamsters piled on with the help of Anonymous Content.

During the prep for the job, I went through the production company contracts. The usual ones were in place, DGA, SAG commercials, IATSE, 600 and 52 Cameramen and the dreaded Teamsters. There were a few subcontracts for the overstaffed Vanities Department, and I had to deal with local members of the IA as well as the L.A. crew and, of course, the U.K. members, which fortunately limited itself to the camera operator.

The accounting department of Anonymous sent me all the requisite paperwork and documents. I covered off on minimal staffing for drivers and at the very least, had 15 Teamsters on my job including the transportation coordinator and captain. In the middle of all the hiring, no one,

including Caliguletta and the staff personnel at Anonymous informed me of the need for Gang Boss for the Teamsters.

When someone finally told me about, I offered to hire a Gang Boss if their contract required it.

Me: “A Gang Boss? Okay. I’ll call the union and have one sent out.”

Hysterical Person of Unknown Department: “There are no Gang Bosses in San Francisco.”

Me: “That might be an impediment to quickly resolving this.”

Hysterical Person of Unknown Department: “You moron. You should know this.”

Me: “Actually, the 37 people I queried at Anonymous and Gorgeous should have helped me with their contract when I called and spent an hour making sure I had proper staffing. Also, the producer might have mentioned this.”

Hysterical Person of Unknown Department: “You’re incompetent. The Teamsters are going to hit us with a fine.”

Me: “Oh, go tell Caliguletta. That money stuff doesn’t seem to bother her.”

The Teamsters did hit Anonymous with a fine, and sent me a Gang Boss from Los Angeles. I now had a Gang Boss, a Transportation Captain, and a Transportation Coordinator managing eight vehicles and 12 drivers.

On top of all this hilarity, the World Cup or The Endless Insomnia Cure as I call it, started its 28 month round robin, multiple elimination, one-and-not-quite-done contest of six hour games ending in 0-0 ties.

Conveniently, The Endless Insomnia Cure had chosen the other side of world, Korea and Japan, as the countries in which to conduct its business. As such, the conscientious Junket Junkies decided that attending the midnight start between Myanmar and Bhutan at the local Faux Public House seven hours before call time of the first shoot day might be a brilliant idea.

Sleep-deprived and upset that Bhutan had prevailed by a score of 0-0, the director, camera operator and Caliguletta showed up the morning of shoot day one and immediately hated the craft service, an honor normally reserved for the ad agency.

Not enough fair trade coffee. No chocolate biscuits. Produce which appeared to have been picked by underage children. What hot food did make it to the first table did not have a vegan option.

In their defense, I’d hired the great husband and wife team that had been providing craft services for Bay Area shoots for a decade and had an excellent reputation. Of course, the wife chose this day to come down with the flu and in typical crew person fashion didn’t bother to tell me.

Nor did her husband, but all is forgiven since he was on his own trying to feed about 80 people who had breakfast at home amnesia. I assigned a P.A. to help him and turned my attention to important things. Like getting the director a chocolate biscuit, the instructions to which came over the walkie-talkie.

Caliguletta: “Director wants a latte and a chocolate biscuit.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll send the P.A. out that’s helping Craft Services. There’s a Starbucks near a Starbucks near here.”

Caliguletta: “You don’t have her anymore. Locations sucked all the P.A.s up for traffic and crowd control.”

Me: “That’s too bad. I was actually going to have them get me a chocolate biscuit too, since I don’t know what the Hell it is.”

Caliguletta lost her temper, which I ignored.

Me: “I’ll get another P.A., but you have to give me a few minutes, or give me one of the 15 I’ve already hired to send out. I’m by myself in this Motorhome. My coordinators are back at the office dealing with tomorrow’s shoot. Speaking of coordinators, why don’t you send the one we brought over from England out. He’d at least know what a chocolate biscuit looks like.”

Caliguletta: “He’s at camera with me.”

Me: “Doing what?”

Another loss of temper.

To Caliguletta’s credit she treated me with a low level of contempt during the balance of the shoot, and I’d soon find out why. But first, let me mention another unnecessary $5000 expenditure to throw on the bonfire. And I won’t even bother to cover the $2500 directional sign in original Mandarin that increased the running length of the spot to one hundred seconds.

Here’s how we ended up with another $5K charge on the San Francisco city permit bill.

The director and Caliguletta tasked the locations department with the removal of a streetlamp so the director could squeeze the Mister Softee Ice Cream truck down the one alley in Chinatown that couldn’t quite fit its width. I completely understand his insistence since Chinatown in San Francisco only has about a thousand slightly wider alleyways that look exactly like the one he picked. Quite frankly, Chinatown in San Francisco is a neighborhood of a thousand alleyways that look exactly alike. $2500 for removal and replacement.

Caliguletta waved her hand and made it so.

****

But the highlight of highlights had to be the $10,000 hazard pay fee we had to pay the stunt driver of the Mister Softee Ice Cream truck.

During the car chase scene in Bullitt, the Bad Guy GTO and Steve McQueen’s Mustang both jump a ridiculously steep hill in a neighborhood in San Francisco. It’s in Nob or Russian Hill. As long as I lived in the Bay Area I never knew where one of those neighborhoods started the other ended. The director decided to duplicate that jump using the Vespa and Mister Softee.

Did I mention that Michael Andretti drove Mister Softee?

Yes, he did. However for the stunt, we hired a SAG certified stunt driver. He received $10,000 per jump given the hazardous nature of the request. The operator of the Vespa, a Bay Area local, had the Bullitt chase scene on his bucket list. No one looked forward to that day more than these two stuntmen, and money did not enter into the equation. Maybe.

The day arrived. The street, clear of cars, save for two which necessitated a tow. Ridiculous because part of the art direction called for automobiles to be parked on both sides of the stretch of the jump, but, of course they had to be camera friendly cars, whatever that means. A week later, two irate citizens of San Francisco would be knocking on the production office door a few days later to demand reimbursement of the $227 fine and the $75 ticket. Reasonable requests given that production had only given them TEN DAYS NOTICE.

You can guess how much money the two received as reimbursement.

As I mentioned, the expensive vagaries of production dictated that the cars on both sides of the street be under the jurisdiction of the company, so spots were driven and filled by the location P.A.s (The ones hired by me, but no longer available to get lattes and chocolate biscuits, whatever they Hell they were.) and after parking the film-friendly cars, they hustled up and down the sidewalks warning occupants not to venture out until an ‘All Clear’ could be heard over the megaphone.

For some stupid reason, I left the confines of the motorhome to watch the jump. I’d not seen one take in four days. Sadly, I also had a walkie-talkie so the A.D. department enlisted me to help signal the Vespa and the Mister Softee Ice Cream truck from the top of the hill, clear it, and descend towards the multiple camera positions. I asked where the six other 2ndAssistant Directors were and got rebuffed immediately with some sort of gobbledygook from the 1stA.D., a harried Englishman with a shaved head who hailed from L.A. The incomprehensible excuses mounted and I finally broke the stream.

Me: “So they’re out getting lattes and chocolate biscuits?”

Sid Vapid, the A.D.: “If that lazy git of a production manager did his job, they wouldn’t have to.”

Me: “Really? If that lazy git of an A.D. and location manager could lock down a neighborhood with fewer resources than Eisenhower had at D-Day, I’d have a spare P.A. or two. So why don’t you just kiss my—”

Sid Vapid, the A.D.: “Sorry mate, got a set to run. Cheers!”

Whenever anyone from England says “Cheers” to you, they have an image in their mind of shoving an icepick into one of your eyeballs.

I stationed myself on the side of the hill opposite the down side towards the camera positions. The San Francisco based stunt man sat on the Vespa and continued to figure out how many laws of physics he could break before he ended up room temperature with an ID tag on his toe, or crushed to the size of Jeremy Piven. The driver of the Mister Softee Ice Cream truck looked so calm, I thought I’d have to shove a mirror under his nose to see if it would fog.

That’s when I noticed the walkie-talkie lying just to the ice cream truck driver’s right. Sid, the A.D. ran through the instructions over the walkie once more.

Sid: “The call will be Roll A Camera, Roll B Camera, Roll C Camera, and then Background! All that before I call Action!”

During Sid’s clear cut description of the call, I noticed the ice cream truck driver’s walkie cutting out at, oh, every word. The only word(s) that the ice cream truck driver heard was “Action!”

I figured this out when I heard the gunning of the ice cream truck’s engine and the release of the emergency brake. I got on the walkie.

Me: “Sid (Not his real name)! The truck is making the jump! Get everyone off the street!”

Sid: “Who’s the sodding b%$t@rd that sent the truck!?”

Me: “You. I’ll explain later. He’s approaching the crest of the hill.”

Have no idea what transpired on the down jump side of the street, but I sprinted to the top and saw an absolutely spectacular stunt. The driver got several feet of air under the vehicle and just before it would have taken out the entire front end of the truck, it landed on the front tires and flew down the hill.

You will have to take my word for it, as none of the three cameras rolled a millimeter of film on the event. The stunt driver hit the brakes somewhere around Lake Tahoe and turned around. After stopping for moment to speak with the A.D., he continued back up the hill for another take, which would net him another $10,000.

He sang “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” as he passed by me. He even smiled and waved.

****

The shoot ended a day later with the last of the shots needed to put together the film festival entrant, “Bullitt Redux.” While the crew from L.A., after diving into the hotel swimming pool at 3am, left for southern California, Yours truly and the production staff returned to the office to wrap the job and get the London contingent back across the pond.

The job wrapped smoothly, especially for such a large one. Credit goes to Joyce Quan, who dealt with the accounting and Petra Janopaul, who dealt with more production details than I think actually existed on the job.

I’ll even credit myself for putting up with the bunch from England who did seem more interested in the results of The World Cup than the seven figure job on which they worked. I worked on it. Petra and Joyce worked on it. I know I saw parts of the art department working on it. Even caught a glimpse of the 2ndA.C. changing a lens one of the days.

I still don’t know what a Gang Boss does.

We packed up the office, a temporary set-up in San Francisco’s Presidio, and I started my next gig, an episodic television show for John Wells of West Wingfame.

But not before a few things happened.

About a week after the shoot, I received a long email with a request to explain about 20 purchase orders and their attached invoices. A few examples:

P.O. #XYZ212 – Hotel Unknown –   

Room Service for Tuesday 6/12                     $453.27

Room Service for Wednesday 6/13                $377.02

Room Service for Thursday  6/14                   $298.98

Room Service for Friday  6/15                        $477.55

Room Service for Tuesday 6/19                     $822.88

Room Service for Wednesday 6/20                $375.30

Room Service for Thursday  6/21                   $654.01

Room Service for Friday  6/22                        $468.24

GRAND TOTAL                                               A LOT

NOTE FROM PRODUCTION: Given that the entire out of town crew was on Per Diem and received most of their meals during scouting and shooting, to what do we attribute these charges?

P.O. #XYZ277 – Bob’s Electric –      

Installation of 220V Service                           $750.00

Removal of 220V Service                               $750.00

GRAND TOTAL                                            $1500.00

NOTE FROM PRODUCTION: Since your country is on 110V service, is there any reason to install and then remove, just a day later, a 220V service?

P.O. #XYZ243 – City of SF –            

Removal of streetlamp                                 $1200.00

Replacement of streetlamp                          $1200.00

Nuisance Fee                                                $ 100.00

GRAND TOTAL                                            $2500.00

There were at least 15, if not 20, more P.O.s called into question. Having closed the office and completed the wrap, did not stop me from feeling obligated to look through the purchase orders and the invoices one more time as courtesy. I had reviewed them the first time during the official wrap, and every single one had been signed off by Caliguletta, the line producer.

A couple conversations took place between me and the head of the accounting department. I’ve consolidated them.

Me: “I’ve reviewed the P.O.s and the invoices and found nothing the second time through that I didn’t find the first time. Caliguletta signed off on the lot of them. I didn’t see any missing signatures.”

Angry Accountant: “The job is $100,000 over budget. How do you explain that?”

Me: “We spent more money than what was in the budget.”

Angry Accountant: “This is no joke. You’ll need to re-actualize the job.”

Me: “Okay. Let me see if I can rent a couple of the offices we used for the shoot, and I’ll check and see if Joyce and Petra are available. As soon as I tie that up, I’ll request—”

Angry Accountant: “We’re not spending any more money on this job.”

Me: “You don’t know how great it is to hear that. I don’t think that sentence left Caliguletta’s lips the entire time she was here.”

Angry Accountant: “Oh, so it’s the line producer’s fault, is it?”

Me: “Yes. That’s their job. The P.M. can tell you how the money got spent, but only the line producer can tell you why. I think you need to check with Caliguletta.”

Angry Accountant: “She quit a couple days after the shoot.”

Me: “That should tell you all you need to know.”

Angry Accountant: “So you won’t reactualize the job?”

Me: “Not for free.”

A few days later the executive producer from Anonymous Content and Gorgeous Enterprises had me on the phone. As calmly as possible I delineated the excess on the job that Caliguletta seemed perfectly fine with approving. As far as my own transgressions, I admitted to a lack of haute cuisine and that the amount of the Teamster’s fine for the lack of a Gang Boss could be withdrawn from my salary. They demurred, but did insist that my next job for either company had better have Wolfgang Puck manning the hot truck.