#golden globe recap

[snoopylovessoup]

I didn’t know the golden globes were on last night what did I miss

[justenjoythegossip]

CHRIS & ABBA’S LATEST STUNT AND THE CLASSIC DIVERSION TACTICS USED BY PLANTS/TROLLS…

Recap of latest events

Trolling that Chris and Abba might be seen at the Oscars…

A tweet from an insider saying he met them…

Sidenote: given the promotional nature of his tweet, I will let you decide what you think of him…

The release of pictures of Chris and Abba who went to a party last night. (Was it a UTA party? CAA? It’s still being debated.) 

Articles are shoved down our throats... (but Kudos to TMZ for cropping her out of the pic…)

This latest stunt was to be expected…

After their stunt at the Golden Globes early January when they were “seen” at the UTA afterparty (pics with Mads Mikkelsen), it was to be expected that they would do something very similar for the Oscars because let’s be honest they keep recycling the same boring stunts over and over.

Also his last Con appearance was not that successful and didn’t bring him much publicity. It only seemed to translate into good PR for… Marvel. 

Yesterday, articles came out talking about how “anxious” Chris is to have a baby with his wife. Again those articles were meant to serve him and not her. No hungry, thirsty 25 year old actress wants to send the message out there that she can’t wait to get pregnant. He is the one that put so much emphasis on his (dog) dad persona, who tweeted he would make an anxious parent after dropping Dodger for his surgery, who said recently during his interview on The View that he would spoil his kids. Children are part of his rebranding as a family man. 

So it’s no surprise that a stunt would happen to serve… her. And this one we got is just that. She needs to be seen. And look she just got herself another Just Jared article...

She gets very little out of this contract outside of this kind of attention and it hasn’t translated into work opportunities for her as of now. 

Classic manipulation tactics used by various Plants/trolls...

Some mods will refuse to acknowledge the elephant in the room and might bring up all sorts of unrelated topics to distract from this latest stunt. It might be about stuff happening in the industry or food or anything really. Some other mods will distract with pointless discussions about her not wearing her ring while he does wear his, where the party actually took place… 

All of these are classic manipulation techniques that are used for misdirection. 

Some mods likely want to distract from their own lies as they have been pushing that this shitshow was about to be over, that the Medium article was super credible and so forth… They also might soften the blow of Chris still taking part in these PR games.

Again I suspect, this stunt is long-term. People saying it’s about to be over are lying to keep fans engaged. It will be over when it‘s over. But you usually don’t get married for only a few months. Unfortunately.

Again those lies are meant to distract from the truth. So let’s spell it out. Chris & Abba’s shitshow is still going strong. There is no end date in sight just yet, despite the silly stunts they pulled recently. Chris is not an hostage despite looking like one as this PR serves mostly him. 

[starsopinions]

The Golden Globes...

It has been the hot topic the last few days: The Golden Globes. And because there aren't enough opinions out there already, this is mine. Here is my opinion on all of this from the point of view of a teenage girl who would one day like to work in the film industry.

We as a society have had a history with sexism but I'd like to think that in the twenty-first century, we are all equal. Unfortunately, I am proven wrong time and time again.

I was very excited to watch the Golden Globes, as a film fanatic I was very interested in who would win. Being a Swiftie, I was hoping for a win for Taylor and as a huge Greta Gerwig fan I was rooting for at least a few wins for Barbie. I didn't get either but we did get something far worse. yay!!

I'm sure you've seen the 'jokes' that were made but let me recap:

"Oppenheimer is based on a 721-page Pulitzer Prize-winning book about the Manhattan Project, and Barbie is on a plastic doll with big boobies."

"The key moment in Barbie is when she goes from perfect beauty to bad breath, cellulite, and flat feet. Or what casting directors call character actor!"

"Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago, you want a perfect monologue? Yo, shut up. You’re kidding me, right? Slow down. I wrote some of these, and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”

“The big difference between the Golden Globes and the NFL — on the Golden Globes, we have fewer camera shots of Taylor Swift."

To make matters worse, he added this in an interview with Variety the morning after The Golden Globes:

"Yes, I’m a stand-up comic but that hosting position it’s a different style. I kind of went in and did the writer’s thing. We had 10 days to write this monologue. It was a crash course. I feel bad, but I got to still say I loved what I did.”

I think that it is disrespectful and the fact that they didn't even think about if it would fall flat or not is horrible. The comments were written by multiple people, so multiple people read them (all men, no doubt) and not a single one thought that it might not go well?? I am baffled. This is not some cheap festival we are talking about these are the Golden Globes! How can something like this go wrong so badly??

I am personally so disappointed about it because 2023 was such a good year for women. The Eras Tour, The Renaissance Tour, Barbie, I can go on.

These aren't just projects featuring women, we all made friendship bracelets for The Eras Tour. We all wore pink to the movie theatre for Barbie and then we all cried for 'What Was I Made For?'. Those are experiences, that is womanhood! and I had so much fun!! I was at the movie theatre and there was this lady and she must have been well in her 70s and she was wearing this beautiful, hot pink (!), prom-style dress and she came up to me and she told me how it was her birthday and she was taking her grandchildren to see Barbie. And if that isn't the best thing you have ever heard then I don't know what to tell you! And that is just one example of how beautiful womanhood is. I am telling you this to showcase that no, Barbie is not just a plastic doll with big boobies. I feel like you would know that if you actually watched the movie and respected the people who worked so hard to create it. It breaks my heart to see people make fun of it like that.

It is so sad for me to see because these are the people I admire. They put their hearts and souls into this and they make these beautiful things. Greta Gerwig and Taylor Swift have worked so hard to get there and they still aren't respected like their male counterparts are. Did you hear a single joke about a man? Me neither because there weren't any.

It is so sad to see because it shows how it doesn't matter what we do, how hard we try or how successful we are. We will never be treated fairly.

It is so sad to see because these are the most successful women in the industry, if they aren't respected, I will never be either.

Loads of people think that these are "just jokes" but I disagree. These kinds of "jokes" reveal how men treat women in society. It might sound dramatic but it is true. It is all good when women make them money and fix the economy, but giving them basic respect is too hard to ask. It makes me angry that a comedian that no one has ever even heard of is allowed to make these kinds of comments about some of the successful women in the world. In the future, they should hire people who are actually funny and not disrespectful (and maybe even a woman? Shocking, I know).

Thanks for reading

- star ☆

[hello-god-its-me-sara]

Golden Globes livetweet recap Oppie sweep

[adrianmata26]

The Sachairi & Peaches Show - S2E13 - The Studio Ghibli Love & Appreciation Hour

Just in time for Valentine's Day, and on the heels of The Boy and the Heron's win at the Golden Globes and nomination for Best Animated Feature at the upcoming Academy Awards next month, Adrian and Emma take their time to discuss the works of Studio Ghibli and one of its founders, Hayao Miyazaki, using two of their films, Spirited Away and Ponyo, to talk about how and why the legendary studio is celebrated for its trademark style of storytelling. Later on, Adrian goes through the anime wormhole to tell the 5ecret 5tory of the 5tar 5ystem, Interstella 5555, a collaboration between storied French EDM duo Daft Punk and another Japanese studio, Toei Animation, and tells Emma of its unique position in Japanese anime, in music, and as a part of Daft Punk's legacy.

Question of the week: What is your favorite Studio Ghibli movie? Reply now under this recap entry or reblog it with your answer, or if you listen via Spotify, through their Q&A feature!

Join us on Discord to discuss about the media industry with fellow community members and professionals! Bring Your Team to Our Team at Broadcast Plaza. https://discord.gg/Bx3r3ZDmeE

Have an animated show or movie you’d like for us to review? Email us at ⁠sachairiandpeaches@gmail.com⁠ or reach out to us on the following social media handles to send your suggestion in!

Main theme and original music composed and produced by Adrian Mata. Additional music has been provided from slip.stream.⁠

Follow The Sachairi & Peaches Show: Instagram: @ sachairiandpeaches Threads: @ sachairiandpeaches

Follow Adrian Mata: DeviantArt: @ AdrianMata26 Instagram: @ adrianmata26 and @ sachlandhub Threads: @ adrianmata26 and @ sachlandhub YouTube: @ Sachland (Adrian Mata // Sachland)

Follow Emma Settles: DeviantArt: @ LocalPeaches Instagram: @ localpeacheswolf and @ localpeaches_studios YouTube: @ localpeachesstudios8124 (LocalPeaches Studios)

[boysplanetrecaps]

Recap of Boys Planet Episode 1 (Part 1)

It’s time for another giant MNET show! Are you excited, fellow Star Creator? Woo!

This is Boys Planet, also called Boys Planet 999 by random incorrect people, including me. And this thing you’re reading is a “watch along” guide/recap to the show. You can read it as you watch the show to get the behind the scenes dirt, or to keep track of who is who and what is going on, or after you watch, or whenever. I don’t spoil anything with respect to who gets kicked off, but I will help you connect the dots with respect to who is who. I’ll use helpful pictures and stuff, too.

All time stamps will correspond to the version on Viki. When I list ages, I’ll use international ages (Korean ages have historically always been 1 more than the way the rest of the world accounts ages). 

Who am I? 

An internet rando. I live somewhere in the United States and am over 21 years of age. I used to sing acapella and have a strong sense of pitch, but for dancing I just know what I like. I can read/understand a bit of Korean and a bit of Japanese as well, and can tell the difference between spoken Korean, Japanese, and Chinese, so at times I might be able to shed a little light as to what’s going on. When it comes to evaluating performances,  I’m not likely to be mean, and I try to understand what might be going on with people but I will be snarky and honest, especially about the editing. Cool? Cool! 🙂To the recap!

Feel free to skip past the drama-teaser to 1:25 for an earnest promise that the show’s producers have paid other people to watch them so that they can’t possibly cheat, before the show can begin and of course, immediately begin to cheat. Yay!

The show’s host, I’m sorry, “Star Master”, Hwang Minhyun, talks earnestly and dully about how there are stars in the sky and foreign members of kpop groups. Hilariously, he appears to be in a futuristic room looking out into a starry sky, perhaps aboard an orbiting space station with a really good gravity system in place. His desk, a cheap Ikea looking affair, is bedecked with a model of the main seating area for the show -- The Space Council Chambers  --  a name plate that says “Star Creator”, an unusually huge yellow desk lamp, and an old fashioned globe. This is the shit I live for. 

Minhyun is known for his appearance on Produce 101 Season 2 (aka, Broduce 101) as well as for being a popular member of both Wanna One and NU’EST. I’m more of a Baekho girl, but I like Minhyun just fine. There’s something about his face that I never, ever, ever recognize him when I see him, which I find is often the case for Korean “visuals.” He is nice looking, if a bit… personality free? But that could be the directing. 

Anyway, Minhyun gets up and pushes a button that says start…

And then we see a (computer generated) room which has been set aside to house a large…. gumball… machine... thing (that is computer generated). Large plastic balls fall from the two parts of the machine to meet in the center. None of this is necessary, or real, and I find that delightful. 

Minhyun tells us that now, we are all Star Creators and we’re going to make the next Kpop boy group that the world wants. You know, in case you’re not happy with A.C.E, Astro, Ateez, The Boys, BTS, Ciipher, CIX, Day6, DKZ, Drippin, Enhypen, E’last, Exo, FTIsland, GOT7, Golden Child, Highlight, IKON, JustB, Kingdom, Lucy, Monsta X, NCT, Oneus, ONF, OnlyoneOf, Pentagon, The Rose, Seventeen, SF9, SHINee, Stray Kids, TO1, Treasure, Trendz, TXT, TVXQ, Up10tion, Vav, Verivery, Victon, Vixx, WEi, Winner, Xdinary Heroes, Younite, or Z-Stars. But yes, we need more groups. Bring ‘em on. 

Minhyun goes on to talk about how there are two groups of trainees -- K group (Korean) and G group (Global), represented by blue and pink respectively, as well as two heavily mic’d flags. 

“Please vote for the boy shining brightest!” the shiny boys chant in unison.

You can vote for whoever you want, whether K or G, though the editors do strongly suggest you vote K, and the votes will again be weighted the way they were in GP999 -- ie, Korean votes will be weighted as 50% of the votes, and Global votes will be weighted as the other 50%. If you want to skip past the voting instructions, skip to 5:20. 

So, we look down at what looks kind of like one of those rolling-marble puzzles, 

but it turns out to be the hallway through which all the trainees have to walk on their way to the Space Council Chambers.

Lee Da Eul (18) and Lim Jun Seo (17) from 143 Entertainment,  the first to enter, are offered sparkly star stickers, and they decide to give themselves 1 star each, adding that they aren’t totally sure if they even deserve those one stars. Ok, politeness is sweet, but why go on this show if you don’t believe in your abilities? Anyway, these chosen two get to say “woah” and “eego buyo?” as the lights turn on loudly. They explore the Council seating, feel the soft seats for the top 9, then decide to sit in seats 4 and 5. (Later on, they’ll perform “Replay” by SHINee as their audition.) 

Next to enter are the trainees from Wakeone, who, we see in a flashback, had a pre-show meeting with their sunbae, Kim Chae Hyun from Kep1er, who did really well on GP999. Chaehyun encouraged them to be confident on the show, saying, “If someone is very good but has no confidence then there’s no charm to them.” The five Korean trainees from Wakeone gave themselves 7 stars each -- these are Kim Taerae, Park Hanbin, Lee Jung Hyun, Mun Junghyun, and Park Minseok. Their confidence spurs Lim Jun Seo to go move to seat 9. Wakeone’s maknae, Mun Jung Hyun (17), sits in the chair for #1. (Later on, these 5 will perform “The Real” by ATEEZ.)

From here there’s going to be a lot of fighting as to who gets to sit in that chair, and I’ll be honest, I don’t care that much. 

Next to enter is: Canada! One of the Wakeone trainees says “I would’ve never imagined someone from Canada” as the on-screen words say, “What will this Canadian trainee look like?” The combined impression from those two sentences is that people from Canada are unimaginably weird looking. Mun Jung Hyun wonders, “Will people with blonde hair and blue eyes show up?” Which, again, hilarious. Do they not know that Somi (IOI/soloist/future Star Master this season), Wendy from Red Velvet, Mark Lee from NCT, and a bunch of other k-idols are from Canada? Why do I know that, come to think of it? Why do I know that, and not where my keys are? 

Also, whenever Koreans talk about Canada, all I can think about is the k-drama, Goblin, in which they talk about “Canada” as if it is a single city with maybe two restaurants, and where it is always the beginning of autumn, encased in a gentle fluttering of orange maple leaves.

We meet Seok Matthew (20), who is independant, and has given himself three stars. He looks a tiny winy bit like Xiumin from Exo to me. In an interview, we can see that he speaks Korean reasonably well. His sister got him into dancing and now he really likes it, and he came to Korean to reach his dream. 

Then we meet Japanese trainee Takuto, born November of 2007, dressed for… boxing? He has boxing gloves hanging from a string around his neck and has a sweat band around his head. In his intro package, he speaks in sort of halting Korean -- hey, it’s a lot better than my own Korean -- and poses in power poses to show he’s a “manly man” (they translate it as “tough guy” but google translate says “manly man” and I think that’s funnier). 

An up close shot reveals he has actually stenciled “Takuto” in English letters on his cheek with blush. 

As the MNET editors mercilessly play the clip of him saying he’s a manly man ( “상 남… 상 남 자” /“Sang nam… sang namja…”) over and over and over again as if to teach us the proper pronunciation, Takuto looks around at the older bigger guys and makes a big heart over his head with his hands. All the other guys react by laughing and clapping, charmed. 

MNET obviously isn’t showing everyone who comes in, as eagle eyed viewer will spot additional trainees in the Space Council who were not shown entering, but hey, I mean, whatever, it’s MNET. This has been edited so much it’s basically fiction.

In comes Wumuti (23), who has such a unique look to him that I was curious as to his background. My internet roving tells me that he was also on the MNET show Under 19, and that he’s an ethnic Uyghur from China. I was like, ok, what is a Uyghur? Turns out they’re a sort of Turkish ethnic group but mostly they live in Northwest china, and oh…. It’s really sad and awful, guys. The Chinese government is doing things like work camps and forced sterilization and stuff to try to wipe them out. I can’t help but root for anyone who comes from a background like that. Also, his name written in Korean characters looks cute: 우무티. Later on he’ll perform UN Village by Baekhyun.

So, Wumuti comes in and we see he’s given himself 6 stars. He makes a beeline for Chair 1, where he loses Rock Paper Scissors. Come on, can’t the guy catch a break? 

Then we see a montage of trainees fighting for Chair 1, and again, I don’t care. They plank for it, thumb war, etc. Kum Jun Hyeon, 19, who has absolutely covered his nametag in stars to the point you can barely see even his name, is cheered on by his Redstart ENM labelmates as he nabs the chair. They have also gone completely HAM on those stars. (Later on, he’ll do Nunu Nana by Jessi.) I feel worse and worse for our initial two guys, giving themselves just one star. 

Apparently, MNET isn’t interested in spending time watching each trainee come in this time, and that’s possibly for the best, but it does make it a bit sketchy that we see certain trainees. 

For example, we meet the trainees from Taipei, who come in like this: 

Left to right, this is Chen Kuan Jui, Qiu Sheng Yang, Chen Ren You, and Dong Dong. Kuan Jui, holding that bejeweled stick, has given himself 5 stars, while the others have given themselves 2 or 3 each. Mun Jung Hyun and Kim Tae Rae wonder to each other, is that a magic staff? Like the kind that Sun Wukong carries? (Sun Wukong, aka the Monkey King, is a famous character from Chinese mythology.) (Later on they’ll do Tiger Inside by SuperM.)

Kuan Jui marches up to Chair 1 and does a full standing split that would actually put Le Sserafim’s Kazuha to shame

And thus, he earns the seat. 

I don’t know if the ability to put one’s ankle behind one’s neck is a something I need from a kpop idol. But I mean, good for him? I guess? 

In come the trainees from Jellyfish, and Lee Ye Dam reacts as if someone has splashed him in the face with cold water, which, given that this is MNET, is not impossible. Someone says, “no way!” which is very odd, because Jellyfish always sends trainees to shows like this. I mean, Mina and Sejong came out of PD 101. And it’s not as if Jellyfish is doing all that well. They squandered Sejong, they murdered Gugudan, and their most successful group is Verivery, who are very sweet, talented, and hardworking but not exactly smashing sales records. So yeah, not sure what Yedam is so excited about.

We get a bit of a slow-mo to take in what we might reasonably be excited about: sexy Park Gun Wook (18).

To be clear: I don’t personally find him sexy; he’s way too young to seem sexy to me personally. I’m saying that that is obviously what he’s going for. He gives off big time Kang Daniel vibes to me, not really in looks but in terms of what he’s aspiring to. He and his fellow Jellyfish trainees are tall and manly, and Gun Wook already may have a fan following since he did pretty well on another survival show called Wild Idol.  Gun Wook goes straight for Chair 1, and the other trainees comment on how muscular he is. He challenges the current seat sitter, a Japanese trainee named Riku, to a thigh wrestling game (??).  Poor Riku -- we didn’t see him take the seat, but we sure see him lose the seat.  

Time for an American trainee! I love that the Korean word for USA is “MiGuk” (or Bi-Goo, as it’s usually pronounced). Apparently it translates to Beautiful Country, which is so kind of them to say. I hope that the USA will do more things to earn that name going forward. 

Out come Jay and Na Kamden. Jay, lovey, there are already enough Jays in Kpop --you have to think of a different name. It seems like Jay strongly prefers speaking English, but understands some Korean, while Kamden understands Jay’s English but prefers to speak Korean. Kamden appeared on Wild Idol as well. 

Then we get a montage of tall global trainees, mostly Chinese. For people like me who don’t readily understand heights in cm, it’s good to know that 183 cm is 6 feet. So someone 188 cm is like, 6’2. 

We also meet Cong and Dang Hong Hai from Vietnam, who later on will perform View by SHINee. Hong Hai speaks Korean, even if it’s with a really thick accent. It has to be so hard for the global contestants. 

Then we meet the group from Osaka, Japan, and it turns out one of them is Keita, who the whole Space Council recognizes. He was on YG’s TreasureBox, the show that made the group Treasure, and then later on debuted with Ciipher. It’s not too weird he’d come on this show, as Ciipher is still, alas, in semi-nugu territory. 

Ah, here is Yuehua, who are sending in 4 Korean trainees and 4 Global trainees, each entering via their respective doorway, which is so charmingly unnecessary. The Korean trainees come out in all black, while the “global” team is a bit more colorful in faded denim. If you’re not familiar, Yuehua is a Chinese company with branches in Korea. They co-manage WJSN with Starship, and manage Everglow outright. They also manage new boy band Tempest. 

Anyway, then there’s a montage of the trainees finding each other handsome and saying they look like other famous people, capped off by the entrance of Sung Han Bin to the strains of tender piano music that presumably plays in his wake naturally due to his extreme handsomeness. 

Even I can tell that he is in fact, quite good looking in that classic kpop way. He looks like he should be with SM entertainment, but he’s from STUDIO GL1DE, which doesn’t bode well for his skills. A guy who looks like that who could do a nice step-touch and could at least carry a tune in a bucket would get picked up by a more prestigious agency. But maybe I’ll be proven wrong on that…. Hmmm…. 

Cube’s trainees are announced, and we’re treated to a brief montage of Cube’s top artists, including BtoB, Pentagon and G-Idle. The camera pauses for a moment on Hui from Pentagon as the group performs Shine. The trainees talk about how talented the Cube sunbaes are -- how talented would their hoobaes be? Out comes Bak Do Ha, looking like a figure skater. (Later on he’ll be performing My House by 2PM.) 

There’s still one more empty chair, and the Space Council wonders: what agency could sending the last trainee? It turns out it’s also… Cube?!? Bak Do Ha smiles and laughs to himself as the other trainees are wondering why this last trainee is being announced last and separately. They all immediately recognize him as Hui-sunbaenim from Pentagon, a group that debuted in 2016, has had some serious ups and some serious downs, and won a bunch of music shows as recently as a few months ago. This 29-year-old man who has already done his military service bows to the 15 year olds and introduces himself as Lee Hoe Taek from Cube, politely saying “I look forward to working with you.” 

Guys. GUYS. I have a lot of feelings about Hui from Pentagon being on this show. I could talk endlessly about it, but the upshot is: negative. I have negative feelings about this. When Pentagon went on Kingdom, they actually kind of… fell in my esteem. Hui seemed so sad, like the group was just so sad, and Hui was pushing so hard to make his song remixes cool that he forgot to make them… pleasant to listen to, or fun to see performed. I think Hui is a genuine, top-tier talent when it comes to songwriting, producing, and singing. I love a lot of Pentagon songs, including ones people don’t talk about but should, like Can You Feel It and Sha La La. I am still angry that E-Dawn got kicked out over being a human being with a love life, and angry that it hurt Pentagon a lot, and heartbroken that a lot of that probably landed on Hui’s head.I get it that he’s doing this to get people to notice Pentagon. After all, their contracts are up in 2023, and no doubt they’ll want to leave that awful agency. Maybe they’ll pull a GOT7 and all leave together and stay together. So I get it that he wants to promote. But the thing is, I don’t believe that “all publicity is good publicity.” I think having people feel sorry for you will make them not feel impressed by you, or attracted to you, and I think that will hurt you. I think this was a big mistake and it makes me feel second-hand-humiliation. I hope I’m wrong. Sincerely, I do. 

Anyway, this award winning songwriter and top-tier vocalist has rated himself 3 stars. Thinking about it, that was kind of the only move he could make -- he has to pretend to have a reason to be on the show, and that reason can only be to “work on myself and continue to improve to be the best Lee Hoe Taek I can be”, or something along those lines. To be Hui and give himself 4 (or more) stars would feel like an NBA star who came to dunk on a bunch of high school kids. 

We cut to his first interview with the staff, in which he said that he had only gotten discharged from the military a week ago and feels shy in front of the camera. We get a brief montage of trainees saying they’re not sure why he’s here, some of them seeming a little irritated. Others say that it’s a honor to be on the same show with Hui. 

Hui decides to challenge the current number-1 chair sitter (16 year old Park Ji Hoo, who says “I just got here!”) to a contest to win the chair, and bowing deeply and speaking politely, says he’d like to have a singing contest. Of course. He lets out a delightful musical phrase, and Ji Hoo stands there listening, then scurries away without singing a note. 

There’s something so poignant about Ji Hoo saying, “I just got here” to Hui. He just got here in the show, he just got here in this industry -- he just got here on this PLANET compared to Hui. And here comes Hui to take the chair. I like Hui, I do, I just…. Ugh. 

Ollie, who is representing China but seems quite comfortable speaking English, notices that the two sides of the room are really different, with K-group mostly wearing suits or leather, and G-group more varied and colorful. Yes, that is obvious. Can we have another season of Youth With You that doesn’t end with a milk scandal, please? Anyway… 

Interestingly, Ollie can also speak a decently pronounced, if slightly halting, Korean in his interview. Zhang Hao can also speak a bit of Korean -- it sounds to me like he has a Chinese accent on his Korean, but it’s not like I would really know. But they’re both Yuehua trainees and it wouldn’t surprise me if their agency gave them intensive Korean language training. Love that. It’s really smart of Yuehua, and so truly helpful to their trainees. 

0:23:00  The Judges Come Out

The room darkens and the trainees watch a short video about how they’re on Boys Planet now and are trying to become shining stars or whatever the shit. Turns out this year, there will be multiple hosts, and the viewers will be called Star Creators. The boys are nervous in general and in specific. 

Time to meet the vocal master: Lee Seok Hoon. The trainees recognize him, and while they clearly respect him, they’re scared of him after his time on Produce101. He’s known for turning his head to the side and looking disgusted when someone hits a sour note, or for nodding appreciatively with his eyebrows raised when someone hits a good note.

Solji is the female vocal master and their enthusiasm seems bigger -- it’s Solji from Exid! Who doesn’t love her? Wrong people, that’s who. A trainee says that she’s been teaching at a University, and like, I hope so. I just want Solji’s life to be full of respect and comfort. She just seems like such a class act. I bet she’s an excellent teacher. And then Onestar comes out, who we might recognize from GP999. The trainees cheer for him and he makes them cheer more. 

Then the rap master: pH-1 from H1ghr music, who introduces himself in rapid English. Several of the trainees claim to be big fans. I’ll be honest and say I’ve never heard of him. And I actually do listen to some k-rap. Per Wikipedia, he was born in Korea but moved to New York when he was 12. I guess he chose English as the lingua franca, but in that case, talk more slowly, dude. Anyway. Wikipedia adds,  “As the three keywords he pursues in his music are truth, positivity, and experience, his work contains positive or honest messages, generally excluding references to drugs, money bragging and excessive "flexing", and explicit sexual content.” So, look forward to that. Or not. I don’t know what you’re into. 

Dance Masters: From 1Million, Back Koo Young and Choi Young Joon. Look I don’t know much about much but I *do* know that 1Million is top tier when it comes to dance. So these guys are good. The trainees are psyched to see them. Also, Lip J, who is “the living legend of waacking.” The trainees say their judges/trainers are like the Avengers. 

The judges immediately move into intimidation mode. It’s time to find out how the trainees rated themselves, star wise. The Korean group was more confident, overall. 

What’s sort of interesting about this is that during GP999, the Chinese girls were far more confident than the Korean girls. That’s because Chinese culture isn’t as self-effacing as Korean culture is, in general. Kind of interesting, too, that they had the boys do this, but not the girls. With the girls it would have been such a mine field because it’s “unfeminine” to have faith in yourself. Anyway. 

Japanese trainee Haruto interviews, in Korean, “Only a maximum of four stars were allowed, but almost everyone did whatever they wanted.” Yep.

The judges explain that their first performance will be the “Style Level Test”, during which their self-assessed star levels will be replaced by judge-assessed stars. Also, we learn that K-group and G-group are being pitted against each other; the team that wins more stars overall will get access to the next song that they have to practice a day earlier. Kind of cruel -- my assumption, without having seen the whole episode, is that the K-group will win, and the G-group will be at a further disadvantage, having one day fewer to practice and needing even more time due to language barriers. Why do I watch these shows? Am I mentally well?  

Auditions Begin: 0:32:58

Finally, we get our first audition -- Team Jellyfish, who gave themselves all 4 stars. The trainees are suitably cowed; after all, Kim Dayeon from Kep1er is from Jellyfish. Kim Gyu Vin (who is a serious talent in his own right, and will later on perform Kick It) calls Park Gun Wook “Park Gun-Wook -nim” even though, as he notes, Gyu Vin is actually a bit older than Gun Wook. It’s just that Gun Wook looks so big and mature. Little boxer Takuto met team Jellyfish backstage and backed away from them as if scared, his hands in a fig leaf position, and they encouraged him to come closer and were nice to him and called him cute. Gun Wook is the leader, the all rounder, and is also apparently pretty nice. See? Kang Daniel vibes? 

They’re going to be performing GBTB (Go Beyond the Barrier) by their sunbaes, Verivery.  One of the dance masters actually choreographed this, but the boys seem confident to perform it in front of the choreographer. Fighting!

Left to right: Jang Yeo Jun, Park Hyun Been, Han Yu Seop, Park Gun Woo 

My thoughts:

I’ll be honest, this is my first time hearing this song, and I’m ok not hearing it again after this. Just sort of… like what if you took all the NCT songs and threw them in a blender with an electric guitar? Sorry, VERRER. I still think Verivery are very cute and charming and my bias is Dongheon.

As for the performance: I have not a ton to say, because it was fine. All four of them did fine dance wise. Gun Wook stood out with his charisma and his big nice face. (I know the Korean ideal is small faces, but I like big faces.) I think Jang Yeo Jun danced a little bit better than the others, doing those weird leg kicks a little bit better, and Park Hyun Been rapped really fast and pretty well. Their singing was on key, too. I think Han Yu Seop was the main vocalist, but I actually think his singing was among the weakest -- there were times that I couldn’t even hear him sing. But they were dancing really hard. So for an audition for one of these shows, he was ok. 

They ask GunWook to dance by himself, and he chooses a song by Seventeen. The dance masters warn him that it’s hard, but he’s unbothered. He has good charisma, great facial expressions, and sharp movements. As far as I can tell, he’s good. 

The judges give them all the same score -- 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐ . They took away a star because the boys didn’t sing loud enough. The boys do their best to accept their fate. 

WakeOne doing Glitch Mode. 

The team comes out in a choo choo train formation -- sorry for that extremely technical term --  then introduce themselves (and I’ll tell you a little more): 

Super Charming Anthonny! (He’s almost 19, from Japan, and got all A’s on Produce 101 Japan) 

Refreshing energy Min! (He’s 22, from Thailand, and also went on Under Nineteen)

Powerful Dance Haruto! (He’s 18, from Japan, specializes in dance, and went semi-viral for complaining that his profile picture didn’t look like him, even tho it kinda does….)

After they introduce themselves, Haruto asks if they can have a moment to check their formation -- basically, they want to rehearse on stage during the audition? The judges let them, sighing about kids today, but everyone is mildly impressed that these foreigners are talking to each other in Korean. Min’s profile says he speaks Thai, Korean, Chinese, and English, but not Japanese, so maybe that’s why they’ve settled on Korean to talk to each other -- plus it looks better to the judges that they know enough Korean to communicate. 

My thoughts: 

I have to note that Glitch Mode is the kind of song I’m a bit over. I really like Cherry Bomb and Firetruck and even got on board with Kick It but this sort of shouting-in-unison, wandering base line, jazzy-melodic-SM-bridge when the singers can sing… I just am a bit past it. Sorry, folks. (Update: But I do love Ayo, so who knows anymore?) So I don’t know this song super well. I listened to it twice before watching the performance trying to figure out what the melody is and kind of failed. So. There’s that. 

This was a really cute performance, though. I watched the full version on youtube before I watched the show version. All three of them danced well, with a lot of energy and great facial expressions. 

Haruto obviously stood out for dancing, doing aerials and backflips and splits. He rolled with the fact that his mic pack fell out of his pocket right at the beginning, and didn’t let it show on his face. But his singing was egregious. He’s not a singer, and this song is incredibly difficult to sing even when you’re standing still. Also, his rapping wasn’t too bad. 

Min did some high kicking and acrobatics as well, and his rapping was actually good. I won’t say his singing was good but it was on key as far as I could tell, which is an achievement. 

Anthonny was the vocalist of the team and as such didn’t do any flipping around, but he sang the best. Like I said, overall, pretty charming. I have a soft spot for Anthonny for no darn reason. He’s just a cutie. 

Interestingly, the version that aired on the show had most of the bad singing edited out. I think the show wanted Haruto to look better. The judges ask him about his dancing ability and he says he used to do ballet and proceeds to do a sort of crazy 30 consecutive ballet turns. Haruto is obviously a really good dancer, but so was Min, who also rapped well. And Haruto’s singing was very, very bad -- did I mention that? But they still gave him an All Star rating  ⭐ ⭐⭐⭐ , which strikes me as objectively incorrect. I like him, you guys. I do. He’s charming and cute and a great dancer. He didn't sing well in his audition. That isn’t an opinion; it’s a fact. I think maybe 2 or 3 stars would have been fairer. Or maybe Haruto sang a separate song and did a lot better in it, but we didn't see...?

Min and Anthonny both get 3 stars 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐ , though the show doesn’t care enough to bother to show it. 

Next up, at 49:00, is Team Taipei. I’ll put their photo back up so you don’t have to scroll back and forth.

Again, left to right, that’s Chen Kuan Jui, Qui Sheng Yang, Chen Ren You, and Dong Dong. 

The judges immediately ask about the big stick and he explains he needs it for performance. 

My thoughts:   They perform Tiger Inside by SuperM. As always, I checked out the Youtube version first, before I watched the MNET edited version. I like this song just fine, if you’re wondering. 

The flexible Chen Kuan Jui is 22. His online profile mentions he does ballet and that one of his hobbies is “stretching.” Yeah, that checks out. His dancing is very good -- little details like how he bends his fingers, stuff like that. You just know his toes are pointed inside those boots. That said, his vocal color is unpleasant, and his choice to retrieve and spin that dumb stick was…. You know…. A choice. A wrong choice, but a choice. Sorry if you liked it, but I found it really unimpressive. I’d rather just watch this talented dancer dance.

The blonde Qiu Sheng Yang is 21. He also was on Atom Boyz with Ren You, on the same team but eliminated much sooner than Ren You was. His performance here is not fabulous but not awful. He seemed uncomfortable to me, like he was overdancing a bit. 

The distinctive looking Chen Ren You is 19. His online profile states that he’s a singer; he was on a Taiwanese reality show called Atom Boyz that sounds like a frickin’ hoot, but doesn’t seem available in full with English subtitles, anywhere. Ren You has one of those faces -- like GunWook on this show, or Sehun from EXO, or that one guy from Drippin, Junho. Like a face that’s just like HI, I AM A FACE. I dig it, don’t get me wrong. Anyway, his performance was good. I thought his dancing was purposeful, but sort of calm, and his singing was really good. On key, on rhythm, pleasant, all that good stuff. I’m rooting for him.

The delightfully monikered Dong Dong is 22 and represents Stardust Entertainment. I’m old as shit but I am still apparently 12 years old on the inside because I can’t. He apparently was on a Chinese reality show called The Coming One 2. Anyway, he does fine, I guess. On key, dancing is decent, it’s not awful. Bring it on, bringenon, brigggedon! 

So yeah, I say Chen Kuan Jui was the best dancer in the group, and Renyou is the best singer in the group, but they were all basically ok. Of course, the MNET editing focuses almost entirely on the stupid stick, and Renyou’s excellent singing is edited out. They give Renyou 2 stars ⭐⭐ . Are we watching the same thing? Maybe his dancing was bad and I just can’t tell because I know nothing about dancing.  

The judges focus on flexy Chen Kuan Jui and give him time to dance, and of course, he’s genuinely a very very good ballet dancer. He can get up with his toes and flip around and do all sorts of crazy stuff. But I really dislike his singing voice and I don’t know, I find him off-putting for no good reason. That’s not fair of me, but yeah, it’s where I’m at. Regardless, the judges give him 4 stars.  ⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ We don’t see it, but Dong Dong gets 1 star  ⭐ and Sheng Yang gets 2 stars ⭐⭐ . 

Now we have a montage of G group groups: team Vietnam doing View, team Thailand doing Kokobop, and a Chinese group doing God’s Menu.  The editing here is brought to you by MNET’s editing team, shown here at their most recent staff meeting.

We barely see any of these teams, so I watched their full performances on Youtube and will let tell you about it! 

Team Kokobop:

A Thai duo who greet everyone with a sawadee ka. Zhang Hao from Yuehua (good looking guy with auburn hair -- we’ll meet him soon) tells Ricky from Yuehua (distinctive blonde guy, giving us Keifer Sutherland in Lost Boys vibes) that he wants to be friends with the Thai guys because he likes Thai food.

Winnie, from FirstOne Entertainment, claims his specialty is freestyle dance. He’s 24. I’ve seen his name spelled Winne, but more official sources spell it  Winnie. He’s a member of nugu group NINE.i -- two other members of that group are on the show, but they’re Korean, so we’ll meet them later. 

Nice is an individual trainee. He’s 22. He seems scared to look up or into camera lenses. 

My Thoughts:

They perform Kokobop, and I watched the whole performance on Youtube. I’m a huge EXO-L (my bias is ALL OF THEM) and I really love this song, so I know it well. Winnie was actually pretty decent, singing a really difficult song. He was a little sharp here and there but really not that bad. He also looked pretty comfortable and hit the dance moves reasonably well. I never know what the Korean public thinks looks good, but I think his styling isn’t working for him. He’s wearing way too much foundation, that shade of hair color doesn’t suit his skin, and his contact lenses just give him an unearthly, fake look. He looks better in some photos I’ve seen of him online, like this one: 

Winnie, I hope for good things for you going forward. 

Nice was terrible vocally; the dancing was ok but the vocals were unacceptable. He also looked really, really shy -- like he can’t even make eye contact with the camera. I think he is way out of his league, bless him. You’re very cute, Nice. I assume you’re rich or you wouldn’t be here, so I hope your personal wealth cushions the blow when you are rightfully kicked off. (Smash cut to Nice making the final line up because he’s cute….???)

MNET editing was pretty kind, honestly. Nice can only benefit by being edited down. He’s like the shark in Jaws -- looks great as long as you don’t see him for long. The judges give Nice 0 stars, and give Winnie 1 star ⭐ .

Next up is a G-group team: Team God’s Menu

Oh, these poor guys. They look good in their outfits, to be fair, but poor guys. Non-native speakers of Korean, trying to do this song? As someone said online, “Their souls probably left their bodies when they found out they had to do this song.” I’m trying to think of a group who could cover this song and do it justice. Monsta X probably could. And I mean, of course BTS could. Probably Hui or Jeon Soyeon could do a cool remix that would suit their own teams. Regardless, this is not an ideal song for a rookie group of non-native Korean speakers. 

I watched the whole performance on Youtube. I’m not obsessed with Stray Kids but I do like them (my bias is Changbin!), and I love love LOVE this song. Here’s my take: 

Xuan Hao also appeared on Youth With You 3, which I didn’t watch. He ended in 62nd place and apparently also uses the name “Swen.” He says on his initial profile worksheet that God’s Menu is his favorite song, and maybe that’s one of the reasons that he did a great job here. His dancing was sharp when it had to be sharp and fluid when it had to be fluid, and his singing was on key and on the beat. He’s a better singer than I.N. anyway. Yes I said it: I.N. is not a good singer. Come find me and kill me for it, I guess? That’s the kind of thing you should end a human life for, right? Anyway, I like Xuan Hao. 

Lin Shiyuan was apparently once a Cube trainee, but is now independent. He has the job of rapping Changbin’s intro rap. He doesn’t do very well. He very noticeably rushes the beat pretty much every time it’s his turn to vocalize in any way, maybe because he’s nervous, and his pronunciation is not great. He had definitely learned these complicated dance steps, but he wasn’t dancing them, just doing them. I could see the fear in his face, and when he wasn’t singing or rapping, you could almost see him counting the steps. When they were flipping the pancake, he didn’t look up to wait for it to come back down, which is 90% of the fun of that move. I can’t blame him and I’m not blaming him. Poor guy. 

Feng Junlan actually did pretty well. His rapping was on the beat and sounded good, and his dancing was precise. He looked up when they flipped the pancake -- it makes such a difference. If the judges have any sense that have to have noticed how well he did. 

When I tried to watch it to focus on Chen Liang, Feng Junlan kept stealing my attention. Liang did fine dance wise, as far as I could tell (but didn’t look up when they flipped the pancake!), but his vocals were very off key (if at least more or less on the beat). 

The judges are kind in their manner, but not generous with their stars. 

Xuan Hao gets 1 star ⭐ , which seems too low to me. 

Lin Shiyuan gets 1 star ⭐ , which must be for the dancing.

Feng Junlan gets 2 stars ⭐⭐ , which seems low to me, but I’m glad it’s not 1 or 0. 

Chen Liang gets 2 stars ⭐⭐ , which seems high to me. 

Team View - Vietnam

My thoughts:

Obviously, like any sane person, I love this song. 

Basically, none of their performance gets shown, but you guys, they were pretty good! Honestly, they sang on key and tried to keep their energy up and yeah, I don’t speak Korean but I know this song well and it didn’t sound awful. Check it out on Youtube and see for yourself -- compare their singing to that of Haruto’s and you’ll see what I mean. 

The judges give 22-year-old Cong just 1 star ⭐ , which is cruelly low, and give 19 year old Dang Hong Hai 2 stars ⭐⭐ , which is ok, I’m on the fence between 2 and 3 for him. But it’s like the judges are watching these auditions from Minhyun’s space station. And maybe… I don’t know… is there a little racism? Just a little bit? Against these two Vietnamese trainees? 

From what we can tell from the editing, the judges really dinged them for their pronunciation, as if that matters the most? As if the ability to sing on key isn’t, perhaps, more important? 

In an interview, Cong says, in Korean, that he practices Korean every day.  His pronunciation is pretty bad, though. You probably wouldn’t guess from hearing it that that was Korean, but if you listen closely you hear the Korean verb endings. It must be so hard for someone coming from a tonal language, like Vietnamese or Chinese, to learn a non-tonal language like Korean.  I think it’s much easier for Japanese speakers to speak Korean -- they’re totally different languages but have similar sounds in them. (To be technical: Japanese and Korean are not related at all, but they have similar phonemes, which are the basic sounds you make when you speak. Korean has additional vowel sounds that Japanese doesn’t have, and there are other small differences, but if you can pronounce one language it wouldn’t be too hard to learn to pronounce the other.) 

Then we get a mini montage about how much global trainees want to be kpop idols. Thai trainee Winnie says (in what sounds like very good Korean) that he wanted to be an idol since he was a kid. He turned down an opportunity with a very prestigious university, Chulalongkorn University (it’s the highest rated university in Thailand) in order to come to Korea and pursue this dream. -- in the audience,  Kim Ji Woong, a 24-year-old individual trainee we haven’t met yet but who I assume is handsome,* mutters, “Can I go to that school in your place?” which strikes me as… super sad. Like, there’s stuff going on here we don’t know but can kind of guess.

*I have to say things like “I assume this person is handsome” because my standards of handsome/not aren’t always the same as everyone else’s. For example, I think that Chen is the best looking member of Exo. I think all of these boys are nice looking, and some of them are cute or charming, etc, but I can’t always tell who is going to be the “visual King” or whatever for a given season. 

At 55:36, we see Qiu Sheng Yang (who we met earlier, in Tiger Inside), then his teammate, the flexible Chen Kuan Jui, then Osuke, a Japanese trainee we haven’t met (he’s going to do Crown), then Min, the Thai trainee who did Glitch Mode, all talking about how much they admire Korean pop music, all to the tender strains of gentle piano, and Koreans everywhere smile in satisfaction, I guess.  

And that’s enough for one post! Part II will be linked here. 

[bowtiesnmusicals]

Here is my recap of the Wheels Up episode of the podcast.

I think by the title it should be obvious this covers the Wheels episode of Glee.

They talked about Ryan getting the Carol Burnett award at the Golden Globes.

Ryan thinks he is too young to be getting this award.

Jenna and Kevin made the highlights reel.

Go listen to the Paris Barclay episode. He directed this episode.

This episode felt like the beginning of the phenomenon.

As mentioned in the last episode in the middle of filming this episode the cast went to upfront.

Wheels was a more serious episode.

There were many screenings of this episode. Some where for groups for wheelchair users or Down Syndrome but also because it was awards season.

They started dance rehearsals for Proud Mary while working on the previous episode.

Cory and Dianna decided to take the wheelchairs throughout the lot for the whole day. They came back all sweaty and gross. Everyone was struggling with the wheelchairs.

Not all the chairs had stoppers like Kevin’s and that caused some people to fall backwards when they would try wheelies.

Kevin was excited about having a solo but wasn’t excited about the song. He wanted something big and flashy. He did appreciate being pushed out of his comfort zone.

Kevin had to go back and record the song because Ryan said the first version was too sexy. He was very breathy. Adam was confused and thought the first version was great. Kevin just sang it two or three more times.

Kevin’s stunt double is an actual wheelchair user. You can tell when it is him because he doesn’t have the stoppers on his chair. He goes to skate parks and does crazy tricks.

Dancing With Myself was a big moment for Artie and for Kevin.

Kevin got to do slo-mo for the first time. He was the guinea pig.

To do slo-mo you have to do everything at warp speed.

Kevin had done it before when he was in a boy band.

The bougie part of the bake sales are bougie was something Naya would do as a joke. They ended up using the joke take for the episode. It is just more Naya golden nuggets.

Cory probably improvised kicking the wheelchair.

This episode is the introduction of Becky.

They loved working with Lauren Potter (Becky).

Kevin’s delivery of the You’re irritating most of the time, but don’t take that personally line was so good.

Kevin enjoyed Lea’s performance in the first couple of choir room scenes in this episode. He like that she was playing off the previous episodes.

Kevin loves the montage of everyone learning to use the wheelchairs.

Apparently here is an oops in the scene where Artie tells Tina about the car accident. It has something to do with Artie’s current age and the age he was when the accident happened doesn’t match up with how long he’s been in the chair.

The line about Artie still having use of his penis is in this episode.

The cheerleading auditions are Jenna’s favorite part.

We get to see a lot of Ashley Fink (Lauren Zizes) in this episode.

We see her first when Kurt talks about her parents suing the school so she could wrestle and then we see her in the cheerleading tryouts montage.

The baton twirling was probably Inspired by Chris’s sai swords.

Kevin thought the Becky, Sue, Jean storyline was so good.

The real Jane Lynch is the Sue that walks into the room to visit her sister.

That scene with Jane and Robin is so so good.

We get to see a very human side to Sue.

Kevin had to look away so he didn’t start crying.

They did a recap of the bake sale and the Quinn, Finn, Puck live triangle.

They used stunt doubles for the Puck and Finn fight in the hallway.

Paris told a great story about the flour in the air during the food fight and how it caused production to be shut down.

Kevin thinks the hallway scene between him and Jenna was probably the first thing shot for this episode.

Jenna found out the night before shooting this scene that the stutter was fake.

She took the stutter very seriously. Originally Tina had Tourette’s.

You get to see a deeper layer of Tina. Jenna sees Tina as an onion and this was like a layer being removed.

Kevin thinks this wasn’t the first time him and Jenna kissed. He said we would all kiss each other a friends. It was innocent.

It was weird to know millions of people would be watching them kiss.

It was such a short scene but they were still nervous about it.

Jenna cried like four times watching Proud Mary. It was mostly from laughter.

Zach did an incredible job choreographing Proud Mary.

They didn’t get a demo for Proud Mary.

They just threw things against the wall to see what would work.

The Kurt and Burt storyline has a lot of effing heart according to Jenna.

Their relationship is the heart of the show.

The tire shop also feet’s the theme of wheels.

(Don’t feel bad Jenna I never put that together either.)

The montage of Kurt doing the warm up and getting the phone call is brilliant and heart breaking.

The storylines in this episode pull at different emotions. The phone call feels eerie and dark and troubling. You don’t normally feel that in an episode of glee.

Mike O’Malley (Burt) was so so good in this episode. Mike and Chris are both very serious actors.

Both Chris and Mike both try to understand where the characters are coming from

Mike would really dig deep during rehearsals.

Mike and Chris made each other better actors.

Kevin hadn’t heard Defying Gravity before it was on the show. He heard the original version 4 years ago.

Seeing Defying Gravity live on stage was the most magical theater experience Kevin has ever had.

Spoiler: Kurt throws the diva off.

Kurt has an amazing moment with Burt afterwards.

Kevin had a hard time removing himself from the Kurt and Burt scenes. He didn’t relate to Kurt. He absolutely adored the Kurt and Burt storylines.

Tartie Takes:

Cringe Moments aka Ouchies - Mr. Shue to Mercedes don’t worry we will find you something to dip in chocolate.

Worst Dance Move - Amber falling off one of the ramps sideways

Best Song - Jenna: Dancing With Myself Kevin: Proud Mary

Best Performance By a Prop - wheelchairs or maybe the flour

Things That Didn’t Age Well - Quinn’s line about no one buying baked goods from losers we are in wheelchairs and in glee club.

Best Line - Artie’s line to Rachel about being irritating. Kevin - Burt’s line about Kurt singing like a girl.

Shit We Found on TikTok:

Someone has a theory that Harry Styles is mimicking Finn’s dance moves.

Simon Crowell was apparently a big fan of glee.

Simon was obsessed with Artie. He liked that Glee showed the underdogs.

Maybe Harry Styles was a fan of Glee.

Next week is Ballad.

[taiblogcomics]

You're on Prime Time

Hey there, sweaty hatbands. I got video games to get to, so let's bang out a Countdown review, shall we~?

Here's the cover:

Lex Luthor has been fired. Out of a cannon (or perhaps canon) and into the sun. Actually kind of gruesome for a cover. Don't like it. Anyways, we both know who the other guy on the cover is. We'll get to that! But if you don't know, this'd be an excellent cover for an example of Superdickery. Maybe it still counts! Heck, can you believe this came out way before the trend of "evil" Superman stuff like Brightburn? Or even Man of Steel? Hell, when this came out, Superman Returns was only a year old! Who even remembers that film now~?

So, for your recap, the Multiverse Crew are all fired up to look for Ray Palmer. Karate Kid and Una have met Firestorm in Bludhaven, who's got a case of the Desaads. Pied Piper and Trickster are under fire from the Suicide Squad. Holly Robinson and Harley Quinn are feeling burnt out on their Amazon training. Since Mary Marvel is hot or something, she's been offered as a consort to Darkseid. And Jimmy Olsen is dealing with the literal fires of Apokalips. And despite the shortness of this recap, we're not feeling so hot about reviewing this issue…

So we open back on Earth-15. This series really likes Earth-15. 52 alternate universes, and we've been to, what, three of them? Anyway, you know it's Earth-15, because it's the one where Zod was Superman for some reason. Zod's questioning who this Superman-looking guy clutching Lex Luthor is, and the guy replies that he's the better version of Zod. He stabs Zod with one of the crystals from his own Fortress of Solitude, then uses his heat vision to vaporise Zod's pregnant wife that he was protecting. You know, just to set the tone for this comic. Lex calls him a maniac, and the guy replies Lex is supposed to be the maniac. And he? He's supposed to be Superman.

So who is this guy, this adult Superman dressed in all black with a silver S-shield (aping Supes' look upon resurrection in Reign of the Supermen)? I dunno if this is supposed to be spoilers or not, but surprise! It's our old friend Superboy-Prime! I dunno if we've ever actually covered Superboy-Prime on this blog, but I'm sure his reputation precedes him. He's actually calling himself Superman-Prime at this point (due to legal disputes with the Superboy name), which his redesign as an adult can also be attributed. But we'll still call him Superboy-Prime. Or maybe Primey. Primey the Whiny.

So what's his deal, and why am I assigning at least two paragraphs to it? Well, back in the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, Superboy-Prime essentially represented our universe in the story. Earth-Prime was basically the "real world", where Clark Kent became the only superhero. He was also one of the displaced survivors by the end, along with Golden Age Supes and Lois Lane, and Alexander Luthor from Earth 3 (not the one we've visited in this series, the pre-Crisis version). Long story short, he lived in a "paradise dimension" watching the main DC universe until they decided they didn't do good with their second chance and broke out.

So Primey went villain! He felt everyone wasted their Earth, and everything was better on his Earth. So he wanted to re-create his own Earth, or failing that, turn the new Earth into his idea of the perfect Earth. He got imprisoned, broke out, and joined the Sinestro Corps for a while. This takes place after that, having absorbed enough sunlight with his mock-Anti-Monitor armour to evolve into an adult form, taking an adult name along with it. But his attitude is still a petulant child, as is the point of his character. That's all the backstory!

Anyway, back on our Earth, Desaad revels in his new Firestorm powers as he attacks Karate Kid. This is actually one of our soonest crossovers between two storylines, as Darkseid and Mary Marvel are watching Desaad on Darkseid's viewing globe. Despite her heel turn through the series, Mary gets mad at Darkseid, declaring that god or not, he can't use humans as his toys. Oh no, she's seen his action figure collection he's been playing with this whole series! So she starts attacking Darkseid, while Eclipso loses it in the background. "Ah shit, am I gonna catch the blame for this?"

We get a brief scene where the Multiverse Crew hang out in some alien plane, where Kyle Rayner and Donna Troy are discussing what's going on. The pair of them trust neither Jason Todd or Bob the Monitor, and figure they should at least stick together. Kyle also independently confirms this takes place following Sinestro Corps War, by mentioning he doesn't have the powers of Ion anymore and doesn't want to talk about it. Good choice, we don't need any more exposition in this. Just go read that, the Geoff Johns Green Lantern run was much better than this.

Meanwhile, back on Earth-15, Superboy-Prime decides to blame whatever happened with Alexander Luthor on this Lex, because he's a petulant manchild. To that end, he flies Lex through the atmosphere, burning him to death. Lovely. The Justice League of this Earth notes that their Superman is dead, and whatever killed him is headed right for them. So they go out to fight Superboy-Whines-A-Lot, and we're "treated" to a lengthy inner monologue about how they're not the real Justice League, like how Green Arrow shouldn't be bald or Cyborg shouldn't be a member. Boy, wait 'til he hears about the New 52 lineup~

The fight with Desaadstorm continues, and eventually the Atomic Knights pull out some sort of silver ball and throws it at Desaad's chest. It spreads out like a silver goo over him, and forces the connection to Desaad to end, expelling him. I don't know, we had to end it somehow. Deus ex mercury? Desaad uses a boom tube to escape, which actually interrupts the fight with Darkseid and Mary Marvel back on Apokalips. Desaad's such a weird character. He's a creepy old man and official torturer, but he's also treated as the cringey humorous minion. Mary escapes, and Eclipso takes responsibility to go and fetch her.

Back on Earth-15, having murdered the Justice League, Primey takes his time to boil Atlantis to death. Wonder Woman-15 appears, and he crushes her invisible plane and strangles her to death. He then punches her through the Batplane, and Batman-15 ejects with a jetpack to fight him. He tells Primey that this world will hate him forever for this, and boy howdy. I know I do. And even though Lex Luthor burned up in the atmosphere when Primey flew into space with him, Batman survives long enough to instead die from freezing in the vacuum of space, and then piledrives him into the planet.

But he doesn't stop there. Figuring if the world (and the readers) will hate him forever, he might as well give them a reason to do so. And keep in mind that, according to his internal monologue, he thought this planet was mostly okay, until he met Zod and Luthor, who were "lame". That's what started this. He flies back up, and crashes into the street of New York City. He keeps going, tunnelling through Earth-15 and coming out the other side in Tokyo. He keeps doing this over and over, until the comic--and the world--comes to an end. Yes, really. The comic ends with Superboy-Prime exploding Earth-15, killing every person on the planet.

No, really. What else do you say after all that? What else needs to be said?? This one might even be worse than the Jokester one. Like, I told you it was only going to get worse. This is what I meant. And we're not even done! Tune in next week for more despicable acts from Superboy-Prime!

[robinniko]

What do you like to watch on YouTube? Do you have any recommendations? Up for anything really.

mainly video commentary about pop culture, other youtubers, lost media/dark media/true crime type stuff, videos about 2000s Disney/Nick/Cartoon Network shows, some gaming content/minecraft stuff. I definitely have a bunch of recommendations, some I won’t go super in depth in because this post would be so long lol

so my favorite youtuber to recommend is Ashley Norton, she does a lot of pop culture and youtube commentaries, she did a couple bachelor videos as well. I just really love her commentary and how she explains each topic, as well as her humor. She recently did a video on Don’t Worry Darling, and actually had done a video about Larry. She is just very understanding in her videos, she never outright mocks anyone and actually goes in depth, I have actually learned a lot from her videos as well! I started watching her because of her H2O videos where she recaps all the seasons, those videos are amazing lol.

Hugh Henderson is another of my fav pop culture youtubers, he recaps old and new award shows! He has done ones about the oscars, MTV VMAs, Grammys, golden globes. He is super funny as well, he basically just talks about how the award shows are always super messy, he is also from New Zealand!

Kayla Says is how I keep up with silly internet drama lol, she does a super good job of explaining current events in pop culture. She has a series on “Why the Internet fell out of love” and it is basically her talking about why the internet hates a celebrity who was once extremely beloved. Her takes are so super interesting and I like her commentary, she has a bunch of different pop culture series as well.

Nikki Carreon is another pop culture youtuber, theres a pattern with what i watch lol, but she does long videos about pop culture, other youtubers, she does a lot of videos reading the odd booktok books and Colleen Hoover books.

Nexpo, Shrouded Head, ReignBot, Fascinating Horror, Wendigoon, Tuv are all different horror/dark media/lost media youtubers that I really enjoy.

Blameitonjorge and Kylie Boggly are mainly lost/dark media, I highly recommend them it’s just interesting hearing them talk about that kind of stuff!

Keyan Carlile, LS Mark, Tronn, Jordan Fringe and Mr. Nostalgia make videos about tv shows/cartoons, their commentary is very funny and informative as well.

Casey Aonso makes funny as hell commentary on pop culture, she also did a video on One Direction which was funny as hell.

Chris James, Ted Nivison, and Andy King are also my three favorite white men who make funny commentary videos as well about pop culture and tv shows. Same with Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, and Kurtis Conner, I actually don’t watch them as much as I did in the past but i occasionally keep up with their videos if i like the topic. Same with Eddy Burback and his brother.

Special shoutout to Billiam because he is wonderful and his videos are also wonderful!

I most definitely forgot a ton of youtubers on this list, I watch a fuck ton of different content creators so it’s kind of hard to remember all of them. I added the ones I think others would like or the ones I watch the most whether its repeat videos or new ones. Theres also some youtubers i didn’t feel like adding just because i know some of them people do not like on here.

If i think of anymore I will definitely add them to this post! Thank you again for this ask, it was super fun to discuss and mention my favorite youtubers, I don’t really get into a lot of the youtubers i like on here mostly because its not like they have a massive community on here. But hey if you watch any of these youtubers, let me know!! i would love to chat about them 😌

[tvbuzzerstory]

Fresh Off the Press: latest Entertainment News Highlight/.buzzerstory.online

INTRODUCTION:- "Latest entertainment news today" refers to the most recent updates and happenings within the entertainment industry, which encompasses a wide range of fields such as film, television, music, celebrity gossip, fashion, and more. This keyword implies a desire for real-time information about the latest developments, including new movie releases, upcoming television shows, celebrity scandals, awards ceremonies, and trends in popular culture. It indicates a curiosity about the current state of the entertainment world and a desire to stay informed about the latest events, announcements, and gossip.

   SOME VARIOUS POINT OF:-  ”Latest entertainment news today.”                                                           

1. Film Frontiers:

The film industry is constantly buzzing with new releases, casting announcements, and box office triumphs. Today's entertainment news brings you exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpses of upcoming blockbusters, interviews with your favorite directors and actors, and reviews that help you decide which movies are worth your time and money. Whether you're a fan of action-packed thrillers, heartwarming dramas, or laugh-out-loud comedies, there's always something exciting happening in the world of cinema.

2. Melodic Marvels:

Music is the heartbeat of our culture, and the latest entertainment news today is tuned into the rhythm of the charts. Discover the hottest new singles climbing the charts, albums making waves in the industry, and emerging artists destined for stardom. From pop sensations to indie darlings, from rap royalty to country crooners, there's a melody for every ear and a story behind every song. Stay plugged in to the latest music news to ensure you never miss a beat.

3. Celeb Chronicles:

Celebrities are the shining stars of the entertainment universe, and today's news is filled with the latest updates on their lives, loves, and scandals. From red carpet fashion statements to social media clapbacks, from Hollywood romances to tabloid dramas, the world of celebrity is always abuzz with excitement. Get the inside scoop on your favorite stars, including exclusive interviews, paparazzi sightings, and juicy gossip that's sure to keep you entertained.

4. Television Triumphs:

Television is experiencing a golden age, with an abundance of must-watch shows captivating audiences around the globe. Whether you're binge-watching the latest streaming series or tuning in to your favorite network dramas, there's no shortage of compelling content to keep you glued to the screen. Stay up-to-date with reviews, recaps, and previews of the hottest TV shows on the airwaves today, and join the conversation as fans dissect plot twists, character arcs, and cliffhangers.

5. Digital Delights:

In the digital age, entertainment is everywhere you look, from viral memes to trending challenges, from YouTube sensations to TikTok stars. Keep your finger on the pulse of the latest internet sensations, social media trends, and digital phenomena that are shaping the online landscape. Whether it's a hilarious viral video or a thought-provoking social media campaign, today's entertainment news has all the digital delights you need to stay informed and entertained.

Conclusion:-

The Latest entertainment news today is your passport to a world of excitement, intrigue, and inspiration. With a finger on the pulse of the entertainment industry, this blog keeps you informed and entertained with the freshest updates from film, music, television, celebrity culture, and the digital realm. So sit back, relax, and let the latest entertainment news today transport you to a world of limitless imagination and endless entertainment possibilities.

[okgooglenews]

Oppenheimer movie dominates SAG Awards, while Streisand wins lifetime prize - NPR

* Oppenheimer movie dominates SAG Awards, while Streisand wins lifetime prize  NPR * SAG Awards 2024: Full Recap  PEOPLE * A post-strike SAG Awards lets it all hang out, partying like the Golden Globes used to  Salon * SAG Awards 2024: ‘Oppenheimer’ wins top prize  The Associated Press * Best fashion moments at the Screen Actors Guild awards  USA TODAY http://dlvr.it/T3DDDY

[sillyname30]

January recap

What I predicted:

Rose Parade

Radioplayrevival podcast

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earth, Part 1

Hazbin Hotel

Little Shop of Horrors

What we got:

Phantom Planet NYE party

Rose Parade

LA Zoo Lights

Golden Globes post

Michigan alumni video

Gutenberg bway

Radioplayrevival podcast

Justin League: Crisis on Infinite Earth, Part 1

Hazbin Hotel

Little Shop of Horrors

[ear-worthy]

iHeart & SXSW Announce The Return Of iHeartPodcast Awards

We just suffered through the Golden Globes. The Emmy Awards will be broadcast this weekend, and the Oscars will be presented in early March. 

So it's only right -- and just -- that podcasting get in on all the backslapping, ego stroking, and recognition. iHeartMedia has now joined forces with South by Southwest (SXSW) to announce the return of the iHeartPodcast Awards, which will take place live and in-person during the SXSW Conference and Festivals in Austin, TX. The event will be held at the Fairmont Hotel on Monday, March 11 at 8 p.m. CT and will honor the best and most innovative industry podcasts and creators of 2023. The ceremony will broadcast live on select iHeartMedia Radio Stations nationwide, through the iHeartRadio app and via a video stream in partnership with YouTube on iHeartRadio’s YouTube Channel. The event will additionally be available on demand following the initial live stream. Nominees across categories include podcasts from all creators, distributors and platforms with a judging panel composed of blue-ribbon podcast industry leaders, creatives and visionaries who will determine the winners in categories including comedy, crime, news, pop culture, sports, food, business, and more. In addition to the panel-judged category awards, one award, the coveted Podcast of the Year, will have a fan voting component. The 2024 iHeartPodcast Awards will also feature Icon Awards, which will pay tribute to creators, organizations and podcasts that have made groundbreaking industry contributions. “Each year we look forward to celebrating the podcast industry’s most groundbreaking and innovative voices as the medium continues to evolve and explode,” said Conal Byrne, CEO of iHeartMedia’s Digital Audio Group. “Over the past few years, SXSW has become a dynamic and effective setting for us to host many of our interactive podcast panels, discussions, and experiences. There's no better location to bring this celebratory industry event back, live and in person, than Austin at South by Southwest.” "This partnership showcases our commitment to celebrating creative people across the diverse world of podcasting and beyond,” said Jann Baskett, SXSW Co-President and Chief Brand Officer. "We’re thrilled to join forces with iHeartMedia to bring the iHeartPodcast Awards to Austin and amplify the incredible talent shaping the future of this dynamic medium." Previous iHeartPodcast Awards shows have featured an array of celebrity presenters and guests. Appearances included Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett, Dua Lipa, Martha Stewart, Questlove, Mayim Bialik, Will Ferrell, Malcolm Gladwell, Draymond Green, Bethenny Frankel, Conan O’Brien, Angela Yee, and many more. Visit the recap for additional information around the 2023 iHeartPodcast awards. iHeart swears that "more information including category nominees, guest hosts, celebrity appearances and more will be announced in the coming months."

iHeart wants you to know that the 2024 iHeartPodcast Awards is part of iHeartMedia’s roster of nationally recognized events including the iHeartRadio Music Awards, the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the nationwide iHeartRadio Jingle Ball Concert Tour, iHeartRadio Fiesta Latina, iHeartCountry Festival and iHeartRadio ALTer Ego. 

Personally, I have heartburn from all these iHeart awards. However, podcasters do deserve to be recognized, so kudos to iHeart.

Please iHeart, no participation trophies.

[hello-god-its-me-sara]

Golden Globes livetweet recap Succession sweep

[fashiongrunge]

📰 Read the latest on Substack!

🏆 Including my Golden Globes 2024 fashion recaps

[alonelystargazer]

I didn't watch the golden globes but I'm watching a recap of the fashion and judging their outfits bc it's the only power I can have over them lol

that being said... my fave looks are Brie Larson, Emma Stone, Hunter Schafer, Issa Rae, and Margot Robbie